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HISTORY OF THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
by
JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, F.R.S.
Third Edition.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. III.
London:
Wm. H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place,
Publishers to the India Office.
1874.
London.
Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street
and Charing Cross.
CONTENTS.
BOOK VII.
CHAPTER I.
[1841-1842.]
PAGE
Efforts at Retrieval—Close of Lord Auckland’s Administration
—Embarrassments of his Position—Opinions of Sir Jasper
Nicolls—Efforts of Mr. George Clerk—Despatch of the First
Brigade—Appointment of General Pollock—Despatch of the
Second Brigade—Expected Arrival of Lord Ellenborough—Further
Embarrassments 1
CHAPTER II.
[January-April: 1842.]
The Halt at Peshawur—Position of Brigadier Wild—His Difficulties
—Conduct of the Sikhs—Attempt on Ali-Musjid—Failure of the
Brigade—Arrival of General Pollock—State of the Force—Affairs
at Jellalabad—Correspondence between Sale and Pollock 34
CHAPTER III.
THE DEFENCE OF JELLALABAD.
[January-March: 1842.]
Situation of the Garrison—Letters from Shah Soojah—Question of
Capitulation—Councils of War—Final Resolution—Earthquake at
Jellalabad—Renewal of the Works—Succours expected 53
CHAPTER IV.
[April, 1842.]
The Forcing of the Khybur Pass—State of the Sikh Troops—Mr.
Clerk at the Court of Lahore—Views of the Lahore Durbar—Efforts
of Shere Singh—Assemblage of the Army at Jumrood—Advance
to Ali-Musjid—Affairs at Jellalabad—Defeat of Akbar Khan
—Junction of Pollock and Sale 74
CHAPTER V.
[January-April: 1842.]
The Last Days of Shah Soojah—State of Parties at Caubul
—Condition of the Hostages—the Newab Zemaun Khan—Letters of
Shah Soojah—His Death—Question of his Fidelity—His Character
and Conduct considered 103
* * * * *
BOOK VIII.
CHAPTER I.
[November, 1841-April, 1842.]
Affairs at Candahar—Evil Tidings from Caubul—Maclaren’s Brigade
—Spread of the Insurrection—Arrival of Atta Mahmed—Flight of
Sufdur Jung—Attack on the Douranee Camp—Continued Hostilities
—Attack upon the City—Action in the Valley of the Urghundab
—Fall of Ghuznee—Defence of Khelat-i-Ghilzye—Movements of
England’s Brigade 122
CHAPTER II.
[April-June: 1842.]
The Halt at Jellalabad—Positions of Pollock and Nott—Lord
Ellenborough—Opening Measures of his Administration—Departure
for Allahabad—His Indecision—The Withdrawal Orders—Their
Effects—The “Missing Letter”—Negotiations for the Release of
the Prisoners 189
CHAPTER III.
[January-April: 1842.]
The Captivity—Surrender of the Married Families—Their Journey
to Tezeen—Proceed to Tugree—Interviews between Pottinger and
Akbar Khan—Removal to Budeeabad—Prison Life—Removal to Zanda
—Death of General Elphinstone 215
CHAPTER IV.
[December, 1841-June, 1842.]
Stoddart and Conolly—Intelligence of the Caubul Outbreak—Arrest
of the English Officers—Their Sufferings in Prison—Conolly’s
Letters and Journals—Death of the Prisoners 235
CHAPTER V.
[April-July: 1842.]
Affairs at Caubul—Elevation of Futteh Jung—Opposition of the
Barukzyes—Arrival of Akbar Khan—His Policy—Attack on the Balla
Hissar—Its Capture—Conduct of Akbar Khan—Barukzye Strife
—Defeat of Zemaun Khan—Situation of the Hostages and Prisoners 264
* * * * *
BOOK IX.
CHAPTER I.
[June-September: 1842.]
The Advance from Jellalabad—Instructions of Lord Ellenborough
—The Question of Responsibility—Employment of the Troops at
Jellalabad—Operations in the Shinwarree Valley—Negotiations
for the Release of the Prisoners—The Advance—Mammoo Khail
—Jugdulluck—Tezeen—Occupation of Caubul 283
CHAPTER II.
[May-September: 1842.]
The Advance from Candahar—The Relief of Khelat-i-Ghilzye
—Reappearance of Akbar Khan—General Action with the Douranees
—Surrender of Sufdur Jung—The Evacuation of Candahar—Disaster
near Mookoor—The Battle of Goaine—The Recapture of Ghuznee
—Flight of Shumshoodeen Khan—Arrival at Caubul 313
CHAPTER III.
[September-October: 1842.]
The Re-occupation of Caubul—Installation of Futteh Jung—The
Recovery of the Prisoners—Their Arrival in Camp—The Expedition
into the Kohistan—Destruction of the Great Bazaar—Depredations
in the City—Accession of Shahpoor—Departure of the British Army 341
CHAPTER IV.
[October-December: 1842.]
Effect of the Victories—Lord Ellenborough at Simlah—The
Manifesto of 1842—The Proclamation of the Gates—The
Restoration of Dost Mahomed—The Gathering at Ferozepore
—Reception of the Troops—The Courts-Martial—Conclusion 374
APPENDIX 403
THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
BOOK VII.
CHAPTER I.
[1841-1842.]
Efforts at Retrieval—Close of Lord Auckland’s
Administration—Embarrassments of his Position—Opinions of Sir
Jasper Nicolls—Efforts of Mr. George Clerk—Despatch of the First
Brigade—Appointment of General Pollock—Despatch of the Second
Brigade—Expected Arrival of Lord Ellenborough—Further Embarrassments.
At this time the Governor-General and his family were resident at
Calcutta. The period of Lord Auckland’s tenure of the vice-regal office
was drawing to a close. He was awaiting the arrival of his successor.
It had seemed to him, as the heavy periodical rains began slowly to
give place to the cool weather of the early winter, that there was
nothing to overshadow the closing scenes of his administration, and
to vex his spirit with misgivings and regrets during the monotonous
months of the homeward voyage. The three first weeks of October
brought him only cheering intelligence from the countries beyond the
Indus. The Envoy continued to report, with confidence, the increasing
tranquillity of Afghanistan. The Douranee insurrection seemed to have
been suppressed, and there was nothing stirring in the neighbourhood of
Caubul to create anxiety and alarm.
But November set in gloomy and threatening. The clouds were gathering
in the distance. It now seemed to Lord Auckland that his administration
was doomed to close in storm and convulsion. Intelligence of the
Ghilzye outbreak arrived. It was plain that the passes were sealed,
for there were no tidings from Caubul. There might be rebellion and
disaster at the capital; our communications were in the hands of the
enemy; and all that was known at Calcutta was that Sale’s brigade
had been fighting its way downwards, and had lost many men and some
officers in skirmishes with the Ghilzye tribes, which had seemingly
been productive of no important results. There was something in all
this very perplexing and embarrassing. Painful doubts and apprehensions
began to disturb the mind of the Governor-General. It seemed to be the
beginning of the end.
Never was authentic intelligence from Caubul looked for with so much
eager anxiety as throughout the month of November. When tidings came
at last—only too faithful in their details of disaster—they came
in a dubious, unauthoritative shape, and, for a time, were received
with incredulity. At the end of the third week of November, letters
from Meerut, Kurnaul, and other stations in the upper provinces of
Hindostan, announced that reports had crossed the frontier to the
effect that there had been a general rising at Caubul, that the
city had been fired, and that Sir Alexander Burnes had been killed.
Letters to this effect reached the offices of the public journals,
but no intelligence had been received at Government House, and a hope
was expressed in official quarters that the stories in circulation
were exaggerated native rumours. But, a day or two afterwards, the
same stories were repeated in letters from Mr. George Clerk, the
Governor-General’s agent on the north-western frontier, and from
Captain Mackeson at Peshawur; and the intelligence came coupled with
urgent requisitions for the despatch of reinforcements to Afghanistan.
Though no authentic tidings had been received from Caubul, the advices
from our political functionaries, on the intermediate line of country,
were of a character not to be questioned; and Lord Auckland, who a
day or two before had received letters from Sir William Macnaghten,
assuring him that the disturbances were at an end, awoke to the
startling truth that all Caubul was in a blaze, and the supremacy
of the Suddozye Princes and their foreign supporters threatened by
a general outburst of national indignation. Afghanistan—serene and
prosperous Afghanistan—with its popular government and its grateful
people, was in arms against its deliverers. Suddenly the tranquillity
of that doomed country, boasted of in Caubul and credited in Calcutta,
was found to be a great delusion. Across the whole length and breadth
of the land the history of that gigantic lie was written in characters
of blood. It was now too deplorably manifest that, although a British
army had crossed the Indus and cantoned itself at Caubul and Candahar,
the Afghans were Afghans still; still a nation of fierce Mahomedans,
of hardy warriors, of independent mountaineers; still a people not to
be dragooned into peace, or awed into submission, by a scattering of
foreign bayonets and the pageantry of a puppet king.
The blow fell heavily upon Lord Auckland. An amiable gentleman and a
well-intentioned statesman, he had made for himself many friends; and,
perhaps, there was not in all Calcutta at that time, even amongst the
most strenuous opponents of the policy which had resulted in so much
misery and disgrace, one who did not now grieve for the sufferings of
him whose errors had been so severely visited. Had it fallen at any
other time, it would not have been so acutely felt. But it came upon
him at the close of his reign, when he could do nothing to restore the
brilliancy of his tarnished reputation. He had expected to embark for
England, a happy man and a successful ruler. He had, as he thought,
conquered and tranquillised Afghanistan. For the former exploit he had
been created an earl; and the latter would have entitled him to the
honour. It is true that he had drained the treasury of India; but he
believed that he was about to hand over no embryo war to his successor,
and that, therefore, the treasury would soon replenish itself. The
prospect was sufficiently cheering, and he was eager to depart;
but the old year wore to a close, and found Lord Auckland pacing,
with a troubled countenance, the spacious apartments of Government
House—found him the most luckless of rulers and the most miserable of
men.
Never was statesman so cast down; never was statesman so perplexed
and bewildered. The month of December was one of painful anxiety;
of boding fear; of embarrassing uncertainty. There was no official
information from Caubul. The private accounts received from Jellalabad
and Peshawur, always brief, often vague and conflicting, excited the
worst apprehensions without dispelling much of the public ignorance.
In this conjuncture, government were helpless. The Caubul force, cut
off from all support, could by no possibility be rescued. The utmost
vigour and determination—the highest wisdom and sagacity—could
avail nothing at such a time. The scales had fallen from the eyes
of the Governor-General only to show him the utter hopelessness of
the case. In this terrible emergency he seems to have perceived, for
the first time, the madness of posting a detached force in a foreign
country, hundreds of miles from our own frontier, cut off from all
support by rugged mountains and impenetrable defiles. Before a single
brigade could be pushed on to the relief of the beleaguered force,
the whole army might be annihilated. Clearly Lord Auckland now beheld
the inherent viciousness of the original policy of the war, and, in
sorrow and humiliation, began to bethink himself of the propriety of
abandoning it.
What Lord Auckland now wrote publicly on this subject is on record;
what he wrote privately is known to a few. That the Governor-General,
in this terrible conjuncture, succumbed to the blow which had fallen
upon him; that his energies did not rise with the occasion, but that
the feebleness of paralysis was conspicuous in all that he did, has
often been asserted and never confidently denied. But it may be doubted
whether his feelings or his conduct at this time have ever been fairly
judged or clearly understood. The truth is, that he had originally
committed himself to a course of policy which never had his cordial
approbation, and his after-efforts to uphold which he inwardly regarded
as so many attempts to make the worse appear the better reason. It is
plain that, very soon after the occupation of Caubul had for a time
brought the Afghan campaign to a close, the Governor-General began to
entertain very painful doubts and misgivings; and that, although he
by no means anticipated the sudden and disastrous fall of the whole
edifice he had raised, he had, long before the close of 1841, repented
of his own infirmity of purpose, in giving way to the counsels of
others; and had begun to doubt whether we had succeeded in the great
object of the war—the establishment of such a friendly power in
Afghanistan as would secure us against western aggression. He must have
seen, too—for he was, in the main, a just and an honest man—that the
policy, which he had sanctioned, cradled in injustice as it was, was
continually perpetuating injustice; and he must have heard the wrongs
of the Afghan chiefs and the Afghan nation eternally crying out to him
for redress. Macnaghten complained that Lord Auckland and Mr. Colvin
were too ready to believe all the stories of the unpopularity of the
government and discontent of the chiefs and the people, which reached
them through obscure channels of information; though those channels
of information were the local newspapers, whose informants were
generally officers of rank and character. But in spite of the Envoy’s
assurances and denials, Lord Auckland had begun to suspect that there
was something rotten at the core of our Afghan policy; and something
pre-eminently defective in the administrative conduct of those to whom
its working out had been entrusted. He did not, in the autumn of 1841,
believe that any sudden and overwhelming storm would cloud the last
days of his Indian government; but he had begun to encourage the belief
that he had made a fatal mistake, and that, sooner or later, the real
character of his Afghan policy would be revealed to the world.
But there was something more than his own doubts and misgivings to be
considered. Lord Auckland knew that the connexion he had established in
Afghanistan was distasteful in the extreme to the East India Company.
There was good reason for this. The necessity of sustaining Shah
Soojah on the throne of Caubul had drained the financial resources
of the Company to the dregs, and was entailing upon them liabilities
which, if not speedily retrenched, they might have found it impossible
to discharge. The injustice of the occupation of Afghanistan was not
confined to the people of that country. A grievous injustice was
being inflicted upon the people of India, the internal improvement
of which was obstructed, to maintain the incapable Suddozye in the
country from which he had been cast out by his offended people. No
man knew this better, or deplored it more deeply, than Lord Auckland
himself. The opinions of the East India Company upon this subject
had been well known from the very commencement of the war. But the
Court of Directors had no constitutional authority to suspend the
operations which they had not been called upon to sanction, and only
so far as they were represented in the Secret Committee had they any
influence in the Councils which shaped our measures in Afghanistan.
But no one knew better than Lord Auckland that there was scarcely
one of the twenty-four Directors’ rooms in the Great Parliament of
Leadenhall-street in which the continued occupation of the country
beyond the Indus was not a subject of perpetual complaint.
And when he turned his thoughts from Leadenhall-street to
Downing-street, it appeared to him that there were still weightier
reasons for the abandonment of our ill-omened connexion with the
countries beyond the Indus. The Whigs had sent him to India; the
Conservatives were now in office. At the end of August the Melbourne
ministry had resigned; and Peel was now at the head of the cabinet. It
was known that the Conservative party either were, or made a show of
being, radically opposed to the Afghan policy of the government which
they had displaced. It was natural, therefore, that Lord Auckland,
who was now awaiting the arrival of his successor, should have shrunk
from committing him to any extensive measures for the recovery of our
position in Afghanistan, which, in all probability, he would not be
disposed to carry out. Whatever amount of energy the old ruler might
now throw into the work before him, it was certain that he would only
be able to commence what he must leave to his successor to complete. To
have handed over to the new Governor-General the outline of a political
scheme, just sufficiently worked out in its details to render its
abandonment impossible, would have been to embarrass and hamper him,
at the outset of his career, in a manner that would have perplexed the
new ruler in the extreme, and jeopardised the interests of the empire.
He believed that the policy of the Conservatives was nearly identical
with that of the East India Company, and that they would eagerly
take advantage of the present crisis to sever our connexion with the
countries beyond the Indus, and to declare the failure of the original
scheme propounded in the Simlah manifesto of 1838.
It is right that Lord Auckland should have ample credit for suffering
these important considerations to exercise their due influence over
his counsels. It is right, too, that it should be clearly recognised
how great was the moral courage it demanded, either practically to
declare by himself, or to leave to others to declare, the utter
failure of a great political scheme for which he was responsible to
his country, and with which, from generation to generation, his name
will be indissolubly associated in history. But when all this has been
said, there still remains to be recorded the humiliating fact that a
great crisis suddenly arose, and Lord Auckland was not equal to it. He
had begun to doubt the justice and expediency of the policy of 1838.
And these doubts, added to his knowledge of the views of the Home
governments, forced upon him the conviction that it had now become his
duty to direct all his efforts to the one object of withdrawing our
beleaguered garrisons in safety to Hindostan. But he seems, in the
bewilderment and perplexity which followed the stunning blow that had
descended so suddenly upon him, to have forgotten that there are in the
lives of nations, as of men, great and imminent conjunctures, which not
only sanction, but demand a departure from ordinary rules of conduct
and principles of statesmanship. Such a conjuncture had now arisen;
and, important as were all the considerations recapitulated above,
they should have given place in his mind to the one paramount desire
of demonstrating to all the nations of the East the invincibility
of British arms. Neither the wishes of the East India Company nor
the opinions of the Conservative government had been declared in the
face of a great disaster. The withdrawal of the British army from
Afghanistan might, and I believe would, have been a measure of sound
policy; but only if the time and manner of withdrawal had been well
chosen. It could never have been sound policy to withdraw under the
pressure of an overwhelming defeat. To retire from Afghanistan was one
thing; to be driven out of it was another. A frank avowal of error,
calmly and deliberately enunciated, under no pressure of immediate
danger or insurmountable difficulty, would have denoted only conscious
strength. It would have been the dignified self-negation of a powerful
state daring to be just to others and true to itself. But to abandon
the country, precipitately and confusedly, under the pressure of
disaster and defeat, would have been a miserable confession of weakness
that might have shaken to its very foundation the British Empire in the
East.
And such a confession of weakness Lord Auckland was inclined to make.
He seemed to reel and stagger under the blow—to be paralysed and
enfeebled by the disasters that had overtaken him. His correspondence
at this time betokened such painful prostration, that some to whom he
wrote destroyed, in pity, all traces of these humiliating revelations.
It was vaguely rumoured, too, how, in bitterness of spirit, he spent
long hours pacing by day the spacious verandahs of Government House;
or, by night, cooling his fevered brow on the grass-plots in front
of it, accompanied by some member of his household endeared to him
by ties of blood. The curse brooded over him, as it was brooding
over Elphinstone and Macnaghten, darkening his vision, clouding his
judgment, prostrating his energies—turning everything to feebleness
and folly. New tidings of disaster—misfortune treading on the heels
of misfortune—came flooding in from beyond the Indus; and the chief
ruler of the land, with a great army at his call, thought only of
extrication and retreat; thought of bringing back, instead of pushing
forward, our troops; of abandoning, instead of regaining, our position.
Fascinated, as it were, by the great calamity, his eyes were rivetted
on the little line of country between Caubul and Peshawur; and he did
not see, in his eagerness to rescue small detachments from danger, and
to escape the immediate recurrence of new disasters in Afghanistan,
that the question now to be solved was one of far greater scope and
significance—that it was not so much whether Afghanistan were to be
occupied, as whether India were to be retained. But there were old and
experienced politicians, well acquainted with the temper of the chiefs
and the people of India and the countries beyond, who believed that any
manifestation of weakness, in this conjuncture, would have endangered
the security of our position in India; and that, therefore, cost what
it might, a blow must be struck for the recovery of our military
supremacy in the countries beyond the Indus.
But from the very first Lord Auckland began to despond, and steadfastly
set his face against any measures of military re-establishment.
When, on the 25th of November, he received from Mr. Clerk and
Captain Mackeson intelligence which confirmed the newspaper accounts
received two days before, and read the pressing requisitions of those
officers for the despatch of more troops to the frontier, he wrote
to the Commander-in-Chief, who was then journeying through the Upper
Provinces of India: “It is not clear to me how the march of a brigade
can by possibility have any influence upon the events which it is
supposed may be passing at Caubul.... They may be at Jellalabad in
February, and could not march onwards to Caubul before April.... It
may be well, perhaps, that two or three regiments should be assembled
at Peshawur.... I wish the requisition had been made with less
trepidation.” Again, on the 1st of December, he wrote to the same
officer: “It seems to me that we are not to think of marching fresh
armies for the re-conquest of that which we are likely to lose....
The difficulty will not be one of fighting and gaining victories,
but of supplies, of movements, and of carriage.... The troops in
Afghanistan are sufficiently numerous. They would but be encumbered
by greater numbers, and reinforcements could not arrive before the
crisis will have passed. If the end is to be disastrous, they would but
increase the extent of the disaster.” On the following day he again
wrote to Sir Jasper Nicolls, setting forth the views of government,
to the effect—“1st. That we should not fit out large armaments for
re-conquest—such an enterprise would be beyond our means. 2nd. That
even for succours the season is unfavourable and impracticable, and
months must pass before it could be attempted. 3rdly. That if aid can
be given, the officer in command should not be prohibited from seizing
the opportunity of affording it. I fear,” added the Governor-General
in this letter, “that safety to the force at Caubul can only come from
itself.” On the 5th he wrote to the same correspondent, that “we should
stand fast and gather strength at Peshawur”—on the Sutlej, and on the
Indus. “Our power,” he said, “of giving succour is extremely limited,
and if it come at all, it can only come tardily.... We must look on
an advance from Jellalabad for some months as utterly out of the
question. An advance even to Jellalabad could only be to give security
to Sale, and with the aid of the Sikhs, one brigade, with artillery,
should be sufficient. If all should be lost at Caubul we will not
encounter new hazards for re-conquest.”[1] On the 9th of December he
wrote, still more emphatically: “The present state of affairs, whether
its issue be fortunate or disastrous, is more likely to lead within a
few months to the withdrawal of troops to our frontiers than to the
employment of larger means beyond it.” A week afterwards he wrote,
still to the Commander-in-Chief: “We must know more before we can
decide anything, or lay down any large scheme of measures.... There
are already more regiments beyond the frontier than we can feed or
easily pay.... You know I would not be too profuse in sending strength
forward.”[2] What Lord Auckland’s intentions were at this time may be
gathered from these letters. He thought only of saving all that could
be saved; and of escaping out of Afghanistan with the least possible
delay.
The Commander-in-Chief to whom these letters were addressed was, as
has been said, at this time on his way through the Upper Provinces of
India. Sir Jasper Nicolls had been consistently opposed to the entire
scheme of Afghan invasion, and had with rare prescience and sagacity
foretold the disastrous downfall of a policy based upon a foundation
of such complicated error. He had spent his life in the camp; but his
public minutes, as well as his private letters and journals, written
throughout the years 1840-41, indicate a larger amount of political
sagacity than we find displayed in the expressed opinions of his
official contemporaries, to whom statesmanship was the profession
and practice of their lives. He had all along protested against the
withdrawal of our troops from their legitimate uses in the British
Provinces, and urged that it was necessary either so to increase the
Indian army as to enable the government to keep up an adequate force
in Afghanistan without weakening the defences of Hindostan, or to
withdraw the British troops altogether from the countries beyond the
Indus. It was now his opinion—an opinion in which the Governor-General
participated—that, inasmuch as the Indian army, largely indented upon
as it was for service beyond the frontier, was greatly below the right
athletic strength, it would be impossible to pour strong reinforcements
into Afghanistan without weakening the British Provinces in such a
manner as to provoke both external aggression and internal revolt.[3]
But supineness, in such a conjuncture, was more likely to have provoked
aggression than activity, although the latter might have denuded
India of some of its best troops. Macnaghten told Runjeet Singh, in
the summer of 1838, that the military resources of the British-Indian
Government were such that 200,000 soldiers might at any time be brought
into the field to resist simultaneous aggression from all the four
sides of India; and although this may have been only an approximation
to the sober truth, it is certain that, if the dispatch of a couple
of brigades to Jellalabad, and subsequently to Caubul, would have
jeopardised the security of India, the military resources of the
government must have been in a very depressed state. When Sir Jasper
Nicolls, meeting the flood of intelligence from beyond the Indus, as he
advanced through the Upper Provinces of India, recorded, in letters to
the Governor-General, his belief that it would be unwise to prosecute
another war in support of the Suddozye provinces,[4] he expressed only
the sound opinion of a sagacious politician. But he seems to have
forgotten that there was something more than the restoration of the
Suddozye dynasty to be accomplished—there was the restoration of the
military supremacy of Great Britain in Central Asia to be achieved; and
whatever may have been the scruples of the statesman, in such a crisis
as this, the soldier ought not to have hesitated for a moment.
But whilst such were the opinions of the Governor-General and the
Commander-in-Chief, there were other functionaries nearer to the scene
of action at the time, whose feelings prompted, and whose judgment
dictated, a more energetic course of procedure. Among these were Mr.
Robertson, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, and
Mr. George Clerk, the Governor-General’s Agent on the North-Western
Frontier. Both of these able and experienced officers recognised the
paramount necessity of pushing on troops to Peshawur with the utmost
possible despatch. On the latter devolved, in the first instance, the
responsibility of moving forward the regiments which were in readiness
to proceed for the periodical relief of the troops in Afghanistan,[5]
as well as a regiment which was in orders for Sindh.[6] On the 16th of
November, he addressed letters to Colonel Wild, the commanding officer
at Ferozepore, and Colonel Rich, who commanded at Loodhianah, urging
them to send on to Peshawur, as speedily as possible, the regiments
named in the margin.[7] In compliance with these requisitions, the
64th Regiment crossed the Sutlej on the 18th of November and the 60th
on the 20th of November. The 53rd, which was accompanied by the 30th
Regiment,[8] crossed the river on the 26th.
Having expedited the movement of these regiments, Mr. Clerk began to
make preparations for the despatch of another brigade to Peshawur,
and addressed General Boyd, who at that time commanded the Sirhind
division, on the subject. At the same time, he addressed urgent letters
to the Court of Lahore, apprising them of the intended march of the
regiments through the Punjaub—calling on them to supply boats for
the passage of the river—and suggesting to the Maharajah that he
should “cause the immediate march of his son, Koonwur Pertab Singh, on
Peshawur, with 5000 of their best troops from the neighbouring district
of Chuck Huzara.” Captain Mackeson had before applied to the Sikh
authorities at Peshawur for 6000 men to march on Jellalabad; but had
been told by General Avitabile that he had few troops at Peshawur, and
that he required them all for the protection of the Sikh territory.
Lord Auckland, however, was strongly of opinion that the second
brigade, which was to comprise her Majesty’s 9th Foot, the 10th Light
(Native) Cavalry, and a troop of Horse Artillery, ought not to be moved
forward. “We do not now,” wrote the Governor-General in Council, on
the 3rd of December, “desire to send a second brigade in advance, for
we do not conceive it to be called for, for the objects of support
and assistance which we contemplate; and we think it inexpedient to
despatch any greater number of troops than be absolutely necessary
from our own provinces.” And two days afterwards he wrote privately
to the Commander-in-Chief: “I heartily hope that the second brigade
may not have been sent.” He could not, he added, “see of what service
it could be at present. One brigade, with the artillery which you
purpose sending, should be sufficient to force the Khybur pass; and ten
brigades could not, at this season of the year, force the passes to
Caubul.”
But the “one brigade with artillery” never went to Peshawur. The Native
Infantry crossed the Punjaub under the command of Brigadier Wild. Some
artillerymen went with them;[9] but there was no Artillery, for there
were no guns. It was expected, however, that the Sikhs would supply the
ordnance which the British had left out of the account. “You have not
at present any guns,” wrote the Head-Quarters’ Staff to Brigadier Wild,
“but you have artillerymen, sappers and miners, and officers of both
corps. His Excellency is not aware of any difficulty likely to prevent
your being accommodated by the Sikh Governor-General, Avitabile, with
four or six pieces; and you will solicit such aid, when necessary,
through Captain Mackeson.” But when Brigadier Wild reached Peshawur,
a day or two before the close of the year, he found that difficulties
had arisen to prevent the preparation of the expected Sikh guns for
service. The artillerymen were disinclined to hand them over to the
British; and though great doubts were entertained as to whether they
were in reality worth anything, it was hard to compass a loan of the
suspected pieces. And so Brigadier Wild, urged as he was from all
quarters to push on to Jellalabad, with the provisions, treasure, and
ammunition he was to escort thither, sate down quietly at Peshawur,
whilst Captains Mackeson and Lawrence were endeavouring to overcome the
coyness of the Sikh artillerymen; and began to apprehend that his march
would be delayed until some field-pieces were sent to him from India.
His suspense, however, was of not very long duration. On the 3rd of
January, four rickety guns were handed over to the British officers;
but not without a show of resistance on the part of the Sikh
artillerymen. On the following day, one of the limbers went to pieces
under trial; and then it had to be replaced. Other difficulties, too,
met Wild at Peshawur. His camel-men were playing the old game of
desertion. The Afreedi Maliks had not yet been bribed into submission
by Mackeson; and the loyalty of our Sikh allies was so doubtful, that
they were just as likely, on Wild’s brigade entering the Khybur, to
attack him in rear as to keep the pass open for him. All these elements
of delay were greatly to be lamented. There was a forward feeling among
the Sepoys which might have been checked. They were eager to advance
when they reached Peshawur; and their enthusiasm was little likely to
be increased by days of inactivity in a sickly camp, exposed to the
contaminating influences of the Sikh soldiery, who, always dreading the
deep passes of the Khybur, now purposely exaggerated its terrors, and
endeavoured by other means to raise the fears, to excite the prejudices
of the Sepoys, and to shake their fidelity to the government which they
served.
In the mean while active preparations for the despatch of further
reinforcements to Peshawur were going on in the North-Western Provinces
of India. Lord Auckland could not readily bring himself to recognise
the expediency of sending forward a second brigade: but Mr. Clerk
had taken the initiative, and the Governor-General was unwilling
to disturb any arrangements which already were being brought into
effect. The 9th Foot had been ordered to hold itself in readiness,
and another regiment, the 26th Native Infantry, was to be sent with
it, accompanied by some irregular horse, and a scanty supply of
artillery.[10] The Commander-in-Chief was “not prepared” for this
demand, and the Governor-General in Council thought it “undesirable”
to send more troops in advance. But it was obvious to the authorities
on the north-western frontier that the state of affairs in Afghanistan
was becoming every day more critical; and that it was expedient
to concentrate the utmost available strength on the frontier of
Afghanistan. Towards the end of the year, the Governor-General having
expressed a strong opinion regarding the necessity of attaching some
regular horse to the brigade, the 10th Cavalry were ordered to proceed
under Brigadier M’Caskill (of the 9th Foot), who, as senior officer,
took command of the force; and on the 4th of January the brigade,
consisting of 3034 fighting men, crossed the Sutlej on its way to
Peshawur.
To command the body of troops now assembling for service beyond the
frontier, it became necessary to select an officer of good military
repute and unquestionable energy and activity, combined with a cool
judgment and a sound discretion. Sir Jasper Nicolls had, in the month
of November, when the despatch of a Queen’s regiment to Peshawur was
first contemplated, pointed to Sir Edmund Williams, as a general
officer well fitted for such command. But to the Governor-General it
appeared expedient to place an experienced officer of the Company’s
service at the head of affairs, and Sir Edmund Williams was a general
of the royal army, who had served but two years in India at the time
of the Caubul outbreak, and who knew as little of the Sepoy army
as he did of the politics of Afghanistan. Lord Auckland had made
his election. In Major-General Lumley, the adjutant-general of the
army, he thought that he saw all the qualifications which it behoved
the commander of such an army to possess. But there was one thing
that Lumley wanted; he wanted physical health and strength. When
the Governor-General sent up the nomination to head-quarters, the
Commander-in-Chief at once replied that Lumley could not take the
command; and again Nicolls recommended the appointment of Sir Edmund
Williams. Indeed, he had determined on sending for that officer to
his camp, and arming him at once with instructions; but subsequent
letters from Calcutta made it only too plain that the appointment
would be extremely distasteful to the Supreme Government; and so the
intention was abandoned. General Lumley was at head-quarters. The
Commander-in-Chief sent for him to his tent, placed in his hand a
letter his Excellency had just received from the Governor-General
relative to Lumley’s employment beyond the frontier, and called upon
him for his final decision. The General was willing to cross the
Indus; but, doubtful of his physical ability to undertake so onerous a
duty, placed the decision of the question in the hands of his medical
advisers, who at once declared that he was totally unequal to meet “the
required exertion and exposure” demanded by such a campaign.
The Commander-in-Chief at once determined to nominate another Company’s
officer to the command of the troops proceeding to Peshawur. His choice
then fell upon General George Pollock, who commanded the garrison of
Agra.—Receiving his military education at the Woolwich Academy, this
officer had entered the Indian army as a lieutenant of artillery in
the year 1803, when Lake and Wellesley were in the field, and all
India was watching, with eager expectancy, the movements of the grand
armies which, by victory after victory, were breaking down the power
of the Mahrattas. At the storm and capture of Dieg, in 1803, young
Pollock was present; and in 1805, during the gallant but unsuccessful
attempts of the British army to carry Bhurtpore by assault, he was
busy in the trenches. At the close of the same year he was selected by
Lord Lake to command the artillery with the detachment under Colonel
Ball, sent in pursuit of Holkar. From this time he held different
regimental staff appointments up to the year 1817, when, in command of
the artillery with General Wood’s force, he took part in the stirring
scenes of the Nepaul war. In 1818 he was appointed Brigade-Major;
and subsequently, on the creation of that appointment, held the
Assistant-Adjutant-Generalship of Artillery up to the year 1824, when,
having attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, he volunteered to join
the army which was assembling for the prosecution of the Burmese war,
and was nominated by Sir Edward Paget to command the Bengal Artillery
attached to the force under Sir Archibald Campbell, proceeding to
Rangoon. For his services during the war he received the decoration
of the Companionship of the Bath. From this time, except during an
interval of some three years spent in England for the recovery of his
health, he held different regimental and brigade commands, until, at
the close of 1841, being then Major-General, in command of the garrison
of Agra, he was selected by Sir Jasper Nicolls to take command of the
troops proceeding to Peshawur, and ordered at once to proceed to the
frontier by dawk.
The appointment of General Pollock gave the greatest satisfaction
to the Supreme Government, and not even a murmur of disapprobation
arose from the general body of the army. The nomination of this old
and distinguished Company’s officer was believed to be free from
the corruption of aristocratic influence and the taint of personal
favouritism. It was felt, that in this case at least, the selection
had been made solely on the ground of individual merit. And the merit
which was thus rewarded was of the most modest and unostentatious
character. There was not, perhaps, in the whole Indian army a man of
more unassuming manners and a more retiring disposition: there was
not one less likely to have sought notoriety for its own sake, or to
have put himself forward in an effort to obtain it. Pollock’s merits
did not lie upon the surface. He was not what is called a “dashing
officer;” he shrunk from anything like personal display, and never
appealed to the vulgar weaknesses of an unreflecting community. But
beneath a most unassuming exterior there lay a fund of good sense, of
innate sagacity, of quiet firmness and collectedness. He was equable
and temperate. He was thoroughly conscientious. If he was looked upon
by the Indian Government as a _safe_ man, it was not merely because he
always exercised a calm and dispassionate judgment, but because he was
actuated in all that he did by the purest motives, and sustained by
the highest principles. He was essentially an honest man. There was a
directness of purpose about him which won the confidence of all with
whom he was associated. They saw that his one paramount desire was a
desire to do his duty to his country by consulting, in every way, the
welfare and the honour of the troops under his command; and they knew
that they would never be sacrificed, either on the one hand by the rash
ambition, or on the other by the feebleness and indecision, of their
leader. The force now to be despatched to the frontier of Afghanistan
required the superintendence and control of an officer equally cool
and firm, temperate and decided; and, perhaps, in the whole range of
the Indian army, the Government could not have found one in whom these
qualities were more eminently combined than in the character of General
Pollock.
Hastening to place himself at the head of his men, Pollock left Agra,
and proceeded by dawk to the frontier. The second brigade was then
making its way through the Punjaub, under General M’Caskill; and the
authorities in the North-Western Provinces were exerting themselves to
push on further reinforcements to Peshawur.
On the 22d of January, the Commander-in-Chief and Mr. George Clerk
met at Thanesur, some two marches distant from Kurnaul. They had
received the melancholy tidings of the destruction of the Caubul force;
and they took counsel together regarding the measures to be pursued
in consequence of this gigantic calamity. Very different were the
views of these two functionaries. To Sir Jasper Nicolls it appeared
that the destruction of the Caubul force afforded no reason for the
advance of further reinforcements; but rather seemed to indicate the
expediency of a retrograde movement on the part of all the remaining
troops beyond the Indus. It was his opinion—an opinion to some extent
shared by the Supreme Government—that the retention of Jellalabad
being no longer necessary to support the Caubul army, or to assist
its retreat, the withdrawal of the garrison to Peshawur had become
primarily expedient; and that, as the re-conquest and re-occupation of
Afghanistan were not under any circumstances to be recommended, it was
desirable that, after the safety of Sale’s brigade had been secured,
the whole force should return to Hindostan. But Mr. Clerk was all for
a forward movement. He argued that the safety and the honour of the
British nation demanded that we should hold our own at Jellalabad,
until the garrison, reinforced by fresh troops from the provinces
of India, could march upon Caubul, in conjunction with the Candahar
force moving from the westward, chastise the enemy on the theatre of
their recent successes, and then withdraw altogether from Afghanistan
“with dignity and undiminished honour.”[11] It was gall and wormwood
to George Clerk to think for a moment of leaving the Afghans, flushed
with success, to revel in the humiliation of the British Government,
and to boast of the destruction of a British army. Emphatically he
dwelt on the disgrace of inactivity in such a crisis; and emphatically
he dwelt upon the danger. Coolly and quietly, as one whose ordinary
serenity was not to be disturbed by any accidental convulsions, Sir
Jasper Nicolls set forth in reply that the return of so many regiments
to the provinces, and the vast reduction of expenditure that would
attend it, would place the government in such a position of strength as
would enable it summarily to chastise any neighbouring state that might
presume upon our recent misfortunes to show a hostile front against
us. The demand for more troops he would have resisted altogether; but
the urgency of George Clerk was not to be withstood, and two more
regiments—the 6th and 55th Native Infantry—were ordered to hold
themselves in readiness to proceed to Peshawur. But when Clerk asked
for a detachment of British dragoons, Nicolls peremptorily resisted
the demand, and referred the question to the Supreme Government.[12]
Before the reference reached Calcutta, the Supreme Government had
received intelligence of the massacre of Elphinstone’s army; and wrote
back to the Commander-in-Chief that it was essentially necessary that a
commanding force should assemble at Peshawur—that it was particularly
important that the force should be effective in cavalry and artillery,
and that at all events two squadrons of European dragoons should be
pushed on to Peshawur. The 1st Regiment of Native Cavalry and a troop
of Horse-Artillery were subsequently added to the third brigade.
In the meanwhile increasing care and anxiety were brooding over
Government House. Gloomily the new year dawned upon its inmates. And
there was not in that great palaced city, or in any one of the smaller
stations and cantonments of India, an Englishman whose heart did not
beat, and whose hand did not tremble with anxiety, for the fate of the
Caubul force, when he opened the letters or papers which brought him
intelligence from beyond the frontier. No one who dwelt in any part of
India during the early months of 1842, will ever forget the anxious
faces and thick voices with which tidings were sought; questions and
opinions interchanged; hopes and fears expressed; rumours sifted;
probabilities weighed; and how, as the tragedy deepened in solemn
interest, even the most timid and desponding felt that the ascertained
reality far exceeded in misery and horror all that their excited
imaginations had darkly foretold. There was a weight in the social
atmosphere, as of dense superincumbent thunder-clouds. The festivities
of the cold season were arrested; gaiety and hospitality were not.
There were few families in the country which did not sicken with
apprehension for the fate of some beloved relative or friend, whilst
unconnected men, in whom the national overlaid the personal feeling,
in this conjuncture, sighed over the tarnished reputation of their
country, and burned to avenge the murder of their countrymen and the
insults that had been heaped upon the nation.
It would be pleasant to record that, in this great and melancholy
crisis, the public looked up with confidence and assurance to the
statesman upon whom was now thrown the responsibility of extricating
from the quickset of danger and difficulty that environed them, the
imperilled affairs of the British Indian Empire. But history can give
currency to no such fiction. As time advanced it became more and more
painfully evident that Lord Auckland was reeling and staggering beneath
the blow that had descended upon him. He appeared to be unable to
decide upon any consistent plan of action. At one time he seems to have
contemplated the withdrawal of the Jellalabad garrison to Peshawur,
leaving it to fight its own way through the pass; at another, he seems
to have been fully impressed with the necessity of retaining the former
post, if only for the protection of the Caubul force; then he talked,
as I have shown, of concentrating a large army at Peshawur, and almost
immediately afterwards began to think that it would be more expedient
to have our advanced post at Ferozepore. There was only one point
on which he seems clearly to have made up his mind. He was resolute
not to recommend a forward movement for the re-occupation of Caubul.
He believed that any such attempt would be attended with disaster
and disgrace; and he considered that it became him, on the eve of
departure, as he was, not to embarrass his successor by inextricably
pledging the Government to measures which the new Viceroy might
consider “rash, impolitic, and ruinous.”
On the 30th of January, the worst fears of the Government were
confirmed. An express arrived from Mr. Clerk, setting forth, on the
authority of letters received from Macgregor at Jellalabad, that
the Caubul force had been utterly destroyed. Some vague rumours of
this crowning disaster had obtained currency in Calcutta a day or
two before; and now the terrible apprehensions of the public were
found to have been only the presages of actual truth. The immediate
effect of this astounding intelligence upon the conduct of Government
was to rouse the Governor-General into something like a temporary
demonstration of vigour. He issued a proclamation declaring that he
considered the calamity that had overtaken the British arms only “as
a new occasion for displaying the stability and vigour of the British
power, and the admirable spirit and valour of the British-Indian army.”
But it was little more than a spasm of energy. The ink with which this
notification was written was hardly dry, before the Governor-General
in Council wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, that Jellalabad was not a
place which he desired to be kept at all hazards, and after succour
should have been given to Sir R. Sale’s brigade then, and relief should
have been given to parties arriving from Caubul, the Governor-General
in Council would wish General Pollock, rather than run extreme risks in
that position, to arrange for the withdrawal of it, and the assembling
of his force at or near Peshawur.[13]
As time advanced, the retrograde tendencies of Lord Auckland’s
determination became more and more apparent. On the 10th of February,
the Governor-General in Council wrote to the Commander-in-Chief,
instructing him to inform General Pollock that, “as the main inducement
for the maintenance of a post at Jellalabad—namely, that of being a
point of support to any of our troops escaping from Caubul—having
now unhappily passed away, it is the object of the Government that
he should, unless any unforeseen contingency should give a decidedly
favourable turn to affairs, confine himself to measures for withdrawing
the Jellalabad garrison in safety to Peshawur, and there for the
present, holding together all the troops under his orders in a secure
position, removed from collision with the Sikh forces or subjects.” And
on the same day, Mr. Maddock, the chief secretary, under instructions
from the Supreme Government, wrote to Mr. Clerk that “it would be
highly desirable that when Jellalabad was no longer held by us, our
detachments, which have been moved forward in support to meet a present
emergency, should be brought gradually back to their cantonments, in
order that any ulterior operations that may be determined upon for
another advance beyond the Indus (and that towards the Khybur and
Jellalabad is probably not the one to which preference would be given)
may be undertaken after full preparation, with a complete equipment,
and in fresh and well-organised strength.”[14]
Lord Auckland had been startled by the astounding intelligence of the
massacre of Elphinstone’s army into an ebullition of energy by no means
in accordance with the previous tenor of the measures which he had
initiated, and not more in accordance with those which were about to
emanate from him. After the first paroxysm of horror and indignation
was over, he began again to settle down quietly in the conviction that
it was best to do as little as possible on the other side of the Indus,
lest worse misfortunes should descend upon us, and the attempt to
recover our lost reputation should result only in further disgrace.
By this time the doubts of those who had speculated on the subject of
the succession to the Governor-Generalship had been set at rest by
the arrival of the Overland Mail. The despatches received in December
announced that the choice of the home ministry had fallen upon one
of their own body; and that the East India Company had ratified the
choice. Lord Ellenborough, who had before filled and was now filling
the office of President of the Board of Control, had been appointed
Viceroy of India. The question of the succession had been canvassed
with more than common eagerness, and its solution looked forward
to with unusual interest. When the intelligence at last arrived it
took the majority by surprise. The probability of the appointment
of Lord Ellenborough had not been entertained. Sir James Graham,
Lord Heytesbury, Lord Lichfield—nay, even Lord Lyndhurst, had been
named; but speculation had not busied itself with the name of Lord
Ellenborough.
But the intelligence, though unexpected, was not unwelcome. It
was, indeed, received with universal satisfaction. The Press, with
one accord, spoke of the appointment with approbation; and the
public confirmed the verdict of the Press. All parties were alike
sanguine—all prepared to look for good in the new Governor-General.
There is not a community on the face of the earth less influenced
by the spirit of faction, than the community of British India. To
support, or to oppose the measures of a Governor, simply because he
is a Whig or a Tory, is an excess of active prejudice wholly unknown
in India. There are no political parties, and there is no party
Press to play out such a game as this. Public men are judged, not by
what they belong to, but by what belongs to them; and thus was Lord
Ellenborough judged. Whig and Tory alike hailed the appointment: for
the new Governor-General was held in some degree of estimation as one
who had made India his study, and cherished a laudable interest in its
welfare. He was believed to be possessed of more than average talent;
to be assiduous in his attention to business; and rather an able man of
detail than a statesman of very brilliant promise. They, who thought
most about the matter, anticipated that he would make a good, steady,
peace-governor; that he would apply himself devotedly to the task of
improving the internal administration of the country; and by a steady
and consistent course of policy soon disengage the country from the
pressure of financial embarrassment which had long sate so heavily upon
it. They knew little and cared less about the personal eccentricities
which in England had been imputed to him. Neither the Press nor the
Public concerned itself about these manifestations of the outer man.
They thought of the newly appointed Governor-General as an able and
laborious man of business, with a more than common knowledge of the
history of India and the details of its administration. They knew that
not only had his occupancy, for many years, of the chief seat at the
India Board, rendered him familiar with the workings of the Indian
Government; but that, on every occasion, when Indian affairs had been
discussed in the House of Lords, in power or out of power, he had taken
a prominent part in the debates. In 1833, when the provisions of the
existing charter were under the consideration of Parliament, he had
distinguished himself as one of the ablest, but most moderate opponents
of certain of its clauses, contending in favour of the diminution of
the powers of the Indian Governors by the imposition of the wholesome
control of Council; and earnestly protesting against the perilous evil
of leaving too much to the unbridled passions or the erratic caprice of
a single man. In later days, he had denounced the war in Afghanistan,
in fitting terms of severe censure; and all things combined to render
the Indian public hopeful of a good, steady, peaceful administration.
Conservative exchanged congratulations with Liberal on the cheering
prospects, now opening out before them, of many years of peaceful
government and financial prosperity. Lord Ellenborough was believed to
be a moderate statesman—somewhat too liberal for the Tories of the
ministerial camp, but not for the modified conservatism of India, where
every man is more or less a Reformer; and as a moderate statesman all
men were prepared to welcome him.
In October, 1841, he was elected to fill the office of
Governor-General; and on the 4th of the following month, he attended
the usual complimentary dinner, given, on such occasions, by the
Court of Directors. The report of that dinner, which reached
India simultaneously with the intelligence of Lord Ellenborough’s
appointment, had a natural tendency to increase the confidence,
engendered by his Lordship’s previous history, in the judgment and
moderation of the new Governor-General. On returning thanks, after his
health had been drunk, Lord Ellenborough, at that farewell dinner,
on the 4th of November, 1841, made a most emphatic declaration of
his intentions to govern India upon peace principles; he abjured all
thoughts of a warlike, aggressive policy; and declared his settled
determination, on assuming the reins of government, to direct all the
energies of his mind towards the due cultivation of the arts of peace;
to emulate the magnificent benevolence of the Mahomedan conquerors;
to elevate and improve the condition of the generous and mighty people
of India. He spoke, it is true, in ignorance of the terrible disasters
which soon afterwards cast a pall over the land; but there was in
the speech so clear and explicit an exposition of what were supposed
to be fixed principles, that the Public could not but rejoice over a
declaration which promised so much eventual benefit to the people of
the soil. They looked forward to the advent of the new Governor-General
as to that of a man who, at the earliest possible moment consistent
with the dignity of our position, would sever at a blow our ill-fated
connexion with Afghanistan, and devote the remaining years of his
administration to the practical development of those high principles
which he had so enthusiastically professed.
It is probable that the nomination of Lord Ellenborough increased the
embarrassments of Lord Auckland, and strengthened him in his resolution
to suspend, as far as possible, all retributive measures until the
arrival of his successor. There was no public man in England whose
opinions, regarding the justice and policy of the war in Afghanistan,
had been more emphatically expressed than those of the Governor-General
elect. Lord Auckland knew that he was to be succeeded by a statesman
who had pronounced the war to be a blunder and a crime; and there was
a strong conviction within him that Lord Ellenborough would be eager
to withdraw every British soldier from Afghanistan, and to sever at
once a connexion which had been attended with so much disaster and
disgrace. As the responsible author of the war, this demanded from him
no small amount of moral courage. It was, indeed, to court a reversal
of the policy which he had originated, and to place the power of a
sweeping practical condemnation in the hands of a political rival.
If the conduct of Lord Auckland, at this time, were wanting in energy
and decision, it was by no means wanting in honesty. He saw that he
had committed a blunder of enormous magnitude, and he left it to
a statesman of a rival party, and an opposite faith, to pronounce
sentence upon it.
But it was not permitted to Lord Auckland so to suspend the progress
of events, as to enable him to hand over to his successor only the
chart of a virgin campaign, to be accepted or rejected by the new
ruler, as might seem fit to him, on taking up the reins of office. It
was decreed that his administration should set amidst the clouds of
continued disaster. There was nothing but failure to be written down
in the concluding chapter of his unfortunate reign. Scarcely had he
risen up from the prostration that followed the first stunning effects
of the dire intelligence of the massacre in the Caubul passes, when
there came from Peshawur tidings that the brigade under Colonel Wild
had been disastrously beaten in the Khybur Pass. The first scene of
the new, like the last of the old campaign, was a great calamity; and
Lord Auckland, now more than ever dispirited and dejected, earnestly
longed for the day when it would be vouchsafed to him to close his
portfolio, and to turn his back for ever upon a country where sloughs
of difficulty and thickets of danger seemed to cover the whole expanse.
CHAPTER II.
[January-April: 1842.]
The Halt at Peshawur—Position of Brigadier Wild—His
Difficulties—Conduct of the Sikhs—Attempt on Ali-Musjid—Failure of
the Brigade—Arrival of General Pollock—State of the Force—Affairs
at Jellalabad—Correspondence between Sale and Pollock.
The position of Brigadier Wild at Peshawur was not one to infuse
into a military commander any very overflowing feelings of hope and
exultation. He was called upon to encounter formidable difficulties
with slender means. Everything, indeed, was against him. He had four
Native infantry regiments, containing a large number of young soldiers.
They had been exposed for some time to the deteriorating contact of
the mutinous Sikh soldiery, who had done their best to fill our Sepoys
with that horror of the Khybur to which they had always abandoned
themselves. The only cavalry with the brigade was a troop of irregular
horse. The only guns were four pieces of Sikh artillery, which had a
bad habit of knocking their carriages to pieces whenever they were
fired. There was a scarcity of ammunition. Carriage was beginning to
fail altogether. It was believed that the camels had been hired at
Ferozepore to proceed as far as Jellalabad; but now the owners declared
that they had entered into no such contract, and resolutely refused
to proceed further than Peshawur. The most dispiriting intelligence
was coming in from Afghanistan. Every day seemed to add some darker
tints to the picture of our discomfiture, and to bring out in more
prominent colours the triumphant success of the Afghans. Sale and
Macgregor were writing from Jellalabad to urge the immediate advance
of the brigade; and General Avitabile was endeavouring, on the other
hand, to persuade the Brigadier that it would be dangerous to enter
the pass with the force which he then commanded.[15] The co-operation
of the Sikh soldiery, in spite of Avitabile’s exertions, seemed every
day to become a fainter probability. They peremptorily refused at one
time to proceed to Jumrood, from which point it was intended that the
operations should commence, and declared that they would return to
Lahore. Then threatening to kill Avitabile himself if he interfered
with them, they intercepted one of the guns which were moving forward
for our use, and carried it back to their lines. It was obvious,
indeed, that they desired our discomfiture more than our success; and,
in spite of the declared wishes of their Sovereign, whose sincerity at
this time is not to be questioned,[16] and the efforts of the local
governor, did everything that they could do, to render the latter the
more probable contingency of the two. The negotiations with the Afreedi
chiefs were not going on prosperously, and there was every prospect of
heavy opposition in the pass. Under such circumstances, Brigadier Wild
could only write that he was prepared to move forward whenever it was
expedient to do so, but that he could not answer for the consequences
of a precipitate advance.
It was not, however, permitted him to remain long in doubt and
inactivity. The fortress of Ali-Musjid lies some five miles within the
entrance of the Khybur Pass, and about twenty-five from Peshawur. It
consists of two small forts, connected by a wall of little strength,
and stands upon the summit of an isolated oblong rock, commanded on
the southern and western sides by two lofty hills. It has always
been regarded as the key to the Khybur Pass; and now that it was
lying between the two positions of Sale and Wild, it was of immense
importance that it should be held by British troops or their allies.
It had recently been garrisoned by a small detachment of a local
corps, composed of men of the Eusofzye tribe—some of whom, under
Mr. Mackeson,[17] had been true to their employers, and gallantly
commanded, had gallantly resisted the attacks of the Afreedi clan. But
there was now every chance of its falling into the hands of the enemy.
Nothing appeared to be of so much primary importance as the occupation
of this post. It was resolved, therefore, that one-half of the brigade
should be pushed forward, in the first instance to seize and garrison
Ali-Musjid.
Accordingly, on the 15th of January, Colonel Moseley with the 53rd and
64th Sepoy regiments, prepared to commence the march to Ali-Musjid.
They started under cover of the night, and reached their destination
soon after daybreak. They met with little opposition on the way;
but soon after their arrival under the rock of Ali-Musjid, Captain
Mackeson, who had accompanied the force, discovered to his dismay
that, instead of 350 supply-bullocks, for the advance of which he had
made suitable arrangements, only fifty or sixty now were straggling
in with the rear-guard. The remainder, by some mismanagement or
miscomprehension of orders, had been left behind. Thus had the two
regiments which, had the cattle come on to Ali-Musjid, might have held
that place in security for a month, shut themselves up in an isolated
fortress without provisions; and the plans which had been so anxiously
debated by our political officers at Peshawur, utterly frustrated by an
oversight of the most disastrous character, of which it is difficult to
determine on whom we are to fix the blame.[18]
The only hope of extrication from this dilemma, without disaster and
discredit, lay in the advance of the two other regiments, with the Sikh
guns and the Sikh auxiliaries. But day after day passed, and Mackeson
and Moseley gained no certain intelligence of the movements of their
comrades. They were more than once under arms to support the coming
reinforcements; but the reinforcements never appeared in sight. Wild,
with the two regiments, had made an effort to throw supplies into
Ali-Musjid, but had been disastrously beaten in the attempt.
Wild was to have moved forward with the Sikh auxiliaries on the morning
of the 19th of January, but on the preceding evening, at eleven
o’clock, the Sikh troops mutinied to a man, and refused to enter the
pass. They were at this time with the British at Jumrood. But when Wild
prepared to advance, they turned their faces in an opposite direction,
and marched back upon Peshawur.[19] General Avitabile sent orders to
his officers to close the city gates against the mutinous regiments;
and then shut himself up in the fort.
At seven o’clock, the 30th and 60th regiments with the Sikh guns
commenced their march to Ali-Musjid. The enemy appeared at the entrance
of the pass and met the advancing column with a fire from their
jezails. The Sepoys at the head of the column wavered, stood still,
crowded upon each other, fired anywhere, aimless and without effect.
The officers moved forward, but the regiments did not follow them. In
vain the Brigadier and his staff called upon them to advance; they only
huddled together in confusion and dismay. The Sikh guns, when brought
into action, broke down one after the other; and the Sepoys lost all
heart. Lawrence exerted himself manfully to save the guns; but he could
not induce the men to make an effort to carry them off; and one of the
heavy pieces was finally abandoned.[20] There was nothing to be done
after this but to fall back. The Brigadier himself was wounded in the
face; several of our officers were injured; one killed. The loss among
the Sepoys was severe. It was plain that they would not advance; so the
column fell back on Jumrood, and Ali-Musjid was not relieved.
How this disaster happened it is not easy to explain. Exaggerated
native reports of the immense hordes of Khyburees, who were assembling
in the pass, had been in circulation; and the regiments seem to have
commenced their march, anticipating such formidable opposition as they
were never doomed to encounter. The ominous intelligence from Caubul
had alarmed them. The lies spread abroad by the Sikhs had probably
alarmed them still more. The opposition was not strenuous.[21] Had the
regiments been in good heart, they would not have been beaten back.
But there was anything but a strong forward feeling among them when
they commenced their march. The defection of the Sikhs had damped their
ardour, and the breaking down of the guns now seemed to complete what
the misconduct of our allies had commenced. The first attacks of the
enemy threw the Sepoys at the head of the column into confusion; and
all hope of success was at an end before a battle had been fought.
The two regiments that occupied Ali-Musjid might have held that post
for any length of time against the Khyburees. But they had a lamentable
scarcity of provisions. The water, too, seemed to poison them. The
troops were put upon half-rations, but, in spite of this, in a few days
the supplies were nearly exhausted. Without bedding and without tents,
kept ever on the alert, under a severe climate, and under depressing
influences, the health and spirits of the Sepoys were giving way. They
were crowding into hospital. There seemed to be no prospect of relief;
so, on the 23rd of January, Colonel Moseley determined to evacuate the
fortress of Ali-Musjid, and to cut his way back to Jumrood.
To Mackeson, who saw clearly the political evils that must result
from the surrender of so important a position, this was a heavy
blow. Anything seemed better than the total abandonment of such a
post. A small party of resolute men might hold it; for a small party
might be fed. There were at least two men in the garrison eager for
the proud distinction of holding, in an imminent conjuncture, a
dangerous isolated post against a multitudinous enemy. Captain Burt,
of the 64th Native Infantry, volunteered to remain with a party of
regular troops; but the Sepoys would not volunteer. Captain Thomas,
of the same corps—the staff officer of the detachment—a man of
a bold and fearless nature, and of large acquirements—stepped
forward and volunteered to hold the fortress with 150 men of the old
Eusofzye garrison. The offer was accepted; arrangements were made
for the defence; but the fidelity of the Eusofzyes, which had been
long failing, now broke down altogether. They refused to occupy the
dangerous post after the departure of the Sepoy regiments; and so, on
the 24th, the entire force moved out of Ali-Musjid, and suffered it to
fall into the hands of the Afreedis.
“The regiments are safe through—thank God!” was the emphatic
announcement which Captain Lawrence, on the 24th of January, forwarded
by express to Mr. George Clerk. It had been a time of intense and
painful excitement. The communications between the two detachments
were cut off, and anxious as they were to act in concert with each
other, they had, up to the evening of the 22nd, failed to ascertain the
intentions of each other, and to effect a combined movement.[22] On
the 23rd, the two regiments which Wild had commanded, now, owing to
the Brigadier’s wound, under the charge of Colonel Tulloch, with the
two serviceable Sikh guns, went forward to line the pass, and cover
the march of Moseley’s regiments; but no sound of an advancing column
was heard, and about mid-day they returned to camp. On the following
morning they moved out again. Moseley had quitted Ali-Musjid, and was
making the best of his way to Jumrood. The Khyburees mustered strong;
but the Sepoy corps in both detachments did their duty well and the
regiments made good their passage. Captain Wilson, of the 64th, was
killed at the head of his men; and Captain Lock, of the 60th, fell
also with his sword in his hand. There was some loss of baggage on the
retreat—some of the sick and wounded were abandoned; and the general
conduct of the affair is not to be dwelt upon with pride or pleasure.
But when the four regiments were once more assembled together at
Jumrood, in spite of the disasters of the week, a general feeling of
relief was experienced; and our officers congratulated one another,
thankful that it was “no worse.”
Nothing was to be done now but to wait patiently for the arrival of
General Pollock and the reinforcements which were marching up through
the Punjaub. It was obvious that, without cavalry and without guns,
every effort to relieve Jellalabad must be a disastrous failure. The
want of guns was now severely commented upon. Everybody had something
to say about the remissness of those in high places, who had suffered
the advanced brigade sent for the relief of our beleaguered troops
to appear at the mouth of the Khybur Pass without a single piece of
British artillery. Brigadier Wild lamented the want of artillery:
Colonel Moseley lamented the want of artillery: Captain Mackeson
lamented the want of artillery. All were certain that the first effort
at retrieval would not have been a new calamity and a new disgrace,
if a proper complement of British guns had been sent on with the
Sepoy regiments. The omission was a great one, but it appears to have
been more the result of circumstances than of any culpable negligence
on the part of the military authorities. The four Sepoy regiments,
forming Wild’s brigade, were sent forward by Mr. George Clerk, on a
requisition from Captain Mackeson. Mackeson wrote for the immediate
despatch of the troops which, before the outbreak at Caubul, had
been warned for the ordinary relief. The regiments under orders for
Afghanistan were therefore hurried forward, and another regiment,
which was on the frontier, ordered to march with them. Expedition
rather than efficiency was then sought; and to have got artillery ready
for service would have delayed the despatch of the infantry corps.
Captain Lawrence, himself an artillery officer, saw the expediency
of despatching artillery to Peshawur, and did not omit to throw out
suggestions regarding the preparation of this important arm; but Mr.
George Clerk, who was Captain Lawrence’s official chief, and subject
only to whose confirmation that officer had any authority to call
for the despatch of troops, did not follow up the intimation of his
subordinate. “Your Excellency will have observed,” wrote Mr. Clerk to
the Commander-in-Chief,[23] “that I have limited the requisitions,
which I have presumed to make upon the commanding officers of
Loodhianah and Ferozepore, to the three infantry regiments which were
already preparing to march to Afghanistan. I consider that this is
what Captain Mackeson means in his urgent request for the despatch of
the brigade warned for the Caubul relief. I therefore have not followed
up the intimation made by Captain Lawrence to the commanding officer
at Ferozepore regarding artillery and cavalry, by requesting that a
detachment of either should move forward.”[24]
It appears, therefore, that Captain Mackeson, at Peshawur, limited
his requisitions to the troops actually under orders to proceed, in
ordinary routine, to Afghanistan—that Captain Lawrence, at Ferozepore,
suggested the expediency of sending forward some guns, if they could be
got ready; and that Mr. Clerk, at Loodhianah, declined to endorse the
suggestion, and left it to the Commander-in-Chief to decide whether any
artillery should be sent forward with the Sepoy regiments.
But the power of decision was not in the hands of the
Commander-in-Chief. The odium of having sent forward four Native
infantry regiments, without cavalry and without guns, has been cast
upon Sir Jasper Nicolls. But the truth is, that the regiments had
crossed the Sutlej before he knew that they had been ordered forward.
He was moving upwards towards the frontier when intelligence of the
outbreak in Afghanistan, and the consequent measures of Mr. Clerk, met
him as he advanced. On the 18th and 20th of November the two first
regiments crossed the Sutlej; and the Commander-in-Chief received the
notification of the demand for these regiments not before the 22nd. On
the 26th of November the two other regiments crossed the Sutlej; and
the Commander-in-Chief did not receive intelligence of their despatch
before the third of December.
Thus far it is plain that no discredit attaches to the
Commander-in-Chief, or to any other authority, for not having sent
forward any guns _with_ Wild’s brigade. But the question yet remains
to be asked why guns were not sent _after_ it. Though Mr. Clerk, in
the first instance, anxious not to delay the advance of the infantry
regiments, made no requisition for artillery, he directed General
Boyd’s attention to the subject soon after the despatch of those corps,
and suggested that one of Wild’s regiments should halt on the other
side of the Sutlej, whilst the guns were proceeding to join it.[25] As
there was no available artillery at Ferozepore, it was proposed that
Captain Alexander’s troop of Horse Artillery should move at once from
Loodhianah to the former station on its way across the frontier; but
on hearing that the Commander-in-Chief had ordered some details of a
foot artillery battery to be warned for service, Mr. Clerk withdrew
his requisition for the movement of the troop beyond the frontier,
but still suggested that it should be pushed on to Ferozepore. This
was on the 2nd of December.[26] On the 4th, having heard that some
delay must attend the despatch of the details warned by orders of the
Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Clerk wrote a letter to Captain Alexander,
requesting him, as the means of more rapid movement were at his
command, to push on across the Sutlej with all possible expedition.[27]
But a few days afterwards he received a letter from Sir Jasper Nicolls,
prohibiting the despatch of the Horse Artillery; and he accordingly
apprised Captain Alexander that the request made to him on the 4th
of December for the advance of the troop was withdrawn.[28] And so,
instead of a troop of Horse Artillery being sent to overtake Wild’s
brigade, which reached Peshawur at the end of December, half of a foot
artillery battery was warned to proceed with M’Caskill’s brigade, which
did not arrive before the beginning of February. But in the interval,
Wild had been disastrously beaten in the Khybur Pass, and Ali-Musjid
had fallen into the hands of the Afreedis.
Whatever may have been the causes of this first failure, and to
whomsoever its responsibility may attach, it is certain that its
results were of a very dispiriting and deteriorating character.[29]
The regiments remained inactive in the vicinity of Peshawur; and the
usual consequences of inactivity under such circumstances were soon
painfully apparent in the camp of Brigadier Wild. The Sepoys fell sick;
crowded into hospital; seemed to have lost all heart, and, without any
of the audacity of open mutiny, broke out into language only a little
way removed from it. Exposed to the alarming hints and the alluring
temptations of the mutinous Sikh soldiery, some began to desert their
colours, whilst others openly declared that nothing would induce them
again to face the horrors of the Khybur Pass. As General Pollock
advanced through the Punjaub, the worst reports continued to meet him
from Peshawur. Not only was he informed that the Sepoys of Wild’s
brigade were enfeebled by disease and paralysed by terror; but that
even the officers of the force were using, in an unguarded and unworthy
manner, the language of disheartenment and alarm.[30]
On the 5th of February, General Pollock reached Peshawur; and found
that the stories, which had met him on the road, had by no means
exaggerated the condition of the troops under Brigadier Wild. There
were then 1000 men in hospital; and the number was alarmingly
increasing. In a few days it had increased to 1800; so even with the
new brigade, which marched in a day or two after the General’s arrival,
he had, exclusive of cavalry, scarcely more troops fit for service than
Wild had commanded a month before.
An immediate advance on Jellalabad was not, under such circumstances,
to be contemplated for a moment. General Pollock had much to do, before
he could think of forcing the Khybur Pass and relieving Jellalabad.
The duties of a General are not limited to operations in the field.
When Pollock reached Peshawur he found that the least difficult part
of the labour before him was the subjugation of the Afreedi tribes.
“Any precipitancy,” wrote the Commander-in-Chief some time afterwards,
“on the part of a general officer panting for fame might have had the
worst effect.”[31] To have advanced on Jellalabad in that month of
February would have been to precipitate a strangling failure. Instead
of flinging himself headlong into the pass, Pollock made his way to
the hospitals. On the day after his arrival he visited the sick of
the different regiments, inquired into their wants, conversed with
their medical attendants, endeavoured to ascertain the causes of the
prevalent sickness, and encouraged by every means at his command, by
animating words and assuring promises, the dispirited and desponding
invalids.
Nor was there less to do out of the hospitals. The _morale_ of the
troops was in the lowest possible state. It seemed, indeed, as though
all their soldierly qualities were at the last gasp. The disaffection
of the Sepoys broke out openly, and four out of the five regiments
refused to advance. Nightly meetings of delegates from the different
regiments of Wild’s brigade were held in camp; and the 26th Regiment
of Native Infantry, which had come up with M’Caskill’s brigade, was
soon invited to join the confederacy. In less than forty-eight hours
after the arrival of that corps, active emissaries from the disaffected
regiments were busy among the men, not only working upon their fears,
but appealing to their religious feelings.[32] The taint seems to
have reached even to some of the officers of Wild’s brigade, who
did not hesitate openly to express at the mess-table the strongest
opinions against a second attempt to force the Khybur, and to declare
their belief that very few would ever return to Peshawur. One officer
publicly asserted that it would be better to sacrifice Sale’s brigade
than to risk the loss of 12,000 men on the march to Jellalabad; and
another said that, if an advance were ordered, he would do his best to
dissuade every Sepoy of his corps from again entering the pass.[33]
To instil new courage and confidence into the waverers was no easy
task; but coolly and sagaciously, as one who understood the cause
of their disheartenment, and could make some allowances for their
misconduct, Pollock addressed himself to the work of re-animating and
re-assuring them. He made them feel that they had been placed under
the care of one who was mindful of their welfare and jealous of their
honour—one who overlooked nothing that contributed to the health
and comfort of his men, and who would never call upon them to make
sacrifices to which he would not cheerfully submit himself. There was,
in all that he did, such an union of kindness and firmness; he was
so mild, so considerate, and yet so decided, that the Sepoys came in
time to regard him with that child-like faith which, under prosperous
circumstances, is one of their most noticeable characteristics; and
when the hour of trial came they were not found wanting.
All through the months of February and March, Pollock and his
regiments remained inactive in the neighbourhood of Peshawur.
Mortifying as it was to the General to be compelled to halt so long at
the entrance of the Khybur Pass, no other course was open to him, at
the time, that did not threaten renewed disaster. Pollock’s position
was, doubtless, painful, but it was not perplexing. His duty in this
conjuncture was plain. The eyes of all India were turned upon him. The
safety of the gallant garrison of Jellalabad was to be secured by his
advance. Sale and Macgregor were writing urgent letters, calling upon
him to push on without delay; but it was still his duty to halt. The
Sepoys were gradually recovering both their health and their spirits.
But reinforcements were coming across the Punjab, with British dragoons
and horse artillery among them; and nothing did more to animate and
re-assure those who had been discouraged by previous failure, than the
knowledge that when they again advanced they would be supported by
fresh troops, strong in every branch, and numbering among them a good
proportion of stout European soldiers. Had the advance been ordered
before the arrival of these reinforcements, it is at least a probable
contingency that some of the native regiments would have stood fast,
and, by open mutiny almost in the face of the enemy, have heaped up
before us a mountain of difficulty, such as no prudence and no energy
on the part of a commander could ever suffice to overcome.
Still it required much firmness to resist the pressing appeals made
to Pollock by his comrades at the other end of the Khybur Pass. He
had not been many days at Peshawur before he received a communication
from General Sale, setting forth the exigencies of the Jellalabad
garrison, and urging him to advance to their relief. The letter was
written partly in English and partly in French, as was much of the
correspondence of the time, with the view of rendering the work
of translation more difficult. But Sale so often blurted out, in
one sentence of plain English, what he had wrapped up in another of
indifferent French, that his efforts at disguise could hardly have been
successful.[34] He was too old a soldier to be very clever in such
devices, and he had been too long fighting the battles of his country
in India to write very unexceptionable French.
CHAPTER III.
THE DEFENCE OF JELLALABAD.
January-March: 1842.
Situation of the Garrison—Letters from Shah Soojah—Question of
Capitulation—Councils of War—Final Resolution—Earthquake at
Jellalabad—Renewal of the Works—Succours expected.
With heavy hearts did the officers of the Jellalabad garrison perform
the melancholy duties, which devolved upon them, after the arrival of
Dr. Brydon. Horsemen were sent out to explore the surrounding country,
and to bring in, if any could be found, the bodies of the dead. Hopes,
too, were entertained, that some survivors of the terrible retreat
might still be concealed in the neighbourhood, or lying wounded by the
wayside, unable to struggle on towards the sheltering walls of the
fortress. Every effort therefore was made, and every precaution taken,
to indicate to the sufferers that succour was at hand, and to aid them,
in their extremity, to reach it. The stillness of the night was broken
by the loud blasts of the bugle, proclaiming from the ramparts, to any
stragglers that might be toiling through the darkness, the vicinity of
the British camp.
But profitless were all these efforts. The few who had escaped the
massacre in the passes were captives in the hands of the Afghans; and
the Jellalabad officers now asked one another whether the fate of the
prisoner were less to be deplored than the fate of the dead. It was
hard to believe that they who had butchered thousands of their enemies
like sheep, in the passes, would treat with kindness and respect the
few who had fallen into their hands. The only hope was, that Afghan
avarice might be stronger than Afghan revenge, and that the prisoners
might be preserved, like merchandise, and sold for British gold.
They sorrowed for their unhappy countrymen; but there was ever present
with them the best remedy for sorrow. They had abundance of work to do.
In the midst of their grief for the destruction of the Caubul army,
it was necessary to consider in what manner that great catastrophe
affected themselves. They reasoned that, perhaps, for some days, the
Afghans would be gorging themselves with plunder; dividing the spoil;
and burying the corpses of their countrymen; but that, this done, large
bodies of troops would be released, and that Akbar Khan might soon
be expected to come down upon Jellalabad, with an overwhelming force
flushed with victory, and eager to consign them to the terrible fate
which had overtaken the British army posted at the capital. It was soon
said, that the Sirdar was organising an army, at Lughman, some thirty
miles distant from Jellalabad. It was necessary, therefore, to prepare
for his reception.
To such good purpose had Broadfoot worked, that the defences of
Jellalabad were now fast becoming formidable realities; and the
officers said among themselves and wrote to distant friends, that
nothing but a failure of provisions, or ammunition, could give the
Sirdar a chance of carrying the place. Our fighting men, however, were
too few to man the works with good effect. Sale, therefore, embodied
the camp-followers; and thus enabled himself to employ his effective
troops beyond the walls. Day after day, foraging parties were sent
out with good results. Our great requirements were wood and grass. It
was expedient to obtain these as expeditiously as possible, for the
place might soon be invested; and then the garrison would be thrown
back entirely on its internal supplies. About the same time, all
the Afghans in Jellalabad, including 200 men of Ferris’s Jezailchee
regiment, were ordered to quit the walls, in the belief that in an
extremity they would certainly turn against us.
Then news came of Wild’s failure. To the younger and bolder spirits in
Sale’s brigade, this was scarcely a disappointment. They had expected
little from Wild’s advance. They believed, however, that the disaster
would necessarily retard Pollock’s forward movement; and in this there
was something discouraging. But they said among themselves that they
could hold out till May, that it was then only January, and that it was
hard, indeed, if Pollock could not relieve them within the next three
months.
But whilst everything appeared thus plain to the younger and the
irresponsible officers of the Jellalabad force, difficulties were
rising up before the eyes, and doubts were assailing the minds of the
responsible chiefs. Already had they begun to question, whether the
Government at Calcutta had any intention to make a genuine effort, on
a sufficient scale, to relieve them. All that they had heard of the
views and measures of Lord Auckland led them to the painful conclusion
that they would be left to their fate; at all events, until the arrival
of his successor. In the meanwhile, not only was Akbar Khan collecting
an army in Lughman, but Shah Soojah himself, acting perhaps under
compulsion—perhaps not—was preparing to despatch troops both to
Ghuznee and Jellalabad for the expulsion of the Feringhee garrisons.
From the Shah nothing was to be expected beyond, at best, a little
friendly delay. On the 21st of January, Macgregor received a letter
from him. It contained much about the past; it alleged that if the
Shah’s advice had not been disregarded, all would have gone well;
that he alone could now hold the country, and that he wanted nothing
from us but money.[35] This was a long, private letter—somewhat
incoherent—the work of the King himself. But another also came from
the King, as from the head of the government, asking the English at
Jellalabad what were their intentions. “Your people,” it said, in
effect, “have concluded a treaty with us, consenting to leave the
country. You are still in Jellalabad. What are your intentions? Tell us
quickly.” What now was to be done?
The crisis was a perilous one; the responsibility was great. Sale and
Macgregor were sorely perplexed. It was plain that by continuing to
occupy Jellalabad, they could do nothing to support their comrades in
Afghanistan; for the Caubul army had been destroyed, and the Candahar
and Ghuznee garrisons would fall back, if at all, on Scinde. They were
not bound to support Shah Soojah, for the Shah himself declared that he
wanted nothing but our money, and was evidently compromised with his
own countrymen by our continued occupation of Jellalabad. The safety of
the prisoners appeared more likely to be secured by our departure from
Afghanistan than by our continuing in a hostile attitude in one of the
chief places of the kingdom. And it was at least doubtful whether the
policy of the Government at Calcutta would not be aided rather than
embarrassed by the withdrawal of the garrison to Peshawur.
All these considerations weighing heavily on his mind, Sale determined
to summon a Council of War. On the 26th of January, the Council met
at the General’s quarters. It was composed of the commanding-officers
of the different components of his varied force.[36] The political
officer, Macgregor, was also a member of the Council. On him devolved
the duty of explaining the circumstances which had induced the general
to call them together. All the letters and documents bearing upon the
great question were read and laid upon the table. Macgregor, acting
as spokesman, declared that it was his opinion, and that also of the
General, that little was to be hoped from the efforts of Government to
relieve them. It was obvious that they must trust to themselves. Shah
Soojah appeared to desire their departure; he had virtually, indeed,
directed it. Were the members of the Council, he asked, of like opinion
with himself and Sale, that it was now their duty to treat with the
Shah for the evacuation of the country?
Then Macgregor read to the Council the terms of the proposed letter to
the King. It set forth that his Majesty’s letter had been received;
that the British held Jellalabad and the country only for the King, and
that as it was his desire that they should return to India, of course
they were willing to do so. But that after what had happened, it was
necessary that the manner and the conditions of their withdrawal should
be clearly understood. The terms upon which the garrison of Jellalabad
would consent to evacuate the country were these: that they would give
four hostages in proof of their sincerity; that the King should send a
force to escort them in honour and safety to Jellalabad—that is, with
their arms, colours, guns, &c.; that the escort should be commanded by
one of the Prince’s own sons; and that carriage and supplies should be
furnished for our march; that Mahomed Akbar and his force were to be
withdrawn from Lughman before the British quitted Jellalabad; and that
hostages should be given by the Afghans to accompany the British force
as far as Peshawur, and there to be exchanged for our own hostages and
prisoners; these hostages to be a son of the Newab Zemaun Khan—a son
of Ameen-oollah Khan—Sooltan Jan, said to be a favourite cousin of
Mahomed Akbar—with some Shinwarree and Khyburee chiefs.
Great now was the excitement in the Council; earnest the discourse. Men
lifted up their voices together, in vehement debate, eager to speak,
little caring to listen. Arguments were enunciated with such warmth
of language, that they lost all their argumentative force. It was
apparent, however, that the feelings of the majority of the Council
were in favour of withdrawal. There was a prevailing sense amongst them
that they had been abandoned by the Government at Calcutta; that there
was no intention to maintain the supremacy of our arms in Afghanistan;
that Shah Soojah did not wish them to remain there; and that, if
they could make their own way to Peshawur, they would best fulfil
the desires of their masters, and that their first care should be to
further the views of the Government which they served. And yet their
indignation ran high against that Government, which had abandoned them
in the hour of their need.
But against all this there was one officer who steadfastly set his
face; who had viewed with horror and detestation the proposal to
capitulate, and flung the paper of terms indignantly on the ground.
This was George Broadfoot, of the Sappers. Eagerly he lifted up his
voice against the proposal; eagerly he declared it to be impossible
that the Government should leave them to their fate, and do nothing
to restore our lost national reputation in Afghanistan; eagerly
he set forth to his comrades that a new Governor-General was
coming, doubtless with new counsels, from England; that the Duke of
Wellington was in power at home, and that so inglorious a policy
could never ultimately prevail. But he lacked, in that conjuncture,
the self-restraint, the moderation of language, and the calmness of
utterance which might have secured for him respectful attention.
They said that he was violent, and he was. Even his best friends
said afterwards, that his warmth was unbecoming, and, doubtless, it
weakened his cause. It was soon apparent to him that in the existing
temper of the council, he could do nothing to change their resolves. He
determined, therefore, to endeavour to delay the final resolution, and,
with this object proposed an adjournment of the Council. The proposal
was carried; the Council was dissolved, and the members went to their
quarters or to their posts, to talk, or brood over what had happened,
and to fortify themselves with new arguments in support of the opinions
which they had determined to maintain.
The Council met again on the following day. There was much and earnest
discussion; but it was painfully obvious that the majority were in
favour of capitulation, and that at the head of the majority were the
military and political chiefs. The proposed terms were again brought
under review, and again George Broadfoot lifted up his voice against
them. He was told by his opponents in the Council that the warmth of
his feelings had obscured his judgment; but, resolute not to weaken
his advocacy of so great a cause by any frailty of his own, he had
submitted his views to writing, and had invited the sober criticism
of his calmer friend Henry Havelock.[37] With this paper in his hand,
holding his eager temperament in restraint, he now did resolute battle
against the proposal for surrender. First, he took the votes of the
Council on the general question of the propriety of any negociation;
and then, one by one, he combated the separate terms of the proposed
treaty of surrender. But, two only excepted, his comrades were all
against him. Backhouse, a man of fiery courage and of plain discourse,
though recognising the force of much of Macgregor’s reasoning, voted
against withdrawal. Oldfield said little, but that little, with his
vote, was against capitulation. Havelock, who attended only as the
General’s staff, was without a vote; but his heart was with those who
voted for the manlier and the nobler course.
The chief spokesmen were, George Macgregor on the one side, and
George Broadfoot on the other. The former, enunciating the views of
his military chief, contended that the Jellalabad garrison had been
abandoned by the Government; that after Wild’s failure, no movement
for their release was likely to be made; that there was no possibility
that their little force could hold its own much longer, and that it
could not retreat except under terms with the victorious enemy. He
believed that the terms, of which he had spoken, would be strictly
observed. Macnaghten and Pottinger had failed to take hostages from the
Afghans, and therefore our army had been destroyed; but hostages being
given, it was urged, the treaty would never be violated, and on the
arrival of the force at Peshawur, our prisoners would be surrendered.
Moreover, as Macgregor had contended from the first, the British troops
held Jellalabad, and every other post in the Afghan dominions, only on
behalf of Shah Soojah; and if the Shah directed our withdrawal, we had
no right, it was said, to remain, especially when our own Government
apparently desired the speedy evacuation of the country.
But this Broadfoot denied. He denied that the British troops held
Jellalabad only on behalf of Shah Soojah; he denied that the British
Government—under whose orders alone, he contended, the force could
with propriety be withdrawn from Jellalabad—had directed, or were
likely to direct, the immediate evacuation of Afghanistan. He denied
that the brigade could not hold out in Jellalabad; he denied that
it could not make good its retreat to Peshawur. He declared that
hostages had been given before, at Tezeen—that still our camp had been
attacked;[38] and that, so long as the enemy held our hostages and
prisoners in their hands, there was really little additional security
in such a resource. Sale said that he would execute an Afghan hostage
if the terms of the treaty were violated. “Would you do this,” asked
Broadfoot, “if the enemy threatened to kill, before our faces, two
English ladies for every man that we put to death?” It was urged,
by another officer, that if the British troops did not evacuate
Jellalabad, our hostages at Caubul would be murdered. “Then,” contended
Broadfoot, “in such a warfare, the most barbarous must be most
successful. Whoever is prepared to execute his hostages and prisoners
must gain his object, and triumph by the mere force of his barbarity.”
And thus, point after point, Broadfoot combated the arguments of
those who supported the policy of capitulation; and at last took his
stand boldly upon “first principles.” When it was said that a body of
troops, thus abandoned by Government, were entitled to look to their
own safety, he replied, that they had a right to save the troops only
when, by so doing, they would confer a greater benefit on the state
than by risking their loss. And when mention was made of the views of
the Governor-General, the chief officer of the state, he declared that
there was a higher duty still which they were bound to discharge. If,
as had been contended, the Government of India had abandoned them,
the covenant between them was cancelled by the failure of the higher
authority. But they had a duty to perform towards their country—a
duty which they could never decline. And it was plainly their duty, in
the conjuncture which had arisen, to uphold the honour of the nation.
In these views Havelock openly concurred; though, for reasons already
stated, he took little part in the debates.
The terms of the proposed capitulation were carried, with but one
exception. It was determined that hostages should not be given.
Macgregor volunteered himself to be one; and both he and Sale contended
vehemently in support of the proposal; but the voice of the assembly
was against it. Its rejection detracted little from the humiliation of
the surrender; and Broadfoot stood forward in the hope of persuading
his comrades to reconsider the remaining terms. He dwelt especially on
the discredit of demanding the withdrawal of Akbar Khan from Lughman,
as though they stood in fear of the Sirdar; he urged upon them the
expediency of requiring the surrender of all the British prisoners
in the hands of the Afghans, as a preliminary to the evacuation of
Jellalabad; and he implored them to consider whether, if they were
determined to abandon their position, they could not give some dignity
to the movement, by imparting to it the character of a military
operation, deceiving the enemy as to real intention, and fighting,
if need be, their way down to Peshawur. All these proposals were
overruled. At a later date, the last received some support from men who
had before condemned it.
And so, slightly altered in its phraseology—which Broadfoot had
denounced as too abject—the letter was carried through the Council
and prepared for transmission to the Shah. After the votes had been
given, Broadfoot sarcastically congratulated them on the figure that
they would make if the relieving force arrived just as the brigade
was marching out of Jellalabad, under the terms of a humiliating
convention. In such a case, Dennie, who had not the clearest possible
perception of the obligations of good faith in such matters, declared
that he would not go. Upon which he was told that he would be “made
to go;” and the Council broke up amidst greater hilarity than had
inaugurated its assemblage.
The letter was despatched to Shah Soojah, and, amidst varied and
contending emotions, the members of the Council awaited a reply. In the
meanwhile some of them recorded their reasons for the votes they had
given; and all earnestly considered the course to be pursued when the
expected answer should be received from Caubul. There could be little
difference of opinion upon this score. It was determined that, if the
answer received from the Shah should be a simple and unconditional
acceptance of the proposed terms, the garrison must at once evacuate
Jellalabad, and, if faith were broken by the enemy, fight its way to
Peshawur; but that, if the answer should be evasive or clogged with
reservations and conditions, they would be at liberty to adopt any
course that might seem most expedient to them.
The answer came. It called upon the chief officers at Jellalabad,
if they were sincere in their proposals, to affix their seals to
the letter. A Council of war was held. Sale and Macgregor urged the
members to put their seals to a copy of the original paper of terms.
Broadfoot, pleading that the nature of the Shah’s letter, expressing a
doubt, as it did, of their sincerity, liberated them from all foregone
obligations, proposed that the whole question of capitulation should
be reconsidered. He then offered to the acceptance of the Council
the draft of a letter, stating that as the Shah and his chiefs had
not answered their former communication—either by accepting or
rejecting the proposed terms—that they should be referred to the
Governor-General. There was much warm discussion. The proposed letter
was pronounced violent, and eventually rejected. Another letter to the
same effect, but more temperate in its tone, was proposed by Backhouse,
and also rejected. Sale denounced, in strong language, the opposition
of these men; some still more vehement discussion followed, and the
council was adjourned.
An hour afterwards the members re-assembled, they who had felt and
spoken hotly had cooled down; and the debate was resumed more gravely
and decorously than it had broken off. Colonel Dennie and Captain
Abbott had, by this time, determined to support the proposal for
holding out, and Colonel Monteith, who had before recorded his opinions
in favour of the course recommended by Major Macgregor, now prepared
a letter, which, though couched in much less decided terms than
those proposed by Broadfoot and Backhouse, was not a renewal of the
negotiation. After some discussion this was accepted by the council,
and a messenger was despatched to Caubul with the important missive.
It left them free to act as they should think fit;—most happily it
left them free, for the next day brought tidings from Peshawur that
large reinforcements were moving up through the Punjab, and that
strenuous efforts were to be made for their relief. It was clear that
the government had not abandoned them to their fate. It was now equally
clear to all, that it was their duty to hold out to the last hour.
There was no more talk of withdrawal.[39]
This was on the 13th of February. The garrison were in good heart,
and the fortifications of Jellalabad were rising rapidly around them.
In spite of all opposition at Caubul—in spite of the counsels of
Alexander Burnes, who heartily despised the enemy—in spite of a
sneering remark from the envoy, that the sappers would have nothing to
do but to pick a few stones from under the gun-wheels, Broadfoot had
insisted on taking with him a good supply of working tools, some of
which he had ordered to be made for him, by forced labour, in the city;
and had sent an urgent indent on the march for further supplies.[40]
It seemed, he said afterwards, “as though Providence had stiffened
his neck on this occasion;” for now at Jellalabad, he found himself
with implements of all kinds and with large supplies of blasting
powder, able alike to make and to destroy. And gallantly the good work
proceeded, in prospect, too, of an immediate attack, for Akbar Khan,
with the white English tents which proclaimed our disgrace, was within
a few miles of the walls which we were turning into formidable defences.
But a great calamity was now about to befall the Jellalabad garrison.
On the morning of the 19th of February the men were busied with
their accustomed labour. With their arms piled within reach, they
were plying axe and shovel, toiling with their wonted cheerfulness
and activity at the defences, which they had begun to look upon with
the satisfied air of men who had long seen their work growing under
their hands, and now recognised the near approach of its completion.
They had worked, indeed, to good purpose. Very different were the
fortifications of Jellalabad from what they had been when Sale entered
the place in November.[41] They were now real, not nominal defences.
The unremitting toil of nearly three months had not been without its
visible and appreciable results. It seemed, too, as though the work
were about to be completed just at the time when the defences were most
needed. Akbar Khan was in the neighbourhood of Jellalabad, and every
day Sale expected to be called upon to meet the flower of the Barukzye
horse on the plain. But on this 19th of February, when the garrison
were flushed with joy at the thought of the near completion of their
work, a fearful visitation of Providence, suddenly and astoundingly,
turned all their labour to very nothingness. There was an awful and
mysterious sound, as of thunder beneath their feet; then the earth
shook; the houses of the town trembled and fell; the ramparts of
the fort seemed to reel and totter, and presently came down with a
crash.[42] On the first sound of the threatened convulsion the men
had instinctively rushed to their arms, and the greater number had
escaped the coming ruin; but it is still among those recollections of
the defence which are dwelt upon by the “illustrious garrison” in the
liveliest spirit of jocularity, how the field-officer of the day—a
gallant and good soldier—but one who had more regard for external
proprieties than was generally appreciated in those days, was buried
beneath a heap of rubbish, and how he was extricated from his perilous
position by some men of the 13th, under circumstances which even now
they enjoy in their retrospect with a relish which years have not
impaired.[43]
But although the earthquake which threw down the walls of Jellalabad,
wrought in a minute more irreparable mischief than a bombarding army
could have done in a month, in nowise disheartened by this calamity,
the garrison again took the spade and the pick-axe into their hands,
and toiled to repair the mischief. “No time,” says Captain Broadfoot,
“was lost. The shocks had scarcely ceased when the whole garrison
was told off into working parties, and before night the breaches were
scarped, the rubbish below cleared away, and the ditches before them
dug out, whilst the great one on the Peshawur side was surrounded by
a good gabion parapet. A parapet was erected on the remains of the
north-west bastion, with an embrasure allowing the guns to flank the
approach of the ruined Caubul gate; the parapet of the new bastion was
restored, so as to give a flanking fire to the north-west bastion,
whilst the ruined gate was rendered inaccessible by a trench in front
of it, and in every bastion round the place a temporary parapet was
raised. From the following day all the troops off duty were continually
at work, and such was their energy and perseverance, that by the end of
the month the parapets were entirely restored, or the curtain filled in
where restoration was impracticable, and every battery re-established.
The breaches have been built up, with the rampart doubled in
thickness, and the whole of the gates retrenched.”—Such, indeed, was
the extraordinary vigour thrown into the work of restoration—such the
rapidity with which the re-establishment of the defences was completed,
that the enemy, seeing soon afterwards no traces of the great
earthquake-shock of the 19th of February, declared that the phenomenon
must have been the result of English witchcraft, for that Jellalabad
was the only place that had escaped.
If Akbar Khan, who at this time was within a few miles of Sale’s
position, knew the extent to which the defences of Jellalabad had been
weakened, he committed a strange oversight in not taking advantage of
such a casualty. The garrison felt assured that the Barukzyes would not
throw away such a chance; and they made up their minds resolutely for
the encounter. Intelligence had just been received of the publication
of the government manifesto of the 31st of January; and this spasmodic
burst of energy and indignation, welcomed as an indication of the
intention of the Supreme Government to wipe out at all hazards the
stains that had been fixed upon the national honour, fortified and
re-assured the heroes of Jellalabad, who had so long been grieving
over the apparent feebleness and apathy of the official magnates at
Calcutta.[44]
Sale published the proclamation in garrison orders; and the result did
not belie his expectation. Like the chiefs of the Jellalabad force, the
junior officers and men had felt, with acute mortification, the neglect
to which they had seemingly been subjected.[45] But now, that Lord
Auckland had declared that he regarded the disasters that had befallen
us merely as so many new opportunities of demonstrating the military
power of the British Empire in the East, the hearts of the brave men,
who had been so long defying the enemy that had destroyed Elphinstone’s
army, again began to leap up with hope and exultation; and as they saw
their defences rising again, almost as it were by supernatural agency,
before their eyes, they began rather to regret the caution of the
Barukzye chief, which seemed to restrain him from venturing under the
walls of Jellalabad.
There seems, indeed, to have been in the Afghan camp a strange
shrinking from anything like a hand-to-hand encounter with the intrepid
soldiers of Sale’s brigade. The reluctance of Akbar Khan to near the
walls of Jellalabad is a painful commentary upon the arrogance and
audacity of the Afghans, who a few weeks before had been bearding
Elphinstone and Shelton under the shadow of the Caubul cantonments.
Akbar Khan now seemed resolute to risk nothing by any dashing movement,
that might decide, at once, the fate of the Jellalabad garrison.
Instead of assaulting the place he blockaded it.
He seemed to trust to the efficacy of a close investment; and so
moved in his troops nearer and nearer to our walls, hoping to effect
that by starvation which he could not effect by hard fighting in the
field. And so, for some time, he continued, drawing in more and more
closely—harassing our foraging parties, and occasionally coming
into contact with the horsemen who were sent out to protect the
grass-cutters. Not, however, before the 11th of March was there any
skirmishing worthy of record. Then it was reported that the enemy were
about to mine the place. _Sungahs_ had been thrown up on the night of
the 10th, and the enemy were firing briskly from behind them. It was
plain that some mischief was brewing; so on the morning of the 11th,
Sale, keeping his artillery at the guns on the ramparts, sent out a
strong party of infantry and cavalry, with two hundred of Broadfoot’s
sappers. Dennie commanded the sortie. As they streamed out of the
Peshawur gate of the city, Akbar Khan seemed inclined to give them
battle. But ever as the enemy advanced the hot fire from our guns drove
them back. They could not advance upon our works, nor protect the
_sungahs_ which our skirmishers were rapidly destroying. It was soon
ascertained that the story of the mine was a mere fable; ammunition was
too scarce to be expended on any but necessary service; so there was
nothing more to be done. Dennie sounded the recall. The British troops
began to fall back upon their works; and then the enemy, emboldened by
the retrograde movement, fell upon our retiring column. No sooner had
our people halted and reformed, than the Afghans turned and fled, but
still they wrought us some mischief, for they wounded Broadfoot; and
those were days when an accident to the garrison engineer was, indeed,
a grievous calamity. Not a man, however, of Sale’s brigade was killed.
The carnage was all among the enemy.
The remainder of the month passed quietly away—but the anxieties of
the garrison were steadily increasing. Provisions had become scarce;
ammunition was scarce; fodder for the horses was not to be obtained.
It was obviously the design of the enemy to reduce the garrison by a
strict blockade. It would be difficult to exaggerate the eagerness
with which, under such circumstances, they looked for the arrival of
succours from Peshawur. Excellent as were Pollock’s reasons for not
proceeding to the relief of Jellalabad until his force was strengthened
by the arrival of the European regiments on their way to Peshawur, it
is easy to understand, and impossible to condemn, the eagerness with
which Sale and Macgregor continued to exhort him to advance for their
succour.[46]
Pollock had expected that the dragoons would reach Peshawur by the 20th
of March; but on the 27th they had not arrived; and the General wrote
to Jellalabad, explaining the causes of delay, but still hoping that
he would be able to commence his march on the last day of the month.
“There appears,” he wrote, “to be nothing but accidents to impede the
advance of the dragoons. They were five days crossing the Ravee. I have
sent out 300 camels to help them in; and I hope nothing will prevent my
moving on the 31st. God knows I am most anxious to move on, for I know
that delay will subject us to be exposed to very hot weather. But my
situation has been most embarrassing. Any attempt at a forward movement
in the early part of this month I do not think would have succeeded,
for at one time the Hindoos did not hesitate to say that they would
_not_ go forward. I hope the horror they had has somewhat subsided; but
without more white faces I question even now if they would go. Since
the 1st we have been doing all to recover a proper tone; but you may
suppose what my feelings have been, wishing to relieve you, and knowing
that my men would not go. However desirable it is that I should be
joined by the 31st Regiment, your late letters compel me to move, and
I hope, therefore, to be with you by about the 7th. I cannot say the
day exactly, because I want to take Ali-Musjid. When that is taken,
your situation may, perhaps, become better.”[47] The dragoons reached
Pollock’s camp on the 30th, and on the following day he began to move
forward.
CHAPTER IV.
[April, 1842.]
The Forcing of the Khybur Pass—State of the Sikh Troops—Mr.
Clerk at the Court of Lahore—Views of the Lahore Durbar—Efforts
of Shere Singh—Assemblage of the Army at Jumrood—Advance to
Ali-Musjid—Affairs at Jellalabad—Defeat of Akbar Khan—Junction of
Pollock and Sale.
Whatever embarrassments may have lain in the way of General Pollock
during these months of February and March, and compelled him, eager
as he was to advance to the relief of Jellalabad, to remain inactive
at Peshawur, it is certain that they were greatly increased by the
reluctance of our Sikh allies to face the passes of the Khybur. The
conduct of the Nujeeb battalions, which had mutinied on the very eve of
Wild’s movement into the pass, left no room to hope for any effectual
co-operation from that source. All the efforts of Captain Lawrence
to obtain any assistance from the Sikh troops at Peshawur, through
General Mehtab Singh,[48] had failed; and Lawrence was of opinion that
the General’s conduct, in admitting the Afreedis into his camp, had
established such a clear case of hostility, that he and his traitrous
followers ought to be dismissed with disgrace. But now that Rajah
Gholab Singh, accompanied by the Crown Prince of Lahore, was advancing
with his regiments to Peshawur, as those regiments were composed of
a different class of men, and the influence of the Rajah over these
hill-levies was great, it was hoped, that on his junction with General
Pollock’s camp, a new order of things would be established. But it
soon became painfully evident to the General that very little cordial
co-operation was to be looked for from the Jummoo Rajah and his troops.
When, early in February, Pollock, on his way back to Peshawur, reached
the Attock, he found the left bank of the river occupied by the Sikh
troops under Gholab Singh, whilst the Nujeeb battalions, which had
disgraced themselves a few weeks before, were posted on the opposite
side.[49] Captain Lawrence, who had left Peshawur to expedite the
Rajah’s movements, was then in the Sikh camp; and M’Caskill’s brigade
was a few marches in the rear. There appeared every likelihood,
therefore, of a collision that would impede the progress of the
British troops; but the exertions of Pollock and Lawrence were crowned
with success; and the Sikh force moved off before M’Caskill’s brigade
arrived on the banks of the river. On the 14th, Gholab Singh and the
Prince reached Peshawur. On the 20th, Pollock held a conference with
the Rajah—Lawrence and Mackeson being present—and a day or two
afterwards, forwarding an abstract of the conversation that had taken
place between them, wrote to the Supreme Government: “I confess that I
have no expectation of any assistance from the Sikh troops.”
On the conduct of Gholab Singh at this time, some suspicion has been
cast. It has been said that he not only instigated, through the agency
of an influential messenger, the Nujeeb battalions to rebel, but
carried on a friendly correspondence with our Afghan enemies at Caubul.
That there was no hearty co-operation, is true; but hearty co-operation
was not to be expected. Gholab Singh had other work on hand at that
time; and, whilst he was playing and losing a great game in Thibet,
it would have been strange, indeed, if he had thrown his heart into
the work which he was called upon to perform for others at the mouth
of the Khybur Pass. He had no confidence in his troops. He had no
inducement to exert himself.[50] The latter obstacle, it was thought,
might be removed; and Lawrence and Mackeson were of opinion that it
would be well to bribe him into activity by the offer of Jellalabad, to
be held by him independently of the Sikh ruler; but Mr. Clerk was of
opinion that such a measure would be neither politic nor honest.[51]
It would, indeed, at that time, have been an injustice done by the
British Government against both the other parties to the tripartite
treaty. It would have injuriously affected both Shah Soojah and Shere
Singh; and would have involved the Jummoo Rajah in difficulties and
perplexities from which he would have found it difficult to extricate
himself. Indeed, Captain Mackeson himself very soon came to the opinion
that, if we desired to bribe Gholab Singh into co-operation by promises
of territorial aggrandisement, it was necessary that we should lay
our finger on some other part of the map than that which represented
Jellalabad; and he asked whether Shikarpoor, which Runjeet Singh had
coveted, and which the tripartite treaty had snatched from him, “would
not do better.”[52]
In the mean while, it appeared to Mr. Clerk that his presence at
the Court of the Sikh ruler, would have the effect of cementing the
alliance between the two states, and enable him the better to obtain
from the Lahore Government the military assistance that was so greatly
needed. He had never doubted the good faith of the Maharajah himself.
Whatever selfish motives he may have attributed to him, it was not
to be doubted that at this time his feelings and his conduct alike
were those of a friend. Clerk declared that no native state had ever
taken such great pains to accelerate the movements of our troops by
preventing plunder, supplying boats at the ferries, and furnishing food
for the use of our army. The Maharajah had given us the best aid and
the best advice, and in the opinion of the British agent was willing to
act up to the spirit of the Tripartite treaty. He was, indeed, the only
man in the Punjab who really desired our success.
On the 2nd of March, Clerk arrived at Umritsur, resolute to “get what
he could out of the Sikhs.”[53] Early on the following morning he
waited on Shere Singh. The first visit was a visit of condolence on the
deaths of Kurruck Singh and his son. The attendance at the Durbar was
small. No troops were in waiting beyond a single wing of a battalion
drawn up to salute the arrival and departure of the British Mission.
The Court were in mourning of white. Everything about the Durbar was
quiet and subdued. It was a meeting of condolence on both sides.
Clerk’s expressions of regret were reciprocated by those which the
Sikh ruler freely uttered with reference to the death of Sir William
Macnaghten. Dhyan Singh and the Fakir Azizoodeen were both loud in
their praises of the envoy; and expressed a lively hope that the
treacherous Afghans would be duly punished for their offences. After
other complimentary interchanges, the Mission departed; and on the
following morning proceeded to pay a visit of congratulation to the new
ruler. The Court now wore a different aspect. Along the garden-walks
stretched walls of crimson broadcloth, and lines of armed Goorcherrahs,
in new appointments, glittered along the paths. Everything was bright
and joyous. The courtiers shone in splendid apparel. The Maharajah
himself was bright with jewels, of which the _Koh-i-noor_ was the
lustrous chief. The young Rajah Heera Singh, old Runjeet’s minion,
radiant with emeralds and pearls, sate beside Shere Singh, whilst his
father, the minister, stood beside the regal chair. The officers of the
British Mission sate on a row of chairs opposite; and the old Fakir
Azizoodeen was seated on the floor beside the chair of the British
chief. The conversation was of a general and complimentary character.
The _Khelat_ of accession was presented to the new ruler; the fidelity
of the Sikh Government and the character of its administration were
belauded; and then the Mission took its departure.
On the 5th, Clerk, having intimated his desire to wait on the
Maharajah, to discuss matters of business, was invited to attend at his
own time. He went in the afternoon; and at once solicited the honour
of a private audience. Heera Singh was sitting beside him, and other
courtiers were in attendance. A motion of the hand dismissed them all;
and Clerk was invited to seat himself in Heera Singh’s chair. But the
British minister, not wishing that the conversation should be carried
on without any witnesses, suggested the recall of Dhyan Singh and the
Fakir, who, with Heera Singh and one or two others, were present at
the interview. Clerk had a difficult game to play at this time. He had
to obtain the most effectual co-operation of the Sikh Government that
could be elicited in this hour of trial; and yet he was unwilling to
lay bare to the Sikh Durbar the real designs of his own government. He
had been directed to disclose those designs to the Sikhs—to intimate
that it was the intention of the British government, after rescuing the
Jellalabad garrison, to withdraw the army to the British frontier; but
inwardly indignant at the feebleness of the policy which was favoured
at Calcutta, he shrunk from avowing these intentions of withdrawal, and
endeavoured rather to elicit the views of the Lahore Cabinet than to
expose the designs of his own. But Shere Singh was not inclined to be
less cautious than the British envoy. When Clerk asked what he intended
to do to rescue Sale’s garrison from destruction, the Maharajah replied
that the Sikhs were very desirous to aid the British Government,
but that the matter called for consideration. Bristling up at the
coolness of this reply, Clerk said that the whole question of the
alliance between the two states might call for future consideration;
but that the present moment when the safety of a beleagured garrison
was at stake, was no time for consideration. Qualifying then his
former remark, the Sikh ruler said that he meant only that the mode
of procedure called for consideration, and he began to talk about the
advantage of erecting sungahs and crowning the heights of the Khybur
Pass[54]—to all of which Clerk readily assented.
Then Dhyan Singh, who all this time had been sitting silent, with
a dejected air and drooping head, looked up, and with a cheerful
countenance began to take part in the conversation. He had before
seemed to think that the purport of the discussion was to consign his
brother, Gholab Singh, to inevitable destruction; but he now said
that he was certain the troops under the command of that chief would
willingly co-operate with the British; but that “an iron lock required
an iron key.” He then abruptly asked why more British troops were not
sent;[55] and the Fakir Azizoodeen whispered the same question. Clerk
could have blurted out an answer to this; but it was one which would
have opened the eyes of the Sikh Durbar, more than it was desirable
to open them, to the true nature of British policy at this time, and
the true character of our rulers. He, therefore, answered in general
terms that the British government were collecting troops; but that,
nevertheless, the co-operation of the Sikh Government was much desired;
and, whilst he added that an intimation would be sent to General
Pollock regarding the manner in which the Durbar recommended the war in
the Khybur to be carried on, Shere Singh promised to send the desired
instructions to Gholab Singh; and so the conference ended.
True to his word, the Maharajah at once despatched instructions to
Gholab Singh to co-operate heartily and steadily with General Pollock
and Captain Mackeson; and it is believed that at the same time Dhyan
Singh wrote privately to his brother in a similar strain of exhortation
and encouragement. But it was plain to Mr. Clerk that both the
Sovereign and his minister regarded, with feelings of painful anxiety,
the necessity of avoiding an open rupture with the British Government,
by aiding in the perilous work that lay before the troops posted at
Peshawur. Mr. Clerk remained at the Maharajah’s Court, which had
removed itself from Umritsur to Lahore, and exerted himself to keep up
the fidelity of our ally to the right point of effective co-operation.
But as time advanced, Shere Singh became more and more uneasy and
apprehensive. It appeared to him that a failure in the Khybur Pass
would bring down such a weight of unpopularity upon him that his very
throne would be jeopardised by the disaster. One day—it was the 4th
of April—holding Durbar in the Huzooree-Bagh, the Maharajah appeared
ill at ease. Having conversed a little while on general topics, but
with an abstracted air, he ordered the intelligence forwarded to him
by the Peshawur news-writers to be read to the British envoy; then
took him by the hand and led him to another seat in the garden. Alone
with the English gentleman the Sikh ruler opened out his heart to him.
He was concerned, he said, to learn that the British authorities at
Peshawur were making no progress in their negotiations for the purchase
of a safe passage through the Khybur, and were disinclined to accept
the offers of the old Barukzye Governor of Peshawur, Sultan Mahomed,
who had declared his willingness to “divide, scatter, and make terms
with” our enemies. He apprehended that there would be much fighting
and much slaughter; and it was only too probable that the Sikh troops
at Peshawur, seeing clearly the danger of the movement, and not by any
means understanding the advantages that would accrue to them from it,
would refuse to enter the pass. Or if they entered it, it was probable
that they would suffer severely at the hands of the Afghans—and in
either case, as he had been continually writing to Peshawur to impress
upon the officers there the necessity of effective co-operation with
the British, the odium would descend upon him, and perhaps cost him his
throne. It was easier to listen to all this than to reply to it. Clerk
saw as plainly as the Maharajah himself, that as the Sikh troops had
always evinced an insuperable repugnance to enter the Khybur Pass, even
when the glory of the Khalsa was to be advanced by the movement, and
the dominions of the Lahore Government to be extended, it was hardly
reasonable to expect them to show greater alacrity in the advancement
of the objects of another nation whom they cordially detested, and
whose disasters they regarded with secret delight.[56]
But whilst Shere Singh was thus expressing his misgivings at Lahore,
and the British agent was inwardly acknowledging the reasonable
character of the Maharajah’s doubts, the Sikh troops at Peshawur were
settling down into a state of quiet obedience, and making up their
minds to penetrate the Khybur Pass. The letters despatched by Shere
Singh and his minister to Avitabile and Gholab Singh had not been
without their effect. A confidential friend and adviser of the Sikh
ruler—Boodh Singh—had arrived at Peshawur, charged with messages from
the King and the minister, which were supposed to have had an effect
upon the Jummoo Rajah, sudden and great. Lawrence, too, had been busy
in the Sikh camp, and little anticipating the circumstances under which
it was decreed that they should one day meet in that lovely province
of the old Douranee Empire over which the Jummoo Rajah since exercised
undisputed dominion, had been holding long conferences with Gholab
Singh.[57] The good tact, good temper, and quiet firmness of General
Pollock, had been exercised with the best results, and the arrival of
further reinforcements of European troops had done much to give new
confidence to the Khalsa. And so it happened, that when General Pollock
prepared to enter the Khybur Pass, the Sikh troops had resolved not to
suffer their faces to be blackened before all India; and really, when
the hour for exertion came, did more for the honour of their own arms
and the support of the British Government than the most sanguine of our
officers had ventured to expect.
The dragoons and the horse artillery reached Peshawur on the 29th of
March, and Pollock at once made his preparations to enter the Khybur
Pass. On the 31st he pitched his camp at Jumrood, in the expectation
of advancing on the following morning; but new elements of delay
arose. The camel-drivers were deserting. Gholab Singh had not moved
up his camp. And, above all, the rain was descending in floods. It
would have dispirited the troops to have moved them forward at such a
time and rendered more difficult the advance of the baggage. Pollock
had done his best to diminish to the least possible amount the number
of carriage-cattle that were to move with him into the Khybur Pass.
But an Indian commander has no more difficult duty than this. Under
no circumstances is the general addiction to much baggage very easily
overcome. Men are not readily persuaded to leave their comforts behind
them. A fine soldierly appeal was issued to the army;[58] and men of
all ranks felt that it came from an officer who was not less ready to
make sacrifices himself than to call upon others to make them.[59]
Circumstances, too, at this time, tended to reduce the amount of
the baggage. The camel-drivers had deserted in such numbers, that
there was not even sufficient carriage for the ammunition. The 33rd
Regiment, which had just arrived at Peshawur, could not come up to the
encamping-ground for want of cattle; and another day’s halt was the
result of the delay.[60] In the meanwhile, the Sepoys were deserting
from Wild’s Brigade; and no satisfactory progress was making in the
negotiations which Mackeson had been carrying on for the purchase of
a free passage through the Khybur from the Afreedi Maliks.[61] But
there was one advantage in the delay. It gave time for the Sikh troops
to prepare themselves, after their own fashion, to co-operate with
our army, and General Pollock felt that whatever might be the amount
of active assistance to be derived from the efforts of our allies, a
combined movement would have a good moral effect.
The order of march was now laid down, and was well studied by
commanding officers. Brigadier Wild was to command the advance guard,
and General M’Caskill the rear. At the head of the column were to march
the grenadier company of the 9th Queen’s Regiment, one company of the
26th Native Infantry, three companies of the 30th Native Infantry, and
two companies of the 33rd Native Infantry, under Major Barnewell, of
the 9th. Then were to follow the Sappers and Miners, nine pieces of
artillery,[62] and two squadrons of the 3rd Dragoons. After these, the
camels, laden with all the treasure of the force and a large portion of
ammunition, were to move on, followed by a squadron of the 1st Native
Cavalry. Then the Commissariat stores, protected by two companies of
the 53rd Native Infantry, were to advance, and a squadron of the 1st
Cavalry were to follow. Then the baggage and camp-followers, covered
by a Ressalah of Irregular Horse, and a squadron of the 1st Native
Cavalry, were to move forward, with a further supply of ammunition, and
litters, and camel-panniers for the sick.
The rear-guard was to consist of three foot-artillery guns—the 10th
Light Cavalry—two Ressalahs of Irregular Horse—two squadrons of
the 3rd Dragoons—two horse-artillery guns—three companies of the
60th Native Infantry; one company of the 6th Native Infantry; and one
company of her Majesty’s 9th Foot.
These details formed the centre column which was to make its way
through the pass. Two other columns, composed entirely of infantry,
were told off into parties, and instructed to crown the heights on
either side of the pass. Two companies of her Majesty’s 9th Foot,
four companies of the 26th Native Infantry, with 400 jezailchees,
were placed under the command of Colonel Taylor, of the 9th Foot;
seven companies of the 30th Native Infantry, under Major Payne; three
companies of the 60th Native Infantry, under Captain Riddle; four
companies of the 64th Native Infantry, under Major Anderson, with
some details of Broadfoot’s sappers, and a company and a half of her
Majesty’s 9th Foot; the party being commanded by Major Davis, of the
9th, made up the right crowning column.
The left crowning column was to consist of two companies of her
Majesty’s 9th Foot, four companies of the 26th Native Infantry, and
200 jezailchees, under Major Huish, of the 26th Native Infantry; seven
companies of the 53rd Native Infantry, under Major Hoggan, of that
corps; three companies of the 60th Native Infantry, under Captain
Napleton, of that regiment; and four and a half companies of the
64th Native Infantry, and one and a half companies of her Majesty’s
9th Foot, under Colonel Moseley, of the 64th. With these last were
to go some auxiliaries, supplied by Torabaz Khan, the loyal chief
of Lalpoorah. The flanking parties were to advance in successive
detachments of two companies, at intervals of 500 yards.
The order of march having been thus arranged and judicious rules laid
down for the guidance of commanding officers,[63] Pollock marched
his force to Jumrood. On the 4th of April, whilst the troops were
encamped at that place, he issued further and more specific orders to
regulate the movements of the following morning. In the evening, the
General went round to all his commanding officers to ascertain that
they thoroughly understood the orders that had been issued for their
guidance; and to learn from them what was the temper of their men.
There did not seem to be much cause for inquietude on this score. The
_morale_ of the Sepoys had greatly improved.
At three o’clock on the morning of the 5th of April the army commenced
its march. It moved off in the dim twilight, without beat of drum or
sound of bugle. Quietly the crowning columns prepared to ascend. The
heights on either side were covered with the enemy, but so little was
the mode of attack, which the British General had determined upon,
expected by the enemy, that it was not until our flankers had achieved
a considerable ascent that the Khyburees were aware of their advance.
Then, as the morning dawned, the positions of the two forces were
clearly revealed to each other; and the struggle commenced.
Across the mouth of the pass the enemy had thrown up a formidable
barrier. It was made of mud, and huge stones, and heavy branches of
trees. The Khyburees had not wanted time to mature their defensive
operations; and they had thrown up a barricade of considerable
strength. It was not a work upon which our guns could play with any
good effect; but it was a small matter effectually to destroy the
barrier when once our light infantry had swept the hills. And that
work was soon going on gallantly and successfully on both sides,
whilst the centre column, drawn up in battle-array, was waiting the
issue of the contest. Nothing could have proved better than the
arrangements of the General; and no General could have wished his
plan of attack to be carried out with better effect. On the left, the
crowning column was soon in vigorous and successful action. On the
right, the precipitous nature of the ground was such that it seemed
to defy the eager activity of Taylor and his men. But he stole round
the base of the mountain unseen, and found a more practicable ascent
than that which he had first tried. Then on both sides the British
infantry were soon hotly engaged with the mountaineers, clambering up
the precipitous peaks, and pouring down a hot and destructive fire
upon the surprised and disconcerted Khyburees. They had not expected
that our disciplined troops, who had, as it were, been looking at the
Khybur for some months, would be more than a match for them upon their
native hills. But so it was. Our British infantry were beating them in
every direction, and everywhere the white dresses of the Khyburees were
seen flying across the hills. The Duke of Wellington had said, some
time before, that he “had never heard that our troops were not equal,
as well in their personal activity as by their arms, to contend with
and overcome any natives of hills whatever.”[64] And now our British
infantry and our Bengal Sepoys were showing how well able they were to
meet the Khyburees on their native hills. The mountain-rangers, whom
Macnaghten wished to raise, because Sale’s brigade had been harassed
by the Ghilzyes, could not have clambered over the hills with greater
activity than our British troops, and would not have been half as
steady or half as faithful.
It was now time for Pollock to advance. The centre column did not
attempt to move forward until the flankers had fought their way to
the rear of the mouth of the pass. But when he had fairly turned the
enemy’s position, he began to destroy the barrier, and prepared to
advance into the pass. The enemy had assembled in large numbers at the
mouth, but finding themselves outflanked—finding that they had to deal
with different men and a different system from that which they had seen
a few months before, they gradually withdrew, and, without opposition,
Pollock now cleared his way through the barricade, and pushed into the
pass with his long string of baggage. The difficulties of the remainder
of the march were now mainly occasioned by the great extent of this
convoy. Pollock was conveying both ammunition and provisions to Sale’s
garrison; and there were many more beasts of burden, therefore, than
were used by his own force. But skilfully was the march conducted.
Encumbered as he was, the General was compelled to move slowly forward.
The march to Ali-Musjid occupied the greater part of the day. The heat
was intense. The troops suffered greatly from thirst. But they all
did their duty well. Whatever doubts may have lingered to the last
in Pollock’s mind, were now wholly dispersed; and when he reached
Ali-Musjid in safety, and had time to think over the events of the day,
nothing refreshed him more than the thought that the Sepoys had fairly
won back the reputation they had lately lost.[65]
The enemy had evacuated Ali-Musjid in the morning, and now Ferris’s
jezailchees were sent in to garrison the place. A part of Pollock’s
force, with the head-quarters, bivouacked near the fortress. The night
was bitterly cold; but the command of the heights was maintained, and
the men, both European and Natives, who had been under arms since three
o’clock in the morning, did not utter a complaint. They appeared to
feel that they had done a great work; but that the utmost vigilance
was necessary to secure the advantage they had gained. The enemy were
still hovering about, and all night long firing upon our people. It was
necessary to be on the alert.
It was a great thing to have accomplished such a march with so little
loss of life, and no loss of baggage. Avitabile said that Pollock and
his force were going to certain destruction. Had he moved precipitately
with his main column into the pass, he would probably have been driven
back with great slaughter; but the precaution he took in crowning the
heights and turning the enemy’s position, secured him, though not
without some fighting the whole way, a safe passage. The enemy are said
to have lost about 300 men killed, and 600 or 800 wounded.
The Sikh troops moved up by another pass to Ali-Musjid. Pollock,
still doubtful of their fidelity, and not desiring to have them
too near his own troops, suggested that when he pushed forward by
the Shadee-Bagiaree Pass, they should take the other, known as the
Jubogee.[66] Pollock had entered into a covenant with Gholab Singh for
the occupation of the pass by the Sikh troops until the 5th of June.
It was necessary that he should keep open his communications with the
rear; and the Sikhs undertook to do it. But when Pollock marched to
Jellalabad, they began to bargain with certain Afreedi chiefs, hostile
to our interests, to keep open the pass for the stipulated time, for
a certain sum of money, thus making known to the tribes the time for
which they had covenanted to hold it.[67] Early in May the Sikhs
suddenly quitted their position at Ali-Musjid and returned to Jumrood,
seizing some of our baggage-cattle on the way, throwing their loads on
the ground, and employing the animals to carry their baggage.[68]
In the mean while, Pollock had reached Jellalabad. “We found the fort
strong,” he wrote to a friend; “the garrison healthy; and, except for
wine and beer, better off than we are. They were, of course, delighted
to see us. We gave three cheers as we passed the colours; and the band
of each regiment played as it came up. It was a sight worth seeing. All
appeared happy.”[69] It was, indeed, a happy meeting. Sale’s little
garrison had been shut up for five months in Jellalabad. They had long
been surrounded with perils, lessened only by their own daring. They
had looked in vain for succours, until they became so familiar with
danger that they had begun to feel secure in the midst of it. But they
were weary of their isolation, and were eager to see their countrymen
again. Right welcome, therefore, was the arrival of Pollock’s force;
and happy the day on which it appeared with streaming colours and gay
music. But the prospects of the garrison had brightened; and if Pollock
had to speak of his victories, Sale, too, had his to narrate.
Pollock, before he entered the pass, had received intelligence of
the gallant sortie made by the garrison on the 1st of April, when
they swept away from the covering parties of the enemy a flock of 500
sheep and goats, which had secured them a further ten days’ supply of
meat.[70] Writing of this to General Pollock, Macgregor had said:
“Our troops of all arms are in the highest pluck, and they seem never
so happy as when fighting with the enemy. I verily believe we could
capture Mahomed Akbar’s camp, even with our present means, were it our
game to incur the risk of an attempt of the kind.”[71] This was lightly
spoken; a mere outburst of the abundant animal spirits of the writer;
but Pollock was scarcely on the other side of Ali-Musjid, when he
received tidings which made it clear to him that now the light word had
become a grave fact, and the capture of Mahomed Akbar’s camp had been
actually accomplished.
And now that they had reached Jellalabad, every one in Pollock’s camp
was eager for details of this great victory. It was, indeed, a dashing
exploit. On the 5th of April, Macgregor’s spies brought in tidings
from Akbar Khan’s camp that Pollock had been beaten back, with great
slaughter, in the Khybur Pass. On the morning of the 6th, the Sirdar’s
guns broke out into a royal salute, in honour of the supposed victory.
Other reports then came welling in to Jellalabad. It was said that
there was another revolution at Caubul, and that the Sirdar was about
to break up his camp and hasten to the capital. In either case, it
seemed that the time had come to strike a blow at Akbar Khan’s army; so
a council of war was held, and the question gravely debated. It is said
that councils of war “never fight.” But the council which now assembled
to determine whether the Sirdar’s camp should be attacked on the
following morning, decided the question in the affirmative. Unsurpassed
in personal courage by any daring youth in his camp, and ever eager to
fight under another man’s command, Sale sometimes shrunk from energetic
action when it brought down upon him a burden of responsibility. But
Havelock was at his elbow—a man of rare coolness and consummate
judgment, with military talents of a high order, ripened by experience,
and an intrepidity in action not exceeded by that of his fighting
commander. He it was who, supported by other zealous spirits, urged
the expediency of an attack on the enemy’s position, and laid down the
plan of operations most likely to ensure success. Sale yielded with
reluctance—but he did yield; and it was determined that at daybreak on
the following morning they should go out and fight.
Sale issued directions for the formation of three columns of infantry,
the centre consisting of her Majesty’s 13th Light Infantry, mustering
500 bayonets, under Colonel Dennie; the left, under Lieutenant-Colonel
Monteith, C.B.; and the right, composed of one company of the 13th
Light Infantry and one of the 35th Native Infantry, and the detachment
of Sappers, under Lieutenant Orr (the severity of Captain Broadfoot’s
wound still rendering him non-effective), the whole amounting to
360 men, commanded by Captain Havelock, of her Majesty’s 13th Light
Infantry. These were to be supported by the fire of the guns of No. 6,
Light Field Battery, under Captain Abbott, to which Captain Backhouse,
of Shah Soojah’s Artillery, was attached, and by the whole of the small
cavalry force under Captain Oldfield and Lieutenant Mayne.[72] Such
were the components of the little force that was to attack the camp of
the Sirdar.
At daybreak they moved out of the fort by the western gate. Akbar Khan
was ready to receive them. He had drawn out his troops before the camp,
with his right resting on a fort, and his left on the Caubul river. He
had not less than 6000 men. The plan of action proposed by Havelock
was, that they should make a sudden and vigorous onslaught on the
Sirdar’s camp and drive him into the river, which at that time was a
rapid and unfordable torrent. But, abandoning this simple device, Sale,
on issuing from the gate, ordered Dennie forward to attack a small
fort, several hundred yards to the right, from which the enemy had
often molested us before, and in which they were now strongly posted.
Gallantly, at the head of his men, went Dennie to the attack—a brave
and chivalrous soldier ever in the advance—but an Afghan marksman
covered him with his piece, and the ball passed through Dennie’s
body.[73] The movement was a false one; it cost us the life of this
good soldier, and well nigh lost us the battle. The force being thus
divided, the Afghan horsemen came down impetuously on Havelock’s weak
infantry column; and if he had not persuaded the General to recall
the 13th from the fort, the action might have had a different result.
The recall was not too late. Sale now gave his orders for a general
attack on the Sirdar’s camp; and his orders were carried into effect
with an impetuosity and success worthy of the defenders of Jellalabad.
In the forcible language of the General’s despatch, on which I cannot
improve, “The artillery advanced at the gallop, and directed a heavy
fire upon the Afghan centre, whilst two of the columns of infantry
penetrated the line near the same point, and the third forced back
its left from its support on the river, into the stream of which some
of his horse and foot were driven. The Afghans made repeated attempts
to check our advance by a smart fire of musketry, by throwing forward
heavy bodies of horse, which twice threatened the detachments of
foot under Captain Havelock, and by opening upon us three guns from
a battery screened by a garden wall, and said to have been served
under the personal superintendence of the Sirdar. But in a short time
they were dislodged from every point of their position, their cannon
taken, and their camp involved in a general conflagration. The battle
was over—and the enemy in full retreat in the direction of Lughman by
about 7 A. M. We have made ourselves masters of two cavalry standards,
recaptured four guns lost by the Caubul and Gundamuck forces, the
restoration of which, to our government, is matter of much honest
exultation among our troops, seized and destroyed a great quantity of
materiel and ordnance stores, and burnt the whole of the enemy’s tents.
In short, the defeat of Mahomed Akbar in open field, by the troops whom
he had boasted of blockading, has been complete and signal.” Although
our cavalry were not stopped in pursuit, as some held they might have
been with advantage, the enemy’s loss was severe. “The field of battle
was strewed with the bodies of men and horses, and the richness of
the trappings of some of the latter seemed to attest that persons of
distinction had been among the casualties.” The loss on our side was
small. Eight privates of the 13th Native Infantry, and two of the 35th
Native Infantry, were killed. Three officers and about fifty men were
wounded.
Great was the joy which the intelligence of the victories of Pollock
and Sale diffused throughout all India; and in no one breast did so
much of gladness bubble up as in that of Lord Ellenborough. He wrote,
that although it was his misfortune not to be a soldier by profession,
he knew how to appreciate soldierly qualities and soldierly acts. It
was then that, being at Benares at the time, he issued that well-known
notification which conferred on Sale’s brigade the honourable title by
which it has since been so well known—the title of the “Illustrious
Garrison.”[74] That garrison had now done its work, and taken its place
in history. Sale ceased to command at Jellalabad; and soon letters
from Lord Ellenborough set aside the political functions of Macgregor.
In Pollock and Nott, on either side of Afghanistan, had been vested
supreme political authority; and Macgregor soon took his place beside
the General, simply as his _aide-de-camp_. By Pollock’s side, too,
holding the office of his military secretary, was Shakespear, who had
done such good service in liberating the Russian slaves at Khiva; who
had won his spurs by this Central-Asian exploit, and returned to India
Sir Richmond Shakespear. Pollock knew the worth of these men, and
turned their experience to account. But the reign of the “Politicals”
was at an end. Lord Ellenborough had determined to dethrone them.
The Governor-General knew his men. He did well in trusting Pollock and
Nott. But after the melancholy illustration of the trustworthiness of
military officers of high rank displayed in the conduct of affairs
at Caubul, the time hardly seemed a happy one for opening out the
question of political and military responsibilities, and their relative
effects upon the interests of the state. It is right, however, now
that it has been stated how the whole system, which exercised so
great an influence over events in Afghanistan, was abolished by the
Governor-General, that something should be said upon the general
character of the diplomatic functionaries employed on the great field
of Central Asia.
There is no single controversial topic which has struck out so many
sparks of bad feeling—so much personality, so much bitter invective,
and I fear it must be added, so much reckless mendacity, as this
question of political agency. At one time a “Political” was, by many
writers, considered fair game. To hunt him down with all conceivable
calumny and vituperation, was regarded as a laudable achievement.
Every one had a stone to throw at him—every one howled at him with
execration, or shouted at him in derision. Temperate men on this topic,
became intemperate; charitable men, uncharitable; sagacity ceased to be
sagacious; discrimination ceased to discriminate. All alike lifted up
their voices to swell the chorus of popular indignation.
The Caubul outburst, with its attendant horrors, filled this cup of
bitter feeling to the brim. It would be difficult to embody, in a page
of mere description, the popular notion of an Afghan “Political.” He
was believed to be a very conceited, a very arrogant, a very ignorant,
and a very unfeeling personage; a pretender, who, on the strength of
a little smattering of Persian and some interest, perhaps petticoat
interest, in high places, had obtained an appointment, the duties of
which he was not capable of performing, and the trust involved in which
he was well-nigh certain to abuse. He was looked upon as a creature
whose blunders were as mischievous as his pretensions were ridiculous;
one, whose ideas of diplomacy were limited to the cultivation of a
moustache and the faculty of sitting cross-legged on the ground; who
talked largely about Durbar, rode out with a number of Sowars at his
heels; and was always on the point of capturing some fugitive chief,
and never achieving it after all. But this was only the more favourable
aspect of the picture. There was another and a darker side. He was
sometimes represented as a roaring lion, going about seeking whom he
should devour; unveiling Afghan ladies and pulling Afghan gentlemen by
the beard; inviting chiefs to a conference and then betraying them;
blowing Sirdars from guns; conniving at wholesale massacre; bribing
brothers to betray brothers, fathers their sons; keeping fierce dogs
to hound them at innocent countrymen; desecrating mosques, insulting
Moollahs, trampling on the Koran—in a word, committing every
conceivable outrage that cruelty and lust could devise. There was no
amount of baseness, indeed, of which these men were not supposed to be
capable; no licentiousness to which they were not addicted; no crimes
which they did not commit. This was the popular notion of an “Afghan
Political.” It was constantly illustrated in oral conversation and in
the local literature of the day. Men talked and wrote upon the subject
as though the question—if ever question there were—had long ago
been settled by common consent; and it was not until the war had been
brought to a close, that a doubt was raised respecting the validity of
the charges so generally brought against the Ishmaels of diplomacy in
the East.
Very much of this is now mere exploded slander. I cannot say that
the political officers, who distinguished themselves throughout the
Afghanistan campaign, have _lived down_ the calumny of which they were
the victims. Very few of the number survive. But a reaction, in public
opinion, is discernible,—a growing disposition to do justice, at
least to the memories of the dead. Men speak and write more temperately
on the subject. Exaggeration no longer over-strides all our utterances
on this topic; and, in some cases, full justice has been done to the
noble qualities of head and heart which have adorned, perhaps do adorn
men amongst us, under the great “Political” reproach.
It would serve no good purpose to run from one extreme into the other.
It is the evil of sudden reactions of popular feeling, that men escape
from one error only to be precipitated into another of an opposite
class. The system of political agency is not one of unmixed good; nor
are political agents exempt from the common frailties of humanity.
Many mistakes were unquestionably committed; sometimes a stronger word
might without exaggeration have been applied to the things that were
done in Afghanistan by our diplomatic agents. Diplomacy is, at all
times, a dangerous game. It has seldom, if ever, been played in any
part of the world, without some loss of purity, some departure from
integrity. In Europe, the diplomatist treads a tortuous path. Guile
is met with guile. Fraud is often counteracted by fraud. Minister
overreaches minister. One state jockeys another. And, in the affairs
of nations, arts are resorted to, which, in the concerns of private
life, would stamp the wily plotter with infamy not to be escaped. But,
in the East, in the midst of the worst contagion, tempted on every
side, stimulated by the fear of failure, irritated by the duplicity
of others, far greater is the difficulty of preserving intact the
diplomatic integrity which is exposed to so many corrupting influences.
I am not asserting the propriety of fighting all men with their own
weapons. I have no faith whatever in the worldly wisdom, apart from
all considerations of right and wrong, of playing off wile against
wile—meeting treachery with treachery—lie with lie. Such tactics
may succeed for a season; but, in the long run, truth and honesty
will be found the most effective weapons. All I desire to plead in
behalf of our Oriental diplomatists is the extraordinary temptations
to which they have been exposed. Many of them were necessarily without
experience in the difficult game; and, therefore, apprehensive of
failure—little confident in themselves, when called upon to encounter,
perhaps for the first time, the deep duplicity of Eastern intrigue.
Fearful of being drawn into a snare, and deeply impressed with a sense
of the responsibilities resting upon them, they have sometimes, in
their eagerness to bring negotiations to a successful issue, departed
from that strict line of integrity, which we could wish our countrymen
ever to maintain. This much at least must be admitted—but who has ever
gained a reputation as a skilful diplomatist without some deviation
from the straight path of open and truthful manliness of conduct?
“If a man is too stupid or too lazy to drill his company,” wrote
General Nott, “he often turns sycophant, cringer to the heads of
departments, and is made a ‘Political,’ and of course puts the
government to an enormous expense, and disgraces the character of
his country.” Nothing was ever more unlike the truth. The Afghan
“Politicals” were among the best soldiers in the country. Many of them,
as Todd, Rawlinson, Nicolson, &c., were practised drill-instructors and
had shown an especial fitness for this particular duty in disciplining
foreign troops or raw levies. And no one, who takes account of the most
honourable incidents of the Afghan War, will overlook the military
services rendered by Pottinger, Macgregor, H. M. Lawrence, Mackeson,
Broadfoot, Outram, and others, who are known to us as Political Agents.
There have been no finer soldiers in the Indian Army than some of those
who distinguished themselves during the war in Afghanistan, under the
unpopular designation of “Politicals.”
CHAPTER V.
[January-April: 1842.]
The Last Days of Shah Soojah—State of Parties at Caubul—Condition
of the Hostages—the Newab Zemaun Khan—Letters of Shah Soojah—His
Death—Question of his Fidelity—His Character and Conduct considered.
It is time that I should pause in the narration of the retributory
measures of the British-Indian Government, to dwell, for a little
space, upon the events at Caubul which succeeded the departure of
Elphinstone’s army. It had been rumoured throughout India—and the
rumour had created no little astonishment in the minds of those who
had believed that the Caubul insurrection was a movement against the
Feringhees and the King—that ever since the departure of the former
Shah Soojah had continued to occupy the Balla Hissar, and had been
recognised as the supreme authority by the very men who had recently
been in arms against him. And the rumour was a perfect echo of the
truth. Ever since the departure of the British army Shah Soojah had
reigned at Caubul.
He had reigned at Caubul, but he had not ruled. His power was merely
nominal. The chiefs wanted a puppet; and in the unhappy Shah they
found the only one who was ever likely to stand between them and the
vengeance of the British nation. Day after day they made their salaam
to him in the Balla Hissar; but so imperfect even was their outward
recognition of his regal dignity, that money was still coined in the
name of the Newab Zemaun Khan. The Newab, who had been raised to the
sovereignty by the voice of the chiefs soon after the first outbreak
of the insurrection, had cheerfully resigned the honour that had been
thrust upon him, and accepted the office of Wuzeer. Ameen-oollah Khan
was appointed Naib, or deputy. For a little time there was some outward
show of harmony; but there was no real union between the King and
the chiefs. The Barukzyes spoke scornfully of the King; and the King
could not refrain from expressing his mistrust of the whole tribe of
Barukzyes. Ameen-oollah Khan, openly swearing allegiance to both, seems
to have held the balance between the two opposing factions, and was in
reality the most influential man in the state. He had amassed, by fraud
and violence, large sums of money, which the other chiefs, straitened
as they were by an empty treasury, and unable to carry out any great
national measure, would fain have made him disgorge. From the Shah
himself they contrived to extort some three or four lakhs of rupees;
but when Akbar Khan wrote pressing letters to Caubul for guns and
ammunition, that he might lay siege to Jellalabad, no one would move
without pay, and money was not forthcoming.
All parties were jealous of each other; and especially jealous of the
rising power of Akbar Khan. The young Barukzye was in Lughman; and the
elder chiefs at Caubul, even if they had possessed the money to enable
them to answer these emergent indents upon their military resources,
would have been little inclined to send him the reinforcements and
munitions for which he was continually writing. They talked about
raising an army of their own, and opposing the retributory march of
the British through the Khybur Pass; but the want of money presented
an insuperable obstacle to any military movement on a scale that
would afford a prospect of success. The Shah himself talked openly in
Durbar about standing forward as defender of the faith, and declaring
a religious war against the Kaffirs; but he privately assured Conolly
that he was heart and soul with the British, and he wrote long letters
to the Governor-General, Clerk, Macgregor, and others, declaring his
inviolable fidelity, and eagerly clamouring for money.
In the mean while the English hostages remained under the protection
of Mahomed Zemaun Khan. Nothing could exceed the kindness of the good
old man. Faithful among the faithless, he was resolute to defend the
Christian strangers at all risks; and never, when the popular clamour
ran highest, and other men of note were thirsting for the blood of the
captives, did he waver for an instant in his determination to shield
the helpless Feringhees from the malice of his remorseless countrymen.
He was a Barukzye chief—a near relative of Dost Mahomed Khan; and
there was not among the Sirdars of all the tribes one in whom the
spirit of nationality glowed more strongly and more purely. But whilst
the independence of his country was as dear to him as to any of his
brethren, he did not burn with that fierce hatred against the English
which broke out in other places, nor did he ever, in the advancement
of the most cherished objects of his heart, stain his patriotism with
those foul crimes from which elsewhere there was little shrinking.
Regarding with abhorrence the conduct of those who had betrayed our
unhappy people, he himself did all that, single-handed, he could do,
to atone for the cruelty of his countrymen; and no father could have
treated his children more kindly than the good Newab cherished and
protected the English hostages who found a sanctuary in his house.
But it was necessary, whilst the excitement ran so high at Caubul,
and there was a prospect of violent contention among the chiefs, to
do something more than this. Ameen-oollah Khan never slackened in his
exertions to obtain possession of the persons of the hostages. Having
tried every kind of stratagem, and failed to secure them by fraud, he
would have resorted to open violence. It was necessary, therefore, to
oppose force to force; so the Newab raised an army of his own. His
pecuniary resources were limited; but he did not hesitate to spend
his little store freely in entertaining followers. Mainly for the
protection of the English gentlemen he raised a body of 1000 footmen,
whom he armed with English bayonets; another body of 1000 horse, and
some Jezailchees—in all, about 3000 men. The English guns, too, were
in his possession, and he refused to yield them up to the Shah.[75]
The King regarded his proceedings with mistrust. There was no sort of
cordiality between them. The old Suddozye and Barukzye strife seemed
about to be renewed with all its pristine vigour. At last the Shah,
about the middle of the month of March, corrupted the commandant of the
Newab’s army, who went over with all his followers to the Balla Hissar.
This event, which threatened entirely to change the state of parties at
the capital, threw all Caubul into a ferment. The shops were closed;
the people began to arm themselves. The Newab demanded the restoration
of his troops; but the King only yielded a conditional assent. He
appears at this time to have been entirely in the hands of Ameen-oollah
Khan; and he replied, that if the hostages were sent to the house of
the Loghur chief, the recreant commandant should be sent there at
the same time. The Newab, however, resolutely refused to give up the
English gentlemen. The proposal seems to have strengthened Conolly’s
suspicions of the fidelity of Shah Soojah. It nearly cost the hostages
their lives.
It now seemed that Caubul was about to become the theatre of
internecine strife. The gates of the Balla Hissar were half closed,
and the Shah never ventured beyond them. The chiefs were all
mustering retainers. The King was endeavouring to cast suspicion on
the nationality of the Newab; and the Newab’s party were doubting
the fidelity of the King. The Populzye leaders of the insurrection
clustered round the monarch, but he had neither popularity nor power.
Money he had; but making an outward show of poverty, he resolutely
refused to produce it; and the people began to abuse him for his
parsimony. In this conjuncture he continued to write to the British
authorities, declaring that he could do anything for them if they
would only send him money; but the British authorities were deaf to his
entreaties, and only sent him advice.[76]
But the difficulties of the Shah were now drawing to a close; his
days were numbered. Whilst he was awaiting the receipt of answers to
his letters, the excitement in Caubul was increasing—the division
among the chiefs was becoming more and more irreconcilable. Horribly
perplexed and bewildered, anxious at once to appear in the eyes of his
countrymen true to the national cause, and to retain the good-will of
the English by some show of fidelity to them, he fell into every kind
of inconsistency, was suspected by both parties, and either way was
rushing on destruction. At last the chiefs called upon him to prove
his sincerity by placing himself at the head of all the available
troops, and marching down upon Jellalabad. The Shah yielded a reluctant
consent; and, on the 29th of March sent round his criers to proclaim
that he was about to march southward on the 31st; that the chiefs were
to accompany him, and to send out their tents on the preceding day.
The summons was scantily obeyed. The Kuzzilbash chief declared that as
neither the King nor the minister had supplied him with money, he could
not move. The King said that he had no confidence in the chiefs, and
that, therefore, he would not go, but that Ameen-oollah might go for
him. And so the expedition was postponed. In the mean while, Akbar Khan
was writing urgent letters to Caubul clamouring for reinforcements, and
urging that it was wretched policy to be eternally at variance with one
another—quarrelling for money and quarrelling for rank—instead of
making common cause against the hated Feringhees.[77]
After a pause of a few days the King again consented to march. His
suspicion of the Barukzyes, however, was not easily to be allayed. Nor
was it wholly without reason. Even impartial lookers-on prophesied
that if he left Caubul he would either be murdered or blinded by the
Barukzyes.[78] Aware of these suspicions, the Newab sent his wife to
Shah Soojah with a sealed Koran, assuring the King with a solemn oath
that the Barukzyes and other chiefs would be true to him. Fortified
by this assurance, the Shah moved out of the Balla Hissar on the 4th
of April, but before nightfall returned to the palace, determined
on the following morning to review his troops and then to start for
Jellalabad. Rising early on the morning of the 5th, he arrayed himself
in royal apparel, and, accompanied by a small party of Hindostanees,
proceeded under a salute, in a chair of state, towards his camp, which
had been pitched at Seeah-Sungh. But Soojah-ool-dowlah, the son of
the Newab, had gone out before him, and placed in ambush a party of
Jezailchees. As the Shah and his followers were making their way
towards the regal tent, the marksmen fired upon them. The volley took
murderous effect. Several of the bearers and of the escort were struck
down; and the King himself killed on the spot. A ball had entered his
brain. Soojah-ool-dowlah then rode up; and as he contemplated his
bloody work, the body of the unhappy King, vain and pompous as he was
to the very last, was stripped of all the jewels about it—the jewelled
dagger, the jewelled girdle, the jewelled head-dress; and it was then
cast into a ditch.
The news of the King’s murder spread like wildfire. Great was the
consternation. Futteh Jung, the second son of the Shah, on receiving
the sad tidings of his father’s death, made with all speed towards
the Balla Hissar; but the gates were guarded; so he turned back and
sought refuge in the fort of Mahomed Khan, Bayat. That night however,
Mahomed Khan, in concert with Ameen-oollah, who held the Balla Hissar,
restored the Prince to the palace; and they agreed to proclaim him
King. The body of Shah Soojah was recovered, and for some days it
lay in state. The royal family declared that until sentence had been
passed upon the murderer it should not be buried. The Moollahs were
assembled to expound the punishment due to so atrocious an offender;
and they pronounced, on the authority of their religious books, that
the murderer of the King should be stoned to death. But Ameen-oollah
Khan interposed. He said that it was not a time to carry out such a
sentence; all parties were bound to league themselves together to fight
against the Feringhees; and intestine animosities ought therefore to be
forgot.
To no one were the circumstances of the Shah’s death a source of
deeper horror and regret than to the good old Newab, the father of the
murderer. He is said to have sworn an oath never again to see his son
beneath his roof, or to suffer him to be named in his presence.[79]
Various circumstances have been assigned as the proximate causes of
the murder of the unfortunate Shah. It was said that he had drawn down
upon himself the increased animosity of the Barukzyes, by appointing to
the command of the army a son of Ameen-oollah Khan. Akbar Khan, too,
had recently been wounded by an accidental shot from a Pesh-Khidmut,
or attendant, which was said to have been designed to take the life of
the Sirdar; and it had been rumoured that Shah Soojah had bribed the
man to make the murderous attempt. That the Newab Zemaun Khan was not
implicated in the foul transaction, all men are willing to believe;
but it was intended to strengthen the party of which he was then the
acknowledged chief. It was the consummation of the great strife which
for forty years had been raging between Shah Soojah and the Barukzye
Sirdars. Indeed, it would have been little in accordance with the
general tenor of Afghan history if this unfortunate Prince had not died
a violent death. After so eventful a life, it would have been strange
indeed if he had sunk to rest peaceably on his bed.
Among the obscurer points of Afghan history, there is not one more
obscure than that which involves the question of the fidelity of Shah
Soojah. That doubts were cast upon his sincerity has been already
shown. Conscious of this, he entered upon a defence of his conduct
in a series of letters to the British authorities which I have now
given to the world. Written hastily, and under the influence of
strong excitement, they carry very little conviction with them. The
main object of these letters appears to have been the extraction of
money from the British treasury. The Shah continued to assert, that
having no money he had no power, but that if money were sent to him
he would be able to do great things for his late allies. Death makes
many revelations. The death of Shah Soojah revealed the mendacity and
the avarice of the man. Some twenty lakhs of rupees, besides jewels
of large value, were found to have been in his possession when he
died.[80] This disagreeable circumstance, though by no means conclusive
against the general fidelity of the Shah, certainly will not predispose
the inquirer to take an unduly favourable view of his conduct.
It must, however, be always kept steadily in view, that the
circumstances of Shah Soojah’s position were such as to surround him
with an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion. That the chiefs made use
of the King’s name at the outset of the insurrection, and produced an
inflammatory document said to bear the royal seal, is one of the most
notorious facts in the entire history of the war. The seal was genuine,
but the document was a supposititious one. Nothing is more common,
in times of popular excitement, than for the Afghans to endeavour to
injure one another by giving currency to forged instruments. It was
to the last degree improbable that, at this time, Shah Soojah should
have committed himself by putting the seal to any documents which
might have fallen into the hands of his European allies, and laid
bare the blackness of his treachery. But that he would have been glad
to have cast off the Feringhee alliance, and to have ruled without
the restraint of our superintendence and interference, is not to be
questioned. He may, therefore, have regarded with inward satisfaction
the progress of the insurrectionary movement, and rejoiced in its
ultimate success; but he does not appear to have been more than a
passive instrument in the hands of others. It was obviously his policy
to appear all things to all people. He could not venture to take any
decided course. He never in the prime of life had been conspicuous for
manliness of character; and now, in his old age, he was more than ever
a waverer and a waiter upon fortune. Perhaps, I should not err if I
were to say that he was true neither to his own countrymen nor to his
British allies. He was prepared to side with either the one or the
other, according to the direction in which the tide of success might
be seen to flow. He had no affection for the English; but he dearly
loved English money. He knew the value of British aid; but he would
fain have had it from a distance. From the very first he had disliked
the obtrusive manner in which it had been forced upon him. He wanted
the _prestige_ of British support without the incumbrance of British
control. To retain our friendship, and yet to rid himself of our
presence, was unquestionably the desire of the Shah; but it is doubtful
whether his desire would ever have shaped itself into any overt acts of
hostility against the government which had restored him to the throne
of his fathers. He was not deficent of gratitude, even if there had
been anything to call it forth;[81] but he had sufficient sagacity
to know that his political existence was dependent upon the will of
the British Government. And he was cautious not to do anything to
provoke its vengeance. The chiefs believed, at the commencement of the
November outbreak, that though the insurrection would soon be crushed,
such a manifestation of popular feeling would in all probability cause
the British authorities to tremble for the safety of their position,
and induce them to evacuate the country in the ensuing spring.
Encouraging a similar belief, Shah Soojah may have regarded with inward
satisfaction the outbreak of the revolution. But he was surprised and
alarmed by the rapidity of its progress; and was wholly unprepared for
the sanguinary termination of his connection with his Christian allies.
That he was in a state of painful depression and prostration throughout
the entire period of the insurrection is not to be questioned; and
it is scarcely less certain that he never wholly recovered from the
terror which then bewildered him. The irruption culminated somewhat
too violently for a man of Shah Soojah’s temperament; and when he
found what a convulsion had been raised around him, he shrunk back in
dismay. On either side dangers and difficulties started up in his path.
He strove to save himself by doing little, and being to all outward
seeming the friend both of the Afghan insurgents and their European
foes. Duplicity is never long successful. Doubted by both parties, the
king became an object of general contempt. He trimmed between the two
contending hosts, and escaped the rocks on neither side of the vessel.
On such a question as this, it is right that the opinions of the
leading political officers, who were best acquainted with the character
and the conduct of the Shah, and had the best opportunities of
investigating the circumstances of the Caubul insurrection, should be
summarily recorded. “To my mind,” wrote Captain Mackeson to Mr. Clerk,
“there has ever appeared but little doubt that his Majesty Shah Soojah
was, in the commencement, the instigator of the Caubul insurrection.
Had the first blow struck by the rebels been effectual, his Majesty
might, perhaps, have thrown off the mask earlier; but our troops in
cantonments held their position though surrounded by foes without
number, whilst those in the Balla Hissar held his Majesty in check.
Nay, the chances were at one time so much in favour of our success,
that his Majesty discarded his own instruments, refusing all their
solicitations to place himself at their head. To such an extent did
he carry his reluctant adherence to us, that at length the rebels, in
their turn, were obliged to seek for a leader among the Barukzyes. His
Majesty then husbanded his own resources, allowing the Barukzyes and
our people to fight out the battle. Sir William Macnaghten would not
have treated with Mahomed Akbar Khan had he not been convinced of the
treachery towards us of Shah Soojah.”[82]
Captain Macgregor’s opinion coincides, but with some amount of
qualification, with that of the last witness. “I agree with you”
(Mackeson), he wrote, “in thinking that the Shah was more or less
implicated in the insurrection; but when he saw that it took such a
serious turn, I really believe that he repented—even so soon as he
heard of Burnes’s assassination, and of the massacre of the other
officers in the city. His Majesty pressed Sir William to remove all the
British troops into the Balla Hissar, which in itself looked like a
friendly feeling towards us.”[83]
The opinion of Major Rawlinson sets in an opposite direction. It throws
a side-light from Candahar on the conduct of the Shah at this time.
“From everything I can learn, I should say that the Shah was certainly
well inclined to us; and, if assured of our again placing confidence
in him, would cordially support our advance. He has certainly done as
little as he could, keeping up appearances with the Mussulman party, to
complicate our position at this place, and I learn that for some time
past the prevalent opinion in the Douranee camp has been that the Shah
desired our success.”[84]
Captain Mackenzie’s opinion, as to the conduct and motives of the
Shah, involves some considerations not noticed by others: “The king
highly esteemed and loved Macnaghten personally, as indeed all the
Afghans did who came into direct intercourse with that accomplished
and courteous English gentleman. Macnaghten’s chivalrous consideration
for the proud but dependant monarch, who felt his somewhat false
position keenly, had been unvarying and unremitting: perhaps more so
than the public interests warranted. But we can afford to admire the
high tone and delicacy of the envoy’s motives, especially as few public
functionaries are likely to be misled by similar knightly scruples. The
king more than once openly discussed with Macnaghten the likelihood
of attempts to sow dissension between them, by the propagation of
reports of his want of faith towards his British allies, and he always
added: “You are yourself aware that you are as necessary to me as
my nails are to my fingers.” Burnes was a man of totally different
temperament from Macnaghten, and his demeanour towards the king was
neither conciliatory nor deferential. It is not saying too much, that
the king hated him; he was aware that his friend the Envoy was about
to depart from Caubul, thus leaving him in Burnes’s hands; and after a
careful consideration of the character of his proceedings from first to
last, of the nature of the motives by which he was generally actuated
(_i. e._ petty and personal), and also of the opinion of many of the
most intelligent Afghans, the most probable conjecture is, that Shah
Soojah was aware of the plot and combination against himself and the
Feringhees before the outbreak; that he hoped it would be sufficient to
detain Macnaghten in the country, but not enough to baffle our military
power; and that, when he became thoroughly alarmed on the morning of
the 2nd of November, he did his best to quell the insurrection, and
openly expressed his astonishment and disappointment at the apathy and
inefficiency of the English leaders and their troops. He can scarcely,
with due consideration for the peculiarities of the Asiatic mind, and
the desperate circumstances of his position, be judged by the European
standard of honour and morality, if he subsequently temporised with the
dominant Barukzyes. He well knew what he had to expect at their hands,
and he fully anticipated the fate which afterwards overtook him.”[85]
But of all the officers connected with the British Mission, John
Conolly was the one who enjoyed the best opportunities of arriving at
a correct estimate of the conduct of the Shah. During the insurrection
he was in attendance on the king at the Balla Hissar, and he was at
Caubul up to the time of his death. Conolly’s opinions are on record.
He seems at one time to have entertained the strongest possible
conviction that the Shah was true to his British allies. “I believe,”
he wrote on the 17th of January, “that he is heart and soul in our
interest; and it is contrary to all reason to suppose otherwise.” But
by the 15th of February his belief in the fidelity of the Shah seems to
have been shaken; for he wrote to Macgregor: “It is generally believed
and asserted throughout the town that his Majesty instigated the late
rebellion. I have never been able to prove the accusation, though I
cannot but think that he was, directly or indirectly, the cause of
the revolution.” A month afterwards, writing still more distinctly to
General Pollock, he cast further doubts on the fidelity of the Shah.
“I would suggest,” he said, “that some direct understanding be come
to with his Majesty. It is generally believed that he caused the late
rebellion; and his conduct lately has been strange, to say the least
of it. He tried to raise a popular tumult against us, hoping thereby
to ruin the Newab. He did not interest himself in any way about our
sick when their wretched, helpless condition was formally represented
to him in a petition from me—added to the circumstance alluded to of
his telling our host to send us to Ameen-oollah, who is our most bitter
enemy. He is, moreover, surrounded by the Populzye leaders of the late
insurrection, whose persons, I presume, our government will demand. I
have not received a letter from him for a month; but the fear of being
suspected of being in communication with us may be the cause of his
disregard of us.” And again, at the end of the month, writing to Major
Rawlinson, he said: “The king is generally abused, and reported as the
instigator of the late rebellion. He has proved himself, I think,
unworthy of our friendship. If we are not able to prove his villany,
his cunning will, no doubt, prompt him to side with us on the near
approach of our troops, for he is well aware that his subjects would
seize him if he ventured out of the Balla Hissar. He is, as the Afghans
say, like grain between two mill-stones.”[86]
Many more passages might be cited from the correspondence of our
political officers, to show the opinions entertained at this time by
those most competent to determine the question of the Shah’s fidelity.
But, after all, the question remains an open one. The future historian
may still lose himself in a sea of conjecture. From the facts before
us, and from all that is known of the character of Shah Soojah, the
inference is, as I have said, that the king was faithful neither to
his own countrymen nor to his British allies. He was at best a poor
creature. He had few good qualities. But it should in justice be
remembered, that he was surrounded by circumstances against which an
abler and a better man might have struggled in vain. He had long been
greatly perplexed and embarrassed by the anomalies of his position.
He was tired of playing the part of the puppet; and had begun to long
for an opportunity either of becoming king indeed, or of throwing down
the trappings and the cares of royalty, and ending his days in the
calm security of his old asylum at Loodhianah. He used to say that
Macnaghten did all the good that was done in Afghanistan—and all the
evil too; for that he himself did nothing. Unpopular measures of which
he was not the author were executed in his name; he was compelled
outwardly to sanction much of which he inwardly disapproved; he saw
dangers thickening around him without the power of averting them, and
painfully felt that he had always been a cipher, and had now become a
hissing and a reproach.
Under the directorship which we had forced upon him, Shah Soojah was
not happy. He was altogether a disappointed man. He did not find
the sweets of restored dominion what he expected them to be. He was
an isolated being. The sympathies neither of the Afghans nor of
the English were with him. All men suspected him. None loved him.
When, therefore, he talked about leaving Caubul, he was probably not
insincere; but he may have thought sometimes that if the English would
leave Caubul, he might enjoy his sovereignty more. If to have desired
to rid himself of an incubus, which sate so heavily upon him, was to be
faithless to the British, Shah Soojah was unquestionably faithless; but
this is a kind of infidelity so common to humanity of all ranks and in
all places, that to record it against the Shah is only to say that he
was a man.
But as regards the actions of the King, it is to be observed that Shah
Soojah was not a man of action. His early life had been one rather of
strenuous passiveness than of genuine activity. Since the British had
taken him in hand, he had actually done nothing. When the insurrection
burst over Caubul, he sate down and waited. After the departure of
the British, he sate down and waited. He was afraid of both parties;
and unwilling to declare himself openly until he could clearly see
how the contest would end. He had not strength of mind sufficient to
keep him faithful to any one. He was not even true to himself. The
question is less a question of fact than of character. The solution of
the difficulty is to be found in the idiosyncrasy of the man. He had
led a very eventful life; but the vicissitudes of his career had not
strengthened his character. Anything decided, active, or energetic, was
not to be expected from him. The infirmity of age was now superadded
to the infirmity of purpose which had characterised his greener
manhood; and if he had taken any decided part in the great contest
which followed the outburst of the Caubul insurrection, it would have
been an inconsistency at variance with the whole tenor of his past
life. As it was, the conduct of the man in this crisis was in keeping
with all that was known of his character and his antecedents. Shah
Soojah was not a hero; and he did not play a heroic part. The British
Government had picked him out of the dust of Loodhianah, simply as a
matter of convenience to themselves; and they had no reason to complain
that, in a great and imminent conjuncture, he thought less of their
convenience than his own. He proved himself at the last to be very much
what we had helped to make him. We could not expect him to be an active
workman, when we had so long used him as a tool.
BOOK VIII.
CHAPTER I.
[November, 1841-April, 1842.]
Affairs at Candahar—Evil Tidings from Caubul—Maclaren’s
Brigade—Spread of the Insurrection—Arrival of Atta Mahmed—Flight
of Sufdur Jung—Attack on the Douranee Camp—Continued
Hostilities—Attack upon the City—Action in the Valley of the
Urghundab—Fall of Ghuznee—Defence of Khelat-i-Ghilzye—Movements of
England’s Brigade.
The attention of the reader ought now no longer to be withheld from
that part of the country where General Nott and Major Rawlinson were
gallantly and successfully holding out against the insurgent Douranees,
and maintaining the character of the British nation before the tribes
of Western Afghanistan. At the beginning of November, wrote Rawlinson,
in a summary of events, drawn up with such masterly distinctness and
comprehensiveness, that the historian has little to do, in this place,
but to submit himself to its guidance;[87] “affairs wore a more
tranquil and promising appearance in the Candahar province than I had
ever witnessed since my assumption of the charge of the agency. Akram
Khan, the leader of the Derawat rebellion, captured by Lieutenant
Conolly, had been executed at this place by his Majesty’s orders.
Eight of the most influential of his colleagues had been sent by me,
according to the orders of the Envoy, under the charge of Lieutenant
Crawford, to Caubul; that officer having my written instructions to
destroy his prisoners in the event of an attempt at rescue. The Hazareh
and the Belooch tribes had been effectually conciliated; the Douranees
of the northern and western districts had been humbled and overawed.”
The troops then at Candahar consisted of her Majesty’s 40th Regiment;
the 2nd, 16th, 38th, 40th, and 43rd Regiments of Bengal Native
Infantry; Captain Blood’s battery (Bombay Artillery); the Shah’s
Horse Artillery, under Captain Anderson; some regiments of the
Shah’s infantry, and some detachments of Irregular Horse (Shah’s
and Skinner’s), the weakness of the force lying in this arm. The
tranquillity of the country seemed to authorise the diminution of this
force, and a brigade, comprising the 16th, 42nd, and 43rd Regiments of
Bengal Native Infantry, was about to proceed, under Colonel Maclaren,
to the provinces of Hindostan. On the 7th of November it commenced
its march; but on the evening of that day some startling intelligence
was brought into Candahar. A detachment of 130 men under Captain
Woodburn—that officer who, in the month of July, had so distinguished
himself on the banks of the Helmund, in action with the Douranee rebels
under Akhtar Khan—was proceeding from Candahar to Caubul, when, on
the 2nd of November, after they had passed Ghuznee, they were attacked
by swarms of Afghans, through whom, with consummate gallantry and
skill, Woodburn fought his way to the little fort of Syedabad. The
place was occupied by a man supposed to be friendly to us;[88] and the
English officer, surrounded as he was by the enemy, gladly accepted his
offer of protection. But there was no safety within the fort. For a day
and a night he held his position against a besieging enemy, and nobly
he defended himself. But his ammunition fell short; and then there came
tidings of the success of the insurgents at Caubul. On this, the chief
admitted parties of the enemy into the towers of his own Harem, which
overlooked the court-yard, in which the Sepoys were quartered. Then the
massacre commenced. Many of the Sepoys were killed on the spot. Others
threw themselves over the walls, and were shot down outside the fort.
Woodburn himself, with a few of his men, took post in a tower of their
own court, and for some hours they gallantly defended themselves. But
they fell at last. The enemy burnt them out; and massacred them almost
to a man.
On receipt of this intelligence Rawlinson at once recommended the
General to halt Maclaren’s brigade. It was accordingly brought back to
Candahar. It was plain that some mischief was brewing in the country
to the north. A week of doubt and anxiety passed; and then letters
came from Macnaghten and Elphinstone, announcing that Caubul was in a
state of insurrection, and ordering Maclaren’s brigade to be despatched
at once to the capital. These letters came on with indorsements from
Colonel Palmer at Ghuznee, and Major Leech at Khelat-i-Ghilzye, which
showed that in the intervening country there were signs of the coming
storm.[89] On the 17th of November, accompanied by a troop of horse
artillery, the three regiments commenced their march to the northward.
Anticipating that some evil might arise from the presence of the
Prince, Sufder Jung, in the province, after his supercession by his
elder and better disposed brother, Rawlinson had invited him to come in
from Zemindawer, and he now suggested the expediency of his proceeding
to Caubul, with Captain Hart’s Janbaz regiment, which was to follow in
the rear of Maclaren’s brigade. The Prince yielded to the suggestion,
and went. The fidelity of the Afghan horse was doubtful, and Rawlinson
was glad to rid himself of the presence both of a discontented Prince
and a body of treacherous Afghan horsemen—soldiers raised, mounted,
armed, equipped and disciplined by Shah Soojah and his British
supporters, seemingly for the one sole purpose of drawing their swords
against the very power to which they owed their military existence.
All through the month of November Candahar remained tranquil. But it
was obvious that the course of insurrection was setting towards the
West. Tidings came in from the country about Ghuznee, which showed that
the road to the capital was infested by the insurgents. Lieutenant
Crawford, who was escorting the Douranee prisoners to Caubul had been
attacked by overwhelming numbers near Ghuznee; and had suffered his
prisoners to escape; or rather, had lost them, with all his baggage,
and a considerable number of his horses and men.[90] Soon afterwards
Guddoo Khan, an Afghan officer in the service of the Shah and his
British supporters, who had accompanied Crawford’s detachment—a
man of unimpeachable integrity and unquestionable gallantry and good
conduct—was on his return from Ghuznee to Candahar “overpowered by
numbers and slain, with seventeen of his best men, losing at the
same time forty-five horses, and all the arms and baggage of the
Ressaleh.” These incidents seemed to portend the near approach of the
thunder-clouds that were breaking over Caubul. Candahar was as yet only
beneath the skirts of the storm.
On the 8th of December Maclaren’s brigade returned to Candahar. How
it happened that these regiments had failed to make good their march
to Caubul is not to be satisfactorily explained. It is still stated
by officers who accompanied the detachment, that the difficulties of
the march have been greatly exaggerated; and that, at all events, they
might have been overcome. Nott sent the brigade with a reluctance
which he took no care to conceal. It was his wish to retain the
three regiments at Candahar; and he was not a man to shrink from the
utterance of his feelings on such a subject as this. “Remember,” he
said to Maclaren and his staff, when they presented themselves at the
General’s quarters to take leave of their old commandant, “the despatch
of this brigade to Caubul is not my doing. I am compelled to defer to
superior authority; but in my own private opinion I am sending you
all to destruction.” The brigade marched; but, starting under such
auspices, there was little likelihood of its reaching its destination.
There were few officers in the force who did not know that, on the
first colourable pretext, it would be turned back.
A pretext very soon presented itself. Two marches beyond
Khelat-i-Ghilyze there was a light fall of snow. On the following day
there was more snow, and some of the commissariat donkeys died upon
the road. On the next, Maclaren halted the brigade, and ordered a
committee to assemble and report upon the state of the commissariat
cattle, with reference to their fitness for the continuance of their
march to Caubul. The committee assembled; registered the number of
deaths among the carriage-cattle during the two preceding days; and
reported that as winter had now set in, and as the loss of cattle
would increase every march that was made to the northward, it would
be impracticable for the force to reach Caubul at all in an efficient
state. On this, about the end of November, Maclaren ordered the brigade
to retrace its steps.
But the snow had now ceased. The little that had fallen soon melted
away, and for weeks not another flake fell throughout the entire
country. The weather was remarkably fine and open; and there is not a
doubt that the brigade might easily have made good its way to Caubul.
But it does not appear ever to have been seriously intended that the
force should reach its destination. Maclaren and his officers knew
well that the return of the brigade to Candahar would be welcome to
General Nott, and that there was not likely to be a very close inquiry
into the circumstances attending the retrograde movement. There was in
reality little more than a show of proceeding to the relief of Caubul.
The regiments were wanted at Candahar; and to Candahar they returned.
How far their arrival might have helped to save Elphinstone’s force
from destruction can only be conjectured. But it is said that both the
English and the Afghan hosts looked with eager anxiety to the arrival
or the repulse of Maclaren, as the event which was to determine the
issue of the pending struggle. The relief of Ghuznee, would in itself
have been great gain to us, for it would have opened the road between
that place and Caubul, and have sent many of the rebellious tribes
to their home; and that the appearance of reinforcements would have
determined many waverers, the venal and vacillating Kuzzelbashes
included, to side with the British, may be recorded as a certainty.
It is right, however, to admit the belief, that if Nott had known to
what straits the Caubul army would soon be reduced, he would not have
uttered a word to encourage the return of the relieving brigade to
Candahar.
But whatever may have been the causes of the failure, soon after the
retrograde movement of Maclaren’s brigade became known, unmistakeable
signs of inquietude were discernible in the neighbourhood of Candahar.
Mahomed Atta Khan had been detached by the Caubul party to raise an
insurrection in Western Afghanistan. No sooner had the chief reached
the frontier than such unequivocal symptoms of popular excitement began
to manifest themselves, that Major Rawlinson at once perceived the
necessity of adopting active measures for the suppression of disorder
and the maintenance of the tranquillity of the surrounding country.
His efforts in the first instance were directed to the avoidance of
any actual collision with the people, and the preservation of outward
smoothness and regularity in the administration of affairs. With this
primal object, he withdrew from the outlying districts all the detached
troops, and concentrated them at Candahar. A single party of Janbaz,
protected by the Hazarehs from the possibility of attack, were left
in Tezeen, whilst all the other troops, Hindostanee and Afghan, were
posted in and around the city of Candahar. But this was not enough.
The safety of our military position might be provided for; but it was
not sufficient to feel confident of our ability to overcome any enemy
that might venture to attack us. It was obviously expedient to strike
rather at the root than at the branches; to prevent the growth of
rebellion rather than to beat it down full-grown. At all events, it
was politic to secure such a division of parties as would annihilate
even the possibility of a powerful coalition against us. Relying upon
the general unpopularity of the Barukzyes with the Douranee tribes,
whom the Sirdars had so long and so severely oppressed, Major Rawlinson
exerted himself to get up a Douranee movement in our favour. He bound
the chiefs, by all the most solemn oaths that Mahomedanism affords,
to stand firm in their allegiance to Shah Soojah and the Shah-zadah
Timour. The priesthood ratified the bond; and the families of the
Douranee chiefs were placed as hostages for their fidelity in the
hands of the British officers. The chiefs themselves, with Prince
Timour’s eldest son at their head, and accompanied by Meerza Ahmed,
the Revenue-manager of Candahar, a man of considerable talents and
unsuspected fidelity, to whom Major Rawlinson had entrusted a lakh
of rupees for the management of the movement, were despatched to the
eastern frontier to raise the tribes against the Barukzyes and their
Ghilzye allies. In the meanwhile the British at Candahar remained
apparently unconcerned spectators of the contest, which, it was hoped,
would resolve itself into a question of Suddozye or Barukzye supremacy
in the Douranee Empire.
The objects contemplated by Major Rawlinson were, however, only
partially attained. He succeeded in gaining time, and in removing the
Douranee chiefs from the neighbourhood of our camp. “The Douranees
quitted Candahar in the middle of December, delayed for a considerable
time the advance of Mahomed Atta Khan, and prevented to the utmost of
their power the spread of religious fanaticism among their tribes.”
But the good faith so apparent at the outset was destined soon to be
overclouded. As long as the Douranees believed that to carry out the
wishes of the British was really to fight the battle of the Suddozyes,
they were true to our cause; but they soon began to give credit to
the report that Shah Soojah himself was in the ranks of our enemies,
and then they fell away from us. Even Meerza Ahmed, in whom so much
confidence had been reposed, turned his fine talents against us, and
became the mainspring of a hostile Douranee movement.
But they did not at once declare themselves. For a while the Douranees
quietly watched the progress of affairs. Those events as they
developed themselves seemed more and more favourable to the spread of
insurrection in western Afghanistan. As the old year wore to a close,
it seemed that our difficulties were thickening, and the new year came
in with a crowd of fresh embarrassments. Sufder Jung had returned to
Candahar. On the retrogression of Maclaren’s brigade he had declared
that he could not trust the Janbaz to escort him to Caubul, and again
set his face towards the south. The presence of these traitorous
horsemen at Candahar had always been a source of considerable anxiety
to Major Rawlinson. The 1st Regiment of Afghan horse had been in
Zemindawer; and when the political agent recalled the other troops from
that part of the country, it was his intention that the Janbaz should
remain at Ghirisk. Their enmity to the surrounding tribes was so well
known, that there was less chance of their uniting with the rebels in
that part of the country than in any other. Owing, however, to the
miscarriage of a letter, Rawlinson’s intentions were defeated. The
Janbaz returned to Candahar with the other details of the Zemindawer
detachment, on the 9th of December. But Rawlinson was determined
to remove them. He suspected their treachery; but sooner than he
anticipated, they threw off all disguise, and openly arrayed themselves
against us.
Before daybreak on the 27th of December the men of the Janbaz regiments
were to have commenced their march to Ghirisk. There were 250 men of
the 1st Regiment under Lieutenant Golding, and 150 of the 2nd under
Lieutenant Wilson. Lieutenant Pattinson was to accompany them in
political charge. The object of the movement was two-fold—to escort
treasure and ammunition to Ghirisk, and to remove from Candahar a
body of men whose fidelity was more than suspected. Two hours after
midnight the party was to have moved and made a double march, for the
purpose of clearing the villages on the Urghundab, which had been
greatly excited during the few preceding days. Golding was ready at the
appointed hour; but, through some misconception of orders, Wilson’s
men were not prepared to march. So the movement was countermanded.
Golding and Pattinson, therefore, returned to the tent of the former,
and laid themselves down again to sleep. The 1st Janbaz regiment had
been drawn up ready for the march with their cattle loaded, and the
postponement of the movement now took them by surprise. They had laid
a plot to mutiny and desert upon the march, and they believed that the
conspiracy had been detected. After waiting for half an hour, drawn up
in the chill air of early morning, they determined at once to throw
off the mask; so they streamed into Golding’s tent with their drawn
swords, and attacked the two officers in their beds. When they thought
that their bloody work was complete, they rushed confusedly out of the
tent, mounted their horses, and fled. The treasure was plundered, and
some horses belonging to Golding and Pattinson were carried off; but
nothing else was touched by the assassins. Pattinson was stunned by a
blow on the head, but recovering his senses, he made his way out of the
tent, wounded as he was in seven places, mounted a horse which his
Meerza had saddled on the spot, and effected his escape.[91] Golding
was less fortunate. He rushed out of his tent, and fled on foot towards
the cantonments; but the Janbaz followed and cut him down when within a
short distance of our camp.[92]
A party of the Shah’s horse under Captain Leeson, and a detachment of
Lieutenant Wilson’s Janbaz, who had remained true to us in the face of
strong temptation, were sent out against the mutineers. The detachment
came up with the rebels about twelve miles from Candahar. There was a
brief but sturdy conflict. The mutineers charged in a body, but were
gallantly met by Leeson’s men; and after a hand-to-hand struggle, were
broken and dispersed.[93] Thirty of their number were killed by our
cavalry, who followed up their advantage; many more were wounded, and
the remainder fled in confusion to the camp of Atta Mahomed.
Two days after the defection of the Janbaz, Prince Sufder Jung fled
from Candahar, and joined the camp of Atta Mahomed. The Sirdar had
fixed his head-quarters at Dehli, about forty miles from Candahar,
and there, early in January, Rawlinson was eager to attack him. The
political agent saw clearly the expediency of crushing the insurrection
in the bud. Every day was adding to the importance of the movement,
and swelling the number of the insurgents. Some of the tribes were
standing aloof, unwilling to declare themselves against us, yet in
hourly expectation of being compelled to secure their own safety by
ranging themselves under the banners of the Prince. But the General was
unwilling to divide his force; and refused to send a brigade to Dehli.
Whilst Rawlinson urged strong political considerations in favour of
promptitude of action, Nott, with equal firmness, took his stand upon
military grounds, and argued that it would be inexpedient, at such a
season of the year, to send a portion of his force a distance of forty
miles from Candahar to beat up the quarters of a fugitive Prince.
“Sufder Jung,” wrote Rawlinson, “has fixed his abode at Dehli, and has
declared himself the leader of an insurrection, aiming at our expulsion
from the country. Up to the present time no very considerable number
of men have joined his standard, and the only chiefs in attendance of
any note, are those who have accompanied Mahomed Atta Khan from Caubul,
together with the Ghilzye leaders, Sumud Khan, Meer Alim Khan, and the
Gooroo. It would thus be an easy matter by the detachment of a brigade
to Dehli to break up the insurgent force, and whether the rebels fought
or fled, the consequences would be almost of equal benefit with regard
to the restoration of tranquillity. But I anticipate a very serious
aggravation of affairs if we allow the Prince to remain unmolested
for any length of time at Dehli, or to move from that place in the
direction of Candahar with the avowed purpose of attacking us. Our
inactivity would not fail to be ascribed by the great body of the
Ooloos to an inability to act on the offensive, and an impression of
this sort having once gained ground, the natural consequences, in the
present highly excited state of religious feeling, would be a general
rise of the population against us.”[94]
Reason and experience were both on the side of this argument, and
Rawlinson stated the case clearly and well. But Nott took a soldier’s
view of the question. He argued, that to send out a brigade at such
a season of the year, so far from its supports, would be to destroy
his men in the field, and to expose the city to the attacks of the
enemy. “I conceive,” he wrote in reply to Rawlinson’s letter, “that
the whole country is in a state of rebellion, and that nothing but
the speedy concentration of the troops at this place has saved the
different detachments from being destroyed in detail, and the city of
Candahar from being besieged.... Because this young Prince is said to
have assembled 1000 or 1500 followers at a distance of forty miles from
Candahar, it would, indeed, be truly absurd were I, in the very depth
of winter, to send a detachment wandering about the country in search
of the rebel fugitive, destroying my men amidst frost and snow, killing
the few carriage-cattle we have left, and thus be totally disabled at
the proper season from moving ten miles in any direction from the city,
or even have the means of falling back, should that unfortunately ever
become necessary.”[95]
The movements of the rebel army soon settled the question between
them. No attempt having been made to dislodge the insurgent chiefs,
they quietly moved down the valley of the Urghundab, and on the 12th
of January took post on the river, about five miles to the west of the
city of Candahar.
General Nott lost no time in moving out to attack them. Taking with
him five and a half regiments of infantry, the Shah’s 1st Cavalry, a
party of Skinner’s Horse, and sixteen guns,[96] a formidable body of
troops, weak only in the mounted branch—he made a four hours’ march
over a few miles of country, and came upon the enemy,[97] posted
near the fortified village of Killa-chuk, on the right bank of the
Urghundab. The British troops crossed the river, and at once advanced
in column of battalions, flanked by the artillery and cavalry, to the
attack. The action was of brief duration. At the end of twenty minutes,
during which our guns and musketry, telling with deadly effect upon
the heavy masses of the enemy, were answered by a wild and ineffective
fire from their ranks, the rebel army was in confusion and flight. The
Ghilzyes fled in one direction; the Janbaz in another; the people from
the villages[98] hastened to their own homes. Atta Mahomed attempted
to make a stand; but our troops moved forward—carried the village by
storm—and slaughtered every man, woman, and child, within its walls.
The British line was then reformed, and Atta Mahomed prepared to meet
a second attack. But the cavalry, with two horse-artillery guns, were
now slipped upon the enemy, who broke and fled in dismay; and the
humiliation of Atta Mahomed and his princely ally was complete.[99]
The Douranee chiefs now began to throw off the mask. They moved down to
the assistance of the rebel army, but the battle had been fought before
they could arrive upon the field, and they only came up in time to
see their countrymen in panic flight.[100] Sufder Jung, Atta Mahomed,
and the other rebel chiefs found an honourable refuge in the Douranee
camp; and from that time, they who had left Candahar as our friends,
presented a front of open hostility to our authority.[101]
Meerza Ahmed was the head-piece of the Douranee party. Nott had
pronounced him a traitor.[102] Rawlinson had now ceased to believe in
his fidelity; but he had never ceased to respect his talents. He knew
him to be an Afghan of rare ability, and he believed that the sagacity
of the Meerza would not suffer him to doubt the difference between
the power of his countrymen and that of the British Government. But
the Meerza had sounded the depth of the difficulties which surrounded
us with no little accuracy, and had estimated aright the nature
of the crisis. He saw in the distance our compulsory abandonment
of Afghanistan, and doubted the wisdom of leaguing himself with a
declining cause.
From the 20th of January to the last day of February the Douranees
remained encamped in the neighbourhood of Candahar. Nothing but the
genius of Meerza Ahmed could have kept together, throughout so long
a season of comparative inactivity, all the discordant elements of
that Douranee force. The winter had set in with its snowy accessories.
Nott was unwilling to expose his troops to the severities of the
winter season; and the enemy seemed equally disinclined for war whilst
the snow was on the ground. But during this period of suspended
hostilities very different were the occupations of the two contending
forces—very different the feelings with which they contemplated the
renewal of the struggle. The attitude of the British at this time
denoted a consciousness of strength. There was no despondency—there
was no excitement. Our officers and men, having nothing to do in the
field, fell back again into the ordinary routine of cantonment life,
as though the country had never been convulsed or disturbed. They rode
steeple-chases; they played at rackets; they pelted one another with
snow-balls. The dreadful snow which had destroyed the Caubul army was
only a plaything in the hands of their brethren at Candahar.[103]
The enemy, on the other hand, were kept continually in a state of
restless and absorbing activity. Meerza Ahmed saw the danger of
suffering the Douranee chiefs, disunited and jealous of each other
as they were, to dwell too intently upon the embarrassments of their
own position. He gave their thoughts an outward direction; and, by
skilful management, kept them both from risking prematurely a general
engagement with the British, and from breaking out into internal
dissensions.[104] “Meerza Ahmed alone,” says Major Rawlinson, in the
masterly despatch I have already quoted, “could have so long preserved
union among the discordant elements of which this camp was composed; he
alone could have managed, by the most careful revenue arrangements, to
have supported the concourse which was assembled round the standard of
Sufder Jung; he alone, perhaps, could have prevented the Douranees from
risking an action in which they were sure to be defeated; his measures
throughout have been most skilful and well sustained. The chiefs were,
in the first place, sent to recruit in the different districts where
their influence chiefly prevailed; revenue was raised in the usual form
for the support of the troops in anticipation of the coming harvest,
the ryots receiving an acquittance from Meerza Ahmed in case the
management should continue in his hands, and being assured that if our
power prevailed we were too just to subject the cultivators to a double
exaction; statements of the Shah’s connivance in the Caubul revolution
were industriously circulated; incessant attempts were made to tamper
with our Hindostanee troops (not altogether without success), and
letters were designedly thrown into our hands to render us suspicious
of such chiefs as adhered to us, whilst the most stringent measures
were adopted to deter the villagers around the city from bringing
supplies into Candahar. Such was the line of policy pursued by Meerza
Ahmed from the 20th of January to the 20th of February. In this interim
General Nott had laid in five months’ supplies for the troops; he
had repaired the fortifications to a certain extent; and, intending
on the 12th of February to march out and attack the enemy, he had
concurred in the advisability of disarming the population preparatory
to the movement of our troops.[105] Severe weather, however, rendered
a march impracticable at the time he meditated; and before it became
sufficiently mild to enable him to take the field, the tactics of the
enemy had undergone a total alteration in consequence of advices from
Caubul.”
But there were many circumstances at this time to create uneasiness
in the minds of those to whom was entrusted the direction of affairs
at Candahar. The garrison was not threatened with a scarcity of
provisions; but fodder for the cattle was very scarce. The horses
were becoming unserviceable from lack of nourishment; the sheep were
so miserably lean as to be scarcely worth killing for food. It was
intensely cold; and fuel was so scarce, that the luxury of a winter
fire was denied even to the sick. The hospitals had their inmates;
but there were no medicines. And above all, money was becoming so
scarce, that the most serious apprehensions were entertained by Major
Rawlinson, who knew that there was no weapon of war so serviceable
as the money-bag in such a country as Afghanistan.[106] Under such
circumstances it may readily be supposed how anxiously the arrival of a
convoy from the southward was looked for, and how necessary it seemed
that the communications with Sindh should be opened in such a manner as
to secure the arrival of treasure and supplies.
But whilst the hopes of the garrison were directed towards the country
to the southward, their thoughts, with fear and trembling, turned
themselves towards the North. On the 21st of February a messenger
arrived at Candahar, bringing a letter from General Elphinstone
and Major Pottinger, ordering the evacuation of Candahar and
Khelat-i-Ghilzye.[107] The original had been written nearly two months
before; and that which now reached Major Rawlinson was a copy forwarded
by Leech from Khelat-i-Ghilzye.[108] There was no doubt in Rawlinson’s
mind about the genuine character of the document; but he could not
bring himself to recognise for a moment the obligations which it was
intended to impose upon him. He could not, however, help perceiving
that the turn which political affairs had taken in Caubul placed him in
a strange and anomalous position. Shah Soojah was now the recognised
sovereign of Afghanistan, ruling by the consent and with the aid of the
Barukzye chiefs; and it could no longer be said that the presence of
the British troops was necessary to the support of the Suddozye Kings.
The Douranee chiefs saw this as plainly as Rawlinson; and they did
not fail to take advantage of the circumstance. They now endeavoured
to reason the British out of Candahar when they found it difficult to
expel them; and Rawlinson and Nott found it less easy to rebut their
arguments than to repel their assaults.
On the 23rd of February, Rawlinson received a packet of letters from
the Douranee camp, the contents of which supplied much food for earnest
reflection. Sufder Jung and the Douranee chiefs wrote to the British
agent, setting forth that, as it had always been declared that the
British merely occupied the country in support of Shah Soojah, and as
the Shah was now recognised by the chiefs and the people, and had no
longer any need of our support, it was incumbent upon us to withdraw
from the country. If, it was added, the British would now consent
to retire from Candahar, an unmolested passage to Quettah would be
guaranteed to them; but that, if they insisted on maintaining their
position, they must expect that the fate of the Caubul army would be
theirs. Meerza Ahmed, in a private letter to Rawlinson, besought him
to retire before the whole Douranee nation rose against the British.
But perhaps the most important of the letters brought in that morning,
was one from Shah Soojah to Prince Timour, to the following effect:
“You must understand that the disturbances which you have, no doubt,
heard of at Caubul, have been a contest between the followers of Islam
and the unbelievers. Now that the affair is decided, all the Afghans
have tendered their allegiance to me, and recognised me as King. It
is necessary that you should keep me duly informed of all proceedings
in your government; and rest assured of my favour and affection.”
When Rawlinson took this letter to the Shaz-zadah Timour, the Prince
at once declared it to be a forgery; but the British officer knew how
to decypher stranger characters than those of a Persian _Dust-Khut_,
and to decide upon the authenticity of far more perplexing scriptures.
Rawlinson’s practised eye saw at once that the document was a genuine
one.
The letter from the chiefs demanded an answer; and Rawlinson now took
counsel with the General. The hour for decision had arrived. It became
them to look their position boldly in the face, and to shape their
course for the future. Nott was not a man to listen patiently to the
language of insolent dictation from the Afghan chiefs. He had already
made up his mind to maintain his position at all risks, pending the
receipt of instructions from India issued subsequently to the receipt
by government of intelligence of the Envoy’s murder.[109] Rawlinson was
of the same opinion. So he drew up a letter to the Douranee chiefs,
setting forth that, as there was every reason to believe that Shah
Soojah was acting under compulsion, and that he in reality, in spite of
existing appearances, desired the support of the British, it would not
become the latter to withdraw from Afghanistan before entering into a
final explanation with the King. He drew the attention of the chiefs
to the difference of our positions at Caubul and Candahar—said that
any attempt to expel us by force must inevitably fail—and recommended
the Douranees to refrain from engaging in unprofitable hostility. But
he added, that the British had no desire to conquer the country for
themselves—that the Candahar army was only waiting for instructions
from government—and he believed it was the desire of that government
to restore to Shah Soojah the uncontrolled exercise of his authority,
and to be guided by the provisions of a new treaty which would probably
be negotiated between the two states.[110] On the following day,[111]
the despatch of the letter having been delayed by the difficulty
of finding a trustworthy messenger, Rawlinson added a postscript,
setting forth that intelligence had since been received, which clearly
demonstrated that the Shah was little more than a prisoner in the hands
of the Barukzyes; and he added, that forces were on their way from
India to avenge the murder of the Envoy.
The activity of Rawlinson, at this time, was unceasing. He exerted
himself, and often with good success, to detach different tribes from
the rebel cause; and was continually corresponding both with the chiefs
in the Douranee camp and in the neighbouring villages. It was his
policy to draw off the Barukzyes from the Douranee confederacy, and to
stimulate the Douranees against the Barukzyes, by declaring that the
Shah was a mere instrument in the hands of the latter. It was debated,
indeed, whether the Douranees could not be induced to move off to
Caubul for the rescue of the King.[112]
But, in spite of these and other favourable indications, it appeared,
both to the military and political chief at Candahar, that it was
necessary now to strike some vigorous blow for the suppression of
the insurrection and the maintenance of our own security. So Nott
determined to attack the enemy; and Rawlinson, after many misgivings,
to expel the Afghans from the city. This movement he had been painfully
contemplating all through the month of February; and now, at the
beginning of March, he believed that he could no longer postpone, with
safety, the accomplishment of this harsh, but necessary, measure of
defence.[113] All doubts regarding the wishes of the Indian Government
had been, by this time, set at rest by the receipt of a copy of a
letter, addressed by the Supreme Government to the Commander-in-Chief
on the 28th of January, in which letter the continued occupation of
Candahar was spoken of as an event which the British-Indian Government
believed would be conducive to the interests of the state; and it
afforded no small pleasure to Nott and Rawlinson to find how completely
they had anticipated the wishes of the Governor-General and his Council.
On the 3rd of March, Rawlinson began to clear the city of its Afghan
inhabitants.[114] Inspecting the census he had made, and selecting
a few who were to be permitted to remain—peaceful citizens, as
merchants, followers of useful trades, and a few members of the
priesthood, he expelled the remainder of the Afghan inhabitants—in
all, about 1000 families. No resistance was offered. The work was
not completed before the close of the 6th. The municipal authorities
performed their duties so remissly, that it was necessary to tell off
an officer and a party of Sepoys to each district, to see that the
clearance was more effectually performed. Some 5000 or 6000 people
were driven out of the city. Every exertion was made to render the
measure as little oppressive as possible; but the expulsion of so many
citizens from their homes could not be altogether free from cruelty and
injustice.[115]
The city having thus been cleared of all its suspected inhabitants,
Nott, on the 7th of March, took the field, with the main body of his
troops. The 40th Queen’s—the 16th, 38th, 42nd, and 43rd regiments
of Native Infantry—a wing of one of the Shah’s regiments—all the
cavalry in the force, and sixteen guns, went out against the enemy. The
2nd regiment of Native Infantry, with two regiments and a wing of the
Shah’s foot, remained behind for the protection of the city. All the
gates of the city, but the Herat and a part of the Shikarpoor gate,
were blocked up, and Candahar was believed to be secure against the
assaults of the whole Douranee force.
As Nott advanced, the enemy, who had been hovering about the
neighbourhood of Candahar, retired before him. He crossed the Turnuk
and advanced upon the Urghundab in pursuit of them; but they shrank
from meeting our bayonets, and it was long before they even ventured
to come within reach of our guns. The artillery then told with such
good effect on the dense masses of the enemy, that they were more than
ever disinclined to approach us. On the 9th, however, there seemed
some prospect of a general action. The enemy’s footmen were posted
on a range of hills, and, as our column advanced, they saluted us
with a volley from their matchlocks. The light companies of the 40th
Queen’s and 16th Native Infantry, under Captain F. White, of the
former regiment, were sent forward to storm the hills on the right;
and the Grenadiers of the 40th, under Lieutenant Wakefield, performed
the same good service on the ascents to the left. The hills were soon
cleared; and the enemy’s cavalry were then seen drawn up in front of
our columns. Their line extended across the plain; their right resting
upon a range of high ground, and their left on a ruined fort, built on
a high scarped mound.[116] Hoping to draw them within his reach, the
General now kept his guns quiet. But they were not inclined to meet us
in the field. They were planning another game.
Whether it had been the original design of the Douranee chiefs to draw
Nott’s army out of Candahar, and to strip the city of its defences;
or whether, awed by the magnitude of the force which the General had
taken out with him, they shrunk from the conflict, was not at first
very apparent.[117] But it subsequently became known to the British
authorities that the stratagem was planned by the subtle understanding
of Meerza Ahmed. The enemy, after the skirmish of the 9th instant,
retired before our advancing battalions, and, industriously spreading
a report that they purposed to attack Nott’s camp during the night,
recrossed the river and doubled back upon Candahar. Up to this time
the city had remained perfectly quiet; and the minds of the British
authorities had not been disturbed by any thoughts of coming danger.
But on the morning of the 10th it was seen that a number of Afghan
footmen had come down during the preceding night and taken possession
of old Candahar. Rawlinson at once despatched three messengers to
Nott’s camp, to inform him that the enemy had doubled back in his rear,
and that it was apparently their intention to attack the city. His
suspicions were soon confirmed. His scouts brought him intelligence
to the effect that the Douranee army was to concentrate during the
day, before Candahar, and to attack it in the course of the night.
All day long the numbers of the enemy continued to increase, and at
sunset Sufder Jung and Meerza Ahmed arrived and posted themselves in
the cantonments. Night came on with pitchy darkness; and the garrison
could not trace the movements of the enemy. They had no blue lights—no
fire-balls—no means of casting a light beyond the defences of the
city. The Ghazees were swarming close to the walls; and at eight
o’clock they commenced the attack. They had heaped up some faggots at
the Herat gate; and now they fired the pile. They had poured oil on the
brushwood, and now it blazed up with sudden fury.[118] The gate itself
ignited as readily as tinder, and the flames now lit up the mass of
white turbans, the gleaming arms, and the coloured standards, which had
before been only seen, in scattered glimpses, by the momentary light
of the kindled match of the Afghan jezails.[119]
Desperate was the attack of the Ghazees, and steady the resistance of
the garrison. A gun upon the bastion poured in its deadly shower of
grape among the besiegers; and the guard kept up a heavy fire from the
ramparts. But the Ghazees pressed on with desperate resolution. The
success of their first movement had given them confidence and courage;
and now they were tearing down the blazing planks with intrepid hands,
fearless of the red-hot bars and hinges of the falling gate. Many
of them, intoxicated with bang, were sending up the fearful yell of
the Afghan fanatic, and rushing upon death with the eagerness of the
martyr. Others were calling upon Prince Timour to come out and win
Paradise by aiding the cause of the true believers. At one time it
seemed that victory would declare itself on the side of the infuriated
multitude that was surging round the city walls. But there were men
within the city as resolute, and far more steady and collected in their
resolution, than the excited crowds beyond it, who were hungering after
our destruction. Major Lane commanded the garrison. Rawlinson was there
to counsel and to aid him. They brought down the gun from the bastion,
and planted it in the gateway. They brought another from the citadel to
its support. They strengthened the point of attack with fresh bodies
of infantry, and called out all the water-carriers to endeavour to
extinguish the flames. But more serviceable even than these movements
was one which opposed a solid obstacle to the entrance of the besieging
multitude. They brought down from the Commissariat godowns a number of
grain-bags, and piled them up at the burning gate. About nine o’clock
the gate fell outwards, and then a party of Ghazees climbed the lofty
barricade of grain-bags, as men weary of their lives. Many fell dead or
desperately wounded beneath the heavy fire of our musketry. Spirited
was the attack—spirited the defence. The fate of Candahar seemed to
tremble in the balance. For three more hours the Ghazees renewed, at
intervals, the assault upon the gateway; but they could not make good
their entrance to the city; and at midnight they drew off in despair.
Whilst this desperate struggle was going on at the Herat gate of the
city, attempts had been made upon the Shikarpoor and Caubul gates. But
the enemy could not fire the brushwood they had collected. The garrison
were too prompt and alert. It appears that Meerza Ahmed, confident
of the success of the attack upon the Herat gate, had arranged that
a given signal should announce this success, and that then he should
proceed to the assault of the Eedgah gate leading to the citadel. But
when at midnight the attack was finally repulsed, a council of war
was held. Baffled in their attempts on the city, the angry fanatics
levelled the most violent reproaches against Meerza Ahmed, and were
with difficulty restrained from laying violent hands on the man, who,
they declared, had betrayed them into an attempt which had sacrificed
the lives of hundreds of true believers, and ended only in failure
and disgrace. It is said that the Ghazees lost six hundred men in the
attempt. They were busy until daybreak in carrying off the dead.
It is not to be doubted that, during that night of the 10th of March,
Candahar was in imminent danger. Had the city fallen into the hands of
the enemy at this time, it is doubtful whether Nott’s force, on its
return, would have succeeded in recapturing it. The troops had gone
out without tents, and were insufficiently supplied with ammunition.
Everything, indeed, was against them; and even if the courage and
constancy of the force had prevailed at last, success could have been
achieved only after an immense sacrifice of life. That the General was
out-manœuvred, is plain. But it may be doubted whether he is fairly
chargeable with the amount of indiscretion which has been imputed to
him. It has been said that he left the city unprotected. But as he
was to have engaged the enemy himself in the open country, and all
sources of internal danger had been removed by the expulsion of the
Afghans and the disarming of the other inhabitants, it was confidently
believed that the troops left in the city were more than sufficient
for its defence. It must, however, be acknowledged that Nott was
lamentably ignorant of the movements of the enemy, who doubled back in
his rear without raising a suspicion of their designs in the British
camp. But this is no new thing in Indian warfare. To be ignorant of
the intentions of the enemy is the rule, not the exception, of Indian
generalship. Our intelligence-department is always so miserably
defective, that we lose the enemy often as suddenly as we find him, and
are either running ourselves unexpectedly upon him, or suffering him to
slip out of our hands.
General Nott re-entered Candahar on the 12th of March. The repulse
which the insurgents had received at the city gate gave a heavy blow
to their cause. It brought disunion into the Douranee camp, and made
the Ghazees denounce the chiefs who had plunged them into disaster, and
resolve to forswear the perilous trade of fanaticism which brought so
much suffering upon them. The ryots, who had joined the standard of the
true believers, now returned in numbers to their peaceful avocations;
and Major Rawlinson exerted himself to the utmost to re-assure the
public mind, and restore peace and prosperity to the surrounding
villages.[120] As the month advanced there were many encouraging signs
of the approaching dissolution of the Douranee camp. Some of its
components were already talking of moving off to Caubul; and it was
said that Meerza Ahmed had sent his family to the capital preparatory
to retreating in that direction himself.
But there is never anything sustained and consistent in Afghan
politics. The appearances of to-day belie the appearances of yesterday,
and are again succeeded by varied symptoms to-morrow. The Douranee
chiefs at one time seemed to be on the point of a general disruption;
and then, after the lapse of a few days, they met in council, and
cooling down under a shower of mutual reproaches, swore solemn oaths
to be true to each other, and to league themselves together for
another attack upon the Feringhees. At the end of the third week of
March they were again upon the move. Upon the 24th, they were within a
short distance of Killa-chuk, where Nott had before attacked them. On
this day the Parsewan Janbaz attempted to renew certain negotiations,
which they had initiated a few days before, but which had been coldly
received. They offered to quit the Douranee camp and to move off to
Caubul, if a month’s pay were given them to defray their expenses on
the march. But Nott indignantly rejected the proposal. “I will never
give them,” he wrote to Rawlinson, “one rupee; and if I can ever
get near them I will destroy them to a man. It is my wish that no
communications shall be held with them. They have murdered our people,
and plundered the country.”[121]
On the following day, our troops again encountered the enemy in the
field. A brigade under Colonel Wymer had been sent out, partly to clear
the country on the Candahar side of the Urghundab from the Douranee
horse, who were threatening our position, and partly to relieve the
garrison, which was straitened for forage, by sending out the camels
to graze in the open country. Wymer took with him three regiments of
infantry, a troop of horse artillery, and a party of some four hundred
mounted men. In the neighbourhood of Baba-Wallee the Douranee horse
crossed the river—3000 strong—to attack him. Having sent a messenger
to Candahar to inform the General of his position, Wymer prepared to
defend himself. He had to guard his cattle as well as to fight the
enemy; and the former necessity greatly crippled his movements. Weak,
as the Candahar detachments always were, in the mounted branch, he
found himself at a disadvantage opposed to the large bodies of the
enemy’s horse, who now appeared in his front. Our Hindostanee cavalry
were driven in by the Douranees under Saloo Khan, who gallantly charged
our squares.[122] But the fire of our guns and the volleys of our
musketry soon checked the audacity of the Afghan horsemen; and the
affair became one of distant skirmishes. But, in the mean while, the
roar of our artillery had been distinctly heard at Candahar, and Nott
had moved out to the support of Wymer’s brigade. The Douranees were
still surrounding our camp, when the General, with the reinforcing
brigade, entered the valley. What the men who followed Nott then saw,
is described as “a beautiful spectacle,” which will not readily be
forgotten.[123] The bright afternoon sun shed its slant rays upon
the sabres of the enemy, and lit them up like a burning forest. Our
infantry were drawn up in a hollow square covering a crowd of camels;
the horse artillery guns, which had done such good service before,
were playing gloriously, under Turner’s direction, upon the dense
bodies of the enemy’s horse, whom their heavy fire kept at a cautious
distance. “And just as General Nott,” adds an eye-witness,[124] “with
the reinforcements came in sight, Lieutenant Chamberlaine, of the
Bengal service, an officer in the Shah’s cavalry, who at the head of a
small party had charged the enemy, was driven back, and, emerging from
a cloud of dust, formed in rear of the infantry, with the loss of a
few men killed, himself and many of his party wounded—but not without
having given very satisfactory proofs of his power as a swordsman,
albeit his treacherous weapon had broken in his hand.” As our
reinforcing regiments approached, the enemy retired; and our cavalry
were quite useless.[125] The Douranee camp had been left standing, and
Nott, though the day was far advanced, was eager to cross the river and
attack it; but the guns could not be brought down to the bank without
great labour, and the fords were well-nigh impracticable. So Nott
determined to withdraw the brigade to Candahar for the night, leaving
Wymer in position, and to return on the following morning to disperse
the Douranee horse.
On the morning of the 26th, Nott went out again, with the brigade
that had accompanied him on the preceding day, to the banks of the
Urghundab; but the enemy had struck their camp during the night; and
as soon as day broke, the Douranee horse had moved off and dispersed
themselves in different bodies. So the General returned to Candahar;
whilst Colonel Wymer re-halted in the valley to graze his cattle,
unmolested and secure. Rawlinson remained in the valley throughout the
day, “visiting the different villages, conversing with the Moollahs and
head-men, and endeavouring to restore confidence. Imprecations against
the Ghazees were general in every village, and the damage which had
been caused by their depredations was evidently very great.”[126]
The result of this affair was a growth of fresh disunion in the
Douranee camp. The chiefs accused each other of cowardice, and all
assailed Meerza Ahmed with measureless abuse. But tidings were now
coming in, both from the north and the south, which went some way to
comfort and re-assure them. It was currently reported in their camp
that Ghuznee had capitulated. This intelligence had been received
some days before by the British officers at Candahar, and had not
been disbelieved. On the 31st of March, a letter from Major Leech,
at Khelat-i-Ghilzye, was received by Nott at Candahar, and though it
announced the fall of Ghuznee only on native authority, it seemed to
divest the fact entirely of all atmosphere of doubt. It appeared, from
the statements that reached Candahar, that Ghuznee had been invested by
an overwhelming force, and that, after holding out for some weeks, the
garrison had been reduced more by a want of water than by the attacks
of the enemy. It was reported, that before the arrival of orders from
Caubul for the evacuation of the place, the town of Ghuznee had been
taken by the surrounding tribes—“that the Hindoos of the Bazaar were
all killed, fighting on our side—that Palmer, during the two months
he was in the Balla Hissar, paid a daily sum for his provisions,
water, and wood—that Shumshoodeen was the bearer of orders from the
British at Caubul to give up the fortress—that the failure of water
was the reason that made him agree to vacate the upper citadel on
the 8th instant—that the mass of Ghazees did not respect the treaty
formed, with a guarantee given to Palmer by Shumshoodeen, but attacked
our garrison, and they only 400 strong, on their leaving the citadel,
killing 100 and losing many themselves—that Palmer now wanted a
guarantee for the safety of the officers, and that this being given,
they surrendered themselves with two or three European females.”[127]
At the same time, Leech reported that he was in possession of a letter,
bearing the seal of Shumshoodeen Khan, and addressed to the Shamalzye
chiefs, exhorting them to assemble and march on Khelat-i-Ghilzye, and
holding out to them hopes of honour and wealth to be conferred upon
them by the King and Ameen-oollah Khan, if they succeeded in capturing
the place; and promising himself, upon the breaking up of the snow, to
march down upon it “with fort-destroying guns and an army crowned with
victory.”
The tidings of the fall of Ghuznee were most calamitously true. The
fortress, which the English had taken with so much difficulty, and the
capture of which had been proclaimed with so much pomp, was now in the
hands of the enemy. The slight outline of the melancholy events which
had ended in the destruction of the garrison and the captivity of the
surviving officers, which Leech had sent from Khelat-i-Ghilzye, was
substantially correct. The enemy appeared before Ghuznee on the 20th of
November. On the same day snow began to fall. Maclaren’s brigade was
then advancing from Candahar, and the enemy, expecting its appearance
in their neighbourhood, drew off their investing force; but they soon
reappeared again. Maclaren’s retirement gave them new heart; and on the
7th of December they collected again, in increased numbers, around the
walls. The garrison were now completely enlaced. The city was in their
possession, but they could not stir beyond it. Soon, however, they
lost even that. The inhabitants undermined the walls, and admitted the
enemy from without. On the 16th of December, through the subterranean
aperture which the townspeople had made, the enemy streamed in by
thousands. The city was now no longer tenable. The garrison shut
themselves up in the citadel.
The winter now set in with appalling severity. The Sepoys, kept
constantly on the alert, sunk beneath the paralysing cold. Bravely as
they tried to bear up against it, the trial was beyond their physical
capacity to endure. The deep snow was lying on the ground; it was
often falling heavily when the Sepoys were on their cold night-watch.
The mercury in the thermometer had fallen many degrees below zero. Men
who had spent all their lives on the burning plains of Hindostan, and
drunk their tepid water out of vessels scorched by the fierce rays
of the Indian sun, were now compelled to break the ice in the wells
before they could allay their thirst. Fuel was so scarce, that a single
seer[128] of wood was all that each man received in the day to cook
his dinner and keep off the assaults of the mysterious enemy that was
destroying them. They were on half-rations; and the scanty provisions
that were served out to them were of such a quality that only severe
hunger could reconcile them to it. Numbers of them were carried into
hospital miserably frost-bitten. The northern climate was doing its
work.
The Afghans, in the mean while, in possession of the city, continued
to harass the garrison in the citadel, by firing upon them whenever
they showed their heads above the walls. This continued till the middle
of the month of January, when, it appears, that some suspension of
hostilities supervened. It was believed that the English at Caubul had
entered into a treaty with the Afghan Sirdars; and that Shumshoodeen
Khan would shortly arrive with orders from the existing government to
assume possession of the place. Weeks, however, passed away, and the
new governor did not make his appearance.[129] About the middle of
February he arrived, and summoned Palmer to surrender. Unwilling to
submit to the humiliating demand, and yet hopeless of the efficacy of
resistance, the English officer contrived to amuse the Sirdar until
the beginning of March. Then the patience of Shumshoodeen Khan and the
other chiefs was exhausted; and they swore that they would recommence
hostilities with unsparing ferocity if the citadel were not instantly
surrendered. So, on the 6th of March, Palmer and his men marched out of
the citadel. The enemy had solemnly sworn to conduct them in safety to
Peshawur, with their colours, arms, and baggage, and fifty rounds of
ammunition in the pouches of each of our fighting men.
But it soon became only too miserably apparent that the enemy had sworn
falsely to protect Palmer and his men. The British troops had scarcely
taken up their abode in the quarter of the town which had been assigned
to them, when the Afghan chiefs threw off the mask. On the day after
their departure from the citadel, when the Sepoys were cooking their
dinner, the Ghazees rushed with sudden fury on their lines. Three days
of terror followed. House after house, in which the English officers
and their suffering Hindostanee followers endeavoured manfully to
defend themselves, was attacked by the infuriated enemy. Fire, famine,
and slaughter were all working together to destroy our unhappy men. At
last, on the morning of the 20th, the survivors were huddled together
in two houses which had been assigned to the head-quarters of the
force—soldiers and camp-followers, men, women, and children, crammed
to suffocation in every room, all hourly expecting death. The enemy
were swarming around. The citadel guns, which had been useless in our
hands, but were now most effective in those of the enemy, were sending
their round-shot “crashing through and through the walls.”[130] Hour
after hour, and still the enemy seemed to pause, as though unwilling
to shorten, by a last annihilating attack, the sufferings of their
victims.[131] But Shumshoodeen Khan had begun to relent. He was in
council with the other Sirdars; and it was determined that the wretched
men, who were now so wholly at their mercy, should be admitted to
terms. The Ghazees were still crying aloud for their blood. But the
chiefs assured the officers of their safety, if they would lay down
their arms and place themselves in their hands. The Sepoys had by this
time thrown off all authority, and determined to make their own way to
Peshawur.[132] So the British officers, under a solemn oath from the
chiefs that they should be honourably treated and conducted in safety
to Caubul, laid down their arms, and trusted to the good faith of the
Afghan Sirdars.[133] The Sepoys, in the mean while, were endeavouring
to prosecute their insane scheme of escaping across the open country to
Peshawur. Snow began to fall heavily. They wandered about the fields
helpless and bewildered. Many of them were cut down or made prisoners
by the enemy; and to all who survived, officers and men alike, a time
of suffering now commenced, all the circumstances of which are burnt
into their memories as with a brand of iron.
The fall of Ghuznee was a great disaster and a great discredit. Among
the officers of Nott’s division it was regarded as more disgraceful
than the loss of Caubul. Want of water was said to be the cause of
Palmer’s surrender; but it was believed that he might have retained
possession of the great well by running a covered way down the mound;
and it is still asserted that if he had taken the more decided step
of expelling the treacherous inhabitants from the town, he might have
held out until he was relieved from Candahar. This at least would
have given him both firewood and water. And it is not improbable that
Afghan cupidity would have prevailed over Afghan resentment, and that
grain and other provisions would have been brought in to him in return
for bills on the British Government. But Palmer wanted decision; and
Ghuznee was lost.
In the mean while, Khelat-i-Ghilzye was gallantly holding out against
the enemy. Situated between Ghuznee and Candahar, about eighty miles
from the latter city, this isolated fortress stands upon a barren
eminence, exposed to the wintry winds and driving dust-storms—one of
the dreariest and bleakest spots in all the country of Afghanistan. It
had been originally garrisoned by the Shah’s 3rd infantry regiment, a
party of forty European artillerymen, and some sappers and miners; but
Maclaren’s brigade, on its return towards Candahar, had dropped some
250 Sepoys of the 43rd Regiment at Khelat-i-Ghilzye to strengthen the
garrison; and now, commanded by Captain John Halkett Craigie, of the
Shah’s service, this little party prepared to resist the assaults of
the investing enemy and the cruel cold. For months the cold was far
more irresistible than the enemy. In that bleak, exposed situation,
the icy winds were continually blowing from the north. “The lower
the temperature sunk, the higher blew the north wind.” The barracks
were unfinished; there were neither doors nor windows to keep out the
chilling blasts; and there was a scanty supply of firewood in store.
How the Hindostanee soldiers bore up against it, it is difficult to
say, for the European officers declare that they “never experienced a
winter so continuously cold.” There was an abundance of grain in store;
but all the surrounding country was against them, and the wheat could
not be ground. After more than two months of ineffectual labour they at
last constructed serviceable hand-mills. The Europeans often lived for
days together upon bread and water; but not a murmur arose. The winter
passed wearily away. The enemy were inactive. But with spring came a
renewal of active work on either side. The garrison were labouring
to strengthen their defences, and the enemy, as the year advanced,
began to draw more closely round the fortress, their numbers and their
boldness increasing together. After a time, they began to dig trenches
round the place, and, covered by the loopholed parapets, to keep up a
hot fire upon the garrison, which it was impossible to return with good
effect. But Craigie and his men had no thought of surrender. They held
out, cheerfully and uncomplainingly, thankful if they could get a shot
at the enemy when the parties in the trenches were being relieved.
Such was the condition of the garrisons of Ghuznee and Khelat-i-Ghilzye
when disastrous intelligence from the southward reached Nott and
Rawlinson at Candahar. They had been, for some time, looking forward
with the greatest anxiety to the arrival of a convoy from Sindh,
which was to throw treasure, ammunition, hospital stores, and other
necessaries into the garrison, and increase the number of their
available troops. Brigadier England, who commanded the Sindh field
force, was at Dadur towards the close of February, and there he
received instructions to move on through the Bolan Pass, to assemble
a strong body of troops at Quettah, and thence to push his succours
through the Kojuck with all expedient despatch. Major Outram was
then in Sindh, earnest amongst the earnest to retrieve our lost
position in Afghanistan, and active amongst the active to carry out
the work of throwing troops into the country which had witnessed our
abasement.[134] “All my endeavours in this quarter,” he wrote on the
15th of March, “have been to urge forward movements, and at last I have
managed to send up every disposable man. Brigadier England marched from
Dadur on the 7th (of March), and must be at Quettah by this time. The
remainder of his troops intended for service above will march about
the 23rd or 24th, so that he will have assembled at Quettah by the
end of the month (including the garrison) one troop of European Horse
Artillery, six guns; half a company of Bombay European Artillery; Major
Sotheby’s company of Bengal European Artillery; her Majesty’s 41st
Foot; three regiments of Native Infantry and a flank battalion of the
same; two squadrons of Native Regular Cavalry, and 200 Poonah Horse.
Of the above, two regiments of Native Infantry and half a company of
artillery will be required to garrison Quettah. All the remainder will
be available to reinforce General Nott, and will march on Candahar
with that view in the first week of April, I trust, with everything
that is required by the Candahar garrison, namely, twenty lakhs of
treasure, ammunition, and medicines. I hope, however, that Brigadier
England will, in the mean while, push on a detachment with a portion
of these supplies to meet a brigade at the Kojuck, which General Nott
talks of sending out to receive what can be afforded.”[135]
On the 16th of March, Brigadier England arrived at Quettah. On the
following day, he wrote to Lieutenant Hammersley, the political agent
at that place: “The 22nd is at length fixed as the day of my departure
from hence, and in truth I do not see how it could advantageously be
hastened, owing to the numerous demands made on my small means. I
propose, unless other intervening events should change such purpose,
to move as far as Hykulzye on the 24th, and there await intelligence
from the northern extremity of the Kojuck Pass. This you must manage
for me. I could move at once to Killa-Abdoollah; but it seems to me
advisable to try the influence of our presence in the Pisheen valley,
in the matter of supplies and camels. The amount of treasure I take to
Candahar will not exceed four lakhs, and about one-third of a lakh of
musket ammunition; we have not carriage or protection for more at a
time.” On the following day he wrote again to Lieutenant Hammersley,
stating that he was determined to halt in the Pisheen valley, unless
General Nott had actually sent two or three regiments to the Kojuck to
meet the treasure; and Hammersley, when he forwarded a copy of this
letter to Outram, wrote that there were officers in England’s brigade
who openly prophesied that the detachment would be sacrificed between
Quettah and the Kojuck Pass.[136]
On the 26th of March, the Brigadier moved forward on the Pisheen
valley, taking with him five companies of her Majesty’s 41st Regiment,
six companies of Bombay Native Infantry, a troop of the 3rd Bombay
Cavalry, fifty men of the Poonah Horse, and four Horse-Artillery guns.
Early on the 28th he “arrived at the entrance of a defile which leads
to the village of Hykulzye,” at which place he “had intended to await
the remainder of the brigade now in progress to this place through
the Bolan Pass.”[137] It was plain that General Nott had no intention
to send any troops to the southward to co-operate with England’s
detachment;[138] and it soon became apparent that the latter would have
done well to have retained his position at Quettah until reinforced
by the troops moving up from the southward. England found himself
near the village of Hykulzye, knowing nothing about the country, and
nothing about the movements of the enemy. Colonel Stacy accompanied the
force as its political director. He had, some days before, informed
the General that he might expect to meet the enemy at Hykulzye; but
as they approached that place no intelligence of their position was
to be obtained, and not before England was close upon them had he any
knowledge that they were in his front. Mahomed Sadig had come down
determined to dispute our progress, and was now posted, with his
troops, behind some _sungahs_ on the Hykulzye heights.
England halted the column, and rode forward with his staff to
reconnoitre the enemy’s position. After the lapse of about a quarter
of an hour he returned, and the force was ordered to advance. The
Horse-Artillery guns were now opened on the hills to the left, whilst
Major Apthorp, with the light battalion, was instructed to storm
the hills to the right. Leslie’s battery played with good effect,
throwing its shrapnel among the enemy; but the infantry column was
disastrously repulsed. The enemy rose up suddenly from behind their
sungahs and poured in such a destructive fire upon our columns that the
light companies fell back. Captain May, of the 41st, was shot dead.
Major Apthorp,[139] who commanded the light companies, was carried,
desperately wounded, to the rear. A sabre-cut had laid open his skull,
and another had nearly severed his right arm. Of a party of less than
500 men nearly a hundred were killed or wounded. The enemy fought
with uncommon gallantry, and many of them were bayoneted or shot on
the hill. Among them were five or six of their chiefs. Mahomed Sadig
himself, who had been behind the defences, but had quitted them on the
advance of our light battalion, and joined the horsemen on the hill,
received a bayonet-wound on the shoulder.
Our men, after their repulse, soon rallied, and were eager again to be
led to the attack. But England had determined to retreat. Colonel Stacy
volunteered to lead a party of a hundred men up the hill and to carry
the defences; but the gallant offer was declined.[140] Three times he
pressed it upon the General, but with no effect. It was believed by the
latter that the Hykulzye defences could be carried only by a strong
brigade, and one, too, equipped with mortars. So he wrote to General
Nott, urging him to send a force so equipped to meet him; and in the
mean while fell back upon Quettah.[141] And there he began to entrench
himself, as though he were about to be besieged by an overwhelming
force.
No satisfactory reasons have yet been assigned for this unhappy
miscarriage. But excuses have been urged in abundance. It was alleged
that the defences at Hykulzye were impracticable—that they had been
two months in course of erection—that the General had received no plan
of them from the political authorities—that he was not, in fact, aware
of their existence—that he had been deceived by false accounts of the
number of the enemy—that strong reinforcements had come down from
Candahar—and that the Sepoys did not support the European soldiers
at Hykulzye. But upon a careful examination of all these charges and
assertions, it does not appear that one can be maintained.
The defences at Hykulzye were not formidable. General England had not
seen them at this time. Lieutenant Evans, of the 41st, did see them;
and he said that there were “no breastworks, but merely a four-foot
ditch filled with brushwood.” The elevations were nothing more than
those heaps of earth and stone known as _sungahs_, which may be,
and often are, thrown up in a few hours. The best information that
Hammersley could obtain went to show that these defences were thrown up
by Mahomed Sadig when General England’s force had reached Koochlag; but
not before. When the brigade advanced from Quettah a month afterwards,
the Hykulzye defences were found to be so formidable that some of the
officers rode over them, not knowing where they were.
The strength of the enemy at Hykulzye seems to have been exaggerated
very much in the same manner as the strength of the defences.
General England wrote to Hammersley on the 28th of March, after his
unsuccessful engagement, that the enemy were “a hundred to one
stronger than any one expected.”[142] Hammersley and Stacy had both
told the General that he might expect Mahomed Sadig to make a stand at
Hykulzye. The former officer had computed the strength of the enemy
at 1000 foot and 300 horse; and his subsequent inquiries went to show
that he had rather overstated than understated the number actually
engaged. England’s own officers estimated the strength of the enemy
at from 1000 to 1300 men; and native testimony went to show that
they had overstated the number of horsemen in the field. The strong
reinforcements which were said to have come down from Candahar before
the 28th of March were purely fabulous. There had been some talk of
such a movement, but not until after the affair with Colonel Wymer’s
brigade on the 25th of March. Then it was debated among the chiefs
whether a party should not be sent down to the Kojuck to intercept the
convoy advancing from the southward. An invitation from Mahomed Sadig
had arrived in their camp, and it had come at an opportune season.
Greatly depressed by the failure of their efforts in the neighbourhood
of Candahar, the Douranee chiefs were almost on the point of breaking
up their camp, when intelligence of the fall of Ghuznee came to
revive their spirits. They were then at Dehli. There the tidings of
the advance of England’s convoy reached them, and there they received
an invitation from Mahomed Sadig to send troops to reinforce him.
Expecting that their own camp would be strengthened by the arrival of
Shumshoodeen Khan, they believed that they might safely detach a party
to the southward. Accordingly, Saloo Khan and some other chiefs[143]
set out towards the Kojuck. But they had hardly commenced their march
when England was driven back at Hykulzye. The chiefs fell out on the
road, and Saloo Khan alone made his way to the southern passes; but
not a man of his party had joined Mahomed Sadig on that disastrous 28th
of March, when England sought to justify his failure by a reference to
the reinforcements from Candahar.
Only one more point remains to be mentioned in connexion with a subject
which the chronicler of these events is but too anxious to dismiss.
General England insinuated that he had no reliance upon his Sepoy
troops. He is said to have remarked, that although when his troops and
those of General Nott were united they would have 15,000 men under
their command, they could not oppose a whole nation with two weak
regiments.[144] He thought that her Majesty’s two regiments, the 40th
and 41st, were the only two corps that could be relied upon. Nott told
a different story. “My Sepoys are behaving nobly,” was his constant
report. I can find no mention of any backwardness on the part of the
Sepoys, in any of the letters written by the officers of either service
after the affair at Hykulzye; and I believe, that if Colonel Stacy
had been suffered to storm the works after the first repulse, a large
number of Sepoys would have volunteered to follow him.
When all the circumstances of the case come to be considered, it
appears that a disaster of a very discouraging character was sustained
by the adoption of a course which had no object of importance
commensurate with the risk that was incurred. General England had no
intention of advancing upon Candahar. He ought, therefore, to have
remained at Quettah. The advance into the Pisheen valley was a grave
error. It was plainly England’s duty, at this time, either to have
cleared the pass with the treasure and stores which were so much
needed by the Candahar garrison, or to have waited patiently for his
reinforcements at Quettah. To advance from that place, and then to fall
back upon it, was to do that which Nott said, in anticipation, would
be more injurious to the position of the Candahar force than 20,000 of
the enemy in the field.[145] Major Outram also strongly advised General
England to await at Quettah the arrival of the reinforcements from
below; but England would go on to be beaten.[146]
To Nott, this failure was mortifying in the extreme. He was in no mood
to brook delays and excuses. The disaster at Hykulzye was sufficiently
annoying to him; but the seeming unwillingness of General England to
redeem his character by a vigorous movement in advance, irritated
him still more. He had been for some time complaining bitterly of
the neglect to which he and his force had been subjected by the
authorities below. “I know not the intentions of Government regarding
this country,” he wrote to General England; “but this I know and
feel—that it is now from four to five months since the outbreak at
Caubul, and in all that time no aid whatever has been given to me. I
have continually called for cavalry, for ammunition, treasure, stores,
and medicines for the sick. I have called loudly, but I have called
in vain. Had the least aid been sent—even a regiment of cavalry—I
could have tranquillised or subdued the country. I have been tied to
this important city, when a few additional troops for its garrison
would have set me free; and I now would have moved on Ghuznee and
Caubul. All I have now to do is to uphold the honour of my country in
the best manner I can without the assistance above alluded to, and
in ignorance of the intentions of government.”[147] In this frame of
mind, his patience well-nigh exhausted, his temper never of the most
genial cast now more than ever overclouded, he received intelligence,
first of England’s defeat, and then of his reluctance to move forward.
England himself announced the latter, if not in so many plain words,
in language equally unmistakeable. After setting forth all the dangers
and difficulties of a forward movement, he concluded, on the 10th of
April, a letter to Nott by saying: “Whenever it so happens that you
retire bodily in this direction, and that I am informed of it, I feel
assured that I shall be able to make an advantageous diversion in your
favour.”[148]
This was too much for Nott. Determined at once to settle the question
of England’s advance, he sate down and wrote a letter to the General,
declaring that he had well considered England’s position, that he knew
the country well, that he was determined to uphold the honour of his
country, and that it was necessary that the brigade from Quettah should
push on at once with money, medicine, and ammunition, for the relief
of Candahar. “I am well aware,” he added, with keen sarcasm, “that war
cannot be made without loss; but yet, perhaps, the British troops can
oppose Asiatic armies without defeat.”[149]
It was impossible to resist the urgency of this appeal. The orders from
Candahar were not to be misunderstood. They were clear as the notes of
a trumpet, and ought to have been as spirit-stirring. England’s brigade
now began to prepare for a forward movement. So little, however, had
it been anticipated that the force would ever leave Quettah, that the
officers of the brigade had been buying houses and settling down for
cantonment life.[150] But on the 26th of April, England broke ground;
and on the 28th—precisely a month after the date of his disastrous
failure—was again before Hykulzye. The enemy, emboldened by their
previous success, were posted on the ground they had occupied before;
but they soon found that they had not estimated aright the character of
British troops, and that what they had regarded as a proof of their own
superiority in the field, was an accident not likely to be repeated.
The British troops were told off into three parties—one, under Major
Simmons, to storm the hills to the left; another, under Captain
Woodburn, to attack the hill on the right, where the disaster of the
previous month had occurred; and a third, under Major Browne, was kept
in reserve. When they had taken up their position, the guns of Leslie’s
battery opened with good effect on the enemy; and then the infantry
advanced with a loud “hurrah” to the attack. They are said to have
moved forward “as steady as on parade.”[151] The coolness and courage
of the infantry soon completed what the admirable practice of the guns
had commenced. The enemy turned and fled. Delamaine’s cavalry were then
slipped in pursuit; and there was an end of the defence of Hykulzye.
On the morning of the 30th, England’s brigade entered the defile
leading to the Kojuck Pass. Here, for some unaccountable reason, the
General halted the column, dismounted from his horse, called for a
chair, and sate himself down. In vain Colonel Stacy implored him to
move on. In vain he urged that the Candahar troops were entering the
pass from the other side, and that all the glory of the enterprise
would be theirs. In vain Major Waddington, the engineer, pressed the
same advice on the General. The Bombay force was locked-up at the
entrance to the pass, whilst Wymer, with the Bengal regiments, was
gallantly crowning the Kojuck, and reporting everything clear for
the advance of the Quettah brigade. The Sepoys of those three noble
regiments—the 2nd, the 16th, and 38th, who would have followed Wymer
wheresoever he pleased to lead them—were now climbing the precipitous
ascents, disincumbered of whatever might clog their movements,[152]
and every accessible height was bristling with the bayonets of the
Candahar force. The Bombay troops were bitterly disappointed; but they
cordially fraternised with their new comrades, and, if they felt any
pangs of envy, they were too forbearing to express them.
Without any opposition the two united brigades now marched on to
Candahar, and entered the city on the 10th of May. The enemy had broken
up and dispersed. Saloo Khan, who had come down to the assistance of
Mahomed Sadig, had fallen out with that chief. He had never thrown his
heart into the cause, and was, indeed, at any time, to be purchased
by British gold. Rawlinson thought that a little money would be well
expended on the purchase of his allegiance, but Nott objected to the
measure.[153] In the meanwhile, however, Stacy had been exerting
himself with good success below the Kojuck to obtain the co-operation
of this man in the important work of keeping open the communication
between Quettah and Candahar; and when he reached the latter place,
he was able to report that Saloo Khan had promised all that was
required of him; and that Atta-oollah Khan, the brother of the chief,
was now accompanying him, for the purpose of concluding the necessary
arrangements.[154]
In the meanwhile, the Douranee chiefs, though disunited, were not
inactive. It was hard to determine with any distinctness what were
their designs at this time—so contradictory were the accounts which
reached our camp, and so inconsistent the movements of the enemy. But
it seemed that our difficulties were very sensibly diminishing. As
the spring advanced, the general aspect of affairs was brighter and
more encouraging than it had been since the first outbreak of the
revolution. The chiefs were scattered about in all directions—some
wounded and dying—others eager to make terms with the British.
Meerza Ahmed and Sufder Jung were contemplating a withdrawal across
the frontier to Laush and Jowayan. The latter was corresponding with
the British agent, and expressing his desire to return to our camp.
The Caubul Janbaz had deserted in disgust. The principal men of the
surrounding villages were sending messages into our camp, offering to
withdraw all their people from the rebel standard if we would guarantee
them against the depredations of our troops. The trade of the _Ghazee_
was plainly at a discount. And whilst the elements of decay were thus
discernible within, there were external influences at work to weaken
the rebel cause. Glad tidings arrived from the eastward. General
Pollock had advanced upon Jellalabad; had relieved the garrison of that
place; and had, it was said, determined to march upon the capital. A
royal salute was fired at Candahar; and as the tidings of our successes
spread through the country the spirits of the insurgents became more
and more depressed.[155]
Still it was obvious that whilst Meerza Ahmed and Atta Mahomed
continued to flit about the neighbourhood of Candahar, there was
no prospect of permanent tranquillity. Lesser chiefs might tender
their submission, but whilst these, the mainsprings of the great
insurrectionary movement, were employing their talents and exercising
their influence in hostility against us, there was little chance of
any effective movement for the suppression of rebellion in Western
Afghanistan. Armed with authority from the Shah himself, granted prior
to the great outbreak, Meerza Ahmed was raising revenue in the name of
the local government, and expending the money thus collected on the
maintenance of the war. It appeared expedient, therefore, to Nott, to
cause a proclamation to be issued, cautioning the inhabitants against
paying revenue to the Meerza. This was a measure of unquestionable
propriety; but Nott was disposed to go far beyond it. He was eager
to offer a reward to any one who would bring in either Meerza Ahmed
or Atta Mahomed to his camp; and on the 7th of April he wrote to
Rawlinson on the subject: “I wish a proclamation to be immediately
issued, prohibiting any person paying revenue to Meerza Ahmed or to
Sufder Jung, and making them to understand, that whatever sums they
pay to these chiefs will be their own loss, as the regular revenue due
to his Majesty the Shah will be exacted from them by the authorities
of Candahar. I will thank you in the proclamation to offer a reward
of 5000 rupees to any person who will bring in either Meerza Ahmed or
Mahomed Atta. The sooner this is done the better. Let me see the draft
of the proclamation before it is issued.”[156]
Startled at this bold and questionable proposition, Rawlinson, having
asked in the first place whether the proclamation was to be issued
in the General’s own name, or in that of Prince Timour, and having
suggested that on a question of such importance as that of the raising
of revenue the wishes of the Prince should be previously ascertained,
went on to speak in his letter, of the proposed rewards. “Is the
reward of 5000 rupees,” he asked, “also offered to any one bringing
in Mahomed Atta or Meerza Ahmed, to apply to these people dead or
alive, or is it merely to be given in the event of any of the Afghans
bringing them in as prisoners? I do not think the Prince would have any
objection to issue the proclamation about revenue, and to signify to
all his subjects that he has appointed Meerza Wulee Mahomed Khan to the
management of this department, notwithstanding he is aware that papers
of an exactly opposite tenor, issued by his father, are in Meerza
Ahmed’s hands; but I greatly doubt his aquiescing in the subject of the
reward, as whatever may be the secret feelings of Mahomedans regarding
betrayal or assassination, it is altogether repugnant to their habits
to avow such objects in a public proclamation.”[157]
To this Nott replied that, as a matter of course, he intended the
proclamation regarding the revenue to be issued in the name of the
Prince. “In regard,” he added, “to the reward for the apprehension
of Meerza Ahmed, that is a different thing; and if the Prince will
not consent to include it in the proclamation regarding the revenue,
where it ought to appear, I will issue a separate proclamation. Meerza
Ahmed has murdered my camp-followers and Sepoys in the most cruel and
atrocious manner, and it is my duty, merely as commander of the force,
to offer a reward to any person who will bring him in. Mahomed Atta
has, like a monster, murdered our officers in their houses, and cut to
pieces our unarmed and inoffensive camp-followers. I will show no mercy
to these men. My note said nothing about ‘dead or alive,’ and I thought
clearly indicated bringing them in prisoners. Why you make use of the
word ‘assassination’ I know not—but I do know that it ought not to be
used by Englishmen in any public document, and therefore it could never
enter into my mind when speaking of a proclamation. Meerza Ahmed is
collecting what he is pleased to call revenue, to enable him to raise
men to attack the force under my command. Such plunder ought to be put
a stop to.”[158]
Then Rawlinson answered, that he regretted that the unguarded use of
the ugly word “assassination,” which he only intended to convey the
meaning which the Prince might put upon a general offer of reward for
the persons of the proscribed chiefs, should have given any offence
to the General; but that he trusted Nott would excuse him if he made
a few remarks upon the subject of the proposed proclamation. “We are
accused, and perhaps suspected,” he wrote, “of having lately suborned
people to attempt the life of Mahomed Akbar Khan; and Captain Nicolson
is known to have offered a high reward on one occasion for the head of
the Gooroo; and it would be very difficult therefore, it appears to
me, in our present proclamation, to get the Afghans to appreciate the
difference between the offer of a reward for the betrayal of Meerza
Ahmed and Mahomed Atta into our hands, to be executed by the Prince
(as every one must know they would be) on their arrival at Candahar,
and for anticipating this sentence by taking their lives on the spot,
wherever a man might be found bold enough to attempt the deed. Now, if
any misunderstanding on this subject existed, and we were believed by
our proclamation to be aiming at the lives rather than at the liberty
of Meerza Ahmed and Mahomed Atta, it would be only natural for them to
retaliate, and, aided by religious enthusiasm, and with the voice of
the country in their favour, they would be far more likely, I think,
to succeed in bribing Ghazees to kill our officers, than we would be
in tempting any of the Afghans to seize the persons of the proscribed
individuals and hand them over to us for execution. I cannot help
thinking also, that even supposing the proclamation to be expressly
stated and understood to aim only at the liberty of the two heads of
the Candahar rebellion, still it would operate rather to our detriment
than our advantage, and would tend greatly to increase the inveteracy
of our present contest with the Afghans. It would, probably, be met
by the kidnapping of our own officers at this place, and I suspect
it would be fraught with danger to our unfortunate countrymen in
confinement at Lughman, at Caubul, and at Ghuznee. Should you still,
however, desire to make the attempt to obtain possession of the persons
of Meerza Ahmed and Mahomed Atta, I shall be happy to render literally
into Persian any draft of a proclamation which you will send me, and to
give the proclamation all possible publicity.”
The arguments of Rawlinson prevailed. But soon another source of
inquietude arose. The ex-chief of Candahar, Kohun-dil-Khan, appeared
to be again turning his thoughts towards the government of his old
principality.[159] He had, ever since his expulsion from Afghanistan,
been quietly domiciliated at Shuhur-i-Babek, in the Persian
territories, between Shiraz and Kirman; but now it appeared that he had
sent an agent into Seistan to communicate with his Candahar adherents;
and was otherwise intriguing for the recovery of the dominion he had
lost. Not without some difficulty had Rawlinson throughout this season
of convulsion contrived to maintain a recognised system of government,
in the name of Shah Soojah. The internal administration of the country
had never been suspended; but it was only through the agency of some
of the old Barukzye functionaries that the British political chief had
succeeded, in the midst of such disturbing influences, in carrying
on the government of Western Afghanistan. But there was little hope
of his continuing to exercise this influence if the old Barukzye
Sirdars again appeared on the stage. Already had Kohun-dil-Khan sent
letters to Meerza Ahmed appointing him his Wakeel in all matters of
revenue. It was even reported at one time that the ex-Sirdars were only
a few marches from Candahar.[160] These anxieties, however, were but
short-lived. After-intelligence from Persia encouraged the belief that
the Persian Government would restrain the ex-Sirdars from crossing the
frontier.[161] But other sources of inquietude and annoyance soon came
to take their place. The heaviest blow of all was now about to descend
upon them. It came from the Supreme Government itself.