A 22-year-old second lieutenant named Winston Churchill was looking for a war. He found one in the summer of 1897, in a mountain pass on the North-West Frontier of British India, where roughly 10,000 Pashtun tribesmen had surrounded a garrison of British and Indian soldiers at Malakand. Churchill had come as a war correspondent, filing dispatches for The Daily Telegraph at five pounds per column. He could not have known that the eight days between July 26 and August 2 would furnish the material for his first book, launch his literary career, and send him hurtling toward a political life that would reshape the twentieth century.
The roots of the siege ran deeper than any single grievance. In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Britain and Russia were locked in what Arthur Conolly had named "The Great Game," a contest for influence across Central Asia. The British, terrified that Russia would use Afghanistan as a springboard to threaten India, had already fought two Anglo-Afghan wars and failed to install a lasting puppet regime. Their answer was the Durand Line, a 1,640-mile border drawn in 1893 between Afghanistan and British India. It was named for Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of British India, and agreed to by the Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman Khan. What it actually did was slice through the middle of Pashtun tribal lands, splitting communities, families, and centuries-old allegiances. The Pashtun tribes -- Yusufzai, Mohmand, Uthmankhel, Bunerwal, Swati, and others -- did not recognize a line they had no part in drawing.
Resentment found its voice in Saidullah, a Pashtun faqir whose call to arms swept through the valleys of what is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The British knew him by their own mocking names -- "The Great Fakir," the "Mad Fakir," the "Mad Mullah" -- but there was nothing mad about his ability to mobilize. By late July 1897, rumors that Saidullah intended to "sweep away" the British and ignite a jihad were circulating in the bazaars around Malakand. British officers distributed warnings on July 23, but expected nothing more than a minor skirmish. They were wrong by an order of magnitude. Saidullah had assembled an army of at least 10,000 tribesmen, warriors who knew the terrain down to every goat trail and gorge, and who had every reason to fight for land that had been theirs long before any European empire drew borders across it.
The attack began after 10:00 pm on July 26. Musket fire erupted against the southern camp, and Major McRae led roughly twenty men into the darkness to meet it. They reached a sharp turn in the road flanked by gorges and opened fire, but the Pashtun force was immense. Major Taylor was killed almost immediately; McRae took a wound to the neck. By 2:00 am, reinforcements under Lieutenant Barff had pushed the attackers back, but the pattern was set: each night would bring fresh assaults, each morning a grim count of the dead.
On July 27, the northern camp was evacuated and its defenders folded into Malakand South. That evening, Pashtun fighters struck every British position simultaneously. Subadar Syed Ahmed Shah and his sepoys of the 31st Punjab Infantry defended the bazaar for hours before the Pashtuns broke through the walls and killed the defenders. The survivors received the Indian Order of Merit. On July 29, the garrison managed to signal by heliograph: "Heavy fighting all night. Expect more tonight. What ammunition are you bringing? When may we expect you?"
Relief came in stages, each one harrowing. The 35th Sikhs and 38th Dogras, summoned from Nowshera, lost between 19 and 21 men to heat exhaustion before they even reached the pass. A bayonet charge by the 45th Sikhs repelled an attack on the night of July 30. The following morning, Colonel Reid's column finally entered Malakand South with 243 mules carrying 291,600 rounds of ammunition -- enough to keep the garrison alive. On August 2, Major-General Sir Bindon Blood led the breakout force that relieved the nearby fort at Chakdara, using diversionary attacks to slip through the Pashtun encirclement. Blood observed that the tribesmen scattered "like ants in a disturbed ant-hill." Churchill recorded the siege's toll: three British officers killed, ten wounded, seven sepoy officers wounded, and 153 non-commissioned officers and soldiers killed or wounded.
Churchill turned his dispatches into The Story of the Malakand Field Force, his first published book. Of its reception he wrote: "[it] will certainly be the most noteworthy act of my life. Up to date (of course). By its reception I shall measure the chances of my possible success in the world." The success was considerable. The book established Churchill as a public figure, a war correspondent who could write with authority and style, and it propelled him toward a parliamentary seat. The battleground itself remained closed to visitors and under military control for over a century; a Pakistani military base now occupies the site. In 2006, Pakistan began opening the area to foreign visitors, allowing people to walk the same passes where Saidullah's army once surged out of the darkness and a young man with a notebook began building one of the most consequential careers in modern history.
Located at 34.50N, 71.75E in the Malakand region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The terrain is mountainous with narrow passes and steep valleys characteristic of the North-West Frontier. The Swat River valley lies to the north. Nearest significant airport is Peshawar (Bacha Khan International Airport, OPPS), approximately 100 km to the southeast. The Khyber Pass is visible further south. Best viewed at 8,000-12,000 ft AGL to appreciate the tactical significance of the narrow passes and surrounding heights that made the siege so intense.