Third Anglo-Afghan War - Opposing Forces

Opposing Forces

In 1919 the Afghan regular army was not a very formidable force, and was only able to muster some 50,000 men. These men were organised into 21 cavalry regiments and 75 infantry battalions, with about 280 modern artillery pieces, organised into 70 batteries, in support. In addition to this, however, in a boost to the army's strength, the Afghan command could call upon the loyalty of up to 80,000 frontier tribesmen and an indeterminate number of deserters from local militia units under British command. In reality, the Afghan regular army was not ready for war. As in past years, the upper levels of the officer corps were riddled with political intrigue. In his book on the campaign, Lieutenant-General George Molesworth gave the following evaluation of the Amir's army:

"Afghan regular units...were ill-trained, ill-paid, and probably under strength. The cavalry was little better than indifferent infantry mounted on equally indifferent ponies. Rifles varied between modern German, Turkish and British types, to obsolete Martinis and Snyders. Few infantry units had bayonets. Artillery was ponydrawn, or pack, and included modern 10cm Krupp howitzers, 75mm Krupp mountain guns and ancient 7 pounder weapons. There were a few, very old, four-barrel Gardiner machine guns. Ammunition was in short supply and distribution must have been very difficult. For the artillery much black powder was used, both as a propellent and bursting charge for shells. The Kabul arsenal workshops were elementary and mainly staffed by Sikh artificers with much ingenuity but little real skill. There was no organised transport and arrangements for supply were rudimentary".

In support of the regulars, the Afghan command expected to call out the tribes, which could gather up to 20,000 or 30,000 fighters in the Khyber region alone. In stark contrast to the regulars, the tribal lashkars were probably the best troops that the Afghans had, being of excellent fighting quality, well armed, mainly with weapons that they had made themselves or stolen from the garrisons and with plenty of ammunition.

In meeting this threat, the British could call on a much larger force. In May 1919, the British and British Indian Army, not including frontier militia, totalled eight divisions, as well as five independent brigades of infantry and three of cavalry. However, of this force the entire North-West Frontier Province had three infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades, although there was also GHQ India's central reserve of one infantry division and one cavalry brigade. From this they formed a striking force of two infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades for offensive operations on the Kyber front with the possibility of using it also in the Tochi and Kurram areas. One infantry division and a so-called "mounted" brigade were also detailed for operations on the Baluchistan–Zhob front. There were also three frontier brigades as well as a number of frontier militia and irregular corps.>

Artillery was also in short supply, and the three frontier divisions each had a British field artillery brigade of the Royal Field Artillery with two batteries of 18-pdrs and one battery of 4.5-inch howitzers, and an Indian mountain brigade with two batteries of 2.75-inch mountain guns. The cavalry brigades each had a Royal Horse Artillery battery with 13-pdrs. There were also two batteries of tractor drawn 6-inch howitzer and two British mountain batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery, and were reinforced with 3.7 inch Mountain Howitzers. However, most batteries had only four guns. Finally there were also 15 pounder guns of the Frontier Garrison Artillery.

Machine guns, at least on the Khyber front, were old .303 Maxims. The British gained a command and control advantage with their use of motor transport and wireless communications while armoured cars and RAF detachments increased their firepower and reach, the latter being demonstrated to the Afghans by a bombing raid on Kabul itself. They could also direct the fire of the 60-pdrs. The RAF squadrons involved were No. 31 Squadron and No. 114 Squadron.

But the main problem for the British was manpower. The troops in India were no longer of the standard that they might otherwise have been at another time. Coming just after the end of a very costly war in Europe, the British will to fight and military-industrial capability to fight another war was very low. The Indian Army had been heavily committed to the First World War and had suffered a large number of casualties. Many of its units still had not returned from overseas, and those that had begun a process of demobilisation and as such many regiments had lost almost all their most experienced men. Likewise, the British Army in India had been gutted. Prior to 1914 there had been 61 British regiments serving in India. However, of these all but 10 (two cavalry and eight infantry) had been withdrawn in order to fight in Europe or the Middle East. In their place, units of the Territorial Army (TA), part-time soldiers usually only intended for home defence but who had volunteered for overseas service, had been sent in order to release regular units for the fighting in France. After four years of mundane garrison duty, away from their families and disaffected, most of these men were really only interested in demobilisation and returning to Britain to get on with their lives. They were in no way prepared for a hard fought campaign on the Indian frontier.