[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.
A new actor now appeared upon the stage. The advent of Mahomed Akbar
Khan had been for some time expected. He had arrived from Toorkistan
early in October, and was known to have been hovering about Bameean,
and seemingly watching the progress of events in the neighbourhood of
the Afghan capital. How far he may have sown the seeds of insurrection
among the Ghilzyes is not very clearly known, but it is probable that
the influence he exercised at that time was rather of a passive than
of an active kind. That his presence on the borders of Afghanistan
encouraged his countrymen in their career of hostility is not to
be doubted; but there is little or no evidence to connect him more
palpably with the earlier movements of the insurrectionary war.
Whatever may have been his participation in the events of October
and November, his appearance at the capital was now hailed by the
insurgents with every demonstration of delight. Salutes were fired
in honour of his arrival, and the chiefs waited upon him as upon one
henceforth to be recognised as their leader. He was known to be a man
of high courage and energy; he had approved himself a good soldier in
the field; and he was the favourite son of the old Barukzye ruler, who
a year before had been condemned to pine away the remainder of his
life a captive in the provinces of Hindostan.
The arrival of the Sirdar was a great event. Both parties looked
upon it as one that must exercise a mighty influence over the future
destinies of the war. The insurgents, wanting a leader, saw in the
son of Dost Mahomed one around whom they could rally, with confidence
alike in his sincerity and his courage. He had the wrongs of an injured
family to redress. He had a kingdom to regain. He had been an outcast
and a fugitive during two years of suffering and danger, because it had
pleased the British government to invade his father’s dominions and
to expel the _de facto_ rulers of the country; and now he saw opening
out before him a prospect of recovering the lost supremacy of the
Barukzyes, and restoring his exiled father to the Balla Hissar. All the
circumstances of his past life and his present position were such as to
secure his loyalty to the national cause. His inner qualities, no less
than his outer environments, were of a class to rivet his hostility to
the British. He was a man of an eager, impetuous nature; susceptible
of good and of bad impulses, but seldom otherwise than earnest and
impulsive. His education had been neglected; in his youth he had been
unrestrained, and now self-control—a virtue rarely exercised by
an Afghan—was wholly foreign to the character of the man. He was,
indeed, peculiarly demonstrative, and sudden in his demonstrations,
passing rapidly from one mood to another—blown about by violent gusts
of feeling, bitterly repenting to-day the excesses of yesterday,
and rushing into new excesses to-morrow. His was one of those fiery
temperaments—those bold, dashing characters—which, in times of
popular commotion, ever place their possessor in the front rank. But
in seasons of repose he was one of the most joyous and light-hearted
of men; no man loved a joke better; no man laughed more heartily, or
seemed to look more cheerfully on the sunny side of life. They, who
knew him before the British trode down the Barukzyes, spoke of him as
a good-tempered, well-meaning young man, and little thought, when his
large dark eyes were glowing with child-like eagerness, to have the
full dimensions of his long spear introduced into his portrait; or his
solid frame was shaking with laughter at some joke passed upon his
uncomely _Meerza_, that he would soon become the chief actor in one
of the bloodiest tragedies that has ever disgraced the history of the
world.
Whilst the Afghans, with noisy demonstrations of delight, were
welcoming the appearance of Akbar Khan, the British were slow to
believe that his advent would deepen the embarrassments of their
position. Early in November, Mohun Lal had suggested to Macnaghten the
expediency of endeavouring to corrupt the Sirdar before his advance
upon the capital; but the Envoy had received slightingly the proposal,
and no overtures had been made to the son of Dost Mahomed before his
arrival at the capital. It was believed that there was sufficient
security for his forbearance in the fact that so many members of his
family were prisoners in our hands; and in the game of negotiation,
which was now to be carried on, it was calculated that the intervention
of the Sirdar would facilitate rather than encumber our arrangements
for the honourable evacuation of Afghanistan, and our safe return to
the provinces which, in an evil hour, we had been so unhappily tempted
to quit.
Akbar Khan appeared at Caubul; but he did not at once assume the
direction of affairs. The Newab Mahomed Zemaun Khan, a cousin of the
late Caubul chief, had been proclaimed King by the insurgents. All
orders were sent forth in his name; and the “fatiha” was read for
him in the mosques. He was a man of a humane and honourable nature,
polished manners, and affable address. His nephew, Osman Khan, who
is described by the Envoy as “the most moderate and sensible man” of
the insurgent party, was now employed to negotiate with the British
minister, and several times passed, on this errand, between the
cantonment and the city. But the terms still dictated by the enemy
were such as Macnaghten could not honourably accept. Day followed day;
and nothing effectual was done either in council or on the field. The
enemy appeared on the hills commanding the cantonments and in the
village of Beh-meru, now deserted and destroyed; and the guns in the
British cantonments were playing all day long upon these points. But
such distant interchanges produced no result; and in the meanwhile our
provisions were rapidly dwindling down. Again starvation stared the
garrison in the face. With laudable zeal and activity the commissariat
officers exerted themselves to obtain grain from the surrounding
country; but with equal zeal and activity the enemy were striving to
frustrate their efforts. Akbar Khan himself had not been many days at
Caubul before he began to see that to defeat our commissariat officers
was to overcome our unhappy force. Threatening death to all who might
be detected in supplying our troops with any description of food, he
soon baffled the best efforts of Boyd and Johnson, and again brought
the question of capitulation to a simple question of supplies.
But still sanguine and confident, whilst the clouds were gathering
more and more thickly around him, Macnaghten saw the skies brightening
over-head, and never doubted that before long the storm would roll
itself away. The letters which he wrote at this time present a
remarkable contrast to those written by General Elphinstone. Whilst the
General was looking around him everywhere for whatever could be made to
swell the mountain of difficulty and danger that he kept so steadily
before him, the Envoy was constantly arraying in the foreground every
circumstance that could in any way contribute towards the chance of
ultimate success. Whilst the General was discovering that “our position
was becoming more and more critical,” the Envoy was perceiving that
“our prospects were brightening,” and talking about “defying the whole
of Afghanistan.” On the 28th of November, General Elphinstone wrote to
Sir William Macnaghten, commenting on the wants and sufferings of the
troops, and asking what effect the death of Abdoollah Khan would have
upon their prospects: “Between ourselves,” he said, in conclusion, “I
see nothing we can do but by negotiation, if such be offered, and which
for the many difficulties we are surrounded with, I hope may be the
case.”
Very different from the tone of this desponding letter was the spirit
which at this time animated the communications of the Envoy to Mohun
Lal. But there are other points besides the sanguine temperament
of Macnaghten which his letters to the Moonshee tend painfully to
illustrate: “The intelligence you have sent me is very encouraging,”
he wrote on the 26th of November, “and I hope the _nifac_ among the
rebels will increase. Meer Musjedee’s death will probably cause the
dispersion of the rebels who have come from Nijrow. Humza Khan never
sent any relatives of the Ghilzye chiefs to me. Tell everybody that I
have no faith in Sultan Mahomed Khan, and that I only wished to try the
sincerity of his employers.” And again, on the 29th, he wrote, “We are
well off for everything but supplies, and, _Inshalla_, we shall not
be badly off for them.... The enemy appeared to-day in considerable
numbers, but they did nothing, and I am sure they will never venture
to attack our cantonment. If we had only provisions, which, with due
exertions ought to be obtained, we should be able to defy the whole of
Afghanistan for any period. I am very sorry that the deputation from
Humza did not make their appearance last night, and I am anxiously
expecting accounts from you showing why they did not do so.” On the
following day the Envoy added a postscript to this letter, saying, “Our
prospects are, I think, brightening, and if you can assist us in the
way of supplies, we have nothing to fear.... I would give any money to
Humza and the Ghilzyes if I had any security that they would be our
friends, give us supplies, and keep open the communications.”
It will be gathered from these passages, as from others before quoted,
that Macnaghten, employing Mohun Lal as his agent, was endeavouring
to secure the assistance of different hostile tribes by bribing them
with money and with promises. He knew that there is no stronger
passion than avarice in an Afghan’s breast. But he did not turn his
knowledge to profitable account. Had it been possible to deal with the
Afghans as one united body, and to have corrupted them, _en masse_,
with a few lakhs of rupees, he might have bought the safety of the
force. But to bribe one party was to raise the hopes of another; and
the representative of each conflicting clan believed that the amount
of money he would receive would be measured by the force of his
antagonism. As soon, therefore, as it was known that the money-bags
of the Feringhees were being opened, and that indulgences were being
bought, every one, eager to clutch the largest possible amount of
purchase-money, increased the pressure of his hostility and rose in
his demands. And thus the very measures by which Macnaghten sought to
extricate himself from his difficulties, only made them gather more
menacingly around him.
It will be gathered also from these letters, that, before the end of
November, Abdoollah Khan and Meer Musjedee had both been removed by
death, from the scene of their recent triumphs. General Elphinstone
speaks of the death of the former; Sir William Macnaghten of the
death of the latter. In the action of the 23rd of November, Abdoollah
Khan had been carried wounded from the field of battle; but whether a
shrapnel shot from Shelton’s one gun, or a ball from an Afghan jezail,
struck down the truculent chief, is a point of history which must ever
remain, as now, enveloped in obscurity and doubt. The story runs, that
one of the men who had been set upon the track of the doomed chiefs,
declared that he shot down his victim from behind a wall; and promised
that poison should complete the work which the bullet had but partially
effected. Abdoollah Khan died before a week had expired;[175] and it
is said that Abdool Aziz claimed the price of blood. But Mohun Lal did
not feel assured that either the traitorous bullet or the poison of the
claimant had done the work of death; and the reward was refused on the
plea that it had been offered for the heads of the chiefs, and the head
of Abdoollah Khan had not been brought to him.
How Meer Musjedee died is not very clearly known.[176] His
disappearance from the scene on which he had acted so conspicuous a
part, was sudden and unexpected. A man named Mahomed Oollah swore that
he had suffocated the chief in his sleep, and claimed the reward of his
service. But the reward, it is said, was refused upon the same plea
as was urged in the other case. The assassins, disappointed of their
blood-money, were not likely to undertake any future service of the
same hazardous kind, or to maintain a very discreet silence about the
past. If they were employed upon such service, it is strange that their
silence was not secured by a scrupulous fulfilment of the engagement
by which their suborners had placed their own credit and safety in
their hands. It was a perilous game, indeed, to invite disclosures
by exciting the anger and hostility of the agents employed in this
miserable work.
There is much obscurity still enveloping all this portion of the
history of the war in Afghanistan. It is certain that at the end of
November, Meer Musjedee and Abdoollah Khan died under circumstances
which have been regarded, and not unreasonably, as suspicious. It is
scarcely less certain that Lieutenant John Conolly, the cousin and
assistant of the Envoy, instigated Mohun Lal to offer rewards for
the heads of certain of the insurgent chiefs, and that Meer Musjedee
and Abdoollah Khan were especially marked as the first victims. John
Conolly was at this time with Shah Soojah in the Balla Hissar, and
Mohun Lal was in the house of the Kuzzilbash chief. The Envoy was in
the cantonments. To what extent John Conolly acted under Macnaghten’s
instructions—whether he acted on his own authority, or was directed by
Shah Soojah, is not very clearly known. That Conolly was in constant
communication with the Envoy we have the authority of the latter for
believing. “Throughout the rebellion,” he wrote, in his official
report, “I was in constant communication with the Shah through my
assistant, Lieutenant J. B. Conolly, who was in attendance on his
Majesty in the Balla Hissar.” It has been questioned, therefore,
whether Conolly, being at this time in constant communication with
the Envoy, was likely, in a matter of so much responsibility, to have
acted without instructions from his chief. But, on the other hand, we
have Macnaghten’s specific declaration that it was never his object
to encourage the assassination of the insurgents: “I am sorry,” he
wrote on the 1st of December to Mohun Lal, “to find from your letter
of last night that you should have supposed it was ever my object to
encourage assassination. The rebels are very wicked men, but we must
not take unlawful means to destroy them.”[177] In addition to this
written declaration, we have the statement of Captain Skinner, to the
effect that, when at a subsequent period the murder of Ameen-oollah was
suggested to him by Akbar Khan, the Envoy shrank with abhorrence and
disgust from the proposal, “assuring the ambassadors that, as a British
functionary, nothing would induce him to pay a price for blood.”[178]
Against the specific written declaration of the Envoy himself that
it was never his object to encourage assassination, coupled with the
evidence of Captain Skinner, to the effect that he revolted at the
very suggestion, there is nothing but bare presumption to be opposed.
If presumption is to carry weight with it, in so grave a discussion as
this, it may fairly be presumed that a man of a nature so humane, and
of instincts so honourable, would not have encouraged or sanctioned
the foul trade of secret murder, and peremptorily denied his approval
of measures which he had himself originated or supported. But if he
had been utterly destitute both of humanity and truth, it would still
be incredible that, having encouraged the assassination of the chiefs,
he should have boldly denied it to the very man whom, directly or
indirectly, he had employed to hire the assassins.
On a question so grave and solemn as this, it is to be lamented that
the judgment of the historian, after all conflicting evidence has been
weighed and sifted, should be merely of an inferential character.
The inference is, that whilst not wholly ignorant of the offers of
head-money, which John Conolly, living with, and probably acting under
the directions of Shah Soojah, was putting forth, through the agency of
Mohun Lal, the Envoy neither suggested, nor actively encouraged, these
“bloody instructions,” on which such severe comments have been passed.
It has been seen that he was prepared to offer rewards in the name of
the King, for the apprehension of the principal rebels; and in the heat
and excitement of active warfare, it is hardly probable that, if these
men had been apprehended, their offences would have been subjected to a
fair and impartial judicial inquiry. Macnaghten, indeed, stated that he
would recommend his Majesty to “execute them.” Such passive complicity
as this, when all the circumstances by which Macnaghten was environed
are fairly estimated, cannot be severely censured. We can only arrive
at a just decision, in a case of so unprecedented a character as
this, by weighing well all the difficulties which surrounded, all the
responsibilities that weighed upon, and all the temptations that beset
the Envoy. If so surrounded, so weighed upon, so beset, he did not
actively interfere to arrest the questionable measures of others, which
seemed to offer some means of escape from the perils which hemmed in
the British army—an army fearfully sacrificed by the feebleness of
the military chiefs—I confess that I cannot see that he yielded more
readily to temptation than any other man of high honour would have
done, when begirt with such fiery trial.
But it is a relief to turn aside from the consideration of such a
question, even to the record of the imbecility of our military leaders
and the sufferings of our unhappy troops.—On the 1st of December
there were supplies for barely eight days’ consumption in store. The
camp-followers were receiving half a pound of barley a day. The cattle
were without provender. It was necessary to keep them from absolute
starvation by supplying them with the twigs, the lighter branches,
and the bark of trees. Some small quantities of wheat were taken from
the troops to feed the cattle used in the guns. In this conjuncture,
Elphinstone, who met every difficulty more than half way, and who
was not likely, therefore, to be silent at such a time as this,
wrote on the 1st of November, to the Envoy, saying that there was no
Boosa (bran), for the cattle, and that they had been obliged to give
the mountain-train yaboos some wheat to keep them alive. “I hope,
therefore,” he added, “your negotiation may prosper, as circumstances
are becoming extremely critical; little has been done in the way of
purchase this morning. I don’t wish to croak, but think it right that
you should be kept constantly informed of the real state of things.
Sixty-five maunds is all that has been got in to-day; twelve maunds
yesterday.”
On the same day, Captain Johnson impressed upon the Envoy that there
was no time to be lost—that if a retreat on Jellalabad were to be
determined upon, it should be determined upon at once, as it would be
necessary to take provisions for five days with the retreating force.
The Envoy assented to this; but, ever eager to clutch at any hope,
however slender, of deferring the dreadful day of surrender, he added,
“Let us wait two days longer—something may turn up.”
The two days passed, and nothing turned up. So the military authorities
continued to press upon the Envoy, with oft-repeated urgent
recommendations, for a speedy conclusion of a treaty with the enemy,
enabling the British troops in safety to evacuate the country. But
still the Envoy clung to the hope that something might be evolved in
our favour; and delayed, in spite of their importunities from day to
day, the dreadful hour of surrender. The General knew that his troops
were not to be trusted. The Envoy knew this equally well; but, more
jealous of the honour of his country, more hopeful and more courageous,
he was unwilling to fling away a single chance which the wheel of time
might throw up in his favour. In that great chapter of accidents,
however, to which he so bravely turned, were written down only further
disasters and degradations. On the 5th of December, the enemy, in open
day, burnt the bridge which the English had thrown over the Caubul
River, a quarter a mile from the cantonments. On the day after the
calamitous action of the 23rd of November, the insurgents had begun
to destroy it, and now they completed the work of destruction. They
burnt it exultingly before the faces of our troops, who were lining
the ramparts and looking idly on, as though there were no dishonour in
endurance. The bridge was of little use at that season of the year, for
the stream was fordable—but it was a burning disgrace to the military
authorities, that with 5000 British troops at their command, and with
the ramparts of the cantonments bristling with guns, they should have
suffered such an insult as this to be flung in their face.
The following day was one also of humiliation. Mahomed Sheriff’s fort,
which was garrisoned by a party of European and Native troops, was
abandoned on the 6th of December. The enemy, a day or two before,
had endeavoured to blow open the gate with powder-bags, but had not
succeeded in the attempt. They might have spared themselves the
trouble of the effort and the discredit of the failure. On the 6th of
December, a very small party of the enemy, unperceived by the garrison,
contrived to climb up the walls of the fort, from the direction
of the King’s garden. They had no sooner shown their heads at the
window of the room where our men were sitting, than both Europeans
and natives, panic-struck and bewildered, escaped over the opposite
wall, and, abandoning their bedding, arms, and ammunition, fled into
the cantonments.[179] The fort was soon filled with the enemy. Not an
effort was made to recapture it.[180] The guns on the ramparts played
upon it all day long, and before evening one of the bastions crumbled
to pieces under our fire; but the British troops remained inactive in
the cantonments, submitting patiently to every new insult, as though
disgrace, now become habitual, had ceased to be a burden to them.
Another blot was, at the same time, fixed upon the character of the
unhappy troops. The 44th Queen’s regiment had supplied the details of
the guard for the protection of the cantonment bazaar. They were now
withdrawn under circumstances little calculated to raise the reputation
of the corps; and some companies of the 37th Native Infantry were sent
to relieve them. A brief letter on this subject, from the General to
the Envoy, supplies a painful commentary on the state of the troops at
this time. “Three companies of the 37th,” wrote Elphinstone, “have been
ordered into the bazaar as a guard for it. Shelton wishes a support of
the 44th outside. If they have any sense of shame left, they must do
better, and their officers _must exert_ themselves. S. is disposed to
attribute the blame to the Sepoys—from all I hear, I fear unjustly;
but this must be inquired into when we have time.”
While the troops were thus, day after day, becoming more and more
demoralised and incapable, under the destroying influence of feeble and
fatuous command, the General and the Envoy were in correspondence and
communication relative to the course to be followed for the salvation
of the British army and the British honour. The General wrote what
none knew better than the Envoy, that provisions had become miserably
scarce, and that he could not see how, if they continued to hold out,
they could possibly escape starvation. The Civilian replied that as,
if they abandoned their position, they could not carry with them more
than two days’ supplies, and that there were then, on the 5th of
December, nine days’ supplies, on half rations, there was no occasion
for an immediate decision. He still hung upon the skirts of fortune,
hoping that something might be written down, in the great chapter of
accidents, in our favour. The thought of retreat was intolerable to
him. All, he believed, even if no reinforcements came from Candahar,
might yet be saved by a vigorous effort to concentrate the troops in
the Balla Hissar. A retreat on Jellalabad, without terms, he declared
to be impracticable. And if practicable, he said, it would “cover us
with everlasting infamy.” Still believing in the fidelity of the King,
and still, with all the generosity and the delicacy of a high-minded
English gentleman, resolute not to sacrifice the interests or the
honour of his Majesty, he pointed out that they could not take the
King’s family with them, and that Shah Soojah would not stir without
them. The internal jealousies and animosities of the chiefs rendered a
retreat, under terms that would be respected, equally impracticable. So
the Envoy contended that the only alternative which remained, and that
the most safe as it was the most honourable, was to send the sick and
wounded under cover of the night to the Balla Hissar, and then, having
destroyed all the ordnance and stores that they could not take with
them, to fight their way to the citadel.
Having written this to the General, Macnaghten visited him, and again
urged his opinion, with equal earnestness in oral discourse. Another
project suggested itself to Macnaghten. Might it not be possible to
obtain provisions by force from some of the surrounding villages? A
night-attack might be made on Deh-Hadjee, or a similar enterprise
undertaken against Killa Bolundee. But the General had no taste
for night attacks or enterprises of any kind. He was full only of
objections. The Envoy took his departure, disappointed and dispirited,
and soon afterwards received a letter from Elphinstone, arraying a
host of obstacles to the success of all the suggested efforts for the
maintenance of the national honour, and staggering at last to the
conclusion that there was nothing to be done but to enter into what he
called “honourable terms.”[181]
And now matters were at their worst. To what depths of humiliation our
unhappy force had sunk, and with what indignation the Envoy regarded a
state of things which he was powerless to avert or to remedy, a letter,
written about this time to Captain Macgregor, painfully declares. “Our
troops,” wrote Macnaghten, “are behaving like a pack of despicable
cowards, and there is no spirit or enterprise left amongst us. The
military authorities want me to capitulate, but this I am anxious to
put off to the last moment. In the mean time we shall soon have to
come to some decision, as we have only three days’ provision for our
troops, and nothing for our cattle. We are anxiously looking out for
reinforcements from Candahar. We have rumours of their approach, but
nothing as yet authentic.”
But the direst peril was that of starvation, which had now become
imminent. The wretched camp-followers were living upon the carcases of
the camels which had been starved to death. The trees in cantonments
had been stripped of all their bark and light branches to supply
provender to the cattle, and were now all bare and useless. The
commissariat officers, Boyd and Johnson, wrote a joint letter to
the General, stating that, after much fruitless exertion, they had
been compelled to adopt the opinion that provisions were no longer
obtainable by purchase. It was their duty, they said, “to report,
from personal knowledge of the country to the north or north-east of
cantonments, the utter impossibility of obtaining, either by force or
otherwise, the smallest quantity of grain or forage of any kind within
a distance of from three to four miles; and, further, that within this
space the whole of the forts, with the exception, perhaps, of one or
two, have been evacuated by the inhabitants, and more or less destroyed
by the enemy.”
Again Macnaghten and Elphinstone took counsel together on that 8th of
December, and again they parted to give their opinions the shape of
official correspondence. It had now become absolutely necessary that
they should determine upon the course to be pursued, for good or for
ill. Returned to his quarters, therefore, the Envoy wrote the following
letter to the General, to bring the question to an official issue:—
8th Dec., 1841.
SIR,
With reference to the conversation I had the honour to hold with you
this morning, I have to request that you will be so good as to state,
for my information, whether or no I am right in considering it as
your opinion that any further attempt to hold out against the enemy
would merely have the effect of sacrificing both His Majesty and
ourselves, and that the only alternative left is to negotiate for our
safe retreat out of the country on the most favourable terms possible.
I understood you to say to-day that all our cattle are starving, and
that we have not more than three days’ provision, half-rations left
for our men, whilst the difficulties of procuring more appear to you
to be insurmountable.
It must be remembered that we hear rumours of the approach of
reinforcements from Candahar, though nothing in an authentic shape has
yet reached us on this subject.
W. H. MACNAGHTEN.
To this letter General Elphinstone sent back an answer, signed also by
the three senior officers under his command—Brigadiers Shelton and
Anquetil, and Colonel Chambers, who were that morning in council with
their chief:
Caubul, 8th Dec., 1841.
SIR,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this
day’s date, requesting me to state, for your information, whether or
not it be my opinion that any further attempt to hold out against the
enemy would merely have the effect of sacrificing both His Majesty and
ourselves, and that the only alternative left is to negotiate for our
safe retreat out of the country on the most favourable terms possible.
In reply, I beg to state that my opinion is that the present situation
of the troops here is such, from the want of provisions and the
impracticability of procuring more, that no time ought to be lost in
entering into negotiations for a safe retreat from the country.
As regards the troops at Candahar, and the rumours of their approach
to our assistance, I should be sorry, in the absence of all authentic
information, to risk the sacrifice of the troops here by waiting for
their arrival, when we are ignorant even of their having commenced
their march, and are reduced to three days’ supply of provision for
our Sepoys at half-rations, and almost entirely without forage for our
horses and cattle.
Our number of sick and wounded in hospital exceeds 600, and our means
for their transport is far from adequate, owing to the death by
starvation of so many of our camels; from the same cause also we shall
be obliged at this inclement season to leave the tents and bedding
behind with such a march before us.
As regards the King, I must be excused entering upon that point of
your letter, and leave its consideration to your better judgment and
knowledge; but I may be allowed to say that it little becomes me, as
commanding the British troops in Afghanistan, to regard the necessity
of negotiating in any other light than as concerns their honour or
welfare, both of which I should be answerable for by a further stay
here, after the sudden and universal rebellion which has taken place
throughout the dominions.
The whole of the grain and forage in our vicinity is exhausted,
and the defence of this extensive and ill-situated cantonment will
not admit of distant expeditions to obtain supplies from the
strongly-fortified dwellings of an armed and hostile population, our
present numbers being insufficient for its defence, and obliging the
whole of the troops to be almost constantly under arms.
In conclusion, I can only repeat my opinion that you should lose no
time in entering into negotiations.
W. K. ELPHINSTONE, Major-Gen.,
Commanding in Afghanistan.
I concur in the above opinions.
J. SHELTON, Brigadier.
In a military point of view, I concur in the above.
W. ANQUETIL, Brigadier,
Commanding Shah Soojah’s Forces.
I also concur.
R. CHAMBERS, Lieut.-Col.,
Commanding Cavalry.
Still shrinking from the dreadful thought of surrender, Macnaghten,
soon after the receipt of this letter, went over to the General’s
quarters, and wrung from him a reluctant promise to make one more
attempt to secure supplies, by an expedition against one of the forts
or villages in which they were known to be stored. A council of war was
held that evening at the General’s quarters. The Envoy was present at
the meeting. The commissariat officers were also in attendance. There
was a long and stormy discussion. At length it was determined that on
the following morning a detachment of infantry and cavalry, with a gun,
should be despatched, accompanied by Captain Johnson, to the village of
Khoja Rewash, some four miles from cantonments, where it was believed
that a considerable supply of grain was stored. The village was to be
surprised before daybreak. The inhabitants were to be called upon to
sell their grain; and, in the event of their acquiescence, Captain
Johnson was to purchase it. But in the event of their refusal, the
village was to be carried by assault, and the grain taken by force. The
detachment was to start at two o’clock, and, that there might be no
delay in the departure of the force, every preparation was to be made
before that hour, and the troops were to be under arms for an immediate
march.
The appointed hour arrived. Captain Johnson was ready to accompany the
detachment. The troops were under arms; but no preparations had been
made for their departure. A bridge was to have been laid down for the
passage of the cavalry and artillery, and covered with straw, that no
noise might be made to rouse the suspicions of the enemy; but at two
o’clock no orders had been issued, and it was evident that there were
doubts and embarrassments to impede the progress of the expedition.
Something was wrong, and it became known at last that the enterprise
was discovered to be a dangerous one. The enemy were in force in the
dilapidated village of Beh-meru, and so, just as day began to dawn, the
enterprise was altogether abandoned.
In the course of the day intelligence of a cheering character was
received from Jellalabad. Sale’s little garrison had sallied out and
gallantly defeated the enemy. It was hoped by the Envoy and a few
others, who were turning their eyes in every direction, straining
to catch even the faintest ray of hope, that the improved aspect of
affairs at Jellalabad would induce the military authorities to make
new efforts to maintain their position. But all hope of this kind was
soon dissipated. The General, fearful of the encouragement of such
expectations, addressed an official letter to the Envoy, stating that
the intelligence received from Sir R. Sale did not, in his opinion,
after the most mature consideration, so improve their situation as to
alter the sentiments expressed in his letter of the preceding day, as
to the necessity of a treaty being entered into, if possible, with the
enemy; but he looked upon the arrival of this account of the success
obtained over the rebels as most opportune, for he considered that
it could not but prove highly advantageous in our negotiations. The
General could only see in the cheering news from Jellalabad another
reason for entering into terms with the enemy.
All this time the Envoy had been anxiously looking for tidings of
the advance of the force under Colonel Maclaren, which had been
despatched from Candahar. The communications with that place had been
so completely cut off, that it was not until the 10th of December
that Macnaghten received intelligence from Colonel Palmer, who
commanded the garrison at Ghuznee, that there was little prospect of
Maclaren’s brigade making good its march to Caubul. The inclemency of
the weather and the loss of baggage-cattle had been so great, that
Maclaren, struggling on with difficulty, was dreading the necessity
of a retrograde move. The Envoy had been eager to hold out so long as
the least hope remained of receiving succour from the westward. That
hope was now rapidly waning. The provisions in cantonments were almost
wholly exhausted. On the morning of the 11th there was just food enough
for the day’s consumption of the fighting men. The camp-followers were
starving. Food was not to be obtained by purchase, for the villagers
would not sell; food was not to be obtained by fighting, for the
soldiers would not fight. Macnaghten had urged the nobler course, until
repeated disappointments had made him despair of military success.
There was now, indeed, nothing left to him but to negotiate with the
enemy, or to suffer the force in cantonments to perish by the slow
process of starvation before his face. He had suggested every other
course to no purpose. He had resisted the importunities of the military
authorities, clamouring for surrender, until there were no provisions
in store for the morrow, and no hope of replenishing our empty
granaries. He could not now any longer resist; so he drew out the
rough draft of a treaty, and met the Afghan chiefs in conference.
The meeting took place at the distance of about a mile from the
cantonments, on the banks of the Caubul river. Captains Lawrence,
Trevor, and Mackenzie accompanied the Envoy, with a few troopers of
the body-guard as an escort. The chiefs of all the principal tribes in
the country were present. Among the leading men assembled were Mahomed
Akbar Khan, Oosman Khan, Sultan Mahomed Khan, Mahomed Sheriff, Mahomed
Shah Khan, and Khoda Buksh Khan, Ghilzye. The first salutations over,
the Envoy drew forth the draft treaty he had prepared, and read in
Persian the following articles, with their preamble, to the assembled
chiefs:
Whereas it has become apparent from recent events that the
continuance of the British army in Afghanistan for the support of
Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk is displeasing to the great majority of the
Afghan nation; and whereas the British Government had no other object
in sending troops to this country than the integrity, happiness, and
welfare of the Afghans, and, therefore, it can have no wish to remain
when that object is defeated by its presence; the following conditions
have been agreed upon between Sir W. H. Macnaghten, Bart., Envoy
and Minister at the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk for the British
Government on the one part, and by Sirdar [] for the Afghan nation on
the other part.
1st. The British troops now at Caubul will repair to Peshawur with all
practical expedition, and thence return to India.
2nd. The Sirdars engage that the British troops shall be unmolested
in their journey, shall be treated with all honour, and receive all
possible assistance in carriage and provisions.
Here, Akbar Khan, with characteristic impetuosity, interrupted the
Envoy, saying that there was no need to furnish our force with
supplies, as there was no impediment to their marching on the morrow.
The other chiefs rebuked him for this interference. The remainder of
the treaty was then read, as follows, without any further uncourteous
interruptions; and, this ebullition over, the young Barukzye himself
subsided into repose.[182]
3rd. The troops now at Jellalabad shall receive orders to retire to
Peshawur, so soon as the envoy-and-minister is satisfied that their
progress will be uninterrupted.
4th. The troops now at Ghuznee will follow, _viâ_ Caubul, to Peshawur,
as soon as arrangements can be made for their journey in safety.
5th. The troops now at Candahar, or elsewhere within the limits of
Afghanistan, will return to India, either _viâ_ Caubul or the Bolan
Pass, as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made, and the
season admits of marching.
6th. The stores and property of whatever description formerly
belonging to Ameer Dost Mahomed Khan will be restored.
7th. All property belonging to British officers which may be left
behind in Afghanistan will be carefully preserved and sent to India as
opportunities may offer.
8th. Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk will be allowed either to remain in
Afghanistan on a suitable provision for his maintenance, not being
under one lakh of rupees per annum, or to accompany the British troops
on their return to India.
9th. All attention and respect will be paid to such of the Shah’s
family as may be unable to accompany him, and they shall be permitted
to occupy their present place of residence in the Balla Hissar until
their return to India, should the Shah resolve in accompanying the
British troops.
10th. On the safe arrival of the British troops at Peshawur,
arrangements will be immediately made for the return to Afghanistan
of the Ameer Dost Mahomed Khan, his family, and all other Afghans
detained in India.
11th. So soon as the Ameer with his family shall reach Peshawur, on
their return to Caubul, the family of the Shah shall be allowed to
return towards India.
12th. For the due fulfilment of the above conditions four respectable
British officers will be left in Caubul as hostages, and will be
allowed to return to India on the arrival of the Ameer and his family
at Peshawur.
13th. Sirdar Mahomed Akbar Khan, Sirdar Mahomed Oosman Khan, and such
other chiefs of influence as may be so disposed, will accompany the
British troops to Peshawur.
14th. Notwithstanding the retirement of the British troops from
Afghanistan, there will always be friendship between that nation and
the English, so much so that the Afghans will contract no alliance
with any other foreign power without the consent of the English, for
whose assistance they will look in the hour of need.
15th. Should it hereafter be the desire of the Afghan nation, and the
British Government to consent thereto, a British resident at Caubul
may be appointed to keep up the friendly communication between the
two governments, but without interfering in any way with the internal
administration of Afghanistan.
16th. No one is to be molested on account of any part he may have
taken in the late contest; and any person desirous of going to India
with the British troops shall be permitted to do so.
17th. From the date on which these articles are agreed, the Sirdars
above named undertake that the British troops shall be supplied with
provisions on rendering payment for the same.
18th. All British officers and troops who may be unable from any
cause, to quit Afghanistan immediately shall be treated with all
honour and respect, and receive every assistance until the state of
the season and of their preparations admits of their departure.
The conference lasted two hours. The terms of the treaty were discussed
with as much calmness and moderation as could have been expected, and
its main stipulations were agreed to by the assembled chiefs. It was
resolved that the British troops should evacuate their cantonments
within three days, and that the chiefs should, in the meanwhile, send
in provisions for their use. The meeting broke up, and Captain Trevor
accompanied the Khans to the city, “as a hostage for the sincerity of
the Envoy.”
It is scarcely necessary to write anything in vindication of the
conduct of Macnaghten with respect to this early treaty. His
vindication is to be found in the preceding correspondence with the
military chiefs. But a few pregnant sentences, in which he has himself
recorded the circumstances under which he was at last induced to throw
himself upon the forbearance of the enemy, ought to be laid before
the reader, embodying as they do the Envoy’s own justification of his
conduct. “The whole country,” he wrote in his unfinished report, “as
far as we could learn, had risen in rebellion; our communications on
all sides were cut off; almost every public officer, whether paid by
ourselves or his Majesty, had declared for the new governor, and by far
the greater number even of his Majesty’s domestic servants had deserted
him. We had been fighting forty days against very superior numbers,
under most disadvantageous circumstances, with a deplorable loss of
valuable lives, and in a day or two we must have perished from hunger,
to say nothing of the advanced season of the year and the extreme cold,
from the effects of which our native troops were suffering severely. I
had been repeatedly apprised by the military authorities that nothing
could be done with our troops; and I regret to add that desertions
to the enemy were becoming of frequent occurrence among our troops.
The terms I secured were the best obtainable, and the destruction of
fifteen thousand human beings would little have benefited our country,
whilst the government would have been almost compelled to avenge our
fate at whatever cost. We shall part with the Afghans as friends, and I
feel satisfied that any government which may be established hereafter
will always be disposed to cultivate a good understanding with us. A
retreat without terms would have been impracticable. It is true, that
by entering into terms, we are prevented from undertaking the conquest
of the entire country—a measure which, from my knowledge of the views
of government, I feel convinced would never be resorted to even were
the means at hand. But such a project, in the present state of our
Indian finances, and the requisitions for troops in various quarters, I
knew could not be entertained.”[183]
I wish that it were not more difficult to acquit the military chiefs.
General Elphinstone’s correspondence contains what he conceived to be
a justification of his conduct in urging Macnaghten to capitulate.
Brigadier Shelton has left upon record a statement of which it is only
just to his memory that it should have the full credit: “The great
extent of cantonments,” he wrote in the narrative drawn up by him
at Buddeeabad, “and defenceless nature of the ramparts (an officer
having actually ridden over them), effectually compromised our force,
by the necessity to watch and protect every foot of the works, from
their extreme weakness, and the consequent danger of sending out a
force of sufficient strength to ensure victory, against a numerous
enemy flushed with success, while our troops were disheartened, on
half-rations of parched wheat, and harassed and worn out from constant
duty on the ramparts, whose weakness required their presence night and
day, exposed to excessive cold by night, with little covering and less
comfort. The great oversight of neglecting to bring in provisions for
the winter could not be remedied. The impossibility of procuring them
by force in a country studded with forts, every one of which required
a regular attack, was apparent to all. The Ricka-bashee Fort, close
to cantonments, cost us 200 men. What must distant ones not have cost
us—sniped the whole way out and home by long rifles out of range
of our fire, through snow, with the thermometer at zero? There was
nothing under such circumstances dishonourable in a necessary retreat,
which might have been effected before the snow fell, and whilst there
were a few days’ provisions in store, with some hope of success. Had
provisions been stored in cantonments for the winter, the troops would
have been in better heart, and resistance made until timely assistance
should arrive. The party at Jellalabad was more favoured, both in
provisions and a more congenial climate.”
Posterity will not accept such apologies as these. That difficulties
and dangers of no common kind beset the path of the military commanders
in those Caubul cantonments is not to be gainsaid. But war is made of
difficulties and dangers. It is the glory of the soldier to live in
the midst of them, and to do his best to overcome them. Elphinstone
and Shelton were sent to Caubul to face difficulties and dangers, not
to turn away from them. The existence of the evils here set forth in
such formidable array is not questioned or doubted. Some at least of
them were the growth of our own weakness; for difficulties not met with
energy and decision are wonderfully reproductive. They thicken around
the wavering and irresolute. If, on the 10th of December, Elphinstone
and Shelton, after bravely struggling, throughout six long peril-laden
weeks, against the difficulties which were thronging around them, had
at last succumbed to their pressure, they would have been entitled to
the respect, no less than to the pity, of the world. But it was not so
much that the circumstances were strong, as that the men were weak. As
early as the 5th of November—three days after the first outbreak of
the insurrection—Elphinstone had begun to think and to write about
terms. Shelton was not much behind him in his recommendations of the
same ignoble course. They were both of them brave men. In any other
situation, though the physical infirmities of the one, and the cankered
vanity, the dogmatical perverseness of the other, might have in some
measure detracted from their efficiency as military commanders, I
believe that they would have exhibited sufficient constancy and courage
to rescue our army from utter destruction, and the British name from
indelible reproach. But in the Caubul cantonments they were miserably
out of place. They seem to have been sent there, by superhuman
intervention, to work out the utter ruin and prostration of an unholy
policy by ordinary human means.
It is remarkable, indeed, that the chief conduct of our military
operations, in this critical conjuncture, should have been in the
hands of two men so utterly unlike each other, and yet so equal in
their incapacity for such command. I believe it be no exaggeration to
affirm, that there were not in India two men of the same high rank
equally unfitted by circumstance and by character for the command
of the Caubul army. The one had everything to learn; the other had
everything to unlearn. Elphinstone knew nothing of the native army.
Shelton was violently prejudiced against it. Elphinstone, in a new and
untried position, had no opinion of his own, but flung himself upon
the judgment of any one with confidence enough to form and express
one. Shelton, on the other hand, was proud of his experience, and
obstinately wedded to his own opinions. Opposition irritated and
enfeebled him. To overrule and to thwart him at the commencement of
an enterprise entrusted to his charge was to secure its ignominious
failure. Whether by accident or by design, he generally contrived to
demonstrate the soundness of his own judgment, by being disastrously
beaten in every attempt to carry out the projects forced upon him
by the preponderating counsels of others. Had Shelton exercised the
chief military control, though he might have committed some errors, he
would probably have distinguished himself more than in the secondary
position which he was compelled to occupy. On him was thrown the burden
of the executive duties. Whilst others overruled his opinions, he was
made responsible for the success of enterprises against which he
protested, and with which he was the last man in the country heartily
to identify himself under circumstances so irritating and depressing.
It would have been impossible, indeed, to have brought together two
men so individually disqualified for their positions—so inefficient
in themselves, and so doubly inefficient in combination. Each made the
other worse. The only point on which they agreed was, unhappily, the
one on which it would have been well if they had differed. They agreed
in urging the Envoy to capitulate. There was a curse upon them that
clouded their brains and made faint their hearts, and moved them to
seek safety in a course at once the most discreditable and the most
perilous of all that opened out before them.