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It is no exaggeration to say, that perhaps half the tribesmen who
attacked the Malakand, had thought that the soldiers there, were the
only troops that the Sirkar [The Government] possessed. "Kill these,"
they said, "and all is done." What did they know of the distant
regiments which the telegraph wires were drawing, from far down in the
south of India? Little did they realise they had set the world humming;
that military officers were hurrying 7000 miles by sea and land from
England, to the camps among the mountains; that long trains were
carrying ammunition, material and supplies from distant depots to the
front; that astute financiers were considering in what degree their
action had affected the ratio between silver and gold, or that sharp
politicians were wondering how the outbreak in Swat might be made to
influence the impending bye-elections. These ignorant tribesmen had no
conception of the sensitiveness of modern civilisation, which thrills
and quivers in every part of its vast and complex system at the
slightest touch.


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