hough held up at Kut-el-Amara, and known to be in sore straits,
were in daily expectation of strong reenforcements. The campaign
against Bagdad, which had been originally undertaken by the Indian
army, had proved too big a task for that relatively small
organization, and the conduct of that campaign was taken over by the
imperial military authorities in Great Britain, who have larger
militant forces at their disposal than those possessed by the Indian
Government.

Aside from this fear of strong reenforcements, the Turkish commanders
were straining every effort to capture the British force shut up in
Kut-el-Amara, and thus secure a great victory that could not fail to
have far-reaching military and political effects both in Turkey and
throughout the whole warring world. For this reason every unit of
troops that could be possibly spared from other fields was rushed to
Bagdad and thrown into the field against General Townshend's sorely
pressed command awaiting relief at Kut-el-Amara.

Furthermore, although the pressure on the Gallipoli front had been
relaxed through the practical abandonment by the allied troops of the
attempt to force the Dardanelles, with the entrance of the Bulgarians
into the war and the prosecution of the offensive against Serbia a new
need had been found for Turkish troops. For the Bulgarian and Serbian
development had brought the Allies in ever-increasing strength to
Saloniki. The Allies at the Greek port were a constant potential
menace to Turkey, as well as to Bulgaria, and through the Entente
press were running constant rumors of a coming offensive directed at
Constantinople "through the back door," as it was called.

To be sure the allied forces at Saloniki, beyond a half-hearted
effort, with but a fraction of their numbers to assist the escape of
the Serbian army from the menace of the Austro-German-Bulgarian
pincers that threatened it on three sides, had made no move to carry
the war to the Bulgarian or Turkish enemy. Yet Turkey found it
necessary to keep constantly at Constantinople, or in the country
immediately to the north and in close touch with the Bulgarian forces,
an army estimated at at least 200,000 men.

In other words, the Turkish General Staff could withdraw few if any of
the men concentrated about Constantinople at the beginning of the war
to fill the enormous gaps made in her line on other fronts. Indeed,
she had need to add to them to offset the extraordinary number of men