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In response to Britain's entry to the war on the side of France, Germany had begun actively considering efforts to weaken the British war efforts by targeting her vulnerabilities in central and East Asia.[1] Germany had nurtured links with India nationalists before the war, seeing India as a potential weakness for Britain. In the immediate period preceding the war, Indian nationalist groups had used Germany, Turkey and Persia among other countries outside India as stations for their anti-colonial work. In the latter two countries, it was especially pan-Islamic groups Indian groups. The Indian effort was prominent in Germany where, as early as 1913, revolutionary literature regularly referred to the approaching war between Germany and England and the possibility of obtaining German help for the Indian movement.[2] In the early months of the war, German newspapers also devoted considerable coverage to Indian distress, social problems,and colonial exploitation by Britain.[2] In Turkey and Persia, nationalist work began as early as 1909, under the leadership of Sardar Ajit Singh and Sufi Amba Prasad.[3]

Mehmed V, the Sultan of Turkey, was then regarded as the Caliph by a substantial part of the Islamic world.

Reports as early as 1910 indicated that Germany was considering efforts to unite Turkey and Persia and proceed to Afghanistan, from where she intended to threaten British India. Germany had cultivated a close relationship with Ottoman Turkey and Persia in accordance with her Drang Nach Osten policy. German archaeologists likeBaron Max von Oppenheim worked in the middle east mapping the region of the Turkish empire and Persia, concomitantly working as German secret agents.[4] The Kaiser himself toured Constantinopole, Damascus and Jerusalem in 1898 to portray solidarity with Mussalmans, who at the time were predominantly subjects of the British Empire. Through 1914, the German Intelligence bureau for the East also spread propaganda through the middle-east referring to the Kaiser as Haji Wilhelm, with rumours that the Kaiser had converted to Islam following a secret trip to Mecca, and portraying him as a saviour of Islam.[1]Ottoman Turkey herself held a strong influence over the Muslim world, and its Sultan's claim to the title of Caliph was strongly supported in Afghanistan and India.[1] German civil and military aid helped her arrest a gradual decline in the 1880s. The 1913 Coup in Turkey led by Enver Pasha had deposed Sultan Mohammed V of his powers, retaining him in a ceremonial role. Two months after the beginning of WWI, Turkey joined the war on side of the Central powers and Enver Pasha had the Sultan proclaim Jihad.[1] This proclamation, spread by Turkish and German agents, Indian nationalist, and pan-Islamic networks was hoped to provoke and aid a large-scale revolution in India. Translations of the Caliphs proclamation were also sent to Berlin for propaganda and distribution to Muslim troops of the Entente powers.[1]

Like Turkey, Afghanistan was one of the only two Muslim countries not colonised, and commanded respect among Muslims. Nonetheless, at the beginning of the war, the Emir of Afghanistan declared his neutrality.[5] The Emir was, however, worried of the Turkish hold on his subjects and feared the influence of Mohammed V's call to jihad for the pan-Islamic cause on his subjects. Indeed, Turkey's entry aroused widespread nationalist and pan-Islamic sentiments not only in Afghanistan, but also in Persia.[5] For Britain, Afghanistan remained a serious threat since, with Russia's defeat in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war, Britain had emerged the pre-eminent power out of the Great Game.[6] In this situation, Britain perceived Afghanistan as the only entity capable of directly destabilising India.[6]

As the war started, advice from the foreign office, the military, and from Moltke considered using the pan-Islamic movement to destabilise the British Empire and begin a revolution in India as early as the first week of August 1914.[1] The argument was reinforced by advice from the Germanophile explorer Sven Hedin who arrived in Berlin two weeks later. Memoranda from General staff in the last weeks of August also confirmed the feasibility of the plan. These outlined that Afghanistan was willing and eager to attack and free India from Britain, concomitantly predicting that an invasion by the Emir of Afghanistan would precipitate a revolution in India.[1] With the onset of the war, revolutionary unrest itself increased in India, and a number of Hindu and Muslim leaders left clandestinely to seek help of the Central power for an Indian revolution.[2][6] The pan-Islamic movement in India (particularly the Darul Uloom Deoband) also made plans for an insurrection in the tribal belt of North-west India with support from the Afghan Amir, the Ottoman Empire and Imperial Germany.[7][8] When World War I began Mahmud al Hasan, the principle of the Deobandi school, left India to seek the help of Galib Pasha, the Turkish governor of Hijaz. Another deoband leader Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi proceeded to Kabul to seek the Emir Habibullah's support. They initially planned to raise an Islamic army (Hizb Allah) headquartered at Medina, with an Indian contingent at Kabul. Maulana Hasan was to be the General-in-chief of this army.[8] While at Kabul, Ubaid Ullah came to the conclusion that focussing on the Indian Freedom Movement would best serve the pan-Islamic cause.[9] Ubaidullah's proposed to the Afghan Emir that he declare war against Britain.[10][11] Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is known to have been involved in the movement prior to his arrest in 1916.[7] In the years leading up to the war, the Indian situation also featured in German contemplation of the war strategy. The German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg finally authorised German activity against India in the early weeks of the war, and a decision was made to offer active support to the Indian Nationalists.[12] The German effort was led by prominent archaeologist and historian Max von Oppenheim, who headed the new Intelligence Bureau for the east. Oppenheim helped arrange the Indian groups in Germany into a cohesive organisation, which came to be called the Berlin committee. The aid offered by Germany included finances, arms, and military advisors. Plans were considered between the German foreign office, Berlin Committee, and the Indian Ghadar Party in North America to clandestinely ship arms and men to India from United States and the Orient with which they hoped to trigger a nationalist mutiny in India in 1914-15. This plan came to be called the Hindu-German Conspiracy.[13][14][15][12]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Hughes 2002, p. 450
  2. ^ a b c Hughes 2002, p. 452
  3. ^ Yadav 1992, p. 29
  4. ^ Hughes 2002, p. 449
  5. ^ a b Hughes 2002, p. 451
  6. ^ a b c Hughes 2002, p. 453
  7. ^ a b Jalal 2007, p. 105
  8. ^ a b Reetz 2007, p. 142
  9. ^ Ansari 1986, p. 515
  10. ^ Qureshi 1999, p. 78
  11. ^ Qureshi 1999, p. 77-82
  12. ^ a b Hoover 1985, p. 251
  13. ^ Strachan 2001, p. 798
  14. ^ Hoover 1985, p. 252
  15. ^ Brown 1948, p. 300
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