THE RACE TO BAGDAD

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2615, 10 November 1915, Page 4

THE RACE TO BAGDAD

The recent announcement that the British have captured Bagdad has directed attention to a campaign which commenced towards the end of last year and which has been carried on with unbroken success up to the present time. The news about these operations in Mesopotamia has been very scanty. Our thoughts have been so largely occupied with the great happenings in France and Flanders, the German invasion of Russia; the fighting in Gallipoli, and the sensational developments in the Balkans, that we had almost forgotten the brilliant achievements of the British and Indian troops in the Persian Gulf area.. A few days ago German newspapers published the interesting information that the British and Turkish forces were racing to Bagdad, the famous Mohammedan city situated on the River Tigris. We were told that the race would probably have a very exciting finish. Two days later the news camc from Berlin that our troops reached Bagdad first, and had taken possession of the town. This announcement has not yet been confiimed. The capture of Bagdad would certainly be an event of outstanding importance both from the military point of view and on account of the impression it would make on the Moslem world. In his recent review of the war, Mr. Asq.UITH explained that the object of the Mesopotamian campaign was to safeguard our interests in the Persian Gulf, protect our oilfields in that area, and generally to maintain the authority of our flag in the East. He also remarked that our troops were within measurable distance of Bagdad. The Indian Government is responsible for the operations in this theatre of war, which appear to have been planned and executed in a manner that reflects tho greatest credit upon all concerned. In spite of her military activities in other places, Turkey had sufficient troops in the Bagdad district at the beginning of the present year to largely outnumber the small' British Army stationed in the Persian Gulf region. Reinforcements were therefore sent from India- under Lieutenant-General Sir John Nixon, who took supremo command of the operations. Sir John Nixon's army has had to overcome enormous difficulties. The perils and hardships of the campaign have been very grea±, and yet it has proceeded with unbroken success. An expedition to the Euphrates, the holy city of Bagdad, and the site of the Garden of Eden, seems quite a romantic affair when viewed at a distance, but in reality Sir John Nixon and his' men have been engaged in a grim and desperate struggle in which the romantic elcmsnt is, generally speaking,_ conspicuous by its absence. It is an amphibious kind of warfare in which the land forces are co-operating with the lloyal Navy and the Royal Indian Marine. The climate is extremely unhealthy, and the flies and filth are almqst unbearable. A member of the force which reached Nasirijeh on July 29, in describing the work of the five weeks previous to that date, states that probably 95 per cent, of the men were absolutely played out. It was one long struggle to keep going at all in that temperature. "0, Mesopotamia," ho exclaims, "is not a country for a white man in the summer." If these brave men have now taken possession of Bagdad, they will have the .satisfaction of knowing that they . hava iiohieved set-nothing o( I'o.il value to the Emp.iret besides felling

to dissipate one of the enemy's dreams of conquest. A Berlin newspaper in a boastful article about the German march to Constantinople declares that it will enable Turkey to carry the attack to the very heart or Britain's world dominion, and will thus prove one of the decisive factors in the war. The article goes on to state that when the road to Constantinople has been conquered a railroad will stretch from Hamburg to Bagdad, and a compact economic territory will extcnd_ from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf and the frontier of India. This will mean, so we are. told, "the final collapse of the British plan to cut Germany and Aus-tria-Hungary off from all the raw material of the world." These boastings need not be taken too seriously, but they -help us to understand the far-reaching importance of the campaign in Mesopotamia and tlv race to Bagdad.