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
Three companies 1st Native Infantry.[92]
9th Native Infantry.[93]
1st Sikh Infantry.
[Sidenote: Operations in 1854]
The advance commenced on the 31st August along the left bank of the
Kabul River in the direction of Shahmansur Khel, which was captured
after some opposition. While the destruction of the village and the
removal of grain stores was in progress, the heights above had to be
seized and held, and the troops engaged on this duty were exposed to an
unceasing and galling fire, and suffered several casualties, but the
subsequent retirement to camp was practically unmolested. On the 2nd
September Colonel Cotton again moved out, and destroyed the villages of
Dab and Sadin, when the troops returned to Peshawar, and the
well-affected among the Michni Mohmands paid up their share of the
tribute due.
After this the Mohmands continued to commit outrages, issuing in large
bodies from the hills and harrying the border, and between March, 1855,
and July, 1857, no fewer than thirty-six serious raids, having plunder
and murder for their objects, were committed by the Mohmands of
Pandiali. The Commissioner, Colonel Edwardes, had been supported by the
Chief Commissioner, Sir John Lawrence, in recommending punitive
operations in the Pandiali Valley, but the Government were unwilling to
undertake them at the time, and when the Mutiny broke out in 1857 our
attention was at once more pressingly directed to other quarters.
During this period the Mohmands failed, by any concerted action, to
avail themselves of an unusually favourable opportunity of increasing
their annoyance, but raids and outrages did not cease, while there were
no troops available on the frontier to move out against them. From the
beginning of September 1857 to March 1860, thirty-nine serious outrages
were committed by members of this tribe. Within five years eighty-five
raids had been conducted by parties of an average strength of
seventy-five men, in which fourteen British subjects had been killed,
twenty-seven wounded, and fifty-five carried off, while over 1200 head
of cattle had been plundered. This was exclusive of forty minor raids in
which thirty-five British subjects had been killed or wounded and 267
head of cattle driven away, but though an expedition was urged by the
local authorities, the Government still refused to sanction one. At
last, about the end of March 1860, Nauroz Khan, an adopted son of Saadat
Khan of Lalpura, sent in seeking for peace, and finally it was agreed
that bygones should be bygones, that the Chief of Lalpura should be
responsible for the future peace of the frontier, that there should be
something of a general amnesty, and that the blockade of the country
should be raised.
[Sidenote: Unrest in 1863]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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