January 27, 1916. 
LAND AND WATER 
There is no real threat to the communications 
of the Turkish Army at Bagdad, still less a threat 
to the city itself until the alHcd troops are on the 
further side of this Persian escarpment on the 
east and with the Armenian Taurus on the 
north. 
We shall be most unwise if we regard either of 
those events as probable in the near future. 
Our forces, which are now attempting to 
relieve the original expeditionary force beleagured 
at Kut-el-Amara, will not enjoy the effect of any 
appreciable pressure exercised upon, the enemy 
elsewhere. 
What 1he position now is in this critical spot 
(it is critical for us, small as are the forces engaged 
compared with the total forces of the Allies) the 
despatches read in the House of Commons last 
Monday sufhciently explain. 
The reheving force has, as we said in these 
columns last week it was bound to do, come into 
contact with and taken its shock against the main 
Turkish positions, which lie a couple of hours' 
march east of Kut-el-Amara. Those positions it 
has been imable to force. The advance of the 
relieving force up to the river Tigris and the 
retreat of the Turks before it at Sheik Said first, 
and then at Orah, were but a preliminary to this 
main action, the first phase of which we have 
just seen to end without any success to the 
relieving expedition. 
There has been very heavy loss upon both 
sides, but it is to be feared that that loss can be 
better replaced by the far more numerous enemy 
than by ourselves. 
The Tigris, for some days past bank-high, 
nas flooded the low-lying regions : an impedi- 
ment to either party, but obviously more of an 
advantage to the defence and of disadvantage to 
the attack. And there the matter stands. The 
only refreshing element in the news from this 
quarter, and that unfortunately not a permanent 
element, is the information that the force con- 
tained at Kut-el-Amara is still well supplied. 
GERMAN POLICY OF SHELLING 
OPEN TOWNS. 
Certain correspondents of mine have asked 
for proof of the statement that the enemy policy 
of bombarding distant open towns differed from 
the allied policy of long range fire against special 
points in the same. 
The proof of that contention lies in measure- 
ments upon the map first, and secondly, in the 
nature of the raids affected and the damage 
done. 
In order to appreciate how strong is the con- 
trast between the two policies, how truly the allied 
policy is mihtary and the German policy in this 
respect political, consider the following points. 
The enemy in the past shelled no open French 
towns except" Dunkirk in this fashion. They 
dropped very large shell into Dunkirk at a range 
of 30,000 yards or thereabouts. At such a range, 
with the calibre of the piece employed, there was 
no question of aiming at a particular mark. So 
long as the shell fell somewhere within the inhabited 
area of Dunkirk all that was desired was achieved. 
You cannot at these extreme ranges take an aimed 
shot. Moreover, when the French discovered 
the piece and destroyed it, they found it not em- 
placed, but set perrrianently at its angle of maxi- 
mum range and incapable of changes of elevation 
^Continued on page 10.) 
RAEMAEKERS' CARTOON. 
The nation's debt of gratitude to the rank and 
file of the British Army can never he fully repaid, 
it is as a small tribute to these brave men that L.\nd 
AND Water publishes to-day as its frontispiece 
in the place of the usual cartoon, Raentaekers' 
illustration of a pathetic incident K'hich occurred 
in Holland earlier in the month. The report of 
this incident ithich icas published at the time in the 
Amsterdam " Telegraaf," is translated below. 
* * * 
" The burial will take place at once ; the 
clergyman is only waiting for the Vice-Consul who 
has just arrived by tram from Flushing." So spoke 
to me the policeman at West Capelle. 
. I 'walked past West Capelle's big light house — - 
past the church tower of trhich the church itself 
had disappeared, and I stood before the chapel in 
the churchyard. Through the open door I saw 
on -.a bier the white ze'ooden coffin in which rested 
the body of Private Joseph Walker, an English 
soldier of the Bedfordshire Regiment, regimental 
number, 16,092. 
On September gth, 1914, Joseph Walker enlisted 
for the duration of the ~war ; on January nth, 1916, 
the sea bore his dead body to the dyke at West Capelle. 
Usually, a body washed ashore in this neigh- 
bourhood is buried at the foot of the dunes, without 
coffin, ifithout ceremony. But not this time. 
This afternoon at i p.m. while the north-west wind 
whistled over Watcher en, the English soldier was 
buried in the churchyard of West Capelle. Behind 
the icalls of the tower where "we sought protection from 
the gale the Burial Service was read. 
First the Vice-Consul in the name of Eftgland 
spread the British flag over him who for England 
had sacrificed his young life. Four men of West 
Capelle carried the coffin outside and placed it at 
the foot of the tower, that old grey giant, which has 
witnessed so much world's woe, here opposite the 
sea. The Reverend Mr. Eraser, the English clergy- 
man at Kortryk, himself an exile, said we were 
gathered to pay the last homage to a Briton who 
had died for his country. It was a simple, but 
touching ceremony. 
" Man that is born of a woman hath but a 
short time to live. . , . He cometh forth like a 
floicer and is cut doivn." Thus spoke the voice of 
the minister and the wind carried his words, and 
the wind played with the flag of England, the flag 
that flies over all seas, in Flanders, in France, in 
the Balkans, in Egypt, as the symbol of threatened 
freedom — the flag whose folds here covered a fallen 
warrior. Deeply were we moved, when the clergy- 
man in his prayer asked for a " message of comfort 
to his home." 
Who, tell me, oh silent field. 
Who lies buried here ? Here ? 
Yes, who is Walker, No. 16092, Private Joseph 
Walker, Bedfordshire regiment ? Who, in loving 
thoughts, thinks of him zciih hope even now zehen xve, 
strangers to them, stand near to him in death P Where 
is his home ? We knoiv it not, but in our inmost 
hearts it'e pray for a " message of comfort and 
consolation " for his people. 
And in the roaring storm we went our zi>ay. 
There le-as he carried, the soldier come to rest, and 
the flag fluttered in the -wind and wrapped itself round 
that son of England. Then the coffin sank into 
the ground and the hearts of us, the departing iint- 
nesses, were sore. Earth fell on it, and the 
preacher said : " Earth to earth, dust to dust." 
