As I write this the Kut el Amara muddle is creating a great stir in the allied countries. Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India, and the government of India have been severely blamed for sending General Townsend into Mesopotamia with insufficient material, medical supplies and troops. At the time that the move was made the explanation given for it was that it was done in order to protect the oil pipes supplying the British navy in those waters from being destroyed by the enemy. There was no doubt in my mind at that time, in spite of the fact that I was in prison and communication with the outside was very meagre, that this was not the real reason. Subsequent developments have shown—and the abandonment of the inquiry instituted by the British Government about this affair only further supports my contention—that Russia intended to use England’s helpless position to secure for herself an access to the Persian Gulf. Grand Duke Nicholas himself abandoned the campaign on the Eastern front to go to the Caucasus. The Gallipoli enterprise which turned out to be such a monumental failure was undertaken upon his instigation. Do you think for one second that if Imperial Russia had thought England was able to capture Constantinople, a city which she herself has been wanting for centuries, she would have invited England to do so? The fact is that the Gallipoli enterprise tied up all of England’s available reserves so that the English could practically do nothing to forestall the Russian movements to the Persian Gulf. The Government of India, realizing the danger, sent General Townsend upon the famous Bagdad campaign rather as a demonstration, than as a military enterprise. I will quote from my diary which I kept while in prison. “Just read in _The Times_: ‘British moving north into Mesopotamia to protect oil pipes and capture Bagdad.’ I don’t need to read _Punch_ any more, _The Times_ being just as funny. My dear friends, you didn’t move up there for that reason. You went up there so as to be able to tell your Russian friends that there was no need to come further south as you were there already.” [Illustration: Raul Madero and Staff. Captain von der Goltz is standing the second from the left.] [Illustration: A group of recruits who came from the United States to enter Villa’s Army. Captain von der Goltz is at the extreme left.] As part of the Russian Army had already advanced as far as Kermansha, General Townsend disregarded all military rules and tactics in his desperate attempt to keep the Russians from going further South, paying very little attention to securing his line of communication, and he was subsequently cut off from his base and forced to surrender to the Turks.