May 4, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
MESOPOTAMIA 
The fall of Kut is the, political event of the hour. It 
is the loss of nearly 3,000 British troops, say one-tenth 
per cent, of the trained forces of Britain alone in the 
alliance. 
But the military event of that same hour is not the 
loss of this heroic little garrison but the situation now 
created for the Turks — and through them for the enemy 
as a whole — b}' their committal to the Mesopotamian 
position. 
As a purely militarj' subject of study the enemy's 
position in the Near East is one of the clearest and 
simplest the" war has afforded, and if it be possible to 
examine matters of such vital interest with sufficient 
detachment one can almost take, in those enemy positions, 
the same interest as in a mathematical proposition. 
Certain elements are of course rmknown. We are m 
doubt as to the exact strength of the enemy's various 
bodies and we have no published account of the strength 
available against them in the four fields of Armenia, the 
Persian mountains, the Tigris and Egypt, but we know 
enough of the enemy's strength and of that of the Allies 
to determine the main elements, and those main elements 
lead us to fairly definite conclusions. 
The key of the whole business is the geographical 
exception, made by the Tigris and Euphrates system, 
to the rest of the Turkish territory, coupled with the 
political importance to the Turkish Empire of that 
district. 
Supposing the enemy's interests to lie within Asia 
Minor and Syria alone, observe what would follow.- The 
whole stiTngth of the Turkish Empire now upon the 
defensive would be occupied in delaying, possibly in 
permanently checking, the Russian advance westward 
through Armenia. It would have to watch a compara- 
tively narrow front in Syria between the Mediterranean 
and the desert. It would be anxious, perhaps, with 
regard to its communications with Syria where they pass ■ 
close to the sea near the Gulf of Alexandretta. But the 
position would have for the enemy this great advantage 
of simplicity, and a defensive against the Russians still 
in the Armenian mountains would be the only great 
preoccupation of the Turkish command. 
The distant and eccentric Irak, the Mesopotamian 
field, essential to the present rulers of Turkey, who fear 
that with the loss of it their power of government may 
be destroyed, transforms the whole character of the 
war. 
You have as the essential mane ol the whole situation 
a dilemma between the defence of Asia Minor, and the 
retention of Irak with forces certainly not sufficient for 
the double task. You have not only a war upon two 
fronts (or, counting Syria, upon a possible three) but you 
have also one of those fronts so far thrust out beyond the 
Armenian theatre of operations that its communications 
are in ever growing peril. 
If the town of Bagdad and the vital interest it has 
for the Turkish power had stood further north and 
cast this dilemma would not have arisen. Standing 
where that town docs it will increase the present anxiety 
of the enemy's higher comir/and until he shall be com- 
pelled to decide whether he will retain Irak with some- 
thing like a certainty of military disaster, or whether he 
will abandon it with the political consequences which 
would follow such an abandonment. 
Consider what opportunities are open to the Turkish 
forces in these fields. They have in the first place to 
rely entirely upon their own resources. They may 
obtain a certain amount of munitionment from the 
Austro-Gcrman manufactories. Of men in any ap- 
preciable numbers they can get none save through their 
own recruitment. With forces now no longer superior 
to those converging against them, and about to become 
inferior, they have to prevent the cutting of the com- 
munications behind their Mesopotamian army or to 
withdraw that army. There is no alternative. 
It has been suggested that a concentration in strength 
in the INIesopotamian field alone, compelling the retire- 
ment of the British forces upon the Tigris further south 
would be a way out of the present Turkish dilemma. 
It would be nothing of the sort. So long as a large 
British force necessarily occupying the attention, and 
compelling the presence, of a large enemy force facing 
it, is present at any point between the Persian Gulf and 
the Armenian mountains — whether it is present further 
south after a retirement or further north after an advance 
— so long the Mesopotamian front with all its increasing 
dangers is the chief anxiety of the Turks. 
A concentration in such numbers that the British 
forces on the Tigris should be overwhelmed and should 
cease to exist would of course give immediate relief, but 
a concentration in such strength and with very imperfect 
communications alone available is impossible. 
The whole thing, therefore, resolves itself into this 
question. Can the enemy ward off the threat to his 
communications ? Supposing him strong enough, as he 
certainly still is and will probably long remain, to hold 
^*The (Jiaunumca&nsoffAs'MesDpofamian Tbras 
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