Beyond Baghdad with the Leice.stershires. By E. J. Thompson. (Epworth
Press. 3s. net.)—This little book should not escape the attention of any one interested in General Maude's brilliant Mesopotamian campaign. It contains much new detail con- cerning the hard-fought actions on the Tigris, which drove the Turks from the Baghdad-Samarra railway and compelled them to concentrate near Mosul instead of near Baghdad. Mr. Thompson accompanied the 2nd Leicestershires, in the Seventh (Meerut) Division, as a chaplain, and he saw the wry stiff fighting at Beled, Istabulat, and Tekrit from an ambulance station close to the front. On the second day at Istabulat the "Tigers "—to give the Leicestershires their pet-name—though sorely reduced in numbers by the heavy enemy fire, rushed the Turkish second line, taking eight hundred prisoners. Captain Dig,gins with three men went on right into the Turkish gun- positions, where the battery-commander and his gunners surrendered, with seven field-guns and two 5.9's. The prisoners were sent back to our lines, but before any help could be sent to the handful of " Tigers " the enemy in great force made a counter-attack and recove:ed his guns. Strangely enough, two burning barges floated down the Tigris that night from the Turkish _lines and were salved ; one contained ammunition, and the other held fourteen field-guns, old but serviceable. Thus the official despatch recording the capture of Turkish guns at Istabulat proved to be accurate. The victory led to the capture of Samarra with the railway station and rolling- stock, and made Baghdad secure against attack by way of the
Tigris Valley. Mr. Thompson writes well of what he has seen and known..
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