Letters from Mesopotamia Part 8

_P.S._ I have just seen your appeal in the _Hampshire Herald_ for 500 for a motor ambulance boat, in which you say the Red Cross have already sent us two such boats. All I can say is that n.o.body in this regiment has ever seen or heard of these boats: and they certainly have not been used for transporting sick and wounded either from Nasiriyah or from Kut. If they were in Mesopotamia at all, it is incredible that we shouldn't have heard of them.

AMARAH.

_October_ 22, 1915.

TO L.R.

I don't think there is any likelihood of Luly's coming here. For one thing our battalion 1/6th is too weak to afford another draft at present; and even if it sent one there are many officers who would be asked before Luly. As a matter of fact we have just heard we 1/4th are getting large reinforcements from our proper resources, _viz._ 250 from 2/4th at Quetta and 50 from those invalided in the hot weather.

Your letter of September 5th arrived well after that of September 22nd.

I'm glad the ---- are optimistic: if Belgians can be we should be able to. But I can't help feeling the Government is lamentably weak and wanting in leadership: the policy of keeping the nation in the dark seems to me to be insane.

There is no news to report here. We still do very little work, but the weather is quite pleasant. I am very well.

There is not much to do. The country is very dull for walking and riding.

The birds here are very few compared to those in India. On the river there are pied Kingfishers. On the flooded land and especially on the mud-flats round it there are large numbers of sandpipers, Kentish and ringed plovers, stints and stilts, terns and gulls, ducks and teal, egrets and cranes: but as there is not a blade of vegetation within a mile of them there are no facilities for observation, still less for shooting.

There are several buzzards and falcons and a few kites, but vultures are conspicuous by their absence. There are no snakes or crocodiles either. Scavenging is left to dogs and jackals; and there is a hooded crow, not very abundant, which is peculiar to this country, having white where the European and Eastern Asiatic species have grey--a handsome bird. In the river there are a few sharks and a great abundance of a carp-like fish which runs up to a very large size. The Quartermaster can buy two 70lb. fish every morning for the men's breakfasts, and has been offered one of 120lb.

AMARAH,

_October_ 31, 1915.

TO N.B.

I do hope your "fifty submarines" is true. I shan't think much of you if you can't get official confirmation from Cousin Arthur: but if he is impenetrably discreet, you might at least get him to explain--or pa.s.s it on to me if you know already--what conceivable harm it could do if we published the bare numbers of submarines "accounted for"

without any particulars of when, where, or how.

As for this campaign it is the old story of the Empire repeating itself. When it began they only meant to secure the oil-pipe and protect British interests at Basra. But they found to their great surprise that you can't stay comfortably on the lower waters of a great river with an enemy above you any more than you could live in a flat with the lodger above continually threatening your life. A river like the Tigris or Euphrates is a unit, and the power which occupies its mouth will inevitably be drawn to its source unless it meets the boundaries of a strong and civilised state on the way. Turkey will be neither after the war.

What has happened so far?

[Sidenote: Dec.-Jan.]

We occupied the Shattal-Arab as far as Kurnah. We sat still. The Turks, based on Nasiriyah attacked us and nearly recaptured Basra.

[Sidenote: April]

We beat them at Shaiba, and for safety's sake had to push them from their base.

[Sidenote: May]

Then the double advance to Amarah and Nasiriyah.

[Sidenote: July]

We pushed the Turks out, and they promptly reformed at Kut and prepared to threaten us again. So we pushed forward again and beat them at Kut.

[Sidenote: September]

Now they have reformed at a point, only twenty miles from ----, their present base. We shall go for them there no doubt, and push them back once more. But what does it all lead to? Imagine peace restored. What will Turkey be like? She will be bankrupt, chaotic, totally incapable of keeping order among these murderous Bedouins. The country would be a second Persia under her. Persia is intolerable enough for the Europeans who trade there at present: but the plight of this country might easily be worse. We are bound to control the bit from Basra to the sea to protect existing interests. The whole future of that area--as of all Mesopotamia--depends on a scientific scheme of drainage and irrigation. At present half the country is marsh and half desert. Why? Because under Turkish rule the river is never dredged, the banks are never repaired, stray Arabs can cut haphazard ca.n.a.ls and leave them to form marshes, and so on. Now an irrigation and drainage scheme is vitally necessary, but (1) it involves a large outlay; (2) to be effective it must start a long way up-stream; (3) there must be security for the good government _not only_ of the area included in the scheme, but of the whole course of the river above it. These Asiatic rivers are tricky things: they run for hundreds of miles through alluvial plains which are as flat as your hand. Here at Amarah, 200 miles from the mouth of the Tigris, we are only 28ft.

above sea-level. Consequently the river's course is very easily altered. Look at Stanford's map of this region and see how the Euphrates has lost itself between Nasiriyah and Basra--"old channel,"

"new channel," creeks, marshes, lakes, flood-areas and so on; the place is a nightmare. That kind of thing is liable to happen anywhere if the river is neglected. So that our schemes for Lower Mesopotamia might be spoilt by the indolence of those in possession higher up the river: let alone the security of the trade-routes which would be at the mercy of wild Arabs if Turkey collapses.

All this inclines me more and more to believe that we shall be forced, sooner or later, to occupy the whole Mesopotamian plain as far as Mosul or to whatever point is the southern limit of Russian control.

At first I favoured a "neutral zone" from Mosul to Kut, and I shouldn't be surprised if that plan still finds favour at home. But frankly I see no prospect of a strong enough Government to make the neutral zone workable; on the contrary everything points to the absorption of the Persian neutral zone by either us or Russia, probably us.

I am still a Captain, but no longer a Coy. Commander. A large draft from India has arrived, 11 officers and 319 men from 1/4th and 2/4th, invalids returned. I am now second in command of a Coy. of respectable size.

AMARAH.

_October_ 10, 1915.

TO HIS FATHER.

I agree with most of your reflections about the moral justification of war. War is an evil, because it is the product of sin and involves more sin and much suffering. But that does not mean it is necessarily wrong to fight. Once evil is at work, one of its chief results is to leave good people only a choice of evils, wherein the lesser evil becomes a duty. I'm not prepared to say we've been wholly guiltless in the whole series of events which produced this war: but in the situation of July, 1914, produced as it was by various sinful acts, I am quite sure it was our duty to fight, and that it is our duty to fight on till German militarism is crushed. And I certainly can't believe we ought not to have made such a treaty with Belgium as we did. You've got to face the fact that the spirit which produces war is still dominant. Fight that spirit by all means: but while it exists don't suppose your own duty is merely to keep out of wars. That seems to me a very selfish and narrow view. As for our Lord in a bayonet charge, one doesn't easily imagine it: but that is because it is inconsistent with His mission, rather than His character. I can't imagine a Christian _enjoying_ either a bayonet charge, or hanging a criminal, or overthrowing the tables of a money-changer, or any other form of violent retribution.

Your sight of the Zeppelin must have been thrilling. You don't make it clear whether it was by day or night. I am curious to see if my next batch of _Times_ will mention it. Clearly it is very hard to damage Zs. by gun-fire: but I don't understand quite why our aeroplanes can't do more against them. Do they get right back to Germany before daylight?

I have been out shooting three times this week, with Patmore of 1/7th Hants, and we got three partridges, six partridges and seven doves respectively. The partridges are big black ones, as large as young grouse, and very good to eat: but they will soon be extinct here as we are operating much in the same way as "the officers" do at Blackmoor.

The doves were reported as sand-grouse, and certainly come flighting in from the desert very much in the s.-g. manner: but they are very like turtle doves when shot.

On our way home after the first shoot, I saw a falcon catch a swallow on the wing. It had missed one and we were watching it. It flew straight and rather fast past us, just within shot, fairly high. A swallow came sailing at full speed from the opposite direction and would have pa.s.sed above and to the right of the falcon, and about 6ft.

from it. The latter took no notice of it till the crucial moment, when it swerved and darted upwards, exactly as a swallow itself does after flies, and caught the swallow neatly in its talons. It then proceeded on its way so calmly that if you had taken your eye off it for 1/5th second you wouldn't have known it had deviated from its course. It then planed down and settled about 400 yards away on the ground.

I have written to Top such details of the Kut battle as I could gather from eye-witness: but I don't think it forms a reliable account, and you will probably find the official version rather different, when it comes out. Anyway it appears to be beyond doubt now that we mean to push on to Baghdad, in spite of your _Beatus possidens_. It was only lack of water and the exhaustion of the troops which prevented a much larger haul this time: and now they are concentrating against the next position, 90 miles further north. We hear again on good authority that 8,000 reinforcements are coming out. They will certainly be needed if we are to hold Baghdad. It seems to me a very rash adventure: especially as Bulgaria's intervention may enable the Turks to send an Army Corps down to Baghdad, in which case we should certainly have to retire.

AMARAH.

_All Saints_, 1915.

TO R.K.

Your letters have been so splendidly regular that I'm afraid a gap of three weeks may mean you've been ill: but I can't be surprised at anyone at home breaking down under the constant strain of nearness and frequent news. Mesopotamia and a bi-weekly Reuter are certainly efficient sedatives; and the most harrowing crisis of the Russian armies is only rescued from the commonplace by its unintelligibility.