BABAR CONQUERS KABUL
At this period the kingdom of Kabul comprehended solely the provinces
of Kabul and Ghazni, the territory which we should call eastern
Afghanistan. Herat was the capital of an independent empire, at this
time the greatest in Central Asia; and Kandahar, Bajaur, Swat, and
Peshawar, were ruled by chiefs who had no connection with Kabul. The
tribes of the plains and outlying valleys alone acknowledged the
authority of the King of that country. The clans of the mountains
were as independent and refractory as their descendants were up to a
recent period. Kabul at this time was in a state bordering upon
anarchy. The late King, Abdul-rizak, a grandson of the Abusaid
referred to in the preceding chapter, had been surprised in, and
driven from, the city, by Muhammad Mokim, a son of the ruler of
Kandahar, and that prince, taking no thought of the morrow, was
reigning as though all the world were at peace, and he at least were
free from danger.
Babar, I have said, tired of his wandering life, had resolved to
march on Khorasan. He crossed the Oxus, therefore, and joined by
Baki, the son of Sultan {18} Khusrou, ruler of the country, marched
on Ajer, remained there a few days; then, hearing that the Mughals in
Khusrou's service had revolted, he marched towards Talikan, so as to
be able to take advantage of the situation. Between the two places he
was joined by the Mughals in question, and learnt that Sultan
Khusrou, with the remainder of his troops, was on his way to Kabul.
The two armies were so close to one another, that an interview took
place between the leaders, which resulted in the complete submission
of Khusrou, whose troops came over in crowds to Babar. Thus
strengthened, Babar marched upon Kabul, besieged it, and took it
(October, 1504). By this sudden change of fortune, he found himself
all at once King of Kabul and Ghazni, a kingdom far more powerful
than the Ferghana which he had inherited and lost.
Babar had but just began to feel his seat in his new kingdom when he
received an invitation to invade a district called Bhera, south of
the river Jehlam, and therefore within the borders of India. The
invitation was too agreeable to his wishes to be refused, and he
accordingly set out for Jalalabad. The time was January, 1505. The
Sultan--for so he was styled--records in his journals the impression
produced upon him by the first sight of that favoured part of Asia,
an impression shared, doubtless, by his successors in the path of
invasion, and which may well account for their determination to push
on. 'I had never before,' he wrote, 'seen warm countries nor the
country of {19} Hindustan. On reaching them, I all at once saw a new
world; the vegetables, the plants, the trees, the wild animals, all
were different. I was struck with astonishment, and indeed there was
room for wonder.' He then proceeded by the Khaibar Pass to Peshawar,
and, not crossing the Indus, marched by Kohat, Bangash, Banu, and
Desht Daman, to Multan. Thence he followed the course of the Indus
for a few days, then turned westward, and returned to Kabul by way of
Chotiali and Ghazni. The expedition has been called Babar's first
invasion of India, but as he only touched the fringes of the country,
it took rather the character of a reconnoitring movement. Such as it
was, it filled him with an earnest desire to take an early
opportunity to see more.
But, like every other conqueror who has been attracted by India, he
deemed it of vital importance to secure himself in the first place of
Kandahar. Internal troubles for a time delayed the expedition. Then,
when these had been appeased, external events came to demand his
attention. His old enemy, Shaibani, was once more ruling at
Samarkand, and, after some lesser conquests, had come to lay siege to
Balkh. Sultan Husen Mirza of Herat, alarmed at his progress, sent at
once a messenger to Babar to aid him in an attack on the invader.
Babar at once responded, and setting out from Kabul in June, 1506,
reached Kahmerd, and halted there to collect and store supplies. He
was engaged in this work when the information was brought him by a
messenger that {20} Sultan Husen Mirza was dead. He at once pushed
on, and after a march of eight hundred miles joined the sons of the
late Sultan and their army on the river Murghab.
Two of the sons of the Sultan had succeeded him as joint-rulers.
Babar found them elegant, accomplished, and intelligent, but
effeminate, devoted to pleasure, and utterly incapable of making head
against the hardy Shaibani. Whilst they were pleasuring in camp, the
latter had taken Balkh. After some discussion, the two kings decided
to break up their army and recommence in the spring. Winter was now
coming on, and Babar was persuaded, against his better judgment, to
visit his two hosts at Herat. His description of that royal city
takes up pages of his autobiography.[1] For twenty days he visited
every day fresh places; nor was it till the 24th of December that he
decided to march homewards.
[Footnote 1: _Memoirs of Babar_, translated by Leyden and Erskine,
pp. 203-208.]
Our countrymen who served in Afghanistan during the war of 1879-81
can realise what that march must have been; how trying, how
difficult, how all but impossible. The distance was twenty days'
journey in summer. The road across the mountains, though not very
difficult in summer, was especially trying in the depth of winter,
and it was at that season, the snow falling around him, that Babar
undertook it. He himself showed the way, and with incredible exertion
led the army, exhausted and reckless, to the foot of {21} the Zirin
Pass. There the situation seemed hopeless. The storm was violent; the
snow was deep; and the Pass was so narrow that but one person could
pass at a time. Still Babar pushed on, and at nightfall reached a
cave large enough to admit a few persons. With the generosity which
was a marked feature of his character he made his men enter it,
whilst, shovel in hand, he dug for himself a hole in the snow, near
its mouth. Meanwhile those within the cave had discovered that its
proportions increased as they went further in, and that it could give
shelter to fifty or sixty persons. On this Babar entered, and shared
with his men their scanty store of provisions. Next morning, the snow
and tempest ceased, and the army pushed on. At length, towards the
end of February, he approached Kabul, only, however, to learn that a
revolt had taken place in the city, and that although his garrison
was faithful, the situation was critical. Babar was equal to the
occasion. Opening communication with his partisans, by a
well-executed surprise he regained the place. His treatment of the
rebels was merciful in the extreme.
During the spring of that year, 1507, Shaibani Khan, the Uzbek chief,
who had formerly driven Babar from Samarkand, had attacked and taken
Balkh; then invaded Khorasan and occupied Herat. Kandahar, which had
been to a certain extent a dependency of the rulers of Herat, had
been seized by the sons of Mir Zulnun Beg, who had been its Governor
under Sultan Husen Mirza, and these had invoked the {22} assistance
of Babar against Shaibani. Babar, accordingly, marched for Kandahar.
On his way thither, he was joined by many of the flying adherents of
the expelled House of Sultan Husen. But, before he could reach
Kandahar, Shaibani Khan had put pressure on the sons of Zulnun, and
these had accepted his sovereignty. They notified this act to Babar
in a manner not to be mistaken. The latter, therefore, prepared to
make good his claims by force of arms.
His army was not numerous, but he had confidence in it and in
himself. From Kilat-i-Ghilzai, where he first scented the change of
front at Kandahar, he had marched to the ford across the Tarnak.
Thence, confirmed in his ideas, he moved in order of battle, along
the course of the stream, to Baba Wali, five or six miles to the
north of Kandahar, and had occupied the hill of Kalishad. Here he
intended to rest, and sent out his foragers to collect supplies. But,
soon after these had quitted the camp, he beheld the enemy's army, to
the number of five thousand, move from the city towards him. He had
but a thousand men under arms, the remainder being engaged in
foraging, but he saw it was not a time to hesitate. Ranging his men
in defensive order, he awaited the attack. That attack was led in
person by the sons of Zulnun with great gallantry; but Babar not only
repulsed it, and forced the assailants to flee, but, in his pursuit,
he cut them off from the city, which surrendered to him with all its
treasures. The spoils of the place were magnificently rich. Babar did
not, however, remain in {23} Kandahar. Leaving his brother, Nasir
Mirza, to defend it, he returned to Kabul, and arrived there at the
end of July (1507), as he writes, 'with much plunder and great
reputation.'
Hardly had he arrived when he learned that Shaibani Khan had arrived
before Kandahar and was besieging his brother there. He was puzzled
how to act, for he was not strong enough to meet Shaibani in the
field. A strategist by nature, he recognised at the moment that the
most effective mode open to him would be to make an offensive
demonstration. He doubted only whether such a demonstration should be
directed against Badakshan, whence he could threaten Samarkand, or
against India. Finally he decided in favour of the latter course,
and, as prompt in action as he was quick in decision, he set out for
the Indus, marching down the Kabul river. When, however, he had been
a few days at Jalalabad, he heard that Kandahar had surrendered to
Shaibani. Upon this, the object of the expedition having vanished, he
returned to Kabul.
I must pass lightly over the proceedings of the next seven years,
eventful though they were. In those years, from 1507 to 1514, Babar
marching northwards, recovered Ferghana, defeated the Uzbeks, and
took Bokhara and Samarkand. But the Uzbeks, returning, defeated Babar
at Kulmalik, and forced him to abandon those two cities. Attempting
to recover them, he was defeated again at Ghajdewan and driven {24}
back to Hisar.[2] Finding, after a time, his chances there desperate,
he returned to Kabul. This happened in the early months of 1514.
[Footnote 2: There are two other Hisars famous in Eastern history:
the one in India about a hundred miles north of Delhi: the other in
the province of Azarbijan, in Persia, thirty-two miles from the
Takht-i-Sulaiman. The Hisar referred to in the text is a city on an
affluent of the Oxus, a hundred and thirty miles north-east of
Balkh.]
Again there was an interval of eight years, also to be passed lightly
over. During that period Babar chastised the Afghans of the
mountains, took Swat, and finally acquired Kandahar by right of
treaty (1522). He took possession of, and incorporated in his
dominions, that city and its dependencies, including parts of the
lowlands lying chiefly along the lower course of the Helmand.
Meanwhile Shah Beg, the eldest son of the Zulnun, who had formerly
ruled in Kandahar, had marched upon and had conquered Sind, and had
made Bukkur the capital. He died in June, 1524. As soon as this
intelligence reached the Governor of Narsapur, Shah Hasan, that
nobleman, a devoted adherent of the family of Taimur, proclaimed
Babar ruler of the country, and caused the Khatba, or prayer for the
sovereign, to be read in his name throughout Sind. There was
considerable opposition, but Shah Hasan conquered the whole province,
and governed it, acknowledging Babar as his suzerain. At length, in
1525, was invited to Multan. He marched against the fortress, and,
after a protracted siege, took it by storm (August or September,
1526). Meanwhile, great {25} events had happened in India. On the
29th of April, of the same year, the battle of Panipat had delivered
India into the hands of Babar. Before proceeding to narrate his
invasion of that country it is necessary that I should describe, very
briefly, the condition of its actual rulers at the time.
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