TOPICS OF THE DAY.
BAGHDAD AND BAPAUME. GENERAL SHERMAN in a telegram to President Lincoln used the proud words : " I send you the city of Savan- nah as a New Year's gift." General Maude has done even better than that. lie has sent the British people the great and historic city of Baghdad as an Easter present. Every circumstance of time, place, and memory is combined to warm the heart and fire the imagination in General Maude's great achievement. It is as characteristic a British victory as one could possibly desire. Take, in the first place, the events that preceded it. In the crisis of the greatest and most dangerous war in our history we were subjected to the worst, or at any rate the most sensational, defeat that our arms have received since Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. The actual numbers of the force that was destroyed in Afghanistan seventy-five years ago were rather larger, but there was not any- thing like the same number of British troops involved. The nation took General Townshend's capitulation—a capitulation, by the way, which threw no discredit on the gallant soldier or his men, British or Indian—in as perfect a temper as could be imagined. There were no recriminations, no abuse of any one concerned in the military defeat, but a quiet and dignified acceptance of the fate of war. There was not even a cry for revenge, and no gasconading whatever about what we would do next time, no mutterings of " A time will come ! " The country and the Government made no boasts about how they were going to redress the balance on the Tigris by future action. Silently we began our preparations for another advance. We now see the fruits. Within nine months of our defeat we arc not merely back again at Kut, but in posses- sion of Baghdad, the first building seized being the railway terminus upon which our enemies based such a mountain of diplomatic and financial intrigue and such a wealth of political dreams. They bragged about Baghdad. We have taken it. The Baghdad Railway was the thread upon which the pearls of the Pan-Germanic Middle-Europe policy were strung. The thread has been cut, and the pearls (imitation variety, made in Berlin) are rolling about the floor in every direction. How far our military railway from the Gulf has yet gone is a secret which if we knew wa could not state, but obviously it must have gone a good way, and we do not doubt that it will not be very long before it reaches Baghdad. After all the talk, it will be a British and not a German-made engine that will be the first to enter the city of Haroun Al-Raschid from a Persian Gulf terminus. Sinbad the Sailor, not Fritz the Frightful, will have told the last and best story in The Arabian Nights.
II the circumstances in which Baghdad has been made ours were characteristic of British thought and action, the friends of General Maude have every right to claim that he has played a specially British part. His care, his thoroughness, and his tenacity of purpose have been not only a miracle but a model for all his brothers-in-arms. He has not advertised himself or his troops, but has worked with a swift and reticent mastery that has been quite admirable. What we like best of all about him and his work is that, having once got hold of the enemy, he has never lost touch with them. In spite of heat, dust-storms, and thirst, he has hung on to them with a persistence and a remorselessness which must have made him seem to the Turks who fly before him as the iron hand of fate. To them the advance must have seern?cl like that told of in Isaiah, the most concise and the most soul- shaking record of an invasion that the literature of the world affords :- " He is come to Aiath, he is passed through Migron ; at Michmash he layeth up his baggage. They are gone over the pass ; they have taken up their lodging at Geba ; Ramah trembleth ; Gibeah of Saul is fled. Cry aloud with thy voice, 0 daughter of Gallim ! Hearken, 0 Laishah ! 0 thou poor Anathoth ! Madmenah is a fugitive ; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee. This very day shall he halt at sob ; he shaketh his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. Behold the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the boughs with terror ; and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the lofty shall be brought low. And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one."
But while we show gratitude to General Maude, we must not forget that in the last resort it is to the gallant men, native and British, under him that we owe the victory. A General may be the finest strategist in the world and the greatest leader, but if his instrument is of lead instead of steel what avails all his skill ? Nor, again, must we forget the part that has been played by that- most silent and least self-seeking of soldiers, General Monro, the Commander-in-Chief in India. Last August General Monro left the Western front, where he was in command of the First Army—that is, was the chief subordinate of Sir Douglas Haig—to reconstitute and reform Indian military administration wherever such reform was needed. On his way out he paid a visit to the Persian Gulf, and since that time he has been working with that patience, good heart, and steadiness which are his characteristics alike in the office and the field to support General Maude and provide him with whatever is needed by an army in the difficult position occupied by that on the Tigris.
But for General Maude's high qualities of command, the expedition must have failed ; but it is equally true to say that it would have failed if General Monro, supported of course by the Viceroy and the Indian Government as a whole, had not played the part of Carnot and been " the organizer of victory."
The military possibilities opened up by the capture of Baghdad are so far-reaching, so complex, in a word so tre- mendous, that one hardly dares to speculate upon them in one's own mind, much less on the printed page. Already our troops are nearly forty miles to the north of the city, still hanging on the flank of the flying foe, who, with nearly all their artillery and stores abandoned, are now not only a demoralized but a depleted rabble. In all probability the enemy are making for Mosul, while our cavalry are racing them for that point. What makes the race the more exciting ii the fact that our Russian allies in Northern Persia have given a sound beating to the Turks with whom they have lately been engaged and have driven them out of and retaken Kermanshah. That town was captured by the Russians some fourteen months ago, but lost again last July. It is an important place, as roads lead from it to Tabriz on the north and Kut on the south-west. It is quite possible that the Turks, if the Russians are able, as we hope they may be, to push on rapidly, will be driven past Mosul. If that should be so, our possession of that place, if it can be maintained, might have the very greatest military possibilities. But though we mention those possibilities, we do not desire to overemphasize them, for we must not forget the great difficulty of communications and of feeding even a small force in desert country. However, these are matters about which the quidnuncs of the clubs need not greatly worry themselves. The dangers are much better known to General Maude than to the critics here, and we may be perfectly certain that, though he will be bold, he will not run foolish risks. And here we may mention that. the Turks' own account of the matter is that their army has taken up a position between Baghdad and Samara, Samara being a place. on the Tigris about seventy miles north-west of Baghdad.
The political consequences of the capture of Baghdad cannot but be very great. Remember that the city and the population of the surrounding districts are not Turkish. The city is, and always has been, peopled by Arabs, Persians, and Jews, with a thin upper layer of Turkish officials and soldiers. The news that the people of Baghdad received our troops with expres- sions of pleasure must not be held merely as an effort to curry favour with the conquerors. The Turks have never been loved by the Arabs, but very much the reverse, and we have not the slightest doubt that the people of the city have a very shrewd opinion that we are likely to be much better rulers than our predecessors in power. Besides, the people of Baghdad have always been great traders, and are no doubt looking forward with joy to the very unwonted position of being paid, and paid liberally, for everything with which they can supply our troops. The Turks take. We buy. What is true of the trading instincts of the city is true also of the surrounding districts, and indeed of the whole Arab population.
We have ventured to link Bapaume with Baghdad in our title, though Bapaume is not yet in our hands. No doubt many things may happen to prevent its immediate acquisition, but at the same time it would be superstitious to pretend that the odds are not very much in favour of its being in our pos- session by the time these pages are in our readers' hands. Thursday's telegrams show that our troops have closed in west of the fateful town, for such it has been on more than one occasion in French history. But though as we write our forces are only a few hundred yards away, we do not disguise from ourselves the fact that the defences are immensely strong, and that the Germans have every reason for making a despe- rate effort to keep us out of so important a point as long as they possibly can. When Bapaume falls it is fairly safe to say that Peronne will fall also, and Peronne is now, what indeed it has always been, a first-rate fortress. There will, however, be plenty of time to speculate upon such events after Bapaume has fallen. Meanwhile we can only wish our soldiers good fortune and light casualties, should it be necessary for them to storm the defences of Bapaume.
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