in the British line of defence or occupation. Instances of loyalty to the British Raj were, however, numerous. In the north the tribal levies of Chitral victoriously resisted continuous Afghan aggression, while in the Kurram and Swat valleys, and farther south in Baluchis- tan, all but a few tribes remained firm. Military operations through- out this period of struggle were of an exceptionally severe and ardu- ous nature, owing not only to the great heat that prevails at that season of (he year in the frontier tracts, but to the severe outbreak of cholera which occurred along the whole front and caused serious losses among the troops engaged. The armistice of June II, which terminated hostilities between the regular troops on either side, had but little effect on the guerrilla warfare raging along the frontier, and this continued, notably in VVaziristan, until even after the signing of peace on Aug. 8.
The treaty of peace laid down that the British Government, in view of the circumstances which led to the war, would on their part withdraw the privilege, hitherto enjoyed by former Amirs, of import- ing arms, ammunition and warlike munitions through India; would confiscate the arrears of the late Amir's subsidy and grant no subsidy to the present Amir, but would be prepared, if the Afghan Govern- ment gave proof, by good conduct in the meantime, of a genuine desire for friendship, to receive another Afghan mission after a period of six months, to discuss the settlement of matters of mutual interest and the reestablishment of friendly relations. The Afghan Govern- ment on their part agreed to adhere to the Indo-Afghan frontier accepted by the late Amir, and also to assent to the early demarca- tion of the hitherto undemarcated portion of the line to the west of the Khyber; British troops were to remain in their present positions until this demarcation be effected.
Demarcation was satisfactorily completed and British troops ac- cordingly evacuated Dakka on Sept. 13. The Afghan fort of Spin Baldak had been previously evacuated on Aug. 14.
It will be noticed that the treaty of peace marks an important departure from previous practice in that no mention is made in it of the dependence of Afghanistan on the British Government in external affairs, in regard to which previous Amirs, 'Abdurrahman and Habibulla Khan, had bound themselves to follow the advice of that Government. In a letter handed by the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India to the Afghan delegate immediately after the signature of the treaty it was expressly stated that that treaty left Afghanistan free and independent in its affairs both internal and external.
Reference has been made to the despatch in April 1919 of an Afghan mission to the Soviet Government at Moscow. This mis- sion, under Wali Mohammed Khan, reached Moscow in Oct., and were well received. Meanwhile, in Sept. 1919 the Soviet Government of Turkestan despatched a mission to Kabul under M. Bravin, a former member of the Russian imperial consular service. In Nov. 1919 the Soviet Government of Moscow, desiring to establish a more direct control by themselves of foreign relations in Asia, also sent a mission under M. Suritz, which reached Kabul in Jan. 1920. M. Suritz, superseding M. Bravin, at once commenced negotiations with the Afghan Government, and in the course of the summer despatched to Moscow the draft of a treaty which, it is understood, provided for the grant of a subsidy to the Amir, the supply of material assistance and expert instructors and the establishment of Russian consulates in both eastern and northern Afghanistan.
In the meantime, after a lengthy correspondence between the Indian and Afghan Governments, it was decided that an Afghan mission, as arranged in the treaty of peace of Aug. 8 1919, should be sent to India. They arrived at Mussporieon April 14 1920, under the charge of Sardar Mahmud Beg Tarsi, the Afghan Foreign Minister, and were met by a British delegation under Sir Henry Dobbs, the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. The conference lasted until July 24, when the Afghan delegation were presented with a statement of the general lines on which the British Government were prepared to discuss a formal treaty. Throughout this period the attitude of the Afghan Government in respect to questions under discussion was swayed backwards and forwards by outside concur- rent events, notably by the steady strengthening of the Turkish Nationalist position in Anatolia, the change of Government and the growth of Bolshevik influence in Persia, the outbreak of revolt in Mesopotamia, and by the increase of political agitation in India. Nearer home also, a renewed outbreak of hostilities, fostered and assisted by Afghan agency, on the Indo-Afghan frontier in Waziris- tan, led to lengthy military operations, and raised hopes in the mind of the Afghan Government that the British Government would not be indisposed to consider the question of changes in favour of Afgha- nistan of the Indo-Afghan boundary.
On Oct. 16 1920 the Soviet Government of Moscow signed a treaty with Afghanistan, subject to ratification by the Amir. The exact terms of this treaty were still unknown in Nov. 1921, but were under- stood to be on the lines of the draft prepared in April by the Suritz mission. In Nov. 1920 the Turkish general, Jemal Pasha, arrived in Kabul on a special politico-military mission; and in 1921 a British mission under Sir Henry Dobbs was also sent to Kabul.
(A. H. McM.)
AFRICA (see 1.320). Territorial changes in Africa between 1910 and 1921 resulted in a repartition of large areas of the continent; knowledge of its physical features largely increased and
means of communication developed. Social and economic
factors, affecting all races, acquired new values. The present
article surveys these matters broadly under the headings:
(i) Exploration; (2) Communications; (3) History.
I. Exploration. The largest unknown area of Africa in 1910 was in the Sahara, of which the central part only had been adequately explored. French officers had begun as early as 1904 to make itiner- aries in the Western Sahara. These were continued by Gen. Laperrine, Capt. Martin, Capt. Mpugin, Capt. Augieras and others. A long-cherished design was realized on Christmas-day when, in nnd desert, a column under Capt. Augieras coming from Algeria effected a junction with a column under Maj. Lauzanne which had started from Atar in Mauretania. The result of these 18 years of work was that by 1921 a roughly accurate knowledge of the region had been obtained. The Western Sahara consists of a central dome (the Eglab) of moderate elevation, almost surrounded by great tracts of sand dunes. The "central dome," though unin- habited, contains habitable regions, and is regularly traversed by organised bands of brigands who set out from Southern Morocco to pillage the tribes of Mauretania and the middle Niger. Abundant traces of ancient human occupation in the Western Sahara have been discovered ; except that they are pre-Islamic it has been impos- sible even approximately to fix their age. The great depression known as the Juf, to the N.E. of Timbuktu, remained unexplored UD to 1922.
But it was in the region bordering the southern end of the Eastern Sahara, and in the Libyan desert itself that the greatest gaps existed in the map of Africa in 1910. Several of these gaps wore filled, and the chief remaining problems in the hydrography and orography of Africa were solved by Lieut.-Col. Jean Tilho and his colleagues in an expedition extending from 1912-7. The main object of Col. Tilho was to ascertain whether the basin of the Chad was closed or belonged to that of the Nile, and that thus there was, as tradition asserted, a water connexion between the Niger and the Nile (see 19.676). In a previous expedition (1908-9) Tilho had found that the Soro (the Bahr-el-Ghazal channel running E. of the Chad) was of the same level as the lake for a very consider- able distance. The 1912-7 expedition discovered that a mountain- ous barrier encirclc-d the basin of the Chad from N. to S.E., that is, it had no fluvial connexion with the Nile basin. But N.E. of the lake is a low-lying zone of which the lowest point is 520 ft. below the level of Chad. This point is in the recently dried-up bed of the lake of Kirri and is some 250 m. from Lake Chad. Thus Chad was proved to be but the remains of a vast lake comparable in size to the Caspian. The Tilho expedition also explored the Tibesti and Ennedi (End!) mountains, and discovered another massif, that of Erdi, connecting Tibesti and Ennedi. It also learned of the existence in the Libyan desert of another mountain mass, the Jebel el Auniat (about 150 m. S.E. of Kufra), with heights probably exceeding 4,000 feet. Hypsometric determinations enabled the expedition to ascer- tain the heights of the chief summits of the mountain chains between Chad and the Nile. The highest points are Emi Kussi, 11,200 ft. (an extinct volcano), and Tussidc, 10,700 ft., in Tibesti, and (the) Jebel Marra, 9,800 ft., in Darfur. 1 The exact longitude of many places was determined by wireless time signals from the Eiffel Tower, and a chain of astronomical positions completed the con- nexion of the maps of the Niger, Chad and Nile. Some 7,000 m. of surveys were made by the expedition. Particular interest centred in the exploration of Tibesti, which had been seen by one European only (Nachtigal in 1869) until it was reached by Comdt. Loftcr in Dec. 1913. It had l>een thought that Tibesti might prove a well-watered fertile region, but though it contains pasture lands, palm-groves, and flowing rivers it is mainly arid a magnificent mountain-mass with deep gorges and serrated ridges, falling east- ward in giant steps; westward overlooking a boundless plain.
Of the Libyan desert Mr. W. J. Harding King collected much in- formation from native sources and himself investigated its north- western fringe. Early in Jan. 1921 Mrs. Rosita Forbes, a young Englishwoman, reached Kufra from Cyrenaica, and the following month travelled to Jarabub by a new route. Except by a French prisoner of the Senussites who was interned there in 1916, Kufra had only once before been visited by Europeans by Rohlfs and Anton Stecker in 1879 and Mrs. Forbes showed that the extent of the oases was less than supposed and their position incorrectly mapped. Evidence of increasing desiccation of the desert was obtained one stretch of 350 m. traversed was without a well or water of any sort.
In the upper Nile basin Capt. H. D. Pearson, director of sur- veys in the Sudan, explored (1911-2) in part the head streams of the Pibor, the main western branch of the Sobat. Captain H. A. Darley investigated other parts of the Sobat system and Capt. R. H. Leckc in 1912-4 explored the adjacent southern region that between the Bahr-el-Jcbel (Mountain Nile) and Lake Rudolf. The chief feature of the country was shown to be the escarpment
1 These figures are subject to rectification on the full working-out of the data obtained by the expedition.
