_Operations of the Malakand Field Force in Dir and Bajaur in 1897._—The attacks on the Malakand and on the Chakdara post, with the composition and early operations of the Malakand Field Force, under Major-General Sir Bindon Blood, have already been described in Chapter V. These operations commenced with the subjection and punishment of the people of Lower and Upper Swat. It had been proposed to deal next with the Utman Khels, but more important events then transpiring, obliged the postponement of the coercion of this tribe; and the news that the forces of the Hadda Mullah, signally defeated on the 9th August by the troops from Peshawar, were advancing into Dir, caused the recall of General Blood’s Second Brigade from Utman Khel territory, and the move of his Third Brigade to Uch in the Adinzai Valley. The Mullah’s gathering now dispersed, and General Blood was directed to co-operate with General Elles in the punishment of the Mohmands, by moving with two brigades through Bajaur via Sado and Nawagai. At Nawagai our troops would be in rear of the Mohmands, who had never before been attacked from the north, and from this place a caravan route leads due south to the Peshawar border, passing Lokerai in the Bohai Valley, where are many Mohmand villages.
On the 4th and 5th September General Wodehouse moved his brigade—now somewhat reconstructed—hurriedly from Uch to Sado, and was only just in time to prevent the seizure of the Panjkora Bridge by the Bajauris and Utman Khels, who had now made up their minds to oppose us. The First Brigade (Meiklejohn) was now left to hold the Swat Valley and our communications up to Sado; the Second (Jeffreys) marched from Chakdara, via Sarai, the Panjkora and Kotkai to Ghosam, where it arrived on the 9th; while by the 11th the Third Brigade (Wodehouse) was concentrated at Shakrata, equidistant from Mundah and Barwa, cavalry reconnaissances being pushed forward to the Batai and Shinai passes. On the 12th the Second Brigade was at Khar,[76] and the Third at Shamshak in the Watelai Valley, where the camp was fired into during the night.
Sir Bindon Blood had now intended to co-operate with General Elles, and for this purpose he himself moved on the 14th with the Third Brigade to Nawagai, while General Jeffreys seized the Rambat Pass, bivouacking on the Chaharmung stream near Inayat Kila, an Utman Khel village. Here a determined attack was made upon the Second Brigade camp at night by Mamunds and Utman Khels, who were unusually well armed and, creeping along the broken ground, were able to gain positions near the camp from which they maintained a very galling fire for nearly six hours, almost without intermission. Our casualties were seven killed (three British officers) and ten wounded, and the losses among the transport were serious, amounting to nearly a hundred. When daylight appeared the cavalry were sent after the retreating enemy and accounted for many of them.