In whatever degree the Amir of Afghanistan by his letter of August 18, may have exculpated himself from events preliminary to the Tirah campaign, the exodus of armed bands from Afghan territory continued to meet with only passive resistance from the frontier officials. Under pressure of accumulating evidence, forwarded direct from Kabul by the British agent, the Viceroy of India on August 30, 1897, addressed a further communication to Abdur Rahman, in the course of which he wrote:
... It is right that I should tell your Highness that the information which I have received indicates that tribesmen from your Highness’s territories have joined the Mullah of Hadda, and have in other respects committed aggression against the British Government. Bodies of men from Jelalabad district crossed the Kabul river openly with flags flying and drums beating. After the fight at Shabkaddar they returned in the same manner, carrying their dead and helping their wounded. On the side of Khost numbers of camels stolen from my troops in Dawar have been taken across the border, and it is even reported that these camels have been ordered to be collected by Sirdar Sherindil Khan. Your Highness will no doubt recognise the propriety of directing the restoration of camels belonging to the Government of India, which have been stolen and carried into Afghan territory.
Your Highness has said that “tribesmen can never join such a movement openly for fear of me. If any one has come he must have gone secretly.” What I now ask your Highness, in accordance with those assurances of friendship which you have so readily made, is that you will publicly announce to the tribesmen through your local officers that, if they cross the border and join in disturbances against the British Government, they will incur your displeasure. The belief is entertained by many misguided persons that they will not incur your Highness’s displeasure by acting in a hostile manner against the British Government, and this belief can be dispelled if your Highness’s local officers will keep watch along the Kabul river and at other places in order to prevent your Highness’s subjects from crossing the frontier with hostile intentions, whether secretly or openly. I ask your Highness, therefore, to issue orders to this effect....
Before the Amir could reply to the letter of August 30 from the Viceroy, a deputation of Afridi elders, whose intentions certainly lent colour to the Viceroy’s plaint, arrived at Jelalabad en route to Kabul for the purpose of presenting a petition to Abdur Rahman. This document, dated September 5, 1897, was as follows:
The British Government has been from olden times gradually encroaching upon our country, and even upon Afghan territory, and has erected forts at various points within our borders. We have complained of this to the Afghan Government on many occasions, but your Highness has paid no attention to our complaints. Therefore, being helpless and having regard to Islam and our constancy in religion, we have now, under the guidance of God, opened the door of jehad in the face of the said Government, and we have severed our connection with them in every way. We have plundered and destroyed five forts on the Samana above Hangu, one fort at Shinauri, at the foot of the Samana, in British territory, one fort at the Ublan Pass, near Kohat, etc., etc. There are, however, three big forts on the top of the said mountain (the Samana) which have not been taken yet. By the grace of God we will destroy and burn these also. All the people of Tirah have taken up their position on the top of the mountain (Samana); and at its base, from Kohat to the Rud-i-Kurman in the district of Kurram the frontier of the Orakzai runs, and the tribesmen have been making jehad from time to time within their respective limits. We will never consent to tender our allegiance to the British Government and become their subjects. We will never give up the reins of authority of our country to the hands of the Government. On the contrary we are willing to tender our allegiance to the King of Islam. It is incumbent on the Government of Islam not only to look after our interests, and consider our position, but that of the whole of Afghanistan. We therefore send these eighteen persons from among our Maliks, Mullahs, and Elders, with our petitions to your Highness’s presence. We are at present engaged in a jehad on the Samana range, and we request that your Highness will be pleased to do what is for our good and benefit; and, by the grace of God, we will act up to your Highness’s instructions, because we leave the conduct and management of our affairs in the hands of your Highness in every respect. We have used our endeavours with our tribesmen to do service to your Highness. This is the time to gain the object of your Highness. All the Moslems are now at the disposal of your Highness in the shape of regular troops, artillery and money. If the British prove victorious, they will ruin the Moslems. The services to be done on this side may be left to us by your Highness. We hope that after the perusal of our petition your Highness will favour us with a reply. Dated 7 Rabi-us-Sani, 1315 (September 7, 1897).
This prayer of the Afridis had not reached Kabul, when a further letter, September 6, was sent to the Amir from the Government of India, anticipating Afghan assistance in catching the Hadda Mullah should he escape into the Kunar valley. Meanwhile, the aspect of the precise relations existing between Kabul and the revolting tribesmen, and disclosed by this deputation from the Afridi jirga was not very much improved when, on September 10, Abdur Rahman, in acknowledging the letter of August 30, wrote:
... I have ordered the local officers to keep watch on Afghan subjects to the best of their ability, and prevent them from joining Mullah Hadda.... No tribesmen from my territories can do such an act in an open manner. Some of them, however, have great faith in Mullah Hadda, and it is possible that they may have joined him during the night, travelling like thieves by unfrequented roads. How is it possible to keep watch on thieves during nights along such an extensive frontier?... My kind friend, such an arrangement could only be possible by posting about 10,000 soldiers on all the mountain tops and at all the fords in that district. Then they will be able to execute properly such an arrangement, otherwise how would it be possible to stop the people who are familiar with the country? If the well-known roads be guarded against them, they can owing to their knowledge of the country find paths over mountains and through desert tracts to cross the frontier. As far as possible, however, the local officials have been watching and will watch any open movements of the tribesmen.
As regards the dead and the wounded whom your Excellency writes that the tribesmen carried away with them after the fight at Shabkaddar, I beg to state that, if they have brought back their dead secretly, they have already, according to their custom, buried them, and now no trace can be obtained of them. As to the wounded, if questions be asked they explain that they are always engaged in tribal feuds, with one another, and they often kill and wound one another, and that the wounded men have received their wounds in such tribal feuds; and, as the witnesses belong to the people concerned, it is difficult to prove anything contrary to what they allege....
As regards the camels which the Waziri thieves stole from the troops in Dawar, and brought to Khost where they sold them to the inhabitants, I have to state that Sirdar Sherindil Khan has ordered the owners of the camels to keep them safe. If your Excellency considers it necessary that the camels should be taken back from them, then, as the inhabitants of Khost have bought the camels from the Waziri thieves, the price current in the country should be given to them and the camels taken back, so that the people of Khost may not suffer loss...!
The air of truculent triumph which pervaded this communication elicited no rebuke. Naturally enough a government, which made no effective preparation to protect the native guards of British posts in their hour of need, would hesitate to take exception at the twist of a Persian phrase. Two days later, September 12, the same strain of insolence, coupled with many amiable sentiments, could be detected in the reply to the Viceroy’s letter of September 6. With remarkable effrontery Abdur Rahman expressed the fear that collisions might occur in the Kunar valley between the Afghan and British forces, if the pursuit of Hadda Mullah were pushed too far in that direction.
Events, culminating with the fall of Saraghari fort on September 12, were making it incumbent to administer sharp punishment to the Afridis; and the Tirah field force, 60,000 strong, was concentrated at Kohat under Lieutenant-General Sir William Lockhart for this purpose. Concerned at the dislocation of border affairs, at the loss of revenue attendant upon the closing of the Khyber, and deriving an inspiration from the magnitude of the force which was collecting for service with General Lockhart, the Amir himself from this time became less obstructive, withdrawing his own troops from outlying posts, refusing to harbour armed fugitives and turning a very cold shoulder to those who invoked his aid. In consequence of this change of front he refused to permit the Afridi elders to come to Kabul, detaining them in Jelalabad while he posted in public in the capital on September 23, the following reply:
I have perused your petitions, all of which were with one object. I now write to you in reply that it is eighteen years since I came to Kabul, and you know yourselves that I went to Rawal Pindi (in April 1885) by the Khyber route. In consideration of my friendship with the British Government I had gone to their country as their guest, and on my way I found many of your tribesmen on both sides of the pass, who made salaams to me. If what you state now is true, why did you not tell me at that time about the matter, so that I might have conferred with H.E. the Viceroy about it? Some years after this when the boundary was being laid down, Sir Mortimer Durand passed through the Khyber and came to Kabul. All the frontier tribesmen knew of this, and saw the Mission with their own eyes. Why did not then your Mullahs, and Maliks, and Elders come to me when Sir Mortimer Durand came with authority to settle the boundary, so that I could have discussed the matter with him? At that time you all remained silent, and silence indicates consent. I do not know on what account now a breach has taken place between you and the English. But after you have fought with them, and displeased them, you inform me.
I have entered into an alliance with the British Government in regard to matters of State, and up to the present time no breach of the agreement has occurred from the side of the British, notwithstanding that they are Christians. We are Moslems and followers of the religion of the Prophet, and also of the four Kalifs of the Prophet. How can we then commit a breach of an agreement? What do you say about the verse in the Koran—Fulfil your promise; to fulfil your promise is the first duty of a Moslem. God, on the day when the first promise was taken, asked all the creatures whether he was their God or not. They said, “Yes, you are our God and our Creator.” Therefore, on the day of the resurrection the first question will be about the observance of agreements. Infidels and Moslems will thus be distinguished by this test. You will thus see that the matter of the agreement is of great importance. I will never, without cause or occasion, swerve from an agreement, because the English, up to the present time, have in no way departed from the line of boundary laid down in the map they have agreed upon with me. Then why should I do so? To do so will be far from justice. I cannot, at the instance of a few interested people, bring ignominy on myself and my people.
What you have done with your own hands you must now carry on your own backs. I have nothing to do with you. You are the best judge of your affairs. Now that you have got into trouble (literally, spoiled the matter) you want me to help you. You have allowed the time when matters might have been ameliorated to slip by. Now I cannot say or do anything. I have sent back from Jelalabad the Maliks you had deputed to me. I gave them each a lungi and ten rupees for their road expenses, and I did not trouble them to come to Kabul.
In spite of the Amir’s attitude towards the Afridi deputation on September 23, and his emphatic denial of the complicity of Ghulam Haidar in his letter to the Viceroy on August 18, evidence of Afghan participation was again unpleasantly prominent, negotiations for peace with certain of the tribal factions being complicated by the acts of the Afghan commander-in-chief. On one occasion, September 1, when the Hadda Mullah had been compelled to disperse an Afghan lashkar by specific orders from the Amir, Ghulam Haidar had sent the fakir encouraging messages, a present of five British rifles, cartridges and a horse. Five weeks later Major Deane, political agent in the Dir-Swat-Chitral country, complained on October 8 that two mule-loads of ammunition sent by Umra Khan from Kabul had passed through Ghulam Haidar’s camp at Asmar; while a few days previously Sir Bindon Blood had reported from Panj-kora, September 28:
The jirga told the native political assistant that the Sipah Salar had encouraged them to attack the troops, promising ammunition as well as compensation in kind for any loss of grain....
Again, when the Mahmunds finally submitted, dreading Kabul reprisals for their surrender they begged to be protected from Abdur Rahman and Ghulam Haidar. Although these were merely the under-currents of the situation as it appeared at the outset of the Tirah campaign in 1897, by the close of those operations in 1898 tribesmen of all denominations of fanatical obstinacy were alluding to the encouragement which they had received from the Sipah Salar and Abdur Rahman. Over the singular propensity for blundering which distinguished the elect in these two years and the protracted misfortunes attending Anglo-Indian arms during the long series of minor wars which concluded with the Tirah, it is permissible at length to draw the veil. In any case, the Tirah, no less a stage in the course of Anglo-Afghan history than were the earlier occurrences, is of fading interest in this little survey; the trend of affairs passes, almost with relief, to consideration of the happier prospect which the advent of a new Viceroy, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, January 1899, inaugurated for India itself and of the more encouraging note introduced into Imperial relations with the spheres beyond its borders.