North West Frontier Campaigns

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North West Frontier Campaigns
1849-1947
Chronological list of Wars and Campaigns
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Location:
Combatants:
East India Company and British Army North West Frontier tribes
Result: Suppression of border incursions
Medals:
India General Service medal 1854
India Medal 1895-1902
Links:
Category: Category:North West Frontier Campaigns


Summary

From 1849 when the East India Company annexed the Punjab it became necessary to prevent incursion by the frontier Pakhtun tribes. Successive punitive expeditions subdued particular areas until further outrages occurred. Control of the region depended to a large extent on the Punjab Frontier Force recruited from local tribesmen commanded by British officers.

North West Frontier Expeditions

For a list of campaigns in order see

Medals

British Library holdings

The following books are available at the British Library. Books available online, refer below, are not listed.

  • Operations against the Orakzai tribe on the Miranzai frontier under the command of Brigadier-General Sir W.S.A. Lockhart, K.C.B., C.S.I., in 1891 compiled from official sources (under the orders of the Quarter-Master General in India) by A.H. Mason. 1891
  • Frontier and Overseas Expeditions from India Volume 2. North-West Frontier Tribes between the Kabul and Gumal Rivers by Intelligence Branch Army Headquarters India 1908
  • Official History of operations on the N.-W. Frontier of India, 1920-35 by General Staff Army Headquarters, India 1945. Available through Amazon.co.uk from the FIBIS Shop
  • Official History of operations on the N.W. Frontier of India, 1936-37 by General Staff Army Headquarters, India 1943. Available through Amazon.co.uk from the FIBIS Shop

India Office Records

India Office Records include

Imperial War Museums holdings

The Imperial War Museums are a source of information about operations in Waziristan. Search the catalogue.

Catalogue entry for the publication Bibliography of sources in the Departments of Documents, Photographs, Printed Books and Sound Records at the Imperial War Museum on military operations in Waziristan on the North West Frontier of India 1917-1937, published c 1979.

Note the London Imperial War Museum is closed for six months from January 2013

Also see

Individual accounts

  • Francis Stockdale was deployed to Waziristan in 1919. He was a temporary R. E. officer and served late 1919 to Dec 1921[1] His book Walk Warily in Waziristan is the subject of the article Why Britons walked warily in Waziristan by Alastair Lawson 21 April 2008 news.bbc.co.uk with photographs. Available at the British Library
  • John Morris served as an officer in the Indian Army with the 3rd Queen Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles from 1918 until 1934 in Palestine, Afghanistan (the Third Afghan War in 1919), Waziristan and the North West Frontier of India.[2] His autobiography Hired to Kill, Some Chapters of Autobiography was published in 1960. (London, Rupert Hart-Davis ). "Chapter Fifteen, in which he describes how he and his company were ambushed by Mahsud tribesmen on the frontier is a little masterpiece".[3] Available at the British Library
  • John Archibald Hislop was an officer in the Indian Army, 2nd Battalion 9th Jat Regiment from 1933 . He had a series of postings primarily in the North West Frontier area. Subsequently he was GS02 Waziristan District until c August 1943. His autobiography A Soldier’s Story-From the Khyber Pass to the Jungles of Burma: The Memoir of a British Officer in the Indian Army 1933-1947 was published in 2010. "Readers will learn much interesting detail about operations in Waziristan and Baluchistan before the outbreak of war, tactics needed for protection on long marches - an officer in charge of a flanking picquet might find himself moving over thirty miles per day over mountainous ground for several consecutive days, and all the problems of food supply and water"[4] Available at the British Library
  • John Masters (Wikipedia) was an officer in the Indian Army from 1934, with the 2nd Battalion 4th Gurkha Rifles from 1935. His autobiography Bugles and a Tiger; a Volume of Autobiography was published in 1956 and has since been republished under slightly different titles as Bugles and a Tiger, Bugles and a Tiger : a Personal Adventure and Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas . It covers the Waziristan Campaign 1936-39. Passages about the often vicious conflict are quoted in this link[5] This book is available at the British Library. It is also available to read online, refer below
  • Graham F Reed was a junior officer in the Royal Signals Corps in his early twenties, who was a Signals Officer with a Mountain Gun Regiment based at Razmak in Waziristan in 1945-47. His book is Walks in Waziristan, with an extract In action from Walks in Waziristan. The first two chapters are available from Preview Google Books

External Links

Historical books online

Recommended Reading

Campaigns on the North-West Frontier by Capt H.L.Nevill DSO 1916
Reprinted by The Naval & Military Press Ltd 2005
ISBN 1-845741-87-0
Imperial Frontier: Tribe & State in Waziristan by Dr Hugh Beattie
Routledge 2001
ISBN 0700713093 and ISBN 978-0700713097

References

  1. Great War Forum
  2. John Morris at Keio University 1938-1942 by William Snell, page 2 of the pdf
  3. "Times and Lives" by Stephen Spender in Encounter, January 1961, page 71 .unz.org
  4. Newhaven Publishing Dr Anthony Clayton Review for the Sandhurst Foundation
  5. With ‘roses in their long hair…’ by Gaw June 8, 2011 thedabbler.co.uk