1872-1873
Lord Napier's care for the soldier
--Negotiations with Sher Ali renewed--Sher Ali's demands
Lord Napier of Murchiston, the Governor of Madras, had been summoned
to Calcutta to act as Viceroy until Lord Northbrook, Lord Mayo's
successor, should arrive. He seemed interested in what I had to tell
him about Lushai, and Lord Napier of Magd[=a]la spoke in laudatory
terms of the manner in which the expedition had been carried out.
I reached Simla on the 1st of April, the twentieth anniversary of my
arrival in India. I found my wife, with the two children, settled in
Snowdon,[1] a house I had recently purchased. She had had much trouble
in my absence, having been at death's door herself, and having very
nearly lost our little son at Umballa three weeks after his birth
from a Native wet-nurse having tried to kill him. The English nurse's
suspicions had been aroused by one day finding a live coal in the
cradle, but she did not mention this discovery at the time for fear of
frightening my wife; but she determined to watch. A few days later,
while with our little girl in the next room, she heard the baby boy
choking, and rushed in to find, to her horror, blood on his lips, and
that he was struggling violently, as if to get rid of something in his
throat! She pushed down her finger and pulled out a sharp piece of
cane about two inches long; but other pieces had evidently gone down,
for the poor little fellow was in terrible agony for many days. It
turned out that the wretched woman hated the unwonted confinement of
her new life, and was determined to get away, but was too much afraid
of her husband to say so. He wanted her to remain for the sake of the
high pay this class of servant receives, so it appeared to the woman
that her only chance of freedom was to get rid of the child, and to
carry out her purpose she first attempted to set fire to the cradle,
and finding this did not succeed, she pulled some pieces of cane off
the chair upon which she was sitting, and shoved them down the child's
throat. She was, as my wife described her, a pretty, innocent,
timid-looking creature, to whom no one would ever have dreamt of
attributing such an atrocity. The boy was made extremely delicate for
several months by this misadventure, as his digestion had been ruined
for the time being, but eventually he completely recovered from its
effects.
In September the C.B. was conferred upon me for the Lushai Expedition.
Lord Napier informed me of the fact in a particularly kind little
note. I was very proud of being a member of the Bath, although at the
time a brevet would have been a more useful reward, as want of rank
was the reason Lord Napier had given for not allowing me to act as
Quartermaster-General, on Lumsden being temporarily appointed Resident
at Hyderabad.
We began our usual winter tour in the middle of October. At Mian Mir I
made the acquaintance of the Adjutant of the 37th Foot, the late Sir
Herbert Stewart, who was then a smart, good-looking subaltern, and I
recollect his bemoaning bitterly his bad luck in never having had a
chance of seeing service. How little at that time could it have been
anticipated that within twelve years he would see hard fighting in
Africa, and be killed as a Major-General in command of a column!
We visited several of the stations in the Punjab, and spent a few days
at Jamu as guest of the Maharaja of Kashmir, who treated us royally,
and gave us some excellent pig-sticking; and on the 21st December we
joined Head-Quarters at Lawrencepur for a large Camp of Exercise, to
be held on the identical ground which I had selected for the camp
which Sir Hugh Rose proposed to have eleven years before.
Lord Napier of Magd[=a]la did much to improve the efficiency of the
army by means of Camps of Exercise. He held one at Delhi in the winter
of 1871-72, and the Camp of which I am writing was most successful and
instructive. No Commander-in-Chief ever carried out inspections with
more thoroughness than did Lord Napier of Magd[=a]la. He spared
himself no trouble. On the hottest day he would toil through barrack
after barrack to satisfy himself that the soldiers were properly cared
for; Europeans and Natives were equally attended to, and many measures
conducive to the men's comfort date from the time he was in command in
India.
At the close of this camp Lumsden, who had returned to his appointment
from Hyderabad, gave up the Quartermaster-Generalship for good. We had
been greatly thrown together during the twenty-one years I had been in
India, and my wife and I were very sorry to bid farewell to him and
Mrs. Lumsden. He was succeeded by Edwin Johnson, pending whose arrival
I was now allowed to officiate.
From Lawrencepur I went with the Commander-in-Chief to Calcutta. Soon
after we arrived there I was asked by Sir Douglas Forsyth to accompany
him on his Mission to Yarkand and Kashgar. I should have much liked to
have done so, for the idea of a trip to these, at that time unknown,
regions possessed great fascinations for me. I was therefore well
pleased when Lord Napier told me he would not stand in the way of
my going, and proportionately disappointed when, the next day, His
Excellency said that on consideration he did not think I could be
spared just then, for the Quartermaster-General would be new to the
work at first, and he thought he would need my assistance.
The end of April saw us back in Simla, and in July Edwin Johnson
arrived.
During the summer of 1873 important events occurred which had much to
do with our subsequent relations with Afghanistan. The inquiries which
Sher Ali had begged Lord Mayo to make about Persian encroachments in
Sistan, had resulted in General Goldsmid[2] and Colonel Pollock[3]
being deputed in 1871 to proceed to Sistan to decide the question. The
settlement arrived at by these officers, which assigned to Afghanistan
the country up to the right bank of the Helmand, but nothing beyond,
satisfied neither the Shah nor the Amir, and the latter sent his
confidential Minister, Saiyad Nur Mahomed, the Afghan Commissioner
in the Sistan arbitration, to meet Lord Northbrook on his arrival in
Bombay for the purpose of appealing to him against the decision. It
could not, however, be reversed; but in a subsequent interview which
the new Viceroy accorded the Envoy, the latter was told that as soon
as Persia and Afghanistan had signified their acceptance of the
settlement, the Government of India would present the Amir with five
lakhs of rupees as compensation for the ceded territory which had for
a time belonged to Afghanistan.
The action of Her Majesty's Ministers in communication with Russia
regarding the northern boundary of Afghanistan was another matter
about which the Amir was greatly exercised; and Lord Northbrook,
thinking that all such vexed questions could be more satisfactorily
explained by personal communication than by letter, proposed to the
Amir that His Highness should consent to receive at Kabul a British
officer 'of high rank and dignity, in whom I have full confidence'
(Mr. Macnabb),[4] 'who will also explain to Your Highness,' wrote
the Viceroy, 'the negotiations which have now been satisfactorily
concluded with the Government of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia,
whereby the Russian Government have agreed to recognize and respect
the integrity and independence of the territories now in Your
Highness's possession.'
To this request Sher Ali replied that he considered it advisable that
one of his agents should first wait on the Viceroy to ascertain the
real views of the British Government on these important matters. This
was agreed to, and Saiyad Nur Mahomed was again selected to represent
the Amir. He reached Simla towards the end of June. On being informed
that Persia had unreservedly accepted the decision as to the Sistan
question, the Envoy declared that, whatever opinion the Amir might
hold as to his rights, His Highness would also scrupulously respect
that decision. With regard to the northern frontier, the Envoy begged
it to be clearly understood that the Afghan Government wished to be
allowed to make their own laws and follow their own customs within
their territories; that the internal affairs of the country should be
free from interference; and that the acknowledgment by Russia of the
Amir's claim to land south of the Oxus should be confirmed by Bokhara.
He further requested 'that the British Government would distinctly
promise that, in the event of any aggression on the Amir's
territories, they would consider the perpetrator of such aggression
as their own enemy.' It was explained to the Saiyad that the British
Government did not share the Amir's apprehension of Russia; that under
such circumstances as he contemplated, it would be the duty of the
Amir to refer to the British Government, who would decide whether it
was an occasion for assistance to be rendered by them, and what the
nature and extent of the assistance should be; moreover, that their
help must be conditional upon the Amir himself abstaining from
aggression, and on his unreserved acceptance of the advice of the
British Government in regard to his external relations.
Two other questions were discussed:
(1) The location in certain towns in Afghanistan of British
officers as representatives of the British Government.
(2) The present assistance to be rendered to the Amir for the
purpose of strengthening his country against foreign aggression.
On the first point the Envoy said he had no instructions, but that, in
his opinion, to ask Sher Ali to allow British officers to be located
in Afghanistan would give rise to mistrust and apprehension. He
recommended that a letter should be addressed to the Amir, pointing
out the desirability of a British officer being sent to inspect the
western and northern boundaries of Afghanistan, proceeding _viâ_
Kandahar and returning _viâ_ Kabul, where he might confer personally
with His Highness. This suggestion was carried out.
With regard to the second point under discussion, the Envoy stated
that 20,000 stand-of-arms were desired, laying very particular stress
on 5,000 Sniders being included in this number, and that hopes were
entertained by the Amir that he would be largely assisted with money.
In answer to this, the Saiyad was told that there was not then a
sufficient reserve supply of Sniders for the English troops in India,
and that it was impossible to spare more than 5,000 Enfields; that
this number should at once be placed at the Amir's disposal, and that
the remainder should be forwarded as soon as they were received from
England. He was further informed that five lakhs of rupees (exclusive
of the five lakhs promised the year before, as indemnification for the
loss of territory) would be given to Sher Ali.
A final letter from the Viceroy was sent to the Amir through Saiyad
Nur Mahomed, dated 6th September, 1873, summing up the result of the
conference. His Highness was told, with reference to a fear expressed
by the Envoy lest Russia should press for the establishment of a
Russian Mission and agents in Afghanistan, that Prince Gortschakoff
had officially intimated that, while he saw no objection to British
officers going to Kabul, he engaged that Russian agents should abstain
from doing so, and that, far from apprehending a Russian invasion of
Afghanistan, the British Government believed that the effect of the
recent arrangements had been to render the occurrence of such a
contingency more remote than ever. At the same time, being desirous of
seeing the Amir strong and his rule firmly established, the Government
were prepared to give him any reasonable assistance.
Sher Ali was greatly annoyed and disappointed at the result of his
Envoy's visit to Simla. He was of a very impulsive, passionate
disposition; his reply to the Viceroy's letter was discourteous and
sarcastic; he declined to receive a British officer at Kabul, and
although he condescended to accept the arms presented to him, he left
the ten lakhs of rupees untouched in the Peshawar treasury. Colonel
Valentine Baker, who was at that time travelling through Central Asia,
was forbidden by the Amir to pass through Afghanistan on his way
to India; and a few months later he refused to allow Sir Douglas
Forsyth's Mission to return to India by way of Afghanistan.
[Footnote 1: We lived in this house whenever we were in Simla, till
we left it in 1892. It has since been bought by Government for the
Commander-in-Chief's residence.]
[Footnote 2: General Sir Frederick Goldsmid, K.C.M.G.]
[Footnote 3: Major-General Sir Frederick Pollock, K.C.S.I.]
[Footnote 4: Sir Donald Macnabb, K.C.S.I., then Commissioner of
Peshawar.]
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