to be predictable, announcing to the mission his sympathy for the Central Powers and asserting his willingness to lead an army into India—if and when Turco-German troops were able to offer support. Hints that the mission would leave if nothing could be achieved were placated with flattery and invitations to stay on. Meanwhile, expedition members were allowed to freely venture into Kabul, a liberty which was put to good use on a successful hearts and minds campaign, with expedition members spending freely on local goods and paying cash. Two dozen Austrian prisoners of war who had escaped from Russian camps were recruited by Niedermayer to construct a hospital. Meanwhile, Kasim Bey acquainted himself with the local Turkish community, spreading Enver Pasha's message of unity and Pan-Turanian jihad. Habibullah tolerated the increasingly anti-British and pro-Central tone being taken by his newspaper, Siraj al Akhbar, whose editor—his father-in-law Mahmud Tarzi—had accepted Barkatullah as an officiating editor in early 1916. Tarzi published a series of inflammatory articles by Raja Mahendra Pratap and printed anti-British and pro-Central articles and propaganda. By May 1916, the tone in the paper was deemed serious enough for the Raj to intercept the copies intended for India. Through German links with Ottoman Turkey, the Berlin Committee at this time established contact with Mahmud al Hasan at Hijaz, while the expedition itself was now met at Kabul by Ubaidullah Sindhi's group. Political developments Political events and progress attained during December 1915 allowed the mission to celebrate at Kabul on Christmas Day with wine and cognac left behind by the Durand mission forty years previously, which Habibullah lay at their disposal. These events included the foundation of the Provisional Government of India that month and a shift from the Emir's usual aversive stance to an offer of discussions on a German-Afghan treaty of friendship. In November, the Indian members decided to take a political initiative which they believed would convince the Emir to declare jihad, and if that proved unlikely, to have his hand forced by his advisors. On 1 December 1915, the Provisional Government of India was founded at Habibullah's Bagh-e-Babur Palace, in the presence of the Indian, German, and Turkish members of the expedition. This revolutionary government-in-exile was to take charge of an independent India when the British authority had been overthrown. Mahendra Pratap was proclaimed president, Barkatullah the prime minister, the Deobandi leader Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi the minister