MESOPOTAMIAN INCOMPETENCY.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1917, Page 6

MESOPOTAMIAN INCOMPETENCY.

LED TO SUFFERING AND DEATH. THE MESOPOTAMIAN REPORT AND ITS TRAGIC REVELATIONS OF incapacity ix high places PAID FOR BY THE DEATH AND MISERY OF OUR HEN.

London, July C. "The Mesopotamia Report is the one topic of the moment. It is the most searching and outspoken 'Report published during this or any other'war, and it fhalters many reputations,"* says the Spectator. "It is the most damning document that lias ever been published, the most lamentable record of incompetence, of lack of organisation., of want of co-or-dination, of division of responsibility, and of all the other evils which flow from enterprise unintelligent!)- conceived and imperfectly executed," says the Telegraph. 4 INTELLECTUAL DeViCIEXCIHP.

'•The Mesopotainian Report is the most terrible searchlight that'Ws yet been thrown on the intellectual deficiencies of our governing and military systems," r.ays the Nation. "It shows how responBibilitv can be tossed from one hand to another, and so distributed among soldiers and civilians, Indian and home administrators, that the blame of failure, when the resulting mess is disclosed, can only be loosely shared among a host of culprits. -. '•lncidentally, the Report exhibits a degree of carelessness for the lives and fates of our splendid men which is as sickening to reflect on sis the results of al! this mass of selfishness are dreadful to read of. Was ever such a story told as that of the arrival of the Medjidieh at Basra, with stricken soldiers lyrhjj; in •a pool of dvsentcry thirty feet square' ?. Want of heart and want of imagination go together, and find their most unbiest j union in war." ,<. -,..

THESE TWO MESSAGES. "Few statements in the Report have shocked the public more," says the Times, "than the admission of General "Ca.vper that when Major Carter protested to hi'.n about the condition of the wounded. 'I threatened to put him under arrest, and I said that I would get his hospital ship taken away lrom him for a meddlesome, interfering iaddist.' . "Yet General Cowper was soon afterwards -himself the victim of precisely the same sort of treatment. When he telegraphed to Simla urging that unless more river transport were sent the relief of Kut would fail. General Duff replied: "'Please warn General Cowper tUt if anything of this sorb occurs again, or I receive any more querulous or petulant demands for shipping, I shall at ewe remove him from the force, and will refuse him further employment of any kind' '-Li—i THE BUREAUCRAT'S MIND.

"These two messages are surely a more damning exposure than any descriptive account of a certain type ol military -bureaucrat," adds the Times. "Under" the vicious traditions which prevailed, anv oilier who retried defects was apparently liable to he professionally ruin;'.!. I: demands were entertained "by the hermits on the hill-tops, thuy then' had to run the. gauntlet of the Finance Department.

"Wc have seen no more huckstering document than 'lie letter in which Sir William Meyer objected to build a railway in Mesopotamia would not be 'remunerative.' What would this country have said if Mr. Bonar Law had refused to let Sir 'Douglas Haig build strategic lines in France unless he could promise a profit in hard cash?"

GOODWILL WONT RESTORE THE DEAD.

"The complete justification of Government action in publishing the Mesopotamian Ke-ioit lie? in its terrible character," says the Manchester Guardian. "Our reputation for efficiency, prudence, common sense will suffer; but let it suffer, provided that this exposure helps us to avert elsewhere the negligence and incompetence which this Report reveals. Tl'.e exposure is complete, and the attempts which the Commission make to console us with some well-meant and soothing reflections on the courage of our soldiers are idle and irritating.

"Our soldiers die in every quarter of the globe, but that is no reason, why they should die unnecessarily. Nor do the Commission excuse anyone who is blamable by insisting on his 'goodwill.' Goodwill does not restore the dead to life." AX INEFFICIENT OFFICIALDOM. "The Report's most valuable feature, indeed, is not its trials of and verdicts on the particular misdemeanants, but the searchlight which it throws upon the failings of three great machines —the Indian bureaucracy,, the Indian Arm}', and the Indian Medical Service," says the New Statesman.

"We are really brought back for our explanation, not only of the Mesopotamian scandals, but of the general failures, 'of India to pull her weight in the war, to the inherent inefficiency of an irresponsible officialdom. AVo say inherent, 'because though no system need always have such bad heads as General Duff or Surgeon-General Hathaway. it is plain that the cause of the breakdowns lay much deeper than in the conduct of individuals. '•The war has exhibited in a clear light the need for extending further the scope and degree of Governmental responsibility in India. And this is by far the most fruitful lesson of the Mesopotamian Report." , ■. ■. i :-

THE SHAME AND THE BLAME. "All honest men must feel a burning sen-e of shame and horror as they read the report of the Mesopotamian o>.i--niission," says the Morning Post. "Taken altogether, as we feel bound to say, it gives such a picture of incompetence, decadence, and lack of public spirit and public duty as we might expect in an account of the last days of the Mogul Empire. Englishmen used to refer scornfully to the 'Sick Man of Europe.' Let them uso that term no longer, for according to this Report the Turkish Army was better equipped with scientific arms than the British Army. That in it«self is an appalling consideration."

A MELANCHOLY REVELATION. "Here is a 'Report, very carefully and conscientiously carried through by able and impartial Commissioners, which Teveals, we will not say one or two glaring faults in the military administra- ' Hon oi Indian affairs, but a whole eataijggiu gf dUMtrgttß blunders, ia which

several men of light-and leading, including the Viceroy and the Secretary of State for India, are implicated," says the Telegraph.

The more attentively one peruses this Report, the greater becomes the impression— which we are bound to say i 3 thoroughly fortified by the evidence—that the whole affair was a muddle from lieginning to end. The question we desireto ass is this: Does the Government realise, does anybody realise, the effect produced on public opinion by so melancholy a revelation? All those who could possibly be held responsible come out of it with their reputations tarnished, and we will venture to add, the whole English nation suffers from the maddening discovery that those to whom it entrusts affairs are blind leaders of the blind "There ■will remain in the minds of all of us a bitter feeling that in a criti«al campaign—the design of which was commendable enough—the men to whom we looked for the proper handling of operations have been set on a pinnacle of disrepute as glaringly incompetent and untrustworthy."

PAID BY FLESH AND BLOOD. "It is necessary never to forget that all these deficiencies were translated into the suffering and death of individual soldiers, and v.e cannot read the report without getting the impression that some of the officials concerned 'insufficiently realised,' as the Commission,would hay, that their mistakes would inevitably be paid for in the flesh and blood of human beings," says the "Manchester Guardian. "We trace tho errors of the Government of India in tho main to iw immunity from criticism and control. It becomes a law unto itself, satisfiuu* of its own infallibility. Had it had the salutary tonic of a free and continuous current of public criticism it would have been more industrious, more vigilant, more thorough. So, too, when it gradually became known that many things were wrong. Why did not all'the officials concerned set to work with energy and persistence to remedy tho evils'/"

BRIGHT CHAPTERS. "There are bright as well as gloomy chapters in the tale unfolded by the Commissioners. In spite of muddles and mistakes, our instinct for Empire never deserted us," says the Observer. "Defeats on the Tigris made no impression on our armor. The surrender of Kut failed to shake our prestige. A less resolute people would have quailed under the blow, but all it did was to strengthen our will. The leaders failed, but not the men, whose indomitable courage rose superior to all difficulties. The occupation of Baghdad was a triumph for our arms on land, and a further testimony, if such were wanted, to the abiding strength of Britain's sea power. Germany's bid for Asiatic dominion has been destroyed and our short cut to India secured."

FAILURE REDEEMED. "The Mesopotamian Report, which is intensely painful if salutary reading, chows in the event the great strength as well as the glaring weakness of British administrators," adds the Spectator. "For when we have mastered the complicated record of divided control, blind ignorance, pig-headed haughtiness, and their sequel of such a tale of human Buffering as has seldom been equalled even In distant campaigns, we have to reflect that the conditions described have been absolutely swept away so far as the Mesopotamian campaign is concerned. , "The appallingly defective medical service has given place to ample and scientific arrangements; the War Office with firmness and success has taken the control of the Mesopotamian expedition out of the faltering hands of the Government of India; not one of those officers or officials who are censured in any serious degree for the early catastrophes of the campaign remains to repeat his failure on the spot."

THE COMMISSION'S REPORT, The Chairman of the Royal Commission was Lord George Hamilton. The other Commissioners were:—• The Ear! of Donoughmore, Lord Hugh Cecil, M.P., Sir Archibald Williamson, M.P., Mr. John Hodge, M.P.. Commander J. C. Wedgewood, M.P., Admiral Sir Cynrian Bridge, General the Right Hon. Sir Neville Lyttelton. The Commissioners' findings may fc« shortly summarised as follows: That the expedition was a justifiable military enterprise, requiring the most careful watching and preparation. The division of responsibility between die India Office and Indian Government was unworkable.

The scope of the objective was never sufficiently defined. There was a want of touch 'between Mesopotamia and Simla. The advance on Baghdad was based on miscalculations, and those sanctioning it are all responsible for the errors in judgment. Armament and equipment were insufficient, as the result of a policy of indis'criminate retrenchment. The system of supply was on too low a standard, and was badly organised. Arrangements for drafts and reinJorcements were lacking in co-ordination. The paramount importance of river and railway transport was insufficiently realised.

Medical provision was from the 'beginning insufficient, and caused avoidable suffering to the sick and wounded. No more substantial results or more solid victories have been achieved than those won by tho gallantry of the British and Indian armies in Mesopotamia. THE MEN (RESPONSIBLE. As to the responsibility for the state of things disclosed, the' Commissioners state:— The weightiest share of responsibility lies with Sir John Nixon, whose confident optimism was the main cause of the decision to advance. The other persons responsible were:— In India. The Viceroy (Lord Hardinge). The Commander-in-Chief (Sir Beauchamp Duff). In England. The Military Secretary of the India Office (Sir Edmund Barrow). Tiie Secretary for India (Mr. Austin Chamberlain). The War Committee of the Cabinet.