FIGHTING IN PERSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 November 1915, Page 6

FIGHTING IN PERSIA.

, 'A LITTLE-KNOWN WAK. DEFENCE OF BRITISH OIL CONCESSIONS. NEW ZEALAND OFFICER'S ACCOUNT. Last week there arrived in Christchurch Lieutenant Ormsby Barnes, a New Zealander who holds a commission in the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment, and who has been on active service with the forces in the Persian Gulf operations. Lieutenant Barnes ohtained his commission in the British Army through the colonial military forces, and after training in the Old Country went to India with his battalion. The battalion was in India when war broke out, and was sent with other British and Indian regiments to the Persian Gulf area, to protect the British oil concessions, which the Turks had attacked. After seeing a lot of fighting Lieutenant Barnes was sent back on six months' furlough to recuperate. OIL FIELD FIRED. In the course of an interesting chat about the operations in the Persian Gulf, Lieutenant Barnes was able to give a reporter some idea of the task of the British forces in a portion of the great war, about which comparatively little is known in New Zealand. "We were fighting in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys," he said, "ana\ had about five months of it on end at one stage. °The Turks had come through Persian territory | and had cut the pipe-lines in several places, setting fire to them, and to parts of the oilfield. So we had to go and push them out. They were heavily reinforced, and we had a ticklish time for a while. At one stage they bombarded us for three weeks, but we stuck to it until reinforcements.came, and we pushed them back over 13 miles. The Arabs, too, were against us, and though they are not very dangerous to a force they cause a lot of trouble, cutting off stragglers. If you get caught by the Arabs it's the finish. These Arabs are really against everybody, merely marauders, and as they have no really fixed place of abode it is hard to deal with them effectively. I think if we could have convinced them that we meant to stay in the country after the war we would have had them with us, but they believe we will go away and that afterwards the Turk will come back. So the Arab sticks to the Turk.

TURKS DRIVEN BACK. "We were able to catch the Turks in the flank, and drove them right back for over two hundred miles through Persian territory, but they were always a day ahead of us. Their transports were better than ours, and we couldn't catch up. Now they are back at Bagdad, 300 miles from the coast, and we are at Amarah, about 200 miles from the sea. It was on this march that I went down with malaria. It was a case of going on or staying behind to fall into the hands of the gentle Arab, and so I went on until I collapsed, and later I was sent back to Bombay.

RANJITSINHJI'S GENEROSITY. "At the hospital there, by the way, the whole wine bill is footed by Ranjitsinhji, the famous cricketer. He placed his cellars at the disposal of the hospital authorities, and then placed an order with the merchants for whatever was necessary. Champagne is used freely when officers or men are recovering. Sleeping draughts, you know, become ineffective after they have been used for about a fortnight, and the chain, pagne has a better effect. I slept better and felt better when I was drinking wine at Ranji's expense. Talking about hospitals, the untrained nurse is someone to he saved from, but I believe that women of the proper type could be used as orderlies and prove'invaluable, but you want good solid woment, with sound ideas about work.

THE TURK AS A SOLDIER. "Don't let anybody persuade you that the Turk is not a good soldier. He is a fine fighter and daring, but he lacks initiative. He usually fought us on the defensive, but he will always wait for the steel and seems to like the 'dirty work.' But his officers are not so good. They embezzle the men's pay and there seems to be no link between the officers and men; but the Turk officers do not lack pluck. They're reckless devils at times. At one time we had a long line of barbed wire in front, and time after time. Turks would sneak up and remove a few strands of the wire, for keepsakes, I suppose. On another occasion one of our sentries spotted a party near the entanglements and we went out and got them. We found they had a beautiful map of our position. They had sneaked right along the wire and had measured all the distances. It was a lovely map and must have taken some getting. The Turks have magnificent equipment, much better than ours, the men used to say. The medical panniers were far superior to ours, and they had loads of ammunition.

THE GERMAN'OFFICERS. "The Germans must have had big mobilisation bases prepared without anyone knowing anything about it. You know there were quite a lot of Germans engaged on excavation work in Bagdad, and they all seemed to bo connected with the army. When war started they joined the Turks, not as executive officers, but as something in the nature of advisers. Every Turk brigade had a detachment of Germans, and they were quite well organised. We had some stiff fighting with them. At a little engagement at Nasaryah, for instance, one regiment lost six officers and 200 men, and we only had 500 in the scrap. Lieutenant Burn, a New Zealander, was in the flying corps, and he was' lost during those operations. We never found him, but we came across his aeroplane, mangled to pieces. There was hardly a piece a foot long anywhere. The Arabs must have got him when lie landed.

WITH BAYOXiET ONLY. "The Arabs are terribly treacherous. After a stiff scrap at Kurnah six Germans dashed away in a high-powered motor-boat. The Germans were the first to get away when things were going against them, and the Turkish officers used to go next. This lot dashed off, and we set after them. Two we dropped and two we captured, but the other pair gave themselves up to friendly Arabs. They were killed the next day by the same Arabs. The Turks had plenty of ammunition, but we were not so well off, and on one occasion—it doesn't matter where or when—we were in a tight corner. The Turks were getting round on to our lines and were trying to cut us off from Basram, our

base. We had a terrific go with them —they had two corps in the district at the time —and most of our ammunition was gone. A retirement on Basrah at once was the proposal, hut the men turned it down. If we had gone back just them things would have been mighty tight for other forces in the field, and so we went on. The men were' fine. We simply blazed away all the ammunition ,and then went in with empty pouches and relied on the bayonet, and got through with it, too. We had a fine little army, British and Indian regiments, hardened to the climatic conditions. We had some Territorials and a Territorial big gun detachment. They were fine as long as the strain was not sustained. Not being hardened to it, they collapsed if they got too much at once, but that was chiefly the climate.

TERRIBLE HEAT. "It is a terrific country to fight in. The heat is blistering. We trekked for seven weeks without seeing a tree. It never got lower than 120deg. in the shade, and you couldn't do much carrying. I lost the whole of my equipment crossing a river, and, apart from some fine old Korans, copied in handwriting, I was thankful it went. I borrowed a water-bottle and kept my stick, and was the envy of everybody. The chief difficulty is water after you leave the rivers. You have to depend on waterholes, and in them the water is thick, soupy and green. The mules drink out of the same waterhole as the men, and you can understand that dysentery is pretty rife. Our doctor developed into a Christian Scientist whenever we ran short of medicine. After we took the stronghold at Nasaryah we had to loot it. We simply went through smashing things up with axes and scattering the grain the Arabs had in chatties. The most pathetic sight was the old Mind folk who would not leave the place, and some mentally afflicted persons who simply stayed on though the place was burning. One big mud building was set ablaze, and then we heard stock bleating inside. The Ghurkas just hacked an opening with their kukris, and let out goats and other stock. Every man went away from the stronghold with magnificent carpets, which Were everywhere, but after one day's march in the the heat they dropped them, and we had a big bonfire. The smell of those burning carpets could be detected for miles.

SANITATION. "In a country like that the sanitation problem is intensely important. The best way to keep up the health of the men was to keep them on the move and in tentg. If they stayed in barracks for any time sickness came on at once. The precautions we took when we were trekking across the country we knew we would not pass through again, were very stringent, and really it is an object lesson to see the sanitary work in the Army. It is recognised as a vital necessity, and should be observed as such, just as strictly in the concentration camps in colder climates like New Zealand or Australia. Most of our men were inoculated before we went out, but even then we had considerable sickness. One portion of the country we trekked through was absolutely unexplored. The Arab had never allowed anyone to come through. He would not work, but he busied himself in effectually keeping anyone out. There we discovered a new range of hills.

THE GHURKA—A BEAUTIFUL FIGHTER.

"Out there, of course, wo were'quite cut off from newspapers, and we had no war correspondents with us. The world knows very little of what has been done out there, but we had, as all these expeditions have, our wireless sets, and wo got news every day about the war in general. One piece of information which was the best reading for me was the Dardanelles landing. You know, among the officers there was always a tendency to consider New Zealand and Australian officers as 'colonial soldiers,' and something not quite up to the British standard. The Dardanelles has altered all that. It is generally regarded as the accomplishment of the impossible, and it is an honor to be able to call yourself a New Zealander or an Australian. I can quite understand the name 'White Ghurkas' given to the Anzac troops. The Australians nave more dash than our slower and more stolid, regular infantry, and the bracketing of them with the Ghurka is a great compliment, for the Ghurka is a beautiful fighter. He is simply beautiful. And he is classed as a British regiment. By that I mean he is ranked as just as solid. In every native brigade three native regiments are brigaded with one British, the white troop 9 being used to stiffen them up, but the Ghurkas have often taken the place of the white troops and are brigaded with three native regiments. It is a recognition of the grand qualities of these little hillmen. The Gharwhals are really Ghurkas, but they come from lower down the hills and are recruited from within our borders, while the Ghurkas have to come into the Empire before we recruit them. We cannot go into Ghurka territory and recruit, but every old Ghurka soldier who goes back to his home is in effect a recruiting sergeant. The Pathan from the northwest hills of India comes in to recruit like.the Ghurka, and he, too, is a great fighting man, eager for 'dirty work' (cold steel righting).

NEW 2EALANDERS ABROAD. "I met several New Zealandere in India, and I have heard of others with the Imperial Forces. Wilcox, who comes from Christchurch, is with the Sherwood Foresters in France. He lias been right through safely so far, and has a Military Cross. Barker, from this way, is with the South Lancashires. lam wishing I could get out to the Dardanelles with tho New Zealandere, It is a great chance for a man to show what he can do. If he goes out he goes out honorably, and New Zealand wants to keep sending men to carry on the great reputation the first lot have made. You hear of it everywhere, their dash, their pluck and their physique. We' want men, but We want good officers, well trained. But it's not an encouraging sign to see the hospital ship s 0 fully supplied with applicants."