TOWNSHEND OF KUT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11670, 10 April 1916, Page 3

TOWNSHEND OF KUT.

HEROIC ADVENTURE (Correspondent Sydney " Sun/"* LONDON, January 28, Another misfortune to our arms, calling us to greater ruthlessness in the destruction of our enemies, has overtaken us in Mesopotamia. A few weeks ago all there seemed plain sailing—or should we say steaming, in view of the reliance being placed upon our monitors and motor boats on the Tigris? We were within a few days' march of Bagdad, The ancient capital was about to fail into our hands. Tn his great defence of his administration in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister had held this zone up as one theatre indeed where we had been uniformly successful. But now Bagdad has fallen from our grasp, our forces are .scattered, and the army which we depended on for final victory is itself closely besieged. The expedition to the Tigris was intended to be a swift blow at the vitals of the Turks, drawing some of his strength from the Dardanelles and the Caucasus, teaching him the length of the Empire's arm, and giving us an advanced base in our Indian defences. The scheme was designed, recommended and launched by the Indian army. Kitchener approved. His reorganising work in India left its deep impress upon him, and there is no part or the Empiro which he more thoroughly understands. All Anglo-Indians retain a kind of keen expert interest in the great dependency, and take its problems very seriously. Kitchener has this characteristic fully developed. He had in India a fine army and an experienced staff, containing, indeed, many of his own chosen men and others whom he regarded as brilliant generals. They could not be taken far away. Only a percentage was required for the troubles on the north-western frontier, and for garrison purposes they were as j good in the Persian Gulf as in' India itself. Thus the Indian Army General Staff received permission for its greatest adventure. Like many other of our military efforts, the Tigris expedition seems to stand' condemned. W'e all wonder why it was tried—now that its first effort has failed. While it seemed like winning, we all declared it a masterstroke. We all wonder about the Dardanelles. But most of us can remember the glad confidence that Constantinople would bo reached. We all wonder about the two costly offensives in France; but we would have voted for " breaking through." But. then we are all amateurs, and part of our confidence is confidence in our military ! leaderSj who have impressed us in peace days with capacity, and whom we have trained for such events as these. They have tho knowledge brought in by spies and secret agents, the reports prepared during days when all these enemy countries were open to our observers, and the plans worked out according to general war schemes. TOO MUCH FOR INDIA. When we became committed to the expedition we found that it was more than the Indian Army could, do. We were called, upon for reinforcements. Kitchener had to find drafts from Egypt, from England, even from France. And once more wo wore engulfed in one of thoso enterprises which General Joffro has called, with some bitterness, the "fiponges"—expeditions which suck and suck at our strength, get us nowhere, and weaken our efforts in the main theatres of the war. We found once again that floating artillery was of little avail against an army on land, that we had underestimated the fighting capacity of the Turks, that the aged general in com- . mand was, like some other generals who have Tailed us, well-meaning, but not fit for the campaign, and that the Germans were more successful in buying Arab fighters than we. For nearly' eight months General Townshend fought forward along the Tigris banks, meeting Turkish forces here and there, never decisively defeating them, always driving them before him to new defences. Wo passed over ground where men fought many centuries ago, where the Garden of Eden has been located 'by some arclueologists. ' " If this was the Gardon of Eden," wrote one officer to "The Times, lV " then Adam was lucky in getting out of it." Our troops pushed valiantly on in tlie sweat and trouble of summer across these barren and bare plains, where there was neither cover from Turkish bullets nor shelter from the thick waves of dust. Along the river went our river boats, monitors with guns, motor vessels with guns. Brigades from the new army went as reinforcements, more troops were drawn from India, an endless procession of supply steamers went to and fro in the Persian Gulf. I have mot several of the men wounded in those eight months. One unfortunate young naval officer had been stricken "by the sun, as deadly and as sudden as any bullet, while leading patrol parties on the beaches in search of the gun-runners. For these* months the expedition was not costly in lives, as expeditions gp—and it must be remembered in that respect that all _ expeditionary forces are costlier in lives, in money,* in wastage, and in lines of communication than armies in possession. We protected India that way. Doubtless, also, we drew forces from the Dardanelles and from use elsewhere. THE DASH FOR BAGDAD.

Bv the time General Townshend readied Kut-el-Amara, within striking distance of Bagdad, he was, reduced, to a little more than a division in strength. C4enerai Nixon, commander-in-chief of the expedition, %vas down the river at the main base, with which telegraphic wires had been laid. The order went that General Townshend was to advance to Bagdad. Who decided upon that command, or why the decision to challenge the Turkish Empire with a force brought up to only little more than a full division was made, are not known. Certainly the War Council was • consulted, and approved. Certainly, also, it was desirable to have Bagdad in our hands when we retired from the Dardanelles, j'or moral effect. It has been stated here that the Government was specially anxious to hold Bagdad, fearing public anger when the announcement of the heavy losses expected in the Dardanelles evacuation was made. I do not pretend to know why the order was given, or by whom, nor have excellent sources of information I have, consulted had any knowledge. The order was disastrous, and its heavy responsibility must some day be brought homo. Townshend protested against tlie advance. A gallant officer, one of the most talented, expert, and studious of our generals, he knew the task to be impossible. Officers writing home — most are now dead or wounded—told of the astonishment amongst the troops when the order came, and of their feeling that they wore being sent out to unknown perils from which they could not hope to escape. But they wont out gaily. B'riends of '" Charlie' 1 Townshend say that his troops would always do that! He is a. cheerful and indomitable leader, a man who never knows what it is to be beaten, a general who can do wonders with a, small force. He met the Turks in full strength at Ctesiphon. He won the battle, storming strong defences over pitiless, open plains. Four times, so the letters tell us. be himself went into the desperate fray, leading his men in charges. Ho fought, as fiercely us any of the splendid soldiers which thai, day put to flight six times their number of good fighting men. The men rallied round him at times when the ebb went, against them and all seemed lost. By nightfall the Turks had been driven from their strongholds, and the day belonged to these intrepid Britishers. CHEAT WAS WASTKI).

fSueli lights, with generals in the

ranks and general hand to hand encounters, read like the battles of a bygone age, but they liave occurred during tho war not only on the Tigris, but ia Gallipoji, as our own men will tell; in South Africa, and in the western part of Egypt. It is worth < while drawing stimulation from the picture. Townshend is an aristocrat, the heir to a marquisate, a tall, lithe figure with strong soldierly face. If pictures and accounts of him are true, he is typical of the best type of British aristocrats, the type that has produced in this war some of our finest figures, but which has produced them during these generations at the cost of nearly the whole of the rest of the population. As lieutenant he was in command at the siege of Chitral, where the dauntlessness of his small and invincible force delighted the whole world. As he has matured ho has spent all his spare time in the study of Napoleon. Every Napoleon battlefield he has visited, every writing by Napoleon lie ha* studied, every maxim, by Napoleon he has learnt by heart. Ho is regarded as the greatest of Napoleonio authorities, and the fact that he earnestly warned his country against German aggression has emphasised the public's question why such a renowned student of the master should have been kept from European battlefields. CLEVER ENEMY TRICK. The cost of Otesiphon was more than Townsbend's little array could \bear. More than one-third of its strength lay on the ground when night fell. It had conquered, but further advance was unthinkable. Moreover, the enemy was being- reinforced. It had lured us on to Bagdad just as wo had lured von Spee on to the Falklands. - The German wireless stations had been spreading the news that Bagdad was poorly defended, that the German public was beconiing reconciled to its loss, and that Turkey feared that nothing could save it. We had swallowed these stories, wo had expected to get there .with our small forces, and we had not even provided for reinforcements on any large scale to hold it. Townshend estimated that, in. round numbers, 280,000 Turks and Arabian fighting men were concentrated for the defence of Bagdad, and that wo had walked gamely but with disastrous results into a "trap. He evacuated his wounded, fought off the Turks while he got his prisoners away down the river, and began, his .historic retreat. That long march back to Kut is one of tho great achievements of tho war. Turks pressed on north, west and south, and at one time they seemed to be squatting all round our men. When Kut was sighted the infantry was too tired to step ajiothor yard. A halt had to be called and an action fought. Only tho remnants of the force got back to the old defences in the Kut peninsula on the Tigris, and it 16 estimated that they have been further reduced now by sickness and the perpetual fighting in defensive .positions to little more than 3000 men. MORE TEAGIO LAURELS.

It is eight weeks since Townshend was hemmed in in Ktit, and twentythree days since General Aylmer be§an the march for his relief. General lixon is coming home; General Lake, a renowned Indian officer, is taking command. We have sent out several hundreds of motor gunboats, of a handy character. W© are doing everything possible. But when General Aylmer this week met the Turks in great force twenty-three miles east of Kut, and lost so heavily that he had to ask for an armistice to bury his dead, hope of saving Townshend seemed to go. The Turks are now in many thousands entrenched strongly in this position. Attacks upon it must be made over open ground, swept by bullets, commanded by the Turkish artillery. After that has been stormed, we must take the still stronger Essin defences seven miles £ east of Kut—great •walls extending several miles on each side of the river, and prepared for defence by German officers. W© have not sufficient strength for this, unless every man. British and Indian, becomes on this great day of attack a superman. Gales are against ns. our monitors are being hit by Turkish artillery, the river's currents and sandbanks are becoming more than over uncertain in the torrents, and tho Turks command the banks of the Tigris, not only between Kut and their present position, hu,t evon below Aylmer's force. Soon there will be anxiety for General Aylmer. This is not a dismal picture, but the story of one of our small expeditions which has had glory written on every page of its history, which cannot affect the result of the, war, but which has ,so far been indeed a tragedy