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THE BAPTISM OF A BATTERY.

BY BRIGADIER-GENERAL COSMO STEWART, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

I HAD gone into headquarters at Gilgit to celebrate Christmas 1894 with my good friend and clansman, Captain W. H. Stewart, Assistant British Agent, and known to his friends as 'Curly" from the nature of his hair, and, as usual, one of my first questions to him had been whether there was any chance of trouble anywhere. With an amused smile he had returned me the usual disappointing answer.

Returning to No. 1 Kashmir Battery, I had taken a few days' shooting leave after markhor, getting back to Nomal, 18 miles out of Gilgit on the Hunza road, for the night of the 5th of January. Late that night an "Urgent" dak bag arrived from the Agency with a letter from Baird, the staff officer there, warning the battery and me to be prepared to march at short notice for Chitral. No further information was vouchsafed, but it was quite enough to raise our most sanguine hopes.

The battery paraded next morning in marching order, which was no unusual thing, and everything was satisfactory, except that as we were equipped with only half the proper number of transport animals for reserve ammunition, kits, rations, &c., much would have to be left behind if all the

four guns of the battery were ordered to proceed. This, however, had been legislated for. All ranks were as keen as mustard, and were prepared to discard all but the barest necessities, and some ammunition could at a pinch be dispensed with. Other troops were certain to be moving if the situation were critical; and knowing the difficulties of supply, &c., the right or Dogra section of two guns was detailed in the event of only half the battery being ultimately required.

For several days nothing further transpired, and then a note came from Baird telling me the trouble had blown over, but that infantry reinforcements were being pushed up the road towards Chitral in small parties. Our spirits fell accordingly, but we still hoped for the best. Then came an order for an estimate and requisition for coolie transport to move one gun (without mules), and with only a very small proportion of the ammunition carried in the field. It was proposed to send the gun to Gupis Fort, some 70 miles on the road towards Chitral, and I was likely to be sent there with it.

My disappointment was profound. Even a little mountain gun with its carriage, each of which portions weighed 200 lb.,

could not easily be carried along the existing roads by men, and for fighting purposes would be immobile and almost useless; thirty rounds of ammunition was too little to be of much use; and as the only artillery officer in the Agency, I considered I had sufficient service and experience to expect to be consulted before the whole organisation and raison d'être of the mountain battery was broken up at the stroke of a pen. I could not but feel that this one gun, with its small amount of ammunition, rendered immobile, and placed in a fort on the communications well outside the area of any probable operations, indicated the value attached to what was undoubtedly the most efficient unit of the Kashmir troops.

So the requisition was made out and sent in, and with it a letter from myself, in which it was stated that I considered the idea an unsound one; that I had made careful inquiries from Captain Younghusband 1 and others who had been to Chitral, and felt sure the guns could be taken there on the mules; and that I was very willing to accept the responsibility of so getting them there if required.

There was no delay about the answer! I received an official letter informing me I was insubordinate, and ordering me to apologise; that it had been the original intention of the British Agent to take me

with him if he went to Chitral, but that in consequence of my letter I should not now accompany him; that no use would be made of the battery at present; and that I was forthwith to despatch all baggage transport (as opposed to the ordnance transport animals for guns, &c.) into Gilgit, to be placed at the disposal of the supply officer. I also heard that the British Agent, with Baird and other officers, was leaving for Chitral, where a serious situation had arisen.

I wrote and apologised for any expression which I might have used to which exception had been taken, but not for my opinions, and despatched the baggage transport that night, recording my objection as officer responsible for the battery to it being removed at such a juncture. later that Baird, anxious that I should not fall further into disfavour, burnt my letter.

I heard

I have often thought over this incident since. The blow was a heart-breaking one. The idea of being insubordinate had never entered my mind. In the enthusiasm of youth it was an attempt to take the responsibilities on service which I considered mine. I felt that as a gunner I knew my job, and I had come to Gilgit with a very high recommendation from a most exacting commanding officer. Though young, I was of an age when later in the Great War an officer might

1 Now Lieut.-Colonel Sir Frank Younghusband, K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E.

aspire to rise to command a brigade, and I felt that not only had I damned myself, but also my battery. I still think I was cruelly punished, and that the spirit was right every time. It is the only spirit in which to train young officers to become leaders in war.

Lieutenant S. M. E. Edwardes 1 was now sent to join us at Nomal, and to receive some elementary instruction in gun drill, and, as I imagined also, possibly to supply me with a superior officer on the spot! We soon became firm friends.

From Gilgit to Chitral was, roughly, 220 miles. For the first 67 miles a very rough mule road had been constructed by the troops to Gupis, where a fort had been built and garrisoned. Beyond Gupis (at 8000 feet elevation) a still rougher country track ran for some 50 miles to Ghizar (close on 10,000 feet), where was the last hut village occupied during the summer months by the herdsmen grazing the flocks from the hot valleys. Some 25 miles farther on was the Shandour Pass over a spur of the Hindu Khush, 12,800 feet high, after which the road descended rapidly by a narrow valley to Mastuj, 45 miles from Ghizar, and about 8000 feet up. Here there was an imposing fort constructed by the inhabitants. Chitral was situated 70 miles beyond Mastuj at about 4000 feet, the apology for a road

traversing one long series of tremendous gorges, generally alongside the left bank of the Chitral River. Chitral River. From January on the cold at 8000 feet and over was intense, the thermometer on the Shandour registering well below zero ; but the country and the pass remained normally free of snow, the early falls being absorbed on the foothills of the Himalayas. Heavy falls, however, took place any time after February, and March and April were much the worst months for crossing between Ghizar and Mastuj.

Behind Gilgit the line of communications with India was by means of a good road from the railway at Rawal Pindi to Kashmir (close on 200 miles). From Bandipore, the base in Kashmir, to Gilgit was 240 miles by a good road, with two high passes of 11,000 and 13,500 feet to be surmounted. This road was closed for animals by snow from about the middle of October till the 20th of June. The passes were liable to be swept by bad blizzards and avalanches, and for weeks at a time in winter even the runners with the mails could not cross.

Sir George Robertson (then Surgeon-Major Robertson and British Agent) had gone on to Mastuj Fort to be more on the spot to watch events in Chitral, where Lieutenant Gurdon with a small escort of Sikhs was stationed as Political Officer;

1 Now Major-General S. M. E. Edwardes, C.B., D.S.O.

Captain W. H. Stewart remained in Gilgit to act for the British Agent, and to keep in touch by telegraph with the Government of India. There was always the danger of the telegraph line being carried away by a heavy fall of snow on the high passes leading to Kashmir.

About the middle of January Captain Stewart ordered Edwardes to Gupis Fort, and told me to come into Gilgit to assist him at the Agency. I arrived on the 29th of January, and that evening a runner came in from Robertson.

Events had been moving in Chitral, and Umra Khan, the redoubtable chief of Jandol, had begun to show his hand; the British Agent had sent him an ultimatum, and a copy of this was forwarded for communication to the Government of India by wire. I well remember "Curly" Stewart's comments as he read it! We were both full of admiration for Major Robertson's boldness and resolution. Robertson is just the man for the occasion; with only 200 men at his back, and cut off by hundreds of miles and three impossible passes from any considerable reinforcements, he writes to Umra Khan as if he were the Government of India in person, with all its resources at his immediate disposal. He generally writes a scarcely legible scrawl, but this is beau

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Fighting now appeared imminent, as the character of the Khan of Jandol was well known. "Curly" Stewart at once said he would send me on to join Robertson and report to him on the fitness of the road for the march of the battery; but eventually I received orders to remain at Gupis till I got further orders. I left the battery behind with regret, and remained in command at Gupis till the end of March, after seeing Edwardes and Fowler 1 and Ross and Jones with their ill-fated parties leave for Chitral.

On the 10th of March the last post was received at Gupis from the British Agent, now in Chitral Fort, and it became clear the garrison was cut off. Since February, Lieutenant Hugh Gough, in command of the post at Ghizar, had reported heavy snow to be falling on the Shandour, and communication over it by runner with Lieutenant Moberly, in command at Mastuj, had become irregular. Ghizar itself and Gupis were also under some snow. Various rumours of a discouraging nature reached Gough and myself, none of which were much credited, till about the 20th of March, when the last post was received from Moberly. This related the disaster to Ross and his Sikhs,

Now Lieut.-General Sir J. S. Fowler, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O. 2 Now Brig.-General F. J. Moberly, C. B., C.S.I., D.S.O.

and especially among the wild warlike tribes dwelling in the large, difficult, and at that time unknown region lying between Chitral and the Kabul River. No one in Gilgit had much time to keep Gough and me informed as to what was taking place elsewhere, and it was not till the 24th of March that my uncertainty was dispelled by the arrival at Gupis of Lieutenant Oldham, R.E., with a detachment of Kashmir sappers.

and how Moberly with great effects on the frontier of India, courage and promptitude had made a brilliant march of 34 miles and rescued the survivors; at the same time he reported the desperate situation of Edwardes and Fowler farther ahead, shut up and surrounded in Reshun village deep in the great defile between Mastuj and Chitral. The whole country the other side of the pass appeared up, and it became clear that Moberly himself was now cut off. Ghizar was thus the most advanced post with which communication remained open; and though it lay on the near side of the Shandour, anxiety began to be felt as to whether the trouble would not spread to our side, and incursions take place by the independent tribesmen of Tangir and Darel to the south. I was directed to keep the passes leading to their valleys under observation by means of local levies, and I sent Gough every rifle I could spare, reducing the garrison of Gupis to about 80 men, too few for fort duties and convoy work.

The situation had now be come very serious, and it was impossible to say to what extent the tribes round Gilgit itself and down the Indus valley, more or less independent, might not become affected. The prestige of the Sirkar, that undefinable but all-important moral ascendency of the British in the East, was at stake; anything in the nature of a reverse in Chitral would be certain to have far-reaching

Oldham had orders to proceed to Ghizar, and reported that Lieut.-Colonel J. G. Kelly of the 32nd Pioneers, a battalion engaged in building Chilas Fort and road-making in the Indus valley, had taken over military command in the Agency, and would arrive at Gupis on the 26th with 200 rifles of his own men; that another 200 pioneers with 2 guns of the mountain battery would follow him the day after, Captain Borradaile being in command of the 4 companies. A large expeditionary force was assembling near Nowshera in India, destined to advance to the relief of Chitral Fort via the Swat Valley; but when it was likely to be ready to start he did not know. He could give no further information except that Colonel Kelly was certain to require every local man I could lay my hands on for coolie transport.

A guard was at once put on such local men as were waiting to take supplies to Ghizar, and

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