WAR IN MESOPOTAMIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1915, Page 7

WAR IN MESOPOTAMIA.

CONDITIONS OF WARFARE. EXTENSIVE MARSHY AREAS. FLOODS AND GREAT HEAT. An article on ''The Campaign in Mesopotamia," by Colonel Sir Thomas Holdricli, which appeared in Land and Water in October, supplies some, particulars of the conditions of warfare governing the race for Bagdad, which will be of special interest in view of the cable news which appeared recently regarding the retirement of the British forces from Ctesiphon, 18 miles below Bagdad, where the last victory over the Turks was gained. The writer, who has travelled considerably in the East, says: "Turkey is at the present moment conducting four campaigns, separated from each other by at least 1000 miles of 'very indifferent communications—where communications exist at all. Constantinople, the heart (but not the centre) of the dwindling Turkish Empire, is the base of supply in men and materials for all of them. Tile campaign in Syria, where some 50,000 second-rate troops (probably more Arab than Turkish'! have been held in readiness for a threat against Egypt, may, for the time being, be disregarded. That in Asia Minor on the Russian frontier has likewise proved abortive, except for the obvious assistance rendered to Austria by holding up a large force of Russian troops which would have been most useful elsewhere.

In Gallipoli Turkey is holding her own with a tenacity which recalls the fight for Plevna, and which provokes a doubt as to whether Gallipoli is, after all, the right road to Constantinople. Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that the Allies' occupation of a strip of the Gallipoli Peninsula has immensely weakened Turkey's powers of offensive both in the Caucasus and in the fourth theatre of action—Mesopotamia. It seemß, indeed, to be more than probable that the first fruits of the magnificent fighting and sustained efforts which have distinguished the Allied occupation of Gallipoli territory is to ease off something of the fury and determination of Turkish defence in the country of the Euphrates and Tigris. MAIN FEATURE OF THE CAMPAIGN. "The conditions of campaigning in Mesopotamia are essentially different to those in any European theatre of war ill which wc have been engaged. They are guiltless of any strategic complexity. The difficulties to be overcome, both physically and climatically, are different, and to a certain extent the characteristics of the enemy are different. The principle of enveloping the enemy forces by outflanking a long line of front cannot be carried to the same extent as in Europe, so that there is no indefinite extension of action into the deserts and flats of Mesopotamia: concentration becomes more possible, and tactical dispositions are more or less analogous to those of the pre-Roer period. Cnsequently the result of a battle is decisive in a measure which has not been attained in any bnttle in Flanders or Russia. A victorious engagi-mont ends in a rout, and cavalry can be used in pursuit. In short, the main strategic scheme is reduced to a straight advance along the valley of the Tigris, supported by the guns of the river flotilla; and the dfepersal of the enemy forces wherever a stand is made. "VENICE OF THE EAST."

"This comparative simplicity of military action is mainly due to the geographical conditions governing the country, which, so far as the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris are concerned, with their seaward connection—the Shatt-al-Arab—is deltaic, flat, and waterlogged at certain seasons over vast areas reaching out. east and west from the rivers.

"Basra, which was occupied in October, 1!I14, after a series of snirmishes in which the Turks wen* driven from walled defences, lias sometimes been called the Venice of the East. The application of the term, however, refers to little else than the waterways, which, like those of Venice, answer all the purposes of social movement. For the rest, there is a larso and interesting native town, and a colony of European merchants who are bv no means averse from a vicarious residence there. After the occupation of Basra it was not long before it was found necessary to occupy Kuvna, supposed by many to be the site of the Garden of Edeii, 40 miles further up the Tigris. This was not effected without an engagement, in which the naval contingent was conspicuously useful. The protection of Atiwaz on tile Karuii River in Persia also afforded useful experience to our Indian contingents, who onee suffered from underestimating the strength of a tribal gathering. FIERCE A RAH TRIBES "The Arab tribes of the lower Mesopotamia are fierce and fanatical; they are opportunists, like all Arabs, ready to take advantage of any chance' that Allah may offer them. They are expert horsemen, but indifferently armed. Never having been brought to reason by the inoliicient Turkish gunners of lower Mesopotamia, they are as ready to turn on the Turk as on the Christian. In fact, a Turkish reverse in this part of Asia is largely assisted by their Arab friends. "The Turk himself is 0 f the same, or better, materia! than the Turk of Constantinople. He has no special regard for the sanctity of that city, or special reverence for the Sultan as head of the faith. lie regards the language of Constantinople as a bastard tongue, and looks on Bagdad as the centre of Moslem learning and art. Such, at least, were my impressions after a fpw interviews with leading Turks in the valley of tile Tigris, and such is the enemy with whom our Eastern forces have to deal. TRYING PHYSICAL CONDITIONS. "The physical and climatic conditions of the country may be summed up as consisting of extensive floods and overpowering beat. The heat of the Persian Gulf is sufficiently notorious, surpassing the heat of hottest India, if not in registered degrees on the thermometer, at least in the enervating and destructive quality of its damp oppressiveness. The one King's ship that keeps watch and ward in the gulf is wont to flee southward to catch the monsoon winds off Muscat in the dog days of summer. No such possibility exists in the lower Tigris. There the thermome- j tei ranges to 120f. in the shade, and; from day to day and from night to night, during the weary summer months, say from March to October, there is no escape from the suffocation of its deadly embrace."