MARCH TO BAGDAD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17527, 10 July 1917, Page 6

MARCH TO BAGDAD.

GRAPHIC LETTERS FR'OM THE FIELD.

THE SHELL-FIRE AT KUT. Vivid descriptions of some phases of the operations leading to the occupation of Bagdad are contained in letters from Colonel Wall, C.M.G.,’ 1.M.5., who was A.D.M.S. with a mounted division in Mesopotamia. Colonel Wall lias been invalided and has returned to India since the capture of Bagdad, but his letters were written from the field. The first is from Near Kut,” and deals with some phases of the operations there.

“ Our bombardments of Kut and the trenches on this side of the Tigris,” he writes, "have been simply terrific the last few days, and we are so near in our present camp that we. can watch the whole of the performance. Within a few seconds of the start our concentration is so dense that our objective is enveloped in smoke. There are four main features that catch the eye. First a haze of dirty brownish smoke, which forms a dark ground for the rest. This is interrupted by dense columns of black smoke, or huge clouds of the same colour, representing shell bursts on the ground, and in tho course of a few seconds these melt away to produce the dirty brown mistiness first alluded to. The whole smoke scene is constantly changing as new columns ascend and others melt away. “ Above the skyline the whole cloud area is bespangled with intensely brilliant stellate flashes which stud the sky as thickly, as stars ou a clear night, but each flash is infinitely larger than the stars of the first magnitude. The blackness of the ntraosphero accentuates the brilliance of the flashes. Within a second of tho flash one' - sees a circular puff of pure white smoke, which enlarges and rolls away, assuming all sorts «nf fantastic shapes, until it gradually disappears. This represents the explosion of shrapnel shell, loaded with high explosive. As well as these oro many other similar puffs, quite black, and these, I believe, represent the Turkish shrapnel replying to ours. “ One can see all this in the day, but at night a Similar exhibition illuminates the whole sky, and one sees the columns of flash emanating from each gun. The noise is tremendous. There is a long drawn, sustained minor murmur, and this is broken by rapid bursts of sound of varying intensity, as rapid as .tho clicking of a telegraph machine.. You may imagine the guns wo have at our disposal, and also the amount of munitions we are able at) last to deliver into the Turkish positions.

“ After a wild storm of shell, lasting ten. fifteen or twenty minutes, or even half an hour, there ,is a lull during which we see nothing, but imagination can picture the rush of our men over the parapets and among the dazed occupants of the enemy trenches. “Sometimes even when out in tho field we get a message telling us any news specially good as a result of the bombardment. Some days there are three or fotir such bombardments, and in these day 9 we invariably make progress. We are giving the Turk now what ho gave our men a year back when we were trying to relieve Kut, and taking it in the neck badly. Reflection impresses one with the notion that it is the munition workers at Home that are making our operations successful now.'

“ Yesterday we had a splendid day. Wei" took the field on the western flank, leaving camp at 4.30 a.m. We watched the bombardment from about 8 a.m., which must have gone, on for about half an hour most furiously, and an hour after the lull our wireless brought the message that all our objectives had been gained. Another such bombardment, and if possible even greater, started at 4 p.m. We got back to camp at 1 a.m. this morning, to hear the good news that we had captured 1675 Turks. I have seen various batches to-day being marched off to the rear, officers too. and a more bedraggled lot it would be hard to imagine. “ About 4 p.m. yesterday heavy banks of cloud that had been gathering nil day began to rumble, and in a few minutes we were in a. deluge of rain, and it rained hard ali night, so you may imagine the condition of onr camp. The whole place was flooded. In parts there were pools 25 yards across; and the division, mind you, in bivouac! How anyone went to bed at all I can’t imagine. Tin’s is the twentieth day in bivouac. I have had my clothes off once, when I managed to get a bath, but the effect was such that I felt I had lost one entire lot of underclothing at least! Bath, I may tell, you, is a euphemism. The water employed to wet oneself is a coffee-coloured compound from the Shatt-el-Jlai. If allowed to stand tho makings of a good vegetable garden subsoil, and the process of ablution smears this over one’s body, so that one' feels decorated with wond, like an ancient Briton.

"It is a queer life this, half gipsy, half Bedouin, and there is the additional uncertainty which makes it impossible to forecast what the next hour may bring forth, day or night. However. I am fit up to this and want to remain so. I feel a good deal of the comic s’do to it all, and after all if one can keep fit there is more comedy than tvagedv so far as it affects myself/’ ROUT OF THE TURKS.

TRACKS STREWN WITH

MATERIAL.

AN' AMAZING CATALOGUE.

Writing again after the fall of Kut, Colonel Wall describes the pursuit of the Turks towards Bagdad. “ For many days before Kut fell,” he says, ‘ 1 we had been pushing home terrific bombardments at Sanna-i-Yat, at Kut and west of Kut, and alien we bridged the Tigris about five miles west of Kut. * Whilst, we were getting tho pontoons strung together troops rowed across in other pontoons, and at length the army began to pour over. The cavalry were the first to go over, with all their horses and horse batteries and supplies, and then the divisions of infantry, one after another. It has probably taken three or four days to get all over. The cavalry, being the most-, mobile unit, pushed up at once to harrv tho Turks, who were at first putting up fairly stiff rearguard actions to cover the retreat en masse. We had plenty to do, but in a day or two all opposition was ended and sauve qut pent seemed to he the Turks’ endeavour. We have now come to a stop to rest the men and horses. AVe got into camp at midnight and go off again at dawn. “ It has been most strenuous for • us, so vou may imagine .what it has been for‘the Turks, completely shattered, demoralised and fleeing for dear life. The scenes along the road from the time we crossed tho bridge have been most thrilling and often horrible. Every yard of the road speaks eloquently of tho dispatch with which the pursued were going The road has been strewn with jetsom of every kind, rifles, ammunition—as if it were a paper chase with unspent cartridges replacing paper —bayonets, scabbards, ammunition wallets, straps, fittings of carts and carriages. live shells, grenades, and bombs, lmexplcdod. Evidently these wore car ried as long ns possible, and jettisoned only when escape seemed otherwise impossible. At places fifty to a hundred empty shell cases showed whero a

battery had tried to stem the tido at pursuit, and then"’had galloped cn. Hero and there a big gun was abandoned, in places a whole battery,; Machine guns and rifles were discovered thrown into ditches and hastily and imperfectly buried. One battery of six big guns was found in a deep nullah, the breechblocks removed,, but. the burial. was, so imperfect as to lead to thejr detection. Everywhere one saw the wreckage.'! of ‘ ramshackle transport, straps, doors, iron fittings and 'vfkeels. In shine cases tho vehicles stood there animals dead in the shafts. Horses, mules, oxen, buffaloes, goats, sheep'" all lgy dead from exhaustion, and camels occasionally, beside the carts they could no longer draw. _ '.Dead |nd dying were encountered in numbers, some dead of wounds, others fromfpxhaustion. Others, wounded and atilt alive, were picked up by our aifibu-

lances; and every day many unwounded gave themselves up from sheer iex’ haustion, certain death from starvation being the alternative. In oje place where a deep nullah was bridged with a crazy structure a gun had gone over, J ar.d the driver was there with (the - reins still in liis hands, though he jiad been cut clean in half by'one of The wheels. The gun had fallen on "another man and driven his head dtjwn between his shoulders. At one spqTa group of German officers lay dead—tex of them, apparently all billed by Jhe Turks, and around thorn were ten: or twelve Turks whom apparently they had killed in self-defence. It looks as if, • with their usual brutal methods, they had tried to coerce the Turks to face the enemy and the Turks being fed up had attacked them.

‘‘ On the road, again, were strewn garments of every description, boots of Turkish and German make, skin shoes, worsted shoes, coats, rags of blankets, shirts, tatters of garments that defied ... identification; and when one realises that it is freezing at night now, and that the water is frozen in our buckets each morning, yefj can imagine with what pangs of regret these rags Wero discarded, yet in order to go .on the only thing left, seemingly, to those nearing exhaustion was a further lightening of their burdens. Yesterday -we came across a Daimler-Mercedes cor, quite good, but some little defect that ~ could not be easily remedied led to its abandonment. 1 am not sure that it was anything more than a burst tyre, ip An iron trunk,. made in Wolverhampton, I found discarded, several bags, portmanteaux and knapsacks. I saw» water cans that had been filched froju w* the Anzacs m Egypt or Gallipoli, foitr of them made so that thev would go on a mule’s hack. -Z'Z “ During the retreat up till now wo ave recaptured the Firefly that was lost when Kut was taken, and have captured three ships, ten barges, two tugs, 4300 prisoners, of whom ISB ate officers, twenty-eight guns, three Krutfp a.os, nineteen trench mortars, The Ivrupps we found about a mile frdhr where we are now camped, and they are parked beside my ambulances. -At ‘lam glad to hare a rest today:Vl haven t had my clothes oit for a week, nor washed nor shaved. One is going all day from dawn, and often w e ; :ffo not get to bivouac till midnight; and then on'o falls to sleep as one is ’till dawn sees us in the saddle, one© mote pursuing.” “

NEARING THE CITY. iS ' Cplonel Wall’s next letter is from Bagdad, and describes briefly the oper&t'u\sr be . fore . thc entry into the city.' My last letter was from Aziziaji, exactly half-way between Kut and Bag-' dad, ’ he says., “If© halted there and then pushed on, arid'very soon came in touch with the Turks again. They at© splendid, and one is full of the deepest admiration for their valour. Ohr : pursuit from Kut to Aziziah was an \ utter Turkish rout, and it was obvious from the abandonment of material haw hasty was the flight. Yet the" test at Aziziah gave them breatl- ' “S .space, and on the teyefiing ,hf the day w© left there *we liad a sharp engagement. Next day w© pursued again, only to meet with further opposition. The > Turks lost very heavily inespecially -becanse our artillery was much more numerous and of bettor quality than theirs. I wa s on battlefields during active operations for. about three days, and very busy, too. It was very thrilling to see our troops lying on the plain, with the scantiest of' fntprorised cover, and behind them/our batteries pummelling the. Turkish trenches, which were formidable and well constructed. ■ T

. “All the last days before getting into Bagdad we had heavy fighting,and the Turks had prepared ireiimi after trench in a most thorough fashion. Onr troops, though, are splendid, and absolutely irresistible; My last fire days before getting into Bagdad were the most strenuous in mV life. We had twelve hours’ rest in fiv©

days; one night vre marched throughout, having been up and doing at 5 a.m., and we did not- halt till 1.30 on the next night. We were. forty-eighfl hours, men and horses, without water. We just marched and marched, found the enemy and fought him, and marched and marched. Op two days we had a furious oale that blinded everyone, the dust was*so dense. I. never tobk off boots or clothes for seven days, had-no chance of washing or shaving, and all one thought of when A halt was called was lying on the ground without cover,. just where we were. I think I got iiiJ the very last of my reserves of mcntfil and muscular strength, and it was great satisfaction to march into Bagdad, with the conviction that the Turk had fled beyond. The cavalry have been resting since, bub the infantry are still pursuing and driving tho enemy, before them. . “ There was a reign of terror in Bagdad between the exit of the Turks arid " the entry of the British. The Arabs and Kurds broke loose and everyone. But already confidence is restored, and the people are mending their shutters And producing wares from somewhere We hear that the Germans fled bn February 25, the day 1 they heard the news‘that Kut had fallen. The Turks left in great haste on the night before we entered.” Colonel Wall adds that, except. for tho mosques and tombs, which give io, an air of dignity, he found Bagdad disappointing. It was smaller than n& had expected, and the streets were narrow, dingy and dirty. ' ' / £