Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 55185-h.htm or 55185-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55185/55185-h/55185-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55185/55185-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/someprinciplesof00bird SOME PRINCIPLES OF FRONTIER MOUNTAIN WARFARE by BREVET-MAJOR W.D. BIRD, D.S.O. (Late Professor at Indian Staff College.) London: Hugh Rees, Ltd., 119, Pall Mall, S.W. 1909 SOME PRINCIPLES OF FRONTIER MOUNTAIN WARFARE. The saying that there is no new thing under the sun, is as applicable to military affairs as to those of everyday life, for it is fully admitted that the principles underlying all strategy and tactics, whether of mountain or other warfare, are immutable. But though the principles of strategy and tactics are unchanging, organisation, formations, and minor items of procedure, must be continually amended to meet ever varying circumstances, and, in addition, each campaign possesses special characteristics demanding further modifications. There are, in fact, no invariable rules in the conduct of war, and whilst formalism is harmful in all matters, in military operations it is disastrous. An army relying on an established code of rules will often defeat itself in their application, and even if this disaster is avoided, the enemy will soon become aware of the methods in vogue, and will so frame his tactics as most advantageously to counteract them. Each problem, great and small, each set of circumstances, must, therefore, be considered on its merits, principles must be applied in the solution, not rules, and strategy, tactics, organisation, equipment, and other matters, arranged accordingly. It is in this spirit that the problems of Indian Frontier warfare should be approached. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. The strength and organisation of a force destined to undertake operations against the transborder clans of the Indian frontier is naturally conditioned by the physical features of the area, by its fertility, and by the numbers, character, organisation, and armament of its inhabitants. It has been truly said that in war every available man should be employed, for one can never be too strong, but this aphorism is always qualified by the number of men that can be fed in the district which is to form the seat of war. The problem of the numbers to be used against the Pathan tribes is, therefore, by no means easy of solution, for, as a great French King said of Spain, in mountainous countries possessing, as does the Indian borderland, few natural resources, but inhabited by a hardy though scanty population, large armies risk starvation, small are in danger of defeat.