Naturally the Turks wished to fight in the Balkan Peninsula, and to recover, if possible, some of the territory which they had lost during the recent disastrous wars. This, however, they could not do, because Greece and Bulgaria, their neighbours, remained neutral. The Germans wished to use the Turkish army to create diversions--that is, to attack the Allies at a distance from the main theatres of war, and thus compel them to divide their forces. The frontiers of Turkey in Asia touch that wild, mountainous region in which Russia holds sway beneath the towering masses of the Caucasus; they also touch the bounds of Egypt, in which Britain is supreme, and draw near to the head of the Persian Gulf, which for generations we have watched and guarded in the interests of our Indian Empire, and have long regarded as a British sphere of influence. In these three regions the Turks might be of real assistance to their German masters. If they fought in Transcaucasia, they would draw off Russian troops from the thousand-mile line which the soldiers of the Tsar were then holding from the Niemen to the Dniester. If they attacked the Suez Canal, they might bar Britain's short road to India, and force her to keep a large army in Egypt. Further, when the Turks advanced, their Moslem brethren in Egypt and India might rise in rebellion, and force Britain to withdraw troops from the Western front to put them down. Then, again, the Turks might push down to the shores of the Persian Gulf, and obtain a foothold from which India might be threatened and the oil fields of Persia secured. The Turks, therefore, attacked on the Persian Gulf, in Transcaucasia, and in Egypt. With their descent upon the Suez Canal I shall deal in our next volume; in this and the next chapter I will describe the fighting at the head of the Persian Gulf, and afterwards I will tell you something of the operations in Transcaucasia. * * * * * South of Transcaucasia lies the Armenian plateau, which consists of lofty ranges of sterile mountains, with fertile vales and wide plains between them. The highest peak of this plateau is Ararat, on which it is said that the Ark rested after the flood. Ararat stands where the Russian, the Turkish, and the Persian empires meet, and from its southern slopes that famous river the Euphrates goes leaping through the mountain gorges on its way to the distant Persian Gulf. In the mountains to the south-east of Ararat rises the Tigris, which also flows towards the Persian Gulf, and gradually draws nearer and nearer to the Euphrates, with which it finally unites. Between the two rivers is Mesopotamia, which in early times was a wonderfully fertile country, but under the blighting hand of the Turk has become a wilderness, though it might again "blossom as the rose" if the waters of the rivers were properly distributed over the land.