The Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition, also known as the Kabul Mission, was a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan sent by the Central Powers in 1915–1916. The purpose was to encourage Afghanistan to declare full independence from the British Empire, enter World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and attack British India. The expedition was part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy, a series of Indo-German efforts to provoke a nationalist revolution in India. Nominally headed by the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap, the expedition was a joint operation of Germany and Turkey and was led by the German Army officers Oskar Niedermayer and Werner Otto von Hentig. Other participants included members of an Indian nationalist organisation called the Berlin Committee, including Maulavi Barkatullah and Chempakaraman Pillai, while the Turks were represented by Kazim Bey, a close confidante of Enver Pasha.
Britain saw the expedition as a serious threat. Britain and its ally, the Russian Empire, unsuccessfully attempted to intercept it in Persia during the summer of 1915. Britain waged a covert intelligence and diplomatic offensive, including personal interventions by the Viceroy Lord Hardinge and King George V, to maintain Afghan neutrality.
The mission failed in its main task of rallying Afghanistan, under Emir Habibullah Khan, to the German and Turkish war effort, but it influenced other major events. In Afghanistan, the expedition triggered reforms and drove political turmoil that culminated in the assassination of the Emir in 1919, which in turn precipitated the Third Anglo-Afghan War. It influenced the Kalmyk Project of nascent Bolshevik Russia to propagate socialist revolution in Asia, with one goal being the overthrow of the British Raj. Other consequences included the formation of the Rowlatt Committee to investigate sedition in India as influenced by Germany and Bolshevism, and changes in the Raj's approach to the Indian independence movement immediately after World War I.
The decryption of the Zimmermann telegram was possible after the failure of the expedition and Wilhelm Wassmuss abandoned his codebook, which the Allies later recovered.
Background
In August 1914, World War I began when alliance obligations arising from the war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary brought Germany and Russia to war, while Germany's invasion of Belgium directly triggered Britain's entry. After a series of military events and political intrigues, Russia declared war on Turkey in November. Turkey then joined the Central Powers in fighting the Entente Powers. In response to the war with Russia and Britain, and further motivated by its alliance with Turkey, Germany accelerated its plans to weaken its enemies by targeting their colonial empires, including Russia in Turkestan and Britain in India, using political agitation.
Germany began by nurturing its pre-war links with Indian nationalists, who had for years used Germany, Turkey, Persia, the United States, and other countries as bases for anti-colonial work directed against Britain. As early as 1913, revolutionary publications in Germany began referring to the approaching war between Germany and Britain and the possibility of German support for Indian nationalists. During the early months of the war, German newspaper devoted considerable coverage to social problems in India and instances of British economic exploitation.
German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg encouraged this activity. The effort was led by prominent archaeologist and historian Max von Oppenheim, who headed the new Intelligence Bureau for the East and formed the Berlin Committee, which was later renamed the Indian Independence Committee. The Berlin Committee offered money, arms, and military advisors according to plans made by the German Foreign Office and Indian revolutionaries-in-exile such as members of the Ghadar Party in North America. The planners hoped to trigger a nationalist rebellion using clandestine shipments of men and arms sent to India from elsewhere in Asia and from the United States.
In Turkey and Persia, nationalist work had begun by 1909, under the leadership of Sardar Ajit Singh and Sufi Amba Prasad. Reports from 1910 indicate that Germany was already contemplating efforts to threaten India through Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan. Germany had built close diplomatic and economic relationships with Turkey and Persia from the late 19th century. Von Oppenheim had mapped Turkey and Persia while working as a secret agent. The Kaiser toured Constantinople, Damascus, and Jerusalem in 1898 to bolster the Turkish relationship and to portray solidarity with Islam, a religion professed by millions of subjects of the British Empire in India and elsewhere. Referring to the Kaiser as Haji Wilhelm, the Intelligence Bureau for the East spread propaganda throughout the region, fostering rumours that the Kaiser had converted to Islam following a secret trip to Mecca and portraying him as a saviour of Islam.
Led by Enver Pasha, a coup in Turkey in 1913 sidelined Sultan Mehmed V and concentrated power in the hands of a junta. Despite the secular nature of the new government, Turkey retained its traditional influence over the Muslim world. Turkey ruled Hejaz until the Arab Revolt of 1916 and controlled the Muslim holy city of Mecca throughout the war. The Sultan's title of Caliph was recognised as legitimate by most Muslims, including those in Afghanistan and India.
Once at war, Turkey joined Germany in taking aim at the opposing Entente Powers and their extensive empires in the Muslim world. Enver Pasha had the Sultan proclaim jihad. His hope was to provoke and aid a vast Muslim revolution, particularly in India. Translations of the proclamation were sent to Berlin for propaganda purposes, for distribution to Muslim troops of the Entente Powers. However, while widely heard, the proclamation did not have the intended effect of mobilising global Muslim opinion on behalf of Turkey or the Central Powers.
Early in the war, the Emir of Afghanistan declared neutrality. The Emir feared the Sultan's call to jihad would have a destabilising influence on his subjects. Turkey's entry into the war aroused widespread nationalist and pan-Islamic sentiments in Afghanistan and Persia. The Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907 designated Afghanistan to the British sphere of influence. Britain nominally controlled Afghanistan's foreign policy and the Emir received a monetary subsidy from Britain. In reality, however, Britain had almost no effective control over Afghanistan. The British perceived Afghanistan to be the only state capable of invading India, which remained a serious threat.
First Afghan expedition In the first week of August 1914, the German Foreign Office and members of the military suggested attempting to use the pan-Islamic movement to destabilise the British Empire and begin an Indian revolution. The argument was reinforced by Germanophile explorer Sven Hedin in Berlin two weeks later. General Staff memoranda in the last weeks of August confirmed the perceived feasibility of the plan, predicting that an invasion by Afghanistan could cause a revolution in India.
With the outbreak of war, revolutionary unrest increased in India. Some Hindu and Muslim leaders secretly left to seek the help of the Central Powers in fomenting revolution. The pan-Islamic movement in India, particularly the Darul Uloom Deoband, made plans for an insurrection in the North-West Frontier Province, with support from Afghanistan and the Central Powers. Mahmud al Hasan, the principal of the Deobandi school, left India to seek the help of Galib Pasha, the Turkish governor of Hijaz, while another Deoband leader, Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi, travelled to Kabul to seek the support of the Emir of Afghanistan. They initially planned to raise an Islamic army headquartered at Medina, with an Indian contingent at Kabul. Mahmud al Hasan was to command this army. While at Kabul, Maulana came to the conclusion that focusing on the Indian Freedom Movement would best serve the pan-Islamic cause. Ubaidullah proposed to the Afghan Emir that he declare war against Britain. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was also involved in the movement prior to his arrest in 1916.
Enver Pasha conceived an expedition to Afghanistan in 1914. He envisioned it as a pan-Islamic venture directed by Turkey, with some German participation. The German delegation to this expedition, chosen by Oppenheim and Zimmermann, included Oskar Niedermayer and Wilhelm Wassmuss. An escort of nearly a thousand Turkish troops and German advisers was to accompany the delegation through Persia into Afghanistan, where they hoped to rally local tribes to jihad.
In an ineffective ruse, the Germans attempted to reach Turkey by travelling overland through Austria-Hungary in the guise of a travelling circus, eventually reaching neutral Romania. Their equipment, arms, and mobile radios were confiscated when Romanian officials discovered the wireless aerials sticking out through the packaging of the "tent poles". Replacements could not be arranged for weeks; the delegation waited at Constantinople. To reinforce the Islamic identity of the expedition, it was suggested that the Germans wear Turkish army uniforms, but they refused. Differences between Turkish and German officers, including the reluctance of the Germans to accept Turkish control, further compromised the effort. Eventually, the expedition was aborted.
The attempted expedition had a significant consequence. Wassmuss left Constantinople to organise the tribes in south Persia to act against British interests. While evading British capture in Persia, Wassmuss inadvertently abandoned his codebook. Its recovery by Britain allowed the Allies to decipher German communications, including the Zimmermann Telegram in 1917. Niedermayer led the group following Wassmuss's departure.
Second expedition In 1915, a second expedition was organised, mainly through the German Foreign Office and the Indian leadership of the Berlin Committee. Germany was now extensively involved in the Indian revolutionary conspiracy and provided it with arms and funds. Lala Har Dayal, prominent among the Indian radicals liaising with Germany, was expected to lead the expedition. When he declined, the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap was named leader.
Composition Mahendra Pratap was head of the Indian princely states of Mursan and Hathras. He had been involved with the Indian National Congress in the 1900s, attending the Congress session of 1906. He toured the world in 1907 and 1911, and in 1912 contributed substantial funds to Gandhi's South African movement. Pratap left India for Geneva at the beginning of the war, where he was met by Virendranath Chattopadhyaya of the Berlin Committee. Chattopadhyaya's efforts—along with a letter from the Kaiser—convinced Pratap to lend his support to the Indian nationalist cause, on the condition that the arrangements were made with the Kaiser himself. A private audience with the Kaiser was arranged, at which Pratap agreed to nominally head the expedition.
Prominent among the German members of the delegation were Niedermayer and von Hentig. Von Hentig was a Prussian military officer who had served as the military attaché to Beijing in 1910 and Constantinople in 1912. Fluent in Persian, he was appointed secretary of the German legation to Tehran in 1913. Von Hentig was serving on the Eastern front as a lieutenant with the Prussian 3rd Cuirassiers when he was recalled to Berlin for the expedition.