LAND iS: WATER 
March 15, lyj-/ 
Battle of the Diala and Bagdad 
By Hilairc Belloc 
BAGDAD has a political iiiipoiiuniv wliirh ivciy- 
bddy recognises, and which WDuld make the 
permanent occnpation of it thronj^'iiont the 
remainder of the war the most important of all 
secondary operations. 
It would not, of course, be in any way decisive. The 
Turkish armies might abandon the whole of Asia west 
of the jqlh degree of longitude, that is, all Armenia and 
all Persia and Mesopotamia, and be only slrci/cgically 
the stronger for such a withdrawal, liut that with- 
drawal will not take place ; on the contrary, the menace 
to the extreme east of the Turkish Empire will continue 
to draw troops there, because we are not, in the case of 
that Empire, lighting a homogeneous nation, nor even a 
centralised polity. The political factor — the belief that 
the existing government can " make good " — counts 
very heavily indeed in the general strength of this one 
among the several Allies opposed to us, and if the 
Young Turkish oligarchy at Constantinople cannot hold 
Mesopotamia and loses all hope of influencing Persia 
during the rest of the war, it will be grievously sliaken. 
Apart ironi this powerful political i imsideration, or at 
least only indirectly connected with it, the advance up the 
Mesopotamian I^lain ujion Bagdad had a strong 
strategical reason to warrant it. 
The Turkish Empire had last autunm fifty divisions 
organised and in the lield. 
They were certainly not at full strength and some of 
them had been so depleted (so far as our information 
goes), that a reorganisation was neccssajy somewhere 
about November last. After this reorganisation the 
number of divisions in active use was reduced to 47. 
We may then, I think, fairly safely say that this 
member of the Alliance against us is still working with 
about 47 divisions, very few of which are up to full 
strength. 
But it so happens that in this war tliese forces ha\e 
to be dispersed in the most awkward fashion, and some 
of them at the end of exceedingly long and diflicult 
communications. 
There are two divisions in Galicia (the XVth Corps) ; 
perhaps three upon either side of the Danube ; at least 
jif lao !oo 3CO *c-7 ^Bo eca 7aa Ax? soo taoo 
^ilos 
Sketch showing wcde 
dLSpersCati oftrlier 
Seven Turkish Tronts 
hamoaan. 
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