MESOPOTAMIA.

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 3277, 27 June 1917, Page 4

MESOPOTAMIA.

COSSACKS' RIDE FROM

HAMADAN

DRAMATIC JUNCTION WITH THE BRITISH FORCES.

i t'.y Edmund -Chandler, special representative with fho Expeditionary Eoreo in Mesopotamia.)

Kizil Robat, April 2. Via Bagdad and Basra. At noon to-day wo mot the Russians iit Kizil Robat.

The officer commanding our column seeing their cavalry wilh the blue ami ■a hit© pennant, called up the Indian Lancers, who pushed forward, wheeled into line, saluted, and turned back, bringing the Russians into ci'inp. Our allies had a hard task from Hamadaii- through an inhospiti'.blo country, over snow passes trodden into tho consistency of ico, down into tho burning heat of ravines, they pressed hard on the heels of the the Turk.

. The country between Kermanshah and Khanikin is an uninhabited waste. Seven armies havo passed lb rough it in ten months. Villages are abandoned, and supplies do not exist even in the districts which are least exhausted. The two armies were dependent on a country that could barely support a brigade Many Turks fell from exhaustion, and the cemeteries of every village shows signs of new graves. Nearly 2000 were counted at Kermanshah alone. -

The Cossack horses were fed on dry leaves and shrubs. There was no grain, and .the troopers had been reduced to two chappaties a day.

At lunch we drank the health of the Russian army. A motor convoy brought in bully-beef rations, biscuits, jam and dates for tho Cossack squadron. Tho Cossacks, , a hard, weather-beaten, cheery crowd, wore soon fraternising with our troops. They ride with short stirrups, tees down, heels up, leaning forward, their weight-thrown on tho stirrups. They wore jack-boots and sheepskin caps. Besides their rifles they carried knives and curved Caucasian scimitars without hand guards. They came in at a walk, their small horses, which mostly are under fourteen hands, being heavily laden and looking thin and spent. They had crossed the Persian frontier at Kashrishirin and bivouacked last night ten miles north-east of Kizil Robat. Their casualties during the whole inarch from Ha madam wero not heavy.

Persia is now clear of the Turks, and there are no enemy troops this side of the Diala river.