In pictures: the Malakand siege of 1897

A collection of pictures from the late 19th century showing Britain's campaign against Pashtun tribesmen in what is now Pakistani NWFP has for the first time been publicly released.

They belong to Ben Tottenham, who is related by marriage to William Meiklejohn, commander of the British garrison at Malakand which was besieged by tribesmen for 10 days.

The Pashtun tribesmen were up against British and Indian troops. Reports at the time said that the "disciplined musketry" of the Indian sepoys caused heavy casualties.

Soldiers at Malakand were confronted by "wave after wave of close-packed tribesmen, flooding out of the darkness and screaming while their war drums thundered".

Meg Meiklejohn, the colonel's daughter and Mr Tottenham's mother-in-law, almost certainly would have been killed along with her nanny had the garrison fallen.

Among the rare pictures in Mr Tottenham's collection is a contemporaneous photo of the picquet - or outpost - where Winston Churchill saw action in NWFP.

Also in the collection is this picture of a Buddhist stupa in the Malakand area thought to date 250 years before Jesus Christ. It is not clear whether it still exists today.

The successful relief of Malakand was seen by the fact that British and Indian troops could by August 1897 camp in the open. But this was an area they never fully conquered.

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