Notes on the Historical and Physical Geography of the Theatres of War Author(S): Vaughan Cornish Source: the Geographical Journal, Vol
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Notes on the Historical and Physical Geography of the Theatres of War Author(s): Vaughan Cornish Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 45, No. 5 (May, 1915), pp. 371-381 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1779725 Accessed: 01-05-2016 15:45 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Wiley, The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Sun, 01 May 2016 15:45:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms GEOGRAPHY OF THE THEATRES OF WAR. 371 order that one who has travelled so much in Persia and written so much about it might have added to our information. I am afraid my personal experiences of Persia are limited. I have been to Tabriz, and I shall never forget the excite- ment of first entering a great Persian town, and its difference from the towns of the nearer East. The first view of the city, surrounded by its orchards, its grey flat roofs shining in the sun; the fascination of the arcaded bazaars, with their domed halls or khans, under which the merchandise is set out, and where? " Above their merchandise The merchants of the market sit Lying to foolish men and wise," still, after nearly fifty years, remain in my memory. Persia is to many of us asso? ciated with the most beautiful carpets and tiles. The art of Persia has rivalled that of China, and far surpassed that of India. This is one of the charms of that remote and secluded country. I confess there was one detail in the slides which rather surprised me. We saw a good deal of the cultivators, but very little cultivatable land. If they can force these stones and rocks and barren hills to produce any paying crops, I think the cultivators must be, as Colonel Sykes described them, " an exceptionally active race." No doubt the secret is irrigation; that is the foundation of the cultivation of the East. I do not think I can detain you profitably by any further reflections on the paper. I will only ask you to give a hearty vote of thanks to Colonel Sykes. NOTES ON THE HISTORICAL AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE THEATRES OF WAR.* By VAUGHAN COENISH, D.Sc. Having regard to the extent of the British Empire and the known purpose of Germany to obtain extensive colonial dominions by conquest, it is necessary, in order to understand the geographical aspect of the present war, to examine the map of the whole world from the military point of view. The Military Begions of the World.?For the purpose of military geography the world may be divided, like Ancient Gaul, into three parts ?the American, Oriental, and European military regions, in which the dominions of the eight great military powers are scattered in such a manner that valued possessions of one are in many cases situated near the centre of force of another and remote from that of the parent state. Each of the three great regions reaches from Pole to Pole; the American extends from west of the Azores to west of Honolulu. Germany and Austria have no possessions in this region. The United States is the only power whose principal force is situated in it, and Great Britain is the only other great power which is represented there in any appreciable military strength. The eastern boundary of the European * Royal Geographical Society, January 25,1915. Map, p. 456. This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Sun, 01 May 2016 15:45:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 372 NOTES ON THE HISTORICAL AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY region corresponds almost exactly with the area draining westwards to the south and north Atlantic Oceans, including in the latter the White Sea. The oriental military region comprises all that lies between this line and the western boundary of the American region.* It is in the Pacific Ocean that the greatest break occurs in the communications of the British Empire, both on account of the distance between Australia and New Zealand and Canada, and on account of the fact that the naval strongholds of Japan and the United States (Honolulu) intervene. Thus, although Australasia and Canada face one another across the Pacific,f the strategic ties of Australasia are with India and South Africa. These three territories, situated at the corners of an equilateral triangle, have inter-communication free from any intervening centres of military force. The occupation of the head of the Persian Gulf, if permanent, will make the Indian Ocean practically a British lake. Moreover, the physical frontier corresponds with the historical facts which have made the Western nations what they are, for the whole of the Mediterranean lands were Roman and Christian. The fact that Asia Minor became the home-land and stronghold of the Ottomans enabled them to effect the unusual combination of all the territory from the j53gean to the Persian Gulf. Lower Mesopotamia was not held for long by Bome and never became Europeanized, and the recent operations from India on the Shatt-el-Arab illustrate the circumstance that this district falls naturally into the Oriental military region. The Roman empire was divided in its later days into eastern and western halves from the headwaters of the Adriatic, and of all the maps required to illustrate the war none is more striking than that which shows how the present boundary-line between the western and eastern Church follows not only that original division, but marks the subsequent northern extension of west Roman and east Roman, or Byzantine, influence respectively. This line, which is the boundary of Eastern Europe, may be defined fairly accurately as running along the western and northern frontier of Bosnia, Serbia, Transylvania and Bukowina, and along the eastern boundary of Poland, the Baltic Provinces, and Finland. South and east of this line Tartars dominated the Russian Christians until the later centuries, and Turks the southern Slavs until our own day. The history of all Europe east of this line has much in common, but differs fundamentally from that of Western Europe. Thus the history of the Russian people creates a bond with the southern Slavs of * In support of the view that the west coast of Africa falls into the European military region, and the east coast into the British area of the Oriental military region, I may eite the fact that the recent operations in the Cameroons were con- ducted on the arrival of a force despatched on August 31 from Liverpool, and that the attack on Tanga, in German East Africa, was made by a force which sailed from Bombay in October. t This is seen on the globe, but disguised by distortion on tho Mercator map. This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Sun, 01 May 2016 15:45:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms OF THE THEATRES OF WAR. 373 the Eastern Church as truly as her economic deficiencies draw her towards the iEgean. Across this direction of expansion of the great Russian people (mapped out as long ago as the days of Peter the Great) runs diagonally the line of expansion marked out for the great German race from, or soon after, the alliance of Germany and Austria, which was concluded secretly in 1879, at the termination of the Russo-Turkish war, and became known to the world about 1888. The later development of this alliance was the inclusion of Turkey, by which it was designed to extend a military con- federation from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, and thus at the same time to wall off Russia from the Mediterranean, and master our line of communication with India. The military advantages possessed by the interior position of this proposed middle state are very great, since it permits the confederates both to combine their forces and to deal alternate blows on either hand. It may be noted here that an isochronic map of the German Empire shows almost every point on the frontiers, except in Alsace and Lorraine, to be within ten hours of Berlin by express train. Until the recent Balkan war Austria and Turkey were conterminous at the Sanjak of Novi Bazar. After that war, however, the continuity of the Berlin?Yienna?Constantinople confederation was destroyed. The map of the enlarged Serbia, comprising the whole of the valley of the Morava and most of that of the Yardar, shows that state as a corridor leading from Austria nearly to Salonika, the port facing Smyrna, which is the gateway to Asia Minor from the iEgean. The erection of a state of Albania walled off Serbia from help by maritime allies. As Russia with her traditional ambition of expansion to the Mediter? ranean stood in the way of German expansion to the south-east, so the position and the traditional policy of Great Britain were inconsistent with the German scheme for expansion westwards, both on the continent and overseas. These schemes are known with absolute certainty, for her statesmen thought it necessary to obtain the driving power of national aspiration for their policy, and it is impossible to educate a whole nation for thirty years in secret.