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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 54

Communications Required in the Defensive Zone

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Communications Required in the Defensive Zone.

The main points at which the defensive can be penetrated from the

Roads penetrating the defensive zone.

East are—In Turkey, viâ Palú, Hazru, Rah-wan, Khizan, Sart, Tchabchur, Amadie, Ro-wanduz, Suleimaniah, Karind and in Persia, viâ Dizfúl, Behbahán and Shiráz; all difficult hill roads, very defensible, very difficult to turn, and at present passable to pack transport only.

Unfortunately for Turkey the mouths of the passes leading into Persian territory are on the Persian side of the border, the frontier line having been drawn to the west of the watershed.

To block the above-enumerated roads through the defensive zone

How blocked.

main positions must be taken up at Van (better Khoi, but Khoi is Persian) in rear of Souj-boulak, Hamadán (if an advance is attempted by Sakyz and Sahná), Burújírd and Isfahán.

To block the exits of these roads concentration of troops is required at Diarbekir, Mozul, Baghdád, Shústar, and Behbahán.

These are all points of first-class strategical importance commanding knots of roads or long stretches of mountains.

The railway designed to meet the above-sketched military requirements

The Iskandarun-Isfahán trunk line meets all military require-ments in the defensive zone.

of the defence must therefore of necessity be based on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. Its general run is indicated by the line below, determined by the military necessities already referred to on pages 10, 11, viz.,—
Iskandarun, Aleppo, Urfa, Mardin, Jazírah, Mozul, Baghdád, Zagros Gates, Karmansháh, Burújírd, Isfahán.
Suedia, Aleppo, Urfa, Mardin, Jazírah, Mozul, Baghdád, Zagros Gates, Karmansháh, Burújírd, Isfahán.
Tripoli, Aleppo, Urfa, Mardin, Jazírah, Mozul, Baghdád, Zagros Gates, Karmansháh, Burújírd, Isfahán.
page 20

If the harbour of Tripoli is all that is desired, the preferable line is that of Tripoli-Homs-Aleppo.

The opening of river and cart-road communication from Muham-merah to Burújírd and Karmansháh, and from Shústar viâ Behbahán to Shiráz and viâ Ardal to Isfahán, is necessary to supplement the Persian section of the railway until such time as the country shall be ripe for the construction of aline of rails from Muhammerah, viâ Shústar, Dizfúl, Khoramábád to Burújírd, where it would join on to the main trunk line. The natural commercial prolongation of this line is viâ Hamadán to Tehrán.

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