Delimitation Escort at Wana, on the 3rd November 1894, three brigades were sent into the heart of Waziristan, vid Wana, Jandola, and Bannu respectively, early in December; and after they had thoroughly traversed and laid waste Kaniguram, Makin, and other important centres, the Mahsuds threw up the sponge in a few weeks, and rendered their submission by paying the fines of money, rifles, &c., demanded for their misbehaviour. But the country was occupied by us for some months longer. On reference to my old diary of those days, I read that the strength of the Mahsuds then was estimated at from 10,000 to 12,000 fighting men; whilst their matchlooks, of an antiquated pattern, were numbered at about 2500; and it was probable that they did not possess more than 200 or 300 breech-loading rifles-ohiefly stolen from British territory. The sword then was, par excellence, the weapon of the Mahsud; and, in addition, daggers, knives, and flintlock pistols constituted the armament of the majority. Being naturally a brave and warlike tribe, and skilful in the use of the "tulwar," these mountaineers had on several occasions, with nothing else in their hands, charged down on British troops armed with breechloading rifles and bayonets. The night attack at Wana was one instance. to a very different state of things; for our old opponents have apparently not only advanced materially in their tactical methods the sult, probably, of instruction by men of their olan who have previously served in our frontier battalions and militia re but in the matter of armament also they are infinitely better off than they were twenty-five years ago. The old "jezail," or flintlock muzzleloader, with prongs near end of barrel to hold the weapon steady-by resting them on the ground or a rock when firing from a prone or crouching position has probably gone for ever. In the place of this medieval firearm, with a range of only a few hundred yards, the Mahsuds now doubtless possess thousands of modern breech-loading rifles sighted up to 2000 yards and more; and, since these hardy mountaineers have eyes like hawks and thoroughly understand the use of these weapons, it will be readily understood how their possession has added enormously to the fighting power of this truculent and restless tribe. The question naturally arises, "By what means have the Mahsuds and other frontier tribes become possessed of these modern arms of preoision?" It is clear they cannot all have been acquired by skilful thefts from frontier stations or purchases in India; nor can the late Amir of Afghanistan be accused of The difficulties experienced in the present operations supplying all these tens of against the Mahsuds points thousands of rifles to our VOL. CCVIII.—NO. MCCLVIII. M put of his arsenal at Kabul. border tribes from the out- French, German, and Belgian firms chiefly supplied the arms required by the merAnother large possible source chants at Masqat; but more of supply had therefore to be than one British firm did not sought and investigated; and abstain from a similar practice, the attention of the Govern- though this was done possibly ment of India accordingly be in ignorance of the serious came focussed, some years ago, likely results of their action. on Masqat in particular, and In any case, the whole of the Persian Gulf generally. Masqat, from the Sultan downBy some oversight, not now wards, became deeply steeped easily understood, in former in the arms trade, and contreaties drawn up by the tracts were made by, and French and ourselves with licenses granted to, local the Sultan of Masqat, merchants for the importation the importation of firearms of arms from Europe for from Europe into Masqat several years in advance. was not prohibited. Arabs, During the four or five years Persians, Baluchis, and others, preceding 1909 the traffic in therefore, were free to pur- arms in the Gulf had increased chase rifles and pistols quite by leaps and bounds, and so openly in Masqat town, and remunerative had the underdispose of them as they pleased. taking proved that many The trade promised luora- Afghans and trans-frontier tive returns, without fear of Pathans were attracted to the let or hindrance, to Europeans Gulf from distant Kabul and and those who had the means Herat, as well as our own of arranging for purchases border. To give some idea abroad, and setting up as arms of the fortunes made by the merchants in Masqat. This arms merchants in Masqat, I opportunity was readily seized may instance the case of a upon by men with little or Frenchman, M. Goguyer by no conscience or concern as to name, who died at Masqat in what became of these rifles, November 1909, or thereabouts. and into whose hands they Ten years previously he had ultimately found their way, entered that town with very after they were sold from their slender resources; but turning shops. For this reason Masqat his attention to the arms trade, gradually developed into the he had amassed a considerable Arms Emporium of the Middle fortune (reputed to be £40,000) East, and the Sultan himself at the time of his death. His waxed wealthy on the licenses store at Masqat in the spring granted for the importation of of 1909 was estimated to conarms, and the commissions tain not less than 100,000 paid to him on each consign- arms of many different types, ment landed in his territory, including most patterns of by steamers from Europe laden modern magazine rifles, and with them. certainly not less than 10,000,000 rounds of ammuni- Careful statistios compiled tion for these arms. The Government of India realised, therefore, that the unrestricted traffic in arms in the Gulf might seriously jeopardise our position vis-à-vis the tribes on our frontier, and an endeavour was made to come to terms with France at the Brussels Arms Conference, extending from early in 1908 onwards, with a view to proolaiming Masqat, in agreement with the Sultan, to be a prohibited port. But, for reasons into which I need not enter here, France did not at that time appear disposed to see eye to eye with us on the subject. Some time previously it was within the certain knowledge of the Government of India that many Afghans were yearly making a pilgrimage to the Gulf for the purchase of arms, though in what numbers these were being conveyed thence to Afghanistan and the tribes on our frontier was unknown. In the cold weather of 1908-9, however, secret agents wandering about in disguise along the Makran coast reported the presence of large caravans of Afghans, accompanied by camels, from Kabul and Herat. These awaited consignments of arms purchased by some of their number in Masqat, whence they were transported in dhows to prearranged landing-places on the opposite coast. Here men and animals were ready to receive them, and the whole party would then set off on their return journey to Afghanistan vid Sistan. It was obvious, therefore, that if the future security of our border was to be efficiently maintained, and arms prevented from reaching the lawless tribesmen, drastic measures must be undertaken to check their flow from the Gulf. As already stated, France declined for long to co-operate with us in this matter, and it became inoumbent, therefore, on Britain to take action unaided. A further complication arose owing to the fact that the great majority of the arms conveyed to Afghanistan and our N.W. Frontier were landed on Persian soil; and Persia had placed no embargo or restrictions in the way of the importation of arms along her southern coast-line. In fact, she appeared averse to interfering in any way with the evil; and the Baluch sirdars in occupation of Persian Baluohistan were all making, in consequence, considerable sums of money-paid to them as commission on every rifle and pistol landed within their territory by the gun-runners. The difficulties of dealing with the situation, therefore, were great, for the importation of arms from Europe to Masqat could not be stopped, nor could these arms be seized anywhere within the Sultan's dominions, or at sea within the three-mile limit of his coast-line. Strictly speaking, also, once they were landed on Persian soil they were immune from capture; so it was desirable to seize them on the high seas during their transit in dhows from the Arabian coast to Makran. During the cold weather of 1908-9 a few few insignificant captures were made at sea by the few out-of-date patrolling ships available for this purpose; and attempts were also made to intercept the passage of arms oaravans into Afghanistan by the posting of British troops in the neighbourhood of Robat, where the three kingdoms of Britain, Persia, and Afghanistan meet, south of Sistan. But that these measures were quite inadequate to deal with the growing evil is clearly evidenced by the fact that, in spite of them, some 30,000 rifles had found their way into Afghanistan. Operations a far more extended scale were obviously essential; and as reports pointed to the probability of 3000 Afghans visiting the Gulf in the cold season of 1909-10, during which they hoped to acquire over 50,000 rifles, a really ambitious scheme was put into train to checkmate their activities. Now these Afghan gunrunners were men of great enterprise, and richly endowed with daring, ounning, and ingenuity of a high order. They were well provided with money, by the skilful outlay of which they counted on reaping profits of not less than 200 to 300 per oent on the season's operations. Much of the capital collected for the venture it was known was borrowed; so it was pretty certain they would not easily be balked from their intentions to procure the arms which were in such great demand in their country and on our border. Information at hand pointed to the Ghilzais from Afghanistan, who had previously been the most persistent gun-runners, being joined by Afridis, and other clans nominally under control; so the danger was patently being brought home to us. our Hitherto the modus operandi of the Afghans had been quite straightforward and simple. Arrangements were made in their own country for large caravans of camels to be marched from Kabul, Herat, and other places during the cold season, to the Makran and Biaban coasts in Persian territory, under suitable guard. Meanwhile, those men told off for the actual purchase of the arms proceeded by rail through India to Karachi, with the necessary money concealed about their persons, and there took steamer to Masqat. On arrival they openly purchased such weapons as they desired from the various wholesale arms merchants, with whom they arranged to leave them until they had completed their preparations for having them conveyed by dhows to the opposite coast. Much ingenuity displayed in selecting landing-places where they would be met by their accomplices with camels, in order to elude the vigilance of the patrolling ships and their cutters, and to remove immediately the arms landed into the interior. The common procedure then was to store their arms along the coast under charge of neighbouring Baluch chieftains. Certain meeting - places and dates having been pre- arranged for various parties to join up together, the united caravans would later march homewards in considerable strength through those parts of Persian territory where possibility of attack was most to be apprehended. Once safely back within their own borders, the parties again split up, and conveyed their valuable purchases to their most promising home markets. The first measure of check adopted was to institute arrangements whereby Afghans should be denied permission to land at Masqat, from British India S.N. Company steamers plying to and from the Gulf. The Afghan reply to this was to take tickets to other ports, such as Chahbar, Jashk, and Bandar Abbas, whence they found their way in native sailing crafts to points on the Arabian coast in the vicinity of Masqat. Arrangements were then made to dam the flow of Afghans from British territory by refusing them passages on British steamers to any of the Gulf ports; and in November 1909 a system of information was organised at both Bombay and Karachi to deal with Afghans who were suspected of being likely to endeavour to book passages under disguise. The British India S. N. Company had agreed to refuse tickets to Afghans; but another loophole still remained, as the Bombay-Persian S. N. Company also plied between Bombay, Karachi, and Gulf ports, and was under native management. Intending travellers by this line, therefore, required careful watching. Many were the cunning disguises and ingenious concealments of money resorted to by Afghans, who posed as Indian "bunniahs," Arab horse-dealers, and pious Moslems bound on pilgrimage to the holy places in Mesopotamia and Arabia, in order to escape the vigilance of our alert police at British - India ports. But it was a case of diamond cut diamond; and when thousand - rupee notes were found innocently sewn up between the inner and outer soles of boots and shoes of guileless travellers and other equally crafty stratagems employed - it was any odds their ultimate destination was the Arms Emporium at Masqat. These police precautions proved effective to some |