Combatents
Pakistan Armed Forces versus
Bengali Mukhti Bahini and Indian Armed Forces.
Below is the map of relative position of Pakistan and East Bengal. In between as can be seen is the landmass of India which is proximate to the European landmass between UK and Istanbul, Turkey. In other words Pakistan is UK and Bang is Turkey with India as the continental Europe. The blue line is the air route 1,300 miles however it was untenable as it would be impossible to go over India without being shot down.
That left only the red sea route from Karachi, Pakistan which sailed south in the Arabian sea avoiding getting to close to India coast because of danger of India air or naval attack. The entire route of 3,500 miles involved sailing along hostile waters dominated by India. Only in the extreme south in Colombo, Sri Lanka was there refuge. The journey then involved sailing north up the Bay of Bengal again under continous danger of Indian air or naval interdiction.
This journey is about the same disance from British port of Plymouth down to Spain, along the Mediteranean, past foot of Italy, along the Greek mainland and north into Aegean Sea finaly arriving in Istanbul, Turkey. Both distance UK-Turkey, Pakistan-Bangladesh are about 3,400 sea miles.
This is the actual Indian attack from Indian mainland. In the south Indian city of Kolkata formed one pont of axis of attack, it also included Indian attack from the north from Indian Assam and from the east from Indian Tripura and Mizoram. When this mass atack occured the Pakistani forces already were under seige by Bengali
Mukhti Bahini fighters. The
M-H had rbeen recieving training and weapons from India.
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Bangladesh Liberation War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
East Pakistan Air Operations, 1971 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It is important also to note that there are two elements to this war that the same small beseiged Pakistani force of 50,000 men far way from home had to face. The war with Bengali freedom fighter the Mukhti Bahini supported by most of the Bangladesh civilian population who provided cover for the Mukhti Bahini fighters. To quote
Mao Zedong "The
guerrilla must move amongst the people as a
fish swims in the sea."
. This is the first aspect to the war.
The second aspect began when Indian made a full scale invasion from three sides of East Bengal. This delievered the coupe de grace to a already beseiged force worn out by months of Mukhti Bahini attacks and hostile civilian population.
Mukti Bahini - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The other thing thaty has to be considered is the morale of the Pakistani rroops was very low by this stage. Most of the Pakistan Army was made up of ethnic Pashtun or Punjabi's both from 1,300 miles away from the other side of the continent as shown before like UK/Turkey on extreme opposite ends of Europe.
The Pashtun/Punjabi soldiers came from a dry hilly areas areas of north west Pakistan. The Bengal delta region was nothing like they were used to to. It was tropical lush, wet and being delta region was swampy criss crossed by rivers. Movement was difficult, mechanized transport was almost impossible. Boats were needed and swimming was a must. Most of the Pashtun/Punjabi soldiers could not swim. The geography of the Bengal delta region can be seen in the map below with rivers and swamps criss crossing the area.
In fact the Bengal region in terms of climate and geography is closer to South East Asia as Burma, Thailand and Vietnam are adjacent on the east of Bengal. As can be seen in the map below Bangal is only 700 miles from Vietnam whereas it is 1,300 miles from Pakistan. The climate is almost same as Vietnam. Tropical, lush and swampy ideal guerilla warfare country as evidenced by what happened to the Americans.
In 1971 while the Bangladesh war of liberation was being fought soon to turn also into Indian Pakistan war barely 700 miles to the east of Bengal over half a million American soldiers were fighting and losing to the Viet Cong in Vietnam. Simultanous to this Pakistan Army was fighting the Mukhti Bahini soon to also face second enemy India. The superpower was defeated with ten times more men then Pakistan with the largest airforce in the world.
Yet USA did not have to face a full scale invasion by a conventional army like the Chinese army invading that Pakistan had to face. Given this is it a surprise that Pakistan lost. This war was like a boxer taking on a disabled person who is already being attacked by another person and then claming a
monumental victory
