[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.
On the 13th of November the enemy occupied, in great strength, the
Beh-meru hills. They had planted two guns in a commanding position, and
were cannonading the British cantonment. It was at once apparent to the
Envoy that to leave them unmolested to fire into our works would be
miserably to confess our own weakness, and to encourage the enemy in
the continuance of a course of aggression which might end in the loss
of our post. But it was difficult to persuade the military authorities
to send out a force to dislodge them. Captain Lawrence was despatched,
in the first instance, to the General; but the message he bore was
coldly received, and he returned discouraged to the Envoy, with a
recommendation that he should prefer his request in person. Macnaghten
went. But the military chiefs were in no mood to listen to his counsel.
The pliant General would soon have yielded; but the more dogmatic and
self-confident Brigadier was ready with a host of objections, and a
great array of difficulties, to overwhelm the arguments of the Envoy.
Macnaghten, however, was peremptory. The guns, he said, must be taken
at all risks, and at once, or the loss of cantonments to-morrow might
be the result of our supineness to-day. There was again a talk of
responsibility. The Envoy took the responsibility on himself, and a
strong detachment, with two guns, under Brigadier Shelton,[146] was
ordered out for service.
But much time had been lost in these idle discussions. It was nearly
four o’clock before the troops were ready to take the field. They
moved out in three columns, and taking different directions, pushed
forward with a spirit and a rapidity worthy of British troops, to the
foot of the hill. One, the most serviceable of the two guns that had
been sent out under Lieutenant Eyre, unfortunately stuck fast, for
some time, in a canal. But the advanced body of the infantry, under
the General’s aide-de-camp, Major Thain, were eager to move forward
before the guns, thus delayed, could be brought to bear upon the
enemy’s position. Only one round of grape had been fired when they
closed with the enemy. It would have been well had the insurgents been
compelled to listen more to that argument which takes no denial; for
the musketry fire of our detachment, though poured in at a distance of
only ten yards, scarcely took effect upon the insurgents. The men took
no aim—fired wildly—anywhere but in the right direction. Emboldened
by impunity, the Afghan cavalry charged down upon the British bayonets
with irresistible force. No dispositions were made to receive them.
For a while all was panic and confusion. Friend and foe were mixed
up together, as the column gave way, and the horsemen charged through
and through our ranks until the rout was complete.[147] It was only
a temporary check. The British troops retreated down the slope; but
rallied, re-formed behind the reserve at the foot of the hill, and,
under cover of the guns which Eyre was now working with good effect,
advanced again to the attack. Anderson’s Horse now came into action,
and making a gallant charge, drove the enemy up the ascent. The
infantry followed, and carried the height, whilst the enemy, escaping
along the ridge, abandoned their guns to the victors.
Night was now closing in upon the scene. The detachment had been sent
out to capture the enemy’s guns. The guns were in our possession; but
it would have been the mere shadow of a victory if they had not been
carried off. The Envoy, who had watched the struggle with painful
anxiety, despatched a message of earnest entreaty that no effort should
be spared “to complete the triumph of the day,”[148] by bringing both
the guns into cantonments. One of the deserted guns was easily removed
by a party of the Shah’s 6th Infantry; but some Afghan marksmen were
pouring in so warm a fire upon the other and larger piece, that the
British soldier—all his character reversed—seeing the danger and
not the honour of the exploit, shrunk from the perilous service, and
refused to advance for the capture of the gun.[149] It was nearly
dark. The further detention of the force would have been attended
with serious risk. Eyre, therefore, spiked the gun, which it seemed
impossible to carry off, and then secured the capture of the other. The
six-pounder was rolled down the hill; the four-pounder was carried into
cantonments.
It was eight o’clock before Shelton’s force returned to their quarters.
The enemy intercepted their movements, and threatened the cantonment,
but the attack was repulsed by a few rounds of grape, and a brisk
fire from Mackenzie’s jezailchees. Many, on both sides, had fallen
during the action of the afternoon. Major Thain and Captain Paton
were severely wounded. All night, from the hill-side, came loud
lamentations—the wailings of the relatives of the Afghans who had
fallen in the fight. Lights were flitting about in every direction; for
they were burying the dead. On the following day they were busy with
the same melancholy work.
This affair of the 13th of November was set down as a success; and
it was wise to make the most of it. It was the last success, even
of a doubtful and equivocal character, which the unhappy force was
destined to achieve. “Henceforward,” wrote one who has chronicled
with no common fidelity the events of these miserable months,[150]
“it becomes my weary task to relate a catalogue of errors, disasters,
and difficulties, which, following close upon each other, disgusted
our officers, disheartened our soldiers, and finally sunk us all into
irretrievable ruin, as though Heaven itself, by a combination of evil
circumstances, for its own inscrutable purposes, had planned our
downfall.”
For some days the enemy remained comparatively inactive. Occasional
threatenings kept the garrison on the alert; but little was done
to change the posture of affairs. The Envoy, still looking for the
return of Sale’s brigade, continued to write urgent letters to Captain
Macgregor. On the 12th, he had written: “I have written to you four
times, requesting that you would come up with Sale’s brigade as soon
as possible. We are still in a very bad way, though not quite so badly
off as we were four days ago. Our force is so small that we cannot
act on the offensive, and we have not above a fortnight’s supplies.
I am trying, through Humza, to enter into some arrangements with the
_Mufsids_. As the Ghilzyes are occupied here, I should think you
would not meet with much opposition, except, perhaps, in the Khoord
Caubul Pass.” And now again, on the 14th, he wrote (and it is plain
from this letter that he thought the action of the preceding day had
in nowise improved their condition): “Dozens of letters have been
written from this, urging your immediate return with Sale’s brigade
to Caubul; and if you have not started by the time you receive this,
I earnestly beg that you will do so immediately. Our situation is a
very precarious one; but with your assistance we should all do well,
and you must render it to us, if you have any regard for our lives
or for the honour of our country. We may be said to be in a state of
siege; and had we not made two desperate sallies, we should ere now
have been annihilated. We have provisions for only ten days; but when
you arrive we shall be able to command the resources of the country.
In our action of yesterday Thain and Paton were wounded, the latter so
severely that his arm has been amputated. I have still some hope of the
Charekur detachment, but a faint one. I have no news from Ghuzni or
Candahar. In the interior of the country they seem to be as _jaghee_ as
at the capital. Mehtur Moosa joined the rebels yesterday. We have been
unmolested to-day, but it may be only the lull before the storm. Humza
Khan has promised to call on me this evening. I have no idea that he
will do so. I intend to make much of him. I have written to you several
letters of late, so shall say no more for the present. The Ghilzye
force being here, I should conceive you will experience no opposition
on the road.”
The hopes expressed for the safety of the Charekur detachment were
dissipated on the following day. On the 15th of November, Major
Pottinger and Lieutenant Haughton came in wounded from that place,
and reported that the Goorkha regiment had been cut to pieces. They
had held out for some time with noble resolution; but their position
was untenable for want of water. The horrors of unappeasable thirst
had overcome them; they had been compelled to abandon their post; had
attempted to make good their retreat to Caubul; and had perished by the
way.
The story which Pottinger told must be briefly related. Before the
end of October the Kohistanees and Nijrowees were in open revolt;
and on the 1st of November, Meer Musjedee, with a strong insurgent
force, moved across the plain of the Barakab and took up a position
at Akserai, completely cutting off the communication between Charekur
and Caubul.[151] Pottinger and Codrington now took counsel together.
The former, as political agent on the Toorkistan frontier, resided in
the castle of Lughmanee, about two miles distant from Charekur, where
the Goorkha regiment was planted in some fortified barracks, the
defences of which were still in course of construction. Codrington, who
commanded the regiment, was, at the dawn of November, with Pottinger
in the Lughmanee castle. Their position was one of great difficulty.
They sent out reconnoitring parties to obtain intelligence of the
precise position of the enemy; but, encumbered as they were with women
and children, and almost wholly without carriage, it seemed impossible
that the Goorkha regiment could be moved out of Charekur. Pottinger
wrote to the Envoy for troops, called upon all the friendly chiefs
to aid him, and began to strengthen his position. But it was soon
apparent that no help could come from Caubul, and that the friends on
whom he relied were, in fact, disguised enemies. Many Kohistanee and
Nijrowee chiefs visited him on the two first days of November. Loud in
their expressions of friendship, they declared their willingness to
co-operate with him for the suppression of the insurrection; but when
he called upon them to attack the castles of the chiefs who had gone
out to join the army of Meer Musjedee, it at once became apparent that
they lied. The suspicions of Pottinger were aroused. The “friends”
around him were assembling in such numbers as to form an army of their
own; and Pottinger, determined as he was to betray neither suspicion
nor alarm, could not help feeling that a sudden attack was by no means
an improbable event to proceed out of all these armed gatherings.
On the morning of the 3rd, the numbers of armed men around the
Residency had increased. The reconnoitring parties had not returned.
The chiefs were asking for presents, but refusing to do the service
required of them. Everything seemed enveloped in an atmosphere of doubt
and suspicion; and Pottinger, as he received the chiefs, who came
pressing in with offers of friendship, could not help feeling that a
struggle was at hand.
Before noon, he received several of the more powerful chiefs at the
Residency, and at noon went out to meet the petty Sirdars, who were
clustering in the garden around his house. With characteristic Afghan
cupidity, they assailed him with questions respecting the amount of the
rewards that would be paid for their services. Pottinger entered into
some explanations which the foremost of the party seemed disposed to
consider satisfactory; but, expressing some doubts as to whether their
clansmen would be satisfied, they requested that the nature of the
overtures might be made known to those who were removed from the circle
around the British Agent. Lieutenant Rattray, the Political Assistant,
had just joined Pottinger in the garden. He was now requested to
explain the matter to the rest, who were standing a little way apart.
Accompanied by the principal chiefs, Rattray proceeded to the place
where they were assembled, and, after some conversation, they quitted
the garden, and repaired to “an adjoining stubble-field, where several
parties of aimed men were standing.”
It was not long before Rattray became aware that treachery was brewing.
He turned to leave the field, and was immediately shot down. Pottinger
was still sitting in conversation with some of the chiefs, when a man
attached to the Hazerbash regiment ran up, and by hints, rather than by
intelligible words, apprised him of the danger that surrounded him. The
sound of firing confirmed the ominous intelligence. The chiefs rose and
fled. Pottinger escaped into the castle, and from the _terre-pleine_
of the rampart looked down, and saw Rattray lying badly wounded on
the ground, and “the recent tenderers of service making off in all
directions with the plunder of the Hazerbash camp.”[152]
Rattray was soon despatched. A party of the enemy, crossing the plain
and seeing the wounded officer at their mercy, discharged their pieces
into his head and body. They then invested Pottinger’s position, firing
upon him from the shelter of the numerous water-courses and walls. But
assistance was now at hand. Lieutenant Haughton, the adjutant of the
Goorkha corps, was moving down from Charekur. As soon as he appeared
in the vicinity of the garden. Captain Codrington made a sortie, and
united himself with the relieving force. The enemy were driven out
of the garden with severe loss. Evening was by this time closing in.
The enemy had got possession of the Charekur road, and before any
measures of future defence could be concerted between the two officers,
Codrington was obliged, after leaving some details with Pottinger, to
move off his Goorkhas to his own fortified barracks. On the following
day, with four companies of Goorkhas, and a six-pounder gun, Codrington
moved down from Charekur, to relieve Pottinger’s guard, and to supply
his little garrison with ammunition. Owing mainly, however, to the
impetuosity of a company of young soldiers,[153] the column met with
a check, and was compelled to fall back on Charekur. Ensign Salisbury
was mortally wounded, and many men of the Goorkha regiment fell on the
retreat.
Seeing little prospect now of being relieved, and finding his
ammunition reduced to a few rounds in the pouches of his men, Pottinger
determined, after nightfall, to attempt a retreat on Charekur.
Disguising his intentions by collecting grain during the day, as
for a protracted defence, he eluded the vigilance of the enemy, and
disencumbering himself of his Afghan followers, and all whose fidelity
there was any reason to suspect, he mustered the Hindostanees outside
the postern, upon the pretext of making a sortie upon the enemy, and
then marched for the barracks. Avoiding the main road, and skirting the
edge of the mountain, the little party, under cover of the night, made
good its retreat, and united itself with the main body of the Goorkha
regiment at Charekur.[154]
On the morning of the 5th of November the enemy assembled in large
bodies around the fortified barracks; and, after attacking the
outposts, closely invested the place. Codrington commanded the
regiment. Pottinger, divesting himself of his political character,
became the artillery officer again, and took charge of the guns. Moving
out with a field-piece to support the skirmishers, he was wounded by a
musket-shot in the leg. But there was too much work in hand for one of
his temper to succumb at once to such an accident as this. The enemy
were pressing fiercely on. Codrington and his Goorkhas were confined to
the barracks and a few mud huts in their immediate neighbourhood. They
stood their ground manfully and well. But the hostile multitude poured
like a torrent upon the little band of devoted men.[155] The Goorkhas
were driven from the huts. They saw their gallant commander fall
mortally wounded; but they returned undaunted to the attack. Haughton,
the adjutant, was now at their head. He led the men gallantly to the
charge, and drove back the enemy beyond the gardens they had occupied
in the morning. Again and again the Afghans returned to the attack. But
the little body of Goorkhas, with heroic courage, held their ground
till night put an end to the conflict.
Amidst the tears and lamentations of his sepoys, Codrington, with
his death-wound upon him, but still manfully striving to walk, had
tottered, under support, to the cantonment, but had there fallen to
the ground, and in an agony of thirst and calling for water, had then
been carried into his house and placed on a bed, where now disabled by
suffering, Eldred Pottinger was lying. Being supplied with writing
materials, he wrote, as best he could, a letter to his wife, gave her
picture into Pottinger’s safe keeping, and prepared himself to die. He
lingered for two days, and then was laid in the grave by his faithful
followers, beside one of his young companions in arms.
Meanwhile the unequal contest had continued. At a distance of some
three hundred yards from the barracks there was a castle, the towers of
which so effectually commanded them, that it was necessary to occupy
the post with a garrison of fifty men. But it was not very easy to
retain it. The enemy increased greatly in numbers on the 6th; and,
in spite of the successful sorties of the Goorkhas, drove back their
outposts, and confined them within the narrow limits of their barracks.
On the following day, the castle garrison, betrayed by the regimental
Moonshee, were induced to surrender. The enemy took possession of the
place, and from its commanding towers poured in a galling fire on the
Goorkhas in the barracks. The position of the little garrison was now
becoming more and more critical. Cut off by the enemy, water had become
lamentably scarce. They had lost half their officers and a large number
of their comrades. The enemy had increased in number and in fury, and
completely commanded their position. To shut themselves up in their
barracks was to die of thirst; to attempt to fight their way out was to
be cut to pieces.
On the 8th, the enemy offered them terms. The condition was, that they
should become Mahomedans. “We came to this country,” said Pottinger,
in reply, “to aid a Mahomedan sovereign in the recovery of his rights.
We are therefore within the pale of Islam, and exempt from coercion on
the score of religion.” To this they replied, that the King himself had
ordered the attack; and asked if Pottinger would surrender on receiving
his Majesty’s orders. “I can do nothing,” said Pottinger, “without a
written order from the King.” And with this the negotiations ended.
But there was an enemy more terrible than these infuriated crowds
of Kohistanees and Nijrowees. The garrison was suffering agonies of
thirst.[156] On the 10th, the last pool of water was drawn; and half a
wine-glass of the precious fluid was served out to each fighting man.
On the 11th there was not sufficient to serve out to the whole party.
At night they stole out with their _lotahs_ concealed under their
clothes, lest the shining metal should betray them, to snatch a few
drops of water from a neighbouring spring. But the enemy discovered the
practice, and shot down the wretched men. Parties were then sent out to
cover the water-carriers; but the soldiers, mad with the tortures of
thirst, quitted their ranks, and could not be restrained from rushing
forward in search of the liquid life for which they had so long been
languishing. Every new effort to obtain water, however well devised,
failed from the same cause. The parties, which moved out as disciplined
soldiers, soon, in the madness of their sufferings, became a disorderly
rabble—soon were at the mercy of the enemy, who shot them down, in
their helplessness, like sheep.
All hope was now at an end. The garrison were reduced to a party of two
hundred fighting men. They had but thirty rounds of ammunition for
each musket in store. The wretched Goorkhas were literally perishing
with intolerable thirst. Pottinger and Haughton took counsel together;
and determined to make a desperate effort to save the remnant of their
little force by a rapid unencumbered march to Caubul. Accordingly, on
the evening of the 13th of November, the Goorkhas evacuated Charekur.
Pottinger led the advance. Haughton had, on the afternoon of that
day, been disabled by a sabre-cut from a jamadar of artillery, whilst
apprehending a party of deserters; and was now scarcely able to sit his
horse. Mr. Grant, a medical officer—not the first medical officer who
has played the part of the true soldier in battle, and justified the
claims of his profession to the soldier’s honours and rewards—having
spiked all the guns with his own hands, led out the main body; whilst
Ensign Rose brought up the rear. The order of march was soon lost.
The little force became a disorderly rabble, struggling on with the
one object of allaying at the first pool of water the torments of
unendurable thirst. It was impossible to keep them together—impossible
to lead them in safety to the capital. Pottinger and Haughton were
exhausted by the pain of their wounds. They could render no service
to their men; and would have perished had they remained behind.
So they determined on pushing on to Caubul. A single sepoy of the
Goorkha corps, who plodded on with weary feet beside the horsemen,
Pottinger’s English writer, and the regimental _bunyah_, were their
only companions. The route was unknown to them, and they had no guide;
but they struggled on through many difficulties and much danger, and
at last reached the neighbourhood of Caubul. Here the peril thickened
around them. Descending into the Caubul plain behind the lake, and
intending to cross the cultivated ground to the cantonments, at the
back of the Shah’s garden, at Killa Bolundee, they missed the turning,
and soon found themselves in the midst of the enemy’s sentinels.
Fearing to attract attention by turning back, they then made for
Deh-Afghan, but finding the place occupied by the enemy, and being
closely challenged by the sentries, they were compelled to pass into
the city. Pursuing the lanes and bazaars along the river bank, and
narrowly escaping death from a volley fired upon them by one of the
enemy’s picquets, they made their way at last to the cantonments. The
regiment in the mean while had perished. Rose and Grant were slain by
the enemy,[157] and scarcely a man escaped to tell how his comrades had
been miserably destroyed.[158]
The intelligence brought in by Pottinger from the Kohistan was not
of a nature to rouse the drooping spirits of the Envoy. Charekur had
been lost; the Goorkha regiment annihilated; and there were now large
bodies of Kohistanees and Nijrowees, having done their bloody work at
home, ready to join the insurgents at the capital. With eager anxiety
had Macnaghten been looking for the return of Sale’s brigade from
Gundamuck, and now he learnt, to his bitter disappointment, that it
had marched for Jellalabad. Still he did not despair of being able to
recall it. “We learn, to our dismay,” he wrote to Macgregor on the 17th
of November, “that you have proceeded to Jellalabad. Our situation is a
desperate one if you do not immediately return to our relief, and I beg
that you will do so without a moment’s delay. We have now been besieged
for fourteen days, and without your assistance are utterly unable to
carry on any offensive operations. You may easily make Caubul in eight
marches, and, as the Ghilzyes are here, you would not have many enemies
to contend with.”[159]
In the course of the night he received a letter from Macgregor, which
satisfied him that there was no longer any hope of receiving aid from
Sale’s brigade. He had begun to think by this time of the provisions
of the tripartite treaty, and to look for aid from the Sikhs. “We are
_in statu quo_,” he wrote to the same correspondent on the following
morning. “Our chief want is supplies. I perceive now that you could not
well have joined us. I hope you have written to Mackeson, asking him
for aid from the Sikhs under the treaty. If there is any difficulty
about the Sikhs getting through the pass, Mackeson should offer a
bribe to the Khyburees of a lakh of rupees, or more, to send them safe
passage. These are not times to stick at trifles.... It is raining
here, and the weather is very cold; but I am not sure that this is not
as bad for the enemy as for ourselves. I do not hear anything from
Ghuzni or Candahar, but I should not wonder if they were in the same
mess as ourselves. We must look for support chiefly from Peshawur.
Write to Mackeson continually, and tell him to urge government to send
as many troops into the country as speedily as possible. John Conolly
is in the Balla Hissar with his Majesty, who, as you may imagine, is
in a sad taking about all the Fussad. I am making no progress in my
negotiations with the rebels.”[160]
The abandonment of all hope of assistance from Sale’s brigade had
now given a new complexion to the aspect of affairs. The military
authorities, who had been long ripe for capitulation, now pressed the
Envoy sorely with their “distressful accounts of the state of the
troops and cattle from want of provisions,” and of the “hopelessness of
further resistance.”[161] But Macnaghten, though he saw the necessity
of weighing well the dangers that beset the force, and the means of
extricating it from its perilous position, was not a man to grasp at
the degradation of surrender whilst yet there was a hope of rescuing it
by any more honourable course. The time had come, however, for him to
declare fully his sentiments to the military commander; so, on the 18th
of November, he addressed to him a letter, in which the whole question
is thus reviewed, and which is too important in its bearings upon our
subsequent operations to warrant the omission of a line:[162]
Caubul, _18th Nov., 1841_.
MY DEAR GENERAL,
The intelligence received last night from Captain Macgregor makes
it necessary that we should now take our future proceedings into
consideration. We have scarcely a hope of reinforcement from Sale’s
brigade. I would recommend we hold on here as long as possible, and
throughout the whole winter, if we can subsist the troops by any
means, by making the Mahomedans and Christians live chiefly on flesh,
and other contrivances. Here we have the essentials of wood and water
in abundance, and I believe our position is impregnable.
A retreat in the direction of Jellalabad would be most disastrous, and
should be avoided, except in the last extremity; we shall be better
able to see, eight or ten days hence, whether that extremity must be
resorted to. In that case, we should have to sacrifice the valuable
property of government; we should have to sacrifice his Majesty, who
would not come away without his family; and were we to make good our
retreat to Jellalabad, we should find no shelter for the troops (the
cantonments being destroyed), and perhaps no provisions. I fear, too,
that in such a retreat very few of our camp followers would survive.
I have frequently thought of negotiation, or rather capitulation,
for such it would be, but in the present unsettled state of affairs
there is no authority possessing sufficient weight to protect us all
through the country; besides, we should hardly be justified, even for
the security of our persons and property, to abandon even one position
in the country. Another alternative would be for us to retire to the
Balla Hissar; but this, I also fear, would be a disastrous retreat,
and we should have to sacrifice a vast deal of property. We probably
should not succeed in getting in our heavy guns, and they would be
turned with effect by the enemy against the citadel. We should neither
have food, nor firewood to cook it; for these essentials we should be
dependent upon sorties into the city, in which, if we were beaten, we
should of course be ruined.
Upon the whole, I think it best to hold on where we are as long as
possible, in the hope that something may turn up in our favour. It is
possible that we may receive reinforcements from Candahar. Now that
the cold weather is coming on, the enemy will disperse to their houses
very soon, and there will only be left the rebel chiefs and their
immediate followers. We should not, therefore, be molested during the
winter: and though circumstances make it likely that we should be
attacked soon if we are to be attacked at all, a victory on our side
might change the whole aspect of affairs.
I was disposed to recommend that a decisive blow should be struck
somewhere to retrieve our fortunes, and that Mahomed Khan’s fort
should be captured. But I have since had reason to believe no solid
advantage, such as commanding the road to the Balla Hissar, would
result therefrom; that possibly we might not be able to hold it; and,
in short, that the benefit of the measure would not counterbalance the
risk attending it.
In eight or ten days more, we shall be better able to judge whether
there is any chance of an improvement in our position, and, if not, it
will remain for the military authorities to decide whether it would be
more prudent to attempt a retreat to Jellalabad, or to retire into the
Balla Hissar. If we could only bring in sufficient provisions for the
winter, I would on no account leave the cantonment.
Yours, &c., &c.,
W. H. MACNAGHTEN.
Many and anxious, by this time, had been the discussions relative to
the abandonment of the cantonment, and the concentration of the British
troops in the Balla Hissar. The measure had been recommended by the
engineer, Sturt, and others, very soon after the first outbreak of the
insurrection. The Envoy had favoured it at an earlier as he did at a
later, period of the siege; but he seems at this time to have been more
than usually alive to the difficulties of the movement. The General
had scarcely any opinion at all on the subject. But the Brigadier was
resolutely opposed to it. His arguments were not very overwhelming—but
they were overwhelmingly advanced; and he seems for some time to have
borne down the better reason of all who supported the measure. No one
in the whole force was more profoundly impressed with a conviction
of the disadvantages of the cantonment as a military position than
Brigadier Shelton himself. He has left on record, in emphatic language,
his opinions upon this point; but he could see in the extreme
insecurity of the cantonment an argument only for a discreditable
retreat. He could not see that if the extent of the cantonment-works
were such as to render their defence difficult, and external operations
on a large scale impossible, there was in this circumstance abundant
reason for the removal of the force to a position cursed with none of
these annihilating evils.
In the Balla Hissar the troops would have been free from molestation.
They would not, as in cantonments, have been harassed and dispirited by
the necessity of manning works exposed at every point to the attacks
of the enemy. They could have sallied out from such a position in
large bodies—have attacked the city and the neighbouring forts—have
obtained supplies from the surrounding country—and held their own
till the coming spring. But against all this it was alleged that the
removal of the force from the cantonment to the Balla Hissar would be
a hazardous operation—that it could not be accomplished without great
loss, including, in all probability, the entire sacrifice of the sick
and wounded. That the movement would not have been free from danger is
true. What movement could be free from danger, at such a time?—what
warlike operations ever are free from danger? But that it would have
necessarily involved the total sacrifice of the sick and wounded, is
only to be assumed upon the hypothesis, that the curse which had so
long brooded over us would still have worked for our own undoing,
and that, therefore, no precautions would have been taken to protect
them.[163]
Other arguments against the movement were also adduced. It was said
that there was a scarcity of firewood in the Balla Hissar; and that
there was no forage for the horses. But to this it was replied that
there was a sufficiency of wood for purposes of cooking, that more
might be obtained by sallies into the city, and that the improved
shelter and increased comforts of the troops in the Balla Hissar would,
under the most unfavourable circumstances, compensate for the want of
firing. With regard to the forage, it was replied, that, if the horses
could not be fed, they might be shot; and that there was little need
for the employment of cavalry in such a position as the Balla Hissar.
One other argument, brought forward perhaps to give respectability to
the whole, was urged by Shelton and his supporters. It was said that
the abandonment of the cantonments would have been an acknowledgment of
defeat, and a triumph to our enemies. It is enough to say of this, that
it was urged by men who were clamorous for an abandonment, not of one
position, but of all our positions in Afghanistan, and a precipitate
retreat from the country. In the one case there might have been a
partial triumph; in the other there must have been a complete one.
And so, owing mainly to the pertinacity of Brigadier Shelton, the only
measure which could have saved the British force from destruction, and
the British name from degradation, was rejected in this conjuncture.
The troops remained in cantonments, threatened by the enemy and
disheartened by the ominous gloom of their own officers, only to
sustain another and more crushing defeat; and then to sink into a state
of utter inactivity and prostration, whilst the leaders of the enemy
were being brought over to consent to terms of capitulation, humbling
indeed to the pride of the proudest and most successful nation of the
world.
* * * * *
Whilst the feebleness of the military commanders in cantonments
had thus been playing away stake after stake, until every hope of
redemption was past, the King, shut up in the Balla Hissar, had been
watching the progress of events with the profoundest anxiety and alarm.
His bearing was that of a man heartless and hopeless under a pressure
of unanticipated misfortunes; but prostrate and imbecile as he was
in this conjuncture, he could see plainly enough the prostration and
imbecility of the British chiefs. When the commissariat fort fell into
the hands of the insurgents, the great calamity rose up suddenly before
the inmates of the Balla Hissar. From the summit of the palace the
enemy might be seen throwing the plunder over the walls of the fort,
to be carried off by their companions below. There was a general rush
upwards to this commanding position to witness the humiliating sight.
The King beheld it with deep emotion, and, painfully agitated, turned
to the Wuzeer and said, “Surely the English are mad.”[164]
Dejected as he was before, this crowning calamity sunk him into a state
of still deeper dejection. Every report of the designs of the enemy,
however incredible, filled him with new terror. It was said that the
insurgents were running a mine from the Shor Bazaar under the very
walls of the palace. Dreading an immediate explosion, he quitted his
apartments, and took up his residence at the gate of the Harem, where,
seated at a window commanding an extensive view of the cantonments and
the surrounding country, he traced, through a telescope, the progress
of the exciting events passing below. Day after day he sate at the same
window, looking down, from morning to evening prayer, upon a scene
which seldom yielded aught to comfort or reassure him. Shah Soojah
had never been a courageous man; but he had always been a very proud
one. That now, enfeebled and desponding, he should have clung to any
support, turned anywhere for assistance, was not strange; but when they
saw the pompous and arrogant monarch now so humbled and obsequious,
laying aside all the environments of royalty, to which before he had
clung with such pitiful tenacity, the English officers about him felt
that the shock must have been great indeed so to revolutionise his
whole nature. He made even the British subalterns sit beside him on
chairs; conversed familiarly with them; enquired into their wants, and
condescended to supply them. “If,” said one who had good opportunities
of narrowly watching the behaviour of the King at this time, “he is
acting a part, he certainly performs it admirably!”
Other reports soon came in from the city, or started up in the Balla
Hissar itself, still more to terrify the King. It was alleged that the
Arabs in the fort were about to rise up in a body, to massacre the
troops and to give the place over to the rebels. The King, who never
withheld his belief from any story however improbable, seized the chief
of the Arab tribe, and ordered that no women or children should be
suffered to leave the fort. But women and children of all kinds were
now clamouring for egress. Collecting in crowds before the Wuzeer’s
house, they importuned him, with loud lamentations, to suffer them
to depart. The Wuzeer appealed to the King, who strictly prohibiting
the egress of any Arab families, suffered more than seven hundred
other women and children to pass out of the fort. The English officers
thought, that if all the Arabs and Afghans had been removed from the
fort, and all the provisions secured for the use of the fighting men,
the whole force might have been saved.
The stores in the Balla Hissar had been indented upon for the use of
the cantonment force, and the available supplies having been thus
reduced, the troops were put upon half rations. The departure, however,
of Brigadier Shelton and his escort had diminished the number of the
fighting men, and now, under Major Ewart, they consisted of little
more than the 54th N. I., a portion of the Horse Artillery troop under
Captain Nicoll, and some details of irregular troops. At the points
most exposed to attack the components of the little garrison were
posted, and, kept always on the alert by reports of some threatened
movement of the enemy, were always ready to give them a warm reception.
The affair of the 13th of November struck a gleam of hope into the
garrison of the Balla Hissar. It seemed as though new courage had
been infused into the cantonment force; and, as though to second the
invigorated efforts of their comrades, the artillerymen in the citadel
now began to ply their batteries with increased activity. They shelled
the city, and attempted to fire it with carcases; but the houses were
not of a construction to be easily ignited, and the shelling produced
little effect. The residence of Ameen-oollah Khan, in the city, was to
be seen from the batteries; and the gunners, knowing the old man to
be one of our deadliest enemies, singled it out as a mark, and poured
their iron rain upon it. But the chief removed himself and his family
to another house; and the only slaughter was among the horses.
A crisis was now at hand in the fate of the cantonment force. The
23rd of November was one of the most eventful and the most disastrous
in the history of the insurrection. On that day a battle was fought
which ended in the disgraceful and calamitous defeat of the British
troops. The enemy had been for some time making their appearance on
the Beh-meru hill, and had repeatedly descended into the village,
whence the British commissariat officers had been drawing supplies of
grain. Irritated by the assistance which the villagers had rendered
us, the insurgents had destroyed the houses, pillaged the inhabitants,
and attacked our commissariat people when getting in their supplies.
This was not to be endured. Again the Envoy counselled the despatch
of a strong force to occupy the Beh-meru hill, and to dislodge the
enemy from a position in which they were able to work us such grievous
annoyance. Again the Brigadier objected. Urging that the troops were
exhausted and dispirited by constant harassing duty on the ramparts,
that they had been living upon half-rations of parched wheat, and
were therefore physically as well as morally enfeebled, he protested
against a movement which he said would have the effect of increasing
the number of wounded and sick, without leading to any solid advantage.
But these objections were overruled. On the 22nd a weak detachment had
been sent out, under Major Swayne, but it had only added another to
our list of failures. It was plain that something more must be done.
A council of war was held that evening at the General’s quarters,
and it was determined, after much earnest discussion, on the special
recommendation of the Envoy, that a strong force should be sent out
before daybreak on the following morning, to occupy the Beh-meru
hills. Shelton recommended that at the same time an attack should
be made on the village. It was urged that the enemy would abandon
the village as soon as our troops occupied the hill. The Brigadier
declared that the occupation of the hill would only make the enemy hold
the village with greater pertinacity. Shelton’s advice, however, was
overruled. The force went out before daybreak,[165] took possession
of the hill, and posted themselves on the north-eastern extremity,
which overhung the village. With a fatuity only to be accounted for
by the belief that the curse of God was upon those unhappy people,
they had taken out a single gun. This gun was now placed in a position
commanding an enclosure of the village, where the watch-fires gave
out their bright tokens that numbers of the enemy were assembled. A
shower of grape was presently poured in upon the bivouac. Starting up
in confusion, the enemy gave back a volley from their jezails, but,
abandoning the open space, sought the shelter of the houses and towers,
and there exhausted their ammunition in a vain attempt to respond to
our grape and musketry. Day dawned, and it was plain that the enemy
were abandoning the village. A few, however, still remained; and it
was determined to carry the place by assault. A storming party was
told off, under Major Swayne; but the village was not carried. The
detachment seems to have gone down only to be fired at, and, after half
an hour of inactivity, was recalled by the Brigadier.
The movement of the British troops, even in the dim twilight of the
early morning, had been observed from the city; and soon large bodies
of the enemy were moving across the plain. Horsemen and footmen
streamed out in thousands to give the Feringhees battle. The horsemen
stretched across the plain; the footmen covered an opposite hill, and
some reoccupied the village.
The fire from the enemy’s hill, which was separated from that on which
our own troops were posted only by a narrow gorge, soon became hot
and galling. Leaving five companies at the extremity of the hill,
immediately above the village, Shelton took the remainder of his force,
with the one gun, over the gorge, to a position near the brow of that
hill, on which the enemy were assembling in the greatest numbers.
Here he formed his infantry into two squares, and massed his cavalry
immediately in their rear. The one gun was nobly worked, and for a
time, with terrible effect, told upon the Afghan multitudes, who had
only a matchlock fire to give back in return. But thus nobly worked,
round after round poured in as quickly as the piece could be loaded,
it soon became unserviceable. The vent was so heated by the incessant
firing, that the gunners were no longer able to serve it. Ammunition,
too, was becoming scarce. What would not those resolute artillerymen
have given for another gun? The firing ceased; and the British
musketeers were then left to do their work alone. Little could they
do, at such a time, against the far-reaching Afghan matchlocks. The
enemy poured a destructive fire into our squares, but the muskets of
our infantry could not reach the assailants. The two forces were at a
distance from each other, which gave all the advantage to the Afghans,
who shot down our men with ease, and laughed at the musket-balls, which
never reached their position.
The nature of the country was altogether unfavourable to the British
troops. Between them and the brow of the hill there was some rising
ground, which prevented Shelton from seeing the movements of the enemy
on the side of the hill. But from the cantonment could be seen a party
of Afghans crawling from the gorge up the hill-side, and rushing with
sudden fury upon our infantry masses. The unexpected attack seems to
have struck a panic into the heart of our troops, who turned and fled
along the ridge like sheep. Shelton, who ever in the midst of danger
stood with iron courage exposed to the thickest fire of the enemy,
vainly called upon his men to charge. Not a man brought down his
bayonet to the position which the English soldier burns to assume when
he sees the enemy before him. The Afghans had planted a standard upon
the hill, only some thirty yards from the British squares; and now an
officer proclaimed a reward, equal in the eyes of the common Sepoy to
a year’s pay, to any one who would advance and take it. But not a man
responded to the appeal. A great fear was upon them all. The officers
stood up like brave men; and hurled stones at the advancing enemy.[166]
But nothing seemed to infuse courage into our panic-struck troops. The
enemy, emboldened by success, advanced in larger numbers, and rushed
upon our single gun. Our cavalry, called upon to charge, refused to
follow their officers. The artillerymen stood to their gun; two of them
fell dead beside it; a third was desperately wounded; a fourth, when
the enemy rushed upon it, clung to the carriage between the wheels, and
miraculously escaped destruction. There, too, fell Lieutenant Laing,
than whom there was not a braver soul in the field on that fatal day,
waving his sword over the gun, cheering the men who were doing their
duty, and calling on the rest to follow their example. But the heroic
courage of the officers was thrown away upon the men. The gun was lost,
and our disheartened regiments were in confused and disastrous flight.
All, however, was not then lost. Shelton ordered the halt to be
sounded. The flying regiments stopped and re-formed; then turning
round, faced the enemy with a shout, and seemed ready to renew the
conflict. But the Ghazees now shrunk from the British bayonets. They
were few in numbers; and they saw, too, a party of Anderson’s Horse
coming to the charge. Taking the horses and limber with them, they
abandoned the gun, and fled.
In the meanwhile the enemy’s cavalry on the plain had been thrown into
confusion by the fall of their leader—Abdoollah Khan, Achetzkye. How
he fell, or at what moment, is not precisely known. It was generally
believed that he was wounded by a shot from our gun—but there was a
whisper, of doubtful credibility, to the effect that he had been struck
down by the jezail of one of his own countrymen, who is said to have
claimed a reward for the act. Be the history of his fall what it may,
it discouraged and alarmed the Afghan cavalry on the plain. Seeing
their leader carried from the field, they fled in confusion towards
the city. Ignorant of the cause of their flight, the infantry began
to follow them; and the excited lookers-on in cantonments now thought
the day was ours. Macnaghten and Elphinstone were standing together
on the ramparts watching the enemy as they streamed across the plain.
The opportunity seemed a great one. To have sent out of cantonments a
body of troops to pursue the flying enemy, and render their confusion
complete, would have been to have secured a victory. The Envoy urged it
upon the General; but the General said it was a wild scheme, and weakly
negatived the worthy proposal.
At this moment, when the enemy were in flight, and our gun had been
recaptured, Shelton might have brought back his force with credit to
cantonments. But the opportunity was lost. The enemy returned to the
field, recruited by new hordes whom they met emerging from the city;
and soon the swelling multitude poured itself upon our battalions. The
General had sent out new supplies of ammunition, with another limber
and horses for the gun; and it was soon again in full operation,
playing with murderous effect upon the masses of the enemy. But again
the British muskets were found no match for the Afghan jezails. There
were truer eyes and steadier hands, too, in the ranks of the enemy than
in our own; and now with unerring aim the Afghan marksmen mowed down
our men like grass. The artillery men were falling fast at their gun;
and Shelton, thinking it insecure, withdrew it to a safer position.
Emboldened by this, the enemy continued the attack with increased
vigour; and again the British troops began to cower beneath the fire of
their assailants.
For now was seen again that spectacle which had before struck terror
into our ranks and scattered our fighting men like sheep. A party of
the enemy, headed by a band of furious Ghazees, emerged from the gorge,
and crawling up the hill suddenly burst upon our wavering battalions.
The British troops had been losing heart before this; and now it needed
little to extinguish the last remaining spark of courage that warmed
them. At this inauspicious moment, Shelton, who had been ever in the
thickest of the fire, and who escaped by very miracle the balls which
flew about the one-armed veteran, and struck him five times with no
effect, fell back a few paces to order some more men to the front.
Seeing the back of their commander turned towards the enemy, our front
rank men gave way; and, in a minute, infantry and cavalry were flying
precipitately down the slope of the hill. The Afghan horse, seizing the
opportunity, dashed upon our retreating force; and presently friend
and foe were mixed up in inextricable confusion. The artillerymen
alone were true to themselves and their country. Thinking only of the
safety of their gun, they dashed down the steep descent and drove into
the very midst of the Afghan horsemen. But they could not resist the
multitudes that closed around them; and the gun, so nobly served and so
nobly protected, fell a second time into the hands of the enemy.
The rout of the British force was complete.[167] In one confused mass
of infantry and cavalry—of European and native soldiers—they fled
to the cantonment walls. Elphinstone, who had watched the conflict
from the ramparts, went out, infirm as he was, and strove, with all
the energy of which, in his enfeebled state, he was master, to rally
the fugitives. But they had lost themselves past recovery; they had
forgotten that they were British soldiers. The whole force was now at
the mercy of the Afghans. Had they swept on, the cantonments must have
fallen before them. The enemy were so mixed up with our men, that the
guns on the ramparts could not open upon them without destroying our
retreating battalions. But the insurgents made no effort to follow up
the advantage they had gained. One of the chiefs, Osman Khan, Barukzye,
suddenly drew off his men,[168] and, in a short time, the whole force,
after savagely mutilating the corpses of our slain, had withdrawn, with
shouts of exultation to the city.
“This,” says Brigadier Shelton, in his narrative of the events,
in which he bore so conspicuous a part, “concluded all exterior
operations.”[169] Nothing more was to be done by fighting. A general
gloom hung over the cantonment. The most sanguine now began to despond.
The troops had not only lost all heart—they had lost all discipline.
The link which bound them to their officers seemed to be broken. The
privations to which they were exposed were great. Cold, hunger, and
fatigue pressed upon them; and they had not strength to bear up against
such a burden of woe. It was plain that no use could be made in the
field of a force so feeble and dispirited. The time for action had
passed. And so, when, on the day after this disastrous affair on the
Beh-meru hill, the enemy began to destroy the bridge which General
Elphinstone, a short time before, had thrown over the Caubul River,
the military chiefs looked idly on, whilst this outrage was being
perpetrated almost within musket-shot of our position.
There were only two courses now open to the doomed force; and the
political and military chiefs began again to take counsel together.
The question of concentration in the Balla Hissar was first revived
and discussed between them. John Conolly, at the instance of the King,
wrote urgently to Macnaghten, recommending the measure as the only one
that could now secure the safety and the honour of the British troops.
But the military authorities had set their faces against it, and the
Envoy yielded his assent to their opinions against his own better
judgment. After a personal interview, on the morning of the 24th of
November, at which the subject had been discussed between them, General
Elphinstone addressed the following letter to the Envoy, seeking
Macnaghten’s opinion and stating his own:
_24th Nov., 1841._
MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,
With reference to our conversation this morning, I request you will
let me know what are your views with respect to moving into the Balla
Hissar as proposed to you, admitting the possibility of our holding
out there. Our getting into it with our ammunition and numerous
sick and wounded, amounting to near 700, would be attended with the
greatest difficulty, if not be altogether impossible. The enemy, no
doubt, in the greatest force would oppose us, which would oblige us to
cover the operation with the greatest part of our troops, and thereby
leave the cantonment without sufficient defence.
I am the more confirmed in my opinion of the difficulty of the
operation from the harassed and dispirited state of our troops, now
so much reduced in numbers, and failure would tend to our certain
destruction. With our means, it would take some days to remove the
ammunition and stores, during which the enemy would be collecting
a great number around us; our wounded would be increased, with
diminished means of conveying them.
Would the Balla Hissar hold us with our followers, even after the
sacrifice of our horses and cattle? I am told that water is already
selling there at a high price, even with the present small garrison.
We have, at best, barely twenty days’ supplies, which, even if we
could remove, we have little prospect of adding to at the Balla
Hissar; a retreat from thence would be worse than from our present
position, for after abandoning our horses and means of transport, our
sick, wounded, and stores, would have to be left behind at the mercy
of the enemy.
I have conferred with Brigadier Shelton, the second in command, and he
concurs with me in the above opinion.
Yours, &c.,
W. K. ELPHINSTONE.[170]
To this letter the Envoy replied:
MY DEAR GENERAL,
In reply to your note just received, I beg to state my opinion that
the move into the Balla Hissar would be attended with the greatest
difficulty, and I do not see what advantage could accrue therefrom,
although the disadvantages, as pointed out by you, are apparent in the
event of our ultimate retreat. As to the mere question of room for
our troops and followers, I do not imagine that we should feel much
difficulty on that account.
Yours, &c., &c.,
W. H. MACNAGHTEN.[171]
The question of a movement into the Balla Hissar having been thus
disposed of for the present, the Envoy turned his thoughts towards
that other course, which had been so long pressed upon him by the
military chief. He began to think of negotiating with the enemy. But
that he might not, save in the last extremity, enter upon a line
of conduct against which the manliness of his nature revolted, he
addressed a letter to the General, asking, in specific terms, whether
he considered it possible any longer to maintain his position in the
country. To this letter Elphinstone replied:
_Caubul, 24th Nov., 1841._
SIR,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this
day’s date, calling for my opinion as to whether, in a military point
of view, it is feasible any longer to maintain our position in this
country.
In reply, I beg to state, that after having held our position here
for upwards of three weeks in a state of siege, from the want of
provisions and forage, the reduced state of our troops, the large
number of wounded and sick, the difficulty of defending the extensive
and ill situated cantonment we occupy, the near approach of winter,
our communications cut off, no prospect of relief, and the whole
country in arms against us, I am of opinion that it is not feasible
any longer to maintain our position in this country, and that you
ought to avail yourself of the offer to negotiate which has been made
to you.
W. K. ELPHINSTONE.[172]
Upon the receipt of this letter the Envoy ceased to hesitate. The
enemy had made pacific overtures to him, and he now believed that
it was no longer his duty to refuse to listen to them. So he sent
a message to the insurgent chiefs, intimating his willingness to
receive a deputation from them, and to discuss the preliminaries of
a treaty. The invitation was accepted. On the following day, Sultan
Mahomed Khan, Barukzye, and Meerza Ahmed Ali, Kuzzilbash, made their
appearance at the bridge. Nothing could have been more unassuming than
the ambassadorial cortège. The deputies rode sorry horses, and were
attended only by their grooms. Captain Lawrence and Captain Trevor
were sent out to meet them. The conference lasted two hours. Sultan
Mahomed Khan, whose tone was insolent and uncompromising, demanded
terms such as the English officers could not listen to without
disgrace. The deputies then asked to see Macnaghten, and the party
moved to cantonments. In the guard-room at one of the gateways the
Envoy received the Afghan ambassadors. The discussion was long and
animated. Sultan Mahomed, still arrogant and offensive, trode down, as
with the heel of the conqueror, all the pretensions of his opponents;
and declared that, as the Afghans had beaten us in battle, they had a
right to dictate terms of capitulation. He demanded that the British
should surrender at discretion, giving themselves up with all their
arms, ammunition, and treasure, as prisoners of war. Macnaghten was not
a man to submit to this dictation. The terms were resolutely rejected.
“We shall meet, then,” said Sultan Mahomed, “on the field of battle.”
“At all events,” replied Macnaghten, “we shall meet at the day of
judgment.” And so the conference was brought to an end.
Then the Envoy sent them in writing a statement of the only terms on
which he was prepared to treat. “I proposed to them,” he subsequently
recorded, “the only terms which, in my opinion, could be accepted with
honour; but the temper of the rebels may best be understood when I
mention that they returned me a letter of defiance the next morning, to
the effect that unless I consented to surrender our arms and abandon
his Majesty to his fate, we must prepare for immediate hostilities. To
this I replied, that we preferred death to dishonour, and that it would
remain with a higher power to decide between us.”[173]
Thus ended the first attempt to secure, by negotiation with the
enemy, the safety of our discomfited troops. Whilst this movement
was in progress a strange sight might have been seen on the ramparts
of the British cantonment. Over those low walls, misnamed defences,
the European soldiers were conversing with their Afghan enemies. The
Afghans, armed to the teeth, came clustering round the cantonments;
many of our soldiers went out unarmed amongst them, and were to be seen
familiarly shaking hands with those whom a day before they had met on
the field of battle. The Afghans were giving vegetables[174] to the men
of the 44th Regiment, and declaring that everything had been amicably
settled between the two contending hosts.