Siege of Malakand 1897
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 26 July 1897 – 2 August 1897 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1897 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | 19th century (1800–1913) | derived from year |
| Location | Pakistan | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Anglo-Afghan War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | British Raj, Pashtuns | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 34.5000, 71.7500 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Malakand was the 26 July – 2 August 1897 siege of the British garrison in the Malakand region of colonial British India's North West Frontier Province. The British faced a force of Pashtun tribesmen whose tribal lands had been bisected by the Durand Line, the 1,519 mile (2,445 km) border between Afghanistan and British India drawn up at the end of the Anglo-Afghan wars to help hold back what the British feared to be the Russian Empire's spread of influence towards the Indian subcontinent.
The unrest caused by this division of the Pashtun lands of Afghania led to the rise of Saidullah, a Pashtun faqir who led a great army of at least 10,000 tribesmen of the regional Yusufzai, Mohmand, Uthmankhel, Bunerwal, Swati tribes among others against the British garrison in Malakand. Although the British forces were divided among a number of poorly defended positions, the small garrison at the camp of Malakand South and the small fort at Chakdara were both able to hold out for six days against the much larger Pashtun army.
The siege was lifted when a relief column dispatched from British positions to the south was sent to assist General William Hope Meiklejohn, commander of the British forces at Malakand South.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Malakand (revision 1370743214), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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