68 >y 1 The Liberator of Mesopotamia By Basil Mathews New York Paget Literary Agency 1918 The Liberator of ^esoDOtamia Basil' Math Ews A " New York Paget Literary Agency 1918 f\5 Copyright, 1918, by Basil Mathews AUG -8 1918 ©CLA501402 Liberator of Meso LIEUT.-GEN. SIR STANLEY MAUDE, K.C.B. I. Of all the mysteries of the incomprehensible East, there is none stranger than the swift spread of news over vast distances v/ithout aid of telegraph or wireless. That in- visible, uncontrollable spread of information through the myriad bazaars of the cities from Baghdad to Rangoon makes and mars the reputation and influence of men and empires. It is independent of official bulletins, and defies "doctored" nev/s. It is an unseen, irresistible ''Reuters" of Asiatic humanity. The v^hisper in all those bazaars and in numbered villages in Arabia and India v/as that the British moon was v/aning. Our prestige drooped and drooped till it stood lower than it had fallen for centuries. The vision of thousands of British soldiers being led as prisoners into the heart of Turkey flashed like lightnin^^ across Asia, and visualised itself like a cinematograph on the mind of the Indian. And in Asia prestige is worth many army corps. At this hour there came up the Tigris a quiet, unas- suming English general, whose meditative eyes, oval face, and drooping moustache suggested the cultivated English country gentleman rather than the head of an imperial army. His face was to that of a Hindenburg as the head of a stag to that of a bull. Nor had his air and person any hint of the all-conquering despot of Oriental history. But the moustache concealed a mouth Which, though entirely without hardness, knew no yielding or fear. And the long, dominant nose, if it was not that of a bull-headed 4 The Liberator of Mesopotamia pugilist, Was that of a much more formidable opponent, the conqueror who fights not so much with the body as with the brain. II. The General was Sir Stanley Maude. Behind him lay a long record of service that was both thorough and unas- suming in itself and brilliant in its results. But before him lay a task that might well grip with cold' dread the bravest and most resolute of men. The record is one that is characteristically English in that the story carries us out on to the fringe of the Empire rather than into the army depot and the training camp. Disciplined in thought and temper as a boy in the class- rooms and on the playing fields of Eton, Stanley Maude, whose father. General Maude, wore the V.C., went on to Sandhurst, where both the traditions of his family and the powers of his own mind gave him distinction as a student of war. Within twelve months of entering the Army he had seen active service in the Soudan in the engagement of Hasheen and at the destruction of Tamai in 1885, Where the young subaltern won his first medal and the Khedive's star. In the South African War, again, he was out in 1899 as a Major in the advance on Kimberley, and was under fire in a dozen operations in the Orange Free State, the Transvaal, and Cape Colony, where he won the D.S.O. His cool, daring brain, his piercing view into the heart of a situation, his power of winning and inspiring con- fidence, his blend of gentleness and inflexible will, car- ried him at once into those ranges of creative organiza- tion where — following the South African War — the The Liberator of Mesopotamia 5 quality of the direction and control of the British mili- tary forces was transformed. As Military Secretary to the Governor-General of Canada, as Private Secretary to our own Secretary of State for War (m 1905), and in other capacities, he was (as Colonel Maude) appointed to the General Staff at t'he War Office in 1914. When the Great War broke out, Britain found swiftly in this steel-tempered man of fifty years, with his blithe spirit, rich experience, and unchilled enthusiasm, one of the perfect instruments ready to her hand for the great task of the defence of liberty. Wounded in the first year of the war, and mentioned seven times in despatches, he became a Divisional Commander in 1915, and by the summer of 1916 he had won universal recognition by the clean efficiency of all his work, and particularly by the inspiring influence of his radiant personality upon the men. III. Lieut.-General Maude v/as now faced by the supreme short crowning task of his life. In August, 1916, he was made Commander-in-Chief in Mesopotamia. As he went up the Tigris between the tawny banks of the ancient river, and under the fierce sun, whose rays smite like sword-blades, he saw before him everything that could quell the spirit. The enemy was flushed with triumph and holding thousands of British soldiers as prisoners in his hands. The men in his own command, by the in- efficiency of organization, the baffling disappointment of defeat, and the deadly effects of the tropical climate, had been reduced to inanition, weariness, sickness, and de- spair. Quietly, but simply, and with great firmness, he took 6 The Liberator of Mesopotamia hold. With a silent swiftness that was astonishing in its results, though unpretentious and even prosaic in its methods, he transformed, with the assistance of his bril- liant subordinates, the organisation of supply and the re- lief of sickness. In the house on the banks of the Tigris where the great German strategist. Von der Goltz, had lived and died, he worked with that far-seeing, thorough, sensitive brain, which visualised quite clearly the goal, and with equal care made every preparation for reaching it. It was characteristic of him that, while nothing turned the tire- less mind from the task before him, yet when he was out galloping over the soft earth for his recreation he would turn aside, dismount, and enter a hospital to cheer 'by his presence and inspire by his words the soldiers who lay there. The contagion of health and buoyancy of spirit, above all, the contagion of high faith, is more powerful than the contagion of disease and despair. The spirit of Sir Stanley Maude ran like electric power through a powerful engine; within six months the dis- pirited, nerveless army was alert, alive, and tingling with confidence in every limb. Splendid in his personal physique, with unbroken health and strength, Sir Stanley Maude ruled himself with a discipline greater than he imposed on others. Exceed- ingly temperate, almost to the point of total abstinence, he also stands in a very small group of Army commanders who never smoked. The tremendous responsibilities and imperial anx- ieties that met him where he was might well have quenched even his confidence. For he was in the very focus of the war. He and his forces stood between Germany and its vast dream of dominion in the East. He was placed where the interests of three continents — Asia, Africa, and The Liberator of Mesopotamia 7 Europe — converge. The future history of the world in- evitably hung on the issue of what was done in Mesopo- tamia, and that issue hung upon him. Yet he was never overburdened with these responsibilities and anxieties, and remained to those who lived in the same house with him day by day calm and confident about the issue. The Russians failed to co-operate with him, and broke up the plans that were made, yet still he went on. Plans could be re-made; his spirit remained unbroken. IV. The sources of that strength did not lie simply in physique or even mental temper. They lay in the tremen- dous background, invisible, yet universal, of the Powers in which he truly believed. The root of his power lay in those high beliefs about God and duty. The flush of the dawn coming over the desert on a Sunday invariably found Sir Stanley Maude kneeling before the altar, taking the sj^^mbols of the supreme sacrifice of God in Christ for man. If there has appeared in this war any knightly figure recalling the great Sir Gallahad tradition, it was Sir Stan- ley Maude. The temper, purity, and discipline of per- sonal life, the enthusiasm for a high cause and belief in its ultimate triumph, the utter devotion to achieving its victory, the blend of gentleness and hardihood, the unity of physical strength, moral courage, and spiritual vision, all mark him out as a 'Veray-parfit gentle knight." He, at the head of his reorganized and reinspirited forces, entered Baghdad. He entered, as he declared to the inhabitants, "not as a conqueror, but as a libera- tor." He acted as one who believed in the destiny of the Arab, and coming to replace the age-long divisive and corrosive tyranny of the Turk by a just sway that would in turn make place for a government in which the Arab 8 The Liberator of Mesopotamia spirit would restablish its old glories, but in a new way. Like magic, the radiating influence of that conquest of Baghdad sped through the East. Sir Stanley Maude had lifted the debased prestige of the British Empire in Asia to a place that has not been surpassed for centuries. The end of the man was not only a perfect symbol of his own knightly spirit, but of the Empire that he served. Groing out to greet an Arab notable and his attendants, Sir Stanley Maude had ordered all his own retinue to re- frain from drinking anything offered to them, because he knew the perils to health; but he himself, out of sheer courtliness and desire to serve the purpose and represent the spirit of Britain, drank at the hands of an Arab. There was "cholera" in the cup. ******** The sands of the desert about Baghdad and Babylon are mixed with the dust of conquerors and emperors — Nebu- chadnezzar, Alexander the Great, wT'ho died there were barely thirty, Haroun al Raschid, and now Sir Stanley Maude.. Some of these, like Nebuchadnezzar, had opolu- lent, despotic power in their gross and unlovely hands; others, like Alexander the Great, lived on the lust of conquest. Sir Stanley Maude will remain, both in the annals of the world and the memory of the Arab, as at once the strongest and gentlest conqueror and liberator who ever fought on the banks of their immemorial river. Basil Mathews. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^ 020 933 269 3