Pashtun and Waziristan Campaign Photograph Archive together with Peshawar Military HQ Visitor Logbook

A historically important photograph archive, together with the Peshawar HQ Logbook, being the collection of Major-General Sir Dauncy Batho Dashwood, Commander of the Peshawar HQ, North Western Frontier during the Waziristan Campaign. The British Frontier Headquarters at Peshawar at the eastern end of the historic Khyber Pass, close to the border with Afghanistan, midway between Kabul and Islamabad. The Peshawar District Command covered Chitral, Landi Kotal, Char Bagh, Shagai, Ali Masjid, Nowshera, Bara Fort, Jhansi Post, Fort Milward, Fort Salop, Malakand, Dargai, Chakdara, Shabkadr-Aberzai, Cherat, Risalpur, Mardan.

The photographs record terrain reconnaissance, troops, tribesmen, forts, roads, Khyber Pass, tunnels, camel trains, railways, aircraft, border posts, Military Camps etc etc. The Visitor's Book records the dated signatures of the military personnel commanding the Waziristan campaign of 1936–1939 against the guerrilla forces of the Pashtun nationalist ميرزاعلي خان وزیر‎ Mirzali Khan Wazir, who became known as the "Faqir of Ipi". By 1937, 40,000 troops were deployed to crush the guerrilla uprising in this difficult terrain of high mountains, wild landscape and extreme temperatures.

Using a network of caves in this remote area ميرزاعلي خان وزیر‎ Mirzila Khan Wazir, the Faqir of Ipi evaded capture for decades and eventually died in 1960. In 1950 he was symbolically appointed as the first president of the "National Assembly for Pashtunistan".

The revolt remains one of the most notable twentieth-century South Asian insurgencies.

The personal collection of Major General Strettell. Afghan [Pashtun] Invasion and Waziristan Campaign on the North West Frontier. 150 photographs in original cardboard box. Many annotated to verso by Strettell. Approx 14cm x 8.5cm. 25 signed by Tundan to the negative. Tundan Razani, Afghani photographer from Kabul who accompanied the British troops. Including 38 by Hiro Photographer; 1 by Arora, signed to the negative; 1 by Rai, Quetta; 2 by Butani Bros., The Regimental Photographers, Bruce Road, Quetta; 3 Mehra and Sons, Peshawar; 2 by Narain, Robert Barracks, Quetta; "Johnny Stores" Camp Karachi; 2 by Lucknow Publishing; 2 by Mahatta. Many are Strettell's own photographs, including a previously unrecorded photo of the Westland Wapiti brought down by Tribesmen snipers NWF. [Westland Wapiti J9390]. Peshawar provided access to an enormous photographic environment and photography flourished here in a highly sophisticated form. Some of the earliest photographs taken in Afghanistan were by photographers based in Peshawar.

TOGETHER WITH

Visitor's Book. Flagstaff House, Peshawar. Full morocco. Landscape octavo. (23 x 18cm). Gilt lettering to upper board. Inner gilt edge tooling. All edges gilt. Worn and cracked to spine and rubbed to corners and edges. Upper hinge reinforced with linen tape. Marbled endpapers. Bookplate Army and Navy C.S. Ltd. Stationery Dept. 105 Victoria Street, S.W.1. Pages ruled, in four columns: Name; Address; Arrival; Departure. Five photographs tipped in to verso ffep. Four further photographs tipped in. 218 signatures for Flagstaff House Peshawar between 1936 and 1941. Further signatures for Flagstaff House, Cherat. The signatures of senior military officers and British Government agents, with their base address, and dates of arrival and departure at Peshawar HQ, at the Eastern end of the Khyber Pass, provide an exceptional and definitive primary source for historical research of the 1936-39 Waziristan Campaign and operations undertaken against the Faqir of Ipi.

Signatures include Field Marshal Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, Major General Neil Charles Bannatyne, Major General Roland Dening, Major General Harold Victor Lewis, General Sir Henry Edward ap Rhys Pryce, Lieut-Col Sir William Kerr Fraser-Tytler, General Sir John Francis Stanhope Duke Coleridge, Major General Arthur Verney Hammond, Major-General Sir Charles Hamilton Boucher, Colonel Roland 'Tim' Debenham Inskip, Lieutenant-General Sir William Henry Goldney Baker, General Sir Harry Beauchamp Douglas Baird, Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, Brigadier Eric Edward ("Chink") Dorman-Smith, who changed his name to Eric Edward Dorman O'Gowan, later fictionalized by his friend Ernest Hemingway as the hero of Across the River and Into the Trees.

Research into some of the signatures has revealed fragments of tragedy lost in history. A number of signatures as yet undeciphered.

Major-General Sir Chauncy Batho Dashwood Strettell KCIE, CB (1881-1958) Commander of the Peshawar District, North West Frontier: the gateway to the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan. In 1901 Lieutenant Chauncy Dashwood Strettell arrived in Waziristan with the 13th Rajputs. He served for the 3rd Punjab Cavalry as part of the Punjab Frontier Force in the Waziristan Campaign of 1901-2 during the jihad declared by Pashtun Tribes following the demarcation of the Durand Line. Dashwood Strettell was in Burma as part of the Mnai-Hka expedition in 1912, and after taking command of the newly formed 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force in 1916, returning in 1919 for the Third Anglo-Afghan War. He was Commandant of the Frontier Force from 1924. By 1934 Strettell was Major-General and Director of Movements in India from 1935. In 1936 he became Commander of the Peshawar District, the British Frontier Headquarters near the eastern end of the historic Khyber Pass, close to the border with Afghanistan. The Waziristan Campaign of 1919-20 was sparked by the Afghan invasion of India. Trouble continued through to the uprising which led to the Waziristan campaign of 1936–1939 against the guerrilla forces of the Pashtun nationalist Mirzali Khan, who became known as the "Faqir of Ipi". By 1937, 40,000 troops were deployed to crush the guerrilla uprising in this difficult terrain of high mountains, wild landscape and extreme temperatures. Using a network of caves in this remote area the Faqir of Ipi evaded capture and eventually died in 1960.

"There can be few British families who have a longer connection with India since 1780 than mine. My great-grandfather was Advocate-General, Bengal, about 1815. My grandfather and father were in the Indian Army. In the nineteenth century over twenty of my near relations, uncles and cousins, served in India, mostly in the Army, but also in the Forests, etc. My brother and son served in the British Service in India. My wife was an officer for the Indian Army, and I have served in it for forty four years, and I am still, as far as I know, Colonel of my Regiment." The Indian army before and after 1947 Major‐ General Sir Dashwood Strettell K.C.I.E., C.B. Journal of The Royal Central Asian Society Volume 35, 1948 - Issue 2.