CUTTING OFF PERSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1915, Page 12 (Supplement)

CUTTING OFF PERSIA.

Recently tlie Tifiis correspondent of the Novo -Vremya reported that the Germans have transported a huge quantity of bombs, maxims, rifles, and other military supplies from Teheran to Ispahan and Hamadan. Ispahan is 200 miles south of Teheian on the trade route which runs to Bunder Abbas, the principal port in the Persian Gulf; while Hamadan is about 150 miles south-west of Teheran, and the same distance from the Turkish frontier. The object of the Germans and their Swedish lieplers is plain enough. It is to use the small force of about 4,000 trained gendarmerie as the nucleus of a larger force, providing an abundance of drill-sergeants and non-comissioned officers, with whose aid they hope to raise a large army among the fighting tribes. Members of the Persian Government are said to openly sympathise with the enemies of the Entente, and the Shah is powerless.

Obviously it is essential that we cut off supplies of arms from Germany via Constantinople and Bagdad. A suggestion of how this may be accomplished is provided in to-day's cables. A Petrograd communique announces that after two days' fighting in the region of Varkunis, to the south of Luke Van, the Turks were driven out of two fortified positions, and are fleeing westward. Lake Van ließ 70 or 80 miles inside the Turkish Caucasian frontier. It is only a few days since we heard of the Turks being driven irom the neighbourhood of Lake Urumivah, about the same distance inside the Persian frontier. Apparently the Russians are advancing southward, and to the south of Lake Van they are probably not more than 60 miles from Mosul and Nineveh, on the northern or Tigris caravan route from Constantinople to Bagdad. Mosul stands on the upper reaches of the Tigris, 200 miles above Bagdad. Its occupation would cut one of the two principal caravan routes and handicap the Turks at Bagdad in obtaining munitions; for though there is another route along the banks of the Euphrates River from Aleppo, both routes are bad and their capacity limited. Moreover, at Mosul the Russians would be in a position to come down upon the rear of Bagdad.