May 4, 1916 
L A N I) Sc W A T E R 
Russian or other, appeared at Jerablus ; but the whole 
theatre of the enemy's efforts in Mesopotamia and 
in Syria, his mihtary existence, as it were, beyond Asia 
Jlinor, is dependent upon his continued possession of 
Aleppo and its neighbouring junction. If he loses that 
region before retiring his armies in Syria and Mesopotamia 
are lost at the same time. If he retires before it be 
seized, he abandons Bagdad of course and Syria as well 
to the power of the Allies, and with such an abandonment 
the political position of the present government at Con- 
stantinoole could hardly be maintained. 
Now now near are we to the imperiUing in this fashion 
of the enemy's hold south and east of Asia Minor ? 
In order to answer that question we must set down 
the elements as here in Sketch II. 
His forces before Bagdad and within that base are held 
in place by the large British army on the Tigris, and a 
smaller Russian force coming down from the Persian 
mountains. His ability either to retire or munition 
himself while he remains thus held in the region of 
Bagdad is threatened in three ways. One of these 
threats is 'already in being, the other two are potential 
only and open to discussion. 
We can see on this little sketch map, Map II, the 
situation and proportion of the Allied force surrounding 
the theatre of operations of the Turks in Mesopotamia. 
The main Turkish army being in the region A, with its 
local base at Bagdad B, and its two main communications 
together with its communications down the Syrian coast 
converging at the nodal point X near Aleppo, pressure 
can be brought against him either (i) by the Russian 
force coming down from Bitlis marked (i) upon the 
Sketch, or (2) by a successful stroke against X from the 
sea at (2), or (3) by an army marching as Napoleon 
marched along the coast of the sea from Egypt at (3) 
supported by the naval power at our command and strik- 
ing at Syria. Of these three methods of imperiUing the 
enemy one is actually in being ; a Russian force is present 
between Bitlis and the Bagdad railway and is advancing 
south. The other two are merely potential. No stroke 
against the Aleppo region from the sea has been attempted 
as yet, nor any force gathered for delivering it, while the 
very large army in Egypt at. (3) has hitherto lain almost 
wholly on the defensive, partly because the threat of an 
invasion to Egypt was at one moment serious, involving 
the danger of losing the canal, partly because the forces 
at a point so central could be regarded as a great reserve 
which could be thrown towards any point north, east 
or south, including India, should such a necessity have 
arrived . 
Because 2 and 3 are potential only, and because the 
reasons for delay in both cases are necessarily known to 
the authorities and the higher command alone it is neither 
profitable nor perhaps wise to discuss them in any detail. 
It is enough to show the more obvious of the characters 
they present. But the threat of the Russians from 
the north is not only very much more real and imme- 
diate, but susceptible of more detailed discussion. 
A blow delivered from the sea against Aleppo would 
obviously settle the business at once. To deliver it upon 
the Gulf of Alexan.dretta has been suggested twenty times 
from as many quarters since Turkey entered the war. To 
deliver it south of the range of mountains covering 
Aleppo and a march upon that district from Latakia to 
Antioch would be equally decisive. The reasons against 
such an undertaking are, I repeat, not open to debate at 
this moment. But they are not conclusive. 
An advance into Syria from Egypt has the advantage 
that it involves none of the great losses and risks of a 
landing, no new base of supply, no new transport of 
troops, while the only strain it would put upon the 
already heavily burdened shipping of the Allies would be 
for the partial provision of the force from the side of the 
sea. To prevent its advance the enemy would be com- 
pelled to cover a belt across Southern Palestine of at 
least 60 miles and he would not thus cover Syria with less 
than 200,000 men. Were he to attempt to hold an 
entrenched line from the sea to the desert with a smaller 
number he would be broken. Were he to attempt to hold 
a shorter line he would be turned. 
The last opportunity, however, and the only one which 
is of immediate importance, because it is the only one in 
being, is the advance of the Russian force from the district 
of Lake Van on Bitlis southward against the com- 
munications of the Turkish army. \Ve do not know 
exactly where the heads of the Russian columns are, but 
we may conjecture that they are not yet arrived at the 
edge of the mountain land, or the point of Mejafarkyn, the 
ancient Martyropolis, which marks the beginning of the 
open country. When they have reached this point they 
will find a fairly good road, I beheve, for the remaining 
fifty miles to Diarbekr. 
Now the news that the Russians are at Diarbekr 
would be more important perhaps to the great war as a 
whole even than the preliminary news that they had taken 
Erzerum and Trebizond. It would mean that they were 
within striking distance— within a week's march— of the 
Bagdad railway, and of the main line of communications 
for the Mesopotamian army. It is possible that the 
alternative Euphrates route has already been partly 
organised, but we know with absolute certainty that not 
more than two months ago all the work connecting the 
Turkish Mesopotamian force with Asia Minor, Constanti- 
nople and Europe was passing through Ras el Ain, 
Nisibin and Mosul. There has hardly been time to 
establish an efficiently working alternative line of com- 
munications further west. 
This does not mean that the Russians at Diarbekr 
are equivalent to the doom of the Turks near Bagdad. 
The Turkish army in that region has certainly ample 
provision for a retirement, it could and would retire by 
the west to the Euphrates certainly, and probably beyonS, 
the Euphrates by the tracks across the desert to Syria. 
Though the Russians at Diarbekr might be on the 
Bagdad railway in a week they would not be within the 
region of Aleppo, even by an uninterrupted march, for 
a month (for the railway obviously would be destroyed 
as the Turkish communications guards on it fell back). 
In point of fact a month would be a ridiculously small 
interval to allow, for the Russian advance would be con- 
tested 'and would meet, before it could threaten the 
Syrian line of communication, the serious obstacle of the 
Euphrates. But the Russians at Diarbekr would be 
equivalent to a Turkish retirement from Mesopotamia, 
with all the political consequences following upon such a 
retirement. 
There is one more element in the problem, which has 
nothing to do with its topographical side, and is very 
serious. And that is the element of climate. The 
summer, which will render easy operations in Armenia 
and the Anatolian plateau to the west, and the advance 
down the slopes of the mountains towards the Meso- 
potamian plain, at the same time renders military action 
by northern races such as the Russians and the' Britisl: 
in southern Syria and upon the Tigris and Euphrates 
abnormally diflicult. The exact value of that facto: 
will only be estimated in practice, but it must not b* 
forgotten. H. Beli.oc, 
The quaintly precise English of A Hermit Tiirnei Loose, 
by A. Kawabata (East and West, Ltd., 2s. 6d. net) is reminis- 
cent of Yoshio Markino's studies of ^\e5tern life. The author 
of this book set out to enlarge his mental outlook by travel, 
and his diary of experience in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and Eng- 
land is at once interesting and amusiiig, both by reason of the 
subject matter and the method of e>.pre.ssion. ' It is a capti- 
vating little book, and decidedly one to read, if only fur tlie 
novel view-points (to Western minds) that it discloses. 
