The presence of growing numbers of modern rifles and ammunition in
the hands of the trans-border Pathan lashkars
was first observed during the 1890s, ironically just as imperial
troops began establishing new roads and cantonments in tribal
territory as part of the new forward policy.[xii]
During the Hunza-Naga campaign in 1891, for example, imperial
troops were opposed by a mixed assortment of Berdan, Winchester
and Snider rifles during the attack on Nilt Fort.[xiii]
However, the vast majority of the frontier tribes were
ill-equipped and reliant on close quarter tactics which often
played directly into the hands of Indian troops armed with
breech-loading rifles. The Intelligence Department estimated that
the Mahsud-Waziri tribe in 1894, for example, had only 2,500
matchlocks and a mass of swords, pistols and shields, but these
weapons could still be effective against unprepared troops. During
the attack on the Waziristan Delimitation Escort at Wana the same
year the Mahsuds and Wazirs demonstrated their reliance still on
close quarter combat when the tribesmen overran the perimeter
camp.[xiv]
The Chitral campaign in 1895 was instrumental in alerting the
Government of India to the fact that the northern frontier tribes
had amassed significant numbers of modern ‘arms of precision.’
The garrison of Fort Chitral and those making up the Chitral
Relief Force were opposed by hostile tribesmen armed with a
mixture of Enfield, Snider and Martini-Henry rifles, as well as
plentiful amounts of ammunition. Indeed, for the first time since
the early 1850s the tribesmen were qualitatively better armed than
some of the troops comprising the beleaguered garrison at Chitral
and the relieving Imperial Service Troops advancing from Kashmir.[xv]
During the course of the fighting careful enquiries were mounted
in order to discover the origins of Umra Khan’s arsenal after
accusations were leveled in the House of Commons that the rifles
had been supplied by Afghan troops encamped across the nearby
border. An examination of the weapons and ammunition captured at
Dir Fort, however, revealed that the great majority were Sniders
of British manufacture, which had been presented to the Mehtar of
Chitral by British missions, or Martini-Henrys which had been
captured from British troops during the campaign.[xvi]
It was also discovered that out of the arms given in 1886 and 1889
to the Mehtar only 100 remained in his possession, while the rest
had been sold or distributed to the local population and traded
along the North-West Frontier in the aftermath of the fighting.[xvii]
The Khan of Dir, moreover, confirmed the existence of a lucrative
trade in stolen military rifles and components organised by Afridi
tribesmen and for the first time a number of tribally made rifles
were discovered, some of which incorporated parts from service
rifles. However, the high price of Martini-Henry rifles, Rs. 450
or approximately £27, indicated that modern rifles were still
scarce and difficult to obtain in tribal territory, but the
fighting provided indications that the tribes were attempting to
acquire ‘arms of precision’ from a number of unidentified
sources. The scale of the tribal arsenal was difficult to gauge,
but evidence found in Chitral suggested that the traffic in arms
was growing and the involvement of a Bombay based British company
suggested that outside agencies were arming independent territory.
The trade in arms soon resumed in the aftermath of the Chitral
campaign after only a brief interruption, but failed to arouse
much further interest among the political and military officers
responsible for tribal administration.[xviii]
The
extensive military operations conducted during the frontier
risings of 1897-8 provided dramatic confirmation that the
trans-border tribes had at last acquired sufficient numbers of
modern rifles and ammunition to alter the nature of frontier
warfare. The presence of tribesmen at the Malakand and Chakdara
armed with British service rifles initially focused official
attention on the number of weapons that had been lost or stolen
from British and Indian troops during the 1890s, but while
fighting was in progress little more could be done to examine
other possible sources of supply.[xix]
Writing in October the Secretary of State for India, Lord George
Hamilton, observed ‘When this fighting is over, we must give our
attention to here and how the great supplies of ammunition and
arms are got into this border country.’[xx]
The hard-fought Tirah Campaign added much further impetus to
determine the sources of the Pathan arsenal after large numbers of
Martini-Henrys and Sniders were used by the Afridis with
devastating effect against the Tirah Expeditionary Force. Imperial
troops suffered unprecedented casualties during the hardest fought
operation of the 1897-98 campaigns; 287 killed and 853 wounded,
and initial estimates suggested that perhaps 20 per cent of the
Afridis were armed with a mixture of Lee-Metfords, Martini-Henry
and Snider rifles.[xxi]
The appearance of breech-loading rifles greatly complicated the
conduct of mountain warfare and made the Tirah campaign strikingly
different from all earlier frontier operations, with tribesmen
altering their tactics for the first time to take into account
their new weapons and plentiful supplies of ammunition. In
particular, throughout the fighting the Afridis had relied heavily
on long-range rifle fire against British and Indian troops and
both inflicted heavy casualties and delayed every phase of the
fighting.[xxii]
As Major A.C. Yate observed: ‘The invention of the breechloader
and magazine rifle has furnished our Frontier foes with a weapon
with which they can use with only too fatal effect, as the past
year has shown, against our troops.’[xxiii]
A wide diversity of opinion about the source of these arms was
revealed in discussions held in India and England. As the
correspondent of the “Times” observed.
Some think they are imported from Birmingham or Belgium, and
thence find their way via the Persian Gulf to the Indian frontier; some imagine that they
are obtained from the Amir's workshop in Cabul; and some believe
they are stolen in India, and sold for fancy prices across the
border. Probably from each of these sources the supply is
maintained; but, whencesoever they get them, it is certain that
the Afridis now possess Martinis in large numbers, and have
besides an apparently unlimited stocks of ammunition. They have
too, a good many Sniders, the bullets of which inflict frightful
shattering wounds; and in the recent operations they obtained
forty or fifty Lee-Metfords, and made uncommon good use of them.[xxiv)
Whether a source of arms and ammunition existed in Afghanistan
particularly concerned British officials in both Britain and
India, mindful of the often strained political relations between
the two countries.[xxv]
For the first time, the disarmament of tribal territory was
discussed in the aftermath of the Tirah campaign given the
seriousness of the fighting and wider implications for frontier
policy.[xxvi]
The
capture of arms and ammunition by the Indian Army during the
course of the 1897-98 campaigns and the surrender of large numbers
of rifles to the political authorities as part of the final peace
settlement gave the Government of India an opportunity to analyse
the changing origin and composition of the tribal arsenal. An
initial inspection carried out by officers serving with the Field
Forces quickly caused consternation and alarm before the weapons
were shipped back to India for disposal.[xxvii]
A total of 1379 rifles were forwarded to Rawalpindi arsenal by the
end of July 1898 where a detailed investigation of the origin of
the arms revealed that 340 had been stolen or captured from
British troops, 1019 were constructed from components of condemned
government service rifles, 79 had originated from Afghanistan
while the balance were composed of a mixed assortment of sporting
and military rifles derived from sources as far distant as Central
Asia.[xxviii]
This miscellany of weapons were sent to England where the War
Office quickly confirmed the results of the Rawalpindi enquiry and
made an alarming tentative conclusion that the arms and ammunition
employed by the trans-border tribes arms were derived from sources
within British India. The poor quality of the weapons (the breech
of one rifle exploded under test while firing service ammunition)
however, prompted doubts as to whether the tribesmen had
surrendered any of their serviceable small arms in a deliberate
attempt to preserve the secrecy of their Afghan supply.[xxix]
The results of the Rawalpindi and War Office enquiries, the large
numbers of unaccounted British service rifles and the total number
of recovered weapons apparently derived from Indian sources
alarmed the India Office and Government of India sufficiently to
undertake further enquiries. Lord George Hamilton observed in
January 1898:
Her
Majesty's Government are alive to the importance of the facts
disclosed by the recent military operations - that the tribes have
access to large quantities of arms of precision and ammunition. To
control this traffic in arms and munitions of war is an object of
the first importance, and I consider that a systematic enquiry as
to the sources of supply, whether from your arsenals and factories
or by means of illicit importation into India, should be
instituted.[xxx]
The
civil and military officers directly concerned with the political
administration of the frontier tribes were more immediately
concerned with the full implications of the changing tribal
arsenal and pressed for the immediate imposition of measures to
stop the further import of arms into tribal territory.[xxxi]
Other means were also suggested to destroy these weapons. The
heavy casualties suffered by the 2nd Division during its
withdrawal down the Bara Valley from Zakka Khel riflemen using
captured Lee-Metfords prompted General Sir William Lockhart to
suggest manufacturing dummy ammunition packed with high explosive,
that would be allowed to fall into tribal hands with the objective
of destroying their weapons when it was used. Such indiscriminate
means of destroying tribal rifles, however, was opposed by the
Viceroy who sought other more legitimate methods.[xxxii]
The absence of conclusive evidence regarding the arms trade
persuaded the Government of India to appoint a small committee,
composed of Major-General L.H.E. Tucker and Colonel W. Hill,
during the summer of 1898 to enquire into the scale of tribal
armament and the illicit trade in arms and ammunition within
India, as well as to suggest any alterations required in the
Indian Arms Act and Army Regulations to ensure that in future the
flow of arms to the North-West Frontier would be curtailed.[xxxiii]
The
North-West Frontier Arms Trade Committee conducted an exhaustive
enquiry along the length of the administrative border during the
autumn of 1898 that provided the Government of India with the
first detailed appreciation of the number of modern ‘arms of
precision’ in tribal hands and identified a range of various
sources of supply. Major-General Tucker estimated that the
trans-border tribes possessed approximately 48,000 firearms, a
figure which included 7,700 breech-loading rifles taking
government ammunition, 7,300 muzzle-loading Enfield rifles, 3,000
assorted arms of European patterns judged useless for military
purposes and a further 30,000 locally manufactured jezails.
This figure meant that out of an estimated fighting strength of
250-260,000 men, only one in five tribesmen were armed with a
modern firearm, though the relatively affluent Afridis owned a
higher proportion of expensive rifles and ammunition. The 7,700
breech-loading rifles included; 286 .303 Lee-Metfords, 4,335 .450
Martini-Henry rifles of the same pattern used by the Indian Army
as well as 3,079 older muzzle loading .577 Sniders. The conclusive
evidence established by the Committee revealed that the greatest
source of modern rifles, over 90 per cent, were arriving from
sources within British India. The total number of breech-loading
rifles included 1,400 weapons lost or stolen from the Indian Army,
3,000 constructed from materials obtained illicitly from arsenals,
2,500 given as gifts by the Government of India to allies and
frontier villages on the North-West Frontier, including Kabul,
which had since been lost, stolen or given away, 250 manufactured
in Kabul, 150 obtained from trade through India and some 400
derived from trade through Afghanistan from Russia or the Persian
Gulf.[xxxiv]
By
far the most important source of the trans-border Pathan tribes’
arsenal of modern breech-loading rifles and ammunition was from
the British Army, Indian Army, Imperial Service Troops and
Volunteer regiments stationed throughout India and the local
militias and levies serving on the North-West Frontier. These
weapons had been obtained from the military by a variety of means;
capture during the course of field operations, theft, desertion
and via an illicit trade in rifles uncovered between troops and
arms dealers in cantonments throughout India. The Committee
estimated that approximately 1,405 rifles had been lost or stolen
from the army since 1883, many of which were presumed to have
gravitated into tribal hands across the administrative border.
This figure included 600 missing rifles, 600 rifles lost in action
and taken across the border, in addition to a further 105 that had
been lost through desertion. The loss of arms from Indian Army
sources had jumped during the 1897-98 operations when 198
breech-loading rifles were lost in action and a further 121 were
lost or stolen from regiments serving along the frontier. These
figures included 134 modern Lee-Metford magazine rifles from
British regiments that were qualitatively far superior to the
armament of Indian regiments, militias and levies. The loss of
rifles in field operations was perhaps inevitable given the nature
of frontier warfare and the desperate endeavours of the tribesmen
to seize weapons off the bodies of dead and wounded. The total
number of rifles acquired by the trans-border tribes during the
course of military operations was undoubtedly an overestimate
since large numbers were usually recovered as part of the final
political settlement, but a proportion remained in tribal hands
where they represented the most prized addition to tribal arsenals
due to their greater range, accuracy, longevity and ease of
ammunition supply.[xxxv]
The
primary peacetime source of military pattern small arms for the
trans-border tribes were those stolen by professional rifle
thieves operating in the Punjab and throughout India. Units of the
Indian Army were regularly preyed upon by gangs of Ut Khel,
Mohmand and Afridi rifle thieves which had established themselves
in tribal territory from during the 1880s and 1890s. The high
demand and prices of service rifles among the frontier tribes made
the inherent risks of stealing rifles and ammunition from the
military worthwhile. The Zakha Khel Afridis earned the reputation
of being the premier rifle thieves on the frontier and were
deliberately excluded from service in Punjab Frontier Force
regiments due to the high incidence of desertion with rifles and
equipment.[xxxvi]
The depredations of professional rifle thieves - known as
‘loose-wallahs’ to
generations of British Other Ranks - became a feature of frontier
‘myth’ and succeeded in securing notable coups against both
British and Indian regiments.[xxxvii]
Military sentries proved a profitable source of arms and many
cases were reported of thieves deliberately attacking men on guard
duty to seize rifles and ammunition.[xxxviii]
The theft of a service rifle was regarded as a court martial
offence and a grievous slur on the reputation of a regiment, but
despite careful precautions arms were continually lost to Pathan
rifle thieves during the late nineteenth century. During the Tirah
Expedition gangs of thieves were active against the troops left in
Peshawar District and succeeded in securing 121 rifles from men on
sentry duty despite the high state of military readiness.[xxxix]
Arms and ammunition were regularly stolen from sentries,
guardrooms and from men on duty in frontier stations and
increasingly from the less well prepared cantonments within India
unaccustomed to the stratagems employed by the rifle thieves. The
steady supply of rifles, bolts and military equipment were
smuggled across the border for sale within tribal territory at
high prices to tribesmen or to arms factories where military
rifles were cannibalised to provide parts for tribal weapons. The
ruses and stratagems developed to smuggle stolen weapons across
the administrative border were extremely effective and most
weapons reached tribal territory without detection.[xl]
The
existence of an illicit trade in arms between Indian sepoys,
British Other Ranks and government officials and the tribal
thieves in cantonments throughout India came as a particularly
unwelcome surprise to the military authorities. The sale of arms
to Pathans accounted for the loss of complete rifles and
serviceable component parts that were smuggled out of bases and
across the border into tribal territory. It was calculated that
between 1883 and 1887 approximately 1723 weapons had gone missing
in military units serving in the Bengal Presidency, out of which
277 were not recovered and were presumed to have found their way
onto the North-West Frontier. In 1895 sepoys returning from Hong
Kong were discovered bringing arms into India for sale across the
administrative border under the cover of arms passes issued by
their commanding officers.[xli]
The continued existence of this trade was confirmed by the Tucker
Committee following the 1897-98 campaigns despite attempts to
tighten regulations safeguarding military weapons in armouries. In
September 1898 a Corporal of the Iniskilling Fusiliers offered for
sale a Lee-Metford rifle to a trans-border Pathan for Rs. 300, and
later unlocked the arms racks in his barracks leading to the loss
of a further twelve weapons. The financial rewards were sufficient
to risk the severe punishment meted out to offenders and could net
a soldier £25 for a complete Martini-Henry. For example, Private
Gilchrest of the Royal Scots Fusiliers was sentenced to two years
hard labour and dismissed from the army in 1898 after he
inadvertently offered for sale a rifle-bolt to a Border Military
Police informant.[xlii]
The
majority of the tribal weapons captured or surrendered during the
military operations in 1897-98 were composed of parts of new or
condemned government military rifles. The supply of such
components provided the most serious source of rifles for the
trans-border tribes, though many were of variable quality and in
some cases were more of a danger to their owner than the Indian
Army. The existence of an illicit trade in new rifle bolts,
barrels and springs had been initially discovered in December 1892
at Ferozepore arsenal, following a police raid on a local company,
which uncovered 139 barrels and 107 locks derived from both Snider
and Martini-Henry carbines. This trade in parts had begun on a
small scale in 1886 and components had been smuggled out of the
arsenal to Pathan dealers at Nowshera and Peshawar who conveyed
them onwards to tribal territory. The supply of part-worn
components from condemned government muzzle-loading Enfields and
Snider rifles was of far greater importance than the comparatively
limited supply of new parts. Indeed, the potential supply of worn
component parts for tribal arms derived from discarded government
rifles was vast; over 84,903 rifles had been destroyed, or
‘converted,’ in Indian arsenals since 1893, by cutting the
barrels into sections, removing locks and other parts which had
then been sold for their scrap value. Such ‘scrap’ iron had
been purchased by enterprising Indian and Pathan merchants on the
open market during the 1890s and had then been smuggled - quite
literally lock, stock and barrel - across the border to tribal
rifle factories operated by the Adam Khel Afridis that had been
established during the late 1880s in the Kohat Pass. The
components were reassembled by tribal smiths, mostly ex-armourers
trained in the ranks of the Punjab Frontier Force or Indian Army,
into serviceable rifles by brazing and riveting the parts to form
a new weapon. Such dismantled parts were prized by tribal smiths,
who were unable to manufacture rifled barrels, locks or other
machined parts from hardened steel, creating a constant demand for
further components that could be incorporated into new tribal
rifles. The introduction of mechanical steam hammers into Indian
arsenals to crush discarded arms in 1898 had already reduced
losses from this source, but such measures had proved initially
ineffective and the Tucker Committee identified various procedural
errors that still allowed a large leakage of component parts which
had found their way to the Kohat Pass.[xliii]
The
North-West Frontier Arms Trade Committee concluded that two thirds
of the breech-loading arms in tribal territory were derived from
weapons given to the independent frontier states, cis-border
villages, trans-border tribes and Afghanistan by the Government of
India as an instrument of frontier policy. Major-General Tucker
observed: ‘All along our border, we have sown arms broadcast;
our Political officers give rifles to their pet maliks; our Deputy
Commissioners issue rifles to their border villagers.’ The
military dangers inherent in this policy had first been revealed
when the Afghans employed large numbers of modern rifles against
British troops during the Second Afghan War and rifles from this
source reached the Afridi tribes in 1878 when large numbers of
Enfields and Sniders were given as badragga
to Afridi tribesmen by Afghan troops following the capture of Fort
Ali Musjid. During the 1880s and 1890s modern rifles were
distributed to the northern states on the frontier and Chitrali
rifles were used against British troops in 1895. The weapons
similarly given to the Nawab of Dir resurfaced in part payment of
the punitive fines imposed after the close of military operations
in 1897-98. During the 1880s modern arms and muskets had also been
distributed to cis-border villages and to friendly trans-border
maliks, without any form of registration or control, for self
protection against raids from tribal territory. For example, in
the Kohat district alone Tucker estimated that 2,706 government
rifles were in the hands of the villages. Many of these weapons
were sold across the border by the villagers for financial gain
and augmented the growing tribal arsenal. The large numbers gained
by the tribes from these sources were of less importance than the
service rifles from the military, since most weapons were of
obsolete pattern; muskets, Enfields and a few Sniders discarded by
the Indian Army. However, they still were superior to the bulk of
tribal jezails that had constituted the vast majority of Pathan firearms
before the 1890s and many remained in use during throughout the
twentieth century.[xliv]
The
rifles and ammunition imported into India by British civilians and
Indian Army officers for sporting purposes was the final source of
arms identified by the Tucker Report. Although the Committee
concluded that this source yielded relatively few weapons of
military value, it accounted for a large number of weapons in
circulation in India. It estimated that 2,135 sporting rifles were
imported into India during 1897 which included an increasing
number taking government ammunition of both .303 and .450 calibre.
Many of these weapons and ammunition eventually drifted into the
hands of Indian dealers and were suspected to have been sold
across the border in tribal territory. The inspection of the
records and stock of arms dealers in Dera Ismail Khan, Edwardesbad
and Kohat revealed the existence of a lucrative trade in powder,
cartridges, and percussion caps, as well as the sale of a few
rifles bought from British officers which local regulations failed
to prevent from being resold across the border.[xlv]
The
North-West Frontier Arms Trade Committee included a detailed
examination. undertaken by Colonel Hill, of the source of supply
of ammunition to the trans-border tribes. Cartridges used by the
Pathans were obtained from sources within the Indian Army in much
the same manner as supplies of rifles. The leakage of ammunition
from the Indian Army was estimated at a figure of one million Lee-Metford
and two and a half million Martini-Henry cartridges a year. A
large trade existed in the unaccounted rounds within the military
cantonments in India from where the ammunition was transported to
the North-West Frontier by a variety of means. Additional supplies
of cartridges were obtained from Afghanistan and it was suggested
that ammunition might possibly originate from the Gulf, but these
sources accounted for only a small proportion of the amount
obtained from the Indian Army. The cartridges for both the Snider
and Martini-Henry rifles could be reloaded using locally
procurable black powder, bullet moulds and percussion caps by
utilising the estimated two and a half million empty cases left by
the Indian Army on the battlefield during the Chitral campaign and
the 1897-98 operations. During the Tirah expedition re-capping and
re-sizing machines had been found in villages at Maidan which
clearly indicated that the tribesmen were making extensive use of
expended cases to manufacture complete new rounds. The source of
lead required for manufacturing bullets also came from within
India, where it was collected from regimental rifle butts, live
firing areas and Royal Artillery ranges on which 730 tons of lead
were expended annually during the course of training. A small
proportion of this total amount was collected by local villagers
and transported back to the North-West Frontier by traders.
Colonel Hill concluded: ‘the most important supply of ammunition
to the frontier tribes is that derived from our own regiments, and
that there is reason to believe that the leakage from this source
is not only very considerable, but that under existing regulations
it might become enormous.’[xlvi]
The
scale and quality of the tribal arsenal on the North-West Frontier
and the extent of the illicit arms traffic in rifles and
ammunition from within British India caused consternation and
alarm among the political and military authorities. In particular,
the revelation that the Indian Army and the Government of India
had inadvertently provided the majority of the small arms and
ammunition employed by the trans-border tribes prompted immediate
attention being paid to the the disarmament of tribal territory
and the recovery of the weapons in Pathan hands. It quickly became
apparent that disarmament, however, was simply beyond the power of
the Indian authorities. As Hamilton observed: ‘Disarmament is
apparently a more complicated question than I first believed, for
it does involve, under certain conditions, protection against
those left armed. Unless we can associate disarmament with a
stoppage of supplies, we shall do little good, and the constant
and periodic re-armament of the great European armies with fresh
weapons, and the sale of the old, puts an enormous amount of
life-destroying instruments upon the general market at absurd
prices.’[xlvii]
It was also immediately apparent that it would be impossible to
recover government rifles except as punitive fines in the wake of
military operations, since in the opinion of the tribes the
weapons had been secured by legitimate means. As a result the
Government of India was forced to acquiesce in the existence of
the current tribal arsenal and to accept that action could only be
taken when thieves or tribesmen with recently stolen weapons were
identified. In such cases the only redress that could be secured
was through the enforcement of collective responsibility against
the tribe concerned or large punitive fines were the only means
available to secure the return of stolen firearms. W.R. Merk
suggested that restrictions were required to prevent any further
increases in tribal armament:
The proper measures
to adopt relative to rifles cis-Indus are firstly, to shut the
door before the horse goes, to have an efficient system for the
prevention of thefts or sales of government arms; secondly, an
effective police supervision over bad characters and gangs of
trans and cis frontier vagrants and vagabonds who are suspected or
believed to be concerned in the illicit arms trade; and thirdly,
the free interchange of information and full direction of
operations throughout India regarding such persons by means of a
central bureau, such as the Thaggi and Dacoity Department.[xlviii]
The Government of India took immediate action to prevent further
losses to the trans-border tribes during 1899-1900. The Foreign
Department tightened the Arms Act and existing arms regulations
and introduced new measures in order to curtail the flow of arms
and ammunition into independent territory. The gift of arms and
ammunition to trans-border Maliks had been prohibited in 1898 and
further controls were placed on the weapons in the hands of the
civil population of the NWFP. The number of arms in circulation in
the administered areas was restricted by curtailing the number of
licenses issued to carry arms, the introduction of a comprehensive
system of registration for rifles issued to frontier villages and
the limited disarmament of Peshawar District. Existing regulations
governing the commercial trade in arms in India were more strictly
enforced and the importation and trade in firearms taking
ammunition of service pattern was banned to prevent weapons being
openly sold across the border. These measures immediately deprived
the trans-border tribes of further supplies of the low quality
weapons which had been supplied by the Government of India during
the 1890s, but curtailing losses from military sources was to
prove a more difficult proposition.
The
scale of the leakage of arms and ammunition from the British Army,
Indian Army, Volunteers Corps and Militias throughout India was
particularly embarrassing to the Indian military authorities and
prompted alterations in Army Regulations and the introduction of
new measures to exercise greater care of arms and ammunition both
in the field and in barracks. The ownership and use of private
rifles by Indian officers and soldiers on leave was sharply
restricted and greater care was exercised in the guarding of arms
at units throughout India. Both British and Indian regiments
rearmed sentries on guard duty with relatively worthless
smoothbore Sniders firing buckshot of little value to the
trans-border tribes removing the incentive for some of the most
daring attacks by thieves.[xlix]
The introduction of careful accounting systems for tracking the
location of weapons, arms racks securing both rifles and their
bolts, and constant guards mounted to protect weapons at night
proved effective in deterring thefts both from barracks and in the
field. Regular Indian and British Army regiments serving on the
North-West Frontier adopted methods pioneered by the Punjab
Frontier Force for the security the arms in the field. These
included physically securing rifles to their waist with metal
chains, sleeping with their weapons rolled inside their blankets
at night, and keeping the valuable rifle bolt hidden separately
inside clothing.[l]
Strict checks were imposed on the recruitment of trans-border
Pathans into the Civil Armed Forces and Indian Army in order to
prevent men deserting with or stealing rifles and ammunition. New
recruits had to have their village, section and tribe verified by
political officers, provide financial security for their arms,
equipment and ammunition and were only enlisted when given strong
personal recommendations by Indian Officers.[li]
The supply of ammunition was also strictly controlled with
exacting accounting regulations in regiments, arsenals and
magazines, with stipulations that 90 per cent of cartridges
expended in training must be returned before further ammunition
would be issued. Rifle ranges and exercise areas were carefully
picked over to recover both lead and empty cases and the loss of a
live round became a serious offence.[lii]
During field operations on the North-West Frontier some British
and Indian regiments went as far to collect expended cases off the
battlefield in order to deny the tribesmen further supplies of
ammunition. The new regulations and direct action against arms
dealers in the North-West Frontier Province achieved immediate
success and the price of ammunition increased throughout tribal
territory. Finally, the supply of rifle components used by the
tribal factories was cut at source in Indian arsenals by
tightening the procedure for the conversion of arms and the use of
mechanical steam hammers to crush unserviceable rifles. The
resulting scrap metal was no longer placed on sale at auction
denying the tribal arms factories of the components that had
sustained a growing industry during the 1890s.[liii]
The
effectiveness of these restrictions imposed on the illicit arms
traffic on the North-West Frontier were carefully monitored by the
Indian Army and Foreign Department during the early 1900s. A
marked increase in the current prices of arms and ammunition in
tribal territory was the first indicator that the measures
suggested by Tucker and Hill had resulted in the more careful
custody of weapons and cartridges in India.[liv]
The success of restrictive measures could be gauged by the
revitalization, moreover, of the tribal arms factories, which
started manufacturing complete home made rifles. By 1901 the
standard of craftsmanship had improved, moreover, with factories
producing copies of Martini-Henry Rifles that were almost
indistinguishable from originals to the casual observer down to
the makers-marks, serial and regimental numbers. New factories
were set up in Tirah and Dir staffed by armourers trained in India
and Kabul, but all the weapons they had produced had shorter life
spans than service rifles since the barrels and breechblocks were
composed of unhardened steel.[lv]
However, during the 1900s leakages of arms, component parts and
ammunition continued to occur within India and the NWFP on a
reduced scale. For example, during 1903 evidence was found
suggesting that arms were being smuggled from across India into
tribal territory, with the seizure of arms intended for the
North-West Frontier at Rangoon and revolvers made in Hong Kong
were found in the Tochi Valley. The activity of Pathan rifle
thieves operating in the NWFP and India was more difficult to
control. A new Arms Section of the Criminal Investigation
Department was formed to identify and counter the activities of
gangs working in close co-operation with the provincial police,
Railway Police and District Officers. During 1901 30 military
rifles were stolen and another 80 in 1902, but the number of
weapons subsequently recovered in transit across the NWFP
increased as the civil police exercised far greater care in the
detection of thieves and arms smugglers. The Welsh Fusiliers, for
example, lost nine rifles during the Delhi Durbar on 30th December
1902, but seven of the weapons were later recovered in transit
across the NWFP.[lvi]
During the 1900s the Arms Branch succeeded in tracing known gangs
of thieves, restricting their movements and hence aided in the
capture of known criminals throughout India. Losses of rifles and
ammunition from both military and civil sources declined in
military cantonments in the NWFP and throughout India. The Arms
Branch recovered 171 rifles out of 274 lost in India and Burma
during 1905 and succeeded in identifying rifle thieves and arms
smugglers in Aljmer, Calcutta, Rawalpindi and Attock.[lvii]
The measures introduced to restrict the flow of arms to the
trans-border Pathan tribes in the wake of the Tucker Report
sharply reduced the large and embarrassing amount of arms and
ammunition supplied from sources within British India, but never
succeeded in completely eliminating the leakage of modern arms,
ammunition and component parts from military sources. Throughout
the twentieth century the Indian Army continued to lose rifles and
ammunition by capture, theft and illicit trade between soldiers
and trans-border Pathans, despite the strict enforcement of
various political and military regulations implemented after 1898
to check the flow of arms.[lviii]
For example, in 1911 an inspection of the 112th Infantry’s
weapons by a Civil Master Armourer at Kohat revealed that its
armourer had substituted Pass made barrels on several rifles and
smuggled the originals across the administrative border for sale
in tribal territory to finance his imminent retirement.[lix]
Pathan rifle thieves continued to achieve success against new and
unwary British and Indian regiments serving on the North-West
Frontier during the First World War and the 1920s. Writing in 1919
the Political Agent for the Khyber wryly observed: ‘a sepoy with
a rifle is not looked on as a soldier as he used to be, but as a
coolie with a bag of Rs. 1000/- on his head.’[lx]
Although supply of arms from India had been reduced in the wake of
the North-West Frontier Arms Trade Committee, it was perhaps
ironic that just at the time that domestic sources of arms from
India were drying up that the arms trade through the Persian Gulf
to independent tribal territory began to assume such alarming
proportions and made all other sources of arms for the
trans-border tribes relatively insignificant.
3.
The Gulf Arms Trade and the North-West Frontier
A connection between the trade in arms already established in the
Persian Gulf and the supply of modern rifles and ammunition
reaching the North-West Frontier was widely discussed in the
Indian press during the 1897-8 campaigns.[lxi]
Although a few weapons and ammunition of European manufacture were
reported in Tirah during the course of the operations, none of the
rifles captured or surrendered examined had originated from the
centre for the arms trade at Muscat. An initial official belief in
a link through Afghanistan had to be abandoned as evidence
accumulated that arms were obtained from sources within India.[lxii]
A further investigation of this suspected traffic in arms was
carried out by the Tucker Committee during 1898, but it failed to
establish any conclusive connection between the Persian Gulf and
the North-West Frontier beyond the discovery of some cartridges
stamped with British and Belgian trade marks in Tirah. The
appearance in small numbers of European trade Martini-Henry
carbines in the Kurram Valley and Waziristan and ammunition also
in tiny quantities, however, later the same year first alerted the
Government of India to the presence of rifles from the Persian
Gulf in Pathan hands.[lxiii]
Writing in December 1898 Colonel W. Hill observed: ‘It is
evident that the traffic in arms in the Persian Gulf is an
increasing source of supply of arms to the North-West Frontier
tribes and that it is sufficiently serious to fully justify any
action the Government may take to prevent rifles and carbines
being sold in the Persian Gulf.’[lxiv]
The
political officers working nearby tribal territory mounted a
series of enquiries during 1899, 1900 and 1902 to monitor the
availability of Gulf arms, during which evidence slowly
accumulated that small quantities of European firearms were
reaching the NWFP.[lxv]
Captain George Roos-Keppel, Officer on Special Duty in the Kurram
Valley, for example, purchased two carbines in 1899 made
respectively in London and Birmingham from a tribesman who claimed
he could obtain any number of similar weapons in the future. The
first conclusive evidence of the existence of larger amounts of
European arms originating from the Persian Gulf, however, was
obtained during the Mahsud blockade in 1902, when the Political
Agent reported the appearance of numbers of breech-loading small
arms and ammunition stamped with both English and Belgian makers
marks in Waziristan. Later the same year Ghilzais tribesmen
migrating into India from Afghanistan deposited European
Martini-Henry rifles in police stations along the administrative
border and openly began to trade similar weapons with British
tribesmen. The full extent of the arms traffic on the North-West
Frontier and its point of origin remained largely conjectural,
however, precluding any direct action being taken to suppress the
traffic beyond securing agreements with the Persian Government,
and identifying landing and trans-shipment points on the Gulf
coast of Persia. Even so by 1903 the Government of India warned
the British government that of the weapons sold in the Persian
Gulf ‘a proportion reach the tribes on the North-West Frontier
of India, with results that constitute a grave menace to the peace
of the border.’[lxvi]
The
flow of arms from the Persian Gulf to the North-West Frontier
quickly increased during the early 1900s and rapidly outstripped
the sources of supply within India after the local markets in
countries surrounding the Persian Gulf became saturated with
modern rifles. Indeed, the price of rifles and ammunition on the
North-West Frontier allowed lucrative profits to be made by
commercial arms dealers able to purchase weapons for as little as
Rs. 25-40 at Muscat which could be sold to tribesmen for ten times
that amount. A short Lee-Enfield costing £6, for example, would
sell for approximately £60-£80 in tribal territory. It quickly
became apparent that large quantities of arms and ammunition sold
by European dealers at Muscat were being transhipped aboard dhows
across the Gulf to waiting caravans on the Mekran and Persian
coasts for transit northwards to Afghanistan and onwards to the
eager markets on the North-West Frontier. The quality of the trade
rifles were far superior to locally produced weapons and satisfied
the demand created by the earlier restrictions imposed on the
illicit trade from within India. The arrival of a large
consignment of cheap Martini-Henry rifles was reported in the
Khyber during January 1906, which had been sold to British
tribesmen in Afghan markets in Ningrahar and Birmal. Such weapons
were eagerly purchased by tribesmen during the summer of 1906 at
prices ranging between Rs. 150-220 in Tirah, Kurram and Waziristan
as costs dropped to 50 per cent of the year before.[lxvii]
Demand for modern rifles soon outstripped supply despite the large
quantity of weapons shipped into tribal territory and the regular
arrival of arms caravans. With huge profits to be made the British
arms dealers at Muscat, moreover, were supplanted by other
European traders who sold German, French, and Belgian rifles and
copies of British weapons specifically manufactured for the
North-West Frontier after Hamburg American steamers started
operating in the Gulf in 1906. Indeed, the market at Muscat, the
principal arms emporium in the Gulf, was soon dominated by French
companies that distributed arms throughout the Middle East and
oversaw the traffic across the Persian Gulf to arms caravans
waiting on the Mekran coast. The presence of French merchants was
a severe blow since it severely complicated British diplomatic
efforts to curb the trade which was dominated by powerful
commercial interests rather than any external country with whom
the Government of India could deal.
By
1907 the scale of the arms traffic to independent territory had
grown to such an alarming level to make the Government of India
deeply apprehensive about its impact on the long-term security of
the North-West Frontier. It was estimated that no less than 94,000
breech-loading Martini-Henry rifles had reached Pathan hands and
arms caravans were still regularly arriving in Afghanistan from
the Gulf where rifles were sold, with the open consent of the Amir,
at Kabul, Ghazni and in Ningrahar, to trans-border tribesmen.[lxviii]
In a particular cause
celebre, a large quantity of Martini-Henry rifles sold by the
Government of New South Wales on the international arms market
after the Second Boer War were discovered in trans-border Pathan
hands in 1907 still clearly stamped with the New South Wales mark
on the butt. These Bandari
rifles were especially prized by the Pathans and were rapidly
snapped up since they were of the same pattern utilised by the
Indian Army and therefore easier to supply with ammunition.[lxix]
Estimates by the Intelligence Department indicated that 30,000
rifles and 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition were being imported
annually into Afghanistan and tribal territory by 1908, as more
European companies took advantage of the enormous profits to be
made. The Adam Khel Afridis became directly involved in the trade
in Persian Gulf rifles after the local market in Kohat Pass
weapons had been undermined by Bandari
rifles. In September 1908 they invested Rs. 16,000 in arms and
ammunition, and small parties proceeded via Karachi to Muscat and
later returned with rifles and ammunition via Afghanistan to the
North-West Frontier from where new ventures were planned.[lxx]
The limited measures introduced by the Persian and Indian
governments to check the flow of arms were simply overwhelmed by
the sheer scale of the traffic on land and seas and both for some
time could do little more than monitor the arms trade which
continued to grow in size.[lxxi]
The first systematic detailed appreciation of numbers in
independent tribal territory during early 1910 estimated that a
total 63,564 breech-loaders were in now in Pathan hands and
henceforth the armament and fighting strength of the trans-border
tribes was carefully monitored by the military and political
authorities in India.