I do hope your "fifty submarines" is true. I shan't think much of you if you can't get official confirmation from Cousin Arthur: but if he is impenetrably discreet, you might at least get him to explain--or pass it on to me if you know already--what conceivable harm it could do if we published the bare numbers of submarines "accounted for" without any particulars of when, where, or how.
As for this campaign it is the old story of the Empire repeating itself. When it began they only meant to secure the oil-pipe and protect British interests at Basra. But they found to their great surprise that you can't stay comfortably on the lower waters of a great river with an enemy above you any more than you could live in a flat with the lodger above continually threatening your life. A river like the Tigris or Euphrates is a unit, and the power which occupies its mouth will inevitably be drawn to its source unless it meets the boundaries of a strong and civilised state on the way. Turkey will be neither after the war.
We occupied the Shattal-Arab as far as Kurnah. We sat still. The Turks, based on Nasiriyah attacked us and nearly recaptured Basra.
We beat them at Shaiba, and for safety's sake had to push them from their base.
Then the double advance to Amarah and Nasiriyah.
We pushed the Turks out, and they promptly reformed at Kut and prepared to threaten us again. So we pushed forward again and beat them at Kut.
Now they have reformed at a point, only twenty miles from ----, their present base. We shall go for them there no doubt, and push them back once more. But what does it all lead to? Imagine peace restored. What will Turkey be like? She will be bankrupt, chaotic, totally incapable of keeping order among these murderous Bedouins. The country would be a second Persia under her. Persia is intolerable enough for the Europeans who trade there at present: but the plight of this country might easily be worse. We are bound to control the bit from Basra to the sea to protect existing interests. The whole future of that area--as of all Mesopotamia--depends on a scientific scheme of drainage and irrigation. At present half the country is marsh and half desert. Why? Because under Turkish rule the river is never dredged, the banks are never repaired, stray Arabs can cut haphazard canals and leave them to form marshes, and so on. Now an irrigation and drainage scheme is vitally necessary, but (1) it involves a large outlay; (2) to be effective it must start a long way up-stream; (3) there must be security for the good government _not only_ of the area included in the scheme, but of the whole course of the river above it. These Asiatic rivers are tricky things: they run for hundreds of miles through alluvial plains which are as flat as your hand. Here at Amarah, 200 miles from the mouth of the Tigris, we are only 28ft. above sea-level. Consequently the river's course is very easily altered. Look at Stanford's map of this region and see how the Euphrates has lost itself between Nasiriyah and Basra--"old channel," "new channel," creeks, marshes, lakes, flood-areas and so on; the place is a nightmare. That kind of thing is liable to happen anywhere if the river is neglected. So that our schemes for Lower Mesopotamia might be spoilt by the indolence of those in possession higher up the river: let alone the security of the trade-routes which would be at the mercy of wild Arabs if Turkey collapses.
