The first Afghan war

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THE

FIEST AFGHAN WAE.

BY

MOWBRAY MORRIS.

HoutKon :

SAMPSON LOW, MAESTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

1878.

[^AU rights reserved.']

PEEFACE.

The following pages pretend to give nothing more
than a short summary of events already recorded
by recognised authorities.

1

\

THE

FIRST AFGHAN ¥AE.

It was in the year 1808, when the power of Napo-
leon was at its height, that diplomatic relations were
first opened between the Courts of Calcutta and
Cabul. Napoleon, when in Egypt, had meditated
on the chances of striking a fatal blow at England
through her Indian dependencies ; some correspon-
dence had actually passed between him and Tippoo
Saib on the subject, and subsequently, in 1801, he
had concluded a treaty with the Eussian Emperor
Paul for an invasion of India by a force of 70,000
men, to be composed of equal parts of French and
Russian troops. The proposed line of march w^s
to He through Astrakhan and Afghanistan to the
Indus, and was to be heralded by Zemaun Shah,
who then ruled at Cabul, at the head of 100,000
Afghans. There was but little danger indeed to be
apprehended from Afghanistan alone, but Afghanis-
tan with Russia and France in the background was
capable of proving a very troublesome enemy. In
such circumstances the attitude of Persia was of the

B

2 THE FIKST AFGHAN WAR.

last importance, and MarquessWellesley, tlienViceroy
of India, at once proceeded to convert a possible
enemy into a certain and valuable ally. A yomig
officer who had distinguished himself under Harris at
Seringapatam was selected for this delicate service.
How the young captain, whom Englishmen remem-
ber as Sir John Malcolm, fulfilled his mission is
matter of history. A thorough master of all Oriental
languages, and as skilful in council as he was brave
in the field, Malcolm soon pledged the Court of
Persia to the interests of England, and not only was
it agreed that the two contracting parties should
unite to expel any French force that might seek to
gain a footing on any of the islands or shores of
Persia, but the latter Government bound itself to
** slay and disgrace " any Frenchman found in the
country. This treaty, which may be thought to
have somewhat dangerously stretched the bounds of
diplomatic hostility, was, however, never formally
ratified, and internal dissensions, culminating in the
deposition of Zemaun Shah by his brother Mahmoud,
removed all danger from our frontier for a time.

But the idea still lived in Napoleon's restless
heart. The original treaty with Paul was discussed
with his successor Alexander, and in 1808 a French
mission, with the avowed design of organizing the

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 3

proposed invasion, was despatched, not to Cabul,
but to Teheran. The magic of Napoleon's name
was stronger even than British eloquence and British
gold, and Malcolm, once all-powerful in Iran, when
he sought to renew the former pledges of amity, was
turned back with insult from the Persian capital.
A second mission, however, despatched direct from
London under the guidance of Sir Harford Jones,
was more fortunate. Napoleon had been defeated
in Spain, and the news of his defeat had spread.
Russia was something less eager for the French
alliance than she had been in 1801, while between
the Muscovites and the Persians there had lonof
existed a hereditary feud, which the proposed league
had by no means served to extinguish. The English
envoy, skilfully piecing together these broken threads
to his own ends, was enabled with little loss of time
to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance be-
tween Great Britain and Persia, the earliest result
of which was the immediate dismissal of the French
mission. By this treaty the Persian King bound
himself not to permit the passage through his domi-
nions of any force hostile to India, and, in the event
of war arising between England and Afghanistan, to
invade the latter at the cost of the former ; further-
more, he declared null all treaties previously con-

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4 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

eluded by him with any other European power.
The Enghsh, in their turn, pledged themselves to
assist him, should his kingdom be invaded, either
with men or money and arms, but should the war
be one only with Afghanistan, they were not to
interfere unless theu' interference was sought by
both parties. Though this treaty was concluded in
1808-9, it was not formally ratified till November 15,
1814.

Not on Persia alone, however, was the Enghsh
Government content to rely. In a fiiendly Afghan-
istan was a second most serviceable string which it
had been the height of imprudence to let another fit
to his bow. The two countries stood in almost pre-
cisely similar relations to English India ; each as an
enemy contemptible single-handed, but a dangerous
item in an invading force ; each a useful ally, and
each a salutaiy check upon the other. At the same
time, then, as Sir Harford Jones was neutralizing
the French influence at Teheran, the Honourable
Mountstuart Elphinstone was despatched by Lord
Minto, who had succeeded Lord Wellesley at Calcutta,
to the Com't of Cabul.

Previous to the year 1808 Afghanistan was prac-
tically a terra incognita to Englishmen. Zemaun
Shah, the once terrible Ameer whose threatened

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

invasion had disturbed even the strong mind of Lord
Wellesley, was, indeed, in their hands, living, de-
throned and bhnded, a pensioner on their bounty at
Loodhianah, but of the country he had once ruled over
and of the subjects who had driven him into exile
but little was known in Calcutta and still less in
London. Before the close of the eighteenth century
but one Enghshman had ever penetrated into that
unknown land. Forster, a member of the Bengal
Civil Service, in 1783-84 had crossed the Punjab
to Cashmere, and thence had descended through the
great Khyber and Koord-Cabul passes to the Afghan
stronghold, whence journeying on by Ghuznee, Can-
dahar, and Herat he had won his way to the borders
of the Caspian Sea. His book was not pubHshed till
some fifteen years after, and shows chiefly, to use
Kaye's words, *' how much during the last seventy
years the Afghan Empire and how little the Afghan
character is changed." But the labour and intel-
hgence of one man, however much they may profit
himself, have rarely by themselves added much to
the knowledge of a nation. Many well-read Eng-
lishmen could still own to little more than a vague
idea of Afghanistan; that it was a bare and rocky
country, which the heat of summer and the cold of
winter alike rendered impervious to travellers, happily

6 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

shut out from more civilised regions by a mighty
barrier of mountains, topped with eternal snow,
through which, by passes inaccessible to all save the
mountaineers themselves, hordes of savage warriors
had in earlier days poured down in irresistible flood
on the fertile valleys of the Indus. Elphinstone let
in more light on the gloomy and mysterious scene.
Though with his own eyes he saw but little of the
country and the people, as his journey was stayed at
Peshawur, he acquired from various sources a vast
amount of information, which he reproduced with
extraordinary distinctness. His book rapidly became
the acknowledged text-book of the history and geo-
graphy of the country, and may still be read with
pleasure and studied with profit. It would have
been well if one of the lessons he taught had been
better laid to heart ; and thirty years later his un-
fortunate namesake must have recalled with peculiar
bitterness all he had once read of the ingrained
treachery of the Afghan character. The mission was
in itself entirely successful, though the rapid march
of events soon neutralised, and eventually wholly
destroyed its work. Shah Soojah, a name to be
before many years but too familiar to English ears,
received the envoys at Peshawur, then one of the
chief cities of his kingdom. He appeared to them

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 7

in royal state, seated on a golden throne, and blazing
with jewels, chief among which shone forth in a
gorgeous bracelet the mighty Koh-i-noor. Nor were
the English outdone in magnificence. The entire
mission was on a scale of profuse splendour, and the
presents they brought with them so numerous and
so costly that when, thirty years later, Burnes arrived
in Cabul the courtiers turned in disgust from what
Kaye contemptuously calls **his pins and needles,
and little articles of hardware, such as would have
disgraced the wallet of a pedlar of low repute."
The envoys were most hospitably received, and El-
phinstone formed a very favourable opinion of the
character of Soojah, whom he described as both
affable and dignified and bearing the * ^ manners of a
gentleman." He listened attentively to the envoys'
proposals, and declared that *' England and Gabul
were designed by the Creator to be united by bonds
of everlasting friendship," but at the same time he
confessed his country to be in such an unsettled con-
dition, and his own throne so insecure, that, for the
present, the best advice he could give the English
gentlemen was that they should retire beyond the
frontier. On June 14th, 1809, therefore, the mission
set out on its homeward journey, having, however,
arranged a treaty, which was shortly after formally

8 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

ratified by Lord Minto at Calcutta, by which Soojah
bound himself to treat the French, if allied with the
Persians, much as the Persian monarch had pledged
himself to behave to them if allied with the Afghans.
But even at the very time of ratification this treaty
had been practically rendered null by the success of
Sir Harford Jones's mission to Teheran, and within
a year Soojah had been deposed by his brother
Mahmoud, from whom he had himself wrested the
crown, and was a captive in the hands of Eunjeet
Singh.

The final overthrow of Napoleon in 1815 removed
all fears of a French advance on India, but in its
stead arose the still more imminent shadow of
Eussia. For many years past that shadow had been
looming larger and larger to the eyes of the kings
of Teheran, till the annexation of Georgia brought
the eagles of the Czar over the Caucasus up to
the very frontier of their northern provinces. The
English alliance, and an army drilled under
the supervision of English officers, had, however,
turned the head of the Persian king, and his heir.
Abbas Mirza, at the head of 40,000 troops, of
whom half were drilled and equipped after the
EngHsh fashion, dared, in 1826, to throw down the
gauntlet to the Czar. He paid dearly for his

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 9

daring. English drill and English arms availed
him little without English officers. His son, Ma-
homed Mirza, was utterly routed with the division
under his command, and soon after he himself was
defeated in open hattle hy the Kussian Paskewitch
with a loss of 1200 men. The English help,
promised by the treaty of 1814 in the event of
Persia becoming involved in war with any European
power, was not forthcoming. Mediation took the
place of armed men, and with the help of Great
Britain a peace was concluded in 1828 between the
two powers, humiliating to Persia, and ultimately
disastrous to England. By this treaty Persia lost
the Khanates of Erivan and Nakhichevan, and
practically her whole defensive frontier to the north.
In Sir Harford Jones's words, ** Persia was delivered,
bound hand and foot, to the Court of St. Petersburg."
The territory acquired by Russia was nearly equal
in extent to the whole of England, and her outposts
were brought within a few days' march of the
Persian capital. From that time, up to Lord
Auckland's arrival at Calcutta in 1836, Persia was
little more than a minion of the Czar, used by him
to cover the steady advance of his battalions east-
ward. The death of Futteh Ali Shah, at Ispahan in
1834, snapped the last link that bound Persia to our

10 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

interests. Futteh Ali, as far as lay in his power,
had ever striven to remain faithful to his English
allies, and to resist, as far as he dared, Russian
intrigue and Eussian influence within his kingdom.
But his son and grandson had welcomed the Mus-
covite alliance with open arms, and when the latter
ascended the throne on his grandfather's death, it
was evident that the Czar would be paramount at
the Persian Court. Mahomed Mirza Shah, the new
king, had long dreamed of the conquest of Herat
and the extension of his eastern frontier, and had
more than once, in his grandfather's lifetime, striven
to turn his dreams to facts. Nothing could have
been more favourable to the Russian plans, and no
sooner was Mahomed secure upon the throne than
he was urged to the immediate execution of his
long-cherished designs. Such was the state of
affairs when Lord Auckland was despatched by
Lord Melbourne in 1836 to take the reins of Indian
Government from the hands of Sir Charles Metcalfe.
Meanwhile many changes had taken place at
Cabul. The weak and dissolute Mahmoud, the
deposer of Soojah, proved no more than a puppet in
the hands of his Yizier, Futteh Khan, the head of
the great Barukzye tribe. The youngest of the
twenty brothers of this able and powerful chief was

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 11

the celebrated Dost Mahomed. Bom of a woman
of an mferior tribe, he had entered Hfe as a sweeper
of the sacred tomb of Lamech. From thence he
was promoted to hold a menial office about the
person of his great brother, into whose favour he at
length rose by the murder, when only a boy of
fourteen, of one of the Vizier's enemies. From
that time his rise was steady, and as he rose so did
he discard the follies and excesses of his youth,
displaying a daring and heroic spirit, great military
address, and a power of self- discipline and self-
control unparalleled among the chiefs of Central
Asia. To his hands was entrusted the execution of
the Vizier's project for establishing the Barukzyes
in Herat, then held by a brother of the reigning
king. The design was completely successful for the
moment, owing to the daring and also to the
treachery of Dost Mahomed, but the blow recoiled
with fearful force on the person of the Vizier.
Keturning from his raid against the Persians, which
had been the ostensible pretext for his march to
Herat, Futteh Khan was seized by Prince Kamran,
son of Mahmoud; his eyes were put out, and
persisting in his refusal to give up his brother to
the Prince's vengeance, he was hacked to pieces
before the whole court. This brutal act finally

12 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

overthrew the long tottering dynasty of the Sud-
dozyes, who had been kings in Cabul since Ahmed
Shah founded the Afghan Empire in 1747. Dost
Mahomed's vengeance was sudden and no less brutal.
But it is impossible in this limited space to enter
into all the details of his rise to the chief seat
of power. It must suffice to say that when Lord
Auckland entered on his government Dost Mahomed
was firmly seated on the throne of Cabul, and the
whole of the country in the hands of the Barukzye
Sirdars, with the exception of Herat, where Kamran
still reigned, the last remnant, save the exiled
Soojah, of the legitimate line.

Shortly after Lord Auckland's arrival at Calcutta
Dost Mahomed addressed to him a letter of con-
gratulation on his assumption of office. Adverting
to his quarrel with the Sikhs, who, under Runjeet
Singh, the old one-eyed '^ Lion of the Punjab,"
had wrested the rich valley of Peshawur from the
Afghan Empire, he said, " the late transactions in
this quarter, the conduct of the reckless and mis-
guided Sikhs, and their breach of treaty, are well
known to your Lordship. Communicate to me
whatever may suggest itself to your wisdom for the
settlement of the affairs of this country, that it may
serve as a rule for my guidance." And he concluded

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 13

with a hope that **your Lordship will consider me
and my country as your own." To this complimen-
tary effusion the Viceroy returned a suitable reply,
assuring the Ameer of his wish that the Afghans
should become a *^ flourishing and united nation,"
but declining to interfere in the Sikh quarrel, on
the plea that it was not *' the practice of the British
Government to interfere with the affairs of other
independent states." It was hinted, too, that ^* some
gentleman " would probably be deputed to the Ameer's
Court to discuss certain ** commercial topics." This
plan, which had originally commended itself to Lord
William Bentinck, shortly after took effect in the
despatch of Captain Alexander Burnes to Cabul.

But by this time affairs in Persia had reached
a crisis. Though Mahomed Shah, breathing fire
and sword against Herat, had ascended the thrgne
in 1834, it was not till 1837 that his threats
took practical shape. Despite the ceaseless prompt-
ings of the Kussian minister at Teheran (who, it
is perhaps needless to say, had, according to his
own Government, done his best to dissuade Mahomed
from any advance on the Afghan frontier), the Shah
still hung back. If Kamran would send hostages
and a large present, would own the Persian king as
sovereign, coin money, and have prayers read in his

14 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

name, all should be well. The hostages and the
present Kamran was content to allow, hut the rest
he could not stomach. The Barukzye chief who
ruled at Candahar viewed the proposed invasion
with complaisance, hoping to secure Herat for him-
self, and being perfectly willing to liold it as a fief
of Persia. He even went so far as to propose to
send one of his sons to the Persian camp as hostage
for his fidelity, and to secure the best terms for
himself and his brothers. Dost Mahomed warned
him that if he did so he would be made **to bite
the finger of repentance," but the warning was dis-
regarded. Egged on by the flattering assurances of
the inestimable advantages to be derived from a
Persian alliance, that the Russian agent did not
cease to lay before him, Kohun Dil Khan disobeyed
the commands of his chief ; the boy was to be sent,
and the alliance was to be completed. Mahomed
Shah then commenced his march against Herat,
and at the same time Burnes appeared at Cabul.
*' Thus," says Kaye, '^ the seeds of the Afghan war
were sown."

Burnes had been at Cabul before. He had gone
there in 1832, with the sanction of Lord William
Bentinck, and had been courteously received by Dost
Mahomed, of whom he had formed a very favour-

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 15

able opinion, in contrast with that which he enter-
tained of the weak and vacillating Soojah. His
opinion of the Ameer was, probably, in the main a
correct one, but he scarcely seems to have exercised
his usual judgment when he declared the Afghans
to be *' a simple-minded, sober people, of frank and
open manners." Eeturning in the following year,
Burnes was sent to England to impart to the autho-
rities at home the results of his travels and obser-
vations. In London he was received with the
greatest enthusiasm. His book was published, and
read by every one. He became the ^' lion " of the
season, and the name of '' Bokhara Burnes " was to
be seen in every list of fashionable entertainments.
Eeturning to India in 1835, he was soon removed
from Cutch, where he had acted as Assistant to the
Resident, on a mission to the Ameers of Sindh.
While still engaged in that duty he received notice
to hold himself in readiness to proceed to Cabul,
and on November 26, 1836, he sailed from Bombay
* ' to work out the policy of opening the river Indus
to commerce." That Lord Auckland had at that
time any idea, much less any definite plan, of inter-
fering in Afghan politics is most unlikely, as it is
certain Lord William Bentinck had not when he
first thought of this *' commercial " mission. It is

16 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

worthy of note, however, that when Burnes first
broached the plan to the Court of Directors at home
they refused to countenance it, feehng, in the words
of the chairman, Mr. Tucker, '^ perfectly assured
that it must soon degenerate into a political agency,
and that we should, as a necessary consequence, be
involved in all the entanglements of Afghan poli-
tics." Mr. Grant, of the Board of Control, held
similar views, and Sir Charles Metcalfe in an em-
phatic minute pointed out the evils of this *^ com-
mercial agency." The die, however, was cast, and
on September 20, 1837, Burnes for the second time
entered Cabul.

As before. Dost Mahomed received him with all
courtesy, and with *^ great pomp and splendour."
The navigation of the Indus soon disappeared into
the background. From Burnes's own letters to Mac-
naghten, the Political Secretary at Calcutta, it may
be seen how much of importance he himself attached
to his commercial character. Nevertheless, at a
private interview, ** which lasted till midnight,"
with the Ameer, he talked a good deal about the
Indus, and about trade, and other such harmless
topics. The Ameer listened with the greatest atten-
tion, but when it came to his turn to speak, he
substituted for the Indus the word Peshawur, and

THE FIKST AFGHAN WAR. 17

for commerce, tlie ability and resources of Eunjeet
Singh. If only he could regain Pesliawur it was
very evident that whoso would might hold the trade
of the Indus. On this head Burnes was cautious.
He suggested that possibly some arrangement might
be concluded with Eunjeet Singh by which Peslia-
wur might be restored to the Ameer's brother
Mahomed, from whose government the Sikhs had
originally won it. But the Ameer wanted it for
himself, and by no manner of means for his brother.
Further than this, hoAvever, Burnes would not com-
mit himself. He distinctly stated, moreover, that
neither Dost Mahomed nor his brothers (should
they decline the Persian alliance, of which the
Ameer, and probably with sincerity, declared him-
self in no way desirous) must found any hopes on
British aid. Sympathy he promised largely, should
they behave themselves well, but not a single rupee
nor a single musket. Still, even after this, the
Ameer persisted in his professions of friendship to
the English, nor is there any reason to doubt that
he, at that time, meant what he said. Nay, he
even offered himself to compel his brothers at Can-
dahar to break once and for all with the Shah ; but
this Burnes declined, exhorting him, however, to
use all pacific means to influence them, and himself

c

18 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

writing to Kohun Dil to threaten him with the dis-
pleasure of England if he continued his intrigues
with the Persian and Russian Courts. At that par-
ticular time the Candahar chiefs had rather cooled
in their desire for the Persian alliance, and began
to have suspicions that instead of obtaining Herat
they were not unlikely to lose Candahar. Burnes
thereupon despatched Lieutenant Leech, an officer
of his mission, to them, promising them that should
the Persian army after the fall of Herat advance on
Candahar, he would himself march with Dost Ma-
homed to their defence, which he would further with
all the means in his power. It was a bold step,
but as many thought at the time, and as nearly all
were agreed afterwards, it v/as by far the best that
could have been taken. Lord Auckland, however,
thought, or was advised to think otherwise. Burnes
was severely censured for having so far exceeded his
instructions — though he might well have pleaded in
excuse that he knew not what were the instructions
he had exceeded — and ordered at once to ''set him-
self right with the chiefs." There was nothing lett
for him but to obey, and the result of his obedience
was a treaty concluded between the chiefs and the
Shah under a Russian guarantee.

Such a risk was not to be run again, nor was

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 19

Burnes for the future to be able to plead any want
of definite instructions. From this time forward
his instructions were, indeed, explicit enough.
Briefly they may be defined as to ask for everything
and to give nothing. In vain did Dost Mahomed
point out that in desiring to regain Peshawur from
the Sikhs, he was doing practically no more than
England was avowedly bent on doing, on guarding
his frontier from danger, and that to exchange
Kunjeet Singh for his brother Mahomed was but to
make his last state worse than his first. Burnes
himself fully recognized the justice of his arguments,
but Burnes' s masters remained obstinately deaf. All
they would promise was to restrain Kunjeet Singh
from attacking Dost Mohamed, provided Dost Mo-
hamed in return bound himself to abstain from an
alHance with any other state. At this, says Bui;pes,
the Sirdars only laughed. ^' Such a promise," said
Jubbar Khan, the Ameer's brother, and a staunch
champion of the English cause, ** such a promise
amounts to nothing, for we are not under the ap-
prehension of any aggressions from Lahore ; they
have hitherto been on the side of the Ameer, not of
Kunjeet Singh, and yet for such a promise you
expect us to desist from all intercourse with Kussia,
with Persia, with Toorkistan, with every nation but

c 2

20 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

England." To make matters still worse, at this
crisis a new actor appeared on the scene, the Eussian
Vickovitch, bearing letters from Count Simonich and
from the Czar himself, though the latter was un-
signed, so as to be repudiated or acknowledged as
events might require. The Ameer, still willing to
please the British, oftered to turn the Eussian back
from his gates, but that, Burnes pointed out, would
be contrary to the rule of civilised nations, and
Vickovitch was therefore allowed to enter Cabul and
to present his letters, which were ostensibly, as those
of Burnes had been, of a purely commercial bearing.
What Burnes, however, thought of the arrival, he
showed plainly enough in a letter written a few days
after to a private friend. *' We are in a mess here,"
he writes. ** The Emperor of Eussia has sent an
envoy to Cabul with a blazing letter three feet long,
offering Dost Mahomed money to fight Eunjeet Singh

It is now a neck-and-neck race between

Eussia and ourselves, and if his Lordship would hear
reason he would forthwith send agents to Bokhara,
Herat, Candahar, and Koondooz, not forgetting
Sindh." His Lordship, however, would not hear
such reason as Burnes had to offer, and when on
March 5th, 1838, certain specific demands were
presented by the Ameer, that the English should

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 21

protect Cabul and Candahar from Persia, that
Eunjeet Singh should he compelled to restore
Peshawur, and various others of the same tendency,
Burnes could only, in the name of the British
Government, refuse his assent to any and all of
them, and then sit down to write a formal request
for his dismissal. One more attempt was made by
Dost Mahomed to come to terms, but it was of no
use. The old ground was traversed again, and only
with the old result. As a last resource the Ameer
wrote to Lord Auckland in terms almost of humility,
imploring him ^'to remedy the grievances of the
Afghans," and to ** give them a little encouragement
and power," This was the last effort, and it failed.
Then the game was up indeed. Vickovitch was sent
for and received with every mark of honour ; one of
the Candahar chiefs came up in haste to Cabul, and
on April 26th, 1838, Burnes turned his back on the
Afghan capital.

As the Kussian here disappears from our story a
a few words as to his subsequent career and end
may not be out of place. After the departure of
the English envoy he flung himself heart and soul
into his business ; promising men, promising money,
promising everything that the Ameer asked. He
even proposed to visit Lahore and use his good

22 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR,

offices with Eimjeet Singh, but that plea failed, owing
chiefly to the address of Mackeson, our agent at
Lahore. For a time the Kussian was all-powerful
throughout Afghanistan, but after the repulse of the
Persians from Herat and the entry of the English
into Cabul his star paled. He proceded to Teheran
to give a full report of his doings to the Eussian
Minister there, and by him was ordered to proceed
direct to St. Petersburg. Arrived there, flattered
with hope, for he felt he had done all man
could do, he reported himself to Count Nesselrode.
The minister refused to see him. '^ I know no
Captain Vickovitch," was the answer, *^ except an
adventurer of that name who is reported to have
been lately engaged in some unauthorised intrigues
at Cabul and Candahar." Vickovitch understood
the answer thoroughly. He knew that severe re-
monstrance had been sent from London to St. Peters-
burg ; he knew his own Government only too well.
He went home, burnt his papers, wrote a few lines
of reproach, and blew his brains out.

To return to Cabul. Notwithstanding the Kus-
sian promises, and the exultation of his brothers at
Candahar, the Ameer felt that he had acted unwisely.
Very soon he saw that Eussia could do little more
than promise, and that England had made up her

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 23

mind to perform. Despite Russian money and
Russian men, the Shah could not force his way into
Herat while Eldred Pottinger stood behind the
crumbling walls, and a vast army was assembling
on the banks of the Indus to drive Dost Mahomed
and the whole Barukzye clan from power.

To keep friends with the Afghan ruler and to
preserve the independence of his Empire was the
obvious policy of the British Government. But the
authorities at Simlah, Lord Auckland, Mr. Mac-
naghten, Mr. Henry Torrens and Mr. John Colvin,
had determined that that ruler should be, not the
Barukzye Dost Mahomed, a man of proved energy
and ability, who had shown himself anxious to
cultivate the friendship of England, and who pos-
sessed the confidence and the favour of his subjects,
but the Suddozye Shah Soojah, who, though bom of
the legitimate line, was no less a usurper than Dost
Mahomed himself, who was regarded by the majority
of his countrymen with indifference and contempt, and
who more than once had proved alike his inability
to administer and to maintain dominion. By what
process of reasoning the Viceroy arrived at this re-
markable conclusion has never been made perfectly
clear, but though he alone, notwithstanding Sir John
Hobhouse's generous declaration from the Board of

24 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

Control, will be, rightly or wrongly, held by posterity
responsible for the disastrous events which followed,
it is at least to his credit that he left no stone
unturned to arrive at the opinions of all competent
advisers before deciding on his own. Prominent
among these was Mr. McNeill, then our envoy at
the Court of Teheran, a man of keen powers of
observation and undoubted ability, who may be said to
share with Pottinger the glory of the Persian repulse
from Herat. His plan, as he impressed more than
once on Burnes, was to consolidate the Afghan
Empire under Dost Mahomed. Placing no reliance
on the sincerity of the Candahar chiefs, he yet
entertained a high opinion of the Ameer himself,
whom he would have been well pleased to see
established in Herat and Candahar as well as in
Cabul. McNeill's correspondence, however, had
to pass through the hands of Captain, afterwards
Sir Claudius, Wade, himself also well versed in the
pohtics of Central Asia, and at that time holding
the responsible post of Governor- General's Agent on
the North-Western Frontier. Wade forwarded a
copy of McNeill's letter to the Governor, and
forwarded with it one from himself in which he
strongly deprecated the poHcy of consolidation. To
him it seemed better that the Afghan Empire should

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 25

remain, as it then was, sub-divided into practically
independent states, each of whom, as he conceived,
would be more likely in their own interests to court
our friendship and to meet our views, than if
brought under the yoke of one ruler, to whom they
could never be expected to yield a passive obedience.
*' Supposing," he continued, '^ we were to aid Dost
Mahomed to overthrow in the first place his brother
at Candahar, and then his Suddozye rival at Herat,
what would be the consequence ? As the system of
which it is intended to be a part would go to
gratify the longing wish of Mahomed Shah for the
annexation of Herat to his dominions, the first
results would be that the Shah-Zadah Kamran would
apply to Persia, and offer, on the condition of her
assistance to save him from the fate which impended
over his head, to submit to all the demands of that
General, which Kamran has hitherto so resolutely
and successfully resisted, and between his fears and
the attempts of Dost Mahomed to take it, Herat,
which is regarded by everyone who has studied its
situation as the key to Afghanistan, would inevitably
fall prostrate before the arms of Persia, by the effect
of the very measures which we had designed for its
security from Persian thraldom." That it was our
interest to maintain the independence of Herat wa^

26 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

obvious, SO long as Herat was able to remain in the
position it was then assuming, that of a barrier
ao'ainst Kusso-Persian invasion. Prince Kamran
was, in fact, then playing our game as well as we
could have played it ourselves. But the question
was, how long would Herat be able to retain its
independence ? The fall of Herat meant the fall of
Candahar, and the absorption of all Southern and
Western Afghanistan into a Persian province, and a
Persian province was then but another name for a
Eussian province. Could it have been possible, and
that McNeill thought it possible was a strong
argument in its favour, to consolidate the various
states under one ruler strong enough to retain the
reins when once placed in his hands, Herat and
Candahar would have been secured for ever, and
there would have arisen in a united Afghanistan a
perpetual barrier to Kussian ambition. Had we
come to terms with Dost Mahomed, in all human
probability we should not have had to chastise the
insolence of his son. Burnes for his part still
championed the cause of the Ameer, urging that
it was not yet too late to secure his friendship, that,
despite all that had taken place, he still wanted
only the smallest encouragement to range himself
on our side, and that as whatever action v/as taken

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 27

could not be taken save at some cost, the money
could not be better spent than on Dost Mahomed.
But when Burnes's opinion was asked, the Govern-
ment had already decided on their policy, and as
Dost Mahomed was to go, he was only asked to
pronounce on the expediency of choosing Soojah as
his successor. It seemed to him that McNeill's
plan, of which he was a staunch advocate, would be
better served by restoring Soojah to his crown than
by giving it to Sultan Mahomed or any other of the
chiefs, who would probably be but a tool in the
hands of the Sikhs, themselves objects of bitter
hatred to the Afghans. As the Government, then,
were committed to one of two evils, Burnes gave
his vote in favour of that which seemed to him
the least, and which he, in common with the rest of
the Council, believed could be accomplished with
little danger and at comparatively little expense.

Lord Auckland's first idea was that the deposition
of Dost Mahomed should be effected by the com-
bined forces of Eunjeet Singh and Soojah, raised
and drilled under British supervision, and assisted
by British gold — in Kaye's words, *' England was to
remain in the back-ground, jingling the money-bag."
Such were the first instructions issued to the Mission
sent in May, 1838, to sound Kunjeet Singh on the

28 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

design, but scarcely had they been written when the
thought of employing British troops seems first to
have dawned in, or been introduced into Lord Auck-
land's mind. He would have preferred that the two
Princes should undertake the work on their own
account, while he contributed merely his counten-
ance and perhaps some money, but he was very
doubtful whether the Princes would see the matter
in the same light. Macnaghten, the leader of the
mission, was instructed therefore to suggest the
first course to Eunjeet Singh, and should he view
that with disfavour, to hold out the possibility of
some sort of *^ demonstration" being undertaken by
British troops from some convenient point. The
event proved that Lord Auckland's doubts were
just. The Sikh Prince heard the proposal for re-
storing Soojah with pleasure, and at once gave his
consent to the plan ; but when Macnaghten, cau-
tiously feeling his way, hinted that an army of
Sikhs, together with such a force as Soojah could
raise with British help, would be amply sufficient,
the crafty old man stopped him with an emphatic
refusal. That England should become a third
party to the treaty already existing between him
and Soojah was, in his own phrase *^ adding sugar
to milk ;" he was willing, moreover, himself to play

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 29

such a part as England might deem necessary ; but
with the independent expedition he would have no-
thing to do. Macnaghten therefore at once returned
to his original proposal, and after a good deal of
fencing and delay on Eunjeet Singh's part, the treaty
was concluded. From Soojah, of course, little
difficulty was to be anticipated, but he, unlike
Runjeet Singh, though willing to employ British gold
and British skill in equipping and disciplining the
forces he declared his ability at once to bring to his
standard, was by no means anxious to see a British
force in the field with him. He was doubtful what
effect such an apparition in their strongholds might
have upon his countrymen, nor was he at all de-
sirous to appear as owing his throne to British
bayonets. He proposed that his own force should
proceed by way of the Bolan Pass on Candahar and
Ghuznee, while the Sikhs, with whom should go
his son Timour, should march on the capital through
the Khyber and Koord-Cabul defiles. Already, he
said, had he received offers of allegiance from nume-
rous chiefs discontented with the Barukzye rule, and
offended at Dost Mahomed's alliance with the Per-
sians, prominent among whom appeared, strangely
enough, the name of Abdoolah Khan, destined to
become the prime mover in the insurrection which

30 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

ultimately cost Soojah his life, and restored the
BaiTikzye dynasty. ** The faggots," they wrote,
'^ are ready ; it only requires the lighted torch to be
be applied." Soojah therefore was urgent with
Macnaghten that he should be allowed to accom-
plish his restoration with his own troops, as he
expressed himself confident of doing ; a feat which
would greatly tend to raise his character among his
countrymen, while the fact of his being '^upheld by
foreign force alone could not fail to detract in a
great measure from his dignity and consequence."
Sooj all's wishes, in fact, tallied precisely with Lord
Auckland's original design, but every day brought
fresh complications, with fresh confirmation of the
impracticability of that design. First Soojah and
Eunjeet Singh alone were to be the agents ; then a
British force was to ''demonstrate" in reserve at
Shikarpoor ; next a few British regiments were to
be added to Sooj ah' s levies. Finally, all these plans
were dismissed, and one wholly different to any
Lord Auckland had hitherto dreamed of was substi-
tuted in their stead.

Sir Henry Fane, Commander-in-chief of the
British army in India, was then at Simlah, with
Lord Auckland. That he had from the first dis-
approved of English interference with Afghan poh-

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 31

tics the following passage from his correspondence
with Sir Charles Metcalfe, written in 1837, suf-
ficiently proves. *' Every advance you might make
beyond the Sutlej to the westward, in my opinion,
adds to your military weakness .... if you want
your empire to expand, expand it over Oude or over
Gwalior and the remains of the Mahratta Empire.
Make yourselves complete sovereigns of all within
your bounds, hut let alone the far West," But as it
had been decided that the work was to be done, he
was vehement in his opinion that it should be done
as thoroughly as possible. With a '^ fine old Tory"
contempt of anything approaching to economy, he
advised the employment of a regular British force,
horse, foot, and artillery, with which there could be
no possibility of a reverse, a contingency in the
peculiar circumstances of the case to be guarded

*

against with more than common care. There were,
still nearer to the Viceroy's person, other and even
warmer advocates of the same policy ; so after some
weeks of suspense and oscillation Lord Auckland
yielded, and the fiat for the "Army of the Indus"
went forth.

In August the regiments selected were warned
for field service, and in September a General Order
published the constitution of the force. It was to be

32 THE FIKST AFGHAN WAR.

divided into two columns, the Bengal column and the
Bombay column. The former was to consist of a bri-
gade of artillery under Colonel Graham ; a brigade of
cavalry under Colonel Arnold ; and five brigades of
of infantry under Colonels Sale and Dennie, of Her
Majesty's, and Colonels Nott, Eoberts, and Worse-
ley, of the Company's service. The latter were told
off into two divisions under Sir Willoughby Cotton,
an officer of Her Majesty's army, who had seen service
in the Burmese war, and Major- General Duncan, of
the Company's army. The whole was to be under
the personal command of Sir Henry Fane himself.
The Bombay column was to consist of a brigade of
artillery under Colonel Stevenson ; a brigade of
cavalry under Major- General Thackwell ; a brigade
of infantry under Major- General Wiltshire ; the
whole to be under the command of Sir John Keane,
Commander-in-chief of the Bombay army. The
English regiments selected were, besides the artillery,
in the Bengal column, the 16th Lancers and the 3rd
and 13th Eegimehts of the Line ; in the Bombay
column, the 4th Dragoons and the 2nd and 17th
Eegiments of the Line. Besides these troops, Soo-
jah's own levies were being actively raised on the
other side of the Indus, under the supervision of
Captain Wade, who found it no easy matter to quiet

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 33

the Afghan's not unfounded fears lest he should come
to be no more than a puppet in the hands of the
English officers, and his restoration finally effected, not
by his own arms, but by the English bayonets. Though
the sympathies of the majority of our army were rather
with Dost Mahomed than with Soojah, and it was far
from clear to them on what pretext they were to invade
the former's kingdom, the prospect of active employ-
ment after so many years of repose was popular with
all classes of military men, and from every quarter
of India officers, leaving without a murmur the luxu-
rious ease of well-paid staff appointments, made
haste to rejoin their regiments. Scarcely less im-
portant than the selection of the military commands
was the selection of the envoys who were to accom-
pany the different columns in a political capacity.
Wade of course was to march with the Sikh force
destined to escort Prince Timour through the Khyber
Pass to his father's capital, but it was not so easy
to determine on whom should devolve the delicate
duty of directing the mind of Soojah himself, and
shaping the political course of his operations. Sir
Henry Fane not unreasonably wished that the entire
control, political as well as military, should be vested
in his own hands, and proposed to take Burnes with
with him as his confidential adviser. But Lord

D

34 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

Auckland had other views, and, contrary to general
expectation, his choice fell on Macnaghten, under
whom Burnes, after a momentary, and not un-
natural, fit of disgust, agreed to serve in a subor-
dinate capacity, believing, in common with others,
that Soojah once firmly seated on the throne, Mac-
naghten would return, and the chief control of affairs
would then devolve upon him.

On October 1st the Declaration of War was issued.
If our ofiicers were doubtful before as to the right of
their cause this document certainly tended but little
to solve their doubts. Hardly, moreover, had the
Simlah manifesto had time to penetrate through
India when news arrived of the raising of the siege
of Herat. As the deliverance of Herat, and Western
Afghanistan generally, from Persian rule had formed,
according to the proclamation, the principal object
of the expedition, it was supposed that the English
army would now be disbanded, and Soojah and
Runjeet Singh left to their own devices. Even
those of the authorities at home who had allowed
that while a Persian force was still at the gates of
Herat Lord Auckland could not do otherwise than
prepare for its defence, were unanimously of opinion
that the motive for the expedition had now ceased to
exist. Among such authorities conspicuously appear

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 35

the names of the Dnke of Wellmgton, Lord Wellesley,
Sir Charles Metcalfe, Mountstuart Elphinstone, and
others of scarce less weight and experience. Lord
Auckland and his advisers were not, however, of this
number. The army was to be reduced in strength,
it is true, since there was no longer any prospect of
an encounter with Persia, or possibly with Russia,
but the expedition was in no way to be abandoned.
Instead of two divisions the Bengal column was to
consist only of one ; two brigades of infantry were
to be left behind ; and the cavalry and artillery were
to be proportionately reduced. Nor was Sir Henry
Fane inclined to retain the command of a force whose
numbers were so diminished, and whose probabilities
of action were so limited. The Bengal column was
therefore placed in the hands of Sir Willoughby
Cotton, and on its junction with the column from
Bombay the chief command was to fall to Sir John
Keane, who led the latter force.

All things were now ready, but before the army
broke ground a grand ceremony was to take place, a
ceremony which had indeed been arranged before
any note of war had been sounded. On November
29th Lord Auckland and Bunjeet Singh met at
Ferozepore. It was a magnificent pageant. The
Viceroy's camp was pitched about four miles from

D 2

36 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

the river Gharra. The Enghsh army lay on the
plain, a noble force, in perfect order and condition, and
brought together, according to Havelock, in a manner
that had never before been equalled. Escorted by the
principal military and political English officers, Kun-
jeet Singh rode up on his elephant through a splendid
guard of honour, amid the thunder of artillery and
the clash of innumerable bands, to the Durbar tent.
Lord Auckland and Sir Henry Fane rode out to
meet him, and as the two cavalcades joined such was
the crush and uproar that many of the Sikh chiefs,
thinking there was some design afoot on their
prince, began **to blow their matches and grasp
their weapons with a mingled air of distrust and
ferocity." With some difficulty a passage was
cleared, and the little decrepit old man, supported
by the Viceroy and the Commander-in-chief, entered
the tent where the costly presents prepared for him
were laid out. Ordnance of British make, horses
and elephants magnificently caparisoned, were all
inspected and admired, and, while a royal salute
thundered without, the prince bowed low before a
picture of Queen Victoria, borne into his presence
by Sir Willoughby Cotton. As the infirm old chief
was being conducted round the tent he stumbled
and fell to the ground at the very muzzle of one

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 37

of the British guns. A murmur of horror arose
from his Sirdars at so dire an omen, but as the
Viceroy and Sir Henry Fane hastened to raise him
to his feet, their hearts were comforted by the
reflection that though their chief had fallen before
the British guns, the highest representatives of the
British Queen had raised him again to his feet.

On the following day the visit was returned amid
a scene of still greater splendour and variety.
According to an eye-witness *' the Sikhs shone down
the English." All the great Sirdars were present
in their most gorgeous trappings and mounted on
their finest steeds, while from a Sikh band the
strains of our own national anthem rose upon the
air, and from the Sikh guns pealed forth the salute
ordained for royalty alone. It must be confessed,
however, that Eunjeet Singh's ideas of ceremony
were not all of the same exalted nature. At a later
period of the day, after all the due formalities were
over, the Viceroy was required to be present at ^ ' an
unseemly display of dancing girls, and the antics of
some male buffoons." The two following days were
devoted to military exercises. On the first Sir
Henry Fane manoeuvred the British force with
elaborate skill and display ; and on the second the
Sikh cavalry executed some less intricate move-

88 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

ments with the unqualified approval of their expe-
rienced critics.

With this the ceremony was at an end. Runjeet
Singh returned to Lahore, and the Viceroy followed
him on his first visit to the Sikh principality. The
final dispositions and selections were made by the
Commander-in-chief. A few weeks previously Soo-
j all's levies, about 6000 strong, horse, foot, and
artillery, under the command of Major- General
Simpson, had left Loodhianah on their way to the
front, and on December 10th, 1838, the British
troops marched out from Ferozepore on their first
stage to the Afghan capital.

A glance at the map will suffice to show that a
more direct route might have been found from
Ferozepore to Cabul than down the bank of the
Indus to Bukkur, thence, across the river, by Shi-
karpoor and Dadur, through the Bolan Pass, to
Quettah, and from Quettah, through the Kojuck, by
Candahar and Ghuznee to Cabul. In short, as
Kaye points out, the army was about to traverse
two sides of a triangle, instead of shaping its course
along a third. But there were two important reasons
for the choice of the longer route. In the first
place, Runjeet Singh had strong objections to
opening the Punjab to our troops; and in the

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 39

second place the Ameers of Sinclh were to be
*^ coerced."

Sliikarpoor, on the northern bank of the Indus,
had originally formed a part of the great Douranee
Empire, handed down by Timour to Zem.aun Shah
and his brothers, intact as it had been received
from the founder, Ahmed. But piece by piece the
kingdom had been dismembered through the quarrels
and weaknesses of its rulers. Cashmere, and Mool-
tan, and Peshawur had been won by the Sikhs ;
Herat had risen to independence ; while Sliikarpoor
with a fair slice of the southern frontier had passed
to the Ameers of Sindh. But though Sliikarpoor
was theirs, they held, or had held it, in considera-
tion only of a yearly tribute, which tribute, unpaid
through many years, had now swelled, as Soojah
maintained, to no less a sum than twenty lakhs of
rupees, a sum gratuitously increased by the English
Government to twenty-five lakhs, that the terms of
Kunjeet Singh (who was to have received half, but
had lately increased his wants) might be granted
without Soojah being the sufferer. The Ameers
themselves, however, told a different tale. Inde-
pendently of their not unreasonable objections to
the validity of a claim that had been suffered to
slumber for upwards of thirty years, they were

40

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

enabled triumphantly, as they supposed, to point to
two releases of the debt, written in Korans, and
signed and sealed by Soojah. Thus fortified, they
declared to Colonel Pottinger, our agent at Hydera-
bad, that ''they were sure the Governor- General
did not intend to make them pay again for what
they had already bought and obtained, in the most
binding way, a receipt in full" — a mark of confi-
dence which Pottinger was instructed to demolish
without delay. Nor was this the only difficulty
that the passage through Sindh promised to pre-
sent. In the treaty which had opened the Indus to
navigation, it had been expressly stipulated that the
river should be free to commerce only, and it
became therefore necessary, for the transport of our
army, that this treaty should be broken. Pottinger,
sorely against his will, was ordered to point out to
the Ameers that if they placed any obstacles in the
way of the "first and necessary" undertaking on
which their English friends had embarked, it would
be the painful duty of those friends to take steps to
ensure a more ready and hearty co-operation. In
other words, the Ameers were told that if they did
not do what was wanted of them, they would be
turned out to make room for those who would.
They must pay the twenty-five lakhs of rupees,

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 41

the greater part of which would go into the
pockets of a man to whom they were indebted
not one single anna ; they must consent to the
violation of the treaty of the Indus, and they
must further the advance of our army through their
territory in every possible way. If they did not
agree to these demands, they would find the con-
sequences disagreeable. It did not at first appear
that they were likely to agree. Burnes had, indeed,
managed to settle the difficulty of the Indus, and
the Ameers of Khyrpore, more tractable than the
Hyderabad princes, had agreed temporarily to cede
to the British the fortress of Bukkur, the point
selected for the passage. Soojah with his levies,
who were some days' march in advance of the
Bengal column, had already crossed, and was wait-
ing our arrival at Shikarpoor, but for a while .it
seemed extremely doubtful when we should be able
to join him. The Ameers were waxing turbulent.
They had grossly insulted Pottinger, and were
openly collecting forces for the defence of their
capital. It was feared that the '^painful duty"
would be found necessary, and orders were despatched
to Keane (who had landed with the Bombay army
at Yikkur in the end of November, but had been
temporarily delayed at Tattah for want of carriage)

42 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAE.

to prepare to co-operate with Cotton against Hydera-
bad. As the Bombay cohimn moved up the right
bank of the river, the Bengal cokimn, against the
urgent remonstrances of Macnaghten, moved down
the left bank to meet it. Both forces were in the
highest spirits. The defences of Hydera,bad were
known to be weak ; its treasures w^ere believed to
be immense, and a prospect of unbounded loot
danced before the eyes of a soldiery who had almost
forgotten what the word meant. At the eleventh
hour, however, the enchanting prospect faded. The
Ameers consented to our demands ; a part of the
tribute was paid, and Hyderabad was saved for a
time ; while, what was then of still more importance,
a collision between the military and political autho-
rities was avoided.

On February 20th, 1839, Cotton was at Shikarpoor,
and again differences between him and Macnaghten
seemed imminent. Soojah had found himself short
of carriage, and Macnaghten had asked Cotton to
supply him with 1000 camels from his own train.
But the General expressed himself strongly to the
effect that if Soojah was unable to advance his men,
it were far better that Soojah and his men should be
left behind than that their wants should be relieved
at the expense of the Enghsh troops. It was but too

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 48

apparent, even at that early stage, that the EngHsh
mihtarj officers were inchned to look upon Soojah
and his 6000 soldiers as altogether superfluous.
He was, indeed, a king who was to be restored to
his throne, but until the throne was ready for him
it would be better for all parties that he should
remain in the background. Macnaghten, keenly
alive to the danger of such sentiments, and feeling
himself especially bound, both in honour and in-
terest, to uphold the cause of our ally, combated
the military policy resolutely. A collision was
happily averted by the timely arrival of despatches
from the Viceroy, strongly tending to confirm
Macnaghten's views ; nevertheless, when the English
force advanced, three days afterwards, the carriage
difficulty had not been solved, and Soojah with his
levies remained at Shikarpoor. Keane, who came
up with the Bombay army some days later, though
little less willing, was more able to help ; but the
king, who had fondly hoped to head the advance
into his own kingdom, was, for the time, compelled
to content himself with a second place. Cotton's
march through the Bolan Pass to Quettah, though
arduous and painful, was unopposed. Many of
the camels and other beasts of burden dropped
dead on the route from want of water ; there was

44 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

considerable desertion among the camp followers,
and some pkmdering on tlie part of the Beloochees,
but progress was steadily made, and on March 26th
the column reached Quettah, ^' a most miserable
mud town, with a small castle on a mound, on
which there was a small gun on a ricketty carriage."
Here there seemed a fair prospect of sheer star-
vation. Stores, as well as baggage, had been
abandoned among the rugged defiles of the Bolan
Pass, and Mehrab Khan, the Beloochee Prince of
Khelat, with whom Burnes had concluded a treaty
in our favour, either could not, or would not, help.
He declared that there was very little grain in his
country, and Burnes could not prove that he did
not speak truth, while he was bound to allow the
Khan's plea that much of the alleged scarcity was
owing, though unavoidably owing, to our own
presence. He could not, therefore, conscientiously
recommend Macnaghten to sanction Cotton's pro-
posal for a movement on Khelat, though convinced
in his ovm mind of our ally's treachery, and when
Keane, arriving at Quettah on April 6th, assumed
the chief command, it was decided to push on for
Candahar with all possible speed. Save for the
heat, and the scarcity of water, the advance pro-
ceeded uneventfully enough. Our soldiers behaved

THE FIBST AFGHAN WAR. 45

admirably under circumstances peculiarly trying to
Europeans, and experienced by many of them for
the first time. George Lawrence (one of the three
owners of a name which is a household word
throughout India, at that time a captain of the 2nd
Bengal Light Cavalry) relates how he saw a trooper
of the 16th Lancers pour the contents of a soda-
water bottle half full of water, a treasure then
worth its weight in gold, down the throat of a native
child on the point of perishing from thirst. As the
army neared Candahar Soojah was moved up again
to the front, and many of the chiefs and people of
Western Afghanistan hastened to his standard. It
was known that Kohun Dil Khan had fled, that there
was open dissension among the Barukzye brother-
hood, and it soon became clear that if a stand was
to be made it would be made at a point nearer
Cabul. On April 25th, Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk,
after more than thirty years of exile, re-entered in
bloodless triumph the southern capital of his
kingdom.

Till June 27th the army lay at Candahar, waiting
the ripening of the crops. So long a period of
forced inactivity was distasteful to the troops, while
daily the conviction forced itself on the more obser-
vant of the officers that the popularity which Soojah

46 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

had claimed for himself existed only in his own
imagination. The Douranee tribes had, indeed, long
yearned to shake off the hateful yoke of the Baruk-
zye Sirdars, by whom they had been systematically
plundered and oppressed ; but they lacked both
spirit and strength to make common cause with
their promised deliverer, while both their national
and religious feelings were alike stirred by the
appearance within their gates of the accursed infi-
dels. When the first cravings of curiosity had been
gratified, their attitude to their king was one rather
of indifference than devotion, and to us one of un-
disguised if not active enmity. It needed not the
warning of Soojah to remind the English that they
were no longer in Hindostan. Two young officers,
Inverarity, of the 16th Lancers, and Wilmer, were
attacked at a short distance from camp ; Inverarity
was murdered, and his companion escaped with
difficulty. The Ghilzyes, a fierce and lawless tribe,
the original lords of the soil, alike rejecting British
gold and British promises, began, too, to give early
promise of the stern opposition that was hereafter
to be experienced from them. When, a fortnight
after his arrival, Soojah held a grand state reception,
scarcely one of his subjects appeared to do homage
to their king. A royal salute of 101 guns was

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 47

fired in his honour ; the British troops marched past
his throne in imposing array, and Soojah, highly
elated, declared that the moral influence of the
ceremony would be felt ** from Pekin to Constan-
tinople." But in reality, the whole aflair, so far as
what should have been its most important features
were concerned, was a miserable failure. Lawrence
relates a significant speech made to him by an
Afghan of distinction, whom he fell in with while on
reconnoitering service to the front. *' What could
induce you," said the man, '' to squander crores of
rupees in coming to a poor rocky country like ours,
without wood or water, in order to force upon us an
unlucky person as a king, who, the moment you turn
your backs, will be upset by Dost Mahomed, our own
king ?" The order to advance given on June 27 th
was heard therefore with pleasure by all; and on
July 21st the army was encamped before the famous
citadel of Ghuznee.

It became soon evident that a serious mistake had
been committed. Ghuznee was deservedly con-
sidered the strongest fortress in the country, and its
defences were the boast of all Afghanistan. Keane
had, indeed, been advised to the contrary, but he
knew at least that it was garrisoned by about 3000
of the enemy under Hyder Khan, one of the Ameer's

48 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

sons, while another was reported to be in the neigh-
bourhood with a strong body of horse. Neverthe-
less, discarding the battering train, which had been
tugged up to Candahar with immense labour and
expense, he resumed his march with light field-
pieces only, and found himself accordingly before a
place subsequently described by himself as one '' of
great strength, both by nature and art," without the
means of effecting a breach in its walls.

Our light companies soon cleared the villages and
gardens surrounding the fort, not, however, without
some loss, and at daybreak on the 22nd Keane and
Cotton, with a party of engineers, reconnoitred the
place from the heights commanding the eastern face.
It was perfectly evident that the field-pieces might
for all practical purposes have been left behind with
the siege train at Candahar, but treachery was to
show us a way in, which we could have found for
ourselves only at immense loss. One of the garri-
son, a Barukzye of rank, nephew to the Ameer him-
self, had deserted to our camp ; the gates, he assured
us, had all been built up with the exception of the
Cabul gate, and by the Cabul gate therefore it was
decided that the entrance should be made. That
very night was chosen for the attack. Four English
regiments were detailed for service ; the 2nd, 13th,

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 49

and 17th of the Lme, and the Company's European
Kegiment. Colonel Dennie, of the 13th, was to lead
the advance, consisting of the light companies of
the four regiments, and the main column was placed
under Brigadier Sale. Captain Thomson, of the
Bengal Engineers, was to superintend the explosion
party, with his two subalterns, Durand (afterwards
Sir Henry Durand) and Macleod, and Captain Peat,
of the Bombay corps. The night Avas dark and
stormy. The light guns were ordered to open fire,
to distract the attention of the garrison, while the
powder-bags were piled at the gate. The work was
done quickly, quietly and well. Durand, according
to one account, finding the first application of the
port-fire of no effect, was obliged to scrape the hose
with his finger-nails ; then the powder exploded,
and with a mighty crash, heard above the roaring of
the guns and the noise of the storm, down, amid a
column of black smoke, came huge masses of timber
and masonry in dire confusion. In rushed Dennie
at the head of the stormers, and after him pressed
Sale with the main column. The resistance, though
short, was stubborn. The breach was still so narrow
that entrance was difficult and slow. Dennie had
won his way inside, but between him and Sale a
strong party of the garrison had made their way to

E

50 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

the gate. The Brigadier himself was cut down, but
after a desperate struggle regained his feet, cleaving
his opponent to the chin. The supports, under
Colonel Croker, pushed forward manfully, and as the
day broke the colours of the 13th and 17th Regi-
ments were flung out to the morning breeze on the
ramparts of the Afghans' strongest fort. Ghuznee
was ours, with a loss of 17 killed and 165 wounded,
of whom 18 were officers. The loss of the gar-
rison was never accurately known. Upwards of
500 were buried by our men, and many more were
supposed to have fallen beyond the walls under the
sabres of our cavalry ; 1600 prisoners were taken,
and large stores of grain and flour proved a welcome
addition to the value of the prize.

With the fall of Ghuznee fell the hopes of Dost
Mahomed. Within little more than twenty-four
hours the news had reached him, and his brother,
Jubbar Khan, was forthwith despatched to the English
camp, proffering submission to Soojah, but claiming
for his brother the office of Vizier, which had come
to be considered a sort of hereditary appanage of the
Barukzye clan. The offer was declined, and what
Kaye calls the *' mockery " of an honourable asylum
in the British dominions suggested in its stead.
With an indignant refusal the envoy returned to his

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 51

brother, and Dost Mahomed then resolved on one last
attempt. He moved out from the capital, designing
to take up his ground at Maidan, a well-chosen spot
on the Cabul river. But when he had reached Ur-
gundeh, he saw too clearly that the game was up.
Hadji Khan, a man in whom he had placed peculiar
reliance, had gone over to the enemy ; the Kuzzil-
bashes were leaving him fast. With the Koran in
his hand, he rode among his troops. *'You have
eaten my salt," he said, '^ these thirteen years. If,
as is too plain, you are resolved to seek a new master,
grant me but one favour in requital for that long
period of maintenance and kindness — enable me to
die with honour. Stand by the brother of Futteh
Khan while he executes one last charge against the
cavalry of these Feringhee dogs ; in that onset he
will fall ; then go and make you own terms with
Shah Soojah." The appeal was in vain. Dismissing
all of his followers who were minded to purchase
safety by bowing to the new allegiance, he turned
his horse's head, and rode towards the Hindoo-Koosh.
A party of horse under the gallant Outram was
despatched in hot pursuit. Twelve English officers
rode with him, Lawrence among the number, and
about 200 of our own men. Had the party been no
larger it is probable that it would not have been left

E 2

52 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

to Dost Mahomed to snrrencler at his own discretion.
But in an evil hour it was decided that Hadji Khan
with 500 Afghans should be added, and the dilatori-
ness of our ^' allies " wholly neutralised the energies
of our own men. Hadji, a traitor once, remained a
traitor still, and though quick to leave his master in
the hour of his misfortunes, he had no intention, with
an eye to future contingencies, to commit himself be-
yond hope of recall. The harder, then, Outram and
his troops rode, the slower rode the Khan and his fol-
lowing; every pretext that the ingenious Eastern mind
could devise for delay was turned to account, and as
the country was wholly unknown to the English leader
he could not leave Hadji to his devices and push
on alone after the fugitive. His orders were not to
continue the chase beyond the Afghan frontier. On
August 9th he reached Bamean, to find that his game
was but a day's march before him ; but that one day's
march had sounded the recall. Dost Mahomed was
over the frontier, and there was nothing left for
Outram but to return, to be laughed at for his ''wild-
goose chase," and to hear from the Commander-in-
chief that " he had not supposed there were thirteen
such asses in his whole force !" It is satisfactory,
however, to know that the traitor Hadji had this
time over-reached himself. Outram reported his

I

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 53

conduct on his return ; other proofs of his treason
were forthcoming ; he was arrested by order of the
king, and spent the remainder of his Hfe a state
prisoner in Hindostan.

So Soojah was once more seated on the throne of
Cabul. He had entered the city on August 6th in
royal pomp, resplendent with jewels (among which
the mighty Koh-i-noor was this time conspicuous by
its absence), mounted on a white charger, half
smothered in golden trappings ; Macnaghten and
Burnes, in diplomatic costume, rode with him, and
all the chief officers of the English army swelled
his train. But there was no popular enthusiasm ;
there were no loyal cries of welcome. The people
flocked to stare at the show, but it was at the white-
faced strangers they stared, not at their restored
king. Still, the work had been done. The English
flag had waved over Candahar and Ghuznee ; an
English army was encamped before Cabul. The
usurpers were in flight, and the ^* rightful " king had
returned again to his own.

According to the original terms of the pro-
clamation, the British troops, their mission accom-
plished, were at once to withdraw from the country.
Soojah himself was anxious to be rid of allies in
whose hands he was conscious he was and could be

54 THE FIEST AFGHAN WAR.

no more than a puppet, and whose presence m the
kingdom was a standing testimony to the ahsence
of that loyalty which he had so loudly vaunted.
Nothing would have better pleased the English
themselves than to have acquiesced in the king's
wishes ; nothing would have pleased Lord Auckland
better than that they should do so. But it could
not be. Unprotected by British bayonets the throne
of the new king would not have stood for a day,
and with it would have fallen the feeble fabric on
which the *' justice" of the expedition rested.
The Simlah manifesto had declared that Soojah's
** popularity throughout Afghanistan had been
proved to his lordship by the strong and unanimous
testimony of the best authorities ;" how then could
his lordship leave Soojah alone to give the lie to
his own manifesto ? But though it was expedient
that an English force should still, at least for a
time, continue at the king's right hand, it was
neither expedient, nor, as it was thought, necessary
that the entire army should remain. A garrison at
Cabul and Candahar, and others at the principal
posts on the main roads to Hindostan, Ghuznee
and Quettah on the west, and Jellalabad and Ali-
Musjid on the east, would be amply sufficient.
These could be furnished by a portion of the Bengal

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 55

army, and the remainder could be withdrawn by
way of Jellalabad and the Khyber Pass, while the
Bombay column could return en masse through the
Bolan Pass. Such was the advice of the Com-
mander-in-chief, and such, as it soon appeared, was
the opinion of the Viceroy himself. Before, how-
ever, the homeward march began Wade had brought
Prince Timour to his father's court. Wade's share
in the expedition, though dwarfed by the more
brilliant exploits of Keane, had, notwithstanding
the disaffection of the Sikhs (who, after Kunjeet
Singh's death, had not cared to conceal their dislike
of their English allies), been performed with com-
plete success, and had moreover materially assisted
the march of the larger force. For a long time
Dost Mahomed had regarded the advance through
the Khyber with far greater anxiety than that along
the Western route, and though his troops had never
actually encountered Wade in the field, a consider-
able detachment had been withdrawn for that pur-
pose from the main army at a very critical moment.
The ofiicial order for the departure of the troops
appeared on October 2nd. It was at once seen that
the first plan had been considerably altered. Nearly
the whole of the Bengal division was to remain be-
hind under Cotton, and only a comparatively small

56 THE FIBST AFGHAN WAR.

detachment was to return home with Keane and the
Bombay army. Though Dost Mahomed had fled
the kingdom, he was known to be still near at hand,
a guest among the fiery and hostile Oosbegs, with
whom he might at any rate seriously harass the
frontier, if not, indeed, find himself strong enough
to hazard an advance upon the capital. A detach-
ment had therefore been sent up in September to
the Hindoo-Koosh, and it became necessary to
supply their place at Cabul. The 13th, 40th, and
41st were the English regiments that remained.
Of these, the first named, with the 35th Bengal
Native Infantry and three light field guns, was sta-
tioned at Cabul, under Dennie. Jellalabad was
garrisoned by the 48th Bengal Native Infantry, the
3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, some Sappers and Miners,
three light guns, and a detachment of Skinner's
Horse. At Candahar, under Nott, were the 40th
and 41st Kegiments of the Line, the 42nd and 43rd
Regiments of Bengal Native Infantry, a company of
the European Bengal Artillery, two regiments of
Soojah's Irregular Infantry, one of his Cavalry, and
a troop of his Horse Artillery. MacLaren held
Ghuznee with the 16th Bengal Native Infantry,
some of Skinner's Horse, and certain details of Soo-
j all's levies. At Quettah was a small force composed

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 57

of Soojah's troops only, while the Kojuck Pass was
watched by a body of Afghan horse, under Bosan-
quet, of the Bengal Infantry. At each of these
posts was also stationed a political officer.

Shortly after the departure of Keane with the
homeward-bound column, Soojah left the cold of the
capital for the milder air of Jellalabad, and with
him went Macnaghten, leaving Burnes in charge at
Cabul. The winter months were passed in com-
parative quiet. Macnaghten busied himself with an
attempt to win the favour of the turbulent Khj^ber
tribes, and by lavish payments did succeed in lulling
them to temporary quiet. There, too, was received
news of the fall of Khelat, which had been deter-
mined on during the upward march as punishment
for Mehrab Khan's treachery, and still more impor-
tant news from the Bamean of the further flight of
Dost Mohamed to the court of the Ameer of Bok-
hara, where our own envoy Stoddart was then a
close prisoner in imminent danger of death. But
as a set-off against so much that was good to
hear there came from Burnes the disquieting intelli-
gence of the advance of a large Eussian force from
Orenberg on Khiva, ostensibly to release certain
Russian merchants from captivity, and to punish the
Khan, not too severely, for general misconduct — a

58 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

pretext which, it will probably be remembered, was
used with great effect on a subsequent occasion.
Macnaghten was inclined at first to make light of
the news, on which Burnes had, on the contrar}^
laid the greatest stress ; but as rumour grew he con-
sented at last to despatch a mission to the Eussian
camp. Conolly and Kawlinson were selected —
Burnes, when the post was offered to him, having only
replied "that he would willingly go if he was
ordered " — when, on the eve of their departure, the
welcome news arrived that there was no longer a
Kussian camp for them to visit. Snow, pestilence and
famine had done the work that neither Tartar sabres
nor English diplomacy would have probably availed to
do then, any more than they have availed since, and
of Peroffski's 6000 men scarcely a man found his
way back to Orenberg.

Towards the end of April the court returned to
Cabul. Affairs were far from satisfactory, The
unpopularity of the English, and even of Soojah
himself, became daily more and more obvious to all
observant people. The dual Government was a
failure. The English, pledged not to interfere with
Soojah, were obliged to permit much of which they
strongly disapproved to pass unchallenged, and were
only called upon to intervene to pass measures which

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 59

Soojali himself was not strong enough to enforce.
Whenever therefore their presence did make itself
conspicuously felt it had the natural result of only
increasing their unpopularity. The expense had
already been enormous, and showed no signs of
decreasing. The wealth and liberality of the English
had been a tradition in Afghanistan since the days
of Elphinstone, and the Afghans, though they hated
the infidel soldiers much, loved the infidel gold still
more. Unfortunately, too, the dislike borne to the
English by the Afghan men was not shared by the
Afghan women, and the passion of jealousy, with but
too good cause, was thus added to the passions of
distrust and hate. Evil news, too, came from every
quarter; from the Bamean frontier on the north,
from Herat on the west, from Candahar on the
south, from Peshawur on the east. Macnaghten had
never ceased importuning the Viceroy to sanction the
restoration of Herat and Peshawur to the Afghan
dominions. The Sikhs were now open in their
declarations of enmity to the English, though they
had refrained as yet from any actual hostilities, and
Macnaghten, with considerable reason, declared there
could be no safety in Afghanistan till, to use his own
words, ^'the road through the Punjab was mac-
adamised." At Herat, too, Yar Mahomed, the

60 THE FIKST AFGHAN WAR.

Vizier, a man of boundless avarice and treachery,
though Hving on British bounty, was openly in-
triguing with Persia, and had behaved with such
gross and repeated insolence to our Envoy that the
latter had at last left his court in disgust. But
Lord Auckland, though not insensible to Macnaghten's
arguments, did not dare at that time to increase
either his responsibilities or his expenses, both of
which were already sufficiently heavy. Grave com-
plaints were heard from Candahar, where the old
system of taxation that had made the Barukzye rule
so irksome was still in force, and still in the hands
of the same hated collectors. The Ghilzyes, who
had already received severe punishment from Outram,
were again in the field, and further still to the south
the whole country was in revolt. Khelat had been
won back from us by Mehrab Khan's son, and
Loveday, the English officer in charge, barbarously
murdered. In the far north our outposts had pushed
on over the Bamean range, and were in frequent
collision with the Oosbegs, and other supporters of
the Barukzye cause. It is true that wherever our
troops met the enemy in the open field the victory
remained with the former, but that such meetings
were as frequent as they were showed the angry
temper of the country but too plainly to all who had

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 61

eyes to see and ears to hear. Still the sanguine
temperament of Macnaghten refused to recognise
the impracticability of the game. Still he persisted
in believing in the popularity of Soojah, and in the
ultimate settlement of his kingdom, and as a proof
of his confidence he about this time sent down to
Bengal for his wife, an example which was followed
by most of the other married officers.

The news from the north soon became still more
*alarming. Jubbar Khan was at Khooloom with the
Ameer's family, living on the bounty of the Wullee,
or chief of that place, who still upheld with fidelity
rare for an Afghan the cause of the fugitive king.
Other once staunch supporters, however, had *^ come
in," as the phrase went, among them Azim Khan,
one of the Ameer's sons, and it was reported that
Jubbar himself was vacillating. A forward move-
ment of our troops would, it was believed, soon
bring him to his senses. A forward movement was
accordingly made and the Khan did ** come in."
On July 3rd he arrived at Bamean with his brother's
family, and a large party of retainers.

But now the Ameer himself was once more in
the field. At first a guest in the court of Bokhara,
he had afterwards become the prisoner of that
treacherous chief, who, had he dared, would have

62 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

murdered his captive, and his sons with him,
as he would have murdered the Enghsh Envoy.
But Dost Mahomed, who as he said of himself,
** was a wooden spoon, to be thrown hither and
thither without hurt," contrived in some way to
effect his escape, and, after infinite hardships, to
make his way to his old ally of Khooloom, who
welcomed him with open arms. The Oosbegs
gathered to the popular standard. The Ameer was
reminded that his wives and children were in our*
power; ''I have no family," was his answer, ^'I
have buried my wives and children," and at the
head of 8000 men he advanced on Bamean early in
September. Our troops had been compelled to
abandon the outposts they had estabhshed beyond
the frontier. They had never failed indeed to repel
the frequent attacks that had been made on them,
but it had become at last painfully evident that such
isolated posts were no longer tenable. They fell
back therefore to Bamean, losing everything on
the retreat, and to make matters still worse a
regiment of Afghan infantry that had been lately
raised went over in a body to the enemy. Mean-
while, however, Dennie had come up with strong
reinforcements, and on September 18th a decisive
battle was fought. The enemy were immeasurably

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 63

the stronger both in numbers and position, but the
victory was ours, and for the second time Dost
Mahomed only escaped death by the speed of his
horse. But though he saved his hfe, he lost a
valuable friend. Dennie's guns had a salutary
effect on the WuUee, and within a few days of the
battle the old man prudently came to terms with
the English, pledging himself no longer to harbour
or assist Dost Mahomed or any of his family.
Great was the delight in the camp at Cabul, where
affairs had begun to look very black indeed, and
serious apprehensions at one time entertained of an
insurrection ; — but they had not yet done with the
Ameer.

Driven out of the Hindoo Koosh, our gallant
enemy next re -appeared in Kohistan. a district only
too ripe for revolt. Sale was ordered out to meet
him and Burnes went with him, while Wade was
despatched from Jellalabad to act against the
refractory Wuzzeerees. After a series of small
successes, in one of which Edward Conolly, a young
cavalry officer of great bravery and promise, was
killed, and one repulse at Joolgah, Sale, on Novem-
ber 2nd, met the Ameer at Purwandurrah, in the
Nijrow country, a name disastrous among many
other disastrous names in the annals of the Afghan

64 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

war. The latter had no original intention of giving
battle, but a chance movement of om* horse changed
his mind. Lord, one of our political agents, had
proposed that our cavalry, the 2nd Bengal Light
Cavalry, should take up new ground on the Afghan
flank. The order had been given, and the two
squadrons, numbering something over two hundred
sabres, had already gone ** threes about," when Dost
Mahomed, seeing, as he supposed, the British in
retreat, rode straight down on them at the head of
about 400 horsemen. Fraser, who was in command,
at once facing his men about, gave the order to
charge, and dashed, with his officers behind him,
full at the advancing squadrons. Not a trooper
followed. At an irresolute walk they met the onset,
and scarcely even waiting to cross swords, fled in
every direction, leaving their officers to their fate.
Of these, two, Crispin and Broadfoot, were instantly
cut down ; Lord managed to win his way through
the sabres, only to fall immediately afterwards by
a shot from one of the forts ; Fraser, severely
wounded, was saved only by the strength and speed
of his horse ; how the others escaped no man could
say. Our infantry managed in a measure to retrieve
the fortunes of the day. The Afghans were driven
from their position, but their leader once again

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 65

escaped from out our very grasp. Lawrence has
generously tried to find excuses for the conduct of
his men (he was not himself with them, for at that
time he was acting as assistant agent to Macnaghten),
but the fact remains that a native regiment, hitherto
famous for its bravery and fidelity, refused to follov/
its English officers on the field of battle, and fled like
sheep before a horde of irregular horsemen not twice
their number. Burnes wrote off to Cabul forthwith
to announce, perhaps somewhat to magnify, the
disaster, and implored Macnaghten to concentrate
all our troops at once on the capital, in anticipation,
which all then believed to be certain, of the Ameer's
instant advance. Far other, however, were at that
time the plans of Dost Mahomed. He did, indeed,
advance on the capital, but attended only by a
single attendant, and within twenty-four hours after
his victory he had placed his sword in Macnaghten's
hands.

Force would never have driven him to such a
step, but he was weary of fighting in a cause which,
so far as he then could foresee, could but be hope-
less, and he felt that after his brilhant triumph of
the previous day he could lay down his arms with-
out disgrace. Macnaghten and the other English
officers received him with the utmost courtesy,

F

66 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAE.

Nicholson, an officer of great bravery and intelli-
gence, was appointed to take charge of him, but the
indignity of a guard was spared him. Soojah re-
fused to see him, on the ground that he should be
** unable to show common civility to such a villain."
Many, however, who had held persistently aloof
from Soojah, came to pay their respects to one
whom they still regarded as their lawful ruler ; one
of them, Shere Mahomed, known as the swiftest
mounted messenger in all Afghanistan, exclaiming,
as he grasped his chief cordially by the hand, **Ah,
Ameer, you have done right at last ; why did you
delay so long putting an end to all your miseries ?"
Within a few days the Ameer's son, Afzul Khan,
followed his father's example, and on November 13th
the two illustrious prisoners set out for India, under
the charge of Nicholson and a strong escort of
British troops.

As in the previous year the court passed the
winter months at Jellalabad. Cotton was already
there on his way down to India, " anxious to get
away," and only waiting the arrival of his suc-
cessor. General Elphinstone. Elphinstone was a
brave, kindly, and courteous old gentleman ; he
had seen service in the Peninsular, and bore the
Waterloo medal, but he was entirely without ex-

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 67

perience of Indian warfare ; was, moreover, sadly
crippled in health, and unfortunately destitute of
the very quahties of energy and foresight which
were peculiarly necessary to his position. His
appointment was made against his own personal
inclinations, nor was it precisely clear on what
grounds it had been made, save on the grounds
that he was a relation of Lord Elphinstone, at
that time Governor of Bombay. But he was
ordered to assume the command, and, as a
soldier, he obeyed his orders. Cotton handed
over his charge, and took his leave with these
words, ' ^ You will have nothing to do here ; all is
peace." Never was there made a more unfortunate
remark.

The winter passed in tolerable quiet, but with
the return of spring came back the old troubles.
The first symptoms of disquiet appeared again in
the neighbourhood of Candahar. Two admirable
officers were in charge there, Nott and Kawlinson,
the former holding the military, the latter the
political command. The irrepressible Ghilzyes
were again in revolt, and the Douranees had risen
to join them. Soojah was particularly eager to
conciliate the latter tribe, and had, when at Can-
dahar, remitted many of the impositions which had

F 2

68 THE FIKST AFGHAN WAE.

rendered the Barukzye rule so odious ; but he had
also, as has been already said, retained in office the
equally odious tax-collectors who had been em-
ployed under the latter dynasty, and the Dou-
ranees, anticipating complete redress, and probably
substantial rewards, were irritated past endurance
to find their state no better under their own king
than it had been under the usurper. Long ripe for
revolt, their disaffection had been secretly fomented
by that indefatigable traitor the Herat Vizier, Yar
Mahomed, whose intrigues found a willing tool in
Aktur Khan, a chief of the Zemindawer country.
Kawlinson, anxious to try the effect of conciliatory
measures, and believing with Burnes that Afghan-
istan was not to be settled at the point of the
bayonet, despatched his assistant Elliot to confer
with the insurgents. The mission was successful
for the time ; Aktur Khan **came in ;" certain con-
cessions were made, and certain honours conferred
upon him, in return for which he promised to dis-
band his followers. But the peace, as Kawlinson
anticipated, was short-lived. The gallant but im-
prudent conduct of Lynch, our political agent
among the Ghilzye tribes, in storming a small fort
near Khelat-i-Ghilzye, to avenge an insult offered
him by the garrison, had set that turbulent country

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 69

ill a flame. Wymer was sent out by Nott to settle
matters, which he did effectively enough. The
Ghilzyes, under a famous leader known as the
^' Gooroo," fought like madmen, holding our troops
in check for five fierce hours ; but they gave way at
last, and fled, leaving the greater part of their num-
ber dead or dying on the field. Aktur Khan, fired
by the example, scattered his promises to the
winds, and instead of disbanding, collected anew
his forces for another struggle. Woodburn, a dash-
ing officer, met him on the banks of the Helmund,
and defeated him after a smart engagement, but the
British forces were insufficient to follow up the
victory, and on reaching Ghiresk Woodburn was
compelled to await the arrival of more troops from
Candahar. Thence, strongly reinforced, he moved
out on August 17th, and after a short but slmrp
struggle, in which the Janbaz, or Afghan Horse,
for once in a way behaved with great gallantry,
Aktur Khan fled, completely routed, and for a time
again there was peace among the Douranees. The
Ghilzyes, too, at the same time had received so
severe a repulse from Chambers, that even they
were forced to abstain from action for a while, and
the dreaded *^ Gooroo " was at last prevailed on to
"come in" to the English camp. On the north-

70 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

western frontier our troops had been equally suc-
cessful under Nott and Wymer. Akrum Khan, a
close ally of Aktur Khan, was in arms in the
Dehrawut country, and would submit neither to
promises, threats, nor force. Treachery, however,
did its work at last. One of his own countrymen
offered to betray him, and by a rapid night march
the rebel was seized, and carried down a close
prisoner to Candahar. Macnaghten, at times hu-
mane almost to a fault, had at length resolved
to give a terrible example to these continued dis-
turbers of the public peace. Orders were sent down
to Prince Timour, who governed for his father at
Candahar, and who v/ould have obeyed any orders
emanating from his English allies, and Akrum
Khan was blown from a gun. By the end of
October, 1841, there at last seemed really a pros-
pect of peace in Western Afghanistan.

Despite the warnings of Eawlinson, who could see
farther below the surface than most of his comrades,
and who knew well that there was something more
than mere discontent at an obnoxious tax lurking in
the hearts of the western tribes — despite, too, the
shadow of Akbar Khan, Dost Mahomed's favourite
son, who was still hovering about our northern
frontier — Macnaghten' s spirits rose higher than they

THE FIBST AFGHAN WAR. 71

had ever risen before. Of a temperament peculiarly
susceptible to the influence of the hour, he was
alternately depressed and exalted beyond reason, as
the varying fortunes of our arms favoured or
threatened the ultimate success of his plans. After
the disaster of Purwandurrah he was convinced that
the game was lost ; after the discomfiture of the
Ghilzyes and the death of Akrum Khan he was
equally convinced that the game was won, and in
one of his letters, written about this time to a private
friend, he boasted that the country was quiet ' ' from
Dan to Beersheba." The well-earned reward of his
labours had come at last in the shape of the Govern-
ment of Bombay ; within a few weeks he hoped to
turn his back on the scene of so many anxieties and
so many disappointments, leaving to his successor
the legacy of an accomplished task. That suc-
cessor would of course be Burnes ; Burnes, who
had a clearer eye for the future than his chief, and
who felt in his inmost heart that the end of such a
system as had been established in Afghanistan could
not be far off, 3^et who, impatient for Macnaghten's
departure, was willing to dare all risks, so that he
might at last touch the goal of his ambition. And
at this very time, in that serene sky, the cloud was
gathering that was to break when least expected, and

72 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

overwhelm Macnaghten and Biirnes and the whole
English cause in utter ruin.

Elphinstone, as has been said^ was now in command
of the British forces. Next in rank to him were
Sir Kobert Sale, of the 13th Light Infantrj^, and
Brigadier Shelton, who had come up in the spring
of the year with his regiment, the 44th of the Line.
Soojah's own troops were under Brigadier Anquetil,
who had superseded Roberts, much to Macnaghten's
satisfaction, for Roberts was too much of an
** alarmist" to please the sanguine Envoy. The
main body of the garrison lay in the new canton-
ments. These remarkable works had been erected
in the previous year. Situated in low, swampy
ground about two miles from the citadel, they were
defended only by a low mud rampart and ditch, over
which a pony had been ridden for a wager by one of
our own officers ; they were commanded on every
side by hills and villages, while, to make matters
still worse, the Commissariat supplies were stored in
a small fort without the wall. The authority for
this unfortunate arrangement has been the subject
of much discussion, into which it would be neither
profitable nor pleasant to enter here ; but it should
not, at least, be forgotten that our engineer officers
had always urged most strongly the expediency of

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 73

posting the troops in the Bala Hissar, or citadel, a
strong position on a hill commanding the entire city
and suburbs. At first, indeed, this had been done,
but the soldiers were soon required to give way to
the ladies of Soojah's harem, and it was then deemed
necessary, by some person or persons, to build what
Kaye aptly calls ^^the sheep-folds on the plain."
Elphinstone, at any rate, was not to blame, whoever
was, for the folly had been committed before El-
phinstone had assumed the command.

But familiarity, as usual, soon begot security, and
in this dangerous position our officers and men soon
learned to live as tranquilly and easily as in the
strongest fortress in the world, or as in the luxurious
quarters they had left in peaceful Hindostan. The
time passed pleasantly enough. Lady Macnaghten
and Lady Sale had joined their husbands, and
nearly all the married officers had followed the
example of their chiefs. The climate was fine and
bracing, nor was there any lack either of amuse-
ment or society. Englishmen carry their sports
with them into every quarter of the globe, and the
stolid Afghans looked in amazement and admiration
on the races, the cricket, and the skating with which
the white-faced infidels beguiled the idle days. But
there were unfortunately other habits in which some

74 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

of the English chose to indulge which stirred up in
the native heart feelings of a very different nature,
habits which have already been briefly touched upon,
and which were growing fast into an open and
notorious scandal. ^* There are many," wrote Kaye
in 1851, ^'who can fill in with vivid personality all
the melancholy details of this chapter of human
weakness, and supply a calalogue of the wrongs
which were soon to be so fearfully redressed."

Macnaghten proposed to set his face towards
home in November. His last days, as ill-fortune
would have it, had been again embittered with
revolt, arising from an unpopular measure which he
had felt himself obliged to sanction. Our sojourn
in Afghanistan had been a fearful drain on the
resources of the Indian Government, and the need
for economy had been urgently pressed upon Lord
Auckland by the authorities at home. Macnaghten,
casting about for the means of obeying his chief's
instructions, unluckily hit upon the most unfortunate
means he could have chosen. He determined to
inaugurate a general system of retrenchment in the
stipends, or subsidies, paid to the chiefs, and as a
beginning, the sum of ^3000, which had been yearly
paid to the Eastern Ghilzyes to secure our communi-
cations with Hindostan, was forthwith stopped. As

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 75

a natural result they at once flew to arms, occupied
the passes on the road to Jellalabad, commenced an
organised system of plundering, and entirely cut off
the communications it was our greatest interest to
keep open. But the Envoy was not very seriously
disturbed. Sale's brigade, which was under orders
for India, could 'thresh the rascals" on its home-
ward journey, and clear the passes easily enough.
Monteith was accordingly sent out with the 35th
Native Infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and some
guns, and Sale followed with his own regiment, the
13th Light Infantry. The task was not so easy
as the Envoy had anticipated. Sale himself was
wounded and Wyndham, of the 35th, killed. It was
found necessary to despatch more troops before the
work could be done. It was done, however, partly
by force and partly by diplomacy; the Khoord-Cabul
defile was once more cleared ; detachments of troops
were posted at intervals along the pass, while Sale
himself, halting at Gundamuck, put away his ideas
of home for a time.

November 1st was the day fixed for Macnaghten's
departure. He was not without warnings that for
some days past there had existed strong symptoms
of disaffection in the city, where the shopkeepers
were closing their shutters, and refusing to sell their

76 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

wares to the Englisli. John Conolly, a relative of
the Envoy's, had got an inkhng of what was medi-
tated, while Mohun Lai, an interpreter, who had
served us faithfully from the time of our first entry
into the country, had directly warned Burnes of a
conspiracy of which Abdoolah Khan, one of our
most uncompromising opponents, was the prime
instigator, and in which the chiefs of all the tribes
then assembled in Cabul were alike implicated. But
Burnes was still under the orders of Macnaghten,
and Macnaghten still refused to listen to the
*^ croakers." On that very evening the conspirators
met for the last time, and on the morning of the
2nd the city rose in insurrection.

Burnes himself was the first victim. His house
was within the city walls, next to that of Captain
Johnson, the paymaster of Soojah's troops. On
the previous night Johnson had slept in the canton-
ments, but Burnes was at home, and with him his
brother Charles, and William Broadfoot, an able
officer, who had been selected by the expectant
Envoy for the post of military secretary. Before
daybreak he had again been warned of his danger
by a friendly native, and at a later hour came
Osman Khan, the Vizier himself, with the same
tale, imploring him to seek safety either in the

THE FIKST AFGHAN WAR. 77

citadel or the cantonments. Burnes could no longer
disbelieve, for already an angry crowd was gathering
under his windows, and angry voices were raised in
clamour for the lives of the Englishmen. He con-
sented to write to the Envoy for aid, and to send
messengers to Abdoolah Khan, promising him that
if he would restrain the citizens his grievances
should receive prompt redress. Why no immediate
answer was returned to the first of these messages
has never been made perfectly clear; the latter
resulted only in the death of the messenger. Mean-
while Burnes himself was haranguing the mob from
an upper gallery, while his brother and the guard
were firing on them from below. In vain he
appealed to their avarice ; the only answer was that
he should '^ come down into the garden." A Cash-
merian, who had found his way into the house, swore
to pass him and his brother out in safety to the
cantonments, if the latter would bid the firing cease.
Hastily disguising themselves, the brothers followed
the man to the door, but scarcely had they set foot
beyond it, when the traitor shouted with a loud
voice, '' This is Sekunder Burnes ! " In a moment
the mob were on them, and, hacked to pieces by the
cruel Afghan knives, then fell the first, but not the
last victims of a long series of mistakes.

78 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

The paymaster's house was next sacked ; upwards
of Jei7,000 of the public money and ^1000 of
Johnson's private fortune fell to the share of the
murderers. Ko force came from the cantonments
to check them, and the only effort made in the
early part of the day was made by Soojah himself,
who sent one of his own regiments down from the
Bala Hissar into the city. Entangled in a network
of narrow lanes and bazaars, they could do no good,
and Shelton, coming up later with a small body of
infantry and artillery, was in time only to cover a
disorderly flight. It is difficult to decide on the
true cause of the lateness of Shelton's arrival, but
it is certain that had Burnes's message received
prompt attention, the insurrection, for that time at
least, would have been nipped in the bud. That
such was the opinion of the Afghans themselves
many of our officers were subsequently assured, and
the fact that none of the chief conspirators took any
part in the first outbreak seems to give colour to
the supposition that it was not the original design
to proceed to such extremities as followed, but
rather to convey to the British such a warning as
might convince them of the hopelessness of their
cause, and induce them at last to take measures
to leave the country to its own devices. Be this.

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 79

however, as it may, nothing was clone till the time
had passed for anything to be of use, and a riot
which 300 resolute men could have quelled with
ease in the morning, would in the afternoon have
taxed, if not defied, the best energies of 3000.

The history of the days which followed between
the first rising and the opening of negotiations is as
difficult to write as it is painful to read. So many
and so conflicting are the accounts that have been
received, that it is impossible within a limited space
to present a distinct and coherent narrative of events,
or, without the risk of a hasty conclusion, to ap-
portion, even were it desirable to do so, the pre-
cise share of responsibility to each actor in that
dismal tragedy of errors. It is certain, at least,
that from the 2nd to the 25th November the utmost
confusion and dismay prevailed within the British
cantonments. No two of the authorities seem ever
to have counselled alike ; there was disunion be-
tween Elphinstone and Macnaghten, and disunion
even between Elphinstone and Shelton. Orders were
issued one hour to be countermanded the next, and
then re-issued. There was no lack of individual
boldness in council, and, among the officers, no
lack of individual bravery in action, but want of
co-operation rendered both alike useless. Our

80 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

strength was frittered away in a series of petty
sorties, conducted by insufficient numbers, and gene-
rally ordered when the time for immediate action
was past. Our soldiers, even our own English
soldiers, disheartened and demoralized by repeated
defeats, for which they felt that they themselves were
not to blame, lost confidence alike in their com-
manders and in themselves. It is said that it was
actually found necessary to employ a Sepoy guard
to prevent the soldiers of an English regiment
leaving their post, and it is certain that on one, if
not on more than one occasion, our men fairly
turned their backs and ran before the Afghan hordes.
At an early day, as might well have been foreseen,
the forts containing the Commissariat supplies and
stores fell into the enemy's hands, and though this
disaster was for a time remedied by the energies of
our Commissariat officers, who had fortunately not
been lost with the stores, and who managed to collect
supplies from some of the neighbouring villages, there
soon arose a new danger in the doubt whether the
the siege would not outlast the ammunition. Urgent
and frequent messages had been sent to bring up
Sale's brigade, which was supposed to be still among
the Khoord-Cabul hills, and to Eldred Pottinger to
join the garrison with his detachment from Charekur,

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 81

a place about 60 miles north of Cabul. But Sale's
brigade was already on its march to Jellalabad,
and of Pottinger's detachment only he and another
officer reached Cabul alive. To crown all, it was
known that Akbar Khan was moving down from
Bamean. On the 23rd a strong force of cavalry
and infantry, but accompanied, through what strange
process of reasoning it is impossible to say, by only
one gun, moved out under Shelton to occupy a hill
commanding the sources of our supplies, which had
been recently threatened by the enemy. The
expedition was a total failure. Shelton himself
behaved with conspicuous gallantry, and his officers
nobly followed his example; but the men, dis-
couraged by frequent defeat, and finding their
muskets no match for the Afghan jezails, were
mown down like grass, till, having lost their solitary
piece of artillery, they fled in disgraceful panic back
to the cantonments. With this disastrous attempt
concluded all exterior operations, and on the same
day Macnaghten received instructions from Elphin-
stone to open negotiations for surrender.

At the first meeting the terms offered were so
insulting that Macnaghten refused to continue the
conference. His hopes, too, had somewhat revived
of late by a communication from Mohun Lai, whom

G

82 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

lie had secretly employed to sow, with offers of large
bribes, dissensions among the hostile chiefs, and by
the news of the death of two of our bitterest foes,
Abdoolah Khan and Meer Musjedee. Whether these
men died from womids received in battle, or by
assassins set on by Mohun Lai, is not certain, but
it seems tolerably clear that the interpreter was in-
stigated by some one in the British camp to offer
large sums of money for the heads of the principal
insurgents. As a set-off to this, however, came
grave reports from the Commissariat department,
and the news that there was little prospect of Mac-
laren's brigade, which had set out from Candahar to
their relief, being able to win its way to Cabul. On
December 11th, therefore, negotiations were re-
newed. Akbar Khan, who had by this time joined
his countrymen amid uproarious expressions of de-
light, with the chiefs of all the principal tribes, met
the Envoy on the banks of the Cabul river, about a
. mile from the cantonments. Macnaghten read in
Persian the draft treaty he had prepared, of which
the main stipulations were to the following effect : —
That the British troops in Afghanistan should be
withdrawn to India as speedily as possible, acconi-
panied by two Sirdars of rank as guarantees of safe
conduct ; that on their arrival at Peshawur arrange-

THE FIEST AFGHAN WAR. 83

ments should at once be made for the return of
Dost Mahomed and all others of his countrymen at
that time detained in India ; that Soojah should be
allowed to depart with the troops, or to remain
where he was on a suitable provision, as he might
prefer ; and that four ^* respectable " British officers
were to be left at Cabul as hostages for the due ful-
filment of the treaty until the return of Dost Ma-
homed and his family. After a discussion of two
hours the terms were accepted, and it was agreed
that the evacuation of our position should commence
in three days' time. Such a treaty is not to be
read with pleasure, but it was possibly the best that
could have been concluded under the circumstances
that had arisen ; for which Macnaghten himself ap-
pears, at least, to have been less responsible than his
military colleagues, at whose urgent and repeated
instigations he had undertaken the work.

It became soon apparent how little dependence
was to be placed on the Afghan word. On the 13th,
according to the stipulation, the British troops
stationed in the citadel left their quarters, about six
o'clock on a winter's evening. Scarcely had they
cleared the gates, when an ugly rush was made for
them by the crowd outside. The gates were imme-
diately closed, and the guns of the citadel opened an

G 2

84 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

indiscriminate fire on friends and foes alike. Akbar
Khan declared that at that late hour he could not
undertake their safe conduct to the cantonments,
and the men were therefore obliged to pass the night
on the frosty ground, without tents, without food,
and without fuel. On the following morning they
reached the cantonments in safety, but half-dead with
hunger and exposure. It had been agreed that the
Afghans should supply the necessary provisions and
carriage for the march ; but it had also been agreed
that the British forts in the neighbourhood of their
position should be given up. The Afghans refused
to play their part till we had played ours, and the
forts were accordingly placed in their hands. Still,
provisions came in but slowly, and carriage not at
all. A horde of robbers and fanatics swarmed be-
tween the city and the cantonments, plundering under
our very eyes the few supplies that were sent in,
but as they were now to be considered ** as our allies"
not a shot was permitted to be fired. Yet even
then Macnaghten continued to hope against hope,
that ** something might turn up" to spare the
humiliation of an enforced retreat, and on the
evening of the 22nd it seemed to him that such a
chance had arrived. It came in the shape of a
proposal from Akbar Khan that he and the Ghil-

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 85

zyes should, in the face of the concluded treaty,
unite with the English to re-occupy the citadel and
the abandoned forts ; that our forces should be
allowed to remain in Afghanistan till the spring, and
then withdraw as though of their own free-will ; that
the head of the formidable Ameen-oolah Khan should
be sent to the Envoy, and that in consideration of all
these good offices Akbar Khan himself should receive
an annuity of four lakhs of rupees from the British
Government, together with a bonus of thirty lakhs.
The offer of murder was indignantly rejected, but
with the others Macnaghten closed at once, and on
the following morning, having requested that two
regiments with some guns might be held ready for
instant service, he rode out to the proposed place of
conference, accompanied by Lawrence, Trevor and
Mackenzie. The latter, indeed, learning the new
design, ventured to expostulate with his chief on
the risk he was about to run, while Elphinstone
earnestly implored him to pause before he committed
himself to so perilous and so crooked a course ; but
despising warnings and advice alike, Macnaghten
rode hopefully out to his death.

Among some small hillocks about 600 yards from
the cantonments the meeting was appointed ; saluta-
tations were exchanged, the party dismounted, and

86 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

the Envoy and the Khan seated themselves on the
ground. Scarcely had the conversation been opened,
when the chiefs began to close in on the little group.
It was pointed out to Akbar that as the conference
was a secret one, they should be advised to with-
draw ; he answered that it was of no matter, as
they were all in the plot with him. The words had
not left his lips when the Englishmen were seized.
Trevor, Lawrence and Mackenzie were flung each be-
hind a mounted Afghan and galloped off to one of the
forts, through a crowd of armed fanatics, who cut and
struck at them as they passed. On the way Trevor
slipped from his seat and was instantly hacked to
pieces, but the others got safely through. As they
were hurried away, Lawrence turned his head and
saw the Envoy struggling in the grasp of Akbar
Khan, ^'with an awful look of horror and conster-
nation on his face;" a pistol shot was heard soon
after, and - no English eye ever saw Macnaghten
alive or dead again. Such was the end of the
attempt of an honest Englishman to outwit the most
treacherous people in the world.

On the following day new terms were sent to
Elphinstone to be added to the existing treaty — that
first treaty which Macnaghten had lost his life in
attempting to evade. These required that the guns

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 87

with the exception of six, and all the muskets, save
those in actual use, should be given up, and that the
numbers of hostages should be increased. Eldred
Pottinger, who had succeeded to the envoy's place,
strongly combated this additional insult, giving
his undaunted voice for the immediate seizure of
the citadel, or at least for one last attempt to fight
their way sword in hand down to Jellalabad. His
brave counsel was overruled ; the guns and muskets
were given up, a few at a time, in the vain hope that
in some way the treaty might yet be averted, or per-
haps to alleviate, if possible, the humiliation of the
surrender ; Captains Walsh and Drummond, with
Lieutenants Warburton and Webb were sent to join
Lieutenants ConoUy and Airy, who were already in
the hands of the chiefs, and such of the sick and
wounded as were unable to bear the fatigues otthe
march were conveyed into the city under Doctors
Berwick and Campbell. On the 6th of January,
1842, before the promised escorts had arrived, the
British army, contrary again to Pottinger's advice,
moved out from the cantonments, and the fatal
march began.

The British troops that marched out on that 6th
January numbered 4,500 fighting men, of whom 700
were Europeans, and about 12,000 camp followers.

88 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

Of this force two men reached Jellalabad alive,
one of whom died on the following day. The
married officers and their wives, with all the women
and children, and a few of the wounded, were on the
third day of the retreat placed in the care of Akbar
Khan, who, to give him such credit as is his due, for
once kept his word when he promised to treat them
honourably and well ; six more officers, including the
General himself and Shelton, at a later period fell
or were surrendered as hostages, into the same
hands, and were carried back up country, though
Elphinstone, sick in body as in heart, prayed hard
to be allowed to die with his men ; Captain Souter,
of the 44th, who had wrapped the regimental colours
round his waist, was taken prisoner with a few private
soldiers at Gundamuck, where the last stand was
made by the gallant handful who had survived the
horrors of the pass. The rest of the Europeans
perished to a man beneath the knives and bullets of
their *^ allies." Among the Native troops and camp
followers the loss was probably less than was at the
time, and has been generally since, supposed. Some
of the former deserted in sheer terror to the Afghans,
and some of the latter it is possible found hiding-places
among the mountains, whence, when the noise of
battle had passed on, they contrived to make good

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 89

their escape ; yet thousands fell beneath the mur-
derous rain that poured down night and day upon
the defenceless rabble, and thousands, untouched by
shot or steel, from utter weariness sank down into
the snow to rise no more. Had the march been
pushed on from the first with more expedition, it is
probable that at least a far larger number would
have been saved ; but that, owing to the general
demoralisation that had set in, inspired by the
irresolution of the commander, and aggravated by
the disorderly crowd of camp-followers, whose terror
quenched all notions of discipline, was precisely
what could not be done. From dawn vast hordes
of Ghazee fanatics had hung on the rear, cutting off
stragglers, plundering the baggage, and from every
coign of vantage firing indiscriminately into the
struggling line. The roads were slippery with ice,
and on the evening of the first day the snow began
to fall ; on the second day the march became but
*'a rabble in chaotic rout." The European troops
indeed, set a glorious example. The officers did all
that mortals could do to preserve discipline, and the
men, obeying so far as it was possible to obey, nobly
redeemed their former errors ; but hampered by a
helpless crowd whose one thought of safety was not
to fight but to fly, it was but little that they could

90 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

do. Here and there a stand was made by gallant
handfuls of our men, and where the English stood,
there the Afghans fled, but these momentary trmmphs
served rather to mcrease than to check the fury of
our foes. Enough of a melancholy and shameful
tale— let it be sufficient to say that when Brydon
reached Jellalabad on the 13th the army of Cabul
had for all practical purposes disappeared from off
the face of the earth.

The news came upon the Government like a
thunder- stroke. The last days of Lord Auckland's
administration were drawing near, and as he read
Macnaghten's sanguine despatches he fondly hoped
that it would be his fortune to return to England, not
only the conqueror, but the tranquilizer of Afghanistan.
Towards the close of the year, indeed, rumours of a
disquieting nature had found their way down to
Calcutta, and when all rumours ceased it became
evident that our communications were interrupted,
and that something serious had happened ; but not
even the gloomiest dared to anticipate the worst :
on January 30th the worst was known.

Though there was anything but unanimity in the
Calcutta Council, some preparations, chiefly through
the energetic representations of George Clerk, our
agent on the north-western frontier, had been made

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 91

before the full tidings of the disaster came down.
It had appeared to some, of whom was Sir Jasper
Nicolls, then Commander-in-chief in India, that
it was better to accept the blow, and withdraw
altogether behind the Indus, than by attempting
to retrieve still further to deepen our disgrace. Sale
still held Jellalabad in the teeth of overwhelmino*
numbers ; Nott was still master of Candahar ; — let
them yield up the charge they had so nobly kept,
and if too weak to find their own way down to India,
let troops sufficient for their help advance, but for
no other purpose. Lord Auckland, unwilling to
commit his successor to a task which had already
proved too strong for his own energies, was
inclined to listen to the advocates of retreat, and
though the news of the annihilation of the army
of Cabul roused him for the moment into a pro-
clamation that the awful calamity was but ^' a
new occasion for displaying the stability and vigour
of the British power, and the admirable spirit and
valour of the British-Indian army," he quickly
followed it by an intimation that when Sale and
Nott had been relieved it were better that the
British troops should withdraw to Peshawur. Still,
fresh forces were to be raised, and a fine soldier was
to head them. The offer had been first made to

92 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

Major-General Lumley, Adjutant- General in India,
but Lumley's health forbade him to accept so
important a post, and Lord Auckland's choice — a
choice as popular as it was judicious — finally fell
upon Pollock, a distinguished officer of the Com-
pany's service, who had seen fighting under Lake
and Wellington, and wherever, indeed, it was to be
seen since the year 1803, when he had first landed
in India, a young lieutenant of artillery. Pollock
hastened up to his command without a moment's
delay, but before he could reach Peshawur our troops
had suffered yet another repulse.

Mr. Kobertson, Lieutenant-Governor of the north
western frontier, and George Clerk, already men-
tioned, had counselled from the first prompt
measures, not of retreat, but reprisal. At their
earnest request Colonel Wild had been moved up to
Peshawur with four native infantry regiments, tlie
30th, 53rd, 60th and 64th, but without guns. It
was supposed he could procure them from the Sikhs,
and with a great deal of trouble he did manage to
procure four ricketty guns, which seemed likely to
do as much harm to his own men as to the enemy,
and one of which broke down the next day on trial.
Eeinforcements were coming up, which it was
probable would contain artillery, but Wild did not

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 93

dare to wait. His Sepoys were anxious to advance ;
the loyalty of the Sikhs was doubtful, and he feared
the contamination might spread. On January 15th
he commenced operations.

The key of the Khyber Pass, as we have all
heard more than once within the last few weeks, is
the fortress of AH Musjid, occupying a strong
position some five miles down the pass, and about
twenty-five from Peshawur. It had been recently
garrisoned by some loyal natives under an English
officer, Mackeson ; but, straitened for provisions, and
hard pressed by the Khyberees, it was doubtful
whether the brave little garrison could hold out
much longer, and on the night of the 15th the 53rd
and 64th Kegiments, under Colonel Moseley, were
despatched with a goodly supply of bullocks to its
relief. The fort was occupied without loss, but tlia
bullocks, save some 50 or 60, had meanwhile disap-
peared, and there were now more mouths to feed in Ali
Musjid and less wherewith to feed them. Wild was
to have followed with the other two regiments, his
Sikh guns and Sikh allies, on the 19th, but when
the time came the latter turned their backs on the
Khyber and marched to a man back to Peshawur.
The Sepoys met the enemy at the mouth of the
pass, but the spirit of disaffection seemed to have

94 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

spread. After an irresolute and aimless volley they
halted in confusion : in vain Wild and his officers
called on them to advance ; not a man moved ; the
guns broke down, and one of them, despite the
gallant efforts of Henry Lawrence, had to be aban-
doned. One of our officers was killed, and Wild
himself, with several more,was wounded ; the retreat
was sounded, and the column fell back on Jumrood.
The two regiments which held the fort had soon to
follow their example. They could have held the
post for any time indeed, so far as mere fighting
went, but they had no provisions, and the water was
poisonous. On the 23rd, then, they evacuated
their position, and after a sharp struggle, in which
two English officers fell, and some sick and baggage
had to be abandoned, made good their way back
to their comrades. Such was the state of affairs
Pollock found on his arrival at Peshawur.

Despite urgent letters received from Jellalabad
the General saw that an immediate advance was
impossible. The morale of the defeated Sepoys had
fallen very low ; the hospitals were crowded with
sick and wounded, and there was still an insufficiency
of guns. Keinfor cements of British dragoons and
British artillery were pressing up from the Punjab,
and Pollock decided to wait till he could make

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 95

certain of success. He decided well ; nor was the
time of waiting lost. He visited the hospitals
daily, cheering the sick, and reanimating by his
kindness and decision the wavering and disheartened
Sepoys. On March 30th the long-desired reinforce-
ments arrived, and orders were at once issued for the
advance.

At three o'clock on the morning of April 5th the
army moved off from Jumrood to the mouth of the
pass. It was divided into three columns ; two of
these were to crown the heights on either side, while
the third, when the hills had been sufficiently cleared,
was to advance through the gorge ; each column was
composed of a mixed force of Europeans and Sepoys ;
four squadrons of the 3rd Dragoons and eleven pieces
of artillery accompanied the centre column. The
attack was as successful as it was ingenious. A
huge barricade of mud and stones and trunks of
trees had been thrown across the mouth of the pass,
while the heights on either side swarmed with the
wild hill-tribes. So quietly, however, did our flank-
ing columns advance, that they were half-way up
the heights before the enemy became aware of the
movement. From peak to peak our men, English
as well as Sepoys, clambered as agile as the moun-
taineers themselves, pouring from every spot of

96 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

vantage a steady and well-directed fire on the dis-
concerted Khyberees, wlio had never dreamed that
the white-faced infidels could prove more than a
match for them in their own fastnesses. Then
Pollock with the main column advanced. The
Afghans, finding themselves out-flanked on either
side, gradually withdrew ; the barricade was re-
moved without loss ; and the huge line of soldiers,
camp-followers, and baggage-waggons passed un-
opposed on its victorious way to Jellalabad. The
dreaded Khyber Pass had been forced with the
slightest possible loss of life, and the boastful
Afghans beaten at their own tactics. On the
16th Jellalabad was reached. With what intense
dehght Sale's noble brigade saw once more from
their walls the colours of a friendly force may
well be imagined. For five weary months the
little band had resisted every offer of surrender,
and beaten back every assault. In February the
fortifications that had been raised and strengthened
by Broadfoot with infinite labour were destroyed
by an earthquake ; and at that very time they
learnt that Akbar Khan was advancing on them.
The works, however, were restored, and in a dash-
ing sortie, commanded by Dennie, the Afghan chief,
with the flower of the Barukzye Horse, was driven

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 97

from his position without the loss of a single
man to the garrison. A few days before Pollock
arrived a still more daring enterprise had been
attempted. On April 5th another sortie in force
was sent out under Dennie, Monteith, and Havelock,
which bore down on the Afghan camp, and sent
Akbar Khan flying with his 6000 men far away in
the direction of Lughman — a dashing exploit, and
a complete victory, but dearly won, for it was won
at the cost of the gallant Dennie. The meeting
between the two armies was, wrote Pollock to a
friend, ^^ a sight worth seeing;" according to Mr.
Gleig the band of the 13th went out to play the
relieving force in, and the entry was performed to
the tune of ^^ Oh, but ye've been lang o' coming."

Still there was plenty yet to be done, if only the
English soldiers might be allowed to do it. At first
it seemed doubtful whether Lord EUenborough, who
had succeeded Lord Auckland in February, would
be more willing to sanction a forward movement
than was his predecessor. On his first landing,
no one could have been more eager than he to
avenge the humiliation of Cabul, but as he went
up the country his opinions began to suffer a change.
Soojah had been murdered about the very time that
the Khyber Pass was forced, by the treachery of a

H

98 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

son of Zemaun Khan (a faithful friend to the
English, by whose good offices the EngHsh captives
were still living in safety, if not in comfort) ; his
son Futteh Jung had been nominally appointed to
succeed him, but his government was no more than
a farce. Jealous of each other, and jealous par-
ticularly of the rising power of Akbar Khan, it was
plain that the Afghan Sirdars would never rest till
the strength and popularity of Dost Mahomed was
once more among them to restore and maintain
order. Was it not better to accept the inevitable,
to withdraw our troops, now that it could be done
with comparative honour, and to leave the country
to its own king and its own devices ? It was
doubtful how much longer the brave Nott could
maintain himself in Candahar, and the force that
had been sent out from Sindh under England to
relieve him had been beaten back at the Kojuck
Pass ; Ghuznee, after a stubborn resistance, had
fallen, and the British officers sent prisoners to
Cabul. Lord Ellenborough cannot be blamed for
hesitating at such a crisis ; but the urgent prayers
of Pollock, Nott, and Outram at last prevailed, and
orders were given that the military commanders
might use their own discretion, while they were at
the same time warned that failure meant the

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAE. 99

inevitable fall of the British Empire in the East.
The responsibility was gladly taken, and the advance
commenced which was to retrieve, as far as it was
possible to retrieve, the shame of all former failure.
The advance was an unbroken series of victories.
England, reinforced with some British troops, had
moved out again from Quettah, cleared the Kojuck
Pass, and joined Nott at Candahar. With a force
now raised to a strength equal to that which lay at
Jellalabad, Nott, resolute to *^ retire to India" by
way of Ghuznee and Cabul, lost no time in setting
to work. Dividing his troops, he took with him the
40th and 41st Regiments of the Line, and the
*' beautiful Sepoy" Regiments that had stood by
him so well, and despatched the rest back to India
in charge of England, in whose hands also he placed
Prince Timour, whom, after his father's death it \^[as
alike dangerous to take to Cabul or to leave at Can-
dahar. About the same time Pollock, with 8000
men of all arms, including the 31st Regiment of the
Line and the 3rd Dragoons, moved out from Jellala-
bad on the Khoord-Cabul Pass, that blood-stained
theatre of an awful tragedy. The enemy were in
force at Jugdulluck, but Pollock, employing the same
tactics that had been so efficacious among the Khyber
hills, sent out flanking parties to clear the heights,

n 2

100 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

while from below his guns kept up a hot fire of shells
on their position. The Ghilzyes fought bravely, but
they could not stand against the English troops in open
fight, and with as little loss as in his first engage-
ment Pollock led his men into the pass. Seven
miles within, in the little valley of Tezeen, Akbar
Khan, with 16,000 of his best troops, resolved to
make one last throw for victory. He threw and lost.
While the English Dragoons met and broke the charge
of the Afghan horse, the English infantry, gallantly
seconded by the Sepoys and Ghoorkahs, pressed up
the heights under a heavy fire. Sale himself led
the advanced column ; Monteith and Broadfoot and
McCaskill followed. Not a shot was fired by the
stormers; thick and fast flew the bullets among
them from the long Afghan jazails, but not an
English musket answered. The work was done
with the bayonet, and driven from crag to crag by
that ** beautiful weapon" alone, the enemy fled in
confusion, till amid the ringing cheers of the whole
British force the British flag waved on the highest
pinnacle of the pass. This was Akbar Khan's last
attempt ; leaving his troops to shift for themselves,
he fled northward to the Ghoreebund Valley ; Pol-
lock, over the crumbling skeletons of the comrades
whom he had so worthily avenged, led his men in

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 101

triumph to Cabul, and the British ensign once more
flew from the heights of the Bala Hissar.

On September 15th Pollock reached Cabul, and
on the 17th he was joined by Nott. After a slight
check to the cavalry of his advanced guard, at an
early period of his march, the latter's success
had been as complete as Pollock's. At Ghoaine
he had utterly routed a superior force of the
enemy under Shumshoodeen Khan. Ghuznee had
been evacuated before even our preparations for
the assault were completed ; the works were dis-
mantled and blown up, the town and citadel fired,
and the famous sandal- wood ** gates of Somnauth,"
which, according to Afghan tradition, had adorned
their famous Sultan's tomb for upwards of eight
centuries, carried off in accordance with Lord
EUenborough's expressed desire. At Syderabad,
where in the previous November Woodburn and
his men had been treacherously massacred, Shum-
shoodeen turned again ; the stand was stubborn
and for a while the issue seemed doubtful ; but
the news of the defeat at Tezeen had spread, the
Afghans lost heart, and abandoning their position
left the way for Nott clear into Cabul.

The honour of the British arms was at last com-
plete ; 15,000 British troops were encamped in the

102 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

Afghan capital, and from every quarter round sub-
mission was pouring in. Ameen-oollah Khan, who
held out to the last, had been utterly routed in the
Kohistan by a force under McCaskill, and Akbar Khan
had also intimated his wish to treat for terms. The
miserable Futteli Jung, who had already once been
forced to fly for his life, was formally installed on his
throne, but as formally warned that he was to expect
no further aid or protection. The prospect before
him was too much for his weak and timorous mind,
and, in truth, it was far from a pleasant one ; after
a few days' nominal rule, he voluntarily resigned a
crown which he would never have been able to keep,
and Shahpoor, a high-spirited young boy of the
Suddozye House, was seated in his stead.

Two things had yet to be done. The captives
were to be recovered, and some unmistakeable mark
of British retribution was to be stamped on Cabul.

Before Akbar Khan took the field for the last
time he had despatched all the English hostages,
together with the prisoners from Ghuznee, towards
the Bamean frontier, under Saleh Mohamed. Pollock
immediately on reaching Cabul had sent Sir Eich-
mond Shakespeare, with a party of horse in hot
haste after them, and subsequently a stronger force
under Sale. Before, however, the rescue arrived

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 103

the prisoners had effected their own deliverance
through the medium of Saleh Mohamed's cupidity.
On a promise, duly drawn up and signed by
Pottinger, Lawrence and three others, of a heavy bribe,
the Afghan had consented to escort them not to Tur-
kestan and slavery, as had been intended, but back to
the English camp, and it was at Kaloo, on their way
down to Cabul, that, after more than eight months'
daily expectation of death, they once more found
themselves among English friends and safe under
the English flag. Despite the many hardships and
anxieties they had undergone, their health, even of
the women and children, had been marvellously pre-
served, and their condition had, on the whole, been
far better than any they could have hoped for when
they exchanged the certain dangers of the retreat
for the uncertain security of Akbar Khan's wortl.
Two only of the little band that had turned their
backs on the miseries of the Khoord- Cabul Pass
were missing when they rode into Sale's camp, amid
the cheers of the men and a salute of welcome from
the guns. John Conolly, mourned by all who knew
him, had died at Cabul a few days before the march
for Bamean began, and in the previous April, after
Pollock's victory had heralded the triumph which
was to atone for the disasters that the British arms

104 THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR.

had experienced under his command, poor Elphin-
stone, after days of intense suffering in body and
mind, and bewaihng to the last that he had not been
permitted to die with his men, passed away amid
the affectionate sympathy of all his fellow-prisoners.
His body was sent down to Jellalabad, and there
interred with military honours in the presence of
his victorious successor.

To set the seal of our triumph on Cabul it was
determined to destroy the great Bazaar, where the
mutilated body of Macnaghten had been exposed to
the insults of his murderers. It had been first
intended to demolish the citadel, but the Suddozye
chiefs pleaded so earnestly for this last remnant of
their royalty, that Pollock consented to spare it.
During two days, October 9th and 10th, the work
of destruction went on, and though every precaution
was taken to prevent any farther loss beyond that
ordered, and particularly any excess on the part of
our soldiers, many suffered, and there was much
excess. On the 11th the homeward march began.
Futteh Jung had implored the safe conduct of the
British from a kingdom where he was no king, and
from subjects with whom his life was not worth an
hour's purchase, and with him went for the second
time into exile his blind old grandfather Zemaun

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 105

Shah. By the Khoord-Cabul and Khyber Passes,
the scenes of so much misery and such grievous
humihation, the victorious army returned in triumpli
to Hindostan, and ere Ferozepore was reached they
heard that the last of the Suddozye Hne had fled,
that Akbar Khan had seized the throne in trust for
his father, and that Dost Mahomed himself was
even then on his way through the Punjab to
resume his old dominion. And so the English
army left secure on the throne of Afghanistan the
dynasty they had spent so many millions of treasure
and so many thousands of lives to overthrow.

LONDON :
GILBERT AND EIVINGTON, PRINTERS,

ST. John's square, e.g.*

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