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
Before the end of February nearly all the Afridi clans had submitted or
were making advances towards a settlement; the Khyber Pass had been
reopened to kafilas, but the Zakha Khels evinced no real intention of
giving in. On the 17th March, therefore, preparations were made for a
spring campaign; Sir William Lockhart returned to Jamrud, fresh
transport was distributed among the troops, and one of the brigades of
the Second Division made a short advance towards the Bara Valley. The
effect upon the Zakha Khels was immediate. By the 3rd April all the
clans had definitely submitted and given hostages for fines still due;
hostilities then ceased and demobilisation commenced, but for some
months regular troops were retained in occupation of the Khyber posts.
By November 1898 the arrangements for the government of the Khyber
previously in force were practically re-established.
The total casualties during the campaign amounted to 287 killed, 853
wounded and ten missing.
It was hoped that the settlement effected, coupled with the knowledge
the Afridis now possessed that no part of their country was inaccessible
to British troops, would have proved satisfactory to both sides; and it
was noticed as a favourable sign that the enlistment of Pathans, and
especially of Afridis, into the regiments of the Indian Army, had never
been brisker than during the months immediately succeeding the close of
hostilities. It was hardly to be expected that individual raids and
outrages would cease, and had any such expectations been cherished they
would have speedily been disappointed; but at any rate for a brief term
of years it was not considered necessary to undertake military
operations against any of the Afridis. But among these tribesmen the
mullahs appear to be specially inimical to the British Government—as
they probably would be to any civilised administration—while there is
also always present in Afghanistan a faction opposed to British
interests, and from this faction disaffected tribesmen can safely reckon
upon a large measure of support. In 1904 a number of Afridis visited
Kabul—whether by invitation or not is not certain—were accorded a very
friendly reception, and seem to have returned determined—especially the
Zakha Khel members of the deputation—upon a policy of opposition to the
British authorities. During the next four years raids, ever increasing
in audacity, were committed on and within our border by the Zakha Khels,
culminating on the 28th January, 1908, in a raid carried out by some
seventy or eighty men upon the city of Peshawar, whence property valued
at a lakh of rupees was carried off, the raiders getting clear away.
Tribal allowances were stopped in the endeavour to force the more
well-behaved tribesmen to undertake the coercion of the Zakha Khel, but
they declared their inability to restrain the clan—and their impotence
was recognised—while suggesting to the British authorities the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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