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HISTORY OF THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
by
JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, F.R.S.
Third Edition.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. II.
London:
Wm. H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place,
Publishers to the India Office.
1874.
London.
Printed By W. Clowes And Sons, Stamford Street
And Charing Cross.
CONTENTS.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
[August-December, 1839.]
PAGE
Dawn of the Restoration—Difficulties of our Position—Proposed
Withdrawal of the Army—Arrival of Colonel Wade—His
Operations—Lord on the Hindoo-Koosh—Evils of our
Policy—Defective Agency—Moollah Shikore—Our Political
Agents—Operations in the Khybur Pass—The Fall of Khelat 1
CHAPTER II.
[January-September, 1840.]
The Great Game in Central Asia—The Russian Expedition to
Khiva—Apprehensions of Burnes—Colonel Stoddart—Affairs on the
Hindoo-Koosh—Failure of the Russian Expedition—Conduct of the
Sikhs—Herat and Yar Mahomed—Mission of Abbott and
Shakespear—Disturbances in the Ghilzye Country—Fall of
Khelat—Arthur Conolly 32
CHAPTER III.
[June-November, 1840.]
The last Struggles of Dost Mahomed—The British in the
Hindoo-Koosh—The Ameer’s Family—Occupation of Bajgah—Disaster
of Kamurd—Escape of Dost Mahomed—Feverish State of
Caubul—Dennie’s Brigade—Defeat of the Ameer—Sale in the
Kohistan—The Battle of Purwandurrah—Surrender of Dost
Mahomed 73
CHAPTER IV.
[November, 1840-September, 1841.]
Yar Mahomed and the Douranees—Season of Peace—Position of the
Douranees—The Zemindawer Outbreak—Conduct of Yar
Mahomed—Departure of Major Todd—Risings of the Douranees and
Ghilzyes—Engagements with Aktur Khan and the Gooroo—Dispersion
of the Insurgents 99
CHAPTER V.
[September-October, 1841.]
Aspect of Affairs at Caubul—The King—The Envoy—Burnes
—Elphinstone—The English at Caubul—Expenses of the
War—Retrenchment of the Subsidies—Risings of the
Ghilzyes—Sale’s Brigade—Gatherings in the Kohistan—Sale’s
Arrival at Gundamuck—The 1st of November 135
BOOK V.
[1841-1842.]
CHAPTER I.
[November, 1841.]
The Outbreak at Caubul—Approaching Departure of the
Envoy—Immediate Causes of the Rebellion—Death of Sir Alexander
Burnes—His Character—Spread of the Insurrection—Indecision
of the British Authorities 163
CHAPTER II.
[November, 1841.]
Progress of the Insurrection—Attempted Movement on the
City—Attack on Mahomed Sheriff’s Fort—Loss of the Commissariat
Fort—Captain Mackenzie’s Defence—Capture of Mahomed Sheriff’s
Fort—Attempts to corrupt the Enemy 187
CHAPTER III.
[November, 1841.]
Progress of the Insurrection—General Elphinstone—His
Infirmities—Recall of Brigadier Shelton to Cantonments—Capture
of the Ricka-bashee Fort—Intrigues with the Afghan Chiefs—The
Envoy’s Correspondence with Mohun Lal 204
CHAPTER IV.
[November, 1841.]
Action on the Beh-meru Hills—Looked-for Advent of Sale’s
Brigade—Arrival of Pottinger—The Siege of Charekur—Destruction
of the Goorkha Regiment—Withdrawal of Sale to Jellalabad—
Question of Concentration in the Balla Hissar—Bearing of the
King—The Action on the 23rd of November—Negotiations 220
CHAPTER V.
[November-December, 1841.]
Progress of Negotiation—Arrival of Mahomed Akbar Khan—His
Character—Negotiations continued—Deaths of Meer Musjedee
and Abdoollah Khan—Revival of Negotiations—The Draft Treaty 257
BOOK VI.
CHAPTER I.
[December, 1841.]
Preparations for the Retreat—Evacuation of the Balla
Hissar—Progress of the Negotiations—Continued Delay—Variations
of the Treaty—Designs of the Envoy—Overtures of Mahomed Akbar
Khan—Death of Sir William Macnaghten—His Character 286
CHAPTER II.
[December, 1841-January, 1842.]
The Capitulation—Supineness of the Garrison—Negotiations
resumed—Efforts of Major Pottinger—Demands of the Chiefs—The
Final Treaty—Humiliation of the Garrison—General Remarks 317
CHAPTER III.
[November, 1841-January, 1842.]
Sale’s Brigade—Evacuation of Gundamuck—Skirmishes with the
Enemy—Occupation of Jellalabad—State of the Defences—Successful
Sallies—The Fortifications repaired—Disastrous Tidings from
Caubul—Summons to Surrender—Arrival of Dr. Brydon 336
CHAPTER IV.
[January, 1842.]
The Retreat from Caubul—Departure of the Army—Attack on the
Rear-Guard—The First Day’s March—Encampment at Begramee—The
Passage of the Koord-Caubul Pass—Tezeen—Jugdulluck—Sufferings
of the Force—Negotiations with Akbar Khan—Massacre at
Gundamuck—Escape of Dr. Brydon 360
APPENDIX 391
THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
[August-December: 1839.]
Dawn of the Restoration—Difficulties of our Position—Proposed
Withdrawal of the Army—Arrival of Colonel Wade—His Operations—Lord
on the Hindoo-Koosh—Evils of our Policy—Defective Agency—Moollah
Shikore—Our Political Agents—Operations in the Khybur Pass—The Fall
of Khelat.
Restored to the home of his fathers, Shah Soojah was not contented.
Even during the excitement of the march to Caubul he had complained
of the narrow kingdom to which he was about to return; and now, as he
looked out from the windows of his palace over the fair expanse of
country beneath him, he sighed to think that the empire of Ahmed Shah
had been so grievously curtailed.
Very different, indeed, was the Douranee Empire, over which the
sceptre of Shah Soojah was now waved, from that which his father had
handed down to Zemaun Shah and his brothers, to be sacrificed by their
weakness and disunion. The kingdom, which had once extended from
Balkh to Shikarpoor, and from Herat to Cashmere, had now shrunk and
collapsed. On every side its integrity had been invaded. Cashmere and
Mooltan had fallen to the Sikhs; Peshawur had been wrested from the
Afghans by the same unscrupulous neighbour; the independence of Herat
had been guaranteed to a branch of the Royal family; the Beloochees
had asserted pretensions unknown in the times of Ahmed Shah; the petty
Princes on the northern hill-frontier no longer acknowledged their
allegiance to Caubul. In whatsoever direction he turned his eyes,
he beheld the mutilations to which the old Douranee Empire had been
subjected; and yearned to recover some of the provinces which had been
severed from the domain of his fathers.
But the kingdom to which he had been restored was more extensive than
he could govern. There were many difficult questions to be solved, at
this time; the first and the most important of which related to the
continuance of his connexion with his Feringhee allies. The British
Government had now done all that it had undertaken to do. It had
escorted Shah Soojah to his palace gates, and seated him upon the
throne of his fathers. In accordance with Lord Auckland’s manifesto,
the time had now arrived for the withdrawal of the British army. But
it was obvious that the British army could not yet be withdrawn. The
Shah had no hold upon the affections of his people. He might sit in the
Balla Hissar, but he could not govern the Afghans. Such, at least, was
the conviction which by this time had forced itself upon Macnaghten’s
mind. If the British Minister had ever contemplated the early
abandonment of the restored King, the idea had now passed away. The
Shah himself felt no confidence in his own strength. He did not believe
that the power of Dost Mahomed was irretrievably broken, but still saw
him, in imagination, flitting about the regions of the Hindoo-Koosh,
raising the Oosbeg tribes, and pouring down for the recovery of Caubul.
There were objections, many, and weighty, to the continued occupation
of Afghanistan by British troops—objections of one kind, which the
Shah acknowledged and appreciated; and objections of another, which
every statesman and soldier in India must have recognised with painful
distinctness. But the experiment of leaving Shah Soojah to himself
was too dangerous to be lightly tried. The Shah would fain have
rid himself of British interference and control, if he could have
maintained himself without British support; and the British Government
would fain have withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, if it could
have relied upon the power of the Shah to maintain himself. But to
leave the restored Suddozye to be dethroned and expelled, after the
homeward march of the troops that had restored him, would have been to
court an enormous failure, which would have overwhelmed our government
with disgrace. Neither was the restoration sufficiently popular in
itself, nor was there sufficient stability in the character of the King
to warrant so hazardous an experiment. If the policy of the Afghan
invasion had not been based upon error, the experiment would not
have been a hazardous one. But the very acknowledgment of the Shah’s
inability to maintain himself after the departure of the British army,
was a crushing commentary on the assertions put forth in the great
October manifesto. The truth was not to be disguised. The “adoration”
which had greeted the Shah on his return to his long-lost dominions,
was found to be a delusion and a sham. The palace of his fathers had
received him again; but it was necessary still to hedge in the throne
with a quickset of British bayonets.
So thought Lord Auckland. He had given his mind long and painfully to
the subject, and had written an elaborate minute, reviewing all the
circumstances of our position in Afghanistan after the entry of the
Shah into the country. Macnaghten had been settled little more than a
month in Caubul when a copy of this minute, dated Simlah, August 20,
was put into his hands. There was nothing unintelligible in it. Ably
written, clearly worded, it enunciated, in unmistakeable paragraphs,
the views of the Governor-General, and left Macnaghten, even had he
been disposed to follow an opposite course, which he was not, no
alternative but to retain a portion of the troops, and himself to abide
at Caubul as controller of the Shah. Lord Auckland saw plainly the
advantages of withdrawing the Army of the Indus. India could ill afford
the abstraction of so large a body of disciplined troops, and it was
probable that their services might be required in less remote regions;
but he could not purchase the advantages of their withdrawal at the
price of the failure of the Afghan expedition.
It was the opinion of the Governor-General at this time, that
although the British army could not with safety be wholly withdrawn,
a force consisting of some five or six regiments of all arms would
be sufficient to keep Shah Soojah upon his throne. The Bombay troops
were to be withdrawn, _en masse_, by the Bolan Pass; and a portion
of the Bengal army by the route of Jellalabad and the Khybur. The
posts at which it was expedient to plant the remaining troops were,
in the opinion of the Governor-General, the two chief cities of
Caubul and Candahar; and the principal posts on the main roads to
Hindostan—Ghuznee and Quettah, on the West, and Jellalabad and
Ali-Musjid on the East. The orders which Sir John Keane had issued,
before the Governor-General’s minute had reached Caubul, anticipated
with much exactness the instructions of the Governor-General. A brigade
under Colonel Sale was to remain in Afghanistan. Sir John Keane was to
take the remainder of the Bengal troops back to India by the Khybur
route; and General Willshire was to lead the Bombay column down by the
western line of the Kojuck and the Bolan.
Such were the intentions both of the Supreme Government and the local
authorities, when Prince Timour arrived at Caubul, accompanied by
Captain Wade, and the little force that had made good his entry into
Afghanistan by the eastern passes. It was on the 3rd of September that
Cotton, Burnes, and other British officers, with a guard of honour,
went out to receive the Prince. With befitting pomp, the procession
made its way through the narrow streets of Caubul to the Balla Hissar;
and there were those who said that the gaiety of the heir-apparent and
his _cortège_ fairly shone down the King’s.
Wade had done his duty well. The magnitude of the operations to the
westward has somewhat overlaid the more modest pretensions of the
march through the eastern passes; and it may be doubted whether the
merit of the achievement has ever been fully acknowledged. Viewed
as the contribution of the Sikh Government towards the conquest of
Afghanistan, it is absolutely contemptible. Runjeet lay dying when
the troops were assembling; and his death was announced before they
commenced their march. He was the only man in the Sikh empire who was
true at heart to his allies, and all genuine co-operation died out with
the fires of his funeral pile. To Wade this was embarrassing in the
extreme. But the greater the inefficiency of the Sikh demonstration,
the greater the praise that is due to the English officer who triumphed
over the difficulties thrown in his way by the infidelity of his allies.
Wade found himself at Peshawur with a motley assemblage of Hindoos,
Sikhs, and Afghans, on the good faith of a considerable portion of whom
it was impossible to rely. The Prince himself was soon found to be an
absolute cypher. His most remarkable characteristic was, to speak
paradoxically, that he had no character at all. He was a harmless,
respectable personage, with an amount of apathy in his constitution
which was sometimes advantageous to those in whose hands he placed
himself; but which, at others, engendered an amount of impracticability
that was very embarrassing and distressing. It was plain that, whatever
was to be accomplished, must be accomplished by the energy of the
British officers. Left to themselves, the Sikhs, aided by the Afghans
who had joined the standard of the Prince, would never have forced the
Khybur Pass. This formidable defile was supposed to be, if vigorously
defended, impassable; and the long halt at Peshawur had given the
Afreedis, if they were not inclined to sell the passage, abundant time
to mature their defensive operations, and Akbar Khan, who was coming
down from Caubul to oppose the march of Wade and the Sikh auxiliaries,
every opportunity of perfecting his plans.
It was not until the 25th of July that Wade and Prince Timour
found themselves before Ali-Musjid. The Afreedis, on that and the
preceding day, had made some show of resistance; and our troops—the
regulars under Captain Farmer, and the irregulars under Lieutenant
Mackeson,[1]—had done good service; whilst Colonel Sheikh Bassawan,
with the Sikh auxiliaries, had exhibited an amount of zeal which had
won the confidence of the British officers. So closely now did Wade
invest the place, so determined was the attitude he had assumed, and
so successful was the play of his guns,[2] that on the night of the
26th the garrison evacuated the fortress; and on the following morning
the allies took possession of Ali-Musjid in the name of the Shah. The
Ameer’s son had not come down to its defence.
There was little more work for Wade and his auxiliaries. Akbar
Khan, who had pitched his camp at Dakha—a place to the south of
Jellalabad—had now broken it up and retired to join his father,
who had by this time discovered that the greater danger was to be
apprehended from the western line of attack, and had therefore recalled
his son to the capital. The Shah-zadah and his party, therefore,
advanced without further opposition. Opposite Dakha, on the other side
of the Caubul river, was the fort of Lalpoorah, where dwelt Sadut Khan,
chief of the Momund tribe. His conduct had evinced strong feelings
of hostility to the Suddozye Princes. He was now, therefore, to be
reduced, and his chiefship conferred on another. Throughout our entire
connexion with Afghanistan, it was seldom our good fortune to select
fitting objects whereon to lavish our bounty. It was generally, indeed,
our lot to set up the wrong man. But the case of Tora-baz Khan, who was
appointed to the chiefship of Lalpoorah, was one of the few fortunate
exceptions to this calamitous rule. In this man we found a faithful
ally; and when misfortunes overtook us, he was not unmindful of the
benefits he had received at our hands.
On the 3rd of September, Wade and the Shah-zadah reached Caubul. The
operations of the motley force which they had led through the difficult
passes of Eastern Afghanistan have been dwarfed, as I have said, by
the more ostentatious exploits of Sir John Keane’s bulkier army; but
it is not to be forgotten, that it was in no small measure owing to
the operations of Wade’s force that the resistance offered to Keane’s
army was so slight and so ill-matured. It was long before Dost Mahomed
ceased to regard the movement through the Khybur with greater anxiety
than that of the main army along the western route. Akbar Khan and his
fighting men never met Wade in the field; but they were drawn away
from the capital at a time when they might have done good service in
the West; and it is in no small measure owing to this division of the
Ameer’s military strength, that he was unable to offer any effectual
resistance to the march of the British army from Candahar. Nor, when we
take account of the circumstances which facilitated our success at the
outset of the war, ought it ever to be overlooked that Wade, from his
forward position at Peshawur, was enabled to open a correspondence with
parties at Caubul favourable to the restoration of the monarchy, and to
win over many adherents to the Shah before he approached his capital.
It was in no small measure owing to Wade’s diplomacy, carried on mainly
through the agency of Gholam Khan, Populzye, that the Kohistanees were
induced to rise against the Ameer.[3] These were important services.
Wade carried on the work with much address; and there were able
men associated with him.[4] But the whole affair was a melancholy
illustration of the lukewarmness, if not of the positive infidelity,
of our Sikh allies. It was plain that, thenceforth, we were to expect
little from their alliance, but ill-concealed attempts to thwart and
baffle the policy to which they were parties.
The month of September passed pleasantly over the heads of the
officers of the Army of the Indus. The fine climate, the fair scenery,
and the delicious fruits of Caubul, were all things to be enjoyed,
after the sufferings and privations of the long and toilsome march from
Hindostan. Then there were shows, and spectacles, and amusements. The
troops were reviewed; and the officers rode races; and the Shah, ever
delighting in pageantry and parade, established an order of knighthood,
and held a grand Durbar, at which the ceremony of investure was
performed with becoming dignity and grace. And the officers, happy in
the belief that they were soon about to turn their backs on Afghanistan
for ever, went about purchasing memorials of their visit to Caubul, or
presents to carry back to their friends.
But the hopes of many were doomed to disappointment. On the 18th of
September, the Bombay column commenced its march to India, by the route
of the Kojuck and the Bolan; and it was believed that a large portion
of the Bengal troops would soon be in motion towards the provinces,
along the eastern country just traversed by Colonel Wade. A country in
which wine was selling at the price of 300 rupees a dozen, and cigars
at a rupee a piece,[5] was not one in which the officers of the army
were likely to desire to pitch their tents for a sojourn of any long
continuance. When, therefore, it began to be reported among them that
the original intentions of withdrawing the troops, with the exception
of a single brigade, had been abandoned, there was a general feeling
of disappointment. The official order was looked for with anxiety; and
on the 2nd of October it appeared.[6] The principal portion of the
division was to be left in Afghanistan, under Sir Willoughby Cotton;
and only a comparatively small detachment was to march to the provinces
with Sir John Keane. A week afterwards, orders were issued for the
disposition of the troops, and the military occupation of Afghanistan
was complete.[7]
A change so great as this in the military arrangements, consequent on
the restoration of Shah Soojah, could only have been brought about by
a belief in the presence of some new and pressing danger. Dost Mahomed
had been driven across the Hindoo-Koosh; but it was believed that he
might there be hospitably received by some of the petty Oosbeg chiefs,
between Bameean and Balkh; and that he might, united with them, gather
sufficient strength to encourage him to turn his face again towards
the South, and to sweep down upon the country which had been wrested
from him. It had not, at first, been conceived that the prospect of
the Ameer’s recovery from the heavy blow which had descended upon him,
was sufficiently imminent to indicate the necessity of making any
preparations upon a large scale to arrest his return to Afghanistan.
But it was considered expedient to send a detachment of the Shah’s
troops, with some field artillery, to Bameean, the extreme frontier
station of the Shah’s dominions. Accordingly, on the 12th of September,
a detachment had marched for the Hindoo-Koosh. A troop of Native Horse
Artillery, which had just come in from Candahar, formed the most
remarkable portion of this little force. The difficulties of the road
to be traversed were such as no European artillery had ever before
encountered.[8] But, in spite of this, the 4th troop, 3rd Brigade of
Horse Artillery, under Lieutenant Murray Mackenzie (leaving its captain
dead at Caubul), made good its way to Bameean; and the Shah’s Goorkha
regiment, with other irregular details, accompanied it to its dreary
winter-quarters in the mountainous recesses of the great Caucasian
range.
Upon the policy of this movement I cannot pause to speculate. I believe
that the system of planting small detachments in isolated positions
was one of the great errors which marked our military occupation of
Afghanistan. But something more was designed than this. It was in
contemplation to send a larger force to explore the mountains of
the Hindoo-Koosh. Dr. Percival Lord, who had been one of Burnes’s
companions on the “Commercial Mission” to Caubul, had just returned
to the Afghan capital with the force under Colonel Wade; and now that
it was considered desirable to despatch a political officer to the
Oosbeg frontier, it was but natural that Lord, who had visited the
neighbourhood of Koondooz in 1837-1838, should have been selected for
the duty. Lord went; but had not been long absent from Caubul when
he returned, with exaggerated stories of the success of Dost Mahomed
among the petty chiefs of the Hindoo-Koosh, and of a great movement
which was about to be made for the re-establishment of the supremacy of
the Ameer. Upon this, Macnaghten, who had begun to doubt the extreme
popularity of Shah Soojah, and the safety of confiding his protection
and support to the handful of British troops which it was originally
intended to leave in Afghanistan, made a requisition to Sir John Keane
for a stronger military force, and turned Dr. Lord’s story to account
in the furtherance of his own views.
It was easy to issue orders for the maintenance of a large body of
British troops in Afghanistan; but it was not so easy to house the
regiments thus maintained. The winter was before them. They could not
remain encamped on the plain around Caubul. It became, therefore,
matter of anxious consideration how accommodation was to be provided
for so large a body of regular troops. The subject, indeed, had pressed
upon the attention of the political and military chiefs before the
brigade, which was originally to have been left in the country, had
swelled into a division; and the engineer officers had been called into
council, and had given the only advice that was likely to emanate from
competent military authority. Lieutenant Durand—a gallant soldier and
an able scientific officer—saw at once the importance of posting the
troops in the Balla Hissar.[9] And there, in the winter of that year,
they were posted, to be removed in the following autumn to the fatal
cantonments which by that time were springing up on the plain.
The city of Caubul is situated between two ranges of lofty hills, along
the ridges of which run lines of loop-holed walls, with here and there
small obtruding towers, or bastions, too weak and too extended to be
serviceable for purposes of defence. It is said to be about three miles
in circumference. The Balla Hissar stands on a hill, overlooking the
city. There are, strictly speaking, two Balla Hissars; the lower of
which, on our first entry into Caubul, was in a rickety and decayed
state, and could not have stood for an hour against British artillery.
Both were commanded by the walled hills above them. The upper Balla
Hissar, or citadel, commands the whole of the city and the suburbs. The
lower Balla Hissar, which is surrounded by a shallow but rather deep
ditch, commands only part of one of the bazaars—the Shore bazaar—two
large forts (Mahmoud Khan’s and the Beenee Hissar), and the road to
Jellalabad. The houses of the town are mostly flat-roofed; the streets
for the most part narrow and tortuous. The most important feature of it
is the great bazaar, built, or commenced, by Ali Murdan Khan—a mart
for the produce of all the nations of the East.[10]
The Bombay division of the Army of the Indus marched from Caubul on
the 18th of September; and on the 15th of October, Sir John Keane,
with the troops destined for Bengal, set out for the provinces by
way of the eastern passes. The Shah had by this time begun to think
of escaping from the severity of the Caubul winter, and reposing in
the milder climate and more tranquil neighbourhood of Jellalabad. The
sweets of restored dominion had not gratified him to the extent of his
anticipations. He was, indeed, a disappointed man. He sighed as he
declared that the Caubul he had revisited was not the Caubul of his
youth; his kingdom seemed to have shrivelled and collapsed; and even
of these shrunken dominions, fettered and controlled as he was, he was
only half a king. It was plain that, in the eyes of his subjects, his
connexion with the Feringhees had greatly humiliated him. But he wanted
the English money and the English bayonets, and was compelled to bear
the burden.
Macnaghten was to accompany the King to Jellalabad; and, in the
meanwhile, Burnes was to be left in political charge of Caubul and the
neighbourhood. The people seemed to be settling down into something
like quiescence. If there were little enthusiasm among them, they
seemed at first to be outwardly contented with the change. Cupidity
is one of the strongest feelings that finds entrance into the Afghan
breast. The boundless wealth of the English had been a tradition in
Afghanistan ever since the golden days of Mountstuart Elphinstone’s
mission. Money had been freely scattered about at Candahar; and it was
believed that with an equally profuse hand it would now be disbursed at
Caubul. It is true that the military chest and the political treasury
had been so indented upon, that when the army reached the capital there
was a painful scarcity of coin.[11] But there were large supplies
of treasure on the way. The jingling of the money-bag was already
ravishing their ears and stirring their hearts. They did not love the
Feringhees; but they delighted in Feringhee gold.
This was a miserable state of things; and even the influence of the
gold was limited and short-lived. After the outbreak at Caubul, when
Mohun Lal was secreted in the Kuzzilbash quarters, he heard the men
and women talking among themselves, and saying that the English had
enriched the grain-sellers, the grass-sellers, and others who dealt
in provisions for man and beast, whilst they reduced the chiefs to
poverty, and killed the poor by starvation. The presence of the English
soon raised the price of all the necessaries of life. This was no new
thing. If a flight of Englishmen settle in a French or a Belgian town,
it is not long before the price of provisions is raised. But here was a
Commissariat department, with a mighty treasury at its command, buying
up all the commodities of Caubul, and not only paying preposterous sums
for everything they purchased, but holding out the strongest inducement
to purveyors to keep back their supplies, in order to force a higher
range of prices.
Even from this early date everything was working silently against us.
The inherent vice of the course of policy which we had initiated was
beginning to infect every branch of the administration. The double
government which had been established was becoming a curse to the
whole nation. The Shah and his officers ostensibly controlled all
the departments of civil administration; but everywhere our English
officers were at their elbow, to counsel and suggest; and when it was
found necessary to coerce the disobedient or punish the rebellious,
then it was British authority that drew the sword out of the scabbard,
and hunted down offenders to the death. Bound by treaty not to
interfere in the internal administration of the country, the British
functionaries were compelled to permit the existence of much which they
themselves would never have initiated or allowed in provinces subject
to their rule; but they were often called upon to enforce measures,
unpopular and perhaps unjust; and so brought down upon themselves the
opprobrium which was not always their due. It could hardly be said that
the King possessed a government of his own, when the control of the
army and the exchequer was in the hands of others. England supplied
the money and the bayonets; and claimed the right to employ them both
according to her own pleasure. It would have been a miracle if such a
system had not soon broken down with a desolating crash, and buried its
authors in the ruins.
It was said prophetically by more than one statesman, that our
difficulties would begin where our military successes ended. Englishmen
and Afghans alike said that it was easy to restore Shah Soojah to the
throne, but difficult to maintain him upon it. It was, from the first,
only a question of time—only a question how long such a system could
be propped up by the strong arm and the long purse of the king-makers.
No amount of wisdom in the agents of such a policy could have saved
it from ultimate ruin. Sooner or later it must have fallen. If there
had been nothing else indeed to bring it to the ground, the utter
exhaustion of the Indian treasury must have given it its death-blow.
To have placed Shah Soojah on the throne, and to have left him again
to be driven back an outcast and a fugitive, to seek an asylum in
the provinces of India, would have been a failure and a disgrace. It
was the object of the British Government, therefore, to hedge him
in a little longer with our authority, and to establish him more
firmly on the throne. But so far from these being synonymous terms,
and co-existent states of being, they were utterly antagonistic and
irreconcileable. The more we surrounded the King with our authority,
the less firmly he was fixed on the throne. It might have been sound
policy to have continued the occupation of Afghanistan, if our
continuance there had tended to secure the supremacy of the Shah, and
to establish him in the affections of the people; but it was not in the
nature of things that the effect of the experiment should not have been
diametrically the reverse.
So prodigious an anomaly was the system itself, that, except so far
as it affected the period of its dissolution, retarding or expediting
it by a few months or a few years, the agency employed in the vain
attempt to uphold it was a matter of little moment. But that agency
was assuredly not of a character to enhance the chances even of
its temporary success. Shah Soojah had brought from Loodhianah one
Moollah Shikore[12]—a man who had shared his exile, and acted as his
confidential agent. He was old, and enfeebled by age. His memory was
gone; so were his ears. For some offence against his Majesty in former
days, he had forfeited those useful appendages. A happy faculty of
remembering the persons and personal histories of men, is one of the
most useful ingredients in the character of a statesman, and it is
one which, in rare exuberance, some of our greatest statesmen have
possessed. But it was said of this Moollah Shikore, that men whom he
had seen on one day he forgot on the next.[13] The King had abundant
faith in his loyalty, and confidence in his personal attachment. The
man had managed the stunted household of the royal exile with such
address, that it was believed that he could now manage the affairs of
his master’s restored dominions. So he was made minister of state. They
called him Wuzeer. But his master did not acknowledge the title, and
the British did not call him by it. “Bad ministers,” wrote Burnes, “are
in every government solid grounds for unpopularity; and I doubt if ever
a King had a worse set than Shah Soojah.” The system itself was rotten
to the very core; and the agency employed was, perhaps, the corruptest
in the world. Had there been much more vitality and strength in the
system, Moollah Shikore and his deputies would soon have given it its
death-blow.
But though feeble in other respects, this Moollah Shikore was not
feeble in his hatred of the British. The minister oppressed the
people. The people appealed to the British functionaries. The British
functionaries remonstrated with the minister. And the minister punished
the people for appealing.[14] The Shah and the Moollah chafed under the
interference of the British. But they loved the British money; and they
required the support of the British bayonets. And so bravely for a time
worked the double government at Caubul.
Whilst such was the state of things at the supreme seat of government,
there was little less to create dissatisfaction in the internal
administration of Candahar. The principal revenue officers were two
Sheeahs, the sons of that Hussein Khan, the obnoxious minister whom
Shah Zemaun had put to death. Their names were Mahomed Takee Khan
and Wulloo Mahomed Khan. Cradled in intense enmity to the Douranees,
they had grown into unscrupulous persecutors of the tribes. Selected
by the Barukzye Sirdars as willing agents of those humiliating and
enfeebling measures by which they sought to extinguish the vitality
of the Douranees, they entered upon their work in a ruthless and
uncompromising spirit, and plied the instruments of their office
with remarkable success for the persecution and degradation of their
enemies. The hatred with which the Douranees regarded these men was too
deep to suffer them to embrace with complacency any measures, however
conciliatory in themselves, of which the old Barukzye tools were the
executors. Such unpopular agents were enough to render distasteful
the most popular measures. The Douranees were, indeed, greatly
disappointed. Do what they would, they could not obtain a paramount
influence in the state. The door was closed against them by the British
janitors who kept watch around the palace; and the chiefs soon began to
chafe under the foreign intrusion which deprived them of all ascendancy
in the councils of the restored monarch, and prevented them from
regaining the full extent of those financial privileges which they had
enjoyed under his Suddozye predecessors.[15]
And so it happened that, from the very dawn of the Restoration,
unpopular and unscrupulous Afghan agents were employed to carry out
a monstrous system. Of a very different character were the British
agents upon whom now devolved the duty of watching the proceedings
of the native executive, and, without any palpable acknowledged
interference, virtually controlling it. The political agents scattered
about Afghanistan have drawn down upon themselves a larger measure of
vituperation than perhaps has ever descended upon any body of British
functionaries. They were mixed up with an unholy and a disastrous
policy, and perhaps some little of the evil that subsequently developed
itself may be attributed to their personal defects; but, on the
whole, they were not unwisely chosen, and it is doubtful if other men
would have done better. At all events, when Burnes, Conolly, Leech,
Pottinger, Todd, Lord, and others, who had previously made themselves
acquainted with the country and the people, were sent to overlook
the progress of affairs in different parts of Afghanistan, it cannot
be said that no care was taken to select our agents from among the
officers who were most qualified by previous experience to perform
the new duties devolving upon them. Macnaghten’s assistants were,
for the most part, men of local experience and proved activity. The
Governor-General had imparted to the Envoy his ideas of the manner
in which it would be most expedient to employ them.[16] And it may
be doubted whether, if the system itself had not been so radically
defective, it would have ever broken down under the agency which was
commissioned to carry it into effect.
Such, traced in dim outline, were some of the elements of decay
planted deep in the constitution of the political system which we
were attempting to carry out in Afghanistan. Always of a sanguine
temperament, and one whose wish was ever father of his thoughts,
Macnaghten did not see that already the seeds of a great and sweeping
revolution were being sown broadcast across the whole length and
breadth of the land. He was prepared, and it was right that he should
have been, for local and accidental outbreaks. The Afghans are a
turbulent and lawless people, little inclined to succumb to authority,
and have a rough way of demonstrating their dislikes. Had he expected
the authority of the Shah to be universally established in a few
weeks, the British Envoy would have manifested a deplorable ignorance
of the national character; but little less was the ignorance which
he manifested, when he believed that the system of government he was
countenancing could ever establish the country in tranquillity, and the
King in the affections of the people. There were others who saw clearly
that such a system was doomed to set in disaster and disgrace;[17] but
Macnaghten, when he accompanied the Court to Jellalabad, carried with
him no forebodings of evil. He believed that the country was settling
down into quietude under the restored monarchy; and so little, indeed,
did he think that any danger was to be apprehended, that he encouraged
his wife to join him in Afghanistan, and sent a party of irregular
horsemen under Edward Conolly to escort her from the provinces of India.
But already was he beginning to have some experience of the turbulent
elements of Afghan society, and the difficulty of controlling
the tribes. In the West, the Ghilzyes had been demonstrating
the unruliness of their nature ever since Shah Soojah re-entered
Afghanistan; and, shortly after his restoration to the Balla Hissar
of Caubul, Captain Outram had been sent out against them, and had
achieved one of those temporary successes which, in a country like
Afghanistan, where blood is ever crying aloud for blood, can only
perpetuate the disquietude of a disaffected people. And now in the
East, the passes of the Khybur were bristling with the hostile tribes.
The Khybur chiefs had always turned to good account the difficulties
of the passage through their terrible defiles. They opened the highway
in consideration of certain money-payments from the Caubul rulers.
The sums paid under the Suddozye Kings had been reduced by the
Barukzye Sirdars; but on his restoration, Shah Soojah, who, in a day
of difficulty, had sought and found a refuge among the Khyburees, now
promised to restore to the tribes the privileges which they had enjoyed
under his fathers. But the Shah had acted in this matter without the
authority or the knowledge of Macnaghten, and the chiefs were little
likely to receive the amount which the King had agreed to pay to them.
Incensed by what they considered a breach of faith, they rose up
against the small detached parties which Wade had left at different
posts between Peshawur and Jellalabad.[18] Ali-Musjid was attacked,
but not taken. Ferris, who commanded the garrison, repulsed them with
heavy loss. But a battalion of Nujeebs, entrenched in the vicinity
of the fort, was cut up by an incursion of the mountaineers.[19] The
appearance of Sir John Keane, with the residue of the Army of the
Indus, quieted for a time the turbulent tribes. But when the column
had cleared the pass, they harassed the detachments sent to the relief
of Ali-Musjid,[20] and a force under Colonel Wheeler was therefore
sent out from Jellalabad to overawe the refractory mountaineers, and
support the negotiations in which Mackeson was engaged. The Khyburees
attacked his baggage, hamstrung his camels, and thus contrived to
sweep some booty into their hands. Wheeler’s operations were for a
time successful; but it was not until Macnaghten himself appeared
on the scene, and recognised, in view of their formidable defiles,
the expediency of conciliating by sufficient money-payments these
troublesome clans, that they sunk into temporary quiescence.
It was at Avitabile’s hospitable table in the Goorkhutra of Peshawur,
that Macnaghten received intelligence of the fall of Khelat. The
health of the victors was drunk with delighted enthusiasm, manifesting
itself in the “three times three” of a good English cheer. All the
circumstances of the capture of the stronghold were discussed with deep
interest to a late hour. It was told how, on the morning of the 13th of
November, General Wiltshire, with the 2nd and 17th Queen’s Regiments,
the 31st Bengal Native Infantry, with two howitzers, four of the
Shah’s six-pounder guns, and a detachment of local horse, found himself
before Khelat. It was plain that Mehrab Khan was in no mood to submit
to the terms dictated to him. He had at first doubted the intentions
of the British to move against his stronghold, and had been slow to
adopt measures of defence. But when he knew that our troops were
advancing upon Khelat, he prepared himself, like a brave man, to meet
his fate, and flung defiance at the infidel invaders. Khelat is a place
of commanding strength. The citadel rises high above the buildings of
the town, and frowns menacingly on its assailants. On the north-west
of the fort were three heights, which the Khan had covered with his
infantry, supported by five guns in position. The engineer officers
reported that, until these heights were carried, it would be impossible
to proceed against the fortress. Orders were then given for the attack.
It was Willshire’s hope that the enemy might be driven down to the
gates of the fortress, and that our stormers might rush in with them.
Gallantly the hills were carried; gallantly the guns were captured.
The infantry advanced under a heavy fire from the British artillery.
The shrapnel shot from Stevenson’s batteries fell with too deadly an
aim among the Beloochee footmen for them to hold their position on the
hills. They fled towards the walls of the fortress, and our infantry
pushed hotly after them. But not in time were they to secure an
entrance; the gates were closed against their advance.
The artillery was now brought into play. The infantry, compelled
to protect themselves against the heavy fire poured in from the
rocks, sheltered themselves behind some ruined buildings, whilst
our batteries, planted on the heights, opened upon the gate and the
neighbouring defences. Two of Cooper’s guns were brought within a
distance of 200 yards; and whilst the gunners fell under the matchlock
fire of the enemy, played full upon the gate. At last it gave way.
Pointing his hand towards the gate, Willshire rode down to show the
infantry that an entrance was ready for them. Rising at once from
their cover, they rushed in with a loud hurrah. Pennycuick and his men
were the first to enter. The other companies soon followed, until the
whole of the storming column were within the walls of Khelat. Onward
they struggled manfully towards the citadel. Every inch of ground
was obstinately disputed. But at last the citadel was won. There was
a desperate resistance. Sword in hand, Mehrab Khan and some of his
principal chiefs stood there to give us battle. The Khan himself fell
dead with a musket-ball through his breast. Eight of his principal
ministers and Sirdars fell beside him. From some inner apartments,
of difficult approach, a fire was still poured in upon our people;
and it was not until Lieutenant Loveday, an assistant of the British
agent, went up to them alone, that they were induced to surrender.[21]
Loveday received them as prisoners; and then proceeded to rescue from
captivity the aged mother and other female dependents of an old rival,
whose claims were to be no longer denied.
Nussur Khan, the chief’s son, had fled. A considerable amount of prize
property was collected; an old pretender to the throne, known as Shah
Newaz, who had for some time been hanging on to the skirts of Shah
Soojah and his allies, was set up in his place; and the provinces
of Shawl, Moostung, and Cutchee, which had long been sentenced to
spoliation, were stripped from the old dominions of the Khan of Khelat,
and annexed to the territories of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk. The Shah had
been hankering after an extension of empire; and it was determined
that the much-coveted aggrandisement should be conceded to him in the
direction of Upper Sindh.
It is possible that, whilst all these circumstances were being narrated
and discussed at Avitabile’s dinner-table, there may have been present
one or two officers much troubled with self-questionings regarding the
justice of these proceedings. But the general opinion, all throughout
Afghanistan and India, was that this Mehrab Khan had been rightly
punished for his offences. Few knew distinctly what these offences
were. There was a general impression that he had been guilty of acts of
indescribable treachery; and that during the passage of the British
army through Beloochistan, he was continually molesting our advancing
columns. It was the fashion to attribute to the wickedness of Mehrab
Khan all the sufferings which afflicted the Army of the Indus on its
march to Candahar, the scarcity which pressed so heavily upon man and
beast, and the depredations of the marauding Beloochees. The very
barrenness of the country, indeed, was by some laid at his door. It was
not very clearly seen, at this time, that the Army of the Indus was
at least as much the cause, as it was the victim of the scarcity in
Beloochistan. When our troops passed through the dominions of the Khan
of Khelat, there was already, as has been shown by Burnes’s admissions,
a scarcity in the land; and our vast moving camp increased it. The safe
passage of the Bolan Pass was effected through the friendly agency of
the Brahoo chief. And we have it emphatically, upon the authority of
Macnaghten, that the progress of the Army of the Indus through the
country of Mehrab Khan was attended by much devastation—that a great
injury was inflicted upon the people—and that nothing would have been
easier than for the Khan to have destroyed our entire force. Such was
the language of our diplomatists up to the end of March; but in April,
Burnes recommended the castigation of the Khan of Khelat; and Mehrab
Khan was doomed to be stripped, on the first convenient opportunity,
of his territory, and deprived either of his liberty or his life. The
evidence of Mehrab Khan’s treachery is not sufficiently strong to
satisfy me that the British righteously confiscated his principality
and sacrificed his life. He was surrounded by traitors. When his
stronghold was entered, it was seen that the servants he had trusted
had the means of betraying their master; and it was clear, to all who
investigated the charges against him with judicial impartiality, that
he had been betrayed. It was clear that many of the offences imputed
to him were to be ascribed rather to the machinations of his secret
enemies than to his own enmity and bad faith. But he had been early
doomed to destruction. The recommendations of the British diplomatists
in Afghanistan had been adopted by the Governor-General; and the
deposition of Mehrab Khan, and the annexation of Shawl, Moostung, and
Cutchee, had been decreed in the Simlah Council Chamber.[22] It was
true that Shah Soojah had, in the hour of need, been succoured by
Mehrab Khan. A statesman in whom the kindly instincts of humanity were
so strong as in Lord Auckland, was not likely to forget the obligations
which so essential a service at such a time imposed upon the restored
monarch.[23] But the graceful suggestion of the Governor-General was
lost; and the Khan lived just long enough to curse himself for his
folly in having opened his arms to receive the Suddozye pretender,
when he fled, baffled and beaten, from the battle-field of Candahar.
For that act of hospitality he paid, five years afterwards, with his
life.
Whether any thoughts of this kind arose to dash the pleasure of those
who toasted the victors of Khelat at Avitabile’s dinner-table, can
only be conjectured; but all present acknowledged that the capture
of Mehrab Khan’s stronghold was a great military exploit. The native
soldiery are said to have esteemed it more highly than the capture of
Ghuznee, for they had been wisely allowed to participate in the honour
of the exploit. Sir John Keane had been much censured for composing
his storming column entirely of European companies. The exclusiveness
of the act seemed to imply mistrust in his Sepoy regiments, and did
not raise the General in the estimation of their officers. It was a
subject, therefore, of general congratulation throughout the Company’s
army, that a Native regiment had shared with two of the Ghuznee
storming corps the glory of the assault upon Khelat, and had proved
themselves well worthy of the confidence that had been placed in them.
And so Sir John Keane and General Willshire returned to India. The
“Army of the Indus” was broken up, and soon there came from England
the welcome announcement that the successes of the campaign had been
duly appreciated by the Sovereign, and the chief actors duly rewarded.
Lord Auckland was created an Earl; Sir John Keane rose up as Baron
Keane of Ghuznee; Mr. Macnaghten took his place in history as Sir
William Macnaghten, Baronet; Colonel Wade became thenceforth Sir Claude
Wade, Knight; and a shower of lesser distinctions, of brevets and
Bath-honours, descended upon the working officers, whose gallantry had
contributed so largely to the success of this memorable campaign.
CHAPTER II.
[January-September: 1840.]
The Great Game in Central Asia—The Russian Expedition to
Khiva—Apprehensions of Burnes—Colonel Stoddart—Affairs on
the Hindoo-Koosh—Failure of the Russian Expedition—Conduct
of the Sikhs—Herat and Yar Mahomed—Mission of Abbott and
Shakespear—Disturbances in the Ghilzye Country—Fall of
Khelat—Arthur Conolly.
The King and the Envoy spent the winter at Jellalabad. There was
something like a lull in Afghanistan. When the snow is on the ground
the turbulence of the Afghans is wont to subside.[24] The time was
favourable for the consideration of revenue matters, and Macnaghten
began to inquire into the expenditure and the resources of the kingdom.
The inquiry was not a satisfactory one. It was obvious that the
government could be carried on only by the extraction of large sums
from the treasury of India; and Macnaghten was continually urging the
Supreme Government to authorise the expenditure of these large sums of
money, and continually exhorting the authorities in the north-western
provinces to send him all the treasure they could spare.
But there was much in the state of our foreign relations at this time
to distract the thoughts of the minister from the affairs of the home
department. The Russian question was now forcing itself again upon our
Indian statesmen. Even before the Court turned its back upon Caubul,
tidings had been received, in the first instance from Pottinger at
Herat, which left little room to doubt that a Russian force was about
to set out from Orenburgh on an expedition into Central Asia. The
immediate object of this movement was to threaten the state of Khiva,
which had long been throwing obstacles in the way of Russian commerce,
and carrying off Russian subjects into hopeless captivity. Russia had
been prosecuting an extensive trade with the countries of Central Asia;
but the state of Khiva which borders on the country occupied by the
Kerghiz Cossacks, was now declared by the Russian Government to be
“daily harassing the wandering tribes that encamp on our frontiers,
interrupting the intercourse the other states of Asia keep up with us,
detaining the caravans of Bokhara on their way to and from Russia,
obliging them to pay extravagant duties, and compelling them by main
force to pass through its territory, and there seizing a considerable
portion of their merchandise.” “These insults to foreigners, holding
commercial intercourse with Russia, are, however,” continues the
Russian state-paper—the manifesto of the Government of the Czar,
declaring the grounds of their expedition into Central Asia—“of less
importance than the attacks which have been made on Russian caravans.
Not one of these can now cross the desert without danger. It was in
this manner that a Russian caravan from Orenburgh, with goods belonging
to our merchants, was pillaged by the armed bands of Khiva. No Russian
merchant can now venture into that country without running the risk
of losing his life or being made a prisoner. The inhabitants of Khiva
are constantly making incursions into that part of the country of the
Kerghiz which is at a distance from our lines, ... and to crown all
these insults, they are detaining several thousand Russian subjects
in slavery. The number of these unfortunate wretches increases daily,
for the peaceful fishermen on the banks of the Caspian are continually
attacked and carried off as slaves to Khiva.”
Here were plainly and intelligibly set forth the injuries committed
by the state of Khiva against the subjects of the Russian Government,
and the grounds on which the latter called for redress. Every attempt,
it was stated, to obtain satisfaction for these wrongs, by reason and
persuasion, had failed. It was necessary, therefore, to resort to
more decisive measures. “Every means of persuasion,” continued the
manifesto, “has now been exhausted. The rights of Russia, the security
of her trade, the tranquillity of her subjects, and the dignity of the
state, call for decisive measures; and the Emperor has judged it to
be time to send a body of troops to Khiva, to put an end to robbery
and exaction, to deliver those Russians who are detained in slavery,
to make the inhabitants of Khiva esteem and respect the Russian name,
and finally to strengthen in that part of Asia the lawful influence to
which Russia has a right, and which alone can insure the maintenance of
peace. This is the purpose of the present expedition; and as soon as it
shall be attained, and an order of things conformable to the interests
of Russia and the neighbouring Asiatic states shall be established on
a permanent footing, the body of troops which has received orders to
march on Khiva will return to the frontiers of the empire.”
The _casus belli_ was here laid down with sufficient distinctness, and
the facts stated in the manifesto were not to be denied. But it was
believed that Russia had other objects in view than the liberation of
her slaves and the safety of her commerce; and that if the British
army had not occupied Afghanistan, this manifesto would not have been
issued by the Czar. It was regarded, indeed, as a counter-movement
called forth by our own advance; and candid men could allege nothing
against it on the score of justice or expediency. There was something
suspicious in the time and manner of its enunciation. But there was
less of aggression and usurpation in it than in our own manifesto.
The movement was justified by the law of nations. There was outwardly
something, indeed, of positive righteousness in it, appealing to the
best instincts of our nature. And, if there were behind all this
outside show of humanity a politic desire to keep in check a rival
power, that was now intruding in countries far beyond its own line of
frontier, it can only be said that our own movement into Afghanistan
was directed against a danger of the same kind, but of much less
substantial proportions.
But the expedition of Russia into Central Asia excited the alarm of our
statesmen in Afghanistan, though it did not rouse their indignation.
There was, at all events, in it much food for anxious consideration.
It was the one great subject of thought and topic of discussion in the
winter of 1839-1840. Burnes, who was left in control at Caubul, whilst
Macnaghten was with the Shah at Jellalabad, now, with the snow around
him, found himself in the enjoyment of a season of comparative leisure,
able both to think and to write. “What a year has been the past,” he
wrote to a friend at Bombay, on the 19th of November—“not to me, I
mean, but to our affairs in the East. Further submission to what was
going on, and our days of supremacy in the East, were numbered. As it
is, we have brought upon ourselves some additional half-million of
annual expenditure, and, ere 1840 ends, I predict that our frontiers
and those of Russia will touch—that is, the states dependent upon
either of us will—and that is the same thing.... Every week brings
fresh business; and all the world will now have it that Russia has
advanced on Khiva. What of that? She has the right to relieve her
enslaved countrymen; and if she have the power, why should she have so
long hesitated? But the time she has chosen for this blow is an awkward
one. I hold, however, that the man who recommends the cantonment of
a British or an Indian soldier west of the Indus is an enemy to his
country.”[25]
After the lapse of a month, Burnes wrote again to another
correspondent, more emphatically, on the same subject:
But everything past and present has been cast into the shade by the
expedition which the Russians have now pushed into Central Asia. I
have known of it for eight weeks past, and had numerous and authentic
reports concerning their waggons, their _matériel_, &c., &c., all
of which are on a grand scale, giving rise to serious apprehensions
that their plans are not confined to the chastisement of the petty
Khan of Khiva; indeed, our policy at Herat is already out of joint,
and we have reason to know that Russia from Khiva looks to that city.
Her attack on Khiva is justified by all the laws of nations; and in
a country like England, where slave-dealing is so odiously detested,
ought to find favour in men’s eyes rather than blame. Yet the time
chosen wears a bad appearance, if it at once does not lead to the
inference that Russia has put forth her forces merely to counteract
our policy. This latter is my opinion; and by our advance on Caubul
we have thus hastened the great crisis. England and Russia will divide
Asia between them, and the two empires will enlarge like the circles
in the water till they are lost in nothing; and future generations
will search for both of us in these regions, as we now seek for the
remains of Alexander and his Greeks.
While external affairs stand thus, internal matters are not free from
anxiety. Dost Mahomed’s power is nominally dissolved; but he has just
been invited to Bokhara at the instigation of Russia, and he hopes
to receive Balkh as a gift from the King there; but in May next we
shall occupy Balkh, and if Russia advances beyond Khiva, be prepared
to meet her. Troops are, indeed, warned; but as we cannot act till
May, we shall have abundance of time. As for withdrawing our army, it
is out of the question; for though I maintain that man to be an enemy
to his country who recommends a soldier to be stationed west of the
Indus, what is to be done? Shah Soojah’s contingent has been hitherto
so mismanaged that it is fit for nothing; and till fit (supposing
Russia not to have appeared), the Shah cannot rely on Afghans. So he
says; but if he will but place British officers over them, pay them
regularly and not interfere with their republican ideas, they would
alone keep this country in order. Now, there is a dose of politics for
you, as verbose as I used to give you when we dined at the house in
Waterloo-place, or when, over a lobster, after some of those brilliant
society meetings in London. My present position is as follows: I drive
the coach in Caubul while Macnaghten is with the King. On our arrival
here, the envoy made a bold push to get away, he being tired of his
place; but the Governor-General beseeched him to stay a while longer,
and appointed your humble servant resident at Candahar; but this I
declined, and I now get 2500 rupees for staying here, though I hope to
receive my resident’s salary. The atrocious crime of being a young man
is what I imagine keeps me _en second_ so long; but I get on well with
Macnaghten, and only want responsibility to be a happy man.
In the Punjab, all is, I am glad to say, wrong. The son has usurped
all real power, and Kuruk Singh is a cypher. I hope their strife will
lead to the evacuation of Peshawur. Events bid fair for our taking
Herat; and then, and not till then, shall we have restored the Afghan
monarchy.[26]
Less heavily on Macnaghten’s mind sate the thought of this Russian
invasion. Other and nearer sources of inquietude troubled him at this
time. In whatsoever direction he turned his eyes, he was glared at by
some great trouble. Everything was going wrong. At Herat, Yar Mahomed
was playing a game of unexampled treachery. In the remote regions of
Central Asia, a British envoy was groaning under the tyranny of the
unscrupulous Ameer of Bokhara. Nearer home, the measures of the double
government in Afghanistan were beginning to bear their own bitter
fruits. At Candahar, the Douranees were chafing under the exactions of
unpopular revenue-officers. In the Kohistan, already were those, who
had revolted, in a critical hour, against Dost Mahomed, and contributed
largely to his expulsion from Afghanistan, sighing for his return.
And further down towards the South, the country which we had made the
burial-place of Mehrab Khan, was breaking out into rebellion against
the authority which we had attempted to establish; while the Sikhs, to
whom we had conceded so much, our associates in the Tripartite Treaty,
were unscrupulously intriguing against us.
All these things were against him. It was plain that he was among a
people of a very different stamp from those with whom he had been
connected throughout the earlier years of his administrative career.
There was much to disquiet his mind, to engage his thoughts, and to
occupy his time. One after another he passed in review before him all
the difficulties which beset his path; but there was nothing that
pressed more heavily on his mind, or which seemed to arouse him into
intenser action, than the outrages to which Colonel Stoddart had been
subjected at Bokhara.
Stoddart had been at Bokhara ever since the close of the year 1838. He
had been despatched by Mr. M’Neill to that Court, with instructions to
obtain the liberation of all the Russians pining there in captivity,
and to conclude a friendly treaty with the Ameer. His reception,
though marked by some caprice, was not altogether uncourteous. He was
very ignorant of the customs of the country, and was inclined to resent
as insults the exaction of formalities in accordance with the ordinary
usages of Bokhara. He seems to have made no effort to win the favour
of the barbarous monarch by the adoption of a conciliatory demeanour;
but somehow or other he scrambled through the first ceremonials without
giving the Commander of the Faithful any mortal offence.
But it would appear that he soon excited the bitter enmity of the
Reiss, or minister. His letters had been addressed to the predecessor
of this man. The old minister had been disgraced whilst Stoddart was
on his way to Bokhara, and the new man was little inclined to regard
with favour the Feringhee who had sought the protection of the old. In
a very short time, Stoddart, having been invited to the residence of
the Reiss, was suddenly seized, thrown to the ground, bound with cords,
and threatened with death by the minister himself, who stood over him
with a long knife. He was then carried out, on a dark rainy night, into
the streets, hurried from place to place, by torchlight, and at last
lowered down by ropes into a dark well, swarming with the most nauseous
vermin, to be the companion of murderers and thieves. In this wretched
dungeon, weakened both in body and in mind by long-continued suffering,
he consented outwardly to conform to the ceremonials of the Mahomedan
faith.
After two months of extreme suffering, Stoddart was released from
this dreadful dungeon. The chief officer of police then received him
into his house; and from this time, throughout the year 1839, though
subject to the caprices of a tyrannous monarch and an unscrupulous
minister, and the insults of barbarians of less note, his condition
on the whole was bettered. The success of the British in Afghanistan
seemed for a time to awaken the Ameer to a just sense of the power of
the British nation, and Stoddart rose into importance at the Bokhara
Court, as the agent of a powerful state, capable of exercising a mighty
influence over the destinies of Central Asia. But the caprices of this
barbarous potentate were great. The smiles of to-day were followed by
the cruelties of the morrow. Stoddart continued a prisoner at Bokhara;
and Macnaghten, sympathising with the sufferings of a brave officer,
and eager to chastise the insolent barbarity of the petty Central-Asian
tyrant, again contemplated the despatch of a brigade across the
mountains of the Hindoo-Koosh.
It was necessary, however, to tread cautiously on this ground. There
were more reasons than one why Macnaghten, at this time, turned his
thoughts towards Bokhara. Dost Mahomed had sought an asylum at the
Ameer’s Court.[27] The “Commander of the Faithful,” as this rude
Mussulman potentate ostentatiously termed himself, received the
fugitive with open arms. For a little while he lavished upon the fallen
Prince all the benignities of oriental hospitality; and then laid his
heavy hand upon him, and made him a prisoner.
“It seems certain that the Dost has got into bad odour at Bokhara,”
wrote Macnaghten to Burnes, on the 20th of February, “and it is very
improbable that the two Ameers-ool-Moomuneen will ever act cordially
together.” It was the policy of our British diplomatists, at this time,
to keep the two Ameers in a state of disunion and antagonism. But the
very course which Macnaghten was disposed to pursue towards Bokhara,
was that of all others which was most surely calculated to cement an
alliance between them. A military expedition against Bokhara would, in
all probability, have induced the Khan to release Dost Mahomed, and to
supply him with the means of crossing the frontier at the head of an
imposing body of fighting men, and, aided by the Wullee of Khooloom and
other chiefs of the Oosbeg hill states, making an effort to regain his
lost dominions. There was something, too, in the alleged cause of Dost
Mahomed’s confinement at Bokhara, which made Macnaghten waver still
more in his determination to send an army across the Hindoo-Koosh, and
suggested to him the expediency of devoting himself to the furtherance
of objects of another kind. It was said that the Ameer of Bokhara was
greatly incensed by Dost Mahomed’s practical refusal to summon his
family to that city. They had remained under the charge of Jubbar Khan,
in the hospitable territory of the Wullee of Khooloom; and it was
reported that the Khan of Bokhara had declared, that if they sought the
protection of the British Government, he would destroy Dost Mahomed.
But Jubbar Khan was well disposed at this time to seek from the British
an honourable asylum for his brother’s family; and the question of
their reception was earnestly pondered by Macnaghten, and discussed
with the Shah. In the middle of February, he wrote to Burnes, from
Jellalabad, that although common hospitality required that an asylum
should not be refused to persons “in so distressed a plight as the
Dost’s family;” but that, at the same time, common prudence required
that in the exercise of this office of humanity, we should not expose
ourselves to the machinations of perfidious enemies. He suggested
therefore, that Dr. Lord, in reply to any request on the subject,
should say that a safe and honourable asylum would be granted to the
Ameer’s family on condition of their residing wherever our government
might think proper to locate them.
But stolid, selfish, and remorseless towards his enemies, Shah Soojah
was not easily to be persuaded that either humanity or policy demanded
that he should grant an asylum or a maintenance to Dost Mahomed’s
family, and declared that nothing short of absolute force would induce
him to contribute a rupee towards their support. The vicissitudes of
his past life had only hardened the King’s heart, and often as he had
sought an “asylum” himself, he had now, in the day of prosperity, no
bowels of compassion for the fugitive and the suppliant. On the English
envoy, however, the obduracy of Shah Soojah had little effect, and
he still declared that the family of Dost Mahomed were entitled to
kind and honourable treatment at our hands. This justice and humanity
required, whilst it seemed also to Macnaghten to be sound policy to
hold out every inducement to the Ameer to commit his family to our
charge. In that case, he wrote to Burnes, the Shah of Bokhara could
make no use of Dost Mahomed, and the objection to the movement into
Toorkistan would be obviated. “Let us examine,” he added, “what we
are to gain by such a movement, and upon what principles it should
be conducted. The first thing to be gained is the punishment of the
Shah of Bokhara, for his frequent and outrageous violation of the
law of nations, and the release of our agent, Colonel Stoddart, who,
without some exertion on our part, will, it is likely, be doomed to
incarceration for life. I suppose the expedition to be conveniently
feasible, if entered upon at the proper season of the year. What Timour
Shah effected, we can do; and with proper arrangement we may either
enlist on our side, or keep neutral, the chiefs between us and Bokhara.
If we compelled the Shah of Bokhara to release Stoddart, to evacuate
all the countries on this side of the Oxus, and to pay the expenses of
the expedition, we should have achieved all that is desirable.”[28]
The Court remained at Jellalabad up to the third week of April; and
the excursive mind of the Envoy was still wandering out in the wild
regions beyond the Hindoo-Koosh. It was certain that a Russian army
was advancing upon Khiva. In the country about Khooloom the adherents
of Dost Mahomed were exciting against us the hostility of the Oosbegs.
Jubbar Khan, with the Ameer’s family and a large party of retainers,
were there. The petty chiefs beyond the mountains were in a state of
doubtful vassalage, scarcely knowing whether they were subject to
Herat or to Caubul; whether they would recognise the Khan of Bokhara
or the Khan of Khiva as their suzerain; or whether they would be,
in effect, independent of all.[29] It was desirable to annex these
Cis-Oxus principalities to the territory of the Shah, to strengthen
our frontier, and keep them out of the hands of the Bokhara ruler.
Already was there a weak detachment wintering amid the inhospitable
snows of Bameean. The despatch of a strong brigade to the country
beyond was still among the cherished projects of the Envoy. Writing
from Jellalabad, he turned his back upon the southern passes, and
looking out across the northern Caucasian mountains, declared that it
was easier to march on Bokhara than to subjugate the tribes of the
Khybur. To the Governor of Agra he thus addressed himself on the 1st of
April, “A brigade of ours, with a due proportion of artillery, would,
I think, from all I have heard, be fully competent to overcome any
opposition that could be offered to us between this and Bokhara. I do
not think that we should incur the risk of the movement solely for the
purpose of reannexing the Cis-Oxus provinces to the dominions of his
Majesty Shah Soojah; though if they are not so re-annexed, Bokhara,
at the instigation of Russia, will certainly assert a real supremacy.
At present she has only Balkh and its dependencies, and her sway over
that even is but nominal. But we cannot allow Dost Mahomed’s family
to occupy so commanding a position as Khooloom, close to the Afghan
frontier. And may not the contingency upon which the home authorities
direct an advance, be said to have arisen should the Russians establish
themselves in force at Bokhara?”[30]
It was, indeed, a great game on which Macnaghten was then intent—a
game so vast that the subjugation of the Punjab and Nepaul was regarded
as a petty contribution to its success. These grand schemes dazzled
him, and he could not see the dangers which grew at his feet.
“I intend,” he wrote in the letter above quoted, “sending Arthur
Conolly, who has joined me here, and Rawlinson on a mission to Kokan,
with a view, if possible, to frustrate the knavish tricks of the _Russe
log_ in that quarter. Though there are doubtless many of the elements
of mischief in this country, yet I should not apprehend any internal
explosion, even if the greater portion of our troops were withdrawn.
Depend upon it we shall never be at our ease in India until we have
subjugated the Punjab and Nepaul; and the sooner we can come to a
reckoning with our faithful allies the Singhs, the better. They are
doing all they can to injure us in this quarter, and are comforting
all the rebels and parties disaffected to his Majesty Shah Soojah. We
should here have no difficulty in dealing with them in this quarter,
and I will venture to say there would not be a disciple of Nanuk on
this side the Indus a week after the declaration of hostilities.”
As the month advanced, the intelligence from the North was more and
more calculated to rivet the opinion entertained by Burnes and others
of the success of the Russian expedition,[31] and Macnaghten began to
think that the danger was greater than he had once believed. “Unless,”
he wrote at the end of April, “Lord Auckland act with vigour and
promptitude to secure and open our rear, we shall soon be between two
fires—if not under them. France and Russia are advancing with only
the remote contingency of profit to stimulate them. We are supine,
whilst our inactivity will probably be the cause of our ruin. France
gratuitously supplies Persia with 30,000 muskets, at a time when Persia
may be said to be at war with us. I cannot, though I have repeatedly
and earnestly pressed my request, obtain a single musket.”
A fortnight after this letter was written, the Envoy proposed to Burnes
that he should proceed on a mission to the Russian camp. “He said, he
would willingly go if ordered—but that,” added Macnaghten, “is not the
spirit which should animate our Elchee;” and the design was abandoned.
It must have been very soon after this[32] that the glad tidings of the
break-down of the Russian expedition reached the Court of Shah Soojah.
The Envoy had spoken despondingly of the contemptible enemy which the
Russian army had to encounter. But there was an enemy of which no
account was taken—an enemy that had destroyed one of Napoleon’s finest
armies, and which was doomed to overthrow utterly our own policy in
Central Asia—spreading its toils around Peroffski’s advancing columns.
The Snow was doing its work.
On the 13th of March, the failure of the expedition was announced
in the public journals of St. Petersburgh, and Lord Clanricarde, on
the same day, sent the intelligence to Lord Palmerston. The journals
announced that the intense cold, the deep snow, and the inaccessibility
of the country, had destroyed the camels, and compelled the army to
retrace its steps. But the actual truth was worse than the newspaper
history; for Peroffski’s ill-fated army had been attacked by pestilence
and famine.
As the year wore on, Macnaghten’s difficulties seemed to thicken
around him. The failure of the Russian expedition removed one source
of inquietude; but it was a remote one. And nearer home, many great
dangers were bristling up in his path. Still immersed, however, in
foreign politics, the Envoy gave little heed to the domestic troubles
which were environing him. His thoughts were continually ranging
beyond the limits of Shah Soojah’s dominions; and whilst the edifice
he had reared was falling to pieces by the force of its own innate
corruptness, he was devising measures of external defence.
During the spring and the early summer months two subjects pressed
urgently on his attention, and became the burdens of his discourse.
The one was the conduct of the Sikhs; the other, the state of affairs
at Herat. Ever since the death of Runjeet Singh, the temper of the
Lahore Durbar had been such as to impress the Envoy strongly with the
conviction that nothing but decisive measures would ever bring our
allies to regard the terms of the Tripartite Treaty. The real ruler of
the Punjab was the young and impetuous Prince, Nao Nehal Singh, who
had almost set aside the authority of his imbecile father, and was
longing for the day when he might take more openly and undisguisedly
the sceptre into his hands. In every possible way our allies had evaded
the stipulations of the treaty. They had rendered no effectual aid to
Prince Timour in the operations which, conjointly with Wade, he had
undertaken for the recovery of his father’s throne. They were making
light of the obligation to support a contingent force of Sikh troops
on the frontier, in return for the subsidy granted by the treaty;
and proof had been afforded that they were engaged in treasonable
correspondence with our enemies in Afghanistan. It is certain, at
least, that they were harbouring at their frontier stations the rebel
Ghilzye chiefs, who had been driven out of Shah Soojah’s territory,
and suffering, if not aiding, them to return again to foment new
disturbances. Sultan Mahomed Khan and his brothers at Peshawur were
servants of the Maharajah, but they were Barukzyes still; and it was
not strange that they regarded with undisguised satisfaction the clouds
which were gathering over the restored Suddozye monarchy.
But more important still than these considerations, was the question
which had now arisen regarding the free passage of our troops and
convoys through the dominions of Lahore. It was obvious that we could
not maintain our position in Afghanistan so long as the Punjab stood
impassable between that country and Hindostan. But Nao Nehal Singh
and the Kalsa viewed with insurmountable jealousy the passage of our
armaments through the Punjab. They declared, that when Mr. Clark
negotiated for a passage for the troops returning from the expedition
into Afghanistan, the accorded permission was limited to that especial
case, and was by no means intended to convey a general license for
the repeated crossings and recrossings which now seemed to be in
contemplation. But Macnaghten declared that it was absolutely necessary
to “macadamise” the road though the Punjab; and the authorities at
Calcutta began to think that a war with the Sikhs was no improbable
event.
Parallel with these inquietudes arising out of the conduct of the
Lahore Durbar and its agents, ran the troubles which weighed upon
Macnaghten’s mind in connexion with the ill-omened aspect of affairs
at Herat. The insolent ingratitude of Yar Mahomed had reached a
pitch of sublime daring. The British Government were lavishing their
treasures upon Herat; and the chief minister of Herat, in return for
this support, was insulting the British officers, and intriguing
with the Persian Court. It has been stated that in the month of June,
1839, Major D’Arcy Todd had been despatched on a special mission to
Herat. He was instructed to conclude a treaty of friendship with Shah
Kamran; to ascertain the causes of the dissatisfaction of the Heratee
Court with the British Government; to conciliate the good will of Yar
Mahomed, and to wean him from his Persian intrigues, by assuring him of
our friendly disposition towards him, and of our desire to support his
administration; to determine, if possible, the boundaries between Shah
Kamran’s and Shah Soojah’s dominions; to aid the Heratee Government
with money, and to strengthen the fortifications of the place. This
accomplished, he was to have joined the Court of Shah Soojah, leaving
Pottinger, whose authority he was not to have superseded, to carry on
the ordinary duties of the Agency. But the young Bombay Artilleryman
had availed himself of the occasion of Todd’s presence at Herat to
obtain leave of absence, and visit the British provinces; and the
latter had consented to remain in his place.
The task which had been entrusted to Major Todd he had performed, as
far as such a task was one of possible performance, with no common
address; and being a man of enlarged humanity, with a high sense of
his duty as a Christian officer, he had exerted himself to render the
presence of the British Mission at Herat a blessing to the oppressed
and suffering people. But it was not possible to change the nature of
Yar Mahomed; to make him either grateful or true. In the history of
human infamy there is nothing more infamous than the conduct of this
man. The treaty between the British Government and the state of Herat,
by which the latter bound itself not to enter into negotiations with
other states without the knowledge and consent of the British Resident,
had only been signed a few weeks, when Yar Mahomed was detected in
carrying on a correspondence with the Persian Asoof-ood-Dowlah at
Meshed, offering to place himself and his country under the protection
of the Persian Government, and inviting him to enter into a league for
the expulsion of the infidel English from Afghanistan.
Up to this time eight lakhs of rupees had been advanced to the Heratee
Government. When the new year dawned upon Herat, twelve lakhs had been
so advanced. The utmost benefits had been conferred upon the state. The
measures of our British officers had rescued “King, chiefs, and people
from starvation.”[33] But at this very time a letter was addressed
to Mahomed Shah of Persia, in the name of Shah Kamran, declaring the
Heratee ruler to be the faithful servant of the Shah-in-Shah; and
setting forth that he only tolerated the presence of the English
because they were useful to him—that, in truth, they were not
niggardly with their money; but that the hopes of his Majesty were in
the asylum of Islam.
In explanation of this black-hearted treachery it is said that the
apprehensions of Yar Mahomed had been excited by the imposing attitude
of Great Britain in Afghanistan—that he looked upon the danger to be
apprehended from the contiguity of the British army as something less
remote and more alarming than the return of Mahomed Shah; and that it
was his policy at this time to play off one state against another, and
to secure the good offices of Persia, whilst openly receiving the
bounties of Great Britain. This is, doubtless, the view in which the
matter is to be regarded with reference to the case of Yar Mahomed,
the statesman. He was not incapable of taking a statesmanlike view
of the position of his principality. He understood the interests
of Herat. But better still did he understand the interests of Yar
Mahomed. The presence of the English officers at Herat was a burden
and a reproach to the Wuzeer. He hated their interference; he had no
sympathy with their high-toned notions of humanity—with their horror
of slavery—with their compassion for the weak and oppressed. He had
thriven best in bad times; he had found the sufferings of the people
serviceable to him. The _surveillance_ of the British Mission impeded
the exercise of his arbitrary desire to enrich himself at the expense
of his poorer countrymen. So he hated Pottinger; he hated Todd; he
hated every high-minded Englishman. But he bore with them for their
money. Todd’s measures were especially distasteful to him. The effort
which he was making to break down the accursed slave-trade of Central
Asia, was more obnoxious than everything beside.
Associated with Todd—an Artillery officer—were two other subalterns
of Artillery—James Abbott and Richmond Shakespear. They were men of
ability, of enthusiasm, and of high courage. Abbott’s mind was of a
more imaginative and romantic cast than that of his associate, who
had qualities of a more serviceable kind, more practical, and more
judicious. Both were men sure to carry out any duty, however hazardous,
entrusted to them, in a conscientious and intrepid manner. They were
well inclined for any kind of personal adventure; and, ardent in the
pursuit of knowledge, were eager to explore new countries, to mix
with an unfamiliar people, and to visit uncivilised courts. When,
therefore, Todd, acquainted with the menacing attitude which Russia had
assumed towards the Court of Khiva, and the declared grounds of her
Central-Asian expedition, recognised the expediency of despatching a
British officer to the capital of the Khan Huzzrut, to mediate for the
liberation of the Russian slaves in captivity there, he was fortunate
in having at his elbow two men, to either of whom he might securely
entrust the charge of a mission at once hazardous and delicate. In
December, 1840, Abbott, who was the senior of the two, was hastily
despatched to the Court of Khiva.[34] The Khivan ruler, then awaiting
in alarm the approach of the Muscovite battalions, yet not altogether
unsuspicious of the forward movements of the British, was well-inclined
to receive the Mission; but Yar Mahomed had set at work the same dark
intrigues which had caused Colonel Stoddart to be cast into captivity
at Bokhara, and was doing his best to thwart the humane efforts of the
British artilleryman. He seems to have had an instinctive hatred of
men who were exerting themselves to sweep away the foul slave-marts of
Central Asia.
With deep and painful interest Macnaghten watched the progress of
events at Herat. The perfidy of Yar Mahomed was so glaring—so
unblushing—that the Envoy had not hesitated to recommend offensive
proceedings against the state of Herat, to be followed by its
re-annexation to the dominions of Shah Soojah. But Lord Auckland when
the proposal first came before him, was disinclined to embrace it. He
thought it better to forgive Yar Mahomed; and make a further experiment
upon the gratitude of the Wuzeer. So, instead of an army, as Macnaghten
eagerly recommended, a further supply of money was sent to Herat; and
Yar Mahomed continued to intrigue with the Persian Government.[35]
It seemed to the Envoy, at this time, that there was no middle course
to be pursued. All through our Central-Asian policy, indeed, there
ran two substantive ideas. It was either the bayonet or the money-bag
that was to settle everything for us. When Macnaghten found that the
rulers of Herat were not to be dragooned into propriety, he declared
that there was nothing left for us now but to bribe them. He proposed
that a subsidy of two or three lakhs per annum should be granted to
Herat; that guns, muskets, and ordnance stores in abundance should
be furnished to the state; and in the meanwhile he continued to
send up more treasure, with a profusion which startled the Calcutta
Government, to be expended on the strengthening of its defences and the
sustentation of the people.
But as the treachery of Yar Mahomed became more fully developed,
the Governor-General began to mistrust the efficacy of the course
of forbearance and conciliation which he had in the first instance
recommended. He had authorised Major Todd to declare his forgiveness
of all past offences, and was willing to enter upon a new covenant
of friendship, _rasâ tabulâ_, with the offending state. But he was
not then acquainted with the fact of the letter to Mahomed Shah, in
which, with almost unexampled shamelessness, the writer boasted of
the cajolery practised upon the English, who lavished their money
freely upon Herat, whilst its rulers were flinging themselves into the
arms of Persia; for although that letter had been written in January,
and came, therefore, within the margin of those offences for which
forgiveness had been declared, it was not until some time afterwards
that this crowning act of perfidy was discovered and laid bare before
the Governor-General. Then it would seem that Lord Auckland began to
waver in his resolution to maintain the independence of Herat. But
he was at this time resident at Calcutta. Sir Jasper Nicolls,[36]
who had held the chief command at Madras, an old and distinguished
officer, who had done good service in the Nepaul war, and was possessed
of an amount of Indian experience almost unexampled in an Indian
Commander-in-Chief, was at the Presidency. The war in Afghanistan
had been extremely distasteful to him from the beginning, and he now
viewed with suspicion and alarm all the projects which were passing
before him for the despatch of more troops and the diversion of more
treasure from their legitimate purposes in Hindostan. No warlike
promptings, therefore, from the military side of the Council Chamber,
ever stimulated Lord Auckland to bury his legions in the inhospitable
defiles of Afghanistan, or to waste the finances of India in insane
attempts to change the nature of the chiefs and people of Central Asia,
and to bribe them into quiescence and peace.
But ever was it the burden of Macnaghten’s letters, that he could do
nothing with Afghanistan until Yar Mahomed and the Sikhs had been
chastised; and Herat on the one side, and Peshawur on the other,
re-annexed to the Douranee Empire. How strongly he felt on these points
may be gathered both from the public and private letters which, in
the summer of 1840, he despatched from Caubul to his correspondents
in different parts of India and Afghanistan. “This,” he wrote to the
Governor-General on the 20th of July, “if the means are available,
appears to me the time for accomplishing the great work which your
Lordship has commenced, and of effectually frustrating the designs of
Russia. Herat should now be taken possession of in the name of Shah
Soojah. To leave it in the hands of its present possessors, after
the fresh proofs of treachery and enmity towards us which they have
displayed, would, in my humble opinion, be most dangerous. Herat may
be said to be the pivot of all operations affecting the safety of
our possessions and our interests in the East, and thence Balkh and
Bokhara would be at all times accessible. The Sikhs should no longer
be suffered to throw unreasonable obstacles in the way of our just and
necessary objects, and if they really feel (as they are bound by treaty
to do) an interest in the success of our operations, they should not
object to the passage of our troops, or even to their location in the
Punjab, should such a measure be deemed conducive to the welfare of us
both. Your Lordship will, I feel assured, forgive the freedom of these
remarks. I am convinced that one grand effort will place the safety
of our interests on a firm and solid basis.... I shall only add, that
should offensive operations against Herat be undertaken, I should not
entertain the smallest doubt of their complete and speedy success,
especially as we should have many friends in the country.”[37] “We have
a beautiful game on our hands,” he wrote in another letter, “if we
have the means and inclination to play it properly. Our advance upon
Herat would go far to induce the Russian government to attend to any
reasonable overtures on the part of the Khan of Khiva.”
And so still was Macnaghten’s cry ever for more money and more
bayonets, that he might play the “beautiful game” of knocking down and
setting up kingdoms and principalities, with which it became us not
to interfere, to the waste of the resources, and the sacrifice of the
interests of those whom Providence had especially committed to our care.
In the meanwhile, in the dominions of Shah Soojah everything was going
wrong. Macnaghten still professed his belief in the popularity of the
King, and was unwilling to acknowledge that the people were not in a
state of repose. But every now and then, both in Afghanistan itself,
and in the country that had been wrested from Mehrab Khan, awkward
evidences of the unsettled state of the country rose up to proclaim
far and wide the fact, that there was little loyalty in men’s minds
towards the Shah, and little affection for his foreign supporters. The
Ghilzyes, whom in the preceding autumn Captain Outram had attacked,
and, it was said, reduced, were now again rebelling in Western
Afghanistan. The chiefs had fled to Peshawur, had been harboured
there during the winter, and now, on the return of the spring, had
been slipped from their retreat, strengthened, it was believed, by
Sikh gold. At all events, in the month of April they were actively
employed raising the tribes and cutting off our communications between
Candahar and Caubul. General Nott had by this time assumed the command
of the troops at the former place—a place with which his name has
since become imperishably associated. Under-rating the strength of the
“rebels,” as all were then called who did not appreciate the new order
of things which the British had established in Afghanistan, he sent out
a party of 200 horsemen, under Captains Walker and Tayler, to clear
the road. But the detachment was not strong enough for the purpose.
It was necessary to reinforce them. Nott had some good officers about
him, but he had not one better than Captain William Anderson, of the
Bengal Artillery, commandant of the Shah’s Horse Artillery at Candahar.
So, on the 6th of May, the General sent for Anderson, and asked him
whether he could prepare himself to march on the following morning,
with a regiment of foot, four guns, and 300 horsemen. Anderson answered
promptly that the artillery were always ready, and that he would do
his best. By seven o’clock on the following morning the detachment
was under arms and ready for the march. On the 14th they came up with
Tayler and Walker, in the neighbourhood of the Turnuk river. The
Ghilzyes were about eight miles distant, variously reported at from 600
to 3000 men. Anderson’s cattle were exhausted; so he halted, and to
gain time, opened negotiations with the enemy. The answer sent back by
the chiefs was a gallant one. They said, that they had 12,000 men—a
firm faith in God and in the justice of their cause—and that they
would fight. So Anderson prepared to attack them. Detaching his cavalry
to the right and left, he moved down, on the 16th, with his infantry
and his guns, and, after a march of some five miles, found the enemy
about 2000 strong, occupying some hills in his front. The action was a
gallant one on both sides. Twice the enemy charged. The first charge
was repulsed by a heavy fire from Turner’s guns—the second was met
at the point of the bayonet by Spence’s infantry. Anderson, after the
first march from Candahar, beguiled by some accounts of the retirement
of the enemy, had sent back the greater part of the cavalry with which
he had started; so that he was weak in that arm. But for this, he would
have cut up the enemy with heavy slaughter. As it was, the victory
was complete. The enemy fled and betook themselves to their mountain
fastnesses, whilst Anderson re-formed column and marched on to take up
a good position above Olan Robat. The country around was quieted for
a time by this victory; but disaffection was not rooted out. Indeed,
every action of this kind only increased the bitter animosity of the
Ghilzyes, and established unappeasable blood-feuds between our people
and the tribes.
But the money-bag was now brought in to complete what the bayonet had
commenced. It was expedient to conciliate the Ghilzyes, who had at any
time the power of cutting off our communications between Candahar and
Caubul; and Macnaghten, therefore, recommended the payment of an annual
stipend to the chiefs,[38] on condition that they would restrain their
followers from infesting the highways. But neither the bayonet nor the
money-bag could keep these turbulent tribes in a continued state of
repose.[39]
At the same time, the state of the southern provinces was such as
to excite painful disquietude in Macnaghten’s mind. The tract of
country which, after the capture of Khelat, had been annexed, by the
fiat of the Indian Government, to the territory of Shah Soojah, was
perpetually breaking out into fierce spasms of unrest. It had been
almost entirely denuded of British troops; and small detachments were
sent here and there, or solitary political agents sate themselves
down, with only a handful of fighting men at command, as though all
their paths were pleasantness and peace, and all their homes bowers
of repose. But the Beloochees neither liked their new chief nor his
European supporters. The blood of Mehrab Khan was continually crying
out against the usurpation. Ever and anon opportunity offered, and
it was not neglected. One officer,[40] on his way from the fort of
Kahun with a convoy of camels, was overwhelmed and destroyed by the
Beloochees. Kahun was invested by the Murrees. Quettah was besieged by
the Khaukurs.[41] It was soon apparent that the whole country was in
revolt. The youthful son of Mehrab Khan was in the field. The tribes
were flocking around him. The chief who had been set up in his place
was at Khelat. Lieutenant Loveday was with him. The defences of the
place were miserably out of repair. The garrison mainly consisted of
the chief’s own people. There were scarcely any means of resistance
at their command, when the wild tribes, headed by the family of
Nussur Khan, came crowding around the walls of Khelat. The new chief
was staunch and true. But there were traitors and evil counsellors
in the fort, and Loveday listened to bad advice. No succours could
be sent to his relief, for our other positions in Upper Sindh were
threatened by the hostile tribes. And so it happened that, after some
days of beleaguerment, Khelat fell to the Brahoo chiefs.[42] Newaz Khan
abdicated in favour of the youthful son of the prince who had fallen in
the defence of his stronghold; Loveday was made a prisoner; and when
some months afterwards, a detachment of British troops advanced to the
relief of Dadur, which had been attacked by the enemy, the unfortunate
young officer was found in the deserted camp of the Brahoos, chained to
a camel-pannier, half naked, emaciated, and dead. His throat had just
been cut by the sabre of a Beloochee horseman.[43]
But in spite of all these indications of unrest——these signs of the
desperate unpopularity of the restored monarchy——Macnaghten clung
to the belief that the country was settling down under the rule of
Shah Soojah, and never ceased to represent to Lord Auckland and his
secretaries that there were no grounds for uneasiness or alarm. He was,
indeed, most anxious to remove any impressions of an opposite character
which may have forced themselves upon the minds of the Governor-General
and his advisers. On the 8th of July he wrote to Mr. Colvin, saying;
“You tell me that my letter has left a very painful impression upon
you, as manifesting my sense of the weakness of the royal cause. I
fear I must have written my mind to very little purpose regarding the
state of this country. You rightly conjecture that the Barukzyes have
most ‘inflammable material to work upon.’ Of all moral qualities,
avarice, credulity, and bigotry, are the most inflammable, and the
Afghans have all these three in perfection. They will take Sikh gold,
they will believe that Shah Soojah is nobody, and they will esteem it
a merit to fight against us. When, in addition to these inducements,
there has been positively no government in the country for the last
thirty years, it will cease to be wondered at that commotion can easily
be raised by intriguers possessing a long contiguity of frontier,
and having, besides, all the means and appliances to ensure success.
Though our presence here, doubtless, strengthens Shah Soojah, it must
be remembered that in some sense it weakens him. There is no denying
that he has been supported by infidels; and were we not here, he would
adopt Afghan means of suppressing disturbances such as we could not be
a party to. To break faith with a rebel is not deemed a sin by the most
moral Afghan; and assassination was an every day occurrence. By the
encouragement of blood-feuds, it is notorious that Dost Mahomed propped
up the little power he had beyond the gates of Caubul.”[44]
It vexed Macnaghten’s spirit to think that he could not infuse into
other British officers in Afghanistan some of his own overflowing faith
in the popularity of the Shah, or his own respect for the royal person.
From the very outset of the campaign the popular feeling throughout
the army had been strong against Shah Soojah, and the conduct of his
Majesty himself had not tended to lessen it.[45] And the worst of it
was, that all kinds of stories about the haughty exclusiveness of the
Shah, and the low estimation in which he was held both by the British
officers and by his own subjects, were perpetually making their way
to Government House, and there finding ready acceptance. It irritated
Macnaghten to receive letters from Colvin, commenting on failure, and
hinting at mismanagement in Afghanistan. At last his patience gave way,
and on the 4th of August he wrote to the Private Secretary, bitterly
complaining of the attention paid by Government to the stories of
persons afflicted with the “imposthume of too much leisure,” who,
he said, were daily fabricating the grossest falsehoods against his
Majesty and the authorities, as the supposed cause of their detention
in a land “not overflowing with beer and cheroots.” “The Shah,” he
added, “is conciliatory in the extreme to all his chiefs. He listens
with the greatest patience to all their requests and representations,
however unreasonable, and he cannot bear to give any of them a direct
refusal on any occasion. You have been told that he is a ruler who
seeks to get on ‘without trusting, rewarding, or punishing’ any of his
own people. It is nonsense upon the face of it, and is contradicted by
every hour’s experience. I have nothing more to say about his Majesty’s
character than I have already said. I believe him to be the best and
ablest man in his kingdom. The history of the revenues of this poor
country may be given in a few words. The whole is consumed in the pay
of the priesthood, the soldiery, and the support of his Majesty’s
household. You shall have the particulars of these as soon as I can get
half an hour’s leisure. You know we are solemnly bound to refrain from
interference in the internal administration; and, in my advice, I have
been cautious to urge no innovations which could, at this early stage
of our connection with them, shock the prejudices of the people.”
“And now, my dear Colvin,” continued the vexed envoy, “you must
allow me to disburden my mind to you. I have perceived, or fancied
I perceived, on several occasions lately, a want of confidence in
my proceedings, and a disposition to listen to every unfavourable
report regarding affairs in this quarter; whilst I do not receive
that support to which the overwhelming difficulties of my position
entitle me.” He then adverted to a controversy which, he said, had
been “thrust upon him” by Brigadier Roberts, who commanded the Shah’s
force. There had been from the first a jealousy, almost amounting to
a conflict of authority, between the envoy and the brigadier. It was
often difficult to observe the just frontier-line between the military
and the political, and each had chafed under the supposed interference
of the other. The soldier, whose imagination did not colour affairs in
Afghanistan with the roseate hues which flushed everywhere the future
of the civilian, was regarded as an intrusive alarmist; whilst to
Roberts it appeared, on the other hand, that the sanguine temperament
of the envoy, was likely to be the parent of a host of evils which
might culminate in some frightful disaster. The controversy had been
brought to the notice of the Governor-General, rather in the shape
of private or demi-official correspondence than in a formal appeal
to the higher authority; and Lord Auckland, who still looked forward
to the entire withdrawal of the regular troops from Afghanistan, and
was, therefore, anxious to support the functionary on whom would
then devolve the chief military command, ordered an official letter
to be written containing some passages which stung the envoy to the
quick.[46] Believing, then, that the Governor-General had withdrawn
his confidence from him, he talked of resigning his appointment. “If no
important operations,” he wrote to the Private Secretary, “should be
contemplated for next year in this quarter, for the conduct of which
it may be thought desirable that I should remain, some of the public
money will be saved by the appointment of a less-paid though equally
qualified agent. I never yet have served in an office where I had not
the confidence of my superiors, and my inclination to do so is by no
means strengthened after a laborious public life of thirty-one years.”
He was sore in spirit at this time because, as he said, his actions
were watched and his measures criticised, and letters written to
Calcutta, setting forth that things were not going on well in
Afghanistan. He complained that the Governor-General was too willing to
listen to all the stories which reached him from uncertain sources of
information, and he looked upon Lord Auckland’s reasonable credulity
as unreasonable want of confidence in him. “I am much obliged to you,”
he wrote to a friend in August, “for the kind hint contained in your
last. I should never for a moment think of resigning my post from
any difference of opinion between myself and my superiors, as to the
measures which should be adopted for the security of our interests
in this quarter; but when a want of confidence is shown in myself
personally, I would rather not wait till I get a less equivocal hint to
move. Of late, I find that there has been kept up a system of espionage
on my proceedings, and that the most ready credence has been afforded
to the malevolent tales of every idle fellow about camp, to say
nothing of newspaper fabrications, which are taken for gospel. I cannot
well help myself as to my correspondents, for Colvin evidently writes
to me with the sanction of the Governor-General.”
But above all these petty cares and distractions rose the one dominant
thought in Macnaghten’s mind, of the great and beautiful game that was
to be played by the annexation of Herat and the coercion of the Sikhs;
and still he continued to write to Lord Auckland that there was nothing
else to be done. One letter of many will suffice to show how this
leading idea still overbore everything in his mind:—
“We are now arrived at a crisis which calls for the most serious
consideration. If such a course should suit the convenience of
government, I should say that a vigorous policy now is that which
ought to be pursued. It is, indeed, in my opinion, by such a course
alone that our interests can be secured, and your Lordship’s past
policy justified. By annexing Herat to the crown of Caubul, and by
insisting upon the concession of our rights from the ruler of the
Punjab, your Lordship will at once provide for the consolidation of
Shah Soojah’s power, and show to the world that the attainment of
all the advantages contemplated from the movement across the Indus,
has been hitherto opposed only by the perfidious intrigues of the
two powers professing to be our friends and allies. In addition to
the demands already made upon the Sikhs, they should be required, I
think, to admit unequivocally our right of way across the Punjab, and
in the event of their denying this right, they should be convinced
that we can take it. I confess myself utterly ignorant of what
political objections may exist to this course of proceeding, or of
the military means that may be available; and I am much staggered at
a paper which I have just seen from Captain Sanders, who talks of its
being expedient to take 12,000 men against Herat. I believe, however,
that military authorities seldom underrate the difficulties to be
encountered. This paper will, I believe, be sent to your Lordship by
Sir W. Cotton. I have a proposition from Captain Bean to recognise the
right of Mehrab Khan’s son to the musnud of Khelat. This I think might
be done, if he would come and pay homage in person to Shah Soojah, as
Shah Narwaz can never be re-instated. But I shall tell Captain Bean
to keep the question open if possible, until I know your Lordship’s
views regarding Herat. If it be intended to send a large force into
the country with a view of reducing Herat, the Khelat affair will
afford an excellent screen to our intentions. I must beg your Lordship
most earnestly, if possible, to relieve the two European and five
Native regiments now in this neighbourhood. They are inefficient and
worn out, and both officers and men are grumbling and discontented. In
the present state of affairs it would be very hazardous to admit of
their return, unless their places were filled by fresh troops, and a
relief would enable us to settle with promptitude the Bajor affairs,
and to place our relations with the Khyburees on a firmer basis. Then,
should Dost Mahomed come in, he will have to be be sent to India, and
in the present state of Sikh feeling, I doubt if it would be prudent
to send him across the Punjab with only a regiment for his escort.
We have a rumour very generally credited, that Colonel Stoddart has
been poisoned by the Ameer of Bokhara, but I yet hope that it will
prove incorrect. On the Ghilzye affairs alluded to in your Lordship’s
letter of the 16th, I have this day written to Mr. Colvin. In a day
or two it is my intention to send up officially, with my comments, a
paper handed to me by Sir A. Burnes, on the present state and future
prospects of this country. I hope to show that, all things considered,
we are in as prosperous a condition as could have been expected. Sir
A. of course wishes to prove the contrary, since by doing so, when
he succeeds me, his failures would thus find excuse and his success
additional credit. This is all natural enough. I have been exposed to
a thousand interruptions whilst writing this, and beg pardon if I have
used too much freedom.”[47]
In a letter despatched a few days afterwards to Lord Auckland,
Macnaghten wrote: “I trust the Russians may not come to Khiva this
year, for we have quite enough on our hands without them. Captain
Conolly starts in a few days. I trust your Lordship will have the
goodness to direct that both he and Captain Abbott be gazetted as
lieutenant-colonels whilst serving in Toorkistan.” There had gone forth
a mission—and an ill-omened one, to Bokhara—there had gone forth two
missions to Khiva—and now one was to be despatched to the intervening
state of Kokund.
Eagerly did Arthur Conolly grasp the idea of this Kokund mission.
He was a man of an earnest, impulsive nature, running over with the
purest feelings of benevolence, and glowing with the most intense
longings after the civilisation and evangelisation of the human race.
He believed that the great Central-Asian movement was designed by
Providence to break down the huge walls of Mahomedanism which begirt
the shining East, and to substitute civilisation, liberty, and peace,
for barbarism, slavery, and strife. He was a visionary, but one of
the noblest order; and when he looked out beyond the great barrier
of the Hindoo-Koosh, traversed in imagination the deserts of Merve,
and visited the barbarous Courts of the Khans of Khiva, Kokund, and
Bokhara, he never doubted for a moment that the mission which he was
about to undertake was one of the highest and holiest with which a
Christian officer could be entrusted. “I feel very confident,” he wrote
to a friend, “about all our policy in Central Asia; for I think that
the designs of our government there are honest, and that they will
work with a blessing from God, who seems now to be breaking up all the
barriers of the long-closed East, for the introduction of Christian
knowledge and peace. It is deeply interesting to watch the effects
that are being produced by the exertions of the European powers, some
selfish and contrary; others still selfish, but qualified with peace
and generosity; all made instrumental to good. See the French in
Africa; the English, Austrians, and Russians on the Bosphorus, forcing
the Turks to be European under a shadow of Mahomedanism, and providing
for the peaceful settlement of the fairest and most sacred countries in
the world.”[48]
Ever delighting in adventure, and prone to romance, he was at
this time in a frame of mind which rendered him peculiarly greedy
of excitement. A great sorrow was weighing heavily upon his heart.
He sought relief in stirring occupation—in active adventure upon
new scenes of enterprise; and when, for a time, it seemed that the
unwillingness of the Supreme Government to sanction the mission
was not to be overcome, he gave vent to the liveliest feelings of
disappointment: “I was greatly disappointed,” he wrote to a dear friend
on the 30th of May, “when Lord Auckland’s prohibitory letter arrived;
for I had set my heart upon this nobly stirring employment; and when
the chance of it seemed removed, I felt the blank that a man must feel
who has a heavy grief as the first thing to fall back upon.”
Conolly and Rawlinson were to have proceeded together to the camp of
General Peroffski. But the Muscovite expedition to Khiva was brought
by cold and want to a mournful end at Ak-boulak, and there was soon
no Russian camp in Central Asia to which these enterprising officers
could be despatched, if the permission of Government had been obtained.
But Conolly, believing in his inmost heart that there was a much
grander game to be played in those remote regions than one suggested
by the mere accidental circumstance of the Russian advance, still
clung to his conviction of the policy of the contemplated Mission, and
earnestly enforced his opinions upon his political chief. Macnaghten
listened—yielded—and indulging rather the wishes of his friend
than conforming to the dictates of his own judgment, recommended the
enterprise to the favourable consideration of the Supreme Government;
and acting upon certain passages in a letter from the Chief Secretary,
which might be construed into an implied permission, of a general
rather than a specific character, ordered Conolly to proceed to Khiva
and Kokund.
It was with feelings of irrepressible delight, that now, at the
beginning of August, Arthur Conolly found himself “fairly going” on his
enterprising journey to the Courts of the Trans-Oxian Khans. His heart
was in the cause. He was full of impetuous enthusiasm. He was eager
that the British Government should play “the grand game” in Central
Asia, and declared that a mission so righteous in its objects must
prosper in his hands. His spirits rose, as he looked into the future;
and, full of generous enthusiasm, he began to make preparations for his
journey. “We are just on the wing,” he wrote to Rawlinson on the 22nd
of August, “and I shall make the best of my way to the two capitals
for which I carry credentials. It is a work which must prosper; and
I only wish again that you were to be of the party to accomplish it;
but, as I said before, you occupy a high and useful station, and can’t
be at two places at once. If the British Government would only play
the grand game;—help Russia cordially to all that she has a right
to expect—shake hands with Persia—get her all possible amends from
the Oosbegs, and secure her such a frontier as would both keep these
man-stealers and savages in wholesome check, and take away her pretext
for pushing herself and letting herself be pushed on to the Oxus—force
the Bokhara Ameer to be just to us, the Afghans, and the other Oosbegs
states, and his own kingdom—but why go on; you know my, at any rate in
_one_ sense, _enlarged_ views. _Inshallah!_ The expepediency—nay, the
necessity of them will be seen, and we shall play the noble part that
the first Christian nation of the world ought to fill.”
There were still, however, causes of delay. An ambassador from Shah
Soojah was to accompany the British officer. But it was long before
the King could select from the people about his Court one to whom he
could entrust so responsible a duty. At last, after much hesitation,
his choice fell upon Allahdad Khan Populzye—a little, scrubby-looking,
sallow-faced man, with a busy look and a restless eye, believed to
be skilful in political intrigue, and as little likely to betray his
trust as any man about the Court. He left his family and his money
behind him, and these, as the Shah significantly said, were the best
guarantees for his good conduct.
Everything now was ready. Conolly, early in September, turned his face
towards the Hindoo-Koosh. There was a mission of another kind then
setting towards those dreary regions. It was not a Mission of Peace.
Colonel Dennie, who had distinguished himself at the head of the
Ghuznee stormers, was about to march, with the 35th Sepoy Regiment, to
reinforce the Bameean detachment, and to take the command of all the
the troops on the northern frontier.
CHAPTER III.
[June-November: 1840.]
The last Struggles of Dost Mahomed——The British in the
Hindoo-Koosh——The Ameer’s Family——Occupation of Bajgah——Disaster
of Kamurd——Escape of Dost Mahomed——Feverish State of Caubul——
Dennie’s Brigade——Defeat of the Ameer——Sale in the Kohistan——The
Battle of Purwandurrah——Surrender of Dost Mahomed.
It is time that to these regions of the Hindoo-Koosh attention should
now again be directed. The little force which had been despatched
thither in the autumn of 1839, and had wintered among the caves of
Bameean, was by the coming in of spring released from its inactivity.
It was not Lord’s policy to be quiet. There was Jubbar Khan with the
family of Dost Mahomed at Khooloom. Already it has been seen that
the reception of these people had been the subject of correspondence
between Lord and Macnaghten. But Jubbar Khan halted between two
opinions. The winter passed away. The spring passed away. And still
he remained with his brother’s family at Khooloom. The Wullee, or
chief, of that place was still true to the cause of the Ameer; and he
permitted the Newab to maintain this numerous party by levying the
transit duties of the place.
This was a state of things which, in the opinion of Lord and
Macnaghten, had already lasted long enough. They were eager to bring
the Newab to a decision. So, at the end of May, or the beginning of
June, a party was sent out under Captain Garbett, ostensibly for the
purpose of reconnoitring the passes to the north of our position at
Bameean. But there was, doubtless, another object in view. It was
believed that such a demonstration would have the effect of quickening
the movements of Jubbar Khan, who had more than once been on the point
of starting for the British post, but, overcome by irresolution,
had struck his tents and returned. Already had some of the party of
refugees left their asylum at Khooloom, and sought the hospitality of
the British. Azim Khan, one of the Ameer’s sons, had “come in;” and
some of the women and children, too, had passed on towards Caubul. But
the Newab himself still vacillated; and it was believed that a forward
movement of our troops would stimulate him to come to a decision.
The movement had the desired effect. At all events, Jubbar Khan set
out for Bameean. Nor was this the only noticeable result of the
_reconnaissance_. Beyond the valley or glen of Kamurd, which stretches
northward from Syghan across the great mountain-range, lay the isolated
fortress of Bajgah. When our reconnoitring party came upon this place,
to their surprise they found it deserted. It belonged to one Syud
Mahomed, who now appeared, and declared that he had vacated it for
the express purpose of making a tender of the fort to the British, as
an outpost that might be of great service to them. A small party of
infantry were accordingly placed in the fort, and the circumstance was
immediately reported to Dr. Lord. Lord grasped at the offer; and in the
strongest terms recommended both to Cotton and Macnaghten the permanent
occupation of the post. His arguments prevailed; and on the 29th of
June the Shah’s 4th Regiment, under Captain Hay, was sent to garrison
this isolated fort. On the 3rd of July, Jubbar Khan arrived at Bameean
with the remaining members of the Ameer’s family, and a large party of
retainers.
It soon became obvious that the occupation of Bajgah was a mistake.
Sturt, the engineer, who had been sent up to survey the passes,
pronounced upon its unfitness as a military post. It was plain, too,
that the temper of the surrounding tribes was very different from that
of the population about Bameean. At the latter place the soldiery
and the peasantry were on the best possible terms. About Bajgah the
people looked upon the new comers with a jealous eye. All the efforts
of Captain Hay to establish a friendly intercourse between himself
and the inhabitants failed. They would not bring in grain; they would
not bring in forage. Soon their hostility began to evince itself in a
more alarming manner. “On the extreme summits of the northern hills
overlooking Bajgah, were frequently seen groups of horsemen, apparently
watching the movements of the people in the deep glen below.”[49]
Unfortunately, at this time Hay, the only officer at Bajgah, was
incapacitated by sickness. So he sent to Syghan for Lieutenant Golding;
and on the 2nd of August sent out a party of two companies, under
Sergeant Douglas, to escort that officer to Bajgah. They performed
their march without interruption, and at night bivouacked under the
walls of a fort held by one Sula Beg. The chief received them with an
outside show of friendliness; and then despatched a message to another
chief, Baba Beg, of Ajur, saying, “See! I have the Feringhees in a
_dieg_ (caldron). They are ready to your hand. If you are not here by
noontide to-morrow, I will yield up my fort to them.”
Morning came. There was no appearance of the party whom they had
been sent to meet; so Douglas was preparing to return to Bajgah,
when a heavy matchlock fire was opened on his men, from the fort and
the surrounding orchards; and presently a party of Oosbeg horsemen
appeared in sight, and charged down upon the little band, who met and
repulsed the attack. It was a fine thing then to see the bold front
which Douglas and his men showed to the enemy, as they made their way,
exposed to a heavy matchlock fire, through the dense orchards and
wilderness of gardens. But many fell on the retreat; and many more
would have fallen, for their ammunition was well-nigh gone, had not
Sturt suddenly appeared with two more companies of the same sturdy
Goorkha Regiment,[50] and rescued them from inevitable destruction. The
enemy turned and fled; and Sturt and Douglas returned to Bajgah.
The evil tidings of this disaster soon reached Caubul. It was a time of
deep anxiety. As this month of August advanced, the perplexities which
distracted the mind of the envoy, gathered around him more closely and
more tormentingly. A series of small but mortifying failures, of which
this Bajgah affair was one, not without a significance of their own,
kept him in a constant state of excitability, and left him neither rest
of body nor serenity of mind. On the 12th of August he wrote to Major
Rawlinson, saying, “There has been an awkward business near Bajgah,
owing to the incapacity of the officer in command of the 4th or Ghoorka
Regiment. He has allowed a company to lose thirty or forty men, killed
and wounded, I think but little of this affair. Lord has gone off to
put things to rights. Macgregor has failed also in his efforts to set
matters to rights in Bajore. His invincibles have been vanquished, and
he has lost a gun. All these little accidents happening at once are
enough to disgust one; but, _Inshallah!_ the Company’s Nusseeb will
prove superior to them all.”
A week later, and it had become still more apparent that, even in the
very neighbourhood of the capital, sedition was weaving plots for
the subversion of the authority of the Shah; and that the Sikhs were
intriguing from a distance for the restoration of Dost Mahomed. On the
19th of August, the envoy wrote to the same correspondent, that he had
“intercepted a letter which, if genuine (as he had every reason to
believe it to be), implicated many chiefs in meditated insurrection
in favour of Dost Mahomed.” It distinctly stated too, that Nao Nahal
Singh had promised pecuniary aid in furtherance of the design. “I am
now just going to his Majesty,” he added, “to consult as to what should
be done.” It was time, indeed, that the King and the envoy should take
counsel together. Dost Mahomed had escaped from Bokhara.
For a while the fugitive Ameer had tasted the bitterness of close
confinement in the city of Bokhara. His sons, Afzul Khan and Akbar
Khan, shared his captivity. We know how the Khan of this inhospitable
place is wont to treat his Christian guests. His Mahomedan visitors,
whom he at first received with an outside show of kindness, were
dealt with somewhat more leniently. But the natural ferocity of the
man was not to be kept down. Dost Mahomed nearly became the victim
of a treacherous murder. Baffled in this attempt on the life of his
prisoners, and not daring openly to slay them, the Bokhara Ameer kept
them for a time under strict _surveillance_, forbidding them even to
repair to worship in the mosques. This inhospitable treatment seems
to have called forth a remonstrance from the Shah of Persia, in
consequence of which greater liberty was allowed to the unfortunate
Princes. They made the most of the relaxation, and effected their
escape. Many romantic incidents are told about this flight from
Bokhara. The horse, on which the Ameer fled, fell exhausted by the
way-side. So he transferred himself to a caravan, which he chanced to
overtake, and escaped detection only by dyeing his beard with ink. The
Wullee of Khooloom, with unshaken fidelity, opened his arms to receive
his old ally, and placed all his resources at his command.
It was not long before the Ameer again found himself at the head
of a considerable force. His family, with the exception of the two
sons who had shared his captivity in Bokhara, were in the hands of
the British. He knew the danger of his determined course, and when
reminded that his wives and children were in our power, sorrowfully
replied, “I have no family; I have buried my wives and children.” As
the Oosbeg fighting men flocked to the standards of Dost Mahomed and
the Wullee of Khooloom, the hopes of the former seemed to rise; and his
determination to strike a vigorous blow for the recovery of his lost
empire, gathered strength and consistency. To have cut up the Bameean
detachment, and emerging from the Hindoo-Koosh, to have appeared on the
plains below flushed with victory, raising the old war-cry in the name
of the Prophet, and profiting by the unpopularity of Shah Soojah and
his supporters, in that part of the country, would have been a noble
achievement—one which would have rendered easy his triumphant progress
to the very walls of the capital. He determined to make the effort; and
early in September advanced upon Bameean, with a force of six or eight
thousand men.
The month of September brought with it no mitigation of the anxieties
of the envoy. From the country beyond the Hindoo-Koosh came exaggerated
tidings of the successful progress of Dost Mahomed. “It is reported
to-day,” wrote Macnaghten on the 3rd, “that all Toorkistan is in arms
against the Feringhees and the _Moofsids_ (rebels) here are very hard
at work. It is certain that Hybuk has fallen to the Dost, and it is
probable that Codrington will have to retire on Syghan. I put the best
face on matters, and a slight success which our troops had at Bajgah
over a party of the enemy, furnishes me with the foundation of a good
story.”
But this good story soon became a bad one. On the 30th of August the
Oosbegs had attacked Bajgah; and the Goorkhas under Codrington, aided
by Rattray with some Afghan horse, had driven back the assailants.
But it was plain that this isolated post, in the midst of a hostile
population, was no longer tenable. It was expedient, therefore, to
fall back upon Syghan. So Bajgah was evacuated. The Goorkhas commenced
their retreat; and then it was pronounced that Syghan could not be held
against a large body of hostile troops. It was determined, therefore,
that they would fall back upon Bameean. They lost everything upon the
retreat. We had pushed on our outposts to those remote points, only to
abandon them disastrously on the first appearance of the enemy.
But there was something far worse than this. A regiment of Afghan
infantry had been raised, and Captain Hopkins commanded it. It was the
commencement of an attempt to establish a national army for the support
of the throne. Its loyalty was now to be put to the proof, by placing
it within the reach of all those sinister influences which were most
likely to undermine it. The result may be readily anticipated. The
atmosphere of the Hindoo-Koosh, and the contiguity of Dost Mahomed,
were fatal to the fidelity of the corps. The Afghan soldiers, headed
by their commandant, Saleh Mahomed,[51] deserted their colours; and a
number of them joined the enemy.
Day after day, the tidings brought to Macnaghten were more and more
distressing. All Afghanistan seemed ripe for revolt. “We are in a stew
here,” he wrote to Rawlinson on the 6th of September, “perhaps greater
than the occasion warrants; but our situation is far from comfortable.
It is reported that the whole country on this side the Oxus, is up in
favour of the Dost, who, with the Wullee, is certainly advancing in
great strength; so much so that our troops have been obliged to fall
back upon Bameean, whilst we have a formidable band of conspirators in
the city, and the Kohistan is ripe for revolt. These matters of course
engross my serious attention, and I have about fifty chits to answer
every half-hour..... We are wretchedly weak, having only three infantry
regiments, including one of the Shah’s. We have been compelled to send
off the 35th to reinforce the garrison at Bameean, but still we are
strong enough, I hope, in a fair field, to lick all the _Moofsids_ that
could be brought against us.”
Macnaghten’s worst fears were confirmed. Caubul now seemed to be on the
eve of an insurrection. On the 9th, the Envoy, in preturbation of mind,
wrote again to Rawlinson at Candahar: “The town is in a very feverish
state. Some people are shutting up their shops; others, sending their
families away; and some active measures must be taken for stopping the
panic. We have taken possession of the gate of the Balla Hissar by a
guard from Craigie’s regiment, and brought the mountain train inside
the citadel. The apparently insignificant fact of Mesdames Trevor and
Marsh having come up to the Balla Hissar from the town, has created a
great sensation. We are sending out a party to watch the Charekar Pass,
and Sanders goes with them; so that between force and conciliation and
intrigue (in which art, I am sorry to tell you, I have now taken my
degree), I hope we shall be more than a match for the Dost. But I have
an anxious time of it, as you may imagine.”
But in the midst of all these perplexities he thought still of the
“great game”—of the annexation of Herat and the subjugation of the
Punjab—and chafed under the restraints which Lord Auckland had imposed
upon him. “I had a letter,” he wrote, “from Lord Auckland yesterday,
and from that I gather that his Lordship’s intentions are essentially
pacific, both as regards Herat and the Punjab. Oh! for a Wellesley
or a Hastings at this juncture. By a most ingenious process, he has
substituted the cause for the effect, or rather the effect for the
cause. He says, so long as we are continually agitating the question
of taking possession of Peshawur and Herat, we cannot expect honest
co-operation from the powers owning those places; thus overlooking, or
affecting to overlook, the fact, that but for the dishonesty of those
powers the question would never have been contemplated by us. This
drivelling is beneath contempt. I shall now send up the proofs I have
obtained (and they are tolerably strong) of the perfidy of the Sikhs
without note or comment, and leave the rest to Providence. I shall
adopt the same course with regard to the intrigues of Yar Mahomed.”
Day after day, the clouds gathering over Caubul grew denser and darker.
An open enemy was in the field, and a false friend—our ally of the
famous Tripartite treaty—was insidiously pushing his intrigues up
to the very gates of the Balla Hissar. On the 12th of September,
Macnaghten, weary and dispirited, wrote to the Governor-General,
saying:—“I am much fatigued, having been severely worked the whole
day; but I write these few lines just to apprise your Lordship that
affairs in this quarter have the worst possible appearance. The whole
Kohistan is reported to be ripe for revolt, though possibly in this
there may be some exaggeration; and we hear of resolutions to rise in
other parts of the country. But the worst news of all is that received
from Dr. Lord this morning, to the effect that an entire company of
Captain Hopkins’s corps has gone off with its arms and accoutrements
to join Dost Mahomed Khan, and it is fully expected that their example
will be followed by the whole regiment. Dost Mahomed Khan is said to
be advancing with his entire force; but Dr. Lord’s intelligence seems
very defective. I have just had a note from Sir W. Cotton, in which he
observes: ‘I really think the time has now arrived for you and I to
tell Lord Auckland, _totidem verbis_, that circumstances have proved
incontestably that there is no Afghan army, and that unless the Bengal
troops are instantly strengthened, we cannot hold the country.’ I have
long since, and strongly and repeatedly, urged my opinion that another
brigade should be sent to us. I have also pointed out that there is no
such thing as an Afghan army, and I have incessantly urged my earnest
opinion to the effect that our position here would be most perilous
unless a stop were put to Sikh intrigues. They have now been allowed
to go on till the country is thoroughly convulsed by them. Up to this
moment Syud Mahomed Khan, one of the Barukzye triumvirate, is carrying
into effect his iniquitous designs against his Majesty’s Government.
Caubul is full of Sikh emissaries, and letters were yesterday
intercepted from the Sikh agent to the address, amongst others, of Nao
Nehal Singh, which clearly shows the _animus_ by which the Sikhs are
actuated towards their allies of the Tripartite treaty. The Sikh agent
acknowledged the letters were his own. He did not know they had been
opened.”
The 18th of September was a memorable day. It was the turning-point of
our fortunes in Afghanistan. On that day the anxieties of the British
minister were at their height. Never was the aspect of affairs more
threatening—never was there so little to cheer and encourage the
perplexed political chief. The pale cast of despondency was over all
his thoughts. His physical and mental energies were alike beginning to
fail. “At no period of my life,” he wrote on that 18th of September,
“do I remember having been so much harassed in body and mind as during
the past month. Nor is my uneasiness yet much lessened. The Afghans are
gunpowder, and the Dost is a lighted match. Of his whereabouts we are
wonderfully ignorant. I have no hope that he will attack Bameean, and I
have great fear that he will throw himself into the Kohistan, where, it
is said, the whole country will rise in his favour. But I am weary of
conjecture; and we must make the best preparation we can against every
possible contingency. Not the least of my vexations arises from our
inability to depute Shah-zadah Timour at the present moment. But his
presence in the Kohistan is indispensably necessary. He sets out this
evening attended by all the chivalry of Caubul.”
But upon that very 18th of September—perhaps whilst the British
minister, in perturbation and despondency of mind, was tracing these
very lines, and looking, with painful forebodings of evil, for
intelligence from the Hindoo-Koosh, the detachment of troops, long shut
up in those dreary mountain fastnesses, now re-inforced from Caubul,
were achieving a great and decisive victory over the forces of Dost
Mahomed and the Wullee of Khooloom, and changing the entire aspect of
affairs in those remote Caucasian regions.
On the 14th, the reinforcements under Brigadier Dennie had reached
Bameean. It was currently reported that, on that day, Dost Mahomed
would attack our position. Nothing, however, was seen of his army, and
contradictory reports of his movements continued to pour into camp.
From the stories which were circulated at Bameean, and the contents of
the letters divulged by the neighbouring chiefs, it appeared that the
Ameer had not yet fully determined whether to make a descent upon our
detachment, or to avoid the contest. From Kamurd he wrote to one chief:
“For God’s sake, tell me the news! Will the Feringhees run or fight?”
To the Sirdars of the Afghan corps that has just before deserted, he
wrote that all Toorkistan had joined him, and that he had 40,000 men at
his call. In all his letters he declared that he had taken up arms for
the honour of his religion, and called upon all true believers to flock
to the holy standard of the Prophet.
Brigadier Dennie’s first measure, upon reaching Bameean, was to disarm
the apostate Afghan corps. He then began to bethink himself of marching
upon Syghan to meet the advancing troops of the Ameer. But the enemy
were then nearer than he anticipated. On the evening of the 17th,
he obtained intelligence to the effect that some advanced bodies of
cavalry were “entering the valley from the great defile in our front,”
six miles from Bameean; and on the following morning it was reported
that they had attacked a friendly village which had claims to the
protection of our troops. The Brigadier resolved, therefore, to expel
them. It was believed that they constituted the advanced guard of the
Ameer’s army under his son Afzul Khan. On the morning of the 18th, a
detachment was ordered out to drive the enemy from the valley. Soon
after eight o’clock, two horse-artillery guns under Lieutenant Murray
Mackenzie, two companies of the 35th Native Infantry, two companies of
the Goorkha corps, and about 400 Afghan horse, marched out to meet the
enemy. About half an hour afterwards, Dennie, with two more companies
of the Native Infantry regiment, and two also of the Goorkha corps,
followed in support of the advanced detachment. Instead of coming
merely upon the advance of the enemy, the Brigadier found an army in
his front.
But in spite of the slender force at his command, and the overwhelming
numbers of the enemy, Dennie did not hesitate for a moment. His men
were eager to advance; and he himself was full of confidence and
courage. The enemy had got possession of a chain of forts reaching to
the mouth of the defile, and were collected in bodies round the several
forts, and upon the hills on either side of the valley. Mackenzie’s
guns began to play upon them. A little while the Oosbegs stood the
fire; but the guns were nobly served, and the shrapnel practice told
with terrific effect on dense bodies of men who had nothing to give
back in return. The Oosbegs fell back, and, as they retreated, the guns
were pushed forward; and first from one distance, then from another,
opened a destructive fire upon the wavering disconcerted enemy. The
Oosbeg force was soon broken to pieces; and our cavalry were then let
slip in pursuit. Following the disordered masses for some miles along
the defile, they cut down large numbers of the enemy, and dispersed
them in all directions. Dost Mahomed and his son are said to have owed
their lives to the fleetness of their horses.
Intelligence of this victory soon reached Caubul, and was received with
the liveliest emotions of joy by the British Resident. His spirits rose
at once. Again he began to look at the present without alarm, and into
the future without despondency. Never was a victory so much wanted as
in that month of September, and never did one promise so many good
results.
“The Dost had only one weapon,” wrote Macnaghten on the 21st, to
Major Rawlinson, “that was religion, and he certainly wielded it most
skilfully. I think the Oosbegs will now abandon him. Lord has offered
handsome terms to the Wullee, and should this fail, I am not without
hope that Meer Mahomed Beg will seize the present opportunity of
revenging himself on his old enemy.”
The attempt to detach the Wullee of Khooloom from his alliance with
Dost Mahomed was crowned with complete success. Doubtless Mackenzie’s
guns were the great suasive power. The battle of Bameean must have
shown the Oosbeg chief the hopelessness of further resistance; and
as Dennie was moving on to Syghan, it was prudent to come at once to
terms. Lieutenant Rattray was sent forward to arrange a meeting between
the Wullee and Dr. Lord; and on the 28th of September, on the summit
of the Dundun-i-Shikun, the British political agent and the Oosbeg
chief entered into engagements, by which the latter bound himself not
to harbour or assist Dost Mahomed, or any member of his family. The
country to the south of Syghan was ceded to Shah Soojah; that to the
north of it to the Wullee; and a telescope, which he said had been
promised, and which he was hurt at not having received before, was
given to the latter in completion of the bargain.
But these favourable results were but local and incidental. “I am
like a wooden spoon,” said Dost Mahomed; “you may throw me hither and
thither, but I shall not be hurt.” Defeated on the Hindoo-Koosh, he
reappeared in the Kohistan. Disaffection was rife throughout that part
of the Douranee Empire. The chiefs had begun to feel the evils of the
new revenue system, or rather the manner of its administration, which
rendered the tax-gatherer something more than a name. Supported by
British power, the executive officers of the Shah no longer stood in
awe of the petty chieftains, who soon began to murmur against the
change of government, and to lay all their grievances at the door of
the Feringhees. Thus irritated and exasperated, they were in a temper
to welcome back the Barukzye Sirdar. More than one fortress was in the
hand of a recusant chief; and it was apprehended that the presence of
Dost Mahomed would set the whole country in a blaze.[52]
In such a conjuncture it became necessary _to do something_ in the
Kohistan. But it was not easy to determine what. A blow was to be
struck, and the chapter of accidents was to determine how and in what
direction it should fall. Accordingly, in the last week of September,
a force under Sir Robert Sale was ordered to take the field. Sir
Alexander Burnes accompanied it, and directed its movements. At the
entrance of the Ghorebund Pass was a fortified village, and a chain
of detached forts, belonging to a hostile chief, who was known to
be in league with the fugitive Ameer. The name of this place was
Tootundurrah. On the 29th of September, Sale invested the enemy’s
position. The resistance was very slight. The fire of our guns and the
advance of the infantry column soon compelled its evacuation, and the
place was speedily in possession of the British troops. The success
was complete, and would have been cheaply purchased; but one fell
there, who, mourned in anguish of spirit by the Envoy, was lamented
by the whole force. Edward Conolly, a lieutenant of cavalry, one of
three accomplished and enterprising brothers, who had followed the
fortunes of their distinguished relative, Sir William Macnaghten, and
obtained employment under the British Mission, had on that very morning
joined Sale’s force as a volunteer. He was acting as aide-de-camp
to the General; when, as the column advanced, he was struck down by
a shot from the enemy’s position. The bullet entered his heart. “My
mind was in too disturbed a state all day yesterday,” wrote the Envoy
on the 1st of October, “to admit of my writing to you. Poor Edward
Conolly (Arthur’s next brother) has been killed by a dubious hand at
a petty fortress in Kohistan. Never did a nobler or a kinder spirit
inhabit a human frame. Poor fellow! he was shot through the heart, and
I believe he was the only individual on our side killed during the
operations of the 29th, when three forts belonging to the chief rebel
in the country were taken. The whole of the chiefs of the Kohistan
have now taken to flight. This is a result I by no means anticipated;
my wish was to punish some, and to conciliate others. As it is, I fear
that Dost Mahomed Khan will now be received by them with open arms.
There never was such a set of villains. They came in here, and bound
themselves to serve the Shah under the most solemn oaths conceivable,
and yet they had not returned to their homes half an hour before they
reopened their correspondence with Dost Mahomed. Their punishment
became indispensable, for they would shortly have had Dost Mahomed
amongst them; and now there is a possibility of their having imbibed so
wholesome a terror of our arms as to prevent their ever again assuming
an offensive attitude.”[53]
Having destroyed the defences of Tootundurrah, Sale advanced on the
3rd of October to the attack of Joolgah—another fortified position
held by the Kohistanee rebels. The walls of this place were too thick
to be easily breached, and too high to be easily escaladed. The guns
were light; the scaling ladders were short; and the enemy on the crest
of the breach offered the most determined resistance. The storming
party, led by Colonel Tronson, of the 13th Light Infantry, advanced to
the attack with a desperate gallantry worthy of a more distinguished
success. Many of the leading men were shot dead in the breach; the
struggle to effect a lodgment was ineffectual; and the column was
eventually withdrawn. Repulsed, but not disheartened by failure, the
British troops were preparing to renew the attack, when the enemy,
dreading the recommencement of hostilities, left the fort in the hands
of the besiegers. The works were destroyed; and so far the movement was
successful—but the failure of the assault deeply mortified the Envoy.
“I have bad news to send you,” he wrote on the 4th of October; “our
arms have met with a reverse at Joolgah in the Kohistan.[54] A storm
and escalade was attempted, but it would not do. The enemy evacuated
the place in the evening; but I fear that the whole of the Moofsids
(rebels) have escaped...... Burnes represents the country as being in
a very unsettled state; and I fear that it will be necessary for his
Majesty to remain in Caubul this winter. I intend to write and tell
Lord Auckland that he must send us reinforcements _viâ_ the Punjab.
The Dost was last heard of at Kanjau; but I have no doubt of his
soon entering Nijrow. Would it be justifiable to set a price on this
fellow’s head? We have intercepted several letters from him, from all
of which it appears that he meditates fighting with us so long as the
breath is in his body.”
During that month of October, to the annoyance and embarrassment of the
political officers and the discomfort of the troops, Dost Mahomed was
flitting about from place to place, with no intelligible plan of action
to give it any shape and consistency to our counter-operations. Various
were the reports which reached the British camp; various the accounts
of the nature of his movements and the number of his adherents. Many of
these were of the most conflicting character;—and the best-informed
officers in the British camp were beset with doubt and perplexity. On
the 11th of October it was known that the Ameer was in the valley of
Ghorebund. “I believe that there can be little or no doubt,” wrote
Macnaghten to Lord Auckland, on the following day, “of Dost Mahomed’s
having entered Ghorebund, and of his being at this moment within forty
or fifty miles distance from Caubul. It is impossible to say what may
be the effect of his coming into this neighbourhood. But I apprehend
very serious consequences, for both the town of Caubul and the country
are ripe for revolt. Dr. Lord writes that, as soon as Dost Mahomed
heard of Mr. Rattray’s approach, he said he would not remain to be sold
to the Feringhees, and immediately took the road to Ghorebund. I cannot
ascertain how many men he has with him—some accounts say ten thousand,
others, three hundred. The last is, I dare say, nearer the mark—but
what I dread is, the effect of his incessant intrigues (whilst he is so
near us) upon the minds of the population.”
Such, indeed, at this time, were the gloomy forebodings which
overshadowed the minds of the political chiefs, that they predicted
the necessity of concentrating the troops in the Balla Hissar of
Caubul, and actually began to talk of making preparations for a siege.
Guns were mounted on the citadel to overawe the town. The guards were
everywhere increased. The Bameean detachment was ordered to return
to the capital with all possible despatch. And Macnaghten began to
talk about “submitting to the disgrace of being shut up in Caubul for
a time.” It was, indeed, a critical moment. It has been seen that
the Envoy had begun to contemplate the expediency of setting a price
on the Ameer’s head. It is a proof alike of the dangers that beset
our position in Afghanistan, and the disturbing effects they had
wrought upon the minds of our political ministers, that such was the
exasperation produced by the apparent success of Dost Mahomed, even
upon the kindly nature of the Envoy, that he talked about “showing no
mercy to the man who was the author of all the evil now distracting
the country.” Shah Soojah had long been eager to “hang the dog;” and
now, in conversation with Macnaghten, he taunted him with his mistaken
leniency. “I suppose you would, even now,” said the King, “if I were to
catch the dog, prevent me from hanging him.” “It will be time enough,”
said the Envoy, “to talk about that when your Majesty has caught
him.” The British minister was about to take his leave, when the Shah
arrested him, and said: “You know I have from the first expressed to
you a mean opinion of my own countrymen. If you want further proofs,
look at _that_ from my own brother.” He then placed in the Envoy’s
hands an intercepted letter to the address of the Barukzye chief,
Sultan Mahomed, proposing that, with his aid, and that of the Sikhs,
Shah Zemaun should be placed on the throne, as Shah Soojah had made
over the country to the dominion of infidels. The letter bore the seal
of the old blind king himself. It was on the following day that the
Envoy wrote to the Governor-General that no mercy should be shown to
the Ameer; but he added, “should he be so fortunate as to secure the
person of Dost Mahomed, I shall request his Majesty not to execute him
till I can ascertain your Lordship’s sentiments.”[55]
In the mean while, the force under Sir Robert Sale had moved, in
pursuit of the Ameer, into the Nijrow country. On the 18th they were
encamped near Kardurrah; and on the 20th were meditating an attack
on the place. The Envoy, who watched their proceedings with extreme
anxiety, was impatient of the seeming dilatoriness of their movements;
and wrote to one of his colleagues: “Burnes and Sale, with nearly 2000
good infantry, are sitting down before a fortified position about
twenty miles distant, and are afraid to attack it. The enemy made an
attack upon them the night before last—killed and wounded some of our
people, and got off unscathed. All this is very bad.” But it was not
in reality so bad as it seemed to the perplexed and anxious minister
at Caubul. Whilst he was writing, preparations were in progress for
an attack, on the following day. On the morning of the 21st the force
was ready and eager for action. But as the troops advanced, fresh and
in good spirits, upon Kardurrah, a party of villagers met them with
tidings to the effect that the enemy had abandoned their position,
and that the place was without an inhabitant. If any feelings of
mortification welled up on the discovery that the garrison had escaped
our toils, they very quickly subsided. It was plain that the enemy had
made a great mistake, and that the British force had providentially
been delivered from a great danger. The position that the “rebels” had
abandoned was one of uncommon strength, and, had it been defended with
any spirit, could only have been carried, if at all, after a large
expenditure of life.
Dost Mahomed was now in the Nijrow country. His cause seemed to
gather strength. Even some of Shah Soojah’s soldiers deserted their
British officers and flocked to the Ameer’s standard. On the 27th of
October he broke ground, and moved down towards the capital. On the
29th, intelligence of his movements having reached the British camp
at Bhag-alum, the force marched out to intercept the enemy. The two
following days were employed by the engineer officers in reconnoitring
and surveying the surrounding country; and on the 1st of November the
force encamped before Meer-Musjedee’s fort. Here it was ascertained
that they were in the neighbourhood of the enemy, and preparations were
made to give battle to the Ameer and his adherents.
On the 2nd of November—a day which has obtained a melancholy celebrity
in the annals of the English in Afghanistan—the British force came
at last in sight of the enemy. The army of the Ameer was posted in
the valley of Purwandurrah. The Nijrow hills were bristling with the
armed population of a hostile country. Unprepared for the conflict,
Dost Mahomed had no design, on that November morning, of giving battle
to the Feringhees. An unexpected movement precipitated the collision.
On the first appearance of the British troops the Ameer evacuated the
village of Purwandurrah and the neighbouring forts; and was moving off
to a position on some elevated ground commanded by a steep hill to the
rearward, when, at the suggestion of Dr. Lord, the British cavalry were
moved forward to outflank the Afghan horse.
It was a clear bright morning. The yellow foliage of autumn glittered
like gold in the broad sunlight. The opposite hills were alive with the
enemy. The crisp fresh air, so bracing and invigorating to the human
frame, seemed to breathe confidence and courage. Dost Mahomed, who,
since his defeat at Bameean, had been often heard of, but never seen,
by the British troops, and who seemed to elude the grasp of the Army of
Occupation like an _ignis fatuus_, was now actually within their reach.
It ought to have been an hour of triumph. It was one of humiliation.
The Afghans were on the hills skirting one side of the pass; the
British troops were on the opposite declivity. Dost Mahomed saw our
cavalry advancing, and from that moment cast behind him all thought
of retreat. At the head of a small band of horsemen, strong, sturdy
Afghans, but badly mounted, he prepared to meet his assailants. Beside
him rode the bearer of the blue standard which marked his place in the
battle. He pointed to it; reined in his horse; then snatching the white
_lunghi_ from his head, stood up in his stirrups uncovered before his
followers, and called upon them, in the name of God and the Prophet,
to drive the cursed Kaffirs from the country of the faithful. “Follow
me,” he cried aloud, “or I am a lost man.” Slowly, but steadily, the
Afghan horsemen advanced. The English officers, who led our cavalry to
the attack, covered themselves with glory. The native troopers fled
like sheep. Emboldened by the craven conduct of the British cavalry,
the Afghan horsemen rode forward, driving their enemy before them, and
charging right up to the position of the British, until almost within
reach of our guns.[56] The Afghan sabres told, with cruel effect, upon
our mounted men. Lieutenants Broadfoot and Crispin were cut to pieces.
A treacherous shot from a neighbouring bastion brought Dr. Lord to the
ground; and the dagger of the assassin completed the work of death.
Captains Fraser and Ponsonby, whose gallantry has never been surpassed
even in the annals of old Roman heroism, still live to show their
honourable scars; and to tell, with mingled pride and humiliation, the
story of that melancholy day.
In front of our columns, flaunting the national standard, the Afghans
stood for some time masters of the field, and then quietly withdrew
from the scene of battle. Sir Alexander Burnes, awed by this disaster,
wrote to Sir William Macnaghten that there was nothing left for the
force but to fall back upon Caubul, and implored the Envoy there to
concentrate all our troops. Sir William received the letter on the 3rd
of November, as he was taking his evening ride in the outskirts of the
city. His worst forebodings seemed to be confirmed. Little did he know
what thoughts were stirring in the breast of the Ameer. Dost Mahomed,
in the very hour of victory, felt that it was hopeless to contend
against the power of the British Government. He had too much sagacity
not to know that his success at Purwandurrah must eventually tend, by
moving the British to redouble their exertions, rather to hasten than
to retard the inevitable day of his final destruction. He quitted the
field in no mood of exultation; with no bright visions of the future
before him. He had won the last throw, but the final issue had ceased
to be a matter of speculation. The hour in which, with dignity and
grace, he might throw himself upon the protection of his enemies, now
seemed to have arrived. He had met the British troops in the field,
and, at the head of a little band of horsemen, had driven back the
cavalry of the Feringhees. His last charge had been a noble one; he
might now retire from the contest without a blot upon his name.
So thought the Ameer; as was his wont, taking counsel of his saddle.
None knew in the British camp the direction he had taken; none
guessed the character of his thoughts. On the day after the victory
of Purwandurrah he was under the walls of Caubul. He had been
four-and-twenty hours in the saddle; but betrayed little symptoms
of fatigue. A single horseman attended him. As they approached the
residence of the British Envoy, they saw an English gentleman returning
from his evening ride. The attendant galloped forward to satisfy
himself of the identity of the rider, and being assured that the Envoy
was before him, said that the Ameer was at hand. “What Ameer?” asked
Macnaghten. “Dost Mahomed Khan,” was the answer; and presently the
chief himself rode up to the British minister. Throwing himself from
his horse, Dost Mahomed saluted the Envoy, said he was come to claim
his protection, and placed his sword in Macnaghten’s hand. But the
Envoy returning it to him, desired the Ameer to remount. They then rode
together into the Mission compound——Dost Mahomed asking many eager
questions about his family as they went. A tent having been pitched
for his accommodation, he wrote letters to his sons, exhorting them to
follow his example and seek the protection of the British Government.
He seemed to have become reconciled to his fate. He had no wish, he
said, to escape. Force, indeed, would not drive him to abandon the
refuge he had voluntarily sought. With Macnaghten he conversed freely
of his past history; and raised, by the recital alike of his doings and
his sufferings, the strongest feelings of admiration and compassion
in the Envoy’s breast. Every effort was made to soothe the Ameer’s
feelings; and he soon became serene and cheerful. A report that it
was the design of our government to banish him to London, disturbed
his equanimity for a time; but he was soon reassured by the promises
of the Envoy, and began to look forward with hopefulness to a life of
repose and security in the Company’s dominions. A few days after his
surrender, his eldest son, Afzul Khan, came into the British camp.
A prisoner, but an honoured one, Dost Mahomed remained some ten days at
Caubul, during which time all the leading officers of the garrison paid
him the most marked attention. Men, who kept aloof from Shah Soojah,
as one to be religiously avoided, were eager to present themselves
before the unfortunate Ameer, and to show that they respected him
in his fallen fortunes. He received his visitors with courtesy, and
conversed with them with freedom. Seated on the ground, he desired them
to be seated; and seemed to take pleasure in the society of the brave
men who did him honour. Captain Nicolson, an officer of distinguished
gallantry and great intelligence, whose early death on the banks of
the Sutlej is to be deeply deplored, having been selected by Sir W.
Macnaghten to fill the difficult and delicate office of custodian
to the fallen prince, acted, on these occasions, as interpreter. It
may be doubted whether a single officer quitted his presence without
drawing a comparison between the Ameer and the Shah, very much to the
disadvantage of the latter. The King refused to see his prisoner,
alleging that he would not be able to bring himself to show common
civility to such a villain. “This is well,” said the Envoy, writing
to the Private Secretary of the Governor-General, “as the Dost must
have suffered much humiliation in being subjected to such an ordeal.”
All the natural kindliness of the Envoy now set in towards the fallen
prince, and all the courtesies of the English gentleman were freely
bestowed upon him.
On the 12th of November, 1840, Dost Mahomed Khan, under a strong
escort,[57] commenced his journey towards the provinces of India; and
two months afterwards Macnaghten wrote:
“I trust that the Dost will be treated with liberality. His case has
been compared to that of Shah Soojah; and I have seen it argued that
he should not be treated more handsomely than his Majesty was; but
surely the cases are not parallel. The Shah had no claim upon us. We
had no hand in depriving him of his kingdom, whereas we ejected the
Dost, who never offended us, in support of our policy, of which he was
the victim.”[58]
And so Macnaghten, in a few lines of irrepressible truth and candour,
denounced the injustice of the policy of which he himself had been
one of the originators. It is possible, too, that Lord Auckland may
have felt that Dost Mahomed “never offended us,” but that we had
victimised him; for he received the Prince he had deposed with becoming
hospitality and respect, and burdened the revenues of India with a
pension in his favour of two lakhs of rupees.
CHAPTER IV.
[November: 1840-September: 1841.]
Yar Mahomed and the Douranees—Season of Peace—Position of the
Douranees—The Zemrindawer Outbreak—Conduct of Yar Mahomed—Departure
of Major Todd—Risings of the Douranees and Ghilzyes—Engagements with
Aktur Khan and the Gooroo—Dispersion of the Insurgents.
The remainder of the month of November passed away in peace and
tranquillity. The Envoy began now for the first time to taste the
blessings of repose, and to enjoy the advantages of leisure. But
his active mind was soon again busily at work. Dost Mahomed had
surrendered; but the Sikhs had not been coerced. The time for the
“macadamisation” of the Punjab seemed now to have arrived. To the
Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces of India, he wrote
on the 24th of November, of the “piping times of peace, so unfavourable
to the exercise of the epistolary art,” and of the “cards which played
so beautifully into his hands.” “This is the time,” he added, “for a
subsidiary force in the Punjab, and for the cession of the districts
to the west of the Indus. We are clearly not bound any longer by the
Tripartite treaty, and so I have told Lord Auckland; but I don’t think
his Lordship’s ambition will aim at more than keeping matters on their
present footing. We start for Jellalabad in three or four days; and it
is high time we should do so, as the weather is becoming bitterly cold
here. We shall now have a little time to devote to the affairs of the
country, and I trust its condition will be soon as flourishing as its
poor resources will admit.”[59]
Before the end of November, the Court were on their way to their winter
quarters at Jellalabad. On the morning of the 13th they reached that
place. The Envoy found Sir Willoughby Cotton still there, but “anxious
to get away;” and Captain Macgregor, the political agent in charge of
the district, surrounded by a motley crew of the chiefs of the country,
who seemed to look up to him as their common father. In the enjoyment
of a little rest from pressing anxieties, the Envoy began to turn
his thoughts to the domestic administration of the country. “We have
hitherto,” he wrote to the Private Secretary of the Governor-General,
“been struggling for existence, without any leisure to turn to the
improvement of the administration.”[60] And very little of this leisure
was even now vouchsafed to him. Though Dost Mahomed was on his way
to the provinces of India, and the winter snows had now set in, the
struggle for existence was still going on, and more fiercely than
ever. The Ghilzyes and Kohistanees had already risen up against the
government of the Shah and his supporters; and now the Douranees were
breaking out into revolt.
It has been shown, that on the reappearance of Shah Soojah at
Candahar, the Douranees, enfeebled and prostrated by their Barukzye
oppressors, clustered around the throne, and sought from the restored
monarch the privileges and immunities which had been wrested from
them by the Sirdars. Uncertain, at that time, of the ultimate success
of the expedition, and eager to swell the number of his adherents,
the Shah was willing to grant, and more willing still to promise.
He made certain remissions of taxation in favour of the tribes; but
he entrusted the execution of these new popular measures to the
old unpopular agency; and the Parsewan revenue-collectors, who had
oppressed the tribes during the reign of the Sirdars, were still left
to exercise their hated calling under the King.
The experiment of giving is a dangerous one. In the ordinary concerns
of human life, it is found that the shortcomings of those who
give bring down upon them more hatred and more reproach than the
withholdings of those who give not. It is perilous to raise hopes not
to be fulfilled. The Douranees had looked for much from the restoration
of the Shah; and they were disappointed. They had patiently submitted
to the exactions and oppressions of the Barukzyes—but the imperfect
liberality of the Suddoyze monarch irritated them past endurance. They
looked upon the Barukzyes as their natural enemies, and they submitted
when they knew that they had no power of resistance. But believing that
it was the wish of the restored government of the Shah to conciliate
and encourage them, they demonstrated their dissatisfaction in a
violent and offensive manner, with the strongest assurance in their
mind that their grievances would be redressed. Under the Barukzyes
such a course would have been worse than useless, for their spasms
of painful unrest were pleasing to the Sirdars. But as it seemed
that the Shah desired to please them, they strove to evince, by most
unmistakeable signs, that they were not pleased; and broke out into
rebellion.[61]
In Zemindawer, a district which lies to the north-west of Candahar,
symptoms of inquietude began to evince themselves at the end of
1840. At this time, the affairs of Candahar and its neighbourhood
were, as regards all European superintendence, under the charge of
Major Rawlinson. This officer, who had been employed for some years
in Persia,[62] and on the rupture of our friendly relations with
that state, necessarily remanded to India, had been so strongly
recommended, for his intimate acquaintance with the languages, the
people, and the politics of the East, as well as for his general
aptitude and intelligence, by Sir John M‘Niell to Lord Auckland, that
the Governor-General ordered him to proceed to Caubul, to be employed
under Macnaghten. In the early part of 1840 it had been proposed to
despatch Rawlinson and Arthur Conolly on a mission to the camp of the
Russian General Peroffski, but the breaking up of the Khivan expedition
caused this project to be abandoned; and another field of activity was
opened out to Rawlinson in a region less inhospitable and remote. The
supervision of affairs at Candahar had hitherto been entrusted to Major
Leech; but Leech had given offence to the Envoy by the dilatoriness
with which he had sent in his accounts, and it had seemed good to
Macnaghten to remove him from his post.[63] He could not have appointed
a better man than Rawlinson to fill it. So, on the 4th of July, he sent
to that officer the Shah’s official notification of his appointment as
political agent at Candahar.
The command of the troops at Candahar was in the hands of Major-General
Nott. He was an old Sepoy officer of good repute; a man of some
talents, but blunt address—an honest, plain-spoken soldier, not always
right, but always believing himself to be right—hearty, genuine,
and sincere. His faults were chiefly those of temper. He had not
been well used. Sir Henry Fane had recognised his merits; but Sir
John Keane, who was accused of fostering a narrow-minded prejudice
against the Company’s service, had superseded him in a manner which
had greatly incensed the General himself, and the army to which he
belonged.[64] Labouring under a strong sense of the injustice that had
been done him; feeling that his worth had not been duly appreciated,
or his services duly rewarded; seeing much in the general management
of the affairs of the distracted country in which his lot had been
cast to excite his unqualified disapprobation; and being, moreover,
constitutionally of an irritable temperament, he sometimes said and
wrote what was calculated to offend others; and as the political
officers were the especial objects of his dislike, he was in no
favour at the Residency. Macnaghten declared that the general’s
conduct frequently embarrassed him, and recommended, therefore, his
recall. But it was felt that Nott was a fine soldier; and, though the
Government eventually listened to the Envoy’s counsel in this matter,
they were slow to remove him from a sphere in which his energy and
decision were likely to be so serviceable to the state. And, perhaps,
it was felt that, in his political colleague at Candahar, Nott had a
man of excellent temper, of great tact and forbearance, and that the
difficulty was much lessened by so fortunate an association.
Such were the men upon whom, at the beginning of 1841, devolved the
duty of looking this Douranee outbreak fairly in the face. The task
that fell to Nott’s share was the easier of the two. He had simply to
beat the enemy in the field. The insurgents of Zemindawer had risen
up against a party of the Shah’s horse, who had been sent out to
support the revenue officers, and had defeated and dispersed them. A
detachment, therefore, was ordered out against them, under Captain
Farrington. On the morning of the 3rd of January they came up with the
rebels. The Douranee horse, some 1200 or 1500 strong, showed a bold
front; but the fire of Hawkins’s guns was too hot for them, and they
began to waver. The infantry well completed what the cavalry had well
begun; the insurgents were driven from their position, and were soon
broken and dispersed. And so, for the time, the military officer had
done his work, and with good success. The political officer had a more
difficult duty to perform. Rawlinson was called upon to elucidate the
causes of the dissatisfaction of the Douranees, and to recommend the
best means of quenching the dangerous spirit of revolt. The causes,
doubtless, were numerous, and there were some which lay far beneath
the surface. Both in private letters to Macnaghten and in a masterly
official report, to which allusion has been made, Rawlinson probed them
to their very depths—but his views were not in accordance with those
of the Envoy, and his warnings were disregarded.
Macnaghten had at first been willing to believe that this revolt
of the Douranees had risen out of the tyrannical interference of
unpopular revenue-administrators, which had left them in a mood of
mind favourable in the extreme to the designs of any discontented or
factious chief who had objects to gain, or resentments to gratify, by
stirring the country into rebellion. “Aktur Khan,” he wrote to Mr.
Colvin, “was disappointed in not getting the chiefship of Zemindawer;
and he found the people in a temper to aid his rebellious projects,
owing to the oppressions practised by the Wakeel.” But he was slow
to believe that there was any general feeling of disaffection in the
country; that the double government we had established was essentially
and necessarily unpopular; or that such occasional outbreaks as he was
condemned to witness were the results of anything more than personal
and accidental circumstances, from which no general conclusions were to
be drawn. He never believed that there was any nationality among the
Afghans, or that the presence of the stranger and the Infidel in their
land could be a sore continually to fester and to throb.
Still less did he believe it possible that our presence in Afghanistan
could be hateful to the King himself, who owed everything to us. But it
was reported, and believed by many in the neighbourhood of Candahar,
that Shah Soojah had secretly fomented the rebellion of the Douranees.
The Shah shook with rage, when this story was told him, and vowed that
the man, to whom its authorship had been traced, should pay the penalty
of his mendacity by having his tongue cut out at the root. “And I
really think,” said Macnaghten, “there would be no harm in depriving
the rascal of his ears.” But there were others who believed then and
afterwards, that the old king was as eager as any one of his subjects,
to see the white-faced intruders swept from the face of the land; and
that he yearned to be in deed, as well as in name, supreme in the
Douranee Empire.
To have acknowledged either the unpopularity of our occupation of
Afghanistan, or the faithlessness of the King, would have been to have
acknowledged the entire failure of our policy. So Macnaghten still
continued to seek for accidental causes of the popular discontent,
and to talk of superficial remedies. “My own impression is,” he wrote
to Mr. Colvin, on the 5th of February, “that matters will revert to a
wholesome state as soon as ever the incubus of apprehension is removed
from the body of the people; and this will be effected by the simple
recall of the obnoxious Parsewan managers.” But there was another
source to which, at this time, he was fain to attribute the inquietude
of Western Afghanistan. He suspected, and not without reason, that the
disaffection of the Douranees had been fomented by the intrigues of Yar
Mahomed. The suspicion soon rose into knowledge. There were undeniable
proofs that the Heratee Wuzeer had been writing inflammatory letters
to the Douranee chiefs. He had sent a delegate, named Nussur-ood-deen
Khan, into the Zemindawer country, with letters to each of the
principal Douranee chiefs, and one of them had forwarded to Lieutenant
Elliot, Rawlinson’s assistant, a copy of the seditious missive, which
ran to the following effect:
Let each of you assemble his followers, and go in to Aktur Khan in
Zemindawer, and be ready and prepared, for I have moved out of Herat;
and from Meshed, troops 10,000 strong, with twelve guns and two lakhs
of rupees, are marching to our assistance. At latest, I shall arrive
at Bukhwa by the end of the month Mohurram. Let not any Douranee chief
of those now assembled disperse his followers, for I am most assured
of coming to join you.
The fact was not to be doubted; but it was in no way the cause of the
disorder. It merely aggravated the external symptoms of a deeply-seated
disease. Vexatious and embarrassing as was this intelligence, there
was worse behind to astound the Envoy, and make him cry out more and
more bitterly against the authorities, who had thwarted his long
cherished desire to play the “great game.” Suddenly there came upon
him tidings that the outrages and the exactions—the treachery and
the insolence—of Yar Mahomed had reached such a pitch, that Todd had
broken up the British Mission, and set his face towards Candahar.
The Wuzeer had long been accommodating his demands to every change in
the political barometer. Unfortunately, those changes had indicated
little but the depressed circumstances of our position in Afghanistan.
The disaster of Major Clibborne; the fall of Khelat; and the progress
of Dost Mahomed on the Hindoo-Koosh, were adverse circumstances which
encouraged the Wuzeer to rise in his demands for more money, and even
to meditate aggressive movements of a more palpable character than any
which had yet been undertaken against the power of Shah Soojah and
his supporters. At one time he contemplated an attack upon Candahar,
and was anxious that his intentions should be known to the British
Mission. The surrender of Dost Mahomed had, however, somewhat checked
his presumption; and the descent upon Candahar was postponed.
The knowledge of the Zemindawer outbreak soon caused the project to be
revived. Having despatched an emissary to the disaffected country to
keep alive the spirit of revolt, Yar Mahomed at the same time sent,
secretly and suddenly, a deputation to the Persian governor at Meshed,
seeking pecuniary assistance from his government, promising to expel
the British mission from Herat, and urging him to unite in an attack on
Candahar, whilst the communications between that place and Caubul were
cut off by the snow.
This last glaring act of perfidy excited Todd to retaliate. He
believed that there was a point of forbearance beyond which it would
be disgraceful to his country to descend; so he determined to suspend
the payment of the allowance[65] which had been granted to the state;
and, taking advantage of the presence of a large body of troops in
Upper Sindh, announced, on the 1st of February, his intention to the
Wuzeer. But Yar Mahomed, at this time, was intent on playing a “great
game.” He believed that his deputation had been favourably received at
Meshed; he believed that the Douranees were again working themselves
into rebellion; and he had abundant faith in the continued forbearance
of the British government. So he played, with his accustomed craft,
for a large stake; and little heeded the consequences of failure. The
one object of all his intrigues was to obtain money—money for the
state—money for himself. On the 8th of February he came forward
with a string of specific demands. He asked for two lakhs of rupees
to pay his own debts; he asked for an increased monthly allowance to
his Government, to be guaranteed for a year; he asked for further
improvement of the fortifications of Herat at the expense of the
British Government; he asked for loans of money to enable Herat to
recover possession of its lost territories, the troops to be subsisted
in the field at our expense; and he asked for a written agreement to
relieve him “from all apprehension for the future.” He knew well what
he merited at our hands, and years afterwards justified his conduct to
the British Mission, on the ground that he dreaded the influence of our
officers, and felt that his very existence was at stake.
To these extravagant demands Todd gave an answer regulated by his
knowledge of the forbearing course, which his Government desired him
to pursue. He told the Wuzeer that before he could comply, even in a
modified form, with such requests, he should require some guarantee
that such concessions would not be thrown away. Yar Mahomed had some
time before declared his willingness to admit a British garrison into
Herat. If this were now done, some of his demands might be granted.
Yar Mahomed clutched at this; but turning the proposed garrison into
a British force to be located in the valley of Herat, declared that,
on the payment of two lakhs of rupees, he would give his assent to
the measure. Never had he the shadow of an intention of fulfilling
his part of the contract—but he wanted the money. His sincerity was
soon tested. Todd demanded that the Wuzeer’s son should be sent to
Ghiresk, there to await an answer from the Government of India, and
to escort, if the measure were approved, the British troops to Herat;
and it was added, that on the Sirdar’s arrival at that place the money
demanded would be paid. But Yar Mahomed at once refused his assent
to Todd’s proposal. He required the immediate payment of the money or
the departure of the Mission. So the British agent chose the latter
alternative, and turned his back upon Herat.
Never before, perhaps, had the British Government been so insulted and
so outraged in the person of its representatives. Shah Kamran, at a
private audience, told one of the officers of the Mission that, but for
his protection, “not a Feringhee would have been left alive;” and asked
if he did not deserve some credit for not acting towards Todd and his
companions as the Ameer of Bokhara had acted towards Colonel Stoddart.
Yar Mahomed had intercepted Todd’s letters to Candahar. He had been
for some time in an habitual state of intoxication. The seizure of the
persons of the British officers, and the plunder of their property,
had been openly discussed by the Wuzeer and his profligate friends,
and there is little doubt that, if the Mission had remained longer at
Herat, the members of it would have been subjected to indignities of
the worst kind.
The Mission left Herat, and halted for a time at Ghiresk. When the
tidings of its abrupt departure reached Lord Auckland at Calcutta, he
was roused into a state of very unwonted exacerbation. He was not a
hasty man—he was not an unjust one. But on this occasion he committed
an act both hasty and unjust. He at once repudiated the proceedings of
Major Todd at Herat; and removed him from political employment.
“I am writhing in anger and in bitterness,” he wrote to the
Lieutenant-Governor of Agra, “at Major Todd’s conduct at Herat,
and have seen no course open to me, in regard to it, but that of
discarding and disavowing him; and we have directed his dismissal to
the provinces. What we have wanted in Afghanistan has been repose
under an exhibition of strength, and he has wantonly, and against all
orders, done that which is most likely to produce general disquiet,
and which may make our strength inadequate to the calls upon it. I
look upon a march to Herat as perfectly impracticable; and if it were
not so, I should look upon it, under present circumstances, as most
inexpedient. We have taught Yar Mahomed to be more afraid of us than of
the Persians. It is possible that, when he has been left a little time
to himself, he will be more afraid of the Persians than of us—but, in
the mean time, the state to which things have been brought is a cause
of much anxiety and more apprehension to me.”
That, in one sense, the Heratee Mission failed, is certain; but, there
were some of Todd’s measures which did not fail, and it is not to be
forgotten that on his own responsibility he despatched Abbott and
Shakespear to Khiva, and the good that was done by these Missions was
often in the retrospect a solace to him in after days, when smarting
under the injustice of his masters.[66] Substantial benefits, too,
were conferred on the people of Herat—benefits still remembered
with gratitude, and seldom spoken of without some expression of
respect and admiration for their benefactors. The unceasing charities
and the blameless lives of the officers of the Mission raised the
character of the British nation as it was raised in no other part of
Afghanistan. But Lord Auckland never forgave the diplomatic failure.
Todd’s departure from Herat was inopportune; for, although he had no
reason to believe the settlement of our differences with Persia was
any nearer to its consummation than it had been for some time, they
were then on the eve of adjustment. Had he known this, he would have
braved everything and remained at Herat, encouraged by the thought
that the re-establishment of our amicable relations with Persia would
effectually cripple the power and restrain the audacity of the Heratee
minister. Remanded to his regiment, Todd proceeded to join it at the
head-quarters of the Artillery at Dum-Dum. “Equal to either fortune,”
he fell back upon the common routine of regimental service, and, in
command of a company of Foot Artillery, devoted himself with as much
earnest and assiduous zeal to the minutiæ of military duty, as he had
done, a year before, to the affairs of the Herat Mission. It has often
been said that political employ unfits a man for regimental duty; but
Major Todd, from the time that he first rejoined his regiment to the
hour of his death, never slackened in his attention to his military
duties; and, perhaps, in the whole range of the service, there was not
a more zealous, a more assiduous—in other words, a more conscientious
regimental officer than the old antagonist of Yar Mahomed. The trait of
character here illustrated is a rarer one than may be supposed. Nothing
in his political life became him like the leaving of it. There are few
who know how, gracefully, to _descend_.
It is not improbable that these years of regimental duty were
the happiest period of his life. Shortly after his return to the
Presidency, from which he had so long been absent, he married; and
in the enjoyment of domestic happiness, such as has rarely been
surpassed, he soon forgot the injustice that had been done to him.
Cheerfully doing his duty in that state of life to which it had pleased
God to call him, respected and beloved by all who had the means of
appreciating the simplicity of his manners, the kindness of his heart,
the soundness of his intelligence, and the integrity of his conduct, he
found that, in exchanging the excitement of a semi-barbarous Court for
the tranquillity of cantonment life and the companionship of a gentle
and amiable wife, the barter, though not self-sought, had been greatly
to his advantage.
Being appointed to the command of a horse-field battery, stationed
at Delhi, he left Dum-Dum for the imperial city, where he continued
to serve, until, shortly before the Sikh invasion, he attained
that great object of regimental ambition, the command of a troop of
horse-artillery. In the Upper Provinces, he had more than once been
disquieted by the illness of his young and fondly-loved wife; but the
heavy blow, which was to prostrate all his earthly happiness, did
not descend upon him until within a few days of that memorable 18th
of December, 1845, which saw the British army fling itself upon the
Sikh batteries at Mudkhi. He was called away, as he touchingly said,
“from the open grave,” to be plunged into the excitement of battle. It
was at Ferozshuhur that D’Arcey Todd, broken-hearted, with a strong
presentiment of his approaching end, declaring that he “only wished to
live that the grace of God and the love of Christ might prepare him
to leave a world in which there could be no more joy for him,” led
his troop, a second time, into action, and perished in the unequal
conflict: and among the many who fell on that mournful day, there was
not a braver soldier or a better man.
On receiving intelligence of Todd’s departure from Herat, Macnaghten’s
first impulse had been to muster all his available resources, and
relying greatly on the “big guns,” to make an immediate demonstration
in the direction of Herat, beating up the rebels on the Helmund, and
“crushing Aktur Khan” on our way to the western frontier. He wrote to
Rawlinson to prepare for the siege; he wrote to Ross Bell in Scinde
to send up all the heavy guns in his part of the country, applying to
the commissary at Forezpore for draft bullocks, if they were not to be
obtained more readily; and he wrote to the Supreme Government to send
“as large a force as might be available, and as speedily as possible,
to Candahar, even if an attack on Herat should not be meditated.” He
was eager for the opinions of every competent authority regarding
the facilities of an immediate movement on Herat. “Is there any
chance,” he wrote to Rawlinson, “of our mustering heavy guns and force
sufficient to attack the place this year?” “What does Todd say of the
best season for operations, and what aid does he hope we might obtain
from people in and around Herat?” “What does Sanders think of the means
at our command for subduing Herat?” “You may imagine,” he wrote, in
another letter to the same correspondent, “how anxious I am to hear
of Todd’s safety, and to learn the particulars of his departure from
Herat, and the proximate cause of that important event, as well as his
and your, and Sanders’ opinion, as to the practicability of operations
against Herat this season. I suppose if the force were to move from
Candahar by the middle of May, it would be time enough. But will the
requisite battering train be then forthcoming? And shall we then have a
_quantum suff_ of grain and camels?” “The Governor-General,” added the
Envoy, “will, I fear, if possible, do nothing.”
In this conjecture, at least, Macnaghten’s sagacity was not at
fault. Against an armed interference with the affairs of Herat, Lord
Auckland had always steadfastly set his face. It was his belief that
it was necessary to establish ourselves firmly in Afghanistan before
operating upon Herat; but Macnaghten always declared that there was
no possibility of achieving the former object until the latter had
been accomplished, and was always clamorous for the re-annexation of
Herat to the dominions of Shah Soojah. His instructions, however,
were imperative. Even after the departure of the Mission, the
Governor-General counselled a mild and forbearing course. “I cannot,”
he wrote to Macnaghten, “apprehend organised invasion from Herat,
though there may be a foray on the frontier, which will not have the
effect of making the advent of Yar Mahomed popular in Zemindawer.
I think it, however, more likely that you will have to deal with
letters and agents than with troops; and you ask me in what manner
you are to receive overtures which may be made to you by Yar Mahomed.
I would receive them calmly and coldly, but not repulsively. I would
show no impatience to renew a Mission to Herat. I would have it to
be understood that the stoppage of the allowances was unauthorised,
and that the detachment of a brigade to the citadel of Herat was not
desired, and would not have been acceded to by the British Government,
but that the conduct of the Vizier has given great offence, and that
we can regard Herat with no confidence or friendly feeling until there
shall have been on the side of that state an entire change of policy.
I can only repeat, therefore, what I have said very many times within
the last two years: That you must be strong in Afghanistan before you
can hope to exercise a wholesome influence upon Herat; and I am glad
that you are giving your attention to the condition of the internal
government of the country.”
But although the supreme authorities at Calcutta would not countenance
a movement upon Herat, it was manifest at Candahar that the aggressive
designs of Yar Mahomed, who contemplated the seizure of Ghiresk, and
the hostile demonstrations of the Douranees in the western districts,
rendered active operations on our part a matter of immediate necessity.
So Rawlinson wrote officially to the General that it appeared to
him “of first-rate importance that the insurrection in Zemindawer
should be crushed before the acquisition of any further strength
could render its co-operation of essential service to the Wuzeer of
Herat in his projected advance.” “I also consider,” he added, “that
the strengthening of our position on the Helmund, and the indication
of readiness on our part to meet any such advance, would be the most
effectual way of checking the movement, and of frustrating its
object.”[67] An intercepted letter from Aktur Khan, announcing his
intention to move from Zemindawer directly upon Candahar, if encouraged
by the tribes occupying the intervening country, had been brought in to
the Political Agent, and it was obvious, therefore, that no time was to
be lost.
So a force was sent out to the Zemindawer country to beat up Aktur
Khan’s quarters, or to intercept his advance. The political conduct
of the expedition was entrusted to Lieutenant Elliot, Rawlinson’s
assistant; and ably he did his duty. It was not our policy to beat
the Douranees in battle. It never could be our policy in that country
to shed the blood of the tribes. The submission, not the destruction,
of Aktur Khan was now the object to be attained; and, as the chief
was believed to muster not more than 1300 followers, it was deemed
probable that the advance of our force would determine him, in the
diplomatic language of the day, to “come in.” Intimations of his
willingness to submit to terms met Elliot as he advanced. An interview
was arranged between them. In the camp of the Douranee Sirdar, Atta
Mahomed, the young English “Political” met Aktur Khan, and received
his submission. A conditional pardon was granted to the disaffected
chief, some concessions were made, and a dress of honour was conferred
upon him. The most important condition on his part was, that he should
disband his followers, and as it was believed that he would fulfil
his promise in this respect, hope was entertained that the Zemindawer
country would be tranquillised without further shedding of blood. But,
Rawlinson saw plainly that the advantage which we had gained would be
short-lived. “I do not anticipate,” he wrote to Macnaghten, “that by
the conciliatory treatment recommended by Lieutenant Elliot, we gain
any other advantage than that of temporary tranquillity; and however
prudent therefore it may be at present to induce the rebel chief of
Zemindawer to abstain from disorders by the hope of obtaining through
his forbearance substantial personal benefits, I still think that
when the danger of foreign aggression is removed, and efficient means
are at our disposal, the rights of His Majesty’s government should be
asserted in that strong and dignified manner which can alone ensure a
due respect being paid to his authority.”[68]
And not the Douranees only, but the Ghilzyes also in Western
Afghanistan were, in the spring and summer of 1841, revolting against
the authorities of Shah Soojah and his Feringhee supporters. Lieutenant
Lynch, an officer of the Bombay army, who had served in Persia with
the rank of major, was in political charge of the country about
Khelat-i-Ghilzye. The restlessness and disaffection of the tribes he
attributed to the fact that the families of some of their chief people,
who, after the operations against them in 1839, had fled for safety to
the Sikh frontier, had at the instigation of the British Envoy, been
seized and cast into captivity. But, whatever may have been the more
remote cause, there was in this spring of 1841, a proximate source of
irritation in the fact, that the English were rebuilding the fortress
of Khelat-i-Ghilzye, which lies between Caubul and Candahar, with the
design of posting there a strong garrison to overcome the circumjacent
tribes. This movement had been regarded with great jealousy by the
Ghilzyes; and the tribes in the immediate neighbourhood had assumed an
insolent and defiant attitude. About two miles from Khelat-i-Ghilzye,
was a small fort, bristling with armed men. As Lynch was riding
past it, some of the people came out, and brandishing their swords
defied him to attack them. It was thought that if this insolence were
allowed to pass unnoticed, more serious acts of aggression might be
anticipated. So the troops at Khelat-i-Ghilzye were summoned to attack
the fort. Aided by Captain Sanders of the engineers, Captain Macan,
who commanded one of the regiments of Shah Soojah’s force, led his
Hindostanees against the rebellious stronghold, and captured it after a
brave resistance. The chief and many of his followers were slain in the
conflict, and the irritation of the Ghilzyes was greater than before.
It was a gallant military exploit, but a great misfortune; and Lynch,
whether he had judged rightly or wrongly that the exigencies of the
occasion demanded that he should chastise the people who had insulted
him, was condemned both at Caubul and Calcutta. The Envoy wrote that
he had “foreseen the likelihood of the Ghilzyes resenting the erection
of a fort in the heart of their country;” but asked, “Why should we go
and knock our heads against mud-forts? Why should we not have waited
till the Ghilzyes chose to attack us?” Lord Auckland declared his
opinion that Major Lynch’s proceedings had been “marked by a vapouring
and needless parade, most likely to produce popular excitement.” And
a little later, Burnes, in a letter full of wise humanity, wrote
to Lynch; more in sorrow than in anger, saying, “I am one of those
altogether opposed to any further fighting in this country, and I
consider that we shall never settle Afghanistan at the point of the
bayonet.... As regards the Ghilzyes, indeed, immense allowance ought
to be made for them; they were till within three generations the Kings
of Afghanistan, and carried their victorious arms to the capital of
Persia. It is expecting too much, therefore, to hope for their being
at once peaceful subjects; and as they exhibited so much indisposition
to the King’s Government, it was, I think, right to build a fort at
Khelat-i-Ghilzye, and thus bridle them, thereby enabling us, in the
heart of the Ghilzye country, to protect those who were disposed to
join us, and gradually undermine our enemies.... Had I been by, I would
have said, ‘Build Khelat-i-Ghilzye, and pardon all kinds of insolence,
for those who win may laugh.’”
Major Lynch was removed from office. When all the circumstances of the
case came to be known, the Envoy took a more favourable view of his
conduct. But, whether it were right or wrong in itself, its results
were unfortunate. They could not be otherwise. It was the inevitable
consequence of such proceedings that the bitterness and the turbulence
of the Ghilzyes should wax greater than before, and that soon the
aspect of affairs in the neighbourhood of Khelat-i-Ghilzye should
render more dragooning necessary for the maintenance of the authority
of the Shah. It was expected that the whole country would rise up
against Macan’s detachment; so reinforcements were urgently called for
from Candahar. The hot weather had by this time set in, and Nott was
unwilling to expose his troops to the burning sun. But the political
necessity was said to be great; Macan was in his danger; and no troops
could be spared from Caubul.
So Colonel Wymer, a good and successful officer, with 400 men of his
own regiment (the 38th Sepoys), four horse-artillery guns, and a party
of Christie’s horse, took the field in the month of May. The Ghilzyes,
eager for the conflict, moved down from Khelat-i-Ghilzye to meet
our advancing troops; and, on the 19th, gave them battle. Night was
beginning to fall when they came up with Wymer’s camp at Assiai-Ilmee.
A Ghilzye chief of high estate, named Gool Mahomed, known as the
“Gooroo,” who had threatened Keane’s army nearly two years before, was
at the head of the tribes. They came on with unwavering gallantry, but
were met with a heavy fire from Hawkins’s guns, which, served with
equal rapidity and precision, committed mighty havoc in their ranks.
Upon this, the Ghilzyes, resolutely intending to attack simultaneously
both flanks and the centre of Wymer’s force, divided themselves into
three columns; and, coolly and deliberately, they came down sword in
hand to the charge. Wymer had an extensive convoy to protect. His
movements, therefore, were crippled; and he was compelled to stand on
his defence. But the destroying grape from the guns, and the steady
musketry fire of the Sepoys, sent back the Ghilzye swordsmen again and
again reeling under the iron shower. For five busy hours continued
that mortal struggle; and then the Ghilzyes gave way. They had greatly
outnumbered our party, and they left many dead on the field. All night
long, too, the moving lights announced that many more, both of killed
and wounded, were carried off to their camp.
Whilst in this manner efforts were being made to tranquillise the
Ghilzyes, the proceedings of Aktur Khan and the Douranees were
again exciting the apprehensions of the Envoy. In spite of all our
conciliatory efforts, they had not been quieted. The chief, it has
been seen, had outwardly tendered his allegiance to the King, and
had received a dress of honour, with an assurance from our political
officers that the past would be forgotten. The revenue officers, whom
the Douranees detested, had been removed. The old earless minister,
Moollah Shikore, had been replaced by Oosman Khan, a younger, an abler,
and a more honest man; and Macnaghten was contemplating other fiscal
reforms than those which he had already sanctioned, and hoping to
restore the tribes to their allegiance. But their disaffection was too
deeply rooted to be operated upon by such measures. The entire system
of government was offensive to them. The presence of the British was a
perennial source of irritation. What they regarded as their legitimate
influence had been usurped by the Feringhees; and they were soon ready
again to appear in the field, and cross their sabres with the foreign
bayonets.
It was obvious, indeed, as the month of May wore to an end, that,
unable to obtain all that he wanted for himself, Aktur Khan was still
our bitter and implacable foe. Instead of disbanding his followers, he
was collecting them for another struggle. Irritated by this, Macnaghten
wrote to Rawlinson (May 31) as he had before written in the case of
Dost Mahomed, that if he could seize Aktur Khan, he would recommend
his execution. “I think,” he said, “you should strain every nerve to
lay hold of that indomitable Moofsid, Aktur Khan, and that if you
can seize him, the Prince should be recommended to execute him.... I
further think that a reward of 10,000 rupees should be offered for the
apprehension of Aktur Khan.” But it was still difficult to persuade the
Envoy that the country was in an unsettled state. The Ghilzyes and the
Douranees were both in arms against the authority of the Shah and his
supporters. The whole country of Western Afghanistan was in a fearful
state of unrest. Rawlinson, at Candahar, who saw clearly at this time
the frail tenure by which we held our position in Afghanistan, was
continually warning the Envoy of the dangers which loomed so largely
before him. But Macnaghten only censured his correspondent for his
“unwarrantably gloomy views,” and denounced everything that was said
about the unsettled state of the country as an “idle statement.” How
unwilling he was to believe that the clouds were gathering over his
head, may be gleaned from his correspondence with Rawlinson at this
time. On the 13th of June he wrote a long letter, in which he thus
emphatically declared his opinions:
Your letter of the 7th arrived this morning. I don’t like reverting
to unpleasant discussions, but you know well that I have been frank
with you from the beginning, and that I have invariably told you of
what I thought I had reason to complain. This may be confined to one
topic—your taking an unwarrantably gloomy view of our position, and
entertaining and disseminating rumours favourable to that view. We
have enough of difficulties and enough of croakers without adding
to the number needlessly. I have just seen a letter from Mr. Dallas
to Captain Johnson, in which he says the state of the country is
becoming worse and worse every day. These idle statements may cause
much mischief, and, often repeated as they are, they neutralise my
protestations to the contrary. I know them to be utterly false as
regards this part of the country, and I have no reason to believe them
to be true as regards your portion of the kingdom, merely because the
Tokhees are indulging in their accustomed habits of rebellion, or
because Aktur Khan has a pack of ragamuffins at his heels. As I have
said before, there is nothing in these matters which might not have
been foreseen, or which ought to cause us the slightest uneasiness. We
will take such precautions as shall prevent the Ghilzyes from annoying
us; and this is all that is requisite for the present. We may safely
leave the rest to time. As to the documents protesting against the
appointment of Sunmud, I look upon them as pure fudge. Send for the
Janbaz. Let them make a forced march by night, and come in the rear of
Aktur. Seize the villain, and hang him as high as Haman, and you will
probably have no more disturbances. The Janbaz may remain out while
the collections are going on, if necessary. I have already explained
to you that I never intended offering a reward for Aktur’s head, nor
should I approve of encouraging the man who has a blood-feud with
him to put him out of the way. This, besides being objectionable,
would be superfluous, because his enemy must know that we could not
be otherwise than gratified at the removal of so atrocious a traitor.
With regard to the Tymunees, all I meant was, that they should be
encouraged to seize Aktur if he attempted to take refuge in their
territory, and I thought that a large pecuniary reward would be
necessary to overcome their natural scruples to such a proceeding.[69]
But these Douranee children were now again to be corrected. Though
“all was content and tranquillity from Mookoor to the Khybur,” it
was necessary that our troops should be continually in the field. And
it was not always child’s play in which they were summoned to engage.
Aktur Khan was, at the end of June, still in arms before Ghiresk,
with a body of three thousand men, and it was necessary to strike a
blow at the rebel chief. Macnaghten saw the necessity of “tolerating
his audacity no longer,” and although he, at first thought that a
“judicious use of the Janbaz would extirpate the villain,” he consented
to send out a regular force against the rebel chief to “hunt him to the
world’s end.”
So Woodburn, a fine dashing officer, who commanded one of the Shah’s
regiments, was sent out against him, with his own corps (the 5th
Infantry), two detachments of Janbaz, or Afghan Horse, under Hart and
Golding, and some guns of the Shah’s Horse Artillery, under Cooper.
On the 3rd of July he found the enemy posted on the other side of the
Helmund river; mustering, it was said afterwards, six thousand men, in
six divisions, with a Moollah, or priest at the head of each, and with
each a standard, bearing the inscription, “we have been trusting in
God; may he guide and guard us!”[70] Woodburn tried the fords, but they
were impassable. Hart, however, had passed them at another point, but,
finding himself unsupported, he returned. This was in early morning.
Four hours after noon the enemy struck their camp, and soon afterwards
commenced the passage of the river. Woodburn made his arrangements for
their reception. The Douranees made a spirited attack, but Woodburn’s
infantry, well supported by Cooper’s guns, met them with too prompt and
sure a fire to encourage them to greater boldness. The Janbaz, already
graduating in treachery and cowardice, covered themselves with that
peculiar kind of glory which clung to them to the end of the war. It
was a busy night. The enemy far outnumbered Woodburn; but the steady
gallantry of his gunners and his footmen achieved the success they
deserved. Before daybreak the enemy had withdrawn. It would have been
a great thing to have followed up and dispersed the rebels, but with
all the country against him, and a body of horse at his back on which
no reliance could be placed, it would have been madness to make the
attempt. So Woodburn, having written for reinforcements, pushed on to
Ghiresk, whence he wrote that he believed the rebellion was far more
extensive than was supposed, and that the population of Candahar were
quite as disaffected as the rebels on the banks of the Helmund.
The month of August, however, found the Envoy still cheerful and
sanguine. The convulsions of the Douranees and the spasms of the
Ghilzyes were regarded by him as the accompaniments only of those
infantine fevers which were inseparable from the existence of the
tribes. In vain Rawlinson, with steady eye watching those symptoms,
and probing with deep sagacity the causes of the mortal ailments out
of which arose all those fierce throes of anguish, protested that
throughout Western Afghanistan there was a strong national feeling
against us; and that difficulties and dangers were coiling their
serpent folds around us with irresistible force. Macnaghten still asked
what we had to fear, and thus, on the 2nd of August, addressed his less
sanguine colleague:
I am not going to read you a lecture, first, because when you indited
your letter of the 28th ult. you pleaded guilty to the influence of
bile; and secondly, because at the present writing I must own the same
impeachment; but I must pen a few remarks, in the hope of inducing you
to regard matters a little more “_couleur de rose_.” You say, “The
state of the country causes me many an anxious thought—we may thresh
the Douranees over and over again, but this rather aggravates than
obviates the difficulty of overcoming the national feeling against
us—in fact, our tenure is positively that of military possession,
and the French in Algiers, and the Russians in Circassia, afford
us an example on a small scale of the difficulty of our position.”
Now upon what do you found your assertion that there is a national
feeling against us, such as that against the French in Algiers or
the Russians in Circassia? Solely, so far as I know, because the
turbulent Douranees have risen in rebellion. From Mookoor to the
Khybur Pass all is content and tranquillity, and wherever we Europeans
go we are received with respect, and attention, and welcome. But the
insurrection of the Douranees is no new occurrence. The history of
the rule of the Barukzye Sirdars would show that they were engaged in
one continuous struggle with their turbulent brethren. If they were
able to reduce them to subjection with their contemptible means, what
should we have to fear from them? We have given them something to lose
which they had not before, and you may rely upon it that they will
be quiet enough as soon as they are satisfied (which they ought to
be pretty well by this time) of the futility of opposition, provided
some means are adopted of preventing Yar Mahomed from carrying on his
intrigues. Then, the Ghilzyes have been in arms. True. But it would
have been unreasonable to suppose that they should surrender their
independance without a struggle, and we have now put the bit in their
mouths. I do not concur with you as to the difficulty of our position.
On the contrary, 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.
It is true the population is exclusively Mahomedan, but it is split
into rival sects; and we all know that of all antipathies the
sectarian is the most virulent. We have Hazaras, Ghilzyes, Douranees,
and Kuzzilbashes, all at daggers drawn with each other, and in every
family there are rivals and enemies. Some faults of management must
necessarily be committed on the first assumption of the administration
of a new country, and the Douranee outbreak may be partially
attributed to such faults; but what, after all, do such outbreaks
signify? The modern history of India teems with such instances. There
is hardly a district in which some desperate adventurer has not
appeared at some time or other, and drawn the entire population after
him. The whole province of Bareilly, in 1817, rose against us on a
religious war-cry. The whole province of Cuttack, shortly afterwards,
followed the standard of the rebel Jugbeneda, and we had infinite
trouble in quelling the insurrection. Instances of this kind might be
infinitely multiplied, and yet we find the effects of such outbreaks
are very evanescent. The people of this country are very credulous.
They believe any story invented to our prejudice; but they will very
soon learn that we are not the cannibals we are painted. Mr. Gorman’s
fate was doubtless very melancholy; but are there no assassinations
in other countries? I read in the _Bombay Times_ only this morning an
account of a cavalry officer being shot at in the open day in one of
our villages. You say, “The infatuated towns-people are even beginning
now to show their teeth; there have been three cases to-day of stones
thrown from the tops of the houses on Sepoys’ heads walking along
the streets.” Certainly our troops can be no great favourites in a
town where they have turned out half the inhabitants for their own
accommodation; but I will venture to say there is not a county town in
England where soldiers are quartered in which similar excesses have
not happened. European and Native soldiers have traversed the town
of Candahar unarmed; and though it is to be apprehended that their
conduct has been occasionally very aggravating, only two assaults have
been committed upon them. When I went to Hyderabad in 1810, and for
many years after, no European could venture to show himself in the
city, such was the state of feeling against us. Look upon this picture
and on that. Now I believe the lieges of Hyderabad look upon us as
very innocent Kaffirs.
You are quite right, I think in directing Pattinson to accept the
submission of all the rebels, save Aktur, who may be desirous of
coming in. They should be required to furnish security for appearance
sake. But these people are perfect children, and should be treated
as such. If we put one naughty boy in the corner, the rest will be
terrified. We have taken their plaything, power, out of the hands of
the Douranee chiefs, and they are pouting a good deal in consequence.
They did not know how to use it. In their hands it was useless and
even hurtful to their master, and we were obliged to transfer it to
scholars of our own. They instigate the Moollahs, and the Moollahs
preach to the people; but this will be very temporary. The evil of it
we must have borne with, or abandoned all hope of forming a national
army.[71]
The Douranee children, however, required more chastisement. No man
could have done more than Woodburn did with his means; but those means
were insufficient. It was the custom then, both against the Ghilzyes
and the Douranees, to send out detachments sufficiently large to
accomplish, with the aid of their guns, small victories over the enemy,
and so to increase the bitterness of their hostility, without breaking
their strength. Aktur Khan was still in arms. Banded with him was Akrum
Khan, another Douranee chief, inspired with like bitter hatred of
the restored monarch and his Feringhee allies. A force under Captain
Griffin, who had been sent to reinforce Woodburn at Ghiresk, now went
out against them. It was strong in the mounted branch. Eight hundred
sabres, three hundred and fifty bayonets, and four six-pounder guns,
followed Griffin into the field of Zemindawer. On the 17th of August
he came up with the insurgents. It was a moment of some anxiety. The
_Janbaz_ had not by their conduct under Woodburn won the confidence of
the British officers. Nott always mistrusted them, and the feeling was,
not unreasonably, shared by others.[72] But here they were associated
with the men of the King’s regular cavalry, and they may have felt the
danger of defection. Be the cause what it may, they did not shrink
from the encounter. The enemy were strongly posted in a succession
of walled gardens and small forts, from which they opened a heavy
matchlock fire upon our advancing troops; but the fire of our guns and
musketry drove them from their inclosures, and then the cavalry, headed
by the young Prince Sufder Jung, who had something more than the common
energy of the royal race, charged with terrific effect, and utterly
broke the discomfited mass of Douranees. The victory was a great one.
Aktur Khan fled. The Douranees were disheartened; and for a time they
sunk into the repose of feebleness and exhaustion.
The Ghilzyes, too, had received another check. Colonel Chambers, early
in August, had been sent out against them, with a party of his own
regiment, (the 5th Light Cavalry), the 16th and 43rd Sepoy Regiments,
and some details of Irregular Horse. He came up with the enemy on
the morning of the 5th; but before he could bring the main body of
his troops into action, a party of his cavalry had fallen upon them
and scattered them in disastrous flight. There was nothing left for
them after this but submission; and soon the chief instigator of the
movement had “come in” to our camp.
Under the influence of these victories, Macnaghten’s confidence
rose higher and higher. The Douranees were broken, and the Ghilzyes
had submitted “almost without a blow.” Aktur Khan had fled, and the
“Gooroo” had surrendered. Now, indeed, the Envoy thought that he might
report “all quiet from Dan to Beersheba.” If anything caused him a
moment’s inquietude, it was the thought that Akbar Khan, the favourite
son of Dost Mahomed, was still abroad, hovering about Khooloom. With
something that now seems like a strange presentiment, he wrote that
“the fellow would be after some mischief, should the opportunity
present itself.” It was on the 20th of August that, writing to Mr.
Robertson, he thus expressed himself:
The victory of the Helmund was very complete. I believe the enemy on
that occasion was as numerous a body as could ever be congregated in
this country, consisting of some 4000 or 5000 men. The Douranees want
one more threshing, and then they would be quite satisfied of the
futility of opposing us; but my last letter from Rawlinson gave me no
hope that they would collect again. The whole of the Ghilzye tribes
have submitted almost without a blow; for the gallant little affair
in which the 5th Cavalry redeemed the honour of that branch of the
service, could hardly be dignified with the name of a fight. Those
who knew this country when it was ruled by Barukzyes, are amazed at
the metamorphosis it has undergone, and with so little bloodshed. The
former rulers were eternally fighting with their subjects from one
year’s end to another. Now we cannot move a _naick_ and four without
having all the newspapers setting up a yell about the unpopularity of
the Shah. The Shah is unpopular with the Douranee Khans, and we have
made him so by supplanting them, and taking the military power which
they were incompetent to use from their hands into our own. With all
other classes his Majesty is decidedly, but deservedly, popular, and
the Khans are too contemptible to be cared about.
We have had very unpleasant intelligence from Bokhara, it being
reported that Colonel Stoddart is again in disgrace and confinement;
and I am the more alarmed about this, from thinking it probable
that Arthur Conolly will return from Kokund _viâ_ Bokhara. But
the intelligence requires confirmation. Mahomed Akbar, the Dost’s
favourite son, is still at Khooloom, and has rejected my overture
to come in. The fellow will be after some mischief, should the
opportunity present itself.... You will see that Shah Soojah has
most handsomely given back Cutchee and Moostung to the young Khan of
Khelat. His Majesty’s revenue is little more than fifteen lakhs per
annum—hardly enough for the maintenance of his personal state—and
yet the government below are perpetually writing to me that this
charge and that charge is to be defrayed out of his “Majesty’s
resources!” God help the poor man and his resources!! The country is
perfectly quiet from Dan to Beersheba.[73]
But, although the Envoy thus on the 20th of August, wrote to his
private friends in the provinces of India that all was quiet from Dan
to Beersheba, he was at this very time making arrangements for the
despatch from Candahar of a large force to the Tereen and Dehrawut
country on the north-western frontier of Afghanistan. “The northern
districts,” he wrote to General Elphinstone on the 21st of August,
“have been in a state of rebellion, and the chiefs of those districts
(of whom one Akrum Khan is the head) have refused to wait upon His
Majesty’s representative; have been in constant correspondence with the
rebel Aktur Khan, and have assembled a considerable number of armed
followers, with a view to defy His Majesty’s authority. The arrival of
the 16th and 43rd regiments of Native Infantry will admit of a force
being detached from that garrison; and I am officially made acquainted
with the opinion of the political agent at Candahar to the effect that
it is necessary to send an expedition into the disturbed districts,
with a view either to expel the offending chiefs or to enforce their
submission.”
So, orders were sent to Candahar for the equipment of another force for
field-service, with instructions to complete the necessary work in the
least possible space of time, in order that three regiments of Native
Infantry, which were under orders to leave the serene and prosperous
country, might turn their faces towards India at the beginning of
November. By the end of the first week of September the force was ready
to commence its march—a difficult, toilsome and hazardous march into
an unknown country. Two regiments of the Company’s Bengal Infantry (the
2nd and 38th), a regiment of the Shah’s cavalry, two Horse-Artillery
guns of the same service, a company of European Artillery with two
18-pounder guns, and a detachment of Sappers, composed the force. It
was in good condition; well equipped at all points; and it started with
a month’s supplies.
The force was commanded by Colonel Wymer. Nott saw it depart with
mortification and regret which he did not desire to conceal. Some time
before he had received instructions from head-quarters not to leave
Candahar, where his presence was conceived to be expedient; and he
still believed that those instructions were in force. Eager, therefore,
as he was, to place himself at the head of his men, he deemed it to be
his duty, as a soldier, to remain in garrison while he delegated the
command to another. But while to the officer he had selected to take
the envied post he issued comprehensive instructions for his guidance
in the field, he, at the same time, wrote to the officer commanding in
Afghanistan, respectfully expressing his “deep regret that so large
a portion of the force under his orders should be despatched on what
might prove to be a difficult service, without his being permitted to
assume the command.” The answer returned to this last letter entirely
removed all restrictions on Nott’s movements; so the general at once
prepared himself to take command of the force.
In the meanwhile the troops had marched. The political conduct of
the expedition had been entrusted to Lieutenant Elliot, who had been
summoned for this purpose from Khelat-i-Ghilzye, where he had been
placed on the removal of Lynch. Every effort had been made to obtain
reliable information relative to the country which they were about
to traverse; but the want of local knowledge was severely felt, and
the difficulties of the march, encumbered as was the force with heavy
guns, was greater than had been anticipated. Nott joined the force on
the 23rd of September; and they pushed on into the Dehrawut country.
But it was soon apparent that so formidable a display of force would
achieve without bloodshed the objects of the expedition. Early in the
month of October many of the principal Douranee chiefs were in Nott’s
camp. They had never before seen our regular troops, which now, paraded
and exercised before them, made a strong impression on their minds.
They gazed at and handled our heavy guns with wondering apprehension,
and confessed that they had no desire to test their quality. It was
said throughout the war, that our guns were the best “politicals,”
but Elliot’s diplomacy was not unsuccessfully exerted, and the chiefs
professed their willingness to proceed to Caubul and make submission to
the Shah.
But there was one who refused to submit. The indomitable spirit of
Akrum Khan was proof against all promises and all threats. He did not
come into Nott’s camp; but held aloof, still eager, it was said, to
give us battle. It was our policy to seize the rebel chief; and this
was now to be done. One of his own countrymen undertook to betray him.
It was suspected that the man had no real intention to lead us to the
lair of the hostile Douranee; but, after the manner of his nation, to
obtain money from us and then to lead our troops astray. But Elliot
grasped the proposal, with a tenacity of purpose which baffled all
fraud and defeated all evasion. He went to the general, and obtained
his permission to send a regiment of Janbaz, under John Conolly, to
beat up the quarters of Akrum Khan. There was little expectation in
camp that the forces would be successful. But Conolly did his work
well. It is said that the feet of the guide were tied under his
horse’s belly to prevent his escape. A rapid march brought them to a
small fort, where Akrum Khan was preparing to betake himself to the
hills. A few hours’ delay would have been fatal to the success of the
expedition. But now its great object was attained. The rebel Douranee
was surprised, seized, and carried back, a prisoner, to Nott’s camp.
The expedition had scarcely occupied thirty-six hours.
The rest is soon told. The unfortunate chief was carried a doomed
captive to Candahar. Macnaghten, whose letters written at this time
show how all his finer feelings had been blunted by the rude work in
which he was engaged, had persuaded the King that it was necessary to
make a terrible example of some of the disturbers of the public peace.
Prince Timour was then the governor of Candahar. He had recently been
sent to the western capital to take the place of his brother Futteh
Jung, whose detestable character had rendered his removal necessary;
and the change was one greatly for the better. Timour was a man of
respectable reputation; mild, indolent, and compliant. He governed
according to the behests of his English supporters, and had little will
of his own. He now directed or authorised, under instructions from
Caubul, the execution of the Douranee prisoner; and so Akrum Khan was
blown from a gun.
Before the end of October, Nott had returned to Candahar with the
greater part of the force; and Lieutenant Crawford had been despatched
to Caubul with the Douranee chiefs who had tendered their submission.
There was now really a prospect of tranquillity in Western Afghanistan;
for both the Ghilzye and the Douranee confederacy had been crushed; and
the facility with which we had moved our regular troops and our heavy
guns into the most difficult parts of the country had demonstrated to
the turbulent tribes the difficulty of escaping the vengeance of the
Feringhees, and had produced a good moral effect among people who had
before only known us from report.
CHAPTER V.
[September—October: 1841.]
Aspect of Affairs at Caubul—The King—The
Envoy—Burnes—Elphinstone—The English at Caubul—Expenses of the
War—Retrenchment of the Subsidies—Risings of the Ghilzyes—Sale’s
Brigade—Gatherings in the Kohistan—Sale’s Arrival at Gundamuck—The
1st of November.
Taking advantage of the lull that followed the defeat of the Douranees
and the Ghilzyes in Western Afghanistan, let us dwell for a little
space on the general condition of affairs at the capital, in this month
of September.
The King was in the Balla Hissar. Discontented and unhappy, he
complained that he had no real authority; that the English gentlemen
were managing the affairs of his kingdom; and that he himself was a
mere pageant and a show. He had watched with satisfaction the growth
of the difficulties which were besetting the path of his allies,
and was not without a hope that their further development would be
attended by our withdrawal from so troubled a sphere. It was plain
to him that, although deference was outwardly shown to his opinions,
and a pretence of consulting his wishes was made by his British
advisers, they really held all the power in their hands; and he said,
complainingly, to one of them,[74] for whom he entertained no little
personal affection, that he “did not understand his position.” The
appointment of the new minister, Oosman Khan, in the place of his old
and tried servant, Moollah Shikore, had been extremely distasteful
to him; and it chafed him to think that a functionary so appointed
must necessarily be less eager to fulfil his wishes than those of his
European allies. His health, too, was failing at this time; he was
nervous and irritable, and Macnaghten thinking that he saw symptoms
of approaching dissolution, contemplated the expediency of bringing
Prince Timour from Candahar to the capital. “His Majesty,” he wrote to
Rawlinson, on the 21st of September, “is ill of a fever, which has been
hanging about him for some time, and at his time of life, the issue, to
say the least of it, is very doubtful. It seems to be in the highest
degree desirable that Shah-zadah Timour should be here in the event of
a fatal termination of His Majesty’s illness. The Nizamoodowlah and I
have had a serious conversation this morning on the subject. He thinks,
and I am disposed to agree with him, that it might be well if the
Shah-zadah were to address an _areeza_ to His Majesty, stating how much
grieved he is to hear of His Majesty’s illness, the intelligence of
which has filled him with so much uneasiness as to incapacitate him for
the proper performance of the duties of government, and expressing an
earnest desire to kiss the feet of His Majesty, and thereby give relief
to his mind.” But the old man rallied, and Macnaghten rejoiced. At such
a time, a succession would have been embarrassing and inopportune, for
the Envoy was preparing to shake the dust of Afghanistan from his feet
for ever.
He was about to receive the reward of a life of successful and
appreciated service, and to end his official days in comparative
quiet and repose. He was about to escape out of the cares and
inquietudes—the difficulties and dangers—the incessant harassing
turmoil and excitement of a life of responsibility among a turbulent
and discontented people, and to commence a new career of useful and
honoured public service, upon a less stormy and tumultuous scene. He
had been appointed Governor of Bombay. The same recognition of approved
zeal and capacity which had been extended to Malcolm and Elphinstone,
had now come to testify the estimation in which Macnaghten’s services
were held by his employers. It was a high and flattering mark of
confidence, and it was doubly welcome after all the doubts and
misgivings engendered in his mind by the implied censures of his
immediate superior. The value of the gift, too, was enhanced by the
seasonableness of the time at which it was received. Macnaghten looked
around him, and saw that “everything was quiet from Dan to Beersheba;”
and he rejoiced in the thought that he was about to quit Afghanistan
for ever, and to carry with him no burden of anxiety and fear.
Burnes was also at Caubul. He had been there ever since the restoration
of the Shah, in a strange unrecognised position, of which it is
difficult to give any intelligible account. He used to say, that he
was in the “most nondescript of situations.” It appears to have been
his mission in Afghanistan to draw a large salary every month, and to
give advice that was never taken. This might have satisfied many men.
It did not satisfy Burnes. He said that he wanted responsibility; and
under Macnaghten he had none. He had no precise duties of any kind;
but he watched all that was going on in Afghanistan with a penetrating
eye and an understanding brain, and he wrote, in the shape of letters
to Macnaghten, long and elaborate papers on the state and prospects of
Afghanistan, which his official chief dismissed with a few pencil-notes
for the most part of contemptuous dissent. Burnes saw clearly that
everything was going wrong. He probed, deeply and searchingly, the
great wound of national discontent—a mighty sore that was ever
running—and he felt in his inmost soul that the death-throes of such
a system could not be very remote. But better days were now beginning
to dawn upon him. He had been waiting for Macnaghten’s office, and now,
at last, it seemed to be within his reach. A few weeks, and he would be
supreme at Caubul; and the great object of his ambition gained.
The command of the troops was in the hands of General Elphinstone—an
old officer of the Queen’s service, of good repute, gentlemanly
manners, and aristocratic connections. He had succeeded Sir Willoughby
Cotton in the early part of the year. But it must have been a wonder
to him, as it was to all who knew him, what business he had in such
a place. He had no Indian experience of any kind, and he was pressed
down by physical infirmities. When Sir Willoughby Cotton intimated his
desire, on the plea of ill health, to be relieved from the command of
the troops in Afghanistan, there was an officer already in the country
to whom their charge might have been safely delegated. But he was not
in favour either at the Mission or at the Calcutta Government House.
Sir Jasper Nicolls would have placed Nott in command; but there were
obstacles to his appointment, at which I have already hinted; and it
was deemed expedient to send to Caubul a man of a more ductile nature,
with as few opinions of his own as might be, to clash with those of
the political chief. So Lord Auckland despatched General Elphinstone
to Afghanistan—not in ignorance of his disqualifications, for they
were pointed out to him by others—but in spite of a clear perception
of them. Whether those who sent the brave old gentleman to India
with all his infirmities thick upon him, recommended him for this
especial field of service, or whether any notions of routine and the
obligations of the roster pressed themselves upon Lord Auckland with
irresistible force, I cannot confidently declare; but so inexplicable
by any reference to intelligible human motives and actions is an
appointment of this kind, that it is impossible not to recognise in
such a dispensation a mightier agency than that of man, or to reject
the belief that, when Elphinstone went to Caubul, the curse which sate
upon our unholy policy was working onward for our overthrow.
Next in rank to General Elphinstone were Sir Robert Sale and Brigadier
Shelton—both officers of the Queen’s service, but soldiers of long
Indian experience. Each had served with his regiment in the Burmese
war; and each had acquired a reputation for the highest personal
courage. Sale’s regiment was the 13th Light Infantry. Shelton’s was the
44th.[75] Both of these regiments were now at Caubul. But the 13th was
about to return to India, and soon afterwards to great Britain. It had
seen many years of Indian service, and had been in Afghanistan since
Keane’s army first entered the country. The 44th had come up early
in the year, and had done some service in the Naziain valley, near
Jellalabad, on the way.
The command of the Shah’s troops was vested in Brigadier Anquetil, a
native of one of those lovely islands in the Channel which have sent
forth so many brave men to fight our battles by sea and land. He was
esteemed a good soldier; and I believe that Macnaghten found him a
more pliant colleague than the “alarmist” whom he had supplanted.
The controversies between Brigadier Roberts and the Envoy had ended
in the departure of the former. His advice had been resented; his
warnings had been scouted. His clear insight into the dangers which
were beneath our feet had been regarded as idle and imbecile fear; and
the unwelcome declarations of his honest convictions as little short of
rank mutiny. He had done his duty; he had spoken the truth; and he had
paid the inevitable penalty of his unwillingness to make an easy and a
prosperous present at the cost of a tumultuous and disastrous future.
He had returned in disgrace to the British provinces; but he had left
his predictions behind him, and he knew that, sooner or later, History
would do him justice.
The main body of the British troops were in the new cantonments. These
works had been erected in the course of 1840. They were situated on a
piece of low ground open to the Kohistan road. They were extensive and
ill defended. They were nearly a mile in extent, and were surrounded
by ramparts so little formidable that they might be ridden over.[76]
Near the cantonments was the Mission compound, occupying an extensive
space, and surrounded by a number of houses and buildings belonging to
the officers and retainers of the Mission. There was here, also, a weak
attempt at defence; but the walls were beyond measure contemptible; and
the whole expanse of building, the entrenched camp and Mission compound
together, were so planted, as to be swept on every side by hills,
and forts, and villages, and whatever else in such a country could
bristle with armed men. No such works were ever known—so wretched in
themselves, and so doubly wretched by position. If the object of those
who constructed them had been to place our troops at the mercy of an
enemy, they could not have been devised more cunningly in furtherance
of such an end. They were commanded on every side; and so surrounded
with villages, forts, gardens, and other cover for an enemy, that
our troops could neither enter nor leave the camp without exposing
themselves to a raking fire from some one of these points of attack.
And to crown the calamity of the whole, the Commissariat supplies, on
which our army depended for its subsistence, were stored in a small
fort, not within, but beyond, the cantonments. The communication
between the two places was commanded by an empty fort, and by a walled
garden, inviting the occupation of an enemy. Human folly seemed to
have reached its height in the construction of these works. There
stood those great, indefensible cantonments, overawed on every side,
a monument of the madness which Providence, for its own ends, had
permitted to cloud and bewilder the intelligence of the “greatest
military nation of the world.” There it stood, a humiliating spectacle;
but except by new-comers, who stood in amazement before the great
folly, little account was taken of it. Men’s eyes had become accustomed
to the blot.
And whose was this stupendous error? Are we to assign its origin to
the professional incapacity of the engineer officers attached to the
force; to the ignorance and carelessness of the officers commanding
it; or to the wilfulness of the Envoy? Not to the engineers—Durand,
who had first held the post, had urged upon the Envoy the necessity
of constructing barracks and posting our troops in the Balla Hissar;
and Macnaghten, yielding to these solicitations, had overcome the
reluctance of the Shah—but the barracks had been afterwards given
up to the accommodation of the old king’s harem; and from that time,
though Sturt who succeeded Durand, insisted, with equal urgency
on the expediency of locating the troops in the Balla Hissar, and
strengthening its defences, all hope of securing a strong military
position at Caubul was gone. The sheep-folds on the plain were built.
When Brigadier Roberts, in the spring of 1840, saw that the work had
commenced, and what it was proposed to do, he remonstrated against the
plan; and was told that it had been approved by Sir Willoughby Cotton.
The Brigadier had been connected with the Building Department in the
upper provinces of India, and freighted his remonstrances, therefore,
with much professional experience, bearing upon the sanatory as well as
upon the defensive aspects of the question; but, although he believed
at first that he had made some impression on the Envoy, his protests
were disregarded. And so the cantonments had sprung up, such as we have
described them; and there, in that late autumn of 1841, they stood,
bare and defenceless, as sheep-pens, whilst the wolves were howling
around them.[77]
The English had by this time begun to settle themselves down in
Caubul. Indeed, from the very commencement, they had done their best,
as they ever do, to accommodate themselves to new localities and new
circumstances, and had transplanted their habits, and, I fear it
must be added, their vices, with great address, to the capital of
the Douranee Empire. It was plain that they were making themselves
at home in the chief city of the Afghans. There was no sign of an
intended departure. They were building and furnishing houses for
themselves—laying out gardens—surrounding themselves with the
comforts and luxuries of European life. Some had sent for their wives
and children. Lady Macnaghten, Lady Sale, and other English women, were
domesticated in comfortable houses within the limits of the great
folly we had erected on the plain. The English, indeed, had begun to
find the place not wholly unendurable. The fine climate braced and
exhilarated them. There was no lack of amusement. They rode races; they
played at cricket. They got up dramatic entertainments. They went out
fishing; they went out shooting. When winter fell upon them, and the
heavy frosts covered the lakes with ice, to the infinite astonishment
of the Afghans they skimmed over the smooth surface on their skates.
There is no want of manliness among the Afghans; but the manliness of
the Feringhee strangers quite put them to shame. They did not like us
the less for that. The athletic amusements of our people only raised
their admiration. But there was something else which filled them with
intensest hate.[78]
I am not writing an apology. There are truths which must be spoken. The
temptations which are most difficult to withstand, were not withstood
by our English officers. The attractions of the women of Caubul they
did not know how to resist. The Afghans are very jealous of the honour
of their women; and there were things done in Caubul which covered them
with shame and roused them to revenge. The inmate of the Mahomedan
Zenana was not unwilling to visit the quarters of the Christian
stranger. For two long years, now, had this shame been burning itself
into the hearts of the Caubulees; and there were some men of note
and influence among them who knew themselves to be thus wronged.
Complaints were made; but they were made in vain. The scandal was open,
undisguised, notorious. Redress was not to be obtained. The evil was
not in course of suppression. It went on till it became intolerable;
and the injured then began to see that the only remedy was in their own
hands. It is enough to state broadly this painful fact. There are many
who can fill in with vivid personality all the melancholy details of
this chapter of human weakness, and supply a catalogue of the wrongs
which were soon to be so fearfully redressed.
Such, dimly traced in its social aspects, was the general condition of
things at Caubul in this month of September, 1841. Politically—such
was Macnaghten’s conviction—everything was quiet from Dan to
Beersheba. The noses of the Douranee Khans had, he said, “been brought
to the grindstone;” and the Gooroo and other Ghilzye chiefs were in
his safe keeping at Caubul, seemingly contented with their lot. As the
month advanced the Envoy continued to write that our prospects were
“brightening in every direction,” that everything was “_couleur de
rose_.” It is true that Eldred Pottinger, who after a brief visit to
the British provinces had returned to Afghanistan, was not sending in
very favourable reports from the Kohistan and the Nijrow country, which
were now his new sphere of action; but of these troubles Macnaghten
made light account. He believed that Pottinger was an alarmist. It
is true, also, that an expedition was going out to Zao, to reduce
some turbulent robber tribes; but this necessity he attributed to
the indiscretion of one of our own officers, who had needlessly
attacked the place with insufficient means, and been compelled to
beat a retreat.[79] The expedition, too, as Macnaghten said, was only
a “little go;” and immensely popular with our officers, who were
zealously volunteering for the sport, as though it had been a battu or
a steeple-chase.[80]
The popular expedition into the Zoormut country was completely
successful. Macgregor, who accompanied the force in the character of
political adviser, found the rebellious forts evacuated. He had only,
therefore, to destroy them. The results, however, of the movement
were not wholly pacificatory. Pottinger said that the feeling which
it engendered in the Kohistan was extremely unfavourable to us. It
confirmed, he said, in the minds of the malcontents, “the belief so
industriously spread of our difficulties, whilst rumours from Herat and
Candahar of invasion, renewed rebellion, and disturbances, were again
spread abroad.”[81]
During the early part of October the Kohistanees remained perfectly
quiet. But every hour, said Pottinger, “brought rumours of the
formation of an extensive conspiracy.” These he at first doubted;
but he reported them to the Envoy, and asked for information on the
subject. The answer was, that neither Macnaghten nor Burnes could
perceive any grounds for suspicion.
In the mean while, the Eastern Ghilzyes were breaking out into
revolt.[82] They had the same cause of complaint as the Kohistanees.
The money-bag, which had kept them in order, was beginning to fail. It
is a moot point whether revenge or avarice is the stronger feeling in
the Afghan breast. Both were now arrayed against us. The bayonet and
the money-bag were failing to do their work.
The expenses of the occupation of Afghanistan had long been telling
fearfully upon the revenues of India. Lord Auckland had been slow
to look the intolerable evil of this exhausting drain fairly in the
face. But the other members of the Supreme Council had been less slow
to address themselves fully to the subject; and the home authorities
had written out urgent letters regarding the miserable results of the
continued occupation of a country that yielded nothing but strife.
Looking at the matter in the most favourable point of view, it was
found that the support of Shah Soojah cost the treasury of India at
least a million and a quarter a year. The Board of Control, or that
fusion of the two authorities of the crown and the company, known as
the Secret Committee, had taken, at the close of 1840, a correct and
statesmanlike view of the subject, and had written out, that they
could see nothing in the continued support of Shah Soojah, who, it was
plain, had no hold upon the affections of the people, to compensate for
this alarming exhaustion of the financial resources of India, and the
necessary injuries inflicted upon the people by such a fearful waste of
the revenues of the country.
On the last day of the year they had clearly and emphatically
propounded their views of this important question, saying;—“We
pronounce our decided opinion that for many years to come, the restored
monarchy will have need of a British force, in order to maintain peace
in its own territory, and prevent aggression from without. We must
add, that to attempt to accomplish this by a small force, or by the
mere influence of British Residents, will, in our opinion, be most
unwise and frivolous, and that we should prefer the entire abandonment
of the country, and a frank confession of complete failure, to any
such policy. Even financial considerations justify this view, inasmuch
as a strong and adequate military establishment, costly as it must
be, will hardly entail so much expense upon you as those repeated
revolts and disorders which must arise in an ill-governed, half-subdued
country; and which will compel you to make great and sudden efforts to
maintain your character, and recover predominance. To whatever quarter
we direct our attention, we behold the restored monarchy menaced by
dangers, which cannot possibly be encountered by the military means
at the disposal of the minister at the Court of Shah Soojah, and we
again desire you seriously to consider which of the two alternatives
(a speedy retreat from Afghanistan, or a considerable increase of the
military force in that country), you may feel it your duty to adopt.
We are convinced that you have no middle course to pursue with safety
and with honour.” The letter enunciating these views had been scarcely
signed when intelligence of the surrender of Dost Mahomed was received
in England. But these tidings had caused no change in the opinions of
the Secret Committee, and on the 2nd of January, 1841, they had written
again to the Supreme Government, saying, “The surrender of Dost Mahomed
does not alter the views contained in our late letters, and we hope
that advantage will be taken of it to settle affairs in Afghanistan
according to those views.”
When these letters reached Calcutta, in the spring of 1841, it had
become a matter for the serious consideration of the Indian Government,
whether the policy, which had proved so utterly disastrous, should not
be openly and boldly abandoned. The question came before the Supreme
Council at the end of March.[83] Either by some negligence, or by
some juggle, the opinions of the military members of Council were not
obtained. Lord Auckland and the civilians decided in favour of the
continued occupation of the country, though it was certain that it
could only be done at the cost of a million and a quarter a year. But
money had already become painfully scarce. It was necessary to recruit
the exhausted treasury. There was no other mode of accomplishing
this than by opening a new loan. Such a public declaration of the
embarrassed condition of the government was distressing to Lord
Auckland; but nothing else was to be done. So at the end of March
he drew up an advertisement for a five per cent. loan.[84] It is a
remarkable instance of that kind of monomaniac blindness which besets
some men, under peculiar conditions of existence, that when Macnaghten
learned that a new loan had been opened, he asked, “What can this be
for?” and spoke of the war—_in China_?[85]
But the call was responded to but slowly.[86] Money did not come in
freely, though it was going out with a freedom perhaps unexampled
in the history of Indian finance; and the home authorities still
continued to write out, as Sir Jasper Nicolls and others in India were
declaring, that it had become necessary either to withdraw altogether
from Afghanistan, or to fall back upon the alternative of a large
augmentation of the army. As the year advanced, too, other influences
were at work to move the Indian Government to consider more and more
intently the subject of the continued drain upon the resources of
India. Great Britain was on the eve of a change of ministry, which
would settle in Downing-street a party of Conservative statesmen, and
send to Calcutta one of their number, known to be hostile to the whole
policy of the expedition across the Indus; and Macnaghten was already
beginning to tremble at the thought of what he called prospectively
an “unparalleled atrocity”—but what many would have regarded as an
act of wisdom and justice—the withdrawal of the British army from
Afghanistan. How strongly the Envoy felt upon this subject, and in what
manner he argued against it, may be gathered from a letter which, on
the 25th of September, he addressed to the Governor of Agra. Still he
continued to report that the whole country was quiet, and insisted that
the Shah’s force, aided by one European regiment at Caubul, and another
at Candahar, would be sufficient to keep the whole country in order:
...... Rumours are rife as to the intentions of the Tories towards this
country, when they get into power. If they deprive the Shah altogether
of our support, I have no hesitation in saying (and that is saying
a great deal) they will commit an unparalleled political atrocity.
The consequences would be frightful. The act would not only involve
a positive breach of treaty, but it would be a cheat of the first
magnitude. Had we left Shah Soojah alone, after seating him on the
throne, the case would have been different. He would have adopted the
Afghan method of securing his sovereignty. But we insisted upon his
acting according to European notions of policy, and we have left all
his enemies intact—powerless, only because we are here. In short,
we should leave him with all the odium of having called in the aid of
foreign infidel auxiliaries, and with none of those safeguards which
he himself would have provided for his security. How could we expect
him, under such circumstances, to maintain his power? I know that he
would not attempt it. He would pack up his all, and return to his
asylum in India, the moment our resolution was imparted to him. We
have effectually prevented his forming a party for himself. In a few
years hence, when the present generation of turbulent intriguers shall
have been swept away, the task will be comparatively easy. As it is,
the progress we have made towards pacifying, or rather subjugating
(for neither the Douranees nor the Ghilzyes were ever before _subject_
to a monarchy), is perfectly wonderful. The Douranee Kings kept these
unruly tribes in good humour by leading them to foreign conquest.
The Barukzye rulers kept them down by sharing their power with
some, and sowing dissensions amongst others, by the most paltry and
unjustifiable shifts and expedients, to which the Shah could not, if
it were in his nature even, have recourse. Now the whole country is as
quiet as one of our Indian chiefships, and more so—but the reaction
would be tremendous if the weight of our power was suddenly taken off.
There are gangs of robbers here and there which it would be desirable
to extirpate; and I had intended to postpone this job till a more
favourable opportunity; but you will see, from my official letters,
that it has been forced upon me, by Captain Hay’s proceedings, at an
earlier period than I anticipated. We are well prepared, however, and
the coercion of these brigands will have an excellent effect all over
the country. Dost Mahomed not only tolerated them, but went snacks
in their spoils. After their dispersion shall have been effected,
there will be literally nothing to do except the subjugation of
Nijrow. Pottinger has a project for effecting this, without trouble
or expense, by marching through their country the troops returning to
Hindostan and Jellalabad. I have submitted this to the General; and
should it be carried into effect, I shall beg of government to send
us no more troops, for they would only be an incumbrance. A million
and a quarter per annum is certainly an awful outlay; but if the items
were examined, you would find that a full moiety of this is to be
laid to the account of Mr. Bell’s proceedings in Upper Sindh, where
they have had an army, _cui bono?_ larger than the Army of the Indus.
All this profligate expenditure will now cease, and, barring Herat,
I am quite certain that the Shah’s force would be ample, with the
addition of one European regiment at Caubul and another at Candahar,
to keep the entire country in order. I am, too, making great reduction
in our political expenditure; and I feel certain that, in a very
short time, an outlay of thirty lakhs per annum will cover, and more
than cover, all our expenses. The process of macadamization (which,
notwithstanding the present lull, I cannot but consider as near at
hand) would reduce our outlay to nothing. I should not be surprised to
see Colonel Stoddart and Arthur Conolly walking in any fine morning.
I am glad you approved of the wig I conveyed to the latter. I am
satisfied it adverted from him worse consequences. His enthusiasm,
which I found it impossible to repress, is continually leading him
into scrapes[87] ....
Such, at the close of September, were Macnaghten’s views of our
continued occupation of Afghanistan. But, before this, the letters of
the Secret Committee, the orders of the Supreme Government, and the
portentous shadow of the coming Tory ministry, had roused Macnaghten
to a sense of the great fact, that it was necessary to do something to
render less startlingly and offensively conspicuous the drain upon the
resources of India, which was exhausting the country, and paralysing
the energies of its rulers. So it was determined to carry into effect
a system of economy, to be applied, wherever it could be applied, to
the expenditure of Afghanistan; and, as ordinarily happens, both in the
concerns of public and of private life, the retrenchments which were
first instituted were those which ought to have been last. Acting in
accordance with the known wishes of government, Macnaghten began to
retrench the stipends, or subsidies, paid to the chiefs. He knew how
distasteful the measure would be; he was apprehensive of its results.
But money was wanted, and he was compelled to give it effect.[88]
The blow fell upon all the chiefs about the capital—upon the Ghilzyes,
upon the Kohistanees, upon the Caubulees, upon the Momunds, even
upon the Kuzzilbashes. Peaceful remonstrance was in vain. So they
held secret meetings, and entered into a confederacy to overawe the
existing government, binding themselves by oaths to support each other
in their efforts to recover what they had lost; or, failing in this,
to subvert the system out of which these injurious proceedings had
arisen. Foremost in this movement were the Eastern Ghilzyes. Affected
by the general retrenchments, they had also particular grievances
of their own.[89] They were the first, therefore, to throw off the
mask. So they quitted Caubul—occupied the passes on the road to
Jellalabad—plundered a valuable cafila—and entirely cut off our
communications with the provinces of Hindostan.
Upon this, Humza Khan, the governor of the Ghilzyes, was sent out to
bring them back to their allegiance. “Humza Khan,” wrote Macnaghten to
Macgregor, on the 2nd of October, “who is at the bottom of the whole
conspiracy, has been sent out by his Majesty to bring back the Ghilzye
chiefs who have fled; but I have little hope of the success of his
mission.”[90] Humza Khan, whose own stipend was included in the general
retrenchment, had been commissioned to carry the obnoxious measure into
effect; and he had instigated the chiefs to resist it. He was now sent
out to quell a disturbance of which he was himself the parent and the
nurse.
These movements did not at first much alarm Macnaghten. He was intent
upon his departure from Caubul; and he said that the outbreak had
happened at a fortunate moment, as his own party and the troops
proceeding to the provinces could quell it on their way to India.
“You will have heard ere now,” he wrote on the 3rd of October, to
Major Rawlinson, “of my appointment to Bombay. I could wish that
this most honourable distinction had been withheld a little longer,
until I could have pronounced our relations in this country as being
entirely satisfactory; but, thanks in a great measure to your zealous
co-operation, I may even now say, that every thing is rapidly verging
to that happy consummation. No time is fixed for my departure. That
will depend upon the instructions I receive from Lord Auckland. Should
his Lordship direct me to deliver over my charge to Burnes, there is
little or nothing, that I know of, to detain me, and I ought to be
in Bombay by the middle of December. I am suffering a little anxiety
just now, as the Eastern Ghilzye chiefs have turned _Yaghee_, in
consequence, I believe, of the reduction of their allowances, and their
being required to sign an ittezain against robberies. We have sent
to bring them back to their allegiance, and I think there will be no
difficulty about them, unless the root of the _Fussad_ lies deeper,
and they are, as some assert, in league with Mahomed Akbar. In that
case, it will be necessary to undertake operations on a larger scale
against Nijrow and Tugao, in the latter of which districts the Moofsids
(rebels) have taken refuge. They are very kind in breaking out just at
the moment most opportune for our purposes. The troops will take them
_en route_ to India. To-morrow I hope our expedition will reach the
refractory forts of Zao, and teach them a most salutary lesson.”
But after a few days, he began to take a more serious view of the
matter; and he urged Macgregor to return with all despatch to Caubul,
that he might accompany the expedition he was about to send out against
the rebels. But at the same time he wrote to Rawlinson, that he did not
apprehend any open opposition; and he never seemed to doubt that the
insurrectionary movement would promptly be put down.
Sale’s brigade, which was returning to the provinces, was, it has been
seen, to stifle the insurrection _en route_ to Jellalabad. Macnaghten,
however, thought of strengthening the force, with a view to the
operations against the Ghilzyes, and he wrote to Captain Trevor, who,
pending the arrival of Macgregor, was holding the enemy in negotiation,
that he believed the General would send out “two eight-inch mortars,
two iron nine-pounder guns, Abbott’s battery, the 5th Cavalry, the
Sappers and Miners, and the 13th Queen’s, with the 35th and 37th Native
Infantry.”[91] But he continued to talk of the “impudence of the
rascals,” and expressed his belief that, the insurrection put down,
the country would be quieter than ever.[92] On the 9th of October,
Colonel Monteith marched from Caubul, with the 35th Native Infantry, a
squadron of the 5th Cavalry, two guns of Abbott’s battery under Dawes,
and Broadfoot’s Sappers and Miners. That night his camp was attacked
at Bootkhak—the first march on the Jellalabad road. On the 10th,
therefore, Sale received orders to march at once with the 13th Light
Infantry, and on the following day he started to clear the passes. On
the 12th, he entered the defile of Khoord-Caubul. The enemy occupied
the heights in considerable force, and, in their own peculiar style
of warfare, opened a galling fire upon our advancing column. Sale was
wounded at the first onset, and Dennie took command of the troops. He
spoke with admiration of “the fearless manner in which the men of the
13th, chiefly young soldiers, ascended heights nearly perpendicular
under the sharp fire of the insurgents;” and added, that the Sepoys
of the 35th, who had fought under him at Bameean, “rivalled and
equalled them in steadiness, activity, and intrepidity.”[93] The pass
was cleared, and then the 13th retraced its steps to Bootkhak, whilst
Monteith, with the 35th and the other details, was left encamped in the
Khoord-Caubul valley.
In the mean while, Macgregor had returned from the Zoormut country.
The Envoy had known him long, and had abundant confidence in the man.
An officer of the Bengal Artillery, who had been a favourite member of
Lord Auckland’s personal staff, he had accompanied Macnaghten to Lahore
and Loodhianah, on the mission to negotiate the Tripartite treaty, and
had subsequently been employed in political superintendence of the
country between Caubul and Jellalabad, where, by an admirable union of
the vigorous and the conciliatory in his treatment of the tribes, he
had won both their respect and their affection. The Envoy now believed
that Macgregor would soon restore the country to tranquillity, and was
impatient until his return. Macgregor reached Caubul on the 11th of
October, and soon started for Monteith’s camp. Macnaghten, who believed
that the outbreak was local and accidental, looked with eagerness to
the result. He took little heed of what was going on in the Kohistan.
Nor did he think that the Douranee Khans, whose “noses he had brought
to the grindstone,” were plotting their emancipation from the thraldom
of the infidels.
But Pottinger, in the Kohistan, plainly saw the storm that was
brewing—plainly saw the dangers and difficulties by which he was
surrounded. As the month of October advanced, the attitude of the
Kohistanees and the Nijrowees was more and more threatening. Meer
Musjedee, the Nijrow chief, a man of a resentful and implacable temper,
had been, some time before, described in the newspaper paragraphs of
the day as stalking about the country, and sowing broadcast the seeds
of rebellion. The measures of the King’s government had long before
made these very people, who had risen up against the tyranny of Dost
Mahomed, ripe for revolt against the more consummate tyranny of the
Shah. And now, in the middle of October, Pottinger saw that the state
of things was fast approaching a crisis; so he demanded hostages from
the Kohistanee chiefs. To this the Envoy reluctantly consented. “And,”
wrote Pottinger, in his official account of these transactions, “I only
succeeded in procuring them by the end of the month, when everything
betokened a speedy rupture with the Nijrowees.” By this time, indeed,
Meer Musjedee had openly raised the standard of revolt, and the people
were clustering around it.
Macnaghten thought very lightly of these movements in the Kohistan.
Nothing disturbed his faith in the general tranquillity of the country,
and the popularity of the double government. He greatly desired the
settlement of the Ghilzye question, for there was something palpable
and undeniable in such a movement; and he was anxious to set his face
towards the provinces of Hindostan. Eagerly, therefore, he looked for
intelligence from Macgregor. He had begun, however, to doubt whether so
troublesome a business could be settled by peaceful negotiation. “We
must thresh the rascals, I fear, after all,” he wrote to Macgregor, on
the 17th; “but I don’t think that the troops will be under weigh until
the 20th. Is not this provoking? Abbott has made some excuse about his
guns being injured. Pray write a circumstantial plan of the best means
of surrounding and preventing the escape of the villains.”[94] Abbott
was not a man to make excuses of any kind, but the Envoy was becoming
impatient. On the 18th, he wrote again: “It has been determined that
the Sappers and Miners, the mountain train, and two companies of the
37th Native Infantry, march out to join you to-morrow morning. They
will make one march to Khoord-Caubul. The next day I hope you will be
joined by the 13th, the 37th, and Abbott’s battery. I hope you will
arrange the plan of attack before Sale arrives.”[95] But although
Macnaghten was eager to “thresh the rascals,” certain prudential
considerations suggested to him that it would only be expedient to
punish them as much as could “conveniently” be done. It would not be
convenient, at such a time, to exasperate the insurgents too much, and
drive them to block up the passes, and plunder everything that came in
their way.
In the mean while, Monteith, in his isolated post in the Khoord-Caubul
valley, was exposed, if not to some danger, to considerable
inconvenience, for the enemy made a night-attack upon his camp, aided
by the treachery of the Afghan horsemen, under the Shah’s Meer Akhor,
(or Master of the Horse) who admitted the rebels within their lines.
One of our officers, Lieutenant Jenkins, and several Sepoys, were
killed; and a number of camels carried off by the enemy. Monteith
reported the treachery of his Afghan friends, and the Envoy resented
his just suspicions. But he was now to be relieved. Sale appeared
with two more infantry regiments, with more guns, and more sabres;
and after a brief halt, for want of carriage, which much tried the
patience of the Envoy, the whole swept on to Tezeen. Here the force
halted for some days, and Macgregor busied himself in negotiations with
the enemy. Macnaghten had instructed him to accommodate matters, if
it could be done without any loss of honour; and Macgregor was candid
enough to acknowledge that the insurrection of the Ghilzyes had been
brought about by “harsh and unjust” measures of our own. So he opened
a communication with the rebel chiefs; and, being known to most of
them, consented to a personal interview. So Macgregor met the chiefs.
There was a long and animated discussion. They demanded that their
salaries should be restored to their former footing, and that they
should not be held responsible for robberies committed beyond their
respective boundaries. To these demands Macgregor consented. But they
demanded also that Shool Mahomed, who had been removed, as a rebel,
from the chiefship of their tribe, should be re-instated; and this
point Macgregor resolutely refused to concede, in the belief that such
concession would compromise the honour of the Government. The chiefs
yielded, and Macgregor returned to camp. It was supposed that the
Ghilzye affair had been “patched up after a fashion;” not, perhaps,
without some loss of dignity, but with as much vigour as was convenient
at the time. The chiefs sent in their agents to remain with Macgregor,
ostensibly to aid him in the re-establishment of the police, and post
stations on the road; and Macnaghten was able to report that the affair
was settled.
He thought, however, that the terms granted to the rebels were too
favourable; and the King was dissatisfied with them; but the Envoy
replied that it was the treachery of the Shah’s own people that had
paralysed the efforts of our negotiators. Indeed, it was known that
people about the Court had left Caubul for the purpose of joining in a
night-attack upon our troops. Still Macnaghten could not believe that
there was any wide-spread feeling of disaffection among the chiefs and
the people of Caubul; nor when Pottinger sent in gloomy reports from
the Kohistan, could he bring himself to think that they were anything
but the creations of a too excitable brain. “Pottinger writes,” he
said,[96] “as if he were about to be invaded by the Nijrowees, but I
imagine that there is little ground for this alarm, and that at all
events the fellows will sneak into their holes again when they hear
that the Ghilzyes are quiet.” This was written on the 26th of October.
On the 29th he wrote again, saying, “I trust I have at last got
Pottinger into a pacific mood, though I tremble when I open any of his
letters, lest I should find that he has got to loggerheads with some of
his neighbours. In the present excited state of men’s minds, a row in
any quarter would be widely infectious, and we are not in a condition
to stand much baiting.”
Meanwhile, Macgregor had learnt the value of his treaty. From Tezeen
to Gundamuck the agents of the Ghilzye chiefs were in our camp; but
there was some hard fighting for the brigade. The enemy mustered in
force, and attacked our column; and the old excuse was made, that
it was owing to no faithlessness on the part of the chiefs, but to
their inability to control the tribes. It was a terrible country for
a baggage-encumbered force to toil through, in the face of an active
enemy. Jugdulluck was gained with little opposition; but, on the next
march, it was seen that the heights were bristling with armed men, and
a heavy fire was poured in from all the salient points, on which, with
the instincts of the mountaineer, they had posted themselves, with such
terrible effect. Sale threw out his flanking parties, and the light
troops, skirmishing well up the hill sides, dislodged the enemy, whilst
a party under Captain Wilkinson, pushing through the defile, found that
the main outlet had not been guarded, and that the passage was clear.
The march was resumed; but the enemy were not yet weary of the contest.
Reappearing in great numbers, they fell furiously upon our rear-guard,
and, for a time, our people, thus suddenly assailed, were in a state
of terrible disorder. The energetic efforts of our officers brought
back our men to a sense of their duty, and restored the confidence,
which, for a little space, had forsaken the young soldiers. Broadfoot,
Backhouse, and Fenwick, are said to have rallied and re-animated them.
But the loss that fell upon them was heavy—more than a hundred men
were killed and wounded; and among them was Captain Wyndham, of the
35th, who fell like a brave soldier in the unequal fight.[97]
Sale halted at Gundamuck. Macnaghten heard of the loss sustained
between Jugdulluck and Soorkhab, but wrote to Macgregor, on the 1st of
November, that he “hoped the business last reported was the expiring
effort of the rebels;” and that the party would have dispersed, and
thannahs been re-established. To Major Rawlinson he wrote on the same
day, and congratulated him on the tranquil appearance that affairs had
assumed in the direction of Candahar. It was now the very day that he
had fixed upon for his departure from Caubul; and still he did not
doubt for a moment that his emancipation was close at hand.
BOOK V.
[1841-1842.]
CHAPTER I.
[November-1841.]
The Outbreak at Caubul—Approaching Departure of the Envoy—Immediate
Causes of the Rebellion—Death of Sir Alexander Burnes—His
Character—Spread of the Insurrection—Indecision of the British
Authorities.
Brightly and cheerfully the month of November dawned upon the retiring
envoy and his successor. Macnaghten was about to lay down the reins of
office, and turn his face, in a day or two, towards Bombay. Burnes,
rejoicing in the thought of being “supreme at last” (but somewhat
disquieted by the silence of government on the subject), was stretching
out his hand to receive the prize he had so long coveted. The one was
as eager to depart as the other to see the departure of his chief;
and both were profoundly impressed with the conviction that the great
administrative change was about to be effected under an unclouded sky.
There were others, however, who viewed with different eyes the portents
that were gathering around them—others who warned the envoy and
Burnes of the dangers of such a confederacy as had been formed against
the British in Afghanistan. Among these was Captain Colin Mackenzie,
an officer of the Madras army, whose enquiring and adventurous spirit
had prompted him to seek service in Afghanistan, and who had soon
recommended himself to the Envoy by his intelligence and high character
for political employment. He told Macnaghten at the end of October that
Akbar Khan, the ablest and most determined of Dost Mahomed’s sons, had
arrived at Bameean from Bokhara, and that he surely meditated mischief.
But the envoy only replied that if it were so, Oosman Khan, the Wuzeer,
would have known and reported the circumstance to him. About the same
time, Lieutenant John Conolly, a young relative of Macnaghten, and a
member of his personal staff, told him that a rising in the city was
meditated, and that the shopkeepers knew so well what was coming, that
they refused to sell their goods to our people lest they should be
murdered for favouring the Feringhees.
Among these, also, was Mohun Lal. Before the arrival of Captain
Macgregor from the Zoormut country, he had been deputed to accompany
General Sale’s camp, and on his return to Caubul, he had laid the
result of his observations, whilst on that expedition, before Sir
Alexander Burnes. Entering fully upon the nature and extent of the
confederacy, the Moonshee emphatically declared his opinion that
it would be dangerous to disregard such threatening indications of
a coming storm, and that if the conspiracy were not crushed in its
infancy, it would become too strong to be easily suppressed. Burnes
replied that the day had not arrived for his interference—that
he could not meddle with the arrangements of the Envoy; but that
Macnaghten would shortly turn his back upon Caubul, and that measures
should then be taken to conciliate the Ghilzyes and Kohistanees, by
raising their allowances again to the point from which they had been
reduced. On the 1st of November, Mohun Lal again pressed the subject
of the hostile confederacy upon the expectant minister. Burnes stood
up from his chair, and said, with a sigh, that the time had come for
the British to leave the country;[98] but, on the same evening, he
congratulated Sir William Macnaghten on his approaching departure at a
period of such profound tranquillity.[99]
On that very evening the hostile chiefs met and determined, in
conclave, upon the measures to be taken for the overthrow of the
British power in Afghanistan. To rouse the people into action by a
skilful use of the king’s name, seemed to be the safest course of
procedure. But doubts arose as to whether it were wiser to enlist
the loyal sympathies of his subjects, or to excite their indignation
against him. It might be announced, on the one hand, that the King
had given orders for the destruction of the infidels; or a report
might be spread that he had declared his intention of seizing the
principal chiefs, and sending them prisoners to London. It would seem
that the rebels did both; and at the same time lulled the suspicions
of the Envoy by frequent visits to his house, and loud assurances of
friendship. Abdoollah Khan, Achekzye, announced the certainty of their
expatriation in a letter to the principal Sirdars, whilst the other
object was accomplished by forging the King’s seal to a document,
ordering the destruction of the Feringhees, or rather, forging the
document to the seal.[100] Men of different tribes and conflicting
interests had made common cause against the Feringhees. Barukzye,
Populzye, Achekzye, and Ghilzye chiefs were all banded together. Why
they should have fixed upon that particular 2nd of November for the
first open demonstration at Caubul it is not easy to conjecture. To
have waited a few days would have been to have waited for the departure
of the Envoy, of the General, and of a considerable body of troops
from Afghanistan. The supposition, indeed, is, that however widely
spread the disaffection, and however extensive the confederacy, the
first outbreak was not the result of any general organisation, but
was the movement only of a section of the national party. It was too
insignificant in itself, and there was too little evidence of design
in it, to have sprung out of any matured plan of action on the part
of a powerful confederacy. What that confederacy was may be gathered
from Macnaghten’s admission, that when, early in December, he met the
Afghan leaders at a conference, he saw assembled before him the heads
of nearly all the chief tribes in the country.
The meeting on the night of the 1st of November was held at the house
of Sydat Khan, Alekozye. Foremost among the chiefs there assembled was
Abdoollah Khan. By nature proud, cruel, and vindictive, this man was
smarting under a sense of injuries inflicted upon him by the restored
Suddozye government, and of insults received from one of Shah Soojah’s
British allies. On the restoration of the King, Abdoollah Khan had been
dispossessed of the chiefship of his tribe, and had ever since been
retained about the Court, rather as a hostage than as a recognised
officer of the government. Ever ready to promote disaffection and
encourage revolt, he had seen with delight the rising of the Ghilzyes,
and during their occupation of the passes had been eagerly intriguing
with the chiefs. Aware of Abdoollah Khan’s designs, Burnes sent him
an angry message—called him a dog—and threatened to recommend Shah
Soojah to deprive the rebel of his ears. When the chiefs met together
on the night of the 1st of November, this indignity was rankling
in the breast of the Khan. The immediate course to be pursued came
under discussion, and he at once proposed that the first overt act of
violence on the morrow should be an attack on the house of the man who
had so insulted him. The proposal was accepted by the assembled chiefs;
but so little did they anticipate more than a burst of success at the
outset, that not one of them ventured personally to take part in a
movement which they believed would be promptly avenged.
Day had scarcely dawned on the 2nd of November, when a rumour reached
the cantonments, and was at once conveyed to the Mission-house, that
there was a commotion in the city. John Conolly, who was to have
accompanied him to Bombay, was giving directions about the packing of
some of the Envoy’s chattels, when an Afghan rushed wildly in, and
announced that there was an insurrection in the city. Conolly went
out immediately, heard the firing in the streets, and hastened to
convey the intelligence to Macnaghten.[101] The Envoy received it with
composure. There was nothing in it, he thought, to startle or to dismay
a man with sound nerves and a clear understanding. Presently a note
was brought him from Burnes. It stated that there was great excitement
in the city, especially in the neighbourhood of his residence; but it
spoke slightingly of the disturbance, and said that it would speedily
be suppressed. Assistance, however, was sought. Burnes wanted military
support; and Macnaghten, still little alarmed by the tidings that had
reached him, hurried to the quarters of the General. It was thought to
be only a slight commotion. And so it was—at the outset. But before
any assistance was sent to Burnes, he had been cut to pieces by an
infuriated mob.
The houses of Sir Alexander Burnes and of Captain Johnson, the
paymaster of the Shah’s troops, were contiguous to each other in the
city. On the preceding night, Captain Johnson had slept in cantonments.
The expectant Resident was at home. Beneath his roof was his brother,
Lieutenant Charles Burnes; and Lieutenant William Broadfoot, an officer
of rare merit, who had been selected to fill the office of military
secretary to the minister elect, and had just come in from Charekur to
enter upon his new duties. It was now the anniversary of the day on
which his brother had been slain by Dost Mahomed’s troopers, in the
disastrous affair of Purwundurrah; and it must have been with some
melancholy recollections of the past, and some dismal forebodings of
the future, that he now looked down from the upper gallery of Burnes’s
house, upon the angry crowd that was gathering beneath it.
Before daylight on that disastrous morning a friendly Afghan sought
admittance to Burnes’s house, eager to warn him of the danger with
which he was encompassed. A plot had been hatched on the preceding
night; and one of its first objects was said to be the assassination of
the new Resident. But Burnes had nothing but incredulity to return to
such friendly warnings. The man went. The insurgents were gathering.
Then came Oosman Khan, the Wuzeer, crossing Burnes’s threshold, with
the same ominous story on his lips. It was no longer permitted to
the English officer to wrap himself up in an impenetrable cloak of
scepticism. Already was there a stir in the streets. Already was an
excited populace assembling beneath his windows. Earnestly the Afghan
minister spoke of the danger, and implored Burnes to leave his house,
to accompany him to the Balla Hissar, or to seek safety in cantonments.
The Englishman, deaf to these appeals, confident that he could quell
the tumult, and scorning the idea of quitting his post, rejected the
friendly counsel of the Wuzeer, and remained to face the fury of the
mob.
But even to Alexander Burnes, incredulous of imminent danger as he was,
it seemed necessary to do something. He wrote to the Envoy, calling
for support. And he sent messengers to Abdoollah Khan. Two chuprassies
were despatched to the Achekzye chief, assuring him that if he would
restrain the populace from violence, every effort would be made to
adjust the grievances complained of by the people and the chiefs. One
only of the messengers returned. He brought back nothing but wounds.
The message had cost the other his life.
In the meanwhile, from a gallery in the upper part of his house,
Burnes was haranguing the mob. Beside him were his brother and his
friend. The crowd before his house increased in number and in fury.
Some were thirsting for blood; others were greedy only for plunder. He
might as well have addressed himself to a herd of savage beasts. Angry
voices were lifted up in reply, clamoring for the lives of the English
officers. And too surely did they gain the object of their desires.
Broadfoot, who sold his life dearly, was the first to fall. A ball
struck him on the chest; and the dogs of the city devoured his remains.
It was obvious now that nothing was to be done by expostulation;
nothing by forbearance. The violence of the mob was increasing. That
which at first had been an insignificant crowd had now become a great
multitude. The treasury of the Shah’s paymaster was before them; and
hundreds who had no wrongs to redress and no political animosity to
vent, rushed to the spot, hungering after the spoil which lay so
temptingly at hand. The streets were waving with a sea of heads; and
the opposite houses were alive with people. It was no longer possible
to look unappalled upon that fearful assemblage. A party of the
insurgents had set fire to Burnes’s stables;[102] had forced their way
into his garden; and were calling to him to come down. His heart now
sank within him. He saw clearly the danger that beset him—saw that the
looked-for aid from the cantonment had failed him in the hour of his
need. Nothing now was left to him, but to appeal to the avarice of his
assailants. He offered them large sums of money, if they would only
spare his own and his brother’s life. Their answer was a repetition of
the summons to “come down to the garden.” Charles Burnes and a party
of chuprassies were, at this time, firing on the mob. A Mussulman
Cashmerian, who had entered the house, swore by the Koran that if they
would cease firing upon the insurgents, he would convey Burnes and his
brother through the garden in safety to the Kuzzilbash Fort. Disguising
himself in some articles of native attire, Burnes accompanied the man
to the door. He had stepped but a few paces into the garden, when his
conductor called out with a loud voice, “This is Sekunder Burnes!”[103]
The infuriated mob fell upon him with frantic energy. A frenzied
moollah dealt the first murderous blow; and in a minute the work was
complete. The brothers were cut to pieces by the Afghan knives.[104]
Naib Sheriff, true to the last, buried their mutilated remains.
So fell Alexander Burnes. In the vigour of his years—in the pride of
life—within a few feet of the goal which he had long held so steadily
in view. It has been said that he predicted the coming storm; and by
others again that he refused to see it. He may have warned others;
but he rejected all warning himself. It was only in keeping with
the character of the man that he should have been subject to such
fluctuations of feeling and opinion. Sometimes sanguine; sometimes
desponding—sometimes confident; sometimes credulous—he 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. At one time, he could discern with intuitive
sagacity the hidden dangers besetting our position in Afghanistan, and
illustrate his views with an impressive earnestness which caused him to
be regarded by his official superior as a wildly speculative alarmist.
At another, when destruction was impending over his head—when the
weapon was sharpened to immolate him—he saw nothing but security and
peace; and turned away from the warnings of those who would have saved
him, with an incredulous smile upon his lips. This instability was a
grievous fault; and grievously he answered it. But though unstable,
he was not insincere. If he deceived others, he first of all deceived
himself. If he gave utterance to conflicting opinions, they were all
_his_ opinions at the time of their birth. He was a man of an eager
impulsive temperament; the slightest vicissitudes of the political
atmosphere readily affected his mercurial nature; and he did not always
think before he spoke. Hence it is that such varying opinions have been
attributed to him—all perhaps with equal truth. A passing cloud, or a
transient gleam of sunshine, and Afghanistan was either in the throes
of a deadly convulsion, or lapped in heavenly repose.
It was the hard fate of Alexander Burnes to be overrated at the outset
and under-rated at the close of his career. It may be doubted whether
justice has yet been rendered him—whether, on the one hand, what was
innately and intrinsically good in him has been amply recognised, and
whether on the other, the accidental circumstances of his position
have been sufficiently taken into account. From the very commencement
of the Afghan expedition Burnes was placed in a situation calculated
neither to develop the better nor to correct the worse part of his
character. In his own words, indeed, he was in “the most nondescript
of situations.” He had little or no power. He had no supreme and
independent control of affairs; nor had he, like other political
assistants, any detached employment of a subordinate character; but
was an anomalous appendage to the British mission, looking out for
the chance of succession to the upper seat. In such a position he
felt uneasy and unsettled; he lived rather in the future than in the
present; and chafed under the reflection that whilst, in all that
related to the management of public affairs, he was an absolute cypher
at the Afghan court, much of the odium of unpopular acts descended
upon him; and that much of the discredit of failure would attach to
him if the measures, which he was in nowise permitted to shape, were
not crowned with success. There is reason to think that if fairer
scope had been allowed for the display of his abilities, and a larger
amount of responsibility had descended upon him, he would have shone
with a brighter and a steadier light, and left behind him a still
more honourable name. His talents were great; his energies were great.
What he lacked was stability of character. Power and responsibility
would have steadied him. He would have walked with a firmer step and
in a straighter course under a heavier burden of political duties. As
it was, all the environments of his life at Caubul were too surely
calculated to unhinge and unbalance even a more steadfast mind. It
is right that all these things should be taken into account. It is
right, too, that it should never be forgotten by those who would form
a correct estimate of the character and career of Alexander Burnes,
that both have been misrepresented in those collections of state
papers which are supposed to furnish the best materials of history,
but which are often in reality only one-sided compilations of garbled
documents—counterfeits, which the ministerial stamp forces into
currency, defrauding a present generation and handing down to posterity
a chain of dangerous lies.
Burnes and his companions fell. There was a great plunder of property.
The treasury of Captain Johnson, the Shah’s paymaster, was sacked.
Thirsting for gold, and thirsting for blood, the insurgents undermined
the walls and burnt the gateway of the house; then falling, like
wild beasts, on all whom they met, and slaughtering guards and
servants—men, women, and children, alike, in their indiscriminate
fury—they glutted themselves with the treasure,[105] and to complete
their work of mischief, burnt all the records of the office. The noise
in the city was now growing louder and louder. The multitude was
swelling in numbers, and waxing more terrible in excitement and wrath.
But still no measures were taken to quell the riot or chastise the
rioters; no troops were poured into the city; no British officer led
his battalions to the charge, or opened upon the enemy with a shower
of unanswerable grape. The escort, at Burnes’s house, held for some
time in painful inactivity by his misplaced forbearance, had fought
with a desperate energy, which, in the end, cost them their lives; and
the guard at the pay-office, with scarcely less constancy and courage,
had protected their charge until overwhelmed by the rush of their
assailants, and slaughtered almost to a man. What could these little
bands of loyal men do against the surging multitude that flooded the
streets? Emboldened by impunity, the licentious crowd pushed on to
new deeds of murder and rapine; and soon the whole city was in a roar
of wild tumultuous excitement. Shops were gutted; houses were burned;
men, women, and children, in the residences of our officers, mixed up
in indiscriminate slaughter;—and all this with six thousand British
troops within half an hour’s march of the rebellious city.
From the Balla Hissar the King looked down upon the disturbed city
beneath him. But even from that commanding position little could be
seen of what was going on below in the narrow winding streets, which
scarcely presented more than an expanse of flat house-tops to the
gazers from above. A report had been industriously propagated that the
insurgent movement had been favoured, if not directed, by the monarch
himself; but his conduct at this moment was not such as to give colour
to the suspicion, which soon began to shape itself in the minds of
his British supporters, and which has not even now been dislodged.
He was agitated, panic-struck, but not paralysed. The only movement
made, on that ill-omened November morning, to crush the insurrection
at its birth, was made by the King himself. He sent out a regiment of
Hindostanee troops—that regiment which was still commanded by the
Indo-Briton adventurer Campbell, who had rendered Shah Soojah good
service in his attempt to expel the Barukzye Sirdars.[106] Futteh Jung
and the Wuzeer went with them. They moved down with some spirit upon
the city; but shaped their course with such little wisdom that they
were soon in disastrous flight. They should have moved along the base
of the hill to the outer extremity of the short thoroughfare in which
Burnes’s house was situated. But instead of this they attempted to make
their way through the heart of the city, and were soon entangled with
their guns in its narrow, intricate streets. Thus embarrassed, they
were at the mercy of the enemy. They lost, it was said, two hundred of
their number,[107] were compelled to abandon their guns, and were soon
to be seen hurrying back, a disorderly rabble, to the shelter of the
Balla Hissar.
In the mean while, Brigadier Shelton, with a body of infantry and
artillery, had made his way to the Balla Hissar, and arrived in time
to cover the retreat of Campbell’s regiment, and to save the guns from
the grasp of the enemy. “Soon after my arrival,” says the Brigadier
in his narrative of these proceedings, “wounded men were coming in
from the city. I was then informed that they belonged to the King’s
Hindostanee Pultun, which his Majesty had sent into the city with two
six-pounders. I despatched the light company of the 54th N.I. to the
gate of the Balla Hissar leading into the town, and soon after the
remainder of the King’s Pultun and the two guns were driven in. The
latter they were obliged to abandon, fortunately sufficiently under
the wall to enable me to prevent the enemy from getting possession;
but too near the houses for me to bring them in. I disposed a covering
party accordingly, but on the enemy’s opening his fire, the Shah’s men
rushed back into the gateway, and thus abandoned the enterprise.” “I
mention this,” adds the Brigadier, “because it was said his Majesty was
implicated in exciting the rebellion—for in such case he never would
have made so noble an effort, and the only one that was made to strike
at the root.”[108]
On that day nothing else was done. Deserted by his personal attendants
in the hour of danger, Shah Soojah seems to have sunk into a pitiable
state of dejection and alarm. The defeat of his Hindostanees had
given a deeper shade to his despondency; he was incapable of acting
for himself or of offering counsel to others, and all who sought his
presence were struck by the anxious expression of his countenance and
the feeble petulance of his manner. Nothing effective had been done,
and nothing more was to be done at all on that memorable day—General
Elphinstone had been talking about to-morrow, when he should have
been acting to-day. And so the evening of the 2nd of November fell
upon an irritable people, established and fortified in resistance
by the indecision of the authorities, against whom they had erected
themselves, and the inactivity of the army by which they might have
been crushed.
It is the common opinion of all competent authorities that a prompt
and vigorous movement, on the morning of the 2nd of November, would
have strangled the insurrection at its birth. The Afghans freely
admitted this. A Populzye chief who was present at the meeting at
Sydat Khan’s house on the night of the 1st of November, told Major
Rawlinson that not one of the chiefs, who then leagued themselves
together, ventured to stir from his house until the afternoon of
the following day. They expected that the first onset—the attack
on the houses of Burnes and Johnson—would be successful; but they
were under an equally strong conviction that the violence would be
promptly avenged by the troops from cantonments, and they therefore
refrained from committing themselves by taking any personal part in
the _émeute_. It seems to have been the impression of the majority
that such an outbreak at the capital would operate as a warning which
the British in Afghanistan would hardly neglect, and that we should
be glad, therefore, to withdraw our forces in the spring and leave
the Douranees to their own devices.[109] “Not only I, but several
other officers,” says Captain Johnson, “have spoken to Afghans on the
subject; there has never been one dissenting voice, that had a small
party gone into the town prior to the plunder of my treasury and the
murder of Burnes, the insurrection would have been instantly quashed.
This was also the opinion of Captain Trevor, at that time living
in the town.”[110] Captain Mackenzie has given an equally emphatic
opinion to the same effect. “During our expedition into Kohistan,
under General MacCaskill,” he writes, “I accompanied it, having been
placed by General Pollock in charge of Shah-zadah Shapoor and the
Kuzzilbash camp. In my frequent communications with Khan Shereen
Khan, some of the late leaders, and other chiefs of the Kuzzilbash
faction, all the circumstances of the late insurrection were over and
over again recapitulated, one and all declaring positively that the
slightest exhibition of energy on our part, in the first instance,
more especially in reinforcing my post and that of Trevor, would at
once have decided the Kuzzilbashes, and all over whom they possessed
any influence, in our favour. Khan Shereen Khan also confirmed the
idea that an offensive movement on the opposite side of the town by
Brigadier Shelton, had it been made in the early part of the fatal 2nd
of November, would at once have crushed the insurrection.”[111] Mohun
Lal says, that in the first instance no more than thirty men were sent
to surround Sir Alexander Burnes’s house, and that the rest were drawn
thither subsequently by the hope of plunder.[112] Captain Johnson,
already quoted, adds, “The mob at the first outbreak did not exceed 100
men. They however speedily increased; the plunder of my treasury, my
private property and that of Sir Alexander—seeing that no steps were
taken to save either the one or the other, nor even what was of more
value to us at that time, the life of Sir Alexander Burnes—was too
great a temptation to the inhabitants of Caubul, and when 300 men would
have been sufficient in the morning to have quelled the disturbance,
3000 would not have been adequate in the afternoon.”[113]
The question, then—and it is one of the gravest that can be asked in
the entire course of this historical inquiry—is, how came it that an
insurrectionary movement, which might have been crushed at the outset
by a handful of men, was suffered to grow into a great revolution? It
is a question not to be answered hastily—not to be answered at all
without the citation of all available evidence. It is fortunate that
at least the facts of the case are to be ascertained with sufficient
distinctness. It is certain that, on the first receipt of authentic
intelligence of the outbreak in the city, Macnaghten repaired to
Elphinstone’s quarters to seek military aid. Shelton, in his narrative,
says, that much valuable time was lost at the outset. “The Envoy,” he
writes, “must have had notice by 7 A.M., so that much valuable time
was, I fear, lost by remaining quietly at home, receiving reports,
instead of acting promptly and with decision.”[114] But the imputation
is not warranted by the real facts of the case. “On the morning of
the 2nd of November”—such is the evidence of the Envoy himself—“I
was informed that the town of Caubul was in a state of commotion; and
shortly afterwards I received a note from Lieutenant-Colonel Sir A.
Burnes, to the effect that his house was besieged, and begging for
assistance. I immediately went to General Elphinstone.”[115] General
Elphinstone himself says: “On the 2nd of November, at half-past 7 A.M.,
I was told by Colonel Oliver that the city was in a great ferment,
and shortly after the Envoy came and told me that it was in a state of
insurrection, but that he did not think much of it, and that it would
shortly subside.”[116] Captain Johnson, too, writes that, on receiving
in cantonments intelligence of the outbreak, he went to report what he
had heard to Captain Lawrence, military secretary to the Envoy. “The
latter,” he adds, “had just received a note from Burnes on the subject,
and was on the way to the General’s.” Thus it is established that
Macnaghten lost no time in seeking the advice and assistance of the
military commander.
Let us next see what was the result of the visit to the General. “I
suggested,” says Macnaghten, “that Brigadier Shelton’s force should
proceed to the Balla Hissar, thence to operate as might seem expedient;
that the remaining troops should be concentrated in the cantonments,
and placed in a state of defence, and assistance, if possible, sent to
Sir A. Burnes. Before Brigadier Shelton could reach the Balla Hissar,
the town had attained such a state of ferment that it was deemed
impracticable to penetrate to Sir A. Burnes’s residence, which was in
the centre of the city.”
General Elphinstone’s report is meagre and unsatisfactory, and does
not even allude to any supposed expediency of supporting Sir Alexander
Burnes:—“It was proposed,” he says, “that Brigadier Shelton, with two
regiments and guns, should proceed to the Balla Hissar; and the Envoy
sent his military secretary, Captain Lawrence, to intimate his wishes,
and obtain the King’s sanction to this measure, the Balla Hissar being
considered a commanding position, and the fittest route to enter the
city..... The troops, horse artillery (four guns), with a company of
the 44th Foot, the Shah’s 6th Infantry, and a wing of the 54th N. I.,
moved under Brigadier Shelton, about twelve o’clock, into the Balla
Hissar; the rest of the troops were concentrated in cantonments, which
arrangements occupied the rest of the day.”
Brigadier Shelton’s report is much more explicit and intelligible. It
throws a flood of light on some of the dark places:—“On the morning
of the 2nd November,” says the Brigadier, “I passed under the city
wall about seven o’clock, when the cavalry grass-cutters, who were in
the habit of going through the town for their grass, told me that the
city gate was shut, and that they could not get in. All was quiet at
this time; and I rode home, thinking some robbery might have taken
place, and that the gate might have been shut to prevent the escape
of the thieves. About eight or nine o’clock various reports were
in circulation, and between nine and ten I got a note from General
Elphinstone, reporting a disturbance in the city, and desiring me to
prepare to march into the Balla Hissar, with three companies 54th N.
I., the Shah’s 6th Infantry, and four guns, all I had in camp (the
remainder of my brigade having been called into cantonments). I soon
after got another, telling me not to go, as the King objected to it. I
replied to this note, that if there was an insurrection in the city,
it was not a moment for indecision, and recommended him at once to
decide upon what measures he would adopt. The answer to this was, to
march immediately into the Balla Hissar, where I would receive further
instructions from the Envoy’s military secretary, whom I should find
there. Just as I was marching off, a note came from the latter person
to halt for further orders. I then sent in the engineer officer to see
the cause; but he was cut down by an Afghan, in dismounting from his
horse, just outside the square, where his Majesty was sitting. Soon
after this the secretary himself came with orders to proceed. I then
marched in, when the King asked me, as well as I could understand, who
sent me, and what I came there for.[117]” He was not, indeed, allowed
to operate upon the disturbed city. All that, circumstanced as he was,
Shelton could do, was to cover the retreat of the Shah’s Hindostanees,
who had been sent out, as we have seen, against the insurgents, and
been disastrously beaten.
It is obvious, therefore, that Brigadier Shelton must be acquitted
of all blame. He recommended, on the morning of the 2nd of November,
prompt and decisive measures, but he was not empowered to carry them
into effect. The responsibility rests with the Envoy and the General,
and must be equally shared between them. It does not appear that either
recognised the necessity of a prompt attack upon the disturbed quarter
of the city. The Envoy, always considerate and humane—sometimes to a
point of weakness—desired to spare the inhabitants of Caubul those
dreadful scenes of plunder and violence which ever follow the incursion
of a body of retributive troops into an offending city. But such tender
mercies are often cruel. In such cases the most vigorous measures are
commonly the most humane. It is hard to say how much human life would
have been saved if, early on the 2nd of November, a few companies of
infantry and a couple of guns had been despatched to that portion of
the city where Sir Alexander Burnes and his companions were standing
at bay before a contemptible rabble, which would have melted away at
the approach of a handful of regular troops.
Burnes did not believe the outbreak to be a formidable one; Macnaghten
did not believe it to be a formidable one; and Elphinstone was entirely
swayed by the opinions of his political associates. Hence came the
indecision and inactivity, which were attended with such disastrous
results. Burnes and Macnaghten were right up to a certain point; but
all beyond was lamentably wrong. The outbreak was not formidable in
itself; but it was certain, in such “ticklish times,”[118] very soon to
become formidable. There are seasons when slight indications of unrest,
such as might commonly be disregarded, assume a portentous and alarming
aspect, and demand all the vigilance and energy of the custodians of
the public safety. Such a season had now arrived; the minds of the
people were in a feverish, inflammable state, and it required very
little to bring on a dangerous paroxysm of irrepressible violence and
disorder. Macnaghten was unwilling to believe that the chiefs were
connected with those October disturbances which had blocked up the
passes between Caubul and Jellalabad, and thought that the Ghilzye
rising was of a local, accidental character, with which the Caubulees
had no connection, and in which they took no interest; but Brigadier
Shelton has declared his conviction that the majority of the insurgents
who took possession of the passes were sent out from the city, and that
many of them passed through his camp at Seeah Sungh.[119]
Be this as it may, it is very certain that even an incidental outbreak
in the city of Caubul ought not, at such a season, to have been
regarded as a matter of light concern. But an attack upon the residence
of a high political functionary could, in nowise, be looked upon as
an incidental outrage, proceeding neither from political causes, nor
conducing to political results. It was an emergency, indeed, that
called for promptitude of action, unrestrained either by short-sighted
considerations of humanity or feelings of official delicacy and
reserve. Too anxious to conciliate the wishes of the King, the Envoy
forbore from all aggressive measures until his Majesty had been
consulted; and when he learnt that Campbell’s regiment had been sent
out against the insurgents, he believed that the insurrection would be
speedily put down. But in such a crisis the British minister might have
acted, without any breach of official rectitude, on his own independent
judgment, and taken upon himself to decide at once what was best, not
only for the King, whom English money and English arms were supporting
on his throne, but for what was of infinitely more importance, the
honour of the British nation.
It is not difficult to understand these restraining influences; but
when all due allowance is made for them, it must still be admitted
that at such a time, under such circumstances, nothing short of a
prompt movement upon the disturbed quarter of the city should have been
counselled by the Envoy and ordered by the General. There is nothing,
indeed, but the impracticability of the movement that can be urged in
extenuation of its neglect. The Envoy has declared that, by the time
Brigadier Shelton had reached the Balla Hissar, it was impracticable
for a body of troops to penetrate to the neighbourhood of Burnes’s
house. But what was impracticable then was not impracticable some time
before; and Shelton would have reached the Balla Hissar much sooner,
but for the respect shown to the wishes of the King, the delay in
ascertaining those wishes, and the vacillating orders which his Majesty
thought fit to issue on this momentous occasion. The attack on the city
should have been made some hours earlier in the day. The movement may
have been impracticable after the hour when Shelton reached the Balla
Hissar; but why was it not made _before_? The only point to be decided
by the Envoy and the General was, what body of troops—whether from
Shelton’s camp or cantonments—could be most expeditiously despatched
to the disturbed quarter of the town, and most effectually suppress
the disturbance? But instead of directing all his thoughts to this one
great object, the Envoy thought about the wishes of the Shah and the
comforts of the people; whilst the General, too glad to be saved the
trouble of thinking at all, readily adopted Macnaghten’s opinions, and
believed that the fires which had broken out in the city might be left
to die out by themselves.
Still it must be remembered, on the other hand, that wise after the
event, we are passing sentence on the conduct of men who had not then
the full information which lights us to a more correct decision;
and that if they had dragooned down the insurrection at the outset,
destroying innocent life and valuable property, they would certainly,
by one party at least, have been impeached as incapable and dangerous
alarmists. It would not improbably have been said, that they had by a
precipitancy, as mischievous as it was uncalled for, turned friends
into enemies, confidence into mistrust, repose into irritation, and
sown broadcast the seeds of future rebellion over the whole length and
breadth of the land.