The Relief of Chitral

by G. J. Younghusband; Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

On the 8th the force reached Gasht unopposed, and a small reconnaissance in the evening showed that the enemy were occupying a strong position across the valley at a place called Chokalwat, a few miles below. This position Colonel Kelly decided to attack the next morning. The Chokalwat position is one of great natural strength, and of that order which is generally described as impregnable. Any one looking at it would say that here a hundred men could keep a whole army at bay. On each side of the valley mountains tower up thousands of feet in rugged precipices; a river flows along it, and the only road leads either along the bottom of a stone-shoot, down which the enemy from above could hurl rocks on any force passing beneath; or else over the river and by a zigzag path up some cliffs, the edges of which the enemy had lined with sangars or stone breastworks. At accessible points on the mountain sides the enemy had also constructed these breastworks, and if the Chitralis were determined to offer Colonel Kelly at all a resolute opposition, he might have been brought to a standstill here at his first contact with the enemy, and his main object of affording speedy relief to the garrison in Chitral would be frustrated. In the Hunza campaign of 1891, our troops had been kept at bay for nearly a fortnight in just such another position. The Hunza men were few of them armed with rifles, while the Chitralis had numbers of breech-loaders, and it was not difficult to imagine that a check might here be offered to the relief force, and a check, anything else indeed but complete success, would have involved the British in most serious trouble, and might have caused the people all along the lengthy line of communications to show hostility.

On the morning of April 9th, at 10.30 a.m., Colonel Kelly advanced to the attack of this position. In the early morning Lieutenant Beynon with the Hunza levies were sent up the high hills on the left bank of the river, so as to turn the right of the enemy's position and attack in rear. The Punyalis were ordered up the hills on the right bank to turn out the men above the stone-shoots on that side. The enemy's position consisted of a line of sangars blocking the roads from the river up to the alluvial fan on which they were placed. The right of the enemy's position was protected by a snow glacier which descended into the river bed, and also by sangars which were built as far up as the snow-line on the hill-side. The road down the valley led on to the alluvial fan, the ascent to which was short and steep—it was covered with boulders, and intersected with nullahs. The road led across this fan and then along the foot of the steep, shaly slopes and shoots within 500 yards of the line of sangars crowning the opposite side of the river bank, and totally devoid of any sort or description of cover for some two miles. It could also be swept by avalanches of stones set in motion by a few men placed on the heights for that purpose.

The force with which Colonel Kelly advanced to the attack of this position consisted of 190 men of the 32nd Pioneers, two guns of the Kashmir Mountain Battery, 40 Kashmir Sappers and Miners, and 50 levies—in all, 280 men. Colonel Kelly considered that any delay to wait for the second detachment of his troops, who were on their way over the Shandur Pass, would only give the enemy an opportunity for collecting in greater strength, and for improving the fortification of their position, and he decided therefore to attack at once, and advanced in the following order:—A half company of 32nd Pioneers formed the advance guard, and these were followed by the forty Kashmir Sappers and Miners, a half company of the 32nd Pioneers, the two guns which were carried by coolies, and the other company of the 32nd Pioneers completed the main body. The baggage, under escort of the rear guard, remained at Gasht till ordered forward to the action.

The advance was made up to the river where the bridge had been broken by the enemy, but was now sufficiently repaired by the Sappers and Miners for the passage of the infantry. The guns forded the river, and the force ascended to the fan facing the right sangar of the enemy's position. Colonel Kelly's plan was for the advance guard to leave the road and form up on the highest part of the fan facing A sangar, which was to be silenced by volley firing and the guns. He also proposed to adopt the same course with regard to B sangar, when an opportunity should offer for the infantry to descend into the river bed and ascend the left bank to enfilade the enemy in the remaining sangars, which it was expected would be vacated as soon as Lieutenant Beynon's flank attack with the levies had developed.

The advance guard of the Pioneers formed up at about 800 yards from the position, while the main body followed in rear. The Pioneers then advanced to the attack—one section of C company extended, another section of the same company in support; two sections of C company and the whole of A company in reserve. The guns then took up a position on the right and opened on A sangar at a range of 825 yards. As the action progressed the supporting section of C company advanced and reinforced the remaining half of C company, which also advanced, and leaving sufficient space for the guns, took up their position in the firing line on the extreme right. Volley firing was first opened at 800 yards, but the firing line advanced 150 to 200 yards as the action progressed. At a later stage one section of A company was pushed up to fill a gap on the right of the guns in action in the centre of the line. A few well-directed volleys and accurately-aimed shells soon caused the enemy to vacate A sangar in twos and threes, till it was finally emptied. Meanwhile Lieutenant Beynon with his levies had found his way up the hill-sides on the left bank of the river, and as the Pioneers advanced across the fan Lieutenant Beynon drove the enemy from their sangars on the hill-sides. As soon as the enemy had been cleared from A sangar, Colonel Kelly directed his attention to B sangar, and attacked it in a similar manner, and just as the enemy had fled from the first, they now vacated B sangar also. At the same time those of the enemy who had been driven from the positions on the hill-side came streaming down into the plain, and a general flight ensued. An advance of Colonel Kelly's whole force was then made down the precipitous banks to the bed of the river. This advance was covered by the fire of the reserves; the river was forded, and sangars A and B occupied. The guns were then carried across, and the whole line of sangars having been vacated, the column was re-formed in the fan, and the advance was continued to a village one and a half miles further along the bed of the river, and there a halt was made.

So terminated the first successful action with the enemy. It was carried out, says Colonel Kelly, with the extreme steadiness of an ordinary morning parade; the volleys being well directed and properly controlled. The action lasted but one hour, and the casualties on the side of the British were only one man of the 32nd Pioneers severely wounded, and three Kashmir Sappers slightly wounded. The strength of the enemy was computed at from 400 to 500 men, and they were armed with Martini-Henry and Snider rifles. Several dead were found in the sangars, and the loss of the enemy was estimated to have been from fifty to sixty men.

After a short halt the troops continued the advance by the left bank of the river till within three miles of Mastuj, where the river was forded. Here, drawn up on the crest of an alluvial fan above the river, were seen the British garrison of Mastuj, who had been shut up in the fort for eighteen days, but who had, on hearing the firing of Colonel Kelly's troops, and seeing the enemy gradually vacating their position round the fort, now come out to join hands with the relieving force.

At 5 p.m. Colonel Kelly's force reached Mastuj itself, and so in a single day a successful action had been fought, the beleaguered garrison of Mastuj relieved, and another march made in the direction of Chitral.

Lieutenant Moberly, who was in command at Mastuj, was now able to relate the story of his adventures since his investment by the Chitralis. In a previous chapter the story of the disasters to the parties under Captain Ross and Lieutenant Edwardes has been told. These detachments had in the beginning of March set out from Mastuj for Chitral, but no news of what had happened to them, or of what was occurring in Chitral reached Lieutenant Moberly. He had sent messengers down to Buni three times, but each time they were cut off. On March 10th Captain Bretherton (who was afterwards drowned in the Brahmaputra on the way to Lhasa), the Deputy-Assistant Commissary-General for the Gilgit force, arrived in Mastuj with a detachment of 100 Kashmir Sepoys from Ghizr, and so brought up the Mastuj garrison to a total strength of 170 men. Sixty more men arrived from Ghizr on the 13th, and on the 16th Lieutenant Moberly, who had been trying for some days to obtain coolies to enable him to march down to Buni to ascertain the fate of Captain Ross's party, set out from Mastuj with 150 Kashmir Infantry. No coolies had been obtained, and each man had to carry his poshtin (sheepskin coat), two blankets, 120 rounds of ammunition, and three days' cooked rations. Sanoghar, a village eight miles below Mastuj, was reached that day, but no longer march could be made, as a bridge over the river had to be repaired. Fifty Punyali levies had joined Lieutenant Moberly, and on the next morning he left for Buni. This he reached at 5 p.m., and found there Lieutenant Jones and the seventeen survivors of Captain Ross's party, and thirty-three men who had been left in Buni by Captain Ross before his march to Koragh. Lieutenant Jones had been unable to proceed towards Mastuj for fear of attack on the difficult road there, and had remained on in Buni trying to communicate with Lieutenant Moberly, and hoping that relief might be sent him.

This relief Lieutenant Moberly at no small risk, for there are many points on the eighteen miles of road between Mastuj and Buni where his retreat might have been cut off, had now gallantly brought. But Buni was no place in which to stay longer than was absolutely necessary. It is an open village; there is no defensible post in it, and above everything there were not supplies sufficient to last any length of time. The enemy were already in strength at Drasan, a few miles distant on the opposite bank of the river, and Lieutenant Moberly heard that they intended to cut off his retreat that very night at the Nisa Gol, a strong position on the way between Buni and Mastuj. Lieutenant Moberly heard also that the enemy were collecting on the road between Mastuj and Gilgit, and that no more of our own troops had yet started from Gilgit.