War in the Garden of Eden

by Kermit Roosevelt

At dawn we were under way. We had heard reports during the night that the Turks had evacuated Tuz—but it was not long before we found that such was not the case. They were still there and showed every evidence of staying. A small village five or six miles to the southwest was also bitterly contested. Our cavalry did some excellent work, capturing small hills held with machine-guns.

We advanced down the road beside the hills. A mile before reaching Tuz we ran into the Aq Su, a large stream flowing through a narrow cleft in the hills. Fortunately the river was very low, and there were several places where it was spread out over such a wide bed that it seemed as if it might be possible to get the cars across. I emptied a Ford van and set out to do some prospecting. First I went up-stream, which was toward the mountains, but I could not go far, for there was an ancient fort situated at the mouth of the gorge, and it had not been evacuated. Finding a likely looking place a little below, I made a cast and just succeeded in getting through. It was easy to see that it would not be possible for the low-swung Rolls to cross under their own power, for the fly-wheel would throw the water up into the motor. There was nothing to do but send back for artillery horses to pull the armored cars across.

Meanwhile, as our artillery had practically ceased firing on the town and the Turks seemed to have entirely evacuated it, I thought that I would go up and take over and see whether there had not been some valuable documents left behind. I drove along past some abandoned artillery into the main street. A number of Turkish soldiers came up to surrender and I told them to have the Reis Beledia—the town mayor—report to me. When he came I directed him to take me to the quarters of the Turkish commanding general. As we drove through the covered bazaar everything was closed. Scarcely anybody was in the streets—but I could see the inhabitants peeping out from behind lattices. It was a good thing to have the old mayor along, for he served as an excellent hostage, and I kept close watch upon him. He brought me to a prosperous, neat-looking house with heavy wooden doors. In response to his summons an old woman came and ushered us into a large, cool room, well furnished and with beautiful Kurdish rugs. There we found four young girls, who, it was explained to me, formed the Turkish general's "field harem." He had left in too much of a hurry to take them with him. They were Kurds and Circassians, or Georgians—and the general had shown no lack of taste in his selection! True to the tradition of the Garden of Eden, this harem proved disastrous to a brother officer who, having heard of my capture, sent me "priority" over the field service lines a ribald message as to its disposition. "Priority" wires are sent only on affairs of the greatest importance, and when I left the country my friend was slated to explain matters before a court martial. There were no papers of any great value to be found, and I told the mayor to take me to the more important ammunition and supply dumps. By the time I had located these some cavalry had come in, and I went back to the river to help get the fighting cars across.

Once we had these safely over we set out in pursuit of the Turks. The next town of importance was a ramshackle mud-walled affair called Tauq, twenty miles beyond, on the far side of a river known as the Tauq Chai. The leading cars pursued to within sight of the town and came in for a good deal of shelling.

The Turks we captured were in far poorer shape than those we had recently taken on the Euphrates front. Their shoes were worn out, they were very ragged, and, what was of greater significance, they were badly nourished. The length of their line of communications had evidently severely strained them. Supplies had to come overland all the way from Nisibin, which is more than a hundred miles beyond Mosul. The broken country made the transportation a difficult problem to solve. It was a miracle that they had the morale to fight as they did under such disadvantageous conditions.

Here, as throughout the campaign, it was a continual source of pride to see the way in which our soldiers behaved to the natives. I never heard of a case in which man, woman, or child was wrongfully treated. Minor offenses were sometimes committed, but these were quickly righted. No doubt there were isolated instances of wrong-doing, for in such a large army there are bound to be degenerate individuals from whose conduct it is unfair to judge the whole.

That night we encamped in the outskirts of Tuz, not far from the Turkish aerodrome. Next morning one of the batteries was ordered to reconnoitre as far as the town—pursuing a different route than that taken on the previous day. The commanding officer asked me to go along because of my knowledge of Arabic. The road followed the telegraph-lines, and part of the time that was the only way in which we could distinguish it from the surrounding country. Of course, the map was hopelessly incorrect. The villages were not even rightly named. A great deal of reconnoitring was called for, and in one village we had to knock the corner off a mud house to enable us to make a sharp right-angle turn. The natives were in pitiful condition. The Turks had not only taken all their crops, but even the grain that should be reserved to sow for the following year. The sheep had been killed in the lambing season, so the flocks were sadly depleted. Such standing grain as there was left looked flourishing. The wheat waved above the cars.

As we came out of a deep, broad ravine that had caused us much delay and difficulty, we caught sight of an attractive town situated on a steep, flat-topped hill. Upon drawing near, a fine-looking, white-bearded Arab rode up on a small gray mare. He said that he was the head man of the town; that he hated the Turks, and would like to be of any assistance possible to us. I asked him if the enemy had evacuated Tauq. He replied that they had. I then asked him if he were positive about it. He offered to accompany us to prove it. The trail was so bad that we could not go fast, and he rode along beside us at a hand-gallop.

When we came to the river in front of the town we found that it was impossible to get the armored cars across. The Turks had evidently fallen back, but not far, for they were dropping in shells with regularity. Our Arab friend told us that there was a bridge six miles up-stream, but it was too late for us to attempt it, and we turned back to Tuz after arranging with Sheikh Muttar to meet us in the morning.