The Army in India and Mountain Warfare, November 1878–April 1898

Abstract

A large proportion of the regular Army in India was introduced during the Second Afghan War to the operational and tactical exigencies of mountain warfare against a tribal opponent. Most of the extended fighting in the bleak, treeless and precipitous hills of Afghanistan and along the extended lines of communication through tribal territory, in 1878 and 1879–80, was very different from those conditions envisaged in the standard military text-books on which training in India had hitherto been based.¹ At the beginning of the campaign it is simply incorrect to say regular British and Indian troops had an authoritative doctrine or system of training for mountain warfare, although, as already noted, a code of tactics and body of experience had been devised and refined by the PFF since 1849.² Despite the fact that information relating to the conduct of hill warfare was circulated inside the PFF and passed on informally within its units by means of an ‘oral tradition’, Standing Orders and specialised training, it had not been published outside its regiments or batteries or made readily available to those British and Indian regulars stationed in the northern Punjab. Although some officers and men in the Bengal Army had some personal experience of hill warfare gained while serving alongside PFF regiments, relevant information had only been disseminated in an ad-hoc manner by word of mouth to the rest of the army.