THE EXPEDITION TO CHITRAL.
disaster which has just occurred near Chitral, TIthough of little importance in itself, is a most un- fortunate one. We prefer, amidst a medley of accounts, the original one, which seems to us not only probable, but quite intelligible. Dr. Robertson, the able officer in charge at Chitral, finding himself hard pressed by the Pathan leader, Umra Khan, and his followers, sent out messengers to the nearest stations asking for relief. Captain Ross, with sixty Sikhs, was accordingly despatched from Masuj, the nearest garrisoned point, with orders no doubt to make a forced march and re- inforce Dr. Robertson. The road is dangerous in the extreme—all passes and precipices—and at the worst point of it Captain Ross was encountered by Umra Khan's followers, probably many hundreds in number, occupying the hills which command the road. After a desperate effort to break through, Captain Ross retreated on Boni, his little force being attacked at every step in places where it was possible not only to shoot them, but to roll great stones upon their heads. Captain Ross fell on the march, and of the sixty Sikhs only fourteen returned to Masuj, the rest —after fighting, we doubt not, like Sikhs—having been shot or smashed. The loss is not great in numbers, and we cannot, of course, expect to be victorious in every skirmish ; but the incident will have most unfortunate consequences. The whole of the uncivilised fighting tribes between the frontier of the Punjab and the slopes of the Hindoo Koosh as far as the Pamirs, will believe that the British have been beaten, and will not be convinced of their error until they have been defeated. by white soldiers. These tribes, according to Lord Roberts's statement on Monday before the Geographical Society, can turn out two hundred thousand fighting men—more by fifty thousand than the British Army at home—and though they cannot concentrate, are not completely united, and are hampered by difficulties of commissariat and of collecting sufficient munitions, they are brave and fierce, men quite equal to Sikhs in physique, and with traditions of heroism like those of our own Highland clans. It is necessary, therefore, that the force sent against them should be a large one, which means endless expense in those wild regions, both for transport and for food, and that communications should be most carefully guarded lest a triumphant column should find itself in air with perhaps twenty thousand relentless enemies behind it. Moreover, the first business being to rescue Dr. Robertson, and settle Chitral affairs once for all, this large force cannot go by the Kashmir route, which is more than five hundred miles long, and includes one or two passes to which Mont Cenis is baby- play, but must go in a straight line from Peshawur over an almost untrodden route two hundred miles in distance, that is, as far as from London to Leeds. Unfortunately that route takes us right through the country of the Swatees, who are Mahommedan fanatics, who loathe white men, who cannot be bought, and who will simply disbelieve our assertions that we mean them no harm, and are only passing on our way to Chitral. They do not want us behind them, and will most assuredly, unless all their recent history misleads, fight till convinced, that it is not the will of Allah that they should defeat explosive shells, rocket batteries, and the gatling-guns.
Formidable as the work to be done plainly is, we do not doubt that General Low with a picked staff, good mountain artillery, and fourteen thousand soldiers— Englishmen, Sikhs, and Goorkhas—will successfully accomplish it. With that force he will be invincible, and if he arrives in time will rescue Dr. Robertson and his three hundred men ; but when he has done that the diffi- culties will be only beginning. It is evident from what General Roberts says that the intention is to keep the road to Chitral permanently open, and to assume a general control over all the tribes from Peshawur right up to the desolate prairies on the top of the Hindoo Koosh. He said in his speech of Monday Some may wonder why so much stress is laid upon the extension of British influence over tribes with whose religions and domestic arrangements we have no intention to interfere, and whose territories we have no desire to annex. The reason why it is desirable for us to try and gain an ascendency for good over the border tribes (looking at the question merely from a selfish point of view) is that they are a great factor in the defence of the North- West frontier of India. They number over two hundred thousand fighting men, and our frontier is conterminous with theirs for some eleven hundred miles. Thanks to the enlightenment of the present ruler of Afghanistan,. our relations with that country are becoming more satis- factory than they have ever as yet been. But it is just as essential that we should be on satisfactory terms ji the warlike tribes who inhabit the mountainous districts between Afghanistan and India. It will not do to leave them to themselves until the time arrives when we shall. need their assistance, or at all events, their neutrality._ Before that time comes they should. have learnt to look upon us as friends, and to appreciate the benefits which civilised intercourse with us will confer upon them. Moreover, it is all important that we should be able to- pass through their territories, and make roads to those points which we should have to occupy in the event of India being threatened by a foreign Power." General. Roberts is not the sort of man to make speeches of that kind if he knew that his superiors would disown them, and his meaning clearly is that we are to govern the whole mountain territory between India and the highest points of the Hindoo Koosh, at least so far that wo can cut and protect roads through it, and. can call upon its tribes to remain quiet with a compelling voice. We are to be felt as the paramount Power through a country nearly as large as France, with Alpine mountain ranges all over it, and with no fertility,. as Captain Younghusband showed in his most interesting lecture of Monday, except in scattered village oases where- the fruit-trees grow. In that country are scores of tribes, all used to intestine war, all brave, and all children in- capable of continuous policy, whose decisions and promises cannot be relied on for six months at a time. That seems to- us a most serious undertaking, and one to which the nation should attend; but unless a disaster happens, the nation will not attend to it for ten minutes ; will read columns upon columns about rubbishy intrigues for the Speakership, most of them misdescribed, and will not even see that we are about to stretch British dominion, or at least British right of control, right up to the Roof of the World, to the furthest point we can reach without trenching on Russian territory. There is something magnificent, we frankly acknowledge, in that British
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difference and calm ; but is there not something just a little stupid, too ?
We are not, be ;t remembered, pleading that this policy be abandoned. 1 e cannot compel ourselves to believe it wise ; but for all we know it may be part of the strange, destiny which in India for ever hurries us Northward out of the revenue-yielding plains into the sterile and hostile region of the mountains where there is little for us to do but fight continually, and nothing at all to get, and we have no right, as we have repeatedly admitted, to put our own, judgment, though it accords with Sir John Lawrence's, against that of a wilderness of experts who all say that the only defensible ultimate frontier for India is the Hindoo Koosh. But we do wish we could rouse the English people to a sense that we are overpassing our mighty wall, the Himalaya, and taking up the government or protectorate or suzerainty—call it what you like—of the whole half-desolate region between that and the Hindoo Koosh, that we must cross it with roads and telegraphs, that we must keep up and connect an infinity of fortified posts, and that we must be ready at any moment to resubjugate it in the event of a rising, or defend it in the event of an invasion. Lord Roberts says the tribes will help us, for we shall make them friends, and in one way that is, we dare say, true. The tribesmen will swarm to our regiments as they did to the regiments of the Great Moguls, and very excellent soldiers they will make, nearly as good as Sikhs or Goorkhas. But friends ! Will Lord Roberts trust any Pathan alive if the invader offers more than we do, or if the Pathan fancies that his secession will restore India to its old Mussulman rule ? Invasion, with all its incidents, the overturn of old chiefs, the fines, the blowing up of villages, may secure friend- ship a century hence ; but for the immediate future,— well, we suppose Pathans are human beings. Moreover, though we at least never forget that India is a military monarchy, and must accept the conditions of that position, the expense of this movement must not be left wholly out of calculation. The Times says we have already spent Rx.128,000,00 I ejond the frontier, and the Times leaves out the cost of military railways, the increase of the European Army, the expenditure on fortresses. We believe that besides the sum mentioned, the cost of the "forward policy" exceeds two millions a year, which, if we are to reign up to Chitral—and clearly if we are per- manently to defend Chitral, we must in some sort reign over its approaches—Will be increased sooner or later by another half million. That is not an excessive sum to pay for the security of India, if, as Lord Roberts believes, we shall thereby attain the end, but we want Parlia- ment to understand clearly that it is spent, that the fall in the price of silver is not the sole cause of the Indian financial difficulty, and that if we could but keep within our own garden-wall we should be rich ; might cover India with railways, or if that were more expedient, might, in a generation, pay off the Indian gold debt. If we are driven forward, as so many Anglo- Indians believe, by some "manifest destiny" or other external and automatic force, so be it ; but if we retain, as we fancy, the control of our own wills, we ought at least to know the facts, and not go plunging on with our eyes bandaged like those of a horse which is wanted to leap a flame. This expedition to Chitral is another step forwards in a very big invasion, and we ought to know more about it than we can learn from snippety little telegrams, chiefly occupied with the names of the officers who are to share in the chance of a great exploit.
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