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[Page 2]
2. Haidar Pasha station is the starting point of the Bagdad railway; it was considered to be one of the largest stations in the world, and certainly was a very fine place; it was built of white granite and had everything right up to date as regards dining and waiting accommodation. The Germans had immense quantities of ammunition and war material stored here, ready to be transported to the Palestine and Bagdad Fronts, but it was doomed never to reach its destination, for about eight months after I passed through an enterprising British airman had a pot shot with a bomb and set the whole show off with a bang. I was sixteen miles away, but the force of the explosion broke the windows in a house where I was living; it came like a great earthquake, and was followed by such a volume of smoke as we had never witnessed before or since.
Vesuvius was not anywhere in the running compared with it. The Germans estimated the damage at One hundred and fifty million marks.