Page image — the source of record
Machine transcription
city and the cantonment and cut the
telephone and telegraph lines, so that the
Central Government could communicate
with the city only by means of aeroplanes.
The Peshawar-Kabul Road was blocked and
infested with robbers. It was only then
that Amanullah Khan realized the dangerous
character of the revolt. But he committed
another blunder, this time of a very serious
nature. Instead of putting a strong force
in the field under experienced commanders,
he was content with sending small detach-
ments under inexperienced courtiers, who had
never seen a field of battle before and were
utterly ignorant of military tactics. One
of these favourites, Mahmud Khan Yawar,
was sent to the relief of the Jalalabad garri-
son. It was his first experience of a soldier's
life. He marched as far as Nimla, twenty
miles west of Jalalabad, and halted. Numer-
ous messages came from Jalalabad, asking
him to march immediately to their help,
but he did not stir; such was the lack of
co-operation between the various officers of
Amanullah Khan. The rebels, on the other
hand, although of different tribes, were better
organized, had superior discipline and their
17 B
Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.