Major-General Ramsay.
1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers. 21st Punjabis. 22nd Punjabis. 40th Pathans.
This brigade to proceed to Peshawar.
DIVISIONAL TROOPS.
21st Cavalry. No. 8. M.B.R.G.A. 23rd Peshawar Mountain Battery. 28th Mountain Battery. No. 6 Company Sappers and Miners. No. 1 Company Sappers and Miners. 34th Sikh Pioneers.
Expedition of 1908
The troops being for the most part all on the spot, in consequence of the conclusion, then just arrived at, of the Zakha Khel expedition, no time was lost, and on the 24th April an advance was made with all troops available at Shabkadar and Matta, when the enemy’s positions to the west of these posts were attacked and captured. A heavy blow was inflicted on the Mohmands, and a reconnaissance, carried out on the following day, found no signs of them about their former positions or in the Gandab Valley. It was, however, very clear that the rising was not crushed; the mullahs were doing their best to enlist recruits in Dir and Swat, and an attempt was also being made to induce the Zakha Khels to join, so far, however, without success; but there seemed small doubt that all branches of the Mohmands were represented in the recent actions with our columns from Matta and Shabkadar. For some few days after the dispersal of the gathering in front of Shabkadar, the British troops remained inactive, in order to see whether the assembly of the tribal jirgah, which had been arranged for, would enable General Willcocks to arrive at reasonable terms.
It had been hoped that the disinclination shown by the tribes of Dir, Swat, Bajaur and the Bazar Valley to make common cause with the Mohmands, and the difficulty of keeping the lashkar in the field, would have led to the gradual dispersal of the whole gathering, especially in view of the projected meeting of the jirgah on the 4th May.
On the 2nd May, however, the Viceroy telegraphed to the India Office explaining that the centre of unrest had now shifted to the Khyber, where for some time past at Pesh-Bolak one Sufi Sahib, a noted firebrand, had been collecting a force of Afghans. This army, whose numbers were estimated at anything between 13,000 and 20,000 men, had already passed Lundi Khana, and was believed to intend an attack on the fortified serai at Lundi Kotal that evening, and possibly also on Ali Musjid and the fort at Chora belonging to the Malikdin Khel chief, who had often proved himself our friend.
The Khyber Danger