Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎125v] (258/312)

Ghuznee, and Candahar are to be found.
Although there is no reason to doubt the loyalty
of these men, yet in the event of hostili
ties with Cabul, it would be most inadvisable to in
crease their number to any great extent; indeed, it
would be unnecessary. The personal influence of
many of our frontier officers is quite sufficient to
cause the " jawans " of Tirah, Yusufzae
and the Khuttuk Hills to flock to our
standard, in numbers more than sufficient for
our wants, hardy mountaineers, of grand
physique, with great dash in action, though not
much reliability in time of great trouble. These
men with a good substratum of steady Sikh and
British bayonets would prove invaluable in any
warfare. Their climate is rigorous, their country
rugged and precipitous, their system of living
frugal, quite unused to comforts or even, as we
term them, the ordinary necessaries of life. These
Pathans in all our mountain expeditions have
carried themselves to the satisfaction of all En
glishmen with whom they have come in contact,
and we have every reason to believe that, properly
led and properly cared for, the Pathan soldiers in
our own army will prove far more than a match for
Shere Ali's army. Tt may be well to dwell on the
fact that during the height of the crisis with
Russia many of the Indian chieftains spontaneously
offered the use of their levies in the threatened
war. This was considered a striking instance of
the loyalty of the native Princes, but it is not so
generally known that not a single expedition has
taken place on the Punjab border in which the
forces of some of the local Nawabs have not been
engaged. These men, though Pathans, of the same
faith as the tribes with whom we have been at
enmity—in many cases even connected with these
clans by many ties—have never hesitated to come
■ forward and offer us substantial aid. Not only in
' petty acts of warfare has this been the case, but in
1849, when Herbert Edwardes was holding the Trans-
Indus Provinces in the face of fearful odds, the •
Multanis of Dera Ismail Khan, the Nawabs of
Isa Khel, Tank, and Tawana all came forward
to help him. In 1857 these men promptly raised
levies. Some, such as land's and Cureton's Horse,
were formed into regiments, and sent down to Hin-
dostan ; others, as the Niazis of Isa Khel, were
intrusted with the care of distant cities, such as
Peshawur; others, again, guarded their own frontier,
and thus released the regular troops for service in
the field. The Khattak Khan, Sir Khodja Maho
med, though now a very old man, has repeatedly
placed himself at the head of his followers, and
accompanied our frontier troops on war service.
The Nawab An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India. of Amb in like manner distinguished
| himself by his personal gallantry in Hazara. Nume-
! rous instances might be cited to prove that these
are not mere acts of fair-weather loyalty, but
genuine support of our rnle. There is little doubt
that the various Pathan chiefs all down the Trans-
Indus frontier will as readily come forward to our
aid in a war with the Ameer as they did in 1857, or
in many a subsequent small expedition.
Turning from the Pathan to the Sikh element in
our native forces, we have men who in the
olden days, under their own leaders, over and
over again drove back the Afghans within their
own mountain ranges. The recollection of the
Sutlej and the Punjab campaigns is enough to
show that men who were foemen worthy of the
steel Gough and Hardinge led against them are not
likely to be behindhand when led by British
officers. In the Mutiny, in China, and in all our
recent petty border wars the Sikh has shown
that he has not degenerated one whit. In fight
ing qualities he is generally considered , the
superior of the Pathan, for,while but little inferior
to him in elan, he is gifted with far more solid
pluck, and it is the boast of the Sikh that his reli
gion does not permit him to turn his back on the
foe. The faith of Nanuck is undoubtedly cal
culated to inspire heroism ; the baptismal
rite, when the adult, after having recited the
professions of his religion, drinks a bowl of
sweetened water, which is previously stirred by a
priest with the point of Nanuch's sword, is a cere
mony not easily forgotten by the young Jat, and it
| is a wise custom in the Native Army to compel all
I Sikh recruits to take the Pahal before enlistment.
; Although it is said that the Sikh element
is dying out, a visit to the chief fairs
in the Punjab in the spring of the year
gives ample proof that there is yet a large
field for recruiting, and the willingness with which
fine young men come forward for service is evidence
that the religion of the Sikh, essentially military in
its character, has noi suffered by the introduction
of British rule into the Punjab. With the excep
tion of the G-hoorkas, whose gallantry and hardi
hood are proverbial, the other races which compose
our Native Army have not changed since the last
Afghan war, when the Poorbiah Sepoys Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank. of our
Bengal Regiments in fair fight were even a match
I for the Cabul troops. The rigorous climate, how-
j ever, told on men used to the plains of Hindostan,
I and they succumbed to a worse enemy than the
I sword. Now, however, when our Native regi*
ments are so largely recruited from tribes in
digenous, as it were, to Afghanistan itself, we shall
have little reason to fear that they will be
affected by extreme cold. The Pathan soldiers
will be in their element in the snowy ranges of
Cabul, while the Sikh, accustomed to the biting
winds of the Punjab, will be less liable to suffer
j from extremes of temperature than his Oude
brother.
It will thus be seen that although the mountain
ranges which intervene between us and Afghanis
tan are inhabited by tribes who, in all probability,
will oppose our advance to a certain extent, yet
these very men are, in spite of the opposition of the
masses, a source of strength, inasmuch as they en
list freely in our service ; and a long experience
has taught us that they consider loyalty to our flag
a far higher virtue than patriotism, so that we may
rest assured of their warm co-operation, not only
in forcing their own mountain passes, but in
operating against the Ameer's troops.
DAILY TELEGRAPH, OCTOBEK12,
QUALITY OF OUR IND IAN TROOPS.
to tjae editor of "the dailt telegraph."
S ir —In view of the impending entrance of British
troops into Afghanistan, it is interesting and in-
structive to know that there are probably at pre-
sent no troops in the world to whom the
peculiarities of hill warfare are bettor known,
or who have had more practice in this peculiar kind of
fighting, than some of our native Indian regiments. In
this respect we stand at present in a far more favour
able position than we did at the commencement, at
least, of the last Afghan war; although, in the course
of four years' campaigning in that country, under leaders
like STott, Sale, and Pollock, some of our regiments,
both English and native, took a very high degree of pro
ficiency in an art which, to the ordinary British regi
ment of the line, and still more to the ordinary Sepoy Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank.
regiment, is one full of difficulty and of not un
natural apprehension. i
When the army under Sir John Keane first entered
the Bolan Pass, I may say, without fear of contradic
tion, that there was not a man or an officer in it who
had ever so much as seen a defile or a hill-side under
the conditions of a military operation. There is a well-
known and grand despatch of General Nott's, addressed
to General England after his first unsoccessful attempt
to succour Candahar, which shows how familiar prac
tice had made the supposed terrors of hill warfare to the
Candahar garrison and their commander at least ; but
this was written late in 1841, and when the troops, both
British and native, had acquired the confidence be
gotten of three years' incessant and succeagful cam
paigning.
Now, however, we commence the contest under a
vastly different condition of things. I say nothing of
our modern arms of precision, and of the advantage
which the possession of the Martini-Henry and Snider
rifle gives the troops of the present day over those who
were only armed with the now despised " Brown Bess."
I refer to the training whioh the numerous hill expe
ditions-that have taken place since the Punjanb was
annexed, have imparted to many of the native Indian
regiments, and, in particular, to the excellence in hill
warfare to which all the regiments of the " Punjaub
Frontier Force " have attained in the course of nearly
thirty years' service on the Trans-Indus border, from
Jacobabad upwards to the Peshawur valley.
It is not generally known, but in the annexation of
the Punjaub, in 1849, six regiments of native infantry
and five of cavalry were organised by the late Sir Henry
Lawrence, in addition to an existing corps of almost
European fame, the " Guide Corps," for the defence
of the Trans-Indus border. To these have since been
addedfour distinguished regiments of native infantry,'
and a battalion of Ghoorkas, making a total of six regi
ments of cavalry and twelve of infantry, to which,
under the name of the " Punjaub Frontier Force," has
been confided the guardianship of the hill frontier from
the confines of Scinde to Peshawur. These regiments
have served unremittingly for twenty-eight years at the
various frontier stations and posts, and being largely
composed of men from the various independent, as well
as subject, hill tribes, and supplemented by Sikhs,
Ghoorkas, Dogras, and other well-known fighting ma
terial, and having been incessantly trained on the fron
tier by some of the best of our Indian officers,
either in actual warfare or in the best substitute that
can be found for it—prolonged encampments for drill
purposes in the Trans-Indus hills—are now quite fit to
cope with the best and bravest of the Afghan troops
whom Shere Ali can array against us. It is to be
hoped that the Indian Government will draw largely
upon these excellent troops, ready made to its hand
when the various columns for the expected operations
come to be organised.
Nor is it to be supposed that we are dependent en
tirely ' upon the troops specially designated above for
the operations we are about entering upon. The native
army of Bengal (I leave those better acquainted with
the Bombay and Madras armies to proclaim their
merits) contains numerous regiments, to mention which
by their numbers would be invidious, which are scarcely !
if at all inferior to the " Frontier Force." For in
stance, there are four battalions of Ghoorkas on the
list of the Bengal army ; and there are also many regi
ments, recruited originally in the Punjaub, and con
taining, like the regiments of the " Frontier Force," a
fair proportion of soldiers from the independent and ,
subject frontier tribes, which have covered themselves
with honour in some of the frontier campaigns—
notably in that of Umbeyla—and whose training only
falls short of that of the special frontier regiments.
Thus I think we may enter upon the coming cam
paign with the conviction that we are quite prepared
for it, so far as the possession of the best of weapons
and the most tried and experienced troops in the art of
hill warfare can serve us; and that in this respect we
start with infinitely greater advantages than we did
when we entered upon our last campaign in Afghanistan,
whilst those who will be arrayed against us have either
been standing still or absolutely retrograding from an
abortive attempt on the part of Shere Ali to Euro-
peanise his raw levies.—Your obedient servant, . v
J. L. VAUGHAN, Lieutenant-General,
Junior United Service Club, Oct. 6.