Thomas Holdich

The Commission soon found itself in the midst of a crisis, inflamed by the Panjdeh incident; when this nearly led to war with Russia, Holdich was put in charge of fortifying Herat against a potential Russian invasion.

[4] On his retirement to half-pay in 1898, he thanked "that providence which had been good to me in that during that last year of my Indian career I had been able to put a round finish on the last of our frontier maps".

Boundaries are the inevitable product of advancing civilisation; they are human inventions not necessarily supported by nature's dispositions, and as such they are only of solid value so long as they can be made strong enough and secure enough to prevent their violation and infringement.

– Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich (1916)[6]His thought on international boundaries emphasized a need for them to be, or have the potential to become, militarily strong.

His elder daughter Laura Holdich married in 1898 Major Edmund Peach (1865–1902), Indian Staff Corps.