CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 36, 18 January 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Reports about the Bagdad railway are rather contradictory. The job the Turco-Germans have in hand is the completion of a great line, from Skutari, just over the water from Constantinople, east by south to Aleppo, at the top of the Syrian railway system, and hence north-east to Mosul, on the Tigris, and down that river to Bagdad. If the whole lino were completed there would be a through run from Constantinople to Bagdad, or, using the Syrian rail-

General Aylmor's latest report dated Friday last, is the best news we have had from the Mesopotamian quarter of the war for some time. The enemy was then retreating, and on the following day the British had captured the whole of the Wadi position, the enemy having retired six miles to the east of Kut, where General Townshend is cut off. The Wadi, or Wady, is simply a donga, a watercourse which is only temporarily tilled with running water, or the channel of a watercourse which is dry except in the rainy season. This British success, in face of the bad weather which Aylmer complains of as having hampered his operations, is a good omen for the ultimate victory and the capture of Bagdad.

[ways, to within, perhaps, K)0 miles of the Suez Canal. It is known that the Germans have been using armies of workmen on the line, but tnat 1 there are still some important gaps. Between Aleppo and Bagdad only n small part of the line has boon completed; between Aleppo and the Turkish system that leads south-east from Skutari the gaps arc not so. great, but there are said to be considerable engineering difficulties: At a point in Cilicia (a district in tli e south of Turkey in Asia, washed by the Mediterranean), where the route of the railway crosses the Taurus Range and a long tunnel has to he driven, good roads have been built, along which motor lorries can travel at considerable speed, thus bridging the gap. Further east of this motor-road link, some 50 miles north-west of Aleippo, between towns" named Bagtch© and Islahie, or Bagtche and Radju, which is a little nearer Aleppo, an army of workmen under German engineers is trying to get a second gap bridged by the Spring.

At this stage, some geography of the region of the operations mentioned above will iprove elucidating. If instead of following the Tigris, the traveller proceeds np the Euphrates, he reaches Nasiryeh. So low is the country between these two historic rivers that there is a waterway from the Tigris at Kut-el-Amara to the Euphrates near Nasiryeh. It should be added, as a sort of side-issue, that, between the sea and Basra, a Persian tributary, the Karun, joins the Shat-el-Arab. On the eastern side of the Karun is laid the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's pipe-line, taping the Persian oil springs that help to supply the British Navy. Near-by, on the Karun, is Ahwaz, and the force that was detached from the Anglo-Indian Mesopotamian expedition to protect the pipe-line is sometimes called the Ahwaz expedition The minimum prqgramme in the Persian Gulf would have been to secure Koweyt, seize and hold Basra, and hold the Karun and Ahwaz in order to protect the pipeline. Basra was occupied in November, 1914, after the defeat of 4500 Turks. By degrees, however, the expedition, reaching out to dislodge bodies of the enemy, penetrated farther and farther inland. It occupied Kurna, then Nasiryeh (on the Euphrates), later Amara and Kut-el-Amara (on the Tigris). It was defeated by the Turks at Ctesiphon, in front of the Tigris city of Bagdad, ancient and once powerful, and it then retreated to Kut-el-Amara. Kut is a common term for a walled village. "Koweyt" is really "Kuwet," a diminutive form of Kut.

It i s a treat to hear visiting seamen, especially officers and men of the Royal Naval Reserve, express their absolute, faith in the Grand Fleet (says the Dunedin Star). The ceaseless watch and the unceasing patrol in the North Sea seem to approach, if not realise, the ideal efficiency. But in speaking of the Grand Fleet these visiting mercantile seamen do not really disclose all the grounds for the faith that is so evidently strong in them. In fact, they are very reticent, but one may nevertheless easily gather that they consider the fate of a certain island that has been much talked about of late will be sealed by long-range guns of big calibre. The island may be mostly concrete, as is asserted, but there are explosives which will crumble concrete. Once this block of concrete is out of the way, and that seems to be regarded as distinctly within the limits of possibility, then Von Tirpitz's ' Grand Fleet will not need to burn much coal to find fight. It may come romping right home to them where they now lie at anchor. The old British Lion has about finished his preliminary yawning, the sailor men declare, and iie is now about to "flop in," quite prepared to settle all the snarling and snapping which have heen so long disturbing him. "Soon we shall be hearing," according to our informants, 'of the greatest row that ever happened on salt water, and we'll tip you to back the boys that the old sea songs associate with 'The Battle and the Breeze.' "

The Persian operations of the British expedition are rendered necessary by the afore-mentioned oil pipe-line that runs in the valley of the Karun. The Karun joins the Shat-el-Arab at Mohammerah, and the oil springs lie about 100 miles (as the crow flies) inland of the point of confluence. The pipe-line from the oil springs touches Ahwaz (on the Karun) and then travels generally down the valley of the Karun to the Shat-el-Arab. Early last year 12,000 Turks and Arabs, concentrated in the Tigris Valley crossed the Persian frontier and attacked Ahwaz, but were repulsed, with nearly 1000 casualties, by the British garrison. It was on the Karun that the Persian Government's 30 h.p. gunboat used to patrol. She was one of the main units of the Persian Navy. The Sheikh of Mohammerah, like the Sheikh of Koweyt, is pro-British, and owns two old pieces of cannon that exchange salutes with the passing British India steamers.

WAR DICTIONARY. S. Sap—ls a trench running out towards the enemy's position. It usually shows on the map as a zigzag, the object of this zigzagging being to prevent the enemy from sweeping or enfilading it with fire, as he certainly would if it were carried straight out towards him. The work of carrying out a sap is one of the most hazardous in which troops can engage. Sap-Head.—The end or termination towards the enemy of such a sap. Salient.—ls an angle in a position the point or aipex of which juts out from the position. A salient is difficult to hold because it will usually be swept by a cross-fire. Sector. —A portion of a front; strictly speaking that part of a circle which is bounded by two radii and ,the part of the circumferenc between them. "Seventy-five."—The French field gun of 75 millimetres calibre, or about 3in. Shrapnel.—A kind of shell with a thin case containing a large number of bullets and a bursting charge. The charge exploded in front of the enemy when the bullets scatter with the velocity with which the shrapnel was moving. Shrapnel are only used 'against infantry in the open or very slightly entrenched. Sniper.—A sharpshooter who lies in wait for any individual of the enemy that may venture to show himself and shoots at him—generally hits him. Squadron.—A forco of from 100 to 180 cavalry. Supports.—A body of men who are held ready to remove to the aid of ' the men in the outer lines of trenches When the enemy attack, or to assist the .-advanced line in making an atI tack.

In flood time the Tigris becomes at places an inland sea, rendering navigation extremely difficult and uncertain. By breaking the walls the Turks could anticipate these conditions in considerable degree;'and, in any case, the rainy season is now at hand, and the Tigris may continue high till June, or even later. The British, force at Kut is dependent for its communications on hundreds of miles of this sort of riverway, passing through hostile country. The Russian forces, either in Persia or in the Caucasus, are remote. The question is whether Bagdad was worth the risk.