CHAPTER III.
[September-October: 1842.]
The Re-occupation of Caubul—Installation of Futteh Jung—The Recovery of the Prisoners—Their Arrival in Camp—The Expedition into the Kohistan—Destruction of the Great Bazaar—Depredations in the City—Accession of Shahpoor—Departure of the British Army.
On the 15th of September, Pollock’s force had encamped on the Caubul race-course. It had encountered no opposition along the line of road from Bootkhak, and it was plain now that there was no enemy to be encountered at the capital. Akbar Khan had fled to Ghorebund, ready, if need be, to take flight across the Hindoo-Koosh. The other hostile chiefs were supposed to be in the Kohistan. Everything at Caubul betokened the panic engendered by the approach of our retributory arms.
On the day after his arrival, Pollock prepared formally to take possession of the Balla Hissar. A detachment of horse and foot, with a troop of horse artillery, was told off, to give effect to the ceremony. The British flag was to be hoisted on the highest point of the citadel, and the British guns were to roar forth a royal salute in honour of the re-occupation of the capital of Afghanistan.
All this was done—but, on that September morning, there occurred coincidentally with it another event much controverted and much misunderstood. The wretched Prince Futteh Jung, who, two weeks before, had carried his tattered clothes and his bewildered brain to General Pollock’s camp at Gundamuck, had now returned under the General’s protection, to start again as a candidate for the throne from which he had been driven by the Barukzye Sirdar. It was not the policy of the British Government openly to interfere for the establishment of any government in Afghanistan, or to identify itself with any particular party or Prince. But both Pollock and Macgregor were of opinion, that so long as the British were to remain at Caubul, it would be desirable that a government of some kind should be established, if only to enable our armies more surely to obtain their supplies. Some sort of indirect assistance and protection was therefore extended to the Prince. The friendly chiefs were encouraged to give in their allegiance to him; and he was suffered to turn to his own uses the ceremony of the re-occupation of the Balla Hissar. He asked and obtained permission to accompany the British detachment; because, he said, treachery was to be apprehended, if he proceeded to the palace without the support of his father’s allies.
And so it happened, that when the British detachment moved from its ground towards the Balla Hissar, the Prince, attended by some of his principal adherents, fell in at the head of the procession. A portion of the town was traversed by the detachment on its way to the citadel. But, although the hideous sights of the last few days were still fresh in the memory of the troops, they resisted all temptation to violence and outrage. Not a man was hurt, or a house injured. In orderly procession they streamed into the citadel. The road to the point at which the colours were to be hoisted ran by the palace gates. As a road for the passage of artillery, indeed, it terminated there. It was necessary that the General should halt the guns and troops in the vicinity of the palace. There was no point beyond, to which they could proceed. The Prince and his attendants entered the royal abode; and the British General, with some of his principal officers, were invited to appear at his installation. Pollock sate on a chair on the right of the throne, and M’Caskill on the left. Then was gone through the ceremony of appointing officers of state; and the British allies of the new King took their departure, and went about their own work. The General and his Staff moved forward with the British colours, and planted them on the highest conspicuous point of the Balla Hissar. As the colours were raised the troops presented arms, the guns broke out into a royal salute, the band struck up the National Anthem, and three hearty cheers went up to announce that the vindication of our national honour was complete.
So far was the restoration of Futteh Jung to the throne of his fathers encouraged and aided by the British General. The Prince had been suffered to hang on to the skirts of Circumstance, and to make the most of a favourable coincidence. But so careful was Pollock not to encourage in the breast of the Shah-zadah and his adherents any hope of more direct assistance from the British Government, that Macgregor was deputed to wait on Futteh Jung after the Durbar, and to enter into a definite explanation of our views. He was emphatically told that he was to look for no assistance, in men, money, or arms, from the British Government; and that therefore it behoved him to turn his own resources to the best account.[304] He was instructed, too, that the British authorities were unwilling to interfere in any way in the administration, and that it was necessary that he should immediately proceed unbiassed to the election of a minister. The choice lay between the Nizam-ood-dowlah and Gholam Mahomed Khan, Populzye. On the evening of the 18th a council was held, and the decision of the Prince and the chiefs was eventually in favour of the latter.
In the mean while, Pollock’s mind was heavy with thoughts of the probable fate of the British prisoners. They had been carried off towards the regions of the Hindoo-Koosh, and were, perhaps, even now on the way to hopeless slavery in Toorkistan. Immediately on his arrival at Caubul, the General had despatched his military secretary, Sir Richmond Shakespear, with a party of 600 Kuzzilbash Horse,[305] to overtake the prisoners and their escort. But there was a possibility of this party being intercepted by the enemy. It was said that Sultan Jan was hovering about with some such mischievous intent. At all events, it was expedient to send a strong detachment of British troops to the support of Shakespear and his Kuzzilbashes. The service was one which any officer might have been proud to undertake. Pollock offered the honour of the undertaking to Nott and the Candahar division. But the offer was not accepted.
The two divisions of the British army were on opposite sides of Caubul. The first communication that had taken place between them was accomplished through the agency of Major Rawlinson. He had ridden in Afghan costume from Nott’s camp at Urghundeh, and had joined Pollock’s division on the morning of the 16th of September, shortly after the British colours had been planted on the Balla Hissar. On the following day Rawlinson returned to Nott’s camp. Mayne, who had done such good service at Jellalabad, and who was now attached to Pollock’s staff, rode with him, attended by a party of Irregular Horse. They bore a note from Pollock, suggesting that a brigade from the Candahar division should be detached towards Bameean, to assist the recovery of the prisoners. The Candahar force were pitching their camp at Char-Deh, when Rawlinson and Mayne reached them. Nott received the letter of his brother-general in no very genial mood. He had already made up his mind on the subject. Twice before had the officers of his own force suggested to General Nott that the recovery of the prisoners would be facilitated by the despatch of a detachment from his division.[306] But he had always answered, that he believed the recovery of the prisoners to be a matter of indifference to Government, and that he did not consider it expedient to divide his force.
When, therefore, the proposal came to him in a more official shape from his brother-general—upon whom, as the senior officer, had now devolved the command of all the troops in Afghanistan—he received it as one on which he had no consideration to bestow, and determined at once, within the bounds of due subordination, to decline it. It would be well if there were nothing else to record. Unhappily, the temper of the Candahar General was such, that the officer—one of the bravest and, for his years, the most distinguished in Afghanistan—who presented himself in Nott’s camp, to bring back the General’s answer, met with a welcome which may little have surprised, however much it may have pained, the officers of Nott’s Staff, but which, upon one accustomed, in Sale’s and Pollock’s camps, to the courtesies due to a soldier and a gentleman, burst like a loaded shell. Chafing under the thought of being recommended by his superior to do what his own better judgment suggested to him that he ought to have done unprompted, the Candahar General poured upon Mayne and his escort all the vials of his wrath. What he said was heard by many, and is upon record. Mayne, stung by the insult put upon him by the veteran commander, refused to continue in his camp, and said he would await at the outlying picket the answer which he was commissioned to carry back to Pollock’s tent.[307]
But when Nott entered his tent, and sat down to write a reply to his brother-general, he did not wholly forget the duties of a soldier to his superior in rank. He stated, in emphatic language, his reasons for protesting against the adoption of the course suggested to him; but at the same time declared his willingness to obey the orders of his superior officer. What these reasons were must be set forth in his own words:
Camp, September 17th, 1842.
My Dear General,
I have been favoured with your note of this date, in which you express a wish that I should detach a brigade towards Bameean; before you decide on sending it, I would beg to state as follows:—
1st. The troops under my command have just made a long and very difficult march of upwards of 300 miles, and they have been continually marching about for the last six months, and most certainly require rest for a day or two—the same with my camels and other cattle. I lost twenty-nine camels yesterday, and expect to-day’s report will be double that number.
2nd. I am getting short of supplies for Europeans and natives, and I can see but little probability of getting a quantity equal to my daily consumption at this place. I have little or no money.
3rd. I have so many sick and wounded that I fear I shall have the greatest inconvenience and difficulty in carrying them; and should any unnecessary operations add to their number, they must be left to perish. If I remain here many days I shall expect to lose half my cattle, which will render retirement very difficult.
4th. I sincerely think that sending a small detachment will and must be followed by deep disaster. No doubt Mahomed Akbar, Shumshoodeen, and the other chiefs, are uniting their forces, and I hourly expect to hear that Sir R. Shakespear is added to the number of British prisoners. In my last affair with Shumshoodeen and Sultan Jan, they had 12,000 men; and my information is that two days ago they set out for Bameean.
5th. After much experience in this country, my opinion is that, if the system of sending out detachments should be adopted, disaster and ruin will follow.
6th. After bringing to your notice, showing that my men require rest for a day or two, that my camels are dying fast, and that my supplies are nearly expended, should you order my force to be divided, I have nothing to do but implicitly to obey your orders; but, my dear General, I feel assured you will excuse me when I most respectfully venture to protest against it under the circumstances above noted. I could have wished to have stated this in person to you, but I have been so very unwell for the last two months that I am sure you will kindly excuse me.
Yours sincerely,
Wm. Nott.[308]
On the following day, Nott having excused himself on the plea of ill health from visiting Pollock in his camp, Pollock, waiving the distinction of his superior rank, called upon his brother-general. The conversation which ensued related mainly to the question of the despatch of the brigade in aid of the recovery of the British prisoners. Nott had made up his mind on the subject. He was not to be moved from his first position. There were few besides himself who considered the arguments which he advanced to be of the overwhelming and conclusive character which Nott himself believed them to be; and it was, at all events, sufficiently clear, that as it was of primal importance on such a service to lose the least possible amount of time, it was desirable to detach a brigade from Nott’s camp, in preference to one from Pollock’s, if only because the former was some ten miles nearer to Bameean than the latter. Nott was inflexible. Government, he said, “had thrown the prisoners overboard”—why then should he rescue them? He would obey the orders of his superior officer, but only under protest. So Pollock returned to camp, and delegated to another officer the honourable service which Nott had emphatically declined. Sir Robert Sale was not likely to decline it. Though his own heroic wife had not been one of the captives, every feeling of the soldier and the man would have responded to the appeal.
So Sale took out with him a brigade from the Jellalabad army, and pushed on in pursuit of Shakespear and the Kuzzilbashes. But already had the release of the prisoners been effected. They had accomplished their own liberation. Sale met them with Shakespear and the Kuzzilbash escort on their way to Pollock’s camp.
The story which they had to tell was this. On the afternoon of the 25th of August the prisoners,[309] who had already received a general intimation that they were to be carried off to Bameean, but who had still ventured to hope that some efforts might be made by the chiefs in our interests to release them, were warned by Captain Troup, who had just returned from an interview with the Sirdar, to prepare for the journey towards the Hindoo-Koosh. Soon after sunset a guard of three hundred men arrived to escort them. Their ponies, camels, and litters were brought, and an hour or two before midnight they started upon their dreary journey.
They were not suffered to sleep that night, nor the next; but were painfully hurried on towards the inhospitable regions of the Indian Caucasus. All the forts and villages by which they passed poured forth their inhabitants to stare, with wondering curiosity, at the Feringhee captives.[310] But none insulted them in their misfortunes. Often, indeed, by the rude inhabitants of the country through which they passed, were many looks, and words, and deeds of kindness freely bestowed upon them. Onwards still, in upward direction, they went, thousands of feet above the level of the sea. The days were painfully sultry, and the nights were bitterly cold. The alternations of climate told fearfully upon the constitutions of the European prisoners; and their sick increased in numbers. The soldiers and camp-followers, for whom no carriage was provided, dragged their infirm limbs wearily over the barren wastes and up the steep ascents of the Hindoo-Koosh, the officers giving up their horses to the ladies, for whom the camel panniers were no longer secure, toiled wearily after them up the rugged slopes.
On the 3rd of September they reached Bameean. Conducted to one wretched fort and then to another, they remonstrated against the noisome quarters to which it was proposed to consign them; and twice their importunities prevailed. But at last, on the 9th of September, the commandant of their escort ordered them to take up their abode in another fort, scarcely less wretched than the others, and portioned out among them some small and comfortless apartments, so dark that they could scarcely see in them, and so filthy that they could write their names in the soot that covered the roof. But their residence in this place was but brief. They soon effected their escape.
The commander of the escort was one Saleh Mahomed. A soldier of fortune, who had visited many countries and served under many masters, he had been at one time a soubahdar in Captain Hopkins’s regiment of infantry, and had deserted with his men to Dost Mahomed on the eve of the contest at Bameean. A good-humoured, loquacious, boasting man, he was never happier than when narrating his adventures to the English officers under his charge. Among them there was not one who better understood the Afghan character, or who had made more friends in the country, than Captain Johnson; and now, in a short time, between him and Saleh Mahomed an intimacy was established, which the former began to turn to the best account.[311] He rode with the commandant, listened to his stories; and soon began to throw out hints that a lakh of rupees and a pension in Hindostan might be found for him, if, instead of carrying off his prisoners to Bameean, he would conduct them in safety to the British camp. To Pottinger, who had hitherto been the chief negotiator on the part of the captives, Johnson would now have confided the delicate duty of inducing the deserter again to desert; but the task was declined, on the plea that the attempt was more likely to succeed in the hands of the latter, who seemed to have inspired a feeling of friendship in the breast of the commandant. Pottinger disliked the man; and the man seemed to dislike him. So Johnson began, with admirable tact and address, to work upon the cupidity of his friend.
On the 29th of August, the suggestion was put forth, in a light and jesting manner; and not until he had convinced himself that there would be no danger in a more direct proposition, did Johnson suffer Saleh Mahomed to feel that he was thoroughly in earnest. The Afghan was in no hurry to commit himself. Days passed. The party reached Bameean; and no allusion was made to the subject; till one day—the 11th of September—Saleh Mahomed sent for Johnson, Pottinger, and Lawrence, and in a private room of the fort, which had been appropriated to Lady Sale, produced a letter which he had just received from Akbar Khan. The Sirdar had instructed him to convey the prisoners to Kooloom, and to make them all over to the Wullee of that place. It seemed then that they were about to end their days in hopeless captivity among the Oosbegs. But the despair which fell upon them was but short-lived. Saleh Mahomed soon dispersed their fears by saying that one Syud Moorteza Shah, a Cashmeree, who, during the Caubul insurrection, had helped Johnson to collect grain from the villages, had arrived from Caubul, and brought a message from Mohun Lai to the effect, that if he would release the prisoners, General Pollock would ensure him a life-pension of 1000 rupees a month, and make him a present of 20,000 rupees. “I know nothing of General Pollock,” then said Saleh Mahomed, “but if you three gentlemen will swear by your Saviour to make good to me what Syud Moorteza Shah states that he is authorised to offer, I will deliver you over to your own people.” The offer was at once accepted. With little delay an agreement was written out in Persian by Syud Moorteeza Shah, and signed by Johnson, Pottinger, Lawrence, and Mackenzie.[312] It was a perilous game—for Saleh Mahomed had twice played the traitor before, and might assume the same character again. But the prize was too great and too tempting for them to hesitate even to risk their lives; so they flung themselves without hesitation into the hazardous plot.
Cheerfully did the prisoners now bind themselves to provide from their own resources, all according to their means, the money that was required to carry out the grand object of their liberation. The signatures of all the officers and ladies were obtained to the bond.[313] Saleh Mahomed proved to be staunch and true. The conspiracy was wholly successful; and the conspirators soon grew bold in their success. The rebellion of Saleh Mahomed and his European allies was openly proclaimed to all the chiefs and people of Bameean and the surrounding country. A flag was hoisted on the fort which they occupied. They deposed the governor of the place, and appointed a more friendly chief in his stead. They levied contributions upon a party of Lohanee merchants, who were passing that way; and so supplied themselves with funds. And, to crown all, Major Pottinger began to issue proclamations, calling upon all the neighbouring chiefs to come in and make their salaam; he granted remissions of revenue; and all the decent clothes in the possession of the party were collected to bestow as Khelats.
But, in spite of the boldness of their outward bearing at this time, they were not without some apprehensions that their dominion might soon be broken down, and the lords of to-day reduced again to captives and slaves to-morrow. Some of the confederate chiefs might ere long appear at Bameean and overwhelm the rebellion of Saleh Mahomed. So the new rulers began to strengthen their position, and make preparations to stand a siege. They had promised their guards—in all some 250 men—four months’ pay, as a gratuity, on reaching Caubul; and there was every reason to rely on their fidelity.[314] Commanded by European officers, it was believed that they would make a good show of resistance. So Pottinger and his companions began to clear out the loopholes of the forts—to dig wells—to lay in provisions—and otherwise to provide against the probability of a siege. They were busily employed in this manner on the 15th of September, when a horseman was observed approaching from the Caubul side of the valley. Eager for intelligence from the capital, they left their work and gathered round him. He brought glad tidings. Akbar Khan had been defeated by General Pollock at Tezeen, and had fled no one knew whither. The aspect of affairs was now changed, indeed. The common voice of the prisoners—prisoners no longer—declared in favour of an immediate return to Caubul. It was decided that, on the following morning, they should set out for Pollock’s camp.
At eight o’clock on the morning of the 16th they started on their journey. Sleeping that night, in the clear moonlight, on hard stony beds, they were awakened by the arrival of a friendly chief who brought a letter from Sir Richmond Shakespear, stating that he was on his way to Bameean, with a party of 600 Kuzzilbash horse. This was cheering intelligence. At daybreak they were again astir, pushing on with increased rapidity, in a whirl of excitement, unconscious of hunger or fatigue. Their trials were now nearly at an end. They had heart enough to do and to suffer anything.
About three hours after noon on the 17th of September, a cloud of dust was observed to rise from the summit of a mountain-pass in their front. Presently a few straggling horsemen made their appearance, and, in a little time, the English officers could plainly see a body of cavalry winding down the pass. Great now was the excitement in our little party. The horsemen who were now approaching might be Shakespear and the Kuzzilbashes, or they might be a body of the enemy. It was well at least to prepare for their reception. Saleh Mahomed’s drums were beaten; all stragglers were called in; every man stood to his arms; a line was formed;[315] the muskets were loaded; and Saleh Mahomed seemed all eagerness to give the enemy a warm reception. But there was no enemy to be defeated. An English officer soon appeared galloping a-head of the horsemen. Shakespear had arrived with his Kuzzilbashes. He was soon in the midst of the prisoners, offering them his congratulations, receiving their thanks, and endeavouring to answer their thick-coming questions.
At daybreak on the following morning they pushed on again. Some better horses had been obtained from the Kuzzilbashes; and now they moved forward with increasing rapidity. On the 20th, as two or three of the officers riding on a-head of the party were nearing Urghundeh, which was to be their halting-place, another cloud of dust was observed rising over the hills; and soon the welcome tidings reached them that a large body of British cavalry and infantry was approaching. This was the column which Pollock had sent out in support of the Kuzzilbash Horse—the column that Sale commanded. In a little time the happy veteran had embraced his wife and daughter; and the men of the 13th had offered their delighted congratulations to the loved ones of their old commander. A royal salute was fired. The prisoners were safe in Sale’s camp. Their anxieties were at an end. The good Providence that had so long watched over the prisoner and the captive now crowned its mercies by delivering them into the hands of their friends. Dressed as they were in Afghan costume, their faces bronzed by much exposure, and rugged with beards and moustachios of many months’ growth, it was not easy to recognise the liberated officers who now pushed forward to receive the congratulations of their friends. On that day they skirted the ground on which the Candahar force was posted, and out went officers, and soldiers, and camp-followers, eager and curious, to gaze at the released captives, and half-inclined to fall upon their guards.[316] On the 21st of September they passed through the city, on their way to Pollock’s camp. They found the shops closed; the streets deserted; and they paused, as they went along, before some melancholy memorials of the great outbreak which, a year before, had overwhelmed us with misery and disgrace.[317]
Great was the joy which the recovery of the prisoners diffused throughout the camps of Pollock and Nott; and great was the joy which it diffused throughout the provinces of India. Rightly judged Pollock that, if he returned to Hindostan without the brave men and tender women who had endured for so many months the pains and perils of captivity in a barbarous country, his countrymen would regard the victory as incomplete. Let him fight what battles, destroy what forts, and carry off what trophies he might, he would, without the liberation of the prisoners, be only half-a-conqueror after all. Pollock knew that his countrymen had not “thrown the prisoners overboard.” He had rescued them now from the hands of the enemy; that object of the war was obtained. There was little else, indeed, now to be done, except to fix upon Caubul some lasting mark of the just retribution of an outraged nation. It had been the declared wish of the Supreme Government that the army should leave behind it some decisive proof of its power, without impeaching its humanity; and now Pollock prepared to carry, as best he could interpret them, those wishes into effect.
The interpretation, however, was not easy. Very different opinions obtained among the leading officers in the British camp respecting the amount of punishment which it now became the British General to inflict upon the Afghan capital. It was a moot question, involving many considerations, and not to be hastily solved; but there could have been no question whether, at that time, justice and expediency did not alike require that the inhabitants of Caubul and the neighbourhood should be protected against unauthorised acts of depredation and violence. Against the plunderings of soldiers and camp-followers Pollock had steadfastly set his face; but in the neighbourhood of Nott’s camp much was done to destroy the confidence which Pollock was anxious to re-establish, and to alarm and irritate the chiefs whom he desired to conciliate.[318] After a few days the new minister and Khan Shereen Khan, the chief of the Kuzzilbashes, determined to represent to Pollock, in a joint letter, the grievances of which they thought they were entitled to complain.[319]
The minister had been anxious to pay his respects to the gallant commander of the Candahar division, and had waited upon him with a letter from Macgregor; but Nott had peremptorily refused to give him an audience. He believed it to be the desire of Lord Ellenborough that no Afghan Government should be recognised by the British authorities, and he was unwilling to favour any such recognition by receiving visits of ceremony from the functionaries appointed by the government which had been established at Caubul. As Pollock had not been equally nice upon this point, the refusal of his brother-general to extend his courtesies to the minister could only have embarrassed our supreme authorities at Caubul, and attached suspicion to the sincerity of our proceedings. But Nott, at this time, was in no mood of mind to extend his courtesies either to Afghan or to British authorities. It was his belief that even then the British army ought to have been on its way to Jellalabad. He had with him a sufficiency of supplies to carry him to the latter place; and was irritated at the thought that Pollock had come up to Caubul without provisions to carry him back.[320] If he had been in supreme authority at Caubul, he would have destroyed the Balla Hissar and the city, and would have marched on with the least possible delay to Jellalabad. He placed his sentiments on record regarding the impolicy of the halt at Caubul—declared that he would be compelled to make military requisitions to rescue his troops from starvation; and denounced Futteh Jung and the new ministers as the enemies of the British. Nothing, indeed, could dissuade Nott that every Afghan in the country was not our bitter foe.
Pollock, however, was inclined to discriminate—to protect our friends and to punish our enemies. Whilst supplies were coming in but slowly to his camp, it seemed good to him that another blow should be struck at the hostile chiefs. It was reported to him that Ameen-oollah Khan was in the field at Istaliff, in the Kohistan, endeavouring to bring together the scattered fragments of the broken Barukzye force. It was believed to be the design of the chief to attack the British on their retirement from Caubul; and it was expedient, therefore, at once to break up his force, and to leave some mark of our just resentment on a part of the country which had poured forth so many of the insurgents who had risen against us in the preceding winter. A force taken from the two divisions of the British army was therefore despatched, under General M’Caskill, to Istaliff, to scatter the enemy there collected, and to destroy the place. It was thought, moreover, that Ameen-oollah Khan, dreading the advance of the retributory army, would endeavour to conciliate the British General, by delivering up to him the person of Mahomed Akbar Khan, if he could adroitly accomplish his seizure. The Sirdar had sent his family and his property into Turkistan; and was himself waiting the progress of events in the Ghorebund Pass, ready, it was said, to follow his establishment across the hills, if the British troops pushed forward to overtake him.
The hostile chiefs were all now at the last gasp—all eager to conciliate the power that a few months before they had derided and defied. Already had Ameen-oollah Khan begun to make overtures to the British authorities—to declare that he had always at heart been their friend; but that he had been compelled to secure his own safety by siding with the Barukzyes. And now Akbar Khan with the same object, sent into Pollock’s camp a peace-offering, in the shape of the last remaining prisoner in his hands. Captain Bygrave was now restored to his friends. It might have been a feeling of generosity—for generous impulses sometimes welled up in the breast of the Sirdar; it might have been a mere stroke of policy, having reference solely to his own interests; or it might, and it probably was, a mixture of the two influences that prevailed upon him; but he would not any longer make war upon a single man, and upon one, too, whom he personally respected and esteemed with the respect and esteem due to a man of such fine qualities as Bygrave. So he sent the last remaining prisoner safely into Pollock’s camp; and with him he sent a letter of conciliation, and an agent commissioned to treat for him. He was eager to enter into negotiations with the British. It was little likely that so weak a Prince as Futteh Jung would be able to maintain his regal authority in Afghanistan a day after the departure of the British; and it appeared to him not wholly improbable that, wishing to leave behind them a friendly power in Afghanistan, the British authorities might be induced to enter into a convention with him before their final departure from the country.
Even now was Futteh Jung himself beginning to acknowledge his utter inability to maintain himself in the Balla Hissar after the striking of Pollock’s camp. Pollock had refused to supply him with troops, money, or arms; and the Prince himself had closed the door of reconciliation with his old Barukzye enemies by destroying their houses and property. Among the houses thus destroyed, it is deplorable to state, was the house of Mahomed Zemaun Khan—the very house in which the good old man, with real parental kindness, had so long and so faithfully protected the British hostages. The houses of Oosman Khan, Jubbar Khan, and others fell also. It was the policy of the Prince thus to compromise his supporters, and to prevent an alliance between them and the Barukzye party; but having done this, he felt that it was only by destroying the hostile chiefs that he could, in any way, maintain his position. He watched, therefore, with anxiety the issue of the expedition into the Kohistan, and deferred his ultimate decision until the return of M’Caskill’s force.
Aided by and relying on the wise counsels of Havelock, M’Caskill made a rapid march upon Istaliff, and took the enemy by surprise. The town is built, terrace above terrace, upon two ridges of the spur of the Hindoo-Koosh, which forms the western boundary of the beautiful valley of Kohistan. It was held in high repute as a maiden fortress by the Afghans, who had now collected, in its fortified streets and squares, their treasure and their women. Looking to it as to a place of refuge, secure from the assaults of the invading Feringhees, they had scarcely made any military dispositions. M’Caskill’s first intention had been to attack the left face of the city; but the intelligence brought in by a reconnoitering party, on the evening of his arrival, caused him to change his plan of operations, and to conduct the assault on the right. Soon after daybreak, therefore, on the following morning (the 29th of September), the camp was in motion towards the right of the city. The enemy soon marked the movement; and, believing that our columns were in retreat, poured in a sharp fire upon them. Growing more and more audacious in this belief, the foremost Afghans pressed closely upon our covering party, which, composed of Broadfoot’s sappers under their intrepid chief, soon found themselves in fierce collision with a large body of the enemy posted in a walled garden. There was a sturdy hand-to-hand conflict. The little band of sappers pushed on, and the Afghans retreated before them up the slopes in the direction of the city, where they would have been overwhelmed. But the time had now come for operations on a larger scale. Havelock and Mayne, who had observed the dangerous position of the sappers, galloped to the General, and urged the necessity of supporting Broadfoot. M’Caskill, who had made his arrangements for the assault, now ordered the columns to advance upon the city. Her Majesty’s 9th Foot and the 26th Native Infantry, who had done such good service before, delighted to receive the word to advance to the support of the sappers, tore across the intervening space, in generous emulation, and rushed cheerily to the encounter; whilst on the other side of the enemy’s position, the light companies of Her Majesty’s 41st, and the 42nd and 43rd Sepoy regiments of Bengal, stormed, with steady gallantry, the village and vineyard to the left. The Afghan marksmen gave way before our attacking columns; and as our men pursued them up the slopes, a great panic seized the people. They thought no longer of defence. Their first care was to save their property and their women. Ameen-oollah Khan himself fled at the first onset. As our troops entered the town, the face of the mountain beyond was covered with laden baggage-cattle, whilst long lines of white-veiled women, striving to reach a place of safety, streamed along the hill-side. The forbearance of our people was equal to their gallantry. M’Caskill, respecting the honour of the women, would not suffer a pursuit; but many fell into the hands of our soldiers in the town, and were safely delivered over to the keeping of the Kuzzilbashes.[321] Two guns and much booty were taken; the town was partially fired; and then M’Caskill went on towards the hills, meeting no opposition on the way, destroyed Charekur, where the Goorkha regiment had been annihilated, and some other fortified places which had been among the strongholds of the enemy; and then returned triumphantly to Caubul.
On the 7th of October, M’Caskill’s force rejoined the British camp. It was now necessary that immediate measures should be adopted for the withdrawal of the British troops from the capital of Afghanistan. Already had Pollock exceeded, but with a wise discretion, the time which the Supreme Government would have accorded to him. But there was yet work to be done. No lasting mark of our retributory visit to Caubul had yet been left upon the accursed city. Pollock had been unable to shape his measures before, for the nature of the retribution to be inflicted was dependent upon the constitution of the new Afghan Government; and it was long uncertain what government the British General would leave behind him. Futteh Jung had been for some time trembling at the thought of the prospect before him. If M’Caskill had brought back Akbar Khan a prisoner, or had sent his head to the British camp, the new King might have summoned resolution to maintain his seat on the throne. But he could never forget the treatment he had received from the Sirdar, or nerve himself again to meet the unscrupulous Barukzye.[322] So now he peremptorily declined to wear the crown which we would fain have kept a little longer on his head; and implored the British General to afford him the protection of his camp, and convey him to the provinces of India.
Willing to spare the city and the Balla Hissar for the sake of a friendly government, Pollock had despatched Shakespear to the Kuzzilbash camp, which was then in the Kohistan, to take counsel with Khan Shereen Khan, and the other chiefs of the Persian party. It seems that they had been sceptical of the intentions of the British General to evacuate the country; but Shakespear now announced that the departure of the army was at hand, and that it was necessary finally to determine upon the nature of the new government. In this conjuncture, the Kuzzilbashes, trembling for the safety of the city, and feeling that there was little hope of their being reconciled to the Barukzye party, laid their hands upon another puppet. There was a younger scion of the Suddozye House then at Caubul—the Prince Shahpoor. His mother was a high-born Populzye lady, and it was believed that his recognition would tend to conciliate the Douranees. Postponing, however, the final enunciation of their views until their return to Caubul, they now proposed that the young Prince should be set up in the place of his brother. At Caubul, a general meeting of the chiefs was held. The voice of the assembly declared in favour of the elevation of Shahpoor. The Prince himself, a high-spirited boy, willingly accepted the crown that was offered to him, and a declaration to that effect, from the Wuzeer and the Kuzzilbash chief, was then sent in to Pollock’s camp.
Determined to make a last effort to obtain substantial assistance from the British authorities, the chiefs now waited upon Pollock, and entreated him to leave some British troops behind him for the support of the new monarch. Pollock resolutely refused the request. They then asked him for money. This he also refused. Then came before them the painful subject of the “mark” that was to be left on Caubul. The chiefs pleaded for the city and for the Balla Hissar. Urgently they now set forth the necessity of a Suddozye Prince maintaining the appearance of royalty in the palace of his fathers—urgently they now set forth that the Arabs and Hindostanees, who in the hour of extremest peril had been so faithful to Futteh Jung, were all located in the Balla Hissar; and that the blow would fall with the greatest severity on those who were least deserving of punishment.[323] So Pollock consented to spare the Balla Hissar.
But it was still necessary that some mark of the retributory visit of the British should be left upon the offending city. Pollock, therefore, determined to destroy the great Bazaar. There the mutilated remains of the murdered Envoy had been exhibited to the insolent gaze of the Afghans; and there it was deemed fit that the retributory blow should fall. So, on the 9th of October, Abbott, the chief engineer, received instructions from the General to destroy the Bazaar; but so anxious was Pollock not to extend the work of destruction, that he strictly enjoined the engineer to abstain from applying fire to the building, and even from the employment of gunpowder, that other parts of the city might not be damaged by his operations. At the same time, a strong detachment of British troops, under Colonel Richmond—one of the best and ablest officers of the force—was sent with the engineers, to protect the town from injury and the inhabitants from plunder and outrage.
But it was no easy task to destroy that great Bazaar simply by the work of men’s hands. Abbott did his best to obey the instructions he had received from the General; but he was baffled by the massiveness of the buildings on which he had been sent to operate. It was necessary to employ a more powerful agent. On his own responsibility, therefore, he betook himself to the use of gunpowder. But the explosions damaged no other buildings than those which had authoritatively been marked for destruction. The operations against the great Bazaar lasted throughout the 9th and 10th of October. Every effort was made to save the city from further destruction; but all Richmond’s protective measures were insufficient to control the impetuosity of the soldiers and camp-followers who poured themselves into the town.
That many excesses were then committed is not to be denied. The principal gates of the city were guarded; but there were many other points of ingress, and our people streamed into the streets of Caubul, applied the firebrand to the houses, and pillaged the shops. Guilty and innocent alike fell under the heavy hand of the lawless retribution which was now to descend upon the inhabitants of Caubul. Many unoffending Hindoos, who, lulled into a sense of delusive security by the outward re-establishment of a government, had returned to the city and re-opened their shops, were now disastrously ruined.[324] In the mad excitement of the hour, friend and foe were stricken down by the same unsparing hand. Even the Chundarwal—where dwelt the friendly Kuzzilbashes—narrowly escaped destruction. Such excesses as were committed during the three last days of our occupation of Caubul must ever be deplored, as all human weakness and wickedness are to be deplored. But when we consider the amount of temptation and provocation—when we remember that the comrades of our soldiers and the brethren of our camp-followers had been foully butchered by thousands in the passes of Afghanistan; that everywhere tokens of our humiliation, and of the treachery and cruelty of the enemy, rose up before our people, stinging them past all endurance, and exasperating them beyond all control, we wonder less, that when the guilty city lay at their feet, they should not wholly have reined in their passions, than that, in such an hour, they should have given them so little head.
It was now time that the British army should depart. Nothing remained to be done. Any longer continuance at Caubul would only have aggravated the sufferings of the people and increased our own difficulties. So, on the 11th of October, orders were issued for the commencement of the march on the following day. The unhappy Prince, Futteh Jung, had claimed and sought permission to accompany Pollock’s camp to India, and to seek an asylum in the Company’s dominions. The old blind King, Zemaun Shah, after all the vicissitudes of his eventful life, was now about again to become an exile, and to end his days in the same hospitable country. For the family of Shah Soojah protection also had been sought, and not refused; and now all these fragments of the great wreck of royalty—these miserable records of a most disastrous enterprise—were committed to the charge of one who had largely participated in its sufferings, but had happily escaped the ruin which had overwhelmed his comrades and his chief.[325] On the evening of the 11th of October they came out of the town, and found safety in Pollock’s hospitable camp.[326] The British colours, which had floated over the Balla Hissar, were now lowered; the regiment which had been posted there was withdrawn; and every preparation was made for the departure of the British army.
On the following morning the two divisions commenced their march. Fearful that the Candahar division, if left in occupation of its old ground, whilst the head-quarters of the army were proceeding in advance, would commit many unauthorised excesses, Pollock had determined that the whole force should move on the same day. There was some inconvenience in this, for Nott’s division came up before Pollock’s had crossed the Loghur river; but to the cause of humanity it was, doubtless, great gain. The unfortunate Hindoos, who had been rendered destitute by the destruction of Ghuznee and the spoliation of Caubul, had crowded into the British camps, hoping to obtain, in their utter misery, safe conduct to the provinces of India.[327] Pollock took with him what trophies he could, but he had not carriage for all the guns,[328] and even on the first day’s march he was compelled to begin their destruction; whilst Nott, rejoicing in a letter from the Governor-General, who was in ecstasies about the gates of Somnauth, and in the notification of his appointment to the Residency of Lucknow, went off with those venerable relics, and turned his face towards the country, from which they had been traditionally ravished.
And on that day, as Pollock was leaving Caubul, and Nott was striking his camp, the guns of the Balla Hissar roared forth a royal salute in honour of the accession of Prince Shahpoor—the Fatiha was read in his name, and the chiefs tendered their allegiance. It was, perhaps, a mere mockery; but it had saved the Balla Hissar.[329] So the new King was paraded about the streets of Caubul—only to be dethroned again before the British army had reached the provinces of India; and that army turned its back upon Afghanistan, not as of old, in the agony of humiliation and defeat, but in the flush of victory and triumph.