RELIEVING FORCE ADVANCES ON KUT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 66, 17 March 1916, Page 5

RELIEVING FORCE ADVANCES ON KUT.

ENEMY TURNED OUT OF ADVANCED POSITION.

LONDON, March 16.

It is officially -stated that General Sir Percy Lake, commander of the British operations in Mesopotamia, turned the enemy out of an advanced position on the Tigris.

The British infantry assaulted the position on the morning of March 11, and bayoneted a considerable number of Turks, of whom 50 were captured. The British then withdrew. .

It is now fifteen weeks since General Townshend was hemmed in at Kut-el-Amara, and 48 days since General Aylmer began the march to his relief. The Tigris expedition was launched by the Indian Army, and was intended as a swift blow; at the vitals of the Turks, drawing some of their strength from the Dardanelles and the Caucasus and teaching them the length of the Empire's arm. When we became committed to the expedition we' found that it was more than the Indian Army could do. We were called upon for reinforcements. Jiitchener had to find draughts- from Egypt, from England, even from France.

For nearly eight months Lieutenant-General C V. F. Townshend fougEt forward along the Tigris banks, meeting Turkish forces here and there, never decisively defeating them, always driving them before him to new defences. We passed over ground "where men fought many centuries ago, where the garden of Eden has been located by some archaeologists. "If this was the garden of Eden," wrote one officer to the "Times," "then Adam was lucky in getting out of. it."

By the time General Townshend reached Kut-el-Amara. within striking distance of Bagdad, be was reduced to a little more than a division in strength. General Sir John Nixon, Commander-in-Chief of the expedition, was down the river at the main baee, with which telegraphic wires had been laid. The order went that General Townshend was to advance to Bagdad. Who decided upon that command, or why the decision was made to challenge the Turkish Empire with a force brought up to only little more than a full division, are not known.

Townshend met the Turks in full strength at Ctesiphon. He won the battle, storming strong defences over pitiless open plains. Four times he himself went into the desperate fray, leading-his men in charges.. He fought as fiercely as any of the tine soldiers which that day put to night six times their number of good fighting men. The men rallied round him, at times when the ebb went against them and all seemed lost. By nightfall the Turks had been driven from their stronghold, and the day belonged to these intrepid Britons.

The cost of Ctesiphon was more than Towashend's army could bear. More than one-third of his strength lay on the ground when night fell. It had conquered, but farther advance was unthinkable. Moreover, the enemy was being reinforced. He had lured us on to Bagdad just as we had lured yon Spec on to the Falklands. General Townshend estimated that, in round numbers, 280,000 Turks and Arabian fighting men were concentrated for the defence of Bagdad, and that we walked gamely but with disastrous resulte, into a trap. He evacuated his wounded, fought off the Turks while he got his prisoners away down the river, and began his historic retreat. That long march back to Kut is one of the great achievements of the war. When Kut was sighted the infantry was too tired to step another yard. A halt had to be called, and an action fought. Only the remnants of the force got back to their old defences in the Kut peninsula on the Tigris, and it is estimated that they have been further reduced now by sickness and the perpetual fighting in defensive positions to a little more than 3,000 men.

Britain is doing everything possible, but when General Aylmer, at the end of January, met the Turks in great foroe 23 miles east of Kut, and lost so heavily that he had to ask for an armistice to bury his dead, hope of saving General Townshend eeemed to go.

The Turks are now in many thousands, entrenched strongly ih this position. Attacks upon it must be made over open ground, swept by bullets, commanded by the Turkish artillery. After that has been stormed we must take the still stronger Es Sin defences seven miles east of Kut—great walls extending several miles on emeh aide of the river, and prepared for defence by Gorman officers. We have not sufficient strength for this, unless every British and Indian bf" , "— on toil great day of attack a eupetmaa.