Books: The Story of the Malakand Field Force

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Produced by Ron Goodden (Ronald J. Goodden)
in memory of Royal G. Goodden.

THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE

An Episode of Frontier War

by Sir Winston S. Churchill

"They (Frontier Wars) are but the surf that marks the edge
and the advance of the wave of civilisation."

LORD SALISBURY, Guildhall, 1892

CONTENTS

Preface
Chapter I: The Theatre of War
Chapter II: The Malakand Camps
Chapter III: The Outbreak
Chapter IV: The Attack on the Malakand
Chapter V: The Relief of Chakdara
Chapter VI: The Defence of Chakdara
Chapter VII: The Gate of Swat
Chapter VIII: The Advance Against the Mohmands
Chapter IX: Reconnaissance
Chapter X: The March to Nawagai
Chapter XI: The Action of the Mamund Valley, 16th September
Chapter XII: At Inayat Kila
Chapter XIII: Nawagai
Chapter XIV: Back to the Mamund Valley
Chapter XV: The Work of the Cavalry
Chapter XVI: Submission
Chapter XVII: Military Observations
Chapter XVIII: The Riddle of the Frontier
Appendix

THIS BOOK
IS INSCRIBED TO
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR BINDON BLOOD, K.C.B.
UNDER WHOSE COMMAND THE OPERATIONS THEREIN
RECORDED WERE CARRIED OUT; BY WHOSE GENERALSHIP
THEY WERE BROUGHT TO A SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION;
AND TO WHOSE KINDNESS THE AUTHOR IS INDEBTED
FOR THE MOST VALUABLE AND FASCINATING EXPERIENCE
OF HIS LIFE.

PREFACE

"According to the fair play of the world,
Let me have an audience."

"King John," Act v., Sc. 2.

On general grounds I deprecate prefaces. I have always thought that if
an author cannot make friends with the reader, and explain his objects,
in two or three hundred pages, he is not likely to do so in fifty
lines. And yet the temptation of speaking a few words behind the
scenes, as it were, is so strong that few writers are able to resist
it. I shall not try.

While I was attached to the Malakand Field Force I wrote a series of
letters for the London Daily Telegraph. The favourable manner in which
these letters were received, encouraged me to attempt a more
substantial work. This volume is the result.

The original letters have been broken up, and I have freely availed
myself of all passages, phrases, and facts, that seemed appropriate.
The views they contained have not been altered, though several opinions
and expressions, which seemed mild in the invigorating atmosphere of a
camp, have been modified, to suit the more temperate climate of peace.

I have to thank many gallant officers for the assistance they have
given me in the collection of material. They have all asked me not to
mention their names, but to accede to this request would be to rob the
story of the Malakand Field Force of all its bravest deeds and finest
characters.

The book does not pretend to deal with the complications of the
frontier question, nor to present a complete summary of its phases and
features. In the opening chapter I have tried to describe the general
character of the numerous and powerful tribes of the Indian Frontier.
In the last chapter I have attempted to apply the intelligence of a
plain man to the vast mass of expert evidence, which on this subject is
so great that it baffles memory and exhausts patience. The rest is
narrative, and in it I have only desired to show the reader what it
looked like.

As I have not been able to describe in the text all the instances of
conduct and courage which occurred, I have included in an appendix the
official despatches.

The impartial critic will at least admit that I have not insulted the
British public by writing a party pamphlet on a great Imperial
question. I have recorded the facts as they occurred, and the
impressions as they arose, without attempting to make a case against
any person or any policy. Indeed, I fear that assailing none, I may
have offended all. Neutrality may degenerate into an ignominious
isolation. An honest and unprejudiced attempt to discern the truth is
my sole defence, as the good opinion of the reader has been throughout
my chief aspiration, and can be in the end my only support.

Winston S. Churchill

Cavalry Barracks,
Bangalore, 30th December, 1897

CHAPTER I: THE THEATRE OF WAR

The Ghilzaie chief wrote answer: "Our paths are narrow and
steep.
The sun burns fierce in the valleys, and the snow-fed streams run
deep;
. . . . . . . . . .

So a stranger needs safe escort, and the oath of a valiant friend."

"The Amir's Message," SIR A. LYALL.

All along the north and north-west frontiers of India lie the Himalayas,
the greatest disturbance of the earth's surface that the convulsions of
chaotic periods have produced. Nearly four hundred miles in breadth and
more than sixteen hundred in length, this mountainous region divides the
great plains of the south from those of Central Asia, and parts as a
channel separates opposing shores, the Eastern Empire of Great Britain
from that of Russia. The western end of this tumult of ground is formed
by the peaks of the Hindu Kush, to the south of which is the scene of
the story these pages contain. The Himalayas are not a line, but a great
country of mountains. By one who stands on some lofty pass or commanding
point in Dir, Swat or Bajaur, range after range is seen as the long
surges of an Atlantic swell, and in the distance some glittering snow
peak suggests a white-crested roller, higher than the rest. The
drenching rains which fall each year have washed the soil from the sides
of the hills until they have become strangely grooved by numberless
water-courses, and the black primeval rock is everywhere exposed. The
silt and sediment have filled the valleys which lie between, and made
their surface sandy, level and broad. Again the rain has cut wide, deep
and constantly-changing channels through this soft deposit; great
gutters, which are sometimes seventy feet deep and two or three hundred
yards across. These are the nullahs. Usually the smaller ones are dry,
and the larger occupied only by streams; but in the season of the rains,
abundant water pours down all, and in a few hours the brook has become
an impassable torrent, and the river swelled into a rolling flood which
caves the banks round which it swirls, and cuts the channel deeper year
by year.

From the level plain of the valleys the hills rise abruptly. Their steep
and rugged slopes are thickly strewn with great rocks, and covered with
coarse, rank grass. Scattered pines grow on the higher ridges. In the
water-courses the chenar, the beautiful eastern variety of the plane
tree of the London squares and Paris boulevards, is occasionally found,
and when found, is, for its pleasant shade, regarded with grateful
respect. Reaching far up the sides of the hills are tiers of narrow
terraces, chiefly the work of long-forgotten peoples, which catch the
soil that the rain brings down, and support crops of barley and maize.
The rice fields along both banks of the stream display a broad, winding
strip of vivid green, which gives the eye its only relief from the
sombre colours of the mountains.

In the spring, indeed, the valleys are brightened by many flowers--wild
tulips, peonies, crocuses and several kinds of polyanthus; and among the
fruits the water melon, some small grapes and mulberries are excellent,
although in their production, nature is unaided by culture. But during
the campaign, which these pages describe, the hot sun of the summer had
burnt up all the flowers, and only a few splendid butterflies, whose
wings of blue and green change colour in the light, like shot silk,
contrasted with the sternness of the landscape.

The valleys are nevertheless by no means barren. The soil is fertile,
the rains plentiful, and a considerable proportion of ground is occupied
by cultivation, and amply supplies the wants of the inhabitants.

The streams are full of fish, both trout and mahseer. By the banks teal,
widgeon and wild duck, and in some places, snipe, are plentiful. Chikor,
a variety of partridge, and several sorts of pheasants, are to be
obtained on the hills.

Among the wild animals of the region the hunter may pursue the black or
brown mountain bear, an occasional leopard, markhor, and several
varieties of wild goat, sheep and antelope. The smaller quadrupeds
include hares and red foxes, not unlike the British breed, only with
much brighter coats, and several kinds of rats, some of which are very
curious and rare. Destitute of beauty but not without use, the scaly
ant-eater is frequently seen; but the most common of all the beasts is
an odious species of large lizard, nearly three feet long, which
resembles a flabby-skinned crocodile and feeds on carrion. Domestic
fowls, goats, sheep and oxen, with the inevitable vulture, and an
occasional eagle, complete the fauna.

Over all is a bright blue sky and powerful sun. Such is the scenery of
the theatre of war.

The inhabitants of these wild but wealthy valleys are of many tribes,
but of similar character and condition. The abundant crops which a warm
sun and copious rains raise from a fertile soil, support a numerous
population in a state of warlike leisure. Except at the times of sowing
and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout
the land. Tribe wars with tribe. The people of one valley fight with
those of the next. To the quarrels of communities are added the combats
of individuals. Khan assails khan, each supported by his retainers.
Every tribesman has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man's hand is
against the other, and all against the stranger.

Nor are these struggles conducted with the weapons which usually belong
to the races of such development. To the ferocity of the Zulu are added
the craft of the Redskin and the marksmanship of the Boer. The world is
presented with that grim spectacle, "the strength of civilisation
without its mercy." At a thousand yards the traveller falls wounded by
the well-aimed bullet of a breech-loading rifle. His assailant,
approaching, hacks him to death with the ferocity of a South-Sea
Islander. The weapons of the nineteenth century are in the hands of the
savages of the Stone Age.

Every influence, every motive, that provokes the spirit of murder among
men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence. The
strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherit in all human beings, has
in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour. That
religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the
sword--the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives
to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds
of men--stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder,
always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of
opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the
south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old
Spain, is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica.

In such a state of society, all property is held directly by main force.
Every man is a soldier. Either he is the retainer of some khan--the man-
at-arms of some feudal baron as it were--or he is a unit in the armed
force of his village--the burgher of mediaeval history. In such
surroundings we may without difficulty trace the rise and fall of an
ambitious Pathan. At first he toils with zeal and thrift as an
agriculturist on that plot of ground which his family have held since
they expelled some former owner. He accumulates in secret a sum of
money. With this he buys a rifle from some daring thief, who has risked
his life to snatch it from a frontier guard-house. He becomes a man to
be feared. Then he builds a tower to his house and overawes those around
him in the village. Gradually they submit to his authority. He might now
rule the village; but he aspires still higher. He persuades or compels
his neighbors to join him in an attack on the castle of a local khan.
The attack succeeds. The khan flies or is killed; the castle captured.
The retainers make terms with the conqueror. The land tenure is feudal.
In return for their acres they follow their new chief to war. Were he to
treat them worse than the other khans treated their servants, they would
sell their strong arms elsewhere. He treats them well. Others resort to
him. He buys more rifles. He conquers two or three neighboring khans. He
has now become a power.

Many, perhaps all, states have been founded in a similar way, and it is
by such steps that civilisation painfully stumbles through her earlier
stages. But in these valleys the warlike nature of the people and their
hatred of control, arrest the further progress of development. We have
watched a man, able, thrifty, brave, fighting his way to power,
absorbing, amalgamating, laying the foundations of a more complex and
interdependent state of society. He has so far succeeded. But his
success is now his ruin. A combination is formed against him. The
surrounding chiefs and their adherents are assisted by the village
populations. The ambitious Pathan, oppressed by numbers, is destroyed.
The victors quarrel over the spoil, and the story closes, as it began,
in bloodshed and strife.

The conditions of existence, that have been thus indicated, have
naturally led to the dwelling-places of these tribes being fortified. If
they are in the valley, they are protected by towers and walls loopholed
for musketry. If in the hollows of the hills, they are strong by their
natural position. In either case they are guarded by a hardy and martial
people, well armed, brave, and trained by constant war.

This state of continual tumult has produced a habit of mind which recks
little of injuries, holds life cheap and embarks on war with careless
levity, and the tribesmen of the Afghan border afford the spectacle of a
people, who fight without passion, and kill one another without loss of
temper. Such a disposition, combined with an absolute lack of reverence
for all forms of law and authority, and a complete assurance of
equality, is the cause of their frequent quarrels with the British
power. A trifle rouses their animosity. They make a sudden attack on
some frontier post. They are repulsed. From their point of view the
incident is closed. There has been a fair fight in which they have had
the worst fortune. What puzzles them is that "the Sirkar" should regard
so small an affair in a serious light. Thus the Mohmands cross the
frontier and the action of Shabkadr is fought. They are surprised and
aggrieved that the Government are not content with the victory, but must
needs invade their territories, and impose punishment. Or again, the
Mamunds, because a village has been burnt, assail the camp of the Second
Brigade by night. It is a drawn game. They are astounded that the troops
do not take it in good part.

They, when they fight among themselves, bear little malice, and the
combatants not infrequently make friends over the corpses of their
comrades or suspend operations for a festival or a horse race. At the
end of the contest cordial relations are at once re-established. And yet
so full of contradictions is their character, that all this is without
prejudice to what has been written of their family vendettas and private
blood feuds. Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and
violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so
strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind.
I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were to
understand their mental impulses--if he knew, when it was their honour
to stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when they
were bound to protect and when to kill him--he might, by judging his
times and opportunities, pass safely from one end of the mountains to
the other. But a civilised European is as little able to accomplish
this, as to appreciate the feelings of those strange creatures, which,
when a drop of water is examined under a microscope, are revealed
amiably gobbling each other up, and being themselves complacently
devoured.

I remark with pleasure, as an agreeable trait in the character of the
Pathans, the immunity, dictated by a rude spirit of chivalry, which in
their ceaseless brawling, their women enjoy. Many forts are built at
some distance from any pool or spring. When these are besieged, the
women are allowed by the assailants to carry water to the foot of the
walls by night. In the morning the defenders come out and fetch it--of
course under fire--and are enabled to continue their resistance. But
passing from the military to the social aspect of their lives, the
picture assumes an even darker shade, and is unrelieved by any redeeming
virtue. We see them in their squalid, loopholed hovels, amid dirt and
ignorance, as degraded a race as any on the fringe of humanity: fierce
as the tiger, but less cleanly; as dangerous, not so graceful. Those
simple family virtues, which idealists usually ascribe to primitive
peoples, are conspicuously absent. Their wives and their womenkind
generally, have no position but that of animals. They are freely bought
and sold, and are not infrequently bartered for rifles. Truth is unknown
among them. A single typical incident displays the standpoint from which
they regard an oath. In any dispute about a field boundary, it is
customary for both claimants to walk round the boundary he claims, with
a Koran in his hand, swearing that all the time he is walking on his own
land. To meet the difficulty of a false oath, while he is walking over
his neighbor's land, he puts a little dust from his own field into his
shoes. As both sides are acquainted with the trick, the dismal farce of
swearing is usually soon abandoned, in favor of an appeal to force.

All are held in the grip of miserable superstition. The power of the
ziarat, or sacred tomb, is wonderful. Sick children are carried on the
backs of buffaloes, sometimes sixty or seventy miles, to be deposited in
front of such a shrine, after which they are carried back--if they
survive the journey--in the same way. It is painful even to think of
what the wretched child suffers in being thus jolted over the cattle
tracks. But the tribesmen consider the treatment much more efficacious
than any infidel prescription. To go to a ziarat and put a stick in the
ground is sufficient to ensure the fulfillment of a wish. To sit
swinging a stone or coloured glass ball, suspended by a string from a
tree, and tied there by some fakir, is a sure method of securing a fine
male heir. To make a cow give good milk, a little should be plastered on
some favorite stone near the tomb of a holy man. These are but a few
instances; but they may suffice to reveal a state of mental development
at which civilisation hardly knows whether to laugh or weep.

Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of a
numerous priesthood--"Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas," "Fakirs,"
--and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, who correspond with the
theological students in Turkey, and live free at the expense of the
people. More than this, they enjoy a sort of "droit du seigneur," and no
man's wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and
morals it is impossible to write. As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's
plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected
against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to
handle, and too noisome even to approach."

Yet the life even of these barbarous people is not without moments when
the lover of the picturesque might sympathise with their hopes and
fears. In the cool of the evening, when the sun has sunk behind the
mountains of Afghanistan, and the valleys are filled with a delicious
twilight, the elders of the village lead the way to the chenar trees by
the water's side, and there, while the men are cleaning their rifles, or
smoking their hookas, and the women are making rude ornaments from
beads, and cloves, and nuts, the Mullah drones the evening prayer. Few
white men have seen, and returned to tell the tale. But we may imagine
the conversation passing from the prices of arms and cattle, the
prospects of the harvest, or the village gossip, to the great Power,
that lies to the southward, and comes nearer year by year. Perhaps some
former Sepoy, of Beluchis or Pathans, will recount his adventures in the
bazaars of Peshawar, or tell of the white officers he has followed and
fought for in the past. He will speak of their careless bravery and
their strange sports; of the far-reaching power of the Government, that
never forgets to send his pension regularly as the months pass by; and
he may even predict to the listening circle the day when their valleys
will be involved in the comprehensive grasp of that great machine, and
judges, collectors and commissioners shall ride to sessions at Ambeyla,
or value the land tax on the soil of Nawagai. Then the Mullah will raise
his voice and remind them of other days when the sons of the prophet
drove the infidel from the plains of India, and ruled at Delhi, as wide
an Empire as the Kafir holds to-day: when the true religion strode
proudly through the earth and scorned to lie hidden and neglected among
the hills: when mighty princes ruled in Bagdad, and all men knew that
there was one God, and Mahomet was His prophet. And the young men
hearing these things will grip their Martinis, and pray to Allah, that
one day He will bring some Sahib--best prize of all--across their line
of sight at seven hundred yards so that, at least, they may strike a
blow for insulted and threatened Islam.

The general aspect of the country and character of its inhabitants have
thus been briefly described. At this stage it is not necessary or
desirable to descend to detail. As the account proceeds the reader may
derive a more lively impression of the sombre mountains, and of the
peoples who dwell beneath their shadow.

The tale that I have to tell is one of frontier war. Neither the
importance of the issues, nor the numbers of the combatants, are on an
European scale. The fate of empires does not hang on the result. Yet the
narrative may not be without interest, or material for reflection. In
the quarrels of civilised nations, great armies, many thousands strong,
collide. Brigades and battalions are hurried forward, and come perhaps
within some fire zone, swept by concentrated batteries, or massed
musketry. Hundreds or thousands fall killed and wounded. The survivors
struggle on blindly, dazed and dumfoundered, to the nearest cover. Fresh
troops are continuously poured on from behind. At length one side or the
other gives way. In all this tumult, this wholesale slaughter, the
individual and his feelings are utterly lost. Only the army has a tale
to tell. With events on such a scale, the hopes and fears, the strength
and weakness, of man are alike indistinguishable. Amid the din and dust
little but destruction can be discerned. But on the frontier, in the
clear light of morning, when the mountain side is dotted with smoke
puffs, and every ridge sparkles with bright sword blades, the spectator
may observe and accurately appreciate all grades of human courage--the
wild fanaticism of the Ghazi, the composed fatalism of the Sikh, the
stubbornness of the British soldier, and the jaunty daring of his
officers. He may remark occasions of devotion and self-sacrifice, of
cool cynicism and stern resolve. He may participate in moments of wild
enthusiasm, or of savage anger and dismay. The skill of the general, the
quality of the troops, the eternal principles of the art of war, will be
as clearly displayed as on historic fields. Only the scale of the
statistics is reduced.

A single glass of champagne imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The
nerves are braced, the imagination is agreeably stirred, the wits become
more nimble. A bottle produces a contrary effect. Excess causes a
comatose insensibility. So it is with war, and the quality of both is
best discovered by sipping.

I propose to chronicle the military operations of the Malakand Field
Force, to trace their political results, and to give, if possible, some
picture of the scenery and people of the Indian Highlands. These pages
may serve to record the actions of brave and skilful men. They may throw
a sidelight on the great drama of frontier war. They may describe an
episode in that ceaseless struggle for Empire which seems to be the
perpetual inheritance of our race. They may amuse an idle hour. But the
ambition I shall associate with them is, that in some measure, however
small, they may stimulate that growing interest which the Imperial
Democracy of England is beginning to take, in their great estates that
lie beyond the seas.

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