27 NOVEMBER 1915, Page 1

The news of the Ba g hdad campai g n is somewhat ambi g uous. We

are told that on the 22nd General Towusheud's division attacked the Turkish position at Ctesiphon, eighteen miles from Baghdad. After severe lighting the position was captured, together with about eight hundred prisoners and large quantities of arms and equipment. Our force appears to have suffered about two thousand casualties, and it is not likely that if eight hundred prisoners were taken the total Turkish losses were less. They are more likely to have been double. On the night of the 23rd-24th there were heavy counter- attacks by the Turks, which were successfully repulsed; but on the 24th want of water oompelled the retirement of our forces to the river, three or four miles below the captured position. That is, of course, a disappointment, and shows how difficult is campaigning in a desert country. It is to be hoped, however, that General Nixon will soon be in a position to put his band on Baghdad. When he does so we must not exaggerate the importance of the event. It will help our prestige in the East and depress the Turks, but it will not, of course, do very much to end the war. It will not in the least weaken the resisting power of the Germans, Austrians, and Bulgarians.