seasoning. The majority became used to horseflesh and their main complaint was that the horse gravy was like clear oil.

"Stray cats furnished many a delicate 'wild rabbit' supper. A species of grass was cooked as a vegetable and it gave a relish to the horseflesh. Tea being exhausted, the soldiers boiled bits of ginger root in water. Latterly aeroplanes dropped some supplies. These consisted chiefly of corn, flour, cocoa, sugar, tea, and cigarettes.

"During the last week of the siege many Arabs made attempts to escape by swimming the river and going to the British lines, twenty miles below. Of nearly 100, only three or four succeeded in getting away. One penetrated the Turkish lines by floating in an inflated mule skin."

Another intimate description was furnished by the official British press representative with the Tigris Corps and is based on the personal narratives of some of the British officers who, after having been in the Kut hospital for varying periods of the siege on account of sickness or wounds, were exchanged for wounded Turkish officers taken by the relief force. According to this the real privations of the garrison began in the middle of February and were especially felt in the hospital.

"When the milk gave out the hospital diet was confined to corn, flour, or rice water for the sick, and ordinary rations for the wounded. On April 21, 1916, the 4 oz. grain rations gave out. From the 22d to the 25th the garrison subsisted on the two days' reserve rations issued in January; and from the 25th to the 29th on supplies dropped by aeroplanes.

"The troops were so exhausted when Kut capitulated that the regiments who were holding the front line had remained there a fortnight without being relieved. They were too weak to carry back their kit. During the last days of the siege the daily death rate averaged eight British and twenty-one Indians.

"All the artillery, cavalry, and transport animals had been consumed before the garrison fell. When the artillery horses had gone the drivers of the field batteries formed a new unit styled 'Kut Foot.' One of the last mules to be slaughtered had been on three Indian frontier campaigns, and wore the ribbons

round its neck. The supply and transport butcher had sent it back twice, refusing to kill it, but in the end it had to go with the machine-gun mules. Mule flesh was generally preferred to horse, and mule fat supplied good dripping; also an improvised substitute for lamp oil.

"The tobacco famine was a great privation, but the garrison did not find the enforced abstention cured their craving, as every kind of substitute was there. An Arab brand, a species similar to that smoked in Indian hookahs, was exhausted early in April. After that lime leaves were smoked, or ginger, or baked tea dregs. In January English tobacco fetched forty-eight rupees a half pound (equal to eight shillings an ounce).

"Just before General Townshend's force entered Kut a large consignment of warm clothing had arrived, the gift of the British Red Cross Society. This was most opportune and probably saved many lives. The garrison had only the summer kit they stood up in.

The troops only
During the late

"Different units saw very little of each other during the siege. At the beginning indirect machine-gun and rifle fire, in addition to shells, swept the whole area day and night. left the dugouts for important defense work. phase when the fire slackened officers and men had little strength for unnecessary walking. Thus there was very little to break the monotony of the siege in the way of games, exercise, or amusements, but on the right bank two battalions in the licorice factory, the 110th Mahratas and the 120th Infantry, were better off, and there was dead ground here-'a pitch of about fifty by twenty yards'-where they could play hockey and cricket with pick handles and a rag ball. They also fished, and did so with success, supplementing the rations at the same time. Two companies of Norfolks joined them in turn, crossing by ferry at night, and they appreciated the relief."

A personal acquaintance of the heroic defense of Kut-el-Amara drew in a letter to the London "Weekly Times" the following attractive picture of this strong personality:

"A descendant of the famous Lord Townshend who fought with Wolfe at Quebec, and himself heir to the marquisate, General

Townshend set himself from boyhood to maintain the fighting traditions of his family. His military fighting has been one long record of active service in every part of the world. Engaged first in the Nile expedition of 1884-85, Townshend next took part in the fighting on the northwest frontier of India in 1891-92, when he leaped into fame as commander of the escort of the British agent during the siege of Chitral. He fought in the Sudan expedition of 1898, and served on the staff in the South African War. In the peaceful decade which followed Townshend acted for a time as military attaché in Paris, was on the staff in India, and finally commanded the troops at Bloemfontein, Orange River Colony.

"The outbreak of the Great War found him in command of a division in India, longing to be at the front in France, but destined, as events turned out, to win greater fame in Mesopotamia. All accounts agree as to the masterly strategy with which he defeated Nur-ed-Din Pasha at Kut-el-Amara, and subsequently fought the battle of Ctesiphon. Those two battles and his heroic endurance of the long siege of Kut have given his name a permanent place in the annals of the British army.

"Townshend has always attributed his success as a soldier to his constant study of the campaigns of Napoleon, a practice which he has long followed for a regular period of every day wherever he has happened to be serving. He has mastered the Napoleonic battle fields at first hand, and is an ardent collector of Napoleonic literature and relics. Everyone who knows him is familiar with the sight of the paraphernalia of his studies in peace time-the textbooks and maps, spread on the ground or on an enormous table, to which he devotes his morning hours. During the present campaign his letters have been full of comparisons with the difficulties which confronted Napoleon.

"But Townshend possesses other qualities besides his zeal for his profession, and one of them at least must have stood him in good stead during these anxious months. He is indomitably serene and cheerful, a lover of amusement himself and well able to amuse others. In London and Paris he is nearly as well known in the world of playwrights and actors as in the world

of soldiers. He can sing a good song and tell a good story. Like Baden-Powell, the hero of another famous siege, he is certain to have kept his gallant troops alert and interested during the long period of waiting for the relief which never came. Up to the last his messages to the outside world have been full of cheery optimism and soldierly fortitude. No general was ever less to blame for a disastrous enterprise or better entitled to the rewards of success."

SPRING AND

AFTER

FTER the surrender of Kut-el-Amara a lull of a few weeks occurred. The Turkish forces seemed to be satisfied for the time being with their victory over their English opponents for which they had striven so long. The English forces below Kutel-Amara likewise seemed to have ceased their activities as soon as the fall of Kut had become an established fact.

Almost for three weeks this inactivity was maintained. On May 19, 1916, however, both sides resumed military operations. The Turks on that day vacated an advanced position on the south bank of the Tigris at Beit Eissa, which formed the southern prolongation of the Sanna-i-Yat position. On the north bank the latter was still held strongly by the Sultan's forces.

Immediately following this move the English troops, who under General Sir Gorringe had attempted the relief of Kut-elAmara, attacked. Advancing about three miles south of the Tigris and south of the Umm-el-Brahm marshes, they threw themselves against the southern end of the Turkish position at Es-Sinn. The latter is about seven miles west of the former and about the same distance east of Kut-el-Amara. It began on the north bank of the Tigris, a few miles north of the Suwatcha marshes, continued between these and the Tigris and for almost five miles in a southeasterly direction. On its southern end the

Turks had erected a strong redoubt, known under the name Dujailar Redoubt, from which a strong line of six lesser redoubts run in a southwesterly direction to the Shatt-al-hai. This body of water is the ancient bed of the Tigris. In the first half of the year it is a navigable stream, carrying the waters of the Tigris across the desert to the Euphrates near Nasiriyeh, a town which British forces have held since the spring of 1915. It was against the key of this very strong line of defense, the Dujailar Redoubt, which General Gorringe's battalions attacked. At various other times before English troops had attempted to carry this point, but had never succeeded. This time, however, they did meet with success. In spite of strong resistance they stormed and carried the position.

On the same day, May 19, 1916, it was officially announced that a force of Russian cavalry had joined General Gorringe's troops. This cavalry detachment, of course, was part of the Russian forces operating in the region of Kermanshah in Persia. Inasmuch as these troops were then all of 200 miles from Kutel-Amara and had to pass through a rough and mountainous country, entirely lacking in roads and inhabited by hostile and extremely ferocious Kurdish hillmen, the successful dash of this cavalry detachment was little short of marvelous. The difficulties which had to be faced and the valor which was exhibited is interestingly described by the official British press representative with the Mesopotamian forces:

"The Cossacks' ride across country was a fine and daring achievement, an extreme test of our Allies' hardness, mobility, and resource. Their route took them across a mountainous territory which has been a familiar landmark in the plains where we have been fighting for the last few months.

"The country traversed was rough and precipitous and the track often difficult for mules. They crossed passes over 8,000 feet high. Enemy forces were likely to be encountered at any moment, as these hills are infested with warlike tribes, whose attitude at the best might be described as decidedly doubtful.

"Their guide was untrustworthy. He roused their suspicions by constant attempts to mislead them, and eventually he had to