Skirmish at Miranshah

At the end of November 1914 about 2,000 armed tribesmen from Khost in Afghanistan crossed the border of British India and came down the Tochi valley towards Miranshah in Waziristan. They had been incited to the expedition by influential mullahs from the independent tribal territory. On 28 and 29 November a clash took place at Miranshah, which the British chronology of the war regarded as the first outbreak of fighting on India’s North-West Frontier.

Miranshah was the headquarters of the North Waziristan Militia, a unit made up of local Pashtuns under a few British officers. The militia manned posts along the Tochi valley, from Bannu to the Afghan border. Its commander, Major Gerald Scott of the 27th Punjabis, gathered as many men as he could and on 29 November himself attacked the approaching force. According to the British report the militiamen inflicted a heavy defeat on the enemy, and the tribesmen fled in disorder across the border. A column of regular troops from the Bannu garrison, sent up the valley, reached Miranshah only on 3 December and took no part in the fighting.

A German intrigue?

The British chronology attributes this raid to “German intrigues”. That was the belief of the authorities in India at the time, who rightly feared that the Germans would try to stir up a rising on the frontier. There is, however, no evidence of direct German involvement in this particular raid. The German mission of Oskar von Niedermayer and Werner Otto von Hentig, which was to persuade Afghanistan to go to war with Britain, reached Kabul only in September 1915. More important were probably the news of Turkey’s entry into the war and of the jihad proclaimed by the sultan-caliph, fanned by the sermons of local mullahs, as well as a long tradition of raids for plunder across the border into British territory.

The Emir of Afghanistan, Habibullah Khan, assured the British of his neutrality and kept it until the end of the war, but he did not fully control the tribes and clergy on the frontier. The calm at Miranshah did not last long. In January 1915 warriors from Khost returned and attacked the post at Spina Khaisora, where Captain Eustace Jotham fell; he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. In March 1915 a much larger group, several thousand strong, again threatened Miranshah and was broken up only by regular troops.