PROBLEM OF THE TIGRIS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15488, 15 January 1916, Page 7

PROBLEM OF THE TIGRIS.

HOW TO MAINTAIN TOUCH WlfH TOWNSHEND.

A NEW ZEALANDER FROM LOWER MESOPOTAMIA. (Specially contributed to '"The Press. ) Not so many years ago a British India Steamship Company's steamer left Bombay for a destination unknown. The presence of two distinguished personages in her company, if it was noted by anyone at the port of departure, may have aroused conjecture; but either it passed unnoticed, or Bombay -was at a loss to explain it. So was everybody on the steamer except perhaps those highest in au ~ thority. But it soon became patent to all on board that they were engaged in some sort of race. At a speed of 19 knots the steamer ploughed her way across the Arabian Sea, and in due course steamed into the Persian Gulf, and dropped anchor off the port of Koweyt. The two distinguished personages went ashore. There was some talk -with the Sheikh of Koweyt, and after the lapse of about an hour the Union Jack fluttered to the top of a flagpole ashore, the first outward and visible sign that Koweyt had just become a British Protectorate. i Half an hour later a North German liner arrived off Koweyt, after her a naval cruiser belonging to the Indian Government. The German liner had beaten the cruiser, but the British India steamer had beaten both. WINNERS OF THE RACE. The two distinguished personages were Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, and Lord Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army. They had arrived in time, and their mission to Koweyt had succeeded. They had forestalled a German mission to the Sheikh of Koweyt. Having been successful, they returned in State in the Indian Government cruiser. Otherwise, they would have returned in the British India steamer —mere private persons who had been on a jaunt to the Persian Gulf.

There was recently in Wellington a mariner who was an officer at the time on that British India steamer, and who saw the whole .of the proceedings. "It was," he comments, "the wisest thing Britain ever did in the Persian Gulf. "Lord Curzon and Jjord Kitchener worked together—perhaps for the only time. Koweyt is the natural terminus of the Bagdad railway. It is the nearest sheltered port to the mouth of the great river down which, the Bagdad railway will come."

The race for Koweyt is typical of German-British rivalry in the Persian Gulf. There was a similar German effort, also fruitless, to displace tho British at Bahrein. At Dubai Britain has established herself, and outside the Gulf at Muscat; and on the Persian shore of the Gulf there have been frequent brushes with the tribesmen. Hie outbreak of tho present war was rapidly followed by the despatch of an Anglo-Indian forco to the head of tho Gulf, not only to secure Koweyt, but also to seizo the lower river and to protect tho pipeline to th.e Persian oil springs, w THE EUPHRATES-TIGRIS LOW COUNTRY. Let it be explained that' tho lower river is the Shat-el-Arab, which is formed by the junction of the .Tigris and the Euphrates. Th© Shat-el-Axab, approaching the Gulf, forms a delta, and shifting sands cause tho channels to alter , a good deal, increasing the difficulties of navigation. Tho principal river-port is Basra, which is some fifty,miles from the sea, but tidal. Higher up tho Shat-el-Arab, at the forrper junction point, is Kurna. (Note: Kurna was the place of confluence for five or six. centuries, but in 1908-09 tho Euphrates formed a new channel, and now joins the Tigris at Garmat Ali, some thirty miles below Kurna). Following up the Tigris from Kurna are Amara, Kut-el-Amara, and Bagdad. If, instead of following the Tigris, the traveller proceeds up the Euphrates, he reaches Nas try eh. So low is the country between these two historic rivers, that there is a waterway from the Tigris at Kut-el-Amara to the Euphrates near Nasiryeh. It should be added, as a sort of side-issue, that, between the sea and Basra, a Persian tributary, the Karun, joins the Shat-el-Arab. On me eastern side of the Karun is laid the Anglo-Porsian Oil Company's pipe-line, tapping the Persian oil springs ' that help to supply the British Navy. Nearby, on the Karun, is Ahwaz, and the force that was detached from the Anglo-Indian Mesopotamia Expedition to protect the pipe-line is sometimes called tho Ahwaz Expedition.

The minimum programme in the Persiah Gulf would have been to secure Koweyt, seize and hold Basra, and hold the Karun and Aliwaz in order to protect the pipe-line. Basra was occupied in November. 1914, after the defeat of 4500 Turks. By degrees, however, the expedition, reaching out to dislodge bodies of the enemy, penetrated farther and farther inland. It occupied Kurna. then Nasiryeh Con the Euphrates), later Amara and Kut-el-Amara (on the Tigris). It was defeated by the Turks at Ctesiphon, in front of the Tigris city of Bagdad, ancient and once powerful. and it then retreated to Kut-el-Amara. Kut is a common term for a walled village. "Koweyt" is really "Kuwet," a diminutive form of Kut. This geoeraphical detail is by way of explanation. A WALLED RIVER, AND ITS . RISKS. The question is whether the further retreat, by way of the Tigris, of the Anglo-Indian force; is practicable? From an experience of several years of river trading pi that country, the officer referred to above—a New Zealander by birth—is able to give some useful practical information. He says that, by working the tides, ships of SOOO to 10,000 tons, drawing 25ft can ply to Basra. Bagdad is hundreds of miles higher up than Basra, but the river is affected by tidal influences, and by working the tides boats drawing up to 10ft can find their way even to Bagdad. (The German scheme was. tentatively at any rate, to carry the Bagdad railway down the river to Basra, connecting up there with tho larger steamers; but Koweyt would have served their purpose much-better.) In normal conditions, therefore, the British force operating against Bagdad could be supported- bv steamers with Bft or 10ft draught and a tonnage of about 1200. But normal conditions include an artificial system of riparian conservation, under which the river is walled in. Even when the river is not flooded, it is maintained by the walls at a height some two or three feet above .the level of the surrounding country. Breaching of the walls would spread the waters over a wide area, and the channel would be lost to navigators. This is the dan- j ger of which the New Zealander, from his experience of the country is most apprehensive. He thinks that the Turks j in this way might strike at the AngloIndian communications, and isolate the forces on the Tigris. IRRITATED VILLAGERS. Picture hundreds of miles of river, fringed with date palms over a strip

averaging in depth about a mile and a-half. Within this the soil is fertilised by irrigation, and is almost exclusively devoted to dates. Beyond the reach of the irrigation works it is waste country, and mostly desert. Even to tho historic Garden of Eden (in the angle formed by the Tigris and the Euphrates) this remark applies. From the apparently peaceful hamlets on the fertile banks of the river suddenly ring out shots aimed at the passing steamer. "Yes," says the New Zealander. "the villagers sometimes annoyed us a good deal. But then we annoyed them a good deal. The wash that a steamer makes, going at a good speed, is enough to send river water over walls, and to flood villages, and to irrigate plantations that at tho moment do not need irrigation. At points on the river are notices of speed-limit, but we did not see them when we had mails aboard. So the villager sometimes goes out and shoots."

A climate which shows in the daytime a temperature of 115 to 120 degrees. followed "by a frost that night, is rather trying* to strangers. Yet that is among the experiences of the Tigris. But the only prevailing sickness of which the New Zealander heard much was a certain breaking out in boils. At the change of seasons the natives are liable to this affection, which, according to a current legend, has its origin in the plagues of the time of Pharaoh. How the seed was transplanted from the valley of the Nile to that of the Euphrates and Tigris is not explained. REPULSE Oh TURK RAID INTO .PERSIA. Notwithstanding the occasional bullets mentioned above, the New Zealander {jives the prize for treachery not to the river-dwellers, but to the natives of the Persian coast of the Gulf. The Persian operations of the British expedition are rendered necessary by the afore-mentioned oil pipe-line that rups in the valley of the Karun. The Karun joins the Shat-el-Arab at Mohammerah, and the oil springs lie about 100 miles (as tho crow flies) inland of the point of confluence. The pipe-line from the oil springs touches Ahwaz (on the Karun) and then travels generally down the valley of the Karun to the Shat-el-Arab. Early last year 12,000 Turks and Arabs, concentrated in the Tigris Valley, crossed the Persian frontier and attacked Ahwaz, but were repulsed, with nearly 1000 casualties, by the British garrison. It was on the Karun that the Persian Government's 30 h.p. gunboat used to patrol. She was one of the main units of the Persian Navy. The Sheikh of Mohammernh. like the Sheikh of Koweyt, is pro-British, and owns two old pieces of cannon that exchange salute- with the passing British India steamers.

In flood time the Tigris becomes at places an inland sea, rendering navigation pxtremely difficult and uncertain. By breaking the walls the Turks could anticipate these conditions in considerable degree; and, in any case, the rainy season is now at hand, and tho Tigris may continue high till June, or even later. Tho British force at Kut is dependent for its communications on hundreds of miles of this sort of riverway, passing through hostile country. The Russian forces, either in Persia or in the Caucasus, are remote. The question is whether Bagdad was worth the risk.