Now for your letter of August 11th. I'm sorry you are discouraged because the programme you propounded to Auntie's work-party in February has not been followed. But comfort yourself with the reflection that the programme which Kaiser Bill propounded to his work-party has not been followed either.
Your Balkan programme, or rather Bob's, does not at present show much more sign of fulfilment than the one you propounded to Auntie's work-party, I'm afraid.
As usual nothing whatever has happened here. Elaborate arrangements have been made to have a battle to-morrow 120 miles up the river at Kut. It ought to be quite a big show: the biggest yet out here. As the floods are gone now it may be possible to walk right round them and capture the lot. If we pull off a big success the G.O.C. is very keen to push on to Baghdad, but it is a question whether the Cabinet will allow it. It means another 200 miles added to the L. of c.: and could only be risked if we were confident of the desert Arabs remaining quiet. Personally I see no solid argument for our going to Baghdad, and several against it (1) the advance would take us right through the sacred Shiah country, quite close to Karbala itself (Karbala is to the Shiah Mohammedans—and the vast majority of Indian Mahommedans are Shiahs—what Mecca is to the Sunnis; and Baghdad itself is a holy city). It would produce tremendous excitement in India and probably open mutiny among the Moslem troops here if they were ordered up. (2) Surely Russia wouldn't like it. (3) We can't expect to hold it permanently. Everything, so far as I can see, points to portioning this country into a British sphere and a Russian, with a neutral belt in between, on the Persian model, except that the "spheres" may be avowed protectorates. The British one must come up far enough to let us control the irrigation and drainage of Lower Mesopotamia properly: and stop short of the holy cities: say to the line Kut-el-Amarah (commonly called Kut)—Nasiriyah, along the Shatt-al-Hai. The Russians would, I suppose, come down to about Mosul.
This campaign is being conducted on gentlemanly lines. When we took a lot of prisoners at Nasiriyah we allowed the officers to send back for their kits. In return, last week, when one of our aeroplanes came down in the enemy's lines and the two airmen were captured, they sent a flag of truce across to us to let us know that the prisoners were unhurt and to fetch their kits.
I just missed Sir Mark Sykes who cruised through here two days ago. I have written to him in the hope of catching him on his way back.
Amarah.
September 27, 1915.
To R.K.
After censoring about 100 of my Company's letters I feel this will be a very incorrect performance. What strikes one too is the great gain in piquancy of style achieved by the omission of all punctuation. How could I equal this for instance "The Bible says this is a land of milk and honey there is plenty of water and dust about if thats what they mean?" or "The sentry shot an Arab one night soon after we got here I saw him soon afterwards caught him in the chest a treat it did."