The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War was an 1898 book written by Winston Churchill; it was his first published work of non-fiction.
It details an 1897 military campaign on the Northwest Frontier (an area now part of Pakistan). Churchill participated in the campaign as a second lieutenant in the cavalry; he volunteered for the posting, having become bored of playing polo in India.
Moving through the land mostly by poli...
more
The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War was an 1898 book written by Winston Churchill; it was his first published work of non-fiction.
It details an 1897 military campaign on the Northwest Frontier (an area now part of Pakistan). Churchill participated in the campaign as a second lieutenant in the cavalry; he volunteered for the posting, having become bored of playing polo in India.
Moving through the land mostly by political care, and paying local khans to support them, they moved into the mountains to fight an essentially punitive campaign against the Pashtun tribes, in response to repeated brutal armed raids on the villages of the Plains of India. Crops were burnt, wells were filled with stone and houses burnt, and the occasional firefight broke out in the mountains. This campaign effectively neutralised the aggressors for several decades.
Churchill makes some observations about fanaticism of the tribal warriors:
The Indian government was concerned about...
less
