ABSTRACT
D U R IN G the F irst W orld War, the situation on the North-W est Frontier of India, which had been a perennial source of danger for the British Government of India, gave them many anxious
moments. They feared that the attitude, already far from cordial, of Habibullah Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan-he had been enraged at not being consulted over the Anglo-Russian Convention of August 1907would take a tu rn for the worse, events in Europe providing him with an opportunity to declare a “ preventive w ar” against the British. An Anglo-Afghan war would be certain to arouse the frontier tribes and involve them in a tribal conflagration. Should large-scale tribal raids be made on British territory in the hope of finding the frontier denuded by the despatch of troops overseas, then the Government might be forced to launch a campaign into tribal territory, the consequences of which would be unforeseeable. The situation was all the more dangerous for the Government because of serious internal troubles caused by increasing terrorist activites in Bengal, W estern India and the Punjab. There was the further fear that Indian M uslims might be incited by pan-Islamic propaganda from Turkey, and by frontier uprisings.
