The Lessons of Tirah, May 1898–August 1914

Abstract

Many serious defects were exposed in the organisation, equipment and particularly the training of the Army in India throughout the 1897–98 frontier risings. During the most serious outbreak of resistance to British rule since the Mutiny, nearly the entire strength of the Field Army was mobilised, involving the deployment of over 59,000 regular troops, 4,000 Imperial Service Troops, and 118 guns in parts of the Pathan borderland that were still virtually terra incognita.¹ Imperial troops suffered 470 dead, 1,524 wounded and ten missing in action during the extended fighting, losses exceeding those suffered during the Second Afghan War.² Despite the benefits of Dum-Dum bullets, machine guns, search lights, a rocket battery, field and mountain artillery, the large Anglo-Indian force encountered serious, albeit uncoordinated, resistance from the trans-border Pathan tribes. The Tirah Campaign proved the most difficult and protracted military operation during the rising — costing the Army in India 287 dead and 853 wounded — despite initial expectations in many quarters that British and Indian troops would only be opposed by lashkars still reliant on hand-to-hand combat supported by limited jezail or occasional rifle fire.³ In his final report dated 24th February 1898 Major-General Sir William Lockhart summed up the difficulties encountered by imperial troops:

No campaign on the frontiers of India has been conducted under more trying and arduous circumstances than those encountered by the Tirah Expeditionary Force.