THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD.*
GENERAL DYER. has written a most spirited account of his campaign against some nomad tribes on the frontier of South- East Persia and Baluchistan in 1916. As an example of what can be done by courageous diplomacy, backed by an insignificant force, this campaign well deserved recording, though it passed unnoticed amid the greater events of the war. The Sarhad- literally meaning boundary—is a tangle of rough volcanic hills and salt desert which is not clearly marked on the latest Staff map of Persia. It is inhabited by three tribes, who live by raiding their neighbours. They sometimes go as far north as Meshed, and they bring back from their plundering expeditions not merely cattle and household stuff, but also Persian women and children, who are treated as slaves. These nomads, who were led in 1916 by three chiefs—Jiand Khan, Hall Khan, and Juma Khan—welcomed the German and Turkish agents who sought to stir up trouble for us in India, and found the Sarhad route most convenient for their purpose. The Sarhadis were told that the German Emperor was a good Moslem, and they believed it all the more readily when " Hadji Wilhelm's " agents gave them money and arms. In return, the nomads began to attack our convoys taking supplies from Quetta to the small Anglo-Indian forces on the Persian frontier. General Dyer, motoring to Robat—where Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan touch—had to evade the raiders by leaving the road and making a perilous circuit- through the desert ; his baggage was looted and his horse killed. When he took over the command in Seistan, he found that the troops available were very few. The Sarhadi chiefs, on the other hand, had about five thousand men, well armed with Mausers which they knew how to use. General.Dyer summoned the chiefs to meet him in conference. They declined to come, and were obviously bent on hostilities.
General Dyer, feeling that anything was better than inaction, resolved to try a game of bluff. He collected from the tiny garrisons enough men to make up the semblance of a column. He had in all two mountain guns, seventeen Indian cavalrymen, a dozen local irregulars, seventy-four Indian infantry—of whom all but nine were raw recruits—and two machine guns. Through his spies he spread the rumour that he was advancing with five thousand men to Jalk, at the eastern side of the Sashed. Then he set out with his hundred men for Khwash or Vasht, at the western end of the nomads' country. He
• Theltaidess of Ma &Mad. 8,y BrIgadter-Genentlit. B. it. Dyer. London : Witherby. • 1155. net.j
found the enemy occupying low hills, and after a brief parley he made a feint attack. Jiand Khan, believing the mmoue about General Dyer's great army, took fright when ha saw what he thought to be the advance guard of cavalry threatening his flank, and bolted, followed by his two thousand men. General Dyer pursued the panic-stricken chief for two days, and then occupied Jiand's winter quarters in one of the few fertile valleys in the Sarhad. By threatening to destroy the crops if Jiand did not give himself up, General Dyer actually induced the chief to surrender. He then advanced upon Khwash, the nomads' principal stronghold, and announced that he would blow it up if the garrison did not instantly yield. Again the mere empty threat was enough. General Dyer was barely installed in Khwaah when Jiand's fellow-chief Halil came in and surrendered with fifty of his men. A couple of spies sent to Bampur alarmed the hostile chief of that place so much that he fled to the nearest British political agent in Makran and begged for protection. General Dyer, taking his prisoners with him, marched against the third Sarhadi chief, Juma Khan, who also surrendered. The General then held a durbar. He- made the chiefs swear on the Koran that they would thenceforth be loyal to the Indian Government and repel the German agents, and, having given them substantial presents, he let them all go. Juma Khan kept his oath, The other, two were no sooner out of sight than they began to concert a fresh attack, because they now knew that General Dyer had but a handful of troops. The nomads intended first to recover Khwash, where the General had left five infantrymen as a. garrison. By forced marches General Dyer contrived to get there first. His car broke down in the hills and was dragged by natives into the fort, where it served to impress- the super- stitious Sarhadis. The author relates, with much humour how he contrived by sheer bluff to make Jiand Khan surrender again and yet again, though the old chief was treacherous and angry, and how he spared Jiand's chief follower, a- traitorous rascal, at the entreaties of the man's wife, the Gul Bibi; or " Rose Lady "—a formidable personage in the Sarhad. General Dyer then decided to send Jiand and his chief followers as prisoners to Quetta, but the convoy was twice ambushed on the way by Hall, and all the captives were rescued. The General's whole -scheme seemed to have failed.
At this crisis he was reinforced by half a battalion of Hazaras and a couple of squadrons of cavalry, and, after beating off an attack on Khwash, he decided to pursue the Sarhadis into their hills. Their stronghold was a long narrow valley with a difficult pass at either end. Feigning to advance towards the western end, he drew the enemy to that side while ho marched post-haste for the eastern pass, north of Gusht. He entered the valley safely, and there was attacked by a host of nomads led, by Hall Khan. General Dyer, anticipating the attack, had sent out two strong pickets, under cover of darkness, to occupy the low hills in rear of his camp. The Sarhadis crept up the valley between these hills, intending to storm the camp at dawn. But when daylight came they found themselves under fire from both sides and unable to advance or retreat. Halil Khan and many of his men were killed and the rest ran away, General Dyer then captured all the nomads' flocks and wound up a brilliant little campaign by surprising and scattering another large band of nomads. In eight months he had pacified the Sarhad, freed many unhappy slaves, and removed all danger to the long line of communications through Baluchistan to Seistan and Khorasan. It was a battle of wits in the main, and we can see that the author enjoyed out-manoeuvring the wily and deceitful bandits with whom he had to deal. A true story of adventure, the book is one of the most entertaining that we have read for a long time.
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