Thomas Holdich

“ For another quarter of a century we have little to fear. But the Frontier Question we have always with us. It will still agitate a certain class of politicians, and to them it will always be a matter of intense interest to know, under such circumstances, what our reply should be to Russian movement.
We talk easily in the first place of Russian millions in men and money as if we had no millions of our own. Russia, all told, can only muster about 150,000,000 of people. We have nearly double that population (290,000,000) in India alone, and it is with India just now that we are concerned. ”

“ There is no sign that at the present moment the Russian army is really formidable in aught save numbers. As regards numbers, we see that, though their resources are great, they are by no means unlimited. The great area of Russian territory alone requires vast numbers to garrison it and to preserve peace within its borders. The number available for aggression is relatively small; and in any large force there would necessarily be many who are soldiers but by virtue of their uniform—half-trained conscripts from local sources. I have seen many of them on the Russian frontier. ”

“ We are afraid of Russia. They are not. Like the Japanese Minister, they would claim that fear of Russia is one of the things they are not prepared to share with us. Long before the Russians had done with Afghan Turkestan, we ought to possess an Indian army quite equal to any quasi-European army that Russia could raise. But, once again, it will be said that we must have a European force to fight a quasi-European foe. This is a matter of sentiment, but it involves to a certain extent the implication of a mistrust of Indian troops. ”

“ It surprises me, in the first place, that there should still be men of light and leading who are actually afraid of Russia—afraid that, with her vast resources of men and money, and with the development of her railway system to the borderland of Afghanistan, she could really peril our security in India by an advance in force from the Oxus. ”

“ If Japan has not, however, settled the Frontier Question for us, she has, at least, deferred its practical solution by force of arms sine die. Russia has not gone completely mad. With her huge army badly beaten in defensive tactics, it is beyond belief that she should contemplate aggressive action against another host which, we may confidently predict, would be her equal in numbers, and her superior in national cohesion, if not in scientific resource. ”

“ The impulse of religious belief and inborn love of independence may have easily developed something akin to real patriotism. I worked with Afghan troops on the borders of Kafristan in 1895, and I could mark a distinct change, both in sentiment and discipline, which had been effected by fifteen years of peace amongst men of the same clan as those who had formed my escort in Herat in 1856, or who had acted as friendly guides in 1879. The métier of the Afghan is that of the irregular marksman. ”

“ The spirit which animated a newly-raised battalion of Gurkhas who, not long ago, deserted in a body when they found they were not to be led at once against the Russians, is the spirit of the whole Indian army to a greater or less extent. ”

“ It is usual to take for granted the statements of military experts that Russia's capabilities as a military Power are vastly in excess of our own, and that she could, if it pleased her, distribute a force of 500,000 men at the termini of her Central Asian railway system on the Herat frontier and on the banks of the Oxus facing Afghan Turkestan without much difficulty. ”

“ It is the most open way to be found Indiawards in all Asia, and it is here that we must look for the chief concentration of advancing forces. Russia, however, we may fairly presume, knows her business better than to try to rush India. Any such attempt would end in disaster. We must expect, rather, that she would move slowly, consolidating her position, occupying the chief towns of Turkestan; and, inasmuch as neither the resources of Herat nor of all Afghan Turkestan put together could support 200,000 troops for long, she would have to develop a railway system behind her advance. ”

“ If British officers are to be associated with Afghan troops in future, it is obvious that they cannot be withdrawn at the time when they are most needed. The damage done to our prestige by recall would be too serious to contemplate; and if our officers were involved in an anti-Russian campaign, our soldiers would expect to be asked to support them in the field. They would not commit suicide like the Japanese because they were not allowed to go to the front They would do worse: they would become actively, and perhaps mischievously, discontented. ”

“ On the other hand, we have no reason to suppose that the quality of the troops destined to take the field against Afghanistan and India would differ greatly from the quality of the army (drawn chiefly from Asiatic sources) which has over and over again proved itself incapable of holding strong defensive works against direct attack on the part of the Japanese; although we have often heard of late years from the lips of those who make a special study of such subjects, that direct attack against scientific defensive appliances must prove to be in future an impossible factor in modern tactics. ”

“ A war with Russia would be a popular war with the native soldier. It would be to the great majority of them the realization of their military ambition. They are always talking about it—not only in India but beyond our borders. ”

“ There would be no rising, no agitation, even, of much consequence induced by a forward movement on the part of Russia, provided that we made proper use of our power of control over the native press. India generally is essentially loyal, and believes that nothing good is to be expected from Russian rule. ”

“ There is no doubt, indeed, that military developments have tended to increase the power of defence out of all proportion to the power of offence in the field of action, and that there was ample justification for such a forecast. What are we to suppose, then? That the Japanese are a superhuman development as a fighting power in the world's arena—a race of natural soldiers such as the world has never seen ”

“ At present Afghan troops, however excellent the raw material may be, want discipline, drill, and leading; and that they can only obtain by the importation of instructors from outside Afghanistan. These they will probably get, either in the form of British or Japanese officers, but time will be required for such outsiders to get on good terms with their men, and for the men to understand their instructors. The young British officer is unmatched in the world for his capacity to turn raw material into good fighting stuff ”

“ If the Afghan is taught his business properly, the occupation of Kabul by an advancing foe from the north may be written down as relegated to past history. It should never happen again. On the Herat side to the west it is different. There the steady progress of a considerable force supported by a railway is practicable as far as Kandahar, provided there is sufficient development of water-supply along the route. ”

“ Japan and China may create an absolutely new phase in Asiatic politics, and we may find the means at last of effecting an agreement with Russia on such a basis of mutual advantage that it will no longer be worth her while to break the peace. ”

“ They want no stiffening. I am fully convinced that there would be no difficulty in raising the strength of the native armies of India to 500,000 men if India was in peril of invasion, and to this force we could surely add 150,000 British troops to take the field chiefly on the Herat-Kandahar line. ”

“ But we are now dealing with new conditions, with railway communications in support of vast bodies of men, and with modern scientific methods of defence in mountain country. No force that ever yet existed—Japanese, Chinese, Mongul, or European—could force a way across that barrier if properly defended. It never has been properly defended. We may admit that southward from Tashkurghan to the northern foothills of the outer ridges of the Hindu Kush progress could be made slowly, even with railway construction. ”

“ But the same may be said of Russia. In all large communities the proportion of the warrior caste must be comparatively small. Certainly we could enumerate districts in India containing 50,000,000 of people where good stuff for soldiering can be found; and that is numerically sufficient for our purpose. Next, it is argued that we may have the numbers, but not the trained efficiency. The forty odd millions of Japanese are not (taken as a whole nation) a fighting people. ”

“ We will for the moment set aside the fact that she has been disastrously beaten by a comparatively small Asiatic power, and is in no position to risk another failure in the Asiatic field, and confine our attention to that which she might accomplish on the borderland of Afghanistan on the supposition that she has recovered from the war with Japan ”

“ At a very moderate computation the Amir could put a force of 150,000 men of all arms into the field, including excellent light infantry and artillery for mountain work, as well as a fair contingent of serviceable and irregular cavalry—cavalry, that is to say, better mounted and equipped than the average Cossack, but not so amenable to discipline. ”