honor of carrying the
Turkish plea for an armistice in the closing days of the war.

The surrender of Kut created a world-wide sensation. The loss of eight
thousand troops was, of course, not a serious matter, and the road to
India was still barred, but the moral effect was most unfortunate. That
the great British nation, whose power had been so respected in the
Orient, should now be forced to yield, was a great blow to its prestige.
In England, of course, there was a flood of criticism. It was very plain
that a mistake had been made. A commission was appointed to inquire into
the whole business. This committee reported to Parliament on June 26,
1917, and the report created a great sensation. The substance of the
report was, that while the expedition was justifiable from a political
point of view, it was undertaken with insufficient forces and inadequate
preparation, and it sharply criticized those that were responsible.

It seems plain that the military authorities in India under-estimated
their opponent. The report especially criticized General Sir John Eccles
Nixon, the former commander of the British forces in Mesopotamia, who
had urged the expedition, in spite of the objection of General
Townshend. Others sharing the blame were the Viceroy of India, Baron
Hardinge, General Sir Beauchamp Duff, Commander-in-Chief of the British
forces in India, and, in England, Major-General Sir Edmund Barrow,
Military Secretary of the India office, J. Austin Chamberlain, Secretary
for India, and the War Committee of the Cabinet. According to the
report, beside the losses incurred by the surrender more than
twenty-three thousand men were lost in the relieving expedition. The
general armament and equipment were declared to be not only
insufficient, but not up to the standard.

In consequence of this report Mr. Chamberlain resigned as secretary for
India. In the House of Commons, Mr. Balfour, Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, supported Lord Hardinge, who, at the time of the report, was
Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs. He declared the criticism of Baron
Hardinge to be grossly unjust. After some discussion the House of
Commons supported Mr. Balfour's refusal to accept Baron Hardinge's
resignation, by a vote of 176 to 81. It seems to be agreed that the
civil administration of India were not responsible for the blunders of
the expedition. Ten years before, Lord Kitchener, after a bitter
controversy with Lord Curzon, had made the military