POSITION IN ASIA.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 March 1917, Page 2

POSITION IN ASIA.

Review of the Operations. Great Allied Possibilities. ! London, M-*rch 8 A Mesopotamian report slates cavalry are twenty-five miles from Bagdad which General Maude’s advance guards are expected to reach

shortly. The campaign against Turkey has sensational possibilities. Anzacs have crossed the Syrian frontier, and have occupied Turkish positions at Shellal, constructed to protect the inland railway to Jerusalem.

The Turks are bombing the railway foariog tie use m a further advance, iShellal i$ au unimportant village,but the occupation of the posit'‘on clears the way for progress. ", The position ou sba Tigris ia most promising. The Turks are now much outnumbered, and Bagdad is withiu reach.

Itij occupation would have an enormous effect on the Turks. There is even a faint possibility that it would prove decisive in Turkish raindo. The Mesopotamia season, however, ia far advanced and the river is rising. The melting snow in the Taurus mountains will toon bring floodp. It is not known what lies beyond Ctesiphon, but General Towushend was unable to take his ships beyond Lajj, which General Maude’s cavalry have now reached. General Townßliend found tbo river banks studded with cavalry, Lajj being the first of a deep line of Bagdad defences.

The Tigris position is largely governed by the prospect of maintaining a long line of communication from the Persian Gulf. The railway is now approaching Kut. Turkish prospects of reinforcing the troops on the Tigris, aEe momentarily poor. According to German reports, the Bagdad railway is completed to Termabnlus on the Euphrates, whence troops can take river barges to a point twenty miles from Bagdad, with which it is connected by a light railway. « The Turks are apparently endeavoring to get the divisions in Persia back across the cld6tt road in the world, in time to save Bagdad.

There are three Persiau columns now converging upon this road, west of Abadubad, Meanwhile, the Russians in the Caucausns are more than holding their own, whilst the Germans are retaining at least ten Turkish divisions in Galicia, Roumania and Macedonia, callous to Turkey’s serious plight in Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and Caucaueus.