Chapter IX: Other Side-Shows........................................ 170

Three categories of side-shows -- The Jackson Committee -- The
Admiralty's attitude -- The Pacific, Duala, Tanga, Dar-es-Salaam,
Oceania, the Wireless Stations -- Kiao Chao -- The Shatt-el-Arab
-- Egypt -- Question whether the Australasian forces ought to
have been kept for the East -- The East African operations -- Our
lack of preparation for a campaign in this quarter -- Something
wrong -- My own visit to Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam in 1908 -- The
bad start of the campaign -- Question of utilizing South African
troops to restore the situation -- How this was managed --
Reasons why this was a justifiable side-show -- Mesopotamia --
The War Office ought to have interfered -- The question of an
advance on Baghdad by General Townshend suddenly referred to the
General Staff -- Our mistake -- The question of Egyptian defence
in the latter part of 1915 -- The Alexandretta project -- A later
Alexandretta project propounded by the War Cabinet in 1917 -- Its
absurdity -- The amateur strategist on the war-path -- The
Palestine campaign of 1918 carried out almost entirely by troops
not required on the Western Front, and therefore a legitimate
side-show -- The same principle to some extent holds good with
regard to the conquest of Mesopotamia -- The Downing Street
project to substitute Sir W. Robertson for Sir C. Monro, a
miss-fire.