Special Service

I´m here again!

I have really busy with my real life work and other things, so I have been unable to work in this really interesting  period. But, at last, I have been able to do something. I painted these figures from Empress Miniatures some time ago; they are wonderful miniatures sculpted by the GREAT Paul Hicks that are now part of my platoon of Gordon´s. Because I have not found any reference about the presence of Scottish units in the ORBATs of the Third Afghan War, I have decided , finally, to use them as member of one of the Special Service Battalions raised for the war.

Despite the fact that the British Indian Army was in a not very good shape at the begining of the Third Afghan War, there was a really fortunate respect. A large number of personnel coming from Mesopotamia en route to England for demobilization were awaiting in India due to a shortage of ships, so they were called to meet the crisis.

The Infantry were formed inot Special Service Battalions and those numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 were made into a Brigade at Rawalpindi for further deployment but, in June, they were finally split up to provide reinforcements for existing British units. The Special Service Battalions Nos. 6, 12, 15, 16 and 18 were employed, on the other hand, as internal security troops in India while No. 17 was used in the Baluchistan area. Artizan and mechanics were drafted to technical corps where they rendered an ivaluable service.

So these tired and home sicked soldiers were called for a last fight.

Well, my Gordon´s are going to be part of one of these internal security detachment posted in the Northwest Frontier. They are going to provide an escort for a certain Mr. Flashman in his very important mission...

Operation Red Wings

Background and development.

Operation Red Wings was a combined operation realized by the Second Battalion, 3^rd Marine Regiment (2/3 Marines), with the use of some Special Operations Forces (SOF) for the opening phase (the most famous, in fact), in the Pech District of Afghanistan´s Kunar Province, on the slopes of a mountain named Sawtalo Sar, from 27^th June through mid-July 2005. It was intended to disrupt local Anti-Coalition Militia activity in the region, carried out most notably by a local “warlord” from Nangarhar Province, Ahmad Shah.

By the summer of 2005, many of Afghanistan´s provinces had stable security environments, but one really restive was the Kunar Province, in eastern Afghanistan, on the border with Pakistan. Insurgent activity during this time came from around 20 groups which ranged in allegiance from those with tenuous ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda to the majority of them that were little more than local (and very well armed) criminals. These groups were known as Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) and military operations in Kunar focused primarily in their disruption.

In April 2005, 3/3 Marine had been deployed to Regional Command (East) RC (E) from late 2004, and had conducted a number of stability and counterinsurgency operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom that proved very successful in disrupting ACM activity. The culmination of these efforts was the April 2005 surrender of a regional “high value target” (HVT), the ACM commander Najmudeen, who had based his operations in the Korengal Valley. With his surrender, ACM activity in the region dropped significantly, but he had left a power vacuum in the area, so 3/3 Marine tracked a number of known ACM groups which could possibly wanted to fill the power void.

It was the next USMC unit posted in the area, the 2/3 Marine who found and selected the target for their first operation in the same line as those from 3/3. This time, it was the small cell led by Ahmad Shah, responsible of eleven incidents against Coalition forces, with aspiration to impede the upcoming elections and to aid a resurgent Taliban in the region. According to the intelligence gathered, he had fifty to a hundred fighters in his group.

By June 2005, 2/3 Marine had developed a comprehensive operation called Operation Red Wings (“Red Wings” being the name of an US hockey team).

Ahmad Shah

Operation Red Wings.

Ahmad Shah based his insurgent operations near some small structures outside of the village of Chichal, on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar mountain, in the upper Korengal Valley (the “Valley of Death” for the US forces) and twenty miles to the west of Kunar´s provincial capital, Asadabad. The intelligence staff of the 2/3 Marine determined Shah could be there in late June and they prepared an operation that would require a helicopter insert of forces to cordon the area and search for Shah in a direct assault after a positive identification by a Marine Corps Scout/Sniper team which would walk into the area under cover of darkness some nights before the assault.

It was an USMC operation in the AOR (area of operations) of the 2/3 Marine, who, as additional assets, sought only to use the MH-47 of the 160^th SOAR (A), the Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). However, CJSOFT-A, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, refused this request, stating that in order for Red Wings to be supported with Special Operations aviation, the 2/3 Marine would have to task the opening phases of the operation to Special Operations Ground Forces, with the Marines of 2/3 acting in a supporting role until after the initial phases of the operation. The battalion agreed to this condition despite this agreement defied a fundamental “unity of command” rule for the success of any operation. This one was presented to a number of Special Operations units working in the area for possible “buy in” and US Navy SEALs expressed interest, so they received the task to perform the first two phases of the operation.

The operation.

In Phase One of the operation, an US Navy SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team was tasked to insert in the region, observe and identify Ahmad Shah and his men, and guide the assault forces of Phase Two, in which a SEAL direct action team was to be inserted by MH-47, followed by Marines, to capture or kill Shah and his men.

Then, the Marines and Afghan National Army forces could conduct the next three phases of the operation, those of outer cordon, security and stabilization (the most mundane of them, of course).

Late in the night of June 27, 2005, two MH-47 of the 160^th SOAR (A) approached Sawtalo Sar. While one of them performed a number of “decoy drops” to confuse the enemy, the other inserted via fastrope a four-man SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team (formed by two sniper teams) in a saddle between Sawtalo Sar and Gatigal Sar, one and half miles from the nearest Named Area of Interest (NAI) of the mission.

After a hard night march, the team reached a pre-determined, covered overwatch position (number one in the map), from which the SEALs could observe the different NAIs, but it was not a very good place, so they look for another OP near Chichal (number two). Sadly, in this one, the team was quickly discovered by local goatherds, which were released according to the rules of engagement. The team, surmising that they have been compromised, retreated to a fallback position near the summit of the mountain, but, within an hour, they were ambushed by Shah and his men. The SEALs were suddenly attacked by RPK light machine guns, AK-47s, RPG-7 rocket propelled grenades and an 82mm mortar with such intensity that this volume of fire, combined with the type of ambush, from a higher position, forced the SEAL team mountain down into the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar.

The SEALs made a number of attempts to contact their combat operation center, before and after the ambush, but they could not establish consistent communication, being only able to indicate that they were under attack. Three of the four team members were killed by the Afghans and the only survivor, Marcus Luttrell, was left unconscious and seriously wounded, but the Afghans lost his track. Finally, after a long and hard march on foot, he was rescued by a local Pashtun from Salar Bar village, who saved his life, hiding him from the Taliban.

The Rescue mission, Red Wings II.

After the communication that the SEAL team was under attack, the focus of the operation shifted from disrupting ACM activity to finding and extracting the SEALs. Some hours after the desperate communication of the SEAL team (because its position and situation were unknown due to the broken transmission), a quick reaction force (QRF) was finally launched, consisting of two MH-47 of the 160^th, two UH-60 and two AH-64 Apache, with the two MH-47 on the lead. Upon reaching Sawtalo Sar, the two MH-47 received small arms fire but they didn´t wait for the Apaches and, in the attempt to insert the SEALs who were riding in one of the MH-47, one of Ahmad Shah´s men fired an RPG-7 which, entering by the rear door, struck the transmission below the rear rotor assembly, causing the aircraft to immediately plummet to the ground, killing all eight 160^th aviators and crew and all eight US Navy SEALs who were passengers. Both commanders of the rescue force, LCDR Erik S. Kristensen of SEAL Team 10 and aviation element commander Major Stephen C. Reich of 160^th, were killed, so command and control of the rescue mission was lost, ending the first attempt of rescue.

The second attempt was a massive and better organized search and rescue operation, and all the bodies were recovered and Marcus Luttrell was also rescued, some days after the ambush, in the village of Salar Ban, roughly one mile down the location of the fight.

The rescue team, looking for Axelson

Code of Honour.

The SEALs´ firefight with Ahmad Shah´s forces began along a high-elevation ridgeline called Sawtalo Sar and the north-eastern gulch in which the SEALs were trapped was in the direction of the small village of Salar Ban. The wounded Luttrell descended the gulch and was encountered by a Pasthun named Mohammad Gulab Khan from Salar Ban, who took Luttrell into his home and, according with the cultural tradition of Pashtunwali, offered him protection from his enemies. Full protection.

Ahmad Shah, “king of the mountain”, was able to ascertain where the wounded SEAL was, and demanded that he be turned over, a demand that was not attended by the villagers. He could not risk a fight at that moment, with a number of his men killed during the battle with the SEALs and so many enemies coming to the valley so, in the end, he was unable to capture Luttrell.

Red arrows indicate the Insurgent´s fire lanes

Aftermath.

Ahmad Shah and his group recovered a large amount of weapons, ammunition and other material, including a laptop with an intact hard drive containing maps of embassies in Kabul and other documents. Shah had with him two videographers during the ambush, and released a video of the ambush and the items recovered from the SEALs so his victory was soon on the media.

Thanks to the ambush and the MH-47 shootdown, the size of his group increased as additional fighters joined his ranks up to 100. In this way, he gained an amount of notoriety and became a valued target for the Coalition forces, but he was finally killed in April 2008 during a shootout with Pakistani police.

Disputed Information.

There is some conflict over the exact number of Taliban forces involved in the engagement and about the mission of the SEAL team.

Operation Red Wings was an USMC operation that integrated Special Operations assets for the opening phases of the mission, but a four man SEAL team was not sent in a covert mission to kill or capture Ahmad Shah as it has been shown in “Lone Survivor”. Shah was not one of Osama bin Laden´s lieutenants, neither was he an HVT (High Value Target); he was just another chief of ACM or Anti-Coalition Militia, and not a “big player”. His force was put by initial INTEL at up to 20 ACM and it was very logical because the small villages on the Korengal Valley/Sawtalo Sar and Shuryek Valley cannot sustain a number of fighters larger than these for very long.

The problem is that, in Luttrell´s own official after-action report, he estimated the size of the Taliban force to be around 20-35 but in his book he claimed that, during the briefing, they were told around 80 to 200 fighters were expected to be in the area. Further analysis, derived from signals intelligence gleaned during the ambush and human intelligence derived in Pakistan after the ambush, stated the number of Taliban fighters to be between 8 and 10 probably reinforced during the fight.

It is, in the end, an exercise of “Afghan Math” (“just divide by about ten to get the real number”).

Of course, it is not good for the “Stars and Stripes” culture. The narrative of a four-man team of hard Navy SEALs fighting on a group of hundreds of “hostiles” under the leadership of the right-hand man of THE enemy has all the elements for a great military action thriller. But it didn´t happen in Red Wings.

The sober true is that Ahmad Shah, with around half of his retinue, surrounded the SEALs by up to 180º and fired at them from superior positions (higher terrain, the recipe for the exit) with weapons of heavier calibre than the SEALs´ 5.56mm. Shah had at least one RPG with a lot of rockets, a number of men firing AK-47s, a pair of PK machine guns and possibly an 82mm mortar, this one able to wipe out, alone, a team much larger than four men. It was something very hard to accept by the Special Operators community, but the SEALs were vastly outgunned and outpositioned by an enemy that had excellent cover from the thick forest surrounding the Northeast Gulch of Sawtalo Sar, who knew the terrain very well (so were able to surround quickly the SEALs) and who coordinated a fierce combined-arms attack utilizing a variety of powerful weapons fired at a steep, narrow, funnel-like terrain.

This was nothing more than an excellent ambush.

“Lone Survivor”.

In early June 2007, the book “Lone Survivor: The eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing (sic) and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10” was released. Marcus Luttrell was the author and Patrick Robinson, the contributor. There were a number of big contradictions with the real operation: the USMC involvement was omitted; the name of the operation was wrong, the number of enemy fighters was exaggerated, the US Intelligence believing in the close links between Ahmad Shah and Osama bin Laden was an outright fabrication...

In the end, it was clear that “Lone Survivor” has been written entirely by Patrick Robinson (a British writer specialized in military fiction titles), based on unrecorded interviews of Marcus Luttrell. Probably, as Robinson never contacted any Marines, he could not have known the full scope of the operation so it was, for him, a Navy special operation targeting one of bin Laden´s top lieutenants.

But there is a point in common related to the fiction and the real mission: "Civilians are not targets!", the most relevant line in the ROE (Rules of Engagement) cards issued to the US Military and the one which cost the lives of so many good men.

This movie put me on the search of more information about this small skirmish in the mountains. It is a very interesting and very well done movie, but too much based in Patrick Robinson´s book, IMHO, so it is not complete nor correct.

This is the book, based in Marcus Luttrell experience in Sawtalo Sar, and it is easy to find in its pages one of the reasons of this disaster: the contempt towards a (theoric) primitive opponent who, in the end, was able to prepare and launch a perfect attack against a team of super-soldiers. 

I like the SEALs´ training chapters in the book more than those of the mission...

This is another book I have read; this time, about the rescue mission. It is incredible to read how difficult it was for the great super-power U.S.A. to rescue these men in that distant mountain, with the Insurgents attacking them right to the end! A lot of gaming ideas for different games!

Of course, I have these figures ready to be painted (first, I need to finish some SASs, and I have also written an scenario for "Skirmish Sangin" based in this small battle, to test the future "Taliban ORBAT" from Radio DishDash.

Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth countries, a day in which they remember and honour the members of their armed forces died in action since the Great War. This day is observed on 11 November because on that date, in 1918, ended the First World War, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

The red poppy is the emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem "In Flanders Fields" and its brilliant red colour is a very appropiate symbol of the blood spilled in that war.

 

I was present at the small Remembrance Day ceremony that took part, on November 2009, in Kabul International Airport, and it was for me a really touching experience. In my own country, the dead in action are respected in an almost private way, by their families or by their military units, because it is cool for our "cultured" castes to see all our wars as dirty affairs, so there is not a Remembrance Day for them.

 

All my respect to you and to them.

The British Indian Army, 1919

Finally, it is time to write about the British Empire forces for this war. It is going to be a short entry, because it is a really complex topic. My idea is to write here an introduction to the British Indian forces and then, in other entries, write about single topics such as the machine guns, the armoured cars, etc.

In meeting the threat of the Third Afghan War, the British could call a really large force. In May 1919, the British Indian Army comprised eight divisions, not including frontier militia, and five independent brigades of infantry and three of cavalry. The North-West Frontier province had three infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades and there were also three frontier brigades and a number of frontier militia and irregular corps.

 

An Infantry division consisted of  three infantry brigades (each with one British and three Indian battalions), one squadron of Indian cavalry, one RFA field artillery brigade (two batteries of 18-pdrs. and one battery of 4.5-inch howitzers) and an Indian mountain brigade with two batteries of 2.75-inch mountain guns. Finally, there were two companies of machine guns with 16 guns each and the usual service units.

A Cavalry brigade was composed of one RHA battery with 13-pdrs. and one British and two Indian cavalry regiments, one squadron of machine guns (12 guns) and service units.

To these units forming the powerful Field Army for service in the North-West Frontier were added armoured cars and RAF detachments that increased the British firepower and reach.

 

 The main problem for the British was manpower, but it was not really apparent in a first glance. Although many of the pre-war units of the Indian Army were still overseas, being repatriated, or on long delayed leave, there was still the equivalent of the pre-war army available in India. But here laid the problem; the quality of these troops, especially the infantry, was very low. The Indian Army had been heavily commited to the Great War, and had suffered a large number of casualties. With the depots empty, many of the new battalions had been raised in 1917 or 1918 with recruits of a lower standard.

 

Only two cavalry regiments and eight infantry battalions of British troops remained in India from a pre-war establishment of 61 units. They were, of course, true "Old Contemptibles", long service regulars that had maintained a high standard of training and efficiency. There were also units of the Territorial Army, part-time soldiers who had volunteered for overseas service and had been sent in order to release regular units for the fighting in Europe. After four years of mundane and boring garrison duty, away from their homes, most of them were only interested in demobilization and returning to Britain. In fact, many of the British personnel were in the transit camps, awaiting repatriation and demobilization. They were not prepared to fight a hard campaing on the Frontier.

 

In adition to all these disadvantages, both British and Indian units were short of  experienced junior officers and NCOs because the pre-war cadres were greatly diluited due to the high loses and the many new units raised.





Fifth Sikhs in Mardan, 1895



In accordance with the principles laid down by Lord Curzon in 1899, the trans-border tracts of the North-West Frontier were held by irregulars, with the exception of the garrisons of Chitral, the Malakand and Dardoni in the Tochi.

The duty of policing independent tribal territories fell on Militia and Levies, giving employment to the turbulent trans-frontier men. In case of actual hostilities, they would act as outposts behind which the Field Army could concentrate ready to strike.

The Militia was organized in battalions like the regular army, and were commanded by selected officers of the Indian Army. Their uniform was the same as that of the Indian Army, with white metal buttons and shoulder numerals. They were armed with low velocity .303 rifles and bayonets.

Along the line of the Administrative Border there were a number of small posts manned by the Frontier Constabulary, a force of armed civil police who had been raised in 1913. The Constabulary had a quasi-military organization, being formed into battalions under selected civil police officers. They were armed also with .303 rifles.

There were also other minor forces, local levies beyond the border, armed with Martini-Henry, employed by political officers to garrison mud towers and to provide escorts. They had little military value.

Whislt the organization of the fighting forces was carefully arranged, the means of maintaining the army in the field were not adequate to meet the situation. As a result of the drain of resources of India since 1914, stocks of any type had been reduced to the lowest ebb and many of them could not be replaced. Animal transport had been exploited to the uttermost and the reserve of animals left in the country was very low. There was not supply of mules and there was also a shortage of camels due to heavy shipments overseas and to the ravages of surra (disease of vertebrate animals).

 

The Field Army attempted to meet the new situation encountered on the Frontier by the advent of the modern, small-bore, magazine rifle to the hands of the tribesmen. One way, the most obvious, was the deployment of the modern technology developed on the Western Front, as was the Lewis LMG and the hand grenade. The heavy machine gun was a powerful weapon but the climate and topographical conditions on the Frontier made difficult  its use and supply, so it brought into a great prominence the use of the Lewis gun. The grenade, in the form of the hand thrown and the dischraged by rifle, had become the infantry most useful weapon (in fact, the tribesmen used it too after having captured  a significant stock in the early stages of the war). But the hand grenade had a downside since excessive reliance on it tended to diminish reliance on the rifle, a serious error on the Frontier.

There was a surprising omission in the use of the trench mortar that would seem yo have been well suited to tactical requeriments.

The most important development in military technology, and a major factor in frontier warfare by 1919, was the motor transport in the form of the ubiquitous Ford, the armoured car and the aeroplane.

Motorised transport greatly increased the mobility of troops and weapons but its main importance laid in the speeding up and easing of the supply. Armoured cars proved useful in patrolling the lines of communication and in escorting convoys. About the aeroplane, I have written already an entry, but it was another very useful new "toy" for the British.

 

Summing up, the British Indian Army was not ready for another war in such a short space of time, but it was perfectly able to fight and defeat the Afghan forces... if the tribes didn´t take part in the fight. In the end, they were lucky.

 

To finish this entry, here is my last painted figure for this project, Orde Wingate from Warlord Games. I have painted him as a British Officer, perhaps an Intelligence or Political one, because I like a lot the figure (it has been sculpted by Paul Hicks).

The Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition to Afghanistan

"The Postman", Mesopotamia 1919

Some entries ago I talked about the Central Power mission in Afghanistan in 1915-1916. I have found more information about it, and it has resulted to be an incredible adventure. What a fascinating place was Afghanistan in those years!

 

The Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition was a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan sent by the Central Powers in 1915 with the purpose to encourage Afghanistan to declare full independence from the British Empire, enter the Great War on the side of the Central Powers and attack India; none less.

This was a joint operation of Germany and Turkey nominally headed by the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap but lead, really, by the German Army officers Oskar Niedermayer and Werner Otto von Hentig.

To Great Britain, it was a serious threat, and unsuccessfully attempted to intercept the expedition in Persia during the summer of 1915. Britain also waged a covert intelligence and diplomatic offensive in Kabul, including personal interventions by the Viceroy Lord Hardinge and King George V, in order to maintain Afghan neutrality. Fortunately for them, the mission failed in its main task of rallying Afghanistan, then under Amir Habibullah Khan, to the Central Powers war effort, but it was able to influence other major events in the country. The expedition triggered reforms and drove political turmoil that culminated in the assassination of the Amir in 1919 and the Third Afghan War. It also influenced the Kalmyk Project (it will have another entry) of the Bolshevik Russia to propagate socialist revolution in Asia.



The Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition in Kabul, 1916. From left to right: Kazim Bey, Werner Otto von Hentig, Walter Röhr, Mahendra Pratap, Kurt Wagner, Oskar Niedermayer, Günter Voigt and Maulavi Barkatullah

Background.
In response to the war with Russia and Great Britain, and motivated by its alliance with Turkey, Germany accelerated a plan to weaken its enemies by targeting their colonial empires, including Russia in Turkestan and Britain in India, using as its weapon political agitation.

Germany began this plan by nurturing its prewar links with India nationalists, who had used Germany as their base for anti-colonial work against Great Britain. This effort was led by a prominent archaeologist and historian, Max von Oppenheim, who headed the Intelligence Bureau for the East and formed the Berlin Committee, later re-named as the Indian Independence Committee. The Berlin Committee began offering money, arms and military advisors to Indian revolutionaries, hoping to trigger a nationalist rebellion using clandestine shipments of men and arms sent to India. From the late XIX Century, von Oppenhein had mapped Turkey and Persia while working as a secret agent, when Germany began to contemplate efforts to threaten India through Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan.

 

Once at war, Turkey joined Germany in the aim to opposing Entente Powers and their empires in the Muslim world. Enver Pasha had the Sultan proclaim the jihad, with the hope to provoke and aid a vast Muslim revolution, particularly,in India. However, while widely heard, the proclamation did not have the intended effect of mobilizing global Muslim opinion on behalf of Turkey or the Central Powers.

Early in the war, the Amir of Afghanistan had declared neutrality of his country, and he feared that the Sultan´s call to jihad would have a destabilizing influence on his subjects. The moment was very delicate for him, because Britain controlled Afghanistan´s foreign policy and the Amir himself received a monetary subsidy from Britain. On the other hand, the British perceived Afghanistan to be the only state capable of invading India. In fact, a German General Staff memoranda in the last weeks of August 1914 confirmed the previously perceived feasibility of a plan to use the pan-Islamic movement to destabilize the British Empire and begin the Indian revolution, predicting that an invasion by Afghanistan could cause a revolution in India, where revolutionary unrest had increased with the outbreak of war.

 

The First Expedition.
When the pan-Islamic movement in India made plans for an insurrection in the North-West Frontier Province, with support from Afghanistan and the Central Powers, proposing that the Afghan Amir declared war against Britain, Enver Pasha conceived quickly an expedition to Afghanistan in 1914 as a pan-Islamic venture directed by Turkey, with some German participation. An escort of nearly a thousand Turkish troops and German advisers would to accompany the delegation through Persia into Afghanistan, where they hoped to raise local tribes to jihad.

All of this was a curious fiasco. The German participants attempted to reach Turkey by travelling through Austria-Hungary in the guise of a travelling circus, but their equipment, arms and mobile radios were confiscated in the neutral Rumania when there were discovered the wireless aerials sticking out through the packaging of the tent poles… Then, differences between Turkish and German officers, including the reluctance of the Germans to accept Turkish control and wear Turkish Army uniforms, further compromised the effort and, eventually, the expedition was aborted.

 

The Second Expedition.
In 1915, a second expedition was organized, mainly through the German Foreign Office and the Berlin Committee, and the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap was named its leader. He was head of the Indian princely states of Mursan and Hathras and in 1912 had contributed substantial funds to Gandhi´s South African movement. Pratap left India at the beginning of the war and was convinced by the Berlin Committee to lend his support to the Indian nationalist cause. In a private audience with the Kaiser, Pratap agreed to nominally head the expedition, chosing six Hindu Afridi and Pathan volunteers from the prisioners of war camp at Zossen as his personal retinue.

Prominent among the German members of the delegation were Niedermayer and von Hentig. Von Hentig was a Prussian military officer fluent in Persian, former secretary of the German legation to Tehran in 1913, that was serving on the Eastern Front as a lieutenant with the Prussian 3^rd Cuirassiers. Niedermayer had served in Constantinople before the war and also spoke fluent Persian and other regional languages. He was a Bavarian artillery officer that had returned to Persia to await further orders after the first expedition was aborted. He was tasked with the military aspects of this new expedition as it travelled through the dangerous Persian desert between British and Russian areas of influence.

So, the titular head of the expedition was Mahendra Pratap, while von Hentig was the Kaiser´s representative, responsible for the German diplomatic effort to the Emir. To fund the mission, 100,000 pounds sterling in gold was deposited in the Deutsche Bank in Constantinople and the expedition was also provided with gold and other gifts for the Emir, including jeweled watches, gold fountain pens, ornamental rifles, binoculars, cameras, cinema projectors and an alarm clock.

Reaching Constantinople on 17 April 1915, Pratap and von Hentig met with Enver Pasha and enjoyed an audience with the Sultan, adding a Turkish officer, Kasim Bey, as the Turkish representative.

 

The group, numbering around twenty people, left Constantinople in early May 1915 and crossed the Bosphorus, travelling over the Taurus Mountains on horseback and using the same route taken by Alexander the Great. The group crossed the Euphrates at high flood and reached, finally, Baghdad towards the end of May.

 

On 1 June the party left Baghdad to make their way towards the Persian border. Persia at the time was divided into British and Russian spheres of influence, with a neutral zone in between in which Germany exercised influence through their consulate in Isfahan. The local populace and clergy, opposed to Russian and British colonial designs on Persia, offered support to the mission but details of its progress were being keenly sought by British intelligence, and British and Russian columns close to the border with Afghanistan, including the Seistan Force, were looking for the expedition, so it would have to outwit and outrun its pursuers over thousands of miles in the Persian desert, while evading brigands and ambushes.

 

Mahendra Pratap and Kazim Bey, disguised, in Mesopotamia, 1915

With camels and water bags purchased, the different parties of the expedition left Isfahan separately on 3 July 1915 for the travel through the desert, expecting to rendezvous at Tebber, halfway to the Afghan border. The group of von Hentig crossed the Persian desert in forty nights (really appropiate!) and reached Tebbes on 23 July, soon followed by Niedermayer´s party which now included the explorer Wilhelm Paschen and six Austrian-Hungarian soldiers who had escaped from a Russian POW´s camp in Turkestan.

Still 200 miles from the Afghan border, the expedition now had to treat with the British patrols of the East Persia Cordon (Seistan Force) and also with Russian patrols. Niedermayer sent two patrols to draw away the Russian and British troops and a third one, of thirty armed Persians led by a German officer, to scout the route. Menavhile, the main body headed through Chehar Deh for the region of Birjand, close to the Afghan frontier.

Seistan Force´s patrol near Gusht in 1916

The first patrol was destroyed by the Russian, but Nierdermayer was able to proceed towards Birjand, in forced marches, fighting all the way with the opium adiction of the Persian camel drivers. With a Russian consulate in Birjand, Niedermayer decided to bypass the town by the harsh northern route. By the second week of August, the expedition was close to the Birjand-Meshed road, eighty miles from Afghanistan, at last.

Map of the Sistan border with Afghanistan, by Colonel Reginald Dyer, commander of the Force

Finally, on 19 August 1915, the expedition reached the Afghan frontier with approximately fifty men, less than half the original number who had set out from Isfahan seven weeks earlier. Only 70 of the 170 horses and pack animals survived and many of the bulkier and heavier gifts of the Kaiser to the Emir had been buried in the desert for later retrieval.

Herat Citadel

In Afghanistan, the group found fresh water in an irrigation channel (teeming with leeches) that saved them from dying of thirst. Two days later, they reached the vicinity of Herat, where they made contact with Afghan authorities. Von Hentig sent Barkatullah, an Islamis scholar, to advise the governor that they had arrived with a Kaiser´s message and gifts for the Amir. The governor sent a grand welcome with noblemen, servants and an escort, inviting the expedition into the city as guests of the Afghan government, on 24 August. In an official meeting with the governor, von Hentig showed him the Turkish Sultan´s proclamation of jihad and the Kaiser´s promise to recognise Afghan sovereignty and German assistance. The Kaiser also promised to grant territory to Afghanistan as far north as Samarkand, in Russian Turkestan, and as far into India as Bombay.

The governor promised to arrange for the 400 miles trip east to Kabul, in two weeks, time that the expedition used to make themselves presentable for the meeting with the Amir. On 7 September, the group left Herat for Kabul via the harsher northern route through Hazarajat. Finally, on 2 October 1915, the expedition reached Kabul and was received with a salaam from the local Turkish community and a guard of honour from Afghan troops "in Turkish uniform".

At Kabul, the group was accommodated as state guests at the Amir´s palace at Bagh-e Babur, where it was soon clear for all of them that they were all but confined, with armed guards around the palace and armed guides on their journeys. For three weeks, Amir Habibullah responded with only polite replies to request for an audience. He was an astute politician, and was not in a hurry to receive his guests. Only after a threaten of a hunger strike for the part of von Hentig and Niedermayer, began the meetings.

Habibullah was an eccentric lord of Afghanistan, owned of the only newspaper, the only drug store and all the automobiles in the country (all Rolls Royces, of course). His brother, Prime Minister Nasrullah Khan, was, on the other hand, a man of religious convictions. Unlike the Amir, he fluently spoke Pashto (the local language), dressed in traditional Afghan robes and interacted closely with the border tribes. While the Amir favoured British India, Nasrullah Khan was more pro-German, and his views were shared by his nephew, Amanullah Khan, the youngest and most charismatic of the Amir´s sons. The mission, therefore, expected more sympathy and consideration from Nasrullah and Amanullah than from the Amir...

Habibullah Khan

On 26 October 1915, the Amir finally granted an audience at his palace at Paghman. The meeting lasted the entire day and began with Habibullah expressing surprise that a task as important as the expedition was entrusted to such young men, regarded by him as mechants. Von Hentig had to convince him that the mission did not considered themselves merchants, but emissaries from the Kaiser, the Ottoman Sultan and India whising to recognise Afghanistan´s complete independence and sovereignty. Passing along the Kaiser´s invitation to join the war on the side of the Central Powers, von Hentig described a favourable war situation and invited the Amir to declare independence. Then, Kasim Bey explained the Ottoman Sultan´s declaration of jihad and Barkatullah invited Habibullah to declare war against the British Empire and to come to the aid of India´s Muslims, proposing than the Amir should allow Turco-German forces to cross Afghanistan for a campaing towards the Indian frontier. He and Mahendra Pratap, both eloquent speakers, pointed out the rich territorial gains the Amir stood to adquire by joining the Central Powers.

The Amir´s reply was really shrewd but frank. He noted Afghanistan´s vulnerable position between Russian and Britain, and the difficulties of any Turco-German assistance, given the presence of the Anglo-Russian East Persian Cordon. He was also financially vulnerable, dependent on British subsides and institutions for his fortune and the welfare of his kingdom and army (very important, this point). Merely tasked to entreat the Amir to join a holy war, the mission did not have the authority to promise anything, so they could not answer his questions about strategic assistance, arms and funds.

 

This conference was followed by an eight-hour meeting in October 1915 at Paghman, and other audiences at Kabul, but all of them had the same message. These meetings tipically began with Habibullah describing his daily routine, followed by words from von Hentig on politic and history. Next came discussions about Afghanistan´s position on the propositions of allowing Central Powers troops the right of passage, the breaking with Britain and the declaration of independence. The Amir sought concrete proofs that the Turco-German assurances of military and financial assistance were feasible in such a way that Walter Röhr later wrote to the Prince Henry of Reuss in Tehran that a thousand Turkish troops headed by himself (of course) should be able to draw Afghanistan into the war.

 

Meanwhile, the mission found a more sympathetic and ready audience in the Amir´s brother, Nasrullah Khan and the Amir´s younger son, Amanullah Khan. In secret meetings, this party encouraged the mission, giving them reasons to feel confident. Rumour of these meetings reached Habibullah, passed on by the British and Russian intelligence. These rumours suggested that, to draw Afghanistan into the war, von Hentig was prepared to organize "internal revulsions" if necessary. Habibullah found these reports concerning, and discouraged expedition members from meeting with his sons except in his presence. In fact, all of Afghanistan´s immediate preceding rulers save Habibullah´s father had died of  "unnatural" causes, so he was justifiable fearing for his safety and his kingdom.

Nasrullah Khan

During the months that the expedition remained in Kabul, Habibullah fended off pressure to commit to the Central Powers war effort, waiting for the outcome of the war to be predictable, announcing to the mission his sympathy for the Central Powers and asserting his willingness to lead an army into India... with Turco-German troops in it. Meanvhile, the members of the expedition were allowed to freely venture into Kabul, a liberty that they used to put on a successful "hearts and minds" campaing spending freely on local goods and paying cash. Two dozen of Austrian prisoners of war who had escaped from Russian camps were recruited by Niedermayer to construct an hospital and Kasim Bey met with the local Turkish community, spreading Enver Pasha´s message of unity and Pan-Turanian jihad.
Habidullah also tolerated the increased ant-British and pro-Central tone taken by his newspaper, Siraj al Akhbar, whose editor was his father-in-law, Mahmud Tarzi. Tarzi published a number of very incendiary articles by Mahendra Pratap that, in May 1916, were considered serious enough for the Raj to intercept the copies intended for India.

Four of the Pathan volunteers with Walter Röhr in Landespolizei uniform near Kabul, 1915

Political events, including the foundation of the Provisional Government of India,  and their own progress allowed the mission, during December 1915, to celebrate at Kabul on Christmas Day with wine and cognac left behind by the Durand mission forty years previously.
Mahendra Pratap was procalimed president and Barkatullah Prime Minister of this Provisional Government and support was obtained from Galib Pasha for proclaiming jihad against Britain. After the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, Pratap´s government began to correspondent with the nascent Bolshevik government in an attempt to gain their support.

In the same month of December, the Amir told von Hentig that he was ready to discuss a treatry of Afghan-German friendship. On 25 December 1915, a final draft of ten articles was presented, including clauses recognising Afghan independence, a declaration of friendship with Germany and the establisment of diplomatic relations. The treatry would also guarantee German assistance against Russia and Britain if Afghanistan joined the war on the Central side. The Amir´s army was to be modernised with 100,000 modern rifles, 300 artillery pieces and other warfare equipment provided by Germany. The German must maintain advisors and engineers, and an overland supply route through Persia for arms and ammunition. Finally, the Amir would be paid 1,000,000 sterling pounds.
Von Hentig and Niedermayer signed this document, considered by them as an initial basis to prepare for an Afghan invasion of India. Niedermayer was so confident that asked for 20,000 German troops to protect the Russian-Afghan frontier and informed the general staff to expect the campaing to begin in April.

It was great news for the Central Powers, but, in the end, Habibullah returned quickly to his vacillating (and cunning) inactivity. He know the mission had found support whiting his council and had excited his volatile subjects so, four days after the signing of the draft treatry, Habibullah called for a durbar. Instead of calling a jihad, he reaffirmed his neutrality arguing that the war´s outcome was still umpredictable. Throughout the spring of 1916, he continuosly deflected the mission´s overtures and increased the stakes, demanding that India rise in revolution prior of his own campaing.
Habibullah had received, in the meantime, British intelligence reports that said he was in danger of being assassinated but, at the same monet, his tribesmen were unhappy at Habibullah´s perceived subservience to the British and his council and relatives openly suspected his inactivity.

In that delicate moment, the war took a turn for the worse for the Central Powers that save Habibullah´s position. The Arab revolt ended the hope to send a Turkish division to Afghanistan and the German influence in Persia declined rapidly, ending the hopes that Goltz Pasha could lead a Persian volunteer division into Afghanistan. Finally, the mission came to realise that the Amir deeply mistrusted them. A last offer was made by Nasrullah in May 1916 to remove Habibullah from power and lead the frontier tribes against the British, but von Hentig knew it would come to nothing, and the German decided to left Kabul on 21 May 1916.

They knew that once they were out of the Amir´s lands, the Anglo-Russian forces and the marauding tribes of Persia would chase them mercilessly so the party split in several groups to make their way back to Germany.
Having served previously in Pekin, von Hentig escaped over the Hindu Kush and made his way on foot and horseback through Chinese Turkestan over the Gobi Desert and through China and Shangai. Via the USA, he finally reached Berlin on 9 June 1917.
Niedermayer escaped towards Persia through Russian Turkestan. Robbed and left for dead, he finally reached friendly lines, arriving in Tehran on 20 July 1916.
Mahendra Pratap attempted to seek an alliance with Tzar Nicolas II from February 1916 without  result, but was able to correspond more closely with Lenin´s Bolshevilk government. In 1918, he suggested to Trosky a joint German-Russian invasion of the Indian frontiers, recommending a similar and only Bolshevik plan to Lenin in 1919.

Epilogue.
This curious and adventurer expedition really disturbed Russian and British influence in Central Asia, but it was, probably, some years premature in its political objectives, taking in account Habibullah mind. On the other hand, the expedition planted the seeds of sovereignty and reforms in Afghanistan. Habibullah´s neutrality alienated a substantial proportion of his family members and council advisors, and fed discontent among his subjects. He was finally assassinated while on a hunting trip in 1919, two weeks after his demands of complete sovereignty and independence were rebuffed by the Viceroy. The Afghan crow passed first to Nasrullah Khan and then to Amanullah Khan, the most intelligent of his sons. Both of them had been staunch supported of the expedition.

The Third Afghan War was precipitated by all these events and, after a number of brief skirmishes, it was signed the Anglo-Afghan Treatry of 1919, in which Britain, finally, recognised Afghan independence. Amanullah proclaimed himself King and Germany was one of the first countries to recognise the independence of his government.

Throughout the next decade, Amanullah Khan instituted a number of social and constitutional reforms which had first been advocated by that extraordinary group of adventurers, the Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition.



The British Renault FT17? (Revised and Corrected)

This picture has interested me a lot since the first time I saw it in an old book:

Literally: "The first tank ever knocked out by Afghans - in 1919! This Renault FT17 was used by the British Tank Corps in the Third Anglo-Afghan War and was outside the fortress of Spin Baldak, held by Kabul regime forces until 1988".

Interesting, really interesting...

There are a lot of remnants of many countries that lay, ruined, in the Afghan landscape, on the side of the roads or "decorating" various junkyards, as this picture from the KMTC in Kabul shows (and it is only a very, very, very small portion of that junkyard):

And this one:

Very dangerous, but also a treasure of military history.

Well, about the history of this tank:
During operations in Afghanistan in 2003, Major Robert Redding, an US Special Forces serviceman, found the rusted remnants of two WWI era Renault FT17, tattered and disassembled, while visiting an Afghan scrap yard in Kabul. Redding sent digital images of the tanks to the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor in Fort Knox, Ky, asking if the Museum would be interested in acquiring them. That was Friday, and by Monday he had seven enthusiastic responses.

The Museum was very interested in bring the tanks back to the States because, in that moment, their previously owned FT17 tank had been sent back to France at the request of the French Government because it was a very rare tank and France was really interested in getting and keeping intact equipment (in fact, France was more interested in finding an engine, because they had already a body of a FT17).

This model of tank has also a great interest for the United States Army because it was the model used by the US forces in the Great War. In fact, George Patton, then a captain serving under General John Pershing, was one of the first to learn how to operate this tank.

There were made about 5,000 FT17, the first one to have a full traverse, 360º rotating turret. It was a light vehicle with a weight of 6,700 kgs, but not fast. It had a two men crew, a driver in the front center of the vehicle and a commander in the small turret. Today, there are probably no more than six or seven of them in existence, like this one owned by Spain, a veteran of the Marruecos Campaings and the Spanish Civil War:

Fort Knox personnel arrived in Kabul in May 2003 to examine the tanks, which were in a relative good shape because of the Afghan dry climate, but they were dirty and missing armament and other components. On the other hand, both tanks still had their original engines, complete tracks and most of their parts. With the tanks found, they had to be sent to the States and the first step was getting permission from Afghanistan, the owner of the vehicles, so Redding went to Afghanistan´s Deputy Minister of Defence, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, also commander of Northern Afghanistan. Fortunately, he was more than willing to concede permission, as a gift for what the United States had done for his country. He allowed one of the tanks to be taken out of Afghanistan, to the Patton Museum.

With the help of French Major Thierry Delbarre (at right in this picture), the project manager and historians from the 326th Military History Detachment, a reserve unit from Columbus, Ohio, such as Major Charles Boyd (at left in the picture), the best tank was chosen.

A curious history, but were there British tanks?

The idea that it was captured to the British during the Third Afghan War is a pure fantasy; the British Army didn´t have FT17 in its inventory and, certainly, not in India! The curator at Fort Knox that restored the vehicle believed that the Afghan Renaults (there were at least four of them prior 2003) were examples bought by Poland and captured by the Soviet Union during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919. They were then presented to Afghanistan when this country became the first state to officially recognise the Soviet Union under the Afghan-Soviet Treaty of 1921.

Another FT17 tank, this one displayed in Kabul. This could be another one of the Polish tanks captured by the Soviets and re-equipped with a Hotchkiss 37mm naval gun or, perhaps, one of the White Russian Renaults built between 1920-1921 (and also captured by the Reds).

And another one:

This was found in the backyard of the Afghan Ministery of Defence and the Polish diplomatics were so interested in it thatit  was finally gave to them as a gift and sent to Poland to be restored and put on exposition.

Finally, I have been able to learn that there were four Renault FT17 given as a gift by the Soviet Union to Afghanistan in 1923. They had been captured in the Battle of Równe, on 5 July 1920... because they had been abandoned by the Polish forces. One of them is now restored in the United Stated, a second one is, also restored, in Poland and a third one is restored and exposed in front of the Ministery of Defense in Kabul.

For me as a Military History enthusiast, it is a great news but for my Third Afghan War project it is not good. I was thinking about to deploy an "Afghan Tank Korps" using a FT17 model in 1/56 scale I have from FAA Models:

Perhaps for a Fourth Afghan War...