The Kaiser's Mission to Kabul
A secret mission to Afghanistan in World War I
The Kaiser's Mission to Kabul
As World War I raged in 1915, the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ottoman Turkey) sent a secret mission across Europe and Persia to Afghanistan. Their mission was to persuade the Afghan Amir, Habibullah Khan, to declare full independence from Great Britain, join the Central Powers, and destabilize the British war machine in India. Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer and Werner Otto von Hentig, who led the expedition and met with the Amir on October 26th, proposed a Hindu-German conspiracy plan to provoke a nationalist revolution in India and undermine British influence in the subcontinent.
The British deemed the mission a serious threat to their Empire and tried to block the trekkers in Persia en route to Kabul. To keep Afghanistan neutral, Britain deployed intelligence and diplomatic plans to counter the Central Powers’ aims in India. In the end, the expedition failed, and Hentig and Niedermayer headed back home.
Hentig and Niedermayer took different routes to avoid interception by British and Russian patrols in Persia. Hentig took the route over the Hindu Kush for a 130-day journey on foot and horseback through the Gobi Desert and China to Shanghai, then stowed away on an American vessel to Honolulu, then to San Francisco. Finally reached Berlin on 9 June 1917.
Meanwhile, Niedermayer escaped towards Persia through Russian Turkestan. Robbed and left for dead, a wounded Niedermayer was reduced to begging before he finally reached friendly lines, arriving in Tehran on 20 July 1916. This book gives a gripping account of the expedition.
Luckily, as one of the great empires, only Germany has no graveyard in Afghanistan.
Photos from the Niedermayer collection. The Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition 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.