Title: The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80
Author: Forbes, Archibald
Language: English
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[Illustration: Sir Frederick Roberts]

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THE AFGHAN WARS 1839-42 AND 1878-80

by ARCHIBALD FORBES

With Portraits and Plans

       *       *       *       *       *

CONTENTS

PART I.--THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR

CHAP.

   I.--PRELIMINARY

  II.--THE MARCH TO CABUL

 III.--THE FIRST YEAR OF OCCUPATION

  IV.--THE SECOND YEAR OF OCCUPATION

   V.--THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  VI.--THE ROAD TO RUIN

 VII.--THE CATASTROPHE

VIII.--THE SIEGE AND DEFENCE OF JELLALABAD

  IX.--RETRIBUTION AND RESCUE


PART II.--THE SECOND AFGHAN WAR

   I.--THE FIRST CAMPAIGN

  II.--THE OPENING OF THE SECOND CAMPAIGN

 III.--THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM

  IV.--THE DECEMBER STORM

   V.--ON THE DEFENSIVE IN SHERPUR

  VI.--AHMED KHEL

 VII.--THE AMEER ABDURRAHMAN

VIII.--MAIWAND AND THE GREAT MARCH

  IX.--THE BATTLE OF CANDAHAR

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLANS

  PORTRAIT OF SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS  _Frontispiece_

  PLAN OF CABUL, THE CANTONMENT

  PORTRAIT OF SIR GEORGE POLLOCK

  PORTRAIT OF SIR LOUIS CAVAGNARI AND SIRDARS

  PLAN OF CABUL SHOWING THE ACTIONS, DEC. 11-14

  PLAN OF ACTION, AHMED KHEL

  PORTRAIT OF THE AMEER ABDURRAHMAN

  PLAN OF THE ACTION OF MAIWAND

  PLAN OF THE ACTION OF CANDAHAR

_The Portraits of Sir G. Pollock and Sir F. Roberts are engraved by
permission of Messrs Henry Graves & Co._

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THE AFGHAN WARS



PART I: _THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR_



CHAPTER I: PRELIMINARY


Since it was the British complications with Persia which mainly
furnished what pretext there was for the invasion of Afghanistan by an
Anglo-Indian army in 1839, some brief recital is necessary of the
relations between Great Britain and Persia prior to that aggression.

By a treaty, concluded between England and Persia in 1814, the former
state bound itself, in case of the invasion of Persia by any European
nation, to aid the Shah either with troops from India or by the payment
of an annual subsidy in support of his war expenses. It was a dangerous
engagement, even with the _caveat_ rendering the undertaking inoperative
if such invasion should be provoked by Persia. During the fierce
struggle of 1825-7, between Abbas Meerza and the Russian General
Paskevitch, England refrained from supporting Persia either with men or
with money, and when prostrate Persia was in financial extremities
because of the war indemnity which the treaty of Turkmanchai imposed
upon her, England took advantage of her needs by purchasing the
cancellation of the inconvenient obligation at the cheap cost of about
£300,000. It was the natural result of this transaction that English
influence with the Persian Court should sensibly decline, and it was not
less natural that in conscious weakness Persia should fall under the
domination of Russian influence.

Futteh Ali, the old Shah of Persia, died in 1834, and was succeeded by
his grandson Prince Mahomed Meerza, a young man who inherited much of
the ambition of his gallant father Abbas Meerza. His especial
aspiration, industriously stimulated by his Russian advisers, urged him
to the enterprise of conquering the independent principality of Herat,
on the western border of Afghanistan. Herat was the only remnant of
Afghan territory that still remained to a member of the legitimate royal
house. Its ruler was Shah Kamran, son of that Mahmoud Shah who, after
ousting his brother Shah Soojah from the throne of Cabul, had himself
been driven from that elevation, and had retired to the minor
principality of Herat. The young Shah of Persia was not destitute of
justification for his designs on Herat. That this was so was frankly
admitted by Mr Ellis, the British envoy to his Court, who wrote to his
Government that the Shah had fair claim to the sovereignty of
Afghanistan as far as Ghuznee, and that Kamran's conduct in occupying
part of the Persian province of Seistan had given the Shah 'a full
justification for commencing hostilities against Herat.'

The serious phase of the situation for England and India was that
Russian influence was behind Persia in this hostile action against
Herat. Mr Ellis pointed out that in the then existing state of relations
between Persia and Russia, the progress of the former in Afghanistan was
tantamount to the advancement of the latter. But unfortunately there
remained valid an article in the treaty of 1814 to the effect that, in
case of war between the Afghans and the Persians, the English Government
should not interfere with either party unless when called on by both to
mediate. In vain did Ellis and his successor M'Neill remonstrate with
the Persian monarch against the Herat expedition. An appeal to St
Petersburg, on the part of Great Britain, produced merely an evasive
reply. How diplomatic disquietude had become intensified may be inferred
from this, that whereas in April 1836 Ellis wrote of Persia as a Russian
first parallel of attack against India, Lord Auckland, then
Governor-General of India, directed M'Neill, in the early part of 1837,
to urge the Shah to abandon his enterprise, on the ground that he (the
Governor-General) 'must view with umbrage and displeasure schemes of
interference and conquest on our western frontier.'

The Shah, unmoved by the representations of the British envoy, marched
on Herat, and the siege was opened on November 23d, 1837. Durand, a
capable critic, declares that the strength of the place, the resolution
of the besiegers, the skill of their Russian military advisers, and the
gallantry of the besieged, were alike objects of much exaggeration. 'The
siege was from first to last thoroughly ill-conducted, and the defence,
in reality not better managed, owed its _éclat_ to Persian ignorance,
timidity and supineness. The advice of Pottinger, the gallant English
officer who assisted the defence, was seldom asked, and still more
seldom taken; and no one spoke more plainly of the conduct of both
besieged and besiegers than did Pottinger himself.' M'Neill effected
nothing definite during a long stay in the Persian camp before Herat,
the counteracting influence of the Russian envoy being too strong with
the Shah; and the British representative, weary of continual slights, at
length quitted the Persian camp completely foiled. After six days'
bombardment, the Persians and their Russian auxiliaries delivered an
assault in force on June 23d, 1838. It failed, with heavy loss, and the
dispirited Shah determined on raising the siege. His resolution was
quickened by the arrival of Colonel Stoddart in his camp, with the
information that a military force from Bombay, supported by ships of
war, had landed on the island of Karrack in the Persian Gulf, and with
the peremptory ultimatum to the Shah that he must retire from Herat at
once. Lord Palmerston, in ordering this diversion in the Gulf, had
thought himself justified by circumstances in overriding the clear and
precise terms of an article in a treaty to which England had on several
occasions engaged to adhere. As for the Shah, he appears to have been
relieved by the ultimatum. On the 9th September he mounted his horse and
rode away from Herat. The siege had lasted nine and a half months.
To-day, half a century after Simonich the Russian envoy followed Mahomed
Shah from battered but unconquered Herat, that city is still an Afghan
place of arms.

Shah Soojah-ool Moolk, a grandson of the illustrious Ahmed Shah, reigned
in Afghanistan from 1803 till 1809. His youth had been full of trouble
and vicissitude. He had been a wanderer, on the verge of starvation, a
pedlar and a bandit, who raised money by plundering caravans. His
courage was lightly reputed, and it was as a mere creature of
circumstance that he reached the throne. His reign was perturbed, and in
1809 he was a fugitive and an exile. Runjeet Singh, the Sikh ruler of
the Punjaub, defrauded him of the famous Koh-i-noor, which is now the
most precious of the crown jewels of England, and plundered and
imprisoned the fallen man. Shah Soojah at length escaped from Lahore.
After further misfortunes he at length reached the British frontier
station of Loodianah, and in 1816 became a pensioner of the East India
Company.

After the downfall of Shah Soojah, Afghanistan for many years was a prey
to anarchy. At length in 1826, Dost Mahomed succeeded in making himself
supreme at Cabul, and this masterful man thenceforward held sway until
his death in 1863, uninterruptedly save during the three years of the
British occupation. Dost Mahomed was neither kith nor kin to the
legitimate dynasty which he displaced. His father Poyndah Khan was an
able statesman and gallant soldier. He left twenty-one sons, of whom
Futteh Khan was the eldest, and Dost Mahomed one of the youngest. Futteh
Khan was the Warwick of Afghanistan, but the Afghan 'Kingmaker' had no
Barnet as the closing scene of his chequered life. Falling into hostile
hands, he was blinded and scalped. Refusing to betray his brothers, he
was leisurely cut to pieces by the order and in the presence of the
monarch whom he had made. His young brother Dost Mahomed undertook to
avenge his death. After years of varied fortunes the Dost had worsted
all his enemies, and in 1826 he became the ruler of Cabul. Throughout
his long reign Dost Mahomed was a strong and wise ruler. His youth had
been neglected and dissolute. His education was defective, and he had
been addicted to wine. Once seated on the throne, the reformation of our
Henry Fifth was not more thorough than was that of Dost Mahomed. He
taught himself to read and write, studied the Koran, became scrupulously
abstemious, assiduous in affairs, no longer truculent but courteous. He
is said to have made a public acknowledgment of the errors of his
previous life, and a firm profession of reformation; nor did his after
life belie the pledges to which he committed himself. There was a fine
rugged honesty in his nature, and a streak of genuine chivalry;
notwithstanding the despite he suffered at our hands, he had a real
regard for the English, and his loyalty to us was broken only by his
armed support of the Sikhs in the second Punjaub war.

The fallen Shah Soojah, from his asylum in Loodianah, was continually
intriguing for his restoration. His schemes were long inoperative, and
it was not until 1832 that certain arrangements were entered into
between him and the Maharaja Runjeet Singh. To an application on Shah
Soojah's part for countenance and pecuniary aid, the Anglo-Indian
Government replied that to afford him assistance would be inconsistent
with the policy of neutrality which the Government had imposed on
itself; but it unwisely contributed financially toward his undertaking
by granting him four months' pension in advance. Sixteen thousand rupees
formed a scant war fund with which to attempt the recovery of a throne,
but the Shah started on his errand in February 1833. After a successful
contest with the Ameers of Scinde, he marched on Candahar, and besieged
that fortress. Candahar was in extremity when Dost Mahomed, hurrying
from Cabul, relieved it, and joining forces with its defenders, he
defeated and routed Shah Soojah, who fled precipitately, leaving behind
him his artillery and camp equipage, During the Dost's absence in the
south, Runjeet Singh's troops crossed the Attock, occupied the Afghan
province of Peshawur, and drove the Afghans into the Khyber Pass. No
subsequent efforts on Dost Mahomed's part availed to expel the Sikhs
from Peshawur, and suspicious of British connivance with Runjeet Singh's
successful aggression, he took into consideration the policy of
fortifying himself by a counter alliance with Persia. As for Shah
Soojah, he had crept back to his refuge at Loodianah.

Lord Auckland succeeded Lord William Bentinck as Governor-General of
India in March 1836. In reply to Dost Mahomed's letter of
congratulation, his lordship wrote: 'You are aware that it is not the
practice of the British Government to interfere with the affairs of
other independent states;' an abstention which Lord Auckland was soon to
violate. He had brought from England the feeling of disquietude in
regard to the designs of Persia and Russia which the communications of
our envoy in Persia had fostered in the Home Government, but it would
appear that he was wholly undecided what line of action to pursue.
'Swayed,' says Durand, 'by the vague apprehensions of a remote danger
entertained by others rather than himself,' he despatched to Afghanistan
Captain Burnes on a nominally commercial mission, which, in fact, was
one of political discovery, but without definite instructions. Burnes,
an able but rash and ambitious man, reached Cabul in September 1837, two
months before the Persian army began the siege of Herat. He had a strong
prepossession in favour of the Dost, whose guest he had already been in
1832, and the policy he favoured was not the revival of the legitimate
dynasty in the person of Shah Soojah, but the attachment of Dost Mahomed
to British interests by strengthening his throne and affording him
British countenance.

Burnes sanguinely believed that he had arrived at Cabul in the nick of
time, for an envoy from the Shah of Persia was already at Candahar,
bearing presents and assurances of support. The Dost made no concealment
to Burnes of his approaches to Persia and Russia, in despair of British
good offices, and being hungry for assistance from any source to meet
the encroachments of the Sikhs, he professed himself ready to abandon
his negotiations with the western powers if he were given reason to
expect countenance and assistance at the hands of the Anglo-Indian
Government. Burnes communicated to his Government those friendly
proposals, supporting them by his own strong representations, and
meanwhile, carried away by enthusiasm, he exceeded his powers by making
efforts to dissuade the Candahar chiefs from the Persian alliance, and
by offering to support them with money to enable them to make head
against the offensive, by which Persia would probably seek to revenge
the rejection of her overtures. For this unauthorised excess of zeal
Burnes was severely reprimanded by his Government, and was directed to
retract his offers to the Candahar chiefs. The situation of Burnes in
relation to the Dost was presently complicated by the arrival at Cabul
of a Russian officer claiming to be an envoy from the Czar, whose
credentials, however, were regarded as dubious, and who, if that
circumstance has the least weight, was on his return to Russia utterly
repudiated by Count Nesselrode. The Dost took small account of this
emissary, continuing to assure Burnes that he cared for no connection
except with the English, and Burnes professed to his Government his
fullest confidences in the sincerity of those declarations. But the tone
of Lord Auckland's reply, addressed to the Dost, was so dictatorial and
supercilious as to indicate the writer's intention that it should give
offence. It had that effect, and Burnes' mission at once became
hopeless. Yet, as a last resort, Dost Mahomed lowered his pride so far
as to write to the Governor-General imploring him 'to remedy the
grievances of the Afghans, and afford them some little encouragement and
power.' The pathetic representation had no effect. The Russian envoy,
who was profuse in his promises of everything which the Dost was most
anxious to obtain, was received into favour and treated with
distinction, and on his return journey he effected a treaty with the
Candahar chiefs, which was presently ratified by the Russian minister at
the Persian Court. Burnes, fallen into discredit at Cabul, quitted that
place in August 1838. He had not been discreet, but it was not his
indiscretion that brought about the failure of his mission. A nefarious
transaction, which Kaye denounces with the passion of a just
indignation, connects itself with Burnes' negotiations with the Dost;
his official correspondence was unscrupulously mutilated and garbled in
the published Blue Book with deliberate purpose to deceive the British
public.

Burnes had failed because, since he had quitted India for Cabul, Lord
Auckland's policy had gradually altered. Lord Auckland had landed in
India in the character of a man of peace. That, so late as April 1837,
he had no design of obstructing the existing situation in Afghanistan is
proved by his written statement of that date, that 'the British
Government had resolved decidedly to discourage the prosecution by the
ex-king Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk, so long as he may remain under our
protection, of further schemes of hostility against the chiefs now in
power in Cabul and Candahar.' Yet, in the following June, he concluded a
treaty which sent Shah Soojah to Cabul, escorted by British bayonets. Of
this inconsistency no explanation presents itself. It was a far cry from
our frontier on the Sutlej to Herat in the confines of Central Asia--a
distance of more than 1200 miles, over some of the most arduous marching
ground in the known world. No doubt the Anglo-Indian Government was
justified in being somewhat concerned by the facts that a Persian army,
backed by Russian volunteers and Russian roubles, was besieging Herat,
and that Persian and Russian emissaries were at work in Afghanistan.
Both phenomena were rather of the 'bogey' character; how much so to-day
shows when the Afghan frontier is still beyond Herat, and when a
descendant of Dost Mahomed still sits in the Cabul _musnid_. But neither
England nor India scrupled to make the Karrack counter-threat which
arrested the siege of Herat; and the obvious policy as regarded
Afghanistan was to watch the results of the intrigues which were on
foot, to ignore them should they come to nothing, as was probable, to
counteract them by familiar methods if serious consequences should seem
impending. Our alliance with Runjeet Singh was solid, and the quarrel
between Dost Mahomed and him concerning the Peshawur province was
notoriously easy of arrangement.

On whose memory rests the dark shadow of responsibility for the first
Afghan war? The late Lord Broughton, who, when Sir John Cam Hobhouse,
was President of the Board of Control from 1835 to 1841, declared
before a House of Commons Committee, in 1851, 'The Afghan war was done
by myself; entirely without the privity of the Board of Directors.' The
meaning of that declaration, of course, was that it was the British
Government of the day which was responsible, acting through its member
charged with the control of Indian affairs; and further, that the
directorate of the East India Company was accorded no voice in the
matter. But this utterance was materially qualified by Sir J. C.
Hobhouse's statement in the House of Commons in 1842, that his despatch
indicating the policy to be adopted, and that written by Lord Auckland,
informing him that the expedition had already been undertaken, had
crossed each other on the way.

It would be tedious to detail how Lord Auckland, under evil counsel,
gradually boxed the compass from peace to war. The scheme of action
embodied in the treaty which, in the early summer of 1838, was concluded
between the Anglo-Indian Government, Runjeet Singh, and Shah Soojah, was
that Shah Soojah, with a force officered from an Indian army, and paid
by British money, possessing also the goodwill and support of the
Maharaja of the Punjaub, should attempt the recovery of his throne
without any stiffening of British bayonets at his back. Then it was
urged, and the representation was indeed accepted, that the Shah would
need the buttress afforded by English troops, and that a couple of
regiments only would suffice to afford this prestige. But Sir Harry
Fane, the Commander-in-Chief, judiciously interposed his veto on the
despatch of a handful of British soldiers on so distant and hazardous an
expedition. Finally, the Governor-General, committed already to a
mistaken line of policy, and urged forward by those about him, took the
unfortunate resolution to gather together an Anglo-Indian army, and to
send it, with the ill-omened Shah Soojah on its shoulders, into the
unknown and distant wilds of Afghanistan. This action determined on, it
was in accordance with the Anglo-Indian fitness of things that the
Governor-General should promulgate a justificatory manifesto. Of this
composition it is unnecessary to say more than to quote Durand's
observation that in it 'the words "justice and necessity" were applied
in a manner for which there is fortunately no precedent in the English
language,' and Sir Henry Edwardes' not less trenchant comment that 'the
views and conduct of Dost Mahomed were misrepresented with a hardihood
which a Russian statesman might have envied.'

All men whose experience gave weight to their words opposed this
'preposterous enterprise.' Mr Elphinstone, who had been the head of a
mission to Cabul thirty years earlier, held that 'if an army was sent up
the passes, and if we could feed it, no doubt we might take Cabul and
set up Shah Soojah; but it was hopeless to maintain him in a poor, cold,
strong and remote country, among so turbulent a people.' Lord William
Bentinck, Lord Auckland's predecessor, denounced the project as an act
of incredible folly. Marquis Wellesley regarded 'this wild expedition
into a distant region of rocks and deserts, of sands and ice and snow,'
as an act of infatuation. The Duke of Wellington pronounced with
prophetic sagacity, that the consequence of once crossing the Indus to
settle a government in Afghanistan would be a perennial march into that
country.



CHAPTER II: THE MARCH TO CABUL


The two main objects of the venturesome offensive movement to which Lord
Auckland had committed himself were, first, the raising of the Persian
siege of Herat if the place should hold out until reached--the recapture
of it if it should have fallen; and, secondly, the establishment of Shah
Soojah on the Afghan throne. The former object was the more pressing,
and time was very precious; but the distances in India are great, the
means of communication in 1838 did not admit of celerity, and the
seasons control the safe prosecution of military operations.
Nevertheless, the concentration of the army at the frontier station of
Ferozepore was fully accomplished toward the end of November. Sir Harry
Fane was to be the military head of the expedition, and he had just
right to be proud of the 14,000 carefully selected and well-seasoned
troops who constituted his Bengal contingent. The force consisted of two
infantry divisions, of which the first, commanded by Major-General Sir
Willoughby Cotton, contained three brigades, commanded respectively by
Colonels Sale, Nott, and Dennis, of whom the two former were to attain
high distinction within the borders of Afghanistan. Major-General Duncan
commanded the second infantry division of the two brigades, of which one
was commanded by Colonel Roberts, the gallant father of a gallant son,
the other by Colonel Worsley. The 6000 troops raised for Shah Soojah,
who were under Fane's orders, and were officered from our army in India,
had been recently and hurriedly recruited, and although rapidly
improving, were not yet in a state of high efficiency. The contingent
which the Bombay Presidency was to furnish to the 'Army of the Indus,'
and which landed about the close of the year near the mouth of the
Indus, was under the command of General Sir John Keane, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army. The Bombay force was about 5000
strong.

Before the concentration at Ferozepore had been completed, Lord Auckland
received official intimation of the retreat of the Persians from before
Herat. With their departure had gone, also, the sole legitimate object
of the expedition; there remained but a project of wanton aggression and
usurpation. The Russo-Persian failure at Herat was scarcely calculated
to maintain in the astute and practical Afghans any hope of fulfilment
of the promises which the western powers had thrown about so lavishly,
while it made clear that, for some time at least to come, the Persians
would not be found dancing again to Russian fiddling. The abandonment of
the siege of Herat rendered the invasion of Afghanistan an aggression
destitute even of pretext. The Governor-General endeavoured to justify
his resolution to persevere in it by putting forth the argument that its
prosecution was required, 'alike in observation of the treaties entered
into with Runjeet Singh and Shah Soojah as by paramount considerations
of defensive policy.' A remarkable illustration of 'defensive policy' to
take the offensive against a remote country from whose further confines
had faded away foiled aggression, leaving behind nothing but a bitter
consciousness of broken promises! As for the other plea, the tripartite
treaty contained no covenant that we should send a corporal's guard
across our frontier. If Shah Soojah had a powerful following in
Afghanistan, he could regain his throne without our assistance; if he
had no holding there, it was for us a truly discreditable enterprise to
foist him on a recalcitrant people at the point of the bayonet.

One result of the tidings from Herat was to reduce by a division the
strength of the expeditionary force. Fane, who had never taken kindly to
the project, declined to associate himself with the diminished array
that remained. The command of the Bengal column fell to Sir Willoughby
Cotton, with whom as his aide-de-camp rode that Henry Havelock whose
name twenty years later was to ring through India and England. Duncan's
division was to stand fast at Ferozepore as a support, by which
disposition the strength of the Bengal marching force was cut down to
about 9500 fighting men. After its junction with the Bombay column, the
army would be 14,500 strong, without reckoning the Shah's contingent.
There was an interlude at Ferozepore of reviews and high jinks with the
shrewd, debauched old Runjeet Singh; of which proceedings Havelock in
his narrative of the expedition gives a detailed account, dwelling with
extreme disapprobation on Runjeet's addiction to a 'pet tipple' strong
enough to lay out the hardest drinker in the British camp, but which the
old reprobate quaffed freely without turning a hair.

At length, on December 10th, 1838, Cotton began the long march which was
not to terminate at Cabul until August 6th of the following year. The
most direct route was across the Punjaub, and up the passes from
Peshawur, but the Governor-General had shrunk from proposing to Runjeet
Singh that the force should march through his territories, thinking it
enough that the Maharaja had permitted Shah Soojah's heir, Prince
Timour, to go by Peshawur to Cabul, had engaged to support him with a
Sikh force, and had agreed to maintain an army of reserve at Peshawur.
The chosen route was by the left bank of the Sutlej to its junction with
the Indus, down the left bank of the Indus to the crossing point at
Roree, and from Sukkur across the Scinde and northern Belooch provinces
by the Bolan and Kojuk passes to Candahar, thence by Khelat-i-Ghilzai
and Ghuznee to Cabul. This was a line excessively circuitous, immensely
long, full of difficulties, and equally disadvantageous as to supplies
and communications. On the way the column would have to effect a
junction with the Bombay force, which at Vikkur was distant 800 miles
from Ferozepore. Of the distance of 850 miles from the latter post to
Candahar the first half to the crossing of the Indus presented no
serious difficulties, but from Sukkur beyond the country was
inhospitable and cruelly rugged. It needed little military knowledge to
realise how more and yet more precarious would become the communications
as the chain lengthened, to discern that from Ferozepore to the Indus
they would be at the mercy of the Sikhs, and to comprehend this also,
that a single serious check, in or beyond the passes, would involve all
but inevitable ruin.

Shah Soojah and his levies moved independently some marches in advance
of Cotton. The Dooranee monarch-elect had already crossed the Indus, and
was encamped at Shikarpore, when he was joined by Mr William Hay
Macnaghten, of the Company's Civil Service, the high functionary who had
been gazetted as 'Envoy and Minister on the part of the Government of
India at the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk.' Durand pronounces the
selection an unhappy one, 'for Macnaghten, long accustomed to
irresponsible office, inexperienced in men, and ignorant of the country
and people of Afghanistan, was, though an erudite Arabic scholar,
neither practised in the field of Asiatic intrigue nor a man of action.
His ambition was, however, great, and the expedition, holding out the
promise of distinction and honours, had met with his strenuous
advocacy.' Macnaghten was one of the three men who chiefly inspired Lord
Auckland with the policy to which he had committed himself. He was the
negotiator of the tripartite treaty. He was now on his way toward a
region wherein he was to concern himself in strange adventures, the
outcome of which was to darken his reputation, consign him to a sudden
cruel death, bring awful ruin on the enterprise he had fostered, and
inflict incalculable damage on British prestige in India.

Marching through Bhawulpore and Northern Scinde, without noteworthy
incident save heavy losses of draught cattle, Cotton's army reached
Roree, the point at which the Indus was to be crossed, in the third week
of January 1839. Here a delay was encountered. The Scinde Ameers were,
with reason, angered by the unjust and exacting terms which Pottinger
had been instructed to enforce on them. They had been virtually
independent of Afghanistan for nearly half a century; there was now
masterfully demanded of them quarter of a million sterling in name of
back tribute, and this in the face of the fact that they held a solemn
release by Shah Soojah of all past and future claims. When they demurred
to this, and to other exactions, they were peremptorily told that
'neither the ready power to crush and annihilate them, nor the will to
call it into action, was wanting if it appeared requisite, however
remotely, for the safety and integrity of the Anglo-Indian empire and
frontier.'

It was little wonder that the Ameers were reluctant to fall in with
terms advanced so arrogantly. Keane marched up the right bank of the
Indus to within a couple of marches of Hyderabad, and having heard of
the rejection by the Ameers of Pottinger's terms, and of the gathering
of some 20,000 armed Belooches about the capital, he called for the
co-operation of part of the Bengal column in a movement on Hyderabad.
Cotton started on his march down the left bank, on January Jeth, with
5600 men. Under menaces so ominous the unfortunate Ameers succumbed.
Cotton returned to Roree; the Bengal column crossed the Indus, and on
February 20th its headquarters reached Shikarpore. Ten days later,
Cotton, leading the advance, was in Dadur, at the foot of the Bolan
Pass, having suffered heavily in transport animals almost from the
start. Supplies were scarce in a region so barren, but with a month's
partial food on his beasts of burden he quitted Dadur March 10th, got
safely, if toilsomely, through the Bolan, and on 26th reached Quetta,
where he was to halt for orders. Shah Soojah and Keane followed, their
troops suffering not a little from scarcity of supplies and loss of
animals.

Keane's error in detaining Cotton at Quetta until he should arrive
proved itself in the semi-starvation to which the troops of the Bengal
column were reduced. The Khan of Khelat, whether from disaffection or
inability, left unfulfilled his promise to supply grain, and the result
of the quarrel which Burnes picked with him was that he shunned coming
in and paying homage to Shah Soojah, for which default he was to suffer
cruel and unjustifiable ruin. The sepoys were put on half, the camp
followers on quarter rations, and the force for eleven days had been
idly consuming the waning supplies, when at length, on April 6th, Keane
came into camp, having already formally assumed the command of the whole
army, and made certain alterations in its organisation and subsidiary
commands. There still remained to be traversed 147 miles before Candahar
should be reached, and the dreaded Kojuk Pass had still to be
penetrated.

Keane was a soldier who had gained a reputation for courage in Egypt and
the Peninsula. He was indebted to the acuteness of his engineer and the
valour of his troops, for the peerage conferred on him for Ghuznee, and
it cannot be said that during his command in Afghanistan he disclosed
any marked military aptitude. But he had sufficient perception to
recognise that he had brought the Bengal column to the verge of
starvation in Quetta, and sufficient common sense to discern that, since
if it remained there it would soon starve outright, the best thing to be
done was to push it forward with all possible speed into a region where
food should be procurable. Acting on this reasoning, he marched the day
after his arrival. Cotton, while lying in Quetta, had not taken the
trouble to reconnoitre the passes in advance, far less to make a
practicable road through the Kojuk defile if that should prove the best
route. The resolution taken to march through it, two days were spent in
making the pass possible for wheels; and from the 13th to the 21st the
column was engaged in overcoming the obstacles it presented, losing in
the task, besides, much baggage, supplies, transport and ordnance
stores. Further back in the Bolan Willshire with the Bombay column was
faring worse; he was plundered severely by tribal marauders.

By May 4th the main body of the army was encamped in the plain of
Candahar. From the Kojuk, Shah Soojah and his contingent had led the
advance toward the southern capital of the dominions from the throne of
which he had been cast down thirty years before. The Candahar chiefs had
meditated a night attack on his raw troops, but Macnaghten's intrigues
and bribes had wrought defection in their camp; and while Kohun-dil-Khan
and his brothers were in flight to Girishk on the Helmund, the infamous
Hadji Khan Kakur led the venal herd of turncoat sycophants to the feet
of the claimant who came backed by the British gold, which Macnaghten
was scattering abroad with lavish hand. Shah Soojah recovered from his
trepidation, hurried forward in advance of his troops, and entered
Candahar on April 24th. His reception was cold. The influential chiefs
stood aloof, abiding the signs of the times; the populace of Candahar
stood silent and lowering. Nor did the sullenness abate when the
presence of a large army with its followers promptly raised the price of
grain, to the great distress of the poor. The ceremony of the solemn
recognition of the Shah, held close to the scene of his defeat in 1834,
Havelock describes as an imposing pageant, with homagings and royal
salutes, parade of troops and presentation of _nuzzurs_; but the arena
set apart for the inhabitants was empty, spite of Eastern love for a
_tamasha_, and the display of enthusiasm was confined to the immediate
retainers of His Majesty.

The Shah was eager for the pursuit of the fugitive chiefs; but the
troops were jaded and sickly, the cavalry were partially dismounted, and
what horses remained were feeble skeletons. The transport animals
needed grazing and rest, and their loss of numbers to be made good. The
crops were not yet ripe, and provisions were scant and dear. When, on
May 9th, Sale marched toward Girishk, his detachment carried half
rations, and his handful of regular cavalry was all that two regiments
could furnish. Reaching Girishk, he found that the chiefs had fled
toward Seistan, and leaving a regiment of the Shah's contingent in
occupation, he returned to Candahar.

Macnaghten professed the belief, and perhaps may have deluded himself
into it, that Candahar had received the Shah with enthusiasm. He was
sanguine that the march to Cabul would be unopposed, and he urged on
Keane, who was wholly dependent on the Envoy for political information,
to move forward at once, lightening the difficulties of the march by
leaving the Bombay troops at Candahar. But Keane declined, on the advice
of Thomson, his chief engineer, who asked significantly whether he had
found the information given him by the political department in any
single instance correct. Food prospects, however, did not improve at
Candahar, and leaving a strong garrison there as well, curious to say,
as the siege train which with arduous labour had been brought up the
passes, Keane began the march to Cabul on June 27th. He had supplies
only sufficient to carry his army thither on half rations. Macnaghten
had lavished money so freely that the treasury chest was all but empty.
How the Afghans regarded the invasion was evinced by condign slaughter
of our stragglers.

As the army advanced up the valley of the Turnuk, the climate became
more temperate, the harvest was later, and the troops improved in health
and spirit. Concentrating his forces, Keane reached Ghuznee on July
21st. The reconnaissance he made proved that fortress occupied in force.
The outposts driven in, and a close inspection made, the works were
found stronger than had been represented, and its regular reduction was
out of the question without the battering train which Keane had allowed
himself to be persuaded into leaving behind. A wall some 70 feet high
and a wet ditch in its front made mining and escalade alike
impracticable. Thomson, however, noticed that the road and bridge to the
Cabul gate were intact. He obtained trustworthy information that up to a
recent date, while all the other gates had been built up, the Cabul gate
had not been so dealt with. As he watched, a horseman was seen to enter
by it. This was conclusive. The ground within 400 yards of the gate
offered good artillery positions. Thomson therefore reported that
although the operation was full of risk, and success if attained must
cost dear, yet in the absence of a less hazardous method of reduction
there offered a fair chance of success in an attempt to blow open the
Cabul gate, and then carry the place by a _coup de main_. Keane was
precluded from the alternative of masking the place and continuing his
advance by the all but total exhaustion of his supplies, which the
capture of Ghuznee would replenish, and he therefore resolved on an
assault by the Cabul gate.

During the 21st July the army circled round the place, and camped to the
north of it on the Cabul road. The following day was spent in
preparations, and in defeating an attack made on the Shah's contingent
by several thousand Ghilzai tribesmen of the adjacent hill country. In
the gusty darkness of the early morning of the 23d the field artillery
was placed in battery on the heights opposite the northern face of the
fortress. The 13th regiment was extended in skirmishing order in the
gardens under the wall of this face, and a detachment of sepoys was
detailed to make a false attack on the eastern face. Near the centre of
the northern face was the Cabul gate, in front of which lay waiting for
the signal, a storming party consisting of the light companies of the
four European regiments, under command of Colonel Dennie of the 13th.
The main column consisted of two European regiments and the support of a
third, the whole commanded by Brigadier Sale; the native regiments
constituted the reserve. All those dispositions were completed by three
A.M., and, favoured by the noise of the wind and the darkness, without
alarming the garrison.

Punctually at this hour the little party of engineers charged with the
task of blowing in the gate started forward on the hazardous errand.
Captain Peat of the Bombay Engineers was in command. Durand, a young
lieutenant of Bengal Engineers, who was later to attain high
distinction, was entrusted with the service of heading the explosion
party. The latter, leading the party, had advanced unmolested to within
150 yards of the works, when a challenge, a shot and a shout gave
intimation of his detection. A musketry fire was promptly opened by the
garrison from the battlements, and blue lights illuminated the approach
to the gate, but in the fortunate absence of fire from the lower works
the bridge was safely crossed, and Peat with his handful of linesmen
halted in a sallyport to cover the explosion operation. Durand advanced
to the gate, his sappers piled their powder bags against it and
withdrew; Durand and his sergeant uncoiled the hose, ignited the
quick-match under a rain from the battlements of bullets and
miscellaneous missiles, and then retired to cover out of reach of the
explosion.

At the sound of the first shot from the battlements, Keane's cannon had
opened their fire. The skirmishers in the gardens engaged in a brisk
fusillade. The rattle of Hay's musketry was heard from the east. The
garrison was alert in its reply. The northern ramparts became a sheet of
flame, and everywhere the cannonade and musketry fire waxed in noise and
volume. Suddenly, as the day was beginning to dawn, a dull, heavy sound
was heard by the head of the waiting column, scarce audible elsewhere
because of the boisterous wind and the din of the firing. A pillar of
black smoke shot up from where had been the Afghan gate, now shattered
by the 300 pounds of gunpowder which Durand had exploded against it. The
signal to the storming party was to be the 'advance' sounded by the
bugler who accompanied Peat. But the bugler had been shot through the
head. Durand could not find Peat. Going back through the bullets to the
nearest party of infantry, he experienced some delay, but at last the
column was apprised that all was right, the 'advance' was sounded,
Dennie and his stormers sped forward, and Sale followed at the head of
the main column.

After a temporary check to the latter, because of a misconception, it
pushed on in close support of Dennie. That gallant soldier and his
gallant followers had rushed into the smoking and gloomy archway to find
themselves met hand to hand by the Afghan defenders, who had recovered
from their surprise. Nothing could be distinctly seen in the narrow
gorge, but the clash of sword blade against bayonet was heard on every
side. The stormers had to grope their way between the yet standing walls
in a dusk which the glimmer of the blue light only made more perplexing.
But some elbow room was gradually gained, and then, since there was
neither time nor space for methodic street fighting, each loaded section
gave its volley and then made way for the next, which, crowding to the
front, poured a deadly discharge at half pistol-shot into the densely
crowded defenders. Thus the storming party won steadily its way, till at
length Dennie and his leading files discerned over the heads of their
opponents a patch of blue sky and a twinkling star or two, and with a
final charge found themselves within the place.

A body of fierce Afghan swordsmen projected themselves into the interval
between the storming party and the main column. Sale, at the head of the
latter, was cut down by a tulwar stroke in the face; in the effort of
his blow the assailant fell with the assailed, and they rolled together
among the shattered timbers of the gate. Sale, wounded again on the
ground, and faint with loss of blood, called to one of his officers for
assistance. Kershaw ran the Afghan through the body with his sword; but
he still struggled with the Brigadier. At length in the grapple Sale got
uppermost, and then he dealt his adversary a sabre cut which cleft him
from crown to eyebrows. There was much confused fighting within the
place, for the Afghan garrison made furious rallies again and again; but
the citadel was found open and undefended, and by sunrise British
banners were waving above its battlements Hyder Khan, the Governor of
Ghuznee, one of the sons of Dost Mahomed, was found concealed in a house
in the town and taken prisoner. The British loss amounted to about 200
killed and wounded, that of the garrison, which was estimated at from
3000 to 4000 strong, was over 500 killed. The number of wounded was not
ascertained; of prisoners taken in arms there were about 1600. The booty
consisted of numerous horses, camels and mules, ordnance and military
weapons of various descriptions, and a vast quantity of supplies of all
kinds.

Keane, having garrisoned Ghuznee, and left there his sick and wounded,
resumed on July 30th his march on Cabul. Within twenty-four hours after
the event Dost Mahomed heard of the fall of Ghuznee. Possessed of the
adverse intelligence, the Dost gathered his chiefs, received their
facile assurances of fidelity, sent his brother the Nawaub Jubbar Khan
to ask what terms Shah Soojah and his British allies were prepared to
offer him, and recalled from Jellalabad his son Akbar Khan, with all the
force he could muster there. The Dost's emissary to the allied camp was
informed that 'an honourable asylum' in British India was at the service
of his brother; an offer which Jubbar Khan declined in his name without
thanks. Before he left to share the fortunes of the Dost, the Sirdar is
reported to have asked Macnaghten, 'If Shah Soojah is really our king,
what need has he of your army and name? You have brought him here,' he
continued, 'with your money and arms. Well, leave him now with us
Afghans, and let him rule us if he can.' When Jubbar Khan returned to
Cabul with his sombre message, the Dost, having been joined by Akbar
Khan, concentrated his army, and found himself at the head of 13,000
men, with thirty guns; but he mournfully realised that he could lean no
reliance on the constancy and courage of his adherents. Nevertheless, he
marched out along the Ghuznee road, and drew up his force at Urgundeh,
where he commanded the most direct line of retreat toward the western
hill country of Bamian, in case his people would not fight, or should
they fight, if they were beaten.

There was no fight in his following; scarcely, indeed, was there a loyal
supporter among all those who had eaten his salt for years. There was
true manhood in this chief whom we were replacing by an effete puppet.
The Dost, Koran in hand, rode among his perfidious troops, and conjured
them in the name of God and the Prophet not to dishonour themselves by
transferring their allegiance to one who had filled Afghanistan with
infidels and blasphemers. 'If,' he continued, 'you are resolved to be
traitors to me, at least enable me to die with honour. Support the
brother of Futteh Khan in one last charge against these Feringhee dogs.
In that charge he will fall; then go and make your own terms with Shah
Soojah.' The high-souled appeal inspired no worthy response; but one is
loth to credit the testimony of the soldier-of-fortune Harlan that his
guards forsook the Dost, and that the rabble of troops plundered his
pavilion, snatched from under him the pillows of his divan, seized his
prayer carpet, and finally hacked into pieces the tent and its
appurtenances. On the evening of August 2d the hapless man shook the
dust of the camp of traitors from his feet, and rode away toward Bamian,
his son Akbar Khan, with a handful of resolute men, covering the retreat
of his father and his family. Tidings of the flight of Dost Mahomed
reached Keane on the 3d, at Sheikabad, where he had halted to
concentrate; and Outram volunteered to head a pursuing party, to consist
of some British officers as volunteers, some cavalry and some Afghan
horse. Hadji Khan Kakur, the earliest traitor of his race, undertook to
act as guide. This man's devices of delay defeated Outram's fiery
energy, perhaps in deceit, perhaps because he regarded it as lacking
discretion. For Akbar Khan made a long halt on the crown of the pass,
waiting to check any endeavour to press closely on his fugitive father,
and it would have gone hard with Outram, with a few fagged horsemen at
his back, if Hadji Khan had allowed him to overtake the resolute young
Afghan chief. As Keane moved forward, there fell to him the guns which
the Dost had left in the Urgundeh position. On August 6th he encamped
close to Cabul; and on the following day Shah Soojah made his public
entry into the capital which he had last seen thirty years previously.
After so many years of vicissitude, adventure and intrigue, he was again
on the throne of his ancestors, but placed there by the bayonets of the
Government whose creature he was, an insult to the nation whom he had
the insolence to call his people.

The entry, nevertheless, was a goodly spectacle enough. Shah Soojah,
dazzling in coronet, jewelled girdle and bracelets, but with no
Koh-i-noor now glittering on his forehead, bestrode a white charger,
whose equipments gleamed with gold. By his side rode Macnaghten and
Burnes; in the pageant were the principal officers of the British army.
Sabres flashed in front of the procession, bayonets sparkled in its
rear, as it wended its way through the great bazaar which Pollock was to
destroy three years later, and along the tortuous street to the gate of
the Balla Hissar. But neither the monarch nor his pageant kindled the
enthusiasm in the Cabulees. There was no voice of welcome; the citizens
did not care to trouble themselves so much as to make him a salaam, and
they stared at the European strangers harder than at his restored
majesty. There was a touch of pathos in the burst of eagerness to which
the old man gave way as he reached the palace, ran through the gardens,
visited the apartments, and commented on the neglect everywhere
apparent. Shah Soojah was rather a poor creature, but he was by no means
altogether destitute of good points, and far worse men than he were
actors in the strange historical episode of which he was the figurehead.
He was humane for an Afghan; he never was proved to have been untrue to
us; he must have had some courage of a kind else he would never have
remained in Cabul when our people left it, in the all but full assurance
of the fate which presently overtook him as a matter of course. Havelock
thus portrays him: 'A stout person of the middle height, his chin
covered with a long thick and neatly trimmed beard, dyed black to
conceal the encroachments of time. His manner toward the English is
gentle, calm and dignified, without haughtiness, but his own subjects
have invariably complained of his reception of them as cold and
repulsive, even to rudeness. His complexion is darker than that of the
generality of Afghans, and his features, if not decidedly handsome, are
not the reverse of pleasing; but the expression of his countenance would
betray to a skilful physiognomist that mixture of timidity and duplicity
so often observable in the character of the higher order of men in
Southern Asia.'



CHAPTER III: THE FIRST YEAR OF OCCUPATION


Sir John Kaye, in his picturesque if diffuse history of the first Afghan
war, lays it down that, in seating Shah Soojah on the Cabul throne, 'the
British Government had done all that it had undertaken to do,' and
Durand argues that, having accomplished this, 'the British army could
have then been withdrawn with the honour and fame of entire success.'
The facts apparently do not justify the reasoning of either writer. In
the Simla manifesto, in which Lord Auckland embodied the rationale of
his policy, he expressed the confident hope 'that the Shah will be
speedily replaced on his throne by his own subjects and adherents, and
when once he shall be received in power, and the independence and
integrity of Afghanistan established, the British army will be
withdrawn.' The Shah had been indeed restored to his throne, but by
British bayonets, not by 'his own subjects and adherents.' It could not
seriously be maintained that he was secure in power, or that the
independence and integrity of Afghanistan were established when British
troops were holding Candahar, Ghuznee and Cabul, the only three
positions where the Shah was nominally paramount, when the fugitive Dost
was still within its borders, when intrigue and disaffection were
seething in every valley and on every hill-side, and when the
principality of Herat maintained a contemptuous independence. Macnaghten
might avow himself convinced of the popularity of the Shah, and believe
or strive to believe that the Afghans had received the puppet king
'with feelings nearly amounting to adoration,' but he did not venture
to support the conviction he avowed by advocating that the Shah should
be abandoned to his adoring subjects. Lord Auckland's policy was
gravely and radically erroneous, but it had a definite object, and that
object certainly was not a futile march to Cabul and back, dropping
incidentally by the wayside the aspirant to a throne whom he had himself
put forward, and leaving him to take his chance among a truculent and
adverse population. Thus early, in all probability, Lord Auckland was
disillusioned of the expectation that the effective restoration of Shah
Soojah would be of light and easy accomplishment, but at least he could
not afford to have the enterprise a _coup manqué_ when as yet it was
little beyond its inception.

The cost of the expedition was already, however, a strain, and the
troops engaged in it were needed in India. Lord Auckland intimated to
Macnaghten his expectation that a strong brigade would suffice to hold
Afghanistan in conjunction with the Shah's contingent, and his desire
that the rest of the army of the Indus should at once return to India.
Macnaghten, on the other hand, in spite of his avowal of the Shah's
popularity, was anxious to retain in Afghanistan a large body of troops.
He meditated strange enterprises, and proposed that Keane should support
his project of sending a force toward Bokhara to give check to a Russian
column which Pottinger at Herat had heard was assembling at Orenburg,
with Khiva for its objective. Keane derided the proposal, and Macnaghten
reluctantly abandoned it, but he demanded of Lord Auckland with success,
the retention in Afghanistan of the Bengal division of the army. In the
middle of September General Willshire marched with the Bombay column,
with orders, on his way to the Indus to pay a hostile visit to Khelat,
and punish its khan for the 'disloyalty' with which he had been charged,
a commission which the British officer fulfilled with a skill and
thoroughness that could be admired with less reservation had the
aggression on the gallant Mehrab been less wanton. A month later Keane
started for India by the Khyber route, which Wade had opened without
serious resistance when in August and September he escorted through the
passes Prince Timour, Shah Soojah's heir-apparent. During the temporary
absence of Cotton, who accompanied Keane, Nott had the command at
Candahar, Sale at and about Cabul, and the troops were quartered in
those capitals, and in Jellalabad, Ghuznee, Charikar and Bamian. The
Shah and the Envoy wintered in the milder climate of Jellalabad, and
Burnes was in political charge of the capital and its vicinity.

It was a prophetic utterance that the accomplishment of our military
succession would mark but the commencement of our real difficulties in
Afghanistan. In theory and in name Shah Soojah was an independent
monarch; it was, indeed, only in virtue of his proving himself able to
rule independently that he could justify his claim to rule at all. But
that he was independent was a contradiction in terms while British
troops studded the country, and while the real powers of sovereignty
were exercised by Macnaghten. Certain functions, it is true, the latter
did permit the nominal monarch to exercise. While debarred from a voice
in measures of external policy, and not allowed to sway the lines of
conduct to be adopted toward independent or revolting tribes, the Shah
was allowed to concern himself with the administration of justice, and
in his hands were the settlement, collection and appropriation of the
revenue of those portions of the kingdom from which any revenue could be
exacted. He was allowed to appoint as his minister of state, the
companion of his exile, old Moolla Shikore, who had lost both his memory
and his ears, but who had sufficient faculty left to hate the English,
to oppress the people, to be corrupt and venal beyond all conception,
and to appoint subordinates as flagitious as himself. 'Bad ministers,'
wrote Burnes, 'are in every government solid ground for unpopularity;
and I doubt if ever a king had a worse set than has Shah Soojah.' The
oppressed people appealed to the British functionaries, who remonstrated
with the minister, and the minister punished the people for appealing to
the British functionaries. The Shah was free to confer grants of land on
his creatures, but when the holders resisted, he was unable to enforce
his will since he was not allowed to employ soldiers; and the odium of
the forcible confiscation ultimately fell on Macnaghten, who alone had
the ordering of expeditions, and who could not see the Shah belittled by
non-fulfilment of his requisitions.

Justice sold by venal judges, oppression and corruption rampant in every
department of internal administration, it was no wonder that nobles and
people alike resented the inflictions under whose sting they writhed.
They were accustomed to a certain amount of oppression; Dost Mahomed had
chastised them with whips, but Shah Soojah, whom the English had
brought, was chastising them with scorpions. And they felt his yoke the
more bitterly because, with the shrewd acuteness of the race, they
recognised the really servile condition of this new king. They fretted,
too, under the sharp bit of the British political agents who were strewn
about the country, in the execution of a miserable and futile policy,
and whose lives, in a few instances, did not maintain the good name of
their country. Dost Mahomed had maintained his sway by politic
management of the chiefs, and through them of the tribes. Macnaghten
would have done well to impress on Shah Soojah the wisdom of pursuing
the same tactics. There was, it is true, the alternative of destroying
the power of the barons, but that policy involved a stubborn and
doubtful struggle, and prolonged occupation of the country by British
troops in great strength. Macnaghten professed our occupation of
Afghanistan to be temporary; yet he was clearly adventuring on the rash
experiment of weakening the nobles when he set about the enlistment of
local tribal levies, who, paid from the Royal treasury and commanded by
British officers, were expected to be staunch to the Shah, and useful in
curbing the powers of the chiefs. The latter, of course, were alienated
and resentful, and the levies, imbued with the Afghan attribute of
fickleness, proved for the most part undisciplined and faithless.

The winter of 1839-40 passed without much noteworthy incident. The
winter climate of Afghanistan is severe, and the Afghan, in ordinary
circumstances, is among the hibernating animals. But down in the Khyber,
in October, the tribes gave some trouble. They were dissatisfied with
the amount of annual black-mail paid them for the right of way through
their passes. When the Shah was a fugitive thirty years previously, they
had concealed and protected him; and mindful of their kindly services,
he had promised them, unknown to Macnaghten, the augmentation of their
subsidy to the old scale from which it had gradually dwindled. Wade,
returning from Cabul, did not bring them the assurances they expected,
whereupon they rose and concentrated and invested Ali Musjid, a fort
which they regarded as the key of their gloomy defile. Mackeson, the
Peshawur political officer, threw provisions and ammunition into Ali
Musjid, but the force, on its return march, was attacked by the hillmen,
the Sikhs being routed, and the sepoys incurring loss of men and
transport. The emboldened Khyberees now turned on Ali Musjid in earnest;
but the garrison was strengthened, and the place was held until a couple
of regiments marched down from Jellalabad, and were preparing to attack
the hillmen, when it was announced that Mackeson had made a compact with
the chiefs for the payment of an annual subsidy which they considered
adequate.

Afghanistan fifty years ago, and the same is in a measure true of it
to-day, was rather a bundle of provinces, some of which owned scarcely a
nominal allegiance to the ruler in Cabul, than a concrete state. Herat
and Candahar were wholly independent, the Ghilzai tribes inhabiting the
wide tracts from the Suliman ranges westward beyond the road through
Ghuznee, between Candahar and Cabul, and northward into the rugged
country between Cabul and Jellalabad, acknowledged no other authority
than that of their own chiefs. The Ghilzais are agriculturists,
shepherds, and robbers; they are constantly engaged in internal feuds;
they are jealous of their wild independence, and through the centuries
have abated little of their untamed ferocity. They had rejected
Macnaghten's advances, and had attacked Shah Soojah's camp on the day
before the fall of Ghuznee. Outram, in reprisal, had promptly raided
part of their country. Later, the winter had restrained them from
activity, but they broke out again in the spring. In May Captain
Anderson, marching from Candahar with a mixed force about 1200 strong,
was offered battle near Jazee, in the Turnuk, by some 2000 Ghilzai horse
and foot. Andersen's guns told heavily among the Ghilzai horsemen, who,
impatient of the fire, made a spirited dash on his left flank. Grape and
musketry checked them; but they rallied, and twice charged home on the
bayonets before they withdrew, leaving 200 of their number dead on the
ground. Nott sent a detachment to occupy the fortress of
Khelat-i-Ghilzai, between Candahar and Ghuznee, thus rendering the
communications more secure; and later, Macnaghten bribed the chiefs by
an annual subsidy of £600 to abstain from infesting the highways. The
terms were cheap, for the Ghilzai tribes mustered some 40,000 fighting
men.

Shah Soojah and the Envoy returned from Jellalabad to Cabul in April
1840. A couple of regiments had wintered not uncomfortably in the Balla
Hissar. That fortress was then the key of Cabul, and while our troops
remained in Afghanistan it should not have been left ungarrisoned a
single hour. The soldiers did their best to impress on Macnaghten the
all-importance of the position. But the Shah objected to its continued
occupation, and Macnaghten weakly yielded. Cotton, who had returned to
the chief military command in Afghanistan, made no remonstrance; the
Balla Hissar was evacuated, and the troops were quartered in cantonments
built in an utterly defenceless position on the plain north of Cabul, a
position whose environs were cumbered with walled gardens, and commanded
by adjacent high ground, and by native forts which were neither
demolished nor occupied. The troops, now in permanent and regularly
constructed quarters, ceased to be an expeditionary force, and became
substantially an army of occupation. The officers sent for their wives
to inhabit with them the bungalows in which they had settled down. Lady
Macnaghten, in the spacious mission residence which stood apart in its
own grounds, presided over the society of the cantonments, which had all
the cheery surroundings of the half-settled, half-nomadic life of our
military people in the East. There were the 'coffee house' after the
morning ride, the gathering round the bandstand in the evening, the
impromptu dance, and the _burra khana_ occasionally in the larger
houses. A racecourse had been laid out, and there were 'sky' races and
more formal meetings. And so 'as in the days that were before the flood,
they were eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, and
knew not until the flood came, and took them all away.'

Macnaghten engaged himself in a welter of internal and external
intrigue, his mood swinging from singular complacency to a disquietude
that sometimes approached despondency. It had come to be forced on him,
in spite of his intermittent optimism, that the Government was a
government of sentry-boxes, and that Afghanistan was not governed so
much as garrisoned. The utter failure of the winter march attempted by
Peroffski's Russian column across the frozen steppes on Khiva was a
relief to him; but the state of affairs in Herat was a constant trouble
and anxiety. Major Todd had been sent there as political agent, to make
a treaty with Shah Kamran, and to superintend the repair and improvement
of the fortifications of the city. Kamran was plenteously subsidised; he
took Macnaghten's lakhs, but furtively maintained close relations with
Persia. Detecting the double-dealing, Macnaghten urged on Lord Auckland
the annexation of Herat to Shah Soojah's dominions, but was instructed
to condone Kamran's duplicity, and try to bribe him higher. Kamran by no
means objected to this policy, and, while continuing his intrigues with
Persia, cheerfully accepted the money, arms and ammunition which
Macnaghten supplied him with so profusely as to cause remonstrance on
the part of the financial authorities in Calcutta. The
Commander-in-Chief was strong enough to counteract the pressure which
Macnaghten brought to bear on Lord Auckland in favour of an expedition
against Herat, which his lordship at length finally negatived, to the
great disgust of the Envoy, who wrote of the conduct of his chief as
'drivelling beyond contempt,' and 'sighed for a Wellesley or a
Hastings.' The ultimate result of Macnaghten's negotiations with Shah
Kamran was Major Todd's withdrawal from Herat. Todd had suspended the
monthly subsidy, to the great wrath of Kamran's rapacious and
treacherous minister Yar Mahomed, who made a peremptory demand for
increased advances, and refused Todd's stipulation that a British force
should be admitted into Herat. Todd's action in quitting Herat was
severely censured by his superiors, and he was relegated to regimental
duty. Perhaps he acted somewhat rashly, but he had not been kept well
informed; for instance, he had been unaware that Persia had become our
friend, and had engaged to cease relations with Shah Kamran--an
important arrangement of which he certainly should have been cognisant.
Macnaghten had squandered more gold on Herat than the fee-simple of the
principality was worth, and to no purpose; he left that state just as he
found it, treacherous, insolent, greedy and independent.

The precariousness of the long lines of communications between British
India and the army in Afghanistan--a source of danger which from the
first had disquieted cautious soldiers--was making itself seriously
felt, and constituted for Macnaghten another cause of solicitude. Old
Runjeet Singh, a faithful if not disinterested ally, had died on June
27th, 1839, the day on which Keane marched out from Candahar. The breath
was scarcely out of the old reprobate when the Punjaub began to drift
into anarchy. So far as the Sikh share in it was concerned, the
tripartite treaty threatened to become a dead letter. The Lahore Durbar
had not adequately fulfilled the undertaking to support Prince Timour's
advance by the Khyber, nor was it duly regarding the obligation to
maintain a force on the Peshawur frontier of the Punjaub. But those
things were trivial in comparison with the growing reluctance manifested
freely, to accord to our troops and convoys permission to traverse the
Punjaub on the march to and from Cabul. The Anglo-Indian Government sent
Mr Clerk to Lahore to settle the question as to the thoroughfare. He had
instructions to be firm, and the Sikhs did not challenge Mr Clerk's
stipulation that the Anglo-Indian Government must have unmolested right
of way through the Punjaub, while he undertook to restrict the use of it
as much as possible. This arrangement by no means satisfied the exacting
Macnaghten, and he continued to worry himself by foreseeing all sorts of
troublous contingencies unless measures were adopted for 'macadamising'
the road through the Punjaub.

The summer of 1840 did not pass without serious interruptions to the
British communications between Candahar and the Indus; nor without
unexpected and ominous disasters before they were restored. General
Willshire, with the returning Bombay column, had in the previous
November stormed Mehrab Khan's ill-manned and worse armed fort of
Khelat, and the Khan, disdaining to yield, had fallen in the hopeless
struggle. His son Nusseer Khan had been put aside in favour of a
collateral pretender, and became an active and dangerous malcontent. All
Northern Beloochistan fell into a state of anarchy. A detachment of
sepoys escorting supplies was cut to pieces in one of the passes. Quetta
was attacked with great resolution by Nusseer Khan, but was opportunely
relieved by a force sent from another post. Nusseer made himself master
of Khelat, and there fell into his cruel hands Lieutenant Loveday, the
British political officer stationed there, whom he treated with great
barbarity, and finally murdered. A British detachment under Colonel
Clibborn, was defeated by the Beloochees with heavy loss, and compelled
to retreat. Nusseer Khan, descending into the low country of Cutch,
assaulted the important post of Dadur, but was repulsed, and taking
refuge in the hills, was routed by Colonel Marshall with a force from
Kotree, whereupon he became a skulking fugitive. Nott marched down from
Candahar with a strong force, occupied Khelat, and fully re-established
communications with the line of the Indus, while fresh troops moved
forward into Upper Scinde, and thence gradually advancing to Quetta and
Candahar, materially strengthened the British position in Southern
Afghanistan.

Dost Mahomed, after his flight from Cabul in 1839, had soon left the
hospitable refuge afforded him in Khooloom, a territory west of the
Hindoo Koosh beyond Bamian, and had gone to Bokhara on the treacherous
invitation of its Ameer, who threw him into captivity. The Dost's family
remained at Khooloom, in the charge of his brother Jubbar Khan. The
advance of British forces beyond Bamian to Syghan and Bajgah, induced
that Sirdar to commit himself and the ladies to British protection. Dr
Lord, Macnaghten's political officer in the Bamian district, was a rash
although well-meaning man. The errors he had committed since the opening
of spring had occasioned disasters to the troops whose dispositions he
controlled, and had incited the neighbouring hill tribes to active
disaffection. In July Dost Mahomed made his escape from Bokhara, hurried
to Khooloom, found its ruler and the tribes full of zeal for his cause,
and rapidly grew in strength. Lord found it was time to call in his
advance posts and concentrate at Bamian, losing in the operation an
Afghan regiment which deserted to the Dost. Macnaghten reinforced
Bamian, and sent Colonel Dennie to command there. On September 18th
Dennie moved out with two guns and 800 men against the Dost's advance
parties raiding in an adjacent valley. Those detachments driven back,
Dennie suddenly found himself opposed to the irregular mass of Oosbeg
horse and foot which constituted the army of the Dost. Mackenzie's
cannon fire shook the undisciplined horde, the infantry pressed in to
close quarters, and soon the nondescript host of the Dost was in panic
flight, with Dennie's cavalry in eager pursuit. The Dost escaped with
difficulty, with the loss of his entire personal equipment. He was once
more a fugitive, and the Wali of Khooloom promptly submitted himself to
the victors, and pledged himself to aid and harbour the broken chief no
more. Macnaghten had been a prey to apprehension while the Dost's
attitude was threatening; he was now in a glow of joy and hope.

But the Envoy's elation was short-lived. Dost Mahomed was yet to cause
him much solicitude. Defeated in Bamian, he was ready for another
attempt in the Kohistan country to the north of Cabul. Disaffection was
rife everywhere throughout the kingdom, but it was perhaps most rife in
the Kohistan, which was seething with intrigues in favour of Dost
Mahomed, while the local chiefs were intensely exasperated by the
exactions of the Shah's revenue collectors. Macnaghten summoned the
chiefs to Cabul. They came, they did homage to the Shah and swore
allegiance to him; they went away from the capital pledging each other
to his overthrow, and jeering at the scantiness of the force they had
seen at Cabul. Intercepted letters disclosed their schemes, and in the
end of September Sale, with a considerable force, marched out to
chastise the disaffected Kohistanees. The fort of Tootundurrah fell
without resistance. Julgah, however, the next fort assailed, stubbornly
held out, and officers and men fell in the unsuccessful attempt to storm
it. In three weeks Sale marched to and fro through the Kohistan,
pursuing will-o'-the-wisp rumours as to the whereabouts of the Dost,
destroying forts on the course of his weary pilgrimage, and subjected
occasionally to night attacks.

Meanwhile, in the belief that Dost Mahomed was close to Cabul, and
mournfully conscious that the capital and surrounding country were ripe
for a rising, Macnaghten had relapsed into nervousness, and was a prey
to gloomy forebodings. The troops at Bamian were urgently recalled.
Cannon were mounted on the Balla Hissar to overawe the city, the
concentration of the troops in the fortress was under consideration, and
men were talking of preparing for a siege. How Macnaghten's English
nature was undergoing deterioration under the strain of events is shown
by his writing of the Dost: 'Would it be justifiable to set a price on
this fellow's head?' How his perceptions were warped was further evinced
by his talking of 'showing no mercy to the man who has been the author
of all the evil now distracting the country,' and by his complaining of
Sale and Burnes that, 'with 2000 good infantry, they are sitting down
before a fortified place, and are afraid to attack it.'

Learning that for certain the Dost had crossed the Hindoo Koosh from
Nijrao into the Kohistan, Sale, who had been reinforced, sent out
reconnaissances which ascertained that he was in the Purwan Durrah
valley, stretching down from the Hindoo Koosh to the Gorebund river;
and the British force marched thither on 2d November. As the village
was neared, the Dost's people were seen evacuating it and the adjacent
forts, and making for the hills. Sale's cavalry was some distance in
advance of the infantry of the advance guard, but time was precious.
Anderson's horse went to the left, to cut off retreat down the Gorebund
valley. Fraser took his two squadrons of Bengal cavalry to the right,
advanced along the foothills, and gained the head of the valley. He was
too late to intercept a small body of Afghan horsemen, who were already
climbing the upland; but badly mounted as the latter were, he could
pursue them with effect. But it seemed that the Afghans preferred to
fight rather than be pursued. The Dost himself was in command of the
little party, and the Dost was a man whose nature was to fight, not to
run. He wheeled his handful so that his horsemen faced Fraser's troop
down there below them. Then the Dost pointed to his banner, bared his
head, called on his supporters in the name of God and the Prophet to
follow him against the unbelievers, and led them down the slope.

Fraser had formed up his troopers when recall orders reached him. Joyous
that the situation entitled him to disobey them, he gave instead the
word to charge. As the Afghans came down at no great pace, they fired
occasionally; either because of the bullets, or because of an access of
pusillanimity, Fraser's troopers broke and fled ignominiously. The
British gentlemen charged home unsupported. Broadfoot, Crispin and Lord
were slain; Ponsonby, severely wounded and his reins cut, was carried
out of the _mêlée_ by his charger; Fraser, covered with blood and
wounds, broke through his assailants, and brought to Sale his report of
the disgrace of his troopers. After a sharp pursuit of the poltroons,
the Dost and his followers leisurely quitted the field.

Burnes wrote to the Envoy--he was a soldier, but he was also a
'political,' and political employ seemed often in Afghanistan to
deteriorate the attribute of soldierhood--that there was no alternative
for the force but to fall back on Cabul, and entreated Macnaghten to
order immediate concentration of all the troops. This letter Macnaghten
received the day after the disaster in the Kohistan, when he was taking
his afternoon ride in the Cabul plain. His heart must have been very
heavy as he rode, when suddenly a horseman galloped up to him and
announced that the Ameer was approaching. 'What Ameer?' asked
Macnaghten. 'Dost Mahomed Khan,' was the reply, and sure enough there
was the Dost close at hand. Dismounting, this Afghan prince and
gentleman saluted the Envoy, and offered him his sword, which Macnaghten
declined to take. Dost and Envoy rode into Cabul together, and such was
the impression the former made on the latter that Macnaghten, who a
month before had permitted himself to think of putting a price on 'the
fellow's' head, begged now of the Governor-General 'that the Dost be
treated more handsomely than was Shah Soojah, who had no claim on us.'
And then followed a strange confession for the man to make who made the
tripartite treaty, and approved the Simla manifesto: 'We had no hand in
depriving the Shah of his kingdom, _whereas we ejected the Dost, who
never offended us, in support of our policy, of which he was the
victim_.'

Durand regards Dost Mahomed's surrender as 'evincing a strange
pusillanimity.' This opprobrious judgment appears unjustified. No doubt
he was weary of the fugitive life he had been leading, but to pronounce
him afraid that the Kohistanees or any other Afghans would betray him is
to ignore the fact that he had been for months among people who might,
any hour of any day, have betrayed him if they had chosen. Nobler
motives than those ascribed to him by Durand may be supposed to have
actuated a man of his simple and lofty nature. He had given the
arbitrament of war a trial, and had realised that in that way he could
make no head against us. He might, indeed, have continued the futile
struggle, but he was the sort of man to recognise the selfishness of
that persistency which would involve ruin and death to the devoted
people who would not desert his cause while he claimed to have a cause.
When historians write of Afghan treachery and guile, it seems to have
escaped their perception that Afghan treachery was but a phase of Afghan
patriotism, of an unscrupulous character, doubtless, according to our
notions, but nevertheless practical in its methods, and not wholly
unsuccessful in its results. It may have been a higher and purer
patriotism that moved Dost Mahomed to cease, by his surrender, from
being an obstacle to the tranquillisation of the country of which he had
been the ruler.



CHAPTER IV: THE SECOND YEAR OF OCCUPATION


Dost Mahomed remained for a few days in the British cantonments on the
Cabul plain, an honoured guest rather than a prisoner. His soldierly
frankness, his bearing at once manly and courteous, his honest liking
for and trust in our race, notwithstanding the experiences which he had
undergone, won universal respect and cordiality. Officers who stood
aloof from Shah Soojah vied with each other in evincing to Dost Mahomed
their sympathy with him in his fallen fortunes. Shah Soojah would not
see the man whom he had ingloriously supplanted, on the pretext that he
'could not bring himself to show common civility to such a villain.' How
Macnaghten's feeling in regard to the two men had altered is disclosed
by his comment on this refusal. 'It is well,' he wrote, 'as the Dost
must have suffered much humiliation in being subjected to such an
ordeal.'

In the middle of November 1840 the Dost began his journey toward British
India, accompanied by Sir Willoughby Cotton, who was finally quitting
Afghanistan, and under the escort of a considerable British force which
had completed its tour of duty in Afghanistan. Sale succeeded Cotton in
temporary divisional command pending the arrival of the latter's
successor. About the middle of December Shah Soojah and his Court,
accompanied by the British Envoy, arrived at Jellalabad for the winter,
Burnes remaining at Cabul in political charge.

Macnaghten was mentally so constituted as to be continually alternating
between high elation and the depths of despondency; discerning to-day
ominous indications of ruin in an incident of no account, and to-morrow
scorning imperiously to recognise danger in the fierce rising of a
province. It may almost be said that each letter of his to Lord Auckland
was of a different tone from the one which had preceded it. Burnes, who
was nominally Macnaghten's chief lieutenant, with more self-restraint,
had much the same temperament. Kaye writes of him: 'Sometimes sanguine,
sometimes despondent, sometimes confident, sometimes credulous, Burnes
gave to fleeting impressions all the importance and seeming permanency
of settled convictions, and imbued surrounding objects with the colours
of his own varying mind.' But if Burnes had been a discreet and
steadfast man, he could have exercised no influence on the autocratic
Macnaghten, since between the two men there was neither sympathy nor
confidence. Burnes had, indeed, no specific duties of any kind; in his
own words, he was in 'the most nondescript situation.' Macnaghten gave
him no responsibility, and while Burnes waited for the promised
reversion of the office of envoy, he chiefly employed himself in writing
long memorials on the situation and prospects of affairs, on which
Macnaghten's marginal comments were brusque, and occasionally
contemptuous. The resolute and clear-headed Pottinger, who, if the
opportunity had been given him, might have buttressed and steadied
Macnaghten, was relegated to provincial service. Throughout his career
in Afghanistan the Envoy could not look for much advice from the
successive commanders of the Cabul force, even if he had cared to
commune with them. Keane, indeed, did save him from the perpetration of
one folly. But Cotton appears to have been a respectable nonentity. Sale
was a stout, honest soldier, who was not fortunate on the only occasion
which called him outside of his restricted _métier_. Poor Elphinstone
was an object for pity rather than for censure.

It happened fortunately, in the impending misfortunes, that two men of
stable temperament and lucid perception were in authority at Candahar.
General Nott was a grand old Indian officer, in whom there was no guile,
but a good deal of temper. He was not supple, and he had the habit of
speaking his mind with great directness, a propensity which accounted,
perhaps, for the repeated supersessions he had undergone. A
clear-headed, shrewd man, he was disgusted with very many things which
he recognised as unworthy in the conduct of the affairs of Afghanistan,
and he was not the man to choose mild phrases in giving vent to his
convictions. He had in full measure that chronic dislike which the
Indian commander in the field nourishes to the political officer who is
imposed on him by the authorities, and who controls his measures and
trammels his actions. Nott's 'political,' who, the sole survivor of the
men who were prominent during this unhappy period, still lives among us
esteemed and revered, was certainly the ablest officer of the unpopular
department to which he belonged; and how cool was Henry Rawlinson's
temper is evinced in his ability to live in amity with the rugged and
outspoken chief who addressed him in such a philippic as the
following--words all the more trenchant because he to whom they were
addressed must have realised how intrinsically true they were:--

'I have no right to interfere with the affairs of this country, and I
never do so. But in reference to that part of your note where you speak
of political influence, I will candidly tell you that these are not
times for mere ceremony, and that under present circumstances, and at a
distance of 2000 miles from the seat of the supreme Government, I throw
responsibility to the wind, and tell you that in my opinion you have not
had for some time past, nor have you at present, one particle of
political influence in this country.'

Nott steadily laboured to maintain the _morale_ and discipline of his
troops, and thus watching the flowing tide of misrule and embroilment,
he calmly made the best preparations in his power to meet the storm the
sure and early outbreak of which his clear discernment prognosticated.

Shah Soojah's viceroy at Candahar was his heir-apparent Prince Timour.
The Dooranee chiefs of Western Afghanistan had not unnaturally expected
favours and influence under the rule of the Dooranee monarch; and while
in Candahar before proceeding to Cabul, and still uncertain of what
might occur there, Shah Soojah had been lavish of his promises. The
chiefs had anticipated that they would be called around the vice-throne
of Prince Timour; but Shah Soojah made the same error as that into which
Louis XVIII. fell on his restoration. He constituted his Court of the
men who had shared his Loodianah exile. The counsellors who went to
Candahar with Timour were returned _émigrés_, in whom fitness for duty
counted less than the qualification of companionship in exile. Those
people had come back to Afghanistan poor; now they made haste to be rich
by acts of oppressive injustice, in the exaction of revenue from the
people, and by intercepting from the Dooranee chiefs the flow of royal
bounty to which they had looked forward.

Uktar Khan was prominent among the Dooranee noblemen, and he had the
double grievance of having been disappointed of the headship of the
Zemindawar province on the western bank of the Helmund, and having been
evilly entreated by the minions of Prince Timour. He had raised his clan
and routed a force under a royalist follower, when Nott sent a
detachment against him. Uktar Khan had crossed the Helmund into
Zemindawar, when Farrington attacked him, and, after a brisk fight,
routed and pursued him. The action was fought on January 3, 1841, in the
very dead of winter; the intensity of the cold dispersed Uktar's levies,
and Farrington returned to Candahar.

In reply to Macnaghten's demand for information regarding the origin of
this outbreak, Rawlinson wrote him some home truths which were very
distasteful. Rawlinson warned his chief earnestly of the danger which
threatened the false position of the British in Afghanistan. He pointed
out how cruel must be the revenue exactions which enabled Prince
Timour's courtiers to absorb great sums. He expressed his suspicion that
Shah Soojah had countenanced Uktar Khan's rising, and spoke of intrigues
of dark and dangerous character. Macnaghten scouted Rawlinson's warning,
and instructed him that 'it will make the consideration of all questions
more simple if you will hereafter take for granted that as regards us
"the king can do no wrong."' However, he and the Shah did remove from
Candahar the Vakeel and his clique of obnoxious persons, who had been
grinding the faces of the people; and the Envoy allowed himself to hope
that this measure would restore order to the province of Candahar.

The hope was vain, the evil lay deeper; disaffection to the Shah and
hatred to the British power were becoming intensified from day to day,
and the aspiration for relief was swelling into a passion. In the days
before our advent there had been venality and corruption in public
places--occasionally, likely enough, as Macnaghten asserted, to an
extent all but incredible. But exaction so sweeping could have occurred
only in regions under complete domination; and in Afghanistan, even to
this day, there are few regions wholly in this condition. When the yoke
became over-weighty, a people of a nature so intractable knew how to
resent oppression and oppose exaction. But now the tax gatherer
swaggered over the land, and the people had to endure him, for at his
back were the soldiers of the Feringhees and the levies of the Shah. The
latter were paid by assignments on the revenues of specified districts;
as the levies constituted a standing army of some size, the
contributions demanded were heavier and more permanent than in bygone
times. Macnaghten, aware of the discontent engendered by the system of
assignments, desired to alter it. But the Shah's needs were pressing;
the Anglo-Indian treasury was strained already by the expenditure in
Afghanistan; and it was not easy in a period of turmoil and rebellion to
carry out the amendment of a fiscal system. That, since the surrender of
the Dost, there had been no serious rising in Northern or Eastern
Afghanistan, sufficed to make Macnaghten an optimist of the moment. He
had come by this time to a reluctant admission of the fact against which
he had set his face so long, that Shah Soojah was unpopular. 'He has
incurred,' he wrote, 'the odium that attaches to him from his alliance
with us'; but the Envoy would not admit that our position in Afghanistan
was a false one, in that we were maintaining by our bayonets, against
the will of the Afghans, a sovereign whom they detested. 'It would,' he
pleaded, 'be an act of downright dishonesty to desert His Majesty before
he has found the means of taking root in the soil to which we have
transplanted him.' While he wrote, Macnaghten must have experienced a
sudden thrill of optimism or of self-delusion, for he continued: 'All
things considered, the present tranquillity of this country is to my
mind perfectly miraculous. Already our presence has been infinitely
beneficial in allaying animosities and in pointing out abuses.' If it
had been the case that the country was tranquil, his adjective would
have been singularly appropriate, but not precisely in the sense he
meant to convey.

But there was no tranquillity, miraculous or otherwise. While Macnaghten
was writing the letter which has just been quoted, Brigadier Shelton,
who, about the New Year, had reached Jellalabad with a brigade from
British India in relief of the force which was withdrawing with Cotton,
was contending with an outbreak of the wild and lawless clans of the
Khyber. When Macnaghten wrote, he had already received intelligence of
the collapse of his projects in Herat, and that Major Todd, who had been
his representative there, judging it imperative to break up the mission
of which he was the head, had abruptly quitted that city, and was on his
way to Candahar. Mischief was simmering in the Zemindawar country. The
Ghilzai tribes of the region between Candahar and Ghuznee had accepted a
subsidy to remain quiet, but the indomitable independence of this wild
and fierce race was not to be tamed by bribes, and the spirit of
hostility was manifesting itself so truculently that a British garrison
had been placed in Khelat-i-Ghilzai, right in the heart of the disturbed
territory. This warning and defensive measure the tribes had regarded
with angry jealousy; but it was not until a rash 'political' had
directed the unprovoked assault and capture of a Ghilzai fort that the
tribes passionately flew to arms, bent on contesting the occupation of
their rugged country. Colonel Wymer was sent from Candahar with a force,
escorting a convoy of stores intended for the equipment of
Khelat-i-Ghilzai. The tribes who had been loosely beleaguering that
place marched down the Turnuk upon Wymer, and on May 19th attacked him
with great impetuosity, under the command of a principal chief who was
known as the 'Gooroo.' Wymer, in the protection of his convoy, had to
stand on the defensive. The Ghilzais, regardless of the grape which tore
through their masses, fell on sword in hand, and with an intuitive
tactical perception struck Wymer simultaneously in front and flank. His
sepoys had to change their dispositions, and the Ghilzais took the
opportunity of their momentary dislocation to charge right home. They
were met firmly by the bayonet, but again and again the hillmen renewed
their attacks; and it was not till after five hours of hard fighting
which cost them heavy loss, that at length, in the darkness, they
suddenly drew off. Had they been Swiss peasants defending their
mountains, or Poles struggling against the ferocious tyranny of Russia,
their gallant effort might have excited praise and sympathy. Had they
been Soudanese, a statesman might have spoken of them as a people
'rightly struggling to be free'; as it was, the Envoy vituperated them
as 'a parcel of ragamuffins,' and Wymer's sepoys were held to have
'covered themselves with glory.' Macnaghten proceeded to encourage a
sense of honour among the tribes by proposing the transfer to another
chief, on condition of his seizing and delivering over the inconvenient
'Gooroo,' of the share of subsidy of which the latter had been in
receipt.

While this creditable transaction was under consideration, Uktar Khan
was again making himself very unpleasant; so much so that Macnaghten was
authorising Rawlinson to offer a reward of 10,000 rupees for his
capture, which accomplished, Rawlinson was instructed to 'hang the
villain as high as Haman.' The gallows was not built, however, on which
Uktar was to hang, although that chief sustained two severe defeats at
the hands of troops sent from Candahar, and had to become a fugitive.
The Ghilzais, who had gathered again after their defeat under the
'Gooroo,' had made little stand against the detachment which Colonel
Chambers led out from Candahar, and they were again temporarily
dispersed. The 'Gooroo' himself was in our hands. If the disaffection
was in no degree diminished, the active ebullitions of it were assuredly
quelled for the time. It was true, to be sure, that Akbar Khan, the
fierce and resolute son of Dost Mahomed, had refused the Envoy's
overtures to come in, and was wandering and plotting in Khooloom, quite
ready to fulfil Macnaghten's prophetic apprehension that 'the fellow
will be after some mischief should the opportunity present itself'; that
the Dooranees were still defiant; that an insurgent force was out in the
Dehrawat; and that the tameless chief Akram Khan was being blown from a
gun by the cruel and feeble Timour. But unquestionably there was a
comparative although short-lived lull in the overt hostility of the
Afghan peoples against Shah Soojah and his foreign supporters; and
Macnaghten characteristically announced that 'the country was quiet from
Dan to Beersheba.' To one of his correspondents he wrote: 'From Mookoor
to the Khyber Pass, all is content and tranquillity; and wherever we
Europeans go, we are received with respect, attention and welcome. I
think our prospects are most cheering; and with the materials we have
there ought to be little or no difficulty in the management of the
country. The people are perfect children, and they should be treated as
such. If we put one naughty boy in the corner, the rest will be
terrified.'

General Nott at Candahar, who 'never interfered in the government of the
country,' but regarded the situation with shrewd, clear-headed common
sense, differed utterly from the Envoy's view. The stout old soldier did
not squander his fire; it was a close volley he discharged in the
following words: 'The conduct of the thousand and one politicals has
ruined our cause, and bared the throat of every European in this country
to the sword and knife of the revengeful Afghan and bloody Belooch; and
unless several regiments be quickly sent, not a man will be left to
describe the fate of his comrades. Nothing will ever make the Afghans
submit to the hated Shah Soojah, who is most certainly as great a
scoundrel as ever lived.'

Nott's conclusions were in the main justified by after events, but the
correctness of his premiss may be questioned. That the conduct of some
of the political officers intensified the rancour of the Afghans is
unhappily true, but the hate of our domination, and of the puppet thrust
upon them by us, seems to have found its origin in a deeper feeling. The
patriotism of a savage race is marked by features repulsive to civilised
communities, but through the ruthless cruelty of the indiscriminate
massacre, the treachery of the stealthy stab, and the lightly broken
pledges, there may shine out the noblest virtue that a virile people can
possess. A semi-barbarian nation whose manhood pours out its blood like
water in stubborn resistance against an alien yoke, may be pardoned for
many acts shocking to civilised communities which have not known the
bitterness of stern and masterful subjugation.



CHAPTER V: THE BEGINNING OF THE END


The deceptive quietude of Afghanistan which followed the sharp lessons
administered to the Dooranees and the Ghilzais was not seriously
disturbed during the month of September 1841, and Macnaghten was in a
full glow of cheerfulness. His services had been recognised by his
appointment to the dignified and lucrative post of Governor of the
Bombay Presidency, and he was looking forward to an early departure for
a less harassing and tumultuous sphere of action than that in which he
had been labouring for two troubled years. The belief that he would
leave behind him a quiescent Afghanistan, and Shah Soojah firmly
established on its throne, was the complement, to a proud and zealous
man, of the satisfaction which his promotion afforded.

One distasteful task he had to perform before he should go. The Home
Government had become seriously disquieted by the condition of affairs
in Afghanistan. The Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, the
channel through which the ministry communicated with the
Governor-General, had expressed great concern at the heavy burden
imposed on the Indian finances by the cost of the maintenance of the
British force in Afghanistan, and by the lavish expenditure of the
administration which Macnaghten directed. The Anglo-Indian Government
was urgently required to review with great earnestness the question of
its future policy in regard to Afghanistan, and to consider gravely
whether an enterprise at once so costly and so unsatisfactory in results
should not be frankly abandoned. Lord Auckland was alive to the
difficulties and embarrassments which encompassed the position beyond
the Indus, but he was loth to admit that the policy of which he had been
the author, and in which the Home Government had abetted him so eagerly,
was an utter failure. He and his advisers finally decided in favour of
the continued occupation of Afghanistan; and since the Indian treasury
was empty, and the annual charge of that occupation was not less than a
million and a quarter sterling, recourse was had to a loan, Macnaghten
was pressed to effect economies in the administration, and he was
specially enjoined to cut down the subsidies which were paid to Afghan
chiefs as bribes to keep them quiet. Macnaghten had objected to this
retrenchment, pointing out that the stipends to the chiefs were simply
compensation for the abandonment by them of their immemorial practice of
highway robbery, but he yielded to pressure, called to Cabul the chiefs
in its vicinity, and informed them that thenceforth their subsidies
would be reduced. The chiefs strongly remonstrated, but without effect,
and they then formed a confederacy of rebellion. The Ghilzai chiefs were
the first to act. Quitting Cabul, they occupied the passes between the
capital and Jellalabad, and entirely intercepted the communications with
India by the Khyber route.

Macnaghten did not take alarm at this significant demonstration,
regarding the outbreak merely as 'provoking,' and writing to Rawlinson
that 'the rascals would be well trounced for their pains.' Yet warnings
of gathering danger were rife, which but for his mood of optimism should
have struck home to his apprehension. Pottinger had come down from the
Kohistan, where he was acting as political officer, bent on impressing
on him that a general rising of that region was certain unless strong
measures of prevention were resorted to. For some time before the actual
outbreak of the Ghilzais, the Afghan hatred to our people had been
showing itself with exceptional openness and bitterness. Europeans and
camp followers had been murdered, but the sinister evidences of growing
danger had been regarded merely as ebullitions of private rancour. Akbar
Khan, Dost Mahomed's son, had moved forward from Khooloom into the
Bamian country, and there was little doubt that he was fomenting the
disaffection of the Ghilzai chiefs, with some of whom this indomitable
man, who in his intense hatred of the English intruders had resolutely
rejected all offers of accommodation, and preferred the life of a
homeless exile to the forfeiture of his independence, was closely
connected by marriage.

The time was approaching when Sale's brigade was to quit Cabul on its
return journey to India. Macnaghten seems to have originally intended to
accompany this force, for he wrote that he 'hoped to settle the hash of
the Ghilzais on the way down, if not before.' The rising, however,
spread so widely and so rapidly that immediate action was judged
necessary, and on October 9th Colonel Monteath marched towards the
passes with his own regiment, the 35th Native Infantry, some artillery
and cavalry details, and a detachment of Broadfoot's sappers.

How able, resolute, and high-souled a man was George Broadfoot, the
course of this narrative will later disclose. He was one of three
gallant brothers, all of whom died sword in hand. The corps of sappers
which he commanded was a remarkable body--a strange medley of
Hindustanees, Goorkhas, and Afghan tribesmen of divers regions. Many
were desperate and intractable characters, but Broadfoot, with mingled
strength and kindness, moulded his heterogeneous recruits into skilful,
obedient and disciplined soldiers. Broadfoot's description of his
endeavours to learn something of the nature of the duties expected of
him in the expedition for which he had been detailed, and to obtain such
equipment as those duties might require, throws a melancholy light on
the deteriorated state of affairs among our people at this period, and
on the relations between the military and civilian authorities.

Broadfoot went for information, in the first instance, to Colonel
Monteath, who could give him no orders, having received none himself.
Monteath declined to apply for details as to the expedition, as he knew
'these people' (the authorities) too well; he was quite aware of the
danger of going on service in the dark, but explained that it was not
the custom of the military authorities at Cabul to consult or even
instruct the commanders of expeditions. Broadfoot then went to the
General. Cotton's successor in the chief military command in Afghanistan
was poor General Elphinstone, a most gallant soldier, but with no
experience of Indian warfare, and utterly ignorant of the Afghans and of
Afghanistan. Wrecked in body and impaired in mind by physical ailments
and infirmities, he had lost all faculty of energy, and such mind as
remained to him was swayed by the opinion of the person with whom he had
last spoken. The poor gentleman was so exhausted by the exertion of
getting out of bed, and being helped into his visiting-room, that it was
not for half-an-hour, and after several ineffectual efforts, that he
could attend to business. He knew nothing of the nature of the service
on which Monteath was ordered, could give Broadfoot no orders, and was
unwilling to refer to the Envoy on a matter which should have been left
to him to arrange. He complained bitterly of the way in which he was
reduced to a cypher--'degraded from a general to the "Lord-Lieutenant's
head constable."' Broadfoot went from the General to the Envoy, who 'was
peevish,' and denounced the General as fidgety. He declared the enemy to
be contemptible, and that as for Broadfoot and his sappers, twenty men
with pickaxes were enough; all they were wanted for was to pick stones
from under the gun wheels. When Broadfoot represented the inconvenience
with which imperfect information as to the objects of the expedition was
fraught, Macnaghten lost his temper, and told Broadfoot that, if he
thought Monteath's movement likely to bring on an attack, 'he need not
go, he was not wanted'; whereupon Broadfoot declined to listen to such
language, and made his bow. Returning to the General, whom he found
'lost and perplexed,' he was told to follow his own judgment as to what
quantity of tools he should take. The Adjutant-General came in, and
'this officer, after abusing the Envoy, spoke to the General with an
imperiousness and disrespect, and to me, a stranger, with an insolence
it was painful to see the influence of on the General. His advice to his
chief was to have nothing to say to Macnaghten, to me, or to the
sappers, saying Monteath had men enough, and needed neither sappers nor
tools.' At parting the poor old man said to Broadfoot: 'If you go out,
for God's sake clear the passes quickly, that I may get away; for if
anything were to turn up, I am unfit for it, done up in body and mind.'
This was the man whom Lord Auckland had appointed to the most
responsible and arduous command at his disposal, and this not in
ignorance of General Elphinstone's disqualifications for active service,
but in the fullest knowledge of them!

Monteath's camp at Bootkhak, the first halting-place on the Jellalabad
road, was sharply attacked on the night of the 9th, and the assailants,
many of whom were the armed retainers of chiefs living in Cabul sent out
specially to take part in the attack, although unsuccessful, inflicted
on Monteath considerable loss. Next day Sale, with H.M.'s 13th, joined
Monteath, and on the 13th he forced the long and dangerous ravine of the
Khoord Cabul with sharp fighting, but no very serious loss, although
Sale himself was wounded, and had to relinquish the active command to
Colonel Dennie. Monteath encamped in the valley beyond the pass, and
Sale, with the 13th, returned without opposition to Bootkhak, there to
await reinforcements and transports. In his isolated position Monteath
remained unmolested until the night of the 17th, when he repulsed a
Ghilzai attack made in considerable strength, and aided by the treachery
of 'friendly' Afghans who had been admitted into his camp; but he had
many casualties, and lost a number of camels. On the 20th Sale,
reinforced by troops returned from the Zurmut expedition, moved forward
on Monteath, and on the 22d pushed on to the Tezeen valley, meeting with
no opposition either on the steep summit of the Huft Kotul or in the
deep narrow ravine opening into the valley. The Ghilzais were in force
around the mouth of the defile, but a few cannon-shots broke them up.
The advance guard pursued with over-rashness; the Ghilzais rallied, in
the skirmish which ensued an officer and several men were killed, and
the retirement of our people unfortunately degenerated into precipitate
flight, with the Ghilzais in hot pursuit. The 13th, to which the
fugitive detachment mainly belonged, now consisted mainly of young
soldiers, whose constancy was impaired by this untoward occurrence.

Macnaghten had furnished Sale with a force which, in good heart and
vigorously commanded, was strong enough to have effected great things.
The Ghilzai chief of Tezeen possessed a strong fort full of supplies,
which Dennie was about to attack, when the wily Afghan sent to Major
Macgregor, the political officer accompanying Sale, a tender of
submission. Macgregor fell into the snare, desired Sale to countermand
the attack, and entered into negotiations. In doing so he committed a
fatal error, and he exceeded his instructions in the concessions which
he made. Macnaghten, it was true, had left matters greatly to
Macgregor's discretion; and if 'the rebels were very humble,' the Envoy
was not disposed to be too hard upon them. But one of his firm
stipulations was that the defences of Khoda Buxsh's fort must be
demolished, and that Gool Mahomed Khan 'should have nothing but war.'
Both injunctions were disregarded by Macgregor, who, with unimportant
exceptions, surrendered all along the line. The Ghilzais claimed and
obtained the restoration of their original subsidies; a sum was handed
to them to enable them to raise the tribes in order to keep clear the
passes; Khoda Buxsh held his fort, and sold the supplies it contained to
Sale's commissary at a fine price. Every item of the arrangement was
dead in favour of the Ghilzais, and contributory to their devices. Sale,
continuing his march, would be separated further and further from the
now diminished force in Cabul, and by the feigned submission the chiefs
had made they had escaped the permanent establishment of a strong
detachment in their midst at Tezeen.

Macnaghten, discontented though he was with the sweeping concessions
which Macgregor had granted to the Ghilzais, put the best face he could
on the completed transaction, and allowed himself to believe that a
stable settlement had been effected. On the 26th Sale continued his
march, having made up his baggage animals at the expense of the 37th
Native Infantry, which, with half of the sappers and three guns of the
mountain train, he sent back to Kubbar-i-Jubbar, there to halt in a
dangerously helpless situation until transport should be sent down from
Cabul. His march as far as Kutti Sung was unmolested. Mistrusting the
good faith of his new-made allies, he shunned the usual route through
the Purwan Durrah by taking the mountain road to the south of that
defile, and thus reached the Jugdulluk valley with little opposition,
baulking the dispositions of the Ghilzais, who, expecting him to
traverse the Purwan Durrah, were massed about the southern end of the
defile, ready to fall on the column when committed to the tortuous
gorge.

From the Jugdulluk camping ground there is a steep and winding ascent of
three miles, commanded until near the summit by heights on either side.
Sale's main body had attained the crest with trivial loss, having
detached parties by the way to ascend to suitable flanking positions,
and hold those until the long train of slow-moving baggage should have
passed, when they were to fall in and come on with the rear-guard. The
dispositions would have been successful but that on reaching the crest
the main body, instead of halting there for the rear to close up,
hurried down the reverse slope, leaving baggage, detachments, and
rear-guard to endure the attacks which the Ghilzais promptly delivered,
pressing fiercely on the rear, and firing down from either side on the
confused mass in the trough below. The flanking detachments had
relinquished their posts in panic, and hurried forward in confusion to
get out of the pass. The rear-guard was in disorder, when Broadfoot,
with a few officers and some of his sappers, valiantly checked the
onslaught, but the crest was not crossed until upwards of 120 men had
fallen, the wounded among whom had to be abandoned with the dead. On
October 30th Sale's force reached Gundamuk without further molestation,
and halted there temporarily to await orders. During the halt melancholy
rumours filtered down the passes from the capital, and later came
confirmation of the evil tidings from the Envoy, and orders from
Elphinstone directing the immediate return of the brigade to Cabul, if
the safety of its sick and wounded could be assured. Sale called a
council of war, which pronounced, although not unanimously, against a
return to Cabul; and it was resolved instead to march on to Jellalabad,
which was regarded as an eligible _point d'appui_ on which a relieving
force might move up and a retiring force might move down. Accordingly
on November 11th the brigade quitted Gundamuk, and hurried down rather
precipitately, and with some fighting by the way, to Jellalabad, which
was occupied on the 14th.

Some members of the Gundamuk council of war, foremost among whom was
Broadfoot, argued vigorously in favour of the return march to Cabul.
Havelock, who was with Sale as a staff-officer, strongly urged the
further retreat into Jellalabad. Others, again, advocated the middle
course of continuing to hold Gundamuk. It may be said that a daring
general would have fought his way back to Cabul, that a prudent general
would have remained at Gundamuk, and that the occupation of Jellalabad
was the expedient of a weak general. That a well-led march on Cabul was
feasible, although it might have been difficult and bloody, cannot be
questioned, and the advent of such men as Broadfoot and Havelock would
have done much toward rekindling confidence and stimulating the
restoration of soldierly virtue, alike in the military authorities and
in the rank and file of the Cabul force. At Gundamuk, again, the
brigade, well able to maintain its position there, would have made its
influence felt all through the Ghilzai country and as far as Cabul. The
evacuation of that capital decided on, it would have been in a position
to give the hand to the retiring army, and so to avert at least the
worst disasters of the retreat. The retirement on Jellalabad, in the
terse language of Durand, 'served no conceivable purpose except to
betray weakness, and still further to encourage revolt.'

While Sale was struggling through the passes on his way to Gundamuk, our
people at Cabul were enjoying unwonted quietude. Casual entries in Lady
Sale's journal, during the later days of October, afford clear evidence
how utterly unconscious were they of the close gathering of the storm
that so soon was to break upon them. Her husband had written to her from
Tezeen that his wound was fast healing, and that the chiefs were
extremely polite. She complains of the interruption of the mails owing
to the Ghilzai outbreak, but comforts herself with the anticipation of
their arrival in a day or two. She was to leave Cabul for India in a few
days, along with the Macnaghtens and General Elphinstone, and her diary
expresses an undernote of regret at having to leave the snug house in
the cantonments which Sale had built on his own plan, the excellent
kitchen garden in which her warrior husband, in the intervals of his
soldiering duties, grew fine crops of peas, potatoes, cauliflowers and
artichokes, and the parterres of flowers which she herself cultivated,
and which were the admiration of the Afghan gentlemen who came to pay
their morning calls.

[Illustration: CABUL the CANTONMENT _and the_ Surrounding COUNTRY.]

The defencelessness of the position at Cabul had long engaged the
solicitude of men who were no alarmists. Engineer officer after engineer
officer had unavailingly and a half from the cantonments, with the Cabul
river intervening. With Shelton's troops and those in the cantonments
General Elphinstone had at his disposition, apart from the Shah's
contingent, four infantry regiments, two batteries of artillery, three
companies of sappers, a regiment of cavalry, and some irregular horse--a
force fully equipped and in good order. In the Balla Hissar Shah Soojah
had a considerable, if rather mixed, body of military and several guns.

The rising of the 2d November may not have been the result of a fully
organised plan. There are indications that it was premature, and that
the revolt in force would have been postponed until after the expected
departure of the Envoy and the General with all the troops except
Shelton's brigade, but for an irrepressible burst of personal rancour
against Burnes. Durand holds, however, that the malcontents acted on the
belief that to kill Burnes and sack the Treasury was to inaugurate the
insurrection with an imposing success. Be this as it may, a truculent
mob early in the morning of November 2d assailed Burnes' house. He at
first regarded the outbreak as a casual riot, and wrote to Macnaghten to
that effect. Having harangued the throng without effect, he and his
brother, along with William Broadfoot his secretary, prepared for
defence. Broadfoot was soon killed, and a little later Burnes and his
brother were hacked to pieces in the garden behind the house. The
Treasury was sacked; the sepoys who had guarded it and Burnes' house
were massacred, and both buildings were fired; the armed mob swelled in
numbers, and soon the whole city was in a roar of tumult.

Prompt and vigorous military action would no doubt have crushed the
insurrection, at least for the time. But the indifference, vacillation
and delay of the British authorities greatly encouraged its rapid
development. Macnaghten at first 'did not think much of it.' Shelton was
ordered into the Balla Hissar, countermanded, a second time ordered, and
again instructed to halt for orders. At last the Envoy himself
despatched him, with the loose order to act on his own judgment in
communication with the Shah. Shelton marched into the Balla Hissar with
part of his force, and the rest of it was moved into the cantonments.
When the Brigadier went to the Shah, that potentate demanded to know who
sent him, and what he had come for. But the Shah, to do him justice, had
himself taken action. Informed that Burnes was attacked and the city in
revolt, he had ordered Campbell's regiment of his own levies and a
couple of guns to march to his assistance. Campbell recklessly attempted
to push his way through the heart of the city, instead of reaching
Burnes' house by a circuitous but opener route, and after some sharp
street fighting in which he lost heavily, he was driven back, unable to
penetrate to the scene of plunder and butchery. Shelton remained
inactive in the Balla Hissar until Campbell was reported beaten and
retreating, when he took some feeble measures to cover the retreat of
the fugitives, who, however, abandoned their guns outside the fortress.
The day was allowed to pass without anything further being done, except
the despatch of an urgent recall to Major Griffiths, whom Sale had left
at Kubbar-i-Jubbar, and that good soldier, having fought every step of
the way through the passes, brought in his detachment in unbroken order
and without loss of baggage, notwithstanding his weakness in transport.
Shelton, reinforced in the Balla Hissar, maintained an intermittent and
ineffectual fire on the city. Urgent orders were despatched to Sale,
recalling him and his brigade--orders with which, as has been mentioned,
Sale did not comply--and also to Nott, at Candahar, begging him to send
a brigade to Cabul. In compliance with this requisition, Maclaren's
brigade immediately started from Candahar, but soon returned owing to
the inclemency of the weather.

Captain Mackenzie was in charge of a fort containing the Shah's
commissariat stores; this fort was on the outskirts of a suburb of
Cabul, and was fiercely attacked on the 2d. For two days Mackenzie
maintained his post with unwearying constancy. His garrison was short of
water and of ammunition, and the fort was crowded with women and
children, but he held on resolutely until the night of the 3d. No
assistance was sent, no notice, indeed, of any kind was taken of him;
his garrison was discouraged by heavy loss, and by the mines which the
enemy were pushing forward. At length, when the gate of the fort had
been fired, and his wounded were dying for lack of medical aid, he
evacuated the fort, and fought his way gallantly into cantonments,
bringing in his wounded and the women and children. With this solitary
exception the Afghans had nowhere encountered resistance, and the
strange passiveness of our people encouraged them to act with vigour.
From the enclosed space of the Shah Bagh, and the adjacent forts of
Mahmood Khan and Mahomed Shereef, they were threatening the Commissariat
fort, hindering access to it, and besetting the south-western flank of
the cantonments. A young officer commanded the hundred sepoys
garrisoning the Commissariat fort; he reported himself in danger of
being cut off, and Elphinstone gave orders that he and his garrison
should be brought off, and the fort and its contents abandoned. Several
efforts to accomplish the withdrawal were thwarted by the Afghan
flanking fire, with the loss of several officers and many men. The
commissary officer urged on the General the disastrous consequences
which the abandonment of the fort would entail, containing as it did all
the stores, adding that in cantonments there were only two days'
supplies, without prospect of procuring any more. Orders were then sent
to Warren to hold out to the last extremity; which instructions he
denied having received. Early in the morning of the 5th troops were
preparing to attack the Afghan fort and reinforce the Commissariat fort,
when Warren and his garrison reached the cantonments. The gate of the
Commissariat fort had been fired, but the enemy had not effected an
entrance, yet Warren and his people had evacuated the fort through a
hole cut in its wall. Thus, with scarcely a struggle to save it, was
this vital fort allowed to fall into the enemy's hands, and
thenceforward our unfortunate people were to be reduced to precarious
and scanty sources for their food.

From the 5th to the 9th November there was a good deal of desultory
fighting, in the course of which, after one failure, Mahomed Shereef's
fort was stormed by a detachment of our people, under the command of
Major Griffiths; but this success had little influence on the
threatening attitude maintained by the Afghans. On the 9th, owing to the
mental and physical weakness of poor General Elphinstone, Brigadier
Shelton was summoned into cantonments from the Balla Hissar, bringing
with him part of the garrison with which he had been holding the latter
post. The hopes entertained that Shelton would display vigour, and
restore the confidence of the troops, were not realised. He from the
first had no belief in the ability of the occupants of the cantonment to
maintain their position, and he never ceased to urge prompt retreat on
Jellalabad. From the purely military point of view he was probably
right; the Duke of Wellington shared his opinion when he said in the
House of Lords: 'After the first few days, particularly after the
negotiations at Cabul had commenced, it became hopeless for General
Elphinstone to maintain his position.' Shelton's situation was
unquestionably a very uncomfortable one, for Elphinstone, broken as he
was, yet allowed his second in command no freedom of action, and was
testily pertinacious of his prerogative of command. If in Shelton, who
after his manner was a strong man, there had been combined with his
resolution some tact and temper, he might have exercised a beneficial
influence. As it was he became sullen and despondent, and retired behind
an 'uncommunicative and disheartening reserve.' Brave as he was, he
seems to have lacked the inspiration which alone could reinvigorate the
drooping spirit of the troops. In a word, though he probably was, in
army language, a 'good duty soldier,' he certainly was nothing more. And
something more was needed then.

Action on Shelton's part became necessary the day after he came into
cantonments. The Afghans occupied all the forts on the plain between the
Seah Sung heights and the cantonments, and from the nearest of them, the
Rikabashee fort, poured in a heavy fire at close range, which the return
artillery fire could not quell. On Macnaghten's urgent requisition the
General ordered out a strong force, under Shelton, to storm the
obnoxious fort. Captain Bellew missed the gate, and blew open merely a
narrow wicket, but the storming party obeyed the signal to advance.
Through a heavy fire the leaders reached the wicket, and forced their
way in, followed by a few soldiers. The garrison of the fort hastily
evacuated it, and all seemed well, when a sudden stampede ensued--the
handful which, led by Colonel Mackrell of the 44th and Lieutenant Bird
of the Shah's force, had already entered the fort, remaining inside it.
The runaway troops were rallied with difficulty by Shelton and the
subordinate officers, but a call for volunteers from the European
regiment was responded to but by one solitary Scottish private. After a
second advance, and a second retreat--a retreat made notwithstanding
strong artillery and musketry support--Shelton's efforts brought his
people forward yet again, and this time the fort was occupied in force.
Of those who had previously entered it but two survivors were found. The
Afghans, re-entering the fort, had hacked Mackrell to pieces and
slaughtered the men who tried to escape by the wicket. Lieutenant Bird
and a sepoy, from a stable the door of which they had barricaded with
logs of wood, had fended off their assailants by a steady and deadly
fire, and when they were rescued by the entrance of the troops they had
to clamber out over a pile of thirty dead Afghans whom the bullets of
the two men had struck down.

It had come to our people in those gloomy days, to regard as a 'triumph'
a combat in which they were not actually worsted; and even of such
dubious successes the last occurred on November 13, when the Afghans,
after having pressed our infantry down the slopes of the Behmaroo ridge,
were driven back by artillery fire, and forced by a cavalry charge to
retreat further, leaving behind them a couple of guns from which they
had been sending missiles into the cantonments. One of those guns was
brought in without difficulty, but the other the Afghans covered with
their jezail fire. The Envoy had sent a message of entreaty that 'the
triumph of the day' should be completed by its capture. Major Scott of
the 44th made appeal on appeal, ineffectually, to the soldierly feelings
of his men, and while they would not move the sepoys could not be
induced to advance. At length Eyre spiked the piece as a precautionary
measure, and finally some men of the Shah's infantry succeeded in
bringing in the prize. The return march of the troops into cantonments
in the dark, was rendered disorderly by the close pressure of the
Afghans, who, firing incessantly, pursued the broken soldiery up to the
entrance gate.

On the depressed garrison of the Cabul cantonments tidings of disaster
further afield had been pouring in apace. Soon after the outbreak of the
rising, it was known that Lieutenant Maule, commanding the Kohistanee
regiment at Kurdurrah, had been cut to pieces, with his adjutant and
sergeant-major, by the men of his own corps; and on November 6th
intelligence had come in that the Goorkha regiment stationed at Charikar
in the Kohistan, where Major Pottinger was Resident, was in dangerous
case, and that Codrington, its commandant, and some of his officers had
already fallen. And now, on the 15th, there rode wearily into
cantonments two wounded men, who believed themselves the only British
survivors of the Charikar force. Pottinger was wounded in the leg,
Haughton, the adjutant of the Goorkha corps, had lost his right hand,
and his head hung forward on his breast, half severed from his body by a
great tulwar slash. Of the miserable story which it fell to Pottinger to
tell only the briefest summary can be given. His residence was at
Lughmanee, a few miles from the Charikar cantonments, when early in the
month a number of chiefs of the Kohistan and the Nijrao country
assembled to discuss with him the terms on which they would reopen the
communications with Cabul. Those chiefs proved treacherous, slew
Rattray, Pottinger's assistant, and besieged Pottinger in Lughmanee.
Finding his position untenable, he withdrew to Charikar under cover of
night. On the morning of the 5th the Afghans assailed the cantonments.
Pottinger was wounded, Codrington was killed, and the Goorkhas were
driven into the barracks. Haughton, who succeeded to the command of the
regiment, made sortie on sortie, but was finally driven in, and the
enemy renewed their assaults in augmented strength. Thenceforward the
position was all but hopeless. On the 10th the last scant remains of
water was distributed. Efforts to procure water by sorties on the nights
of the 11th and 12th were not successful, and the corps fell into
disorganisation because of losses, hardships, exhaustion, hunger and
thirst. Pottinger and Haughton agreed that there was no prospect of
saving even a remnant of the regiment unless by a retreat to Cabul,
which, however, was clearly possible only in the case of the stronger
men, unencumbered with women and children, of whom, unfortunately, there
was a great number in the garrison. On the afternoon of the 13th
Haughton was cut down by a treacherous native officer of the artillery,
who then rushed out of the gate, followed by all the gunners and most of
the Mahommedans of the garrison. In the midst of the chaos of
disorganisation, Dr Grant amputated Haughton's hand, dressed his other
wounds, and then spiked all the guns. When it was dark, the garrison
moved out, Pottinger leading the advance, Dr Grant the main body, and
Ensign Rose the rear-guard. From the beginning of the march, discipline
was all but entirely in abeyance; on reaching the first stream, the last
remains of control were lost, and the force was rapidly disintegrating.
Pottinger and Haughton, the latter only just able to keep the saddle,
pushed on toward Cabul, rested in a ravine during the day, evaded the
partisan detachment sent out from Cabul to intercept them, rode through
sleeping Cabul in the small hours of the morning, and after being
pursued and fired upon in the outskirts of the city, finally attained
the cantonments. It was afterwards learned that a portion of the
regiment had struggled on to within twenty miles from Cabul, gallantly
headed by young Rose and Dr Grant. Then the remnant was destroyed. Rose
was killed, after despatching four Afghans with his own hand. Dr Grant,
escaping the massacre, held on until within three miles of the
cantonments, when he too was killed.

Macnaghten was naturally much depressed by the news communicated by
Pottinger, and realised that the Afghan masses already encompassing the
position on the Cabul plain would certainly be increased by bands from
the Kohistan and Nijrao, flushed already with their Charikar success. He
sided strongly with the large party among the officers who were
advocating the measure of abandoning the cantonments altogether, and
moving the force now quartered there to the safer and more commanding
position in the Balla Hissar. The military chiefs opposed the project,
and propounded a variety of objections to it, none of which were without
weight, yet all of which might have been overcome by energy and proper
dispositions. Shelton, however, was opposed to the scheme, since if
carried out it would avert or postpone the accomplishment of his policy
of retreat on Jellalabad; Elphinstone was against it in the inertia of
debility, and the project gradually came to be regarded as abandoned.
Another project, that of driving the Afghans from Mahmood Khan's fort,
commanding the direct road between the cantonments and the Balla
Hissar, and of occupying it with a British force, was so far advanced
that the time for the attempt was fixed, and the storming party actually
warned, when some petty objection intervened and the enterprise was
abandoned, never to be revived.

The rising was not three days old when already Elphinstone had lost
heart. On the 5th he had written to Macnaghten suggesting that the
latter should 'consider what chance there is of making terms,' and since
then he had been repeatedly pressing on the Envoy the 'hopelessness of
further resistance.' Macnaghten, vacillating as he was, yet had more
pith in his nature than was left in the debilitated old general. He
wrote to Elphinstone on the 18th recommending, not very strenuously, the
policy of holding out where they were as long as possible, and indeed
throughout the winter, if subsistence could be obtained. He pointed out
that in the cantonments, which he believed to be impregnable, there were
at least the essentials of wood and water. Arguing that a retreat on
Jellalabad must be most disastrous, and was to be avoided except in the
last extremity, he nevertheless ended somewhat inconsistently by leaving
to the military authorities, if in eight or ten days there should appear
no prospect of an improvement of the situation, the decision whether it
would be wiser to attempt a retreat or to withdraw from the cantonments
into the Balla Hissar.

Far from improving, the situation was speedily to become all but
hopeless. The village of Behmaroo, built on the north-eastern slope of
the ridge of the same name bounding the plain on the north-west, lay
about half a mile due north of the cantonments, part of which some of
the houses on the upper slope commanded. From this village, after the
loss of the Commissariat fort, our people had been drawing supplies. On
the morning of the 22d the Afghans were seen moving in force from Cabul
toward Behmaroo, obviously with intent to occupy the village, and so
deprive the occupants of the cantonments of the resource it had been
affording them. A detachment under Major Swayne, sent out to forestall
this occupation, found Behmaroo already in the possession of a body of
Kohistanees, who had so blocked the approaches that Swayne did not
consider himself justified in attempting the fulfilment of his orders to
storm the place; and he contented himself with maintaining all day an
ineffectual musketry fire on it. A diversion in his favour by a gun
supported by cavalry had no result save that of casualties to the
gunners and troopers; reinforcements brought out by Shelton effected
nothing, and in the evening the troops were recalled. On this ill-fated
day Akbar Khan, Dost Mahomed's fierce and implacable son, arrived in
Cabul, and the evil influence on the British fortunes which he exerted
immediately made itself felt, for the events of the following day were
to bring about a crisis in the fate of our ill-starred people.

Recognising the mischief wrought by the hostile occupation of our only
source of supplies, the Envoy strongly urged the immediate despatch of a
strong force to occupy the Behmaroo ridge, and dislodge from the village
its Kohistanee garrison. Shelton opposed the measure, urging the
dispirited state of the troops, their fatigue from constant defensive
duty, and their weakened physique because of poor and scanty rations. He
was overruled, and before daybreak of the 23d a force under his command,
consisting of five companies of the 44th, twelve companies of native
infantry, some cavalry, and one horse-artillery gun, was in position on
the north-eastern extremity of the ridge overhanging the village. The
gun opened fire on the village with grape, and after a short resistance
the greater part of its garrison quitted it. The storming party
entrusted to Major Swayne did not, however, act, and was withdrawn.
Leaving a detachment on the knoll above the village, Shelton moved his
force along the upland to a position near the gorge intersecting the
ridge, forming his infantry into two squares, with the cavalry in rear.
The further hill beyond the gorge was crowded with hostile Afghans from
Cabul, and the long-range fire of their jezails across the dividing
depression, carried execution into the squares which Shelton had
inexplicably formed as if to furnish his foes with a target which they
could not miss. The muskets of his men could not retaliate, and the
skirmishers he threw forward to the brow of his hill could not endure
the Afghan fire. Shelton's single gun maintained a hot and telling fire
on the Afghan masses on the opposite hill, and baulked an attempt
against his right flank made by the Afghan cavalry swarming in the outer
plain; but when its vent became too hot for the gunners to serve it, the
dullest comprehension became alive to the folly of sending a single gun
into the field.

Shelton's men, falling fast though they were, and faint with fatigue and
thirst, yet had endured for hours a fusillade to which they could not
reply, when a body of Afghan fanatics suddenly sprang up out of the
gorge, swept back with their fire the few skirmishers who had been still
holding the brow of the hill, and planted their flag within thirty yards
of the front of the nearer of the squares. Shelton offered a large
reward to the man who should bring it in, but there was no response. In
a passion of soldierly wrath, the veteran commanded a bayonet charge;
not a man sprang forward at the summons which British soldiers are wont
to welcome with cheers. The cowed infantry remained supine, when their
officers darted forward and threw stones into the faces of the enemy;
the troopers heard but obeyed not that trumpet-call to 'Charge!' which
so rarely fails to thrill the cavalryman with the rapture of the fray.
The gunners only, men of that noble force the Company's Horse-Artillery,
quitted themselves valiantly. They stood to their piece to the bitter
end. Two of them were killed beside it, another was severely wounded, a
fourth, refusing to run, took refuge under the gun, and miraculously
escaped death. But the gallant example of the artillerymen in their
front did not hearten the infantrymen of the leading square. The panic
spread among them, and they broke and fled. Fortunately they were not
pursued. The rear square stood fast, and the officers by great exertion
succeeded in rallying the fugitives under the cover it afforded. The
news that a principal chief, Abdoolah Khan, had been severely wounded in
the plain gave pause to the offensive vigour of the Afghans, and the
assailants fell back, abandoning the gun, but carrying off the limber
and gun-team. Our people reoccupied the position, the gun recommenced
its fire, and if the cavalry and infantry could have been persuaded to
take the offensive the battle might have been retrieved. But they
remained passive. The reinforced Afghans renewed their long-range fire
with terrible effect; most of the gunners had fallen, and the Brigadier,
recognising the growing unsteadiness of his command and the imminent
danger of capture to which the solitary gun was again exposed, ordered a
retirement on the detachment left near Behmaroo and the limbering up of
the gun, to which a second limber had been sent out from the
cantonments. The movement was scarcely begun when a rush of fanatic
Afghans completely broke the square, and all order and discipline then
disappeared. A regular rout set in down the hill toward cantonments, the
fugitives disregarding the efforts of the officers to rally them, and
the enemy in full pursuit, the Afghan cavalry making ghastly slaughter
among the panic-stricken runaways. The detachment near Behmaroo
attempted to fall back in orderly fashion, but the reinforced garrison
of the village swept out upon it, surrounded it, broke it up, and threw
it into utter rout with the loss of a large proportion of its strength,
one whole company being all but annihilated. It seemed as if pursued and
pursuers would enter the cantonments together so closely were they
commingled; but the fire from the ramparts and an opportune charge of
horse arrested the pursuit. Yet Eyre reckons as the chief reason why all
the British force that had gone out to battle was not destroyed, the
fact that a leading Afghan chief forced his men to spare the fugitives,
and ultimately halted and withdrew his people when the opportunity for
wholesale slaughter lay open to them. Most of the wounded were left on
the field, where they were miserably cut to pieces; and the gun, which
had been overturned in the attempt of the drivers to gallop down the
face of the hill, finally passed into the possession of the Afghans.
Shelton's dispositions as a commander could not well have been worse;
his bearing as a soldier, although undaunted, imparted to his hapless
troops nothing of inspiration. The obstinacy with which he held the hill
after the impossibility of even partial success must have been patent to
him, was universally condemned. It need scarcely be added that his loss
was very severe.

No more fighting was possible. What, then, was to be done? Elphinstone
and Shelton were at one in opposing removal into the Balla Hissar.
Macnaghten, to whom Shah Soojah had communicated his urgent
recommendation of that measure as the only expedient which could secure
the safety of the British troops, fell in with the views of the military
authorities. There came to him a letter from Osman Khan, the chief who
had called off his adherents on the previous day from pursuing the
fugitives fleeing into cantonments. Osman wrote that, if his troops had
followed up their successes, the loss of the cantonments and the
destruction of the British force were inevitable; but, he continued,
that it was not the wish of the chiefs to proceed to such extremities,
their sole desire being that our people should quietly evacuate the
country, leaving the Afghan sirdars to govern it according to their own
customs, and with a king of their own choosing. In communicating this
letter to General Elphinstone, Sir William asked for the latter's
opinion on the military possibility, or the reverse, of the retention of
the British position in Afghanistan. Elphinstone, in reply, enumerated
sundry reasons which led him to the conclusion which he stated, that 'it
is not feasible any longer to maintain our position in this country, and
that you ought to avail yourself of the offer to negotiate which has
been made to you.'



CHAPTER VI: THE ROAD TO RUIN


As the result of the military disaster of November 23d, and of the
representations of the General, recorded in the last chapter,
Macnaghten, with whatever reluctance, permitted himself to entertain
proposals for an arrangement made by the Afghan leaders. From the
beginning of the outbreak, while urging on the military authorities to
exert themselves in putting down the revolt, he had been engaged in
tortuous and dangerous intrigues, with the object of sowing discord
among the Afghan chiefs, and thus weakening the league of hostility
against Shah Soojah and his British supporters. In the conduct of these
intrigues he used the services of Mohun Lal, who had been one of Burnes'
assistants, and who, having escaped the fate of his chief, had found
refuge in the city residence of a Kuzzilbash chief. Mohun Lal was a
fitting agent for the sort of work prescribed to him, and he burrowed
and suborned with assiduity, and not altogether without success. But it
is unhappily true that he was commissioned to carry out a darker
enterprise, the removal by assassination of certain of the more
virulently hostile among the Afghan leaders. The incident is the
blackest of the many discreditable transactions which chequer the inner
political history of this melancholy chapter of our annals. It is
unfortunately certain that Lieutenant John Conolly, Macnaghten's kinsman
and his confidential representative with Shah Soojah, authorised Mohun
Lal, in writing, to compass the taking off of prominent Afghan leaders.
In a letter to Mohun Lal, of 5th November, Conolly wrote: 'I promise
10,000 rupees for the head of each rebel chief.' Again, on the 11th, he
wrote: 'There is a man called Hadji Ali, who might be induced by a bribe
to try and bring in the heads of one or two of the Mufsids. Endeavour to
let him know that 10,000 rupees will be given for each head, or even
15,000 rupees.' Two chiefs certainly did die under suspicious
circumstances, and in each case the blood-money was claimed. It was
refused by Mohun Lal on the plea that the stipulation that the heads of
the dead Afghans should be brought in was not fulfilled.

Whether Macnaghten inspired those nefarious machinations, whether indeed
he was actively aware of them, are questions which, in the absence of
conclusive evidence, may judiciously be left unanswered. There is extant
a letter from him to Mohun Lal, written December 1st, which has the
following passage: 'I am sorry to find from your letter of last night
that you should have supposed it was ever my object to encourage
assassination. The rebels are very wicked men, but we must not take
unlawful means to destroy them.' And later he is reported to have
informed an Afghan deputation that, 'as a British functionary, nothing
would induce him to pay a price for blood.' Durand holds that it was the
belief on the part of the Afghan chiefs that the British Envoy had set a
price on their heads which destroyed all confidence in Macnaghten's good
faith, and which was Akbar Khan's chief incentive to his murder.

The terms proffered on November 25th by an Afghan deputation were so
humiliating that Macnaghten peremptorily rejected them; and the threat
of immediate hostilities unless our people promptly surrendered their
arms and withdrew was not carried out. A period of inaction strangely
ensued, which on the Afghan side was a treacherous lull, but which
Macnaghten, hoping against hope that some turn in our favour might yet
occur, regarded with complacency. The chiefs, aware that winter was
approaching with added hardship to the forlorn garrison, temporarily
desisted from urging negotiations. But the British military authorities,
with troops living from hand to mouth on precarious half rations, and
with transport cattle dying fast of starvation, kept urging the Envoy to
activity in making terms, if absolute starvation was to be averted.
Futile projects were discussed between Envoy and General, only to be put
aside. As the dreary days of inaction and depletion passed, the
deterioration of military spirit among our people manifested itself more
and more plainly. British soldiers stolidly watched the Afghans
destroying our bridge across the Cabul river, within a quarter of a mile
from cantonments. Scared by the threat of an assault, which, in the
scornful words of brave Lady Sale, a child with a stick might have
repulsed, the garrison of the Mahomed Shereef fort abandoned it in a
panic, the white soldiers of the 44th showing the example of
pusillanimity to the sepoys whom their cowardice demoralised. Next day
the detachment of the 44th which had guarded an exposed position had to
be withdrawn, ceding the post of honour to the stauncher sepoys. The
camp followers were living on carrion; the commissaries reported but
four days' provisions in store, and their inability to procure any more
supplies. At length on December 8th the four senior military officers
informed the Envoy that it was imperatively necessary he should
negotiate a retreat, on the best terms he could obtain.

Macnaghten had to bring himself to recognise that the alternatives were
negotiation or starvation, and on the 11th December, with a draft treaty
in his hand, he met the principal Afghan chiefs on the river side
between the cantonments and the city. After the introductory palavers,
Macnaghten read the proposed treaty, whose purport was as follows: that
the British should evacuate Afghanistan forthwith unmolested, furnished
with supplies and accompanied by hostages, on their march to India; that
the Dost, his family, and other Afghan political exiles, should be
allowed to return to their country; that Shah Soojah should have the
option of remaining at Cabul or going down to India; that amnesty should
be accorded to all adherents of Shah Soojah and his British allies; that
all prisoners should be released; and that perpetual friendship and
mutual good offices should thenceforth endure between the British and
the Afghans.

Akbar Khan made demur to some of the provisions, but was overruled, and
the main stipulations of the treaty were agreed to by the chiefs. The
conference broke up with the understanding that the British troops
should evacuate cantonments within three days, and that meanwhile
provisions should be sent in for their use. The treaty was simply a
virtual capitulation all along the line; but the inherent falseness of
our position, the incapacity of the military chiefs, and the debased
spirit of the troops, consequent partly on low rations but mainly
because of the utter absence of competent and vigorous leadership such
as a Broadfoot or a Havelock would have supplied, enforced on the
reluctant Envoy conditions humiliating beyond previous parallel in the
history of our nation.

From the outset the Afghan chiefs defaulted from their promise of
sending in supplies, but some grain was brought into cantonments by the
troops, whose evacuation of the Balla Hissar on the 13th was effected
under humiliating circumstances. The Afghans demanded the surrender of
the forts in British occupation in the vicinity of the cantonments. The
requisition was complied with, and the Magazine fort furnished the enemy
with both arms and ammunition.

The three stipulated days passed away, and still the British force
remained motionless in the cantonments. Macnaghten was bent on
procrastination, and circumstances seemed to favour a policy which to
all but himself was inexplicable. By the treaty, Shah Soojah was in
effect committed to withdraw to India, but soon after its acceptance the
chiefs had invited him to remain in Cabul as king, on the stipulation
that he should give his daughters in marriage to leaders of the
malcontents. After considerable deliberation, the Shah had consented to
remain on the condition named, but a few days later he withdrew his
acceptance. His vacillation increased the suspicions of the chiefs, and
they demanded the immediate evacuation of the cantonments, refusing to
furnish provisions until that was done. Meanwhile they sent in no
transport animals, although large sums had been handed over for their
purchase. Our people were still immobile, and already, on the 18th,
there had occurred a fall of snow several inches deep.

The Envoy was engaged in strange and dubious intrigues, and since the
Afghans were not fulfilling their share of the treaty obligations, he
appears to have regarded himself as no longer bound by its conditions,
and free to try to obtain better terms from other sources, in pursuit of
which purpose he was expending money in a variety of directions. The
dark and unscrupulous Mohun Lal was his confidant and instrument. Akbar
Khan and the chiefs of his party had become aware of Macnaghten's
machinations, and they laid a snare for him into which he fell with open
eyes. Emissaries were sent to him with the sinister proposals that the
British should remain in Afghanistan until the spring, when they were to
withdraw as of their own accord; that the head of Ameenoolla Khan, one
of the most powerful and obnoxious of the rebel leaders, should be
presented to the Envoy in return for a stipulated sum of money; and that
for all those services the British Government should requite Akbar Khan
with a present of thirty lakhs of rupees, and an annual pension of four
lakhs. Macnaghten refused peremptorily the proffer of Ameenoolla's head,
but did not reject co-operation in that chiefs capture by a dubious
device in which British troops were to participate; he did not hesitate
to accept the general terms of the proposals; and he consented to hold a
conference with Akbar Khan on the following day to carry into effect the
projected measures.

On the morning of the 23d the deceived and doomed man, accompanied by
his staff-officers, Lawrence, Trevor and Mackenzie, rode out from
cantonments to keep the fateful tryst on the bank of the Cabul river.
His manner was 'distracted and hurried.' When he told Lawrence of the
nature of the affair on which he was going, that shrewd officer
immediately warned him that it was a plot against him. 'A plot!' he
replied hastily, 'let me alone for that; trust me for that!' and
Lawrence desisted from useless expostulation. Poor old Elphinstone had
scented treachery; but the Envoy had closed his mouth with the impatient
words: 'I understand these things better than you!' As he rode out, he
admitted the danger of the enterprise, but argued that if it succeeded
it was worth all risks. 'At all events,' he ended, 'let the loss be what
it may, I would rather die a hundred deaths than live the last six weeks
over again.' The escort halted, and the four British gentlemen advanced
to the place of rendezvous, whither came presently Akbar Khan and his
party. Akbar began the conference by asking the Envoy if he was ready to
carry out the proposals presented to him overnight. 'Why not?' was Sir
William's short reply. A number of Afghans, armed to the teeth, had
gradually formed a circle around the informal durbar. Lawrence and
Mackenzie pointed out this environment to some of the chiefs, who
affected to drive off the intruders with their whips; but Akbar observed
that it did not matter, as they 'were all in the secret.' 'Suddenly,'
wrote Mackenzie, 'I heard Akbar call out, "Begeer! begeer!" ("Seize!
seize!") and turning round I saw him grasp the Envoy's left hand with an
expression on his face of the most diabolical ferocity. I think it was
Sultan Jan who laid hold of the Envoy's right hand. They dragged him in
a stooping posture down the hillock, the only words I heard poor Sir
William utter being, "Az barae Khooda" ("For God's sake"). I saw his
face, however, and it was full of horror and astonishment.' Neither
Mackenzie nor Lawrence, the surviving companions of the Envoy, witnessed
the actual end. 'Whether,' writes Kaye, 'he died on the spot, or whether
he was slain by the infuriated ghazees, is not very clearly known; but
the fanatics threw themselves on the prostrate body and hacked it with
their knives.' There is no doubt that the head of the unfortunate
Macnaghten was paraded in triumph through the streets of Cabul, and that
the mangled trunk, after being dragged about the city, was hung up in
the great bazaar. Of the three officers who accompanied the Envoy to
the conference, Trevor was massacred, Lawrence and Mackenzie were saved
with difficulty by friendly chiefs, and brought into the city, where
they and Captain Skinner joined the hostages, Captains Connolly and
Airey, under the safe roof of the venerable Mahomed Zemaun Khan.

That Akbar and the confederate chiefs spread a snare for the Envoy is
plain, and that they regarded his acceptance of their deceitful
proposals as a proof of his faithlessness to the treaty obligations to
which he had bound himself. It was no element in their reasoning that
since they had not regarded the treaty the British functionary might
without breach of faith hold that it did not bind him. But it is
improbable that the murder of Macnaghten was actually included in their
scheme of action. Their intention seems to have been to seize him as a
hostage, with intent thus to secure the evacuation of Afghanistan and
the restoration of Dost Mahomed. The ill-fated Envoy's expressions on
his way to the rendezvous indicate his unhinged state of mind. He went
forth to sure treachery; Akbar's gust of sudden fury converted the
planned abduction into savage murder, and his abrupt pistol bullet
baulked the more wily and less ruthless project which had probably been
devised in cold blood.

The escort brought back into cantonments tidings that the Envoy had been
seized. The garrison got under arms, and remained passive throughout the
day. The defences were manned at night, in the apprehension that the
noise and disturbance in the city portended an assault; but that clamour
was caused by the mustering of the Afghans in expectation that the
British would attack the city, bent on vengeance on the murderers of the
Envoy. Action of that nature was, however, wholly absent from the
prostrate minds of the military chiefs. On the following afternoon
Captain Lawrence transmitted certain overtures from the chiefs, as the
result of a conference held by them, when, notwithstanding severe
comments on the conduct of the Envoy, professions were made of sincere
regret for his death. With certain alterations and additions, the treaty
drawn up by Macnaghten was taken by the chiefs as the basis for the
negotiations which they desired to renew. Major Pottinger, as now the
senior 'political' with the force, was called on by General Elphinstone
to undertake the task of conducting negotiations with the Afghan
leaders. The high-souled Pottinger rose at the summons from the sickbed
to which he had been confined ever since his wonderful escape from
Charikar, and accepted the thankless and distasteful duty. It is not
necessary to recount the details of negotiations, every article and
every stage of which display the arrogance of the men who knew
themselves masters of the situation, and reveal not less the degrading
humiliation to which was submitting itself a strong brigade of British
troops, whose arms were still in the soldiers' hands, and over whose
ranks hung banners blazoned with victories that shall be memorable down
the ages. On the sombre and cheerless Christmas Day Pottinger rose in
the council of men who wore swords, and remonstrated with soldierly
vigour and powerful argument against the degrading terms which the
chiefs had contumeliously thrown to them. He produced letters from
Jellalabad and Peshawur giving information of reinforcements on the way
from India, and urging the maintenance of resistance. He argued that to
conclude a treaty with the Afghans would be a fatal error, and suggested
two alternative courses which offered a prospect of saving their honour
and part of the army--the occupation of the Balla Hissar, which was the
preferable measure, or the abandonment of camp, baggage, and
encumbrances, and forcing a retreat down the passes. The
council--Pottinger must have written sarcastically when he termed it a
'council of war'--unanimously decided that to remain in Cabul and to
force a retreat were alike impracticable, and that nothing remained but
the endeavour to release the army by agreeing to the conditions offered
by the enemy. 'Under these circumstances,' in the words of Pottinger,
'as the Major-General coincided with the officers of the council, and
refused to attempt occupying the Balla Hissar, and as his second in
command declared that impracticable, I considered it my duty,
notwithstanding my repugnance to and disapproval of the measure, to
yield, and attempt to carry on a negotiation.'

This Pottinger accordingly did. The first demand with which he had to
comply was to give bills for the great sums promised by the Envoy to the
chiefs for their services in furthering and supporting his treaty. This
imposition had to be submitted to, since the Afghans stopped the
supplies until the extortion was complied with. The next concession
required was the surrender of the artillery of the force, with the
exception of six field and three mule guns; and the military chiefs
endured this humiliation, against which even the demoralised soldiery
chafed. Then the demand for hostages had to be complied with, and four
officers were sent on to join the two hostages already in Afghan hands.
The chiefs had demanded four married hostages, with their wives and
children, and a circular was sent round offering to volunteers the
inducement of a large stipend; but the sentiment of repulsion was too
strong to be overcome by the bribe. The sick and wounded who could not
bear the march were sent into the city in accordance with an article of
the treaty, two surgeons accompanying their patients.

The treaty, ratified by the leading chiefs and sent into cantonments on
New Year's Day 1842, provided that the British troops, within
twenty-four hours after receiving transport, and under the protection of
certain chiefs and an adequate escort, should begin their march of
evacuation, the Jellalabad garrison moving down to Peshawur in advance;
that the six hostages left in Cabul should be well treated, and
liberated on the arrival at Peshawur of Dost Mahomed; the sick and
wounded left behind to be at liberty to return to India on their
recovery; all small arms and ordnance stores in the cantonment magazine
to be made over to the Afghans 'as a token of friendship,' on which
account also, they were to have all the British cannon except as above
mentioned; the Afghans to escort the Ghuznee garrison in safety to
Peshawur; and a further stipulation was that the British troops in
Candahar and Western Afghanistan were to resign the territories occupied
by them and start quickly for India, provisioned and protected from
molestation by the way.

Severe and humiliating as were those terms, they were not obtained
without difficulty. The terms put forward in the earlier drafts of the
treaty were yet more exacting, and the tone of the demands was abrupt,
contemptuous, and insulting. Pottinger had to plead, to entreat, to be
abject; to beg the masterful Afghans 'not to overpower the weak with
sufferings'; 'to be good enough to excuse the women from the suffering'
of remaining as hostages; and to entreat them 'not to forget kindness'
shown by us in former days. One blushes not for but with the gallant
Pottinger, loyally carrying out the miserable duty put upon him. The
shame was not his; it lay on the council of superior officers, who
overruled his remonstrances, and ground his face into the dust.

Our people were made to pass under the yoke every hour of their wretched
lives during those last winter days in the Cabul cantonments. The
fanatics and the common folk of the city and its environs swarmed around
our petty ramparts, with their foul sneers and their blackguard taunts,
hurled with impunity from where they stood at the muzzles of the loaded
guns which the gunners were forbidden to fire. Officers and rank and
file were in a condition of smouldering fury, but no act of reprisal or
retribution was permitted. If the present was one continuous misery,
the future lowered yet more gloomily. It was of common knowledge as well
in the cantonments as in the city, that the engagements made by the
chiefs were not worth the paper on which they had been written, and
that treachery was being concerted against the force on its impending
travail through the passes. It was told by a chief to one of the
officers who was his friend, that Akbar Khan had sworn to have in his
possession the British ladies as security for the safe restoration of
his own family and relatives, and, strange forecast to be fulfilled
almost to the very letter, had vowed to annihilate every soldier of the
British army with the exception of one man, who should reach Jellalabad
to tell the story of the massacre of all his comrades. Pottinger was
well aware how desperate was the situation of the hapless people on
whose behalf he had bent so low his proud soul. Mohun Lal warned him of
the treachery the chiefs were plotting, and assured him that unless
their sons should accompany the army as hostages, it would be attacked
on the march. Day after day the departure was delayed, on the pretext
that the chiefs had not completed their preparations for the safe
conduct of the force and its encumbrances. Day after day the snow was
falling with a quiet, ruthless persistency. The bitter night frosts were
destroying the sepoys and the camp followers, their vitality weakened by
semi-starvation and by the lack of firewood which had long distressed
them. At length on January 5th, Sturt the engineer officer got his
instructions to throw down into the ditch a section of the eastern
rampart, and so furnish a freer exit than the gates could afford. The
supply of transport was inadequate, provisions were scant, and the
escort promised by the chiefs was not forthcoming. Pottinger advised
waiting yet a little longer, until supplies and escort should arrive;
but for once the military chiefs were set against the policy of delay,
and firm orders were issued that the cantonments should be evacuated on
the following day.

Shah Soojah remained in Cabul. The resolution became him better than
anything else we know of the unfortunate man. It may be he reasoned that
he had a chance for life by remaining in the Balla Hissar, and that from
what he knew, there was no chance of life for anyone participating in
the fateful march. He behaved fairly by the British authorities, sending
more than one solemn warning pressing on them the occupation of the
Balla Hissar. And there was some dignity in his appeal to Brigadier
Anquetil, who commanded his own contingent, 'if it were well to forsake
him in the hour of need, and to deprive him of the aid of that force
which he had hitherto been taught to regard as his own?'



CHAPTER VII: THE CATASTROPHE


The ill-omened evacuation by our doomed people of the cantonments
wherein for two months they had undergone every extremity of humiliation
and contumely, was begun on the dreary winter morning of January 6th,
1842. Snow lay deep on plain and hill-side; the cruel cold, penetrating
through the warmest clothing, bit fiercely into the debilitated and
thinly clad frames of the sepoys and the great horde of camp followers.
The military force which marched out of cantonments consisted of about
4500 armed men, of whom about 690 were Europeans, 2840 native soldiers
on foot, and 970 native cavalrymen. The gallant troop of Company's
Horse-Artillery marched out with its full complement of six guns, to
which, with three pieces of the mountain train, the artillery arm of the
departing force was restricted by the degrading terms imposed by the
Afghan chiefs. In good heart and resolutely commanded, a body of
disciplined troops thus constituted, and of a fighting strength so
respectable, might have been trusted not only to hold its own against
Afghan onslaught, but if necessary to take the offensive with success.
But alas, the heart of the hapless force had gone to water, its
discipline was a wreck, its chiefs were feeble and apathetic; its steps
were dogged by the incubus of some 12,000 camp followers, with a great
company of women and children. The awful fate brooded over its forlorn
banners of expiating by its utter annihilation, the wretched folly and
sinister prosecution of the enterprise whose deserved failure was to be
branded yet deeper on the gloomiest page of our national history, by the
impending catastrophe of which the dark shadow already lay upon the
blighted column.

The advance began to move out from cantonments at nine A.M. The march
was delayed at the river by the non-completion of the temporary bridge,
and the whole of the advance was not across until after noon. The main
body under Shelton, which was accompanied by the ladies, invalids, and
sick, slowly followed. It as well as the advance was disorganised from
the first by the throngs of camp followers with the baggage, who could
not be prevented from mixing themselves up with the troops. The Afghans
occupied the cantonments as portion after portion was evacuated by our
people, rending the air with their exulting cries, and committing every
kind of atrocity. It was late in the afternoon before the long train of
camels following the main body had cleared the cantonments; and
meanwhile the rear-guard was massed outside, in the space between the
rampart and the canal, among the chaos of already abandoned baggage. It
was exposed there to a vicious jezail fire poured into it by the
Afghans, who abandoned the pleasures of plunder and arson for the yet
greater joy of slaughtering the Feringhees. When the rear-guard moved
away in the twilight, an officer and fifty men were left dead in the
snow, the victims of the Afghan fire from the rampart of the cantonment;
and owing to casualties in the gun teams it had been found necessary to
spike and abandon two of the horse-artillery guns.

The rear-guard, cut into from behind by the pestilent ghazees, found its
route encumbered with heaps of abandoned baggage around which swarmed
Afghan plunderers. Other Afghans, greedier for blood than for booty,
were hacking and slaying among the numberless sepoys and camp followers
who had dropped out of the column, and were lying or sitting on the
wayside in apathetic despair, waiting for death and careless whether it
came to them by knife or by cold. Babes lay on the snow abandoned by
their mothers, themselves prostrate and dying a few hundred yards
further on. It was not until two o'clock of the following morning that
the rear-guard reached the straggling and chaotic bivouac in which its
comrades lay in the snow at the end of the first short march of six
miles. Its weary progress had been illuminated by the conflagration
raging in the cantonments, which had been fired by the Afghan fanatics,
rabid to erase every relic of the detested unbelievers.

It was a night of bitter cold. Out in the open among the snow, soldiers
and camp followers, foodless, fireless, and shelterless, froze to death
in numbers, and numbers more were frost-bitten. The cheery morning noise
of ordinary camp life was unheard in the mournful bivouac. Captain
Lawrence outlines a melancholy picture. 'The silence of the men betrayed
their despair and torpor. In the morning I found lying close to me,
stiff, cold, and quite dead, in full regimentals, with his sword drawn
in his hand, an old grey-haired conductor named Macgregor, who, utterly
exhausted, had lain down there silently to die.' Already defection had
set in. One of the Shah's infantry regiments and his detachment of
sappers and miners had deserted bodily, partly during the march of the
previous day, partly in the course of the night.

No orders were given out, no bugle sounded the march, on the morning of
the 7th. The column heaved itself forward sluggishly, a mere mob of
soldiers, camp followers and cattle, destitute of any semblance of order
or discipline. Quite half the sepoys were already unfit for duty; in
hundreds they drifted in among the non-combatants and increased the
confusion. The advance of the previous day was now the rear-guard. After
plundering the abandoned baggage, the Afghans set to harassing the
rear-guard, whose progress was delayed by the disorderly multitude
blocking the road in front. The three mountain guns, temporarily
separated from the infantry, were captured by a sudden Afghan rush. In
vain Anquetil strove to rouse the 44th to make an effort for their
recapture. Green was more successful with his handful of artillerymen,
who followed him and the Brigadier and spiked the pieces, but being
unsupported were compelled a second time to abandon them. On this march
it became necessary also, from the exhaustion of their teams, to spike
and abandon two more of the horse-artillery guns; so that there now
remained with the force only a couple of six-pounders. While the
rear-guard was in action, a body of Afghan horse charged on the flank,
right into the heart of the baggage column, swept away much plunder, and
spread confusion and dismay far and wide. The rear of the column would
probably have been entirely cut off, but that reinforcements from the
advance under Shelton pushed back the enemy, and by crowning the lateral
heights kept open the thoroughfare. At Bootkhak was found Akbar Khan,
who professed to have been commissioned to escort the force to
Jellalabad, and who blamed our people for having marched out prematurely
from the cantonments. He insisted on the halt of the column at Bootkhak
until the following morning, when he would provide supplies, but he
demanded an immediate subsidy of 15,000 rupees, and that Pottinger,
Lawrence and Mackenzie should be given up to him as hostages that the
force would not march beyond Tezeen until tidings should arrive that
Sale had evacuated Jellalabad. Those officers by the General's
instructions joined the Afghan chief on the following morning, and
Akbar's financial requisition was obsequiously fulfilled. After two
days' marching our people, who had brought out with them provisions for
but five and a half days, expecting within that time to reach
Jellalabad, were only ten miles forward on their march.

Another night passed, with its train of horrors--starvation, cold,
exhaustion, death. Lady Sale relates that scarcely any of the baggage
now remained; that there was no food for man or beast; that snow lay a
foot deep on the ground; that even water from the adjacent stream was
difficult to obtain, as the carriers were fired on in fetching it; and
that she thought herself fortunate in being sheltered in a small tent in
which 'we slept nine, all touching each other.' Daylight brought merely
a more bitter realisation of utter misery. Eyre expresses his wonderment
at the effect of two nights' exposure to the frost in disorganising the
force. 'It had so nipped even the strongest men as to completely
prostrate their powers and incapacitate them for service; even the
cavalry, who suffered less than the rest, were obliged to be lifted on
their horses.' In fact, only a few hundred serviceable men remained. At
the sound of hostile fire the living struggled to their feet from their
lairs in the snow, stiffened with cold, all but unable to move or hold a
weapon, leaving many of their more fortunate comrades stark in death. A
turmoil of confusion reigned. The Afghans were firing into the rear of
the mass, and there was a wild rush of camp followers to the front, who
stripped the baggage cattle of their loads and carried the animals off,
leaving the ground strewn with ammunition, treasure, plate, and other
property. The ladies were no longer carried in litters and palanquins,
for their bearers were mostly dead; they sat in the bullet fire packed
into panniers slung on camels, invalids as some of them were--one poor
lady with her baby only five days old. Mess stores were being recklessly
distributed, and Lady Sale honestly acknowledges that, as she sat on her
horse in the cold, she felt very grateful for a tumbler of sherry, which
at any other time would have made her 'very unladylike,' but which now
merely warmed her. Cups full of sherry were drunk by young children
without in the least affecting their heads, so strong on them was the
hold of the cold.

It was not until noon that the living mass of men and animals was once
more in motion. The troops were in utter disorganisation; the baggage
was mixed up with the advance guard; the camp followers were pushing
ahead in precipitate panic. The task before the wretched congeries of
people was to thread the stupendous gorge of the Khoord Cabul pass--a
defile about five miles long, hemmed in on either hand by steeply
scarped hills. Down the bottom of the ravine dashed a mountain torrent,
whose edges were lined with thick layers of ice, on which had formed
glacier-like masses of snow. The 'Jaws of Death' were barely entered
when the slaughter began. With the advance rode several Afghan chiefs,
whose followers, by their command, shouted to the Ghilzais lining the
heights to hold their fire, but the tribesmen gave no heed to the
mandate. Lady Sale rode with the chiefs. The Ghilzai fire at fifty yards
was close and deadly. The men of the advance fell fast. Lady Sale had a
bullet in her arm, and three more through her dress. But the weight of
the hostile fire fell on the main column, the baggage escort, and the
rear-guard. Some of the ladies, who mostly were on camels which were led
with the column, had strange adventures. On one camel was quite a group.
In one of its panniers were Mrs Boyd and her little son, in the other
Mrs Mainwaring, with her own infant and Mrs Anderson's eldest child. The
camel fell, shot. A Hindustanee trooper took up Mrs Boyd _en croupe_,
and carried her through in safety; another horseman behind whom her son
rode, was killed, and the boy fell into Afghan hands. The Anderson girl
shared the same fate. Mrs Mainwaring, with her baby in her arms,
attempted to mount a baggage pony, but the load upset, and she pursued
her way on foot. An Afghan horseman rode at her, threatened her with his
sword, and tried to drag away the shawl in which she carried her child.
She was rescued by a sepoy grenadier, who shot the Afghan dead, and then
conducted the poor lady along the pass through the dead and dying,
through, also, the close fire which struck down people near to her,
almost to the exit of the pass, when a bullet killed the chivalrous
sepoy, and Mrs Mainwaring had to continue her tramp to the bivouac
alone.

A very fierce attack was made on the rear-guard, consisting of the 44th.
In the narrow throat of the pass the regiment was compelled to halt by a
block in front, and in this stationary position suffered severely. A
flanking fire told heavily on the handful of European infantry. The
belated stragglers masked their fire, and at length the soldiers fell
back, firing volleys indiscriminately into the stragglers and the
Afghans. Near the exit of the pass a commanding position was maintained
by some detachments which still held together, strengthened by the only
gun now remaining, the last but one having been abandoned in the gorge.
Under cover of this stand the rear of the mass gradually drifted forward
while the Afghan pursuit was checked, and at length all the surviving
force reached the camping ground. There had been left dead in the pass
about 500 soldiers and over 2500 camp followers.

Akbar and the chiefs, taking the hostages with them, rode forward on the
track of the retreating force. Akbar professed that his object was to
stop the firing, but Mackenzie writes that Pottinger said to him:
'Mackenzie, remember if I am killed that I heard Akbar Khan shout "Slay
them!" in Pushtoo, although in Persian he called out to stop the
firing.' The hostages had to be hidden away from the ferocious ghazees
among rocks in the ravine until near evening, when in passing through
the region of the heaviest slaughter they 'came upon one sight of horror
after another. All the bodies were stripped. There were children cut in
two. Hindustanee women as well as men--some frozen to death, some
literally chopped to pieces, many with their throats cut from ear to
ear.'

Snow fell all night on the unfortunates gathered tentless on the Khoord
Cabul camping ground. On the morning of the 9th the confused and
disorderly march was resumed, but after a mile had been traversed a halt
for the day was ordered at the instance of Akbar Khan, who sent into
camp by Captain Skinner a proposal that the ladies and children, with
whose deplorable condition he professed with apparent sincerity to
sympathise, should be made over to his protection, and that the married
officers should accompany their wives; he pledging himself to preserve
the party from further hardships and dangers, and afford its members
safe escort through the passes in rear of the force. The General had
little faith in the Sirdar, but he was fain to give his consent to an
arrangement which promised alleviation to the wretchedness of the
ladies, scarce any of whom had tasted a meal since leaving Cabul. Some,
still weak from childbirth, were nursing infants only a few days old;
other poor creatures were momentarily apprehending the pangs of
motherhood. There were invalids whose only attire, as they rode in the
camel panniers or shivered on the snow, was the nightdresses they wore
when leaving the cantonments in their palanquins, and none possessed
anything save the clothes on their backs. It is not surprising, then,
that dark and doubtful as was the future to which they were consigning
themselves, the ladies preferred its risks and chances to the awful
certainties which lay before the doomed column. The Afghan chief had
cunningly made it a condition of his proffer that the husbands should
accompany their wives, and if there was a struggle in the breasts of the
former between public and private duties, the General humanely decided
the issue by ordering them to share the fortunes of their families.

Akbar Khan sent in no supplies, and the march was resumed on the morning
of the both by a force attenuated by starvation, cold, and despair,
diminished further by extensive desertion. After much exertion the
advance, consisting of all that remained of the 44th, the solitary gun,
and a detachment of cavalry, forced a passage to the front through the
rabble of camp followers, and marched unmolested for about two miles
until the Tunghee Tariki was reached, a deep gorge not more than ten
feet wide. Men fell fast in the horrid defile, struck down by the Afghan
fire from the heights; but the pass, if narrow, was short, and the
advance having struggled through it moved on to the halting-place at
Kubbar-i-Jubbar, and waited there for the arrival of the main body. But
that body was never to emerge from out the shambles in the narrow throat
of the Tunghee Tariki. The advance was to learn from the few stragglers
who reached it the ghastly truth that it now was all that remained of
the strong brigade which four days before had marched out from the Cabul
cantonments. The slaughter from the Afghan fire had blocked the gorge
with dead and dying. The Ghilzai tribesmen, at the turn into the pen at
the other end of which was the blocked gorge, had closed up fiercely.
Then the steep slopes suddenly swarmed with Afghans rushing sword in
hand down to the work of butchery, and the massacre stinted not while
living victims remained. The rear-guard regiment of sepoys was
exterminated, save for two or three desperately wounded officers who
contrived to reach the advance.

The remnant of the army consisted now of about seventy files of the
44th, about 100 troopers, and a detachment of horse-artillery with a
single gun. The General sent to Akbar Khan to remonstrate with him on
the attack he had allowed to be made after having guaranteed that the
force should meet with no further molestation. Akbar protested his
regret, and pleaded his inability to control the wild Ghilzai hillmen,
over whom, in their lust for blood and plunder, their own chiefs had
lost all control; but he was willing to guarantee the safe conduct to
Jellalabad of the European officers and men if they would lay down their
arms and commit themselves wholly into his hands. This sinister proposal
the General refused, and the march was continued, led in disorder by the
remnant of the camp followers. In the steep descent from the Huft Kotul
into the Tezeen ravine, the soldiers following the rabble at some
distance, came suddenly on a fresh butchery. The Afghans had suddenly
fallen on the confused throng, and the descent was covered with dead and
dying.

During the march from Kubbar-i-Jubbar to the Tezeen valley Shelton's
dogged valour had mainly saved the force from destruction. With a few
staunch soldiers of his own regiment, the one-armed veteran, restored
now to his proper _métier_ of stubborn fighting man, had covered the
rear and repelled the Ghilzai assaults with persevering energy and
dauntless fortitude. And he it was who now suggested, since Akbar Khan
still held to his stipulation that the force should lay down its arms,
that a resolute effort should be made to press on to Jugdulluk by a
rapid night march of four-and-twenty miles, in the hope of clearing the
passes in that vicinity before the enemy should have time to occupy
them.

That the attempt would prove successful was doubtful, since the force
was already exhausted; but it was the last chance, and Shelton's
suggestion was adopted. In the early moonlight the march silently began,
an ill omen marking the start in the shape of the forced abandonment of
the last gun. Fatal delay occurred between Seh Baba and Kutti Sung
because of a panic among the camp followers, who, scared by a few shots,
drifted backwards and forwards in a mass, retarding the progress of the
column and for the time entirely arresting the advance of Shelton's and
his rear-guard. The force could not close up until the morning, ten
miles short of Jugdulluk, and already the Afghans were swarming on every
adjacent height. All the way down the broken slope to Jugdulluk the
little column trudged through the gauntlet of jezail fire which lined
the road with dead and wounded. Shelton and his rear-guard handful
performed wonders, again and again fending off with close fire and
levelled bayonets the fierce rushes of Ghilzais charging sword in hand.
The harassed advance reached Jugdulluk in the afternoon of the 11th, and
took post behind some ruins on a height by the roadside, the surviving
officers forming line in support of the gallant rear-guard struggling
forward through its environment of assailants. As Shelton and his brave
fellows burst through the cordon they were greeted by cheers from the
knoll. But there was no rest for the exhausted people, for the Afghans
promptly occupied commanding positions whence they maintained a fire
from which the ruins afforded but scant protection. To men parched with
thirst the stream at the foot of their knoll was but a tantalising
aggravation, for to attempt to reach it was certain death. The snow they
devoured only increased their sufferings, and but little stay was
afforded by the raw flesh of a few gun bullocks. Throughout the day
volley after volley was poured down upon the weary band by the
inexorable enemy. Frequent sallies were made, and the heights were
cleared, but the positions were soon reoccupied and the ruthless fire
was renewed.

Captain Skinner, summoned by Akbar, brought back a message that General
Elphinstone should visit him to take part in a conference, and that
Brigadier Shelton and Captain Johnson should be given over as hostages
for the evacuation of Jellalabad. Compliance was held to be imperative,
and the temporary command was entrusted to Brigadier Anquetil. Akbar
was extremely hospitable to his compulsory guests; but he insisted on
including the General among his hostages, and was not moved by
Elphinstone's representations that he would prefer death to the disgrace
of being separated from his command in its time of peril. The Ghilzai
chiefs came into conference burning with hatred against the British, and
revelling in the anticipated delights of slaughtering them. Akbar seemed
sincere in his effort to conciliate them, but was long unsuccessful.
Their hatred seemed indeed stronger than their greed; but at length
toward nightfall Akbar announced that pacific arrangements had been
accepted by the tribes, and that what remained of the force should be
allowed to march unmolested to Jellalabad.

How futile was the compact, if indeed there was any compact, was soon
revealed. The day among the ruins on the knoll had passed in dark and
cruel suspense--in hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, in the presence of
frequent death; and as the evening fell, in anguish and all but utter
despair. As darkness set in the conviction enforced itself that to
remain longer in the accursed place was madness; and the little band,
leaving behind perforce the sick and wounded, marched out, resolute to
push through or die fighting. In the valley the only molestation at
first was a desultory fire from the camping Ghilzais, who were rather
taken by surprise, but soon became wide awake to their opportunities.
Some hurried forward to occupy the pass rising from the valley to the
Jugdulluk crest; others, hanging on the rear and flanks of the column
encumbered with its fatal incubus of camp followers, mixed among the
unarmed throng with their deadly knives, and killed and plundered with
the dexterity of long practice. Throughout the tedious march up the
steeply rising defile a spattering fire came from the rocks and ridges
flanking the track, all but blocked by the surging concourse of
miserable followers. The advance had to employ cruel measures to force
its way through the chaos toward the crest. As it is approached from the
Jugdulluk direction the flanking elevations recede and merge in the
transverse ridge, which is crowned by a low-cut abrupt rocky upheaval,
worn down somewhat where the road passes over the crest by the friction
of traffic. Just here the tribesmen had constructed a formidable abattis
of prickly brushwood, which stretched athwart the road, and dammed back
the fugitives in the shallow oval basin between the termination of the
ravine and the summit of the ridge. In this trap were caught our hapless
people and the swarm of their native followers, and now the end was very
near. From behind the barrier, and around the lip of the great trap, the
hillmen fired their hardest into the seething mass of soldiers and
followers writhing in the awful Gehenna on which the calm moon shone
down. On the edges of this whirlpool of death the fell Ghilzais were
stabbing and hacking with the ferocious industry inspired by thirst for
blood and lust for plunder. It is among the characteristics of our
diverse-natured race to die game, and even to thrill with a strange
fierce joy when hope of escape from death has all but passed away and
there remains only to sell life at the highest possible premium of
exchange. Among our people, face to face with death on the rocky
Jugdulluk, officers and soldiers alike fought with cool deadly rancour.
The brigadier and the private engaged in the same fierce _mêlée_, fought
side by side, and fell side by side. Stalwart Captain Dodgin of the 44th
slew five Afghans before he fell. Captain Nicholl of the
horse-artillery, gunless now, rallied to him the few staunch gunners who
were all that remained to him of his noble and historic troop, and led
them on to share with him a heroic death.

All did not perish on the rugged summit of the Jugdulluk. The barrier
was finally broken through, and a scant remnant of the force wrought out
its escape from the slaughter-pit. Small detachments, harassed by sudden
onslaughts, and delayed by reluctance to desert wounded comrades, were
trudging in the darkness down the long slope to the Soorkhab. The
morning of the 13th dawned near Gundamuk on the straggling group of some
twenty officers and forty-five European soldiers. Its march arrested by
sharp attacks, the little band moved aside to occupy a defensive
position on an adjacent hillock. A local sirdar invited the senior
officer to consult with him as to a pacific arrangement, and while Major
Griffiths was absent on this errand there was a temporary suspension of
hostilities. The Afghans meanwhile swarmed around the detachment with a
pretence of friendship, but presently attempts were made to snatch from
the soldiers their arms. This conduct was sternly resented, and the
Afghans were forced back. They ascended an adjacent elevation and set
themselves to the work of deliberately picking off officer after
officer, man after man. The few rounds remaining in the pouches of the
soldiers were soon exhausted, but the detachment stood fast, and calmly
awaited the inevitable end. Rush after rush was driven back from its
steadfast front, but at last, nearly all being killed or wounded, a
final onset of the enemy, sword in hand, terminated the struggle, and
completed the dismal tragedy. Captain Souter of the 44th, with three or
four privates all of whom as well as himself were wounded, was spared
and carried into captivity; he saved the colours of his regiment, which
he had tied round his waist before leaving Jugdulluk. A group of mounted
officers had pushed forward as soon as they had cleared the barrier on
the crest. Six only reached Futtehabad in safety. There they were
treacherously offered food, and while they halted a few moments to eat
two were cut down. Of the four who rode away three were overtaken and
killed within four miles of Jellalabad; one officer alone survived to
reach that haven of refuge.

The ladies, the married officers, and the original hostages, followed
Akbar Khan down the passes toward Jugdulluk, pursuing the line of
retreat strewn with its ghastly tokens of slaughter, and recognising
almost at every step the bodies of friends and comrades. At Jugdulluk
they found General Elphinstone, Brigadier Shelton, and Captain Johnson,
and learned the fate which had overtaken the marching force. On the
following day Akbar quitted Jugdulluk with his hostages and the ladies,
all of whom were virtually prisoners, and rode away through the
mountains in a northerly direction. On the fourth day the fort of
Budiabad in the Lughman valley was reached, where Akbar left the
prisoners while he went to attempt the reduction of Jellalabad.



CHAPTER VIII: THE SIEGE AND DEFENCE OF JELLALABAD


Sale's brigade, retreating from Gundamuk, reached Jellalabad on the 12th
November 1841. An investigation into the state of the fortifications of
that place showed them, in their existing condition, to be incapable of
resisting a vigorous assault. But it was resolved to occupy the place,
and to Captain George Broadfoot, as garrison engineer, was committed the
duty of making it defensible. This assuredly was no light task. The
enciente was far too extensive for the slender garrison, and its tracing
was radically bad. The ramparts were so dilapidated that in places they
were scarcely discernible, and the ruins strewn over what should have
been the glacis afforded near cover to assailants, whose attitude was
already so threatening as to hinder the beginning of repairing
operations. Their fire swept the defences, and their braves capered
derisively to the strains of a bagpipe on the adjacent rocky elevation,
which thenceforth went by the name of 'Piper's Hill.' A sortie on the
15th cleared the environs of the troublesome Afghans, supplies began to
come in, and Broadfoot was free to set his sappers to the task of
repairing the fortifications, in which work the entrenching tools he
had wrenched from the Cabul stores proved invaluable. How greatly Sale
had erred in shutting up his force in Jellalabad was promptly
demonstrated. The connecting posts of Gundamuk and Peshbolak had to be
evacuated; and thus, from Jumrood at the foot of the Khyber up to Cabul,
there remained no intermediate post in British possession with the
solitary exception of Jellalabad, and communications were entirely
interrupted except through the medium of furtive messengers.

The Jellalabad garrison was left unmolested for nearly a fortnight, and
the repairs were well advanced when on the 29th the Afghans came down,
invested the place, and pushed their skirmishers close up to the walls.
On December 1st Colonel Dennie headed a sortie, which worsted the
besiegers with considerable slaughter and drove them from the vicinity.
Bad news came at intervals from Cabul, and at the new year arrived a
melancholy letter from Pottinger, confirming the rumours already rife of
the murder of the Envoy, and of the virtual capitulation to which the
Cabul force had submitted. A week later an official communication was
received from Cabul, signed by General Elphinstone and Major Pottinger,
formally announcing the convention which the Cabul force had entered
into with the chiefs, and ordering the garrison of Jellalabad forthwith
to evacuate that post and retire to Peshawur, leaving behind with 'the
new Governor,' an Afghan chief who was the bearer of the humiliating
missive, the fortress guns and such stores and baggage as there lacked
transport to remove. The council of war summoned by Sale was unanimous
in favour of non-compliance with this mandate. Broadfoot urged with
vigour that an order by a superior who was no longer a free agent and
who issued it under duress, could impose no obligation of obedience.
Sale pronounced himself untrammelled by a convention forced from people
'with knives at their throats,' and was resolute in the expression of
his determination to hold Jellalabad unless ordered by the Government to
withdraw.

More and more ominous tidings poured in from Cabul. A letter received on
January both reported the Cabul force to be still in the cantonments,
living utterly at the mercy of the Afghans; another arriving on the 12th
told of the abandonment of the cantonments and the beginning of the
march, but that the forlorn wayfarers were lingering in detention at
Bootkhak, halted in their misery by the orders of Akbar Khan. Those
communications in a measure prepared the people in Jellalabad for
disaster, but not for the awful catastrophe of which Dr Brydon had to
tell, when in the afternoon of the 13th the lone man, whose approach to
the fortress Lady Butler's painting so pathetically depicts, rode
through the Cabul gate of Jellalabad. Dr Brydon was covered with cuts
and contusions, and was utterly exhausted. His first few hasty sentences
extinguished all hope in the hearts of the listeners regarding their
Cabul comrades and friends.

There was naturally great excitement in Jellalabad, but no panic. The
working parties were called in, the assembly was sounded, the gates were
closed, the walls were lined, and the batteries were manned; for it was
believed for the moment that the enemy were in full pursuit of fugitives
following in Brydon's track. The situation impressed Broadfoot with the
conviction that a crisis had come in the fortunes of the Jellalabad
garrison. He thought it his duty to lay before the General the
conditions of the critical moment which he believed to have arrived,
pointing out to him that the imperative alternatives were that he should
either firmly resolve on the defence of Jellalabad to the last
extremity, or that he should make up his mind to a retreat that very
night, while as yet retreat was practicable. Sale decided on holding on
to the place, and immediately announced to the Commander-in-Chief his
resolve to persevere in a determined defence, relying on the promise of
the earliest possible relief.

Because of the defection of his Sikh auxiliaries and the
faint-heartedness of his sepoys, Wild's efforts to cross the threshold
of the Khyber had failed, and with the tidings of his failure there came
to Sale the information that the effort for his relief must be
indefinitely postponed. It may be assumed that this intimation weakened
in some degree the General's expressed resolution to hold Jellalabad
with determination, and it is not to be denied that this resolution was
in a measure conditional on the not unwarranted expectation of early
relief. Neither he nor his adviser Macgregor appears to have realised
how incumbent on the garrison of Jellalabad it was to hold out to the
last extremity, irrespective of consequences to itself, unless it should
receive a peremptory recall from higher authority; or to have recognised
the glorious opportunity presented of inspiriting by its staunch
constancy and high-souled self-abnegation a weak government staggering
under a burden of calamity. Than Sale no braver soldier ever wore sword,
but a man may delight to head a forlorn hope and yet lack nerve to carry
with high heart a load of responsibility; nor was Macgregor so
constituted as to animate his chief to noble emprise. Fast on the heels
of the gloomy tidings from the Khyber mouth there came to them from Shah
Soojah, who was still the nominal sovereign at Cabul, a curt peremptory
letter obviously written under compulsion, of which the following were
the terms: 'Your people have concluded a treaty with us; you are still
in Jellalabad; what are your intentions? Tell us quickly.'

Sale summoned a council of war, which assembled at his quarters on
January 27th. Its proceedings were recorded, and the documents laid
before it were preserved by Captain Henry Havelock in his capacity as
Sale's staff-officer. Record and papers were reclaimed from Havelock's
custody by General Sale before the evacuation of Afghanistan, and had
been long lost to sight. They have recently been deposited among the
records of the India Office, but not before their latest non-official
possessor had published some extracts from them. It is to be hoped that
the more important documents may be given to the public in full, since
passages from documents, whether intentionally or not, may be so
extracted as to be misleading. Broadfoot, who had been a member of the
council of war, and who was apparently aware of the suppression of the
official records, wrote in 1843 a detailed narrative of its proceedings
while his recollection of them was still fresh, and this narrative he
sent to Havelock, desiring him to note 'any points erroneously stated,
distinguishing between what you may merely not remember and what you
know I am mistaken in.' Havelock, who was a loyal and ardent admirer of
General Sale, having sparsely annotated Broadfoot's narrative, returned
it with the statement that he had compared it with memoranda still in
his possession, and that he considered that it 'contributes a fair and
correct statement of that which occurred.' The officers comprising the
council to whom Sale and Macgregor addressed themselves were Colonel
Dennie of the 13th, Colonel Monteath of the 35th N.I., Captains
Backhouse and Abbott of the artillery, Captain Oldfield commanding the
cavalry, and Captain Broadfoot the garrison engineer. The following is a
summary of the proceedings, as recorded by Broadfoot and authenticated
by Havelock.

After a few formal words from General Sale, he called on Macgregor to
submit a matter on which that political officer and himself were agreed.
Macgregor then described the situation from the point of view of Sale
and himself, and expressed their united conviction that nothing was to
be hoped for from the Government. Reserving his own liberty of action,
he sought the opinion of the officers on offers received from Akbar Khan
to treat for the evacuation of Afghanistan, and he laid before them a
draft answer to Shah Soojah's curt letter, professing the readiness of
the garrison to evacuate Jellalabad on his requisition, since it was
held only for him, but naming certain conditions: the exchange of
hostages, the restoration of British prisoners and hostages in exchange
for the Afghan hostages on arrival of the force at Peshawur, escort
thither 'in safety and honour,' with arms, colours, and guns, and
adequate assistance of supplies and transport. Both Sale and Macgregor
frankly owned that they were resolved to yield, and negotiate for safe
retreat.

Great excitement from the first had pervaded the assemblage, and when
Macgregor had finished his statement Broadfoot arose in his wrath. He
declined to believe that the Government had abandoned the Jellalabad
garrison to its fate, and there was a general outburst of indignation
when Sale produced a letter carrying that significance. Broadfoot waxed
so warm in his remonstrances against the proposed action that an
adjournment was agreed to. Next day Sale and Macgregor urged that it was
impossible to hold out much longer, that later retreat would be
impracticable, and that the scheme they proposed was safe and
honourable. Broadfoot denounced it as disgraceful, contended that they
could hold Jellalabad indefinitely--'could colonise if they liked'--and
retreat at discretion. He denied that the place was held for Shah
Soojah, and challenged their right to surrender the post unless by
Government order. Hostages he proclaimed worthless while the Afghans
held heavier pledges of ours in the shape of prisoners and hostages. He
denounced as disgraceful the giving of hostages on our part. Monteath's
remark that nobody would go as a hostage roused Oldfield to express
himself tersely but pointedly on the subject. 'I for one,' he exclaimed
in great agitation, 'will fight here to the last drop of my blood, but I
plainly declare that I will never be a hostage, and I am surprised that
anyone should propose such a thing, or regard an Afghan's word as worth
anything.' The resolution to treat for the abandonment of Jellalabad was
carried, Oldfield only voting with Broadfoot against it, but the
stipulations: regarding hostages were omitted. Broadfoot continued to
press modifications of the conditions set out in the proposed reply,
pleading, but in vain, that the restoration of the prisoners in Afghan
hands before departure of the garrison should be insisted on; and that
since evacuation was resolved on, it should at least be conducted as a
military operation, and not degradingly under escort. Then, and little
wonder, he objected to expressions in the draft letter as too abject,
and he was successful in procuring the alteration of them. The letter
was written out, signed by Macgregor, and despatched to Cabul. It was
agreed that those members of the council who chose to do should record
in writing the reasons for their votes, and this was done by Dennie,
Monteath, Abbott, and Broadfoot.

Broadfoot, pending an answer from Cabul, set the garrison to work in
digging a ditch round the fortifications. The reply from the Shah, to
the effect 'If you are sincere in offers, let all the chief gentlemen
affix their seals,' was laid before the reassembled council on February
12th. The implied imputation on the good faith of British officers might
well have stung to indignation the meekest; but the council's opinion
was taken as to the expediency of complying with the derogatory request
made by the Shah, as well as of a stipulation--a modification of what
Broadfoot had originally urged in vain--for the surrender of all
prisoners, hostages, sick, and wounded under detention in Afghanistan,
on the arrival at Peshawur of the Jellalabad brigade. The members of
council, who in the long interval since the previous meeting had been
gradually regaining their self-respect and mental equipoise, unanimously
declined to accept the proposals tendered them by their commanding
officer and his political ally; and a letter written by Monteath was
accepted, which 'was not a continuation of the negotiation.'

Thus ended the deliberations of the memorable council of war, whose
eleventh hour resolve to 'hold the fort' mainly averted the ruin of
British prestige in India and throughout the regions bordering on our
Eastern Empire; and the credit of its final decision to repudiate the
humiliating proposals of Sale and Macgregor belongs to George Broadfoot,
who was firmly though silently backed by Havelock. The day after that
decision was formulated a letter came from Peshawur informing the
garrison that every effort would be made for its relief; and thenceforth
there was no more talk of surrender, nor was the courage of the little
brigade impaired even when the earthquake of February 19th shook the
newly repaired fortifications into wreck. Broadfoot's vehement energy
infected the troops, and by the end of the month the parapets were
entirely restored, the bastions repaired, and every battery
re-established.

After the council of war had rejected the proposals laid before it, a
decision which in effect involved the maintenance of the defence to the
last extremity, nearly two months passed without the occurrence of any
important event, except the speedily retrieved misfortune of the
earthquake of February 19th. The close investment of the place by Akbar
Khan thwarted the efforts of the foraging parties to obtain much needed
supplies. Those efforts were not vigorous, for Sale, aware of his
garrison's poverty of ammunition, was bent on a passive defence, and
steadily refused his consent to vigorous sorties. The policy may have
had its abstract merits, but it was certainly unsatisfactory in this
respect, that perseverance in it involved the unpleasantness of
apparently inevitable starvation. General Pollock had arrived in
Peshawur, and was making energetic efforts to get his force in order for
the accomplishment of the relief of Jellalabad. But he foresaw serious
delays, and so late as the middle of March was still unable to specify
with any definiteness the probable date of his arrival at that place.
The European troops in Jellalabad would be out of meat rations early in
April, and Havelock's calculation was that the grain, on which mainly
subsisted the native soldiers, who had been on half rations since the
new year, would be exhausted before the middle of that month. Sale
modified his policy of inactivity when he learned that the blockading
Afghans were attempting to drive a mine under a salient of the defences,
and Dennie on March 11th led out a sally, destroyed the works, and
thrust back Akbar's encroachments. The general lack of vigour, however,
on the garrison's part emboldened the Afghans so much that they actually
grazed their flocks of sheep within 600 yards of the walls. This was too
impudent, and the General consented to a raid, which resulted in the
acquisition of some 500 sheep, an invaluable addition to the
commissariat resources. It is worth recording that the native regiment
gave up its share of the sheep to the soldiers of the 13th, on the
ground that Europeans needed animal food more than did natives of India.

On April 6th the Afghan leader fired a salute in triumph for a
supposititious repulse of Pollock in the Khyber. In regard to what then
happened there is a strange conflict of testimony. General Sale, in a
private letter written six weeks later, states: 'I made my arrangements
with Macgregor to sally the next day, provided we did not hear that
Pollock had forced the pass.' Akbar's salutes, and the information of
spies that Pollock had fallen back, 'made us look very grave--our case
desperate, our provisions nearly out, and no relief at hand. I therefore
decided to play a bold stroke to relieve ourselves, and give courage to
Pollock's force in case of success. If we failed in thrashing Akbar, we
would have left our bones on the field.' Abbott's diary of April 5th and
6th records that spies reported that Pollock had been repulsed at Ali
Musjid, and that the heads of three of his officers had been sent in to
Akbar, whereupon 'all the commanding officers waited on the General,
beseeching him to attack Akbar instantly. The 13th and the battery got
all ready for work, but the old General was obstinate, and refused to
act.' Backhouse's diary (April 6th) mentions that Pollock having been
reported repulsed, and Akbar having fired a salute, the officers
commanding corps and detachments went in a body and proposed to the
General to attack Akbar instantly, but without success. 'Immediately the
matter was broached, the General set his face against anything of the
kind, and disagreed about every point--insisted that the enemy had 5000
or 6000 men in camp, and were too strong for us; and then, the next
minute, that it was no use going out as we couldn't punish them, as they
_wouldn't stand_; and concluding with usual excuse for inactivity, "It
isn't our game." Words ran precious high....'

Whether spontaneously or under pressure, General Sale must have ordered
a sortie in force; for at dawn of the 7th three infantry columns marched
out by the Cabul gate, the right commanded by Havelock, the centre by
Dennie, the left by Monteath, General Sale being in command of the whole
force. Akbar, reputed about 5000 strong, was in formation in front of
his camp about three miles west of Jellalabad, his left flank resting on
the river, with an advanced post of 300 men in the 'patched up' fort
about midway between his camp and Jellalabad. The prescribed tactics
were to march straight on the enemy, with which Monteath and Havelock
complied; but Dennie, whether with or without orders is a matter in
dispute, diverged to assail the 'patched up' fort. The outer defences
were carried, gallant old Dennie riding at the head of his men to
receive his death wound. In vain did the guns for which Sale had sent
batter at the inner keep, and the General abandoning the attempt to
reduce it, led on in person the centre column. Meanwhile Havelock and
Monteath had been moving steadily forward, until halted by orders when
considerably advanced. Havelock had to form square once and again
against the Afghan horsemen, who, however, did not dare to charge home.
The artillery came to the front at the gallop, and poured shot and shell
into Akbar's mass. The three columns, now abreast of each other,
deployed into line, and moving forward at the double in the teeth of the
Afghan musketry fire, swept the enemy clean out of his position,
capturing his artillery, firing his camp, and putting him to utter rout.
Akbar, by seven o'clock in the April morning, had been signally beaten
in the open field by the troops he had boasted of blockading in the
fortress.

The garrison of Jellalabad had thus wrought out its own relief.
Thenceforth it experienced neither annoyance nor scarcity. Pollock
arrived a fortnight after the dashing sally which had given the garrison
deliverance, and the head of his column was played into its camp on the
Jellalabad plain by the band of the 13th, to the significant tune 'Oh,
but ye've been lang o'coming.' The magniloquent Ellenborough dubbed
Sale's brigade 'the Illustrious Garrison,' and if the expression is
overstrained, its conduct was without question eminently creditable.



CHAPTER IX: RETRIBUTION AND RESCUE


It was little wonder that the unexpected tidings of the Cabul outbreak,
and the later shock of the catastrophe in the passes, should have
temporarily unnerved the Governor-General. But Lord Auckland rallied his
energies with creditable promptitude. His successor was on the voyage
out, and in the remnant of his term that remained he could not do more
than make dispositions which his successor might find of service. Every
soldier of the 'Army of Retribution' was despatched to the frontier
during Lord Auckland's rule. Lord Auckland appointed to the command of
the troops which he was sending forward a quiet, steadfast, experienced
officer of the artillery arm, who had fought under Lake at Deig and
Bhurtpore, and during his forty years of honest service had soldiered
steadily from the precipices of Nepaul to the rice-swamps of the
Irrawaddy. Pollock was essentially the fitting man for the service that
lay before him, characterised as he was by strong sense, shrewd
sagacity, calm firmness, and self-command. When his superior devolved on
him an undue onus of responsibility he was to prove himself thoroughly
equal to the occasion, and the sedate, balanced man murmured not, but
probably was rather amused when he saw a maker of phrases essaying to
deck himself in his laurels. There were many things in Lord Auckland's
Indian career of which it behoved him to repent, but it must go to his
credit that he gave Pollock high command, and that he could honestly
proclaim, as he made his preparations to quit the great possession whose
future his policy had endangered, that he had contributed toward the
retrieval of the crisis by promptly furthering 'such operations as might
be required for the maintenance of the honour and interests of the
British Government.'

Brigadier Wild reached Peshawur with a brigade of four sepoy regiments
just before the new year. He was destitute of artillery, his sepoys were
in poor heart, and the Sikh contingent was utterly untrustworthy. To
force the Khyber seemed hopeless. Wild, however, made the attempt
energetically enough. But the Sikhs mutinied, expelled their officers,
and marched back to Peshawur; Wild's sepoys, behaving badly, were driven
back with loss from the mouth of the pass, and Wild himself was wounded.
When Pollock reached Peshawur on February 6th, 1842, he found half of
Wild's brigade sick in hospital, and the whole of it in a state of utter
demoralisation. A second brigade commanded by Brigadier-General
McCaskill, had accompanied Pollock, the sepoys of which promptly fell
under the evil influence of Wild's dispirited and disaffected regiments.
Pollock had to resist the pressing appeals for speedy relief made to him
from Jellalabad, and patiently to devote weeks and months to the
restoration of the morale and discipline of the disheartened sepoys of
his command, and to the reinvigoration of their physique. By kindness
combined with firmness he was able gradually to inspire them with
perfect trust and faith in him, and when in the end of March there
reached him a third brigade, comprising British cavalry and
horse-artillery, ordered forward by Lord Auckland on receipt of tidings
of the destruction of the Cabul force, he felt himself at length
justified in advancing with confidence.

[Illustration: Sir George Pollock]

Before daylight on the morning of April 5th Pollock's army about 8000
strong, consisting of eight infantry regiments, three cavalry corps, a
troop and two batteries of artillery, and a mountain train, marched from
the Jumrood camping ground into the portals of the Khyber. Pollock's
scheme of operations was perfect in conception and complete in detail.
His main column, with strong advance and rear-guards, was to pursue the
usual road through the pass. It was flanked on each side by a chain of
infantry detachments, whose assigned duty was to crown the heights and
sweep them clear of assailants in advance of the head of the central
column. The Afreedi hill men had blocked the throat of the pass by a
formidable barrier, behind which they were gathered in force, waiting
for the opportunity which was never to come to them. For the main body
of Pollock's force serenely halted, while the flanking columns, breaking
into skirmishing order, hurried in the grey dawn along the slopes and
heights, dislodging the Afreedi pickets as they advanced, driving them
before them with resolute impetuosity, and pushing forward so far as to
take in reverse with their concentrated fire the great barrier and its
defenders. The clansmen, recognising the frustration of their devices,
deserted the position in its rear, and rushed tumultuously away to crags
and sungahs where knife and jezail might still be plied. The centre
column then advanced unmolested to the deserted barricade, through which
the sappers soon cleared a thoroughfare. The guns swept with shrapnel
the hill-sides in front, the flanking detachments pushed steadily
further and yet further forward, chasing and slaying the fugitive
hillmen; and the Duke of Wellington's observation was that morning fully
made good, that he had never heard that our troops were not equal, as
well in their personal activity as in their arms, to contend with and
overcome any natives of hills whatever.' The whole British force, in its
order of three columns, the centre in the bed of the hollow, the wings
on the flanking ridges, steadily if slowly moved on in the assured
consciousness of victory. It was sunset before the rear-guard was in
camp under the reoccupied Ali Musjid. The Sikh troops who were to keep
open Pollock's communications with Peshawur moved simultaneously on Ali
Musjid by a more circuitous route.

While Pollock was halted opposite the throat of the Khyber waiting for
the demolition of the Afreedi barricade, the ill-starred Shah Soojah was
being murdered, on his way from the Balla Hissar of Cabul to review on
the Siah Sung slopes the reinforcements which Akbar Khan was clamouring
that he should lead down to aid that Sirdar in reducing Jellalabad
before relief should arrive. Ever since the outbreak of November Shah
Soojah had led a dog's life. He had reigned in Cabul, but he had not
ruled. The Sirdars dunned him for money, and jeered at his protestations
of poverty. It is not so much a matter of surprise that he should have
been murdered as that, feeble, rich, and loathed, he should have been
let live so long. It does not seem worth while to discuss the vexed
question whether or not he was faithful to his British allies. He was
certainly entitled to argue that he owed us nothing, since what we did
in regard to him was nakedly for our own purposes. Shah Soojah's second
son Futteh Jung had himself proclaimed his father's successor. The
vicissitudes of his short reign need not be narrated. While Pollock was
gathering his brigades at Gundamuk in the beginning of the following
September, a forlorn Afghan, in dirty and tattered rags, rode into his
camp. This scarecrow was Futteh Jung, who, unable to endure longer his
sham kingship and the ominous tyranny of Akbar Khan, had fled from Cabul
in disguise to beg a refuge in the British camp.

Pollock's march from Ali Musjid to Jellalabad was slow, but almost
unmolested. He found, in his own words, 'the fortress strong, the
garrison healthy; and except for wine and beer, better off than we are.'
One principal object of his commission had been accomplished; he had
relieved the garrison of Jellalabad, and was in a position to ensure its
safe withdrawal. But his commission gave him a considerable discretion,
and a great company of his countrymen and countrywomen were still in
Afghan durance. The calm pulsed, resolute commander had views of his own
as to his duty, and he determined in his patient, steadfast way to tarry
a while on the Jellalabad plain, in the hope that the course of events
might play into his hands.

Maclaren's brigade, which in the beginning of November 1841 General
Elphinstone had instructed General Nott to despatch with all speed to
Cabul, returned to Candahar early in December. Nott in despatching it
had deferred reluctantly to superior authority, and probably Maclaren
not sorry to have in the snowfall a pretext for retracing his steps.
Atta Mahomed Khan, sent from Cabul to foment mischief in the Candahar
regions, had gathered to his banner a considerable force. General Nott
quietly waited until the Sirdar, at the head of some 10,000 men, came
within five miles of Candahar, and then he crushed him after twenty
minutes' fighting. The fugitives found refuge in the camp of the
disaffected Dooranee chiefs, whose leader Meerza Ahmed was sedulously
trying to tamper with Nott's native troops, severe weather hindering the
General from attacking him. Near the end of February there reached Nott
a letter two months old from Elphinstone and Pottinger, ordering him to
evacuate Candahar and retire to India, in pursuance of the convention
into which they had entered. The Dooranee chiefs astutely urged that
Shah Soojah, no longer supported by British bayonets, was now ruling in
Cabul, as an argument in favour of Nott's withdrawal. Nott's answer was
brief: 'I will not treat with any person whatever for the retirement of
the British troops from Afghanistan, until I have received instructions
from the Supreme Government'--a blunt sentence in curious contrast to
the missive which Sale and Macgregor laid before the Jellalabad council
of war. When presently there came a communication from Government
intimating that the continued occupation of Candahar was regarded as
conducive to the interest of the state, Nott and Rawlinson were in a
position to congratulate themselves on having anticipated the wishes of
their superiors. The situation, however, became so menacing that early
in March its Afghan inhabitants were expelled from the city of Candahar
to the last soul; and then Nott, leaving a garrison in the place, took
the field in force. The old soldier, wary as he was, became the victim
of Meerza's wily strategy. As he advanced, the Afghans retired,
skirmishing assiduously. Leaving Nott in the Turnuk valley, they doubled
back on Candahar, and in the early darkness of the night of the 10th
March they furiously assailed the city gates. They fired one of the
gates, and the swarming ghazees tore down with fury its blazing planks
and the red-hot ironwork. The garrison behaved valiantly. Inside the
burning gate they piled up a rampart of grain bags, on which they
trained a couple of guns loaded with case. For three hours after the
gate fell did the fanatics hurl assault after assault on the interior
barricade. They were terribly critical hours, but the garrison
prevailed, and at midnight, with a loss of many hundreds, the obstinate
assailants sullenly drew off. Nott, although urgently summoned, was
unable to reach Candahar until the 12th.

Candahar was fortunately preserved, but at the end of March the
unpleasant tidings came that Ghuznee, which British valour had carried
by storm three years before, had now reverted into Afghan possession.
The siege had lasted for nearly three and a half months. In mid-December
the besiegers occupied the city in force, introduced by the citizens
through a subterranean way; and the garrison, consisting chiefly of a
regiment of sepoys, withdrew into the citadel. The bitter winter and the
scant rations took the heart out of the natives of the warm and fertile
Indian plains; but nevertheless it was not until March 6th that the
garrison, under pledge of being escorted to Peshawur with colours, arms,
and baggage, marched out. The unfortunates would have done better to
have died a soldierly death, with arms in their hands and the glow of
fighting in their hearts. As the event was, faith with them was broken,
and save for a few officers who were made prisoners, most were
slaughtered, or perished in a vain attempt to escape.

During his long isolation Nott's resources had been seriously depleted,
and he had ordered up from Scinde a brigade, escorting much needed
treasure, ammunition, and medicines. Brigadier England was entrusted
with the command of this force, whose assemblage at Quetta was expected
about the end of March. Pending its gathering England had moved out
toward the entrance of the Kojuk Pass, where he met with a sharp and far
from creditable repulse, and fell back on Quetta miserably disheartened,
suggesting in his abjectness that Nott should abandon Candahar and
retire on him. The stout old soldier at Candahar waxed wroth at the
limpness of his subordinate, and addressed to England a biting letter,
ordering peremptorily the latter's prompt advance to Candahar, engaging
to dry-nurse him through the Kojuk by a brigade sent down from Candahar
for the purpose, and remarking sarcastically, 'I am well aware that war
cannot be made without loss; but yet perhaps British troops can oppose
Asiatic armies without defeat.' Thus exhorted England moved, to find his
march through the Kojuk protected by Wymer's sepoys from Candahar, who
had crowned the lateral heights before he ventured into the pass; and he
reached Candahar without maltreatment on the 10th May, bringing to Nott
the much needed supplies which rendered that resolute man equal to any
enterprise.

It remained, however, to be seen whether any enterprise was to be
permitted to him and to his brother commander lying in camp on the
Jellalabad plain. Lord Ellenborough, the successor of Lord Auckland, had
struck a firm if somewhat inexplicit note in his earliest manifesto,
dated March 13th. A single sentence will indicate its tenor: 'Whatever
course we may hereafter take must rest solely on military
considerations, and hence in the first instance regard to the safety of
our detached garrisons in Afghanistan; to the security of our troops now
in the field from unnecessary risks; and finally, to the
re-establishment of our military reputation by the infliction upon the
Afghans of some signal and decisive blow.' Those were brave words, if
only they had been adhered to. But six weeks later his lordship was
ordering Nott to evacuate Candahar and fall back on Quetta, until the
season should permit further retirement to the Indus; and instructing
Pollock, through the Commander-in-Chief, to withdraw without delay every
British soldier from Jellalabad to Peshawur, except under certain
specified eventualities, none of which were in course of occurrence.
Pollock temporised, holding on to his advanced position by the plea of
inability to retire for want of transport, claiming mildly to find
discretionary powers in the Government instructions, and cautiously
arguing in favour of an advance by a few marches to a region where
better climate was to be found, and whence he might bring to bear
stronger pressure for the liberation of the prisoners. Nott was a
narrower man than Pollock. When he got his orders he regarded them as
strictly binding, no matter how unpalatable the injunctions. 'I shall
not lose a moment,' he wrote, 'in making arrangements to carry out my
orders, without turning to the right or the left, and without inquiring
into the reasons for the measures enjoined, whatever our own opinions or
wishes may be.' He reluctantly began preparations for withdrawal.
Carriage was ordered up from Quetta, and a brigade was despatched to
withdraw the garrison of Khelat-i-Ghilzai, and to destroy the fort which
Craigie had so long and valiantly defended.

It would be tedious to detail the vacillations, the obscurities, and the
tortuosities of Lord Ellenborough's successive communications to his two
Generals in Afghanistan. Pollock had been permitted to remain about
Jellalabad until the autumn should bring cooler marching weather. Nott
had been detained at Candahar by the necessity for crushing menacing
bodies of tribal levies, but as July waned his preparations for
withdrawal were all but complete. On the 4th of that month Lord
Ellenborough wrote to him, reiterating injunctions for his withdrawal
from Afghanistan, but permitting him the alternatives of retiring by the
direct route along his line of communications over Quetta and Sukkur, or
of boxing the compass by the curiously circuitous 'retirement' _via_
Ghuznee, Cabul, and Jellalabad. Pollock, for his part, was permitted, if
he thought proper, to advance on Cabul in order to facilitate Nott's
withdrawal, if the latter should elect to 'retreat' by the circuitous
route which has just been described.

One does not care to characterise the 'heads I win, tails you lose'
policy of a Governor-General who thus shuffled off his responsibility
upon two soldiers who previously had been sedulously restricted within
narrow if varying limits. Their relief from those trammels set them
free, and it was their joy to accept the devolved responsibility, and to
act with soldierly initiative and vigour. The chief credit of the
qualified yet substantial triumph over official hesitation certainly
belongs to Pollock, who gently yet firmly forced the hand of the
Governor-General, while Nott's merit was limited to a ready acceptance
of the responsibility of a proffered option. A letter from Nott
intimating his determination to retire by way of Cabul and Jellalabad
reached Pollock in the middle of August, who immediately advanced from
Jellalabad; and his troops having concentrated at Gundamuk, he marched
from that position on 7th September, his second division, commanded by
M'Caskill, following next day. Pollock was woefully short of transport,
and therefore was compelled to leave some troops behind at Gundamuk, and
even then could carry only half the complement of tentage. But his
soldiers, who carried in their haversacks seven days' provisions, would
gladly have marched without any baggage at all, and the chief himself
was eager to hurry forward, for Nott had written that he expected to
reach Cabul on 15th September, and Pollock was burning to be there
first. In the Jugdulluk Pass, on the 8th, he found the Ghilzais in
considerable force on the heights. Regardless of a heavy artillery fire
they stood their ground, and so galled Pollock's troops with sharp
discharges from their jezails that it became necessary to send infantry
against them. They were dislodged from the mountain they had occupied by
a portion of the Jellalabad brigade, led by gallant old General Sale,
who had his usual luck in the shape of a wound.

This Jugdulluk fighting was, however, little more than a skirmish, and
Pollock's people were to experience more severe opposition before they
should emerge from the passes on to the Cabul plain. On the morning of
the 13th the concentrated force had quitted its camp in the Tezeen
valley, and had committed itself without due precaution to the passage
of the ravine beyond, when the Afghan levies with which Akbar Khan had
manned the flanking heights, opened their fire. The Sirdar had been
dissuaded by Captain Troup, one of his prisoners, from attempting futile
negotiations, and advised not to squander lives in useless opposition.
Akbar had replied that he was too deeply committed to recede, and that
his people were bent on fighting. They were not baulked in the
aspiration, which assuredly their opponents shared with at least equal
zeal. Pollock's advance guard was about the middle of the defile, when
the enemy were suddenly discovered blocking the pass in front, and
holding the heights which Pollock's light troops should have crowned in
advance of the column. Akbar's force was calculated to be about 15,000
strong, and the Afghans fought resolutely against the British regiments
which forced their way up the heights on the right and left. The ghazees
dashed down to meet the red soldiers halfway, and up among the
precipices there were many hand-to-hand encounters, in which the sword
and the bayonet fought out the issue. The Afghans made their last stand
on the rocky summit of the Huft Kotul; but from this commanding position
they were finally driven by Broadfoot's bloodthirsty little Goorkhas,
who, hillmen themselves from their birth, chased the Afghans from crag
to crag, using their fell kookeries as they pursued. It was Akbar Khan's
last effort, and the quelling of it cost Pollock the trivial loss of
thirty-two killed and 130 wounded. There was no more opposition, and it
was well for the Afghans, for the awful spectacles presented in the
Khoord Cabul Pass traversed on the following day, kindled in Pollock's
soldiers a white heat of fury. 'The bodies,' wrote Backhouse in his
unpublished diary, 'lay in heaps of fifties and hundreds, our gun wheels
crushing the bones of our late comrades at every yard for four or five
miles; indeed, the whole march from Gundamuk to Cabul may be said to
have been over the bodies of the massacred army.' Pollock marched
unmolested to Cabul on the 15th, and camped on the old racecourse to the
east of the city.

Nott, in evacuating Candahar, divided his force into two portions, the
weaker of which General England took back to India by Quetta and Sukkur,
while on August 9th Nott himself, with two European battalions, the
'beautiful sepoy regiments' of which he had a right to be proud, and his
field guns, marched away from Candahar, his face set towards Cabul. His
march was uneventful until about midway between Khelat-i-Ghilzai and
Ghuznee, when on the 28th the cavalry, unsupported and badly handled in
a stupid and unauthorised foray, lost severely in officers and men, took
to flight in panic, and so gave no little encouragement to the enemy
hanging on Nott's flank. Two days later Shumshoodeen, the Afghan leader,
drew up some 10,000 men in order of battle on high ground left of the
British camp. Nott attacked with vigour, advancing to turn the Afghan
left. In reprisal the enemy threw their strength on his left, supporting
their jezail fire with artillery, whereupon Nott changed front to the
left, deployed, and then charged. The Afghans did not wait for close
quarters, and Nott was no more seriously molested. Reaching the vicinity
of Ghuznee on September 5th, he cleared away the hordes hanging on the
heights which encircle the place. During the night the Afghans evacuated
Ghuznee. Soon after daylight the British flag was waving from the
citadel. Having fulfilled Lord Ellenborough's ridiculous order to carry
away from the tomb of Sultan Mahmoud in the environs of Ghuznee, the
supposititious gates of Somnath, a once famous Hindoo shrine in the
Bombay province of Kattiawar, Nott marched onward unmolested till within
a couple of marches of Cabul, when near Maidan he had some stubborn
fighting with an Afghan force which tried ineffectually to block his
way. On the 17th he marched into camp four miles west of Cabul, whence
he could discern, not with entire complacency, the British ensign
already flying from the Balla Hissar, for Pollock had won the race to
Cabul by a couple of days.

For months there had been negotiations for the release of the British
prisoners whom Akbar Khan had kept in durance ever since they came into
his hands in the course of the disastrous retreat from Cabul in January,
but they had been unsuccessful, and now it was known that the
unfortunate company of officers, women, and children, had been carried
off westward into the hill country of Bamian. Nott's officers, as the
Candahar column was nearing Cabul, had more than once urged him to
detach a brigade in the direction of Bamian in the hope of effecting a
rescue of the prisoners, but he had steadily refused, leaning
obstinately on the absence from the instructions sent him by Government
of any permission to engage in the enterprise of attempting their
release. He was not less brusque in the intimation of his declinature
when Pollock gave him the opportunity to send a force in support of Sir
Richmond Shakespear, whom, with a detachment of Kuzzilbash horse,
Pollock had already despatched on the mission of attempting the
liberation of the prisoners. The narrow old soldier argued doggedly that
Government 'had thrown the prisoners overboard.' Why, then, should he
concern himself with their rescue? If his superior officer should give
him a firm order, of course he would obey, but he would obey under
protest. Pollock disdained to impose so enviable a duty on a
recalcitrant man, and committed to Sale the honourable and welcome
service--all the more welcome to that officer because his wife and
daughter were among the captives. At the head of his Jellalabad brigade,
he was to push forward by forced marches on the track of Shakespear and
his horsemen.

The strange and bitter experiences of the captives, from that miserable
January Sabbath day on which they passed under the 'protection' of Akbar
Khan until the mid-September noon when Shakespear galloped into their
midst, are recorded in full and interesting detail in Lady Sale's
journal, in Vincent Eyre's _Captivity_, and in Colin Mackenzie's
biography published under the title of _Storms and Sunshine of a
Soldier's Life_. Here it is possible only briefly to summarise the chief
incidents of the captivity. The unanimous testimony of the released
prisoners was to the effect that Akbar Khan, violent, bloody, and
passionate man though he was, behaved toward them with kindness and a
certain rude chivalry. They remained for nearly three months at
Budiabad, living in great squalor and discomfort. For the whole party
there were but five rooms, each of which was occupied by from five to
ten officers and ladies, the few soldiers and non-commissioned officers,
who were mostly wounded, being quartered in sheds and cellars. Mackenzie
drily remarks that the hardships of the common lot, and the close
intimacy of prison life, brought into full relief good and evil
qualities; 'conventional polish was a good deal rubbed off and replaced
by a plainness of speech quite unheard of in good society.' Ladies and
gentlemen were necessitated to occupy the same room during the night,
but the men 'cleared out' early in the morning, leaving the ladies to
themselves. The dirt and vermin of their habitation were abominably
offensive to people to whom scrupulous cleanliness was a second nature.
But the captives were allowed to take exercise within a limited range;
they had among them a few books, and an old newspaper occasionally came
on to them from Jellalabad, with which place a fitful correspondence in
cypher was surreptitiously maintained. They had a few packs of playing
cards; they made for themselves backgammon and draught-boards, and when
in good spirits they sometimes played hopscotch and blindman's-buff with
the children of the party. The Sundays were always kept scrupulously,
Lawrence and Mackenzie conducting the service in turn.

The earthquake which shook down the fortifications of Jellalabad brought
their rickety fort about the ears of the captives. Several escaped
narrowly with their lives when walls and roofs yawned and crumbled, and
all had to turn out and sleep in the courtyard, where they suffered from
cold and saturating dews. After the defeat of Akbar by the Jellalabad
garrison on April 7th, there was keen expectation that Sale would march
to their rescue, but he came not, and there were rumours among the
guards of their impending massacre in revenge for the crushing reverse
Akbar had experienced. Presently, however, Mahomed Shah Khan, Akbar's
lieutenant, arrived full of courtesy and reassurance, but with the
unwelcome intimation that the prisoners must prepare themselves to leave
Budiabad at once, and move to a greater distance from Jellalabad and
their friends. For some preparation was not a difficult task. 'All my
worldly goods,' wrote Captain Johnson, 'might be stowed away in a
towel.' Others who possessed heavier impedimenta, were lightened of the
encumbrance by the Ghilzai Sirdar, who plundered indiscriminately. The
European soldiers were left behind at Budiabad, and the band of ladies
and gentlemen started on the afternoon of April 10th, in utter ignorance
of their destination, under the escort of a strong band of Afghans. At
the ford across the Cabul river the cavalcade found Akbar Khan wounded,
haggard, and dejected, seated in a palanquin, which, weak as he was, he
gave up to Ladies Macnaghten and Sale, who were ill. A couple of days
were spent at Tezeen among the melancholy relics of the January
slaughter, whence most of the party were carried several miles further
into the southern mountains to the village of Zandeh, while General
Elphinstone, whose end was fast approaching, remained in the Tezeen
valley with Pottinger, Mackenzie, Eyre, and one or two others. On the
evening of April 23d the poor General was finally released from
suffering of mind and body. Akbar, who when too late had offered to free
him, sent the body down to Jellalabad under a guard, and accompanied by
Moore the General's soldier servant; and Elphinstone lies with Colonel
Dennie and the dead of the defence of Jellalabad in their nameless
graves in a waste place within the walls of that place. Toward the end
of May the captives were moved up the passes to the vicinity of Cabul,
where Akbar Khan was now gradually attaining the ascendant. Prince
Futteh Jung, however, still held out in the Balla Hissar, and
intermittent firing was heard as the weary _cortège_ of prisoners
reached a fort about three miles short of Cabul, which the ladies of the
proprietor's zenana had evacuated in their favour. Here they lived if
not in contentment at least in considerable comfort and amenity. They
had the privacy of a delightful garden, and enjoyed the freedom of
bathing in the adjacent river. After the strife between Akbar Khan and
Futteh Jung ceased they were even permitted to exchange visits with
their countrymen, the hostages quartered on the Balla Hissar. They were
able to obtain money from the Cabul usurers, and thus to supply
themselves with suitable clothing and additions to their rations, and
their mails from India and Jellalabad were forwarded to them without
hindrance. The summer months were passed in captivity, but it was no
longer for them a captivity of squalor and wretchedness. Life was a good
deal better worth living in the pleasant garden house on the bank of the
Logur than it had been in the noisome squalor of Budiabad and the
vermin-infested huddlement of Zandeh. But they still-lived under the
long strain of anxiety and apprehension, for none of them knew what the
morrow might bring forth. While residing in the pleasant quarters in the
Logur valley the captives of the passes were joined by nine officers,
who were the captives of Ghuznee. After the capitulation the latter had
been treated with cruel harshness, shut up in one small room, and
debarred from fresh air and exercise. Colonel Palmer, indeed, had
undergone the barbarity of torture in the endeavour to force him to
disclose the whereabouts of treasure which he was suspected of having
buried.

Akbar had full and timely intimation of the mutual intention of the
British generals at Jellalabad and Candahar to march on Cabul, and did
not fail to recognise of what value to him in extremity might be his
continued possession of the prisoners. They had been warned of their
probable deportation to the remote and rugged Bamian; and the toilsome
journey thither was begun on the evening of August 25th. A couple of
ailing families alone, with a surgeon in charge of them, were allowed to
remain behind; all the others, hale and sick, had to travel, the former
on horseback, the latter carried in camel panniers. The escort consisted
of an irregular regiment of Afghan infantry commanded by one Saleh
Mahomed Khan, who when a subadar serving in one of the Shah's Afghan
regiments had deserted to Dost Mahomed. The wayfarers, female as well as
male, wore the Afghan costume, in order that they might attract as
little notice as possible.

Bamian was reached on September 3d, where the wretchedness of the
quarters contrasted vividly with the amenity of those left behind on the
Cabul plain. But the wretchedness of Bamian was not to be long endured.
An intimacy had been struck up between Captain Johnson and Saleh
Mahomed, and the latter cautiously hinted that a reward and a pension
might induce him to carry his charges into the British camp. On
September 11th there was a private meeting between the Afghan commandant
and three British officers, Pottinger, Johnson, and Lawrence. Saleh
Mahomed intimated the receipt of instructions from the Sirdar to carry
the prisoners over the Hindoo Koosh into Khooloom, and leave them there
to seeming hopeless captivity. But on the other hand a messenger had
reached Saleh from Mohun Lal with the assurance that General Pollock, if
he restored the prisoners, would ensure him a reward of 20,000 rupees,
and a life pension of 12,000 rupees a year. Saleh Mahomed demanded and
received a guarantee from the British officers; and the captives bound
themselves to make good from their own resources their redemption money.
The Afghan ex-Subadar proved himself honest; the captives were captives
no longer, and they proceeded to assert themselves in the masterful
British manner. They hoisted the national flag; Pottinger became once
again the high-handed 'political,' and ordered the local chiefs to come
to his durbar and receive dresses of honour. Their fort was put into a
state of defence, and a store of provisions was gathered in case of a
siege. But in mid-September came the tidings that Akbar had been
defeated at Tezeen, and had fled no one knew whither, whereupon the
self-emancipated party set out on the march to Cabul. At noon of the
17th they passed into the safe guardianship of Shakespear and his
horsemen. Three days later, within a march of Cabul, there was reached
the column which Sale had taken out, and on September 21st Pollock
greeted the company of men and women whose rescue had been wrought out
by his cool, strong steadfastness.

Little more remains to be told. There was an Afghan force still in arms
at Istalif, a beautiful village of the inveterately hostile Kohistanees;
a division marched to attack it, carried the place by assault, burnt
part of it, and severely smote the garrison. Utter destruction was the
fate of Charikar, the capital of the Kohistan, where Codrington's
Goorkha regiment had been destroyed. Pollock determined to 'set a mark'
on Cabul to commemorate the retribution which the British had exacted.
He spared the Balla Hissar, and abstained from laying the city in ruins,
contenting himself with the destruction of the principal bazaar, through
which the heads of Macnaghten and Burnes had been paraded, and in which
their mangled bodies had been exposed. Prince Futteh Jung, tired of his
vicissitudes in the character of an Afghan monarch, ceded what of a
throne he possessed to another puppet of his race, and gladly
accompanied the British armies to India. Other waifs of the wreck of a
nefarious and disastrous enterprise, among them old Zemaun Khan, who had
been our friend throughout, and the family of the ill-fated Shah Soojah,
were well content to return to the exile which afforded safety and
quietude. There also accompanied the march of the humane Pollock a great
number of the mutilated and crippled camp followers of Elphinstone's
army who had escaped with their lives from its destruction. On the 12th
of October the forces of Pollock and of Nott turned their backs on
Cabul, which no British army was again to see for nearly forty years,
and set out on their march down the passes. Jellalabad and Ali Musjid
were partially destroyed in passing. Pollock's division reached Peshawur
without loss, thanks to the precautions of its chief; but with M'Caskill
and Nott the indomitable Afghans had the last word, cutting off their
stragglers, capturing their baggage, and in the final skirmish killing
and wounding some sixty men of Nott's command.

Of the bombastic and grotesque paeans of triumph emitted by Lord
Ellenborough, whose head had been turned by a success to which he had
but scantly contributed, nothing need now be said, nor of the garish
pageant with which he received the armies as they re-entered British
territory at Ferozepore. As they passed down through the Punjaub, Dost
Mahomed passed up on his way to reoccupy the position from which he had
been driven. And so ended the first Afghan war, a period of history in
which no redeeming features are perceptible except the defence of
Jellalabad, the dogged firmness of Nott, and Pollock's noble and
successful constancy of purpose. Beyond this effulgence there spreads a
sombre welter of misrepresentation and unscrupulousness, intrigue, moral
deterioration, and dishonour unspeakable.



PART II: THE SECOND AFGHAN WAR



CHAPTER I: THE FIRST CAMPAIGN


A brief period of peace intervened between the ratification of the
treaty of Gundamuk on May 30th, 1879, and the renewal of hostilities
consequent on the massacre at Cabul of Sir Louis Cavagnari and the whole
_entourage_ of the mission of which he was the head. There was nothing
identical or even similar in the motives of the two campaigns, and
regarded purely on principle they might be regarded as two distinct
wars, rather than as successive campaigns of one and the same war. But
the interval between them was so short that the ink of the signatures to
the treaty of Gundamuk may be said to have been scarcely dry when the
murder of the British Envoy tore that document into bloody shreds; and
it seems the simplest and most convenient method to designate the two
years of hostilities from November 1878 to September 1880, as the
'second Afghan war,' notwithstanding the three months' interval of peace
in the summer of 1879.

Dost Mahomed died in 1863, and after a long struggle his son Shere Ali
possessed himself of the throne bequeathed to him by his father. The
relations between Shere Ali and the successive Viceroys of India were
friendly, although not close. The consistent aim of the British policy
was to maintain Afghanistan in the position of a strong, friendly, and
independent state, prepared in certain contingencies to co-operate in
keeping at a distance foreign intrigue or aggression; and while this
object was promoted by donations of money and arms, to abstain from
interference in the internal affairs of the country, while according a
friendly recognition to the successive occupants of its throne, without
undertaking indefinite liabilities in their interest. The aim, in a
word, was to utilise Afghanistan as a 'buffer' state between the
north-western frontier of British India and Russian advances from the
direction of Central Asia. Shere Ali was never a very comfortable ally;
he was of a saturnine and suspicious nature, and he seems also to have
had an overweening sense of the value of the position of Afghanistan,
interposed between two great powers profoundly jealous one of the other.
He did not succeed with Lord Northbrook in an attempt to work on that
Viceroy by playing off the bogey of Russian aggression; and as the
consequence of this failure he allowed himself to display marked
evidences of disaffected feeling. Cognisance was taken of this 'attitude
of extreme reserve,' and early in 1876 Lord Lytton arrived in India
charged with instructions to break away from the policy designated as
that of 'masterly inactivity,' and to initiate a new basis of relations
with Afghanistan and its Ameer.

Lord Lytton's instructions directed him to despatch without delay a
mission to Cabul, whose errand would be to require of the Ameer the
acceptance of a permanent Resident and free access to the frontier
positions of Afghanistan on the part of British officers, who should
have opportunity of conferring with the Ameer on matters of common
interest with 'becoming attention to their friendly councils.' Those
were demands notoriously obnoxious to the Afghan monarch and the Afghan
people. Compliance with them involved sacrifice of independence, and the
Afghan loathing of Feringhee officials in their midst had been fiercely
evinced in the long bloody struggle and awful catastrophe recorded in
earlier pages of this volume. Probably the Ameer, had he desired, would
not have dared to concede such demands on any terms, no matter how full
of advantage. But the terms which Lord Lytton was instructed to tender
as an equivalent were strangely meagre. The Ameer was to receive a money
gift, and a precarious stipend regarding which the new Viceroy was to
'deem it inconvenient to commit his government to any permanent
pecuniary obligation.' The desiderated recognition of Abdoolah Jan as
Shere Ali's successor was promised with the qualifying reservation that
the promise 'did not imply or necessitate any intervention in the
internal affairs of the state.' The guarantee against foreign aggression
was vague and indefinite, and the Government of India reserved to itself
entire 'freedom of judgment as to the character of circumstances
involving the obligation of material support.'

The Ameer replied to the notice that a mission was about to proceed to
Cabul by a courteous declinature to receive an Envoy, assigning several
specious reasons. He was quite satisfied with the existing friendly
relations, and desired no change in them; he could not guarantee the
safety of the Envoy and his people; if he admitted a British mission, he
would have no excuse for refusing to receive a Russian one. An
intimation was conveyed to the Ameer that if he should persist in his
refusal to receive the mission, the Viceroy would have no other
alternative than to regard Afghanistan as a state which had 'voluntarily
isolated itself from the alliance and support of the British
Government.' The Ameer arranged that the Vakeel of the Indian Government
should visit Simla, carrying with him full explanations, and charged to
lay before the Viceroy sundry grievances which were distressing Shere
Ali. That functionary took back to Cabul certain minor concessions, but
conveyed the message also that those concessions were contingent on the
Ameer's acceptance of British officers about his frontiers, and that it
would be of no avail to send an Envoy to the conference at Peshawur for
which sanction was given, unless he were commissioned to agree to this
condition as the fundamental basis of a treaty. Before the Vakeel
quitted Simla he had to listen to a truculent address from Lord Lytton,
in the course of which Shere Ali's position was genially likened to that
of 'an earthen pipkin between two iron pots.' Before Sir Lewis Pelly and
the Ameer's representative met at Peshawur in January 1877, Shere Ali
had not unnaturally been perturbed by the permanent occupation of
Quetta, on the southern verge of his dominions, as indicating, along
with other military dispositions, an intended invasion. The Peshawur
conference, which from the first had little promise, dragged on
unsatisfactorily until terminated by the death of the Ameer's
representative, whereupon Sir Lewis Pelly was recalled by Lord Lytton,
notwithstanding the latter's cognisance that Shere Ali was despatching
to Peshawur a fresh Envoy authorised to assent to all the British
demands. The justification advanced by Lord Lytton for this procedure
was the discovery purported to have been made by Sir Lewis Pelly that
the Ameer was intriguing with General Kaufmann at Tashkend. Since Shere
Ali was an independent monarch, it was no crime on his part to enter
into negotiations with another power than Great Britain, although if the
worried and distracted man did so the charge of folly may be laid to
him, since the Russians were pretty certain to betray him after having
made a cat's-paw of him, and since in applying to them he involved
himself in the risk of hostile action on the part of the British. The
wisdom of Lord Lytton's conduct is not apparent. The truculent policy of
which he was the instrument was admittedly on the point of triumphing;
and events curiously falsified his short-sighted anticipation of the
unlikelihood, because of the Russo-Turkish war then impending, of any
_rapprochement_ between the Ameer and the Russian authorities in Central
Asia. The Viceroy withdrew his Vakeel from Cabul, and in the recognition
of the Ameer's attitude of 'isolation and scarcely veiled hostility'
Lord Salisbury authorised Lord Lytton to protect the British frontier
by such measures as circumstances should render expedient, 'without
regard to the wishes of the Ameer or the interests of his dynasty.' Lord
Lytton took no measures, expedient or otherwise, in the direction
indicated by Lord Salisbury; the Ameer, as if he had been a petted boy
consigned to the corner, was abandoned to his sullen 'isolation,' and
the Russians adroitly used him to involve us in a war which lasted two
years, cost us the lives of many valiant men, caused us to incur an
expenditure of many millions, and left our relations with Afghanistan in
all essential respects in the same condition as Lord Lytton found them
when he reached India with the 'new policy' in his pocket.

If the Russians could execute as thoroughly as they can plan skilfully,
there would be hardly any limit to their conquests. When England was
mobilising her forces after the treaty of San Stefano, and ordering into
the Mediterranean a division of sepoys drawn from the three presidencies
of her Indian Empire, Russia for her part was concerting an important
diversion in the direction of the north-western frontier of that great
possession. But for the opportune conclusion of the treaty of Berlin,
the question as to the ability of sepoy troops stiffened by British
regiments to cope with the mixed levies of the Tzar might have been
tried out on stricken fields between the Oxus and the Indus. When
Gortschakoff returned from Berlin to St Petersburg with his version of
'Peace with Honour'--Bessarabia and Batoum thrown in--Kaufmann had to
countermand the concentration of troops that had been in progress on the
northern frontier of Afghanistan. But the Indian division was still much
in evidence in the Mediterranean, its tents now gleaming on the brown
slopes of Malta, now crowning the upland of Larnaca and nestling among
the foliage of Kyrenea. Kaufmann astutely retorted on this demonstration
by despatching, not indeed an expedition, but an embassy to Cabul; and
when Stolietoff, the gallant defender of the Schipka Pass, rode into the
Balla Hissar on August 11th, 1878, Shere Ali received him with every
token of cordiality and regard.

No other course was now open to Her Majesty's Government than to insist
on the reception at Cabul of a British mission. The gallant veteran
officer Sir Neville Chamberlain, known to be held in regard by the
Ameer, was named as Envoy, and an emissary was sent to Cabul in advance
with information of the date fixed for the setting out of the mission.
Shere Ali was greatly perplexed, and begged for more time. 'It is not
proper,' he protested, 'to use pressure in this way; it will tend to a
complete rupture.' But Sir Neville Chamberlain was satisfied that the
Ameer was trifling with the Indian Government; and he had certain
information that the Ameer, his Ministers, and the Afghan outpost
officers, had stated plainly that, if necessary, the advance of the
mission would be arrested by force. This was what in effect happened
when on September 21st Major Cavagnari rode forward to the Afghan post
in the Khyber Pass. The officer who courteously stopped him assured him
that he had orders to oppose by force the progress of Sir Neville and
his mission, so Cavagnari shook hands with the Afghan major and rode
back to Peshawur.

The Viceroy sought permission to declare war immediately,
notwithstanding his condition of unpreparedness; but the Home Government
directed him instead to require in temperate language an apology and the
acceptance of a permanent mission, presenting at the same time the
ultimatum that if a satisfactory reply should not be received on or
before the 20th November hostilities would immediately commence.
Meanwhile military preparations were actively pushed forward. The scheme
of operations was as follows: three columns of invasion were to move
simultaneously, one through the Khyber Pass to Dakka, another through
the Kuram valley, south of the Khyber, with the Peiwar Pass as its
objective, and a third from Quetta into the Pisheen valley, to march
forward to Candahar after reinforcement by a division from Mooltan. To
General Sir Sam Browne was assigned the command of the Khyber column,
consisting of about 10,000 men, with thirty guns; to General Roberts the
command of the Kuram valley column, of about 5,500 men, with twenty-four
guns; and to General Biddulph the command of the Quetta force, numbering
some 6000 men, with eighteen guns. When General Donald Stewart should
bring up from Mooltan the division which was being concentrated there,
he was to command the whole southern force moving on Candahar. The
reserve division gathering at Hassan Abdul and commanded by General
Maude, would support the Khyber force; another reserve division massing
at Sukkur under General Primrose, would act in support of the Candahar
force; and a contingent contributed by the Sikh Feudatory States and
commanded by Colonel Watson, was to do duty on the Kurum line of
communication. The Generals commanding columns were to act independently
of each other, taking instructions direct from Army and Government
headquarters.

No answer to the ultimatum was received from the Ameer, and on the
morning of November 21st Sir Sam Browne crossed the Afghan frontier and
moved up the Khyber on Ali Musjid with his third and fourth brigades and
the guns. Overnight he had detached Macpherson's and Tytler's brigades
with the commission to turn the Ali Musjid position by a circuitous
march, the former charged to descend into the Khyber Pass in rear of the
fortress, and block the escape of its garrison; the latter instructed to
find, if possible, a position on the Rhotas heights on the proper left
of the fortress from which a flank attack might be delivered. About noon
Sir Sam reached the Shagai ridge and came under a brisk fire from the
guns of Ali Musjid, to which his heavy cannon and Manderson's
horse-battery replied with good results. The Afghan position, which was
very strong, stretched right athwart the valley from an entrenched line
on the right to the Rhotas summit on the extreme left. The artillery
duel lasted about two hours, and then Sir Sam determined to advance, on
the expectation that the turning brigades had reached their respective
objectives. He himself moved forward on the right upland; on the
opposite side of the Khyber stream Appleyard led the advance of his
brigade against the Afghan right. No co-operation on the part of the
turning brigades had made itself manifest up till dusk; the right
brigade had been brought to a halt in face of a precipitous cliff
crowned by the enemy, and it was wisely judged that to press the frontal
attack further in the meantime would involve a useless loss of life. Sir
Sam therefore halted, and sent word to Appleyard to stay for the night
his further advance, merely holding the ridge which he had already
carried. But before this order reached him Appleyard was sharply engaged
with the enemy in their entrenched position, and in the fighting which
occurred before the retirement was effected two officers were killed, a
third wounded, and a good many casualties occurred among the rank and
file of the native detachments gallantly assailing the Afghan
entrenchments.

Early next morning offensive operations were about to be resumed, when a
young officer of the 9th Lancers brought intelligence that the Afghan
garrison had fled under cover of night, whereupon the fort was promptly
occupied. The turning brigades had been delayed by the difficult country
encountered, but detachments from both had reached Kata Kustia in time
to capture several hundred fugitives of the Ali Musjid garrison. The
mass of it, however--its total strength was about 4000 men--effected a
retreat by the Peshbolak track from the right of the entrenched
position. Sir Sam Browne's advance to Dakka was made without
molestation, and on 20th December he encamped on the plain of
Jellalabad, where he remained throughout the winter, Maude's reserve
division keeping open his communications through the Khyber Pass. The
hill tribes, true to their nature, gave great annoyance by their
continual raids, and several punitive expeditions were sent against them
from time to time, but seldom with decisive results. The tribesmen for
the most part carried off into the hills their movable effects, and the
destruction of their petty forts apparently gave them little concern.
For the most part they maintained their irreconcilable attitude, hanging
on the flanks of our detachments on their return march through the
lateral passes to their camps, and inflicting irritating if not very
severe losses. Occasionally they thought proper to make nominal
submission with tongue in cheek, breaking out again when opportunity or
temptation presented itself. Detailed description of those raids and
counter-raids would be very tedious reading. It was when starting to
co-operate in one of those necessary but tantalising expeditions that a
number of troopers of the 10th Hussars were drowned in a treacherous
ford of the Cabul river near Jellalabad.

General Roberts, to whom the conduct of operations in the Kuram district
had been entrusted, crossed the frontier on November 21st, and marched
up the valley with great expedition. The inhabitants evinced
friendliness, bringing in live stock and provisions for sale. Reaching
Habib Killa on the morning of the 28th, he received a report that the
Afghan force which he knew to be opposed to him had abandoned its guns
on the hither side of the Peiwar Kotul, and was retreating in confusion
over that summit. Roberts promptly pushed forward in two columns.
Building on the erroneous information that the enemy were in a hollow
trying to withdraw their guns--in reality they were already in their
entrenched position on the summit of the Kotul--he ordered Cobbe's (the
left) column to turn the right of the supposed Afghan position, and
debar the enemy from the Kotul, while the other column (Thelwall's) was
ordered to attack in front, the object being to have the enemy between
two fires. Cobbe's leading regiment near the village of Turrai found its
advance blocked by precipices, and a withdrawal was ordered, the
advantage having been attained of forcing the enemy to disclose the
position which he was holding. Further reconnaissances proved that the
Afghan line of defence extended along the crest of a lofty and broken
mountainous range from the Spingawai summit on the left to the Peiwar
Kotul on the right centre, the right itself resting on commanding
elevations a mile further south. The position had a front in all of
about four miles. It was afterwards ascertained to have been held by
about 3500 regulars and a large number of tribal irregulars. General
Roberts' force numbered about 3100 men.

His scheme of operations he explained to his commanding officers on the
evening of December 1st. With the bulk of the force he himself was to
make a circuitous night march by his right on the Spingawai Kotul, with
the object of turning that position and taking the main Afghan position
on the Peiwar Kotul in reverse; while Brigadier Cobbe, with whom were to
remain the 8th (Queen's) and 5th Punjaub Infantry regiments, a cavalry
regiment and six guns, was instructed to assail the enemy's centre when
the result of the flank attack on his left should have made itself
apparent.

The turning column, whose advance the General led in person, consisted
of the 29th N. I. (leading), 5th Goorkhas, and a mountain battery, all
under Colonel Gordon's command; followed by a wing of the 72d
Highlanders, 2d Punjaub Infantry, and 23d Pioneers, with four guns on
elephants, under Brigadier Thelwall. The arduous march began at ten P.M.
Trending at first rearward to the Peiwar village, the course followed
was then to the proper right, up the rugged and steep Spingawai ravine.
In the darkness part of Thelwall's force lost its way, and disappeared
from ken. Further on a couple of shots were fired by disaffected Pathans
in the ranks of the 29th N. I. That regiment was promptly deprived of
the lead, which was taken by the Goorkha regiment, and the column toiled
on by a track described by General Roberts as 'nothing but a mass of
stones, heaped into ridges and furrowed into deep hollows by the action
of the water.' Day had not broken when the head of the column reached
the foot of the steep ascent to the Spingawai Kotul. The Goorkhas and
the 72d rushed forward on the first stockade. It was carried without a
pause save to bayonet the defenders, and stockade after stockade was
swept over in rapid and brilliant succession. In half-an-hour General
Roberts was in full possession of the Spingawai defences, and the Afghan
left flank was not only turned but driven in. Cobbe was ordered by
signal to co-operate by pressing on his frontal attack; and Roberts
himself hurried forward on his enterprise of rolling up the Afghan left
and shaking its centre. But this proved no easy task. The Afghans made a
good defence, and gave ground reluctantly. They made a resolute stand on
the further side of a narrow deep-cut ravine, to dislodge them from
which effort after effort was ineffectually made. The General then
determined to desist from pressing this line of attack, and to make a
second turning movement by which he hoped to reach the rear of the
Afghan centre. He led the 72d wing, three native regiments, and ten
guns, in a direction which should enable him to threaten the line of the
Afghan retreat. Brigadier Cobbe since morning had been steadily although
slowly climbing toward the front of the Peiwar Kotul position. After an
artillery duel which lasted for three hours the Afghan fire was
partially quelled; Cobbe's infantry pushed on and up from ridge to
ridge, and at length they reached a crest within 800 yards of the guns
on the Kotul, whence their rifle fire compelled the Afghan gunners to
abandon their batteries. Meanwhile Roberts' second turning movement was
developing, and the defenders of the Kotul placed between two fires and
their line of retreat compromised, began to waver. Brigadier Cobbe had
been wounded, but Colonel Drew led forward his gallant youngsters of the
8th, and after toilsome climbing they entered the Afghan position, which
its defenders had just abandoned, leaving many dead, eighteen guns, and
a vast accumulation of stores and ammunition. Colonel H. Gough pursued
with his cavalry, and possessed himself of several more guns which the
Afghans had relinquished in their precipitate flight. The decisive
success of the Peiwar Kotul combat had not cost heavily; the British
losses were twenty-one killed and seventy-two wounded.

His sick and wounded sent back to Fort Kuram, General Roberts advanced
to Ali Khel, and thence made a reconnaissance forward to the
Shutargurdan Pass, whose summit is distant from Cabul little more than
fifty miles. Its height is great--upwards of 11,200 feet--but it was
regarded as not presenting serious obstacles to the advance by this
route of a force from the Kuram valley moving on Cabul. A misfortune
befell the baggage guard on one of the marches in the trans-Peiwar
region when Captains Goad and Powell lost their lives in a tribal
onslaught. The somewhat chequered experiences of General Roberts in the
Khost valley need not be told in detail. After some fighting and more
marching he withdrew from that turbulent region altogether, abjuring its
pestilent tribesmen and all their works. The Kuram force wintered in
excellent health spite of the rigorous climate, and toward the end of
March 1879 its forward concentration about Ali Kheyl was ordered, which
was virtually accomplished before the snow had melted from the passes in
the later weeks of April. Adequate transport had been got together and
supplies accumulated; Colonel Watson's contingent was occupying the
posts along the valley; and General Roberts was in full readiness
promptly to obey the orders to advance which he had been led to expect,
and on which his brother-general Sir Sam Browne had already acted to
some extent.

The march on Candahar of the two divisions under the command of General
Stewart had the character, for the most part, of a military promenade.
The tramp across the deserts of Northern Beloochistan was arduous; the
Bolan, the Gwaga, and the Kojuk passes had to be surmounted, and the
distances which both Biddulph and Stewart had to traverse were immensely
in excess of those covered by either of the forces operating from the
north-western frontier line. But uneventful marches, however long and
toilsome, do not call for detailed description. Stewart rode into
Candahar on January 8th, 1879, and the troops as they arrived encamped
on the adjacent plain. The Governor and most of his officials, together
with the Afghan cavalry, had fled toward Herat; the Deputy-Governor
remained to hand over the city to General Stewart. For commissariat
reasons one division under Stewart presently moved by the Cabul road on
Khelat-i-Ghilzai, which was found empty, the Afghan garrison having
evacuated it. Simultaneously with Stewart's departure from Candahar
Biddulph marched out a column westward toward the Helmund, remaining in
that region until the third week in February. On its return march to
Candahar the rear-guard had a sharp skirmish at Khushk-i-Nakhud with
Alizai tribesmen, of whom 163 were left dead on the field. Soon after
the return of Stewart and Biddulph to Candahar, orders arrived that the
former should retain in Candahar, Quetta, and Pishin a strong division
of all arms, sending back to India the remainder of his command under
Biddulph--the march to be made by the previously unexplored
Thal-Chotiali route to the eastward of the Pisheen valley.

Before Sir Sam Browne moved forward from Jellalabad to Gundamuk he had
been able to report to the Viceroy the death of Shere Ali. That
unfortunate man had seen with despair the departure on December 10th of
the last Russian from Cabul--sure token that he need hope for nothing
from Kaufmann or the Tzar. His chiefs unanimous that further resistance
by him was hopeless, he released his son Yakoub Khan from his long harsh
imprisonment, constituted him Regent, and then followed the Russian
mission in the direction of Tashkend. Kaufmann would not so much as
allow him to cross the frontier, and after a painful illness Shere Ali
died on February 21st, 1879, near Balkh in northern Afghanistan. He was
a man who deserved a better fate than that which befell him. His
aspiration was to maintain the independence of the kingdom which he
ruled with justice if also with masterfulness, and he could not brook
the degradation of subjection. But, unfortunately for him, he was the
'earthen pipkin' which the 'iron pot' found inconvenient. There had been
plenty of manhood originally in his son and successor Yakoub Khan, but
much of that attribute had withered in him during the long cruel
imprisonment to which he had been subjected by his father. Shere Ali's
death made him nominal master of Afghanistan, but the vigour of his
youth-time no longer characterised him. He reigned but did not rule, and
how precarious was his position was evidenced by the defection of many
leading chiefs who came into the English camps and were ready to make
terms.

After the flight of Shere Ali some correspondence had passed between
Yakoub Khan and Major Cavagnari, but the former had not expressed any
willingness for the re-establishment of friendly relations. In February
of his own accord he made overtures for a reconciliation, and soon after
intimated the death of his father and his own accession to the Afghan
throne. Major Cavagnari, acting on the Viceroy's authorisation, wrote to
the new sovereign stating the terms on which the Anglo-Indian Government
was prepared to engage in negotiations for peace. Yakoub temporised for
some time, but influenced by the growing defection of the Sirdars from
his cause, as well as by the forward movements of the forces commanded
by Browne and Roberts, he intimated his intention of visiting Gundamuk
in order to discuss matters in personal conference with Major Cavagnari.
A fortnight later he was on his way down the passes.

Instructions had been given by the Viceroy that Yakoub Khan should be
received in the British camp with all honour and distinction. When his
approach was announced on May 8th, Cavagnari and a number of British
officers rode out to meet him; when he reached the camp, a royal salute
greeted him, a guard of honour presented arms, and Sir Sam Browne and
his staff gave him a ceremonious welcome. Cavagnari had full powers to
represent his Government in the pending negotiations, as to the terms of
which he had received from the Viceroy detailed instructions. The Ameer
and his General-in-Chief, Daoud Shah, came to the conference attired in
Russian uniforms. The negotiations were tedious, for the Ameer, his
Minister, and his General made difficulties with a somewhat elaborate
stupidity, but Cavagnari as a diplomatist possessed the gift of being at
once patient and firm; and at length on May 26th the treaty of peace was
signed, and formally ratified by the Viceroy four days later. By the
treaty of Gundamuk Afghanistan was deprived for the time of its
traditional character of a 'buffer state,' and its Ameer became
virtually a feudatory of the British Crown. He was no longer an
independent prince; although his titular rank and a nominal sovereignty
remained to him, his position under its articles was to be analogous to
that of the mediatised princes of the German Empire. The treaty vested
in the British Government the control of the external relations of
Afghanistan. The Ameer consented to the residence of British Agents
within his dominions, guaranteeing their safety and honourable
treatment, while the British Government undertook that its
representatives should not interfere with the internal administration of
the country. The districts of Pisheen, Kuram, and Sibi were ceded to the
British Government along with the permanent control of the Khyber and
Michnai passes, and of the mountain tribes inhabiting the vicinity of
those passes; all other Afghan territory in British occupation was to be
restored. The obligations to which the treaty committed the British
Government were that it should support the Ameer against foreign
aggression with arms, money, or troops at its discretion, and that it
should pay to him and his successor an annual subsidy of £60,000.
Commercial relations between India and Afghanistan were to be protected
and encouraged; a telegraph line between Cabul and the Kuram was
forthwith to be constructed; and the Ameer was to proclaim an amnesty
relieving all and sundry of his subjects from punishment for services
rendered to the British during the war.

That the treaty of Gundamuk involved our Indian Empire in serious
responsibilities is obvious, and those responsibilities were the more
serious that they were vague and indefinite, yet none the less binding
on this account. It is probable that its provisions, if they had
remained in force, would have been found in the long run injurious to
the interests of British India. For that realm Afghanistan has the value
that its ruggedness presents exceptional obstacles to the march through
it of hostile armies having the Indian frontier for their objective, and
this further and yet more important value that the Afghans by nature are
frank and impartial Ishmaelites, their hands against all foreigners
alike, no matter of what nationality. If this character be impaired,
what virtue the Afghan has in our eyes is lost. In his implacable
passion for independence, in his fierce intolerance of the Feringhee
intruder, he fulfils in relation to our Indian frontier a kindred office
to that served by abattis, _cheveux de frise,_ and wire entanglements in
front of a military position. The short-lived treaty, for which the
sanguine Mr Stanhope claimed that it had gained for England 'a friendly,
an independent, and a strong Afghanistan,' may now be chiefly remembered
because of the circumstance that it gave effect for the moment to Lord
Beaconsfield's 'scientific frontier.'

The withdrawal of the two northern forces to positions within the new
frontier began immediately on the ratification of the treaty of
Gundamuk, the evacuation of Candahar being postponed for sanitary
reasons until autumn. The march of Sir Sam Browne's force from the
breezy upland of Gundamuk down the passes to Peshawur, made as it was in
the fierce heat of midsummer through a region of bad name for
insalubrity, and pervaded also by virulent cholera, was a ghastly
journey. That melancholy pilgrimage, every halting-place in whose course
was marked by graves, and from which the living emerged 'gaunt and
haggard, marching with a listless air, their clothing stiff with dried
perspiration, their faces thick with a mud of dust and sweat through
which their red bloodshot eyes looked forth, many suffering from heat
prostration,' dwells in the memory of British India as the 'death
march,' and its horrors have been recounted in vivid and pathetic words
by Surgeon-Major Evatt, one of the few medical officers whom,
participating in it, it did not kill.



CHAPTER II: THE OPENING OF THE SECOND CAMPAIGN


There were many who mistrusted the stability of the treaty of Gundamuk.
Perhaps in his heart Sir Louis Cavagnari may have had his misgivings,
for he was gifted with shrewd insight, and no man knew the Afghan nature
better; but outwardly, in his quiet, resolute manner, he professed the
fullest confidence. Cavagnari was a remarkable man. Italian and Irish
blood commingled in his veins. Both strains carry the attributes of
vivacity and restlessness, but Cavagnari to the superficial observer
appeared as phlegmatic as he was habitually taciturn. This sententious
imperturbability was only on the surface; whether it was a natural
characteristic or an acquired manner is not easy to decide. Below the
surface of measured reticent composure there lay a temperament of ardent
enthusiasm, and not less ardent ambition. In subtlety he was a match for
the wiliest Oriental, whom face to face he dominated with a placid
dauntless masterfulness that was all his own. The wild hill tribes among
whom he went about escortless, carrying his life continually in his
hand, recognised the complex strength of his personal sway, and feared
at once and loved the quiet, firm man, the flash of whose eye was
sometimes ominous, but who could cow the fiercest hillman without losing
a tittle of his cool composure.

[Illustration: _From a Photograph by Bourne & Shepherd: Sir Louis
Cavagnari and Sirdars_]

Cavagnari had negotiated the treaty of Gundamuk, the real importance of
which consisted in the Afghan acceptance of a British Resident at Cabul.
The honour, the duty, and the danger naturally fell to him of being the
first occupant of a post created mainly by his own mingled tact and
strength. Many of his friends regarded him in the light of the leader of
a forlorn hope, and probably Cavagnari recognised with perfect clearness
the risks which encompassed his embassy; but apart from mayhap a little
added gravity in his leave-takings when he quitted Simla, he gave no
sign. It was not a very imposing mission at whose head he rode into the
Balla Hissar of Cabul on July 24th, 1879. His companions were his
secretary, Mr William Jenkins, a young Scotsman of the Punjaub Civil
Service, Dr Ambrose Kelly, the medical officer of the embassy, and the
gallant, stalwart young Lieutenant W. R. P. Hamilton, V.C., commanding
the modest escort of seventy-five soldiers of the Guides. It was held
that an escort so scanty was sufficient, since the Ameer had pledged
himself personally for the safety and protection of the mission. The
Envoy was received with high honour, and conducted to the roomy quarters
in the Balla Hissar which had been prepared as the Residency, within
easy distance of the Ameer's palace. Unquestionably the mission was
welcome neither to the Afghan ruler nor to the people, but Cavagnari,
writing to the Viceroy, made the best of things. The arrival at the
adjacent Sherpur cantonments of the Herat regiments in the beginning of
August was extremely unfortunate for the mission. Those troops had been
inspired by their commander Ayoub Khan with intense hatred to the
English, and they marched through the Cabul streets shouting
objurgations against the British Envoy, and picking quarrels with the
soldiers of his escort. A pensioned sepoy who had learned that the
Afghan troops had been ordered to abuse the Eltchi, warned Cavagnari of
the danger signals. Cavagnari's calm remark was, 'Dogs that bark don't
bite.' The old soldier earnestly urged, 'But these dogs do bite, and
there is danger.' 'Well,' said Cavagnari, 'they can only kill the
handful of us here, and our death will be avenged.' The days passed, and
it seemed that Cavagnari's diagnosis of the situation was the accurate
one. The last words of his last message to the Viceroy, despatched on
September 2d, were 'All well.' The writer of those words was a dead man,
and his mission had perished with him, almost as soon as the cheerful
message borne along the telegraph wires reached its destination.

In the morning of September 3d some Afghan regiments paraded without
arms in the Balla Hissar to receive their pay. An instalment was paid,
but the soldiers clamoured for arrears due. The demand was refused, a
riot began, and the shout rose that the British Eltchi might prove a
free-handed paymaster. There was a rush toward the Residency, and while
some of the Afghan soldiers resorted to stone-throwing, others ran for
arms to their quarters, and looted the Arsenal in the upper Balla
Hissar. The Residency gates had been closed on the first alarm, and fire
was promptly opened on the rabble. The place was never intended for
defence, commanded as it was at close range from the higher level of the
Arsenal, whence a heavy continuous fire was from the first poured down.
The mob of the city in their thousands hurried to co-operate with the
mutinied soldiers and share in the spoils of the sack, so that the
Residency was soon besieged. As soon as the outbreak manifested itself
Cavagnari had sent a message to the Ameer, and the communication
admittedly reached the latter's hands. He had more than 2000 troops in
the Balla Hissar, still at least nominally loyal; he had guaranteed the
protection of the mission, and it behoved him to do what in him lay to
fulfil his pledge. But the Ameer sat supine in his palace, doing no more
than send his General-in-Chief Daoud Shah to remonstrate with the
insurgents. Daoud Shah went on the errand, but it is questionable
whether he showed any energy, or indeed desired that the besiegers
should desist. It was claimed by and for him that he was maltreated and
indeed wounded by the mob, and it appears that he did ride into the
throng and was forcibly dismounted. He might perhaps have exerted
himself with greater determination if he had received more specific
orders from his master the Ameer. That feeble or treacherous prince
never stirred. To the frequent urgent messages sent him by Lieutenant
Hamilton, he replied vaguely: 'As God wills; I am making preparations.'
Meanwhile the little garrison maintained with gallant staunchness hour
after hour the all but hopeless defence.' While the fighting was going
on,' reported the pensioner who had previously warned Cavagnari, 'I
myself saw the four European officers charge out at the head of some
twenty-five of the garrison; they drove away a party holding some broken
ground. When chased, the Afghan soldiers ran like sheep before a wolf.
Later, another sally was made by a detachment, with but three officers
at their head. Cavagnari was not with them this time. A third sally was
made with only two officers leading, Hamilton and Jenkins; and the last
of the sallies was made by a Sikh Jemadar bravely leading. No more
sallies were made after this.' About noon the gates were forced, and the
Residency building was fired; but the defenders long maintained their
position on the roof and in a detached building. At length the fire did
its work, the walls and roof fell in, and soon the fell deed was
consummated by the slaughter of the last survivors of the ill-fated
garrison. Hamilton was said to have died sword in hand in a final
desperate charge. Tidings of the massacre were carried with great speed
to Massy's outposts in the Kuram valley. The news reached Simla by
telegraph early on the morning of the 5th. The authorities there rallied
from the shock with fine purposeful promptitude, and within a few hours
a telegram was on its way to General Massy's headquarters at Ali Khel
instructing him to occupy the crest of the Shutargurdan Pass with two
infantry regiments and a mountain battery, which force was to entrench
itself there and await orders.

The policy of which Lord Lytton was the figurehead had come down with a
bloody crash, and the 'masterly inactivity' of wise John Lawrence stood
vindicated in the eyes of Europe and of Asia. But if his policy had gone
to water, the Viceroy, although he was soon to default from the
constancy of his purpose, saw for the present clear before him the duty
that now in its stead lay upon him of inflicting summary punishment on a
people who had ruthlessly violated the sacred immunity from harm that
shields alike among civilised and barbarous communities the person and
suite of an ambassador accepted under the provisions of a deliberate
treaty. Burnes and Macnaghten had met their fate because they had gone
to Cabul the supporters of a detested intruder and the unwelcome
representatives of a hated power. But Cavagnari had been slaughtered
notwithstanding that he dwelt in the Balla Hissar Residency in virtue of
a solemn treaty between the Empress of India and the Ameer of
Afghanistan, notwithstanding that the latter had guaranteed him safety
and protection, notwithstanding that Britain and Afghanistan had
ratified a pledge of mutual friendship and reciprocal good offices. Lord
Lytton recognised, at least for the moment, that no consideration of
present expediency or of ulterior policy could intervene to deter him
from the urgent imperative duty which now suddenly confronted him. The
task, it was true, was beset with difficulties and dangers. The forces
on the north-western frontier had been reduced to a peace footing, and
the transport for economical reasons had been severely cut down. The
bitter Afghan winter season was approaching, during which military
operations could be conducted only under extremely arduous conditions,
and when the line of communications would be liable to serious
interruptions, The available troops for a prompt offensive did not
amount to more than 6500 men all told, and it was apparent that many
circumstances might postpone their reinforcement.

When men are in earnest, difficulties and dangers are recognised only to
be coped with and overcome. When the Simla council of war broke up on
the afternoon of September 5th the plan of campaign had been settled,
and the leader of the enterprise had been chosen. Sir Frederick Roberts
was already deservedly esteemed one of the most brilliant soldiers of
the British army. He had fought with distinction all through the Great
Mutiny, earning the Victoria Cross and rapid promotion; he had served in
the Abyssinian campaign of 1868, and been chosen by Napier to carry home
his final despatches; and he had worthily shared in the toil, fighting,
and honours of the Umbeyla and Looshai expeditions. In his command of
the Kuram field force during the winter of 1878-9 he had proved himself
a skilful, resolute, and vigorous leader. The officers and men who
served under him believed in him enthusiastically, and, what with
soldiers is the convincing assurance of whole-souled confidence, they
had bestowed on him an affectionate nickname--they knew him among
themselves as 'little Bobs.' His administrative capacity he had proved
in the post of Quartermaster-General in India. Ripe in experience of
war, Roberts at the age of forty-seven was in the full vigour of
manhood, alert in mind, and of tough and enduring physique. He was a
very junior Major-General, but even among his seniors the conviction was
general that Lord Lytton the Viceroy, and Sir F. Haines the
Commander-in-Chief, acted wisely in entrusting to him the most active
command in the impending campaign.

Our retention of the Kuram valley was to prove very useful in the
emergency which had suddenly occurred. Its occupation enabled Massy to
seize and hold the Shutargurdan, and the force in the valley was to
constitute the nucleus of the little army of invasion and retribution to
the command of which Sir Frederick Roberts was appointed. The apex at
the Shutargurdan of the salient angle into Afghanistan which our
possession of the Kuram valley furnished was within little more than
fifty miles of Cabul, whereas the distance of that city from Lundi
Kotul, our advanced position at the head of the Khyber Pass, was about
140 miles, and the route exceptionally difficult. Roberts' column of
invasion was to consist of a cavalry brigade commanded by
Brigadier-General Dunham-Massy, and of two infantry brigades, the first
commanded by Brigadier-General Macpherson, the second by
Brigadier-General Baker, three batteries of artillery, a company of
sappers and miners, and two Gatling guns. The Kuram valley between the
Shutargurdan and the base was to be garrisoned adequately by a force
about 4000 strong, in protection of Roberts' communications by that line
until snow should close it, by which time it was anticipated that
communication by the Khyber-Jellalabad-Gundamuk line would be opened up,
for gaining and maintaining which a force of about 6600 men was to be
detailed under the command of Major-General Bright, which was to furnish
a movable column to establish communications onward to Cabul. A strong
reserve force was to be gathered between Peshawur and Rawal Pindi under
the command of Major-General Ross, to move forward as occasion might
require, in the south-west Sir Donald Stewart was to recall to Candahar
his troops, which, having begun their march toward India, were now
mainly echeloned along the route to Quetta, when that General would have
about 9000 men at his disposition to dominate the Candahar province,
reoccupy Khelat-i-Ghilzai, and threaten Ghuznee, his communications with
the Indus being kept open by a brigade of Bombay troops commanded by
Brigadier-General Phayre.

Sir Frederick Roberts left Simla on ET September along with Colonel
Charles Macgregor, C.B., the brilliant and daring soldier whom he had
chosen as chief of staff, and travelling night and day they reached Ali
Khel on the 12th. The transport and supply difficulty had to be promptly
met, and this was effected only by making a clean sweep of all the
resources of the Peshawur district, greatly but unavoidably to the
hindrance of the advance of the Khyber column, and by procuring carriage
and supplies from the friendly tribes of the Kuram. Notwithstanding the
most strenuous exertions it was not until the 1st October that Roberts'
little army, having crossed the Shutargurdan by detachments, was
rendezvoused at and about the village of Kushi in the Logur plain,
within forty-eight miles of Cabul. Some sharp skirmishes had been fought
as the troops traversed the rugged ground between Ali Khel and the
Shutargurdan, but the losses were trivial, although the General himself
had a narrow escape. A couple of regiments and four guns under the
command of Colonel Money were left in an entrenched camp to hold the
Shutargurdan.

The massacre of the British mission had no sooner been perpetrated than
Yakoub Khan found himself in a very bad way. The Cabul Sirdars sided
with the disaffected soldiery, and urged the Ameer to raise his banner
for a _jehad_ or religious war, a measure for which he had no nerve. Nor
had he the nerve to remain in Cabul until Roberts should camp under the
Balla Hissar and demand of him an account of the stewardship he had
undertaken on behalf of the ill-fated Cavagnari. What reasons actuated
the anxious and bewildered man cannot precisely be known; whether he was
simply solicitous for his own wretched skin, whether he acted from a
wish to save Cabul from destruction, or whether he hoped that his
entreaties for delay might stay the British advance until the tribesmen
should gather to bar the road to the capital. He resolved to fly from
Cabul, and commit himself to the protection of General Roberts and his
army. The day before General Roberts arrived at Kushi the Ameer
presented himself in Baker's camp, accompanied by his eldest son and
some of his Sirdars, among whom was Daoud Shah the Commander-in-Chief of
his army. Sir Frederick on his arrival at Kushi paid a formal visit to
the Ameer, which the latter returned the same afternoon and took
occasion to plead that the General should delay his advance. The reply
was that not even for a single day would Sir Frederick defer his march
on Cabul. The Ameer remained in camp, his personal safety carefully
protected, but under a species of honourable surveillance, until it
should be ascertained judicially whether or not he was implicated in the
massacre of the mission.

Yakoub had intimated his intention of presenting himself in the British
camp some days in advance of his arrival, and as telegraphic
communication with headquarters was open, his acceptance in the
character of an honoured guest was presumably in accordance with
instructions from Simla. The man who had made himself personally
responsible for the safety of Cavagnari's mission was a strange guest
with an army whose avowed errand was to exact retribution for the crime
of its destruction. It might seem not unreasonable to expect that, as an
indispensable preliminary to his entertainment, he should have at least
afforded some _prima facie_ evidence that he had been zealous to avert
the fate which had befallen the mission, and stern in the punishment of
an atrocity which touched him so nearly. But instead, he was taken on
trust so fully that Afghans resisting the British advance were not so
much regarded as enemies resisting an invasion and as constructive
vindicators of the massacre, as they were held traitors to their
sovereign harbouring in the British camp.

On the morning of October 2d the whole force marched from Kushi toward
Cabul, temporarily cutting loose from communication with the
Shutargurdan, to avoid diminishing the strength of the column by leaving
detachments to keep the road open. All told, Roberts' army was the
reverse of a mighty host. Its strength was little greater than that of a
Prussian brigade on a war footing. Its fate was in its own hands, for
befall it what might it could hope for no timely reinforcement. It was a
mere detachment marching against a nation of fighting men plentifully
supplied with artillery, no longer shooting laboriously with jezails,
but carrying arms of precision equal or little inferior to those in the
hands of our own soldiery. But the men, Europeans and Easterns, hillmen
of Scotland and hillmen of Nepaul, plainmen of Hampshire and plainmen of
the Punjaub, strode along buoyant with confidence and with health,
believing in their leader, in their discipline, in themselves. Of varied
race, no soldier who followed Roberts but came of fighting stock; ever
blithely rejoicing in the combat, one and all burned for the strife now
before them with more than wonted ardour, because of the opportunity it
promised to exact vengeance for a deed of foul treachery.

The soldiers had not long to wait for the first fight of the campaign.
On the afternoon of the 5th Baker's brigade, with most of the cavalry
and artillery, and with the 92d Highlanders belonging to Macpherson's
brigade, camped on the plain to the south of the village of Charasiah,
Macpherson remaining one march in rear to escort the convoy of
ammunition and stores. North of Charasiah rises a semicircular curtain
of hills ascending in three successive tiers, the most distant and
loftiest range closing in the horizon and shutting out the view of
Cabul, distant only about eleven miles. The leftward projection of the
curtain, as one looks northward, comes down into the plain almost as far
as and somewhat to the left of Charasiah, dividing the valley of
Charasiah from the outer plain of Chardeh. To the right front of
Charasiah, distant from it about three miles, the range is cleft by the
rugged and narrow Sung-i-Nawishta Pass, through which run the Logur
river and the direct road to Cabul by Beni Hissar. Information had been
received that the Afghans were determined on a resolute attempt to
prevent the British force from reaching Cabul, and the position beyond
Charasiah seemed so tempting that it was regarded as surprising that
cavalry reconnaissances sent forward on three distinct roads detected no
evidences of any large hostile gathering.

But next morning 'showed another sight.' At dawn on the 6th General
Roberts, anxious to secure the Sung-i-Nawishta Pass and to render the
track through it passable for guns, sent forward his pioneer battalion
with a wing of the 92d and two mountain guns. That detachment had gone
out no great distance when the spectacle before it gave it pause. From
the Sung-i-Nawishta defile, both sides of which were held, the
semicircular sweep of the hill-crests was crowned by an Afghan host in
great strength and regular formation. According to subsequent
information no fewer than thirteen regiments of the Afghan regular army
took part in the combat, as well as large contingents of irregular
fighting men from Cabul and the adjoining villages, while the British
camp was threatened from the heights on either side by formidable bodies
of tribesmen, to thwart whose obviously intended attack on it a
considerable force had to be retained. The dispositions of the Afghan
commander Nek Mahomed Khan were made with some tactical skill. The
Sung-i-Nawishta Pass itself, the heights on either side, and a low
detached eminence further forward, were strongly held by Afghan
infantry; in the mouth of the pass were four Armstrong guns, and on the
flanking height twelve mountain guns were in position. The projecting
spur toward Charasiah which was the extreme right of the Afghan
position, was held in force, whence an effective fire would bear on the
left flank of a force advancing to a direct attack on the pass. But
Roberts was not the man to play into the hands of the Afghan tactician.
He humoured his conception so far as to send forward on his right toward
the pass, a small detachment of all arms under Major White of the 92d,
with instructions to maintain a threatening attitude in that direction,
and to seize the opportunity to co-operate with the flanking movement
entrusted to General Baker as soon as its development should have shaken
the constancy of the enemy. To Baker with about 2000 infantry and four
guns, was assigned the task of attacking the Afghan right on the
projecting spur and ridge, forcing back and dispersing that flank; and
then, having reached the right of the Afghan main position on the
farthest and loftiest range, he was to wheel to his right and sweep its
defenders from the chain of summits.

Baker moved out toward his left front against the eminences held by the
Afghan right wing, which Nek Mahomed, having discerned the character of
Roberts' tactics, was now reinforcing with great activity. The 72d
Highlanders led the attack, supported vigorously by the 5th Goorkhas and
the 5th Punjaub Infantry. The resistance of the Afghans was stubborn,
especially opposite our extreme left, whence from behind their sungahs
on a steep hill they poured a heavy fire on the assailants. A yet
heavier fire came from a detached knoll on Baker's right, which the
artillery fire gradually beat down. The Afghans continued to hold the
advanced ridge constituting their first position until two o'clock, when
a direct attack, accompanied by a double flanking fire, compelled their
withdrawal. They, however, fell back only to an intermediate loftier
position about 700 yards in rear of the ridge from which they had been
driven. Approached by successive rushes under cover of artillery fire,
they were then attacked vigorously and fell back in confusion. No rally
was permitted them, and by three o'clock the whole Afghan right was
shattered and in full flight along the edge of the Chardeh valley. Baker
unfortunately had no cavalry, else the fugitives would have suffered
severely. But the rout of the Afghan right had decided the fortune of
the day. Its defenders were already dribbling away from the main
position when Baker, wheeling to his right, marched along the lofty
crest, rolling up and sweeping away the Afghan defence as he moved
toward the Sung-i-Nawishta gorge. That defile had already been entered
by the cavalry of White's detachment, supported by some infantry. While
Baker had been turning the Afghan right, White and his little force had
been distinguishing themselves not a little. After an artillery
preparation the detached hill had been won as the result of a
hand-to-hand struggle. Later had fallen into the hands of White's people
all the Afghan guns, and the heights to the immediate right and left of
the gorge had been carried, the defenders driven away, and the pass
opened up. But the progress through it of the cavalry was arrested by a
strongly garrisoned fort completely commanding the road. On this fort
Baker directed his artillery fire, at the same time sending down two
infantry regiments to clear away the remnants of the Afghan army still
lingering in the pass. This accomplished, the fighting ceased. It had
been a satisfactory day. Less than half of Roberts' force had been
engaged, and this mere brigade had routed the army of Cabul and captured
the whole of the artillery it had brought into the field. The Afghan
loss was estimated at about 300 killed. The British loss was twenty
killed and sixty-seven wounded. On the night of the combat part of
Baker's troops bivouacked beyond the Sung-i-Nawishta, and on the
following day the whole division passed the defile and camped at Beni
Hissar, within sight of the Balla Hissar and the lofty ridge overhanging
Cabul.

On the afternoon of the 7th a violent explosion was heard in the Beni
Hissar camp from the direction of the Sherpur cantonment north of Cabul,
near the site of the British cantonments of 1839-41. Next morning
information came in that the Sherpur magazine had been blown up, and
that the cantonment had been abandoned by the Afghan regiments which had
garrisoned that vast unfinished structure. General Massy led out part of
his brigade on a reconnaissance, and took possession of the deserted
Sherpur cantonment, and of the seventy-five pieces of ordnance parked
within the walls. Massy had observed from the Siah Sung heights that the
Asmai heights, overhanging the Cabul suburb of Deh Afghan, were held by
a large body of Afghan soldiery, a force, it was afterwards learned,
composed of the remnants of the regiments defeated at Charasiah, three
fresh regiments from the Kohistan, and the rabble of the city and
adjacent villages, having a total strength of nearly 3000 men, with
twelve guns, under the leadership of Mahomed Jan, who later was to
figure prominently as the ablest of our Afghan enemies. Massy
heliographed his information to General Roberts, who sent Baker with a
force to drive the enemy from the heights; and Massy was instructed to
pass through a gap in the ridge and gain the Chardeh valley, where he
might find opportunity to intercept the Afghan retreat toward the west.
Massy pierced the ridge at the village of Aushar, and disposed his
troops on the roads crossing the Chardeh valley. Meanwhile Baker found
the ascent of the Sher Derwaza heights so steep that the afternoon was
far spent before his guns came into action, and it was still later
before part of his infantry effected their descent into the Chardeh
valley. Reinforcements necessary to enable him to act did not reach him
until dusk, when it would have been folly to commit himself to an
attack. A night patrol ascertained that the Afghans had evacuated the
position under cover of darkness, leaving behind their guns and camp
equipage. On the 9th the divisional camp moved forward to the Siah Sung
heights, a mile eastward from the Balla Hissar, and there it was joined
by Baker, and by Massy, who on his way to camp led his wearied troopers
through the city of Cabul without mishap or insult. The Goorkha regiment
was detached to hold the ridge commanding the Balla Hissar, and a
cavalry regiment was quartered in the Sherpur cantonment to protect it
from the ravages of the villagers.

A melancholy interest attaches to the visit paid by Sir Frederick
Roberts to the Balla Hissar on the 11th. Through the dirt and squalor of
the lower portion he ascended the narrow lane leading to the ruin which
a few weeks earlier had been the British Residency. The commander of the
avenging army looked with sorrowful eyes on the scene of heroism and
slaughter, on the smoke-blackened walls, the blood splashes on the
whitewashed walls, the still smouldering debris, the half-burned skulls
and bones in the blood-dabbled chamber where apparently the final
struggle had been fought out. He stood in the great breach in the
quarters of the Guides where the gate had been blown in after the last
of the sorties made by the gallant Hamilton, and lingered in the
tattered wreck of poor Cavagnari's drawing-room, its walls dinted with
bullet-pits, its floor and walls brutally defiled. Next day he made a
formal entry into the Balla Hissar, his road lined with his staunch
troops, a royal salute greeting the banner of Britain as it rose on the
tall flagstaff above the gateway. He held a Durbar in the 'Audience
Chamber' in the garden of the Ameer's palace; in front and in flank of
him the pushing throng of obsequious Sirdars of Cabul arrayed in all the
colours of the rainbow; behind them, standing immobile at attention, the
guard of British infantry with fixed bayonets which the soldiers longed
to use. The General read the mild proclamation announcing the
disarmament of the Cabulese and the punishment of fine which was laid
upon the city, but which never was exacted. And then he summarily
dismissed the Sirdars, three only, the Mustaphi, Yahuja Khan the Ameer's
father-in-law, and Zakariah Khan his brother, being desired to remain.
Their smug complacency was suddenly changed into dismay when they were
abruptly told that they were prisoners.

Another ceremonial progress the General had to perform. On the 13th he
marched through the streets of Cabul at the head of his little army, the
bazaars and dead walls echoing to the music of the bands and the wild
scream of the bagpipes. In the Afghan quarter no salaams greeted the
conquering Feringhees, and scowling faces frowned on the spectacle from
windows and side-streets. Three days later occurred an event which might
have been a great catastrophe. Captain Shafto of the ordnance was
conducting an examination into the contents of the arsenal in the upper
Balla Hissar, and had already discovered millions of cartridges, and
about 150,000 lbs. of gunpowder. Daoud Shah, however, expressed his
belief that at least a million pounds were in store. Captain Shafto, a
very cautious man, was pursuing his researches; the Goorkhas were
quartered in the upper Balla Hissar near the magazine shed, and the 67th
occupied the Ameer's garden lower down. On the 16th a dull report was
heard in the Siah Sung camp, followed immediately by the rising above
the Balla Hissar of a huge column of grey smoke, which as it drifted
away disclosed flashes of flame and sudden jets of smoke telling of
repeated gunpowder explosions. The 67th, powdered with dust, escaped all
but scathless; but the Goorkha regiment had been heavily smitten. Twelve
poor fellows were killed, and seven wounded; among the former were five
principal Goorkha officers.

The Balla Hissar was promptly evacuated. Occasional explosions occurred
for several days, the heaviest of those on the afternoon of the 16th,
which threw on the city a great shower of stones, beams, and bullets. By
a jet of stones blown out through the Balla Hissar gate four Afghans
were killed, and two sowars and an Afghan badly hurt. Captain Shafto's
body and the remains of the Goorkhas were found later, and buried; and
the determination was formed to have no more to do with the Balla
Hissar, but to occupy the Sherpur cantonment. Meanwhile General Hugh
Gough was despatched with a small force of all arms to escort to Cabul
Money's gallant garrison of the Shutargurdan, and to close for the
winter the line of communication _via_ the Kuram valley. Colonel Money
had undergone with fine soldierly spirit and action not a few turbulent
experiences since Roberts had left him and his Sikhs on the lofty crest
of the Shutargurdan. The truculent Ghilzais gave him no peace; his
method of dealing with them was for the most part with the bayonet
point. The last attempt on him was made by a horde of Ghilzais some
17,000 strong, who completely invested his camp, and after the civility
of requesting him to surrender, a compliment which he answered by
bullets, made a close and determined attack on his position. This was on
the 18th October; on the following day Gough heliographed his arrival at
Kushi, whereupon Money took the offensive with vigour and scattered to
the winds his Ghilzai assailants. On 30th October the Shutargurdan
position was evacuated, and on the 3d November the Cabul force received
the welcome accession of headquarters and two squadrons 9th Lancers,
Money's 3d Sikhs, and four mountain guns.



CHAPTER III: THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM


Sir Frederick Roberts had been hurried forward on Cabul charged with the
duty of avenging the perpetration of a foul and treacherous crime,
'which had brought indelible disgrace upon the Afghan nation.' The
scriptural injunction to turn the other cheek to the smiter has not yet
become a canon of international law or practice; and the anti-climax to
an expedition engaged in with so stern a purpose, of a nominal
disarmament and a petty fine never exacted, is self-evident. Our nation
is given to walk in the path of precedent; and in this juncture the
authorities had to their hand the most apposite of precedents. Pollock,
by destroying the Char bazaar in which had been exposed the mangled
remains of Burnes and Macnaghten, set a 'mark' on Cabul the memory of
which had lasted for decades. Cavagnari and his people had been
slaughtered in the Balla Hissar, and their bones were still mingled with
the smouldering ruins of the Residency. Wise men discerned that the
destruction of the fortress followed by a homeward march as swift yet as
measured as had been the march of invasion, could not but have made a
deep and lasting impression on the Afghans; while the complications,
humiliations, and expense of the long futile occupation would have been
obviated. Other counsels prevailed. To discover, in a nation virtually
accessory as a whole after the fact to the slaughter of the mission, the
men on whom lay the suspicion of having been the instigators and the
perpetrators of the cruel deed, to accord them a fair trial, and to send
to the gallows those on whose hands was found the blood of the massacred
mission, was held a more befitting and not less telling course of
retributive action than to raze the Balla Hissar and sow its site with
salt. Skilfully and patiently evidence was gathered, and submitted to
the Military Commission which General Roberts had appointed. This
tribunal took cognisance of crimes nominally of two classes. It tried
men who were accused of having been concerned in the destruction of the
British mission, and those charged with treason in having offered armed
resistance to the British troops acting in support of the Ameer, who had
put himself under their protection. Of the five prisoners first tried,
condemned, and duly hanged, two were signal criminals. One of them, the
Kotwal or Mayor of Cabul, was proved to have superintended the
contumelious throwing of the bodies of the slaughtered Guides of the
mission escort into the ditch of the Balla Hissar. Another was proved to
have carried away from the wrecked Residency a head believed to have
been Cavagnari's, and to have exhibited it on the ridge above the city.
The other three and many of those who were subsequently executed,
suffered for the crime of 'treason' against Yakoub Khan. Probably there
was no Afghan who did not approve of the slaughter of the Envoy, and who
would not in his heart have rejoiced at the annihilation of the British
force; but it seems strange law and stranger justice to hang men for
'treason' against a Sovereign who had gone over to the enemy. On the
curious expedient of temporarily governing in the name of an Ameer who
had deserted his post to save his skin, comment would be superfluous.
Executions continued; few, however, of the mutinous sepoys who actually
took part in the wanton attack on the British Residency had been
secured, and it was judged expedient that efforts should be made to
capture and punish those against whom there was evidence of that crime,
in the shape of the muster-rolls of the regiments now in the possession
of the military authorities. It was known that many of the disbanded and
fugitive soldiers had returned to their homes in the villages around
Cabul, and early in November General Baker took out a force and suddenly
encircled the village of Indikee, on the edge of the Chardeh valley--a
village reported full of Afghan sepoys. A number of men were brought out
by the scared headmen and handed over, answering to their names called
over from a list carried by Baker; and other villages in the vicinity
yielded a considerable harvest of disbanded soldiers. Before the
Commission the prisoners made no attempt to conceal their names, or deny
the regiments to which they had belonged; and forty-nine of them were
found guilty and hanged, nearly all of whom belonged to the regiments
that had assailed the Residency.

On 12th November Sir Frederick Roberts proclaimed an amnesty in favour
of all who had fought against the British troops, on condition that they
should surrender their arms and return to their homes; but exempted from
the benefit were all concerned in the attack on the Residency. The
amnesty was well timed, although most people would have preferred that
fewer sepoys and more Sirdars should have been hanged.

Our relations with the Ameer during the earlier part of his residence in
the British camp were not a little peculiar. Nominally he was our guest,
and a certain freedom was accorded to him and his retinue. There was no
doubt that the Sirdars of the Ameer's suite grossly abused their
privileges. Whether with Yakoub Khan's cognisance or not, they
authorised the use of his name by the insurgent leaders. Nek Mahomed,
the insurgent commander at Charasiah, was actually in the tents of the
Ameer on the evening before the fight. To all appearance our operations
continued to have for their ultimate object the restoration of Yakoub
Khan to his throne. Our administrative measures were carried on in his
name. The hostile Afghans we designated as rebels against his rule; and
his authority was proclaimed as the justification of much of our
conduct. But the situation gradually became intolerable to Yakoub Khan.
He was a guest in the British camp, but he was also in a species of
custody. Should our arms reinstate him, he could not hope to hold his
throne. His harassed perplexity came to a crisis on the morning of the
12th October, the day of General Roberts' durbar in the Balla Hissar,
which he had been desired to attend. What he specifically apprehended is
unknown; what he did was to tell General Roberts, with great excitement,
that he would not go to the durbar, that his life was too miserable for
long endurance, that he would rather be a grass-cutter in the British
camp than remain Ameer of Afghanistan. He was firmly resolved to resign
the throne, and begged that he might be allowed to do so at once.
General Roberts explained that the acceptance of his resignation rested
not with him but with the Viceroy, pending whose decision matters, the
General desired, should remain as they were, affairs continuing to be
conducted in the Ameer's name as before. To this the Ameer consented;
his tents were moved to the vicinity of General Roberts' headquarters,
and a somewhat closer surveillance over him was maintained.

Secrecy meanwhile was preserved until the Viceroy's reply should arrive.
The nature of that reply was intimated by the proclamation which General
Roberts issued on the 28th October. It announced that the Ameer had of
his own free will abdicated his throne and left Afghanistan without a
government. 'The British Government,' the proclamation continued, 'now
commands that all Afghan authorities, chiefs, and sirdars, do continue
their functions in maintaining order.... The British Government, after
consultation with the principal sirdars, tribal chiefs, and others
representing the interests and wishes of the various provinces and
cities, will declare its will as to the future permanent arrangements to
be made for the good government of the people.'

This _ad interim_ assumption of the rulership of Afghanistan may have
been adopted as the only policy which afforded even a remote possibility
of tranquillity. But it was essentially a policy of speculative
makeshift. The retributive and punitive object of the swift march on
Cabul can scarcely be regarded as having been fulfilled by the execution
of a number of subordinate participants and accessories in the
destruction of the mission and by the voluntary abdication of Yakoub
Khan. That the Afghan 'authorities, chiefs, and sirdars,' would obey the
command to 'maintain order' issued by the leader of a few thousand
hostile troops, masters of little more than the ground on which they
were encamped, experience and common sense seemed alike to render
improbable. The Afghans subordinated their internal quarrels to their
common hatred of the masterful foreigners, and the desperate fighting of
December proved how fiercely they were in earnest.

Yakoub Khan had been regarded as merely a weak and unfortunate man, but
the shadows gradually darkened around him until at length he came to be
a man under grave suspicion. General Roberts became satisfied from the
results of the proceedings of the court of inquiry, that the attack on
the Residency, if not actually instigated by him, might at least have
been checked by active exertion on his part. Information was obtained
which convinced the General that the ex-Ameer was contemplating a flight
toward Turkestan, and it was considered necessary to place him in close
confinement. He remained a close prisoner until December 1st. On the
early morning of that day he was brought out from his tent, and after
taking farewell of the General and his staff, started on his journey to
Peshawur, surrounded by a strong escort. If the hill tribes along his
route had cared enough about him to attempt his rescue, the speed with
which he travelled afforded them no time to gather for that purpose.

During those uneventful October and November days, when the little army
commanded by General Roberts lay in its breezy camp on the Siah Sung
heights, there was no little temptation for the unprofessional reader of
the telegraphic information in the newspapers to hold cheap those
reputedly formidable Afghans, whose resistance a single sharp skirmish
had seemingly scattered to the winds, and who were now apparently
accepting without active remonstrance the dominance of the few thousand
British bayonets glittering there serenely over against the once
turbulent but now tamed hill capital. One may be certain that the shrewd
and careful soldier who commanded that scant array did not permit
himself to share in the facile optimism whether on the part of a
government or of the casual reader of complacent telegrams. It was true
that the Government of India had put or was putting some 30,000 soldiers
into the field on the apparent errand of prosecuting an Afghan war. But
what availed Roberts this host of fighting men when he had to realise
that, befall him what might in the immediate or near future, not a man
of it was available to strengthen or to succour him? The quietude of
those cool October days was very pleasant, but the chief knew well how
precarious and deceitful was the calm. For the present the Afghan
unanimity of hostility was affected in a measure by the fact that the
Ameer, who had still a party, was voluntarily in the British camp. But
when Yakoub's abdication should be announced, he knew the Afghan nature
too well to doubt that the tribal blood-feuds would be soldered for the
time, that Dooranee and Barakzai would strike hands, that Afghan
regulars and Afghan irregulars would rally under the same standards, and
that the fierce shouts of 'Deen! deen!' would resound on hill-top and in
plain. Cut loose from any base, with slowly dwindling strength, with
waning stock of ammunition, it was his part to hold his ground here for
the winter, he and his staunch soldiers, a firm rock in the midst of
those surging Afghan billows that were certain to rise around him. Not
only would he withstand them, but he would meet them, for this bold man
knew the value in dealing with Afghans of a resolute and vigorous
offensive. But it behoved him above all things to make timely choice of
his winter quarters where he should collect his supplies and house his
troops and the followers. After careful deliberation the Sherpur
cantonment was selected. It was overlarge for easy defence, but hard
work, careful engineering, and steadfast courage would redeem that evil.
And Sherpur had the great advantage that besides being in a measure a
ready-made defensive position, it had shelter for all the European
troops and most of the native soldiery, and that it would accommodate
also the horses of the cavalry, the transport animals, and all the
needful supplies and stores.

An Afghan of the Afghans, Shere Ali nevertheless had curiously failed to
discern that the warlike strength of the nation which he ruled lay in
its intuitive aptitude for irregular fighting; and he had industriously
set himself to the effort of warping the combative genius of his people
and of constituting Afghanistan a military power of the regular and
disciplined type. He had created a large standing army the soldiery of
which wore uniforms, underwent regular drill, obeyed words of command,
and carried arms of precision. He had devoted great pains to the
manufacture of a formidable artillery, and what with presents from the
British Government and the imitative skill of native artificers he was
possessed at the outbreak of hostilities of several hundred cannon. His
artisans were skillful enough to turn out in large numbers very fair
rifled small-arms, which they copied from British models; and in the
Balla Hissar magazine were found by our people vast quantities of
gunpowder and of admirable cartridges of local manufacture. There were
many reasons why the Cabul division of Shere Ali's army should be
quartered apart from his turbulent and refractory capital, and why its
cantonment should take the form of a permanent fortified camp, in which
his soldiers might be isolated from Cabul intrigues, while its proximity
to the capital should constitute a standing menace to the conspirators
of the city. His original design apparently was to enclose the Behmaroo
heights within the walls of his cantonment, and thus form a great
fortified square upon the heights in the centre of which should rise a
strong citadel dominating the plain in every direction. The Sherpur
cantonment as found by Roberts consisted of a fortified enciente,
enclosing on two sides a great open space in the shape of a
parallelogram lying along the southern base of the Behmaroo heights.
When the British troops took possession, only the west and south faces
of the enciente were completed; although not long built those were
already in bad repair, and the explosion of the great magazine when the
Afghan troops abandoned the cantonment had wrecked a section of the
western face. The eastern face had been little more than traced, and the
northern side had no artificial protection, but was closed in by the
Behmaroo heights, whose centre was cleft by a broad and deep gorge. The
design of the enciente was peculiar. There was a thick and high exterior
wall of mud, with a banquette for infantry protected by a parapet.
Inside this wall was a dry ditch forty feet wide, on the inner brink of
which was the long range of barrack-rooms. Along the interior front of
the barrack-rooms was a verandah faced with arches supported by pillars,
its continuity broken occasionally by broad staircases conducting to the
roof of the barracks, which afforded a second line of defence. The
closing in of the verandah would of course give additional barrack
accommodation, but there were quarters in the barrack-rooms for at
least all the European troops. In the southern face of the enciente were
three gateways, and in the centre of the western face there was a
fourth, each gate covered adequately by a curtain. Between each gate
were semicircular bastions for guns. In the interior there was space to
manoeuvre a division of all arms. There was a copious supply of water,
and if the aspect of the great cantonment was grim because of the
absence of trees and the utter barrenness of the enclosed space, this
aesthetic consideration went for little against its manifest advantages
as snug and defensible winter quarters. Shere Ali had indeed been all
unconsciously a friend in need to the British force wintering in the
heart of that unfortunate potentate's dominions. Human nature is
perverse and exacting, and there were those who objurgated his memory
because he had constructed his cantonment a few sizes too large to be
comfortably defended by Sir Frederick Roberts' little force. But this
was manifestly unreasonable; and in serious truth the Sherpur cantonment
was a real godsend to our people. Supplies of all kinds were steadily
being accumulated there, and the woodwork of the houses in the Balla
Hissar was being carried to Sherpur for use as firewood. On the last day
of October the force quitted the Siah Sung position and took possession
of Sherpur, which had undergone a rigorous process of fumigation and
cleansing. The change was distinctly for the better. The force was
compacted, and the routine military duties were appreciably lightened
since there were needed merely piquets on the Behmaroo heights and
sentries on the gates; the little army was healthy, temperate, and in
excellent case in all respects.

The dispositions for field service made at the outset of the campaign by
the military authorities have already been detailed. Regarded simply as
dispositions they left nothing to be desired, and certainly Sir
Frederick Roberts' force had been organised and equipped with a fair
amount of expedition. But it was apparent that the equipment of that
body of 6500 men--and that equipment by no means of an adequate
character, had exhausted for the time the resources of the Government as
regarded transport and supplies. Promptitude of advance on the part of
the force to which had been assigned the line of invasion by the
Khyber-Jellalabad route, was of scarcely less moment than the rapidity
of the stroke which Roberts was commissioned to deliver. The former's
was a treble duty. One of its tasks was to open up and maintain Roberts'
communications with India, so that the closing of the Shutargurdan
should not leave him isolated. Another duty resting on the Khyber force
was to constitute for Roberts a ready and convenient reserve, on which
he might draw when his occasions demanded. No man could tell how soon
after the commencement of his invasion that necessity might arise; it
was a prime _raison d'être_ of the Khyber force to be in a position to
give him the hand when he should intimate a need for support. Yet again,
its presence in the passes dominantly thrusting forward, would have the
effect of retaining the eastern tribes within their own borders, and
hindering them from joining an offensive combination against the little
force with which Roberts was to strike at Cabul. But delay on delay
marked the mobilisation and advance of the troops operating in the
Khyber line. There was no lack of earnestness anywhere; the eagerness to
push on was universal from the commander to the corporal. But the barren
hills and rugged passes could furnish no supplies; the base had to
furnish everything, and there was nothing at the base, neither any
accumulation of supplies nor means to transport supplies if they had
been accumulated. Weeks elapsed before the organisation of the force
approached completion, and it was only by a desperate struggle that
General Charles Gough's little brigade received by the end of September
equipment sufficient to enable that officer to advance by short marches.
Roberts was holding his durbar in the Balla Hissar of Cabul on the day
that the head of Gough's advance reached Jellalabad. No man can
associate the idea of dawdling with Jenkins and his Guides, yet the
Guides reaching Jellalabad on October 12th were not at Gundamuk until
the 23d, and Gundamuk is but thirty miles beyond Jellalabad. The
anti-climax for the time of General Bright's exertions occurred on
November 6th. On that day he with Gough's brigade reached so far
Cabulward as Kutti Sung, two marches beyond Gundamuk. There he met
General Macpherson of Roberts' force, who had marched down from Cabul
with his brigade on the errand of opening communications with the head
of the Khyber column. The two brigades had touch of each other for the
period of an interview between the Generals, and then they fell apart
and the momentary union of communication was disrupted. General Bright
had to fall back toward Gundamuk for lack of supplies. The breach
continued open only for a few days, and then it was closed, not from
down country but from up country. Roberts, surveying the rugged country
to the east of Cabul, had discerned that the hill road toward Jugdulluk
by Luttabund, was at once opener and shorter than the customary tortuous
and overhung route through the Khoord Cabul Pass and by Tezeen. The
pioneers were set to work to improve the former. The Luttabund road
became the habitual route along which, from Cabul downwards, were posted
detachments maintaining the communications of the Cabul force with the
Khyber column and India. Nearly simultaneous with this accomplishment
was the accordance to Sir Frederick Roberts of the local rank of
Lieutenant-General, a promotion which placed him in command of all the
troops in Eastern Afghanistan down to Jumrood, and enabled him to order
up reinforcements from the Khyber column at his discretion, a power he
refrained from exercising until the moment of urgent need was impending.

After his interview at Kutti Sung with General Bright, Macpherson,
before returning to Cabul, made a short reconnaissance north of the
Cabul river toward the Lughman valley and into the Tagao country
inhabited by the fanatic tribe of the Safis. From his camp at Naghloo a
foraging party, consisting of a company of the 67th escorting a number
of camels and mules, moved westward toward a village near the junction
of the Panjshir and Cabul rivers, there to obtain supplies of grain and
forage. The little detachment on its march was suddenly met by the fire
of about 1000 Sari tribesmen. Captain Poole, observing that the
tribesmen were moving to cut him off, withdrew his party through a
defile in his rear, and taking cover under the river bank maintained a
steady fire while the camels were being retired. The Safis were
extremely bold and they too shot very straight. Captain Poole was
severely wounded and of his handful of fifty-six men eight were either
killed or wounded, but their comrades resolutely held their position
until reinforcements came out from the camp. The Safis, who retired with
dogged reluctance, were not finally routed until attacked by British
infantry in front and flank. After they broke the cavalry pursued them
for six miles, doing severe execution; the dead of the 67th were
recovered, but the poor fellows had been mutilated almost past
recognition. General Macpherson returned to Sherpur on the 20th
November, having left a strong garrison temporarily at Luttabund to
strengthen communications and open out effectually the new route
eastward.

General Roberts, with all his exertions, had been unable to accumulate
sufficient winter of grain for his native troops and forage for his
cavalry and baggage animals. Agents had been purchasing supplies in the
fertile district of Maidan, distant from Cabul about twenty-five miles
in the Ghuznee direction, but the local people lacked carriage to convey
their stocks into camp, and it was necessary that the supplies should be
brought in by the transport of the force. The country toward Ghuznee was
reported to be in a state of disquiet, and a strong body of troops was
detailed under the command of General Baker for the protection of the
transport. This force marched out from Sherpur on November 21st, and
next day camped on the edge of the pleasant Maidan plain. Baker
encountered great difficulties in collecting supplies. The villages
readily gave in their tribute of grain and forage, but evinced extreme
reluctance to furnish the additional quantities which our necessities
forced us to requisition. With the villagers it was not a question of
money; the supplies for which Baker's commissaries demanded money in
hand constituted their provision for the winter season. But the stern
maxim of war is that soldiers must live although villagers starve, and
this much may be said in our favour that we are the only nation in the
world which, when compelled to resort to forced requisitions, invariably
pays in hard cash and not in promissory notes. Baker's ready-money
tariff was far higher than the current rates, but nevertheless he had to
resort to strong measures. In one instance he was defied outright. A
certain Bahadur Khan inhabiting a remote valley in the Bamian direction,
refused to sell any portion of his great store of grain and forage, and
declined to comply with a summons to present himself in Baker's camp. It
was known that he was under the influence of the aged fanatic Moulla the
Mushk-i-Alum, who was engaged in fomenting a tribal rising, and it was
reported that he was affording protection to a number of the fugitive
sepoys of the ex-Ameer's army. A political officer with two squadrons of
cavalry was sent to bring into camp the recalcitrant Bahadur Khan. His
fort and village were found prepared for a stubborn defence. Received
with a heavy fire from a large body of men while swarms of hostile
tribesmen showed themselves on the adjacent hills, the horsemen had to
withdraw. It was judged necessary to punish the contumacious chief and
to disperse the tribal gathering before it should make more head, and
Baker led out a strong detachment in light marching order. There was no
fighting, and the only enemies seen were a few tribesmen, who drew off
into the hills as the head of Baker's column approached. Fort, villages,
and valley were found utterly deserted. There were no means to carry
away the forage and grain found in the houses, so the villages belonging
to Bahadur Khan were destroyed by fire. Their inhabitants found refuge
in the surrounding villages, and there was absolutely no foundation for
the statements which appeared in English papers to the effect that old
men, women, and children were turned out to die in the snow. In the
words of Mr Hensman, a correspondent who accompanied the column: 'There
were no old men, women, and children, and there was no snow.' British
officers cannot be supposed to have found pleasure, on the verge of the
bitter Afghan winter, in the destruction of the hovels and the winter
stores of food belonging to a number of miserable villagers; but
experience has proved that only by such stern measures is there any
possibility of cowing the rancour of Afghan tribesmen. No elation can
accompany an operation so pitiless, and the plea of stern necessity must
be advanced alike and accepted with a shudder. Of the necessity of some
such form of reprisals an example is afforded in an experience which
befell General Baker a few days later in this same Maidan region. He
visited the village of Beni-Badam with a small cavalry escort. The
villagers with every demonstration of friendliness entertained the
officers and men with milk and fruit, and provided corn and forage for
their horses. There were only old men in the village with the women and
children, but no treachery was suspected until suddenly two large bodies
of armed men were seen hurrying to cut off the retreat, and it was only
by hard fighting that the General with his escort succeeded in escaping
from the snare. Next day he destroyed the village. Baker probably acted
on general principles, but had he cared for precedents he would have
found them in the conduct of the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war. He
remained in the Maidan district until the transport of the army had
brought into Sherpur all the supplies which he had succeeded in
obtaining in that region, and then returned to the cantonment.

By the terms of the proclamation which he issued on the 28th October Sir
Frederick Roberts was announced as the dominant authority for the time
being in Eastern and Northern Afghanistan. He occupied this position
just as far as and no further than he could make it good. And he could
make it good only over a very circumscribed area. Even more than had
been true of Shah Soojah's government forty years previously was it true
of Roberts' government now that it was a government of sentry-boxes. He
was firm master of the Sherpur cantonment. General Hills, his nominee,
held a somewhat precarious sway in Cabul in the capacity of its
Governor, maintaining his position there in virtue of the bayonets of
his military guard, the support of the adjacent Sherpur, and the waiting
attitude of the populace of the capital. East of Cabul the domination of
Britain was represented by a series of fortified posts studding the road
to Gundamuk, whence to Jumrood the occupation was closer, although not
wholly undisturbed. When a column marched out from Sherpur the British
power was dominant only within the area of its fire zone. The stretch of
road it vacated as it moved on ceased to be territory over which the
British held dominion. This narrowly restricted nature of his actual
sway Sir Frederick Roberts could not but recognise, but how with a force
of 7000 men all told was it possible for him to enlarge its borders? One
expedient suggested itself which could not indeed extend the area of his
real power, but which might have the effect, to use a now familiar
expression, of widening the sphere of his influence. From among the
Sirdars who had regarded it as their interest to cast in their lot with
the British, he selected four to represent him in the capacity of
governors of provinces which his bayonets were not long enough to reach.
The experiment made it disagreeably plain that the people of the
provinces to which he had deputed governors were utterly indisposed to
have anything to do either with them or with him. The governors went in
no state, they had no great sums to disburse, they were protected by no
armed escorts, and they were regarded by the natives much as the
Southern states of the American Union after the Civil War regarded the
'carpet bag' governors whom the North imposed upon them. The Logur
Governor was treated with utter contempt. The Kohistanees despitefully
used Shahbaz Khan, and when a brother of Yakoub Khan was sent to use his
influence in favour of the worried and threatened governor, he was
reviled as a 'Kafir' and a 'Feringhee,' and ordered peremptorily back to
Sherpur if he had any regard for his life. Sirdar Wali Mahomed, the
governor-nominate to the remote Turkestan, found pretext after pretext
for delaying to proceed to take up his functions, and had never quitted
the British camp. When Baker returned from Maidan he reported that he
had left the district peaceful in charge of the governor whom he had
installed, the venerable and amiable Hassan Khan. Baker's rear-guard was
scarcely clear of the valley when a mob of tribesmen and sepoys attacked
the fort in which the old Sirdar was residing, shot him through the
head, and then hacked his body to pieces. It was too clear that
governors unsupported by bayonets, and whose only weapons were tact and
persuasiveness, were at an extreme discount in the condition which
Afghanistan presented in the end of November and the beginning of
December.



CHAPTER IV: THE DECEMBER STORM


The invader of Afghanistan may count as inevitable a national rising
against him, but the Afghans are a people so immersed in tribal quarrels
and domestic blood-feuds that the period of the outbreak is curiously
uncertain. The British force which placed Shah Soojah on the throne and
supported him there, was in Afghanistan for more than two years before
the waves of the national tempest rose around it. The national
combination against Roberts' occupation was breaking its strength
against the Sherpur defences while as yet the Cabul field force had not
been within sight of the capital for more than two months. There seems
no relation between opportunity and the period of the inevitable
outburst. If in November 1841 the Cabul Sirdars had restrained
themselves for a few days longer two more regiments would have been
following on Sale's track, and the British force in the cantonments
would have been proportionately attenuated. Roberts might have been
assailed with better chance of success when his force was dispersed
between the Siah Sung camp, the Balla Hissar, and Sherpur, than when
concentrated in the strong defensive position against which the Afghans
beat in vain. Perhaps the rising ripened faster in 1879 than in 1841
because in the former period no Macnaghten fomented intrigues and
scattered gold. Perhaps Shere Ali's military innovations may have
instilled into the masses of his time some rough lessons in the art and
practice of speedy mobilisation. The crowning disgrace of 1842 was that
a trained army of regular soldiers should have been annihilated by a few
thousand hillmen, among whom there was no symptom either of real valour
or of good leadership. To Roberts and his force attaches the credit of
having defeated the persistent and desperate efforts of levies at least
ten times superior in numbers, well armed, far from undisciplined,
courageous beyond all experience of Afghan nature, and under the
guidance of a leader who had some conception of strategy, and who
certainly was no mean tactician.

In the Afghan idiosyncrasy there is a considerable strain of practical
philosophy. The blood of the massacred mission was not dry when it was
recognised in Cabul that stern retribution would inevitably follow.
Well, said the Afghans among themselves, what must be must be, for they
are all fatalists. The seniors recalled the memory of the retribution
Pollock exacted--how he came, destroyed Istalif, set a 'mark' on Cabul
by sending the great bazaar in fragments into the air, and then
departed. This time Istalif was not compromised; if Roberts Sahib should
be determined to blow up the Char Chowk again, why, that infliction must
be endured. It had been rebuilt after Pollock Sahib's engineers had
worked their will on it; it could be rebuilt a second time when Roberts
Sahib should have turned his back on the city, as pray God and the
Prophet he might do with no more delay than Pollock Sahib had made out
yonder on the Logur plain. So after a trial of Roberts' mettle at
Charasiah, and finding the testing sample not quite to their taste, the
Afghans fell into an attitude of expectancy, and were mightily relieved
by his proclamation read at the Balla Hissar durbar of October 12th.
After a reasonable amount of hanging and the exaction of the fine laid
on the city, it was assumed that he would no doubt depart so as to get
home to India before the winter snows should block the passes. But the
expected did not happen. The British General established a British
Governor in Cabul who had a heavy hand, and policed the place in a
fashion that stirred a lurid fury in the bosoms of haughty Sirdars who
had been wont to do what seemed good in their own eyes. He engaged in
the sacrilegious work of dismantling the Balla Hissar, the historic
fortress of the nation, within whose walls were the royal palace and the
residences of the principal nobles. Those were bitter things, but they
could be borne if they were mere temporary inflictions, and if the hated
Feringhees would but take themselves away soon. But that hope was
shattered by the proclamation of October 28th, when the abdication of
the Ameer was intimated and the British _raj_ in Afghanistan was
announced. Yes, that pestilent _zabardasti_ little General, who would
not follow the example of good old Pollock Sahib, and who held Yakoub
Khan and sundry of his Sirdars in close imprisonment in his camp, had
now the insolence to proclaim himself virtually the Ameer of
Afghanistan! Far from showing symptom of budging, he was sending out his
governors into the provinces, he was gathering tribute in kind, and he
had taken possession of Shere Ali's monumental cantonment, under the
shadow of the Behmaroo heights on which Afghan warriors of a past
generation had slaughtered the Feringhee soldiers as if they had been
sheep; and it was the Feringhee General's cantonment now, which he was
cunningly strengthening as if he meant to make it his permanent
fortress.

Yakoub Khan had gained little personal popularity during his brief and
troubled reign, but he was an Afghan and a Mahomedan; and his
deportation to India, followed shortly afterwards by that of his three
Ministers, intensified the rancour of his countrymen and co-religionists
against the handful of presumptuous foreigners who arrogantly claimed to
sway the destinies of Afghanistan. _Cherchez la femme_ is the keynote
among Western peoples of an investigation into the origin of most
troubles and strifes; the watchword of the student of the springs of
great popular outbursts among Eastern nations must be _Cherchez les
prêtres_. The Peter the Hermit of Afghanistan was the old Mushk-i-Alum,
the fanatic Chief Moulla of Ghuznee. This aged enthusiast went to and
fro among the tribes proclaiming the sacred duty of a _Jehad_ or
religious war against the unbelieving invaders, stimulating the pious
passions of the followers of the Prophet by fervent appeals, enjoining
the chiefs to merge their intestine strifes in the common universal
effort to crush the foreign invaders of the Afghan soil. The female
relatives of the abdicated Ameer fomented the rising by appeals to
popular sympathy, and by the more practical argument of lavish
distribution of treasure. The flame spread, tribesmen and disbanded
soldiers sprang to arms, the banner of the Prophet was unfurled, and the
nation heaved with the impulse of fanaticism. Musa Khan, the boy heir of
Yakoub, was in the hands of the Mushk-i-Alum, and the combination of
fighting tribes found a competent leader in Mahomed Jan, a Warduk
general of proved courage and capacity. The plan of campaign was
comprehensive and well devised. The contingent from the country to the
south of the capital, from Logur, Zurmat, and the Mangal and Jadran
districts, was to seize that section of the Cabul ridge extending from
Charasiah northward to the cleft through which flows the Cabul river.
The northern contingent from the Kohistan and Kohdaman was to occupy the
Asmai heights and the hills further to the north-west; while the troops
from the Maidan and Warduk territories, led by Mahomed Jan in person,
were to come in from the westward across the Chardeh valley, take
possession of Cabul, and rally to their banners the disaffected
population of the capital and the surrounding villages. The
concentration of the three bodies effected, the capital and the ridge
against which it leans occupied, the next step would be the investment
of the Sherpur cantonment, preparatory to an assault upon it in force.

The British general through his spies had information of those projects.
To allow the projected concentration to be effected would involve
serious disadvantages, and both experience and temperament enjoined on
Roberts the offensive. The Logur contingent was regarded as not of much
account, and might be headed back by a threat. Mahomed Jan's force,
which was reckoned some 5000 strong, needed to be handled with greater
vigour. Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees were less formidable, and might
be dealt with incidentally. Roberts took a measure of wise precaution in
telegraphing to Colonel Jenkins on the 7th December to march his Guides
(cavalry and infantry) from Jugdulluk to Sherpur.

On the 8th General Macpherson was sent out toward the west with a column
consisting of 1300 bayonets, three squadrons, and eight guns. Following
the Ghuznee road across the Chardeh valley, he was to march to Urgundeh,
in the vicinity of which place it was expected that he would find
Mahomed Jan's levies, which he was to attack and drive backward on
Maidan, taking care to prevent their retreat to the westward in the
direction of Bamian. On the following day General Baker marched out with
a force made up of 900 infantrymen, two and a half squadrons, and four
guns, with instructions to march southward toward the Logur valley, deal
with the tribal gathering there, then bend sharply in a south-westerly
direction and take up a position across the Ghuznee road in the Maidan
valley on the line of retreat which it was hoped that Macpherson would
succeed in enforcing on Mahomed Jan. In that case the Afghan leader
would find himself between two fires, and would be punished so severely
as to render it unlikely that he would give further trouble. To afford
time for Baker to reach the position assigned to him Macpherson remained
halted during the 9th at Aushar, a village just beyond the debouche of
the Nanuchee Pass, at the north-western extremity of the Asmai heights.
On that day a cavalry reconnaissance discovered that the Kohistanee
levies in considerable strength had already gathered about Karez Meer,
some ten miles north-west of Cabul, and that masses of Afghans
presumably belonging to the force of Mahomed Jan were moving northward
in the Kohistan direction, apparently with the object of joining Meer
Butcha's gathering at Karez. It was imperative that the latter should be
dispersed before the junction could be effected, and Sir Frederick
Roberts had no option but to order Macpherson to alter his line of
advance and move against the Kohistanees. Necessary as was this
divergence from the original plan of operation, it had the effect of
sending to wreck the combined movement from which so much was hoped, and
of bringing about a very critical situation. If Lockhart's
reconnaissance had been made a day earlier, Macpherson might probably
have utilised to good purpose by dispersing the Kohistanees, the day
which as it was he spent halted at Aushar. He might have accomplished
that object equally well if, instead of the cavalry reconnaissance made
by Lockhart, Macpherson himself had been instructed to devote the 9th to
a reconnaissance in force in the direction of Karez Meer.

[Illustration: Map of Cabul and surroundings.]

The country being held unsuited for the action of wheeled artillery and
cavalry, Macpherson left his details of those arms at Aushar, and
marched on the morning of the 10th on Karez with his infantry and
mountain guns. As his troops crowned the Surkh Kotul they saw before
them an imposing spectacle. The whole terrain around Karez swarmed with
masses of armed tribesmen, whose banners were flying on every hillock.
Down in the Pughman valley to the left rear, were discerned bodies of
the hostile contingent from the west, between which and the Kohistanees
no junction had fortunately as yet been made. Macpherson's dispositions
were simple. His mountain guns shelled with effect the Kohistanee
tribesmen, and then he moved forward from the Surkh Kotul in three
columns. His skirmishers drove back the forward stragglers, and then the
main columns advancing at the double swept the disordered masses before
them, and forced them rearward into their entrenched position in front
of the Karez village. There the resistance was half-hearted. After a
brief artillery preparation the columns carried the position with a
rush, and the Kohistanees were routed with heavy loss. Meer Butcha and
his Kohistanees well beaten, Macpherson camped for the night near Karez.
Baker had reached his assigned position in the Maidan valley, and there
seemed a fair prospect that the operation against Mahomed Jan as
originally designed might be carried out notwithstanding the
interruption to its prosecution which had been found necessary. For
there was good reason to believe that the Afghan commander and his
force, whose strength was estimated at about 5000 men, were in the
vicinity of Urgundeh, about midway between Macpherson at Karez and Baker
in the Maidan valley. If Mahomed Jan would be so complaisant as to
remain where he was until Macpherson could reach him, then Roberts'
strategy would have a triumphant issue, and the Warduk general and his
followers might be relegated to the category of negligable quantities.

Orders were sent to Macpherson to march as early as possible on the
morning of the 11th, follow up the enemy who had been observed retiring
toward the west and south, and endeavour to drive them down toward
General Baker. He was further informed that the cavalry and
horse-artillery which he had left at Aushar would leave that village at
nine A.M. under the command of Brigadier-General Massy, and would cross
the Chardeh valley by the Urgundeh road, on which he was directed to
join them on his march. The specific instructions given to General Massy
were as follows: 'To advance from Aushar by the road leading directly
from the city of Cabul toward Urgundeh and Ghuznee' (the main Ghuznee
road), 'to proceed cautiously and quietly feeling for the enemy, to
communicate with General Macpherson, and to act in conformity with that
officer's movements, but on no account to commit himself to an action
until General Macpherson had engaged the enemy.'

Macpherson marched at eight A.M., moving in a south-westerly direction
toward Urgundeh by a direct track in rear of the range of hills bounding
the western edge of the Chardeh valley. To the point at which it was
probable that he and Massy should meet he had considerably further to
travel than had the latter from the Aushar camp, and Macpherson's force
consisted of infantry while that of Massy was cavalry and
horse-artillery. Massy left Aushar at nine A.M. in consideration of the
shorter distance he had to traverse, and he headed for Killa Kazee, a
village near the foothills of the western ridge about four miles from
Aushar as the crow flies. He did not comply with the letter of his
instructions to follow the Ghuznee road because of the wide detour
marching by it would have involved, but instead made his way straight
across country. That he should have done this was unfortunate, since the
time he thus gained threw him forward into a position involving danger
in advance of any possible co-operation on the part of Macpherson, who
was still far away from the point of intended junction while Massy was
comparatively near it. Massy's force consisted of two squadrons 9th
Lancers and a troop of 14th Bengal Lancers, escorting four
horse-artillery guns. He had detached a troop of 9th Lancers to
endeavour to open communication with Macpherson, in compliance with his
instructions. As he approached Killa Kazee, Captain Gough commanding the
troop of 9th Lancers forming the advance guard, sent back word that the
hills on either side of the Ghuznee road some distance beyond the
village were occupied by the enemy in considerable force. Massy, in his
unsupported condition and destitute of any information as to
Macpherson's whereabouts, would have shown discretion by halting on
receipt of this intelligence pending further developments. But he
probably believed that the Afghans flanking the road were casual
tribesmen from the adjacent villages who were unlikely to make any
stand, and he determined to move on.

What he presently saw gave him pause. A great mass of Afghans some 2000
strong were forming across the Ghuznee road. From the hills to right and
left broad streams of armed men were pouring down the hillslopes and
forming on the plain. The surprise was complete, the situation full of
perplexity. That gathering host in Massy's front could be none other
than Mahomed Jan's entire force. So far from being in retreat southward
and westward, so far from waiting supinely about Urgundeh until
Macpherson as per programme should drive it on to the muzzles of Baker's
Martinis, here it was inside our guard, in possession of the interior
line, its front facing toward turbulent Cabul and depleted Sherpur, with
no obstruction in its path save this handful of lancers and these four
guns! Massy's orders, it was true, were to act in conformity with
Macpherson's movements, and on no account to commit himself to an action
until that officer had engaged the enemy. Yes, but could the framer of
those orders have anticipated the possibility of such a position as that
in which Massy now found himself? There was no Macpherson within ken of
the perplexed cavalryman, nor the vaguest indication of his movements.
The enemy had doubled on that stout and shrewd soldier; it was clear
that for the moment he was not within striking distance of his foe,
whether on flank or on rear. No course of action presented itself to
Massy that was not fraught with grave contingencies. If he should keep
to the letter of his orders, the Afghan host might be in Cabul in a
couple of hours. Should he retire slowly, striving to retard the Afghan
advance by his cannon fire and by the threatening demonstrations of his
cavalry, the enemy might follow him up so vigorously as to be beyond
Macpherson's reach when that officer should make good his point in the
direction of Urgundeh. If on the other hand he should show a bold front,
and departing from his orders in the urgent crisis face to face with
which he found himself should strain every nerve to 'hold' the Afghan
masses in their present position, there was the possibility that, at
whatever sacrifice to himself and his little force, he might save the
situation and gain time for Macpherson to come up and strike Mahomed Jan
on flank and in rear.

For better or for worse Massy committed himself to the rasher
enterprise, and opened fire on the swiftly growing Afghan masses. The
first range was held not sufficiently effective, and in the hope by
closer fire of deterring the enemy from effecting the formation they
were attempting, the guns were advanced to the shorter ranges of 2500
and 2000 yards. The shells did execution, but contrary to precedent did
not daunt the Afghans. They made good their formation under the shell
fire. Mahomed Jan's force had been estimated of about 5000 strong;
according to Massy's estimate it proved to be double that number. The
array was well led; it never wavered, but came steadily on with waving
banners and loud shouts. The guns had to be retired; they came into
action again, but owing to the rapidity of the Afghan advance at shorter
range than before. The carbine fire of thirty dismounted lancers 'had no
appreciable effect.' The outlook was already ominous when at this moment
Sir Frederick Roberts came on the scene. As was his wont, he acted with
decision. The action, it was clear to him, could not be maintained
against odds so overwhelming and in ground so unfavourable. He
immediately ordered Massy to retire slowly, to search for a road by
which the guns could be withdrawn, and to watch for an opportunity to
execute a charge under cover of which the guns might be extricated. He
despatched an aide-de-camp in quest of Macpherson, with an order
directing that officer to wheel to his left into the Chardeh valley and
hurry to Massy's assistance; and he ordered General Hills to gallop to
Sherpur and warn General Hugh Gough, who had charge in the cantonment,
to be on the alert, and also to send out at speed a wing of the 72d to
the village of Deh Mazung, in the throat of the gorge of the Cabul
river, which the Highlanders were to hold to extremity.

The enemy were coming on, the guns were in imminent danger, and the
moment had come for the action of the cavalry. The gallant Cleland gave
the word to his lancers and led them straight for the centre of the
Afghan line, the troop of Bengal Lancers following in support. Gough,
away on the Afghan left, saw his chief charging and he eagerly
'conformed,' crushing in on the enemy's flank at the head of his troop.
'Self-sacrifice' the Germans hold the duty of cavalry; and there have
been few forlorner hopes than the errand on which on this ill-starred
day our 200 troopers rode into the heart of 10,000 Afghans flushed with
unwonted good fortune. Through the dust-cloud of the charge were visible
the flashes of the Afghan volleys and the sheen of the British lance
heads as they came down to the 'engage.' There was a short interval of
suspense, the stour and bicker of the _mêlée_ faintly heard, but
invisible behind the bank of smoke and dust. Then from out the cloud of
battle riderless horses came galloping back, followed by broken groups
of troopers. Gallantly led home, the charge had failed--what other
result could have been expected? Its career had been blocked by sheer
weight of opposing numbers. Sixteen troopers had been killed, seven were
wounded, two officers had been slain in the hand-to-hand strife. Cleland
came out with a sword cut and a bullet wound. Captain Stewart Mackenzie
had been crushed under his fallen horse, but distinguished himself
greatly, and brought the regiment out of action. As the dust settled it
was apparent that the charge had merely encouraged the enemy, who as
they steadily pressed on in good order, were waving their banners in
triumph and brandishing their tulwars and knives. The fire from the
Sniders and Enfields of their marksmen was well directed and deliberate.
While Cleland's broken troopers were being rallied two guns were brought
into action, protected in a measure by Gough's troop and the detachment
of Bengal Lancers, which had not suffered much in the charge. But the
Afghans came on so ardently that there was no alternative but prompt
retreat. One gun had to be spiked and abandoned, Lieutenant Hardy of the
Horse Artillery remaining by it until surrounded and killed. Some 500
yards further back, near the village of Baghwana, the three remaining
guns stuck fast in a deep watercourse. At General Roberts' instance a
second charge was attempted, to give time for their extrication; but it
made no head, so that the guns had to be abandoned, and the gunners and
drivers with their teams accompanied the retirement of the cavalry. Some
fugitives both of cavalry and artillery hurried to the shelter of the
cantonment somewhat precipitately; but the great majority of Massy's
people behaved well, rallying without hesitation and constituting the
steady and soldierly little body with which Roberts, retiring on Deh
Mazung as slowly as possible to give time for the Highlanders from
Sherpur to reach that all-important point, strove to delay the Afghan
advance. This in a measure was accomplished by the dismounted fire of
the troopers, and the retirement was distinguished by the steady
coolness displayed by Cough's men and Neville's Bengal Lancers. Deh
Mazung was reached, but no Highlanders had as yet reached that place.
The carbines of the cavalrymen were promptly utilised from the cover the
village afforded; but they could not have availed to stay the Afghan
rush. There was a short interval of extreme anxiety until the 200 men of
the 72d, Brownlow leading them, became visible advancing at the double
through the gorge. 'It was literally touch and go who should reach the
village first, the Highlanders or the Afghans,' who were streaming
toward it 'like ants on a hill,' but the men of the 72d swept in, and
swarming to the house tops soon checked with their breechloaders the
advancing tide. After half-an-hour of futile effort the Afghans saw fit
to abandon the attempt to force the gorge, and inclining to their right
they occupied the Takht-i-Shah summit, the slopes of the Sher Derwaza
heights, and the villages in the south-eastern section of the Chardeh
valley.

Macpherson, marching from the Surkh Kotul toward Urgundeh, had observed
parties of Afghans crossing his front in the direction of the Chardeh
valley, and when the sound reached him of Massy's artillery fire he
wheeled to his left through a break in the hills opening into the
Chardeh valley, and approached the scene of the discomfiture of Massy's
force. This he did at 12.30 P.M., four and a half hours after leaving
the Surkh Kotul. As the length of his march was about ten miles, it may
be assumed that he encountered difficulties in the rugged track by which
he moved, for Macpherson was not the man to linger by the way when there
was the prospect of a fight. Had it been possible for him to have
marched two hours earlier than he did--and his orders were to march as
early as possible--his doing so would have made all the difference in
the world to Massy, and could scarcely have failed to change the face of
the day. He did not discover the lost guns, but he struck the Afghan
rear, which was speedily broken and dispersed by the 67th and 3d Sikhs.
Macpherson's intention to spend the night at Killa Kazee was changed by
the receipt of an order from General Roberts calling him in to Deh
Mazung, where he arrived about nightfall. Sir Frederick Roberts then
returned to Sherpur, for the defence of which General Hugh Gough had
made the best dispositions in his power, and the slender garrison of
which was to receive in the course of the night an invaluable accession
in the shape of the Guides, 900 strong, whom Jenkins had brought up by
forced marches from Jugdulluk.

The misfortunes of the day were in a measure retrieved by a well-timed,
ready-witted, and gallant action on the part of that brilliant and
lamented soldier Colonel Macgregor. A wing of the 72d had been called
out to hold the gorge of the Cabul river, but the Nanuchee Pass, through
which led the direct road from the scene of the combat to Sherpur,
remained open; and there was a time when the Afghan army was heading in
its direction. Macgregor had hurried to the open pass in time to rally
about him a number of Massy's people, who had lost their officers and
were making their way confusedly toward the refuge of Sherpur. Remaining
in possession of this important point until all danger was over, he
noticed that the ground about Bagwana, where the guns had been
abandoned, was not held by the enemy, and there seemed to him that the
opportunity to recover them presented itself. Taking with him a
detachment of lancers and artillerymen, he rode out and met with no
molestation beyond a few shots from villagers. From Macpherson's baggage
guard, met as it crossed the valley toward Sherpur, he requisitioned
sixty infantrymen who entered and held Bagwana, and covered him and the
gunners during the long and arduous struggle to extricate the guns from
their lair in the deep and rugged watercourse. This was at length
accomplished, scratch teams were improvised, and the guns, which were
uninjured although the ammunition boxes had been emptied, were brought
into the cantonment to the general joy.

The result of the day's operations left General Baker momentarily
belated. But on the morning of the 11th that officer, finding that no
Afghans were being driven down upon him in accordance with the
programme, quitted the Maidan country and marched northward toward
Urgundeh. An attack on his baggage and rear-guard was foiled; but as he
reached his camping ground for the night at Urgundeh the Afghans were
found in possession of the gorge opening into the Chardeh valley,
through which ran his road to Cabul. They were dislodged by a dashing
attack of part of the 92d Highlanders led by Lieutenant Scott Napier. It
was not until the morning of the 12th that Baker was informed by
heliograph from Sherpur of the occurrences of the previous day, and
received directions to return to the cantonment without delay. In the
course of a few hours he was inside Sherpur, notwithstanding that his
march had been constantly molested by attacks on his rear-guard.

The casualties of the 11th had been after all not very serious. All told
they amounted to thirty men killed and forty-four wounded; fifty-one
horses killed and sixteen wounded. But the Afghans were naturally elated
by the success they had unquestionably achieved; the national rising had
been inaugurated by a distinct triumph, the news of which would bring
into the field incalculable swarms of fierce and fanatical partisans. It
was clear that Mahomed Jan had a quick eye for opportunities, and some
skill in handling men. That he could recognise the keypoint of a
position and act boldly and promptly on that recognition, his tactics of
the 11th made abundantly obvious, and his commanding position on the
morning of the 12th still further demonstrated his tactical ability.
_L'audace, encore l'audace, et toujours l'audace_ is the game to be
played by the commander of disciplined troops against Asiatic levies,
and no man was more sensible of this than the gallant soldier who now
from the bastion of Sherpur could see the Afghan standards waving on the
summit of the Takht-i-Shah. Indeed he was impressed so thoroughly by the
force of the maxim as to allow himself to hope that some 560 soldiers,
of whom about one-third were Europeans, backed by a couple of mountain
guns, would be able to carry by assault the lofty peak, strongly held by
resolute Afghans in protected positions, supported by several thousands
of their fellows lying out of sight until an attack should develop
itself, to meet which they were at hand to reinforce the garrison of the
Takht-i-Shah. From the gorge of the Cabul river there runs due south to
near Charasiah a lofty and rugged range, the highest point of which, the
Takht-i-Shah, is about midway from either extremity. From this main
ridge there project eastward at right angles two lateral spurs. The
shorter and more northerly of those runs down to the Balla Hissar, the
longer and more southerly obtruding itself into the plain as far as the
village of Beni Hissar. This latter spur quits the main ridge no great
distance south of the Takht-i-Shah peak, and on the 12th the Afghan
reserves were massed in rear of the peak, both on the main ridge and on
this spur. The steep faces of the mountain were strewn with great smooth
boulders and jagged masses of rock; the ascent, everywhere laborious,
was complicated in places by sheer scarps, and those formidable
impediments were made still more difficult by frequent sungahs, strong
stone curtains behind which the defenders lay safe or fired with a
minimum of exposure. On the summit was a great natural cavity which had
been made bomb proof by art, and further cover was afforded by caves and
lines of rock. The most northerly portion of the ridge described is
known as the Sher Derwaza heights, which Macpherson had occupied on the
morning of the 12th, and his brigade it was which furnished the little
force already mentioned as charged to attempt the task of storming the
Takht-i-Shah.

For several hours Morgan's two mountain guns industriously shelled that
peak, and then the infantry made their effort. The Afghans fought
stubbornly in defence of a lower hill they held in advance of the
Takht-i-Shah, but after a hard struggle they had to abandon it to
Macpherson's resolute men. But the exertions of the latter to ascend the
peak were baulked by its rugged steepness and the fire of the Afghans
holding the sungahs on its face. Sir Frederick Roberts had to recognise
that the direct attack by so weak a force unaided by a diversion, could
not succeed, and he ordered further efforts to be deferred. The
casualties of the abortive attempt included three officers, one of whom,
Major Cook, V.C. of the Goorkhas, than whom the British army contained
no better soldier, died of his wound. Macpherson was directed to hold
the ground he had won, including the lower advanced hill, and was
informed that on the following morning he was to expect the co-operation
of General Baker from the direction of Beni Hissar.

The lesson of the result of attempting impossibilities had been taken to
heart, and the force which Baker led out on the morning of the 13th was
exceptionally strong, consisting as it did of the 92d Highlanders and
Guides infantry, a wing of the 3d Sikhs, a cavalry regiment, and eight
guns. Marching in the direction of the lateral spur extending from the
main ridge eastward to Beni Hissar, Baker observed that large masses of
the enemy were quitting the plain villages about Beni Hissar in which
they had taken shelter for the night, and were hurrying to gain the
summit of the spur which constituted the defensive position of the
Afghan reserve. Baker's _coup d'oeil_ was quick and true. By gaining the
centre of the spur he would cut in two the Afghan line along its summit,
and so isolate and neutralise the section of it from the centre to the
Beni Hissar extremity, toward which section the reinforcements from the
plain villages were climbing. But to accomplish this shrewd stroke it
was necessary that he should act with promptitude and energy. His guns
opened fire on the summit. The Sikhs, extended athwart the plain,
protected his right flank. His cavalry on the left cut into the bodies
of Afghans hurrying to ascend the eastern extremity of the spur. With
noble emulation the Highlanders and the Guides sprang up the rugged
slope, their faces set towards the centre of the summit line. Major
White, who already had earned many laurels in the campaign, led on his
Highlanders; the Guides, burning to make the most of their first
opportunity to distinguish themselves, followed eagerly the gallant
chief who had so often led them to victory on other fields. Lieutenant
Forbes, a young officer of the 92d heading the advance of his regiment,
reached the summit accompanied only by his colour-sergeant. A band of
ghazees rushed on the pair and the sergeant fell. As Forbes stood
covering his body he was overpowered and slain. The sudden catastrophe
staggered for a moment the soldiers following their officer, but
Lieutenant Dick Cunyngham rallied them immediately and led them forward
at speed. For his conduct on this occasion Cunyngham received the
Victoria Cross.

With rolling volleys Highlanders and Guides reached and won the summit.
The Afghans momentarily clung to the position, but the British fire
swept them away and the bayonets disposed of the ghazees, who fought and
died in defence of their standards. The severance of the Afghan line was
complete. A detachment was left to maintain the isolation of some 2000
of the enemy who had been cut off; and then swinging to their right
Baker's regiments swept along the summit of the spur toward the main
ridge and the Takht-i-Shah, the Highlanders leading. As they advanced
they rolled up the Afghan line and a panic set in among the enemy, who
sought safety in flight. Assailed from both sides, for Macpherson's men
from the conical hill were passing up the north side of the peak, and
shaken by the steady fire of the mountain guns, the garrison of the
Takht-i-Shah evacuated the position. Baker's soldiers toiled vigorously
upward toward the peak, keen for the honour of winning it; but the
credit of that achievement justly fell to their comrades of Macpherson's
command, who had striven so valiantly to earn it the day before, and who
had gained possession of the peak and the Afghan standards flying on its
summit, a few minutes before the arrival of White's Highlanders and
Jenkins' Guides. As the midday gun was fired in the cantonment the flash
of the heliograph from the peak told that the Takht-i-Shah was won.

While Baker was sweeping the spur and climbing the lofty peak of the
main ridge, his reserve, which remained in the plain, was in sharp
action against masses of assailants from the city and other bodies from
the villages about Beni Hissar. Those were beaten off by the 3d Sikhs
and Baker's flanks were thus cleared, but the resolute Afghans, bent on
interfering with his return march, surged away in the direction of the
Siah Sung ridge and gathered thereon in considerable strength. The guns
of Sherpur shelled them smartly, but they held their ground; and Massy
went out to disperse them with the cavalry. The Afghans showed unwonted
resolution, confronting the cavalry with extraordinary steadiness in
regular formation and withholding their fire until the troopers were
close upon them. But the horsemen were not to be denied. Captains Butson
and Chisholme led their squadrons against the Afghan flanks, and the
troopers of the 9th avenged the mishap which had befallen that gallant
regiment two days before, riding through and through the hostile masses
and scattering them over the plain. But in the charge Butson was killed,
Chisholme and Trower were wounded; the sergeant-major and three men were
killed and seven were wounded. Brilliant charges were delivered by the
other cavalry detachments, and the Siah Sung heights were ultimately
cleared. The Guides' cavalry attacked, defeated, and pursued for a long
distance a body of Kohistanees marching from the north-east apparently
with intent to join Mahomed Jan. The casualties of the day were sixteen
killed and forty-five wounded; not a heavy loss considering the amount
of hard fighting. The Afghans were estimated to have lost in killed
alone from 200 to 300 men.

The operations of the day were unquestionably successful so far as they
went, but the actual results attained scarcely warranted the
anticipation that the Afghans would acknowledge themselves defeated by
breaking up their combination and dispersing to their homes. It was true
that they had been defeated, but they had fought with unprecedented
stubbornness and gave little evidence of being cowed. Throughout the day
the villages around Cabul had evinced a rancorous hostility which had a
marked significance. Not less significant was the participation in the
fighting of the day on the part of the population of Cabul. As Baker was
returning to Sherpur in the evening he had been fired upon from the
Balla Hissar, and his flanking parties had found ambushes of armed
Afghans among the willows between the city and the cantonment. But for
the skill and courage of the non-commissioned officer in charge a convoy
of wounded on its way to Sherpur would certainly have been destroyed.
But there was a stronger argument than any of those indications,
significant as they were of the unbroken spirit of the Afghans, telling
against the probability that the operations of the day would have the
effect of putting down the national rising. The hordes which had
gathered to the banners of the Mushk-i-Alum and Mahomed Jan combined
with the fanaticism of the _jehad_ a fine secular greed for plunder. Was
it likely that they would scatter resignedly, leaving untouched the rich
booty of the city that had been almost within arm's-length as they
looked down on it from the peak of the Takht-i-Shah, and whose minarets
they were within sight of on the spur and in the villages of
Beni Hissar? Was that ever likely? And was it not made more and yet
more unlikely when on the afternoon of the 13th Macpherson, acting on
orders, moved his camp to the Balla Hissar heights, evacuating Deh
Mazung and leaving open to the enemy the road into the city through the
Cabul gorge? The following morning was to show how promptly and how
freely the Afghans had taken advantage of the access to the capital thus
afforded them. It must never be forgotten that at this time our people
in Afghanistan held no more territory than the actual ground they stood
upon and the terrain swept by their fire. No trustworthy intelligence
from outside that region was procurable; and of this there can be no
clearer evidence than that the General was under the belief that the
enemy had been 'foiled in their western and southern operations.'

The morning of the 14th effectually dispelled the optimistic
anticipations indulged in overnight. At daybreak a large body of
Afghans, with many standards, were discerned on a hill about a mile
northward of the Asmai ridge, from which and from the Kohistan road they
were moving on to the crest of that ridge. They were joined there by
several thousands coming up the slopes from out the village of Deh
Afghan, the northern suburb of Cabul. It was estimated that there were
about 8000 men in position along the summit of the ridge, and occupying
also a low conical hill beyond its north-western termination. The array
of Afghans displayed itself within a mile of the west face of the
Sherpur cantonment, and formed a menace which could not be brooked. To
General Baker was entrusted the task of dislodging the enemy from the
threatening position, and there was assigned to him for this purpose a
force consisting of about 1200 bayonets, eight guns, and a regiment of
native cavalry. His first object was to gain possession of the conical
hill already mentioned, and thus debar the Afghan force on the Asmai
heights from receiving accessions either from the masses on the hill
further north or by the Kohistan road. Under cover of the artillery fire
the Highlanders and Guides occupied this conical hill after a short
conflict. A detachment was left to hold it and then Colonel Jenkins, who
commanded the attack, set about the arduous task of storming from the
northward the formidable position of the Asmai heights. The assault was
led by Brownlow's staunch Highlanders, supported on the right by the
Guides operating on the enemy's flank; and the Afghan position was
heavily shelled by four of Baker's guns, and by four more in action near
the south-western corner of the Sherpur cantonment. Macpherson from his
position on the Balla Hissar hill aided the attack by the fire of his
guns, and also by despatching two companies of the 67th to cross the
Cabul gorge and operate against the enemy's left rear.

In the face of a heavy fire the Highlanders and Guides climbed with
great speed and steadiness the rugged hill-side leading upward to the
Afghan breastwork on the northern edge of the summit. Their approach and
the crushing shrapnel fire from the guns near Sherpur had caused
numerous Afghans to move downward from the position toward Deh Afghan,
heavily smitten as they went; but the ghazees in the breastworks made a
strenuous resistance and died under their banners as the Highlanders
carried the defences with a rush. The crest, about a quarter of a mile
long, was traversed under heavy fire and the southern breastwork on the
peak was approached. It was strong and strongly held, but a cross fire
was brought to bear on its garrison, and then the frontal attack led by
a lance-corporal of the 72d was delivered. After a hand-to-hand grapple
in which Highlanders and Guides were freely cut and slashed by the
knives of the ghazees, the position, which was found full of dead, was
carried, but with considerable loss. The whole summit of the Asmai
heights was now in British possession, and everything seemed auspicious.
The Afghans streaming down from the heights toward the city were being
lacerated by shell fire and musketry fire as they descended. When they
took refuge in Deh Afghan that suburb was heavily shelled, and it was
gradually evacuated.

Scarcely had Jenkins won the summit of the Asmai ridge when the fortune
of the day was suddenly overcast; indeed while he was still engaged in
the attainment of that object premonitory indications of serious
mischief were unexpectedly presenting themselves. A vast host of Afghans
described as numbering from 15,000 to 20,000, debouched into the Chardeh
valley from the direction of Indikee, and were moving northwards,
apparently with the object of forming a junction with the masses
occupying the hills to the north-west of the Asmai heights. About the
same time cavalry scouting in the Chardeh valley brought in the
information that large parties of hostile infantry and cavalry were
hurrying across the valley in the direction of the conical hill the
defence of which had been entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Clark with 120
Highlanders and Guides. Recognising Clark's weakness, General Baker had
judiciously reinforced that officer with four mountain guns and 100
bayonets. The guns opened fire on the Afghan bodies marching from the
Killa Kazee direction, and drove them out of range. But they coalesced
with the host advancing from Indikee, and the vast mass of Afghans,
facing to the right, struck the whole range of the British position from
near the Cabul gorge on the south to and beyond the conical hill on the
north. The most vulnerable point was the section at and about that
eminence, and the necessity for supplying Clark with further
reinforcements became urgently manifest. Baker sent up a second
detachment, and 200 Sikhs came out from Sherpur at the double. But the
Afghans, creeping stealthily in great numbers up the slope from out the
Chardeh valley, had the shorter distance to travel, and were beforehand
with the reinforcements. Their tactics were on a par with their
resolution. The left of their attack grasped and held a knoll north of
the conical hill, and from this position of vantage brought a cross fire
to bear on Clark's detachment. As their direct attack developed itself
it encountered from the conical hill a heavy rifle fire, and shells at
short range tore through the loose rush of ghazees, but the fanatics
sped on and up without wavering. As they gathered behind a mound for the
final onslaught, Captain Spens of the 72d with a handful of his
Highlanders went out on the forlorn hope of dislodging them. A rush was
made on him; he was overpowered and slaughtered after a desperate
resistance, and the Afghan charge swept up the hill-side. In momentary
panic the defenders gave ground, carrying downhill with them the
reinforcement of Punjaubees which Captain Hall was bringing up. Two of
the mountain guns were lost, but there was a rally at the foot of the
hill under cover of which the other two were extricated. The Afghans
refrained from descending into the plain, and directed their efforts
toward cutting off the occupants of the position on the Asmai summit.
They ascended by two distinct directions. One body from the conical hill
followed the route taken by Jenkins in the morning; another scaled a
spur trending downward to the Chardeh valley from the southern extremity
of the Asmai ridge.

It was estimated that the Afghan strength disclosed this day did not
fall short of 40,000 men; and General Roberts was reluctantly compelled
to abandon for the time any further offensive efforts. His reasons,
stated with perfect frankness, may best be given in his own words. 'Up
to this time,' he wrote, 'I had no reason to apprehend that the Afghans
were in sufficient force to cope successfully with disciplined troops,
but the resolute and determined manner in which the conical hill had
been recaptured, and the information sent to me by Brigadier-General
Macpherson that large masses of the enemy were still advancing from the
north, south, and west, made it evident that the numbers combined
against us were too overwhelming to admit of my comparatively small
force meeting them. I therefore determined to withdraw from all isolated
positions, and to concentrate the whole force at Sherpur, thus securing
the safety of our large cantonment, and avoiding what had now become a
useless sacrifice of life.' The orders issued to Generals Baker and
Macpherson to retire into the cantonment were executed with skill and
steadiness. Jenkins' evacuation of the Asmai position was conspicuously
adroit. When the order to quit reached that able officer, Major
Stockwell of the 72d was out with a small detachment, maintaining a hot
fire on the Afghan bodies ascending by the southern spur from the
Chardeh valley. He fell back with great deliberation, and when he
rejoined the retirement down the hill face looking toward Sherpur was
leisurely proceeded with, the hostile advance from, the northern side
being held in check by the fire of covering parties from Jenkins' left
flank. General Macpherson's retirement was masterly. Flanking his march
through the Cabul gorge with two companies of the 67th who stalled off a
rush of ghazees from the Asmai crest, he continued his march through
the suburb of Deh Afghan, his baggage in front under a strong guard.
Some few shots were exchanged before the suburb was cleared, but the
casualties were few and presently the brigade entered the cantonment.
General Baker continued to hold a covering position with part of his
force, until the troops from the heights and Macpherson's command had
made good their retirement, and he was the last to withdraw. By dusk the
whole force was safely concentrated within the cantonment, and the
period of the defensive had begun. The casualties of the day were
serious; thirty-five killed, and 107 wounded. During the week of
fighting the little force had lost somewhat heavily; the killed numbered
eighty-three, the wounded 192. Eight officers were killed, twelve were
wounded.



CHAPTER V: ON THE DEFENSIVE IN SHERPUR


Although overlarge for its garrison, the Sherpur cantonment had many of
the features of a strong defensive position. On the southern and western
faces the massive and continuous enciente made it impregnable against
any force unprovided with siege artillery. But on the eastern face the
wall had been built to the elevation only of seven feet, and at either
end of the Behmaroo heights, which constituted the northern line of
defence, there were open gaps which had to be made good. The space
between the north-western bastion and the heights was closed by an
entrenchment supported by a 'laager' of Afghan gun-carriages and
limbers, the ground in front strengthened by abattis and wire
entanglements, beyond which a village flanking the northern and western
faces was occupied as a detached post. The open space on the
north-eastern angle was similarly fortified; the village of Behmaroo was
loopholed, and outlying buildings to the front were placed in a state of
defence. The unfinished eastern wall was heightened by logs built up in
tiers, and its front was covered with abattis, a tower and garden
outside being occupied by a detachment. A series of block houses had
been built along the crest of the Behmaroo heights supporting a
continuous entrenchment, gun emplacements made in the line of defence,
and the gorge dividing the heights strongly fortified against an attack
from the northern plain. The enciente was divided into sections to each
of which was assigned a commanding officer with a specified detail of
troops; and a strong reserve of European infantry was under the command
of Brigadier-General Baker, ready at short notice to reinforce any
threatened point. It was presumably owing to the absorption of the
troops in fighting, collecting supplies, and providing winter shelter,
that when the concentration within Sherpur became suddenly necessary the
defences of the position were still seriously defective; and throughout
the period of investment the force was unremittingly engaged in the task
of strengthening them. Nor had the military precaution been taken of
razing the villages and enclosures within the fire zone of the enciente,
and they remained to afford cover to the enemy during the period of
investment.

Before the enemy cut the telegraph wire in the early morning of the 15th
Sir Frederick Roberts had informed the authorities in India of his
situation and of his need for reinforcements; and he had also ordered up
General Charles Gough's brigade without loss of time. Gough was already
at Jugdulluk when he received the order calling him to Cabul, but he had
to wait for reinforcements and supplies, and the tribesmen were
threatening his position and the line of communication in rear of it. He
did not move forward until the 21st. On the following day he reached
Luttabund, whence he took on with him the garrison of that post, but
although his march was unmolested it was not until the 24th that he
reached Sherpur, a day too late to participate in repelling the assault
on the cantonment.

While General Roberts' force was busily engaged in making good the
defences of Sherpur, the Afghans refrained from attempting to back their
success on the Asmai heights by an assault on the defensive position
which seemed to invite an attack. During the first two days of their
possession of the city they were enjoying the fruits of their occupation
in their own turbulent manner. Roberts' spies reported them busily
engaged in sacking the Hindoo and Kuzzilbash quarters, in looting and
wrecking the houses of chiefs and townsfolk who had shown friendliness
to the British, and in quarrelling among themselves over the spoils.
Requisitioning was in full force. The old Moulla Mushk-i-Alum was the
temporary successor of General Hills in the office of Governor of Cabul;
and spite of his ninety years he threw extraordinary energy into the
work of arousing fanaticism and rallying to Cabul the fighting men of
the surrounding country. The _jehad_ of which he had been the chief
instigator had certainly attained unexampled dimensions, and although it
was not in the nature of things that every Afghan who carried arms
should be inspired with religious fanaticism to such a pitch as to be
utterly reckless of his life, swarms of fierce ghazees made formidable
the levies which Mahomed Jan commanded.

On the 17th and 18th the Afghans made ostentatious demonstrations
against Sherpur, but those were never formidable, although they made
themselves troublesome with some perseverance during the daytime,
consistently refraining from night attacks, which was remarkable since
ordinarily they are much addicted to the _chapao_. There never was any
investment of Sherpur, or indeed any approximation to investment.
Cavalry reconnaissances constantly went out, and piquets and videttes
were habitually on external duty; infantry detachments sallied forth
whenever occasion demanded to dislodge the assailants from points
occupied by them in inconvenient proximity to the defences. The Afghan
offensive was not dangerous, but annoying and wearying. It was indeed
pushed with some resolution on the 18th, when several thousand men
poured out of the city, and skirmished forward under cover of the
gardens and enclosures on the plain between Cabul and Sherpur, in the
direction of the southern front and the south-western bastions. The
Afghans are admirable skirmishers, and from their close cover kept up
for hours a brisk fire on the soldiers lining the Sherpur defences, but
with singularly little effect. The return rifle fire was for the most
part restricted to volleys directed on those of the enemy who offered a
sure mark by exposing themselves; and shell fire was chiefly used to
drive the Afghan skirmishers from their cover in the gardens and
enclosures. Some of those, notwithstanding, were able to get within 400
yards of the enciente, but could make no further headway. On the morning
of the 19th it was found that in the night the enemy had occupied the
Meer Akhor fort, a few hundred yards beyond the eastern face, and close
to the Residency compound of the old cantonments of 1839-42. The fire
from this fort was annoying, and General Baker went out on the errand of
destroying it, with 800 bayonets, two mountain guns, and a party of
sappers. As the fort was being approached through the dense mist a
sudden volley from it struck down several men, and Lieutenant Montenaro
of the mountain battery was mortally wounded. The fort was heavily
shelled from the south-eastern bastion; its garrison evacuated it, and
it was blown up.

Mahomed Jan and his coadjutors could hardly flatter themselves that as
yet they had made any impression on the steadfast defence which the
British force was maintaining in the Sherpur cantonment. The Afghan
leader had tried force in vain; he knew the history of that strange
period in the winter of 1841 during which Afghan truculence and audacity
had withered the spirit of a British force not much less numerically
strong than the little army now calmly withstanding him. Things had not
gone very well with that little army of late, possibly its constancy
might have been impaired, and its chief might be willing, as had been
Elphinstone and the Eltchi, to listen to terms. Anyhow there could be no
harm in making a proffer based on the old lines. So the Afghan leader
proposed to General Roberts, apparently in all seriousness, that the
British army should forthwith evacuate Afghanistan, encountering no
molestation in its march; that the British General before departing
should engage that Yakoub Khan should return to Afghanistan as its
Ameer; and that there should be left behind two officers of distinction
as hostages for the faithful fulfilment of the contract. 'We have a lakh
of men; they are like wolves eager to rush on their prey! We cannot much
longer control them!'--such were said to have been the terms of a
message intended to disturb the equanimity of the British commander.
Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees, again, were not to all appearance
anxious for the restoration of Yakoub. They professed themselves content
to accept our staunch friend Wali Mahomed as Ameer, if only the British
army would be good enough to march home promptly and leave to Afghans
the administration of Afghan affairs. It was not likely that a man of
Roberts' nature would demean himself to take any notice of such
overtures. For the moment circumstances had enforced on him the wisdom
of accepting the defensive attitude, but he knew himself, nevertheless,
the virtual master of the situation. He had but one serious anxiety--the
apprehension lest the Afghans should not harden their hearts to deliver
an assault on his position.

That apprehension was not long to give him concern. On the 20th, as a
menace against the southern face of Sherpur, the enemy took strong
possession of the Mahomed Shereef fort, stormed so gallantly by Colonel
Griffiths on 6th November 1841; and they maintained themselves there
during the two following days in face of the fire of siege guns mounted
on the bastions of the enciente. On the 21st and 22d large numbers of
Afghans quitted the city, and passing eastward behind the Siah Sung
heights, took possession in great force of the forts and villages
outside the eastern face of Sherpur. On the 22d a spy brought in the
intelligence that Mahomed Jan and his brother-chiefs had resolved to
assault the cantonment early on the following morning, and the spy was
able to communicate the plan of attack. The 2000 men holding the King's
Garden and the Mahomed Shereef fort had been equipped with scaling
ladders, and were to make a false attack which might become a real one,
against the western section of the southern front. The principal
assault, however, was to be made against the eastern face of the
Behmaroo village--unquestionably the weakest part of the defensive
position. The 23d was the last day of the Mohurrum--the great Mahomedan
religious festival, when fanaticism would be at its height; and further
to stimulate that incentive to valour, the Mushk-i-Alum would himself
kindle the beacon fire on the Asmai height which was to be the signal to
the faithful to rush to the assault.

The information proved perfectly accurate. All night long the shouts and
chants of the Afghans filled the air. Purposeful silence reigned
throughout the cantonment. In the darkness the soldiers mustered and
quietly fell into their places; the officers commanding sections of the
defence made their dispositions; the reserves were silently standing to
their arms. Every eye was toward the Asmai heights, shrouded still in
the gloom of the night. A long tongue of flame shot up into the air,
blazed brilliantly for a few moments, and then waned. At the signal a
fierce fire opened from the broken ground before one of the gateways of
the southern face, the flashes indicating that the marksmen were plying
their rifles within 200 yards of the enciente. The bullets sped
harmlessly over the defenders sheltered behind the parapet, and in the
dusk of the dawn reprisals were not attempted. But this outburst of
powder-burning against the southern face was a mere incident; what men
listened and watched for was the development of the true assault on the
eastern end of the great parallelogram. The section commanders there
were General Hugh Gough in charge of the eastern end of the Behmaroo
heights, and Colonel Jenkins from the village down to the Native
Hospital and beyond to the bastion at the south-eastern corner. The
troops engaged were the Guides from the ridge down to Behmaroo village
and beyond to the Native Hospital, in which were 100 men of the 28th
Punjaub Infantry, and between the Hospital and the corner bastion the
67th, reinforced by two companies of 92d Highlanders from the reserve,
which later sent to the defence of the eastern face additional
contributions of men and guns. 'From beyond Behmaroo and the eastern
trenches and walls,' writes Mr Hensman, 'came a roar of voices so loud
and menacing that it seemed as if an army fifty thousand strong was
charging down on our thin line of men. Led by their ghazees, the main
body of Afghans hidden in the villages and orchards on the east side of
Sherpur had rushed out in one dense mob, and were filling the air with
their shouts of "Allah-il-Allah." The roar surged forward as their line
advanced, but it was answered by such a roll of musketry that it was
drowned for the moment, and then merged into the general din which told
us that our men with Martinis and Sniders were holding their own against
the attacking force.' When the first attack thus graphically described
was made the morning was still so dark and misty that the outlook from
the trenches was restricted, and the order to the troops was to hold
their fire till the assailants should be distinctly visible. The
detachment of the 28th opened fire somewhat prematurely, and presently
the Guides holding Behmaroo and the trenches on the slopes followed the
example, and sweeping with their fire the terrain in front of them broke
the force of the attack while its leaders were still several hundred
yards away. Between the Hospital and the corner bastion the men of the
67th and 92d awaited with impassive discipline the word of permission to
begin firing. From out the mist at length emerged dense masses of men,
some of whom were brandishing swords and knives, while others loaded and
fired while hurrying forward. The order to fire was not given until the
leading ghazees were within eighty yards, and the mass of assailants not
more distant than 200 yards. Heavily struck then by volley on volley,
they recoiled but soon gathered courage to come on again; and for
several hours there was sharp fighting, repeated efforts being made to
carry the low eastern wall. So resolute were the Afghans that more than
once they reached the abattis, but each time were driven back with heavy
loss. About ten o'clock there was a lull and it seemed that the
attacking force was owning the frustration of its attempts, but an hour
later there was a partial recrudescence of the fighting and the
assailants once more came on. The attack, however, was not pushed with
much vigour and was soon beaten down, but the Afghans still maintained a
threatening attitude and the fire from the defences was ineffectual to
dislodge them. The General resolved to take their positions in flank,
and with this intent sent out into the open through the gorge in the
Behmaroo heights, four field-guns escorted by a cavalry regiment.
Bending to the right, the guns came into action on the right flank of
the Afghans, and the counter-stroke had immediate effect. The enemy
wavered and soon were in full retreat. The Kohistanee contingent, some
5000 strong, cut loose and marched away northward, with obvious
recognition that the game was up. The fugitives were scourged with
artillery and rifle fire, and Massy led out the cavalry, swept the
plain, and drove the lingering Afghans from the slopes of Siah Sung. The
false attack on the southern face from the King's Garden and the Mahomed
Shereef fort never made any head. Those positions were steadily shelled
until late in the afternoon, when they were finally evacuated, and by
nightfall all the villages and enclosures between Sherpur and Cabul were
entirely deserted. Some of those had been destroyed by sappers from the
garrison during the afternoon, in the course of which operation two
gallant engineer officers, Captain Dundas and Lieutenant Nugent, were
unfortunately killed by the premature explosion of a mine.

Mahomed Jan had been as good as his word; he had delivered his stroke
against Sherpur, and that stroke had utterly failed. With its failure
came promptly the collapse of the national rising. Before daybreak of
the 24th the formidable combination which had included all the fighting
elements of North-Eastern Afghanistan, and under whose banners it was
believed that more than 100,000 armed men had mustered, was no more. Not
only had it broken up; it had disappeared. Neither in the city, nor in
the adjacent villages, nor on the surrounding heights, was a man to be
seen. So hurried had been the Afghan dispersal that the dead lay
unburied where they had fallen. His nine days on the defensive had cost
General Roberts singularly little in casualties; his losses were
eighteen killed and sixty-eight wounded. The enemy's loss from first to
last of the rising was reckoned to be not under 3000.

On the 24th the cavalry rode far and fast in pursuit of the fugitives,
but they overtook none, such haste had the fleeing Afghans made. On the
same day Cabul and the Balla Hissar were reoccupied, and General Hills
resumed his functions as military governor of the city. Cabul had the
aspect of having undergone a sack at the hands of the enemy; the bazaars
were broken up and deserted and the Hindoo and Kuzzilbash quarters had
been relentlessly wrecked. Sir Frederick Roberts lost no time in
despatching a column to, the Kohistan to punish Meer Butcha by
destroying that chief's forts and villages, and to ascertain whether the
tribesmen of the district had dispersed to their homes. This was found
to be the case, and the column returned after having been out five days.
After making a few examples the General issued a proclamation of
amnesty, excluding therefrom only five of the principal leaders and
fomentors of the recent rising, and stipulating that the tribesmen
should send representatives to Sherpur to receive explanations regarding
the dispositions contemplated for the government of the country. This
policy of conciliation bore good fruit; and a durbar was held on January
9th, 1880, at which were present about 200 sirdars, chiefs, and headmen
from the Kohistan, Logur, and the Ghilzai country. Rewards were
presented to those chiefs who had remained friendly; the General
received the salaams of the assembled sirdars and then addressed them in
a firm but conciliatory speech.

The country remained still in a disturbed state, but there was little
likelihood of a second general rising. General Roberts was resolved,
however, to be thoroughly prepared to cope with that contingency should
it occur. Sherpur was encircled by a military road, and all cover and
obstructions for the space of 1000 yards outside the enciente were swept
away. Another road was constructed from Behmaroo village to the Siah
Sung heights and yet another from the south-eastern gateway direct to
the Balla Hissar, on both of which there were bridges across the Cabul
river. Along the northern face of Cabul from Deh Afghan to the Balla
Hissar, a road broad enough for guns was made, and another broad road
cut through the lower Balla Hissar. Another military road was built
through the Cabul gorge to the main Ghuznee and Bamian road in the
Chardeh valley. Strong forts were built on the Asmai and Sher Derwaza
heights and on the spur above the Balla Hissar, which, well garrisoned
and supplied adequately with provisions, water, and ammunition, would
enable Cabul as well as Sherpur to be held. The latter was greatly
strengthened, the eastern point of the Behmaroo heights being converted
into something like a regular fortress. Later, in March, when the Cabul
force had increased to a strength of about 11,500 men and twenty-six
guns, the command was formed into two divisions, of which the first
remained under the Lieutenant-General, the second being commanded by
Major-General John Ross. The line of communications was in charge of
Major-General Bright, and Brigadier-General Hugh Gough was the cavalry
commander in succession to Brigadier-General Massy. On the 2d of May,
Sir Donald Stewart arriving at Cabul from Candahar, took over the chief
command in North-Eastern Afghanistan from Sir Frederick Roberts. Sir
Donald's march from Candahar, which was an eventful one, is dealt with
in the next chapter.



CHAPTER VI: AHMED KHEL


While Sir Frederick Roberts had been fighting hard in North-Eastern
Afghanistan, Sir Donald Stewart had been experiencing comparative
tranquillity in his Candahar command. As soon as the news reached him of
the destruction of Cavagnari's mission he had promptly concentrated his
troops, and so early as the third week of September (1879) he was in a
position to carry out his orders to create a diversion in aid of
Roberts' advance on Cabul by making a demonstration in the direction of
Ghuznee and placing a garrison in Khelat-i-Ghilzai. No subsequent
movements of importance were undertaken in Southern Afghanistan during
the winter, and the province enjoyed almost unbroken quietude. In Herat,
however, disturbance was rife. Ayoub Khan, the brother of Yakoub Khan,
had returned from exile and made good his footing in Herat, of which
formerly he had been conjoint governor with Yakoub. In December he began
a hostile advance on Candahar, but a conflict broke out between the
Cabul and Herat troops under his command, and he abandoned for the time
his projected expedition.

[Illustration: ACTION AT AHMED KHEL. 20 Miles from GHUZNEE. 19th. April
1880.]

In the end of March Sir Donald Stewart began the march toward Cabul
which orders from India had prescribed. He left behind him in Candahar
the Bombay division of his force under the command of Major-General
Primrose, whose line of communication with the Indus valley was to be
kept open by Phayre's brigade, and took with him on the northward march
the Bengal division, consisting of two infantry brigades and a cavalry
brigade. The first infantry brigade was commanded by Brigadier-General
Barter, the second by Brigadier-General Hughes, and the cavalry brigade,
which divisional headquarters accompanied, by Brigadier-General
Palliser. Khelat-i-Ghilzai was reached on 6th April; the Bengal portion
of its garrison joined the division and the advance was resumed on the
following day. Until Shahjui, the limit of the Candahar province, the
march was uneventful; but beyond that place extreme difficulties were
experienced in procuring supplies, for the villages were found deserted
and the inhabitants had carried off, destroyed, or hidden their stores
of grain. The force was embarrassed by a horde of Hazaras, who swarmed
in wild irregularity on its flanks, plundering and burning with great
vindictiveness, eager to wreak vengeance on their Afghan foes. And it
had another although more distant companionship, in the shape of several
thousand hostile tribesmen and ghazees, whose fanaticism their moullas
had been assiduously inciting, and who marched day by day parallel with
the British right flank along the foothills at a distance of about eight
miles. Their attitude was threatening but it was not thought wise to
meddle with them, since their retreat over the hills could not well be
cut off, and since the policy of non-interference would tend to
encourage them to venture on a battle. The soundness of this reasoning
was soon to be made manifest.

On the night of April 18th the division was encamped at Mushaki, about
thirty miles south of Ghuznee. The spies that evening brought in the
information that the enemy had resolved on fighting on the following
morning, and that the position they intended to take up was the summit
of a low spur of the Gul Koh mountain ridge, bounding on the west the
valley followed by the road. This spur was said to project in a
north-easterly direction toward the Ghuznee river, gradually sinking
into the plain. During a great part of its length it flanked and
overhung the road, but near where it merged into the plain the road
passed over it by a low saddle at a point about six miles beyond
Mushaki. At dawn of the 19th the column moved off, Palliser leading the
advance, which Sir Donald Stewart accompanied, Hughes commanding the
centre, Barter bringing up the rear and protecting the baggage. An hour
later the enemy were visible in great strength about three miles in
advance, presenting the aspect of a vast body formed up on the spur and
on the saddle crossed by the road, and thus threatening Stewart at once
in front and on both flanks. The British general at once made his
dispositions. His guns were on the road in column of route. The three
infantry regiments of Hughes' brigade came up to the left of and in line
with the leading battery, the cavalry took ground on the plain on its
right, and a reserve was formed consisting of an infantry regiment, two
companies sappers and miners, and the General's escort of a troop and
two companies. Orders were sent back to Barter to send forward without
delay half the infantry of his brigade. In the formation described the
force resumed its advance until within striking distance. Then the two
batteries came into action on either side of the road; the horse-battery
on the right, the flat ground to its right being covered by the 2d
Punjaub Cavalry; the field-battery on the left. Sir Donald Stewart's
proper front thus consisted of the field and horse-batteries with their
supports, but since it was apparent that the greatest strength of the
enemy was on the higher ground flanking his left, it behoved him to show
a front in that direction also, and for this purpose he utilised Hughes'
three infantry regiments, of which the 59th was on the right, the 2d
Sikhs in the centre, and the 3d Goorkhas on the left. Part of the
reserve infantry was sent to make good the interval between the left of
the artillery and the right of the infantry.

The guns had no sooner come into action than the enemy in great masses
showed themselves on spur and saddle and plain, bent seemingly on an
attempt to envelop the position held by the British. 'Suddenly,' writes
Hensman, 'a commotion was observed in the most advanced lines of the
opposing army; the moullas could be seen haranguing the irregular host
with frantic energy, the beating of the tom-toms was redoubled, and then
as if by magic waves on waves of men--ghazees of the most desperate
type--poured down upon the plain, and rushed upon General Stewart's
force. The main body of the Afghan army remained upon the hill to watch
the ghazees in their reckless onslaught, and take advantage of any
success they might gain. The fanaticism of the 3000 or 4000 men who made
this desperate charge has perhaps never been equalled; they had 500 or
600 yards to cover before they could come to close quarters, and yet
they made nothing of the distance. Nearly all were well armed with
tulwars, knives, and pistols. Some carried rifles and matchlocks, while
a few--and those must have been resolute fanatics indeed--had simply
pikes made of bayonets, or pieces of sharpened iron fastened on long
shafts. Their attack broke with greatest violence on our flanks. On our
left flank the 19th Bengal Lancers were still moving into position when
the ghazees rushed in among them. In an instant they were hidden in the
cloud of dust and smoke, and then they galloped toward the right rear,
and struck into the reserve in rear of the Lieutenant-General and his
staff. All was confusion for a moment; the ammunition mules were
stampeded, and with the riderless horses of the lancers killed or
wounded in the _mêlée_, dashed into the headquarter staff. The ghazees
had continued their onward rush, and were engaged in hand-to-hand
fighting with our infantry. Some of them penetrated to within twenty
yards of the knoll on which the staff were watching the action, and so
critical was the moment that Sir Donald Stewart and every man of his
staff drew their swords and prepared for self-defence.' The hurried
retirement of the lancers had left the left flank bare. It was turned by
the fierce rush of the fanatics, who were actually in rear of the
leftward infantry regiment and in the heart of the British position. The
Goorkhas had been thrown into momentary confusion, but their colonel
promptly formed them into rallying squares, whose fire mowed down the
ghazees and arrested the headlong vehemence of their turning movement.
But it was not the British left only which was temporarily compromised
by the furious onslaught of the fanatics. Their enveloping charge broke
down the defence of the weakly-manned interval between the left of the
artillery and the right of the infantry. The detachments holding that
interval were forced back, fighting hand-to-hand as the sheer weight of
the assault compelled them to give ground; the 59th, in its effort to
throw back its right to cover the interval and protect the guns, was
thrown into confusion and gave ground; and the guns, their case shot
exhausted and the Afghans within a few yards of their muzzles, had to be
retired. The onslaught on the right front of the horse-battery was
delivered with great determination, but was held at bay and finally
crushed by the repeated charges of the 2d Punjaub cavalry.

Every man of the reserves was hurried into the fighting line; the
soldiers were steadied by the energetic efforts of their officers and
settled down to a steady and continuous fire from their breechloaders;
the guns poured their shells into the hostile masses; and the fire of
the forty-pounders on the left effectually arrested the attempt of the
Afghan horse to move round that flank. The hard-fought combat lasted for
an hour; at ten o'clock the 'cease fire' sounded, and the British
victory was signal. The enemy was dispersing in full flight, and the
cavalry was chasing the fugitives across the plain on the right. How
reckless had been the whirlwind charges of the ghazees was evidenced by
the extraordinary number of their dead whose corpses strewed the
battlefield. In no previous conflict between our troops and the Afghans
had the latter suffered nearly so heavily. More than 1000 dead were
counted on the field, and many bodies were carried away; on a moderate
computation their total loss must have been between 2000 and 3000, and
that in an estimated strength of from 12,000 to 15,000. The casualties
of the British force were seventeen killed and 124 wounded, of whom four
died of their wounds. The injuries consisted almost wholly of sword
slashes and knife stabs received in hand-to-hand encounters. The pursuit
was soon recalled, but the Hazaras took up the chase with ardour and in
the rancour of vengeance slew and spared not.

Sir Donald Stewart tarried on the field only long enough to bury his
dead and have his wounded attended to; and soon after noon his force
resumed its march. Ghuznee was reached on the 21st, where there was a
halt of three days. It had been reported that the indomitable
Mushk-i-Alum was raising the tribesmen of Zurmut and Shilgur to avenge
the defeat of Ahmed Khel, and a cavalry reconnaissance made on the 22d
had found a gathering of 2000 or 3000 men about the villages of Urzoo
and Shalez, six miles south-east of Ghuznee. On the morning of the 23d a
strong column commanded by Brigadier-General Palliser moved on the
villages, which were found occupied in considerable force. They were too
solidly built to be much injured by artillery fire, and the Afghans lay
close in the shelter they afforded. Palliser hesitated to commit his
infantry to an attack. Sir Donald Stewart having arrived, ordered the
infantry to carry the villages without delay, and the affair was soon
over, the tribesmen suffering severely from the rifle fire as they
evacuated the villages, and later in the pursuit made by the cavalry and
horse-artillery. On the following day the march toward Cabul was
resumed.

On the 16th April Major-General Ross had been despatched from Cabul by
Sir Frederick Roberts on the mission of joining hands with Stewart's
division. On the 20th Ross opened heliographic communication with Sir
Donald, and was informed of the latter's victory at Ahmed Khel. But the
junction of the two forces was not accomplished until the 27th; and in
the interval the force commanded by General Ross had received
considerable annoyance at the hands of tribal levies gathered by local
chiefs. The tribesmen interfered with the roadmaking operations of his
sappers in the vicinity of Sheikabad, and some fighting occurred in very
rugged country on the 23d. Trivial loss was experienced by his command,
but the demonstrations of the tribesmen evinced with what inveterate
determination, notwithstanding so many severe lessons, the Afghans
persisted in their refusal to admit themselves conquered. Driven away
with severe loss on the 25th, those indomitable hillmen and villagers
were back again on the following morning on the overhanging ridges; nor
were they dispersed by the 'resources of civilised warfare' until more
of them had paid with their lives the penalty of their obstinate
hostility. On the 28th, at Sheikabad, Sir Donald Stewart took leave of
the division which he had led from Candahar, and proceeded to Cabul with
General Ross' force to assume the chief command in North-Eastern
Afghanistan. His division turned aside into the Logur valley, where it
remained at until the final concentration about Cabul in anticipation of
the evacuation. By the reinforcement brought by Stewart the Cabul field
force was increased to a strength of about 18,000 men.



CHAPTER VII: THE AMEER ABDURRAHMAN


The occupation of Afghanistan by the British troops had been prolonged
far beyond the period originally intended by the authorities. But the
strain of that occupation was great, and although it had to be
maintained until there should be found a ruler strong enough to hold his
own after the evacuation, the decision was definitely arrived at to
withdraw from the country before the setting in of another winter. Mr
Lepel Griffin, a distinguished member of the political department of the
Indian Civil Service, reached Cabul on 20th March, his mission being to
further the selection and acceptance of a capable ruler to be left in
possession. The task was no easy one. There was little promise in any of
the Barakzai pretenders who were in Afghanistan, and in the address
which Mr Griffin addressed in Durbar to a number of sirdars and chiefs
in the middle of April, he preserved a tone at once haughty and
enigmatical. One thing he definitely announced, the Viceroy's decision
that Yakoub Khan was not to return to Afghanistan. The State was to be
dismembered. As to the future of Herat the speaker made no allusion; but
the province of Candahar was to be separated from Cabul and placed under
an independent Barakzai prince. No decision could for the present be
given in regard to the choice of an Ameer to rule over Cabul. The
Government desired to nominate an Ameer strong enough to govern his
people and steadfast in his friendship to the British; if those
qualifications could be secured the Government was willing and anxious
to recognise the wish of the Afghan people, and nominate an Ameer of
their choice.

But in effect the choice, so far as the English were concerned, had been
already virtually made. On the 14th of March Lord Lytton had telegraphed
to the Secretary of State advocating the 'early public recognition of
Abdurrahman as legitimate heir of Dost Mahomed, and the despatch of a
deputation of sirdars, with British concurrence, to offer him the
throne, as sole means of saving the country from anarchy'; and the
Minister had promptly replied authorising the nomination of Abdurrahman,
should he be found 'acceptable to the country and would be contented
with Northern Afghanistan.' Abdurrahman had known strange vicissitudes.
He was the eldest grandson of the old Dost; his father was Afzul Khan,
the elder brother of Shere Ali. After the death of the Dost he had been
an exile in Bokhara, but he returned to Balkh, of which province his
father had been Governor until removed by Shere Ali, made good his
footing there, and having done so advanced on Cabul, taking advantage of
Shere Ali's absence at Candahar. The capital opened its gates to him in
March 1866; he fought a successful battle with Shere Ali at Sheikabad,
occupied Ghuznee, and proclaimed his father Ameer. Those were triumphs,
but soon the wheel came round full circle. Afzul had but a short life as
Ameer, and Abdurrahman had to retire to Afghan Turkestan. Yakoub, then
full of vigour and enterprise, defeated him at Bamian and restored his
father Shere Ali to the throne in the winter of 1868. Abdurrahman then
once more found himself an exile. In 1870, after much wandering, he
reached Tashkend, where General Kaufmann gave him permission to reside,
and obtained for him from the Czar a pension of 25,000 roubles per
annum. Petrosvky, a Russian writer who professed to be intimate with him
during his period of exile, wrote of him that, 'To get square some day
with the English and Shere Ali was Abdurrahman's most cherished thought,
his dominant, never-failing passion.' His hatred of Shere Ali, his
family, and supporters, was intelligible and natural enough, but why he
should have entertained a bitter grudge against the English is not very
apparent; and there has been no overt manifestation of its existence
since he became Ameer. To Mr Eugene Schuyler, who had an interview with
him at Tashkend, he expressed his conviction that with £50,000 wherewith
to raise and equip an army he could attain his legitimate position as
Ameer of Afghanistan. Resolutely bent on an effort to accomplish this
purpose, he was living penuriously and saving the greater part of his
pension, and he hinted that he might have Russian assistance in the
prosecution of his endeavour. The selection of a man of such antecedents
and associations as the ruler of a 'buffer' state in friendly relations
with British India was perhaps the greatest leap in the dark on record.
Abdurrahman came straight from the position of a Russian pensionary; in
moving on Afghanistan he obeyed Russian instructions; his Tashkend
patrons had furnished him with a modest equipment of arms and money, the
value of which he undertook to repay if successful. It is of course
possible that those functionaries of a notoriously simple and ingenuous
government started and equipped him in pure friendly good nature,
although they had previously consistently deterred him. But there was
not a circumstance in connection with Abdurrahman that was not
suspicious. Three distinct hypotheses seem to present themselves in
relation to this selection as our nominee; that Lord Lytton had
extraordinary, almost indeed preternatural foresight and sagacity; that
he was extremely fortunate in his leap in the dark; that he desired to
bring to the naked _reductio ad absurdum_ the 'buffer state' policy.
When Abdurrahman began his movement is uncertain. So early as the middle
of January it was reported at Sherpur that he had left Tashkend, and was
probably already on the Afghan side of the Oxus. In a letter of February
17th Mr Hensman speaks of him as being in Badakshan, where his wife's
kinsmen were in power, and describes him as having a following of 2000
or 3000 Turcoman horsemen and possessed according to native report of
twelve lakhs of rupees. On the 17th of March Lord Lytton telegraphed to
the Secretary of State that he was in possession of 'authentic
intelligence that the Sirdar was in Afghan Turkestan, having lately
arrived there from Badakshan.'

[Illustration: The Ameer Abdurrahman.]

It was regarded of urgent importance to ascertain definitely the
disposition of Abdurrahman, and whether he was disposed to throw in his
lot with the British Government, and accept the position of its nominee
in Northern Afghanistan. The agent selected by Mr Griffin to open
preliminary negotiations was a certain Mohamed Surwar, Ghilzai, who had
been all his life in the confidential service of the Sirdar's family.
Surwar was the bearer of a formal and colourless letter by way simply of
authentication; but he also carried full and explicit verbal
instructions. He was directed to inform the Sirdar that since he had
entered Afghan Turkestan and occupied places there by force of arms, it
was essential for him to declare with what object he had come, and
whether actuated by friendly or hostile feelings toward the British
Government, which for its part had no ill-feeling toward him because of
his long residence within the Russian Empire and his notoriously close
relations with that power. That the British Government was able to
benefit him very largely in comparison with that of Russia; and that
wisdom and self interest alike suggested that he should at once open a
friendly correspondence with the British officers in Cabul. That his
opportunity was now come, and that the British Government was disposed
to treat him with every consideration and to consider most favourably
any representations he might make. It had no intention of annexing the
country, and only desired to see a strong and friendly chief established
at Cabul; and that consequently the present communication was made
solely in Abdurrahman's own interest, and not in that of the British
Government. He was desired to send a reply by Surwar, and later to
repair to Cabul, where he should be honourably received.

Surwar returned to Cabul on 21st April, bringing a reply from
Abdurrahman to Mr Griffin's letter. The tone of the reply was friendly
enough, but somewhat indefinite. In conversation with Surwar as reported
by the latter, Abdurrahman was perfectly frank as to his relations with
the Russians, and his sentiments in regard to them. It had been reported
that he had made his escape clandestinely from Tashkend. Had he cared to
stand well with us at the expense of truth, it would have been his cue
to disclaim all authority or assistance from the Russian Government, to
confirm the current story of his escape, and to profess his anxiety to
cultivate friendly relations with the British in a spirit of opposition
to the power in whose territory he had lived so long virtually as a
prisoner. But neither in writing nor in conversation did he make any
concealment of his friendliness toward the Russians, a feeling which he
clearly regarded as nowise incompatible with friendly relations with the
British Government. 'If,' said he to Surwar, 'the English will in
sincerity befriend me, I have no wish to hide anything from them'; and
he went on to tell how the Russians had forbidden him for years to make
any effort to interfere in Afghan affairs. This prohibition stood until
information reached Tashkend of the deportation of Yakoub Khan to India.
Then it was that General Kaufmann's representative said to him: 'You
have always been anxious to return to your country; the English have
removed Yakoub Khan; the opportunity is favourable; if you wish you are
at liberty to go.' The Russians, continued Abdurrahman, pressed him most
strongly to set out on the enterprise which lay before him. They lent
him 33,000 rupees, and arms, ammunition, and supplies; he was bound to
the Russians by no path or promise, but simply by feelings of gratitude.
'I should never like,' said he, 'to be obliged to fight them. I have
eaten their salt, and was for twelve years dependent on their
hospitality.'

Surwar reported Abdurrahman as in fine health and possessed of great
energy. He had with him a force of about 3000 men, consisting of four
infantry and two cavalry regiments, with twelve guns and some
irregulars. He professed his readiness, in preference to conducting
negotiations through agents, to go himself to Charikar in the Kohistan
with an escort, and there discuss matters with the English officers in
person. Surwar testified that the Sirdar had with him in Turkestan no
Russian or Russian agent, and this was confirmed through other sources.
He had sent forward to ascertain which was the easiest pass across the
Hindoo Koosh, but meanwhile he was to remain at Kondooz until he should
hear again from Mr Griffin.

While the wary Sirdar waited on events beyond the Hindoo Koosh he was
sending letters to the leading chiefs of the Kohistan and the Cabul
province, desiring them to be ready to support his cause. That he had an
influential party was made clear at a durbar held by Mr Griffin on April
21st, when a considerable gathering of important chiefs united in the
request that Abdurrahman's claim to the Ameership should be favourably
regarded by the British authorities. In pursuance of the negotiations a
mission consisting of three Afghan gentlemen, two of whom belonged to Mr
Griffin's political staff, left Cabul on May 2nd carrying to Abdurrahman
a letter from Mr Griffin intimating that it had been decided to withdraw
the British army from Afghanistan in the course of a few months, and
that the British authorities desired to leave the rulership in capable
and friendly hands; that they were therefore willing to transfer the
Government to him, recognise him as the head of the State, and afford
him facilities and even support in reorganising the Government and
establishing himself in the sovereignty. The mission found the attitude
of Abdurrahman scarcely so satisfactory as had been reported by Surwar,
and its members were virtual prisoners, their tents surrounded by
sentries. Abdurrahman's explanation of this rigour of isolation was that
he could not otherwise ensure the safety of the envoys; but another
construction conveyed to them was that they were kept prisoners that
they might not, by mixing with the people, learn of the presence on the
right bank of the Oxus of a Russian officer with whom Abdurrahman was
said to be in constant communication and on whose advice he acted. Their
belief was that Abdurrahman was entirely under Russian influence; that
Mr Griffin's letter after it had been read in Durbar in the camp was
immediately despatched across the Oxus by means of mounted relays; and
that Russian instructions as to a reply had not been received when they
left Turkestan to return to Cabul. They expressed their belief that the
Sirdar would not accept from British hands Cabul shorn of Candahar. They
had urged him to repeat in the letter they were to carry back to Cabul
the expression of his willingness to meet the British representative at
Charikar which had been contained in his letter sent by Surwar; but he
demurred to committing himself even to this slight extent. The letter
which he sent by way of reply to the weighty communication Mr Griffin
had addressed to him on the part of the Government of India that
official characterised as 'frivolous and empty, and only saved by its
special courtesy of tone from being an impertinence.'

An Afghan who had sat at Kaufmann's feet, Abdurrahman was not wholly a
guileless man; and the truth probably was that he mistrusted the Greeks
of Simla and the gifts they tendered him with so lavish protestation
that they were entirely for his own interest. There was very little
finesse about the importunity of the British that he should constitute
himself their bridge of extrication, so that they might get out of
Afghanistan without the dangers and discredit of leaving chaos behind
them. But Abdurrahman had come to know himself strong enough to reduce
to order that legacy of chaos if it should be left; and in view of his
future relations with his fellow Afghans he was not solicitous to be
beholden to the foreigners to any embarrassing extent. He knew, too, the
wisdom of 'masterly inactivity' in delicate conditions. And, again, he
had no confidence in our pledges. On the 4th of August, the day after
the meeting between him and Mr Griffin at Zimma, the latter wrote: 'They
(Abdurrahman and his advisers) feared greatly our intention was to rid
ourselves of a formidable opponent, and dreaded that if he had come
straight into Cabul he would have been arrested, and deported to India.'

A Liberal Government was now in office in England, and was urgent for
the speedy evacuation of Afghanistan. Lord Lytton had resigned and had
been succeeded as Viceroy by the Marquis of Ripon. Lieutenant-General
Sir Donald Stewart was in chief command at Cabul. A great number of
letters from Abdurrahman to chiefs and influential persons throughout
Afghanistan were being intercepted, the tone of which was considered
objectionable. He was reported to be in close correspondence with
Mahomed Jan, who had never ceased to be our bitter enemy. The fact that
negotiations were in progress between the British Government and
Abdurrahman had become matter of general knowledge throughout the
country, and was occasioning disquietude and excitement. So clear were
held the evidences of what was termed Abdurrahman's bad faith, but was
probably a combination of genuine mistrust, astute passivity, and shrewd
playing for his own hand, that it became a serious question with the
Indian Government on the arrival of the new Viceroy, whether it was good
policy to have anything more to do with him. It was resolved that before
breaking off intercourse the suggestion of Sir Donald Stewart and Mr
Griffin should be adopted, that a peremptory although still friendly
letter, demanding a definite acceptance or refusal of the proffers made,
within four days after the receipt, should be sent to Abdurrahman, with
a detailed explanation of the arrangements into which we were prepared
to enter with regard to him and the future of Afghanistan. A letter was
forwarded from Cabul on 14th June, in which Mr Griffin informed the
Sirdar that since the British Government admitted no right of
interference by foreign powers in Afghanistan, it was plain that the
Cabul ruler could have no political relations with any foreign power
except the English; and if any foreign power should attempt to interfere
in Afghanistan, and if such interference should lead to unprovoked
aggression on the Cabul ruler, then the British Government would be
prepared to aid him, if necessary, to repel it. As regarded limits of
the territory, the latter stated that the whole province of Candahar had
been placed under a separate ruler, except Sibi and Pisheen, which were
retained in British possession. Consequently the British Government was
unable to enter into any negotiations on those points, or in respect to
arrangements in regard to the north-western frontier which were settled
by the treaty of Gundamuk. Subject to those reservations, the British
Government was willing that Abdurrahman should establish over
Afghanistan--including Herat when he should have conquered it--as
complete and extensive authority as was swayed by any previous Ameer.
The British Government would exercise no interference in the internal
government of those territories nor would it demand the acceptance of an
English Resident anywhere within Afghanistan, although for convenience
of ordinary friendly intercourse it might be agreed upon that a
Mahomedan Agent of the British Government should be stationed at Cabul.

Abdurrahman's reply to this communication was vague and evasive, and was
regarded by Sir Donald Stewart and Mr Griffin as so unsatisfactory that
they represented to the Government of India, not for the first time,
their conviction of the danger of trusting Abdurrahman, the imprudence
of delaying immediate action, and the necessity of breaking off with him
and adopting other means of establishing a government in Cabul before
the impending evacuation. Lord Ripon, however, considered that 'as
matters stood an arrangement with Abdurrahman offered the most advisable
solution, while he doubted whether it would not be found very difficult
to enter into any alternative arrangement.' His Excellency's decision
was justified by the event. Meanwhile, indeed, Abdurrahman had started
on June 28th for the Kohistan. He crossed the Hindoo Koosh and arrived
on July 20th at Charikar, where he was welcomed by a deputation of
leading chiefs, while the old Mushk-i-Alum, who for some time, thanks to
Mr Griffin's influence, had been working in the interests of peace,
intimated on behalf of a number of chiefs assembled in Maidan that they
were ready to accept as Ameer the nominee of the British Government.

So propitious seemed the situation that it was considered the time had
come for formally acknowledging Abdurrahman as the new Ameer, and also
for fixing approximately the date of the evacuation of Cabul by the
British troops. The ceremony of recognition was enacted in a great
durbar tent within the Sherpur cantonment on the afternoon of July 22d.
The absence of Abdurrahman, and the notorious cause of that absence,
detracted from the intrinsic dignity of the occasion so far as concerned
the British participation in it; nor was the balance restored by the
presence of three members of his suite whom he had delegated to
represent him. A large number of sirdars, chiefs, and maliks were
present, some of whom had fought stoutly against us in December. Sir
Donald Stewart, who presided, explained to the assembled Afghans that
their presence and that of the officers of the British force had been
called for in order that the public recognition by the British
Government of the Sirdar Abdurrahman Khan as Ameer of Cabul should be
made known with as much honour as possible. Then Mr Griffin addressed in
Persian a short speech to the 'sirdars, chiefs, and gentlemen' who
constituted his audience. Having announced the recognition of
Abdurrahman by 'the Viceroy of India and the Government of Her Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen Empress,' he proceeded: 'It is to the
Government a source of satisfaction that the tribes and chiefs have
preferred as Ameer a distinguished member of the Barakzai family, who is
a renowned soldier, wise, and experienced. His sentiments towards the
British Government are most friendly; and so long as his rule shows that
he is animated by these sentiments, he cannot fail to receive the
support of the British Government.' Mr Griffin then intimated that the
British armies would shortly withdraw from Afghanistan; and in his
formal farewell there was a certain appropriate dignity, and a
well-earned tribute to the conduct of our soldiers during their service
within the Afghan borders. 'We trust and firmly believe,' said Mr
Griffin, 'that your remembrance of the English will not be unkindly. We
have fought you in the field whenever you have opposed us; but your
religion has in no way been interfered with; the honour of your women
has been respected, and every one has been secure in possession of his
property. Whatever has been necessary for the support of the army has
been liberally paid for. Since I came to Cabul I have been in daily
intercourse with you, but I have never heard an Afghan make a complaint
of the conduct of any soldier, English or native, belonging to Her
Majesty's army.' The durbar was closed by an earnest appeal by Sir
Donald Stewart to all the sirdars and chiefs that they should put aside
their private feuds and unite to support the new Ameer.

On August 3d Abdurrahman and Mr Griffin at length met, about sixteen
miles north of Cabul. His adherents were still full of excitement and
suspicion; but the Ameer himself was calm, cheerful, and dignified. The
conference between him and Mr Griffin lasted for three hours and was
renewed on the following day. 'He appeared,' wrote Mr Griffin, 'animated
by a sincere desire to be on cordial terms with the British Government,
and although his expectations were larger than the Government was
prepared to satisfy, yet he did not press them with any discourteous
insistence, and the result of the interview may be considered on the
whole to be highly satisfactory.' The tidings of the Maiwand disaster
had reached Sherpur by telegraph, and the Ameer was informed that a
necessity might occur for marching a force from Cabul to Candahar. His
reply was that the tribes might be hostile, but that if no long halts
were made by the way he would have no objections to such a march. In
this he showed his astuteness, since the defeat of Ayoub Khan by a
British army would obviously save him a contest. So willing to be of
service on this matter was he that when the march was decided on he sent
influential persons of his party in advance to arrange with the local
maliks to have supplies collected for the column. The arrangements made
with him were that he was to fall heir to the thirty guns of Shere Ali's
manufacture which the out-marching army was to leave in Sherpur, and was
to receive 19-1/2 lakhs of rupees (£190,500); ten lakhs of which were
given as an earnest of British friendship, and the balance was money
belonging to the Afghan State, which had gone into the commissariat
chest and was now restored. At the Ameer's earnest and repeated request
the forts which had been built around Cabul by the British army, were
not destroyed as had been intended, but were handed over intact to the
new Ameer.

It seemed that Sir Donald Stewart, who was to evacuate Sherpur on the
11th August, would leave Cabul without seeing Abdurrahman. But at the
last moment Mr Griffin succeeded in arranging an interview. It was held
early in the morning of the evacuation, in a tent just outside the
Sherpur cantonment, was quite public, and lasted only for quarter of an
hour. Abdurrahman was frank and cordial. He said that his heart was full
of gratitude to the British, and desired that his best thanks should be
communicated to the Viceroy. At the close of the interview he shook
hands with all 'who cared to wish him good-bye and good luck,' and sent
his principal officer to accompany the General on his first day's march,
which began immediately after the parting with Abdurrahman. Sir Donald
Stewart's march down the passes was accomplished without incident, quite
unmolested by the tribes. Small garrisons were temporarily left in the
Khyber posts, and the war-worn regiments were dispersed through the
stations of North-Western India.



CHAPTER VIII: MAIWAND AND THE GREAT MARCH


When in the early spring of 1880 Sir Donald Stewart quitted Candahar
with the Bengal division of his force, he left there the Bombay
division, to the command of which General Primrose acceded, General
Phayre assuming charge of the communications. The province during the
early summer was fairly quiet, but it was known that Ayoub Khan was
making hostile preparations at Herat, although the reports as to his
intentions and movements were long uncertain and conflicting. Shere Ali
Khan, who had been Governor of Candahar during Stewart's residence
there, had been nominated hereditary ruler of the province with the
title of 'Wali,' when it was determined to separate Candahar from
North-Eastern Afghanistan. On June 21st the Wali, who had some days
earlier crossed the Helmund and occupied Girishk with his troops,
reported that Ayoub was actually on the march toward the Candahar
frontier, and asked for the support of a British brigade to enable him
to cope with the hostile advance. There was reason to believe that the
Wali's troops were disaffected, and that he was in no condition to meet
Ayoub's army with any likelihood of success. After Stewart's departure
the strength of the British forces at Candahar was dangerously low--only
4700 of all ranks; but it was important to thwart Ayoub's offensive
movement, and a brigade consisting of a troop of horse-artillery, six
companies of the 66th, two Bombay native infantry regiments, and 500
native troopers, in all about 2300 strong, under the command of
Brigadier-General Burrows, reached the left bank of the Helmund on July
11th. On the 13th the Wali's infantry, 2000 strong, mutinied _en masse_
and marched away up the right bank of the river, taking with them a
battery of smooth bore guns, a present to Shere Ali Khan from the
British Government. His cavalry did not behave quite so badly, but, not
to go into detail, his army no longer existed, and Burrows' brigade was
the only force in the field to resist the advance of Ayoub Khan, whose
regular troops were reported to number 4000 cavalry, and from 4000 to
5000 infantry exclusive of the 2000 deserters from the Wali, with thirty
guns and an irregular force of uncertain strength.

[Illustration: ACTION AT MAIWAND. 27th. July 1880.]

Burrows promptly recaptured from the Wali's infantry the battery they
were carrying off, and punished them severely. The mutineers had removed
or destroyed the supplies which the Wali had accumulated for the use of
the brigade, and General Burrows therefore could no longer remain in the
vicinity of Girishk. The Helmund owing to the dry season was passable
everywhere, so that nothing was to be gained by watching the fords. It
was determined to fall back to Khushk-i-Nakhud, a point distant thirty
miles from Girishk and forty-five from Candahar, where several roads
from the Helmund converged and where supplies were plentiful. At and
near Khushk-i-Nakhud the brigade remained from the 16th until the
morning of the 27th July. While waiting and watching there a despatch
from army headquarters at Simla was communicated to General Burrows from
Candahar, authorising him to attack Ayoub if he thought himself strong
enough to beat him, and informing him that it was considered of the
greatest political importance that the force from Herat should be
dispersed and prevented from moving on toward Ghuznee. Spies brought in
news that Ayoub had reached Girishk, and was distributing his force
along the right bank between that place and Hydrabad. Cavalry patrols
failed to find the enemy until the 21st, when a detachment was
encountered in the village of Sangbur on the northern road about midway
between the Helmund and Khushk-i-Nakhud. Next day that village was found
more strongly occupied, and on the 23d a reconnaissance in force came
upon a body of Ayoub's horsemen in the plain below the Garmao hills,
about midway between Sangbur and Maiwand.

Those discoveries were tolerably clear indications of Ayoub's intention
to turn Burrows' position by moving along the northern road to Maiwand
and thence pressing on through the Maiwand pass, until at Singiri
Ayoub's army should have interposed itself between the brigade and
Candahar. There was certainly nothing impossible in such an endeavour,
since Maiwand is nearer Candahar than is Khushk-i-Nakhud. Why, in the
face of the information at his disposal and of the precautions enjoined
on him to hinder Ayoub from slipping by him toward Ghuznee through
Maiwand and up the Khakrez valley, General Burrows should have remained
so long at Khushk-i-Nakhud, is not intelligible. He was stirred at
length on the afternoon of the 26th, by the report that 2000 of Yakoub's
cavalry and a large body of his ghazees were in possession of Garmao and
Maiwand, and were to be promptly followed by Ayoub himself with the main
body of his army, his reported intention being to push on through the
Maiwand pass and reach the Urgundab valley in rear of the British
brigade. Later in the day Colonel St John, the political officer,
reported to General Burrows the intelligence which had reached him that
the whole of Ayoub's army was at Sangbur; but credence was not given to
the information.

The somewhat tardy resolution was taken to march to Maiwand on the
morning of the 27th. There was the expectation that the brigade would
arrive at that place before the enemy should have occupied it in force,
and this point made good there might be the opportunity to drive out of
Garmao the body of Yakoub's cavalry reported in possession there. There
was a further reason why Maiwand should be promptly occupied; the
brigade had been obtaining its supplies from that village, and there was
still a quantity of grain in its vicinity to lose which would be
unfortunate. The brigade, now 2600 strong, struck camp on the morning of
the 27th. The march to Maiwand was twelve miles long, and an earlier
start than 6.30 would have been judicious. The soldiers marched fast,
but halts from time to time were necessary to allow the baggage to come
up; the hostile state of the country did not admit of anything being
left behind and the column was encumbered by a great quantity of stores
and baggage. At Karezah, eight miles from Khushk-i-Nakhud and four miles
south-west of Maiwand, information was brought in that the whole of
Yakoub's army was close by on the left front of the brigade, and
marching toward Maiwand. The spies had previously proved themselves so
untrustworthy that small heed was taken of this report; but a little
later a cavalry reconnaissance found large bodies of cavalry moving in
the direction indicated and inclining away toward Garmao as the brigade
advanced. A thick haze made it impossible to discern what force, if any,
was being covered by the cavalry. About ten A.M. the advance guard
occupied the village of Mundabad, about three miles south-west of
Maiwand. West of Mundabad, close to the village, was a broad and deep
ravine running north and south. Beyond this ravine was a wide expanse of
level and partially cultivated plain across which, almost entirely
concealed by the haze, Ayoub's army was marching eastward toward Maiwand
village, which covers the western entrance to the pass of the same name.
If General Burrows' eye could have penetrated that haze, probably he
would have considered it prudent to take up a defensive position, for
which Mundabad presented many advantages. But he was firm in the
conviction that the enemy's guns were not up, notwithstanding the
reports of spies to the contrary; he believed that a favourable
opportunity presented itself for taking the initiative, and he resolved
to attack with all possible speed.

Lieutenant Maclaine of the Horse-Artillery, a gallant young officer who
was soon to meet a melancholy fate, precipitated events in a somewhat
reckless fashion. With the two guns he commanded he crossed the ravine,
galloped across the plain, and opened fire on a body of Afghan cavalry
which had just come within view. General Nuttall, commanding the cavalry
and horse-artillery, failing to recall Maclaine, sent forward in support
of him the four remaining guns of the battery. Those approached to
within 800 yards of the two advanced pieces, and Maclaine was directed
to fall back upon the battery pending the arrival of the brigade, which
General Burrows was now sending forward. It crossed the ravine near
Mundabad, advanced on the plain about a mile in a north-westerly
direction, and then formed up. There were several changes in the
dispositions; when the engagement became warm about noon the formation
was as follows:--The 66th foot was on the right, its right flank thrown
back to check an attempt made to turn it by a rush of ghazees springing
out of the ravine in the British front; on the left of the 66th were
four companies of Jacob's Rifles (30th Native Infantry) and a company of
sappers, the centre was occupied by the horse-artillery and smooth bore
guns, of which latter, however, two had been moved to the right flank;
on the left of the guns were the 1st Grenadiers somewhat refused, and on
the extreme left two companies of Jacob's Rifles. The cavalry was in the
rear, engaged in efforts to prevent the Afghans from taking the British
infantry in reverse. The position was radically faulty, and indeed
invited disaster. Both flanks were _en l'air_ in face of an enemy of
greatly superior strength; almost from the first every rifle was in the
fighting line, and the sole reserve consisted of the two cavalry
regiments. The baggage had followed the brigade across the ravine and
was halted about 1000 yards in rear of the right, inadequately guarded
by cavalry detachments.

For half-an-hour no reply was made to the British shell fire, and an
offensive movement at this time might have resulted in success. But
presently battery after battery was brought into action by the Afghans,
until half-an-hour after noon the fire of thirty guns was concentrated
on the brigade. Under cover of this artillery fire the ghazees from the
ravine charged forward to within 500 yards of the 66th, but the rifle
fire of the British regiment drove them back with heavy loss, and they
recoiled as far as the ravine, whence they maintained a desultory fire.
The enemy's artillery fire was well sustained and effective; the
infantry found some protection from it in lying down, but the artillery
and cavalry remained exposed and suffered severely. An artillery duel
was maintained for two hours, greatly to the disadvantage of the
brigade, which had but twelve guns in action against thirty well-served
Afghan pieces. The prostrate infantry had escaped serious punishment,
but by two P.M. the cavalry had lost fourteen per cent, of the men in
the front line, and 149 horses; the Afghan horsemen had turned both
flanks and the brigade was all but surrounded, while a separate attack
was being made on the baggage. Heat and want of water were telling
heavily on the sepoys, who were further demoralised by the Afghan
artillery fire.

A little later the smooth bore guns had to be withdrawn for want of
ammunition. This was the signal for a general advance of the Afghans.
Their guns were pushed forward with great boldness; their cavalry
streamed round the British left; in the right rear were masses of
mounted and dismounted irregulars who had seized the villages on the
British line of retreat. Swarms of ghazees soon showed themselves
threatening the centre and left; those in front of the 66th were still
held in check by the steady volleys fired by that regiment. At sight of
the ghazees, and cowed by the heavy artillery fire and the loss of their
officers, the two companies of Jacob's Rifles on the left suddenly fell
into confusion, and broke into the ranks of the Grenadiers. That
regiment had behaved well but it caught the infection of demoralisation,
the whole left collapsed, and the sepoys in utter panic, surrounded by
and intermingled with the ghazees, rolled in a great wave upon the
right. The artillerymen and sappers made a gallant stand, fighting the
ghazees hand-to-hand with handspikes and rammers, while the guns poured
canister into the advancing masses. Slade reluctantly limbered up and
took his four guns out of action; Maclaine remained in action until the
ghazees were at the muzzles of his two guns, which fell into the enemy's
hands. The torrent of mingled sepoys and ghazees broke in upon the 66th,
and overwhelmed that regiment. The slaughter of the sepoys was
appalling--so utterly cowed were they that they scarcely attempted to
defend themselves, and allowed themselves without resistance to be
dragged out of the ranks and killed. A cavalry charge was ordered in the
direction of the captured guns, but it failed and the troopers retired
in disorder. The infantry, assailed by hordes of fierce and triumphant
ghazees, staggered away to the right, the 66th alone maintaining any
show of formation, until the ravine was crossed, when the broken
remnants of the sepoy regiments took to flight toward the east and the
General's efforts to rally them were wholly unavailing. The 66th with
some of the sappers and grenadiers, made a gallant stand round its
colours in an enclosure near the village of Khig. There Colonel
Galbraith and several of his officers were killed, and the little body
of brave men becoming outflanked, continued its retreat, making stand
after stand until most were slain. The Afghans pursued for about four
miles, but were checked by a detachment of rallied cavalry, and
desisted. The fugitives, forming with wounded and baggage a straggling
column upwards of six miles long, crossed the waterless desert sixteen
miles wide, to Hanz-i-Madat, which was reached about midnight and where
water was found. From Asu Khan, where cultivation began, to Kokoran near
Candahar, the retreat was harassed by armed villagers and the troops had
to fight more or less all the way. Officers and men were killed,
Lieutenant Maclaine was taken prisoner, and five of the smooth bore guns
had to be abandoned because of the exhaustion of the teams. About midday
of the 28th the broken remnants of the brigade reached Candahar. When
the casualties were ascertained it became evident how disastrous to the
British arms had been the combat of Maiwand. Out of a total of 2476
engaged no fewer than 964 were killed. The wounded numbered 167; 331
followers and 201 horses were killed and seven followers and sixty-eight
horses wounded. Since Chillianwallah the British arms in Asia had not
suffered loss so severe.

The spirit of the Candahar force suffered materially from the Maiwand
disaster, and it was held that there was no alternative but to accept
the humiliation of a siege within the fortified city. The cantonments
were abandoned, the whole force was withdrawn into Candahar, and was
detailed for duty on the city walls. The effective garrison on the night
of the 28th numbered 4360, including the survivors of the Maiwand
brigade. So alert were the Afghans that a cavalry reconnaissance made on
the morning of the 29th, found the cantonments plundered and partly
burned and the vicinity of Candahar swarming with armed men. The whole
Afghan population amounting to about 12,000 persons, were compelled to
leave the city, and then the work of placing it in a state of defence
was energetically undertaken. Buildings and enclosures affording cover
too close to the enciente were razed, communication along the walls was
opened up, and gun platforms were constructed in the more commanding
positions. The walls were both high and thick, but they were
considerably dilapidated and there were gaps and breaks in the bastions
and parapet. The weak places as well as the gates were fronted with
abattis, the defects were made good with sandbags, and wire
entanglements and other obstructions were laid down outside the walls.
While this work was in progress the covering parties were in daily
collision with the enemy, and occasional sharp skirmishes occurred.

On the 8th August Ayoub opened fire on the citadel from Picquet hill, an
elevation north-westward of the city, and a few days later he brought
guns into action from the villages of Deh Khoja and Deh Khati on the
east and south. This fire, steadily maintained though it was day after
day, had little effect, and the return fire gave good results. It was
not easy to invest the city since on the west and north there was no
cover for the besiegers, but in Deh Khoja on the east there was ample
protection for batteries, and the ground on the south-west was very
favourable. Its advantages were improved so skilfully that it was at one
time believed there was a European engineer in Ayoub's camp. Deh Khoja
was inconveniently near the Cabul gate, and was always full of men. So
menacing was the attitude of the Afghans that a sortie was resolved on
against the village, which was conducted with resolution but resulted in
utter failure. The attempt was made on the morning of the 16th. The
cavalry went out to hinder reinforcements from entering the village from
the eastward. An infantry force 800 strong commanded by
Brigadier-General Brooke and divided into three parties, moved out later
covered by a heavy artillery fire from the city walls. The village was
reached, but was so full of enemies in occupation of the fortress-like
houses that it was found untenable, and the three detachments extricated
themselves separately. In the course of the retirement General Brooke
and Captain Cruickshank were killed. The casualties were very heavy; 106
were killed and 117 were wounded.

The tidings of the Maiwand disaster reached Cabul on the 29th July by
telegram from Simla. The intention of the military authorities had
already been intimated that the Cabul force should evacuate Afghanistan
in two separate bodies and by two distinct routes. Sir Donald Stewart
was to march one portion by the Khyber route; the other under Sir
Frederick Roberts was to retire by the Kuram valley, which Watson's
division had been garrisoning since Roberts had crossed the Shutargurdan
in September 1879. But the Maiwand news interfered with those
arrangements. Stewart and Roberts concurred in the necessity of
retrieving the Maiwand disaster by the despatch of a division from
Cabul. Roberts promptly offered to lead that division, and as promptly
the offer was accepted by Stewart. By arrangement with the latter
Roberts telegraphed to Simla urging that a force should be despatched
from Cabul without delay; and recognising that the authorities might
hesitate to send on this errand troops already under orders to return to
India, he took it on himself to guarantee that none of the soldiers
would demur, providing he was authorised to give the assurance that
after the work in the field was over they would not be detained in
garrison at Candahar. The Viceroy's sanction came on the 3d August. The
constitution and equipment of the force were entrusted to the two
generals; and in reply to questions His Excellency was informed that
Roberts would march on the 8th and expected to reach Candahar on 2d
September. Sir Donald Stewart gave his junior full freedom to select the
troops to accompany him, and placed at his disposal the entire resources
of the army in transport and equipment. It cannot truly be said that it
was the _elite_ of the Cabul field force which constituted the column
led by Roberts in his famous march to Candahar. Of the native infantry
regiments of his own original force which he had mustered eleven months
previously in the Kuram only two followed him to Candahar, the 5th
Goorkhas and 23d Pioneers, and the second mountain battery adhered to
him staunchly, Of his original white troops the 9th Lancers, as ever,
were ready for the march. His senior infantry regiment, the 67th, would
fain have gone, but the good old corps was weak from casualties and
sickness, and the gallant Knowles denied himself in the interests of his
men. The two Highland regiments, the 72d and 92d, had done an infinity
of fighting and marching, but both had received strong drafts, were in
fine condition, and were not to be hindered from following the chief
whom, though not of their northern blood, the stalwart sons of the mist
swore by as one man.

Sir Frederick Roberts had already represented that it would be impolitic
to require the native regiments to remain absent from India and their
homes for a longer period than two years. In the case of many of the
regiments that term was closely approached, and the men after prolonged
absence and arduous toil needed rest and were longing to rejoin their
families. 'It was not,' in the words of General Chapman, 'with eager
desire that the honour of marching to Candahar was sought for, and some
commanding officers of experience judged rightly the tempers of their
men when they represented for the General's consideration the claims of
the regiments they commanded to be relieved as soon as possible from
field service.... The enthusiasm which carried Sir Frederick Roberts'
force with exceptional rapidity to Candahar was an after-growth evolved
by the enterprise itself, and came as a response to the unfailing spirit
which animated the leader himself.' The constitution of the force was
made known by the general orders published on 3d August. It consisted of
three batteries of artillery commanded by Colonel Alured Johnson; of a
cavalry brigade of four regiments commanded by Brigadier-General Hugh
Gough; and of an infantry division of three brigades commanded by
Major-General John Ross. The first brigade was commanded by
Brigadier-General Herbert Macpherson, the second by Brigadier-General T.
D. Baker, and the third by Brigadier-General Charles Macgregor. Colonel
Chapman, R.A., who had served in the same capacity with Sir Donald
Stewart, was now Roberts' chief of staff. The marching out strength of
the column was about 10,000 men, of whom 2835 were Europeans. Speed
being an object and since the column might have to traverse rough
ground, no wheeled artillery or transport accompanied it; the guns were
carried on mules, the baggage was severely cut down, the supplies
carried were reduced to a minimum, and the transport animals, numbering
8590, consisted of mules, ponies, and donkeys. It was known that the
country could supply flour, sheep, and forage.

The time specified for the departure of the force from Sherpur was kept
to the day. On the 8th the brigades moved out a short distance into
camp, and on the following morning the march begun in earnest. The
distance from Cabul to Candahar is about 320 miles, and the march
naturally divides itself into three parts; from Cabul to Ghuznee,
ninety-eight miles; from Ghuznee to Khelat-i-Ghilzai, one hundred and
thirty-four miles; and from Khelat-i-Ghilzai to Candahar, eighty-eight
miles, Ghuznee was reached on the seventh day, the daily average being
fourteen miles--excellent work for troops unseasoned to long continuous
travel, tramping steadily in a temperature of from 84° to 92° in the
shade. When possible the force moved on a broad front, the brigades and
regiments leading by rotation, and halts were made at specified
intervals. The 'rouse' sounded at 2.45 A.M. and the march began at four;
the troops were generally in camp by two P.M. and the baggage was
usually reported all in by five; but the rear-guard had both hard work
and long hours. There was no sign of opposition anywhere, not a single
load of baggage was left behind, comparatively few men fell out
foot-sore, and the troops were steadily increasing in endurance and
capacity of rapid and continuous marching.

At Ghuznee there was no rest day, and the steadfast dogged march was
resumed on the morning of the 16th. The strain of this day's long tramp
of twenty miles to Yergati was severe, but the men rallied gamely, and
the General by dint of care and expedient was able to keep up the high
pressure. 'The method,' writes General Chapman, 'of such marching as was
now put in practice is not easy to describe; it combined the extreme of
freedom in movement with carefully regulated halts, and the closest
control in every portion of the column; it employed the individual
intelligence of each man composing the masses in motion, and called on
all for exertion in overcoming the difficulties of the march, in bearing
its extraordinary toil, and in aiding the accomplishment of the object
in view.' On the 20th a distance of twenty-one miles was covered--the
longest day's march made; the effort was distressing owing to the heat
and the lack of shade, but it was enforced by the absence of water.
There was no relaxation in the rate of marching, and Khelat-i-Ghilzai
was reached on the eighth day from Ghuznee, showing a daily average of
nearly seventeen miles.

The 24th was a halt day at Khelat-i-Ghilzai, where Sir Frederick Roberts
received a letter from General Primrose in Candahar, describing the
sortie made on the village of Deh Khoja and giving details of his
situation. It was resolved to evacuate Khelat-i-Ghilzai and take on its
garrison with the column, which on the 25th resumed its march to
Candahar. On his arrival at Tir Andaz on the following day the General
found a letter from Candahar, informing him that at the news of the
approach of the Cabul force Ayoub Khan had withdrawn from his investment
of Candahar, and had shifted his camp to the village of Mazra in the
Urgundab valley, nearly due north of Candahar. On the morning of the
27th General Hugh Gough was sent forward with two cavalry regiments a
distance of thirty-four miles to Robat, the main column moving on to
Khel Akhund, half way to the former place. Gough was accompanied by
Captain Straton the principal signalling officer of the force, who was
successful in communicating with Candahar, and in the afternoon Colonel
St John, Major Leach, and Major Adam rode out to Robat, bringing the
information that Ayoub Khan was engaged in strengthening his position in
the Urgundab valley, and apparently had the intention to risk the issue
of a battle. On the 28th the whole force was concentrated at Robat; and
as it was desirable that the troops should reach Candahar fresh and
ready for prompt action, the General decided to make the 20th a rest day
and divide the nineteen miles from Robat to Candahar into two short
marches.

The long forced march from Cabul may be regarded as having ended at
Robat. The distance between those two places, 303 miles, had been
covered in twenty days. It is customary in a long march to allow two
rest days in each week, but Roberts had granted his force but a single
rest day in the twenty days of its strenuous march. Including this rest
day, the average daily march was a fraction over fifteen miles. As a
feat of marching by a regular force of 10,000 men encumbered with
baggage and followers, this achievement is unique, and it could have
been accomplished only by thorough organisation and steady vigorous
energy. Sir Frederick Roberts was so fortunate as to encounter no
opposition. For this immunity he was indebted mainly to the stern
lessons given to the tribesmen by Sir Donald Stewart at Ahmed Khel and
Urzoo while that resolute soldier was marching from Candahar to Cabul,
and in a measure also to the good offices of the new Ameer. But it must
be remembered that Roberts had no assurance of exemption from hostile
efforts to block his path, and that he marched ever ready to fight. It
will long be remembered how when Roberts had started on the long swift
march, the suspense as to its issue grew and swelled until the strain
became intense. The safety of the garrison of Candahar was in grave
hazard; the British prestige, impaired by the disaster of Maiwand, was
trembling in the balance. The days passed, and there came no news of
Roberts and of the 10,000 men with whom the wise, daring little chief
had cut loose from any base and struck for his goal through a region of
ill repute for fanaticism and bitter hostility. The pessimists among us
held him to be rushing on his ruin. But Roberts marched light; he lived
on what the country supplied; he gave the tribesmen no time to
concentrate against him; and two days in advance of the time he had set
himself he reached Candahar at the head of a force in full freshness of
vigour and burning with zeal for immediate battle.

While halted at Robat on the 29th Sir Frederick heard from General
Phayre that his division had been retarded in its march by lack of
transport, but that he hoped to have it assembled at Killa Abdoolla on
the 28th, and would be able to move toward Candahar on the 30th. But as
Killa Abdoolla is distant some eight marches from Candahar, it was
obvious that General Phayre could not arrive in time to share in the
impending battle. On the morning of the 31st the Cabul force reached
Candahar. Sir Frederick Roberts, who had been suffering from fever for
some days, was able to leave his dhooly and mount his horse in time to
meet General Primrose and his officers to the east of Deh Khoja. The
troops halted and breakfasted outside the Shikapore gate, while General
Roberts entered the city and paid a visit to the Wali Shere Ali Khan. On
his arrival he assumed command of the troops in Southern Afghanistan;
and he remained resting in the city while the Cabul force marched to its
selected camping ground near the destroyed cantonments on the north-west
of Candahar. A few shots were fired, but the ground was occupied without
opposition. Baker's brigade was on the right, camped in rear of Picquet
hill, in the centre was Macpherson's brigade sheltered in its front by
Karez hill, and on the left among orchards and enclosures was
Macgregor's brigade, in rear of which was the cavalry.



CHAPTER IX: THE BATTLE OF CANDAHAR


Although Yakoub Khan had ceased to beleaguer Candahar, he had withdrawn
from that fortress but a very short distance, and the position he had
taken up was of considerable strength. The Urgundab valley is separated
on the north-west from the Candahar plain by a long precipitous spur
trending south-west from the mountainous mass forming the eastern
boundary of the valley further north. Where the spur quits the main
range, due north of the city, the Murcha Pass affords communication
between the Candahar plain and the Urgundab valley. The spur, its summit
serrated by alternate heights and depressions, is again crossed lower
down by an easy pass known as the Babawali Kotul. It is continued beyond
this saddle for about a mile, still maintaining its south-westerly
trend, never losing its precipitous character, and steeply scarped on
its eastern face; and it finally ends in the plain in a steep descent of
several hundred feet. The section of it from the Babawali Kotul to its
south-western termination is known as the Pir Paimal hill, from a
village of that name in the valley near its extremity. Ayoub Khan had
made his camp near the village of Mazra, behind the curtain formed by
the spur described, and about a mile higher up in the valley than the
point at which the spur is crossed by the road over the Babawali Kotul.
He was thus, with that point artificially strengthened and defended by
artillery, well protected against a direct attack from the direction of
Candahar, and was exposed only to the risk of a turning movement round
the extremity of the Pir Paimal hill. Such a movement might be made the
reverse of easy. A force advancing to attempt it must do so exposed to
fire from the commanding summit of the Pir Paimal; around the base of
that elevation there were several plain villages, and an expanse of
enclosed orchards and gardens which strongly held were capable of
stubborn defence. In the valley behind the Pir Paimal hill there was the
lofty detached Kharoti hill, the fire from which would meet in the teeth
a force essaying the turning movement; and the interval between the two
hills, through which was the access to the Mazra camps, was obstructed
by deep irrigation channels whose banks afforded cover for defensive
fire, and could be swept by a cross fire from the hills on either flank.

[Illustration: Kandahar.]

Sir Frederick Roberts at a glance had perceived that a direct attack by
the Babawali Kotul must involve very heavy loss, and he resolved on the
alternative of turning the Afghan position. A reconnaissance was made on
the afternoon of the 31st by General Gough, accompanied by Colonel
Chapman. He penetrated to within a short distance of the village of Pir
Paimal, where it was ascertained that the enemy were strongly
entrenched, and where several guns were unmasked. A great deal of
valuable information was obtained before the enemy began to interfere
with the leisurely withdrawal. The cavalry suffered little, but the Sikh
infantry covering the retirement of the reconnaissance were hard pressed
by great masses of Afghan regulars and irregulars. So boldly did the
enemy come on that the third and part of the first brigade came into
action, and the firing did not cease until the evening. The enemy were
clearly in the belief that the reconnaissance was an advance in force
which they had been able to check and indeed drive in, and they were
opportunely audacious in the misapprehension that they had gained a
success. The information brought in decided the General to attack on the
following morning; and having matured his dispositions, he explained
them personally to the commanding officers in the early morning of
September 1st. The plan of attack was perfectly simple. The Babawali
Kotul was to be plied with a brisk cannonade and threatened by
demonstrations both of cavalry and infantry; while the first and second
brigades, with the third in reserve, were to turn the extremity of the
Pir Paimal hill, force the enemy's right in the interval between that
hill and the Kharoti eminence, take in reverse the Babawali Kotul, and
pressing on up the Urgundab valley, carry Ayoub Khan's principal camp at
Mazra. The Bombay cavalry brigade was to watch the roads over the Murcha
and Babawali Kotuls, supported by infantry and artillery belonging to
General Primrose's command, part of which was also detailed for the
protection of the city; and to hold the ground from which the Cabul
brigades were to advance. General Gough was to take the cavalry of the
Cabul column across the Urgundab, so as to reach by a wide circuit the
anticipated line of the Afghan retreat.

Soon after nine A.M. the forty-pounders on the right of Picquet hill
began a vigorous cannonade of the Babawali Kotul, which was sturdily
replied to by the three field-guns the enemy had in battery on that
elevation. It had been early apparent that the Ayoub's army was in great
heart, and apparently meditating an offensive movement had moved out so
far into the plain as to occupy the villages of Mulla Sahibdad opposite
the British right, and Gundigan on the left front of the British left.
Both villages were right in the fair way of Roberts' intended line of
advance; they, the adjacent enclosures, and the interval between the
villages were strongly held, and manifestly the first thing to be done
was to force the enemy back from those advanced positions. Two batteries
opened a heavy shell fire on the Sahibdad village, under cover of which
Macpherson advanced his brigade against it, the 2d Goorkhas and 92d
Highlanders in his first line. Simultaneously Baker moved out to the
assault of Gundigan, clearing the gardens and orchards between him and
that village, and keeping touch as he advanced with the first brigade.

The shell fire compelled the Afghan occupants of Sahibdad to lie close,
and it was not until they were near the village that Macpherson's two
leading regiments encountered much opposition. It was carried at the
bayonet point after a very stubborn resistance; the place was full of
ghazees who threw their lives away recklessly, and continued to fire on
the British soldiers from houses and cellars after the streets had been
cleared. The 92d lost several men, but the Afghans were severely
punished; it was reported that 200 were killed in this village alone.
While a detachment remained to clear out the village, the brigade under
a heavy fire from the slopes and crest of the Fir Paimal hill moved on
in the direction of that hill's south-western extremity, the progress of
the troops impeded by obstacles in the shape of dry water-cuts,
orchards, and walled enclosures, every yard of which was infested by
enemies and had to be made good by steady fighting.

While Macpherson was advancing on Sahibdad, Baker's brigade had been
pushing on through complicated lanes and walled enclosures toward the
village of Gundigan. The opposition experienced was very resolute. The
Afghans held their ground behind loopholed walls which had to be carried
by storm, and they did not hesitate to take the offensive by making
vigorous counter-rushes. Baker's two leading regiments were the 72d and
the 2d Sikhs. The left wing of the former supported by the 5th Goorkhas,
the old and tried comrades of the 72d, assailed and took the village.
Its right wing fought its way through the orchards between it and
Sahibdad, in the course of which work it came under a severe enfilading
fire from a loopholed wall which the Sikhs on the right were attempting
to turn. Captain Frome and several men had been struck down and the hot
fire had staggered the Highlanders, when their chief, Colonel Brownlow,
came up on foot. That gallant soldier gave the word for a rush, but
immediately fell mortally wounded. After much hard fighting Baker's
brigade got forward into opener country, but was then exposed to the
fire of an Afghan battery near the extremity of the Pir Paimal spur, and
to the attacks of great bodies of ghazees, which were withstood stoutly
by the Sikhs and driven off by a bayonet attack delivered by the
Highlanders.

The two brigades had accomplished the first part of their task. They
were now in alignment with each other; and the work before them was to
accomplish the turning movement round the steep extremity of the Pir
Paimal ridge. Macpherson's brigade, hugging the face of the elevation,
brought up the left shoulder and having accomplished the turning
movement, swept up the valley and carried the village of Pir Paimal by a
series of rushes. Here, however, Major White commanding the advance of
the 92d, found himself confronted by great masses of the enemy, who
appeared determined to make a resolute stand about their guns which were
in position south-west of the Babawali Kotul. Reinforcements were
observed hurrying up from Ayoub's standing camp at Mazra, and the Afghan
guns on the Kotul had been reversed so that their fire should enfilade
the British advance. Discerning that in such circumstances prompt action
was imperative, Macpherson determined to storm the position without
waiting for reinforcements. The 92d under Major White led the way,
covered by the fire of a field-battery and supported by the 5th
Goorkhas and the 23d Pioneers. Springing out of a watercourse at the
challenge of their leader, the Highlanders rushed across the open
ground. The Afghans, sheltered by high banks, fired steadily and well;
their riflemen from the Pir Paimal slopes poured in a sharp cross fire;
their guns were well served. But the Scottish soldiers were not to be
denied. Their losses were severe, but they took the guns at the point of
the bayonet, and valiantly supported by the Goorkhas and pioneers,
shattered and dispersed the mass of Afghans, which was reckoned to have
numbered some 8000 men. No chance was given the enemy to rally. They
were headed off from the Pir Paimal slopes by Macpherson. Baker hustled
them out of cover in the watercourses in the basin on the left, and
while one stream of fugitives poured away across the river, another
rolled backward into and through Ayoub's camp at Mazra.

While Macpherson had effected his turning movement close under the
ridge, Baker's troops on the left had to make a wider sweep before
bringing up the left shoulder and wheeling into the hollow between the
Pir Paimal and the Kharoti hill. They swept out of their path what
opposition they encountered, and moved up the centre of the hollow,
where their commander halted them until Macpherson's brigade on the
right, having accomplished its more arduous work, should come up and
restore the alignment. Baker had sent Colonel Money with a half
battalion away to the left to take possession of the Kharoti hill, where
he found and captured three Afghan guns. Pressing toward the northern
end of the hill, Money to his surprise found himself in full view of
Ayoub's camp, which was then full of men and in rear of which a line of
cavalry was drawn up. Money was too weak to attack alone and sent to
General Baker for reinforcements which, however, could not be spared
him, and the gallant Money had perforce to remain looking on while the
advance of Macpherson and Baker caused the evacuation of Ayoub's camp
and the flight of his cavalry and infantry toward the Urgundab. But the
discovery and capture of five more Afghan cannon near Babawali village
was some consolation for the enforced inaction.

Considerable numbers of Ayoub's troops had earlier pushed through the
Babawali Pass, and moved down toward the right front of General Burrows'
Bombay brigade in position about Picquet hill. Having assured himself
that Burrows was able to hold his own, Sir Frederick Roberts ordered
Macgregor to move the third brigade forward toward Pir Paimal village,
whither he himself rode. On his arrival there he found that the first
and second brigades were already quite a mile in advance. The battle
really had already been won but there being no open view to the front
General Ross, who commanded the whole infantry division, had no means of
discerning this result; and anticipating the likelihood that Ayoub's
camp at Mazra would have to be taken by storm, he halted the brigades to
replenish ammunition. This delay gave opportunity for the entire
evacuation of the Afghan camp, which when reached without any further
opposition and entered at one P.M. was found to be deserted. The tents
had been left standing; 'all the rude equipage of a half barbarous army
had been abandoned--the meat in the cooking pots, the bread half kneaded
in the earthen vessels, the bazaar with its _ghee_ pots, dried fruits,
flour, and corn.' Ayoub's great marquee had been precipitately
abandoned, and the fine carpets covering its floor were left. But in the
hurry of their flight the Afghans had found time to illustrate their
barbarity by murdering their prisoner Lieutenant Maclaine, whose body
was found near Ayoub's tent with the throat cut. To this deed Ayoub does
not seem to have been privy. The sepoys who were prisoners with Maclaine
testified that Ayoub fled about eleven o'clock, leaving the prisoners in
charge of the guard with no instructions beyond a verbal order that they
were not to be killed. It was more than an hour later when the guard
ordered the unfortunate officer out of his tent and took his life.

The victory was complete and Ayoub's army was in full rout.
Unfortunately no cavalry were in hand for a pursuit from the Mazra camp.
The scheme for intercepting the fugitive Afghans by sending the cavalry
brigade on a wide movement across the Urgundab, and striking the line of
their probable retreat toward the Khakrez valley, may have been
ingenious in conception, but in practice did not have the desired
effect. But Ayoub had been decisively beaten. He had lost the whole of
his artillery numbering thirty-two pieces, his camp, an immense quantity
of ammunition, about 1000 men killed; his army was dispersed, and he
himself was a fugitive with a mere handful along with him of the army of
12,000 men whom he had commanded in the morning.

The battle of Candahar was an effective finale to the latest of our
Afghan wars, and it is in this sense that it is chiefly memorable. The
gallant men who participated in the winning of it must have been the
first to smile at the epithets of 'glorious' and 'brilliant' which were
lavished on the victory. In truth, if it had not been a victory our arms
would have sustained a grave discredit. The soldiers of Roberts and
Stewart had been accustomed to fight and to conquer against heavy
numerical odds, which were fairly balanced by their discipline and the
superiority of their armament. But in the battle of Candahar the
numerical disparity was non-existent, and Ayoub had immensely the
disadvantage as regarded trained strength. His force according to the
reckoning ascertained by the British general, amounted all told to
12,800 men. The strength of the British force, not including the detail
of Bombay troops garrisoning Candahar, was over 12,000. But this army
12,000 strong, consisted entirely of disciplined soldiers of whom over
one-fifth were Europeans. The accepted analysis of Ayoub's army shows it
to have consisted of 4000 regular infantry, 800 regular cavalry, 5000
tribal irregular infantry of whom an indefinite proportion was no doubt
ghazees, and 3000 irregular horsemen. In artillery strength the two
forces were nearly equal. When it is remembered that Charasiah was won
by some 2500 soldiers of whom only about 800 were Europeans, contending
against 10,000 Afghans in an exceptionally strong position and well
provided with artillery, Sir Frederick Roberts' wise decision to make
assurance doubly sure in dealing with Ayoub at Candahar stands out very
strikingly. Perforce in his battles around Cabul he had taken risks, but
because those adventures had for the most part been successful he was
not the man to weaken the certainty of an all-important issue by
refraining from putting into the field every soldier at his disposal.
And he was wisely cautious in his tactics. That he was strong enough to
make a direct attack by storming the Babawali Kotul and the Pir Paimal
hill was clear in the light of previous experience. But if there was
more 'brilliancy' in a direct attack, there was certain to be heavier
loss than would be incurred in the less dashing turning movement, and
Sir Frederick with the true spirit of a commander chose the more
artistic and less bloody method of earning his victory. It did not cost
him dear. His casualties of the day were thirty-six killed including
three officers, and 218 wounded among whom were nine officers.

The battle of Candahar brought to a close the latest of our Afghan wars.
Sir Frederick Roberts quitted Candahar on the 9th September, and marched
to Quetta with part of his division. On the 15th October, at Sibi, he
resigned his command, and taking sick leave to England sailed from
Bombay on the 30th October. His year of hard and successful service in
Afghanistan greatly enhanced his reputation as a prompt, skilful, and
enterprising soldier.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Pisheen and Sibi valleys are the sole tangible results remaining to
us of the two campaigns in Afghanistan sketched in the second part of
this volume--campaigns which cost the lives of many gallant men slain in
action or dead of disease, and involved the expenditure of about twenty
millions sterling. Lord Beaconsfield's vaunted 'scientific frontier,'
condemned by a consensus of the best military opinions, was rejected by
the Liberal Government which had recently acceded to power, whose
decision was that both the Khyber Pass and the Kuram valley should be
abandoned. On this subject Sir Frederick Roberts wrote with great
shrewdness: 'We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best
thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. It may not be
very flattering to our _amour propre_, but I feel sure I am right when I
say that the less the Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us.
Should Russia in future years attempt to conquer Afghanistan, or invade
India through it, we should have a better chance of attaching the
Afghans to our interest if we avoid all interference with them in the
meantime.' During the winter of 1880-1 the Khyber and the Kuram were
evacuated by the British troops, the charge of keeping open and quiet
the former being entrusted to tribal levies paid by the Indian
Government.

So far, then, as regarded the north-western frontier, the _status quo
ante_ had been fallen back upon. But there was a keen difference of
opinion in regard to the disposition of the salient angle furnished by
Candahar. Throughout the British occupation and the negotiations with
Abdurrahman, the annexation of Candahar had been consistently
repudiated. The intention on our part announced was to separate it from
Cabul, and to place it under the independent rule of a Barakzai prince.
Such a prince had actually been appointed in Shere Ali Khan, and
although that incompetent Sirdar was wise enough to abdicate a position
for which he was not strong enough, this action did not relieve us from
our pledges against annexation. Nevertheless many distinguished men
whose opinions were abstractly entitled to weight, were strongly in
favour of our retention of Candahar. Among those were the late Lord
Napier of Magdala, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir Edward Hamley, Sir Donald
Stewart, and Sir Frederick Roberts. Among the authorities opposed to the
occupation of Candahar were such men as the late Lord Lawrence and
General Charles Gordon, Sir Robert Montgomery, Lord Wolseley, Sir Henry
Norman, Sir John Adye, and Sir Archibald Alison.

While the professional experts differed and while the 'Candahar debates'
in Parliament were vehement and prolonged, the issue, assuming that
fidelity to pledges was still regarded as a national virtue, was
perfectly clear and simple. In the frank words of Sir Lepel Griffin: 'We
could not have remained in Candahar without a breach of faith.' And he
added with unanswerable force: 'Our withdrawal was in direct accordance
with the reiterated and solemn professions which I had been instructed
to make, and the assurances of the Government of India to the chiefs and
people of Cabul.... The wisdom of the policy of retiring from Candahar
may be a fair matter for argument, but it was one on which both
Governments were agreed. I am convinced that withdrawal, after our
public assurances, was the only practicable policy.'

Lord Ripon acted on his instructions 'to keep in view the paramount
importance of effecting a withdrawal from Candahar on the earliest
suitable occasion.' The abdication of the Wali Shere Ali Khan cleared
the air to some extent. A British garrison under the command of General
Hume wintered in Candahar. Ayoub Khan was a competitor for the rulership
of the southern province, but he received no encouragement, and after
some negotiation the Ameer Abdurrahman was informed that Candahar was
reincorporated with the kingdom of Afghanistan, and it was intimated to
him that the capital would be given over to the Governor, accompanied by
a suitable military force, whom he should send. On the 1st of April an
Afghan force entered Candahar, followed presently by Mahomed Hassan
Khan, the Governor nominated by the Ameer. General Hume soon after
marched out, and after halting for a time in the Pisheen valley to watch
the course of events in Candahar, he continued his march toward India.
The restless Ayoub did not tamely submit to the arrangement which gave
Candahar to Abdurrahman. Spite of many arduous difficulties, spite of
lack of money and of mutinous troops, he set out toward Candahar in July
1881. Mahomed Hassan marched against him from Candahar, and a battle was
fought at Maiwand on the anniversary of the defeat of General Burrows on
the same field. Ayoub was the conqueror, and he straightway took
possession of the capital and was for the time ruler of the province.
But Abdurrahman, subsidised with English money and English arms, hurried
from Cabul, encountered Ayoub outside the walls of Candahar, and
inflicted on him a decisive defeat. His flight to Herat was followed up,
he sustained a second reverse there, and took refuge in Persia.
Abdurrahman's tenure of the Cabul sovereignty had been at first
extremely precarious; but he proved a man at once strong, resolute, and
politic. In little more than a year after his accession he was ruler of
Shere Ali's Afghanistan; Candahar and Herat had both come to him, and
that without very serious exertion. He continues to reign quietly,
steadfastly, and firmly; and there never has been any serious friction
between him and the Government of India, whose wise policy is a studied
abstinence from interference in the internal affairs of the Afghan
kingdom.

       *       *       *       *       *

INDEX

A.

ABDOOLAH JAN, to be Shere Ali's successor.

ABDURRAHMAN, the Ameer, son of Afzul Khan, the eldest son of Dost
Mahomed, his early career; his connection with Russia; sounded by the
British Government; Sir Lepel Griffin's mission to; enters Afghanistan;
recognised as Ameer; defeats Ayoub Khan; his subsequent reign.

ADAM, Major.

ADVE, Sir John, against keeping Candahar.

AFGHANISTAN, events in, previous to the first Afghan war; 'a bundle of
provinces;' its condition under Abdurrahman.

AFGHAN WAR, FIRST, the responsibility for; objects of and preparations
for.

AFGHAN WAR, SECOND, the policy of England leading to; the force employed
in; tangible results to England.

AFREEDI HILLMEN oppose Pollock.

AFZUL KHAN, the Ameer, eldest son of Dost Mahomed, and father of
Abdurrahman.

ARMED KHEL, battle of.

AIREY, Captain, a hostage.

AKBAR KHAN, son of Dost Mahomed, joins his father with a force; covers
his father's retreat; in Khooloom; among the Ghilzais; in Cabul;
negotiations with Macnaghten; interview with and murder of Macnaghten;
forecast of his intentions; meets the retreating British army at
Bootkhak, his demands; conduct to the fugitives; offers to treat;
invests Jellalabad; resistance to Pollock; treatment of his captives;
sends the body of Elphinstone to Jellalabad.

AKRAM KHAN put to death by Timour.

ALI KHEL.

ALI MUSJID FORT, the, key of the Khyber pass; partially destroyed; Sir
Sam Browne's attack upon.


ALISON, Sir Archibald, against keeping Candahar.

AMEENOOLLA KHAN, an Afghan chief.

AMEER. See SHERE ALI, YAKOUB KHAN, ABDURRAHMAN, AFZUL KHAN.

ANDERSON, Captain, skirmish with the Ghilzais.

ANDERSON, Mrs, her child.

ANQUETIL, Brigadier, in command of Shah Soojah's contingent; exertions
during the retreat; replaces Shelton in command.

APPLEYARD, at Sir S. Browne's attack upon Ali Musjid.

ASMAI HEIGHTS, the, Afghans driven from; reoccupied; beacon on;
fortified by Sir F. Roberts.

ASU KHAN.

ATTA MAHOMED KHAN, overcome by General Nott.

ATTOCK RIVER, the.

AUCKLAND, Lord; becomes Governor-General of India 1836, his undecided
policy; treatment of Dost Mahomed's appeal; his policy becomes warlike;
treaty with Runjeet Singh and Shah Soojah; determines to support Shah
Soojah with an army; objects of the expedition; the Simla manifesto;
disagreement with Macnaghten; forbids an expedition against Herat; the
Home Government presses the reconsideration of the Afghan questions;
after the disasters; has the credit of Pollock's appointment.

AUSHAR; Massy at.

AYOUB KHAN, brother of Yakoub, in command of Herat regiments; in
possession of Herat; his victory at Maiwand; besieges Cabul; shifts to
Mazra; defeated by Sir F. Roberts; drives Mahomed Hassan out of
Candahar, defeated by Abdurrahman.

B.

BABA WALI KOTUL, pass of the; cannonaded; village of.

BACKHOUSE, Captain, on the council of war at Jellalabad; his diary.

BADAKSHAN.

BADIABAD, the fort of, the captives at the.

BAGHWANA, guns abandoned at; recovered.

BAHADUR KHAN refuses to furnish forage.

BAJGAH.

BAKER, Brigadier-General; battle of Charasiah; pursues the mutinous
sepoys; in the Maidan valley; marches to Sherpur; takes the
Takht-i-Shah; in the attack on the cantonments; takes the Meer Akhor
fort; in the Great March; his position at Candahar, the battle.

BALKH.

BALLA HISSAR, the; evacuated; Cavagnari at; Sir F. Roberts at;
explosions in, evacuated; road cut through.

BAMIAN, hill country of; Abdurrahman defeated by Yakoub Khan at.

BARAKZAI TRIBE, the.

BARTER, Brigadier-General, commands the infantry at Ahmed Khel.

BEACONSFIELD, Lord, 'scientific frontier'.

BEHMAROO RIDGE; village of.

BELLEW, Captain, at the storming of the Rikabashee fort.

BELOOCH PROVINCES, the.

BENI BADAM, Baker treacherously attacked at.

BENI HISSAR.

BENTINCK, Lord William; his opinion of the first Afghan expedition.

BERLIN, Treaty of.

BHAWULPORE.

BHURTPORE.

BIDDULPH, General, in command of the Quetta force.

BIRD, Lieutenant, at the storming of the Rikabashee fort.

BOKHARA.

BOLAN PASS, the.

BOOTKHAK.

BOYD, Mrs, in the retreat.

BROADFOOT, Captain George, his sappers; in the Gundamuk council of war;
garrison engineer at Jellalabad; urges Sale to hold the place; his
account of the council of war.

BROADFOOT, with Fraser's Bengal Cavalry, killed at Purwan Durrah.

BROADFOOT, William, Secretary to Sir A. Burnes, murdered with him.

BROOKE, Brigadier-General, killed in attack on Deh Khoja.

BROWNE, Sir Sam, in command of the Khyber column; attack on the Ali
Musjid; reports the death of Shere Ali; receives Yakoub Khan; commands
in 'the Death March'.

BROWNLOW, Colonel, of the 72d Highlanders, in the attack on the
cantonments; killed in the battle of Candahar.

BROUGHTON, Lord. _See_ SIR JOHN CAM HOBHOUSE.

BRYDON, Dr, sole survivor of the Khyber disaster.

BURNES, Sir Alexander, sent by Lord Auckland to Cabul; favourable to
Dost Mahomed, reprimanded by his superiors, leaves Cabul; re-enters with
Shah Soojah; his opinion of Shah Soojah's ministers; advice to
Macnaghten; his character; murdered; revenged.

BURROWS, Brigadier-General, in the Maiwand disaster; in the battle of
Candahar.

BUTLER'S, Lady, picture.

BUTSON, Captain, killed at Sherpur.

C.

CABUL, PASS OF KHOORD; description of, slaughter in; Pollock's army
marches up.

CABUL, Shah Soojah ousted from the throne of; Shah Soojah re-enters;
British troops in; Dost Mahomed surrenders at; murder of Burnes at; Shah
Soojah murdered at; Nott arrives at; punished; Cavagnari at; the Sherpur
cantonments, north of; Roberts near; Mahomed Jan plans to take;
hostility of villages round; Mushk-i-Alum governor of; re-occupied by
Roberts; fortifications and communications improved; Sir Lepel Griffin
arrives at; holds a durbar at.

CAMPBELL, sent by Shah Soojah to assist Burnes, fails.

CANDAHAR, siege of, by Shah Soojah, relieved by Dost Mahomed; entered by
Shah Soojah and Keane; occupied by British troops; independent province
of; Timour, Shah Soojah's viceroy at; British troops to leave; Nott in;
Afghans beaten off; General Stuart's march on; evacuated; to be
separated from Cabul; Shere Ali Khan governor of; Burrow's army
withdrawn into; Sir F. Roberts marches on; arrives at; battle of;
question of retention of; battle between Abdurrahman and Ayoub Khan at.

CAVAGNARI, Sir Louis; ineffectual attempt to enter Cabul; correspondence
with Yakoub Khan; at Cabul, his character; the massacre.

CHAMBERLAIN, Sir Neville, abortive attempt to enter Afghanistan as
Envoy.

CHAMBERS, Colonel, defeats the Ghilzais.

CHAPMAN, Colonel (now Major-General) E. F., chief of the staff; in the
Great March; reconnaissance before the battle of Candahar.

CHARASIAH, battle of.

CHARDEH VALLEY, the.

CHARIKAR, capital of the Kohistan, troops quartered in; disaster of;
punishment of; Abdurrahman arrives at.

CHISHOLM, Captain, wounded at the Seah Sung ridge.

CLARK, Lieutenant-Colonel.

CLELAND, gallant conduct of.

CLERK, Mr, demands right of way through the Punjaub.

CLIBBORN, Colonel, defeated by Beloochees.

COBBE, leads the attack of the Peiwar Kotul.

CODRINGTON, commandant of Charikar; killed; revenged.

COMMISSARIAT FORT, the.

CONOLLY, Lieutenant John; a hostage.

COOK, Major, V.C., of the Goorkha regiment, killed at the Takht-i-Shah.

COTTON, Sir Willoughby, commands first infantry division; on the march
to Cabul; in chief command in Afghanistan; a respectable nonentity.'.

CRAIGIE, defence of Khelat-i-Ghilzai.

CRISPIN, with Eraser's Bengal Cavalry, killed at Purwan Durrah.

CRUICKSHANK, Captain, killed at the attack on Deh Khoja.

CUNYNGHAM, Lieutenant Dick, V.C., gallant conduct at the Takht-i-Shah.

CUTCH.

D.

DADUR, in.

DAKKA.

DAOUD SHAH, Yakoub Khan's general; accompanies the Ameer to Roberts'
camp.

DEH-I-AFGHAN, a suburb of Cabul.

DEH KHATI.

DEH KHOJA.

DEH MAZUNG.

DEHRAWAT.

DEIG.

DENNIE, Colonel, of the 13th, at the taking of Ghuznee; in command at
Bamian; replaces Sale in command; heads a sortie from Jellalabad; in the
council of war; commands the centre at the great sortie and is killed.

DENNIS, Colonel.

DODGIN, Captain, valour in the retreat.

DOORANEES, the.

DOST MAHOMED, origin; early career; asks for terms; forsaken by his
troops; a fugitive; in Bokhara and Khooloom; at Bamian and Kohistan;
surrenders to Macnaghten; sent into British India; to be allowed to
return to Afghanistan; his return to his sovereignty; dies.

DREW, Colonel, enters the Peiwar Kotul.

DUNCAN, General.

DUNDAS, Captain, killed at Sherpur.

DUNHAM-MASSY, Brigadier-General.

DURAND, on the siege of Herat; on Lord Auckland's manifesto; on
Macnaghten's appointment; at siege of Ghuznee; on the restoration of
Shah Soojah; on Dost Mahomed's surrender; on the retreat on Jellalabad;
on Macnaghten's ill-faith.

E.

EDWARDES, Sir Henry, on Lord Auckland's manifesto.

ELLENBOROUGH, Lord, on Sale's brigade; first manifesto; vacillations;
orders the removal of the gates of Somnath from Sultan Mahmoud's tomb;
reception of the returning armies.

ELLIS, Mr, British Envoy to Persia.

ELPHINSTONE, General; succeeds Cotton in chief command; his character
and infirmities; orders Sale to return to Cabul; about to leave India;
orders the abandonment of the Commissariat fort; the Duke of
Wellington's verdict on his position; hopeless; 'scents treachery';
calls upon Pottinger to open negotiations; in the retreat; consents to
hand over the ladies; and their husbands; refuses Akbar's proposal that
the Europeans should lay down their arms; conference; made a hostage; at
Jugdulluk; death.

ELPHINSTONE, Mr, on the Afghan expedition.

ENGLAND, Brigadier, defeated at the Kojuk pass.

EVATT, Surgeon-Major, on the 'Death March.'

EYRE, Vincent, opinion on Shelton's defeat at Behmaroo; description of
the sufferings of the retreat; his 'Captivity.'.

F.

FANE, Sir Harry, Commander-in-Chief; heads the expedition to Cabul.

FARRINGTON, routs Uktar Khan at Zemindawar.

FEROZEPORE.

FORBES, Lieutenant, of the 92d Highlanders, killed at the Takht-i-Shah.

FRASER'S BENGAL CAVALRY at Purwan Durrah.

FROME, Captain, killed in the battle of Candahar.

FUTTEHABAD.

FUTTEH ALI, Shah of Persia.

FUTTEH JUNG, second son and successor of Shah Soojah; abdicates.

FUTTEH KHAN, eldest brother of Dost Mahomed, his fate.

G.

GALBRAITH, Colonel, killed at Maiwand.

GARMAO HILLS, the.

GHAZEES.

GHILZAIS, the; description of; brave conduct of under the 'Gooroo,';
gain terms from Macgregor; attack Sale's force; slaughter by, in the
Khoord Cabul; hang on the rear of the retreat; slaughter by, at
Jugdulluk; attack Pollock; harass Money.

GHIRISHK.

GHUZNEE. siege of; occupied by British troops; surrendered to the
Afghans; retaken by Nott.

GOAD, Captain, killed.

GOOL MAHOMED KHAN.

GOORKHA REGIMENTS.

GOOROO, the Ghilzai leader.

GORDON, Colonel, his command in the attack on the Spingawai and Peiwar
Kotuls.

GORDON, General Charles, against keeping Candahar.

GOREBUND RIVER, the.

GORTSCHAKOFF.

GOUGH, Captain, with the 9th Lancers; in the charge of December 11th.

GOUGH, General Charles.

GOUGH, General Hugh.

GRANT, Dr, gallant conduct at Charikar.

GREEN, in the Retreat.

GRENADIERS, 1st, the.

GRIFFIN, Sir Lepel, his mission to arrange for the succession to Yakoub
Khan; on the retention of Candahar.

GRIFFITHS, Major, gallant march from Kubbar-i-Jubbar; storms Mahomed
Shereef's fort.

GUIDES, the; in the attack on the Beni-Hissar.

GUL KOH RIDGE, the.

GUNDAMUK, Sale's council of war at; final tragedy of the Retreat near;
evacuated; Pollock's troops concentrate at; treaty of 1879; conclusion
of.

GUNDIGAN.

GWAGA PASS, the.

H.

HABIB KILLA.

HADJI KHAN KHAKUR.

HAINES, Sir F., Commander-in-Chief.

HALL, Captain.

HAMILTON, Lieutenant W. R. P., V.C., with Cavagnari at Cabul; killed.

HAMLEY, Sir Edward, in favour of keeping Candahar.

HANZ-I-MADAT.

HARDY, Lieutenant, killed.

HASSAN ABDUL.

HASSAN KHAN, governor of Maidan, killed.

HAUGHTON, desperately wounded in the Charikar disaster.

HAVELOCK, Captain Henry, aide-de-camp to Sir W. Cotton; on Shah Soojah's
reception in Candahar; description of Shah Soojah; staff officer to
Sale; authenticates Broadfoot's account of Sale's council of war at
Jellalabad; in the great sortie from Jellalabad.

HAY, at the siege of Ghuznee.

HAZARAS, horde of.

HELMUND RIVER, the.

HENSMAN, Mr; on the defence of Sherpur; on the battle of Ahmed Khel; on
Abdurrahman.

HERAT, Persia and; siege of, by the Persians; independent; Macnaghten
presses for an expedition against; Ayoub Khan in; Ayoub driven from, by
Abdurrahman.

HIGHLANDERS, the 72d and 92d.

HILLS, Major-General, governor of Cabul.

HINDOO KOOSH, the.

HOBHOUSE, Sir John Cam, Lord Broughton, president of the Board of
Control, claims the responsibility of the first Afghan war in 1851,
contradictory statement in 1842.

HUFT KOTUL, the; last stand of the Afghans at.

HUGHES, Brigadier-General, at Ahmed Khel.

HUME, General.

HYDERABAD.

HYDER KHAN, son of Dost Mahomed, and governor of Ghuznee, taken
prisoner.

HYDRABAD.

I.

INDIAN CONTINGENT in the Mediterranean, the.

INDIKEE, mutinous sepoys captured in.

INDUS, the.

IRRAWADY, the.

ISTALIF, a Kohistan village destroyed.

JACOB'S RIFLES (30th Native Infantry) at the Maiwand disaster.

JADRAN.

JAZEE, Anderson encounters Ghilzais at.

JELLALABAD; British troops quartered in; march on resolved upon;
Durand's opinion of; Akbar's conditions for the evacuation of; defence
of; Pollock at; Elphinstone buried at; partially destroyed; Sir S.
Browne's camp near; disaster to the 10th Hussars near.

JENKINS, Colonel, of the Guides; storms the Asmai heights; adroit
evacuation of Asmai heights.

JENKINS, William, Secretary to Cavagnari.

JOHNSON, Captain, in charge of the Treasury at Cabul; hostage; arranges
the redemption of the captives.

JOHNSON, Colonel Alured, commands the artillery in the Great March.

JUBBUR KHAN, brother to Dost Mahomed, 28; in charge of Dost Mahomed's
family at Khooloom.

JUGDULLUK VALLEY, the; retreating column harassed at; slaughter at;
captives arrive at; Pollock engaged with Ghilzais at.

JULGAH FORT, the, Sale fails to take.

JUMROOD.


K.

KAMRAN, Shah of Herat.

KAREZAH.

KAREZ HILL, the.

KAREZ MEER.

KARRACK.

KATA KUSTIA.

KATTIAWAR.

KAUFMANN, General.

KAYE, Sir John; history of the Afghan war; opinion of Burnes; account of
Macnaghten's murder.

KEANE, Sir John, Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army; marches towards
Hyderabad; his character; marches on Cabul; siege of Ghuznee; camp near
Cabul.

KELLY, Dr Ambrose, with Cavagnari.

KERSHAW, at siege of Ghuznee.

KHAKREZ VALLEY, the.

KHAROTI HILL, the.

KHEL AKHUND.

KHELAT; occupied by Nott.

KHELAT, Khans of. See MEERAB, NUSSEER.

KHELAT-I-GHILZAI; occupied by Nott; garrisoned; garrison withdrawn; one
of the stages on the Great March.

KHIG.

KHIVA.

KHODA BUXSH.

KHOOLOOM; Akbar at.

KHOOLOOM, Wali of.

KHOST VALLEY, the.

KHUSHK-I-NAKHUD, skirmish at.

KHYBER-Jellalabad-Gundamuk route, the.

KHYBER PASS, the; the clans of; Ghilzais intercept the communication by;
Wild fails to force; Pollock marches through; Cavagnari turned back
from; question of the retention of; evacuated.

KILLA ABDOOLLA.

KILLA KAZEE; Massy at.

KING'S GARDEN, the, at Cabul.

KNOWLES.

KOHDAMAN.

KOH-I-NOOR, the, taken by Runjeet Singh from Shah Soojah.

KOHISTAN, Dost Mahomed in.

KOJUK PASS, the; Brigadier England repulsed at.

KOKORAN.

KOLUM-DIL-KHAN.

KOTWAL OF CABUL, the, tried for the massacre of Cavagnari, etc.

KONDOOZ.

KOTTREE.

KUBBAR-I-JUBBAR.

KURAM VALLEY, the.

KURDURRAH.

KUSHI; General Roberts meets Yakoub Khan at.

KUTTI SUNG.

L.

LAHORE, Mr Clerk at.

LAKE.

LANCERS, the 9th.

LANCERS, Bengal, the.

LAWRENCE, Captain, warns Macnaghten; made prisoner; sends messages from
the chiefs to Elphinstone; description of the retreat; made hostage; in
captivity.

LAWRENCE, Lord, his 'masterly inactivity;' against keeping Candahar.

LEACH, Major.

LOCKHART.

LOGUR VALLEY, the; plain; river.

LOODIANAH, Shah Soojah's refuge in.

LORD, Dr, political officer in the Bamian district; killed at Purwan
Durrah.

LOVEDAY, Lieutenant, political officer at Khelat, barbarously murdered.

LUGHMAN VALLEY, the.

LUGHMANEE, Pottinger besieged in.

LUNDI KOTUL.

LUTTABUND.

LYTTON, Lord, Viceroy, 1876; his instructions; ratifies the treaty of
Gunda-Gundamuk; prepares to revenge Cavagnari; decides that Yakoub Khan
does not return to Afghanistan; recommends Abdurrahman.

M.

MACGREGOR, Brigadier-General Charles, C. B., chief of Sir F. Roberts'
staff; recovers the guns at Baghwana; in the Great March; in the battle
of Candahar.

MACGREGOR, Major, deceived by the Ghilzai chief of Tezeen; Sale's
adviser.

MACKENZIE, Captain Colin, at the defeat of Dost Mahomed near Bamian;
gallant conduct of; with Macnaghten; a hostage; story of the Retreat.

MACKENZIE, Captain Stuart, gallant conduct of.

MACKESON, political officer at Peshawur.

MACKRELL, Colonel, killed at the storming of the Rikabashee fort.

MACLAINE, Lieutenant, of the Horse Artillery, in the Maiwand disaster;
taken prisoner; murdered.

MACLAREN.

MACNAGHTEN, Lady; in the Retreat.

MACNAGHTEN, Sir William Hay, envoy to Shah Soojah, influence with Lord
Auckland; his use of bribery; on the reception of the Shah at Candahar;
enters Cabul with Shah Soojah; convinced of the Shah's popularity; real
sovereign of Afghanistan; his mistakes; relations with the Ghilzais;
consents to the abandonment of the Balla Hissar; relations with Herat;
nervous about the communication; relation with Dost Mahomed; proposes to
put a price on his head; receives his surrender; his peculiar
temperament; his finance; discovers the unpopularity of the Shah; his
conduct to the 'Gooroo' and Ghilzais; appointed Governor of Bombay;
called upon to retrench; his conduct to Elphinstone; despatches Sale;
his quarters at Cabul; demands the reduction of the Rikabashee fort;
depression; negotiation about the Retreat; murdered.

MACPHERSON, Brigadier-General; in the December operations round Cabul;
in the Great March; in the battle of Candahar.

MAHMOOD KHAN, fort of.

MAHMOUD SHAH, brother of Shah Soojah.

MAHOMED HASSAN KHAN, Abdurrahman's governor of Candahar, defeated by
Ayoub.

MAHOMED JAN, a Warduk general, defends the Asmai heights; attacked by
Massy and Macpherson; attack on the Sherpur cantonments.

MAHOMED MEERZA, Shah of Persia, his ambition, designs on Herat.

MAHOMED SHAH KHAN, Akbar's lieutenant.

MAHOMED SHEREEF, fort of.

MAHOMED SURWAR, agent of Sir Lepel Griffin.

MAHOMED ZEMAUN KHAN.

MAIDAN PLAIN, the.

MAINWARING, Mrs, in the Retreat.

MAIWAND; disaster at; battle at, between Mahomed Hassan and Ayoub.

MANDERSON.

MANGAL.

MARSHALL, Colonel, routs Nusseer Khan.

MASSY, Brigadier-General; occupies the Shutargurdan pass; takes
possession of the Sherpur cantonments; in the attack on Mahomed Jan; in
the defence of the Sherpur cantonments.

MAUDE, General.

MAULE, Lieutenant.

MAZRA; Ayoub's camp at, during battle of Candahar.

M'CASKILL, Brigadier-General, with Pollock; in the last skirmishes.

MEER AKHOR FORT, the, blown up.

MEER BUTCHA, a chief of Kohistan.

MEERZA AHMED, a Dooranee chief.

MEHRAB, Khan of Khelat.

MICHNAI PASS, the.

M'Neill, British Envoy to Persia.

MOHUN LAL, agent for Macnaghten's 'blood money.'

MONEY, Colonel, left to hold the Shutargurdan pass; brought out by
Gough; in the battle of Candahar.

MONTEATH, Colonel, sent against the Ghilzais; in the council of war at
Jellalabad; at the great sortie.

MONTENARO, Captain, killed at the Meer Akhor fort.

MONTGOMERY, Sir Robert, against keeping Candahar.

MOOKOOR.

MOOLLA SHIKORE, Shah Soojah's minister.

MOOLTAN.

MOORE, Elphinstone's servant.

MORGAN.

MULLA SAHIBDAD.

MUNDABAD.

MURCHA PASS.

MUSA KHAN, heir of Yakoub Khan.

MUSHAKI.

MUSHK-I-ALUM, a Moulla of Ghuznee; his influence; governor of Cabul,
fires the beacon on the Asmai heights.

MUSTAPHI, the, punished for the Cavagnari massacre.

N.

NAGHLOO.

NANUCHEE PASS, the.

NAPIER, Lieutenant Scott, of the 92d Highlanders.

NAPIER, Lord, of Magdala, in favour of keeping Candahar.

NEK MAHOMED KHAN, Afghan commander at the battle of Charasiah.

NEPAUL.

NEVILLE, of the Bengal Lancers.

NICHOLL, Captain, his heroism in the Retreat.

NIJRAO.

NORMAN, Sir Henry, against keeping Candahar.

NORTHBROOK, Lord, relations with Shere Ali.

NOTT, General; in command at Candahar; occupies Khelat; his character;
discipline; disagrees with Macnaghten; receives orders from Elphinstone
to evacuate Candahar, refuses to obey; fighting with Meerza Ahmed; his
letter to Brigadier England; Lord Ellenborough repeats orders to
evacuate Candahar, obeys; marches towards Cabul; drives Afghans out of
Ghuznee; refuses to aid in the rescue of the prisoners.

NUGENT, Lieutenant, killed.

NUSSEER, Khan of Khelat.

NUTTALL, General.

O.

OLDFIELD, Captain, in the Council of War at Jellalabad.

ORENBURG.

OSMAN KHAN.

OUTRAM pursues Dost Mahomed; raid on the Ghilzais.

P.

PALLISER, Brigadier-General.

PALMER, Colonel, tortured.

PALMERSTON'S, Lord, ultimatum to Persia.

PANJSHIR RIVER, the.

PASKEVITCH, General.

PATHANS.

PEAT, Captain, at siege of Ghuznee.

PEIWAR PASS, the.

PELLY, Sir Lewis, at the conference of Peshawur.

PEROFFSKY.

PERSIA, relations between Great Britain and.

PESHAWUR.

PESHBOLAK.

PETROFFSKY, a Russian writer.

PHAYRE, Brigadier-General.

PICQUET HILL, the, attacked by Ayoub Khan.

PIONEERS, the.

PISHEEN VALLEY, the; retained by us.

POLLOCK, General; arrives in Peshawur; at Jellalabad; his
qualifications; his work; the rescue and retribution; contrast between
Nott and; arrives at Cabul; punishment of Cabul.

PONSONBY, with Fraser's Bengal Cavalry in Purwan Durrah.

POOLE, Captain, wounded.

POTTINGER, Major, defends Herat against the Persians; warns Macnaghten
of the danger in Kohistan; in the disaster at Charikar; conducts
negotiations for the retreat; a hostage.

POWELL, Captain, killed.

POYNDAH KHAN, father to Dost Mahomed.

PRIMROSE, General; in the battle of Candahar.

PUNJAUB REGIMENTS.

PUNJAUB, the.

PURWAN DURRAH VALLEY, the.

Q.

QUETTA; occupied.

R.

RATTRAY.

RAWLINSON, Sir Henry; his warnings to Macnaghten; Macnaghten's orders
to, respecting Uktar Khan; in favour of retaining Candahar.

RAWUL PINDI.

RHOTAS HEIGHTS, the.

RIKABASHEE FORT, the.

RIPON, Marquis of, Viceroy; in favour of the settlement with
Abdurrahman; sanctions General Roberts' March on Candahar.

ROBAT, Great March ends at.

ROBERTS, Colonel.

ROBERTS, Sir Frederick, in command of the Kuram column; his scheme of
operations; battle of the Peiwar Kotul; his previous career; with the
army of invasion; battle of Charasiah; at Cabul; revenge for Cavagnari;
intercourse with Yakoub Khan; in the Sherpur cantonment; active
operations round Cabul; on the defensive in Sherpur; the Great March on
Candahar; battle of Candahar; in favour of keeping Candahar.

ROREE.

ROSE, Ensign, in the retreat from Charikar.

ROSS, Major-General John; in the Great March; in the battle of Candahar.

RUNJEET SINGH Sikh ruler of the Punjaub, treatment of Shah Soojah;
occupies Peshawur; death.

RUSSIA, relations with Persia; policy towards Dost Mahomed; Afghanistan
to be used as a 'buffer state' between British India and; Russo-Turkish
war; relations with Abdurrahman; opinion of Roberts on Afghanistan and.

S.

SAFI TRIBE, the, engage Macpherson.

SALE, Lady, her journal; account of the Retreat; Akbar's kindness to.

SALE, Sir Robert; at siege of Ghuznee; in command at Cabul; chastises
the Kohistanees; his character; fighting in the Khoord Cabul at
Bootkhak; at Gundamuk; occupies Jellalabad; defence of Jellalabad;
fighting with the Ghilzais at Jugdulluk; ordered to rescue captives.

SALEH MAHOMED KHAN, arranges the escape of the captives.

SALISBURY, Lord.

SANGBUR.

SCINDE.

SCOTT, Major.

SCHUYLER, Mr Eugene, interviews Abdurrahman.

SEAH SUNG HEIGHTS, the.

SEH BABA.

SEISTAN, province of.

SHAFTO, Captain, killed at the Balla Hissar.

SHAGAI RIDGE, the.

SHAH BAGH, the.

SHAHBAZ KHAN.

SHAHJUI.

SHAHLEZ.

SHAKESPEAR, Sir Richmond.

SHEIKABAD.

SHELTON. Brigadier, arrives at Jellalabad; character; at Cabul; receives
contradictory orders from Macnaghten; in the Balla Hissar; takes the
Rikabashee fort; opposes the removal of the troops into the Balla
Hissar; attacks Bemaroo; commands the main body in the Retreat; his
dogged valour; a hostage.

SHER-DERWAZA HEIGHTS, the.

SHERE ALI, the Ameer, son of Dost Mahomed, accession and character;
refuses to receive a Resident; negotiations with Lord Lytton; cordial
reception of the Russians, refuses to receive Sir Neville Chamberlain;
death at Balkh; his mistakes.

SHERE ALI KHAN, Wali of Candahar; abdicates.

SHERPUR CANTONMENTS, the; description of; operations round; defence of;
durbar at; interview between Sir Donald Stewart and Abdurrahman at.

SHIKARPORE.

SHILGUR.

SHUMSHOODEEN, an Afghan leader.

SHUTARGURDAN PASS, the.

SIBI; retained by us.

SIKHS.

SIKH FEUDATORY STATES CONTINGENT.

SIKH REGIMENTS.

SINGIRI.

SKINNER, Captain, a hostage.

SLADE, at the Maiwand disaster.

SOMNATH, gates of.

SOOJAH-OOL-MOOLK, Shah; early career; intrigues; Lord Auckland
determines to restore him; his share in the expedition; replaced on the
throne, entry into Cabul; his position; with Macnaghten at Cabul;
refuses to see Dost Mahomed; goes to Jellalabad; his errors;
disaffection towards him; recommends the occupation of the Balla Hissar;
stipulations with regard to; remains in Cabul; letter to Sale at
Jellalabad; murdered.

SOORKHAB.

SOUTER, Captain, escapes from the slaughter at Gundamuk.

SPENS, Captain of the 72d Highlanders, killed.

SPINGAWAI KOTUL, the, attack on, by Roberts.

STANHOPE, Mr, on the treaty of Gundamuk.

STEWART, Sir Donald; marches into Candahar; begins his march to Cabul;
battle of Ahmed Khel and Urzoo; continues his march to Cabul; relations
with Abdurrahman; in favour of keeping Candahar.

ST JOHN, Colonel.

STODDART, Colonel.

STOLIETOFF, defender of the Schipka pass, received by Shere Ali.

'STORMS AND SUNSHINE OF A SOLDIER'S LIFE,' by Colin Mackenzie.

STRATON, Captain.

SUKKUR.

SULIMAN MOUNTAINS, the.

SULTAN JAN.

SULTAN MAHMOUD, tomb of.

SUNG-I-NAWISHTA PASS, the.

SURKH KOTUL, the.

SUTLEJ RIVER, the.

SWAYNE, Major.

SYGHAN.

T.

TAGAO.

TAKHT-I-SHAH PEAK, the.

TASHKEND, Russians at; Shere Ali at; Abdurrahman at.

TEZEEN.

THAL-CHOTIALI.

THELWALL, Brigadier.

THOMSON, engineer to Keane.

TIMOUR, Prince, son of Shah Soojah, supported by Runjeet Singh; Soojah's
viceroy at Candahar; cruelty.

TIR-ANDAZ.

TODD, Major, political agent in Herat.

TOOTUNDURRAH FORT, Sale takes.

TREVOR, with Macnaghten at his death; murdered.

TROUP, Captain.

TUNGHEE TARIKI, gorge of, scene of slaughter.

TURNUK.

TURRAI.

TYTLER.

U.

UKTAR KHAN, a discontented Dooranee chief; Macnaghten offers reward for
his head.

URGUNDAB.

URGUNDEH.

URZOO, affair of.

V.

VAKEEL, the, obnoxious minister of Shah Soojah.

VICEROYS, _See_ LORDS W. BENTINCK, AUCKLAND, ELLENBOROUGH, NORTHBROOK,
LYTTON, and the MARQUIS OF RIPON.

VIKKUR.

W.

WADE, escorts Prince Timour by the Khyber route.

WALI MAHOMED, governor designate of Turkestan.

WARREN, evacuates the Commissariat fort.

WATSON, Colonel, in command of the Sikh Feudatory contingent.

WELLESLEY, the Marquis, criticism on Lord Auckland's decision.

WELLINGTON, Duke of, criticism on Lord Auckland's decision; on
Elphinstone's position at Cabul; on English troops v. hillmen.

WHITE, Major, of the 92d Highlanders, at the attack on Beni Hissar; in
the battle of Candahar.

WILD, Brigadier, attempts to force the Khyber pass.

WILLSHIRE, General, harassed in the Bolan pass; punishes Khelat.

WOLSELEY, Lord, against keeping Candahar.

WORSLEY, Colonel.

WYMER, Colonel, hard fighting with the Ghilzais.

Y.

YAHUJA KHAN.

YAKOUB KHAN, son of Shere Ali, released and made regent; intercourse
with Sir Sam Browne; question of his complicity in the Cavagnari
massacre; takes refuge in the English camp; a prisoner; the Viceroy's
decision against his return to power.

YAR MAHOMED, Shah Kamran's minister.

YERGATI.

Z.

ZAKARIAH KHAN, Yakoub's brother.

ZANDEH, captives carried to.

ZEMINDAWAR, country of.

ZIMMA, Abdurrahman and Sir Lepel Griffin at.

ZURMUT.

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THE END.

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