THE NEW ORDER.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1917, Page 6

THE NEW ORDER.

IN MESOPOTAMIA. "Is it well with our men now?" the Hon. Sir Arthur La-wley, Commissioner of the Red Cross, in his book, "A Message from Mesopotamia," represents the men and women of England asking, and as the result of a, trip of investigation he answers emphatically, "Yes! It is well! All that human foresight and care and organisation can do, all that expenditure of money can accomplish, is being done to ensure that all shall be well with our lads in that far-off land of Irak." To illustrate the contrast between the conditions that prevailed after the Battle of Ctesiplion and those of the present time, he quotes from the diary of a Red Cross worker present at the action. "There were but three incomplete ambulances," he wrote, "where, according to scale, there should have been ten. . .

The available transport tfas a few mules and some A.T. carts, many more of which would have been available if the Staff had determined on some definite plan of action. . . Tuesday's previous hours thus passed away with practically no attempt to clear the wounded back to the river." The Red Cross doctor described how the wounded were brought at last to the boats, two days and three nights after the fight, and how in one ship and its two lighters there were only a colonel, an assistant surgeon, and -himself to tend 887 casualties. 'Jle added one sentence full of meaning: "Organised sweeper service there was none." With this may he compared the efficiency with which the wounded were evacuated after the battle of Sanni-i-Yat last February. The first consignment arrived at the hospital ship liamala at noon on February 22, and the worst cases did not begin to arrive until evening.

"The evacuation goes on all night," says Sir Arthur, "and it is 6.30 a.m. before the last launch has left the dressing station. The launches have together carried over 700. The men have worked splendidly, an&i>y 8 a.m. 1021 wounded have been brought into the two field ambulances, and 500 of these have already gone down to Sheikh Saad." On the trip down the river the men were thoroughly well looked after. Sir Arthur writes:—

"We have the decks packed pretty 1 tightly with British stretcher cases, mostly slight, The nights are intensely cold, but each man is provided with a 'posteen' (Afghan sheepskin coat) and as many blankets as he may want. TKe canvas awnings are let down at night, and <jn inquiring in the morning I find none of the men complaining of the cold. All of them are in good heart, with the happy sense that their toil and their sufferings have not been in vain." The boat on which the wounded arc then shipped is excellently designed for the purpose, but it is not beautiful. "Square, squat, and ugly, of clumsy form and leaden hue, it suggests an overgrown entree dish with its cover on, but with a low funnel ipopping up where tho handle ought to be," says Sir Arthur On either side fiat-decked are lashed, and between them they can carry comfortably 600 wounded men: They are meant merely to ferry casualties from th? field ambulances to the base hospitals, and in order to avoid the intense agony that often accompanies the removal of cases from stretchers to eots and bafk again they have been designed with "clear dock-space and no frills."

As Sir Arthur describes the hospitals in Mesopotamia his praise of them is only modified by the criticism of the position of some of them. In Baghdad itself lie was able to secure tho old Tigris Hotel, which, with its cool, dark, vaulted hall well below ground level, promised to be comfortable even in the fierce summer heat. At Basrah the town palace of tho Sheikh of Mohammerah has been converted into a first-class hospital, but another established in a liquorice factory is not so satisfactory. At Amarah the convalescent home haß, quite unavoidably, an unfortunate site.

Sir Arthur has some interesting tilings to say of the way the Turks looted the European houses in Baghdad before they retreated, and he notes that they left behind them 300 or 400 out of 15,000 wounded. One was an Algerian, captured from the French Army in Belgium and forced into the Turkish ranks, while another was a Russian. "It is certain that, if in an ill-starred moment when the war draws to an end, we make up our minds to vacate the land, our withdrawal will be regarded as the betrayal of men whom we have wheedled into allegiance, and will have the worst possible ell'ect on our Maliomniedan subjects throughout the Empire. Indeed, it may not improbably lead to the crumbling of the whole of our Eastern Imperial edifice."—London Weekly Dispatch.