The Importance of the Mesopotamian Campaign to the British Empire

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,--If one thing has become more evident than another throughout the war, it is that the different portions of the British Empire must take a larger and deeper interest in the other parts. The great Indian Empire has sent forth hundreds of thousands of troops to fight in France, in Egypt, along the Suez Canal, down to the fever-laden districts of German East African, and up on the desert plains of Mesopotamia; and from henceforth we must take a larger interest in the affairs of the Orient. It seems to me, from my residence out in the East, that as yet we do not quite appreciate the importance of doing this thing, but we are linked up considerably with the East. Those of you who have had the privilege of traveling through Japan, or China, or the Straits Settlements, or Ceylon, or India, realize how education and science, the literature and history of the west, are profoundly moving the East. The

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Mr. McClain was Secretary of the Y.M.C.A. in Calcutta, India, for three years, and in Lucknow for two years. He joined Sir Percy Lake's forces which were sent to relieve General Townshend, and was but a short distance from Kut-et-Amara when the British forces there had to surrender. Mr. McClain went through the terrible hardships with the forces in that extremely difficult land, and after seeing and experiencing the trials, and with full consideration of the losses, he brought the message that the campaign was, and is, well worth while for the Empire and the world.

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development of railways, telegraphs and cables, with transportation across the oceans, has linked us up together so that now the commerce and industries of the West are finding a place in the jungles, in the remote mountain districts of the East, and especially out in India.

At the outbreak of the war, India sent forth her troops, and one of those expeditions went out into Persia. In India we looked upon it pretty much as we look upon those troops who are engaged in continuous fighting on the north-west frontiers; we did not realize the significance nor the importance of that campaign. Six weeks after our forces had landed at the mouth of the Tigris River, they had advanced up that river about sixty miles, and after a very severe engagement had compelled the Turks to retire from Boskara, which is destined to become one of the great seaports of the world. I have counted as many as forty great steamers anchored out in that river. today it is a city of 60,000 Jews, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Armenians, negroes, and mingled with those are all the races of India who came out there to fight, with Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Americans, Chinese, Canadians, and all the races of the earth mingled in that city today. Because of its strategic importance on the Tigris it is destined to become one of the great commercial and railroad cities of the East.

After the capture of Boskara our troops advanced up the Tigris River to Kut-el-Amara, which has been made famous by Gen. Townshend's brave band who held out there so long. Kut was occupied in September, 1915. After a few weeks there the British and Indian armies began one of those spectacular dashes for Bagdad, and the first thing we knew about the entire campaign was when the British Prime Minister made a statement in the House of Commons that our troops were within fifteen miles of Bagdad, and that at any hour we might expect to hear of the fall of that historic city. Then came one of these reverses so common in military history. Unknown to our forces, Turkish reinforcements had been brought up, several divisions, with the result that our small force, which consisted of less than 16,000 fighting men, more than 450 miles from the base at Boskara, had to give battle against a superior number, and after four days' struggle were compelled to retire down the Tigris River. Sir John Nixon was in command of the campaign at that time, and Gen. Townshend was in charge of this small army. River transportation was inadequate, with mud sometimes up to one's knees, and our troops began to retire, on the last day marching twenty-seven miles through the mud. They rested for three days, and were then compelled to march another fifteen miles before reaching Kut, where they were able to dig a few trenches and protect themselves. That engagement was at Ptesophon, and there we had expected to have not more than 500 casualties, but we had actually 4,500. I want to read to you one of the official records:

"The local arrangements completely collapsed. The wounded men were brought down the river in horseboats practically unattended, and a lot of preventible suffering and loss was caused."

Those men had their wounds dressed out there upon the fields of battle; they were carried to the river bank and placed upon those barges, and in some cases it was ten to twelve days before those men bad their field dressings removed, lying upon those decks in December weather, cold with wind and rain; of course there was loss of life due to that neglect. That was the early history of that campaign. We are interested in knowing just who was responsible for conditions of that sort. I wish to quote Gen. Townshend, who said:

"If it was the desire of government to occupy Bagdad, unless great risk is to be run it is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary that the advancing and cutting of roads be carried out methodically by two divisions or one army corps, or one division followed closely by another division, exclusive of caravans, and nurses necessary, on the Euphrates river."

The actual reinforcements sent to Gen. Townshend were one infantry brigade, two regiments of cavalry, and one horse battery. Gen. Townshend retired. They entrenched themselves in this little mud-walled city of Kut, without any means of getting provisions. The Turks were able to send cavalry across the desert and completely cut off our communications 25 or;i0 miles below Kut. The attitude of Government in sanctioning this advance to Bagdad against Gun. Townshend's advice may be summed up in this wayalthough their motives were uncertain it is most likely that there was a desire on their part to find a counterblast to the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula and the overrunning of Serbia, by the occupation of Bagdad. The results were disastrous. It means a loss of life and suffering that possibly is without parallel in any other theatre of the war.

I went up to the Tigris River with Lieut.-Gen. Sir Percy Lake and his relief force, and the diffculties encountered by those soldiers in breaking through to reach Gen. Townshend were tremendous. There was no transport; I believe we had less than ten river boats to transport many divisions up the river, and in sending those troops up the river bank they had to march through mud, they had to sleep in the mud, and I have seen the whole transport column and the horses floundering belly-deep in the mud, and the wagons up to their hubs, with the troops in front sadly in need of supplies, ammunition and provisions. Then the climatic conditions were against our getting through. Rains at that season made it impossible to move more than eight or ten miles a day, and sometimes men would throw themselves down at the end of the march in utter exhaustion, too tired even to eat what little food they had. In the early days of the campaign those troops had bully-beef and hard-tack, and I have seen those men take out a tin of bully-beef, hold it in their hands and look at it, and finally there would come such a look of disgust over their faces that they would hurl it out in the river and wish it God-speed. But the time came when those men were placed on half rations of bully-beef, and then on quarter rations, and I have known Scotch regiments to be out in the trenches all day without a bite of food to eat. Those men did not grumble or "grouse," as Tommy says. They were willing to undergo any sacrifice, to lay down their lives, if they could relieve Gen. Townshend and his forces inside of Kut. The March and winter floods intervened, and finally, when the transport was supplied, it became impossible for us to get up the troops. There were floods as far as one could see through powerful binoculars, and marshes on either side of the river bay, which meant that we had to fight our way on either side of the river, and the Turks were very strongly entrenched. In passing I might say that although the Turk has done horrible things to the Armenians, yet as a fighting man we found him a worthy opponent. He was a first-class soldier, and when we went into Turkish trenches it meant that we had to clear them at the point of the bayonet.

The troops that were sent out to relieve Gen. Townshend were gathered hastily from England and France and the Suez; and this is one of the official records:

"The attacks were delivered before the medical arrangements were organized. The new divisions were thrown into the fight before their field ambulances and field hospitals had arrived. As their casualties were heavy .their sufferings were deplorable."

I have gone into the river hospitals and seen hundreds of those brave men lying there in the mud, sometimes in water with only a blanket beneath them. I have seen men, as they were carried in at night, placed eight or ten in a small tent, and actually we did not have sufficient surgeons to care for their wounds. One hospital was characteristic of all, and I remember going into a field ambulance where there were two surgeons, who were supposed to care for a hundred men, but instead of that they had three hundred-and there were ten field ambulances like that in that particular spot. Those surgeons were working from early daybreak until eleven o'clock at night. I have seen the doctors walk back and forth and clasp their hands and say, "My God, my God, my God!" because there were so many men to be cared for; and I have seen those same men look down on several hundred wounded men, and generally there was not a single cry or murmur or whimper on the part of those wounded soldiers. Those medical men would control their feelings and just get back and do what they could for as many men as they could reach.

Finally it became apparent to us that it was utterly impossible to drag through and relieve Gen. Townshend; and after a resistance of some 143 days, when literally compelled by the exhaustion of his food supplies to surrender, he laid down his arms, and we exchanged 1,000 Turkish prisoners for 1,000 British and Indian prisoners; and when those men were assisted across the gang-planks, I recall that the skin was drawn tight around their hands and tight across their faces; they had almost starved themselves to death. Old campaigners who had gone through that Gallipoli struggle, when they saw what these men had endured, would turn their backs and walk away, and in other cases one could see the tears trickling down their faces. They could face any enemy, but they could not endure the sight of heroism like that.

After the fall of Kut it was one continual struggle to maintain the army against disease and heat. We had heatstroke and sunstroke; we had cholera and dysentery and typhoid and diarrhoea-typhoid, and we had hundreds of cases of scurvy because we could not get fresh meats or vegetables for the men. I have gone out upon the desert where the dust was six inches deep and at every step that a man would take a cloud would rise and envelop him; and I have seen those British and Indian soldiers lying in that dust day after day, with a temperature above 120 degrees. Those are the conditions under which those British forces up there lived and fought. Humanly speaking it was absolutely impossible to break through and relieve Gen. Townshend, with the forces, equipment, supplies and transport at the disposal of Sir Percy Lake, who deserves great credit for his work of organizing this force. He secured the river transports; he constructed railroads from Boskara right up to the front lines; he established hospitals; we had nurses and doctors and operating equipment; he established depots with food and supplies-all those things so necessary-so that later on, when the time was ripe, the late Lieut.-Gen. Sir Stanley Maude was able, with that force at his back, to make the drive through, re-capture Kut-el-Amara from the Turks, occupy Bagdad, and press on to the west and north. That was the work of Sir Percy Lake.

The record of that campaign, except for that last brilliant advance, was one of defeat and loss-a record of suffering resulting in surrender. I well recall watching those men as they marched from the hospitals, emaciated, sometimes wounded, and I asked myself, "Is this campaign worth while? Is it worth while for those men to suffer as they have?" Then I began to look into the question, and I want to tell you a few reasons why that campaign is worth while from the viewpoint of the British Empire. When we were within sight of Bagdad, Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons gave, as one reason, that the campaign was to secure the neutrality of the Arabs. That is almost negligible in importance. His second reason was, to safeguard British interests; his third, to protect the oilfields. By the way, there are extensive oil-fields in lower Persia, and the British Admiralty have had a contract and have been supplying oil since 1909. That is really important. His fourth reason was, to maintain the authority of the flag in the East. All of those things might have been attained by just one division of troops; in fact they were attained when we occupied Boskara and Kut-el-Amara.

But there are other and more important underlying reasons which Mr. Asquith did not state. First, there is the strategic importance of Mesopotamia and the Tigris River valley as the land route from the Orient to the west. For many centuries we have overlooked the importance of that route, but in the old days all the commerce and traffic from India and China passed by caravans across Persia and Mesopotamia to Europe. Then there came the opening of the Suez Canal, the great development of ocean transportation, and for decades this particular land route was not considered. Then we discovered that while we had been negligent, the Germans had not. They had recognized that this was the key to the eastern situation. The result was that the Kaiser and his advisers set out to get control of those regions, and there began the development of the BerlintoBagdad railway, with great political significance. Originally it was a thoroughly commercial undertaking, but it was not long before the military party and the Kaiser recognized the strategic importance of that railroad from a military point of view-from the viewpoint of the extension of German power; and it changed into a thoroughly political movement. Prof. Jastrow, the distinguished Orientalist, makes this remark:"Bagdad really was the most important single factor contributing to the outbreak of the long-foreseen War of 1914." Further, "No step ever taken by any European power anywhere has caused so much trouble, given rise to so many complications, and has been such a menace to the peace of the world."

Years before that, we find Dr. Springer, who is a very distinguished German scholar, making this remark "Asia Minor is the only territory of the world which has not been monopolized by a great power, and yet it is the finest field for colonization. If Germany does not miss the opportunity of seizing it before the Cossacks grab it, she will have secured the best part in the division of the world." We did not see that, but the Kaiser and his advisers recognized that to be true, and they set out to achieve it.

I want to give you, very briefly, the history of that Bagdad railway, because it is important and interesting. Up to 1880 British influence was supreme at Constantinople. Then you will recall there were those horrible Armenian massacres, and Mr. Gladstone was unflinching in his denunciation of Abdul Hamid, stigmatizing him as "the unspeakable Turk." This displeased the Sultan of. Turkey, and British prestige began to wane. The Germans recognized their opportunity by clever manoeuvering to come in and take Britain's place, which had become vacant, and they did so. In 1888 the then young Emperor of Germany made a visit to Constantinople as the guest and friend of the Turk, Abdul Hamid, with the result that within a couple of years, a German syndicate secured a concession to build a railroad from Constantinople to Bangkok, south of the Black Sea, in 1893 that was extended 280 miles south towards the Mediterranean Sea. Then we find the Kaiser again visiting Constantinople in 1898, and in Damascus he proclaimed himself to be the friend and the protector of the 300,000,000 Mahommedans. Statements like that have great weight with the Oriental. He was linking himself up there with the Turk. In 1903 a definite concession was granted to a Berlin syndicate to construct a railroad down through the southern part of Mesopotamia which would link up Berlin, Constantinople, Bagdad, and extend to the Persian Gulf at Boskara. Originally that scheme was to go north, and the Russians said they could not have that because it would menace Russian influences around the Black Sea basin.

In 1914 that road was actually completed within 265 miles of Bagdad, and since the war it was completed to Bagdad. Part of the line was destroyed as the Turks retired from Bagdad, but they had been able to send down their supplies and equipment to Bagdad over his railroad. British financiers had, in the middle of the last century, planned a railroad system from Alexandria to Boskara or Bagdad, and then the Suez and the interests there had caused them to drop that in the interests of the ocean traffic. What they dropped, the Kaiser picked up.

Now, after all, what is the importance of that region? Admiral Mahon, who is recognized as a statesman of international authority, said that ' concessions in 'the Persian Gulf, whether by local arrangement or by neglect of the local commercial interests which now underlie political and moral control, will imperil Great Britain's naval situation in the farther East, her commercial interests in both, and the imperial tie between herself and Australia. Then Mr. Howe, in his book, "Why the War?" goes on to say, "Germany had dreams of a greater empire, an empire comparable to that of Great Britain, an empire that would ultimately extend from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf . . . . For twenty years the Bagdad railway has been the most splendid of all dreams of the German financiers and the German traders, and of the German militarists. Here were harbors and seaports, railroad and bank concessions and mineral resources, all relatively easy of defence; but far and away the most important of all, here was the wedge that would split the British Empire asunder, would permanently end England's control of Oriental trade, and afford quick and controlling access to India, Australia, the east coast of Africa, Hong Kong, and the richest of British colonial possessions."

We had not seen that, but others had recognized it and were striving for it. Then Ellis Barker, in the Nineteenth Century says, "That fearful Asiatic Turkey had obviously dominated not only the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles but the Suez Canal and Arabia and the Persian Gulf as well." Again, "It is clear that Asiatic Turkey, lying in the centre of the old world, is at the same time the factor of the greatest defensive strength, and the ideal base for a surprise attack upon Southern Russia, Constantinople, the Aegeian Islands, Greece, the Suez Canal, Egypt, Persia, Afghanistan and India."

Then, most significant of all, I wish to give you the statement of President Wilson with reference to the strategic importance of this railroad, when he addressed the American Federation of Labor at Buffalo. He said that the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway was constructed in order to run the thread of force down the spine of industrial England and half a dozen other countries so that 'when German competition came in, it would not be resisted too far, because there was always a possibility of getting German armies into the heart of that country more quickly than any other armies could be got there.

Take a map and look at it. Germany has absolute control, of Austria-Hungary; practical control of the Balkan States; control of Turkey; control of Asia Minor. I saw a map the other day in which the whole thing was printed in appropriate black, stretching all the way from Hamburg to Bagdad. And these are the significant words

"The spike of German power inserted into the heart of the world. If she can keep that, she has kept all that her dreams contemplated when the war began. If she can keep that, her power can disturb the world so long as she keeps it."

Gentlemen, that expedition up on the Persian Gulf has been worth while, with all its loss, with all its suffering. All that magnificent heroism has been worth while because it has placed in British hands and under British control this region, which is the key to the British Empire in the east. So that those men who suffered, and whose bones are lying out there bleaching upon the desert or under the date palm, have not died in vain, but springing up there a new country will arise. It is already being transformed into a wealthy country where righteousness and justice are going to reign, and it is going to make its contribution towards future peace and the future welfare of India and the Orient, as well as to maintain the integrity of the British Empire.