Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 February 5

= February 5 =

Mesopotamian campaign before Ctesiphon
Mesopotamian campaign has a brief paragraph with comments on British strategic goals prior to the strategic defeat at Ctesiphon. In short, it was possible that Townshend's force would have advanced north to Baghdad (or merely Kut) and then abandoned it. However, Logistically, his advance was very difficult to sustain, but it was sustained, and obviously this plan was at least partly abandoned, since Townshend kept going past Kut. Had Ctesiphon been an imperial victory, like previous battles in the campaign, what would have been attempted next — going to Baghdad and just staying, going to Baghdad and retreating to Basra, going to Baghdad and continuing northwest, or what? Not WP:BALL; I assume the Imperial General Staff was planning this out (and that's what I'm asking about), especially as there hadn't been any comparable tactical or strategic defeats in the campaign to this point. Nyttend (talk) 00:52, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * It seems Townshend wrote a book about this very incident and you might find the answer in there. In the introduction, he begins by laying out his strategic goals for holding Kut in the first place: providing a choke point on the Tigris and Hai to block the advance of the 6th Turkish Army, and by so blocking them, buying time for Nixon to gather a bigger force at Amarah and decide where to deploy it. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:54, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

How many years worth of food meant for people is in the world?
It varies by season I'm sure. Does it matter much if the food content of growing crops and live farm animals count? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:50, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The most recent FAO "Food Outlook" report, found here, gives charts showing the amount of global food stocks in million tonnes for wheat, grains, rice, oilcrops, sugar, meat, milk and fish. Figures are also given for how much is used for food, feed, etc, and how many kg are used per person each year, so you can make calculations depending on which food area you are interested in. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Very informative, thanks. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:24, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that was a very interesting read! 93.136.72.52 (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2019 (UTC)