Charles Boswell Norman

BATTLE HONOURS FOR OPERATIONS ON THE NORTH-WEST INDIAN FRONTIER, 1895-1897

Defence of Chitral—Chitral—Malakand—Samana—Punjab Frontier—Tirah.

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Defence of Chitral, 1895.

This battle honour is borne by one regiment—the 14th Prince of Wales's Own Ferozepore Sikhs.

It commemorates one of those gallant but little-remembered occurrences where a handful of British officers, at the head of sepoys no less brave than themselves, have upheld the honour of our flag against overwhelming odds, and thus belied the oft-repeated cry of the decadence of the present generation of Englishmen. There are few episodes in our military history which can vie with the defence of Chitral, none which excel it in sublime heroism.

A few words are necessary in retrospect. Chitral is a small State perched up in the almost inaccessible Himalayas, on the main route between Hindustan and the Pamirs. In the year 1876 the ruler of this State, which hitherto had been independent, placed himself under the protection of the Maharajah of Kashmir, and so became one of our vassals.

Matters marched smoothly for some years, but in the early part of 1895 intertribal disputes arose, the ruler was murdered, and his throne seized by a usurper, who possessed the support of all the neighbouring clans, and was, it was shrewdly suspected, receiving the moral, if not the material, support of the Amir of Afghanistan. The Chief Political Agent in those regions was Surgeon-Major George Robertson, a medical officer who had studied the languages and customs of the Upper Himalayan tribes, and who was trusted as implicitly by them as by our own Government. He hurried from his headquarters at Gilgit to Chitral in the hope of allaying the excitement, but he found himself in the face of a determined effort on the part of the usurper and his supporters—all fanatical Moslems—to free themselves from the yoke of the Kafir. All that Robertson could do was to throw himself into the little native fort of Chitral, and there to hold out until help arrived from India. The few scattered garrisons in the Upper Himalayas were isolated, and all were in equal danger. In one case a detachment of Sikhs was practically annihilated, its surviving officers being taken prisoners.

Robertson had with him in Chitral five young officers, a company of the 14th Sikhs, numbering 88 men, and 300 Kashmiri levies—these last all untrained in the use of the rifle with which they were armed. The story of the defence of Chitral has been told in all too modest language by one of the principal actors, and I can cordially recommend "The Story of a Minor Siege," by Sir George Robertson, to the attention of those who talk of the deterioration of our race. For seven long weeks did that heroic garrison hold out, and when at last relieved, the relief was effected by a force entirely composed of native soldiers—the 32nd Pioneers—who, under their indomitable Colonel, had traversed the gigantic passes of the Himalayas, swept aside all opposition, and shown the world that the Indian army contains in its midst, men who are not to be equalled by any soldiers in the world.

The losses sustained by that one company of the 14th Sikhs during the defence of Chitral were 1 officer and 17 men killed, 1 officer and 53 men wounded.

Chitral, 1895.

This distinction, which was granted to commemorate the services of the troops which relieved the beleaguered garrison of Chitral, is borne by the following regiments:

Buffs.
Bedfords.
K.O. Scottish Borderers.
East Lancashire.
King's Royal Rifles.
Gordon Highlanders.
Seaforth Highlanders.
Q.O. Corps of Guides.
9th Hodson's Horse.
11th Probyn's Lancers.
1st P.W.O. Sappers and Miners.
13th Rajputs.
15th Sikhs.
23rd Pioneers.
25th Punjabis.
29th Punjabis.
30th Punjabis.
32nd Pioneers.
34th Pioneers.
37th Dogras.
54th Sikhs.
4th Gurkhas.

The General in command was General Sir Robert Low, K.C.B., and his force was distributed as under:

First Brigade—Brigadier-General A. A. A. Kinloch, C.B.: 1st Battalion Bedfords, 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifles, 15th Sikhs, and 37th Dogras.

Second Brigade—Brigadier-General Waterfield: 2nd Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers, 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders, 54th Sikhs, and the infantry of the Corps of Guides.

Third Infantry Brigade—Brigadier-General Gatacre: 1st Battalion Buffs, 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, 25th Punjabis, and 4th Gurkhas.

On the line of communication and in reserve were the 1st Battalion East Lancashires, the Guides Cavalry, the 11th (Probyn's) Lancers, the 13th Rajputs, the 23rd Pioneers, and the 30th Punjabis.

Whilst this force was being hastily mobilized, messages had been despatched to Colonel Kelly, commanding the 32nd Pioneers at Gilgit, far away to the west of Chitral, advising him of the critical position of the garrison. Kelly was one of the few officers in the Indian army who had attained the command of a regiment without having participated in any great campaign. He was known to be a good and a keen soldier, but luck had been against him. Now his turn had come. In the depth of winter, the passes covered with snow, often waist deep, mountain torrents unbridged, paths over which even the mules picked their way with difficulty, every ounce of food to be carried for the whole long march of 200 miles, and a formidable rising of all the fanatical Moslem tribes in his front—these were some of the difficulties that Kelly had to face. The story of that march vies with the story of the defence. It was a war against Nature, and the British-led force won.

Sir Robert Low, with the main army pushing up over the Malakand Pass, easily dispersed the gathering of the tribes which endeavoured to bar his advance on Chitral, and so relieved the pressure which otherwise might have militated against Kelly's success. In these engagements the relieving force suffered the following casualties:

Punjab Frontier.

This honour, which was sanctioned by the Viceroy of India, is borne by the following regiments of the Indian army:

3rd Skinner's Horse.
6th K.E. Cavalry.
9th Hodson's Horse.
11th Probyn's Lancers.
13th Watson's Horse.
18th Tiwana Lancers.
38th Central India Horse.
39th Central India Horse.
Q.O. Corps of Guides.
1st P.W.O. Sappers and Miners.
12th Khelat-i-Ghilzai.
15th Ludhiana Sikhs.
20th Brownlow's Punjabis.
22nd Punjabis.
24th Punjabis.
30th Punjabis.
31st Punjabis.
34th Pioneers.
35th Sikhs.
36th Sikhs.
37th Dogras.
38th Dogras.
39th Gharwal Rifles.
45th Rattray's Sikhs.
53rd Sikhs.
56th Punjabi Rifles.
81st Pioneers.
128th Pioneers.
1st Gurkhas.
2nd Gurkhas.
3rd Gurkhas.
4th Gurkhas.
5th Gurkhas.
9th Gurkhas.

In the year 1897 Greece, in defiance of the warnings of the Great Powers, threw down the gauntlet to Turkey, and at the end of a brief fortnight's campaign was compelled to sue for peace. Through the good offices of the same Powers she was permitted to escape the just punishment she had incurred. The victory of the Turks was greatly exaggerated throughout the Moslem world, and there is no doubt that emissaries of the Sultan were sent through all Moslem countries to expatiate on the greatness of the Ottoman Power and the invincibility of her armies.

About this time the Amir of Afghanistan published a work appealing to the faithful, and a fanatical priest perambulated the mountains along our frontier preaching a war against the infidel. All these causes tended to a great feeling of restlessness—a restlessness not confined to one clan, but showing clearly all down the frontier, from the Black Mountain to the Waziri Hills.

A brief explanation of the condition of affairs on our Punjab frontier is here necessary. That frontier extends up to and impinges on that great mountain-range which interposes between the Indian Empire and the kingdom of Afghanistan. This range is peopled by wild warlike tribes, who own allegiance to no man. Their names are more or less familiar to the British public by reason of the many punitory expeditions we have been compelled to undertake into their hills. Intertribal jealousies have generally been our strongest ally, and never until the year 1897 have we found such a serious combination of tribes against us.

The campaign commemorated by this battle honour—"Punjab Frontier"—commenced by a most treacherous attack on a detachment of troops in the Tochi Valley. It was followed up by a most determined attack on our garrison at Malakand by the Swatis—a tribe who for many years had given us no trouble. Then came an incursion of the Mohmands into the Peshawar Valley, and finally came the attack on the garrisons in the Khyber Pass by the Afridis, that great clan which furnishes some of the very best soldiers to the Indian army. For the operations against the Afridis a separate battle honour—"Tirah"—was granted.

The casualties suffered by our troops in the various expeditions for which the battle honour "Punjab Frontier" was awarded to native regiments are tabulated on p. 402. It must be remembered that this distinction has not been conferred on the British regiments engaged.

Malakand, 1897.

This battle honour has been awarded to the undermentioned regiments of the Indian army by the Viceroy in Council, in recognition of the gallant services rendered in the defence of the Malakand Pass on the North-West Frontier of India at the outset of the great rising of the tribes in 1897:

11th K.E.O. Lancers (Probyn's Horse).
Q.O. Corps of Guides.
24th Punjabis.
31st Punjabis.
35th Sikhs.
38th Dogras.

The Chitral campaign of 1895 had taught us the necessity, not merely of constructing good gun-roads from our Punjab frontier stations to the remoter garrisons in the Upper Himalayas, but also of keeping garrisons on those roads in order to overawe the frontier tribes. The Malakand Pass lies some thirty miles beyond Hoti Mardan, the cantonment which for more than half a century has been the home of the Guides, the most famous of all our frontier regiments. The pass was held in strength. Its commander, Brigadier-General W. Meiklejohn, was a soldier who had a considerable experience of Frontier Wars, and who had received his early training under one of the most accomplished masters of the art of mountain warfare that the Indian army has ever produced—Field-Marshal Sir Charles Brownlow. Meiklejohn had with him some of the pick of the Indian army—a squadron of the 11th (Probyn's) Horse, the 24th and 31st Regiments of Punjab Infantry, and the 45th Sikhs. Within thirty-two miles were the Guides, and twenty-six miles farther south, at Nowshera, lay a brigade which comprised a battalion of British troops.

There had been ominous murmurings in the mountains to the north of Peshawar. As I have shown on p. 397, a fanatical Moslem priest had been preaching a religious war, and this spirit of fanaticism had been fanned into a flame by exaggerated accounts of the success of the Turks over the Greeks in Thessaly. Although nominally at peace with his neighbours, Meiklejohn was not a man to take any risks. On more than one occasion frontier camps had been rushed by fanatics, and when on the evening of July 26, 1897, the Swatis of Malakand endeavoured to rush the camp on the Malakand Pass, they were met by men who had studied hill warfare in the best of all schools—that of the Punjab frontier. When dawn broke the little garrison had lost 50 killed and wounded, but this they knew was but the commencement of their troubles. A telegram had been got through to Hoti Mardan before sundown. It reached that place at half-past eight in the evening. It must be here remembered that this was the month of July, the leave season, and that the cry of "Wolf, wolf!" has so often been heard on the Punjab frontier that its repetition is never considered sufficient to stop leave. At that moment the temporary command of the Guides was in the hands of a Lieutenant, Lockhart. As I have said, he received the message at 8.30 p.m.; five hours later—at 1.30 a.m.—the Guides were on the march for Malakand; at half-past six the following evening they swung up the Pass, having covered thirty-two miles in the hottest season of the year in just seventeen hours, thus rivalling the marvellous march they made in the Mutiny from Mardan to Delhi. It is related by an officer who was present that so little affected were the Guides by this trying march that company after company, as it swung by the main guard of the Malakand Force, came to the shoulder with all the accuracy of a battalion of the Guards.

That night the garrison had to meet a second attack, in which the Guides fought with all their accustomed Élan. The same day the Brigadier at Nowshera, in response to the messages from Malakand, despatched the headquarters and two squadrons of the 11th (Probyn's) Horse, two mountain batteries, and two battalions (the 35th Sikhs and 38th Dogras), to the relief of Malakand. Some idea of the severity of the weather may be gathered from the fact that the 35th Sikhs lost 21 men from heat apoplexy in that march from Nowshera to the foot of the Pass.

With the arrival of these reinforcements all danger had passed, but the attitude of the tribes made it abundantly clear that we were face to face with the greatest frontier upheaval since Sir Walter Gilbert had driven the Afghans through the Khyber Pass in the spring of 1849.

The first step was to chastise the tribes in the immediate vicinity of Malakand, and orders were at once issued for the mobilization of the following force, under the command of a distinguished officer of the Royal Engineers, Major-General Sir Bindon Blood, K.C.B., who had acted as Chief of the Staff to Sir Robert Low in the Chitral Expedition in 1895. This force was brigaded as follows:

The divisional troops consisted of the 10th Hodson's Horse, 11th Probyn's Horse, four mountain batteries, and the 22nd Punjabis.

The losses sustained in the defence of the position prior to the operations of the army acting under Sir Bindon Blood amounted to—

No account of the defence of Malakand would be complete without an allusion to the gallant action of a company of the 45th Sikhs, under a subaltern, in holding on to the outpost of Chakdarra, a few miles farther up the pass. So sudden was the outburst that Lieutenant Rattray, the officer in command, was actually playing polo with the officers at Malakand when he heard of the threatened attack. He at once galloped back to the outpost, passing en route groups of the tribesmen, who made no attempt to hinder him. He arrived to find that his brother subaltern had commenced to prepare for the fray. That night they were attacked, and from July 25 until August 2 were continuously under fire. When they were relieved by the advance of a force from Malakand, the casualties in the company of the 45th Sikhs at Chakdarra amounted to 5 killed and 18 wounded, whilst the sergeant's party of the 11th Bengal Lancers lost 3 men.

While yet the force was being mobilized for the punishment of the Swatis for the attack on Malakand, the Mohmands raided some villages in the Peshawar Valley. The raiders were promptly punished by the Peshawar Division, under General Elles; but this was not deemed sufficient, and in the month of September Sir Bindon Blood, having dealt with the Swatis, advanced against the Mohmands from the north, the while that General Elles, with a well-equipped brigade, moved up from Peshawar.

Distribution of the Mohmand Field Force.

First Division: Major-General Sir Bindon Blood, K.C.B.

Second Division: Major-General Edmond Elles, C.B.

After inflicting considerable punishment on the clans in the lower valleys, the Peshawar Division was withdrawn to take part in the Tirah Expedition (p. 404), whilst Sir Bindon Blood remained in occupation of the country. The Mohmand Expedition was productive of some sharp fighting, as the subjoined list of casualties prove:

Casualties in the Swat, Mohmand, and Kuram Valley Expeditions in 1897.

Samana, September 12-14, 1897.

This distinction was conferred on the 36th Sikhs by the Viceroy of India as a recognition of the gallant conduct of a detachment of that regiment at the defence of Fort Gulistan against a very superior force.

The attack on Fort Gulistan was one of the incidents which led to the expedition against the Afridis, and which is commemorated on the colours of our army under the title "Tirah." This fort, which is situated on the Samana Range, to the west of the frontier station of Kohat, dominates one of the main roads into the Afridi Hills, and is held by a detachment of native troops furnished from the garrison of Kohat. Almost simultaneously with the attack on the garrison of Malakand (see p. 398) symptoms of unrest displayed themselves amongst all the tribes along our North-West Frontier. The forts on the Khyber Road were attacked, the Mohmands made their descent into the Peshawar Valley, and the Afridis, not content with the attacks on the Khyber line, endeavoured to turn us out of the position on the Samana Ridge.

The garrison of Fort Gulistan consisted of two companies of the 36th Sikhs, under Major Des Voeux, and hard by was a little detached work, with a garrison of but twenty men, under a native officer. The conduct of this detachment must for ever remain one of the brightest pages in the history of our Indian army, and yet the history of that army abounds with instances of the self-devotion and heroism of our native soldiery.

Cut off from all communication with any senior officer, the Subadar[29] in command of the Saragai post was left entirely to his own devices. Gallantly did he carry out his orders. Surrounded by 10,000 Afridis, he not only repelled all attacks for three days, but when offered terms and a safe conduct to Kohat, his reply was that until he received instructions from his Colonel he could not abandon the post committed to his care; and so the brave old Sikh and his gallant men stayed on and died, true to the last to their trust. When the Fort Gulistan was relieved, on September 14, it was found that Saragai was in the hands of the Afridis, and that every man of the garrison had died at his post. To commemorate the heroism of its garrison the Government of India erected a monument, on which the names of that heroic band are inscribed, within the walls of the great Sikh cathedral, the Golden Temple at Umritsar.

The losses sustained by the two companies of the 36th Sikhs in the defence of the Samana Ridge were 22 killed and 48 wounded out of a total of 166 combatants.

Tirah, 1897-98

This battle honour, sanctioned by Army Order No. 23 of 1900, is borne by the following regiments:

Queen's.
Devons.
Yorkshire.
Royal Scots Fusiliers.
K.O. Scottish Borderers.
Sherwood Foresters.
Northamptons.
Gordon Highlanders.
18th Tiwana Lancers.
1st P.W.O. Sappers and Miners.
15th Sikhs.
30th Punjabis.
36th Sikhs.
53rd Sikhs.
56th Rifles.
128th Pioneers.
1st Gurkhas.
2nd Gurkhas.
3rd Gurkhas.
4th Gurkhas.

It was granted in recognition of one of the most arduous campaigns we have been called upon to wage on the Indian frontier. Our opponents were the great tribe of Afridis, who people the mountains to the west of the cantonment of Peshawar, and who furnish some of the best soldiers in our Punjab regiments. The Afridis are subdivided into a number of clans, all antagonistic to each other. Intertribal wars are of frequent occurrence, and although on many occasions we have been compelled to undertake punitory expeditions against certain of these, it has never been our lot to find such a unanimity of feeling against us as on this occasion.

It was thoroughly realized that we had a foe well worthy of our steel. The Afridis were well armed, and they counted some thousands of men who had been through the mill of discipline in our own regiments. Many of the very best regiments of the Indian army contained a large number of Afridis, and though these men have never hesitated to fight bravely against their own co-religionists in our border wars and in Afghanistan, there was more than a possibility that their loyalty would be too severely tried were we to employ them against their own fellow-tribesmen.

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.

Second Division: Major-General Yeatman Biggs.

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.

No white man had ever penetrated the upper valleys of Tirah, and our knowledge was based on the information of the Afridi officers and men, who for forty years had formed the backbone of so many of our Punjab regiments. The frontier town of Kohat formed the base of operations, which had of necessity, owing to the absence of roads, to be carried on in one single line. The advance took place on October 18, and two days later the Dargai Heights, which commanded the entrance to the valley, were stormed, with a loss of 200 killed and wounded. The Afridis were too wise to risk a general engagement. They had been trained in our own school, had studied under our officers, and had well learned their lesson. Instead of wasting life in futile attacks on our troops when in mass, they waged a ceaseless war against convoys or survey parties. Sir William Lockhart remained in occupation of the Afridi country until the middle of December, when negotiations for peace were opened; but it was not until the commencement of April, 1898, that the Afridis consented to pay the fines imposed or to give up the rifles demanded.

Our casualties, which are set out in detail in the subjoined return, amounted to 23 British officers, 4 native officers, and 287 other ranks killed; 56 British officers, 16 native officers, and 853 of all ranks wounded—a tribute to the gallantry of our foe and to the musketry training of the British officers who had taught them how to shoot.

Casualties in the Tirah Expedition.