afghanistanof elders and religious leaders to discuss the situation. Meanwhile nego-
tiations continued informally with Nasr Allah Khan, ’Inayat Allah Khan
and Mahmud Tarzi, all of whom privately pledged their support for an
Afghan-German alliance.
At the end of December 1915 the Amir learnt that neither Hentig nor
Niedermayer had plenipotentiary powers, which provided Habib Allah
Khan with a face-saving solution to his dilemma. The Amir requested
Hentig to draft a treaty, knowing that the agreement was not binding
unless the German Foreign Ministry ratified it. The treaty, concluded on 24
January 1916, provided for Germany to supply Afghanistan with weapons,
ammunition, £10 million and 10,000 front-line troops. It was an arrange-
ment that both sides knew could not be honoured, for marching a division
of German troops through occupied Iran was impossible, even if they
could be spared from the Western or Eastern Fronts. The Amir was astute
enough to demand that the provision of the weapons, cash and troops be
a precondition of declaring war on India and so he appeased the pro-war
party while at the same time maintaining Afghanistan’s neutrality.
The day after signing the treaty Amir Habib Allah Khan met with
the British wakil and reassured him that he was determined to remain
neutral. Then, shortly before the German mission left, Nasr Allah Khan
informed Hentig that the Amir would not declare war unless the Turks
and Germans sent a fully equipped army of 20,000 to 100,000 men. Even
then, he would only attack India if Indian Muslims first rose against the
British. The Afghan-German treaty was thus essentially meaningless and
Afghanistan remained neutral throughout the First World War. Once the
German mission had left Afghanistan, the Amir purged the administration
of pro-German officials and published a leaflet arguing that all subjects
were required to obey their ruler and that the Amir alone had the authority
to declare jihad.
Habib Allah Khan’s neutrality came as a relief to the British govern-
ment, despite concerns that the Indian revolutionaries who accompanied
the German mission had remained in Kabul and formed an Indian
Nationalist Government in exile. Shortly after the German mission left,
a small group of anti-British mujahidin established a colony of what the
British termed ‘Hindustani fanatics’ in tribal territory on the Indian side
of the frontier and received covert support from high-ranking Afghan
officials, including Nasr Allah Khan. Britain was thus obliged to retain
troops on the Afghan–Indian frontier that otherwise would have been
sent to Europe. To this extent, the Hentig-Niedermayer Mission had been
successful, though it made no difference to the outcome of the First World