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AMANULLAH

Afghan gentleman concern himself privately with the
welfare of a relative in a village of the hills ? Was he
not to be allowed to inquire into the circumstances of
this relative's education, his future, and his prosperity ?

Surely the honourable British military authorities
were inclined to be over-suspicious ? Surely they were
forgetting their courtesy to the envoy of a nation that
had befriended them by benevolent neutrality during
the War ? Fie on their suspicious natures 1

He got away with it. He had spoken like a true
Afghan, always equipped with the most disarming, the
most naive, and the most transparent of excuses. He
went back over the Frontier, with a good idea in his
mind of the depleted forces and the exhausted defences
of the British war machine on the North-West Frontier.

Amanullah heard his Commandcr-in-Chicf's report
with impatience and a new determination. His eyes
shone as his envoy told him of the relaxed discipline
and the revulsion from war that permeated the British
in India. He heard of men sick and tired of the sound
of warfare ; of a feeling of security held by the highest
military advisers to the Government in India.

Then Amanullah made up his mind. His dream was
coming true. At last, the armies of Afghanistan,
trained and disciplined as they had never been before,
would test their steel against the might of England
with a better chance of success than ever in history.

He readily found an excuse. It was that his nation
was hampered by the condition laid on his Government
that foreign relations with other countries could only
be conducted through the British authorities in India.
Surely, he persuaded himself to think, his father had,
by his conduct in the late War, gained the right for
Afghanistan to be free to treat on more equal terms
with other nations ?

54