Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1916-11-22
The Defense OF suez.

From the Kansas City Times.
The war operations in France, Belgium
aud the Balkans are of such magnitude
that the eyes of the world, conferred upon
them, have lost sight, almost wholly, OF
which is so big in itself that in ordinary
times the newspapers would be, full OF 1T.
Few persons in this country know any
thing of the vast operations that. have
been going on along the banks oil that
canal. of the millions of dollars spent in
it's defense, of the desperate f1ghtimg ana
battle there.
1t was necessary for Great Britain and
for it was the short route between Europe
on the one hand and India, Japan. Aus
tralia, Siberia and the Persian gulf on
could close the canal it would be a severe
blow to her So Germany as
signed a large Turkish army 7, to 9oa do nat.
tary training. This Turkish army. re-
enforced by many Arabs of the desert.
far as it reached. and then this army
moved westward across the sandy desert
TOWARD the canal, laying water pipes and
building n railway as 1T went.
Sir Archibald Murray was given COM
mand of the British forces sent to defend
the canal; His is a polyglot army. There
sinians. Fiji Islanders, Australians, Su-
danese, negroes from. North Africa and q
big sprinlSling of British.
The British censors have not permit
ted all the news of the SueZ campaign to
be published, but enough has been printed
from time to time i'm the London papers
to give one Il good idea of what has been
done.
The canal is 90 miles long and is Dor
of the most utterly desolate deserts in
the world. 1T was necessary to throw out
troops for a distance of 10 miles from the
canal along it's entire length to keep off
the Turkish army which swarmed up that
close to it. To maintain these troops 10
miles out upon the desert railways had
ia he h1j1t ont from the canal at nOintS
only a few miles apart the whole distance
of 80 miles. There are said to be 200 miles
between the sand dunes. The sands shift
so that every mile of this railway had to
be rock ballasted, and this rock was
upon the summit of which Moses received
the tables of stone. Every tie laid there
and every steel rail and bolt and nut was
Every ounce of food and drop of water
consumed by the army and railway work.
ers had to be carried out to them over the
desert, Barracks were built, barbed wire
entanglements constructed and rows Of
trenches had to be dug the whole distance
drifting. would soon fill these trenches.
and every foot of them is shored up with
lumber brought by sea. much Of It from
from Pittsburgh were shipped from Balti-
more and laid out over the desert to pump
Of %"t tren s1 ese 10 a1', Miles ro out, mil military tary" roads Dads
have been built to outposts rather out
While the army was building this vast
system Of defense, it was continually
fighting off the Turks. Many battles have
been fought there. and a correspondent
of the london Times. describing the ap-
pearance of one of those desert battle
fields, told of the thousands of long and
narrow mounds. each containing the body
of a. Turkish soldier. There is no need
to bury those who fall there, the shifting
sands soon cover them.
Those of US who are trying to follow
the progress of this war are more and
more impressed with the realization of tho
gigantic scale on which its operations are
being conducted.