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The Brussels Post, 1917-5-10, Page 6SOLVING THE EASTERN RIDDLE SOLVING SUCCESS IN itIESOPOTAM:A BE- GINS A NEW ERA. Real Significance of the Bagdad Vic- tory and Its Vital Bearing On End of War. The capture of Bagdad has not aroused the attention it deserves. It means much more than people imag- ine. It means the collapse of the colossal aims for the achievement of which Germany went to war. Germany aspired to world -dominion. The attainment of that end involved the destruction of the British Empire, says an English writer. That result could only be encompassed by com- mand over the routes to the East. Bag- dad was the key to one route; Alexan- dria the key to another route. With Turkey as an ally, or, rather, as a complaisant vassal, Bagdad automatic- ally passed into German hands; and with Serbia overrunand Austria- Hungary and Bulgaria subject to the will of Berlin, the great highway from Hamburg to the legendry capital city of the Caliphs flew the German Eagle. Dreams and Desires. From Syria our possession of Egypt could be disputed, and the alternative route to the East, via the Suez Canal, menaced. The public have heard a great deal about Pan -Germanism, the dream of those who conceived Germany entering upon a world empire, compared to which the visions of Alexander the Great, Ceesar, and Napoleon were but modest aspirations. The first step in that dream was to secure control of the road from Hamburg to Bagdad. Given that control, the seventy million Germans commanded the services of another hundred million Austrians, Hungarians, Turks, and Balkan peas- ants, generally. The Bubble Pricked. With a base at Bagdad, the strong- est military Power in Europe could look across Persia into India, for through Persia, the Kaiser's military chiefs have argued, lies the most con- venient road for the invasion of our Eastern Empire. If, then, to hold Bagdad was all - vital to Germany's schemes, its loss , must represent a crushing disaster. The dream -fabric of world -dominion bas dissolved into thin air, our route to the East is once more secure, and we need have no fear for the safety of India. It is because these conclusions are clear to the educated German mind that their newspapers to -day mourn the fact that the city around which so many centuries of history have clus- tered has passed from the soldiers of the Padishah into the hands of Ferin-, ghis. many—even without retaining one single inch of territory h France, Bel- gium or Russia—would have won the war and realized her aims, seeing that if she had not conquered her enemies she had conquered her allies, and so passed the great highway from Ham- burg to Bagdad under her control; To wrest the Eastern links of that highway from her control it was ne- cessary that the war should go on, and three months after the German peace proposals were jubilantly announced in the Reichstag the terminal of the great highway from West to East stands under the British Flag, All the trade that swarms over the caravan routes of Persia will assemble at Bagdad, and British organization should make the road from Bagdad to Teheran one of the greatest arteries of commerce in the East. The wealth of Mesopotamia and Persia is at present largely unexploit- ed. In these regions there is untold mineral wealth. British engineers will make the untapped mines yield up their treasures. Our Greatest Coup. With a proper irrigation scheme Mesopotamia could become one of the world's chief granaries. Just as Brit- ish rule has brought smiling prosper- ity to Egypt, so British rule will transform Mesopotamia for the bene- fit of the Arab population. Intimate relations with India will be establish- ed to the mutual benefit of either. The capture of Bagdad is, with the exception of the German colonies, the first definite military result accom- plished by the British. It is a result which stands in the minds of the public for something tan- gible. They have read for thirty-two months of the capture of this trench and that trench, of a village here and a village there; but, looking at the map in the West, they have seen that, despite these means, the German line has only inappreciably moved. A New Era Beginning. But in the capture of Bagdad no question of the mere seizure of trenches has entered. Here was a city fh t d ' h' his- End of Turkish Rule. The knowledge that the British Flag waves over Bagdad surges through all the whispering galleries of the East, proclaiming the restoration of British prestige, and our triumph over the German challenge. To the Moham- medan world itis a signal that Brit- ish might after nearly three years of war is undiminished, and to the Arabs ---ever unwilling servitors of the Turks—it is the promise of release and emancipation. The Turkish Empire is dealt a mor- tal blow. And what destroys the Em- pire of the Turks also destroys the ambitions of the Germans, for the success of all their projects has hing- ed on the preservation of the crazy Turkish autocracy. With Bagdad in our possession, we remove the gravest menace to the 1 great route between East and West. In the old and famous city we protect India just as much as in the 120 miles of front we hold in Francs we protect' the British Isles. Forty Years' Scheming. In a military as well as in a political" sense no gain could have been more striking than the capture of Bagdad by General Maude's British and In- dian troops. We do not defeat Germany at Bag- dad, for the issue as between the great army of the belligerents must be de- cided mainly in France; but we defeat the plot, organization, and prepara- tions which have occupied the Ger- Mans for forty years. Rad we listened to her peace pro- posals at the end of the year, Ger- An Englishwoman Plowing With an Elephant in England THE SEVEN MEN WHO MATTER SEPTETTE WHO DIRECT THE WORLD -WAR. - Personalities and Responsibilities of the British War Executive. Just now, in this country, there are one o t e mos renovne m Seven Men who Matter. Those seven tory, standing on the threshold of two men are more important to every man, Empires—one the Persian, only the woman and child in the United King- dom than anybody else. They are the seven who direct the war. They throw armies of millions where they like, says London Ans- wers. They can call our gigantic fleets off the enemy, or they can use our great Dreadnoughts and our waspish destroyers and submarines to keep the stranglehold upon Germany until she gives in. The Seven Men Who Matter are the Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George; the Money Minister, Mr. Bonar Law; the Labor Minister, Mr. Arthur Hen- derson; the two Empire Ministers, j Lord Curzon and Lord Milner; and two fighting chiefs, Sir John Jellicoe shadow of its former self; the other reeling under the shock of five years' constant war, but still strong, the oc- cupation of which the Kaiser and his! military advisers for years have; preached was necessary to German! ambitions, and the strenuous fight for , which plainly indicated its importance.1 If we could win that city, argued the I man in the street, obviously we should win the equivalent of a great and far- reaching victory. And to -day Bagdad is ours, and by all the signs it is' destined to remain ours for ever, along with all the coun- try connecting the city with the Per- sian Gulf. When the war is over the develop- ment of Bagdad should grow apace, and in all the bazaars of the East they should speak of its progress. its Arab and Jewish population may confident- ly look forward to a new era of pros- perity, recalling Bagdad in its palm - lest days, nor should the time be far distant when Bagdad, rightly occupy- ing the importance it deserves in the British Empire as one of the great key -positions in the East, may justly be spoken of as a second Cairo. THE SUB51ARINE "AT HOh1E." Station Where Undersea Boats May Be Repaired and Supplied. What is a "submarine base"? Well, such a base is, in a word, a supply and repair station for under- sea boats. Craft of this kind are very elaborate and exceedingly delicate pieces of mechanism; they are liable to need tinkering at frequent inter- vals. Hence, there must he a machine shop on shore at the service of the boats when at intervals they return from cruises. There must also be a storehouse containing all kinds of sup- plies and spare parts for the subma- rines. Most important of all, there must be tanks of fuel oil. Usually there is attached to the base a "mother ship"—a good-sized steamer, with machinery aboard for making emergency repairs. The steamer also carries dynamos, which may be used for charging the bat- teries of the boats ---though at sea the charging is accomplished by the oil engines that propel the submarine when on the surface. When it is not practicable to estab- lish such a shore station, the "mother ship" may be utilized temporarily as a floating base. and Sir William Robertson. The Centre of Our Hopes. They sit in a plain room, behind a' rather dingy front, in one of the short- est and greyest little streets in Eng-! land. In a room at No. 10 Downing Street, the brain of the British War Executive is constantly at work. There is the war brain of the Rus- sian troops over in Petrograd; there is the war brain of France in Paris; there is the army direction of the mountain -fighters of Italy in Rome, the city of the seven hills; but there is one war -direction brain that is more important than all -it is the brain of the Seven Men who Matter! Absolute Authority. The Seven sit nearly every day in conference; the Five sit every day. In both cases they are able to call in men who know various sections of all the various departments connected with fighting on the sea, on the land, or in the air. Suppose for a moment that the British War Cabinet has to consider the striking of a terrible blow at the enemy in some new theatre of war. The Five meet at No. 10 Down- ing Street, Admiral Jellicoe hurries across from the Admiralty, in naval uniform and peak -cap, and carrying despatch -boxes. 'General Robertson hurries across Whitehall from the War Office. The British War Council is complete. The Prime Minister, seated at the head of the table, says: "We want to do so and so in such and such a region of the vast theatres of war." Doing It Now. General' Robertson replies that he can spare so many hundreds of thou- sands of troops to carry out this new phase of the war. • 6earocAare or WV? -o : �weegWaa0 den WHY CANADA MUST GIVE TO BELGIANS. All Belgium to -day is divided into two parts, a. field of battle and a re-' fugees' camp. The photograph shows where most of the able-bodied men' of Belgium -are to -day. They are sac -1 riflcing their all in the name of their country and of liberty by resisting the invader whq has destroyed so much of'. the beauty of their land. And with ' their allies they have stopped the en-; emy. These soldiers of Belgium are! shown receiving the decoration of the Order of Merit for their bravery. But in the meantime what has be- come of the wives, the children and' the aged parents of these heroes? A glance at the photograph shows that a wide range of ages is represented,, Yet there are besides the Belgian wo- d a men thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of Belgians who are too old or too young to fight. Bereft by their men folk they have been left hopeless, saved from starvation and death only by the loving care of their friends abroad. And this work is never ended, will never be finished until the last Ger- man is driven from Belgian soil, Un- til the day of victorious peace the women and the children and the aged of Belgium, must be fed by Britain and Canada with the United States through the relief workers who are devoting their entire time and energy to the cause. Contributions are need- ed daily and wbatever their size they will be gratefully received by the Central Belgian Relief Committee, 89 St. Peter Street, Montreal, or the lo- cal committees, Can they be fed? Instantly, with the ease of a man reaching down a hat from a peg, a profound expert on the rationing of great armies is brought in. "In how many days can you provide the food for, say, a quarter of a mil- lion of men at such and such a place, so many hundred miles from any big source of food supply?" Clearly and quickly the answer is given. Can that number of men be trans- ported to that place by sea? Admiral Jellicoe looks after that. With his fel- low -experts at his beck and call, he informs the War Cabinet, with mar- vellous speed, how many transport - ships there are available, how many of the German submarines have been destroyed by us in that particular region, and what measures we have ready to make the voyage of great armies of men across the waters al- . most as safe as a trip on a penny - steamer to Kew Gardens on a summer afternoon. Behind the Scenes. Are there rifles, ammunition, field guns, heavy artillery, shells, hand grenades, steel rails, Tanks, trench timber, leather, iron, copper, explo- sives and other engines and instru- ments of war ready in sufficient quan- tity for the .equipment of such a force? Instantly great experts who have spent a lifetime in equipping armies, and great masters in the science of ordnance, and heads of vast munition factories are called into council. Thus, the new blow at the enemy is decided upon, and all is got ready in smoothness and silence behind the scenes. Sometimes it is a matter upon which it would be desirable to call into con- ference Sir Douglas Haig, the Com- mander -in -Chief of the British Army on the Western Front. Sometimes it would be well to consult the knowl- edge and experience of General Ni - vette, the head of the great French Army, which is fighting shoulder to shoulder with our British heroes in France. Silently, without the world or the people of London knowing a word about it, these two great Army 1 Chiefs are brought over to Downing Street. They consult with the Seven who Matter. 1 Their Records. Sir Douglas Haig can be in the neighborhood of the trenches in the face of the enemy at six o'clock in the morning; and in secret conclave with the British War Cabinet at three o'clock the same afternoon. Not un- til he has gone back, and has arrived safely at the headquarters in France, does the Government announce in the daily papers that he has been here. : Who are these seven men? • The Prime Minister has been about I a quarter of a century in Parliament, and held one great office after another in British Cabinets. Mr. Bonar Law is the most gifted debater in Parlia- ment, and is now Leader of the House of Commons. Lord Curzon has been Viceroy of India, ruler of two or three hundred million people. Lord Milner was a big expert on taxation and in- land revenue before he went out to do b. ED Mit co Ion fps co tb.t 431 11-1LOCM. TDM,LOW HERE A MINUTE, THERE ARE. SOME GOOD BARGAI145 IN THIS WINDose Yar DONT THEY L00if 0000 roR'HE M01iE11 I Oats A PAIR. of STREET 5HOES Too . 1 Deo EVE IT WOULD PA`I To Leola IK51DE f great Imperial Work Whieh led to the establishment of the enormous Union of South Africa under British rule. Mr, Arthur Henderson became Labor Adviser t0 the Government major Mr, Asquith; now he is the Labor member of the War Cabinet. Responsible to Posterity. A FELINE REFORM.EIG,.. Hard Work and a Black. etat Made a Man of an Outcast, A tramp whose bee was boyish and whose hair was iron -gray sat under a viaduct near a Kansas town waiting fora freht ain ch to "beat There is little need to say much his. Way" toigthetrharvestonwhiholds. Group - about Admiral Jellicoe, He command- ed under the viaduct with him were ed the fleet avhieh secured the safe, half a hundred others of his type, for transport of seven millions by sea. 1when the Kansas wheat harvest calls, General Sir William ' Robertson, thousands answer, Chief of the Imperial Staff, has risen A little black kitten wandered into from the lowest rank in the British their retreat. One of the men play - Army to the high position he now fully tossed a tin at her, and she holds. (sought cover in the t of amp The public knows much of the"ear-, with the iron -gray heihar. Whenthe attrlong eers of the Seven Men who Matter,` freight train boomed up the track, but, until now, practically no light' has bound west, and the tramp hurriedly been thrown upon their daily silent reached for his hat, which had been ly- work. It is the work that is crushing ing near him, the kitten was still the enemy. On their secret decisions there. t depends the safety of the Empire. On Thrusting the little animal into his their wisdom depends the very food we coat pocket, the tramp ran for the eat. Without the forces marshalled train; but the kitten wriggled out and by these seven men the work of our the man stopped short. He believed gallant and powerful Allies would be that it brought good luck to make in vain, and the British Empire would friends with an animal, and he deter - go down in ruins. THE TREES OF FRANCE. Hush, little heaves, your springtime dance, Sigh for the murdered trees of France. Rooted deep were their sturdy forms, Toying both in the -sun and storms. Friends were they of the peasant folk, Friends whom the birds and kine be- spoke. 1 Ever they gage while slow years wheeled Shade and shelter and fruitful yield: Spoil are they of destroying lust, Not of the battle stroke or thrust, , Prone they lid on the Hun's black path, Done to death by his thwarted wrath. They are a garden still to see, They are the world's Gethsemane! Hush, little leaves, your springtime dance, Sigh for the murdered trees of France. se— Free Milk Record Forms. Two five-year-old cows in a dairy herd where cow testing is practiced made two widely divergent records in 1916. One gave 6,616 pounds of milk and 204 pounds of fat, the other gave 8,870 pounds of milk and 288 pounds of fat. This means twenty-seven dol- lars difference in income between the two. The owner did not expect to find such a difference. Yet who but the man among his cows all the time should best know their possibilities ? Is there as much difference as that be- tween two cows in your herd? Cow testing will help you to know, and will help you to save time, labor and feed. For if you retain only the best cows, you keep those that you are sure will repay you handsomely for all you ex- pend on them. A request to the Dairy Commissioner, Ottawa, for "milk re- cord forms should state whether you want those for daily or three days weights per month; they are free for asking. A GLIMPSE T GAZA. 1917 Will See Britein in Control of Cradle of Christianity. , Here is a vivid idea of the im- portance of Gaza reached by our vic- torious British troops: "Gaza is the southern counterpart of Damascus. It is a site of abundant fertility on the edge of a great desert —a harbor for the wilderness, and a market for the nomads; once, as Da- mascus is still, the rendezvous of a great pilgrimage; and us Damascus was the first great Syrian station across the desert from Assyria, so Gaza is the natural outpost across the desert from Egypt. The Bedouin from a hundred miles away come into the bazaars for their cloth, weapons and pottery. The in- habitants were characterized as 'lovers of pilgrims,' whom, no doubt, like the. Damascenes, they found profitable. As from Damascus, so from Gaza, great trade routes travelled in all directions —to Egypt, to South Arabia, and, in times of the Nabatean Kingdom, to Petra and Palmyra. Amos curses Gaza for trafficking in slaves from Edon)." ik No man or woman has a right to looak on while others are struggling for what is equally important to them. —The Prime Minister. YOU NAVE A veRY DAIIrr' LITTLE Fool ISHOULO-- SA`) YOU, NEVER MINDTHIS DAINTY LITYLE Fool' STUFF -ALL YOU'VE G0T To DO IS Yo SHOW Us SOME. 5140as - Do Y01) FOLLQJ1 me. oR W ILL 1 OW. To CO�ME.'. DACK FOR YQU. I:OW 'ToM, ball T START A 'l►ERByI I'm GLAD ITS, WIWT WOULD THE Boss NAVE HAPSeesC IusTaAD of IF HE HAD MBS SAIDSNE NAD A BIG NOV ` NownwrioroismaWrsminiftirr mined not to desert his new-found companion even if he lost the train. Half an hour later he left on another freight train, and soon settled himself on a flat car with a dozen other "gentlemen of the road." Presently he pulled the cat from his pocket, and, after conferring with the other members of the party, christen- ed it hristen-edit Weary Willy, a name that suited not only the cat's general appearance but also its character. It gave way to an uncontrollable desire to sleep in its protector's lap. The tramp secured a job on a west- ern Kansas farm. He slept in the barn with the kitten curled up on a bed of hay near him. In the daytime, while he was shocking wheat, Weary Willie played with the farmer's chil- dren. When the harvest,rwas over and the tramp prepared to go, the children were broken-hearted at the thought of parting with the kitten. Not wishing to disappoint them, the farmer in- duced the tramp to stay for the, au- tumn ploughing, and later in the sea- son leased him forty acres of land. Last year the tramp—a tramp no more—harvested an average of thirty bushels of wheat an acre from his leased land, and is preparing to farm three or four times as much' land this year. The neighboring farmers keep him employed steadily when be is not working for himself, for they have found him a steady, conscientious worker. The seven hundred odd dol- lars that he received from his crop is almost entirely clear profit. Weary Willie belied the sex that its name implied by becoming the mother of five fine black kittens, and her mas- ter is more than ever convinced that there is something in the tramp's su- perstition that a black cat brings good luck. That, and hard work, made a man out of an outcast. • TEE RE -AWAKENING WORLD. The Miracle of Spring is a Parable of Spiritual Re -birth. "Immanuel Kant used to say: 'Two things fill me with' unutterable awe, the silent stars above me and the mo- ral law within me." "Most thoughtful persons must have felt this speechless awe as they looked up and within," writes Dr. Rufus M. Jones, in The Friend. "But there is one thing which fills me with profounder wonder than Kant's silent stars and that is the re -awakening of the world in springtime. It seems some of these mornings as though we might hear the sons of God once more shouting for joy as they behold the new miracle of re-creation going on, If we were not dulled by habit and made callous by seeing the miracle re- peated, we should look upon this new stream of life with those large eyes of wonder with which the first Adam saw his fresh -made world. "I am not surprised that men in all ages have taken this re -birth of the world in spring as a parable of a deeper re -birth. Long before there was a Christian Easter, with its sym- bols of flowers and eggs, men cele- brated the opening of the flowers and the hatching of the eggs because they saw in these events a gateway into a deeper mystery and were touched with wonder as to whether the soul might have its re -awakening and its new career of life. "That Power that guides the unfold ing of the acorn and pushes up the oak, that Mind that brings the gorge- ous butterfly out of the chill cocoon and raises it to its new and winged career, may well know how tb 'swal- low up mortality with life,' and bring. us and ours to a higher stage of. be- ing, This new and greater miracle of another life beyond does not stagger us much after we have`fully entered into the wonder of the spring. It is no more difficult to carry a soul safely over the bridge of death into the light and joy of a new world of life than it is to make a spring dandelion out of one of those strange seeds which. a child carelessly blew away last am- ine'. "But here is the dandelion! It is 'common', enough, We hardly stop to look down into its yellow face er to meditate on the wonder of its arrival over the narrow bridge of that flying seed. But if we could penetrate all its mysteries, could know it root and all in all, we could see through all the mysteries there are, and we should final it easy to say: 'I believe in the resurreetionfrom the dead and in the life everlasting.','