From the Black Mountain to Waziristan: Being an account of the border countries and the more turbulent of the tribes controlled by the north-west frontier province, and of our military relations with them in the pastWylly, H. C. (Harold Carmichael)
History
From the Black Mountain to Waziristan: Being an account of the border countries and the more turbulent of the tribes controlled by the north-west frontier province, and of our military relations with them in the past
On the 26th February the following instructions had issued from the
British Agent: “Lieutenant Edwardes, commanding at Ghizr, to hand over
that garrison to Lieutenant Gough, and to come on to Chitral, there to
take command of the Puniali levies which had been ordered up from
Gilgit; Lieutenant Moberley, commanding at Mastuj, was directed to order
Lieutenant Fowler, R.E. (expected shortly to reach Mastuj with a party
of Bengal Sappers and Miners), to continue his march to Chitral; and to
send on a supply of Snider ammunition to Chitral by a suitable escort
making ordinary marches.” These two last-mentioned orders were received
at Mastuj on the 28th February, and on the following day the ammunition
was sent off to Chitral under escort of forty of the Kashmir Rifles. On
the 2nd March, however, disquieting news reaching Mastuj as to the state
of affairs on the road, Lieutenant Moberley was in doubt as to whether
he should not recall the ammunition escort, but it was ultimately
permitted to proceed. On this date Captain Ross was expected at Laspur
with 100 of the 14th Sikhs, and Lieutenant Moberley wrote asking him to
come straight through to Mastuj in a single stage; this Captain Ross
did, reaching Mastuj on the 3rd.
He marched on again the following day to support the ammunition escort,
which had been obliged to halt at Buni owing to the onward road having
been broken down; and on the 5th the force at Buni was further
strengthened by the arrival there of twenty men of the Bengal Sappers
and Miners, accompanied by Lieutenants Fowler and Edwardes.
The possibility of the road being designedly broken had been foreseen by
the British Agent, who had caused certain orders to be issued to meet
such an eventuality; but as these never reached Lieutenant Moberley, to
whom they had been addressed at Mastuj, it seems unnecessary here to
recapitulate them.
[Sidenote: The Fighting at Reshun]
On the 5th March Captain Ross returned with his Sikhs to Mastuj, while
on the next day the combined detachment—two British officers, twenty
Bengal Sappers and forty of the 4th Kashmir Rifles—marched on to Reshun,
a large, straggling village situated on a sloping plain on the left bank
of the Chitral River. Here news came in of fighting at Chitral, but the
night passed quietly, and at noon on the 7th the two officers, with the
twenty sappers, ten rifles and a number of coolies, moved off to repair
a break reported about three miles distant. Reaching a narrow defile
near Parpish, sangars were noticed on the high cliffs; these were at
once occupied by the tribesmen, firing became general, four of the
little party were hit, one being killed, and a retirement on Reshun was
now ordered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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