THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
IN TURKEY
JAMES B. MACDONALD
Mesopotamia important to Great Britain.
It is perhaps not generally realized how important the future of Mesopotamia is to the British, or why they originally sent an expedition there which has since developed into a more ambitious campaign. Ever since the Napoleonic period British influence and interests have been supreme from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, and this was the one quarter of the globe where they successfully held off the German trader with his political backing.
Great Britain's war with Persia.
British steamer on the Tigris.
It will be recalled that early in Queen Victoria's reign Great Britain engaged in a war with Persia, and landed troops at Bushire in assertion of their rights. Ever since they have policed the Persian Gulf, put down piracy, slave and gun-running, and lighted the places dangerous to navigation. These interests having been entrusted to the Government of India, news affecting them seldom finds its way into Western papers. Previous to the war a line of British steamers plied regularly up the River Tigris to Bagdad, the center of the caravan trade with Persia. The foreign trade of this town alone in 1912 amounted to $19,000,000, and it was nearly all in the hands of merchants in Great Britain or India. Germany exported $500,000 worth of goods there annually. Basra, farther down the river, exports annually about 75,000 tons of dates, valued at $2,900,000. It also does a large export trade in wheat.
An irrigation scheme.
The Persian oil fields controlled by Great Britain.