PROGRESS OF THE WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9607, 13 March 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Baghdad has fallen, as the correspondents yesterday su Ltl it had. Early on Sunday the British marched in and the flag has been flyin g from that moment. How long will it fly? long did the, Assyrian*, and the Persians, and the Saracons'diold the region, of which Baghdad, Gtosiphon, Babylon and other famous; .cities were for carious periods tho centres? History has answered that they held them so long as they controlled the two great rivers. Nimrod was tho first. His fame rests in popular : estimation on his exploits ns a “mighty hunter hoioro tho Lord.’’ But him inscriptions show him to us as the man who dammed the Tigris above tho site of Baghdad, and constructed islio two great lateral canals of Nahrwan and Dijail, over 400 feet in breadth, and 15 feet deep, tho one irrigating: the country to the east of the great river, the other doing the same fur the west at the head of the delta between the rivers- On those two cailals the whole system of the higher levol irrigation of the district was constructed, and endured for ages. The lowijjr level canals of the delta were fed by tile Euphrates, which is 25 feet hii)Eer than the Tigris. ; , * *

The annual inundation!; of the two rivers swollen by tho molting snows ot the great northern railtjos, were a danger to the delta —“.Mesopotamia, tho land between , the rivers. On the Euphrates, at Issa (opposite Baghdadi, the delta narrows the distance be* ween the rivers to 25 miles. FoH y miles higher un there is a natural channel known as the Sakhlawhv--which takes tho flooded waters of tlie Euphrates in a channel 250 yards iurross 25 feet deep, through the delta towards tho-hed of the Tigris rushing Lisin into the Luke Akkarkuf—a depression of many hundred square miles. A great cut for tho floods, which, when full, sends the surplus water by n natural bywash into tho old bed of the Tigris below the site of Nimrod’s Dain. Thus tho lower levels of, the ijiilta are saved from disastrous flooding},'

Nimrod’s Dam is no T. lore. Genghis, in his invasion, destroyed it, and with it went tho main' canals of tho great irrigation and no man has been found since strong enough to attempt the work of rartoration. Most of tho works of the ancients, if not, indeed, all; have passed, away, and the great delta which was (j'escribed by the Romans in tho fifth celitiiry as a vast, extended paradise of tillage and close cultivation right down- to the junction of the great rivers and beyond, is now an agglomerate of pst’tchy cultivation in a setting of marsh Bi. Soxnuch it is necessary to knowj to realise that whoever will restore (lie old irrigation and keep it efficient— -n thing of absolute simplicity to till) modern_ engineer, with his wondiß ful machineries and powers —will hold '.Baghdad till the end of time.

So nuicn is also necessary to understand to know the chances the Turks may have for tho recovery of tho place. But first to realise how our troops got to Bagh<ind. The city is built on both sides osf tho river. On the east side the liver Diala comes down from the Persia n boundary hills by Khanakin across the plain, falling into the Tigris ten miles below Baghdad. Our troops having passed Ctesipbon, pursued the Turks up the east bank, until they ranched the Diala, where the Turks nfltemptod a stand. The British general established a forco over the Dia!a_. th rew a bridge of boats over tho Tigchi, and proceeded to assail the enemy on both banka. Tho enemv did not ; trait on the west bank of tlio Tigris, and did not stop long enough on t-heiDiala to make any difference, and . : consequently fled through Baghdad, tho British marching in after him. , ;lt. is the first time the city has been captured since it fell into the hand;* of the Turks three centuries ago—a gohd omen for the fall of Con.stanthloiplo later on in the campaign.

The flags are flying over London and the provincial ; cities of Britain—of course. Germany is reported to ho helping the Turk Do set about recovering the place by, sending engineers —“already” ! the ;p romptness of the Blonde Beast is a y.onderful proof of his efficiency—to what do you think? To improve the Baghdad railway by boring a tunnel uncier the Bosphorus at the starting of file rails a good many hundred miles l away. The thing would be too absund for belief, only for tho fact that a nything the military choose to say !goes in Germany. If the report is true and the ■ tiling was seriously sitid. then we must conclude that it was i said as another way of saying that t so far as German help goes, Baghdacl is past praying for.

Some military critics in London have, however, taken up the gauntlet for the Turk, with an elaborate opinion to the effect that hu can construct a line of impregnable defence north of Baghdad, barring fr.'rther progress of the British forces. . They say that with a first-rate road behind the Diala all

the marshes of the Delta should enable the Turks to make an almost.impregnable front between the Euphrates and the Tigris. We must first point out that its the British are in Baghdad the first-rate road behind tho Dinla must have been abandoned by the Turks. Further north tho old irrigation system above described is a series of marshes now. and the overflow channel af the Euphrates which must soon tie filling, for the flood season is from Alareh to May, offers an additional obstacle, while the marshes are also being reinforced by the flooded waters, now, of course, out of control. Thus Die marshes and the line across the Delta will be, as the military experts (unnamed) of London say, ready for Turkish defence. But will the Turks be there? As they were driven pellmell through Baghdad it is a fair inference that they are being driven past the marshes on both sides of the river Tigris, and over the overflow channel of Staklawia, above described. Between these considerations and tho German Bosphorus invention, there is not much hope loft for the Turks, who have been driven through Baghdad. The inundations will bo to them not a defence, but an obstacle when they want to return, jf ever. The impregnable side will be the British side.

Now. what chance have tho Turks retreating from Persia to retrieve the position? The question rather is what chance have they of saving their skins ? We left them retreating yesterday before the advancing Russian columns. Those, moving on a front of 80 miles, have come within 185 miles of Baghdad (10 from Kermanshah, which is 176 miles) on one flank, and on the other arc at Henne, which is 90 miles from Mosul, whereas the other day they were at Bijar, 150 miles from that place. The other flank was recently at Hamadan, 258 miles from Baghdad, on the lino through Kermanshah. It will bo seen that the Russians aro closing in on tlie retreating Turks.

It appears as if their hope of reaching Mosul is gone. Mosul would, of course, bo their objective now that Baghdad has fallen, for it is the only base loft in these regions which can feed them, and rally the defeated army of Baghdad. These Turks will be turned towards the Tigris, and will probably bo driven down tho Diala valley past Khanakin. and the valley of the Adhaim. further on towards Mosul, the Adhaim being a tributary of the Tigris like the Diala. and running parallel to that river. The probability is that the bulk of the routed Baghdad forces are fleeing up the Tigris on the east bank. If so, they will be driven to meet the retreating Turks cut off from Mosul, and the functioned forces may be pinched between tho pursuing British and Russian armies.

A message to-day tells us that General Maude’s victory is fat greater and more decisive than appeared in the first accounts. That, of course, became probable when the Turks abandoned Azizie, on the Tigris. When they failed to stand at Ctesiphon, everyone saw that the Turks had suffered a great disaster, and most of us said so. The fall of Baghdad, almost without » shot, reveals the full extent, and it is almost beyond doubt now that the junction of the British arniy and the rapidly advancing Russians will be followed by the capture or extermination of the remnants of the defeated 'Kuttßaghdnd army and the Turkish forces retreating from Persia.

The message describes the troops of General Maude as chiefly of tho Indian Army. It is tho most brilliant feat o f arms tho Indian Army has ever performed in the whole history ot tho Indian Empire. The rapidity of their work in these difficult- regions compares with tho swiftness of Alexander’s great campaigns, and it is probable that when we get the full details (after the war, when it will bo safe to divulge things), the British Army will be found to be as largo, if not larger, than tho army with which Alexander overthrew the Persian Empire at Arbeln. The efficiency of these Indian troops was, it is melancholy now to remember, much increased by Lord Kitchener. Before him they had had tho benefit of tho brilliant ideas and solid training ofi their venerated leader, “Bobs Bahadur.” How these great' soldiers would have gloried in the achievement of the splendid troops tor whom they did so much I

Tho message that tells of their exploit discloses a great plan of campaign. While Maude’s army is conquering Mesopotamia and moving to meet the Russian army from Persia, the Grand Duke is resuming his advance into Armenia, and Sir Archibald Murray with the army of Egypt is moving north through Palestine, where there is non© to say him nay. There is nothing to prevent him marching on Damascus and Aleppo, in the tracks of Alexander’s march from Egypt. From Aleppo, where he can establish his base by aid of British sea power, in spite of all the submarine power of Germany, he can march duo north, seizing the Baghdad railway with choice of objective, either inclining towards Mesopotamia or moving straight on Constantinople in co-operation with the Grand DdVo moving down through Armenia. The Ottoman Empire is visibly beginning to crumble. What will its condition he at the end of the summer ? It is nearly five centuries since the last fall of Constantinople. Will it be as many months before the nest?

The Germans have clung to their Eastern corridor with dogged obstinacy. They have battered Serbia; they have overrun Roumania; they have taken the blood of Bulgaria; they have hied Turkey to death, and their hold of the Eastern corridor is very far from sure. But tho Eastern corridor is but tho means to an end. The end is tho great projected Germanic Empire of the East, which was to extend the Prussian hegemony from Hamburg to Baghdad. But Baghdad is in the hands of Britain, the Turkish Empire is crumbling, and the great Germanic project is already thin air. Its only visible wreck is the “Protector of Islam,” the All Highest Kaiser, the War Lord who has formed himself on the model of Frederic the Great.

One of the two great objects of the war into which this Kaiser has plunged the world has gone for ever out of his reach. The other, the domination of the Western world, and the destruction of the British Empire, is in no bettor case. To-day we have fearful accounts of the state of the German people. while the German undersea war languishes towards its end, and the German strength on the West front is wilting under the tremendous hammer blows of the French and BritisJi armies, and on all the fronts of war the pressure is growing more deadly.

The German talk the while is of increasing fright fulness. It is the Blonde Beast gnashing his teeth in rage, which at any moment may do something desperate. There arc people who, reading the signs of the time, declare that he is in his death flurry. Perhaps they are right.