21st November.
“Nae, nae! I’ll nae fa’ out till I’ve washed ma’ hands in th’ Caspian!” These were the words, not of any veteran soldier looking forward to crossing bayonets with the Russians, but of a plucky little drummer boy, of the 92nd Highlanders, when toiling painfully along the road to Cabul. The lad had his heart in the right place at any rate; and if the strength of an army is to be judged by its marching powers, we have rare material in our ranks. It is a long cry from Cabul to the Caspian; but the drummer boy may have many years of soldiering before him; and if ever the Gordon Highlanders form up on the shores of Russia’s inland sea, to that boy should belong the honour of leading the van. But we are only at Cabul, and it now seems beyonddoubt that we shall not advance any further this year. The winter has come down upon us with a suddenness that we little expected from the mildness of the last season; and 20° of frost have warned us that bivouacking out would be nearly impossible for well-clad soldiers, and would be certain death to hundreds of camp-followers. The news of the disturbances on the Ghazni Road may, perhaps, call forth the remark, that after Cabul had been captured, and the country around cowed into order, a rapid march to Ghazni should have been ordered. There is much virtue in sudden and striking displays of force in an enemy’s country, particularly when the enemy is disorganized by defeat, and is debating as to the possibility of waging guerilla warfare. But there are considerations which must override even rapidity of action, and the first of these is the provision of supplies on which an army can subsist when far removed from its base of action. Cabul was practically in our possession on the 9th of October, though the formal march into the Bala Hissar did not take place until three days later; and our cavalry and spies had shown us that no organized resistance was being prepared within many miles of the capital. The rebel regiments had melted away; the city people were cowering in abject submission; and the local tribes had seen that their day had not come and were once more in their homesteads, nursing their wrath and theirjhezailsuntil the Kafirs should be delivered into their hands. Sir. F. Roberts was at this time quite cut off from India, so far as a connected line of communication went; the Shutargardan post was the only link between Cabul and Kurram, and that was beset by an army of hill-men. From that direction he might hope, by relieving the garrison, to get one convoy through; but beyond that point he could not go. The great height of the Shutargardan Pass precluded all hope of keeping troops there during the winter. He had come from Ali Kheyl with but a few days’ provisions; and it was plain that, unless supplies came by way of the Khyber, the army must rely upon the country for food for its 18,000 soldiers and followers. That one might have reasonably expected a long string of baggage animals to be moving westwards from Peshawur at the end of October did not seem so preposterous as men with General Bright’s column would now have us believe.To say that Peshawur was swept clean of all transport animals for Kurram, is begging the question. The Kurram Valley Force was only half-equipped when it began the advance upon Cabul, and northern India still held many thousands of mules, donkeys, camels, and their kind. We hoped that some of the energy our own Commander had shown would have been displayed in the “Army of the Indus,” and that a few troops at least would have kept pace with us, or, say, have moved on a parallel line five marches in rear. If this had been done, and a well-equipped brigade of 2,500 men had been pushed forward to Jugdulluck, the massing of 12,000 men in rear might have been postponed—for a few months, say,—and some of the transport (swallowed up by regiments who will never be wanted west of Peshawur) then liberated. But to look to the Khyber for supplies was soon found to be an expensive amusement. The troops would starve before a seer ofattaor grain passed Jumrood. We could live from hand-to-mouth for a week or two; but there were the four months of winter to be thought of; and it became merely a question of arithmetic whether a brigade strong enough to march to Ghazni could be spared, with all its equipment of baggage animals and followers, and at the same time four months’ supplies could be bought up and swept into our Camp by those left behind at Cabul. There seemed just a chance of this being done, if our broken reed in the Jellalabad Valley could be propped fairly straight for a few weeks. The work of collecting grain, forage, and all other supplies, was begun in earnest; and we resigned ourselves to hard labour until the troops from the Shutargardan should come in, and our communicationsviâJugdulluck be well established. Expeditions to Kohistan and Ghazni were looked upon as certain of accomplishment in the near future. We knew that Jellalabad had been occupied by the advanced brigade of General Bright’s force on October 12th, and it was only sixty miles from that post to the point beyond Jugdulluck, where they would join hands with the Cabul Army. The end of October would surely see them within a few marches of us. But it had been apparent from the first that drag-ropes were upon the “Army of the Indus,” and that every tug forward made by Brigadier Charles Gough was responded to by a double tug behind. The end of the monthcame; the convoys from the Shutargardan were well on their way, the troops under Brigadier Hugh Gough had also started; and the Jugdulluck route seemed about to be opened. On 1st November Brigadier Macpherson was at Butkhak, and four days later he shook hands with General Bright at Kata Sung. Then it was decided at head-quarters here that a force should visit Ghazni. The mass of our supplies were being stored away in Sherpur; General Macpherson could march his brigade back after garrisoning Luttabund and Butkhak; Cabul would not be denuded of troops; and from Sherpur to Peshawur the road would be guarded by an overwhelming force. But the programme went all wrong: the broken reed, after being straightened for twenty-four hours, failed us. The Khyber advanced brigade had no supplies; General Macpherson had to cross into Tagao to feed his force; and we, in Sherpur, saw the 15th November—the day fixed for our departure for Ghazni—come and go, and still the army remained stationary. The weather, too—an element that can never be despised in our calculations in a semi-barren country like Afghanistan—had punished our delay by declaring against us. Snow and sleet fell in and around Cabul, and no man knew when the next storm might come. So the Ghazni expedition fell through; and if the ruffians who are now trying to make capital out of our failure to visit the place, succeed in their efforts to cry ajehad, the blame for any mischief that may ensue cannot be thrown upon the Cabul Army, but upon the short-sighted policy which could leave it to its own resources, while nominally moving a supporting force in a parallel line in order to secure its alternative communications. Foreign military critics have reflected severely upon the want of skill shown in the plan of the campaign, and have condemned the rashness of the Shutargardan-Cabul advance, without support from the Khyber. But the supports were said to be there, and General Roberts could not know that they would be steadily kept back, and would be unable to take up their share of the alternative road a month after he had captured the position they were both supposed to be converging upon. Supports which travel at the rate of two or three miles a day are worse than useless.
When it is considered what the numerical strength of the Khyber supporting column is, one cannot understand the timidityof the advance. There may have been tribes in front, in flank, and in rear; but so there were on the Shutargardan route, and tribes far more capable of mischief than Afridis and Shinwaris. Yet the menace at Budesh Kheyl, Ali Kheyl, the Shutargardan, and on either flank at Charasia, did not check the forward movement of an army half the strength of that supposed to have been put in motion from Peshawur simultaneously with the advance from the Kurram side. Looking at General Bright’s force at the end of October, we find that, inclusive of troops at Nowshera and Peshawur, he had under his orders over 16,000 men, viz., British troops: 148 officers and 4,287 men; Native troops: 147 British officers and 11,795 men. These included five batteries of artillery and one mountain battery, and six cavalry regiments, three British and three Native. Out of the total, two batteries were in Peshawur; and there must also be subtracted the following regiments, which had not crossed the old frontier:—11th Bengal Lancers (356), part of the 17th Bengal Cavalry (338), 1-17th Foot (443), 1-25th (715), part of 51st (209), 1st Native Infantry (774), 22nd Native Infantry (638), and 39th Native Infantry (609). Deducting all these, there was left a force of 11,800 men actually moving on, or garrisoning the Peshawur-Gundamak line; supports equal, it might have been supposed, to any work required of them. That there were conflicting ideas as to the object with which such a body of troops had been sent from India, must have been apparent even to a superficial observer; but upon whom the responsibility of playing with such an army rests, no one here pretends to say. The local rank of Lieutenant-General, which has at last been given to Sir F. Roberts, brings these 11,800 men under his command, and their future movements are likely to be directed in sympathy with the advanced army at Cabul. For the next few months they will probably be required to do little more than keep the road; but during the winter their transport equipment and commissariat arrangements—defects in which are said to have been the chief cause of their tardy movements—will have to be so far put on a footing of efficiency that, if the necessity arises in the spring for the Cabul Army continuing its march westwards, they will be able to keep pace with its movements. There are good men and tried soldiers enough in the Khyber Force todo all that is required, if they are allowed scope for their energies, and are not trammelled and crippled at every step by those influences in the background, which I have already described as being “drag-ropes” upon their freedom of action. General Roberts has now in his command—that of Eastern Afghanistan—two divisions of 8,000, and 11,800 men, respectively: in all, nearly 20,000 troops, whose movements he controls from his headquarters at Sherpur. Matters of detail on the Khyber side are left, as before, to local commanders. I have dwelt at length upon the shortcomings of the Peshawur column, not so much because very serious results have followed its laggard advance, but as showing how helpless the small force here would have been if, in case of a check, it had looked for support to “the Army of the Indus.”
General Macpherson’s brigade returned to Sherpur cantonments yesterday, having left at Luttabund 300 of the 23rd Pioneers and half the 28th Punjab Native Infantry. Before the brigade marched in, a strong body of troops had been warned for service, their destination being the district of Maidan, twenty-five miles distant on the Ghazni Road, where large supplies of grain andbhoosaare said to have been collected for us by the sirdars employed to purchase it on our account. Over 100,000 maunds ofbhoosaare still wanted to complete our winter supply; and as the villagers have not sufficient carriage to bring in their supplies so long a distance, we must needs go out ourselves. Every available baggage animal will be employed for the next week or ten days in carrying in this forage; and as there are rumours innumerable of gatherings on the Ghazni Road further south, it has been determined to run no risk with reference to our valuable mules andyaboos. A string of between 2,000 and 3,000 animals needs to be well protected, and the brigade which marched out this morning under General Baker was therefore very strong. It was made up as follows:—500 of the 92nd Highlanders; 400 of the 3rd Sikhs; 400 of the 5th Punjab Infantry; two guns, G-3, Royal Artillery; four guns Kohat Mountain Battery; one squadron 9th Lancers, two squadrons 5th Punjab Cavalry, and two squadrons of the 14th Bengal Lancers. The display of so large a force half-way toGhazni is sure to have an excellent effect upon the surrounding country. Sir F. Roberts rides out to-morrow to join General Baker at Maidan.
A Divisional order was issued to-night, directing the public reading of an order of the Commander-in-Chief dismissing Subadar Mahomed Karim Khan, 1st Punjab Infantry, from the service for having failed in his duty to the Queen-Empress on the occasion of the attack upon the Residency. This man is a Logari, and was on furlough at Cabul in September. On the morning of the outbreak he was in the Residency, and after the lull following the first collision of the Herat troops with the Guides—while the Afghans went for their arms—he was sent with a message to the Amir by Sir Louis Cavagnari. This he does not seem to have delivered with the spirit that might have been expected from a soldier in our service; and afterwards, when Gholam Nubbi, Cavagnari’schuprasse, found money and horses for him to carry the news of the disaster to the British Camp at Ali Kheyl, he behaved in a dastardly way. He changed clothes with Gholam Nubbi and started out, but only went as far as Beni Hissar. There he stayed for two days, and then returned to Cabul, where he hid himself for five days in the Kizilbash quarter. Afterwards he quietly made his way to his own village; and, upon our troops appearing at Kushi, came into camp and told some wonderful stories of what he had done. These were afterwards proved to be false, and the Military Commission when trying prisoners found that his conduct had been really that of a poltroon. They recommended his dismissal from the service, and he has now been summarily discharged, all arrears of pay being forfeited. This is another striking instance of the shifty and untrustworthy nature of our Pathan soldiers, for Karim Khan was an old native officer.
Camp Maidan, Ghazni Road,24th November.
The Lieutenant-General Commanding is now out on a visit to the force under Brigadier-General Baker, which is collecting supplies of forage from the villages along the Ghazni Road. Leaving Brigadier-General Macpherson in command at Sherpur, Sir F.Roberts, accompanied by his personal Staff and Colonel Macgregor, Chief of the Staff, with a small escort of ten men of the 14th Bengal Lancers, rode through the Cabul gorge on the afternoon of the 22nd, and, following the road which traverses the Chardeh Valley, made for the village of Argandeh, about sixteen miles away. The Chardeh Valley, which we passed through, gave evidence on all sides of that fertility which has earned for it the name of the “Garden of Cabul;” but it is so late in the year that only autumn tints mark the fields on either side. Here and there the young wheat is shooting up, but the small green blades are scarcely strong enough to do more than chequer the general area of brownness. The long lines of willows and poplars which line the hundreds of watercourses threading the valley, are mere skeletons of trees; their leaves rustling down in eddying circles as the cold wind sweeps blusteringly from the snowy tops of the Pughman Hills. The valley is shut in on all sides by high mountain ranges, the hills which guard Cabul from approach on the west seeming to rise perpendicularly from the plain. The range above Indikee village is overtopped by the sheer cliffs which dominate the plain between Zahidabad and Charasia, and these are already covered with snow, which gleams out in startling whiteness above the barren rocks in the foreground. Far away to the north lies the Hindu Kush, with its long undulating sky-line similarly snow-laden, the lower intermediate hills of Kohistan being still mere brown masses jostling each other in grand confusion. Looking towards Bamian the view is bounded scarcely ten miles away by the Pughman spur, which boasts of several lofty peaks rising in sullen grandeur from the hills about Argandeh. For fully twelve miles, or about as far as Kila Kazi, the road is an extremely good one; stones, the curse of Afghanistan, being few and far between. After this the dry bed of a snow-fed stream has frequently to be crossed or followed, and boulders are not uncommon. Guns, however, could be got along without much trouble, and if necessary a new track on a higher level, across the cultivated land, could be laid out. The road ascends gradually the whole way, and when near Argandeh akotalis gained, about a mile and a half across and two or three miles long. It is now a bare plain without tree or shrub, but for the most part is under cultivation, the fields ofcourse lying fallow during the winter. To the right or north the hills are rather precipitous, and in a sheltered curve at their base the village of Argandeh lies. It is fully a mile from the road, and all about it are terraced fields said to yield magnificent crops of wheat and barley. The high pitch to which irrigation attains in Afghanistan is strikingly exemplified in this district, the water-channels being so arranged that the distribution of the water is admirable.
Sir Frederick Roberts rested for the night at Argandeh, and yesterday morning rode on to Maidan. Striking the Ghazni Road a mile from Argandeh, we followed its course over thekotaland soon began to descend. The hills on either side were as bare as any in Afghanistan, and the plain between them was only partially cultivated. After about four miles achowki(watch-tower) was reached on a little rise, and looking to the south we saw the district of Maidan stretching before us. It is a beautiful valley, landlocked on every side, the Cabul river running through it about a mile from the foot of the western hills. The valley must be at least four miles across; and, with the exception of low rolling downs, covered with stones and rocks, for about a mile on its eastern flank is as flat as its name, Maidan (open plain), implies. Twenty or thirty walled enclosures and villages on the banks of the Cabul stream stand out from amid poplars, willows, and plane trees, which fringe the banks of the sparkling little river, and for many square miles nothing is seen but endless corn-fields, each with its little boundary of mud, along which the water slowly wanders as it does its work of irrigation. The road falls rapidly from thechowki, and a few hundred yards below bifurcates, the main route to Ghazni going straight to the south over the rolling downs I have mentioned, and a bridle-path leading down to the villages of the plain. General Baker’s camp is pitched at Naure Falad, two miles from thechowki, down in the plain near the first of the fortified enclosures, its rear being guarded by a high rocky ridge. From the summit of this a splendid view of Maidan is obtained, and the extraordinary fertility of the valley fully appreciated. To the west the ridge runs sharply down into the plain, and the valley is there narrowed to half a mile, but it opens out again to the north among the hills.The main road to Bamian, which strikes off from the Ghazni Road before thechowkiin thekotalis reached, runs across this part of the valley and enters the Ispekhawk Pass, a few miles further on.
Yesterday afternoon a small party of cavalry were fired upon in the Darra Narkh, a valley running in the Bamian direction, and to-day Bahadur Khan, who was responsible for the action, and who is known to be harbouring Afghan soldiers, has been visited and punished. He had already given much trouble. General Baker, since his arrival in Maidan, has found much difficulty in inducing themaliksof the villages of the district to bring in corn andbhoosa. They have given the tribute grain and forage readily enough, but have evaded furnishing the amount we required in addition to this. Every maund was paid for at a forced rate, which, I may state, was far higher than the normal prices; but the village headmen hung back, and, though profuse in promises, made but little effort to meet our wants. Several of them were very insolent in their bearing, and no doubt thought to worry us out by their procrastination. But General Baker is not the stamp of man to have his orders disobeyed, and by confining some of themaliksto the camp for a few days, he had gradually brought them to their senses. Onemalik, however, trusting to the obscure valley in which he lived, wherein Europeans had never been known to penetrate, was obstinate. This was Bahadur Khan, whose fort is about eight miles from the Maidan villages, along the branch road which leads to Bamian. He not only refused to sell any of his huge store of grain and forage, but insolently declined to come into camp. He was known to have great influence among the tribesmen in his neighbourhood, and it was reported that some sepoys of the Ardal regiments were living under his protection. When Sir F. Roberts heard of the contumacy of thismalik, he agreed with General Baker that it would be well to fetch him in by force, and at the same time to arrest any sepoys found in his villages. To accomplish this double object the cavalry were sent out yesterday, with the result already stated, that they were fired upon by a large body of men, including some 200 sepoys armed with Sniders. It was necessary to make an example of BahadurKhan, and at the same time to break up the tribal gathering, which, if left alone, might grow to serious proportions. Our foraging parties would probably have been roughly handled in scattered villages, all of which boast of towers and fortified enclosures, if the rumour had been allowed to circulate that our cavalry had been driven back.
Tents having been struck at daybreak, the baggage of the force was packed up and placed within a fort near the Cabul river, under a guard of 300 men, drawn equally from the 92nd Highlanders, 3rd Sikhs, and 5th Punjab Infantry, with a squadron of the 14th Bengal Lancers and a troop of the 9th Lancers. The two guns of 9-3[prev G-3], R.H.A., were also left behind, as the road to the villages was known to be difficult for wheeled guns. The troops which marched out were 400 of the 92nd, 300 of the 3rd Sikhs, 300 of the 5th N.I., a troop of the 9th Lancers, a squadron of the 14th B.L., and four guns of the Kohat Mountain Battery. General Baker was in command of this compact little column, which was not encumbered with transport animals, as a rapid march was intended. Sir F. Roberts, with Colonel Macgregor, also rode out with his personal escort. It was bitterly cold in the early morning, and all but the swiftest running streams were coated over with ice. The troops carried with them one day’s cooked provisions, but were otherwise in light marching order. A point was made for a little to the south-west, where the Darra Narkh stream falls into the Cabul river, and then a due westerly course was followed up the narrow valley through which the former stream runs. The usual mountainous country was seen on either hand, high hills closing down on the valley, and presenting treeless slopes barren of all verdure. The two rivers had to be crossed by fords, and the men went through the icy-cold water as carelessly as if wading a stream in summer. The sepoys stripped off theirputties, and made light of the floating ice which barked their shins, while the Highlanders in their kilts seemed rather to enjoy the bracing cold. The road was fairly well-defined and ran through cultivated fields, with an occasional fortified homestead or country villa relieving the monotony of the landscape. Information was brought from time to time of the movements of Bahadur Khan, it being at first stated that he had 2,000 or 3,000 men ready to meet us. Aboutseven miles from the camp the road was commanded by a high ridge on the left, and beyond this, we were told, lay the open valley in which the cavalry had been attacked. This ridge was at its highest point 800 or 1,000 feet above the roadway, and on the previous evening had been lined with men. Now it appeared quite deserted, and the cavalry swept round it and waited in a friendly village until the infantry could come up. A localmalikvolunteered the news that Bahadur Khan and his followers had taken all their movable property away during the night and had fled to the hills. When the Lancers first appeared round the ridge and pushed forward into the horseshoe-shaped valley, they saw fifty or sixty men on some low hills to the north, a gunshot from Bahadur Khan’s chief fort; and as these moved down the slopes, it seemed probable that a body of tribesmen might be lying hidden behind the crests. Possibly the Ghilzais expected that only cavalry were again about to pay them a visit, and were emboldened to come to the lower levels. As soon as the advanced company of the Highlanders appeared on the road, the “enemy,” if fifty are worthy of the name, drew off hurriedly to the highest hill, a couple of miles distant, and watched our movements. General Baker directed one company of the 92nd to advance in skirmishing order, and occupy a rocky hill overlooking Bahadur Khan’s fort, and commanding it at 700 or 800 yards, and sent a company of Sikhs round to the north, with orders to drive out any men who might be occupying the lower hills. It was soon seen that the place was quite deserted, and not a shot was fired from any of the hills. The whole valley lay before us dotted over with fortified homesteads, surrounded by grain-fields already green with sprouting corn. It seemed wonderfully fertile, and extended over many square miles; other and smaller valleys penetrating between the hills wherever there was a break in their continuous line. The exact extent of these minor valleys could not be estimated, but native report stated that the fertility was equal to that of the rich plain stretching away to the north-west for five or six miles. When it was seen that no opposition was to be offered, the Sikhs doubled down upon the fort from the low hills above it, and at the same time another company raced across the fields from the southern entrance to the valley, all being anxious to be in“at the loot.” It was a pretty sight watching the sepoys doubling along and spreading out as the fort and the village near it were gained. Clouds of dust with the gleam of lance-heads shining out soon arose further to the left in the heart of the valley, showing where the cavalry were galloping off to more distant homesteads. All Bahadur Khan’s villages, some ten in number, were marked down to be looted and burnt, and Sikhs and sowars were quickly engaged in the work. The houses were found stored withbhoosa, straw, firewood, and twigs for the winter as well as a small quantity of corn, and as there was not time to clear this out, and we could not afford to leave a force for the night in such a dangerous position so near to the hills, orders were given to fire the villages and destroy the houses and their contents. No better men than Sikhs could he found for such work, and in a few minutes Bahadur Khan’s villages were in flames, and volumes of dense black smoke pouring over the valley, a high wind aiding the fire with frantic earnestness. The villagers had carried off all their portable property, not even acharpoyremaining, but the Sikhs ransacked every place for hidden treasure, and smashed down the earthen corn-bins in hope of gaining a prize. These corn-bins seemed quite a feature of every house. They are three or four feet square and made of sun-dried clay, often fancifully ornamented with scroll-work. They stand on a raised platform in the living-room, and have near the bottom a small hole in which a piece of rag is stuffed. This answers to the tap of a barrel, for when the rag is withdrawn the grain pours out, and the daily supply can he drawn just as we would draw a tankard of beer in an English farm-house. Indian corn, from which richchupaties(unleavened cakes) are made, is chiefly stored in this way, and near the bins stand the grinding-stones, at which the women of the house prepare the flour for the household. Generally an adjoining room is turned into a kitchen, the earthen floor being skilfully burrowed to form ovens, and round holes cut out on which to place thedekchieswhich serve for Afghan pots and kettles. Such of the rooms as I went into were dark and dirty enough, small square holes in the walls serving as windows, and the roofs being made up of thick logs laid a foot apart, and covered over with twigs, on which a foot of mud had been plastered. TheSikhs fired house after house, and every room was soon converted into a huge reverberating furnace, the fire having no means of escape through the roofs, which were very strong. Nearly all the houses were two-storied, with narrow wooden or mud staircases, and many a sepoy in his haste first fired the lower rooms, stored with wood orbhoosa, and then rushed upstairs intent on loot, soon to be driven down again by the smoke and flames from below. The search after household goods was varied by exciting chases after the fowls, ducks, and donkeys of the village. Sikhs andkahars, who had come up with thedandies(stretchers for wounded men), scrambled over housetops, and through blinding smoke, to capture the dearly-prizedmoorgie, while below an unoffending donkey would be chased frantically round awkward corners and over frozen watercourses, where pursuers and pursued alike came to grief. A donkey when captured was laden with such little loot as the men thought worth while carrying off. Each fowl had its neck wrung on the spot, was thrown into a convenient bit of fire in some blazing house, and having been singed clean of its feathers, was cooked in a few minutes, and eaten with infinite enjoyment. The cavalry were fortunate enough to secure fifty sheep and a few cows, which were driven to camp. After two or three hours had been spent in firing the various villages owned by Bahadur Khan, the order to fall in for the homeward march was given, and leaving the valley draped in smoke and the fire still working its will, the troops filed off for Maidan. They reached camp by evening, having marched seventeen miles over difficult ground and through half-frozen streams without mishap. As the rear-guard left, a few men appeared on the heights of the north and fired a few shots at long ranges, but these were merely in bravado.[27]We could learn nothing of the body of tribesmen and the 200 sepoys, and it is believed they have dispersed. The punishment of Bahadur Khan will have a great effect upon the whole district ofMaidan, as it will show themaliksthat they are not safe from our troops even in their most obscure valleys. General Baker remains in the neighbourhood of Maidan until next week, all the available transport animals from Sherpur being now engaged in carrying to our cantonments the large quantities of corn andbhoosacollected. Our winter supply of forage seems likely to be assured.
Deportation of Yakub Khan to India—Review of his Reign—The Scene on the Morning of December 1st—Precautions along the Road to Jugdulluck—Strengthening of the Posts—Tribal Uneasiness about Cabul—Attitude of the Kohistanis—General Baker’s Brigade ordered to Sherpur—The State of Afghan Turkistan—Its Effect upon Kohistan—Gholam Hyder and his Army—The Extent of his Power—Return of his disbanded Regiments to their Homes in Kohistan—Our Policy towards the Afghans—Failure of the Attempt to conciliate the People—Modifications necessary—Murder of our Governor of Maidan.
Sherpur,1st December.
The ex-Amir of Afghanistan, Sirdar Yakub Khan, is now well on his way to India: the order for his deportation having been carried out so silently and quickly that, while I am writing, the majority of men in Sherpur cantonments are ignorant of his departure. As I ventured to predict in forwarding the news of the close of the Commission of Inquiry, Yakub Khan’s fate is that of an exile to India; but even now we are in the dark here as to whether he will be treated as a State prisoner, and allowed to live in luxurious comfort, or will be sent to the Andamans, to drag out his life as a common malefactor. If the latter, it will be an ignoble ending of a career which in its earlier stages promised such brilliant achievements. Yakub Khan was once the first soldier in Afghanistan, but from the evil moment when he confided in the word of his father, his fame was at an end. Five years’ captivity—and such captivity as only Shere Ali could devise—broke his spirit, dulled his intellect, and left him the weak incapable we treated with at Gundamak, and confided in so blindly until the fatal week in September. That under fairer auspices hemight have proved a strong ruler, such as the Afghans require, canscarcelyscarcelyadmit of a doubt; that he would have been a Dost Mahomed even his most ardent admirers would hesitate to assert. The conditions of government in a country like Afghanistan compel the sovereign either to be a tyrant or the tool of factions: Yakub Khan, during his few months of power, was the latter. His accession to the throne took place under circumstances to cope with which, even in the prime of his manhood before imprisonment had crippled him, would have taxed his power to the uttermost. After five years in a dungeon he was suddenly liberated by his father, only to find that father in the last stage of defeat and despair, his kingdom practically at the mercy of a powerful invader, and himself a panic-stricken fugitive. Left first as Shere Ali’s regent, Yakub Khan could do nothing beyond watch, with Oriental submission to fate, the advance of the two invading armies up the Jellalabad and Kurram Valleys. The help which Shere Ali expected to receive from his Russian friends over the Oxus was not forthcoming; in a few weeks came the news of the death of the Amir at Mazar-i-Sharif, and Yakub found himself in possession of a kingdom already tottering to its fall. If he had had the energy of Dost Mahomed he might have organized armies, called upon the semi-barbarous tribes still lying between Cabul and India to join his soldiers in a holy war, and make a supreme effort to check the invasion which had driven his father from the capital. But that energy was lacking; he made but a faint-hearted appeal to the fanaticism of the hill-tribes, and, unsupported as this was by any real attempt to collect the scattered units of Shere Ali’s once-powerful army, it necessarily failed. Nothing was left to him but negotiation; and, thanks to the clemency of the enemy to whom he was opposed, he was granted terms which, in his position, he could scarcely have hoped to gain. He allied himself with the most powerful State in Asia, and the safety of his kingdom was assured against all foreign aggression. If he had been a tyrant to his subjects, and thoroughly determined to make his will their law, the reception in his capital of an Embassy from the Power with which he was allied would have been fraught with no danger either to himself or to the Ambassador. But he had not the strength of tyranny sufficient to control the factionsof which he was a mere tool, and it seems only too probable that he gradually drifted from his first position of sincerity towards his new allies, to that of a timid spectator of intrigues against the alliance. His weakness and vacillation could not check the danger that was growing so formidable, and, when the final outbreak came, his personal influence was even unequal to saving the life of the man who had trusted so implicitly in his good faith. That Yakub desired the death of Sir Louis Cavagnari we do not believe; that he had been led, insidiously, by men about him to coincide in the view that the Embassy should be forced to leave may be readily credited. And once that Embassy had been destroyed, there is only too much reason to suppose that he was inclined to parley with the men who had brought about its destruction, and to listen to their plausible reasoning that what had been done was irrevocable. The access of personal fear, which drove him to seek safety in the British camp, no more excuses him of responsibility for his acts of omission or commission, than does the voluntary surrender of a murderer condone the crime he has committed. So far as human canons are concerned, repentance cannot blot out guilt, however much it may modify judgment: the supreme quality of mercy is impossible under ordinary conditions of life. Taking the most pitiful estimate of Yakub Khan’s offence, putting aside the idea even of participation in the views of the men who wished him to break the engagements to which he stood pledged, there is the one unpardonable crime still clinging to him—that he stood by, and made no sign, while the lives of men were sacrificed which should have been sacred to him, even according to the narrow creed of the fanatics who surrounded him. His own words, when refusing the help that was so dearly needed, rise up against him when he appeals to our forbearance: “It is not to be done.” Perhaps, hereafter, the same answer may be given when we are asked to preserve the integrity of a country which has always repaid friendship with falsehood, trust with treachery.
From the 28th of October until his departure for India this morning, Yakub Khan had been a close prisoner in our camp, the tent in which he was confined being always strongly guarded, and no one beyond our own officers being allowed access to him.The monotony and solitude have told upon him, of course, and he is now thinner and more worn than when he first took refuge with General Baker at Kushi. Before the closing day of the inquiry he was contented and placid enough; but of late he has displayed some anxiety as to his probable fate, the irksomeness of the restraint under which he was placed having, no doubt, largely contributed to this. He could hear all the busy life in camp about him, but was as much shut out from it as if a prisoner again in the Bala Hissar. The bayonets of the sentries who quartered the ground day and night about his tent were a barrier beyond which he could not pass. The departure for India, Malta, or London, which he had expressed himself so willing to undertake nearly two months ago, must have seemed to him hopeless, even so late as six o’clock last night, when Major Hastings, Chief Political Officer, paid his usual visit to the tent, then guarded by fifty men of the 72nd Highlanders. Major Hastings said nothing of the orders which had been received from the Government, as it had been resolved to give as short a notice as possible of the intended journey, for fear of complications on the road to Peshawur. Not that it was at all likely an effort would be made to rouse the tribes to attempt a rescue, but that nothing was to be gained by an open parade of the departure. At eight o’clock Major Hastings sent word to Yakub Khan that he intended paying him a second visit; and, accompanied by Mr. H. M. Durand, Political Secretary to the Lieutenant-General, he again went to the tent. Yakub Khan was a little astonished at the unusual hour chosen for the visit; but when told that he would have to leave Cabul for India at six o’clock the next morning, he kept his composure admirably. He expressed surprise that such short notice should be given, but beyond this did not question the arrangements. He asked that his father-in-law, Yahiya Khan, and two other sirdars now in confinement should be released and allowed to accompany him. This, of course, could not be granted, and he then asked to what place in India he was to be taken, and where the Viceroy was. This was all the concern he showed. The orders received here are to convey him safely to Peshawur; so but little information as to his final resting-place could be vouchsafed him. I may here incidentally mention that he will probably go on to Umritsar orLahore, where, perhaps, the decision of the Government will be made known to him.
All the arrangements for the journey had been carefully made beforehand. There were, this morning, at Butkhak, the 12th Punjab Cavalry, and between that post and Sei Baba 400 of the 72nd Highlanders, 300 of the 23rd Pioneers, and a wing of the 28th Punjab Infantry; while the convoy of sick and wounded, with its escort, was between Kata Sung and Jugdulluck. The escort from Sherpur was simply two squadrons of cavalry drawn from the 9th Lancers and 5th Punjab Cavalry, under the command of Major Hammond, of the latter regiment. Soon after five o’clock this morning the little camp in which the ex-Amir was lodged, not far from head-quarters, was all astir with preparations for the journey. A bright moon was shining overhead and a few watch-fires were blazing brightly among the tents, by the light of which the mules andyabooswere loaded up. The squadron of the 5th Punjab Cavalry drew up outside the gateway which leads from the cantonments near the western end of the southern wall; while the Lancers passed from their lines, opposite the break in the Bemaru Heights, to a bit of open ground between the quarters of the 72nd Highlanders and Yakub Khan’s tent. The early morning air was bitterly cold, and the usual light mist which settles nightly over the Cabul plain still hung about. The camp was silent and deserted, every soldier being at that hour asleep, except the sentries at their posts and the patrols, stalking like armed ghosts from picquet to picquet, seeking for any rabid Kohistani who might have invaded the sanctity of our lines. The Lancers moved smartly round and round in small circles to keep themselves and their horses from freezing as they stood; and through the dust and mist enveloping them their lances shone out now and again as the steel-heads caught a glint from the moon. It was a fantastical sight, this endless circling of misty horsemen, moving apparently without aim or object and growing momentarily more and more distinct as dawn began to creep up over the distant Luttabund and Khurd Cabul hills, and struggle with the clear moonlight which had before been supreme. In an hour everything was ready for departure. Yakub Khan’s horses were waiting ready saddled, and the Lancers had ceasedtheir circling, and were formed up waiting for the order to march. Sir Frederick Roberts, Colonel Macgregor, Chief of the Staff, and Major Hastings were present to see the prisoner start on his rapid journey, and at half-past six exactly Yakub Khan rode off surrounded by Lancers. He had exchanged salaams with the General and those about him, and, if not positively elated, was seemingly quite content to leave Cabul. Captain Turner was the Political Officer to whose care he was assigned; and Abdullah Khan, son of the Nawab Gholam Hussein, was the native officer in attendance. His four body servants and a favourite attendant, Abdul Kayun, who had been released at the last moment, rode with the escort. No notice was given beforehand to his servants; and when the royal cooks heard that they were to start for India, they abandoned their master and took refuge in the city. They were afterwards sought out and sent on to Luttabund, the halting-place for the night, as the comfort of Yakub Khan is to be strictly considered. The news of the departure soon spread through Cabul, and the Mussulman population, according to a Hindu informant, are greatly depressed and uneasy. They are now convinced that the Durani dynasty is at an end; and, while not regretting Yakub personally, they mourn over the fall of that reign of turbulence which they could always carry out in the city under a Barakzai. Double marches are to be made the whole way to Peshawur, where Yakub Khan is expected to arrive in eight days. Part of the Cabul Field Force escort will accompany him to Jugdulluck, where the advanced Khyber Brigade will assume charge, and he will be passed through the various posts until the Punjab Frontier is reached.[28]His son, the so-called heir-apparent, remains here, as well as the members of his harem, who will be pensioned and properly cared for by the British authorities.
During the past few days reports have come in of growing uneasiness among various sections of the tribes about Cabul, and these culminated yesterday in the news that the Kohistanis had actually risen, and were at Khoja Serai, on the Charikar Road. They were said to have cooked three days’ food, and to meditateattacking Sherpur on the last day of the moon. From the Luttabund direction also it was reported that the Safis of Tagao and the hillmen west of Jugdulluck were also meditating mischief, though beyond gathering together in small bands they had not made open demonstration of hostility. The change in the attitude of the Kohistanis has warned us that it is idle to expect a peaceful quiet among men who have always been unruly and turbulent. The sections which will probably give us most trouble now and in the future are—the Wardaks inhabiting the country about the Ghazni Road, who may drag in the Logaris, the Safis of Tagao, and the Kohistanis. With the two former we have already come into collision; General Macpherson having ventured into Tagao in search of supplies, while General Baker on a similar mission at Maidan has had to burn Beni-Badam in the Wardak country.[29]It is probable that both Safis and Wardaks will seek hereafter to have their revenge; but in the meantime we shall not trouble them further, as we have the Kohistanis to deal with. Kohistan lies due north of Cabul between the Pughman, a spur of the Hindu Kush, and Tagao, and includes the upper valley of the Panjshir River, which stretches away north-east from Charikar, the most important town in the province. The lower portion of Kohistan is known as the Koh-Daman (Mountain Skirt), and is the district renowned for its vineyards and orchards, from which Cabul is largely supplied with fruit. It is fertilized by innumerable streams running down from the Pughman mountains, and uniting to form a river, which, turned to the north by ranges of hills facing Pughman, eventually empties itself into the Panjshir on the western border of Tagao. Looking northwards from the Bemaru Heights above Sherpur cantonments, one sees nothing but a mass of hills piled together in picturesque confusion,the foreground being a low range running parallel to the narrow swampy lake, which borders the plain from which Bemaru rises. The road from Cabul to Kohistan passes close to Sherpur on the east, crosses the grassy plain, and over the lake on a raised causeway at a point where it is very narrow and shallow, and thence over a lowkotalcalled Paen Minar. Koh-Daman is then fairly entered upon, and the route northwards is as follows:—Paen Minar to Kila Ittafal Khan, six miles; Ittafal Khan to Khoja Serai, five miles; Khoja Serai to Istalif, seven miles; Istalif to Charikar,viâIsturgehteh, thirteen miles; or a total from Paen Minar, four miles from Sherpur, of thirty-one miles. While we were encamped at Siah Sung the Kohistan Chiefs came in and made professions of friendship, which were gladly accepted by General Roberts. They remained with us for several weeks, but were plainly disappointed that no large subsidy was promised to them for their future good behaviour. A Governor, Shahbaz Khan, a Barakzai sirdar who had intermarried with the Kohistanis, was appointed, and was sent to Charikar, his mission being chiefly to furnish supplies for our troops, and to prevent any Chief arrogating to himself power in the province. No sooner do themaliksseem to have returned to their villages than they began to concert measures to annoy us. They gathered armed men together, set at nought Shahbaz Khan, and, as I have said, have been bold enough to declare their intention of attacking Sherpur. That they will do this seems too absurd to believe, unless there is a general combination, but the precaution of building breastworks on the Bemaru Heights has been taken, and yesterday afternoon a small party of cavalry were sent out to reconnoitre past Paen Minar. They saw no signs of any gathering, but still there may be bands of men lurking about. We have but a very small infantry garrison in Sherpur at the present time, as 500 of the 92nd, 400 of the 3rd Sikhs, and 400 of the 5th Punjab Infantry are out in Maidan, while the troops sent to hold the road as far as Jugdulluck on the occasion of Yakub Khan’s journey down are, as already stated, very numerous. General Baker has, therefore, been warned to march to Sherpur with his brigade as rapidly as his foraging arrangements will allow.