From the little scraps of news that have come through, it looks as if the Balkans were going to be the centre of excitement. If Bulgaria has agreed to let the Germans through as I suspect she has, I'd bet on both Greece and Roumania joining the Allies.
Amarah.
September 4th, 1915.
To his Father.
We get hardly any news up here, so please kindly continue your function of war correspondent whenever you have time, and especially mention any casualties which affect me.
One of the few bits of news which have reached us is a report of a speech of yours in which you mention that Milner's Committee recommended the Government to guarantee 45s. a year for four years, but the Government wouldn't. Reuter deduces from this that we have found a way of keeping the whip hand of submarines: but it looks to me much more like Free Trade shibboleths + the fact that there has already been a 30% increase in the area under wheat. I hope you will have written me something about this.
Now for the military news. This battalion, when we arrived here, was nominally nearly 300 strong, but actually it could hardly have paraded 100. This reduction is nearly all due to sickness. The deaths from all causes only total between forty and fifty, out of the original 800: and of these about twenty-five, I think, were killed in action. But there has been an enormous amount of sickness during the hot weather, four-fifths of which has been heat-stroke and malaria. There have been a few cases of enteric and a certain number of dysentery; but next to heat and malaria more men have been knocked out by sores and boils than by any disease. It takes ages for the smallest sore to heal.
Of the original thirty officers, eight are left here, Major Stillwell, who is C.O., one Captain, Page-Roberts, a particularly nice fellow, and five subalterns, named Harris, Forbes, Burrell, Bucknill and Chitty: (Chitty is in hospital): and Jones, the M.O., also a very nice man and a pretty good M.O. too. The new Adjutant is a Captain from 2nd Norfolks named Floyd: he is also nice and seems good: was on Willingdon's staff and knows Jimmy.
In honour of our arrival, they have adopted Double Company system. I am posted to "A" Double Company, of which the Company Commander and only other officer is Harris, aet. 19. So I am second in command and four platoon commanders at once, besides having charge of the machine-guns (not that I am ever to parade with them) while Chitty is sick. It sounds a lot, but with next to no men about, the work is lessened. On paper, "A" D.C was seventy-two strong, which, with my fifty, makes 122: but in fact, of these 122, twenty-five are sick and sixteen detached permanently for duties at headquarters and so on, leaving eighty-one. And these eighty-one are being daily more and more absorbed into fatigues of various kinds and less and less available for parade. In a day or two we shall be the only English battalion remaining here, so that all the duties which can't be entrusted to Indian troops will fall on us.
I haven't had time to observe the birds here very much yet, but they seem interesting, especially the water-birds. With regard to what I wrote to Mamma about the teal, people who have been up the river say they saw a very big flock of them at Kut. There were a lot of snipe with them and about twenty bitterns, which surprises me. And about eighty miles north of here there is a mud flat where great numbers of mallards are assembling for migration northwards: and there are more bitterns there than there are higher up even. These flocks about the equinoxes arevery curious. I expect the mallards will migrate northwards, and the teal soon afterwards will become very scarce, but I hope the bitterns will stay where they are. The snipe are less interesting: they move about all over the place, wherever they can pick up most food. These people put the size of the flock of teal at a hundred and fifty and the mallards at five hundred, but you should, I think, multiply the first by a hundred and the second only by ten.
I got Mamma's letter via the India Office just after we got here. I quite agree with her view of war, though I must admit the officers of 1/4 Hants seem to me improved by it. While sitting on that court martial at Agra I expressed my view in a sonnet which I append, for you to show to Mamma:
How long, O Lord, how long, before the floodOf crimson-welling carnage shall abate?From sodden plains in West and East the bloodOf kindly men streams up in mists of hatePolluting Thy clear air: and nations greatIn reputation of the arts that bindThe world with hopes of Heaven, sink to the stateOf brute barbarians, whose ferocious mindGloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind,Not knowing love or mercy. Lord, how longShall Satan in high places lead the blindTo battle for the passions of the strong?Oh, touch thy children's hearts, that they may knowHate their most hateful, pride their deadliest foe.
How long, O Lord, how long, before the floodOf crimson-welling carnage shall abate?From sodden plains in West and East the bloodOf kindly men streams up in mists of hatePolluting Thy clear air: and nations greatIn reputation of the arts that bindThe world with hopes of Heaven, sink to the stateOf brute barbarians, whose ferocious mindGloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind,Not knowing love or mercy. Lord, how longShall Satan in high places lead the blindTo battle for the passions of the strong?Oh, touch thy children's hearts, that they may knowHate their most hateful, pride their deadliest foe.
I must stop now, as a mail is going out and one never knows when the next will be.
Norfolk House.
Amarah,September 13th, 1915.
To his Father.
As I have written the news to Mamma this week I will tell you what I gather of the campaign and country generally.
There's no doubt that old Townshend, the G.O.C., means to push on to Baghdad "ekdum"; and if the Foreign Office stops him there will be huge indignâ. It seems to me that the F.O. should have made itself quite explicit on the point, one way or the other months ago: to pull up your general in full career is exasperating to him and very wasteful, as he has accumulated six months' supplies for an army of 16,000 up here, which will have to be mostly shipped back if he is pulled up at Kut. The soldiers all say the F.O. played the same trick on Barratt in the cold weather. They let him get to Qurnah, and he wanted and prepared to push on here and to Nasiryah, which were then the Turkish bases. But the F.O. stopped him and consequently the Turks could resume the offensive, and nearly beat us at Shaibah. Thepoliticalpeople say that the soldiers had only themselves to thank they were nearly beaten at Shaibah. They were warned in December that the whole area between Sh. and Basrah would be flooded later on, and were urged either to dig a canal or build a causeway; but they pooh-poohed it: and consequently all supplies and ammunition at Shaibah had to be carried across 8 miles of marsh, 4ft. to 1in. deep.
As for the country, it is said to be very fertile wherever properly irrigated. At present the water is distributed about as badly as it could be. The annual rise of the rivermakes vast feverish swamps, and the rest of the country is waterless. Any stray Bedouin tribe that feels like growing a crop can go and cut a hole in the bank and irrigate a patch for one season and then leave it; and these cuts form new channels which as often as not lose themselves in a swamp. Meanwhile this haphazard draining off of the water is seriously impairing the main streams, especially that of the Euphrates, which is now almost unnavigable in the low water season. To develop the country therefore means (1) a comprehensive irrigation and drainage scheme. Willcock's scheme I believe is only for irrigation. I don't know how much the extreme flatness of the country would hamper such a scheme. Here we are 200 miles by river from the sea and only 28ft. above sea-level. It follows (2) that we must control the country and the nomad tribes from the highestbarragecontinuously down to the sea. (3) We must have security that the Turks don't interfere with the rivers above our barrage, or even neglect the river banks.
All this seems to me to point to a repetition of our Egyptian experience. We shall be drawn, whether we like it or not, into a virtual protectorate at least as far up as the line Kut-Nasiryah, along the Shatt-al-Hai, and that will have to extend laterally on the east to the Persian frontier and on the west to the Arabian tableland. I don't see how we can hope to get off with less: and that being so, I believe it would be better to take on the whole at once. North of the Shatt-al-Hai line (i.e. Kut-Nasiryah) it would be very exhausting to go, and very awkward politically, as you soon get among the holy places of the Shiahs, especially Karbala, which is their Mecca. But it's no use blinking the fact that a river is a continuous whole, and experience shows that the power which controls the mouth is sooner or later forced to climb to its source, especially when its up-stream neighbours are hostile and not civilised. And what powerof Government will be left to Turkey after the war? It looks as if she will be as bankrupt, both financially and politically, as Persia; and I see no real hope of avoiding a partition à la Persia into British and Russian spheres of interest. In that case it seems to me the British sphere should go to the Shatt-al-Hai, and the Russian begin where the plain ends, or at any rate north of Mosul. Are you at liberty to tell me whether there is already an understanding with Russia about this country, and if so how far it goes?
As for the climate, I don't think it is any worse than the plains of India. When it is properly drained the fever will be much less: and under peace conditions the water can be properly purified and the heat dealt with. The obvious port is Basra; it is said that the bar outside Fao could easily be dredged to 26ft. The only other really good harbour is Koweit, I gather: but our game is to support the independence of K.: make it the railway terminus, but by using Basra you make your rail-freight as low as possible and have your commercial port where you can directly control matters.
I wish they would get a move on in the Dardanelles. It seems to me Germany is running a fearful risk by committing herself so deeply into the interior of Russia at this time of year. The only explanation I can find is that at each rush she has been much nearer to cutting off a Russian army than has transpired and so is tempted on: nearer perhaps than the Russians ever intended, which may be the reason of the Grand Duke's removal to the Caucasus.
Amarah.
September 11th.
To his Mother.
For the men, newspapers would be as welcome as anything. I think Papa might divert those weekly papers from Agra here, as they get a large supply in the Regimental Reading Room at Agra.
What strikes me about the 1/4th is that they are played out. They've no vitality left in them. Out of about 300 men there are seventy sick, mostly with trifling stomach or feverish attacks or sores, which a robust man would get over in two days; but it takes them a fortnight, and then a week or two afterwards they crock up again. One notices the same in their manner. They are listless and when off duty just lie about. When I see men bathing or larking it is generally some of our drafts. I hope the cold weather will brace them up a bit. I do wish I had more gifts in the entertaining line, though of course there are very few men left to entertain when you've allowed for all our guards and the men just off guard.
The house is two-storeyed, with thick brick walls, built round an open well-like court. There is a broad verandah all round the court, on to which every room opens. There is also a balcony on the W. side overlooking the river. We sleep on the roof a.p.u. The sun sets right opposite this balcony, behind a palm-grove, and the orange afterglows are reflected all up the westward bend of the river, which is very lovely: though personally I like the more thrillingcloud sunsets better than these still rich glowings of the desert.
The men sleep in huts just behind. These are sensibly built of brick. Only the S. side is walled up, and even there a space is left between the wall and the ceiling. The rest is just fenced with reed trellis work. The roofs are of reed matting, the floors brick with floor-boards for sleeping on. Boards and bedding are put out in the sun by day. The men are very contented in them. If I ask my men how they like it compared to India, they all say they like it better. "Why, you gets a decent dinner here, Sir." My experience quite confirms that of Sir Redvers Buller and other great authorities. If you feed T.A. well you can put him in slimy trenches and he'll be perfectly happy: but he'd never be contented in Buckingham Palace on Indian rations. Here we are of course on war rations, cheese, bacon and jam, bully beef and quite decent mutton, and condensed milk. Vegetables are scarce, so lime juice is an issue: and they are said just to have made beer one, which would be the crown of bliss. Every man gets (if he's there) five grains of quinine a day. There are, however, far fewer mosquitoes than I expected. I've only seen one myself. The only great pest is flies: but even of those there are far fewer here than in Basra.
When I hear what the 1/4th have been through, I think we are in luxury. They had a very rough trek to Ahway and Illah in Persia in May, and coming back much exhausted were stationed a month in Ashar Barracks (Basra). Here for a fortnight it never went below 100° by night and was 115° by day—damp heat: and the barracks (Turkish) were in a state which precluded rest: the record bag for one man in one morning was sixty fleas from hisputtees alone. And of course what Austen told the H. of C. about fans, ice and fruit was all eyewash.
A man in our Coy. died last night. I'd never seen him or knew he was ill. I was rather shocked at the way nobody seemed to care a bit. The Adjt. just looked in and said "who owns Pte. Taylor A." Harris said "I do: is he dead?" Adjt. "Yes: you must bury him to-morrow." Harris: "Right o." Exit Adjt. To do Harris justice, he doesn't know the man and thought he was still at Nasiriyah. None of the man's old Coy. officers are here.
Amarah.
September21, 1915.
To his Mother.
The provision for the sick and wounded is on the whole fairly good now. Six months ago it was very inadequate, too few doctors and not enough hospital accommodation. My men who were in the Base Hospital at Basra spoke very well of it: it had 500 men in it then, and is capable of indefinite expansion. The serious cases are invalided to India by the hospital shipMadras. It is said that 10,000 have gone back to India in this way. It is a curious fact that the Indian troops suffered from heat-stroke every bit as much as the British.
There are now four hospitals here (1) a big one for native troops, (2) one for British troops which has expanded till it occupies three large houses, (3) one for British officers, which will be used for all ranks if the casualties next Saturday are heavy, (4) one for civilians. There seems to be no lack of drugs or dressings or invalid foods.
Amarah.
September24, 1915.
To N.B.
Two letters from you rolled up together this mail, for both of which many thanks.
Like everyone else you write under the cloud of Warsaw and in the expectation of the enemy forthwith dashing back on us in the West. But the last two months have made it much harder for him to do that soon, if at all: and I hope the month which will pass before you get this will have made it harder still. I found it difficult weeks ago to explain what induced the Germans to commit themselves so deeply into the interior of Russia so late in the season, and I came to the conclusion that with each forward movement they had been much nearer to enveloping and smashing the Russians than the Reuters would have led one to suppose: and so had been lured on.
It now looks to me as if they are playing for one of two alternatives. If Von Below can get round their right flank he will try a last envelopment: if that flank falls back far enough to uncover Petrograd, he will make a dash for P. But all that will mean locking up even bigger forces in the East. Indeed it seems so reckless that I can only account for it by supposing either that they are confident of rushing Petrograd and paralysing Russia within a few weeks: or that they are in a desperate plight and know it.
As for the future, I think it would be a mistake to expect this war to produce a revolution in human natureand equally wrong to think nothing has been achieved if it doesn't. What I do hope is that it will mark a distinct stage towards a more Christian conception of international relations. I'm afraid that for a long time to come there will be those who will want to wage war and will have to be crushed with their own weapons. But I think this insane and devilish cult of war will be a thing of the past. War will only remain as an unpleasant means to an end. The next stage will be, one hopes, the gradual realisation that the ends for which one wages war are generally selfish: and anyway that law is preferable to force as a method of settling disputes. As to whether National ideals can be Christian ideals, in the strict sense they can't very well: because so large a part of the Christian ideal lies in self-suppression and self-denial which of course can only find its worth in individual conduct and its meaning in the belief that this life is but a preparation for a future life: whereas National life is a thing of this world and therefore the law of its being must be self-development and self-interest. The Prussians interpret this crudely as mere self-assertion and the will to power. The Christianising of international relations will be brought about by insisting on the contrary interpretation—that our highest self-development and interest is to be attained by respecting the interests and encouraging the development of others. The root fallacy to be eradicated of course, is that one Power's gain is another's loss; a fallacy which has dominated diplomacy and is the negation of law. I think we are perceptibly breaking away from it: the great obstacle to better thinking now is the existence of so many backward peoples incapable (as we think) of seeking their own salvation. Personally I don't see how we can expect the Christianising process to make decisive headway until the incapables are partitioned out among the capables. Meanwhile let us hope that eachnew war will be more unpopular and less respectable than the last.
I'm afraid I haven't even the excuse of a day's fishing without any fish.
Now for your letter of August 11th. I'm sorry you are discouraged because the programme you propounded to Auntie's work-party in February has not been followed. But comfort yourself with the reflection that the programme which Kaiser Bill propounded tohiswork-party has not been followed either.
Your Balkan programme, or rather Bob's, does not at present show much more sign of fulfilment than the one you propounded to Auntie's work-party, I'm afraid.
As usual nothing whatever has happened here. Elaborate arrangements have been made to have a battle to-morrow 120 miles up the river at Kut. It ought to be quite a big show: the biggest yet out here. As the floods are gone now it may be possible to walk right round them and capture the lot. If we pull off a big success the G.O.C. is very keen to push on to Baghdad, but it is a question whether the Cabinet will allow it. It means another 200 miles added to the L. of c.: and could only be risked if we were confident of the desert Arabs remaining quiet. Personally I see no solid argument for our going to Baghdad, and several against it (1) the advance would take us right through the sacred Shiah country, quite close to Karbala itself (Karbala is to the Shiah Mohammedans—and the vast majority of Indian Mahommedans are Shiahs—what Mecca is to the Sunnis; and Baghdad itself is a holy city). It would produce tremendous excitement in India and probably open mutiny among the Moslem troops here if they were ordered up. (2) Surely Russia wouldn't like it. (3) We can't expect to hold it permanently. Everything, so far as I can see, points to portioning this country into aBritish sphere and a Russian, with a neutral belt in between, on the Persian model, except that the "spheres" may be avowed protectorates. The British one must come up far enough to let us control the irrigation and drainage of Lower Mesopotamia properly: and stop short of the holy cities: say to the line Kut-el-Amarah (commonly called Kut)—Nasiriyah, along the Shatt-al-Hai. The Russians would, I suppose, come down to about Mosul.
This campaign is being conducted on gentlemanly lines. When we took a lot of prisoners at Nasiriyah we allowed the officers to send back for their kits. In return, last week, when one of our aeroplanes came down in the enemy's lines and the two airmen were captured, they sent a flag of truce across to us to let us know that the prisoners were unhurt and to fetch their kits.
I just missed Sir Mark Sykes who cruised through here two days ago. I have written to him in the hope of catching him on his way back.
Amarah.
September27, 1915.
To R.K.
After censoring about 100 of my Company's letters I feel this will be a very incorrect performance. What strikes one too is the great gain in piquancy of style achieved by the omission of all punctuation. How could I equal this for instance "The Bible says this is a land of milk and honey there is plenty of water and dust about if thats what they mean?" or "The sentry shot an Arab one night soonafter we got here I saw him soon afterwards caught him in the chest a treat it did."
I'm so glad to hear that Foss is getting on well: let me know the extent and nature of the damage. We hardly ever get a casualty list here: and I can't take that to mean there have been none lately: so my news of fractured friends hangs on the slender thread of the safe arrival of myTimesevery week—and on you and others who are not given to explaining that Bloggs will have given me all the news, no doubt.
The War Office, fond as ever of its little joke, having written my C.O. a solemn letter to say they couldn't entertain the idea of my promotion seeing that under the Double Coy. system the establishment of Captains is reduced to seven and so on, and having thereby induced him to offer me the unique felicity of bringing a draft to this merry land, has promptly gazetted my promotion, and antedated it to April 2nd, so that I find myself a Double Coy. Commander and no end of a blood. My importance looks more substantial on paper than on parade: for of the 258 men in "A" Double Coy. I can never muster more than about thirty in the flesh. You see so many have overeaten themselves on the ice and fresh vegetables which Austen dwelt upon in the H. of C. or have caught chills from the supply of punkahs and fans (ib.) that 137 have been invalided to India and twenty-five more are sick here. Then over fifty are on jobs which take them away from the Coy. and from ten to twenty go on guards every day. However my dignity is recognised by the grant of a horse and horse allowance.
Unless it is postponed again, the great battle up-river should be coming off to-day. I hope it is, as it is the coolest day we've had since April. In fact it is a red-letter day, being the first on which the temperature has failed toreach 100° in this room. You wouldn't believe me how refreshing a degree 96° can be.
We have also heard fairy-tale like rumours of an advance of Four Thousand Yards in France, but I have not seen it in black and white yet.
Having so few men available there are not many parades, in fact from 7 to 8 a.m. about four times a week is all that I've been putting in. And as a tactful Turk sank the barge containing all my Company's documents sometime in July there is an agreeable shortage of office business. So I am left to pass a day of cultured leisure and to meditate on the felicity of the Tennysonian "infinite torment of flies." I read Gibbon and Tennyson and George Eliot and theTimesby turns, with intervals of an entertaining work, the opening sentence of which is "Birds are warm-blooded vertebrate animals oviparous and covered with feathers, the anterior limbs modified into wings, the skull articulating with the vertebral column by a single occipital condyle" and so on. I also work spasmodically at Hindustani. I rather fancy my handwriting in the Perso-Arabic script. Arabic proper I am discouraged from by the perverse economy of its grammar and syntax. It needs must have two plurals, one for under ten and one for over, twenty-three conjugations, and yet be without the distinction of past and future. Which is worse even than the Hindustani alphabet with no vowels and four z's—sounnecessary, isn't it, as my Aunts would say.
Amarah.
September29, 1915.
To his Father.
One's system has got so acclimatised to high temperatures that I find it chilly and want my greatcoat to sit in at any temperature under 80°, under 100° is noticeably warm.
The men are getting livelier already and the sick list will soon, I hope, shrink. The chief troubles are dust and flies. About four days per week a strong and often violent wind blows from the N.W., full of dust from the desert, and this pervades everything. The moment the wind stops the flies pester one. They all say that this place is flyless compared to Nasiriyah, where they used to kill a pint and a half a day by putting saucers of formalin and milk on the mess table and still have to use one hand with a fan all the time while eating with the other, to prevent getting them into their mouths. Here it is only a matter of half a dozen round one's plate—we feed on the first floor, which is a gain. In the men's bungalows I try to keep them down by insisting on every scrap of food being either swept away or covered up: and the presence or absence of flies is incidentally a good test as to whether the tables and mugs, etc., have been properly cleaned. They are worse in the early morning. When I ride through the town before breakfast they settle all up the sunny side of me from boot to topi, about two to the square inch, and nothing but hitting them will make them budge. They are disgusting creatures. Of course the filthy habits of the natives encourage them. The streets are littered with every kind of food-scraps and dirt: and the Arab has only two W.C.'s—the street and the river.Our chief tyranny in his eyes is that we have posted sanitary police about who fine him 2s. if he uses either: but like all reforms it is evaded on a large scale. The theory that the sun sweetens everything is not quite true. Even after several days' sun manure is very offensive and prolific: and many parts of the streets are not reached by the sun at all: and in any case the flies get to work much sooner than the sun.
We have just had news from the front that a successful action has been fought, the enemy's left flank turned and several hundred prisoners taken—our own casualties under 500. So the show seems to have come off up to time. We were afraid it might have to be postponed, as a raiding party got round and cut ourL. ofC., but this does not appear to have worried them. I hope they will be able to follow this success up and capture all their guns and stores, if not a large proportion of their forces.
Two days ago we got the best news that we have had for a very long time from both European fronts, an advance of from one to three miles over nearly half the Western front, with about 14,000 prisoners: and Russian reports of 8,000 dead in front of one position and captures totalling something like 20,000. Since then no news has come through, which is very tantalising, as one longs to know whether the forward move has been continued. I am afraid even if it has there will be more enormous casualty lists than ever.
The most boring thing about this place is that there are no amusing ways of taking exercise, which is necessary to keep one fit. As a double Coy. Commander I have a horse, a quiet old mare which does nothing worse than shy and give an occasional little buck on starting to canter. But the rides are very dull. There are only three which one may call A, B and C, thus:
Map
A is the flooded area, and when it is dry it is caked as hard as brick, and not a vegetable to vary the landscape.
B takes one through the little ground, the four cemeteries, and the deserted brick-kilns: by the time one is through these it is generally time to go home: and even beyond it is market gardens and one can only ride on foot-paths: and there are only two foot-paths through the barbed wire defences.
C is good soft-surfaced desert, much the best riding ground though its virtues are negative. But to reach it one has to cross the Tigris by the boat-bridge, and this is apt to be cut at any moment for the passage of boats, which means a delay of half an hour, not to be lightly risked before breakfast: and in the afternoons the interval between excessive sun and darkness is very brief. It is too hot to ride with pleasure before 4.30 and the sun sets at 5.30: and the dusty wind is at its worst till about 5.
Amarah.
October7, 1915.
To his Brother.
Thanks awfully for your letter. It was one of the best I've had for a long time. And many congratulations on the birth of a daughter. I'm delighted it went off so well, and only hope she and Grace are both flourishing.
I am sorry to hear about Benison. I suppose he wasin some unit or other. You saw of course that Stolley was killed some time ago.
At present, at any rate, we're a very comfortable distance behind the firing line. This has been the advanced base for the Kut show. By river we are 130 miles above Basra and about the same below Kut. The action there on the 27th and 28th was a great success, but the pursuit was unfortunately hung up and prevented our reaping quite the full fruits. This was partly due to a raid on ourL. ofC. scuppering some barge-loads of fuel, but chiefly to the boats getting stuck on mud banks. This river is devilish hard to navigate just now. It winds like a corkscrew, and though it looks 150 yards wide, the navigable channel is quite narrow, and only 4ft. to 6ft. deep at that. So all the river boats have to be flat bottomed, and the strong current and violent N.W. wind keeps pushing them on the mud banks at every bend.
Map
The Turks had, they think, 15,000 men and 32 guns. Their position was twelve miles long and most elaborately entrenched and wired with all the German devices, and rested on a marsh at either end.
We had about 10,000 men of all arms and 25 or 27 guns, seven of them on river boats, I think. Townshend's attack was as follows. He made all his reconnaissances and preparations as for an attack on their right flank, and on Monday, 27th he deployed a brigade, A. on that side of the river, leaving only two battalions, B. on the right bank, and keeping two battalions in reserve, C. For various reasons this attack had made very little progress by sunset and was last seen digging itself in. Then as soon as it got dark almost the whole of A. together with the reserve C. was ordered to march round to the enemy's left flank and attack Fort E. at dawn. So they moved off, intending to go between Marsh 1 and Marsh 2; but in the dark they went round outside Marsh 2, and at dawn after a twelve mile march found themselves at G. They completely surprised and quickly captured Fort E. and the section E. and F., their casualties here being mainly from our own artillery, as was inevitable: but they were enfiladed from F. and had to reform and dig themselves in on a front parallel with the river, and send for artillery support.
Meanwhile the skeleton left on our left flank and the force B. were pressing a frontal attack, supported by the guns: and by the afternoon the outflanking force A. was able to resume its advance, which it was keen to finish as the men were very tired and had run out of water. But just then the whole Turkish reserve turned up on their right front and flank, having been hurried back from the right flank to which our feint had drawn them, across the bridge D. whence they deployed in crescent formation. Apparently this new danger had a very bracing effect on the thirstyones; it is a rash man that stands between T.A. and his drink. They went straight for the centre of the crescent, as far as I can make out, with the Turkish reserves on their front and flanks and the Turkish firing line in their rear. This was where most of the casualties occurred, but after a stiff fight the Turks broke and ran: and there was a tremendous crush at the bridge D. where they started shooting each other freely.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Commander announced that he had received a telegram from the Sultan requiring the immediate presence of himself and army at Constantinople: so the firing line took the hint and started for the new alignment by the shortest route. However, as everybody's great idea was to put the river between himself and the enemy he'd been facing, two streams met at the bridge D. and there were further scenes. By this time it was dark, and our troops were utterly exhausted, so nothing more was done for the moment.
Our casualties were 85 killed and 1,158 wounded, an extraordinary proportion. We haven't had any reliable information of the enemy's losses yet: but we took about 1,300 prisoners.
I must stop now. I am very fit and a Capt., 3rd Senior Officer out here for the moment (excluding Adjutant O.M.O.) and am commanding "A" double Coy.
Amarah.
October8, 1915
To N.B.
Two lots of letters arrived this mail, including yours of August 30th and September 6th, for which many thanks.
If I said that this war means the denying of Christianity I ought to have explained myself more. That phrase is sooften used loosely that people don't stop to think exactly what they mean. If the Germans deliberately brought about the war to aggrandise themselves, as I believe they did, that was a denial of Christianity,i.e.a deliberate rejection of Christian principles and disobedience to Christ's teaching: and it makes no difference in that case that it was a national and not an individual act. But once the initiating evil was done, it involved the consequence, as evil always does, of leaving other nations only a choice of evils. In this case the choice for England was between seeing Belgium and France crushed, and war. In choosing war I can't admit there was any denial of Christianity, and I don't think you can point to any text, however literally you press the interpretation, which will bear a contrary construction. Take "Resist not him that doeth evil" as literally as you like, in its context. It obviously refers to an individual resisting a wrong committed against himself, and the moral basis of the doctrine seems to me twofold: (1) As regards yourself, self-denial, loving your enemies, etc., is the divine law for the soul; (2) as regards the wronger nothing is so likely to better him as your unselfish behaviour. The doctrine plainly does not refer to wrongs committed in your presence against others. Our Lord Himself overthrew the tables of the money-changers. And the moral basis of His resistance to evil here is equally clear if you tolerate evils committed against others: (1) your own morale and courage is lowered: it is shirking; (2) the wronger is merely encouraged. If I take A.'s coat and A. gives me his cloak also, I may be touched. But B.'s acquiescence in the proceeding cannot possibly touch me and only encourages me. Now the Government of a country is nearly always in the position of B. not A., because a country is not an individual. In our case we were emphatically in the position of B.: but I would justify the resistance of Belgium on the same grounds.
Of course as I said last week, national standards can't be as self-sacrificing as individual standards: and never can be until all the individuals in a nation are so Christian as to choose unanimously the self-sacrificing course.
I agree that the Dardanelles outlook is very serious, and it now looks as if Germany had got Bulgaria to come in against us. We ought to concentrate on a decision there as vigorously as the Germans did in Poland, and let us hope with more success.
The big offensive in France came off and seems to have done remarkably well for a few days: but we have heard nothing more of it for over a week. I'm afraid that means we exhausted ourselves and lost heavily.
The outstanding fact here is that the hot weather is over. It is now only unpleasant to be out from 10 till 4, and then only in the sun. The transition is going on rapidly and by the end of this month I expect to see cold weather conditions established. I have played football twice and been out shooting twice. There is a large black partridge to be shot here which is very good to eat.
I can give you no details about the Kut fight. In fact you probably know more than we do: I must stop now.
Amarah.
October11, 1915.
To L.R.
The weather has got cooler so rapidly that I have been shooting and playing football quite happily. The chief things to shoot are a big black partridge (which will soon be extinct) and a little brown dove, later on there are snipe,and already there are duck, but these are unapproachable. Many thanks for your letters of August 27th, and September 8th, which arrived together this mail.
I think Mrs. Ricketts takes an unduly optimistic view when she says the Germans mean the war to be decided out here. Nothing would suit us better. Meanwhile, we certainly seem to mean to go to Baghdad, and that will mean at least one other big fight: but so far they show no sign of moving us up to the firing line. This last show was a big success and nearly was a much bigger, only our men having fought for two days and marched twelve miles in the intervening night and having run out of water, were not able to press the pursuit very vigorously. I take it the next show will come off in about three weeks' time, sooner if possible.
I have heard a good deal vaguely about the Angels at Mons. It is very interesting. I gather that A. Machen wrote a magazine story and that this has got embodied with the real stories and is therefore supposed to have originated them. If Begbie's forthcoming book on them is good, do send it to me. We have had no such stories out here, so far as I know.
As to being pessimistic about the future, I think our mistake was to underestimate Germany's striking force. You must always keep the German calculations in mind as well as our hopes, and you will see that the former have been falsified quite as much as the latter—in fact much more. They calculated—and not without having worked it all out thoroughly—that their superior armaments and mobility would enable them (1) to smash France within a few weeks, (2) to manœuvre round the Russians and defeat their armies in detail till they sued for peace, (3) to dominate the continent and organise it for the settlement with England. We ought to be devoutly thankful that (1) failed: butInstead we assumed that the worst was over and that (2) would fail as signally. As a matter of fact (2) looks like failing after all; but it has been near success for much longer than (1) was and consequently has achieved more. But if you remember, both Papa and K. said at the outset it would be a three years' war: which clearly meant that they expected us to get the worst of it the first year, equalise matters the second year and not be decisively victorious till the third year.
Luly has plenty of friends at Agra and is really very happy there, so you may be at ease about him.
Many thanks for your offer to send us things for the cold. But the danger is overlapping, so I will refer you to Mamma, to whom I wrote about it some time back: and I hopesheis combining with Mrs. Bowker of Winchester (wife of 1/4th Colonel) who is organising the sending of things to the battalion as a whole. You might mention to Mamma that, in addition to the articles I've told her of, newspapers and magazines would be very acceptable.
Amarah.
October17, 1915.
To N.B.
Many thanks for your little letter wishing me Godspeed out here, it has only just followed me on, and reached me soon after your letter of September 12th in which you ask me about Persia. I assure you I know less of what is happening in Persia—though we can see the Persian hills from here—than you do. Your letter was my first news of the Consul General's death, which I have seen since inThe Timesas well. All I know is that German gold working onthe chronic lawlessness has made the whole country intolerably disturbed. The Government is powerless. The disorder is mainly miscellaneous robbery: in the north there is a good deal of hostility to Russia, but nothing approaching organised war or a national rising. In May Arab raiders threatened Ahwaz where the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's pipe-line runs; and at the Persian Government's request a force, including 1/4 Hants, went up there and dispersed them. Then in August the unrest in Bushire got acute, and two officers were killed in an ambush. So they sent a force to occupy it. I don't know how large it was; I imagine two battalions or so and a few guns. Since then I've heard nothing. Mark Sykes, whom I saw about October 6th, said he thought things were quieter there now.
For the Persian situation generally, up to last year, the best account I've seen is in Gilbert Murray's pamphlet on "The Foreign Policy of Sir E. Grey." There's no doubt these weak corrupt semi-civilised States are a standing temptation to intriguers like the Germans and so a standing danger to peace. That is going to be the crux here too, after the war. If I make up my mind and have the energy, I will write my views more fully on the subject in a week or two.
There is a lull here and no news. But there seems no doubt that we are going to push up to Baghdad. The enemy are now in their last and strongest position, only twenty miles from B.: and we are concentrating against it. Undoubtedly large reinforcements are on their way up, but we don't know how many. I expect you may look for news from these parts about November 7th.
It is getting quite cold. Yesterday the wind began again and we all had to take to our overcoats, which seems absurd as it was over 80°. To-day it was only 74° indoors all the morning and we sat about in "British warms."And the nights seem Arctic. To get warm last night I had to get into my flea-bag and pile a sheet, a rug and a kaross on top of that: it was 70° when I went to bed and went down to 62° at dawn. As it goes down to 32° later on, I foresee we shall be smothered in the piles of bed-clothes we shall have to accumulate.
I continue to play football and ride intermittently. I believe I could mount a middle-sized English horse without serious inconvenience now. I have begun to try to pick up a little Arabic from the functionary known as the Interpreter.
Amarah.
October18, 1915.
To M.H.
I'm so glad the saris are what you wanted. If you pay £5 into my a/c at Childs, it will be simplest.
Everyone—except I suppose the victims—seems to have regarded the Zeppelin raid as a first-class entertainment. I think they do us vastly more good than harm, but it would be a satisfaction to bag one.
So poor Charles Lister was killed after all. He is a tremendous loss. And ——, who could have been spared much better, has been under fire in Gallipoli for months without being touched.
I agree with Charlie's sentiments. What is so desperately trying about the Army system is that mere efflux of time puts a man who may be, and generally is, grossly stupid, in command of much more intelligent people, whose lives are at his bungling mercy. If Napoleon, who won his Italian campaign at 27, had been in the British Army he wouldn't have become a Major till 1811. It is aninsane system which no business would dream of adopting. Yet it wouldn't do to abolish it, or you destroy the careers of 4/5 of your Officers. The reform I should like would be to make every third promotion in any regiment compulsorily regardless of seniority.
I am having a few lessons in Arabic now, but it is a much more difficult language than Hindustani, and the only available "Munshi" is the regimental interpreter who can't read and speaks very broken English, and the only available book deals with classical Egyptian and Syrian Arabic, which are to the Arabic of to-day as Latin, French and Italian are to Spanish. So my acquirements are likely to be limited.
There is absolutely no news here. Reinforcements are said to be coming but have not arrived. The next show should come off about November 10th.
Amarah.
October11, 1915.
To R.K.
I have just seen in theTimesthat Charles Lister died of his wounds. It really is heart-breaking. All the men one had so fondly hoped would make the world a little better to live in seem to be taken away. And Charles was a spirit which no country can afford to lose. I feel so sorry for you too: he must have been very dear to you personally. How the world will hate war when it can pause to think about it.
I had quite a cheerful letter from Foss this mail. I wonder he wasn't more damaged, as the bullet seems to have passed through some very important parts of him. Iam rather dreading the lists which are bound to follow on our much-vaunted advance of three weeks ago. As for the Dardanelles, it is an awful tragedy. And now with Bulgaria against us and Greece obstructed by her King, success is farther off than ever.
No, Luly is not with me: I was the only officer with the draft. As for impressions of our surroundings they are definite but not always communicable.
If this neighbourhood could certainly be identified with Eden, one could supply an entirely new theory of the Fall of Adam. Here at Amarah we are 200 miles by river from the sea and 28ft. above sea level. Within reach of the water anything will grow: but as the Turks levied a tax on trees the date is the only one which has survived. There are little patches of corn and fodder-stuff along the banks, and a few vegetable gardens round the town. Otherwise the whole place is a desert and as flat as this paper: except that we can see the bare brown Persian mountains about forty miles off to the N.N.E.
The desert grows little tufts of prickly scrub here and there, otherwise it is like a brick floor. In the spring it is flooded, and as the flood recedes the mud cakes into a hard crust on which a horse's hoof makes no impression; but naturally the surface is very rough in detail, like a muddy lane after a frost. So it is vile for either walking or riding.
The atmosphere can find no mean between absolute stillness—which till lately meant stifling heat—and violent commotion in the form of N.W. gales which blow periodically, fogging the air with dust and making life almost intolerable while they last. These gales have ceased to be baking hot, and in another month or two they will be piercingly cold.
The inhabitants are divided into Bedouins and town-Arabs. The former are nomadic and naked, and live inhut-tents of reed matting. The latter are just like the illustrations in family Bibles.
What Ishouldbe grateful for in the way of literature is if you could find a portable and readable book on the history of these parts. I know it's rather extensive, but if there are any such books on the more interesting periods you might tell Blackwell to send them to me: I've got an account there. My Gibbon sketches the doings of the first four Caliphs: but what I should like most would be the subsequent history, the Baghdad Caliphs, Tartar Invasion, Turkish Conquest, etc. For the earlier epochs something not too erudite and very popular would be most suitable. Mark Sykes tells me he is about to publish a Little Absul's History of Islam, but as he is still diplomatising out here I doubt if it will be ready for press soon.
As for this campaign, you will probably know more about the Kut battle than I do. Anyway the facts were briefly these. The Turks had a very strongly entrenched position at Kut, with 15,000 men and 35 guns. We feinted at their right and then outflanked their left by a night march of twelve miles. (Two brigades did this, while one brigade held them in front.) Then followed a day's hard fighting as the out-flankers had to storm three redoubts successfully before they could properly enfilade the position. Just as they had done it the whole Turkish reserve turned up on their right and they had to turn on it and defeat it, which they did. But by that time it was dark, the troops were absolutely exhausted and had finished all their water. Nobody could tell how far the river was, so the only thing to do was to bivouac and wait for daylight. In the night the Turks cleared out and got away. If we could have pressed on and seized their bridge, we should have almost wiped them out: but it was really wonderful we did as much as we did under the circumstances. Ourcasualties were 1243, but only 85 killed. The Turkish losses are not known: we captured about 1400 and 12 of the guns: we buried over 400, but don't know how many the local Arabs buried. Our pursuit was delayed by the mud-banks on the river, and the enemy was able to get clear and reform in their next position, about ninety miles further north. We are now concentrating against them and it is authoritatively reported that large reinforcements have been sent from India. This means they intend going for Baghdad. It seems to me rash: but I suppose there is great need to assert our prestige with the Moslem world, even at the expense of our popularity: for B. is a fearfully sacred place.
I should also like from Blackwell's a good and up-to-date map of these parts,i.e.from the Troad to the Persian Gulf.
Amarah.
October21, 1915.
To his Mother.
It is hard from here to be patient with the Government for not taking a bolder line all round and saying frankly what they want. They are omnipotent if they would only lead. Now we hear that Carson has resigned. I can't hitch that on to the conscription crisis, yet it doesn't say it is from ill-health: it is a puzzle.
Life is as uneventful as usual here. I have nearly finishedThe Woman in White. It is really one of the best thrillers I've read, and Count Fosco more than fulfils my expectations: I wonder if Haldane keeps white mice. Ihave also finished Tennyson. I have read him right through in the course of the year, which is much the best way to read a poet, as you can follow the development of his thoughts. His mind, to my thinking, was profound but not of very wide range, and strangely abstract. His only pressing intellectual problems are those of immortality and evil, and he reached his point of view on those before he was forty. He never advances or recedes from the position summarised in the preface to "In Memoriam," d. 1849. The result is that his later work lacks the inspiration of restlessness and discovery, and he tends to put more and more of his genius into the technique of his verse and less into the meaning. The versification is marvellous, but one gets tired of it, and he often has nothing to say and has to spin out commonplaces in rich language. One feels this even in the "Idylls of the King," which are the best of his later or middle long efforts: they are artificial, not impulsive; Virgil, not Homer; Meredith calls them 'dandiacal flutings,' which is an exaggeration. But I can quite see how irritating Tennyson must be to ardent sceptics like Meredith and the school which is now in the ascendant. To them a poet is essentially a rebel, and Tennyson refused to be a rebel. That is why they can't be fair to him and accuse him of being superficial. I think that a very shallow criticism of him. He saw and states the whole rebels' position—"In Memoriam" is largely a debate between the Shelley-Swinburne point of view and the Christian. Only he states it so abstractly that to people familiar with Browning's concrete and humanised dialectic it seems cold and artificial. But it's really his sincerest and deepest thought, and he deliberately rejects the rebel position as intellectually and morally untenable: and adopts a position of aquiescent agnosticism on the problem of evil subject to an unshakeable faith in immortality and the Love of God. This is a redrag to your Swinburnes. That is why I asked you to send me Swinburne, as I want to get to the bottom of his position. Shelley's I know, and it is, in my opinion a much more obvious, easier, and more superficial one than Tennyson's: besides being based on a distorted view of Christianity. Shelley in fact wanted to abolish Christianity as the first step towards teaching men to be Christian.
Of all the agnostics, Meredith is the one that appeals to me most: but I've not read his poetry, which I believe has much more of his philosophy in it than his novels have.
P.S. I have just seen your appeal in theHampshire Heraldfor £500 for a motor ambulance boat, in which you say the Red Cross have already sent us two such boats. All I can say is that nobody in this regiment has ever seen or heard of these boats: and they certainly have not been used for transporting sick and wounded either from Nasiriyah or from Kut. If they were in Mesopotamia at all, it is incredible that we shouldn't have heard of them.
Amarah.
October22, 1915.
To L.R.
I don't think there is any likelihood of Luly's coming here. For one thing our battalion 1/6th is too weak to afford another draft at present; and even if it sent one there are many officers who would be asked before Luly. As a matter of fact we have just heard we 1/4th are getting large reinforcements from our proper resources,viz. 250 from 2/4th at Quetta and 50 from those invalided in the hot weather.
Your letter of September 5th arrived well after that of September 22nd.
I'm glad the —— are optimistic: if Belgians can be we should be able to. But I can't help feeling the Government is lamentably weak and wanting in leadership: the policy of keeping the nation in the dark seems to me to be insane.
There is no news to report here. We still do very little work, but the weather is quite pleasant. I am very well.
There is not much to do. The country is very dull for walking and riding.
The birds here are very few compared to those in India. On the river there are pied Kingfishers. On the flooded land and especially on the mud-flats round it there are large numbers of sandpipers, Kentish and ringed plovers, stints and stilts, terns and gulls, ducks and teal, egrets and cranes: but as there is not a blade of vegetation within a mile of them there are no facilities for observation, still less for shooting.
There are several buzzards and falcons and a few kites, but vultures are conspicuous by their absence. There are no snakes or crocodiles either. Scavenging is left to dogs and jackals; and there is a hooded crow, not very abundant, which is peculiar to this country, having white where the European and Eastern Asiatic species have grey—a handsome bird. In the river there are a few sharks and a great abundance of a carp-like fish which runs up to a very large size. The Quartermaster can buy two 70lb. fish every morning for the men's breakfasts, and has been offered one of 120lb.
Amarah,
October31, 1915.
To N.B.
I do hope your "fifty submarines" is true. I shan't think much of you if you can't get official confirmation from Cousin Arthur: but if he is impenetrably discreet, you might at least get him to explain—or pass it on to me if you know already—what conceivable harm it could do if we published the bare numbers of submarines "accounted for" without any particulars of when, where, or how.
As for this campaign it is the old story of the Empire repeating itself. When it began they only meant to secure the oil-pipe and protect British interests at Basra. But they found to their great surprise that you can't stay comfortably on the lower waters of a great river with an enemy above you any more than you could live in a flat with the lodger above continually threatening your life. A river like the Tigris or Euphrates is a unit, and the power which occupies its mouth will inevitably be drawn to its source unless it meets the boundaries of a strong and civilised state on the way. Turkey will be neither after the war.
What has happened so far?