7.3cm (2.8in) x 8.5cm (3.4in)
Provenance: Presented H.S.T., who prepared the maps for Major R.S. Waters’ ‘History of the 5th Battalion - Pathans - 14th Punjab Regiment, … - the Forty Thieves.’ (1936).
Silver and enamels. Engine turned cigarette case of rectangular form applied with with the regimental stripe bewixt the 40th Pathans and 14th Punjabis badges. Gilt interior inscribed ‘H.S.T. / From All The Serving Thieves’. Maker's mark of Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Co., Ltd., 112 Regent Street, London. Hallmarked Birmingham 1936.
Raised as an emergency unit in 1858 as the Shahjahanpur Levy and numbered 40th Bengal Native Infantry in 1861, the regimental title was changed to 40th Pathans in 1903. The reputation of Pathan tribesmen and their regimental number earned them the nickname Forty Thieves and their British Colonel that of Ali Baba. Their first active service was in Younghusband’s Tibet Expedition of 1903-04. By then they had been augmented with Dogras and Punjabi Musalmans. At the start of the First World War they were sent from Hong Kong to Flanders, and were plunged into the Second Battle of Ypres, where they suffered 320 casualties in a day. Later in 1915 they took part in the battles of Aubers Ridge and Loos before leaving in December for East Africa and the campaign against the elusive German force commanded by Lettow-Vorbeck. A second battalion was added in 1918 and in 1922 the 40th became the 5th Battalion of the 14th Punjab Regiment. They were captured en masse at Singapore by the Japanese in 1942, the survivors were taken into the 1st Battalion after the war.