Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition

Nominally headed by the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap, the expedition was a joint operation of Germany and Turkey and was led by the German Army officers Oskar Niedermayer and Werner Otto von Hentig.

Britain waged a covert intelligence and diplomatic offensive, including personal interventions by the Viceroy Lord Hardinge and King George V, to maintain Afghan neutrality.

The mission failed in its main task of rallying Afghanistan, under Emir Habibullah Khan, to the German and Turkish war effort, but it influenced other major events.

Other consequences included the formation of the Rowlatt Committee to investigate sedition in India as influenced by Germany and Bolshevism, and changes in the Raj's approach to the Indian independence movement immediately after World War I.

The Berlin Committee offered money, arms, and military advisors according to plans made by the German Foreign Office and Indian revolutionaries-in-exile such as members of the Ghadar Party in North America.

[8] The Kaiser toured Constantinople, Damascus, and Jerusalem in 1898 to bolster the Turkish relationship and to portray solidarity with Islam, a religion professed by millions of subjects of the British Empire in India and elsewhere.

[10] In the first week of August 1914, the German Foreign Office and members of the military suggested attempting to use the pan-Islamic movement to destabilise the British Empire and begin an Indian revolution.

[25] Accompanied by a German orderly and an Indian cook, Pratap and von Hentig began their journey in early spring 1915, travelling via Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, and Adrianople to Constantinople.

[28] If the expedition was to reach Afghanistan, it would have to outwit and outrun its pursuers over thousands of miles in the extreme heat and natural hazards of the Persian desert, while evading brigands and ambushes.

Camels and water bags were purchased, and the parties left Isfahan separately on 3 July 1915 for the journey through the desert, hoping to rendezvous at Tebbes, halfway to the Afghan border.

[39] Unsure what reception awaited them, von Hentig sent Barkatullah, an Islamic scholar of some fame, to advise the governor that the expedition had arrived and was bearing the Kaiser's message and gifts for the Emir.

They were officially met by the governor a few days later when, according to British agents, von Hentig showed him the Turkish Sultan's proclamation of jihad and announced the Kaiser's promise to recognise Afghan sovereignty and provide German assistance.

[43] The meeting, which lasted the entire day, began on an uncomfortable note, with Habibullah summing up his views on the expedition in a prolonged opening address: I regard you as merchants who will spread out your wares before me.

Von Hentig had to convince the Emir that the mission did not consider themselves merchants, but instead brought word from the Kaiser, the Ottoman Sultan, and from India, wishing to recognise Afghanistan's complete independence and sovereignty.

[49] He waited for the outcome of the war to be predictable, announcing to the mission his sympathy for the Central Powers and asserting his willingness to lead an army into India—if and when Turco-German troops were able to offer support.

[50] Habibullah tolerated the increasingly anti-British and pro-Central tone being taken by his newspaper, Siraj al Akhbar, whose editor—his father-in-law Mahmud Tarzi—had accepted Barkatullah as an officiating editor in early 1916.

[49][52] Through German links with Ottoman Turkey, the Berlin Committee at this time established contact with Mahmud al Hasan at Hijaz, while the expedition itself was now met at Kabul by Ubaidullah Sindhi's group.

These events included the foundation of the Provisional Government of India that month and a shift from the Emir's usual aversive stance to an offer of discussions on a German-Afghan treaty of friendship.

[50][54] In November, the Indian members decided to take a political initiative which they believed would convince the Emir to declare jihad, and if that proved unlikely, to have his hand forced by his advisors.

The final draft of ten articles presented on 24 January 1916 included clauses recognising Afghan independence, a declaration of friendship with Germany, and establishment of diplomatic relations.

Niedermayer explained that the Emir intended to begin his campaign as soon as Germany could make available 20,000 troops to protect the Afghan-Russian front,[58] and asked for urgently for wireless sets, a substantial shipment of arms, and at least a million pounds initial funding.

A further attempt by British intelligence to feed false information to the mission, purportedly originating from Goltz Pasha, convinced von Hentig of the Emir's lack of trust.

[60] Niedermayer headed west, attempting to run the Anglo-Russian Cordon and escape through Persia, while von Hentig made for the route over the Pamir Mountains towards Chinese Central Asia.

[64] The 2nd Quetta Brigade, a small force maintained in Western Balochistan since the beginning of the war, was expanded in July 1915 and became the East Persia Cordon, with troops stationed from Russian Turkestan to Baluchistan.

[65] The cordon's task was to "intercept, capture or destroy any German parties attempting to enter Sistan or Afghanistan",[65] to establish an intelligence system, and to watch the Birjand-Merked road.

Among these were letters captured in November 1915 in which von Hentig gave details of the meetings with the Emir, and messages from Walter Röhr outlining the requirements for arms, ammunition, and men.

[49] In mid-1916, intelligence officers in Punjab captured letters sent by the Indian provisional government's Ubaidullah Sindhi to Mahmud al-Hasan, which were addressed to the Turkish authority and the Sharif of Mecca.

[54] It had the intended effect: Habibullah sent verbal communication through British agents in Kabul that he could not formally acknowledge the letter because of political pressure, but he nonetheless sent reassurances he would remain neutral.

[77] Under the cover of a scientific expedition to Tibet headed by Indologist Fyodor Shcherbatskoy, the plan was to arm the indigenous people in the North-East Indian region with modern weaponry.

[91] James Houssemayne Du Boulay is said to have ascribed a direct relationship between the fear of a Ghadarite uprising in the midst of an increasingly tense situation in Punjab and the British response that ended in the massacre.