‘Persia – especially Seistan’ [‎73r] (144/949)

(Confidential.)
liEPOCT ON BECONNAISSANCES MADE WHILE ATTACHED TO THE
SEISTAN ARBITRATION COMMISSION.
INTRODUCTION.
Towards the end of December 1902 I received telegraphic orders to join
the Seistan Mission which was shortly to start from Quetta for Seistan, travel
ling by way of Nushki and the Delmand.
My duties were to make a railway reconnaissance of the route traversed
by the expedition. Our line of march lay through Southern Afghanistan, and
the opportunity of obtaining some knowledge of the country from a Railway
Engineer’s point of view was regarded as highly valuable. My staff consisted
of two native surveyors.
I reached Quetta in time to start with the Mission on the 10th January,
thanks to Colonel McMahon who engaged my transport beforehand, and to
Mr. Woodside, Executive Engineer, Quetta-Nushki Railway, who supplied me
with tents and instruments. I accompanied the party as far as Bund-i-
Seistan, where the head Avorks 0 f the main canal are situated on the Perso-
Afghan frontier, about 35 miles from the capital, Nasratabad.
The total length of this reconnaissance was 338 miles, 213 from Nushki
to the Helmand and 125 down the valley to Bund-i-Seistan. There the Mission
halted to commence arbitration proceedings; and as the country beyond was
flat and featureless, both the British Commissioner and I w'ere of opinion that
my services as Railw ay Intelligence Officer with the party were no longer
required. It w r as, therefore, agreed that I should return by an alternative
route, and investigate the alignment of a railway which should lie wholly in
British territory from the Persian frontier at Robat to Nushki.
The general direction of this reconnaissance coincides with what is
generally known as the Seistan trade route; its length is about 360 miles from
our frontier post at Robat, or 341 miles from the Afghan frontier at the point
where I crossed it, Maki Nawar, near Ziarat Shah-i-Mardan.
The advantages of a railway along this route were, in Colonel McMahon’s
opinion, two-fold^ in that, lying within our own border, it could be put in hand
at any time, and that, being a flanking line to an invader from Seistan or the
Helmand, it is strategically preferable to the direct line down the valley.
The weakness of an unsupported line of such length in proximity through
out to a possibly hostile frontier is, however, apparent. Its liability to attack
at various points on its length would, if Afghanistan were unfriendly, hamper
operations in force at its western extremity, if it did not make them quite too
hazardous to attempt.
It therefore, seemed desirable, for the sake of the completeness of the
scheme, that a reconnaissance should be made for a railway from some suitable
function on the trade route to a port on the coast; with the double object of
stiffening the Nushki-Seistan Railway, by providing a second line of advance
and retreat, and of preventing its being outflanked, and left in the air, by an
invading force advancing through Southern Baluchistan.
Mv own predilection was in favour of a connection with Karachi, but both
J Colonel McMahon and Major Showers,
Note. —Both are now of opinion that Karachi in p 0 ]^j ca l A^ent, Kalat, Were desirOUS that
the better objective. ^ claims 0 of p asni as a terminal port
should not be neglected. I accordingly investigated routes to both places.
The length of these reconnaissances in Southern Baluchistan was / 30 miles.
They were unavoidably carried out in almost the hottest time of the year,
between the 10th April and the 14th June, when it is barely possible to do such
work as exhaustively as in the usual working season. But the necessity tor a
railway from the coast to Seistan has been so frequently dwelt upon by military
writers (as if the feasibility of the scheme was not a matter for doubt), that it