243 
ENCAMPMENTS IN HILL WARFARE ON THE 
N.W. FRONTIER OF INDIA. 
BY 
CAPTAIN 0. C. WILLIAMSON, R.A. 
The peculiarity of the above form of warfare is liability to night-attack 
and also by day the unpleasant danger of some seemingly harmless hill 
man suddenly producing a long knife and digging some one in the 
ribs. The latter danger does not affect the campaign, but a successful 
night-attack by the enemy would never do. 
I attach a map and explanatory appendix of a method of encampment 
which stood the test of adaptability to all shapes of camping grounds 
in a recent campaign. The main ideas are old ones, viz., the necessity 
in case of sudden attack for the line of resistance to be occupied in 
the shortest space of time and the advisability of having a fairly solid 
obstacle between a sleeping force and an enemy that starts up from 
seemingly nowhere, cares nothing for outlying picquets and seeks 
nothing but victory—or paradise at the nearest rifle muzzle. We 
know laagers and zeribas : the form of encampment now dealt with is 
of the same genus. 
All of us have probably seen a brigade camping, the dressing of 
the various streets and of the front of the camp, the galloping to 
and fro, the shouting of the Captains, the waiting of the troops till 
their location is fixed, the hopeless jam of baggage on the road in 
rear, the orders and counter orders. But we must agree that the 
result is worthy of the pains taken; row on row of tents in perfect 
dressing; everything smart and in its right place. However, from 
the point of view of the warfare to which this article refers a serious 
defect exists in the form of camp that an army operating in civilized 
lands finds suitable. Alarm posts are necessary, often far from the 
sleeping posts of the soldiers and until these alarm posts are occupied 
the flanks and rear of the camp are absolutely exposed. The method 
evolved in Waziristan, after the action at Wano, gives therefore a 
solution of the problem which seems worthy of publication. 
The main ideas of this method of encampment are : the occupation 
of the perimeter of the camp by the sleeping places of those who form 
the lines of resistance and the alignment of the camp on the centre 
or main street of the camp, instead of the front of the camp being 
the alignment from which all distances are taken. 
The object of the occupation of the perimeter is obvious, details will 
be gone into later. 
As regards the question of alignment it will be noted that camps 
may have to be pitched in irregular ground, say in a winding meadow, 
never 100 yards wide and of unlimited length, or say in terraces on a 
hillside or in any irregularly shaped ground. 
5. VOL. XXIV. 
