An important C.M.G. pair awarded to Lieutenant Colonel S. Browning-Smith, Medical Officer of Colonel Kelly's force at the relief of Chitral in 1895

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamels; India General Service 1895-1902, 2 clasps, Relief of Chitral 1895, Waziristan 1901-2 (Surgn. Captn. S. B. Smith 32d Bl. Infy.) mounted for display, very fine (2) £2000-2600

C.M.G. London Gazette 4 June 1917: ‘For valuable services in connection with the war.’

M.I.D. London Gazette 16 July 1895 (Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly): ‘I desire also to record that the medical arrangements were worked with precision throughout the march, particularly when crossing the Shandur Pass, when there were so many cases of frostbite and snow-blindness to be dealt with.’

In a subsequent despatch (No. 8C dated 26 July 1895, not published in the London Gazette) Kelly wrote: ‘Surgeon Captain S. Browning Smith, officiating in medical charge of the 32nd Pioneers, crossed the Shandur Pass with the first party, and was present at the actions of Chakalwat and Nisa Ghol and subsequent march to Chitral, showing great spirit throughout. I recommend him for some mark of distinction.’

Sydney Browning-Smith was born on 12 November 1866, the son of Thomas Browning-Smith of Sittingbourne, Kent. He was educated at Epsom and St Bartholomew’s, London, and qualified as a medical doctor, M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P., in 1890. The following year he was appointed Surgeon Captain in the Indian Medical Service (Bengal) and posted to the 32nd Bengal Infantry (Sikh Pioneers).

In August 1894 the 32nd were sent to Astor, in the Indus Valley to the south of Gilgit, to work on a road between Ramghat and Chilas. This work occupied them over the winter of 1894-95. The regiment was at Bunji, about 40 miles south-east of Gilgit, when Colonel Kelly, commanding the 32nd, received orders to go to the relief of Chitral, where a small British garrison was besieged by local tribesmen and Pathans.

The force he had at his disposal was a small one, comprising of 386 32nd Pioneers, 100 Kashmiri infantry, 100 local levies, and two 7-pounder mountain guns. His task was a formidable one; he had to cross over 220 miles of mountainous terrain, including the Shandur Pass, which rises to 12,400 feet and is covered in deep snow until June. There would be a number of defiles providing excellent defensive positions to hostile tribesmen.

The regiment arrived in Gilgit on 20 March 1895, and three days later the first detachment departed in heavy rain; this consisted of 200 men and included Kelly and Browning-Smth. The remainder of his force followed four days later. Kelly’s column crossed the Gilgit river on a rope bridge on the 24th, and by the 28th encountered the first snow drifts, just before Ghizr.

The column set off to cross the Shandur Pass on 1 April. However, they encountered snow drifts eight feet deep and, after a few miles, the mules carrying the mountain guns and supplies were exhausted, floundering helplessly in the snow. Kelly and the bulk of the force retraced their steps to Ghizr. An advance guard of about 200 men, including Browning-Smith, pushed on to Teru, a bleak hamlet three miles further up the slope, along a steep path littered with fallen rocks. After hours of struggling, when the men sank up to their armpits, they reached Teru; the officers got their men under shelter and occupied a dirty hut with a leaking roof. All that night the snow continued to fall. On the 3rd, however, the dawn was fine and clear, and the column pushed on to Langar, at the very foot of the Pass. After mules, yaks and sleds proved ineffective, the men finally had to carry the guns themselves. Their labour was terrible, and even the easiest parts of the route took an hour to cover a quarter of a mile. During the daylight hours they sweated and suffered intensely from the glare of the sun off the snow, while in the evening the cold became intense, and icicles hung from their eyebrows and moustaches. Browning-Smith brought in the rear-guard, rounding up stragglers, and did not reach Langar until midnight. Even then his work was not complete, as he had to treat several of the men for frostbitten feet.

The next day the advance guard crossed the Shandur Pass and reached Laspur, the first village on the other side. Travelling in the thick, fresh snow was difficult and less than half the men remained with the leader by the end; once again, however, Browning-Smith rounded up the stragglers and then attended to their medical needs. By this time many of them were badly blistered, with 63 suffering from snow blindness and 43 from frostbite.
Stewart of the Kashmir Mountain Battery recalled, ‘We were all at once placed under the orders of Browning-Smith, who treated us to his horrible stuff every two hours, which undoubtedly was most beneficial.’

They had their first encounter with the enemy on 6 April at Chakalwat. The mountain guns smashed two of the sangars, fortification constructed of stone and timber, and then the Pioneers advanced and captured the position with the loss of only four men injured. The column then forded the river to continue its advance when an alarming incident occurred to Browning-Smith, as related by Stewart:

‘We crossed last of all and with some difficulty. The ford was waist-deep and swift. Browning-Smith crossed with us, and many years afterwards reminded me of that crossing. No incident on the march was, he said, so forcibly impressed on his memory. He stumbled over a boulder in mid-stream, and was being carried away off his feet by the current, and to save himself seized hold of the tail of one of the little artillery ponies carrying a pair of gun wheels. The little animal staggered, and he related how an irate artillery subaltern stood on the bank and cursed him into heaps and shouted to him to let go, afraid of the pony and its load being being washed away. Like the good fellow he was, only the humorous aspect of the thing remained in his mind, and he said he was made to realise in a forcible manner how much more important the wheels of a mountain gun were than a mere medical officer!’

The enemy put up a more determined resistance five days later, at Nisa Ghol, where about 1500 tribesmen were holding the most famous defensive position in the country, reputed to be impregnable. Kelly’s men put the enemy to flight after an attack involving the descent of a ravine by improvised rope ladders and the climbing of steep and slippery goat tracks. At one point some ammunition caught fire and some of the Kashmiri infantry made an unauthorised retreat, but Browning-Smith rallied them and led them forward again. On this occasion the British force suffered seven killed and thirteen wounded.

On 19 April, near Baranis, Kelly received a message from Chitral that the siege had been lifted, and on 20 April the little column reached Chitral Fort. Kelly’s achievement in bringing his men across the Hindu Raj range was just as admirable as that of the defenders of Chitral, and deserves to be remembered as one of the most remarkable marches in military history. On 24 May the force returned to Gilgit where the 32nd remained for the rest of the summer.

Browning-Smith served in the Waziristan campaign of 1901-02 and received a clasp to his India medal. In September 1902, he was seconded to the Civil Administration on plague duty, going to the Punjab in December 1904, being made Chief Plague Medical Officer there in April 1905, and Sanitary Commissioner in the Punjab in November 1914. He appears to have served in India throughout the First World War and was made C.M.G. in 1917. He was also mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 27 July 1919).

Browning-Smith proceeded to England in June 1921 on pre-retirement leave, and married Lady Rattigan. They lived at Lyncroft, Otford, Kent. He was an accomplished artist and several of his sketches and water-colours appear in 'The Relief of Chitral' by Younghusband, 1895, an original copy of which is included in the Lot. Lieutenant-Colonel Browning-Smith died on 13 July 1930.