Sketch Map of the Persian-Baluchi-Afghan frontiers
THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD
[CHAPTER I]
ORDERS FOR THE WEST
I receive my orders—German agents and India—Their routes—A deal in chauffeurs—Concerning an appetite and sausages—Nushliki—The last of civilisation—Further information—Sand-holes and digging—Petrol in the desert.
Towards the end of February, 1916, General Kirkpatrick, Chief of Staff at Delhi, sent for me and gave me orders to take charge of the military operations in South-East Persia.
Although Persia, as a country, was neutral during the War, there is a certain district in the South-East, abutting on to the frontiers of Afghanistan and of Baluchistan, and known as the Sarhad, which is occupied by a number of nomad tribes who claim absolute independence. At this time these tribes were causing considerable embarrassment and difficulty to the Indian Government.
The Germans and their agents, who were past masters in the art of propaganda, were still endeavouring, as they had done for years before the outbreak of hostilities, to work upon the discontented portion of the Indian population in the hope of rousing them into open rebellion. They believed this to be quite possible, in spite of the magnificent way in which India had offered her resources of men and money to the British Raj, and hoped thereby to handicap us still further in our great struggle in the West.
They were pouring their agents, with their lying propaganda, into India via Persia and Afghanistan. Afghanistan, like Persia, was nominally neutral, but she was breaking her neutrality by many open acts of aggression, and was offering every facility in her power to the German agents in their passage through her territories, and thence into the Punjab.