The effect of this expedition did not last more than a few weeks, for by the end of March the Zakha Khels had again begun to give trouble, continuing to do so until the termination in May of the first phase of the second Afghan war. On the withdrawal from Afghanistan in June, the Khyber Afridis made only one insignificant attempt to molest our troops; and, fortunately for us, the trials of what has been called “the Death March”[[116]] were not aggravated by the attacks of fanatical tribesmen, during the retirement India-wards through the Khyber of the Peshawar Valley Field Force.

After the close of the first phase of the campaign in Afghanistan, arrangements, which worked generally satisfactorily, were made with the Afridis for the safety of the Khyber; while the agreement come to in 1881, and honourably kept on both sides for sixteen years, will be found in Chapter XI.

It has been said that the Afridis of the Khyber kept faithfully to their treaty engagements during the sixteen years which followed the events which have been just described, but in 1892 there was one comparatively minor case of misconduct, when a Kuki Khel malik, smarting under a grievance connected with the deprivation for misbehaviour of a portion of his allowances, collected a body of 500 or 600 men and attacked three of the Khyber posts. The Tirah mullahs made an unsuccessful attempt to persuade other Afridi clans to join, and the prompt despatch of troops to Jamrud was sufficient to cause the dispersal of the lashkar.

The Outbreak of 1897

Five years afterwards there was a sudden, unaccountable, and widespread display of hostility towards the government, in which almost all the border tribes from the Malakand to the Tochi were concerned; and it seems necessary to make something of the nature of a statement of the causes which have been put forward, at various times and by different persons, for an outbreak so serious and so wholly unexpected. It must, however, from the outset be borne in mind that, when we made our agreement for the safeguarding of the pass with and by the Khyber Afridis, they put the recognition upon record of the independence of their responsibility for the security of the road from any government aid in the matter of troops; while it was further by them admitted that “it lies with the Indian Government to retain its troops within the pass or withdraw them and to re-occupy it at pleasure.” In face of this admission it is not easy to see how the Afridis can justify their complaint (made to the Amir of Afghanistan), that our hold on the Khyber was an infringement of treaty rights.

It may be admitted that a strong case is presented by those who hold that the real cause of the general Pathan revolt of 1897 is traceable to the policy which dictated the Afghan Boundary agreement of 1893. It is indisputable that one of the results of this measure—imperatively demanded by the difficulty, always present and ever increasing, of controlling the tribes immediately beyond our border—aroused a sense of distrust and uneasiness among the Pathans of the frontier. ‘They watched in impotent wrath the erection of the long line of demarcation pillars; they were told that henceforth all to the east of that line practically belonged to the British, and that the allegiance of all who dwelt within it must be to us; they saw their country mapped and measured; they witnessed the establishment of military posts, not merely on their borders, but in their very midst, as at Wana; and they came to a conclusion, not unnatural to an ignorant people ever hostile to any form of settled and civilised government, that their country was annexed and their independence menaced.’ The tribesmen themselves put forward many pretexts for their action—after the event; but religious fanaticism undoubtedly furnished the actual incentive, while there are not wanting indications that the discomfiture of the infidel (the Greek) at the hands of the followers of Islam (the Turk), furnished the spur which incited the tribesmen to try and throw off the yoke of the unbeliever.

Then, again, there seems no doubt that the men of the border believed that they might safely rely upon the support, moral and material, of the Amir of Afghanistan. It was known that the Durand Boundary Agreement was not particularly palatable to the Ruler of the Unruly; he had lately written a book on Jehad; he had recently assumed a title[[117]] which seemed to include all Muhammadans under his sovereignty; for years he had been a personal friend of the Hadda Mullah, one of the chief apostles of insurrection. As a matter of fact, however, subsequent revelations proved that the Amir’s attitude towards his ally had been perfectly correct, throughout a situation which for him was both difficult and dangerous; he issued proclamations enjoining neutrality; he caused Afghan reinforcements moving eastward to be stopped and dispersed; the Afridis themselves admitted that “His Highness advised us not to fight with the British Government;” but the Amir was not able effectively to control the active sympathies with the insurrectionary movement of some of his people in general, and of Ghulam Haidar, his Commander-in-Chief, in particular.

Amir and Afridis

The initial outbreaks, preceding that of the Afridis, occurred on the 10th June, 1897, in the Tochi Valley, on the 26th July at the Malakand, and on the 7th August at Shabkadar in the Peshawar Valley; and shortly after this latter date the possibility of the rising, already sufficiently formidable, spreading to the Afridis and Orakzais, caused the concentration at Rawal Pindi of two brigades, in addition to those which had already been formed for service against other tribes on the frontier. At the same time a movable column, composed of the three arms, was formed at Peshawar, intended for the protection of the frontier immediately adjacent to that cantonment, but not intended to carry on operations in the Khyber; the garrison of Jamrud was doubled, and regular troops occupied the frontier forts at Michni and Abazai. For some reason, not readily apparent, the authorities on the spot, military and civil, do not seem to have felt any real apprehension for the safety of the Khyber; and, as has been said elsewhere, reports sent from Kohat, emphasising the serious and widespread character of the rising, and pointing out the extent to which Afridis and Orakzais seemed to be implicated, appear to have been discredited or were considered to be exaggerated.

On the 17th August, definite information reached Peshawar from the Khyber that an Afridi force, reported 10,000 strong, had left Bagh in Tirah on the 16th, with the intention of attacking the Khyber posts on the 18th. Both the General Officer commanding and the Commissioner of Peshawar decided against any occupation of the Khyber forts by regular troops, for the reason that such a course would imply distrust of the tribesmen holding to their treaty obligations. This decision, and the resultant abandonment of the Khyber, and the failure to support the Khyber Rifles holding its different posts, have been widely criticised and greatly condemned. Holdich says: “But, alas! whilst the Afridi fought for us, we failed to fight for ourselves; 9500 troops about the Peshawar frontier looked on, whilst 500 Afridis maintained British honour in the Khyber.” And those who were present at a lecture given at Simla in 1898, on “the Campaign in Tirah,” will not have forgotten the general chorus of approval which there greeted the remarks of a prominent Punjab civilian, that “the 23rd of August was a day of pain and humiliation for every Englishman in India. We had 12,000 troops at the mouth of the Pass or within easy reach of Ali Musjid, marking time as it were, or held in leash, and we allowed these forts to fall one after the other.”