The Afghan Wars 1839 42 and 1878 80 by Archibald Forbes

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Burnes wrote to the Envoy--he was a soldier, but he was also a
'political,' and political employ seemed often in Afghanistan to
deteriorate the attribute of soldierhood--that there was no alternative
for the force but to fall back on Cabul, and entreated Macnaghten to
order immediate concentration of all the troops. This letter Macnaghten
received the day after the disaster in the Kohistan, when he was taking
his afternoon ride in the Cabul plain. His heart must have been very
heavy as he rode, when suddenly a horseman galloped up to him and
announced that the Ameer was approaching. 'What Ameer?' asked Macnaghten.
'Dost Mahomed Khan,' was the reply, and sure enough there was the Dost
close at hand. Dismounting, this Afghan prince and gentleman saluted the
Envoy, and offered him his sword, which Macnaghten declined to take. Dost
and Envoy rode into Cabul together, and such was the impression the
former made on the latter that Macnaghten, who a month before had
permitted himself to think of putting a price on 'the fellow's' head,
begged now of the Governor-General 'that the Dost be treated more
handsomely than was Shah Soojah, who had no claim on us.' And then
followed a strange confession for the man to make who made the tripartite
treaty, and approved the Simla manifesto: 'We had no hand in depriving
the Shah of his kingdom, _whereas we ejected the Dost, who never offended
us, in support of our policy, of which he was the victim_.'

Durand regards Dost Mahomed's surrender as 'evincing a strange
pusillanimity.' This opprobrious judgment appears unjustified. No doubt
he was weary of the fugitive life he had been leading, but to pronounce
him afraid that the Kohistanees or any other Afghans would betray him is
to ignore the fact that he had been for months among people who might,
any hour of any day, have betrayed him if they had chosen. Nobler motives
than those ascribed to him by Durand may be supposed to have actuated a
man of his simple and lofty nature. He had given the arbitrament of war a
trial, and had realised that in that way he could make no head against
us. He might, indeed, have continued the futile struggle, but he was the
sort of man to recognise the selfishness of that persistency which would
involve ruin and death to the devoted people who would not desert his
cause while he claimed to have a cause. When historians write of Afghan
treachery and guile, it seems to have escaped their perception that
Afghan treachery was but a phase of Afghan patriotism, of an unscrupulous
character, doubtless, according to our notions, but nevertheless
practical in its methods, and not wholly unsuccessful in its results. It
may have been a higher and purer patriotism that moved Dost Mahomed to
cease, by his surrender, from being an obstacle to the tranquillisation
of the country of which he had been the ruler.

CHAPTER IV: THE SECOND YEAR OF OCCUPATION

Dost Mahomed remained for a few days in the British cantonments on the
Cabul plain, an honoured guest rather than a prisoner. His soldierly
frankness, his bearing at once manly and courteous, his honest liking for
and trust in our race, notwithstanding the experiences which he had
undergone, won universal respect and cordiality. Officers who stood aloof
from Shah Soojah vied with each other in evincing to Dost Mahomed their
sympathy with him in his fallen fortunes. Shah Soojah would not see the
man whom he had ingloriously supplanted, on the pretext that he 'could
not bring himself to show common civility to such a villain.' How
Macnaghten's feeling in regard to the two men had altered is disclosed by
his comment on this refusal. 'It is well,' he wrote, 'as the Dost must
have suffered much humiliation in being subjected to such an ordeal.'

In the middle of November 1840 the Dost began his journey toward British
India, accompanied by Sir Willoughby Cotton, who was finally quitting
Afghanistan, and under the escort of a considerable British force which
had completed its tour of duty in Afghanistan. Sale succeeded Cotton in
temporary divisional command pending the arrival of the latter's
successor. About the middle of December Shah Soojah and his Court,
accompanied by the British Envoy, arrived at Jellalabad for the winter,
Burnes remaining at Cabul in political charge.

Macnaghten was mentally so constituted as to be continually alternating
between high elation and the depths of despondency; discerning to-day
ominous indications of ruin in an incident of no account, and to-morrow
scorning imperiously to recognise danger in the fierce rising of a
province. It may almost be said that each letter of his to Lord Auckland
was of a different tone from the one which had preceded it. Burnes, who
was nominally Macnaghten's chief lieutenant, with more self-restraint,
had much the same temperament. Kaye writes of him: 'Sometimes sanguine,
sometimes despondent, sometimes confident, sometimes credulous, Burnes
gave to fleeting impressions all the importance and seeming permanency of
settled convictions, and imbued surrounding objects with the colours of
his own varying mind.' But if Burnes had been a discreet and steadfast
man, he could have exercised no influence on the autocratic Macnaghten,
since between the two men there was neither sympathy nor confidence.
Burnes had, indeed, no specific duties of any kind; in his own words, he
was in 'the most nondescript situation.' Macnaghten gave him no
responsibility, and while Burnes waited for the promised reversion of the
office of envoy, he chiefly employed himself in writing long memorials on
the situation and prospects of affairs, on which Macnaghten's marginal
comments were brusque, and occasionally contemptuous. The resolute and
clear-headed Pottinger, who, if the opportunity had been given him, might
have buttressed and steadied Macnaghten, was relegated to provincial
service. Throughout his career in Afghanistan the Envoy could not look
for much advice from the successive commanders of the Cabul force, even
if he had cared to commune with them. Keane, indeed, did save him from
the perpetration of one folly. But Cotton appears to have been a
respectable nonentity. Sale was a stout, honest soldier, who was not
fortunate on the only occasion which called him outside of his restricted
_métier_. Poor Elphinstone was an object for pity rather than for
censure.

It happened fortunately, in the impending misfortunes, that two men of
stable temperament and lucid perception were in authority at Candahar.
General Nott was a grand old Indian officer, in whom there was no guile,
but a good deal of temper. He was not supple, and he had the habit of
speaking his mind with great directness, a propensity which accounted,
perhaps, for the repeated supersessions he had undergone. A clearheaded,
shrewd man, he was disgusted with very many things which he recognised as
unworthy in the conduct of the affairs of Afghanistan, and he was not the
man to choose mild phrases in giving vent to his convictions. He had in
full measure that chronic dislike which the Indian commander in the field
nourishes to the political officer who is imposed on him by the
authorities, and who controls his measures and trammels his actions.
Nott's 'political,' who, the sole survivor of the men who were prominent
during this unhappy period, still lives among us esteemed and revered,
was certainly the ablest officer of the unpopular department to which he
belonged; and how cool was Henry Rawlinson's temper is evinced in his
ability to live in amity with the rugged and outspoken chief who
addressed him in such a philippic as the following--words all the more
trenchant because he to whom they were addressed must have realised how
intrinsically true they were:--

'I have no right to interfere with the affairs of this country, and I
never do so. But in reference to that part of your note where you speak
of political influence, I will candidly tell you that these are not times
for mere ceremony, and that under present circumstances, and at a
distance of 2000 miles from the seat of the supreme Government, I throw
responsibility to the wind, and tell you that in my opinion you have not
had for some time past, nor have you at present, one particle of
political influence in this country.'

Nott steadily laboured to maintain the _morale_ and discipline of his
troops, and thus watching the flowing tide of misrule and embroilment, he
calmly made the best preparations in his power to meet the storm the sure
and early outbreak of which his clear discernment prognosticated.

Shah Soojah's viceroy at Candahar was his heir-apparent Prince Timour.
The Dooranee chiefs of Western Afghanistan had not unnaturally expected
favours and influence under the rule of the Dooranee monarch; and while
in Candahar before proceeding to Cabul, and still uncertain of what might
occur there, Shah Soojah had been lavish of his promises. The chiefs had
anticipated that they would be called around the vice-throne of Prince
Timour; but Shah Soojah made the same error as that into which Louis
XVIII. fell on his restoration. He constituted his Court of the men who
had shared his Loodianah exile. The counsellors who went to Candahar with
Timour were returned _émigrés_, in whom fitness for duty counted less
than the qualification of companionship in exile. Those people had come
back to Afghanistan poor; now they made haste to be rich by acts of
oppressive injustice, in the exaction of revenue from the people, and by
intercepting from the Dooranee chiefs the flow of royal bounty to which
they had looked forward.

Uktar Khan was prominent among the Dooranee noblemen, and he had the
double grievance of having been disappointed of the headship of the
Zemindawar province on the western bank of the Helmund, and having been
evilly entreated by the minions of Prince Timour. He had raised his clan
and routed a force under a royalist follower, when Nott sent a detachment
against him. Uktar Khan had crossed the Helmund into Zemindawar, when
Farrington attacked him, and, after a brisk fight, routed and pursued
him. The action was fought on January 3, 1841, in the very dead of
winter; the intensity of the cold dispersed Uktar's levies, and
Farrington returned to Candahar.

In reply to Macnaghten's demand for information regarding the origin of
this outbreak, Rawlinson wrote him some home truths which were very
distasteful. Rawlinson warned his chief earnestly of the danger which
threatened the false position of the British in Afghanistan. He pointed
out how cruel must be the revenue exactions which enabled Prince Timour's
courtiers to absorb great sums. He expressed his suspicion that Shah
Soojah had countenanced Uktar Khan's rising, and spoke of intrigues of
dark and dangerous character. Macnaghten scouted Rawlinson's warning, and
instructed him that 'it will make the consideration of all questions more
simple if you will hereafter take for granted that as regards us "the
king can do no wrong."' However, he and the Shah did remove from Candahar
the Vakeel and his clique of obnoxious persons, who had been grinding the
faces of the people; and the Envoy allowed himself to hope that this
measure would restore order to the province of Candahar.

The hope was vain, the evil lay deeper; disaffection to the Shah and
hatred to the British power were becoming intensified from day to day,
and the aspiration for relief was swelling into a passion. In the days
before our advent there had been venality and corruption in public
places--occasionally, likely enough, as Macnaghten asserted, to an extent
all but incredible. But exaction so sweeping could have occurred only in
regions under complete domination; and in Afghanistan, even to this day,
there are few regions wholly in this condition. When the yoke became
over-weighty, a people of a nature so intractable knew how to resent
oppression and oppose exaction. But now the tax gatherer swaggered over
the land, and the people had to endure him, for at his back were the
soldiers of the Feringhees and the levies of the Shah. The latter were
paid by assignments on the revenues of specified districts; as the levies
constituted a standing army of some size, the contributions demanded were
heavier and more permanent than in bygone times. Macnaghten, aware of the
discontent engendered by the system of assignments, desired to alter it.
But the Shah's needs were pressing; the Anglo-Indian treasury was
strained already by the expenditure in Afghanistan; and it was not easy
in a period of turmoil and rebellion to carry out the amendment of a
fiscal system. That, since the surrender of the Dost, there had been no
serious rising in Northern or Eastern Afghanistan, sufficed to make
Macnaghten an optimist of the moment. He had come by this time to a
reluctant admission of the fact against which he had set his face so
long, that Shah Soojah was unpopular. 'He has incurred,' he wrote, 'the
odium that attaches to him from his alliance with us'; but the Envoy
would not admit that our position in Afghanistan was a false one, in that
we were maintaining by our bayonets, against the will of the Afghans, a
sovereign whom they detested. 'It would,' he pleaded, 'be an act of
downright dishonesty to desert His Majesty before he has found the means
of taking root in the soil to which we have transplanted him.' While he
wrote, Macnaghten must have experienced a sudden thrill of optimism or of
self-delusion, for he continued: 'All things considered, the present
tranquillity of this country is to my mind perfectly miraculous. Already
our presence has been infinitely beneficial in allaying animosities and
in pointing out abuses.' If it had been the case that the country was
tranquil, his adjective would have been singularly appropriate, but not
precisely in the sense he meant to convey.

But there was no tranquillity, miraculous or otherwise. While Macnaghten
was writing the letter which has just been quoted, Brigadier Shelton,
who, about the New Year, had reached Jellalabad with a brigade from
British India in relief of the force which was withdrawing with Cotton,
was contending with an outbreak of the wild and lawless clans of the
Khyber. When Macnaghten wrote, he had already received intelligence of
the collapse of his projects in Herat, and that Major Todd, who had been
his representative there, judging it imperative to break up the mission
of which he was the head, had abruptly quitted that city, and was on his
way to Candahar. Mischief was simmering in the Zemindawar country. The
Ghilzai tribes of the region between Candahar and Ghuznee had accepted a
subsidy to remain quiet, but the indomitable independence of this wild
and fierce race was not to be tamed by bribes, and the spirit of
hostility was manifesting itself so truculently that a British garrison
had been placed in Khelat-i-Ghilzai, right in the heart of the disturbed
territory. This warning and defensive measure the tribes had regarded
with angry jealousy; but it was not until a rash 'political' had directed
the unprovoked assault and capture of a Ghilzai fort that the tribes
passionately flew to arms, bent on contesting the occupation of their
rugged country. Colonel Wymer was sent from Candahar with a force,
escorting a convoy of stores intended for the equipment of
Khelat-i-Ghilzai. The tribes who had been loosely beleaguering that place
marched down the Turnuk upon Wymer, and on May 19th attacked him with
great impetuosity, under the command of a principal chief who was known
as the 'Gooroo.' Wymer, in the protection of his convoy, had to stand on
the defensive. The Ghilzais, regardless of the grape which tore through
their masses, fell on sword in hand, and with an intuitive tactical
perception struck Wymer simultaneously in front and flank. His sepoys had
to change their dispositions, and the Ghilzais took the opportunity of
their momentary dislocation to charge right home. They were met firmly by
the bayonet, but again and again the hillmen renewed their attacks; and
it was not till after five hours of hard fighting which cost them heavy
loss, that at length, in the darkness, they suddenly drew off. Had they
been Swiss peasants defending their mountains, or Poles struggling
against the ferocious tyranny of Russia, their gallant effort might have
excited praise and sympathy. Had they been Soudanese, a statesman might
have spoken of them as a people 'rightly struggling to be free'; as it
was, the Envoy vituperated them as 'a parcel of ragamuffins,' and Wymer's
sepoys were held to have 'covered themselves with glory.' Macnaghten
proceeded to encourage a sense of honour among the tribes by proposing
the transfer to another chief, on condition of his seizing and delivering
over the inconvenient 'Gooroo,' of the share of subsidy of which the
latter had been in receipt.

While this creditable transaction was under consideration, Uktar Khan was
again making himself very unpleasant; so much so that Macnaghten was
authorising Rawlinson to offer a reward of 10,000 rupees for his capture,
which accomplished, Rawlinson was instructed to 'hang the villain as high
as Haman.' The gallows was not built, however, on which Uktar was to
hang, although that chief sustained two severe defeats at the hands of
troops sent from Candahar, and had to become a fugitive. The Ghilzais,
who had gathered again after their defeat under the 'Gooroo,' had made
little stand against the detachment which Colonel Chambers led out from
Candahar, and they were again temporarily dispersed. The 'Gooroo' himself
was in our hands. If the disaffection was in no degree diminished, the
active ebullitions of it were assuredly quelled for the time. It was
true, to be sure, that Akbar Khan, the fierce and resolute son of Dost
Mahomed, had refused the Envoy's overtures to come in, and was wandering
and plotting in Khooloom, quite ready to fulfil Macnaghten's prophetic
apprehension that 'the fellow will be after some mischief should the
opportunity present itself'; that the Dooranees were still defiant; that
an insurgent force was out in the Dehrawat; and that the tameless chief
Akram Khan was being blown from a gun by the cruel and feeble Timour. But
unquestionably there was a comparative although short-lived lull in the
overt hostility of the Afghan peoples against Shah Soojah and his foreign
supporters; and Macnaghten characteristically announced that 'the country
was quiet from Dan to Beersheba.' To one of his correspondents he wrote:
'From Mookoor to the Khyber Pass, all is content and tranquillity; and
wherever we Europeans go, we are received with respect, attention and
welcome. I think our prospects are most cheering; and with the materials
we have there ought to be little or no difficulty in the management of
the country. The people are perfect children, and they should be treated
as such. If we put one naughty boy in the corner, the rest will be
terrified.'

General Nott at Candahar, who 'never interfered in the government of the
country,' but regarded the situation with shrewd, clear-headed common
sense, differed utterly from the Envoy's view. The stout old soldier did
not squander his fire; it was a close volley he discharged in the
following words: 'The conduct of the thousand and one politicals has
ruined our cause, and bared the throat of every European in this country
to the sword and knife of the revengeful Afghan and bloody Belooch; and
unless several regiments be quickly sent, not a man will be left to
describe the fate of his comrades. Nothing will ever make the Afghans
submit to the hated Shah Soojah, who is most certainly as great a
scoundrel as ever lived.'

Nott's conclusions were in the main justified by after events, but the
correctness of his premiss may be questioned. That the conduct of some of
the political officers intensified the rancour of the Afghans is
unhappily true, but the hate of our domination, and of the puppet thrust
upon them by us, seems to have found its origin in a deeper feeling. The
patriotism of a savage race is marked by features repulsive to civilised
communities, but through the ruthless cruelty of the indiscriminate
massacre, the treachery of the stealthy stab, and the lightly broken
pledges, there may shine out the noblest virtue that a virile people can
possess. A semi-barbarian nation whose manhood pours out its blood like
water in stubborn resistance against an alien yoke, may be pardoned for
many acts shocking to civilised communities which have not known the
bitterness of stern and masterful subjugation.

CHAPTER V: THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The deceptive quietude of Afghanistan which followed the sharp lessons
administered to the Dooranees and the Ghilzais was not seriously
disturbed during the month of September 1841, and Macnaghten was in a
full glow of cheerfulness. His services had been recognised by his
appointment to the dignified and lucrative post of Governor of the Bombay
Presidency, and he was looking forward to an early departure for a less
harassing and tumultuous sphere of action than that in which he had been
labouring for two troubled years. The belief that he would leave behind
him a quiescent Afghanistan, and Shah Soojah firmly established on its
throne, was the complement, to a proud and zealous man, of the
satisfaction which his promotion afforded.

One distasteful task he had to perform before he should go. The Home
Government had become seriously disquieted by the condition of affairs in
Afghanistan. The Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, the channel
through which the ministry communicated with the Governor-General, had
expressed great concern at the heavy burden imposed on the Indian
finances by the cost of the maintenance of the British force in
Afghanistan, and by the lavish expenditure of the administration which
Macnaghten directed. The Anglo-Indian Government was urgently required to
review with great earnestness the question of its future policy in regard
to Afghanistan, and to consider gravely whether an enterprise at once so
costly and so unsatisfactory in results should not be frankly abandoned.
Lord Auckland was alive to the difficulties and embarrassments which
encompassed the position beyond the Indus, but he was loth to admit that
the policy of which he had been the author, and in which the Home
Government had abetted him so eagerly, was an utter failure. He and his
advisers finally decided in favour of the continued occupation of
Afghanistan; and since the Indian treasury was empty, and the annual
charge of that occupation was not less than a million and a quarter
sterling, recourse was had to a loan, Macnaghten was pressed to effect
economies in the administration, and he was specially enjoined to cut
down the subsidies which were paid to Afghan chiefs as bribes to keep
them quiet. Macnaghten had objected to this retrenchment, pointing out
that the stipends to the chiefs were simply compensation for the
abandonment by them of their immemorial practice of highway robbery, but
he yielded to pressure, called to Cabul the chiefs in its vicinity, and
informed them that thenceforth their subsidies would be reduced. The
chiefs strongly remonstrated, but without effect, and they then formed a
confederacy of rebellion. The Ghilzai chiefs were the first to act.
Quitting Cabul, they occupied the passes between the capital and
Jellalabad, and entirely intercepted the communications with India by the
Khyber route.

Macnaghten did not take alarm at this significant demonstration,
regarding the outbreak merely as 'provoking,' and writing to Rawlinson
that 'the rascals would be well trounced for their pains.' Yet warnings
of gathering danger were rife, which but for his mood of optimism should
have struck home to his apprehension. Pottinger had come down from the
Kohistan, where he was acting as political officer, bent on impressing on
him that a general rising of that region was certain unless strong
measures of prevention were resorted to. For some time before the actual
outbreak of the Ghilzais, the Afghan hatred to our people had been
showing itself with exceptional openness and bitterness. Europeans and
camp followers had been murdered, but the sinister evidences of growing
danger had been regarded merely as ebullitions of private rancour. Akbar
Khan, Dost Mahomed's son, had moved forward from Khooloom into the Bamian
country, and there was little doubt that he was fomenting the
disaffection of the Ghilzai chiefs, with some of whom this indomitable
man, who in his intense hatred of the English intruders had resolutely
rejected all offers of accommodation, and preferred the life of a
homeless exile to the forfeiture of his independence, was closely
connected by marriage.

The time was approaching when Sale's brigade was to quit Cabul on its
return journey to India. Macnaghten seems to have originally intended to
accompany this force, for he wrote that he 'hoped to settle the hash of
the Ghilzais on the way down, if not before.' The rising, however, spread
so widely and so rapidly that immediate action was judged necessary, and
on October 9th Colonel Monteath marched towards the passes with his own
regiment, the 35th Native Infantry, some artillery and cavalry details,
and a detachment of Broadfoot's sappers.

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