_2nd Lieutenant J. O. P. Clarkson--March 3._--“We started early in the morning[32] and trekked to the Tigris west of Kut. The Infantry had established themselves on the other bank, so we crossed in the early morning and followed them up. When they had cleared the trenches we went through to harass the enemy’s retreat.... The next day we went in on what was supposed to be the retreating enemy, and found it was the main body, consisting of about 5000 men.... The next night we bivouacked by a water-hole in the desert. We had some armoured cars with us, and one of them got into difficulties a very short way off some Turkish guns, but the next morning was still intact. The next day we again went on and captured 400 prisoners and 12 guns, 6 of which were 5.9 howitzers, and one man found the breech-blocks, which had been buried in another place. By this time we were getting very short of food for the horses, but luckily we found a barge laden with grain that had been captured, so we filled up again.... We are now at a place about half-way between Kut and Baghdad. The Navy here--_i.e._, the monitors--did great work. They rushed on ahead, and got right into the thick of it, firing 6-inch shrapnel at the Turk at a range of 400 to 600 yards. Every gun on board was worked, and in every direction. They captured several boats and barges, and what used to be the _Firefly_. The Turks captured it at Kut, and have used it against us ever since, and in a few days it is going to come up and shell the Turk. The litter that was left behind by the Turks was awful--rags, clothes, camp furniture, ammunition of every description, and bombs, shells--in fact a bit of everything. We recaptured half a dozen of our fellows who had been captured the day before, and they had their boots and overcoats taken from them, as the Turks are very short of both. They even strip their own dead as well as our own for the clothes they can get off them. “I also found a Constantinople paper which was written in French, and which said the Germans had gained a great defensive victory on the Somme against the English because--and here came long explanations. Also that Verdun was as good as lost to the French, &c. I was also shown some post-cards from Germany, but they were very badly written, and I could not decipher them. There was also an ‘Illustratte Zeitung’ there, with wonderful pictures showing how grateful the Pole was for the German liberation scheme.” (Lieutenant Clarkson read and spoke fluently both French and German.) _Captain W. H. Eve--March 2._--“Well, things are going _really_ well, and we are now forty-five miles short of Baghdad, and resting a day or two. The difficulty is again supplies....