Sir Frederick Roberts had been hurried forward on Cabul charged with the
duty of avenging the perpetration of a foul and treacherous crime,
'which had brought indelible disgrace upon the Afghan nation.' The
scriptural injunction to turn the other cheek to the smiter has not yet
become a canon of international law or practice; and the anti-climax to
an expedition engaged in with so stern a purpose, of a nominal
disarmament and a petty fine never exacted, is self-evident. Our nation
is given to walk in the path of precedent; and in this juncture the
authorities had to their hand the most apposite of precedents. Pollock,
by destroying the Char bazaar in which had been exposed the mangled
remains of Burnes and Macnaghten, set a 'mark' on Cabul the memory of
which had lasted for decades. Cavagnari and his people had been
slaughtered in the Balla Hissar, and their bones were still mingled with
the smouldering ruins of the Residency. Wise men discerned that the
destruction of the fortress followed by a homeward march as swift yet as
measured as had been the march of invasion, could not but have made a
deep and lasting impression on the Afghans; while the complications,
humiliations, and expense of the long futile occupation would have been
obviated. Other counsels prevailed. To discover, in a nation virtually
accessory as a whole after the fact to the slaughter of the mission, the
men on whom lay the suspicion of having been the instigators and the
perpetrators of the cruel deed, to accord them a fair trial, and to send
to the gallows those on whose hands was found the blood of the massacred
mission, was held a more befitting and not less telling course of
retributive action than to raze the Balla Hissar and sow its site with
salt. Skilfully and patiently evidence was gathered, and submitted to
the Military Commission which General Roberts had appointed. This
tribunal took cognisance of crimes nominally of two classes. It tried
men who were accused of having been concerned in the destruction of the
British mission, and those charged with treason in having offered armed
resistance to the British troops acting in support of the Ameer, who had
put himself under their protection. Of the five prisoners first tried,
condemned, and duly hanged, two were signal criminals. One of them, the
Kotwal or Mayor of Cabul, was proved to have superintended the
contumelious throwing of the bodies of the slaughtered Guides of the
mission escort into the ditch of the Balla Hissar. Another was proved to
have carried away from the wrecked Residency a head believed to have
been Cavagnari's, and to have exhibited it on the ridge above the city.
The other three and many of those who were subsequently executed,
suffered for the crime of 'treason' against Yakoub Khan. Probably there
was no Afghan who did not approve of the slaughter of the Envoy, and who
would not in his heart have rejoiced at the annihilation of the British
force; but it seems strange law and stranger justice to hang men for
'treason' against a Sovereign who had gone over to the enemy. On the
curious expedient of temporarily governing in the name of an Ameer who
had deserted his post to save his skin, comment would be superfluous.
Executions continued; few, however, of the mutinous sepoys who actually
took part in the wanton attack on the British Residency had been
secured, and it was judged expedient that efforts should be made to
capture and punish those against whom there was evidence of that crime,
in the shape of the muster-rolls of the regiments now in the possession
of the military authorities. It was known that many of the disbanded and
fugitive soldiers had returned to their homes in the villages around
Cabul, and early in November General Baker took out a force and suddenly
encircled the village of Indikee, on the edge of the Chardeh valley--a
village reported full of Afghan sepoys. A number of men were brought out
by the scared headmen and handed over, answering to their names called
over from a list carried by Baker; and other villages in the vicinity
yielded a considerable harvest of disbanded soldiers. Before the
Commission the prisoners made no attempt to conceal their names, or deny
the regiments to which they had belonged; and forty-nine of them were
found guilty and hanged, nearly all of whom belonged to the regiments
that had assailed the Residency.
On 12th November Sir Frederick Roberts proclaimed an amnesty in favour
of all who had fought against the British troops, on condition that they
should surrender their arms and return to their homes; but exempted from
the benefit were all concerned in the attack on the Residency. The
amnesty was well timed, although most people would have preferred that
fewer sepoys and more Sirdars should have been hanged.
Our relations with the Ameer during the earlier part of his residence in
the British camp were not a little peculiar. Nominally he was our guest,
and a certain freedom was accorded to him and his retinue. There was no
doubt that the Sirdars of the Ameer's suite grossly abused their
privileges. Whether with Yakoub Khan's cognisance or not, they
authorised the use of his name by the insurgent leaders. Nek Mahomed,
the insurgent commander at Charasiah, was actually in the tents of the
Ameer on the evening before the fight. To all appearance our operations
continued to have for their ultimate object the restoration of Yakoub
Khan to his throne. Our administrative measures were carried on in his
name. The hostile Afghans we designated as rebels against his rule; and
his authority was proclaimed as the justification of much of our
conduct. But the situation gradually became intolerable to Yakoub Khan.
He was a guest in the British camp, but he was also in a species of
custody. Should our arms reinstate him, he could not hope to hold his
throne. His harassed perplexity came to a crisis on the morning of the
12th October, the day of General Roberts' durbar in the Balla Hissar,
which he had been desired to attend. What he specifically apprehended is
unknown; what he did was to tell General Roberts, with great excitement,
that he would not go to the durbar, that his life was too miserable for
long endurance, that he would rather be a grass-cutter in the British
camp than remain Ameer of Afghanistan. He was firmly resolved to resign
the throne, and begged that he might be allowed to do so at once.
General Roberts explained that the acceptance of his resignation rested
not with him but with the Viceroy, pending whose decision matters, the
General desired, should remain as they were, affairs continuing to be
conducted in the Ameer's name as before. To this the Ameer consented;
his tents were moved to the vicinity of General Roberts' headquarters,
and a somewhat closer surveillance over him was maintained.
Secrecy meanwhile was preserved until the Viceroy's reply should arrive.
The nature of that reply was intimated by the proclamation which General
Roberts issued on the 28th October. It announced that the Ameer had of
his own free will abdicated his throne and left Afghanistan without a
government. 'The British Government,' the proclamation continued, 'now
commands that all Afghan authorities, chiefs, and sirdars, do continue
their functions in maintaining order.... The British Government, after
consultation with the principal sirdars, tribal chiefs, and others
representing the interests and wishes of the various provinces and
cities, will declare its will as to the future permanent arrangements to
be made for the good government of the people.'
This _ad interim_ assumption of the rulership of Afghanistan may have
been adopted as the only policy which afforded even a remote possibility
of tranquillity. But it was essentially a policy of speculative
makeshift. The retributive and punitive object of the swift march on
Cabul can scarcely be regarded as having been fulfilled by the execution
of a number of subordinate participants and accessories in the
destruction of the mission and by the voluntary abdication of Yakoub
Khan. That the Afghan 'authorities, chiefs, and sirdars,' would obey the
command to 'maintain order' issued by the leader of a few thousand
hostile troops, masters of little more than the ground on which they
were encamped, experience and common sense seemed alike to render
improbable. The Afghans subordinated their internal quarrels to their
common hatred of the masterful foreigners, and the desperate fighting of
December proved how fiercely they were in earnest.
Yakoub Khan had been regarded as merely a weak and unfortunate man, but
the shadows gradually darkened around him until at length he came to be
a man under grave suspicion. General Roberts became satisfied from the
results of the proceedings of the court of inquiry, that the attack on
the Residency, if not actually instigated by him, might at least have
been checked by active exertion on his part. Information was obtained
which convinced the General that the ex-Ameer was contemplating a flight
toward Turkestan, and it was considered necessary to place him in close
confinement. He remained a close prisoner until December 1st. On the
early morning of that day he was brought out from his tent, and after
taking farewell of the General and his staff, started on his journey to
Peshawur, surrounded by a strong escort. If the hill tribes along his
route had cared enough about him to attempt his rescue, the speed with
which he travelled afforded them no time to gather for that purpose.
During those uneventful October and November days, when the little army
commanded by General Roberts lay in its breezy camp on the Siah Sung
heights, there was no little temptation for the unprofessional reader of
the telegraphic information in the newspapers to hold cheap those
reputedly formidable Afghans, whose resistance a single sharp skirmish
had seemingly scattered to the winds, and who were now apparently
accepting without active remonstrance the dominance of the few thousand
British bayonets glittering there serenely over against the once
turbulent but now tamed hill capital. One may be certain that the shrewd
and careful soldier who commanded that scant array did not permit
himself to share in the facile optimism whether on the part of a
government or of the casual reader of complacent telegrams. It was true
that the Government of India had put or was putting some 30,000 soldiers
into the field on the apparent errand of prosecuting an Afghan war. But
what availed Roberts this host of fighting men when he had to realise
that, befall him what might in the immediate or near future, not a man
of it was available to strengthen or to succour him? The quietude of
those cool October days was very pleasant, but the chief knew well how
precarious and deceitful was the calm. For the present the Afghan
unanimity of hostility was affected in a measure by the fact that the
Ameer, who had still a party, was voluntarily in the British camp. But
when Yakoub's abdication should be announced, he knew the Afghan nature
too well to doubt that the tribal blood-feuds would be soldered for the
time, that Dooranee and Barakzai would strike hands, that Afghan
regulars and Afghan irregulars would rally under the same standards, and
that the fierce shouts of 'Deen! deen!' would resound on hill-top and in
plain. Cut loose from any base, with slowly dwindling strength, with
waning stock of ammunition, it was his part to hold his ground here for
the winter, he and his staunch soldiers, a firm rock in the midst of
those surging Afghan billows that were certain to rise around him. Not
only would he withstand them, but he would meet them, for this bold man
knew the value in dealing with Afghans of a resolute and vigorous
offensive. But it behoved him above all things to make timely choice of
his winter quarters where he should collect his supplies and house his
troops and the followers. After careful deliberation the Sherpur
cantonment was selected. It was overlarge for easy defence, but hard
work, careful engineering, and steadfast courage would redeem that evil.
And Sherpur had the great advantage that besides being in a measure a
ready-made defensive position, it had shelter for all the European
troops and most of the native soldiery, and that it would accommodate
also the horses of the cavalry, the transport animals, and all the
needful supplies and stores.
An Afghan of the Afghans, Shere Ali nevertheless had curiously failed to
discern that the warlike strength of the nation which he ruled lay in
its intuitive aptitude for irregular fighting; and he had industriously
set himself to the effort of warping the combative genius of his people
and of constituting Afghanistan a military power of the regular and
disciplined type. He had created a large standing army the soldiery of
which wore uniforms, underwent regular drill, obeyed words of command,
and carried arms of precision. He had devoted great pains to the
manufacture of a formidable artillery, and what with presents from the
British Government and the imitative skill of native artificers he was
possessed at the outbreak of hostilities of several hundred cannon. His
artisans were skillful enough to turn out in large numbers very fair
rifled small-arms, which they copied from British models; and in the
Balla Hissar magazine were found by our people vast quantities of
gunpowder and of admirable cartridges of local manufacture. There were
many reasons why the Cabul division of Shere Ali's army should be
quartered apart from his turbulent and refractory capital, and why its
cantonment should take the form of a permanent fortified camp, in which
his soldiers might be isolated from Cabul intrigues, while its proximity
to the capital should constitute a standing menace to the conspirators
of the city. His original design apparently was to enclose the Behmaroo
heights within the walls of his cantonment, and thus form a great
fortified square upon the heights in the centre of which should rise a
strong citadel dominating the plain in every direction. The Sherpur
cantonment as found by Roberts consisted of a fortified enciente,
enclosing on two sides a great open space in the shape of a
parallelogram lying along the southern base of the Behmaroo heights.
When the British troops took possession, only the west and south faces
of the enciente were completed; although not long built those were
already in bad repair, and the explosion of the great magazine when the
Afghan troops abandoned the cantonment had wrecked a section of the
western face. The eastern face had been little more than traced, and the
northern side had no artificial protection, but was closed in by the
Behmaroo heights, whose centre was cleft by a broad and deep gorge. The
design of the enciente was peculiar. There was a thick and high exterior
wall of mud, with a banquette for infantry protected by a parapet.
Inside this wall was a dry ditch forty feet wide, on the inner brink of
which was the long range of barrack-rooms. Along the interior front of
the barrack-rooms was a verandah faced with arches supported by pillars,
its continuity broken occasionally by broad staircases conducting to the
roof of the barracks, which afforded a second line of defence. The
closing in of the verandah would of course give additional barrack
accommodation, but there were quarters in the barrack-rooms for at
least all the European troops. In the southern face of the enciente were
three gateways, and in the centre of the western face there was a
fourth, each gate covered adequately by a curtain. Between each gate
were semicircular bastions for guns. In the interior there was space to
manoeuvre a division of all arms. There was a copious supply of water,
and if the aspect of the great cantonment was grim because of the
absence of trees and the utter barrenness of the enclosed space, this
aesthetic consideration went for little against its manifest advantages
as snug and defensible winter quarters. Shere Ali had indeed been all
unconsciously a friend in need to the British force wintering in the
heart of that unfortunate potentate's dominions. Human nature is
perverse and exacting, and there were those who objurgated his memory
because he had constructed his cantonment a few sizes too large to be
comfortably defended by Sir Frederick Roberts' little force. But this
was manifestly unreasonable; and in serious truth the Sherpur cantonment
was a real godsend to our people. Supplies of all kinds were steadily
being accumulated there, and the woodwork of the houses in the Balla
Hissar was being carried to Sherpur for use as firewood. On the last day
of October the force quitted the Siah Sung position and took possession
of Sherpur, which had undergone a rigorous process of fumigation and
cleansing. The change was distinctly for the better. The force was
compacted, and the routine military duties were appreciably lightened
since there were needed merely piquets on the Behmaroo heights and
sentries on the gates; the little army was healthy, temperate, and in
excellent case in all respects.
The dispositions for field service made at the outset of the campaign by
the military authorities have already been detailed. Regarded simply as
dispositions they left nothing to be desired, and certainly Sir
Frederick Roberts' force had been organised and equipped with a fair
amount of expedition. But it was apparent that the equipment of that
body of 6500 men--and that equipment by no means of an adequate
character, had exhausted for the time the resources of the Government as
regarded transport and supplies. Promptitude of advance on the part of
the force to which had been assigned the line of invasion by the
Khyber-Jellalabad route, was of scarcely less moment than the rapidity
of the stroke which Roberts was commissioned to deliver. The former's
was a treble duty. One of its tasks was to open up and maintain Roberts'
communications with India, so that the closing of the Shutargurdan
should not leave him isolated. Another duty resting on the Khyber force
was to constitute for Roberts a ready and convenient reserve, on which
he might draw when his occasions demanded. No man could tell how soon
after the commencement of his invasion that necessity might arise; it
was a prime _raison d'être_ of the Khyber force to be in a position to
give him the hand when he should intimate a need for support. Yet again,
its presence in the passes dominantly thrusting forward, would have the
effect of retaining the eastern tribes within their own borders, and
hindering them from joining an offensive combination against the little
force with which Roberts was to strike at Cabul. But delay on delay
marked the mobilisation and advance of the troops operating in the
Khyber line. There was no lack of earnestness anywhere; the eagerness to
push on was universal from the commander to the corporal. But the barren
hills and rugged passes could furnish no supplies; the base had to
furnish everything, and there was nothing at the base, neither any
accumulation of supplies nor means to transport supplies if they had
been accumulated. Weeks elapsed before the organisation of the force
approached completion, and it was only by a desperate struggle that
General Charles Gough's little brigade received by the end of September
equipment sufficient to enable that officer to advance by short marches.
Roberts was holding his durbar in the Balla Hissar of Cabul on the day
that the head of Gough's advance reached Jellalabad. No man can
associate the idea of dawdling with Jenkins and his Guides, yet the
Guides reaching Jellalabad on October 12th were not at Gundamuk until
the 23d, and Gundamuk is but thirty miles beyond Jellalabad. The
anti-climax for the time of General Bright's exertions occurred on
November 6th. On that day he with Gough's brigade reached so far
Cabulward as Kutti Sung, two marches beyond Gundamuk. There he met
General Macpherson of Roberts' force, who had marched down from Cabul
with his brigade on the errand of opening communications with the head
of the Khyber column. The two brigades had touch of each other for the
period of an interview between the Generals, and then they fell apart
and the momentary union of communication was disrupted. General Bright
had to fall back toward Gundamuk for lack of supplies. The breach
continued open only for a few days, and then it was closed, not from
down country but from up country. Roberts, surveying the rugged country
to the east of Cabul, had discerned that the hill road toward Jugdulluk
by Luttabund, was at once opener and shorter than the customary tortuous
and overhung route through the Khoord Cabul Pass and by Tezeen. The
pioneers were set to work to improve the former. The Luttabund road
became the habitual route along which, from Cabul downwards, were posted
detachments maintaining the communications of the Cabul force with the
Khyber column and India. Nearly simultaneous with this accomplishment
was the accordance to Sir Frederick Roberts of the local rank of
Lieutenant-General, a promotion which placed him in command of all the
troops in Eastern Afghanistan down to Jumrood, and enabled him to order
up reinforcements from the Khyber column at his discretion, a power he
refrained from exercising until the moment of urgent need was impending.
After his interview at Kutti Sung with General Bright, Macpherson,
before returning to Cabul, made a short reconnaissance north of the
Cabul river toward the Lughman valley and into the Tagao country
inhabited by the fanatic tribe of the Safis. From his camp at Naghloo a
foraging party, consisting of a company of the 67th escorting a number
of camels and mules, moved westward toward a village near the junction
of the Panjshir and Cabul rivers, there to obtain supplies of grain and
forage. The little detachment on its march was suddenly met by the fire
of about 1000 Sari tribesmen. Captain Poole, observing that the
tribesmen were moving to cut him off, withdrew his party through a
defile in his rear, and taking cover under the river bank maintained a
steady fire while the camels were being retired. The Safis were
extremely bold and they too shot very straight. Captain Poole was
severely wounded and of his handful of fifty-six men eight were either
killed or wounded, but their comrades resolutely held their position
until reinforcements came out from the camp. The Safis, who retired with
dogged reluctance, were not finally routed until attacked by British
infantry in front and flank. After they broke the cavalry pursued them
for six miles, doing severe execution; the dead of the 67th were
recovered, but the poor fellows had been mutilated almost past
recognition. General Macpherson returned to Sherpur on the 20th
November, having left a strong garrison temporarily at Luttabund to
strengthen communications and open out effectually the new route
eastward.
General Roberts, with all his exertions, had been unable to accumulate
sufficient winter of grain for his native troops and forage for his
cavalry and baggage animals. Agents had been purchasing supplies in the
fertile district of Maidan, distant from Cabul about twenty-five miles
in the Ghuznee direction, but the local people lacked carriage to convey
their stocks into camp, and it was necessary that the supplies should be
brought in by the transport of the force. The country toward Ghuznee was
reported to be in a state of disquiet, and a strong body of troops was
detailed under the command of General Baker for the protection of the
transport. This force marched out from Sherpur on November 21st, and
next day camped on the edge of the pleasant Maidan plain. Baker
encountered great difficulties in collecting supplies. The villages
readily gave in their tribute of grain and forage, but evinced extreme
reluctance to furnish the additional quantities which our necessities
forced us to requisition. With the villagers it was not a question of
money; the supplies for which Baker's commissaries demanded money in
hand constituted their provision for the winter season. But the stern
maxim of war is that soldiers must live although villagers starve, and
this much may be said in our favour that we are the only nation in the
world which, when compelled to resort to forced requisitions, invariably
pays in hard cash and not in promissory notes. Baker's ready-money
tariff was far higher than the current rates, but nevertheless he had to
resort to strong measures. In one instance he was defied outright. A
certain Bahadur Khan inhabiting a remote valley in the Bamian direction,
refused to sell any portion of his great store of grain and forage, and
declined to comply with a summons to present himself in Baker's camp. It
was known that he was under the influence of the aged fanatic Moulla the
Mushk-i-Alum, who was engaged in fomenting a tribal rising, and it was
reported that he was affording protection to a number of the fugitive
sepoys of the ex-Ameer's army. A political officer with two squadrons of
cavalry was sent to bring into camp the recalcitrant Bahadur Khan. His
fort and village were found prepared for a stubborn defence. Received
with a heavy fire from a large body of men while swarms of hostile
tribesmen showed themselves on the adjacent hills, the horsemen had to
withdraw. It was judged necessary to punish the contumacious chief and
to disperse the tribal gathering before it should make more head, and
Baker led out a strong detachment in light marching order. There was no
fighting, and the only enemies seen were a few tribesmen, who drew off
into the hills as the head of Baker's column approached. Fort, villages,
and valley were found utterly deserted. There were no means to carry
away the forage and grain found in the houses, so the villages belonging
to Bahadur Khan were destroyed by fire. Their inhabitants found refuge
in the surrounding villages, and there was absolutely no foundation for
the statements which appeared in English papers to the effect that old
men, women, and children were turned out to die in the snow. In the
words of Mr Hensman, a correspondent who accompanied the column: 'There
were no old men, women, and children, and there was no snow.' British
officers cannot be supposed to have found pleasure, on the verge of the
bitter Afghan winter, in the destruction of the hovels and the winter
stores of food belonging to a number of miserable villagers; but
experience has proved that only by such stern measures is there any
possibility of cowing the rancour of Afghan tribesmen. No elation can
accompany an operation so pitiless, and the plea of stern necessity must
be advanced alike and accepted with a shudder. Of the necessity of some
such form of reprisals an example is afforded in an experience which
befell General Baker a few days later in this same Maidan region. He
visited the village of Beni-Badam with a small cavalry escort. The
villagers with every demonstration of friendliness entertained the
officers and men with milk and fruit, and provided corn and forage for
their horses. There were only old men in the village with the women and
children, but no treachery was suspected until suddenly two large bodies
of armed men were seen hurrying to cut off the retreat, and it was only
by hard fighting that the General with his escort succeeded in escaping
from the snare. Next day he destroyed the village. Baker probably acted
on general principles, but had he cared for precedents he would have
found them in the conduct of the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war. He
remained in the Maidan district until the transport of the army had
brought into Sherpur all the supplies which he had succeeded in
obtaining in that region, and then returned to the cantonment.
By the terms of the proclamation which he issued on the 28th October Sir
Frederick Roberts was announced as the dominant authority for the time
being in Eastern and Northern Afghanistan. He occupied this position
just as far as and no further than he could make it good. And he could
make it good only over a very circumscribed area. Even more than had
been true of Shah Soojah's government forty years previously was it true
of Roberts' government now that it was a government of sentry-boxes. He
was firm master of the Sherpur cantonment. General Hills, his nominee,
held a somewhat precarious sway in Cabul in the capacity of its
Governor, maintaining his position there in virtue of the bayonets of
his military guard, the support of the adjacent Sherpur, and the waiting
attitude of the populace of the capital. East of Cabul the domination of
Britain was represented by a series of fortified posts studding the road
to Gundamuk, whence to Jumrood the occupation was closer, although not
wholly undisturbed. When a column marched out from Sherpur the British
power was dominant only within the area of its fire zone. The stretch of
road it vacated as it moved on ceased to be territory over which the
British held dominion. This narrowly restricted nature of his actual
sway Sir Frederick Roberts could not but recognise, but how with a force
of 7000 men all told was it possible for him to enlarge its borders? One
expedient suggested itself which could not indeed extend the area of his
real power, but which might have the effect, to use a now familiar
expression, of widening the sphere of his influence. From among the
Sirdars who had regarded it as their interest to cast in their lot with
the British, he selected four to represent him in the capacity of
governors of provinces which his bayonets were not long enough to reach.
The experiment made it disagreeably plain that the people of the
provinces to which he had deputed governors were utterly indisposed to
have anything to do either with them or with him. The governors went in
no state, they had no great sums to disburse, they were protected by no
armed escorts, and they were regarded by the natives much as the
Southern states of the American Union after the Civil War regarded the
'carpet bag' governors whom the North imposed upon them. The Logur
Governor was treated with utter contempt. The Kohistanees despitefully
used Shahbaz Khan, and when a brother of Yakoub Khan was sent to use his
influence in favour of the worried and threatened governor, he was
reviled as a 'Kafir' and a 'Feringhee,' and ordered peremptorily back to
Sherpur if he had any regard for his life. Sirdar Wali Mahomed, the
governor-nominate to the remote Turkestan, found pretext after pretext
for delaying to proceed to take up his functions, and had never quitted
the British camp. When Baker returned from Maidan he reported that he
had left the district peaceful in charge of the governor whom he had
installed, the venerable and amiable Hassan Khan. Baker's rear-guard was
scarcely clear of the valley when a mob of tribesmen and sepoys attacked
the fort in which the old Sirdar was residing, shot him through the
head, and then hacked his body to pieces. It was too clear that
governors unsupported by bayonets, and whose only weapons were tact and
persuasiveness, were at an extreme discount in the condition which
Afghanistan presented in the end of November and the beginning of
December.