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Updated: June 1, 2025
The original garrison was now augmented by the arrival of the Guides, horse and foot. It was with considerable reluctance that Colonel Meiklejohn, who had himself been wounded by a sword-cut, decided on abandoning what was known as the North Camp, a position some distance below and isolated from the Malakand.
The rumours and reports which reached the Malakand of the agitation in Upper Swat and among the surrounding tribes were fully appreciated by the Pathan Sepoys of the garrison. As July advanced, several commanding officers were warned by their men, that great events were impending. Major Deane, the political agent, watched with great anxiety the daily progress of the fanatical movement.
I do not allude to this matter, to raise hostile feelings against the Afghan tribesmen or their ruler, but only to explain the difficulties encountered in the Mamund Valley by the 2nd Brigade of the Malakand Field Force: to explain how it was that defenders of obscure villages were numbered by thousands, and why the weapons of poverty-stricken agriculturists were excellent Martini-Henry rifles.
The history of that week was as the history of the Malakand, continuous attacks by night and day; but the execution done on the enemy, considering the smallness of the garrison, was comparatively higher; statistics are difficult to gather, but a fairly accurate estimate puts their loss at two thousand.
This camp had been established both to allow the cavalry and pack-animals to be near water, of which there was scarcity on the Malakand itself; and also for sanitary reasons, so as to keep so large a number of animals out of a restricted area. The abandonment of this camp, necessary though it was, undoubtedly had an extraordinarily heartening effect on the enemy.
The Malakand is like a great cup, of which the rim is broken into numerous clefts and jagged points. At the bottom of this cup is the "crater" camp. The deepest cleft is the Malakand Pass. The highest of the jagged points is Guides Hill, on a spur of which the fort stands. It needs no technical knowledge to see, that to defend such a place, the rim of the cup must be held.
He accused them of having seized the bridge across the Panjkora and delivered the passage to the fanatic crowds that had gathered to attack the Malakand. This they admitted readily enough. "Well, why not?" said they; "there was a good fair fight." Now they would make peace. They bore no malice, why should the Sirkar?
Thence the Queen's were despatched to Peshawar to take part in the Tirah expedition, in which they have added to the high reputation they had acquired in the Malakand and Mohmand Field Forces. "Again I revisit the hills where we sported, The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought." "On a Distant View of Harrow," BYRON.
So heavy indeed did it become between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, that the force at "Gretna Green" got under arms. But towards morning the tribesmen retired. The reader may, perhaps, have in his mind the description of the Malakand as a great cup with jagged clefts in the rim. Much of this rim was still held by the enemy.
Sir Bindon Blood is the first general who has applied it to mountain warfare in India. It had formerly been the custom to use the guns by twos and threes. As we have seen, at the action of Landakai, the Malakand Field Force had eighteen guns in action, of which twelve were in one line.
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