HOW SOME AFGHAN CROSSES WERE WON.
The war which broke out in Afghanistan in 1878 and lasted two years was
of a far more serious nature than the campaign in Ashanti which I have
just dealt with. It was at bottom a struggle to assert our supremacy on
the Indian frontier, where Russia was beginning to menace us, and on its
result hung the fortunes of a large part of Asia. Before I tell of how
several notable V.C.’s were gained in the hill-fighting round Candahar
and Cabul it is necessary to say a few words about the war itself, in
order that we may properly understand the situation.
Trouble over Afghanistan began very early in the nineteenth century, but
Great Britain maintained a firm hold over the country and its Amir until
the advent to the throne of Shere Ali Khan. This turbulent ruler was a
very go-ahead monarch indeed. He organised a splendid army, well-drilled
and well-equipped with modern arms, and spent some years in military
preparations which could have had only one object--the ultimate overthrow
of British influence in that part of the world.
That Russia and Russian money was behind all this has been made very
clear. The go-ahead Shere Ali went ahead so far that he made overtures to
the Muscovite Government and received a Russian mission at Cabul. When
Lord Roberts reached the capital after his victorious march he found, he
says, “Afghan Sirdars and officers arrayed in Russian pattern uniforms,
Russian money in the treasury, Russian wares sold in the bazaars; and,
although the roads leading to Central Asia were certainly no better than
those leading to India, Russia had taken more advantage of them than we
had to carry on commercial dealings with Afghanistan.”
Our first move was to establish a British mission at Cabul, but this met
with failure. Then Shere Ali, after abdicating in favour of his son,
Yakoub Khan, conveniently died, and our prospects improved. A mission, at
the head of which was Sir Louis Cavagnari, was received at the capital,
and all seemed to be going well when the civilised world was startled by
the news that Cavagnari and all with him had been massacred.
Without any loss of time, Lord Roberts (then Major-General Frederick
Sleigh Roberts) started from India with an army to avenge this atrocity.
After some stiff fighting, he reached Cabul and deposed the Amir. There
were left, however, a number of minor chiefs who continued to stir up
trouble. Of these the leading spirit was the ex-Amir’s brother, Ayoub
Khan, who inflicted a defeat upon us at the battle of Maiwand and
proceeded to invest Candahar.
Upon this followed Roberts’ historic march from Cabul to Candahar which
won him a baronetcy and a G.C.B. In this descent upon Ayoub Khan he
utterly routed the Afghan leader and quieted the country. A new Amir,
Abdur Rahman (nephew of Shere Ali) was now installed, with the necessary
proviso that Afghanistan should have no foreign relations with any power
except the Government of India, and the British army was withdrawn.
* * * * *
The first V.C. of the campaign was gained by Captain John Cook, of the
Bengal Staff Corps, for a singularly gallant rescue of a brother-officer.
It was during the month of December 1878, while General Roberts was on
his way to Cabul, whither he was escorting Cavagnari’s mission. There
had been several encounters with the Afghans, for the latter had shown
themselves hostile all along the line of route, and a decisive engagement
was fought at the Peiwar Kotal, in the Kuram district. (A “kotal,” it may
be explained, is the highest point in a mountain pass.)
At this fight a slender column was detached from the main body and
sent round to force a position in the Spingawi Kotal, where the enemy
had entrenched themselves. The attack was made at night, and although,
through the treachery of some Pathans with the column, the alarm was
given, the Afghans were driven out.
Side by side Highlanders and Ghurkas, who had been good friends
ever since they fought together in the Mutiny, charged up the steep
rocky hillside, through a forest of pines, and carried one stockade
after another. As the enemy broke before them, Major Galbraith,
Assistant-Adjutant-General to the force, was suddenly attacked by a
powerful Afghan. The major’s revolver missed fire when he aimed, and it
is more than probable that he would have been shot down at once had not
Captain Cook rushed to his rescue.
A blow from his sword having diverted the Afghan’s attention, Cook threw
himself bodily upon the man and closed with him. They struggled together
thus for some little time, locked in a deadly embrace, the Afghan
endeavouring vainly to use his bayonet and the captain his sword. Then,
gripping his opponent by the throat, Cook fell with him to the ground,
only to have his sword-arm seized by the Afghan’s strong teeth. Another
roll over gave the latter a slight advantage, but only for a moment. At
this critical juncture a little Ghurka ran up and shot the fellow through
the head.
Captain Cook was decorated for this exploit on the Queen’s Birthday in
the May following, at a grand parade at Kuram, but he did not live long
to wear his Cross. He died of a severe wound twelve months later.
In March of 1879 a gallant little action was fought near Maidanah of
which scant mention is made outside official records. It may be fittingly
recorded here, as it was the means of bringing distinction to a young
captain of Engineers who now writes himself Lieut.-General Edward
Pemberton Leach, V.C., C.B.
Leach was out on survey duty in the Maidanah district with an escort
of Rattray’s Sikhs under the command of Lieutenant Barclay. While thus
engaged a body of Afghans appeared in close proximity and endeavoured
to cut them off. The Sikhs having fallen slowly back, under orders, the
Afghans became more bold, and in still larger numbers pressed nearer.
Then there was a sudden rush, a volley, and Lieutenant Barclay fell shot
in the breast.
To get the wounded officer back to camp in safety was Leach’s first
thought. The Afghans must be kept at a safe distance. With all the
Sikhs, therefore, save the two or three needed to attend to Barclay, he
formed up and charged with bayonets fixed straight into the oncoming
enemy.
They were a score or so against a hundred, but desperate men take
desperate risks. Leach himself was immediately attacked by four Afghans,
two of whom he shot in quick succession. The third grappled with him,
but another shot from the unerring revolver settled him, and the captain
turned to meet his fourth assailant. He was not a moment too soon. The
Afghan had slipped round to attack him from the rear, and as Leach’s left
arm went up in defence it received on it the blow from an Afghan knife
that was aimed at his back.
A slash from his sword laid the Pathan low. Then wounded as he was, with
blood streaming fast from his arm, the captain dashed on into the mêlée,
and gathering his men together for another fierce charge sent the enemy
tumbling backwards in confusion. But the little company was not even then
out of danger. The retreat led them along a narrow rocky road, from the
sides of which the Afghans continued to pepper them, and a last charge
was necessary to scatter them. Fortunately, just after this a cavalry
troop, attracted by the noise of firing, came up and relieved them.
Captain Leach was promptly awarded the Cross for Valour for his
bravery, but though he had succeeded in saving the party from certain
annihilation, his satisfaction was clouded over by one great sorrow. Poor
Lieutenant Barclay died soon afterwards from his wound.
The next V.C., the story of which I have to tell, is that of Lieutenant
Hamilton,--“Hamilton of the Guides,”--whose brilliant career was cut all
too short at Cabul in the massacre of Cavagnari’s ill-fated mission.
Having joined Brigadier-General Gough’s force, which was keeping clear
the line of communication between Jellalabad and Cabul, Lieutenant
Hamilton saw plenty of fighting with the hill-tribes in the vicinity. At
Futtehabad, in April 1879, there was an engagement with a considerable
body of Afghans, and in this fight he made himself conspicuous.
At the moment that the scale of victory was turning in our favour, the
Guides, led by their beloved commander, Major Wigram Battye, charged into
the Afghan ranks. Battye fell shot through the heart at the first volley,
and the leadership devolved on Hamilton, who led them on, more fierce
than ever. In the mêlée that now ensued Dowlut Ram, a sowar riding by the
lieutenant’s side, was bowled over and instantly threatened with death
from three Afghan knives. Wheeling his horse, Hamilton cut his way to the
fallen man’s side, dragged him from beneath his dead horse, and carried
him off right under the enemy’s nose.
For this act he was recommended for the Cross, but to everyone’s
disappointment it was not awarded him. Only after he had fallen beneath
Afghan swords at Cabul, five months later, was his heroism acknowledged.
Then followed the tardy announcement that had he lived her Majesty would
have been pleased to confer the honour of the Victoria Cross upon him.
Hamilton’s end was an heroic one. Early one September morning in 1879
the Residency at Cabul in which Sir Louis Cavagnari and his staff had
taken up their quarters was attacked and fired by the Afghans. The
only defenders of the place were the Guides, a mere handful of men
under Lieutenant Hamilton’s command. Soon the building was stormed, and
Cavagnari with his suite brutally massacred. Hamilton alone remained, the
last Englishman left alive in Cabul.
Driven from room to room, he and his men at last reached the courtyard to
make their last stand. In vain did the Afghans call on the Guides to join
them, saying they had no quarrel with men of their own race. The Guides
were loyal to the oath they had sworn. As one man they formed up behind
their gallant leader, dressed their ranks, and flung wide
“The doors not all their valour could longer keep.”
Then with a cheer out they dashed at the horde before them, in the mad
endeavour to cut their way through. It was a forlorn hope. The enemy
closed round them like a dark sea,
“And with never a foot lagging or head bent,
To the clash and clamour and dust of death they went.”
“The Guides at Cabul,” Henry Newbolt.
How Hamilton himself fell was learned afterwards from the Afghans, who
could appreciate such dauntless courage as his. They said he fought like
a lion at bay, sweeping a space clear around him with his sword; and it
was only by the reckless sacrifice of a few of their number, who threw
themselves upon him and were shot or sabred, that the rest were able to
pull him down. Then a dozen knives buried themselves in his body, and all
was over.
The record of the Afghan War teems with heroic exploits, but only a few
more can be touched on here. There was, for instance, the gallant rescue
of a wounded Bengal Lancer at Dakka, by Lieutenant Reginald Clare Hart
(now a Lieut.-General and K.C.B.). “I am going for the V.C. to-day!” he
said to his brother-officers on the morning of the engagement; and he won
it, after running some twelve hundred yards under the Afghan fire to pull
the disabled sowar out of a river bed.
At about the same time Captain O’Moor Creagh with a detachment of one
hundred and fifty men held off fifteen thousand Afghans who attacked him
near the village of Ram Dakka; a brilliant feat that was only equalled by
Captain Vousden, of the 5th Punjab Cavalry, who some time later charged
into a body of four hundred of the enemy with simply _twelve_ sowars at
his back, and dispersed them!
There were Crosses for both these brave captains, just as there was one
for Captain E. H. Sartorius (brother of the Ashanti hero) for a dashing
charge which cleared a strong force of the enemy from the Shah Juy hill
at Tazi.
Mention of Sartorius recalls the somewhat similar deeds which gained a
V.C. for a distinguished major of the 92nd Highlanders, who is now the
popular Field-Marshal Sir George Stewart White, G.C.B., etc. On his Cross
two dates figure, October 6, 1879, and September 1, 1880. The first
denotes the action at Charasiah, where the Afghans were defeated, much to
the chagrin of the treacherous Amir Yakoub Khan, who had laid plans for
the complete annihilation of the British army.
There was a hill to be taken, on which the enemy had mustered in large
numbers, and at the word of command two companies of the “Gay Gordons,”
with Major White at their head, breasted the slope and raced up. The
major was easily first. Leaving the rest to follow, he tore ahead and
bearded the Afghans single-handed, shooting their leader dead with his
revolver. This act brought him high praise from General Roberts, who went
over the ground with him next day and noted the difficulties that had to
be encountered.
On the second occasion Major White was with his Gordons at Candahar,
assisting in the rout of Ayoub Khan. At an important stage of the battle
a desperate stand was made by the Afghans at the Baba Wali Kotal, and it
became necessary to storm the position, or the wavering enemy would have
time to rally.
“Now, 92nd,” cried their leader, “just one charge more to close the
business!” The Gordons answered with a shout, and accompanied by the 2nd
Ghurkas and 23rd Pioneers they streamed up the hill to carry it with
bayonets. As always, Major White was well in front. He was the first to
reach the guns, the next man being Sepoy Inderbir Lama, who placed his
rifle on one of them and exclaimed proudly, “Captured in the name of the
2nd Ghurkas!”
That charge did “close the business.” The Afghans broke and fled, and the
troops went on to capture Ayoub Khan’s enormous camp with his artillery,
thirty-two pieces in all, among them being found two of our Horse
Artillery guns that had been taken at Maiwand in July.
I cannot close this chapter without telling how Padre Adams won his
V.C. The only clergyman to have received the decoration, he stands in
a unique position, although, as I have said already, at least one other
Army chaplain deserved it.
The Rev. James William Adams, B.A. (to give him his full title), was
attached to the Cabul Field Force and marched up to the Amir’s capital
with the troops when they went to avenge Cavagnari’s death. Liking to
be always at the front when any fighting was going on, he acted as
aide-de-camp to General Roberts on several occasions, making himself very
useful. It was in this capacity that he was accompanying Roberts when,
on December 11th, 1879, the main body of the force encountered Mahommed
Jan’s army near Sherpur and, owing to a miscarriage of plans, was obliged
to beat a temporary retreat.
In the retiring movement some of the guns were in danger of falling into
the Afghans’ hands, so a troop of the 9th Lancers, with a few of the
14th Bengal Lancers, made a gallant attempt to hold the enemy in check.
The charge was brilliant but disastrous. Men and horses went down like
ninepins, many of them falling into a deep ditch, or nullah, in which one
or two of the guns had already come to grief.
Seeing a wounded, dismounted man of the 9th staggering towards him, Adams
jumped off his charger and tried to lift the poor fellow into the saddle,
but the animal, a very valuable mare, took fright and bolted. Still
supporting the lancer, the chaplain helped him on his way to the rear,
where some of his comrades took him in charge.
Returning at once to the front, Adams observed two more men of the 9th in
the ditch who were in difficulties. Their horses had rolled over on to
them, and they were struggling vainly to get free. The advancing Afghans
were now pretty close, and General Roberts called out to the chaplain to
look after himself; but the “fighting parson,” as his men called him, was
a true hero. Leaping down into the ditch without a moment’s hesitation,
he splashed his way through the mud and water to the lancers’ rescue. A
few strong pulls of his brawny arms (he was an unusually powerful man)
quickly released the imprisoned men, and he had them safe on the top of
the bank ere the first of the Afghans had reached the nullah.
Padre Adams had long been the idol of the men to whom he ministered,
and there was general rejoicing in the Army when his name in due course
appeared in the _Gazette_. There was keen regret, too, some years later
when he bade farewell to the service he loved, and returned home to
settle down in a peaceful Norfolk rectory.
It seems only the other day that his tall well-built figure was to be met
striding along the lanes round Stow Bardolph and Downham Market, and it
is hard to realise that nearly three years have now passed since death
took “the V.C. parson” from our midst.