"تاريخ الحرب الكبرى استنادًا إلى وثائق رسمية. الحملة في بلاد الرافدين ١٩١٤-١٩١٨. المجلد IV". [ظ‎‎١‎٣‎٤] (٥٤٠/٢٧٣)

216 HISTORY OF THE WAR: MESOPOTAMIA
were declining to go to the front. Food was scarce, nothing
having been imported for two months,* and there was only
a week’s supply in hand. But Colonel Crawford had joined
the Food Control Board and it was hoped that matters would
shortly improve.
Transport was a difficulty, as motor vehicles could not go
everywhere and animals could not be fed in any numbers •
and this hindrance to movement in the intense moist heat
made supervision of the long front very difficult.
General Dunsterville, accompanied by Commodore Norris
left Enzeli on the 16th August in the President Kruger
and reached Baku next day. In his bookf he describes
the town as lying in a crater-like cup, the ground on the
west and north rising gradually for about two miles till it
reached the line of cliffs, whence it fell precipitously for
over 500 feet to the bottom of the desert valley through which
ran the railway from Tiflis. Outside the town the whole country
was open and barren, consisting mainly of sandy desert and
salt lakes partly dried up. The chief oil fields were at Binagadi,
Balakhani and Bibi Eibat, with the main oil refineries at Black
Town, and there were two miles of wharves at Baku.
At daybreak on the 18th August General Dunsterville made
a personal inspection of the line of defence. On the left, a mile
west of Bibi Eibat, where the high ground ran down in a series
of rocky spurs to the sea, the position was a good one with a
fau field of fire and a naturally guarded flank. The 7 th North
^ u sec ti° n > had dug well-sited trenches ;
and this had inspired the Armenian battalion on their right
to make an effort also in the same direction. The line then
ran due north, first along seven miles of cliffs and then gradually
down through low ground to Dirty Volcano, where it turned
east to Binagadi. General Dunsterville considered that the
line should have continued due north from Dirty Volcano
o ie sea an extension that would have required comparatively
ew men or its defence, as the Masazir Salt Lake provided a
natura! obstacle for half the distance. This part of the line
had been left open by the withdrawal of Bicharakoff’s detach-
ment ; but, till the arnval of the British, the Baku authorities
hari a en no steps to fill the gap. Consequently the Turks
&° we round this flank, and all the villages, mainly Tartar,
e nor an ^ eas t °t the town were full of small enemy
parties and Tartar levies.
t ?TLT/ aK i t0 be due to the nationalisation policy
T The Adventures of Dunsterforce.” Y