LAND AND ^V A T E R 
January 13, 101^ 
The Allies, possessing as they do . the comniiiisd ' 
of niarino comiminicatinn, arc licre upon interior 
lines. That is, tiiey can transfer troops across 
from one point to another upon the shores of the 
Levant (e.g., Salonika- to the Gallipoli Penin- 
sula-: Alexandria to Salonika ; Salonika to the 
Gulf of Alexandretta, etc., far more rapidly than 
the enemy, even with the new railways, can 
transport them by land round from one point to 
another. That is the capital strategic factor of 
the whole situation. Rut if the rnmiy develops 
'.as he threatens to do, a serious advance against 
the Suez Canal, it would mean that Salonika 
:Could -only be held defensively during such a 
period, and that the mass of the Alliecl, or cer- 
tainly of the British, troops in the whole region 
.would be employed to counter the threat against 
Egypt. 
The moment is therefore suitable for some 
examination of the conditions governing the ene- 
my's menace to Egypt 'and of the Canal. 
• The military and political conditions — that 
is, the objects and methods of an enemy advance 
against Egypt, are better known than those upon 
any other frontier except the Western. This is 
due to the comparative simplicitj- of the problem 
to be, solved. 
Politically, the object is self-evident. It is 
threefold and aimed entirely at this country. 
First, it aims at alarming and confusing 
general opinion in England in the highest degree — 
that is the general moral object of the enemy in 
all he does and has done for months past, for he 
believes that he can thus best shake the Alliance. 
Secondly, it proposes the more concrete and 
tangible object of cutting off the canal route to 
the East, thereby rendering communications with 
India difficult or more tardy,, and affecting to 
that extent the political position of Great Britain 
in her great Dependency — perhaps also affecting 
the whole world of Islam. 
Thirdly : It proposes the putting of a very 
heavy economic strain iipon the Alliance and par- 
ticularly upon England by compelling a certain 
considerable proportion of seaborne material from 
the East to come round by the Cape route. 
It is important that these three objects should 
be kept clearly in mind — and particularh' the 
fact that the Canal is the objective — because, as 
we shall see in a moment, they will profoundly 
affect the strategics of the campaign which would 
present very different military problems if the 
Canal were not there, or if the conquest of Egypt 
itself were the main objective. 
The methods wherewith these objects may be 
attempted are equally obvious. They consist in 
.'the use of a large force recruited from the recruiting 
held of the Turkish Empire, organised by the aid 
of Austro-Gernians," possibly but not probably, 
including a small proportion of German infantry, 
but certainly including and depending upon a 
et>ntihgent of Austro-German heavy artillery and 
0f A«stro-German engineers. The provocation 
of unrest in Egypt itself is a subsidiary method 
that will also be employed to the best of the 
enemy's ability. 
I'pon such a general presentation of the case 
we are able to build an analysis of its strategics. 
The first point to note is that the army to 
be directed against the canal, though it must be 
large, need not be of that immense size which 
sdirle students of the war have presupposed. It 
must be large because the forces which this country 
"can draw up in Egypt arfi very considerable in 
number, and were they opposed by a force much 
smaller than their own they could organise any 
action at leisure; prt^pared even with suitable 
material for pusliing- forward water supply, to 
take an offensive in the Desert itself. Only 
against forces superior in number would our forces 
be compelled to a defensi\e, and even so, that 
defensive, against anything but considerably su- 
perior numbers could be organised beyond the 
Canal. On the other hand, very greatly superior 
numbers are not demanded by the strategics of 
the main objective which, .be it remembered, is 
not necessarily, or as a minimum the occupation 
of fertile Egypt, but the interruption of the use of 
the Canal. A serious effort cannot be made with 
less than a third of a million men. That it need 
be made with much over half a million may be 
doubted. 
These figures, of course, are of the broadest 
and roughest kind. They would be immediately 
subject to moditication if the situation changed. 
For instance, an attack upon the enemy's lines of 
communication would affect them at once and so 
would any one of half a dozen other contingencies, 
but I am taking the situation as it stands. 
AVAILABLE MATERIAL. 
The opportunities for ultimately raising such 
a force are ample because the margin of recruit- 
ment present in the recruiting field of the Turkish 
hZmpire is more than eufticient for such an ex- 
pedition, most of the units of which are already in 
existence. How far or at what rate these can be 
equipped we do not know. Such equipment 
would very largely depend upon the manufacturing 
capacity of Austria-Germany. Partial equipment, 
of course, already exists. But generally speaking 
there is no reason to believe that such a force could 
not be equipped in tinie for an advance before the 
beginning of the summer. The munitionment of 
such a ,force with shell, especially heavy shell, 
would be almost entirely dependent upon Austro- 
German industry, as would its provision with the 
special machinery necessary to such a campaign, 
notably the machinery for providing water during 
the last portion of the advance. 
So far all the main elements of the problem are 
plain sailing. The Central Empires have an open 
road by the Danube and Bulgaria to the Turkish 
Empire. They will in a few weeks have through 
railway communication as well. The interest pf 
the problem rather begins with the question of the 
communications of such a force from its ultimate 
base upon the Bosphorus. What those com- 
munications are, and will be, is fairly well known, 
and what we have to examine is their capacity 
and vulnerabTlify. ^ 
The main avenue of such communications is, 
of course, the so-called " Bagdad Railway." This 
railway, German in direction, has for its main line 
a trace followirig the immemorial road which 
crosses Asia Minor from the Bosphorus to the 
Gulf of Alexandi^f'ttci, the road of the First Crusade. 
It serves Iconium (Konieh), and Adana, receiving 
two main branches from the east and the west, 
the former coming in from Angora, the latter from 
Smyrna. 
But before reaching Adana there is a gap of 
20 miles still unfinished, where the railway has to 
pass through the Taurus mountains ; a gap 
including several tunnels, viaducts and one 
