to prosecute the campaign in mid-winter, for it is only at that season
that Hunza can be invaded with any hope of success. The tribesmen
have purposely left the approaches to their country as difficult as
possible. The awful gorges of the lower Hunza valley afford position
after position that would be impregnable if properly held. A very
narrow track, trying to the nerves of any but cragsman, was then the
one route by which the valley could be ascended in the summer months;
for at that season the torrent, swollen by the snows melting on the
mountains, rages deep and unfordable, filling the bottom of the ravines
from the precipices on one side to those on the other, so that one
has no choice but to follow the dangerous path high up the hillside,
in places crossing the precipices by frail scaffoldings of wood which
a single man could in a moment dislodge and send tumbling into the
torrent below, leaving impassable walls of rock to face the invader.
But in the winter the difficulties are much lessened. The intense
frost silences all the tributary streams, the Hunza torrent shrinks
considerably in volume, is generally fordable, and it is possible in
most parts of the valley to follow the dried margin of the river bed
instead of scaling the precipices above.
[Illustration:
SKETCH MAP
TO ILLUSTRATE THE
HUNZA NAGAR CAMPAIGN.]
Mr. Spedding and his men quickly opened out a road, just practicable
for a mule battery, to Chalt, the last Kashmir fort in the valley. Here
the field force collected, and all being ready, we crossed the river on
December 1st, and having formed a zereba, encamped for the night in the
enemy’s territory. The tribesmen were known to have gathered in force
ten miles higher up the valley at a point where several large forts
defended a naturally very strong position. It was Colonel Durand’s
intention to make an immediate attack on the most important and the
nearest to us of these forts--that of Nilt.
Accordingly, at daybreak on December 2nd, our force advanced; but it
was not until midday that we reached our destination, for our road
lay across very difficult ground, and at some precipitous places the
enemy had broken away the track, so that the column had to halt while
Spedding’s Pathans with pick, shovel, and gunpowder cleared the way.
The enemy offered no opposition, and, indeed, we saw no signs of them
until we had turned a rocky spur of the mountain side, when we suddenly
beheld, right in front of us and only two hundred yards or so distant,
the grey fortress of Nilt, with the quaint triangular flags of the
Hunzas waving on its walls.
The illustration (on p. 297) will render clear the following
description of the enemy’s position at what the tribesmen have for
centuries considered to be the impregnable gateway of their country. On
the right and left are the great gorges of Nilt and Maiun, which pour
their tributary waters into the Hunza river. At the mouth of the Nilt
gorge stands the fortress of Nilt, while on the cultivated terraces
beyond the two gorges are the large fortresses of Thol and Maiun and
several smaller forts. The two gorges descend from the glaciers and
snowfields of mighty mountains whose peaks attain a height of 25,000
feet. The cliffs that fronted us on the opposite slopes of both gorges
are inaccessible in most parts, and were lined at their summits
from the edge of the glaciers high above down to the river bed with
_sangas_, or stone breastworks, filled with the enemy’s marksmen
ever ready to roll down avalanches of rocks on any foe that should
attempt the scaling. The high cliffs also that fell from the cultivated
terraces on either side forming the river banks were lined with
_sangas_ for several miles up the valley, so that an attempt to
turn this formidable position by an advance up the river bed would be
met by a withering fire on either flank. We were confronted, in short,
by a line of defence which extended from the glaciers on one side to
those on the other, held by some 4,000 determined men.
Our first object was to capture Nilt fort, the only one of the enemy’s
defences which was on our side of the tributary gorges. Our troops
had by no means an easy task before them. As the Hunzas and Nagars,
when not united to raid on foreign soil or to repel an invader, used
frequently to wage war on each other, all their villages are strongly
fortified. Nilt consists of a congregation of stone houses, some of
which are two or three storeys in height, all strongly built, and
having flat roofs of large stones so well put together that our shells
produced no effect on them. These houses are built close together,
and often open out one into another, while a labyrinth of very narrow
alleys intersects this human rabbit-warren. The town is enclosed by
a massive stone wall nearly twenty feet in height and twelve feet in
breadth, loopholed for musketry, with towers at intervals. This wall
is surrounded by another loopholed wall eight feet in height, distant
some six yards from the first wall. This outer wall, where it does not
hang over the precipice, has a deep trench outside it, at the bottom of
which the enemy had placed a strong abatis of branches lashed together,
and, lastly, another abatis lined the outer edge of the trench.
[Illustration: “CAPTAIN AYLMER IGNITED THE FUSE”
(_p._ 294).]
As soon as we turned the spur of the mountain the Hunzas opened fire
upon us from their loopholes. Our troops deployed on to the flat
terrace of irrigated fields and returned the fire. The 5th Gurkhas,
who led the attack, made short rushes, section after section, availing
themselves of the cover afforded by the low walls that divided the
fields, and directed a brisk fire on the loopholes of the fort at 100
yards range. The Punialis and the men of the 20th Punjab Infantry
scaled the steep mountain spur above the fort to the ridge on which we
afterwards had our “ridge picket” (_see_ illustration on p. 297),
and fired down into the centre of the fort. The two seven-pounders
took up a position about 150 yards from the fort, and opened fire upon
it with shrapnel and shot, which appeared to produce no effect on the
strong walls.
The action continued thus for about an hour. The loopholes of the
fort offered but small targets to our riflemen, and the losses of
the enemy must have been slight. On the other hand, our own men
began to drop pretty fast, and it was soon obvious that the enemy’s
marksmen were picking off the British officers, most of whom had narrow
escapes. Colonel Durand himself was severely wounded in the groin, and
the command devolved on Captain Bradshaw, 35th Bengal Infantry. The
loopholes of Nilt were luckily but few in number, or our losses would
have been very severe.
Just before he was wounded Colonel Durand ordered that an attempt
should be made to blow up the main gate of the fort, and take the place
by assault. The story of how this was carried out should be one to stir
the blood of Englishmen, for few so gallant deeds have been recorded
even in the glorious annals of our Indian warfare. Under cover of a
very heavy fire opened upon the loopholes of the fort by the rest of
the force the storming party of one hundred men of the 5th Gurkhas,
led by Lieutenants Boisragon and Badcock, and accompanied by Captain
Aylmer (on whom, as our engineer officer, fell the duty of blowing up
the gate), made a rush on the outer abatis. Through this the kukris
of the Gurkhas quickly clove a narrow opening, and then the three
officers, followed by their men, leapt into the trench and began to cut
their way through the other abatis at the bottom. The officers, with
some half-a-dozen men at their heels, scrambled through first, climbed
the side of the trench, and found themselves before the outer wall.
They ran along it till they came to a small gate, through which they
had little difficulty in hacking their way. Passing through this they
found themselves between the two walls, and exposed to the fire from
the lower loopholes of the main wall, which could not be silenced by
the covering party. Turning to the right they followed the main wall
till they came to a large and strongly-built wooden gate flanked by
two towers. To cut through this gate, which had been barricaded within
with a wall of stones, was impossible, so Captain Aylmer, accompanied
by his Pathan orderly and a Gurkha sepoy, ran up to the foot of the
gate, and as rapidly as possible made his preparations to blow it up,
the enemy all the while firing at him through the loopholes of the
towers and gate, and throwing large stones over the parapets upon
him. His companions protected him as far as they could by firing into
the loopholes at the range of a few feet, the officers using their
revolvers. That a single man of this gallant handful escaped death is
indeed marvellous.
Captain Aylmer, stooping down, removed some stones from under the foot
of the gate, inserted his slabs of guncotton, packed them with stones,
and ignited the fuse. While he was doing this he was shot through the
leg from a loophole so near to him that his clothes and flesh were
burnt; and of the two men who were in the gateway with him the Gurkha
was shot dead, and the Pathan orderly was severely wounded in the head.
Captain Aylmer and the orderly then crawled along the foot of the wall
to a safe distance, and awaited the explosion. The given time elapsed,
and there was no sound. It was obvious that the fuse had failed. So
Captain Aylmer, wounded as he was, once more returned to an almost
certain death, in order to complete his task. He cut the fuse with his
knife, readjusted it, lit a match after several attempts, for the wind
was strong, reignited the fuse, and again withdrew to safe shelter.
This time while at work in the gateway he received a second wound. His
hand and arm were very badly crushed by a large stone that was thrown
at him over the walls.
This time, happily, the fuse did its work. There was a loud explosion;
the stones came toppling down from the shaking walls, and it was
seen that the gate and the barricade had been blown in. Then, even
before the cloud of smoke and dust had cleared, the three British
officers--for Captain Aylmer was ready for the fight, indomitable
as ever, though streaming with blood from his wounds--and the five
surviving sepoys rushed through the breach, and were within the fort.
Here they at once engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand fight with the
bravest of the enemy who flocked down the alleys leading to the gate.
This handful of men, standing close together in this narrow place,
resolutely held the position they had gained against the whole Hunza
garrison. They gave a very good account of themselves, and killed a
number of the enemy with bullet and cold steel: Lieutenant Badcock,
with his revolver, shot the commander himself, Mahomet Shah, Wazir of
Nagar. But the odds against them were too overwhelming: two more of the
sepoys were soon killed, and nearly all were wounded. Captain Aylmer
was now wounded for yet a third time, being shot through the arm with a
jezail, while Lieutenant Badcock was severely wounded in the shoulder.
It was evident that not one of the little party at the gateway would be
left alive unless support came up quickly. They had thus been fighting
for about a quarter of an hour, when Lieutenant Boisragon volunteered
to go out and find his men, thus exposing himself both to the fire of
the enemy and that of the covering party. He got through safely, and
was very soon back in the fort at the head of a number of Gurkhas,
eager to avenge their fallen comrades. They fought, as is their wont,
like little demons with their deadly kukris. The tribesmen defended
themselves with desperate valour, but they could not long withstand the
fierce attack of the Gurkhas, who at last drove them back with great
loss, and hunted them panic-stricken through the labyrinth of alleys
into the surrounding gorges.
That the Gurkhas had not more quickly followed their officers and six
comrades to the gateway was not due to any unreadiness on their part,
for Gurkhas are never backward in a fight. It seems that after they had
cut through the abatis and crossed the trench they were unable to see
which way their officers had gone before them, and turning to the left,
instead of to the right, had missed the gateway, and had been checked
by a great abatis which extended from the wall to the brink of the
precipice.
The storming of Nilt only cost our force six men killed and
twenty-seven wounded. The enemy left about a hundred dead behind them
in the alleys of the fort, and many were shot down while escaping
to their defences beyond the gorge. Captain Aylmer and Lieutenant
Boisragon were both decorated with the Victoria Cross in recognition
of their gallantry on this day, and Lieutenant Badcock, who was also
recommended for a V.C., received the Distinguished Service Order.
Thus fell Nilt Fort; but its capture was only the first step towards
the subjugation of the Hunza-Nagars. The real strength of their
position lay before us, and the enemy, not in the least disheartened
by their defeat, prepared to make a resolute stand along their line of
defence beyond the two gorges. They omitted no precaution: not only did
they break away all the roads across the ravines, but, taking advantage
of the hard frost, they turned the irrigation canals over the river
cliffs where they were assailable, and so formed smooth ramparts of ice
to oppose us.
For eighteen days we vainly endeavoured to turn this formidable
position. On December 3rd an attempt was made to repair the road and
push across the Nilt gorge; but no sooner did our men appear in the
open than they were driven back by a volley from the _sangas_
opposite, which killed three men and wounded six others, among the
latter being Lieutenant Gorton. We now had five of our officers
_hors de combat_, and in all forty men killed or wounded. Several
reconnaissances were made by day and by night, to find out a weak spot
in the enemy’s line of defence. Once a party explored the river bed
for some distance, and found that it was obstructed by barricades that
ran across the beach: a heavy fire from either bank compelled this
patrol to beat a hasty retreat. It was quite evident that an attempt
to advance that way would mean the annihilation of our force. On the
night of December 8th another futile endeavour was made to force the
mouth of the Nilt gorge. On one dark night a small party that had
crossed the river to surprise Maiun was discovered and repulsed.
We even attempted to find a way across the glaciers at the head of
the gorge, but were frustrated by impassable crevasses. Whenever a
night surprise was attempted at some point of the cliff that appeared
accessible the ever-watchful enemy would roll down their avalanches of
rocks and also great fire-balls of resinous wood, whose blaze disclosed
the whereabouts of our men, and enabled the defenders above to open a
deadly musketry fire.
Day after day our men were engaged in these perilous but fruitless
efforts to force a way past these rocky bulwarks of the enemy. Still we
were held in check, and our position became one of considerable peril.
The Hunzas, emboldened by the success of their resistance, threatened
our line of communication with Gilgit, and the Shinaka tribes also were
mobilising with the intention of falling upon us from below. Had they
done so our small force would have probably been caught in a trap and
cut to pieces, even as was the fate of a far larger force of Kashmir
troops some years before in this very valley. Shut out, as we were,
from all hope of succour for several months by the wintry Himalayas,
but one course lay before our commander--at all risks to force the
enemy’s position before their Shinaka allies could come to their
assistance.
To Nagdu, a gallant Dogra sepoy of one of the Kashmir Imperial Service
regiments, the credit is due for having discovered what was possibly
the only practicable method of effecting our object. This man, like
all his race, a good cragsman, volunteered to explore the precipices
on the further side of the Nilt gorge, with a view of finding a point
at which they could be scaled by our troops. Night after night he
did this at great risk, for the enemy, perceiving him, used to roll
down rocks and fire upon him from above. At last on one dark night
he actually succeeded in climbing quite alone from the bottom of the
gorge to the top of the cliff, undetected by the enemy, and reached the
foot of the four strong _sangas_ indicated in the illustration.
The enemy evidently considered this to be a vulnerable point, for we
had observed that they used to roll down their rock avalanches from
these _sangas_ at intervals each night, until at last a regular
chute was worn apparently as a light streak against the darker cliff.
Nagdu climbed down again in safety, returned to camp, and propounded
his scheme. Nagdu, of his own native wit, realised a truth the
ignorance of which has on more than one occasion brought commanders to
grief--namely, that an almost perpendicular cliff is but a treacherous
position under certain circumstances, and proves a deathtrap to those
who would defend its summit. Nagdu pointed out that the cliff was so
steep that the enemy would have to come out of their _sangas_
and lean over the edge of the precipice in order to fire at a scaling
party, and this, he said, we ought to be able to prevent them from
doing with a covering party of picked marksmen posted on our side of
the gorge.
[Illustration: “HE ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED IN CLIMBING QUITE
ALONE.”]
Nagdu’s plan was so obviously the right one that it was adopted, and
it was decided to storm the enemy’s position at this point in broad
daylight. Captain Colin Mackenzie, of the Seaforth Highlanders, who
was in command during Captain Bradshaw’s temporary absence at Gilgit,
despatched this forlorn hope without any delay. The 5th Gurkhas had
borne the brunt of the first action; it was now the turn of the
Imperial Service troops. Accordingly, Lieutenant Manners-Smith and
Lieutenant Taylor, with 100 men of the Kashmir Bodyguard Regiment,
left the camp noiselessly on the night of December 19th, which was
very dark, and bivouacked in the Nilt gorge at a spot sheltered from
rock-rolling, and just below the precipice that Nagdu had scaled. That
night in camp we listened anxiously for any sound, for had the enemy
detected the party as it ascended the gorge the rock avalanches would
have wrought great havoc at several exposed places on the way. But we
had luckily at last caught the tribesmen off their guard, and all was
quiet.
Before dawn on the 20th the covering party, consisting of 135 marksmen
selected from the different regiments, ascended the ridge and took up
a position near the block house indicated in the illustration. Our men
lined the edge of the cliff, having been divided into four parties,
each of which was instructed to open a steady independent fire upon
one particular _sanga_ of the four that were to be stormed. I was
in command of one of these parties, and was therefore a spectator of
what I am about to describe. The enemy opened fire upon us from the
four _sangas_ (which were about 450 yards from our ridge) and
from other _sangas_ that dotted the hillside. It was not long
before the four _sangas_ were completely silenced by the fire we
directed upon them: not a defender dared stand behind a loophole. Then
Lieutenant Manners-Smith commenced the difficult ascent, followed by
fifty of the sepoys, Lieutenant Taylor coming after with the other
fifty. We saw the men, forming a long scattered stream, slowly and with
difficulty scale the 1,200 feet of precipice, often coming to a check
and having to return some distance to try again at some more accessible
point. Only cragsmen, such as these were, could have climbed this
frightful wall of rock.
At last, when they were two-thirds of the way up, Lieutenant
Manners-Smith came to a sheer precipice no man could scale: he tried
to the right and left of it, but could find no way of getting by, and
then, to our dismay, abandoned the hopeless attempt, and took all his
men down again to the foot of the gorge. But Manners-Smith, himself an
expert cragsman, was determined to scale the cliffs somewhere that day
and to try conclusions with the enemy at close quarters. So he started
again at a point higher up the gorge, and this time, as we fired over
his head, we saw him and a few of the most active of his followers
attain a ledge only sixty yards below one of the four _sangas_.
Here he waited a few seconds until more of his men had come up, and
then he rapidly clambered to the edge of the cliff.
[Illustration: NILT FORTS, FROM THE SOUTH.]
It was only at this moment, when the storming party had all but
effected its task, that it became visible to the defenders of Maiun and
of the other forts below, who, hearing the unwonted heavy firing, had
come out upon the roof-tops and were gazing upwards at the ridge. They
shouted a warning across the river, which was taken up by _sanga_
after _sanga_ on the cliff side, till it reached the men in the
four _sangas_ that were the object of our attack, who for the
first time realised that a party of men were scaling the cliff beneath
them. They then, but too late, made a desperate attempt to defend
their position. They threw rocks over the parapets, and some brave
Hunzas rushed boldly out of the _sangas_ and rolled down the
ready-piled-up mounds of stone, whose falling stirred great showers
of rocks, ever increasing in volume as they thundered down the gorge.
From our side we shot down each man as he appeared in the open, in most
cases before he had time to roll down a single stone. Luckily, our men
had by this time passed the most dangerous part of the ascent, and the
greater portion of the stones rushed harmlessly to the left of them.
Some men, however, were wounded, and Lieutenant Taylor was knocked
down, but not severely injured, by a rock. Had the enemy received
their warning but a few minutes earlier, the cataracts of rock would
probably have swept a large proportion of the scaling party off the
face of the cliff.
And now the order was given to the covering party to cease firing, and,
as the smoke cleared, we saw Lieutenant Manners-Smith and a few men
reach the foot of the _sanga_ to the right. They ran quickly round
to the opening at the back of the _sanga_, a few shots were fired
by the attacking party and the defenders, and then the former, rushing
in, took the _sanga_ at the point of the bayonet, slaying most
of those within. The rest of the sepoys now came up, and, despite the
gallant stand of many of the enemy, _sanga_ after _sanga_ was
taken by assault, and the whole hillside was covered with the flying
tribesmen hurrying to the forts below. Upwards of 100 of them were shot
down by our riflemen, but the greater portion escaped. This gallant
forlorn hope had been rewarded with complete success, and the Kashmir
Imperial Service troops had proved on this their first trial how well
they could acquit themselves when properly led.
And now the defenders of Maiun, Thol, and all the fortifications
on the plain below, seeing that their position--which they had
deemed impregnable, and which from time immemorial had defied their
enemies--had been actually turned, and knowing that we should cut off
their retreat unless they escaped at once, lost heart, and, abandoning
their posts, took to their heels. We saw the tribesmen in their
hundreds fleeing up the valley for their lives on both sides of the
river. They were not given time to recover from their panic and to
organise a stand higher up. Our covering party was at once brought down
the hill, our sappers quickly opened a rough track across the mouth
of the gorge; we effected a junction with Lieutenant Manners-Smith’s
party; and then, leaving baggage and commissariat behind, our whole
force pushed up the valley in pursuit of the routed enemy. A forced
march of thirty miles over the most difficult ground, along the face
of precipices, across frozen torrents, glaciers, and wastes of rocky
_débris_, brought us to the capital of Nagar in about twenty-four
hours--a most creditable performance. The enemy offered no further
resistance, and on the following day we occupied the thums’ hitherto
inviolate citadel in the capital of Hunza.