October 16, 1915. 
LAND AND WATEE 
the second and successful attempt to destroy the 
Koenigsherg was Lieutenant Cull, of the Royal 
Navy, and that the " unnamed hero " who, when 
Lieutenant Cull's aeroplane was hit and falling, 
signalled to the Severn to shift her guns from 
forward to amidships of the enemy, was Sub-Lieu- 
tenant Arnold. One of my correspondents asks 
if the fire of the Koenigsherg and the land bat- 
teries was the only serious risk the monitors had 
to face. It was due to the exigencies of space 
that I omitted to mention the greatest of them all. 
It is really inexplicable that, after the attack 
on July 6, no effort was made to block the Kikunya 
branch, by which our ships had entered. The 
Koenigsherg was fitted with two submerged tor- 
pedo tubes, and, presumably, had her normal 
quota of torpedoes. It is not recorded that she 
used any against either the City of Winchester 
or the Pegasus. It surely would have been a com- 
paratively simple thing to have extemporised 
torpedo stations in the woody banks of the river. 
It is quite inexplicable that so obvious a measure 
of defence was not adopted, unless we suppose 
that all the officers and skilled hands capable of 
constructing such stations had been killed in the 
Koenigsherg during the first day's action. It is 
still more extraordinary that the channel was not 
mined. 
Those who went up the river on the second 
day must have expected both, and when we con- 
sider how great these risks really were, and, 
further, realise that the escape of both monitors 
from the Koenigsherg's fire must have appeared 
almost miraculous, v/e shall not be tempted to 
think of this episode as a mere piece of distasteful 
routine, free both from difficulty and from danger. 
I can well believe that at one point it did become 
distasteful. It must have gone against the grain 
to continue plugging the enemy after his fire was 
silenced. But it was a necessary piece of severity. 
It clearly was not merely a question of making it 
impossible for the ship to get to sea. It was im- 
perative, as far as possible, to make it impossible 
for her guns or any part of her gear or munitions 
to be available in the future defence of German 
East Africa. And there seems to be no doubt that 
the destruction was thoroughly effected. 
A. H. POLLEN. 
MR. A. H. POLLEN'S LECTURES ON THE NAVY. 
Mr. Pollen will lectu-e on behalf of naval an 1 military c'laritiei at 
the Winter Gardens, New Brighton, Oct. 17 at 8.15; Altrincham, 
Oot. 18; King's Hall, Sidcup, Oct. 20; Essex Hall, W.C, Oct. 21. 
THE CAMPAIGN IN MESOPOTAMIA. 
By Sir Thomas Holdich. 
TURKEY is at the present moment conducting 
four campaigns, separated from each other 
by at least one thousand miles of very indif- 
ferent communications — where communica- 
tions exist at all. Constantinople, the heart 
(but not the centre) of the dwindling Turkish Empire, 
is the base of supply in men and materials for all of 
them. The campaign in Syria, where some 50,000 
second-rate troops (probably more Arab than Turkish) 
have been held in readiness for a threat against Egypt, 
may, for the time being, be disregarded. That in Asia 
Minor on the Russian frontier has likewise proved abor- 
tive, except for the obvious assistance rendered to 
Austria by holding up a large force of Russian troops 
who would have been most useful elsewhere. In Galli- 
poli Turkey is holding her own with a tenacity which 
recalls the fight for Plevna, and which provokes a doubt 
as to whether Gallipoli is, after all, the right road to 
Constantinople. 
Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that the Allies' 
occupation of a strip of the Gallipoli Peninsula has 
immensely weakened Turkey's powers of offensive both 
in the Caucasus and in the fourth theatre of action- 
Mesopotamia. It seems, indeed, to be more than prob- 
able that the first fruits of the magnificent fighting and 
sustained efforts which have distinguished the Allied 
occupation of Gallipoli territory is to ease off something 
of the fury and determination of Turkish defence in the 
country of the Euphrates and Tigris. What may have 
been the original intention of the military programme 
which called on India to dispatch a comparatively weak 
force up the Persian Gulf to undertake a campaign 
which has been so completely detached from the fighting 
areas in Europe as to render it almost obscure, it is im- 
possible to say. Was there any idea that the occupation 
of Basra would inevitably lead further; that it would in- 
volve a series of pitched battles along some three 
hundred miles of the Tigris Valley, reaching into the 
very heart of Mesopotamia and ending possibly at 
Bagdad? I doubt it. I doubt whether even now the 
occupation of Bagdad is regarded as a desirable objec- 
tive in this Mesopotamia expedition. If not, it is at 
least possible that it very soon will be. 
13 
Meagre as have been the ofTicial accounts of this 
most successful expedition, there have been from time 
to time accounts of its character and progress in the 
daily papers which have directed public attention to 
what has so far proved to be by far the most successful 
of our military ventures. But, like the most successful 
of our naval manoeuvres (which beyond doubt is the 
wholesale destruction of the German submarine pest), 
very little has been written about it, although that little 
is excellent reading. 
The conditions of campaigning in ISIesopotamia 
are essentially different to those in any European 
theatre of war in which we have been engaged. They 
are guiltless of any great strategic complexity. The 
difficulties to be overcome, both physically and climatic- 
ally, are different, and to a certain extent the character- 
istics of the enemy are different. The principle of en- 
veloping the enemy forces by outflanking a long line of 
front cannot be carried to the same extent as in 
Europe, so that there is no indefinite extension of action 
cut into the deserts and flats of Mesopotamia; concen- 
tration becomes more possible, and tactical dispositions 
are more or less analogous to those of the pre-Boer 
period. Consequently the result of a battle is decisive 
in a measure which has not been attained in any battle 
in Flanders or Russia. A victorious engagement ends 
in a rout, and cavalry can be u.sed in pursuit. In short, 
the main strategic scheme is reduced to a straight ad- 
vance along the valley of the Tigris, supported by the 
guns of the river flotilla; and the dispersal of the enemy 
forces wherever a stand is made. 
This comparative simplicity of military action is 
mainly due to the geographical conditions governing 
the country, which, so far as the valleys of the 
Euphrates and Tigris are concerned, with their sea- 
ward connection — the Shatt-al-Arab — is deltaic, flat, 
and waterlogged at certain seasons over vast areas 
reaching out east and west from the rivers. Basra, 
which v,as occupied in October last, after a series 
of skirmishes in which the Turks were driven from 
walled defences, has sometimes been called the Venice 
of the East. The application of the term, however, refers 
to little else than the waterways which, like those of 
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