THE KYBER PASS.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 100, 30 November 1878, Page 3

THE KYBER PASS.

| The Kyber Pass is a mountain defile i twenty-eight miles in length, in which there are few places where an ar in could find cover. In April, 1 <S!2, however, General Pollock, with a force which comprised only one European battalion, seven native battalions,, three regiments of cavalry, and fourteen guns, succeeded in forcing his way through it.,- with but comparatively small losses, although the enemy had assembled in great numbers to oppose him, and had fortified with redoubts the heights which commanded not only the approaches to the entrance, but also the pass itself, the mouth of which they had .barricaded by a strong breastwork of stones and bushes. The mannerin which General Pollock acheived this difficult enterprise was so admirable; that in the standard English work dn minor tactics the attacks is describee! in detail as an example of forcing a mountain defile defended at the entrance. Broadly speaking, the plan adopted for forcing the pass was first to clear the heights of the enemy and then advance against the entrance. • Accordingly, the greater part of the attacking force was formed into two columns, one of which was to storm the heights on the right, the other those on the left ; whilst the remaining troops were kept in reserve to advance against the centre of the enemy's position so soon as the attacks on his flanks should be sufficiennly developed. Both right and left columns simultaneously, the front of each covered by a line of skirmishers followed by supports. At first the enemy offered a determined resistance, but on both flanks the defenders were gradually forced up the hills and finally driven in at all points. As soon as the flanking columns .had thus gained possession of the heights, the portion of the force kept in reserve advanced to the mouth of the pass and destoyed the barrier, which the enemy had abandoned on finding bis position turned ; and as the crowning parties on each side gained ground, so the central column proceeded,. until, finally, driven back from height to height, the defender, seeing his positions iu the pass thus successively outflanked, abandoned any further opposition.—English paper.