24th December.
Our expectations have been fully realized; the enemy which held us in check since December 14th has disappeared, and our troops are once more in Cabul, which shows terrible marks of Mahomed Jan’s occupation. Every house belonging to Sirdars known to favour the British has been looted, and in the bazaars all the shops are gutted except those of the Mahomedans. Doors and windows broken in, walls knocked down, all woodwork destroyed, floors dug up, and property carried off: these are the signs of the Reign of Terror lately instituted among the Kizilbashes and Hindus. The search for treasure was carried out in a systematic way, and the loot now in possession of Kohistanis, Ghilzais, and other tribesmen must be worth many lakhs. Two lakhs of treasure belonging to Hashim Khan alone, are said to have been seized, while the Hindus complain of being utterly ruined. We shall have to inquire further into this when things are once more firmly settled, but at present we have enough to do in pursuing the enemy, and arresting such local Afghans as joined their ranks. These men now hide their arms, and appear in all the beautiful simplicity of peaceful citizens, but the subterfuge is too easily detected for them to escape punishment. We were not sure early this morning that Mahomed Jan’s host hadvanished, although, as the night had passed quietly, there was every reason to believe the siege was at an end. Our first movement was to occupy Kila Mahomed Shariff, and Colonel Brownlow sent out a party of the 72nd Highlanders to the fort at dawn. They found it quite deserted, and the other forts and villages near were also without occupants. Two or three wounded men were lying within the walls, and the bodies of some thirty Afghans were scattered about near the loop-holes, or in the open where our bullets had struck them down. This was on the southern face, near the 72nd and Commissariat gateways, so that the false attack in this direction must have cost the enemy many lives. Afghans do not, as a rule, leave their dead behind, and doubtless there were carried away double the number found. Scaling-ladders covered with blood were lying in the fields and forts, and heaps of powder and some hundreds of ball-cartridges were discovered. Unlimited ammunition must have been served out to each man, and as an examination shows that all the powder and caps in the Bala Hissar have been carried off, or destroyed, it is clear that every tribesman filled his pouch with an ample supply before making the attack. Those who have got safely away will have powder enough to last them for two or three years, as many tons were left by us in the magazine. But for their losses, which are calculated at 2,000 or 3,000 killed and wounded since December 10th, the army of Mahomed Jan may consider their sojourn in Cabul during the Mohurrum a grand success, temporary though it was. They blockaded the British army, caused it a loss of between 300 and 400, and proclaimed a new Amir, whom they have still with them. Young Musa Jan has been carried off by Mushk-i-Alam, who may, if he chooses, establish the new sovereign at Ghazni, and invite all Afghanistan to rally about him. The oldmoollahis reported to have fled with the lad last night, while Mahomed Jan remained in Cabul until eight o’clock this morning. He then saw that his army had deserted him, and he followed the example of Mushk-i-Alam, and took to the hills. Strong parties of cavalry have been out all day in the Chardeh Valley and round by Charasia, but beyond a few men on the snow-covered hills no one was met with. It was difficult work pursuing, as snow was falling steadily. The 30,000 men have dissolved, and, with their loot,are taking mountain roads, where they are safe from pursuit. The villages contain many men who fought against us, and hereafter we shall visit them with our flying column. On the 11th, 12th, and 13th every fortified enclosure our men passed was barred against them, and the occupants fired at stragglers and turned out to harass rear-guards. The Mahomedan population of Cabul joined Mahomed Jan almost to a man, thinking the British rule was at an end, and now these citizens, whose homes we spared when we came among them in the flush of success, are hurrying away in anticipation of the reprisals we shall inflict. The time has gone by for weak sentimentality: military law alone should now guide Sir F. Roberts in his dealings with the people, for it has been proved beyond question that to act humanely is merely to encourage the Afghans in their belief that we are unequal to controlling them. Instead of leaving an indelible mark upon Cabul, we have enriched it by our purchases of winter supplies, and have poured lakhs of rupees into the purses of the very men who had nothing to expect but the fate of a conquered race.
The Hindus and Kizilbashes who relied upon us for protection may well revile us, since we have left them to their fate; while the Mahomedans who have looted their homes, insulted their women, and terrorized over them for ten days, are now laughing at our inability to follow them to their distant villages. The unlucky Hazaras, who have worked so well for us, were hunted down, beaten, and reviled wherever they showed their faces in the streets; and were told jeeringly to call for help upon the British locked up in Sherpur. Our humiliation is so great that to risk a repetition of it would be ruinous. We must show that the investment of Sherpur can never again occur, and to do this 10,000 troops must hold Cabul, and our line of communication with India be so permanently established that even 100,000 tribesmen cannot break it. An immediate declaration of policy should be made: to wait quietly for “events to develop” may be disastrous. We must create events, not allow others to turn the current of them in whichever direction they please. If we are to hold Cabul—and this is now ten times more imperious even than it was before, for to retire would be to acknowledge that we have failed in our occupation, and dare not risk another reverse—we must hold it by ourbayonets and not by our rupees. Half-measures will only imperil our safety: to put trust in Afghan cunning and be guided by Afghan insincerity is only to risk the lives of our soldiers. Those soldiers have done all that soldiers can do, and they may well look to their commanders to make success once obtained sure and stable. We lost less than 100 men in capturing Cabul; we have lost nearly four times that number in fifteen days’ fighting, after we had occupied the place for two months. There must be no longer a state of false security; for it is not improbable that thejehadwill be revived before the winter is over, and themoollahsmay again influence the religious fanaticism of the people against us.
To-day General Hills, our Governor of the City, once more visited thekotwali, guarded by the 5th P.I., while the sepoys were busy all day in searching the Mahomedan quarter, and in arresting such citizens as they could find remaining. One hundred Punjabees garrison thekotwalifor the night, and the Kizilbashes and Hindus are once more plucking up courage. The Bala Hissar has been examined, and not an Afghan found in it, and in two or three days the 9th Foot, and the 2nd and 4th Ghoorkas, which arrived at Sherpur this morning with General Charles Gough, will be quartered in the fortress. Butkhak is also to be re-garrisoned with 100 of the 9th and the whole of the 12th B.C., and in a short time we shall be once more holding a strong line of communication with Peshawur. Our most urgent want is ammunition. The reinforcements have only brought about 200 rounds per man, and our own supply cannot be much more than 250 rounds, taking the regiments all through.
Among our political prisoners now is Yakub Khan’s mother, who was chiefly instrumental in raising thejehad. She will be closely watched for the future, and as she is a woman of great resource, it may be advisable to deport her to India. The camp has also received with due hospitality forty or fifty ladies, the wives and other relatives of Sirdars among us, as guests.
27th December.
After all the excitement of our ten days’ siege it is a great relief now to pass beyond the walls of Sherpur, even though the roadsand fields about are ankle-deep in mud and half-melted snow. Not a shot now disturbs our peaceful quiet, and the only unusual sound is the dull report of a mine exploding where our engineers are busy demolishing forts and walls which only four days ago sheltered our enemy. Our Christmas has been of the sober, thoughtful kind. We have so lately been released from the painful constraint of constant vigilance and hard fighting, that our spirits could not rise very high in the scale of festivity; and our losses have so sobered us that it would seem almost sacrilegious to “feast and make merry” with the death of so many comrades still fresh in our memory and with the hospitals full of wounded men, sufferers in the actions fought since the 10th. Besides, every one is worn out with watching, and it will be some time before officers and men can once more take life placidly, and enjoy heartily such little pleasures as are forthcoming. Christmas day was one of rest for all of us, for our cavalry reconnaissances had shown that the enemy had dispersed far out of our reach; and as the snow lay six inches deep on the ground, there was little chance of our troopers overtaking even such small bands as might have followed the main roads to Logar, Ghazni, or Kohistan. On the 24th the horses had to be led back by the troopers from Charasia, the snow having “balled” their feet and made riding dangerous, and there was nothing to be gained by sending them out again on a similar errand. We were not all convinced that none of Mahomed Jan’s followers were lurking about, and strong guards were still held ready at night, to repel any sudden attack. But the precaution might have been neglected; for never before has an “army” 30,000 strong melted so rapidly away. The tribesmen must have travelled quickly during the night of the 23rd after we had beaten them from our walls, and now the country about for miles seems deserted of its inhabitants. Such villages as are passed have their doors barred and bolted, and not even a ghazi turns out to throw away his life. The snow-covered hills, which now shut us in on all sides, stand out in pure whiteness and make no sign. They have seen the scattered thousands who held high revel in Cabul pass away in hot haste; but the snow has blotted out their footprints, and the trail is lost. By-and-by we shall take it up anew, and search out our enemy in his secluded villages and forts, for a forceis even now toiling over the snow in Kohistan, and will in a few days be at Mir Butcha’s gates. Logar also may see another column marching upon its villages, but more distant Wardak and Ghazni are probably safe until the spring; that is, if Mahomed Jan and his powerful friend, themoollahMushk-i-Alam, do not keep their promise of returning to Cabul at the festival of Nauroz, March 21st. They have had such an unexpected success, and have secured such valuable loot, that, in spite of their losses, they may be tempted again to repeat the experiment of coming boldly to meet our army, instead of waiting in their homes for an attack.
The fuller we examine into thejehad, the more clear it becomes that the late combination more nearly approached a general movement among all sections than any that has yet been attempted. In the short period during which it existed, nearly every available fighting man in North-Eastern Afghanistan flocked to the banners consecrated by Mushk-i-Alam; and if the success of thejehadhad been a little longer-lived—say by the interception of our reinforcements—there would have been streams of men setting in for Cabul from Turkistan, Badakshan, and the Shutargardan district, which would have made Mahomed Jan the leader of that “lakh of men” of which he boasted. Every chief of importance among the wide-spread Ghilzais and the more compact Kohistanis and Safis was up in arms, and the fighting at Jugdulluck showed that Asmatullah Khan and his Lughmanis were at one with their friends besieging Sherpur. Even Padshah Khan, whose virtues short-sighted politicians have extolled, brought a contingent to Cabul, and fought against us with desperate hatred, although he had greatly smoothed our path during the first march from Ali Khel. With Mahomed Jan were also Mir Butcha and several other Kohistani chiefs—Usman Khan, the Safi leader of Tagao; Gholam Hyder Khan (Logari), and Aslam Khan, Colonel of Artillery, both of whom fought at Charasia; and several minor Ghilzai leaders, who had each brought their following of 500 or 1,000 men. The countenance Mahomed Jan and Mushk-i-Alam received from Yakub Khan’s mother and wife gave them a status which they did not fail to use to the best of their advantage; and while, perhaps, half their followers were freebooters, intent upon looting Hindus and Kizilbashes, they made it appear in theirattempt to negotiate with Sir Frederick Roberts that they were the patriotic leaders of a movement which had for its object not so much the ejectment of the British army, as the revival of the Amirship. Singularly enough, the removal of Yakub Khan was made a pretext for their occupation of Cabul, and this in the face of their callousness as to his fate when he was a prisoner in our camp. Yakub’s mother, working through Mushk-i-Alam and hismoollahs, turned the full tide of religious enthusiasm aroused by thejehadinto channels which should serve to place either her exiled son or her grandson on the throne, and the proclamation of Musa Jan as Amir was a bold step, which may yet give us much trouble to nullify. Musa Jan is in the hands of Mushk-i-Alam, who may renew hisjehad. By setting up the child in state at Ghazni, and formulating decrees and proclamations in his name, he may give the people a pretext for denying the existence of British authority further than the few acres commanded by our guns about Cabul: and taking religion again as a rallying cry, he may by Nauroz be ready with another 30,000 men to try conclusions with us again. The late army which besieged us does not exist, save in scattered units. The feeling which drew it together is still alive; for fanaticism only slumbers in this country, and has sometimes so rapid an awakening that it must be constantly watched. The ten days’ success of Mahomed Jan will be quoted as proving that, under more favourable conditions, it might be extended indefinitely; and unless, by our preparations, we show that the conditions in future, instead of being more favourable, become steadily less and less attractive to men who may be called upon to join a newjehad, the British army of occupation may be again isolated. It is to be hoped that no false measure of economy will prevent the strength of the force here being so raised that from 3,000 to 4,000 men willalwaysbe available for outside work, after Sherpur or whatever lines we may occupy have been strongly garrisoned. Our reinforcements number only 1,400 men, and Luttabund is still left without a garrison; while 100 of the 9th Foot and the whole of the 12th Bengal Cavalry have been sent to Butkhak to hold that post. We may seem strong enough now when we have not an enemy within twenty miles; but so we seemed equally safe three weeks ago, when we disbelieved in thepossibility of 30,000 Afghans ever collecting together. If our experience is to go for nothing we shall revert to the old order of things, perhaps allowing the other division to garrison Luttabund and Sei Baba; but if we are to convince the late leaders of the jehad that a second can only be a ridiculous failure, we shall have the whole of Generals Charles Gough and Arbuthnot’s brigades west of Jugdulluck.[36]There may arise some difficulty in regard to winter supplies; but if the policy, now begun, of requisitioning the villages belonging to hostile chiefs be carried out to its full extent, our reinforcements can live comfortably. Besides, the Kyber transport should at once be so remodelled that it will not be frittered away for want of due supervision, and then, surely, supplies can be sent from Peshawur as far as Jugdulluck, Luttabund, or even Cabul itself. If we have to face the possibility of a second siege of Sherpur, and of another blow at our prestige by tribes of Asiatics, we may as well face it with our eyes open and our powder dry. This same question of powder may involve us in difficulties yet, for we want ammunition badly; and if it has to be brought up from Peshawur, it will take three weeks to reach here. As we are sending flying columns out again, the troops comprising which may get rid of 100 rounds per man in a few days, the prospect does not seem so bright of our 250 rounds each lasting very long. If Mahomed Jan had persistently attacked our force in the manner he at last did on December 23rd, we should now be left with about seventy rounds in each man’s pouch. Fortunately for us, Mahomed Jan is not a military genius.
I have spoken of the flying columns we are sending out. The first of these left Sherpur this morning, bound for Baba Kuch Kar, where the villages belonging to Mir Butcha are said to lie. This is about twenty-four miles away on the Charikar Road, through the heart of the Koh-Daman, and it is not improbable that our force may meet with opposition. This is the first time we have interfered with the Kohistanis since 1841, and they have a belief in their own powers among their native hills, which may cause them to fight bravely in defence of their villages. They have an unlimited supply of ammunition taken from the Bala Hissar, and this to tribesmen is half the battle. The country is quiteunknown to us, and, with the snow lying thick on the hills, our men are sure to suffer great hardships. General Baker’s column is made up as follows:—
Hazara Mountain Battery (four guns);Guides’ Cavalry (200 sabres);67th Foot (500 men);Guides’ Infantry (400);2nd Ghoorkas (400);5th Punjabees (400);Sappers and Miners (1½ company).
Hazara Mountain Battery (four guns);Guides’ Cavalry (200 sabres);67th Foot (500 men);Guides’ Infantry (400);2nd Ghoorkas (400);5th Punjabees (400);Sappers and Miners (1½ company).
Hazara Mountain Battery (four guns);Guides’ Cavalry (200 sabres);67th Foot (500 men);Guides’ Infantry (400);2nd Ghoorkas (400);5th Punjabees (400);Sappers and Miners (1½ company).
Hazara Mountain Battery (four guns);
Guides’ Cavalry (200 sabres);
67th Foot (500 men);
Guides’ Infantry (400);
2nd Ghoorkas (400);
5th Punjabees (400);
Sappers and Miners (1½ company).
The 2nd Ghoorkas were too weak to muster 400 bayonets for service, so the 4th Ghoorkas were called upon to make up the number. The Sappers take with them materials for demolishing forts and villages; and it is intended to loot the place thoroughly, so 15 per cent. of the transport animals in Sherpur accompany the column in addition to their own complement of mules andyaboos. 200 rounds of ammunition per man and five days’ rations are carried for the men. Two survey officers accompany the column, and three parties of signallers under Captain Straton. The signalling branch of the service has come, deservedly, to be looked upon as playing a most important part in every operation undertaken. The column is strong enough both to punish Mir Butcha and to collect supplies; but there is a strong opinion in camp that before any reprisals were begun our communications with Jugdulluck should have been secured. We have had no news from Jugdulluck since the 20th, and we are in doubt as to the safety of our despatches. The news of Mahomed Jan’s flight should cause the local Ghilzais to settle down peacefully again; and as more troops move up from Gundamak and Jellalabad, the line will doubtless be re-opened in ten days. When General Baker returns from Kohistan, another column is to be sent to the Logar Valley, and more supplies collected; this time, perhaps, without the expenditure of two or three lakhs of rupees.
A report has been spread that the Bala Hissar has been mined, and for the present no garrison will be placed within its walls. The Engineers are busy examining the fortress, and when they have decided as to its safety, General Charles Gough’sbrigade will be moved into it for the winter. Gangs of Hazara coolies are employed demolishing the walls of villages and forts about Sherpur, and also in clearing away detached walls in the fields, the remains of old fortified enclosures. One of the guns given by us to Wali Mahomed, when it was expected he would go to Turkistan as Governor, has been brought in; but the two guns of Swinley’s Battery, lost on the 14th, are still missing.
29th December.
I have visited the city of Cabul, which is now again in our hands, and have seen the havoc made in its bazaars by the army of Mahomed Jan and the fanatical followers of Mushk-i-Alam. The city is considered safe again for visitors, though officers visiting it have to go in pairs, and carry arms. This is a precaution against any stray ghazis who may still be in hiding within its walls. My guard was simply four Sikhs, and with this small escort I was able to examine the place thoroughly, without molestation. The Mussulman population still remaining is in a wholesome state of fear, and as our search-parties go from house to house seeking men who played us false, there is a tendency among the citizens to draw off to obscure nooks and corners. Passing out by the head-quarters’ gate in the western wall, I followed the muddy footpath across the fields to Deh-i-Afghan, the walls and ditches about which yet show signs of the late fighting, in the presence of cartridge-cases thrown away after being fired by the Afghans. In the gardens about the suburb the trees are cut and “blazed” where our shells exploded, but the damage really is very slight. We had notsufficientsufficientammunition to waste shells on these enclosures, and two or three doses of shrapnel or common shell were generally enough to silence the fire of the enemy in any given orchard. Climbing up the path to Deh-i-Afghan, which stands on a low rounded hill at the foot of the Asmai Heights, and on the left bank of the Cabul river, I came across a few disconsolate-looking Hindus and Kizilbashes on their way to Sherpur, to relate their woes and file their bill of damages against “the great British Government,” which had promised to protect them. Besides these unlucky men werestrings of Hazara coolies, staggering under their heavy loads of wood orbhoosa, and to all-seeming as happy as ever in their rags and wretchedness. All the doors and windows of the houses were barred and locked, and but few Mussulman faces could be seen. Here and there were knots of men discussing, with subdued looks, the late events. The gossipers were profuse in salaams, but moved off as our little party moved onwards. Deh-i-Afghan was shelled, on the 14th, by six guns for about an hour, and during the siege an 8-inch howitzer occasionally pitched a shell into the crowds which always gathered within and about it. I therefore expected to see some great damage done to the houses. But beyond a hole in a wall or roof, or the branches of trees cut off in the courtyards, there was nothing to show that our shells had fallen within its walls. Most of the houses are so strongly made, the walls being four or five feet thick at the base, and firmly built up of stone and mud cement, that to breach them would require a 40-pounder, and we have no guns here of this calibre. The streets of Deh-i-Afghan were so deserted that it was quite a relief to leave them behind, especially as the whole place seemed to smell of the shambles—due, perhaps, to the bodies of men killed in action being buried in shallow graves. At the foot of the Asmai Heights, where the road turns off to the Cabul gorge, a company of the 3rd Sikhs was halted, while Captain Nicholson, R.E., was deciding the direction a new military road should take from Sherpur to Dehmazung. General Hills, Governor of the City, with a number of “friendly” Cabulis, explained to them what houses were to be pulled down, and in a few days we shall have some 500 or 600 men busy in demolishing the place. As yet we have not destroyed a house in Cabul, and our merciful policy has only encouraged its turbulent ruffians to turn and harass us at the first opportunity. Military considerations alone should be now allowed to prevail, and any course decided upon as contributing to the safety of Sherpur should be carried out unswervingly. We have seen how great was the protection afforded by Deh-i-Afghan to the enemy, as enabling them to collect beneath its walls in perfect security, in occupying or in retiring from the Asmai hill, and this protection should now be swept away, even if every wall and house between the foot of thehill and the Cabul river has to be pulled down. General Macpherson’s retirement from above the Bala Hissar on the evening of the 14th had to be made by way of Deh-i-Afghan, and his troops were under fire the whole time in getting from the Cabul gorge to the fields beyond, where our troops from Sherpur were waiting to cover their retirement. Our anxiety, so long as a man remained within the shadow of Deh-i-Afghan, was at the time very great.
From Deh-i-Afghan across a bridge which spans the Cabul river, and thence by a winding path among high walls and sombre-looking dwellings, to the Chandaul quarter, is only a few minutes’ walk. The melting snow had made the narrow, ill-paved streets almost impassable in places, and we had to splash through mud and slush to make any progress at all. As this end of the city was entered there were a few more signs of life, and one or two shops were open, but few wares were displayed. All these shops belonged to Mahomedans; they had escaped looting, and their happy owners were now placidly returning to their every-day life, though, perchance, during the Mohurrum they ruffled it with the best, and swaggered about, threatening death to all Kafirs. They know our weakness for sparing a fallen foe, and they trade upon it systematically. They will take our rupees to-day, and be all subserviency or sullen independence—not so much the latter now—and will cut our throats and hack our bodies to pieces to-morrow as part of the beautiful programme drawn up by a far-seeing Providence. Passing by these few shops tenanted by Mahomedans, I soon came to those owned by Hindus, and here the wreck was great. Like all Eastern bazaars, those of Cabul consist of rows of little stalls raised three or four feet above the street level. The rear and side walls are built of mud and sun-dried bricks, while the front is all open, except where the rude wooden shutters are put up at nightfall, and the little door securely padlocked. But few of the shopkeepers live “on the premises;” they have houses in the back-streets, where their wives and families are secluded; so that, when the day’s work or trading is over, the bazaars are deserted, except by wanderers or strangers in search of their night’s resting-place. These little stalls have been gutted; nothing is left except the bare walls. Every scrap of woodwork has been carried away, and the floors have been dug up in searchof hidden treasure. The walls in several places are broken down, and their ruins lie across the street; while in one or two instances the very poles of the roofs have been purloined, and the snow and mist have wantoned through the nice snug corners where Bokhara silks, Manchester cottons, or Sheffield cutlery lay stored away. A description of one stall will serve for all. Scarcely a Hindu shop has been left untouched, and Defilement has followed upon Devastation, until the twin-sisters have made the havoc complete. The wretched shopkeepers sit among the ruins in helpless misery, and are already debating whether it would not be better to pack up their household goods and move for Hindustan rather than wait for a second irruption of the hungry horde of tribesmen who are now hurrying away to their homes laden with the loot of Cabul. These Hindus make the most of their losses unquestionably, in the hope of obtaining compensation from the British; yet there can be no doubt they have been robbed of a large amount of property. The Shore Bazaar is nearly all wrecked, and one part of the Char Chowk, the large covered-in bazaar of Cabul, has been cleared out even to the nails in the walls. The practice of burying articles of value is so common among Cabulis, and indeed among Asiatics generally, that part of the strong masonry of which the main walls of the Char Chowk are built up has been broken down, and huge holes and gaps left to show the earnestness of the search. Such shops as have been spared in the heart of the city are still closed, for their owners do not care to display their goods too soon, as they have to bear the inquisitorial questions of their less fortunate neighbours. A more wretched picture of desolation than Cabul presented as I rode through it cannot be imagined. All the life and turmoil had died out of it, and the only persons who seemed to take advantage of the general stagnation were the women, many of whom were flitting about in their long white robes as if free from all restraint. Thekotwalihad been made the temporary head-quarters of Mahomed Jan, who had garrisoned it with a few hundred resolute men. Their first act had been to destroy and defile the room where General Hills sat as Governor of the City; and they had done this very completely, even the roof and floor beingtorn up. Loop-holes had been knocked into the walls of every room, both above and below, as if in anticipation of a stand being made if it came to street-fighting. Thekotwaliis a high square building; an open courtyard, with two tiers of rooms round it, and a parapet above all whence the neighbouring roofs and streets can he commanded by musketry fire. It is so closely hemmed in by buildings, however, that it would not be a good position to defend. The entrance is from the middle of the Char Chowk Bazaar, and it is the centre round which all Cabul circulates when any excitement arouses the people. When I visited it in my ramble through the city I found 100 Sikhs and Ghoorkas garrisoning it, and ready to turn out at a moment’s notice if an alarm of “ghazis” were raised. Speaking to a friendly Cabuli, he assured me that lakhs of property had been looted; he himself had had five houses cleared out, while sirdars in our camp had been treated in a similar way. Wali Mahomed especially had been a sufferer, and the ladies of hiszenanahad been subjected to great indignities. Believing that they had ornaments of value hidden upon their persons, they were stripped of every stitch of clothing, and turned out in all the shame of nakedness into the streets. Questioned as to the number of Mahomed Jan’s followers, the Cabuli said there were fully 30,000 men, and this coincided with estimates given by our spies and others who have been examined since. Padshah Khan, the man whom we trusted so implicitly on our march from the Shutargardan, was among the leaders, and brought a small contingent to swell the army of fanatics. The systematic way in which the looting was carried on will appear from the statement that, when a man defended his house against a small band of marauders, they retired for the time, and then returned, as a Hindu put it, “10,000 strong.” It was useless to offer opposition to such numbers, though I believe many of the Kizilbashes, by professing to be good Mahomedans, saved their property. There were not many inoffensive shopkeepers killed, eight or ten at the highest estimate: but the fear and terror in which they lived hidden away in cellars and holes made their life during the Mohurrum scarcely worth the living. I left Cabul, feeling that it was, indeed, a hapless city. The industrious classes, who hadbeen our friends and had rejoiced at our coming, had been despoiled under our eyes; while those who had cursed us in their hearts, and longed to drive us out, were once more cowed after a short triumph, and were calculating how many of their number would shortly grace the gallows. The Military Commission under the presidency of Brigadier-General Massy has again been ordered to assemble. This time, it is to be hoped a few men of importance may be executed—always provided that we can find them. The members of the Commission are General Massy, Major Morgan, (of the 9th Foot), and Major Stewart (of the 5th Punjab Cavalry).
The remains of Captain Spens were found to-day by Dr. Duke, about ten yards from the spot where he was cut down. General Roberts, with a small force, visited Chardeh Valley to-day, to examine the ground where the cavalry and guns came to grief on the 11th. One mountain gun of Swinley’s Battery, lost on the 14th, has been found. It was lying in ajheel(a shallow pool) a few miles up Chardeh Valley, where it had been abandoned by the enemy in their flight.
The Probabilities of the Revival of theJehad—Insincerity of Native Chiefs—The Need of further Reinforcements—The Difficulties of Warfare in Afghanistan—Return of General Baker from Baba Kuch Kar—Recovery of the Bodies of Lieutenants Hardie and Forbes—Review of theJehad—The Attitude of the Tribes on the Line of Communications—Asmatullah Khan’s Position—Failure to check our Reinforcements—The Importance of the Luttabund Post—Attack upon Jugdulluck—Repulse of the Lughmanis—Deportation of Daoud Shah to India—Military Executions.
1st January, 1880.
The New Year has come upon us so suddenly that we have had no time to cast vain regrets upon worn-out months, which have witnessed the making of important pages of history, and given us a new starting-point in our relations with Afghanistan. A month ago we were dying of weary inactivity, but this feeling was swept away by the stirring events of the Mohurrum, and we have notyet sunk back into our old state of lassitude. Our losses have been so heavy, that it behoves us to take precautions to prevent a repetition of the late investment; and we are bestirring ourselves right heartily to give the ghazi-loga reception worthy of their impetuous nature, if they keep their promise to return in March. Musa Jan, Yakub Khan’s son, is now with Mushk-i-Alam (that unsavourymoollah, whose title means “Scent of the Universe”) at Bad Mushk, twelve miles from Ghazni; and when thejehadis revived, all true Afghans will be called upon to rally round their rightful sovereign. The waverers will be wrought upon by promises of endless loot; the fanatical by opportunities of future bliss after they have died as ghazis; and the mass of the tribesmen by an appeal to their warlike instincts which lead them to fight for the sake of bloodshed. It was a grave mistake which left Musa Jan, with the women of Yakub Khan’s household, in Cabul; for now a status is given to the leaders of the up-rising which they lacked before. We have Wali Mahomed with us still; and if we so far modify our policy as to make him Governor of Cabul and the districts about,—and all things are possible in the see-saw of politics,—we could make a counter-appeal and declare Musa Jan to be merely a puppet in the hands of mischief-makers. Whether this appeal would be disregarded, one cannot say; but if it were backed by a strong display of force, say 12,000 men holding Sherpur and every post down to Jellalabad well garrisoned, it might have some effect. No faith can be put in Afghan promises; we have learned that by the falling away of Padshah Khan, if we did not already know it from past experience; and our safety from constant attack must lie in the completeness of our own preparations, rather than in contracts made with sirdars who will only serve us so long as fair weather lasts. Padshah Khan is said to have remained faithful at least until the 14th of December. When he learned that the British had been obliged to withdraw within the walls of Sherpur, and had lost two mountain guns in the day’s fighting, he may have thought that a disaster was impending, and so joined Mahomed Jan with as many Ghilzais as he could collect together. He now affirms that he was more a spectator than an active participator in the siege; and that this was so evident to the other chiefs that, afterassigning him a post in the fore-front of the attack, they withdrew him from his command at the last moment, so great was their mistrust of his sincerity.
The Khyber Force will relieve us of all garrison work at Luttabund, which sets free 800 men and two guns for duty here; so that with the 1,400 men General Charles Gough brought with him we shall be over 2,000 stronger. But our losses have been heavy, and there are now 800 men on the sick list, many of whom must be sent back to India. The present campaign cannot be brought to a successful conclusion without a much greater display of force than we have hitherto made; and I believe every effort is now being put forth to collect further supplies, so that, if necessary, 15,000 or 20,000 men could be fed during February and March preparatory to our resuming the offensive in the spring. The warning of Sir Henry Durand, in his criticism of the old war, must have recurred to our leaders when contemplating a new accession of strength to the force now here. He wrote:—“Everything in the expedition was a matter of the greatest uncertainty, even to the feeding of the troops; for Afghanistan merited the character given to Spain by Henry IV. of France: 'Invade with a large force, and you are destroyed by starvation; invade with a small one, and you are overwhelmed by a hostile people.'” We have tried the latter alternative, and, after being shut in by 50,000 Afghans (for such it is now said was the numerical strength of Mahomed Jan’s following), we have no wish to repeat the experiment. To avoid it, we must have a large and handy force ready to cope with the enemy before he can reach Cabul; and here the starvation difficulty crops up. After paying fabulously high prices for everything—from a sheep to an onion—we had laid in stores sufficient for the consumption of our original division until the spring; but these will not suffice when they are drawn upon by the troops which have since joined us (9th Foot, Guides, 2nd and 4th Ghoorkas, Hazara Mountain Battery, and Sappers), apart from any others that may yet come up. The Khyber transport is not strong enough for much reliance to be placed upon it in the matter of bringing up supplies from Peshawur, and we shall probably have to requisition the country and force the people to sell their hidden stores at our own prices.We cannot starve, and the military exigencies of the position render it imperative that we should have Sherpur not only well garrisoned, but a movable force of sufficient strength to disperse all Cabul gatherings, and regiments stationed along our line of communication, equal either to punishing chiefs like Asmatullah, or moving westward to Cabul if a secondjehadbrings about another great combination of the people. Our latest reinforcement, which arrived here on the 24th, under General Gough, is now garrisoning the Bala Hissar; while the Guides have been attached to General Macpherson’s Brigade, and will remain in cantonments. They have done good service since their arrival, and well deserve to be attached to the army which captured Cabul single-handed.
General Baker returned yesterday from his excursion to Baba Kuch Kar, where he destroyed the forts and villages belonging to Mir Butcha. This place was demolished by Sale on the 8th of October, 1840. It was considered at that time a stronghold which would have given an army without a battering-train much trouble; but now the fortified enclosures were less formidable. They were not defended, Mir Butcha and his retainers have fled northward to Charikar when he saw how quickly we were following him after his retreat from Sherpur on the 3rd December. No opposition on the road to, or from, Baba Kuch Kar was offered to General Baker, who was only away five days. The snow-covered roads and hills were very trying to the soldiers and followers; and it was conclusively proved that camping out in this weather is likely to sow the seeds of much sickness among our men. The country visited was not Kohistan proper, which lies north of Istalif, but the Koh-Daman (“Skirt of the Hills”). The valleys were found to be marvellously fertile, the orchards and vineyards on the hill-slopes stretching away on either side for miles. Cabul is said to draw most of its delicious fruit from the Koh-Daman, the fertility of which we had every opportunity of observing. In the spring the district must be the most beautiful spot in Afghanistan, the Chardeh Valley sinking into insignificance before it. Great difficulty would be experienced by an army marching through in the face of determined opposition. Sunken roads, irrigated tracts, walled fields, and innumerable watercourses form such a networkof obstruction, that if the forts and villages, with their acres of orchards and vineyards, were defended, progress would be laborious and dangerous in the extreme. For miles there is admirable cover for skirmishers to harass an army with all its impedimenta of baggage and followers; and every fort would have to be stormed, as mountain guns would make no impression on the mud walls. General Baker not only looted and levelled to the ground all forts and villages owned by Mir Butcha, but cut down his vineyards, and set the Ghoorkas to work to “ring” all the fruit trees. This will he a heavy loss to the villages, which mainly derive their local influence from the return yielded by their orchards and vineyards. Baba Kuch Kar is a little over twenty miles from Sherpur; and from it Istalif could be seen, with its white walls gleaming out on the hillsides, surrounded by orchards extending as far as the eye could reach. Istalif is about ten miles further north, and the country between is all under cultivation. Arrangements were made with local headmen to bring in supplies, and large quantities of grain andbhoosaare expected to reach us from the Koh-Daman.
The quickness with which we resumed the offensive after being besieged in Sherpur has favourably impressed all the country about. Such chiefs as were hostile to us now see that they are not safe from reprisals; and within easy marches of Sherpur many villages which turned out their fighting men during thejehad, are now being punished. One village in Chardeh was said to contain the bodies of Lieutenants Hardie and Forbes, who fell in the cavalry action on the 11th of December. On our troops visiting it, themaliksdenied that the bodies had been seen. Two of the headmen were tied up and flogged, but still refused to speak; but upon a third being seized, he offered to show the officers’ graves. The bodies were exhumed, and were found to be unmutilated. The village has been destroyed on account of the contumacy of themaliks, and also because our troops were fired upon from its walls when the guns were lost. Several other missing bodies of Lancers have been found; and on New Year’s Day an impressive funeral of the bodies of Captain Spens, Lieutenant Hardie, Lieutenant Forbes, and a non-commissioned officer took place at the foot of the north-western slopeof the Bemaru Heights. We have lost twelve officers killed and fourteen wounded since December 10th, which shows the severity of the fighting; while of the rank and file and camp-followers, ninety-eight have been killed and 238 wounded.
4th January.
One feature of the late investment of Sherpur cantonment which deserves considerable attention is the part played by the powerful Ghilzai tribes between Cabul and Jellalabad. Their attitude, from the 14th of December, was the same as that taken up in the war of 1841-42, and they no doubt looked for a similar result. It might have been foretold with absolute certainty that once a British army was besieged at Cabul, the tribesmen on the route to India would rise to a man and try to block the road along which reinforcements must pass. Thejehadwhich Mushk-i-Alam headed had its origin far from the rocky barrier which shuts in the Cabul plain on the east: its birth was at Ghazni, and its growth extended on the north to Kohistan, and on the south to Logar, the two districts which furnished at the outset its principal strength. The Safis of Tagao were drawn within its influence by their close neighbourhood to Kohistan; but the Ghilzais of Tezin and the valleys about, as well as the more distant Lughmanis, held aloof at first by reason of their position between the two British forces. If Mahomed Jan had failed in his march upon Cabul, and had been driven back upon the Ghazni Road, we should probably have heard little of the hostility of the tribes westward of Butkhak; the preaching of themoollahs, which had for weeks before fallen upon the ears of the Ghilzais as the prediction of a great triumph over the Kaffir army, would have borne no fruit beyond an occasional raid upon our convoys. The local clans would have felt that, if a powerful combination, such as that which had gathered about the Ghazni priest, had failed to drive back the British army, they themselves were powerless to do so. But once the vast host of 50,000 men had occupied Cabul and the Bala Hissar, and had made it impossible for the garrison of Sherpur to move beyond its defences, the Ghilzais felt that the appeal to their fanaticism was a safe lead to follow, and they began to muster in strength. The messengers from MahomedJan were welcomed, and our evacuation of Butkhak proved that his promise to surround and cut to pieces the small army which had captured Cabul was not widely removed from the possible, as our leaders were concentrating their force to resist an attack. If we had not needed every man at Sherpur, why should we hurry away from our first outpost under cover of darkness? This was the argument which went home to the hearts of the men in the hills about Khurd Cabul and Tezin; and all the local chiefs, with one exception, turned out their fighting men, and thought of the slaughter of our army in the terrible defile of 1842. Padshah Khan, in his villages nearer the Shutargardan, was carried away by the same reasoning; and, with customary treachery, he hastened to Cabul to fight against the men he had pledged himself to support. His contingent was more needed there than that of the chiefs along our line of communications, who had a similar mission to perform to that so successfully carried out nearly forty years ago—to block all outlets of escape; and in addition, to drive back our reinforcements to Jellalabad. In the first flush of success it may have occurred to Mahomed Jan that he was destined to become a second Akhbar Khan, and that a siege of Jellalabad would follow the annihilation of the force at Cabul. To carry out the programme with success, it was needful that all posts west of Jellalabad should be swept away; and this work he entrusted to Asmatullah Khan, of Lughman, a chief, perhaps, more powerful than any other single tribal leader in North-Eastern Afghanistan. Asmatullah accepted the part assigned to him, and the Lughmanis were soon actively at work: the telegraph line west of Gundamak was destroyed, and then, in full confidence, the troops at Jugdulluck were attacked. But though it was easy enough in theory to lay down plans on the old lines, the Lughmanis found that, with superior weapons, our soldiers were able without difficulty to hold their own against twentyfold odds. The road might be made unsafe, and all convoys stopped; but when it came to turning out enemies snugly entrenched, and armed with breech-loaders, it was a very different story. While Mahomed Jan fondly imagined that for two or three months the Ghilzais would hold the Passes, and check the movement of a relieving force, Asmatullah Khan was not equal tokeeping back the stream of men which set westwards from Gundamak, and could not even dispossess the solitary native regiment which held Jugdulluck when the small brigade under General Charles Gough had started for Sherpur. The Ghilzais of Tezin had also found themselves non-plussed by the abandonment of the old route of the Khurd Cabul, which was no longer followed either to or from Sherpur. Although Maizullah Khan and every local chief, with the exception of Mahomed Shah Khan, of Hisarak, were in arms, their tactics were so faulty that, beyond menacing Luttabund, they did nothing to harass our reinforcements. The mere fact of our being able to hold the Luttabund Kotal was so strong an evidence that the end had not yet come, that they hesitated to occupy the road between that post and the Jugdulluck defile, fearing that they might be caught between two fires. Then was demonstrated the full value of the decision arrived at by Sir F. Roberts—to hold Luttabund at all hazards until its garrison could be picked up by the column moving to his relief. The flash of the heliograph from Sherpur to thekotalwhere Colonel Hudson, with less than 1,000 men, was watching for the reinforcements from our eastern posts, told the tribes that the force in Sherpur, though beleaguered by an army larger than Cabul had ever seen, was still linked to its supports, and was by no means in the straits Mahomed Jan had promised. Sitting on the hills about Luttabund, the Ghilzais were too faint-hearted to attack in earnest, and Mahomed Jan was not General enough to detach one-fifth of his force to sweep away the handful of men forming our solitary outpost. Forty Sikhs of the 23rd Pioneers were enough to scatter the bands which gathered about Luttabund; and so little did the followers of Maizullah Khan prove worthy of the trust confided to them by Mahomed Jan, that from Jugdulluck to Butkhak scarcely a shot was fired upon General Charles Gough’s brigade. Mahomed Jan, holding Cabul and the Bala Hissar in his grasp, must have felt that his plans were falling to pieces when the Ghilzais were unequal to breaking up the force passing through their midst; and once our reinforcements had entered upon the Cabul plain, those plans ceased to exist. In desperation the assault upon Sherpur was decided upon, and its failure was the signal for the collapse of thejehad. Twenty-four hours afterthe signal light blazed upon the summit of the Asmai hill, not 1,000 men of the 50,000 who had held Cabul could be found within ten miles of the city.
I have tried to explain the course of action taken by the Ghilzais of Lughman and the Passes, and they have always been a bugbear when an advance upon Cabul was made from Gundamak. It has been clearly proved that they lack organization, and have not the resolute courage to attack entrenched positions held by even small bodies of our men. Asmatullah Khan, it is true, made a demonstration against Jugdulluck on the 29th of December, six days after Mahomed Jan’s flight; but he was beaten back with a loss, on our side, of one officer (Lieutenant Wright, 11-9th Battery), and a native gunner killed, and one man of the 51st Regiment slightly wounded. This was after eight hours’ fighting, and proves how paltry a force Lughman can send out. As this was probably Asmatullah Khan’s last attempt before withdrawing to Lughman again, I will give Colonel Norman’s (24th Punjab Infantry) account of the affair. Writing on the evening of the 29th, he said:—“At 10A.M.to-day a party I had sent out to reconnoitre on the hills to the south was attacked in force by Asmatullah Khan. The party held its own until reinforced; but as the enemy were in great strength, I had to send out nearly all my men. One hundred and sixty of the 29th were on thekotal, and holding points on the Pass to cover the advance of the 45th Sikhs, then marching up to join me. About noon I received a telegram, saying that three companies of the 51st Foot, 360 men of the 45th Sikhs, and four guns of 11-9th Battery, were on the way up. I accordingly waited for the arrival of these troops, to enable me to act more vigorously; but it was 4P.M.before they arrived, and before this I had driven the enemy back. The reinforcements, directly they had arrived, took up a position in prolongation of my right, to enfilade the enemy. Just as 11-9th Battery came into action, I regret to say that Lieutenant Wright was killed by a rifle bullet. The enemy had completely retired before sunset. The practice of Anderson’s guns (Hazara Mountain Battery) was splendid. Asmatullah Khan has most of the Lughman chiefs with him, and the Governor of Jellalabad Mahomed Hasan Khan.” Colonel Norman also reported thatwith the force at his command, he could not hope thoroughly to disperse the Lughmanis, who retired from one range of hills to another. These are the usual tactics of Afghan guerilla warfare, the tribesmen returning as soon as the pursuit is over. The punishment of Asmatullah Khan will be directed from another quarter. A flying column from Jellalabad will enter his country and devastate it, dispersing any force he may attempt to keep together. The news of this proposed expedition has doubtless hastened his steps back to his own fertile valley. The Ghilzais south of Jugdulluck will also be visited by a flying column from Gundamak, which will penetrate as far as Hisarak, and punish Maizullah Khan and the other chiefs who joined him. Each of these columns will be made up of 1,500 infantry, four mountain guns, and a squadron of cavalry, and they are to be kept always ready to move out at short notice, apart from the regular garrison of Jellalabad and Gundamak.[37]
Another prisoner of some importance has been deported to India: Daoud Shah, the ex-Commander-in-Chief of the Amir’s army, was sent down the line a few days ago. His honesty, which for a long time many of us believed in, seems to have been tried, and found wanting. The story that a letter was intercepted, incriminating him in the rising, is untrue; but that communications of some kind passed between him and the hostile chiefs is said to have been pretty conclusively established. The exact relations between him and Mahomed Jan may never be known; but they were probably on the basis that, if Daoud Shah would desert the British, a high command should be his under the new Amir, Musa Jan. His military experience would also have been invaluable in directing such an army as that within Cabul, and his knowledge of our cantonment and its weak points would have made him a leader whom the tribesmen would have confidently followed.
The Military Commission has had before it many of the prisoners taken after December 23rd, and five men condemned to death were hanged yesterday. Four of these were villagers of Baghwana, near which place the four Horse Artillery guns were lost onDecember 11th. Captain Guinness, of the 72nd Highlanders, has taken the place of Major Morgan, 9th foot, on the Commission, which, it will be remembered, originally consisted at Siah Sung Camp of General Massy, Major Moriarty, and Captain Guinness. Very few prisoners are now left for trial.
An Amnesty issued—Influences affecting the People during theJehad—Invitation to the Chiefs to visit Sherpur—Leaders exempted from the Amnesty—The Malcontent Chiefs at Ghazni—Durbar of January 9th—Principal Chiefs present—Padshah Khan—Address by Sir Frederick Roberts—Loyal Chiefs rewarded—Arrangements for governing Kohistan—Migration of Hindu Merchants to India—Reasons for the Movement—Mahomed Jan’s Plans—Proposal to Recall Yakub Khan—Reasons for such a Course being impossible—Improvement in the Intelligence Department—News of Abdur Rahman Khan—Additional Fortifications about Cabul and Sherpur.