ESPABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1916. THE MESOPOTAMIAN CAMPAIGN.

Marlborough Express, Volume L, Issue 85, 10 April 1916, Page 4

ESPABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1916. THE MESOPOTAMIAN CAMPAIGN.

The latest news from the Persian GuW confirms the earlier intelligence as' to the success achieved by the British expedition recently. General 'Lake.-Las' apparently succeeded in carrying one of "the. most 'important' and. formidable of the enemy's positions—those positions which have blocked the way to the relief of the Ibn^ beleaguered force under General Towhs-hend at Kut-el-Amara. It would be unwise "Hio assume that all difficulties have been swept away, for after allithe position taken was merely an outlying one and not the main Turkish stronghold. Still, there does seem fair reason to believe that a most important step has been taken towards th-3 relief of General Townshend, and that ,we miiy reasonably expect a general advance towards Kut-el-Aitfiira,.. .When the Russians, after the fall of.Erzerbum, pushed westwards and with such determination:, "and. .at. least, temporary suc-cess,-it -was-hoped that tho operations controlled'by the, Grand Duke Nicholas would beneficially affect ■ the British position on-yfche Tigris; by creating such !»n important diversion in i the north of Asia Minor as would compel a reduction of the',Turkish strength south of Bagdad. But of late "the Russian forward movement in' Armenia has not been very much in evidence in the cablegrams, and the report that the Tsar's troops were within striking distance of Trebizond appears to have been an exaggeration. To-day, however, we learn that they ai'e some twenty. miles Irom the Black Sea port. Be this as it may, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Turks have, of late, found it necessary to strengthen their forces in the north at the expense of their operations against the British, and if there be-any steady depletion going on in the soufh, this must, sooner or later, tend to a considerable improvement of our position on the Tigris. Whether the old and, as it proved, premature advance on Bagdad may be resumed is a matter of so distant a future as to be scarcely, worth discussion. What the British public are ma.ir-.iy concerned about is the relief of General Tbwnshend and his forces, so long besieged at Kut-el-Amara, and at one time in a position notoriously one of considerable danger, fieri oral Lake's success seems to point to i.he probability" that the danger of absolute disaster to General Tpwnshend's force has now been removed. But there is still much tough fighting co be done before a full relief can be" achieved, and meanwhile floods are hampering the British operations.