And so I think the purpose of this amazing expedition was to enlist the considerable Transcaucasian Armenian forces against the Turks. Apparently that intention was not fulfilled. If it had been fulfilled it would have put an end to the German hope of a road through Batum and Baku to the East. That way lies the path to Peking. Upon the Mesopotamian campaign now, and upon the steadfast purpose of the Allies when the time comes to talk of peace, depends the question whether Germany's plan for a conquest of the East is to be realized.
Few persons realize the magnitude of the Bagdad campaign.
I am not at liberty to tell the number of men engaged in it, but I can at least say that the number cannot be epressed in tens of thousands nor in hundreds of thousands. Lieutenant General Sir John Marshall is now maintaining a line of communication with his base more than 700 miles long, and supplies are transported by boat along the Tigris River. His forces are in three sections. One arm is stretched forward along the Euphrates River, through the region of the Garden of Eden, to a point somewhere west of Hit. The central arm, of which he is in comman, is east of the Tigris, about sixty miles south of Mosul.