BRITISH FORCES IN ASIA
There is another matter to which I should like to refer, and it is the suggestion that our forces have been dissipated on a subsidiary enterprise. Not a single division was sent from France to the East. With regard to Italy, had it not been for the fact that there are battalions of French and British divisions there, the Austrian Army would have been free to throw the whole of its strength on the western front. If there were not some there now the Austrian Army would be more powerfully represented than it is on the western front.
With regard to Saloniki, the only thing the present Government did was to reduce the forces there by two divisions. In Mesopotamia there is only one white division in all, and in Egypt and Palestine together there are only two white divisions, and the rest are either Indians or mixed with a very small proportion of British troops. I am referring to infantry divisions.
I want the House really to consider what that means. There is a menace to our Eastern empire through Persia, because through Persia you approach Afghanistan, and through Afghanistan you menace the whole of India. Had it not been for the blows inflicted upon the Turks, what would have happened? Before these attacks there were Turkish divisions helping the Germans in Russia. They would have been there helping the Germans on the west, exactly as they helped them on the east.
Germans Sent to Help Turks
But what has happened? They were attacked in Palestine and Mesopotamia and two Turkish armies were destroyed. If we had remained in Egypt and defended Egypt by remaining there on the canal and allowing the Turks to hold us with a small force while they were putting the whole of their force in Mesopotamia and menacing our position in India by that means, the Turks could now have been assisting the Germans in the west as they did in the east.
What is happening now? German battalions at this moment have been sent to assist the Turks instead of the Turks sending divisions to help the Germans. The Germans now have sent battalions to help the Turks in Palestine. After all, if you have a great empire you must defend it.
There was a great empire which withdrew its legions from the outlying provinces of the empire to defend its heart against the Goths and those legions never went back. The British Empire has not been reduced to that plight yet. We can defend ourselves successfully in France, and we can also hold our empire against any one who assails it in any part of the world at the same time.
May I, before I leave this topic, say how much gratitude we owe to India for the magnificent way in which she has come to the aid of the empire in this emergency?
It is not the fact that we have got three British divisions in Egypt and Palestine and one in Mesopotamia that has enabled us to hold our own, but it is the fact that we have had these splendid troops from India. Many of them volunteered since the war, and they have been more than a match for their Turkish adversaries on many a stricken field.