GERMAN PLOTTERS IN AFGHANISTAN

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2848, 12 August 1916, Page 7

GERMAN PLOTTERS IN AFGHANISTAN

LOYALTY OF THE AMIR

AND OF INDIA*

Editor's representative rccentlv had mi interview with Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Francis Younghusband on the subject of German intrigue in Afghanistan, which has special significance ftt the present moment in view of General Sir I'eiev Sykes's mission to Southern Persia. Dealing with the enemy propaganda and its results, Sir Francis said:

At the commencement of the war India sent out of the country a far larger number of both British and Indian troops, including a large propr/>tion of artillery, than had ever before left hor shores. Tlit?so forces had to light in France, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, in East Africa, in China. At this very time, too, the Germans were pressing hard Cnlais to strike at tho very heart of the Empire; there was a revolt engineered by Germany in South Africr.; Indians were returning from America with German aid to stir up revolution in India itself; the Etnden was bombarding the coast towns of India and harrying merchants on the sea routes: while the Turks were preparing to cut the Suez Canal and sever India from England. What more fitting opportunity could he found for striking a blow-at the British power in India by launching the fierco tribesmen of tho North-West against it?

"Our enemy, of course, saw this. He was well aware that of recent years the Amir of Afghanistan had employed Turkish officers for tho instruction of his army. With the war more Turkish officers appeared in his country. Germans also had arrived supplied with money and masses of inflammatory literature. Both Turks and Germans naturally set\o work on the ever-present fanatical element, magnifying our reverses, glorifying their own successes, in an endeavour to raise a holy war. They made these wild hillmen believe that tho Kaiser was a Mahometan and the divinely-appointed protector of Islam. They hoped to start oft these Afghans and with them thousands of headstrong tribesmen in ,the wake of the great conn.uerors of the, past in one great avalanche of invasion upon the oben plains of India. It was .1 very obvious project,for an enemy to form. Hut nearly 22 months havo gone hv, and it has not yet materiv lised. There have been raids and fights upon the frontier, but, then, there are no two years when there are not raids and findits. ami to-day the. great conspicuous fact is that the Amir of Afghanistan has stood steadfastly by the assurances of neutrality which ho ihivo I«jrd Hnrdinge at. the outbreak of tli« war. The Kaiser himself wrote the Amir letters twin." to '-vine" liini to lirnclnini a holy war, but the Amir has stood firm by his promises. Imlia's Strength Against Invasion. I remember the late • Amir writing words of advice to his people in which, after pointing out both astutely and relentlessly all our weak, points, and esspeciallj; tho smallncss of our army, ho gave this as his final words—that the British, though they invariably suffered disasters, yet. wero so loyal and so determined that they would spend their last rupee and 1 send their last man so that they should comc out victorious in the ond. Perhaps these words of tho great Amir nre still remembered in Afghanistan. Anyhow the. present Amir,, instead of rousing the Afghans and independent tribes against us, has actively discouraged them and imposed upon his governors' an attitudo of strict neutrality. .

. ( An invasion of India from the northwest is 110 easy matter. Wo have been expecting such for over a century, and have been preparing for it. We have strategic railways up to the frontier at many points, and strategic railways along it. The most vulnerable points are strongly defended. The British regiments which'were sent from India to fight in France havo been replaced India was never so strong in artillery as at the present momeiYt. If there was ever a time when such an enterprise could havo been . attempted with any hope of success, that time lias passed. . And, beyond all, India itself is solidly loyal by sentiment and loyal by interest. Indians have a genuine sentiment, of loyalty to the British Sovereign, whom they have learned to regard as their Sovereign as much as ours. They know, too, that their material interests are bound up with the stability of British rule, under which the country has prospered as it- has never prospered before So on the outbreak of war both the chiefs and the leaders of the educated classes came forward and declared themselves instantly and emphatically in favour of the British cause. The bulk of the people followed the'' had thus given, and India itself would linve resented any cinsiirsion of raiders from bevond the border. As to the tribesmen themselves, they are left to manage their own affairs in accordance with their own long-established 1 usage. From these.very tribesmen armed levies for the defence o? the frontier, are formed. The tribes under British rule have remained staunch and loyal to the connection. The frontiersman themselves form a bulwark against invasion.