Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1919. MESOPOTAMIA.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 November 1919, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1919. MESOPOTAMIA.

“Ijj Kut and Captivity with the Sixth Indian Division,” a recent publication, by Major E. }V. Sondes, M.G», there is an excellent pendant to Mr Edmund Candler's story of the ‘‘Long Road to Baghdad,” which did not purport to deal adequately with .the earlier operations and the sjege of Kut, the two subjects with which Major Sandes is primarily concerned. Major Sandes was in command of a bridging train and in this capacity saw nil that there was to be seen. The services of the bridge builders were always in demand in this river war; they were first in the advance and last in retreat. They had to put their bridges together under the fire of the enemy and as often as not to dismantle them, fighting at the same time a freqyy rearguard action. Before the author yyas imprisoned in Kut he and his crew ‘had thrown 17 pontoon bridges some of them 300 yards long across the swift-flownig Tigris, a remarkable achievement in any circumstances, and more remarkable still when one remembers the difficul-

ties under which he laboured. Major Sandes makes no complaints, but it is easy to see how severely he was hampered by the red-tape and lack of foresight of officialdom.

This was a campaign in which advance and retirement alike were possible , only along the rivers. It was clear even to the amateur tactician that these would have repeatedly to be crossed, and the rapid laying and talcing to pieces of bridges was of the highest | importance. One might have expected j that the authorities would at least have

made a sufficient provision of pontoons. But, no, Major Sandes had eighteen—one for each bridge he was called upon to build. He eked out the pontoons with native boats, but the shortage of proper materials added enormously to the difficulties of the work

and the risks involved in its execution. Later on he was graciously allowed to order fifty new pontoons, but Kut had fallen, and* he was a prisoner in Asia Minor long before* they arrived on the j scene. Major Sandes also with-holds ac- j tual criticism of the general strategy’ of the campaign, although his bald statements of fact often constitute the most damning indictment. Hie army was there to d 0 its duty and obey its orders, whatever they might be; but it could not blind itself to * certain (things. There were many who held that the advance beyond Kura a was of doubtful wisdom. By occupying that town the British had controlled the approach to the Persian Gulf, protected the pipe line from the Persian Oilfieldsand so fulfilled the original objects of the expedition. The dash for Baghdad seems to have been even less justified. The forces available for the attack were quite insufficient; the difficulties of advancing on a line of 500 miles and keeping communications open were grossly under estimated. No reinforcements could arrive, until the following year. At the best, if Townshend had succeeded in taking Baghdad he could not have held it with the single division at, his disposal. He would have been besieged in Baghdad instead of in Kut, and the fate of his army would have been the same in the end.

The operations in Mesopotamia provide, a striking illustration of the interdependence of all fronts, no matter how disconnected in appearance. In 1915 TuVkey wins fighting in three theatres —the Dardanelles, the Caucasujs, and Mesopotamia—each widely separated in distance. The communications between them were poor; on the Baghdad railway, the Taurus tunnel, had not been pierced, and there was the broad desert gap between Nisibin and Samara. But the fortunes of one front reacted after an interval, but unmistakably on the others. During the early part of 1915 the British in Mesopotamia did not meet with very serious resistance. The best of the Turkish troops were employed elsewhere, and only at Shaiba did those who opposed the advance put up a very stubborn fight, NhiruddSn, the commander-in-chief, lacked resolution. But with the stalemate on Gallipoli the situation was changed. Even before the Dardanelles was evacuated veteran divisions, well equipped and well trained, seasoned by fighting in the Bulgarian war and on the peninsula were hurried down to Mesopotamia. At Ctesiphon the British encountered the pick of the Turkish army, led by Kbalil Pasha, a commander very different from the cautious and vacillating Nuruddin. As a result, although the British can justly claim Ctesiphon as a victory, it was a victory which profited them little. Khalil had declared that he would capture General Townshend’s army in a week. He did not fulfil his boast. It was more than twenty weeks before the garrison of Kut laid down its arms after a defence which will rank with any in history. Major Sandes’ account of the siege is the more effective because of the absence of any. purple patches or gallery-play. In prosaic almost bald, terms he describes the suspense, the fluctuations of hope and anxiety, the growing shortage of supplies of every kind. The Turks were not content to' sit down and starve , the town into submission. The defenders, weak from hunger and riddled with disease, had continually to beat off determined / assaults. During the siege they lost practically a third of their combatant strength in killed and wounded. As time wore on their sufferings became intense. They were reduced to a. diet of mule flesh and grass stewed into a sort of spinach eked out by a tiny ration of bread, Many died of exhaustion caused by starvation, many more were on the point of death. “No man in the garrison could have marched ten miles carrying his arms and equipment, and the greater part could not have marched five,” Their vitality was so low that the temperature of most of them was chronically a degree and a half, or even more below normal. Still they held on doggedly until the failure of the relief ship Julnar to get through convinced them finally that further resistance was ,hopeless. .When Rut surrendered it was literally bare of food and a largo proportion of its garrison had not the strength to shoulder a rifle. The officers were fairly well treated by their captors, but the fate of the rank and file will remain as a standing disgrace to Turkey’s [reputation as an honourable enemy. Tottering with hunger, unshod, and half-clad, they were marched off on a five hundred mile journey to their prison camps. The rigors of the Mesopotamian desert, and the Anatolian mountains in winter claimed ■jniany victims. Of the 2592 British soldiers who surrendered at Kut, three out of five died of starvation and cruelty in the first year, and but & handful of the rest lived to set foot again on British soil.