Norwich bulletin., 1916-04-26
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society

kut-eI- -Amara "'The remarkable | achievement of the English General Townshend in withstanding the siege Of the Turkish army at Kut-el-Amara since early in December, will insure this insignificant town, which is sit Uated on the east banks of the Tigris River, a conspicuous place in the geo. graphy of the world war when the history of the great struggle is writ ten,' says d bulletin of the National Geographic Society of Washington, issued today.
 Before the English army was hem med in at this unhealthy coaling sta tion for steamers plying between the great date port of Basra and the inn portant city of Bagdad, Kut ut-el-Amara 100 miles southeast of the latter city, was nothing more or less than one of the myriad -the-way places to fortune and to fame unknown. ''The ~town, which at the beginning | of the war was a Turkish post con- | trolling the lower reaches of the Ti- | gris, is situated at the juncture of the old river channel and the new, the | former forming the still navigable 1 Shatt-el-Hai canal, flowing into the Euphrates. The TiSris and the Flu pirates, which approach within thirty | five miles of each other at Bagdad, are nearly 100 miles apart at this point At Basra they converge and | form the Shatt-el-Arab, sixty miles | from the Persian Gulf.
 All of the meager accounts which have come from this zone of the war
 in recent months have emphasized | th suffering which the high waters
 have caused the European trops. Un- l happily, these suffe~;ngs have not vet reached their limit, for the Tigris 1 which begins to rise in November Is
 not at the maximum stage until the
 later part of May. Then the plains
 become vast marshlands and the in-
 land sea is dotted with islands of date
 palm groves.
 When the Tigris is in flood m the
 vicinity of Kut-el-Amara 1t flows al the rate of four miles an hour, and i brings down from the headWatel quantities of mud which is deposited l in banks and shoals in the river bed
 resulting in frequent changes in tht
 channel.
 Numerous abandoned canals weav,
 their way through this section O Mesopotamia and through the coun
 try lying to the northwest of the ri
 gris, between the river and the foot 7 hills of Persia.
 y Tn a former age an extensive irri e gatian system made this land a won Q derful garden of fruits and flowers | Centuries of disuse have caused tn
 canals to become choked with silt an |, refuse, converting much of the ono U productive district into miasmati l. marshes which are a menance t r health and an offense to sight an = smell. Wherever there is an effort a
 1 cultivation, however, the husbandma.
 is rewarded like the farmer of tn n Nile delta. The finest dates in tn - world are raised a short distance t n the southeast of Kut-el-Amara an = exported from Basra. Rice, whea S barley, roses and licorice root ar
 grown. Herds of horses, sheep an
 goats constitute the chief weath of tn 1T ncmadio tIfbeS
 1T When the veterans of the Kut -el Is Amara campaign return to Englan e a large percentage will bear as sca1
 of the siege the deep. disf1guring Bag
 dad date-mark' or 'Aleppo button, 10 painful but not dangerous diseas
 prevalent in Mesopotamia. The mar n is a boil which attacks the face, necI o hards and soles of the feet. Native Id are said to escape with one, as rul ,- but Europeans often are afflicted wit
 several which do not heal for a yea
 The marks are of two varieties, tf 1t male and the female, the first a dr .d scaly sore, the other a running bo ;~ If the survivors should be called uI = on to make g. second campaie r. through Asiatic Turkey in years et come they will be immunes, as u r. button seldom appeaps a second tin
 Lon the same. persons"