In a letter to his friend in the War Office, Townshend wrote: "We have certainly not good enough troops to make "certain" of taking Baghdad, which I fear is being fortified..." and going on to warn that a retreat from Baghdad would mean "an instant rising of the Arabs of the whole country behind us", adding that the Persians and the Afghans would likely be swept up by the Pan-Islamic propaganda of the Ottomans to join the "jihad" against the Allies. Townshend wrote that: "We ought to hold what we have got and not advance anymore...All these offensive operations in secondary theatres are dreadful errors in strategy: the Dardanelles, Egypt, Mesopotamia, East Africa!". Townshend believed the main theatre of the war that would decide its outcome were the operations in France and Flanders, and believed that Britain should be concentrating its strength in Europe, observing that if Germany were defeated, the war would be won, but if the Ottoman Empire were defeated, Germany would still have to be defeated. However, the egomaniac Townshend wrote in a letter to his wife Alice 17 days later: "I told you, darling, that I only wanted my chance! You should have seen the British and Indian soldiers cheering me as I stood on the "Comet". I must have the gift of making men (I mean the soldier men) love me and follow me. I only known the 6th Division for six months and they'd storm the gates of hell if I told them to".