March 15, 1917 
LAND &■■ WATER 
one upon the Macedonian front, and an unknown number 
kept between that front and the capital in Europe. In 
Asia there are no less than four fronts, including, as to 
two of them, a very large number of separate posts. 
Ther^ is the Armenian front ; the Syrian front ; the 
Persian front, and the Mesopotamian, or the Irak front, 
as the enemy calls it. 
I. — The Armenian front faced by considerable Russian 
forces, and having suffered the loss of Trebizond, its 
main port, and Erzerum, its original main depot and 
l)ase of action, extends for some 300 miles in a chain 
across very difficult moimtainous country from the 
Black Sea to the south of Lake Van. It is now based 
upon Sfvas, 200 miles west of Erzerum, and occupies two 
whole armies, the 2nd and the 3rd Turkish. This new 
base has been, according to Russian accounts, recently 
fortified very heavily. It is to be presumed that the 
railhead which a year ago was at Angora (yet another 
200 miles behind Sivas) has now come nearer to the latter 
town, but there can, as yet, be no complete railway 
communication. 
II. — The front in Persia, though occupying com- 
paratively small separate bodies, necessitates the use of 
a number of those bodies. There was until lately a 
Turkish body at Sihna, I believe, and smaller ones 
further north. Tlie main body was pushed forward as 
far as Hamadan on the only road which exists in all this 
region, which road I propose to describe in detail. In 
the mountain regions to the south of this road there were 
other small bodies watching. All this Persian front was 
based upon Bagdad for reasons which will appear when 
we discuss this road. 
There remains the Mesopotamian and the Syrian 
fronts^ which alone, are restricttJd and possess each of 
them a tolerable line of supply supporting a concealed 
force. The Mesopotamian front stood three weeks ago 
defending Kut. The Syrian front stood upon the 
frontiers of Egypt between the Dead Sea and the Mediter- 
ranean. 
in. — Furnishing the Syrian front was the railway 
wliich has been carried on to Beersheba, the present 
railhead, and surveyed and the track prepared (but the 
rails, I believe, not laid) for another fifty miles further. 
This front it has been necessary for the enemy to hold in 
some strength, both because it is severely threatened 
by the British advance from Egypt, and because there 
lies behind it the most valuable of the distant territories' 
of the Turkish Empire, the whole of the Levantine coast. 
The communications of this front suffer from the necessity 
of transhipment at a break of gauge in the railway, but are 
sufficient to maintain a large body of troops, having upon 
them considerable food-producing districts. 
IV. The Mesopotamian front was supported by com- 
munications often described in these columns : First a 
railway with through communication from the Bosphorus, 
going at least as far as Nisibin, interrupted in the Taurus 
mountains (though the interruption is supplied by an 
excellent motor road) continued beyond Nisibin to the 
Tigris at Mosul by motor traffic, and from Mosul down 
to Tekrit (it is believed) by land water transport down 
the Tigris. At Tekrit or possibly higher up tlae stream 
at the present moment, comes the railhead from Bagdad 
itself ; while from Bagdad to Kut the enemy was again 
dependent upon water traffic and travel along the track 
over land alongside the river. 
Over and above these widely separated fronts with 
their insufficient communications there was the 
necessity of using troops against the Arabs in revolt 
at Mecca. It is believed that the number of the troops 
detached in this quarter is at the least the equivalent of^ 
one division, if not more. 
The breaking of the Mesopotamian front at Kut 
resulting, last Sunday, in the occupation of Bagdad, 
is the leading operation against the Turks of this season 
and has already begun to affect immediately another 
front, the Persian, which is of necessity, as we have said, 
based upon Bagdad. This success must further re- 
act in the near future upon the Syrian front and even 
upon the Armenian. For the Mesopotamian front has 
been so thoroughly broken that a war of movement 
has been restored ; a war of movement which has been 
most vigorously prosecuted for more chan a fortnight . 
and bids fair to continue. 
It was upon the 24th of February that the British 
took possession of Kut. The Turkish forces retreated 
before them with the utmost rapidity, by forced marches 
of nearly 20 miles a day, and left masses of material, 
something like 40 guns, and thousands of prisoners 
behind in its breakdown. By the 7th of March, that is, 
last \\'ednesday, the British cavalry following up the 
Turkish retirement had reached the last obstacle in front 
of Bagdad, at a distance of 100 miles from Kut. This 
last obstacle is the river Diala, a stream perhaps a hundred 
yards broad at this season, which, at its nearest point 
is not more than eight hiiles from Bagdad, and, at the 
point where it falls into the Tigris, only quite a short day's 
march from the city. 
On the evening of last Wednesday, March, 7th, the 
British cavalry, pressing on in front of the army and 
closely following the precipitate Turkish retirement, 
were in the immediate neighbourhood of the Diala. 
On the morning of Thursday, March 8th, in very bad 
weather with high gales and dust storms these mounted 
forces reconnoitred the obstacle and discovered that the 
further bank was held in considerable force by the 
enemy. 
The situation at that moment will be best understood 
by referring to Map II. on the next page, which shows 
upon a large scale the nature of the battlefield. 
T^he battlefield upon which the fate of Bagdad turned 
is made up of the following main features : 
There is, first of all, the town itself, which, for the 
tactical consideration of such a matter must be regarded 
principally as an obstacle upon the line of retreat should 
the enemy be forced from the defensive position he had 
taken up. 
Bagdad is built upon both sides of the Tigris, which is 
here about 300 yards broad — that is, more than half but 
not three-quarters of the breadth of the Thames at 
Westminster bridge. The streets on both sides of the river 
are a maze of very narrow ways through which it would 
be impossible to withdraw any considerable force in rapid 
retirement. Such a retirement, therefore, were it pressed, 
would liave to fall back upon either side of the city or 
stand prepared to lose great numbers in the crush 
caused bj' the obstacle through which a retirement was 
conducted. Further, there was not an indefinite choice 
of ways by which to retire. The enemy could only fall 
back on one of two lines : either up the Tigris along his 
main line of communication or eastward to the Euphrates. 
If he falls up the Tigris he would be hampered if he elected 
to follow the left or eastern bank, for he would be delayed 
sooner or later by the necessity of crossing, the railway 
running almost entirely upon the other side. But it was 
precisely upon this left bank, where the Diala affords an 
obstacle, that he was preparing to offer the chief resist- 
ance. If he retired, in case of defeat, by the right bank, 
he had a passage two miles wide between the river and the 
sheet of water called Lake Akkar, which lies to the 
west of the city. Further, this last possible obstacle, the 
Diala was too close to the town to give much elbow room 
in case of things going against the defence. To that 
obstacle I alluded in my article last week when I said 
that the last line of defence in front of Bagdad was the 
Diala River, which falls into the Tigris at the village 
of Diala, and described its disadvantages, the necessity 
of artificial works on the further bank, etc. 
In peace the track from Kut crossed it, just above 
the mouth, by a bridge of boats about 100 yards long. ■ 
This bridge had, of course, been cut by the defence 
organised upon the further bank of the stream. Half 
way between Diala and Bagdad at Garada a bridgejof boats 
spans the Tigds leading to the western or right bank, 
and providing, therefore, one avenue of retreat other 
than the difficult one through the city. But we may 
suppose the enemy to have had plenty of opportunity for 
throwing more bridges of this kind across. Meanwhile, 
the two unknown factors in the whole position were 
first the strength in which the enemy could meet the 
British advance, and secondly, the power that advance 
might have to command the river and to act (as they 
did below at Kut) iipon both sides -of it indifferently. 
As to the first of these points, it was clear from the 
nature of the very rapid Turkish retreat after the loss of 
Kut and from the first stand at Sheik- Jsiad, and from the 
elaborate (but later abandoned) works at Ctesiphon, that 
the enemy's original plan was to hold soirie defensive 
position in front of Bagdad while awaiting — we know 
