ANGLO-AFGHAN RELATIONS—continued
Upon the conclusion of the Tirah campaign the forward policy ceased to be measured by the virulence of Anglo-Afghan amenities. Relations between Kabul and Calcutta were dominated by the pleasant impressions of his guest which Abdur Rahman had gathered when, as the Honourable George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P., the incoming Viceroy had visited Kabul in 1894. With much care this distinguished student had made an elaborate examination of border politics, presenting the results of his diligence in a series of scholarly and exhaustive studies of Russia in Central Asia, Persia and the Persian Question, The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus, and A Recent Journey in Afghanistan. By reason of these journeys across Asiatic Russia, the Pamirs, Afghanistan and Persia, and through his remarkable opportunities for observation, unrivalled powers of assimilation, grasp of subject, luminosity of judgment and lucidity of expression, Mr. George Curzon was without a peer as an authority on frontier problems. When this brilliant and indefatigable mind was called to India as Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the methods by which the forward policy had been regulated in the closing decade of the nineteenth century had broken down, the labour of reconstruction reverting to a man who at least was the foremost expert of his time. Modifications were now essential; and Lord Curzon at once put into execution a number of important reforms in the economic and military control of the north-west frontier. The regular garrison in Chitral was lessened by one third. The soldiers in Lower Swat and the Malakand were reduced from 3550 men to one battalion and a half of native infantry and a small detachment of cavalry, while regular troops were withdrawn from the Gilgit Agency. Similarly, communication with Malakand was strengthened by constructing a railway, 2 feet 6 inches in breadth from Nowshera to Dargai, to which four companies were posted, while a very large cantonment was created at Nowshera. In the Khyber the regular establishment, 3700 strong, was replaced by two battalions (1250 in all) of the reorganised and enlarged Khyber Rifles, with an increased number of British officers and an improved scale of pay. The costly and extensive fortifications which at one time it was proposed to build in the pass, and at its further extremity, were abandoned in favour of a cheaper and improved scheme of defences, constructed to meet the requirements of the Afridi garrison. The plan of laying either the bed of a railway or a railway itself up the Khyber pass was displaced by the extension of the existing north-west railway from Peshawar to Jamrud, a distance of 10 miles.
JAMRUD FORT, KHYBER PASS
Between Peshawar and Kohat, the amiable co-operation of the pass tribes was secured in the peaceable construction of the long desired cart-road through the Kohat pass, and a military road through the Mullagori country in the Khyber region, serving as a safe alternative road to that by way of Ali Masjid, was undertaken. At the same time a narrow gauge line, linking Thall viâ Kohat with Kushalgarh upon the Indus and now converted to broad gauge, was projected; while, at a later date Nushki was joined up with Quetta. The finishing touch to an almost perfect system of frontier communications may be found in the preparations recently made for carrying the line along the left bank of the Kabul river to Dakka.
South of Kohat the Samana Rifles, a force of tribal militia 450 strong under British officers and recruited from the Orakzai tribesmen, was furnished as an extra battalion to the border military police, and the strength of the regular garrisons, maintained on the Samana range, reduced from 1700 to 600 men. In the Kurram valley, the Kurram militia were reorganised in two battalions (1250 strong) under British officers. In Waziristan, two battalions of Waziristan militia, 800 strong, were raised, the one for the Tochi valley or Northern Waziristan, the other for the Gomul valley or Southern Waziristan, thus releasing the services of 4000 regulars. These changes were rendered possible by the organisation and training of border police, militia and levies, the total strength of which is 10,000 men. The risk of entrusting to these irregulars the garrisoning of advanced posts was provided against by maintaining flying columns at Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, and minimised by the marked improvement of road and railway communication with all strategic centres in the North-West Province. While the financial saving was great, efficiency was increased because regiments were no longer split up into detachments. The number of regulars serving beyond the administrative frontier was reduced from 10,200 in 1899 to 5000, while supporting garrisons were increased from 22,000 in 1899 to 24,000.
CARAVANSARY AT DAKKA