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On September 12, 1897, 21 soldiers of the Sikh Regiment of the British Indian Army
were attacked in a small mountain fort by more than
10,000 Afghan tribesmen. The nearly forgotten Battle of Saragarhi along the famed Khyber Pass
is one of the greatest last stands in history and it deserves to be remembered.
The history of the British Empire, along what was called the northwest frontier,
on the northwest side of British India, was long and frequently bloody. British
officers who fought there in the 19th and 20th centuries referred to it as, “The Grim”.
British interests in Afghanistan began as early as the 18th century and Afghanistan became
a centerpiece in what was called, “The Great Game” which was a political and military contest
between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for influence in Central Asia.
Between 1849 and 1947 the British fought three wars with the Afghanis, and there were numerous
other small conflicts and punitive expeditions. And a lot of that had to do with the disputed
lands between the frontier of British India, in what is now modern day Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This high mountain region was inhabited by tribes of the Pashtun people,
Pashtuns are fiercely independent, militaristic
islamic people, who would sometimes ally with the British, and sometimes
go to war with them. The famed Khyber Pass is the high mountain pass through this region.
After a tribal uprising and punitive expedition in 1891, the British decided that they should fortify
and garrison the Khyber Pass. They built two chief fortifications, Fort Gulistan, which was on the
western end of the pass, and Fort Lockhart, which was in the center of the pass. The two forts were
just three miles apart, but they couldn't see each other, because in between was a tall mountain. And
so the British built a small signaling post on top of that mountain, so that would facilitate
communication between the two forts, usually using a system of flashing mirrors that was
called heliography. That small fortification on top of the mountain was called Fort Saragarhi.
In 1897 these fortifications were garrisoned by five companies of the 36th Sikh Regiment of the
British Indian Army. Sikhs are followers of a pantheistic religion called Sikhism
and they're concentrated in the Punjab region of India and the Sikh regiments
were recruited from among this population. They were known to be fierce warriors.
In August of 1897, there was a general uprising of the Pashtun tribes in the area,
and Fort Gulistan and Lockhart came under the attack of more than 10,000 Afghan tribesmen. At
that time the forts in the area were garrisoned by just around 500 members of the 36 Sikhs.
The forts came under sporadic fire but there wasn't an all-out attack until mid-September,
and because the two forts could reinforce each other, the Afghans were unable to get to
the fortifications. And so on September 12th, they decided to focus their attention on Fort
Saragarhi, manned by just 21 soldiers. One sergeant and 20 troopers from the 36 Sikhs
in hopes of cutting off communication between the two forts. The attack could be viewed from
Fort Lockhart and they counted seven different banners among the Afghan tribes, which allowed
them to estimate how many Afghans were attacking Fort Saragarhi, somewhere between 10 and 12,000.
Because the ground between them was open, there was little that the garrisons in Fort
Gulistan and Fort Lockhart could do to help the soldiers on Saragarhi, because
any reinforcements would have had to fight their way through the 10,000 Afghanis. But there were
reinforcements coming from farther down the pass, and so the 21 troopers decided that instead
of trying to escape or surrendering, that they would fight and hold out as long as they could,
fight to the last in order to give the most time for those reinforcements to come, even though
they knew that that decision was suicide. Now because it was a signaling post, they were able
to use their heliograph to inform the troops at fort lockhart of the details of the battle.
The attack commenced around 9:00 am. The fort was only stone and mud but it was tall,
it was on top of a mountain, so the Afghanis could not bring their numbers to bear
and the defenders who could concentrate their fire were able to repulse several attacks, but that
they were slowly being reduced by casualties and they were running out of ammunition.
After two determined attempts to force the door were repulsed, the Afghanis finally
became frustrated and set fire to the brush in the area, and they were able to move under the
cover of the smoke to one of the walls that couldn't be observed and undermine the wall,
creating a breach. They stormed in and became bloody hand-to-hand fighting to the end.
The last defender left was the one who had been running the heliograph, and since he was up on
a tower, he could observe what was going on down below. And from Fort Lockhart they could see him
shooting into the Afghanis. They assumed he killed as many as 20 before the frustrated
Afghanistan set fire to the tower and let him die in the flames. By then it was after 3 p.m and
the defenders of Saragarhi had held out for more than six hours, and that gave the reinforcements
much time to come. By the time that the Afghanis could turn their attention back to Fort Gulistan,
it was able to hold out until reinforcements arrived. When those reinforcements got to the
ruins of Fort Saragarhi, they found more than 600 dead Afghan tribesmen around the fort.
The reinforcements were able to drive off the attack with
artillery and save the forts. The british responded with a huge
punitive expedition that involved more than 30 thousand troops, it was called the Tirah Campaign,
and it was a very bloody campaign with lots of casualties on both sides, but eventually the
british stomped around the valley burning all the villages and destroying all the fortifications,
until the tribes were forced to sue for peace. It was just another inning in ‘The Great Game’.
But the brave defense of Saragarhi was told around the world and all the way to the Queen
and all 21 defenders of Fort Saragarhi were awarded the Indian Order of Merit, which was
the highest award for Indian troops in the British Indian Army, the equivalent of a Victoria Cross.
The battle is still remembered every year on the 12th of September as Saragarhi Day
among Sikh units of the Indian Army but it is largely forgotten everywhere else. And of course
that is a tragedy because the heroic defense of Fort Saragarhi deserves to be remembered.
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