The chief command was entrusted to General Sir William Lockhart, an officer well versed in frontier warfare, one who understood the Afridi character thoroughly, and who was well known and well respected by the tribesmen. His army was the most powerful that we had ever mobilized for frontier war. It numbered close on 35,000 men, of whom 10,900 were British, and was distributed as under:
First Division: Major-General W. Penn Symons, C.B.
First Infantry Brigade—Brigadier-General R. C. Hart, V.C., C.B.: 1st Battalion Devonshires, 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters, 2nd Battalion 1st Gurkhas, and the 30th Punjabis.
Second Infantry Brigade—Brigadier-General Alfred Gaselee, C.B.: 1st Battalion Queen's, 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment, 2nd Battalion 4th Gurkhas, and the 53rd Sikhs.
Second Division: Major-General Yeatman Biggs.
Third Brigade—Brigadier-General F. J. Kempster, D.S.O.: 1st Battalion Dorsets, 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders, 1st Battalion 2nd Gurkhas, and the 15th Sikhs.
Fourth Brigade—Brigadier-General R. Westmacott, C.B., D.S.O.: 2nd Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers, 1st Battalion Northamptons, 1st Battalion 3rd Gurkhas, and the 36th Sikhs.
The divisional troops at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief comprised the 18th Tiwana Lancers, three mountain batteries, and the 128th Pioneers.
A second column was organized to act from Peshawar, and was placed under the command of Brigadier-General A. G. Hammond, V.C., an officer who had served in the famous Corps of Guides for twenty years, and who was a master in the art of mountain warfare, having won the Victoria Cross during the Afghan War of 1879, under the eyes of Lord Roberts. His force comprised the 2nd Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 2nd Battalion Oxford Light Infantry, the 9th Gurkhas, the 32nd Pioneers, and the 45th Sikhs, with the 9th Hodson's Horse, one field and one mounted battery.
A third column, under Colonel Hill, of the Indian army, was assembled in the Kuram Valley. It consisted of the 6th King Edward's Own Cavalry, the 38th and 39th Central India Horse, the 12th Pioneers, and the 1st Battalion of the 5th Gurkhas, the total force amounting to 34,880 fighting men, British and native, with no less than 20,000 followers.