Chapter 15
In This Chapter
● Understanding technical advances in the late nineteenth century
● Reforming the army, Cardwell’s way
● The Second Afghan War, 1878-1880
● The Great Frontier Rising, 1897-1898
The final 40 years of the nineteenth century were a period of constant change - political, social, and technical. The boundaries of the British Empire extended at an unprecedented rate, almost by accident, and the British army was almost continuously employed somewhere in the world. This chapter examines the nature of the changes that the army had to absorb as well as the nature of warfare in Afghanistan and on the North West Frontier of India.
In the mid and late nineteenth century, the British army were fully equipped with rifles rather than muskets (rifles being preferable due to their rifling - grooves in the barrel, which sent the bullet spinning with more accuracy than smoothbore muskets). For more on weapons, see the section ‘Shootin’ Fastest And Bestest’. At home and for some foreign campaigns, the British army still wore their traditional red coats, but dull-toned khaki uniforms were introduced for some regiments in India.
Addressing Matters Close to Home
Although France had been Great Britain’s principal ally during the Crimean War (see Chapter 13), the British didn’t trust the French and it didn’t help that their ruler, Napoleon III, was a dodgy character who not only liked to fight wars but was an international wheeler and dealer - he’d somehow managed to inflict an Austrian Archduke on the Mexicans as their Emperor, without their permission!
Alarmingly, the French Navy had begun building excellent ironclad warships, forcing the Royal Navy to follow suit. The question was, why did the French want these warships? The answer seemed to be for an invasion of England. One result of this development was that the British built numerous modern forts in Portsmouth and other naval bases, many of which remain to this day. Another result of French actions was the volunteer movement. All over Britain regiments formed from volunteers anxious to play a part in the defence of their country. In the towns and cities rifle units were very popular, and many of these chose to dress themselves in grey uniforms. In the country, the yeomanry was joined by freshly raised regiments, many wearing odd uniforms of their own design that may have included a hussar jacket and a dragoon helmet. Some units had a rich patron who supplied everything that was needed at his own expense, while in others the volunteers made a financial contribution. The government provided musketry training for potential instructors, while retired senior non-commissioned officers suddenly found themselves hired to knock the new recruits into shape. In the event no invasion happened, but the units remained in being for possible use in a national emergency.
Other events changed the overall look and structure of the British army at this time, as outlined in the following sections.
Shootin' fastest and bestest
The birth of industrialised warfare began with two inventions:
● The drawn brass cartridge case activated by a firing pin or percussion hammer
● Efficient breech-closing mechanisms
As the bullet itself was pinched into the head of the cartridge case, this meant that the rate of fire of a unit equipped with breech-loading rifles was many times that of a unit armed with muzzle-loaders. In the British Army the breech-loading Snider replaced the Enfield rifle in 1866. In 1871 the Martini-Henry, the first hammerless rifle, followed, then in 1888 came the Lee-Metford, the forerunner of the Lee-Enfield, which served throughout the First and Second World Wars. The last two rifles were equipped with magazines capable of holding between eight and ten rounds, enabling an even faster rate of fire to be maintained. They also established the rifle ammunition standard calibre of .303-inch (7.7 millimetres), which lasted until the 1950s. Likewise, revolving chambers and spring magazines increased the firepower of pistols.
It's called a ‘machine gun’
Rapid-fire systems, involving several gun barrels firing in succession, were almost as old as gunpowder itself. The problem was that once all the barrels had been fired, the gun needed reloading, so multiple barrels weren’t much of an advantage. The first practical application of the idea was by an American of British descent, Dr Richard Gatling, in 1862. Gatling used several barrels that revolved around a central axis when a crank handle was turned. Ammunition was fed from above and each barrel fired in turn. The British Army used the Gatling in a number of campaigns, as did the Royal Navy.
Other contemporary systems that the Royal Navy employed afloat and ashore were the Gardner and Nordenfeldt guns, which used barrels positioned side by side and were loaded and fired by the operation of a lever.
All three guns were likely to jam at critical moments. Technically, they were really manually operated rapid-fire systems rather than machine guns.
In 1884 the Army adopted its first true machine gun. This was a water-cooled weapon developed by another American, Hiram Maxim. Once the first round was fired the weapon used its own recoil forces to operate the ejection, loading, and firing mechanisms. Belt-fed, the gun fired at the rate of 600 rounds per minute and soon replaced the Gatling, which only produced 200 rounds per minute.
Loading shells front and rear
In 1859 William Armstrong produced a practical breech-loading, rifled gun. The field artillery was equipped with the 12-pounder version of this and the horse artillery with the 9-pounder version. However, strongly conservative elements within the Royal Regiment of Artillery were only too keen to point out the complex process involved in the manufacture of such guns, including the lack of gas-tight breech mechanisms. They also expressed a dislike of the ‘new-fangled’ idea of rifled gun barrels, despite proof that shots from rifled guns fell within more concentrated areas than those of smooth bores.
The upshot of complaints by conservative gunners was a reversion to muzzle loading in the 1870s, although rifling was retained. By the 1880s better manufacturing techniques produced more powerful guns with secure breeches, so it was back to rifled breech-loaders again. For breech-loaders, the term quick firing came into common use during this period, although it actually meant guns that employed one-piece ammunition, incorporating the shell and propellant case, which loaded faster than the older system of loading first the shell and then the bagged charge. Advances in chemical science produced better propellants (some of them smokeless) and more powerful ammunition.
Another area in which the Royal Artillery, not having fought a western enemy since the Crimean War (see Chapter 13), was behind was the acceptance that with longer-range field guns, batteries no longer needed to take their place in the line beside the infantry. Provided that their fire could be controlled, batteries could do their work just as well from further back.
Introducing new uniforms
Shortly after the Crimean War a tunic replaced the coatee and a lower shako replaced the Albert Pot. In 1878 a spiked helmet replaced the shako, although in the Royal Field Artillery and specialist corps a ball took the place of the spike. Dragoon and dragoon guard regiments adopted a similar helmet to the Household Cavalry and rifle regiments wore a sealskin cap. Others retained their traditional headdress. This was the army’s last home-service full dress uniform, which continued to be worn until 1914 when khaki replaced it, with the exception of the Brigade of Guards’ ceremonial uniforms.
Abroad, soldiers wore the scarlet tunic on active service in conjunction with a sun helmet during the Zulu War, the First Boer War, and the early campaigns in Egypt (see Chapter 16). A khaki drill or grey cotton then replaced the scarlet. In post-mutiny India, khaki drill and sun helmet quickly became the norm save for ceremonial occasions.
Mr Cardwell knows best
The sort of army that had done so well under Wellington’s command (see Part III) was just not suitable for post-Industrial Revolution Great Britain in the last two quarters of the nineteenth century. Edward Cardwell, Prime Minister Gladstone’s Secretary of State for War from 1868 to 1874, was undeniably a good appointment for the army’s long-term interests. Cardwell could see exactly what was needed and he set about reforming the army:
Sorry, your money’s no good any more. One of the things that the Crimean War brought into sharp focus was that the practice of obtaining commissions and promotions by purchase (see Chapter 7) could, from time to time, throw up buffoons like Lords Lucan and Cardigan (see Chapter 13). Obviously, when such people reached high rank they could cause serious problems, and their lordships had actually done so. Strenuous arguments were put forward in defence of the purchase system, but despite these objections Royal Warrant abolished it in 1871.
The Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers lay outside the system and obtained their commissions after passing through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. Everyone else, with the exception of medical officers and chaplains, now had to pass the course at Sandhurst. In the event, much the same sort of people came forward as potential officers, although some, including a gentleman cadet named Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister in the Second World War), found difficulty with the exams and got very poor marks.
● Numbers are out, names are in. In 1881 Cardwell made a radical alteration to the infantry’s regimental system. The first 25 line regiments already possessed two battalions, and he now paired off the remainder to form two-battalion regiments, the idea being that while one battalion was serving overseas the other remained at home and provided reinforcements for its partner battalion as required. Many regiments resented the loss of their old numbers and individuality. Some regiments disliked each other so heartily that they fought on sight and could not be posted to the same garrison, let alone amalgamated. Others found their enforced ‘marriages’ difficult and took time to settle down together.
Regiments already had county names that were largely ignored. Now they received county titles instead of numbers and the specified counties became their home and recruiting ground. This was a shrewd move on Cardwell’s part, taking account of the fact that men fight better accompanied by their friends, neighbours, and kindred, among whom they have to live afterwards. Militia and volunteer battalions were also allocated to their respective county regiments. The system was a good one that developed regimental spirit even further. It served well throughout two world wars and beyond.
● You don’t know you’re born, lad! Until 1847 men joined the army for 21 years or until they were considered too old or decrepit for further use. After 1847, the term of engagement for the infantry was 10 years and 12 years for other arms. This failed to produce a trained reserve to call on in wartime. Under Cardwell, the basic term remained 12 years, but it was divided into six years with the Colours (actually in the army) and six with the reserve, later changed to seven and five. This not only encouraged recruiting among men less willing to commit themselves to a longer term with the Colours, but also began to build up a substantial Regular Army reserve.
Cardwell also removed some of the harshest aspects of military discipline. In 1868 he abolished flogging in peacetime, and the punishment was discontinued altogether in 1900. Curiously, it remained a civil punishment until after the Second World War. Tattooing or branding the face with a red-hot iron for desertion and other serious crimes was also abolished.
In 1878 Cardwell established the Army Pay Department, forerunner of the Royal Army Pay Corps, ensuring soldiers received what was due to them.
Seeing Action on the North West Frontier
No one could pretend that the Indian Mutiny had not happened (see Chapter 14 for full details), no matter how hard British and Indians alike strove to restore a working relationship. The important thing was to ensure that such a mutiny did not happen again, and that could only be done by taking precautions.
The proportion of British to Indian troops was increased, usually to one battalion in each Indian infantry brigade. With the exception of mountain batteries, artillery remained in British hands and the squadrons within each cavalry regiment came from different races or religions.
Usually there were no more than a dozen British officers in each Indian regiment. Whereas formerly these officers were Honourable East India Company appointments, now they passed through Sandhurst and served with a British regiment in India before they were invited to stay for a time with the Indian regiment of their choice. They were assessed for suitability and if their application was approved they were transferred to that regiment and required to pass an examination in Urdu, the language of the Indian Army. They also spent a great deal of time learning about the regiment, its personalities, and the way it operated in the company of its Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers (VCOs), who were highly respected Indian officers of great experience who had their own officers’ mess. The status of the VCOs (the Viceroy was the senior representative of the Crown in India) lay approximately between that of British warrant and commissioned officers.
Following the Mutiny, no fighting happened in India itself, but lots could be had on the North West Frontier. The North West Frontier was a school for soldiers and generals alike right up to Indian Independence (see Chapter 25). There, the tribes regarded fighting as fun, especially if it involved a blood feud or two and, better still, the British. Amid these wild mountains, ambush, treachery, and torture combined oddly with an unbreakable code of hospitality, but the situation kept everyone on their toes. The tribes were numerous and their members gave trouble at the drop of a hat. Serious provocation such as the murder of a British official, raids on civil communities, or attempts to levy duty on the tribes’ own account could mean the British mounting a punitive expedition.
Penetrating tribal territory was dangerous for the unwary and the dissidents always seemed to know at once when a regiment was new to the Frontier. The old hands protected their route by placing strong picquets on the high ground on either side of the route until the column had passed.
Then, covered by shellfire from the column’s guns, the picquets were called down before the enemy overran them. Despite this, an enemy who was adept at concealment and an above-average shot could still inflict casualties. Mounted officers were obvious and prominent targets. A crack was heard, a puff of smoke rose among the rocks, and then, as the poet Kipling put it, ‘ten thousand pounds of education went rolling in the dust’ (see the sidebar ‘Mr Kipling writes exceedingly good poems’ for more on him). When a British force reached the tribal heartland, it burned villages and their watchtowers until the tribe decided to submit. The elders arrived and a jirga (conference) was held with the column commanders, deciding what reparations the tribe was to make. The elders promised to be good, and the troops marched off, being sniped at regularly along the way. Then, a year or two later, the whole process was repeated.
Mr Kipling writes exceedingly good poems
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in India but educated in England. He returned to India in 1882 and worked as a journalist there until 1889. Anglo-Indian society was hierarchical and Kipling's profession placed him quite low in the pecking order, enabling him to socialise with other British ranks in a manner that would otherwise have raised eyebrows. Most private soldiers were men in their early 20s who conducted their conversation, heavily larded with oaths, in a mixture of English and Urdu. In India, the soldiers Kipling talked to came from the East Surrey Regiment and the Northumberland Fusiliers, who were in garrison together at Mian Mir, but it is also clear from Kipling's poems that he spoke to the gunners of a mountain battery. He also came into contact with soldiers when he returned to London, and in South Africa, which he visited during the Second Boer War.
In Kipling's Barrack Room Balladswe hear the authentic voice of the soldier, which is not so very different today. Tommy, one of his most famous poems, tells of the soldier's hurt when civilians at home look down on him, and his contempt for those same cheering civilians who wave him off to war.
Not even the staunchest anti-imperialist would dream of accusing Kipling of racism. His poems Gunga Din (about a regimental bhisti or water carrier) and Fuzzy Wuzzy (about the Hadendowa tribesmen of the Eastern Sudan who wore their hair in a huge fuzzy afro) are works of genuine admiration as expressed by the men in the ranks.
Kipling lived through the high noon of the British Empire. Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 marked its zenith. Shrewd observer of human affairs that Kipling was, he knew that empires do not last and his poem Recessional, written specially for the Jubilee, reflects this.
The Second Afghan War, 1878-1880
When Sher Ali came to power in Afghanistan in 1863, he immediately became involved in a dynastic struggle with his nephew, Abdur Rahman. When Sher Ali began to get the worst of things he opened negotiations with the Russian Tsar’s representatives, ignoring British warnings that they regarded such a course of action as a hostile act (remember that Britain and Russia were engaged in the Great Game at this time - see Chapter 12 for more).
Three British columns crossed the frontier immediately. In the south, General Sir Donald Stewart’s Kandahar field force entered Kandahar unopposed in January 1879. In the centre, Major General Frederick Roberts’s Kurram field force marched from Kohat over the Peiwar Kotal, outflanking its defenders and forcing them to retire after a brisk action on 2 December 1878. In the north, the Peshawar Valley field force, under the command of the one-armed Lieutenant General Sir Sam Browne - the inventor of the cross-belt that still bears his name - marched on Jellalabad through the Khyber Pass. On 21 November 1878 the force made an unsuccessful attack on the fort at Ali Musjid, which the Afghans abandoned during the night. Sher Ali fled north and died at Mazar-i-Sharif in February 1879.
Defending the Kabul Residency
Sher Ali’s son Yakub Khan, acting as Regent, accepted a treaty under the terms of which a British Resident with wide-ranging powers, including control of Afghanistan’s foreign policy, was installed at Kabul, in exchange for a £60,000 subsidy. If this seemed like a reasonable solution to a little local difficulty, in reality it was like throwing a lighted match into a barrel of gunpowder.
The British Resident, Sir Louis Cavagnari, reached Kabul on 24 July 1879, accompanied by a small personal staff and an escort of 25 cavalrymen and 50 infantry drawn from the Corps of Guides, under the command of Lieutenant Walter Hamilton, VC. For a while, all remained quiet despite the sullen atmosphere prevailing in the capital. Then, at the end of August, several Afghan regiments from Heart province marched in on a routine exchange of postings (remember that Afghanistan had its own army, which was not under British control). Their pay was seriously in arrears and they were in a foul mood, beyond their officers’ control. They began by jeering at the Kabuli regiments that Roberts had defeated at Peiwar Kotal. Then they received some wages, but it was only a fraction of what they were owed. That blew their collective fuse. Someone shouted that the British had plenty of money, so the Afghans charged round to the Residency. Some started looting, but the sentries opened fire and drove them out.
After their initial setback, the Afghans arrived in force, bringing with them their weapons and the city’s mob. The building lacked a perimeter wall and was overlooked from several angles, but Hamilton did what was possible to improvise defences. From the fragmentary evidence available, it seems that the Afghans’ incessant fire steadily reduced the Guides’ numbers and killed Hamilton, Cavagnari, and his staff. The Afghans brought up a cannon to pound the building. The Guides made several sorties out of the Residency, but these won them only temporary relief. By evening the Residency was burning fiercely. All hope gone, the last few men on their feet, led by a Sikh, Jemadar Jewand Singh, charged out into the mob and died fighting. Lying sprawled in every attitude of death all round the Residency were no fewer than 600 Afghan bodies. In the event only seven of the Residency’s inhabitants survived the attack. The British Commission of Inquiry set up to examine the incident commented that ‘the annals of no army and no regiment can show a brighter record of bravery than has been achieved by this small band of Guides’. The entire escort was awarded the Indian Order of Merit, the Indian Army’s supreme award for valour at the time.
Retaking the Kabul Residency
A 7500-strong punitive expedition was sent out in response to the fall of the Kabul Residency (see the previous section). This, commanded by Sir Frederick Roberts, routed an Afghan force of comparable size at Charasia on 6 October 1879 and captured all its artillery.
One point of interest about the battle at Charasia is that it was the first action in which British troops used the heliograph for communication. The heliograph was a signalling apparatus that reflected flashes of sunlight from a movable mirror mounted on a tripod, enabling Morse code to be used.
Roberts’s expedition occupied Kabul and hanged the ringleaders of the attack on the Residency in front of its ruins. Yakub Khan (ruler of Afghanistan), now seriously frightened, sought British protection and indicated his willingness to abdicate. Roberts’s doubts about the Regent’s sincerity were fully justified, for Yakub Khan remained in constant contact with anti-British elements among his former subjects. Nevertheless, Roberts agreed that the British troops should spend the winter in the partially fortified Sherpur cantonment (a military station) a mile to the northeast of Kabul. Roberts had something of a secret weapon in his armoury, namely a supply of the new star shells for his mountain batteries. These burst high above the battlefield like fireworks and produced brilliant balls of light that floated slowly to the ground.
Thousands of Afghans were arriving in Kabul daily, and sniping at the British began. Roberts mounted an unsuccessful sortie from the cantonment on 14 December and, encouraged by this, the enemy isolated the cantonment. Just before dawn on 23 December an enormous crowd of baying Afghans, estimated to number 100,000, surged forward to storm the walls. There was a series of cracks overhead as the artillery’s star shells burst. To their astonishment and horror the Afghans found themselves starkly illuminated against the snow. Sustained volley firing ripped through them and high-explosive shells blew gaps in their ranks, but they kept on coming until 10 a.m. An hour later, they came on again but were noticeably less keen. The British shelled the Afghans as they tried to form up again and at 1 p.m. the Afghans began streaming away. Roberts sent out the 9th Lancers, the Guides Cavalry, and the 5th Punjab Cavalry, who chased the Afghans over the horizon. Roberts lost just three men killed and 30 wounded.
Throughout the siege of the Sherpur cantonment, Roberts rode round the perimeter, passing the time of day with the troops and encouraging them. Both he and his mount seemed completely oblivious to the sustained crack of incoming bullets that accompanied them everywhere, so they acquired suitable nicknames - the ‘Iron Man on the Wooden Horse’.
Intriguing Afghan politics
After Roberts’s victory at Kabul (see the previous section), a new king needed to be appointed. Abdur Rahman was acceptable to the British and to some Afghans. Unfortunately, Yakub’s brother Ayub, the governor of Herat, considered that his claim to the throne was a better one. He had a large following in southern Afghanistan and became a natural focus for internal dissent and anti-British feeling. British intelligence sources indicated that Ayub planned to march through the country to Kabul via Kandahar, defeat Abdur Rahman, and assume the crown himself. At the end of May 1880 Ayub was on the point of leaving Herat; as his army had to march 560 kilometres (350 miles) to reach Kandahar, plenty of time appeared to exist to prepare a suitable reception for him. The governor of Kandahar, Sher Ali (not the Sher Ali mentioned earlier in this chapter, but another chap of the same name), decided that a show of force would discourage anyone planning to join the rebels.
He marched out of Kandahar with his provincial troops and established a position at Helmund, 130 kilometres (80 miles) to the northwest of Kandahar. From this point, everything started to go wrong:
The Afghans didn’t like Sher Ali because he cooperated with the British.
The local people didn’t like having Sher Ali’s army quartered on them.
Sher Ali’s army wasn’t really interested in fighting Ayub Khan.
Sher Ali wrote to Lieutenant General P.M. Primrose, who commanded the British troops at Kandahar, requesting assistance. The prevailing opinion in senior political and military circles was that Sher Ali must not be seen to fail through a lack of British support, so on 4 July a column consisting of one infantry and one cavalry brigade, under the overall command of Brigadier General George Burrows, set off to join him.
The Maiwand disaster, 27 July 1880
When Burrows joined Sher Ali on 11 July, the governor’s provincial troops were clearly on the point of mutiny, so he disarmed and dispersed them. Unfortunately, Sher Ali’s men left behind a battery of smooth-bore guns, having made off with horse teams and cut up the harness. It may have been better to spike (disable) the guns and leave them where they were for the moment, but Burrows decided to take them along, forming a Smooth Bore Battery. No horses could be spared for the abandoned ammunition wagons, so an inadequate supply of ammunition was carried in the column’s transport.
Burrows’s orders were to attack Ayub if he felt strong enough. However, the orders also specifically stated that the enemy must be prevented ‘by all possible means’ from reaching Ghazni. As Ghazni lay two-thirds of the way along the road from Kandahar to Kabul, Ayub apparently intended to by-pass Kandahar altogether. This was not the case, but Burrows had to allow for it and based his subsequent moves on this assumption. The local people saw his actions as a retreat and went off to join Ayub in large numbers. Ayub’s army contained no fewer than 10 Kabuli and Herati infantry regiments, plus 4000 cavalry and 36 guns, of which three were breech-loading 14-pounder Armstrongs, far more powerful than anything that Burrows possessed.
This gave Ayub a basic strength of about 25,000 men, but additions may have increased the total to 35,000.
Ayub’s army included a large number of ghazis, the nineteenth-century equivalents of the modern suicide bomber. Dressed in white robes to signify their ritual purification, they charged heedless of wounds, wielding wickedly curved knives. Ghazis were very difficult to stop and terrifying to those who had never experienced such an attack before.
By 23 July the opposing cavalry screens were in contact. Ayub was heading for the town of Maiwand. From there he could go either to Kandahar or Ghazni. Burrows delayed issuing orders for two days, and then decided to block Ayub’s path by establishing a position along a dry ravine between the hamlets of Khig and Mundabad. Burrows set his troops in motion towards this ravine early on the morning of 27 July. Many of the men went without breakfast and others did not have the chance to fill their water bottles on what promised to be a scorching day.
At about 10.30 a.m. dense clouds of dust were seen approaching from the north. If Burrows had stuck to his original plan his force may have had some chance of survival. As it was, having witnessed the delaying action being fought by his artillery and cavalry on the dusty plain to the north of the ravine, he rashly allowed the rest of his force to be drawn into that struggle:
● Enveloped on both flanks, Burrows’s troops became the target of the Afghan infantry and artillery, which were deployed in a half-circle around the British. Burrows’s regiments fought back hard and inflicted losses.
● By 1.30 p.m., the Smooth Bore Battery had expended its limited ammunition. When it limbered up to return to the reserve ammunition area to replenish, the inexperienced 30th Bombay Native Infantry (Jacob’s Rifles) thought that the artillery was about to pull out.
Their officers only just held the Rifles in place.
● By 2 p.m. one third of the 1st Bombay Native Infantry (Grenadiers) were down, as were one fifth of the Rifles. The Rifles were commanded by a jemadar (the Indian equivalent of a lieutenant) after a roundshot killed their only British officer. The 66th (2/Royal Berkshire Regiment), secure in a dry watercourse, was as yet hardly touched, but both artillery batteries had lost a quarter of their strength.
● Shortly after 2.30 p.m. Ayub launched a mass attack. The combined British fire tore the Afghans apart and for a moment the enemy seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Then, on the left, two companies of the Rifles, shaken by the sight of the onrushing ghazis, broke and bolted into the ranks of the neighbouring Grenadiers, breaking their formation. Within seconds, the Afghans had closed in, hacking and stabbing. Two guns were lost but the British brought the rest out with great difficulty. Nuttall (leading the cavalry) ordered a charge, but at the critical moment Nuttall himself swerved away to the right. Most of his troopers followed him. Later, he claimed that he was trying to clear his brigade’s front. As it was, his regiments galloped away to Mundabad and nothing persuaded them to return to the field.
● Covered by the 66th, the broken Rifles and Grenadiers fled to Mundabad. The 66th, perfectly steady amid the chaos and carnage, retired to the ravine. Crossing this obstacle, the regiment became split into two parts:
• One part continued to cover the general withdrawal through Mundabad.
• The other part, about 130 strong and including the Colour party, became involved in a one-sided fight among the mud-walled gardens of Khig. The Colours passed from hand to hand as their bearers were killed in turn, until finally no one was left to take them. Of that portion of the 66th, only two officers and nine men were still on their feet. Recognising that recovering the Colours was now impossible, they fought their way clear but Afghan cavalry surrounded them. The British died fighting back to back in a tight little knot. Weeks later, dead horses still ringed the spot.
If the victorious Afghans had not paused to loot the baggage, it is unlikely that any of Burrows’s men would have survived. In the event, the British faced a night of being sniped at and thirst-tortured marching from well to well. Some of Nuttall’s troops reached Kandahar during the early hours of the morning. Primrose sent out a relief force, and the provision of water did much to restore discipline. By mid-afternoon on 28 July, after 33 hours of marching and fighting, much of the time without food or water, the last British survivors trudged through the gates of Kandahar.
Of the 2565 men who fought at Maiwand, 962 were killed, including a party of 150 Rifles and Grenadiers who lost their way during the retreat and were massacred. Only 161 of the wounded survived the battle and the horrors of the retreat. Seven guns were lost or abandoned and over 2000 horses and transport animals were killed or captured. It took Ayub a week to clear the field of his own dead, including 1500 of his regulars and between 3000 and 4000 ghazis. When he did resume his advance on Kandahar, he had to leave 1500 of his more seriously wounded behind in Maiwand.
Marching from Kabul to Kandahar
In Kandahar, General Primrose immediately sent a signal to the Commander-in-Chief India, General Sir Frederick Haines, informing him of the Maiwand disaster, and put the city into a defensible condition. At Haines’s suggestion, Lieutenant General Sir Donald Stewart, now commanding the British troops in Kabul, quickly organised a flying column under Roberts (see the section ‘Retaking the Kabul Residency’, earlier in this chapter), recently knighted and promoted, giving him the pick of the troops that were present. Roberts’s mission was to relieve Kandahar as quickly as possible. The column consisted of one cavalry and three infantry brigades, three British and one Indian mountain batteries. It had to march 500 kilometres (313 miles) over terrain that included mountains and deserts, and it had to travel light.
The logistic planning for the march to Kandahar was a triumph. All transport consisted of pack animals. British officers were allowed only one mule each for their personal effects, and British soldiers were permitted 11 kilograms (24 pounds) of baggage per man, Indian soldiers 9 kilograms (20 pounds). Infantrymen each carried 70 rounds of ammunition, with a further 30 rounds per man in regimental reserve and 100 rounds in the Ordnance Field Park.
The mountain batteries each had 540 rounds of ready-use ammunition, with a further 30 rounds per gun in reserve. Each company was allocated one mule to carry the arms of sick or wounded men. As no wheeled transport was permitted, special provision was made for the field hospital, including 2192 bearers, 115 doolies (litters to be carried on the shoulders), 286 ponies, 43 donkeys, 3 bullocks, and 6 camels. The column’s pack animals included 2740 horses and ponies, 4511 mules, and 912 donkeys. The troops carried basic marching rations, but the commissaries bought livestock for slaughter, grain, and firewood from local sources along the way.
The march was not comfortable. At noon temperatures were scorching, but at night they dropped nearly to freezing point. The torment of sandstorms added to the choking dust kicked up by thousands of animals. The troops had to cross long stretches of the desert without water. Along the way, the garrison of Kalat-I-Ghilzai, including two detached companies of the 66th, reinforced the column. The British established heliograph contact with the Kandahar garrison on 27 August. Ayub abandoned the siege and withdrew to a low ridge 6.5 kilometres (4 miles) northwest of the city. Four days later, led by the pipers of the 72nd and 92nd Highlanders (respectively 1/The Seaforth Highlanders and 2/The Gordon Highlanders), the British column marched into Kandahar. It had marched the 500 kilometres (313 miles) in just 21 days, including one rest day, a truly remarkable feat for any army.
Roberts now commanded two infantry divisions, two cavalry brigades, and six artillery batteries, a total of 14,000 men and 36 guns, including two big 40-pounders. He had no intention of letting Ayub rest and the following morning led out his troops to do battle. Ayub’s strength had dropped to 5000 regulars, about 10,000 ghazis and irregulars, and 32 guns. His men resisted the British attack to the best of their ability, but as the old saying had it, an Afghan attacked was far less formidable than an Afghan attacking. The British drove Ayub’s men off their position, and the Afghans abandoned their camp and all their artillery, including the two guns belong the E/B Battery taken at Maiwand. The 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry and the 3rd Scind Horse also had their revenge for Maiwand, cutting down 350 of the fugitives as they ran. In total, Ayub lost about 1200 killed and wounded. Roberts’s losses amounted to 35 killed and 213 wounded.
Ayub no longer presented a threat. Abdur Rahman was steadily bringing the rest of the country under his control and was clearly a man with whom the British could do business. He agreed to eliminate the Russian influence in Afghanistan in return for the British not forcing a Resident on him. As it happened, the Russians were just as unpopular as the British, so the decision involved no great hardship for the Afghans. The Second Afghan War had run its course.
The Great Frontier Rising, 1897-1898
In 1897 the tribal areas of the North West Frontier were abuzz with rumours. The rumours started because the previous year Greece and Turkey had gone to war. The Turks had won and massacred some of their opponents. Great Britain had protested formally and that annoyed the Sultan. As the Sultan was a very important figure in the Muslim world, the protest also annoyed the frontier mullahs, notably Sayid Akbar (known as the Mad Mullah of Swat), and the Haddah Mullah in the country of the Mohmands. This was a wonderful time, they said, to drive the infidels from their land, and by that they meant Hindus as well as Christians.
The rising began on 10 June with an attack by the Wazirs of the Tochi valley on a small British force escorting a political agent. It spread rapidly from tribe to tribe over an area 320 kilometres (200 miles) in length. To bring the rising under control took more than 60 infantry battalions (twice the infantry strength of the modern British army), supported by cavalry, artillery, and engineers, over a period of eight months.
The British were armed with the Lee-Metford magazine rifle, capable of a higher rate of fire than the tribesmen were used to. The Lee-Metford fired the soft-nosed Dum-Dum bullet, named after the arsenal near Calcutta where it was manufactured. The bullet spread on impact, delivering a terrific blow. Whereas ghazis had often kept coming when hit by earlier types of ammunition, the Dum-Dum bowled them over and they didn’t get up. The Maxim machine gun also simply kept firing (see the section ‘It’s called a machine gun’ earlier in this chapter for more on Maxims), providing a fresh addition to the fire fight.
The principal operations involved in suppressing the rising were as follows:
● The Tochi field force. This force, under the command of Major General G. Corrie Bird, occupied the Tochi valley until January 1898. The force destroyed Maizar, the village where the attack that set off the uprising took place (see the start of this section).
● The Malakand field force. The rebels attacked the posts of Malakand and Chakdara in the Swat valley several times at the end of July and the beginning of August 1897. The rebels admitted losing a total of 3700 men in these attacks. For the loss of 5 killed and 10 wounded, 60 men of the 11th Bengal Lancers and 180 men of the 45th Sikhs inflicted 2000 of the rebel losses. A punitive expedition, consisting of three brigades under Brigadier General Sir Bindon Blood, took the field immediately and was involved in heavy fighting until October. Blood then formed the Buner Field Force from many of the same units and engaged in subduing the Bunerwals until the middle of January 1898.
● The Mohmand field force. The Mohmands attacked a police post at Shabkadr Fort on 7 August 1897. The Peshawar Movable Column relieved the fort two days later. The Mohmand Field Force formed under Brigadier General E.R. Ellis on 15 September and operated until the beginning of October, imposing fines on the rebels. At Samana Ridge on 12 September, thousands of Orakzai and Afridi tribesmen attacked a signal station held by a detachment of 21 men of the 36th Sikhs. The garrison survived for several hours, but its ammunition ran out and the rebels brought down a section of wall, enabling them to swarm inside. Even when the post was burning fiercely, the Sikh survivors refused to surrender and died fighting. The nearby Forts Gulistan and Lockhart were relieved after a day’s fighting by troops under the command of Brigadier General A.G. Yeatman-Briggs.
● The Tirah field force. The British decided that the Orakzais and Afridis must be punished by invading their homeland in the Tirah. This was no easy matter, as together the two tribes were capable of producing some 50,000 warriors. The British therefore required a much larger than usual force for the task. The Tirah Field Force, under the command of Lieutenant General Sir William Lockhart, contained two divisions and supporting formations, producing a total of 35,000 troops and 20,000 followers.
Its advance commenced in early October 1897. On 20 October the 1/The Gordon Highlanders and 1/2nd Gurkhas stormed the precipitous Dargai Heights, lying across the axis of advance. During this attack, one of the most famous episodes of the Victorian era, Piper George Findlater of the Gordons, though shot through both ankles, propped himself against a rock and continued to play as his regiment fought its way upwards, earning himself the award of the Victoria Cross.
Regular skirmishing marked the force’s further advance, but by December the Orakzai were willing to submit. The Zakha Kell Afridis, were not, and the British had to make a further advance into the Bazar valley in January 1898. Following a stiff fight at the Shin Kamar Pass, the Afridis agreed to submit, and this brought the Frontier rebellion to a close. During its existence, the Tirah field force sustained the loss of 287 killed, 853 wounded, and 10 missing.