T. A N D i"v- W A T E R 
April 27, 1916 
ill a military sense, does not affect this truth in the least. 
Bnt if the Turkish McsoDOtamian arniv at F remains thus 
liooked on to its present position by tlie large British 
force opposed to it, then with every week that passes the 
danger of its coramunications through the Russian advance 
in Armenia gets greater. There is no longer any question 
of an ad\-anre through Syria towards Egypt. The whole 
que^;tion for the Turkish' liighet cojiiinau'd will be how to 
hold Mesopotamia and Bagdad. And it will be a question 
that will get more and more diffiiult to answer. There 
must come a time so far as this tield alone is concerned, 
and eliminating disturbing facto ts elsewhere, when the 
Turkish force in front of Bagdad will have only one of 
three courses fipiTii to it. 
(i) To sumnKWi to itself for the luere work of holding 
Irak and especially its capital. Bagdad, all the available 
resources the GovcTnment at Constantinople can lend. In 
that case the Rut*>ian advance westward through Asia 
Minor, alrcadv menacing though slow, would become 
rapid and extremel\- formidable, for the only thing check- 
ing it so far has been the concentration of very considerable 
Turkish forces in front of it. 
(2) They can fall back along their line of communica- 
tions until they are past the danger point at Aleppo 
(the knot or junction which is always in peril of the powers 
controlling the sea and which many think should have 
been attacked long a,"o.) To do this is to abandon Irak 
and to abandon Bag-dad, and for that matter, within a 
comparativelv brief Qela\- to abandon Syria too. This 
's what in any higluy organised country the inferior 
Turkish Forces would do in the presence of the Russian 
menace from the north and of the smaller but still com- 
paratively large British force in front of them. It would 
be elementary strategy to act thus in the face of that 
menace and of this op_50sing force, if the Turkish Empire 
were one homogeneous and highly organised country, all 
the members of whicli were acting in accord. 
(3) There remains the third course of keeping a large 
Turkish force covering Bagdad, but not reinforcing it 
heavily because the Turkish hi^er command thinks it 
essential to block the Russian advance through Asia 
Minor. In this last and third case the fate of tht Turkish 
force in Mesopotamia is only a question of time. They 
will have, their communications cut behind them and they 
will be dcstroj'ed. 
A Choice of Sacrifices 
We must not neglect in all this, by the way, the presence 
of a small and advancmg Russian force which is moving 
down to Bagdad along the Persian road 3^3. 
The conclusion of the whole matter would seem then 
to be that the threat to Bagdad puts the Turkish higher 
command into a situation everywhere menaced. Of 
the three policies open to it each leads to some grave loss, 
and the only choice they have is to decide which form of 
loss is the least ; whether to sacrifice the central plateau 
of Asia Minor until the Russians draw near to the heart 
of the Turkish power, or to sacrifice Mesopotamia and 
Bagdad, or to sacrifice ultimately the army now occu- 
pying that province and protecting that provincial 
capital. 
If we look at the position in Mesopotamia in this light, 
that is, as part of a very large general scheme, it will gi\e 
to the present peril of the little force at Kut a different 
value from that which mere sensationalism, or 
worse, will attempt to give it. It is not the re- 
maining military value of this small force which chiefly 
marks the strategical situation in the East. It is the com- 
bined positions of the main force upon the Tigris, of the 
advancing Russian forces upon the norlli and the east 
and of the Turkish bod\- between them all, and menaced 
by iJicm all, upon whicli an impartial observer of the 
strategical problem alone will hx hir attention. The 
little point of Kut. which produced the present strategical 
situation, while it has the importance of a cause to 
so much larger an effect, has little other strategical 
importance for the future. Discussion as to how or 
why that force allowed itself to be surrounded is now 
mel-ely academic. It belongs to the past. But discussion 
as to "how valuable the presence of a considerable force 
upon the Tigris still is, and of what great effects it may 
Kad to, is not academic at all, but of high practical 
importance. _ , „ . 
As to the moral or political effect in the East followmg 
upon the loss of one division, that is for others to 
determine. It can only be judged by men who have a 
personal acquaintance with a matter which is not in its 
essence mihtary, but purely political. 
SITUATION ON THE VERDUN SECTOR 
The present lull in the operations before Verdun has 
lasted longer than anj' similar interval since those opera- 
tions began. 
The last considerable effort of the enemy was made nine 
days ago. Before that he had allowed seven full days to 
pass between the very extensive assault of Sunday, Ajjril 
()th, which was made upon a front of nine miles, and died 
out in the following two days. These seven days were 
the largest interval of inactivitj' he had yet allowed his 
infantry to have. 
It has been conjectured from this gradually extending 
series of spaces between each of his considerable expendi- 
tures of men that the enemy's attack upon this sector which 
had already proved so immensely costly and had hitherto 
arrived at no military result at all, was being allowed to 
die out. 
It is impossible to decide upon the only evidence 
publicly available in London, whether this is the case or 
no. 
The decisive evidence in the matter is the present nature 
of the bombardment. 
If he is no longer delivering shell from the 380's and 
420's, then it is reasonable to conjecture that the increasing 
intervals of inactivity are accounted for by his moving 
of these big pieces, and presumably his moving of them 
westward. 
It is true that the Woevre is drying up and he can. if 
he likes, deliver attacks with comparatively large bodies 
u])on the south-eastern end of the salient, between Fresnes 
and St. Miliiel. But all that is under observation from 
the heights of the Meuse. He would seem to have a better 
chance of doing something effective if he pressed the other 
end of the salient, the north-western end near the Argonne; 
and it has already been pointed out in these columns that 
he has there ample cover under which to concentrate, and 
on the whole, better results to expect from an advance. 
If he is still delivering shell of the two high calibres 
mentioned, and from the same emplacements west of Spin- 
court, where he tied down his big pieces (which he can 
only move by rail) early in January, then the successively 
increasing periods of inactivity would point to his gradual 
abandonment of an enterprise he has found to be fruitless. 
The other pieces — up to the 305's — he can move in some 
few days and by road ; but the big pieces abo\'c 305 — 
the 380's and 42o's* — are the test. Whether he is wise to 
tie himself up thus with such masses of metal and whether 
the results, against field works, is worth their immobility, 
is another matter. But certainly the evidence of what the 
biggest pieces are doing, whether they are still firing, and 
if so, from where, would be decisive. Lacking evidence 
upon that point, we can not only come to no conclusion, 
but we cannot even make any reasonable conjecture upon 
his future movements. 
Meanwhile, it may be worth while to point out the 
errors underlying certain suppositions which have ap- 
])eared in the Press, and which I have also found in the 
letter of several correspondents addressed to me during 
the last few weeks. 
The first, and most important error .would seem to be 
that connected with the supposed object of the enemy to 
exhaust the French by his attacks. 
More than one correspondent has suggested to me that 
this enormous expenditure of men has been thought 
worth while by the enemy because it would gradually 
wear down French resistance — would exhaust Frencli 
numbers. 
As I see the matter this conjecture is based upon a 
complete misapprehension of the numerical standing of 
the two opponents. It is based upon a vague idea that 
the enemy has much larger reserves of men, and can 
therefore better afford to waste them, and it is based 
upon the conception that such an offensive as the enemy 
has maintained for two months is no more expensive 
to him than to the French, If we examine the most 
*Thcsc calibres are of course in millimetres, to reduce to inches 
(roughly) multiply by 4 and shift the decimal, c,g., 305— I2j in.., 
42O=l0'S in., etc. 
