Taken to an unknown fate.
The procedure was this: The town was divided into districts. At 3 o'clock in the morning a cordon of troops would be drawn round a district—the Prussian Guard and especially, I believe, the Sixty-ninth Regiment, played a great part in this diabolical crime—and officers and noncommissioned officers would knock at every door until the household was roused. A handbill, about octavo size, was handed in, and the officer passed on to the next house. The handbill contained printed orders that every member of the household must rise and dress immediately, pack up a couple of blankets, a change of linen, a pair of stout boots, a spoon and fork, and a few other small articles, and be ready for the second visit in half an hour. When the officer returned, the family were marshaled before him, and he picked out those whom he wanted with a curt "You will come," "And you," "And you." Without even time for leave-taking, the selected victims were paraded in the street and marched to a mill on the outskirts of the town. There they were imprisoned for three days, without any means of communication with friends or relatives, all herded together indiscriminately and given but the barest modicum of food. Then, likeso many cattle, they were sent away to an unknown fate.
Girls put to farm labor.
Months afterward some of them came back, emaciated and utterly worn out, ragged and verminous, broken in all but spirit. I spoke with numbers of the men. They had been told by the Germans, they said, that they were going to work on the land. They found that only the women and girls were put to farm labor.
Men do construction work in Ardennes.
Very little food.
No complaints permitted.
The men were taken to the French Ardennes and compelled to mend roads, man sawmills and forges, build masonry, and toil at other manual tasks. Rough hutments formed their barracks. They were under constant guard both there and at their work, and they were marched under escort from the huts to work and from work to the huts. For food each man was given a two-pound loaf of German bread every five days, a little boiled rice, and a pint of coffee a day. At 8 o'clock in the morning, after a breakfast consisting of a slice of bread and a cup of coffee, they went to work. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they returned for the night and took their second meal—dinner, tea, and supper all in one. Often they were buffeted and generally ill-used by their taskmasters. If they fell ill, cold water, internally or externally, was the invariable remedy. Once a commission came to see them at work, but they had been warned beforehand that any man who complained of his treatment would suffer for it. One of them was bold enough to protest to the visitors against a particularly flagrant case of ill-usage. That man disappeared a few days later.
The Belgian frontier is closed.
Long before this the food problem had become acute in Roubaix. Simultaneously with the establishment of the system of personal control over the inhabitants the Germans closed the frontier between France and Belgium and forbade us to approach within halfa mile of the border line. The immediate effect of this isolation was to reduce to an insignificant trickle the copious stream of foodstuffs which until then poured in from Belgium—not the starving Belgium of fiction, but the well supplied Belgium of fact.
Fabulous prices for meat.
Butchers and bakers and provision dealers had to shut their shops, and the town became almost wholly dependent on supplies brought in by the American Relief Commission. Fresh meat was soon unobtainable, except by those few people who could afford to pay fabulous prices for joints smuggled across the frontier. Months ago meat cost 32 francs a kilogram (about 13 shillings a pound) and an egg cost 1 franc 25 (a shilling). Obviously such things were beyond the reach of the bulk of the people, and had it not been for the efforts of the Relief Commission we should all have starved.
Foodstuffs supplied by the Relief Commission.
The commission opened a food depot, a local committee issued tickets for the various articles, and rich and poor alike had to wait their turn at the depot to procure the allotted rations. The chief foodstuffs supplied were: Rice, flaked maize, bacon, lard, coffee, bread, condensed milk (occasionally), haricot beans, lentils, and a very small allowance of sugar. Potatoes could not be bought at any price.
The Germans intercept mine food.
Unfortunately, though I regret that I should have to record it, there is evidence that by some means or other the German Army contrived to intercept for itself a part of the food sent by the American Commission. One who had good reason to know told me that more than once trainloads which, according to a notification sent to him, had left Brussels for Roubaix failed to arrive. I know also that analysis of the bread showed that in some cases German rye flour, including 30 per cent of sawdust, had been substituted for the whiteAmerican flour, producing an indigestible putty-like substance which brought illness and death to many. Indeed, the mortality from this cause was so heavy at one period that all the grave diggers in the town could not keep pace with it.
Germans eager to buy food.
One could easily understand how great must have been the temptation to the Germans to tap for themselves the food which friends abroad had sent for their victims. It is a significant fact that soldiers in Roubaix were eager to buy rice from those who had obtained it at the depot at four francs (3s 4d) the pound in order, as they said, "to send it home." I shall describe later how utterly different were the conditions in Belgium as I saw them.
Meagre as were the food supplies for the civilians in Roubaix, those issued to the German soldiers toward the end of my stay were little better.
At first the householders, on whom the soldiers were billeted, were required to feed them and to recover the cost from the municipal authorities.
Change of demeanor of soldiery.
Of all the things I saw and heard in Roubaix and Lille none impressed me more than the wonderful change which came over the outlook and demeanor of the German soldiery between October, 1914, and October, 1915.
I had many opportunities of mingling with them, more, in fact, than I cared to have, for now and again during this period two or three of them were actually billeted on the good folk with whom I lodged.
Already tired of war.
I knew just sufficient of the German language to be able to chat with them, and they made no attempt to conceal from me their real feelings. I am merely repeating the statement made to me over and over again by many German soldiers when I say that the men in the ranks are thoroughly tired of the war, thatthey have abandoned all thought of conquest, and that they fight on only because they believe that their homes and families are at stake.
On that Autumn morning when the first German troops came into Roubaix they came flushed with victory, full of confidence in their strength, marching with their eyes fixed on Paris and London. They sang aloud as they swung through our streets. They sing no more. Instead, as I saw with my own eyes, many of them show in their faces the abject misery which is in their hearts.
Expect end of war in November, 1916.
Last year scores of them told me, quite independently, that the war would come to an end on November 17, 1916. How that date came to be fixed by the prophets nobody knew, but the belief in the prophecy was universal among the soldiers.
Soldiers more courteous than officers.
As a rule, the soldiers did not maltreat the civilians in Roubaix, except when they were acting under the orders of their officers; when, for example, they were tearing people from their homes to work as slaves. They had, however, the right of traveling without payment on the tramcars, and they frequently exercised this right to such an extent as to preclude the townsfolk from the use of the cars.
Officers requisition supplies.
Apart from that annoyance, there was little ground for complaint of the general behavior of the soldiers. The conduct of the officers was very different. For a long time they made a habit of requisitioning from shopkeepers and others supplies of food for which they had no intention of paying. One day an officer drove up in a trap to a shop kept by an acquaintance of mine and "bought" sardines, chocolate, bread, and fancy cakes to the value of about 200 francs (about $40). He produced a piece of paper and borrowed a pair of scissors with which to cut off a slip. On this slip he wrotea few words in German, and then, handing it to the shopkeeper, he went off with his purchases. The shopkeeper, on presenting the paper at the Kommandantur, was informed that the inscription ran, "For the loan of scissors, 200 francs," and that the signature was unknown. Payment was therefore refused. This case, I believe, was by no means an isolated one.
When an officer was billeted on a house, he would insist on turning the family out of the dining room and drawing room and sleeping in the best bedroom; sometimes he would eject people entirely from their home.
A docile private soldier.
By contrast the docile private soldier was almost a welcome guest. I remember well one quite friendly fellow who was lodged for some time in the same house as myself and some English over military age in the suburb of Croix. He came to me in great glee one day with a letter from his wife in which she warned him to beware of "the English cutthroats." She went on to give him a long series of instructions for his safety. He was to barricade his bedroom door every night, to sleep always with his knife under his pillow, and never to take anything we offered him to eat or drink.
Few civilian offenses.
Despite the temptations to crime and insubordination which naturally attend an idle manufacturing population of some 125,000 people, there were very few civilian offenses against the law, German or French, among the inhabitants of Roubaix.
Time hangs heavily.
Time hung heavily on our hands. Cut off from the outer world except by the occasional arrival of smuggled French and English newspapers, we spent our time reading and playing cards, and at the last I hoped I might never be reduced to this form of amusement again. In the two and a half years cut out of my life and completely wasted I played as many gamesof cards as will satisfy me for the rest of my existence.
The gendarmerie called "Green devils."
But even if the inhabitants, in their enforced idleness, had any temptation to be insubordinate, they had a far greater inducement to keep the law in the bridled savagery of the German gendarmerie. These creatures, who from the color of their uniform and the brutality of their conduct were known as the "green devils," seemed to revel in sheer cruelty. They scour the towns on bicycles and the outlying districts on horseback, always accompanied by a dog as savage as his master, and at the slightest provocation or without even the slenderest pretext they fall upon civilians with brutish violence.
Women badly treated.
It was not uncommon for one of these men to chase a woman on his bicycle, and when he had caught her, batter her head and body with the machine. Many times they would strike women with the flat of their sabres. One of them was seen to unleash his dog against an old woman, and laugh when the savage beast tore open the woman's flesh from thigh to knee.
Crossing Belgium.
In January Mr. Whitaker crossed the line into Belgium with the aid of smuggler friends, traversed that country, chiefly on foot, and two months later escaped into Holland and so to England. In Belgium he was astonished to find what looked like prosperity when compared with conditions in the occupied provinces of France. After expressing gratitude to Belgian friends and a desire to tell only what is truth, he proceeds:
No sign of privations.
The first fact I have to declare is that nowhere in my wanderings did I see any sign of starvation. Nowhere did I notice such privation of food as I had known in Northern France. Near the French frontier, it is true, the meals I took in inns and private cottages were farfrom sumptuous, but as I drew nearer to the Dutch frontier the amount and variety of the food to be obtained changed in an ascending scale, until at Antwerp one could almost forget, so far as the table was concerned, that the world was at war.
The diet at Roubaix, France.
Let me give a few comparisons. At Roubaix, in France, at the time when I left in the first week of this year, my daily diet was as follows: Breakfast—coffee, bread and butter (butter was a luxury beyond the reach of the working people, who had to be content with lard); midday meal—vegetable soup, bread, boiled rice, and at rare intervals an egg or a tiny piece of fresh meat; supper—boiled rice and bread. Just over the border, in Belgium, the food conditions were a little better. The ticket system prevailed, and the villagers were dependent on the depots of the American Relief Commission, supplemented by local produce.
A little further, and one passed the line of demarkation between the étape—the part of Belgium which is governed by General von Denk, formerly commanding the troops at Valenciennes—and the governement général, under the command of General von Bissing.
The first fresh meat in weeks.
Here a distinct change was noticeable. My first meal in this area included fillet of beef, the first fresh meat I had tasted for weeks. Tickets were still needed to buy bread and other things supplied by the Relief Commission, but other foodstuffs could be bought without restriction.
A dinner at Brussels.
At Brussels the food supply seems to be nearly normal. My Sunday dinner there consisted of excellent soup, a generous helping of roast leg of mutton, potatoes, haricot beans, white bread, cheese, and jam, and wine or beer, as preferred; while for supper I had cold meat, fried potatoes, and bread.
Food conditions at Antwerp.
At Antwerp, with two French friends whoaccompanied me on my journey through Belgium, I walked into a middle-class café at midday. I ordered a steak with fried potatoes and my friends ordered pork chops. Without any question about tickets we were served. We added bread, cheese, and butter to complete the meal and washed it down with draft light beer. Later in the day we took supper in the same café—an egg omelette, fried potatoes, bread, cheese, and butter. And the cost of both meals together was less than the cost of the steak alone in Roubaix.
Appearance of Brussels.
The policy of the Germans appears to be to interfere as little as possible with the everyday life of the country. The fruits of this policy are seen in a remarkable degree in Brussels. All day long the main streets of the city are full of bustle and all the outward manifestations of prosperity.
Business going on.
Women in short, fashionable skirts, with high-topped fancy boots, stroll completely at their ease along the pavement, studying the smart things with which the drapers' shop windows are dressed. Jewelers' shops, provision stores, tobacconists, and the rest show every sign of "business as usual." I bought at quite a reasonable price a packet of Egyptian cigarettes, bearing the name of a well-known brand of English manufacture, and I recalled how, not many miles away in harassed France, I had seen rhubarb leaves hanging from upper windows to dry, so that the French smoker might use them instead of the tobacco which he could not buy. Even the sweetstuff shops had well-stocked windows.
Theaters and cinema palaces open.
The theaters, music halls, cinema palaces, and cafés of Brussels were open and crowded. On the second night of my visit I went with my two French companions to the Théâtre Molière and heard a Belgian company in Paul Hervieu's play, "La Course du Flambeau." Thewhole building was packed with Belgians, thoroughly enjoying the performance. So far as I could tell, the only reminder that we were in the fallen capital of an occupied country was the presence in the front row of the stalls of two German soldiers, whose business, so I learned, was to see that nothing disrespectful to Germany and her armies was allowed to creep into the play.
An ordinary cinema performance.
At another theater, according to the posters, "Véronique" was produced, and a third bill announced "The Merry Widow." At the Théâtre de la Monnaie, which has been taken over by the Germans, operas and plays are given for the benefit of the soldiers and German civilians. One afternoon I spent a couple of hours in a cinema hall. A continuous performance was provided, and people came and went as they chose, but throughout the program the place was well filled. The films shown had no relation to the war. They were of the ordinary dramatic or comic types, and I fancy they were of pre-war manufacture. Nothing of topical interest was exhibited.
Scenes in Antwerp like those in Brussels.
All the scenes which I have described in Brussels were reproduced in Antwerp. There was a slightly closer supervision over the comings and goings of the inhabitants, but there was the same unreal atmosphere of contentment and real appearance of plenty. Though a good number of officers were in evidence, the military arm of Germany was not sufficiently displayed to produce any intimidation. Perhaps the most obvious mark, here and in the capital, that all was not normal was the complete absence of private motor cars and cabs from the streets.
Belgium still has cattle.
In the country districts two things struck me as unfamiliar after my long months in France. About Roubaix not a single head of cattle was to be seen; in Belgium every farmhad its cows. In Belgium the mounted gendarmerie—the "green devils" whose infamous conduct in the Roubaix district I have described—were unknown. Their place was filled by military police, who, by comparison with the gendarmes, were gentleness itself.
I do not profess to know the state of affairs in parts of Belgium which I did not visit, but I do know that my narrative of the conditions of life that came under my personal inspection has come as a great surprise to many people who imagine the whole of Belgium is starving.
Belgium better fed than occupied France.
We in hungry Roubaix looked out on Belgium as the land of promise. The Flemish workers who came into the town from time to time from Belgium were well fed and prosperous looking, a great contrast to the French of Roubaix and Lille. The Belgian children that I saw were healthy and of good appearance, quite unlike the wasted little ones of France, with hollow blue rings round their eyes.
Germany desires a state in Belgium.
The people of Roubaix, knowing these facts, are convinced that the Germans are endeavoring to lay the foundations of a vassal State in Belgium. Foiled in their attempts to capture Calais, the Germans believe that Zeebrugge and Ostend are capable of development as harbors for aggressive action against England. The French do not doubt that the enemy will make a desperate struggle before giving up Antwerp.
The picture I have presented of Belgium as I saw it is, of course, vastly different from the outraged Belgium of the first stage of the war.
The people not to be seduced.
Lest there should arise any misunderstanding, I complete the picture by stating my conviction, based on intimate talks with Belgian men and women, that the population as a whole are keeping a firm upper lip, and that attempts by the Germans to seduce them from their allegiance by blandishment and bribery will fail as surely as the efforts of frightfulness.
Mr. Whitaker's account of his escape into Holland closes thus:
Nearing Holland.
When we drew near to the wires, just before midnight, we lay on the ground and wriggled along until we were within fifty yards of Holland. There we lay for what seemed to be an interminable time. We saw patrols passing. An officer came along and inspected the sentries. Everything was oppressively quiet.
Through the electrified barbed wire.
Each sentry moved to and fro over a distance of a couple of hundred yards. Opposite the place where we lay two of them met. Choosing his opportunity, one of my comrades, who had provided himself with rubber gloves some weeks before for this critical moment, rushed forward to the spot where the two sentries had just met. Scrambling through barbed wire and over an unelectrified wire, he grasped the electrified wires and wriggled between them. We came close on his heels. He held the deadly electrified wires apart with lengths of thick plate glass with which he had come provided while first my other companions and then I crawled through. Before the sentries returned we had run some hundreds of yards into No Man's Land between the electrified wires and the real Dutch frontier.
Arrival at Rotterdam.
Only one danger remained. We had no certainty that the Dutch frontier guards would not hand us back to the Germans. We took no risks, though it meant wading through a stream waist deep. Our troubles were now practically over. By rapid stages we proceeded to Rotterdam.
I was without money. My watch I had given to the Belgian villager in whose cottage I had found refuge. My clothes were shabby from frequent soakings and hard wear. I had shaved only once in Belgium, and a stubby growth of beard did not improve my general appearance.
Sent on to London.
At Rotterdam I reported myself to the British Consul. I was treated with the utmost kindness. My expenses during the next four or five days, while I waited for a boat, were paid and I was given my fare to Hull. There I was searched by two military police and questioned closely by an examining board. My papers were taken and I was told to go to London and apply for them at the Home Office. As I was again practically without means I was given permission to go to my home in Bradford before proceeding to London.
In cooperation with the British forces, a Russian army took part in movements against Bagdad and Turkish cities in Armenia and Persia. These military movements were marked by varying success on the part of the Russian and Turkish forces. Certain phases of this campaign are described in the following chapter.
Mesopotamia important to Great Britain.
It is perhaps not generally realized how important the future of Mesopotamia is to the British, or why they originally sent an expedition there which has since developed into a more ambitious campaign. Ever since the Napoleonic period British influence and interests have been supreme from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, and this was the one quarter of the globe where they successfully held off the German trader with his political backing.
Great Britain's war with Persia.
British steamer on the Tigris.
It will be recalled that early in Queen Victoria's reign Great Britain engaged in a war with Persia, and landed troops at Bushire in assertion of their rights. Ever since they have policed the Persian Gulf, put down piracy, slave and gun-running, and lighted the places dangerous to navigation. These interests having been entrusted to the Government of India, news affecting them seldom finds its way into Western papers. Previous to the war a line of British steamers plied regularly up the River Tigris to Bagdad, the center of the caravan trade with Persia. The foreign trade of this town alone in 1912 amounted to $19,000,000, and it was nearly all in the hands of merchants in Great Britain or India. Germany exported $500,000 worth of goods there annually. Basra, farther down the river, exports annually about 75,000 tons of dates, valued at $2,900,000. It also does a large export trade in wheat.
An irrigation scheme.
The Persian oil fields controlled by Great Britain.
Native tribes subsidized.
A large irrigation scheme was partly completed before the war, near the ancient town of Babylon, under the direction of a famous Anglo-Indian engineer, Sir William Willcocks. When finished it was to cost $105,000,000, and was expected to reclaim some 2,800,000 acres of land of great productibility. It will, therefore, be seen that Britain had some considerable stake in the country. In addition to this, the British Government, shortly before the war, invested $10,000,000 in acquiring control of the Anglo-Persian oil fields, which is the principal source of supply for oil fuel for their navy. By this means they avoided the risk of great American corporations cornering the supply of oil fuel and holding up their navy. John Bull upon occasion shows some gleamings of shrewdness. This deal is on a par with their purchase of sufficient shares to control the Suez Canal. The Anglo-Persian oil fields are situated across the border in Persia, and the oil is led in pipes down the Karam River valley, a tributary of the combined Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The native tribes in the neighborhood were subsidized to protect the pipe-line, or, rather, to leave it alone.
Russia and Great Britain in Persia.
German railways must end at Bagdad.
During recent years Persia has fallen into decay. Politically she is more sick than "the sick man of the East." The people have a religion of their own and worship the sun, although quite a number of Moslems have settled in their midst. Being cognizant of German designs to create a great Eastern empire in Mesopotamia and Persia, which would threaten India, Egypt, and the Russian East, Britain and Russia came together and formed a kind of Monroe Doctrine of their own. They said, in effect, northern Persia shall be Russia's sphere of influence, and southern Persia shall be Britain's sphere of influence. They both recognized that a great military power, likeGermany, permanently established at Bagdad, with aggressive tendencies, would imperil their Eastern dominions, and both were prepared to make it acasus belli—Britain, further, a few years ago informed Germany that the area from Bagdad to the head of the Gulf was her "Garden of Eden," and any attempt to carry German railways south of Bagdad would bring on war. The Emperor William apparently did not mind this opposition by Britain and Russia to his Oriental ambition, provided he could find a passage through the Balkans.
Persian gendarmes officered by Swedes.
Fairy-tales of Turkish conquest.
At the time Britain and Russia came to an agreement regarding Persia they were not on so good a footing with each other as they are to-day. In order that neither should get an advantage over the other, it was decided that the Persian gendarmes—about 6,000 in number—should be officered by neutrals, and, unfortunately as it turned out for the Allies, they mutually chose Swedes. On the outbreak of war neither Britain nor Russia desired that Persia should be brought into it. The German ambassador in Persia, however, had other views, and suborned Swedish officers in command of the Persian gendarmes. Partly by this means, and partly by Turkish agents, a rebellion was brought about within the Russian sphere. Religion had nothing to do with the trouble in Persia. Turkish forces entered Persian Kurdistan and announced that they were on their way to conquer India and the Russian East, while their compatriots would overrun Egypt. These were the fairy-tales with which the Germans had originally enticed the Turks into the war. The Turks were willing to believe them, and apparently did believe them. The responsible Germans had no such illusions, but hoped to attain their ends by causing internal disturbances within India and Egypt. These German canards, put aboutin war time, have been adopted by some writers in this country as the foundation from which to write contemporary history. It may interest them to know that India possesses the strongest natural frontiers in the world.
Strategy depends on geography.
Strategy nowadays is very largely a matter of geography. Modern armies are circumscribed in their movements by the available means of transportation, whether these be by railroad, river, or roadway, and this means geography applied in giving direction to troop movements.
Geographies of the war area.
Before entering into a review of the combined Anglo-Russian campaign a preliminary survey of the strategical geography of the war area will make the position more clear.
Constantinople once the world clearing-house.
Still the easiest route.
In ancient times the only practical way by road and ferry from Europe to Asia or Africa was by way of the Balkan valleys and across the Bosphorus or Dardanelles. Hence arose the importance of the ferryhouse—Constantinople. That city in those days was the center of the known world and the clearing-house for the merchandise of Asia, Africa, and Europe. From Scutari, on the opposite shore, the overland route meandered across Asia Minor to Aleppo in Syria. Here the sign-post to India pointed down the Euphrates Valley, by way of Bagdad, while that to Egypt and Arabia followed the Levant or eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Between each fork lay the Syrian desert. A glance at the map shows the reason why in those days this was the only practical route, as to-day it is the easiest. The wall of the Ural Mountains, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasian Mountains, and the Black Sea shut out direct communication from Europe to Asia, orvice versa, except by the Constantinople ferry or a sea voyage.
Another practical route.
The road for invasion of Egypt or India.
The Taurus range is the natural frontier of Egypt.
In Asia Minor progress was further barred by the watershed of the Euphrates and Tigrisrivers to the south, and the Caucasian Mountains to the east. A practical way was found at the lower elevations of the Taurus and Amanus mountains—two parallel spurs which strike the sea at the Gulf of Alexandretta. This narrow neck of the bottle, as it were, is of enormous military importance alike to the Turks and to the British. Through it must pass any army of invasion by land from Europe or Asia Minor to Egypt or India; and, conversely, through it must pass any invading army from Mesopotamia into Asia Minor. If the British should conquer Mesopotamia and should intend to hold it—as they undoubtedly would—they will have no strategical frontiers until they secure the watershed of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the Taurus passage. If they secure the latter, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia will fall to them like apples off a tree. It would then be no longer necessary to defend the Suez Canal. The natural frontier of Egypt is the Taurus mountain range. Asia Minor is the real Turkey; the other portions of the empire—MMesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Turkey in Europe—are only appendages. The eastern door into Asia Minor is Erzerum, and the southern door is the Taurus passage. Turkey can only part with these at the cost of her life. Russia has already captured Erzerum, and the British possess the Island of Cyprus, which commands the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta—twenty miles from the Taurus passage. That is, broadly, the situation.
Aleppo is the starting point of caravan routes.
Near the crossing of the Taurus and Amanus mountains lies the city of Aleppo, the starting-point for the overland caravan routes to Bagdad and India, and also to Damascus, Mecca, and Egypt. Just as surely as pioneer travelers always chose the easiest route, so the railways of to-day follow in their footsteps. The physicalfeatures of nature constrained both modern as well as ancient armies to travel the same way. Hence a railway map of the Balkans and of Asiatic Turkey is a first consideration in appreciating the strategical bearings of the Anglo-Russian campaign in Turkey-in-Asia, or the alleged rival Germanic-Turkish schemes for the invasion of Egypt, Persia, and India. Of no less importance is a knowledge of the available sea routes and inland rivers.
Bulgaria and Turkey depend on aid from Germany.
The ability of Bulgaria and Turkey to carry on the war depends on aid from Germany in men, munitions, and money. These allies are the weakest members of the Central Group, and may be the first to give in if circumstances are adverse to their adventure.
The importance of the Balkan railway.
Their sole communication with the Central Powers is by the Balkan railway from the Danube to Constantinople by way of Sofia. If this line is severed, then these nations are out of the game. The Allies have all winter been organizing the defenses of Salonica as apied-à-terrefor such an attack. Should Rumania join the Allies in the spring, then a further attack may be expected from the north, in which Russian troops would join. Turkey is now too preoccupied with her own troubles to be able to assist Bulgaria.
Asia Minor's only important line.
Railway planned from Aleppo to Bagdad.
In Asia Minor the only railway of importance is the trunk line from Scutari, on the Bosphorus, to the Taurus Tunnel, in course of completion near Adana. One branch runs west to Smyrna, and another east to Angora. Beyond the Taurus Tunnel is another in course of completion through the Amanus Mountains. Every person and everything destined for the Bagdad front or for the invasion of Egypt has to be transported over these mountains. So also have rails for the completion of the Aleppo-to-Bagdad railway. These tunnels are expected to be finished this year—when it will be toolate. From Aleppo the Syrian railway runs south through Damascus to Medina and Mecca in Arabia. Branches reach the Levant seaports of Tripoli, Beirut, and Haifa. Another railway was started from Aleppo to Bagdad shortly before the war, and construction begun at both ends. We have no reliable information as to how far it has progressed, but the presumption is that there is a large gap between Ras-el-ain and Mosul and between the latter place and Samara.
The city of Aleppo key of railways as once of caravan routes.
It is at once apparent how important the city of Aleppo is as the junction for the three main railways of Asiatic Turkey. Napoleon considered that it was the key to India, because it commanded the caravan routes. To-day it would be more correct to say that Aleppo is the key to the outerapproachesto India and Egypt, the inner defenses of which are impregnable.
Reasons for a British army in Egypt.
Vantage points held by Great Britain.
The British maintain a large army in Egypt not so much because it is required there as because it is a most convenient central camp within striking distance of all the battle-fronts in the East. This permits of throwing a large army secretly and unexpectedly where it can be most effective. Similar camps are available at Malta and Cyprus. Any attack on Egypt on a formidable scale would be a veritable trap for the invaders. It will be recalled that when Britain held up the Russian advance on Constantinople, in 1878, she entered into a treaty with Turkey guaranteeing the latter in the possession of Asia Minor (only) against all enemies. The consideration was the lease of the Island of Cyprus, which dominates the Taurus passage. In other words, Britain holds the cork with which she can close the Syrian tube and put the closure on any invasion of India or Egypt from this side. This treaty was abrogated some eighteen months ago, whenTurkey declared war on the British Empire. Britain, in consequence, annexed Egypt and Cyprus.
At the outbreak of the war the Indian Government, apparently off their own bat, despatched a small force to the Persian oil fields to seize and hold the pipe-line, which had been tampered with and the supply cut off for a time.
The Turks threaten Basra.
British advance up the Tigris to Kut-el-Amara.
It became necessary to hold in force three triangular points—Basra, Muhammereh, and Awaz. A strong Turkish force, with headquarters at Amara, was equidistant about 100 miles from both Basra and Awaz, and could elect to strike the divided British forces either by coming down the Tigris River to Basra, or by going overland to Awaz. Reinforcements were sent from India, and Amara occupied. The oil fields seemed secure. Then the unexpected happened. A Turkish army came down the Shat-el-Hai—an ancient canal or waterway connecting the Tigris River at Kut-el-Amara with the Euphrates at Nasiriyeh (or Nasdi)—about 100 miles to the west of Basra—and threatened the latter place. (Shat-el-Hai means the river which flows by the village of Hai. Kut-el-Amara means the fort of Amara and is not to be confused with the town of Amara lower down the Tigris River.) This led to the British driving the Turks out of Nasiriyeh and also advancing up the Tigris River from Amara to occupy Kut-el-Amara, where a battle was fought. The Turks were strongly entrenched and expected to hold up the Anglo-Indian troops here, but a turning movement made them retire on Bagdad—about 100 miles to the northwest. It was known that large Turkish reinforcements were on the way to Bagdad and an attempt was made to anticipate them.
General Townshend's attempt to take Bagdad.
General Townshend advanced on Bagdadwith less than a division of mixed Anglo-Indian troops—some 16,000 to 20,000 strong. At Ctesiphon he found a Turkish army of four divisions, with two others in reserve, awaiting him. After a two days' indecisive battle, Townshend, recognizing he had insufficient forces, retired on his forward base at Kut-el-Amara. The Arabs in the neighborhood awaited the issue of the battle, ready to take sides, for the time being, with the winner.
The Turks much stronger in numbers.
Secret of European success in Asia.
It says much for the stamina of this composite division that, although opposed throughout by five or six times their number of Turks and Turkish irregulars, the latter were unable to overwhelm them. To the Western mind, unacquainted with the mentality and moral weakness of the Moslem under certain circumstances, this may appear a most foolhardy adventure. To the Anglo-Indian the most obvious thing to do when in a tight corner is to go for the enemy no matter what their numbers. All Europeans in India develop an extraordinary pride in race, and an inherent contempt for numbers. It is the secret of their success there. Most Moslems fight well when posted behind strong natural defenses. In open country, such as Mesopotamia, they do not show to so much advantage. Another trait is that when their line of retreat is threatened they are more timorous than European troops. This weakness will have important bearings on the future of the campaign on the Tigris Valley, because the communications of the Turks are threatened by the Russians far in their rear and in more than one place.
Kut-el-Amara of great strategical importance.
Townshend's camp at Kut-el-Amara is well supplied with stores and munitions, and will soon be relieved. When his retreat was cut off at the bend of the Tigris River he could still have retired safely by following the Shat-el-Hai to Nasiriyeh. There was no thought, however,of retreat, Kut-el-Amara is geographically of great strategical importance, and the British garrison there has served the useful purpose of detaining large forces of the enemy where it was desired they should remain while important Allied developments were taking place in their flank and rear. Most of these Turkish reinforcements were withdrawn from Armenia when the depth of winter appeared to make it impossible for the Russians to break through the lofty hills of Caucasia.
Turks deceived by rumor about Grand Duke Nicholas.
The Grand Duke's strategy.
The rumor, so diligently put about, that the Grand Duke Nicholas had been retired in disgrace, after so ably extricating the Russian armies in Poland, and that he had been sent to Caucasia, served its purpose. The Turks were deceived by it, and sent part of their forces from Armenia to oppose the Anglo-Indian advance on Bagdad and arrived in time to turn the scale after the battle of Ctesiphon. When the Grand Duke fell on the unwary Turks their defeat was complete. Flying from Erzerum, one army made for Trebizond, another for the Lake Van district, and the rest went due west towards Sivas. The Grand Duke's right wing, center, and left are following in the same directions. He has two flying wings further south—one in the Lake Urumia district and the other advancing along the main caravan route from Kermanshah to Bagdad, while the British are furthest south at Kut-el-Amara. It will be observed that the whole of the Allied armies from the Black Sea to Kut-el-Amara are in perfect echelon formation, and it would be a strange coincidence if this just happened—say, by accident. Like the Syrian and Arabian littoral, Mesopotamia is another tube confined within the Syrian desert on the one side and the mountains of Armenia and Persia on the ether. All egress is stopped by the Allies' echelon formation, except by Aleppo.