CHAPTER IV.
[October-December: 1842.]
Effect of the victories—Lord Ellenborough at Simlah—The Manifesto of 1842—The Proclamation of the Gates—The Restoration of Dost Mahomed—The Gathering at Ferozepore—Reception of the Troops—The Courts-Martial.
Never was intelligence received in India with stronger and more universal feelings of delight than the intelligence of the victories of Pollock and Nott; and the happy recovery of the prisoners. There was one general shout of triumphant congratulation, caught up from station to station along the whole line of country from Sirhind to Tinnevelly. Suspense and anxiety now died away in the European breast; and, in the words of one of the ablest Indian statesmen, “it was a comfort again to be able to look a native in the face.”[330]
To Lord Ellenborough the brilliant achievements of the two Generals were a source of unbounded gratification. Everything that he could have desired had been accomplished. Pollock and Nott, under his orders, had “retired” so adroitly from Afghanistan, that everybody believed they had advanced upon the capital of the country. The movement had produced, or was producing, a grand moral effect all over Hindostan. Again was there likely to be a season of universal repose. The excitement which had stirred the hearts of the native community was now passing away. All those vague hopes and longings which had sprung up, at the contemplation of our disasters, in Native States of doubtful friendliness and fidelity, were now stifled by the knowledge of our success. The Governor-General had threatened to save India in spite of every man in it who ought to give him support;[331] but it now seemed as though, in reality, Pollock and Nott had achieved the work of salvation in spite of the Governor-General himself.
But Lord Ellenborough was not less delighted than if the work had been emphatically his own. He was at Simlah when the glad tidings of the re-occupation of Caubul reached him. He was at Simlah, and in the very house which had been the cradle of the great manifesto of 1838, out of which had come all our disasters. He was at Simlah; and the 1st of October was temptingly at hand. On the 1st of October, four years before, that manifesto had been issued. From Simlah, therefore, now, on the first of October, another manifesto was to be made to issue. The utter failure of Lord Auckland’s policy in Afghanistan was to be proclaimed from the very room in which it had taken shape and consistency.[332] From this very room was to go forth to all the chiefs and people of India a proclamation, laying bare to the very core the gigantic errors which had been baptised in the blood of thousands, and shrouded in contumely and disgrace.
And thus ran the proclamation:
Secret Department, Simlah, the 1st of October, 1842.
The Government of India directed its army to pass the Indus in order to expel from Afghanistan a chief believed to be hostile to British interests, and to replace upon his throne a sovereign represented to be friendly to those interests, and popular with his former subjects.
The chief believed to be hostile became a prisoner, and the sovereign represented to be popular was replaced upon his throne; but, after events, which brought into question his fidelity to the government by which he was restored, he lost by the hands of an assassin the throne he had only held amidst insurrections, and his death was preceded and followed by still existing anarchy.
Disasters unparalleled in their extent, unless by the errors in which they originated, and by the treachery by which they were completed, have, in one short campaign, been avenged upon every scene of past misfortune; and repeated victories in the field, and the capture of the cities and citadels of Ghuznee and Caubul, have again attached the opinion of invincibility to the British arms.
The British arms in possession of Afghanistan will now be withdrawn to the Sutlej.
The Governor-General will leave it to the Afghans themselves to create a government amidst the anarchy which is the consequence of their crimes.
To force a sovereign upon a reluctant people, would be as inconsistent with the policy as it is with the principles of the British Government, tending to place the arms and resources of that people at the disposal of the first invader, and to impose the burden of supporting a sovereign, without the prospect of benefit from his alliance.
The Governor-General will willingly recognise any government approved by the Afghans themselves, which shall appear desirous and capable of maintaining friendly relations with neighbouring states.
Content with the limits nature appears to have assigned to its empire the Government of India will devote all its efforts to the establishment and maintenance of general peace, to the protection of the sovereigns and chiefs its allies, and to the prosperity and happiness of its own faithful subjects.
The rivers of the Punjaub and Indus, and the mountainous passes and the barbarous tribes of Afghanistan, will be placed between the British army and an enemy approaching from the West, if indeed such an enemy there can be, and no longer between the army and its supplies.
The enormous expenditure required for the support of a large force, in a false military position, at a distance from its own frontier and its resources, will no longer arrest every measure for the improvement of the country and of the people.
The combined army of England and of India, superior in equipment, in discipline, in valour, and in the officers by whom it is commanded, to any force which can be opposed to it in Asia, will stand in unassailable strength upon its own soil, and for ever, under the blessing of Providence, preserve the glorious empire it has won, in security and in honour.
The Governor-General cannot fear the misconstruction of his motives in thus frankly announcing to surrounding states the pacific and conservative policy of his government.
Afghanistan and China have seen at once the forces at his disposal, and the effect with which they can be applied.
Sincerely attached to peace for the sake of the benefits it confers upon the people, the Governor-General is resolved that peace shall be observed, and will put forth the whole power of the British Government to coerce the state by which it shall be infringed.
By order of the Right Honourable the Governor-General of India.
T. H. Maddock,
Secretary to the Government of India, with
the Governor-General.
It would have been well if Lord Ellenborough had resisted the puerile temptation to date this proclamation on the 1st of October. That it was written then is not to be doubted. But, though written, it was not issued.[333] The Governor-General was not prepared to issue it. There was no immediate necessity, indeed, for the preparation of such a notification as this. It might have been delayed for a few weeks without injury to the state; whilst, on the other hand, it could not have been delayed for a few days without great advantage to Lord Ellenborough. On the 1st of October, the Governor-General knew that the British ensign was floating over the Balla Hissar of Caubul; but he did not know that the British prisoners had been released from captivity. Had he suppressed the inclination to write “October 1” at the head of his proclamation, he might have announced in it the attainment of all those objects which his countrymen had at heart, and fully declared that the war was at an end. But there were not wanting those who now commented bitterly on the fact that this proclamation was drawn up by the Governor-General of India whilst yet in ignorance of the fate of the prisoners. The delay of a few days would have placed him in possession of the intelligence, for which all India was looking with the deepest interest and anxiety; but the temptation of the “1st of October” was not to be resisted; and Lord Ellenborough sacrificed his character for humanity for the sake of a little dramatic effect.
Having drawn up this proclamation, and handed it over to the translators to be arrayed in Oriental costume, Lord Ellenborough began to take counsel with Sir Jasper Nicolls on the subject of the honorary distinctions to be conferred on the officers and men who had gained these great victories in Afghanistan; and to draft another proclamation to be issued to the Chiefs and Princes of India. This was the famous proclamation of the Gates. On the 5th of October, he sent a rough draft of it to Sir Jasper Nicolls, inviting the comments of the Chief. Freely asked, they were freely given. What they were is not on record. The Governor-General took the comments of the Commander-in-Chief “in good part,” and was not wholly impervious to the criticism of the veteran commander.[334] Subjected to a long and laborious incubation, this address to “all the Princes, chiefs, and people of India,” was translated into the Persian and Hindee languages, circulated among those to whom it especially appealed, and finally published in its English dress on the 16th of November.[335] It was by no means, therefore, an ebullition of impulse and enthusiasm on the part of the Governor-General, but the result of many weeks of thought and study, and, perhaps, much consultation with others. The Duke of Wellington called it a “Song of triumph.” Thus rose the pæan, in its English dress:
FROM THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL TO ALL THE PRINCES AND CHIEFS, AND PEOPLE OF INDIA.
My Brothers and my Friends,
Our victorious army bears the gates of the temple of Somnauth in triumph from Afghanistan, and the despoiled tomb of Sultan Mahomed looks upon the ruins of Ghuznee.
The insult of eight hundred years is at last avenged. The gates of the temple of Somnauth, so long the memorial of your humiliation, are become the proudest record of your national glory the proof of your superiority in arms over the nations beyond the Indus.
To you, Princes and Chiefs of Sirhind, of Rajwarra, of Malwa, and of Guzerat, I shall commit this glorious trophy of successful war.
You will yourselves, with all honour, transmit the gates of sandal-wood through your respective territories to the restored temple of Somnauth.
The chiefs of Sirhind shall be informed at what time our victorious army will first deliver the gates of the temple into their guardianship, at the foot of the bridge of the Sutlej.
My Brothers and my Friends,
I have ever relied with confidence upon your attachment to the British Government. You see how worthy it proves itself of your love, when, regarding your honour as its own, it exerts the power of its arms to restore to you the gates of the temple of Somnauth, so long the memorial of your subjection to the Afghans.
For myself, identified with you in interest and in feeling, I regard with all your own enthusiasm the high achievements of that heroic army; reflecting alike immortal honour upon my native and upon my adopted country.
To preserve and to improve the happy union of our two countries, necessary as it is to the welfare of both, is the constant object of my thoughts. Upon that union depends the security of every ally, as well as of every subject of the British Government, from the miseries whereby, in former times, India was afflicted: through that alone has our army now waved its triumphant standards over the ruins of Ghuznee, and planted them upon the Balla Hissar of Caubul.
May that good Providence, which has hitherto so manifestly protected me, still extend to me its favour, that I may so use the power now entrusted to my hands, as to advance your prosperity and secure your happiness, by placing the union of our two countries upon foundations which may render it eternal.
Ellenborough.
No document that ever emanated from the bureau of a statesman has been overwhelmed with so much ridicule as this. It is still fresh in the recollection of men who dwelt in India at this time, how the authenticity of the proclamation was gravely doubted—how many, at first, declared their conviction that it was a newspaper satire upon the Napoleonic style of address which Lord Ellenborough had recently adopted; and how at last, when it came to be known—thoroughly known and understood—that it was a genuine emanation from the “Political Department,” with the right official stamp upon it, such a flood of ridicule and censure was let loose upon it as had never before descended upon an Indian state-paper. The folly of the thing was past all denial. It was a folly, too, of the most senseless kind, for it was calculated to please none and to offend many. It was addressed to “all the Princes and Chiefs, and People of India.” The “Brothers and Friends” thus grandiloquently apostrophised, were a mixed family of Mahomedans and Hindoos. Upon the Mahomedans it was an open and most intelligible outrage. To the Hindoos, the pompous offer of the polluted gates of Somnauth was little better than a covert insult. The temple to which it was to have been restored was in ruins, and the sacred ground trodden by Mahomedans. Looking at the effusion from the Oriental side, it was altogether a failure and an abortion.[336] Among Europeans, worldly men scouted the proclamation as a folly, and religious men denounced it as a crime. It was said to be both dangerous and profane. The question suggested by the latter epithet I do not propose to discuss; but of the dangers of such a proclamation it may be said that they existed only in the imaginations of those who discerned them. It was altogether an event of no political importance. In Afghanistan, the rape of the Gates created little or no sensation. In India, the proclamation produced no excitement among the “brothers and friends” to whom it was addressed. The effect of the measure was personal to Lord Ellenborough himself. It damaged his reputation, and left the rest of the world as it was before.
But there was another proclamation published about this time—launched into the world, indeed, before the proclamation of the Gates, but of a somewhat later conception. The Afghan drama was now well-nigh played out. The Afghan policy of Lord Auckland had been publicly declared a failure, and the grounds on which it had been originated wholly a mistake. Everything, indeed, was to be reversed. The Tripartite treaty was at an end. Shah Soojah was dead. The people of Afghanistan had felt an obvious distaste for foreign interference, and had evinced it in a very unmistakeable manner. The Suddozye Princes had demonstrated the feebleness of the tenure by which they could hope to maintain possession of the throne. It was impossible wholly to revert to the state of things that had existed in 1838, for thousands of lives and millions of money had been buried in the passes of Afghanistan—and there was no earthly resurrection or restoration for them. But there was one victim of the war in Afghanistan for whom restoration was yet possible. The first victim of our national injustice was yet a prisoner in the hands of the British. The Governor-General had publicly announced, in his proclamation of the 1st of October, that Dost Mahomed was only “believed to be hostile to British interests,” and that Shah Soojah was only “represented” to be friendly to those interests, and popular with his own people. It was announced, too, in this proclamation, that the British Government had determined to leave the Afghans to form a government for themselves, and to recognise that government when formed. After such announcements as these, the retention of Dost Mahomed in captivity would have been confessedly inconsistent and unjust.
Ever since the intelligence of the outbreak at Caubul had reached the provinces of Hindostan, Dost Mahomed had been watched with greater suspicion, and guarded with greater care. It was believed that he would place himself in communication with the leaders of the revolutionary party, and would make an effort to escape from the captivity which embittered his lot. It does not appear, however, that he manifested any feelings of exultation at the thought of the calamities which had befallen his captors, or, in any way, desired to increase the difficulties which surrounded them. On the other hand, he seemed willing, if not anxious, to impart to the British Government, through Captain Nicolson, such local information as he thought would be serviceable to them in the conjuncture which had arisen; and even offered suggestions tending to facilitate their re-invasion of his country. The vigilance with which he was guarded, and the consequent inconveniences to which he was subjected, seemed to cause him much vexation and annoyance. He always protested that he knew nothing of the secret history of the Caubul outbreak—that it was his belief the Suddozyes had instigated it, as no other family in Afghanistan, since the overthrow of the Barukzyes, had sufficient influence to initiate a great national movement. Any expression or intimation of a doubt of his honesty seemed to pain him. “Recollect,” he said, on one occasion to Captain Nicolson, “that I have, from the first day I came in, been on your side, heart and soul. I swear by the most holy God, that since my submission I have not communicated with Caubul and its people, except through you. But it is possible that news may have reached my sister at Loodianah through her other brothers. I am your guest or your prisoner, whichever you please. I came to you in the hope of being in time employed by you; and I should say what is not true, if I denied still entertaining that hope; and I am ready to lay down my life in your service.”[337] It may be doubted whether he entertained any hope, or any desire to regain the dominion he had lost. He had resigned himself submissively to his fate. If it seemed to be the will of God that he should return to Caubul, he was willing to retrace his steps to the Balla Hissar. But he was little inclined to take into his own hands the shaping of his future destinies, and to win his way back to empire by violence or fraud.[338]
It has been seen that the Government of India, ever since the disastrous downfall of our efforts to prop up the Suddozye dynasty, had contemplated the possibility of restoring Dost Mahomed to the country from which we had expelled him. Lord Auckland had hinted at the restoration of the ex-Ameer as a measure to which, under certain circumstances, he would offer no opposition. He would gladly, indeed, have availed himself of the opportunity afforded, by a proposed interchange of prisoners, to render tardy justice to the man whom he had so palpably wronged. The subsequent progress of events had tended to render more and more obvious the propriety of this resolution. It was now plainer than ever that the retention of Dost Mahomed as a prisoner of state could no longer be justified, on the score of either political rectitude or expediency. So Lord Ellenborough did, as it became him to do. He issued a proclamation, setting forth that when the “British army returning from Afghanistan shall have passed the Indus, all the Afghans now in the power of the British Government shall be permitted to return to their country.” This was equally reasonable and just. But the proclamation was not without characteristic disfigurements, for the Governor-General, who had set his heart upon a grand pageant at Ferozepore, added a codicil, to the effect that the released Afghan Princes were to present themselves, before returning to their desolated country, at the Durbar of the Governor-General in his camp at Ferozepore.
The popular feeling against this contemplated outrage was strong and universal. There was not a generous mind in the country which did not feel deeply the wrong that was to be done to these unfortunate Princes. But the Governor-General, in a better hour, conscious of error, consented to forego the pitiful delight of gracing his triumph with the presence of a dethroned monarch, whose national feelings were not so wholly extinguished by exile as to render his appearance at the Ferozepore festivities anything but a painful and humiliating trial. The order issued in thoughtlessness was revoked in good feeling; and Dost Mahomed, without suffering this last crowning injury at the hands of the British Government, returned to Afghanistan, with hopes and expectations falling far short of the long years of restored dominion, which actually lay before him.
Quitting Simlah, the Governor-General moved down to the plains of Ferozepore. There an army, under the personal command of Sir Jasper Nicolls, was now assembled. It had been originally projected by Lord Auckland, at a time when it was believed that the presence of such an army on our north-western frontier would have a great moral effect upon the neighbouring states. It has been said, that when it did assemble, at the commencement of the cold season of 1842-1843, it was intended to answer no other purpose than that of a vast pageant; that the Governor-General had determined on celebrating the return of the victorious armies with all possible pomp; and that he looked forward, with childish delight and anxiety, to the magnificent fête champêtre of which he had appointed himself director-in-chief. It must be admitted that Lord Ellenborough took a somewhat undignified interest in the details of these puerilities; but the justice of the assertion, that the army was kept together for no other purpose than that of presenting arms to the “Illustrious Garrison” of Jellalabad, and turning out for a grand field-day, may be reasonably disputed. The fidelity of the Sikhs had long been suspected. It was now considered by no means an impossible event, that the march of our army, worn, sick, and incumbered, through the Punjab, would offer a temptation too strong to be resisted by the mutinous Sikh soldiery, whose real feeling had betrayed itself early in the year at Peshawur. Had the Governor-General felt secure in the reality of the formal alliance with the Punjab, he might have dispersed the Army of Reserve when the Afghanistan force crossed the Attock. Such expositions of the military resources of a great nation are never wholly without profit in such troubled times; and as doubts, and not unreasonable doubts, of Sikh fidelity had arisen, it was sound policy to keep a force on the frontier until the returning troops had actually crossed the Sutlej.
On the 9th of December the Governor-General arrived at Ferozepore. The Army of Reserve was drawn out to receive him. A noble sight, it must have stirred the heart of one who loved to express his regret that circumstances had not made him a soldier. There was much work to be done; and he flung himself into it with characteristic energy, resolute to give the returning warriors an honourable reception, and to dazzle the eyes of all the native potentates who could be lured to the scene of triumph. Four years before there had been a grand gathering at the same place, when Runjeet Sing and Lord Auckland had exchanged courtesies, and the army of the Indus had commenced its march for the invasion of the Douranee Empire. The war in Afghanistan had opened with a grand spectacle at Ferozepore; and now, with due dramatic propriety, it was to close with a similar effect. The Maharajah of the Punjab, with his ministers of state and his principal military chiefs, were invited to grace the festival.[339] The Princes of Sirhind, and other “brothers and friends,” were asked to take part in the rejoicings. And everywhere from the neighbouring stations, under lordly encouragement, flocked our English ladies to Ferozepore—the wives and daughters of the returning warriors and of the officers there assembled—and everywhere was a flutter of excitement, such as had not been known in those regions for years.
Day after day, as Lord Ellenborough busied himself with his preparations for the reception of the victorious Generals, tidings reached him from their camps. There was nothing in this intelligence to dim the pleasure which was animating his Lordship’s breast. Pollock had brought back his army with little loss through the formidable passes of Afghanistan, and was now making an uninterrupted march through the Punjab. The withdrawal of the force had been looked forward to with some anxiety by many, who believed that the tribes would harass the rear of the retiring army, and work them grievous annoyance. But so completely had the strength of the Afghans been broken by continual defeat, that they made no energetic or combined effort to annoy the British columns on their line of march. Pollock wrote that he had not seen an enemy; but M’Caskill and Nott, who followed with the centre and the rear divisions, were not quite so fortunate. From Caubul to Jellalabad, however, there was little to contend against, except some desultory night attacks on our baggage.[340] There was, indeed, no organised resistance.
The entire force assembled at Jellalabad; and halted there for a few days. Pollock had determined to destroy the defences of the place. When the British army was halting at Peshawur in the spring, the question of the transfer of Jellalabad to the Sikhs, as a douceur to ensure cordiality of co-operation with us, had been earnestly discussed, but at that time the project had fallen to the ground. It was felt, that so long as Shah Soojah survived, and the Tripartite treaty had not been annulled, any design to dissever the Douranee Empire, and to invite the Sikhs to share in the partition, would be premature, both as regarded the justice and the expediency of the measure. But the death of Shah Soojah gave a new aspect to the state of affairs; and the British Government lost little time, after authentic intelligence of that event had been received, in communicating to Mr. Clerk its willingness that certain territories on the right bank of the Indus should pass into the possession of the Sikh Government or of the Jummoo Rajahs, with the permission of the Lahore Durbar; and it was intimated that the British Government would facilitate the accomplishment of this object by placing Jellalabad in the hands of the Sikhs. The offer was formally made; but, in the then uncertain position of affairs, prudently declined. It was not unreasonably urged by the Durbar, that until they were in possession of the ultimate intentions of the British with respect to Afghanistan, it would be hardly politic in the Sikhs to place themselves in a prominent position, or in any way to identify themselves with measures the future out-turn of which they could as yet but dimly foresee. But it was believed, that as soon as ever our withdrawal from Afghanistan was fully determined upon, and about to be put in execution, the Sikhs, without further explanation, would be willing to take possession of Jellalabad. And they were so; but not having fully made up their minds upon the subject (probably from some mistrust of our intentions) until the British force had actually marched from Caubul, their acceptance of the offer came too late to save the place from destruction. General Pollock had, in accordance with instructions, destroyed the fortifications of Jellalabad before he received a communication from the Government, intended, if possible, to arrest such proceeding, and ordering him to make over the place uninjured to our allies. It may be doubted whether either party very much regretted the accident.
Having destroyed the defences of Jellalabad, Pollock pushed on to Peshawur. The Khybur Pass had now to be traversed again. The Afreedi Maliks offered to sell us a free passage; but Mackeson answered that Pollock would take one. The first division, under the General himself, who effectively crowned the heights as he advanced, passed through with only the loss of two or three privates. M’Caskill was not equally successful. He had not taken the same precautions, and the Khyburees came down upon the rear-guard, under their old enemy, Brigadier Wild. Favoured by the darkness of night, they rushed among our people, and threw them into confusion. Two of our officers were killed,[341] and two of our guns were abandoned. But the chief object of the Khyburees seems to have been plunder. They made no effort to carry off the guns.[342]
Altogether, the return march of the British troops was singularly peaceful and uneventful. If the same precautions to crown the heights along the line of march, as were systematically taken by Pollock, had been taken by M’Caskill and Nott, it may be doubted whether we should even have heard of the appearance of an enemy. The Afghans are famous plunderers, and they are habitually armed. When they saw their opportunity, they came down upon our baggage-laden columns, and molested us as best they could. But there was nothing like organised resistance.[343]
The fortress of Ali-Musjid was destroyed, and the army then pushed on to Peshawur. Having partaken of Avitabile’s magnificent hospitality, the victorious Generals commenced their march through the Punjab. It was an uneventful, but a melancholy one. Sickness broke out in the returning army. There had always been a scarcity of carriage-cattle, and now the number of sick made it more severely felt. But all the inconveniences of the march were from within. The Sikhs wrought us no annoyance.
Whilst such were the tidings from the returning army which reached the Governor-General in the midst of his preparations, there came from Afghanistan intelligence of a more dubious and, at the same time, a less interesting character. Lord Ellenborough had left the Afghans to suffer the punishment due to their crimes; and it little mattered to him whether one party or another were dominant at Caubul. But the news which now reached him from the Afghan capital all went to show that the Suddozye Princes were utterly destitute of power and influence; and that the new government had not the means of supporting the youthful puppet upon the throne. The Wuzeer had sought to re-establish the supremacy of the Douranees, had hedged in the new King with Douranee influences, and by his exclusiveness given general offence. The downfall of the Suddozye Prince followed rapidly upon this.[344] Akbar Khan had been biding his time about the regions of the Hindoo-Koosh. He was in no hurry to return to Caubul. It was more prudent to leave the dissensions which were certain to arise at the capital to work out their own debilitating effects upon those in power, and pave the way for his triumphant return to the capital.
And so, after a time, there came into Ferozepore tidings, forwarded from Pollock’s camp, to the effect that the Suddozye prince, Shahpoor, had been expelled from the Balla Hissar, and had fled for safety to Peshawur. The poor boy had narrowly escaped with his life. Akbar Khan had made a descent upon Caubul, and carried everything before him. The Newab Zemaun Khan, it was said, had been made Governor of Jellalabad, Shumshoodeen of Ghuznee, Sultan Jan of Candahar; and in the meanwhile Dost Mahomed was making his way through the Punjab to his old principality. “Everything,” it was added, with bitter significance, “is reverting to the old state of things—as it was before we entered the country.”
And now the heart of the Governor-General began to beat with expectation of the immediate arrival of the victorious armies. Everything was ready for their reception. The army of reserve was spread out over the great plain of Ferozepore. Triumphal arches had been erected. A temporary bridge had been thrown across the Sutlej. The elephants, no insignificant portion of the coming spectacle, had been gorgeously painted and decorated, and tricked out in their gayest trappings and caparisons; and as much of tinsel, and bamboo-work, and coloured cloth, as could give effect to the triumph, had been expended to grace the occasion. On the 17th of December, Sir Robert Sale crossed the Sutlej at the head of that gallant body of troops which had composed the garrison of Jellalabad. The Governor-General went forth to meet them. A street of two hundred and fifty elephants, more or less caparisoned, had been formed, and through this marched the heroes of Jellalabad—the 13th Light Infantry, Sale’s own regiment, at the head of the column; but although the docile animals had been instructed to make a simultaneous salaam at a given signal, and to snort out a note of welcome from their huge trunks, they resolutely refused to make an obeisance, and were obstinately silent as the Illustrious Garrison filed between the huge walls of caparisoned flesh. The morning was dull and lowering—not a gleam of sunshine lighted up the festive scene; but there were sunny hearts and bright faces; and as the horse-artillery guns boomed forth their welcome, and the band of the Lancers struck up the ever-animating “Conquering Hero” tune, and each regiment in succession, as the column passed on, saluted their long-absent comrades, the heart must have been a dull one that did not acknowledge that there is something of a bright side even to the picture of war.
On the 19th, General Pollock crossed the Sutlej; and on the 23rd, General Nott arrived, bringing with him the gates of Somnauth.[345] Then there was feasting and festivity in the gigantic tents, hung with silken flags, on which, in polyglot emblazonments, were the names of the actions that had been fought; many complimentary effusions, in the shape of after-dinner harangues;[346] and in the mornings, grand field-days, more or less, according to the “skyey influences.” The year—a most eventful one—was closed with a grand military display. The plain was covered with British and Sikh troops, and in the presence of Pertaub Singh, the heir apparent of Lahore; Dhyan Singh, the minister; the Governor-General, the Commander-in-Chief, and others of less note, some forty thousand men, with a hundred guns, were manœuvred on the great plain. On this grand tableau the curtain fell; and the year opportunely closed in gaiety and glitter—in prosperity and parade.
The Sepoy regiments having been feasted with their “favourite mehtoys” (sweetmeats), and the important event announced in a Government notification, the army of reserve was broken up;[347] but not before the Governor-General, moved by that characteristic admiration of gallantry, which earned for him in India the title of the “Friend of the Army,” had done all that lay in his power to reward the troops who had achieved such brilliant successes. The honours which he could not bestow he solicited from the Crown, on behalf of the brave men who had so fairly earned them; and the distribution of honorary distinctions which ensued gave almost universal satisfaction, It erred rather on the side of liberality; and, perhaps, there are some old soldiers, in the scantily-decorated Queen’s army, who think that during the last few years, honours have been bestowed so profusely as to lower their real value, by showing how easily they are to be earned. But it is better to err on the side of liberality than of chariness—better even that the unworthy should be decorated, than that the worthy should pine in vain for distinction.[348]
But there was still something more to be done. The prisoners, towards whom the flood of sympathy had been setting in so strongly for many months, and whom the English in India now welcomed back with cordiality and delight, were not to be suffered all at once to sink into privacy and obscurity. Some of them were to be tried by courts-martial, or to be summoned before courts of inquiry, for abandoning their posts, going over to the enemy, or otherwise disgracing themselves. The courts sate, but they could not pronounce the officers arraigned before them guilty of any offence. Brigadier Shelton was acquitted. Colonel Palmer,[349] Captains Anderson, Boyd, Troup, and Waller, and Lieutenant Eyre, were honourably acquitted; and the court of inquiry, over which Mr. Clerk presided, must have risen from its investigation into the conduct of Major Pottinger with increased respect for the high soldierly qualities of the young officer who had beaten back the Persians at Herat, and protested against the capitulation of Caubul in the teeth of all the veterans of the force.
On the 20th of January, 1843, Dost Mahomed arrived at Lahore, on his way to the frontier of Afghanistan, and was honourably received by the Sikh Durbar. The Suddozye Princes and their families, to whose reception in the British provinces Lord Ellenborough had evinced an insuperable repugnance, found an asylum in the Sikh dominions;[350] and British connection with Afghanistan was now fairly at an end.
Little more remains to be said. The proclamations which were issued by the Supreme Government of India in the autumn of 1842, are in themselves the best commentaries on the war in Afghanistan. The Governor-General of 1842 passed sentence of condemnation upon the measures of the Governor-General of 1838. No failure so total and overwhelming as this is recorded in the page of history. No lesson so grand and impressive is to be found in all the annals of the world. Of the secondary causes which contributed to the utter prostration of an unholy policy, much, at different times, has been written in the course of this narrative; much more might now be written, in conclusion, of the mighty political and military errors which were baptised in the blood and tears of our unhappy countrymen. These errors are so patent—are so intelligible—they have been so often laid bare by the hand of the anatomist—and they have been so copiously illustrated in these volumes, that I do not now purpose to enlarge upon them before I lay down my pen. But if none of these causes had been in operation to defeat and frustrate our policy, it must still have broken down under the ruinous expenditure of public money which the armed occupation of Afghanistan entailed upon the Government of India. It is upon record, that this calamitous war cost the natives of India, whose stewards we are, some fifteen millions of money. All this enormous burden fell upon the revenues of India, and the country for long years afterwards groaned under the weight. The bitter injustice of this need hardly be insisted upon. The Afghan war was neither initiated by the East India Company, nor at any stage approved of by that great body. The ministers of the crown were responsible for the invasion of Afghanistan, but the revenues of the East India Company, in spite of a feeble effort to shift a part of the burden on to the British Exchequer, were condemned to bear the expense. It was adroitly designed, indeed, from the beginning, that the Company should bear the charges of the expedition.
And what was gained by the war? What are the advantages to be summed up on the other side of the account? The expedition across the Indus was undertaken with the object of erecting in Afghanistan a barrier against encroachment from the West. The advance of the British army was designed to check the aggressions of Persia on the Afghan frontier, and to baffle Russian intrigues, by the substitution of a friendly for an unfriendly power in the countries beyond the Indus. After an enormous waste of blood and treasure, we left every town and village of Afghanistan bristling with our enemies. Before the British army crossed the Indus, the English name had been honoured in Afghanistan. Some dim traditions of the splendour of Mr. Elphinstone’s mission had been all that the Afghans associated with their thoughts of the English nation; but, in their place, we left galling memories of the progress of a desolating army. The Afghans are an unforgiving race; and everywhere, from Candahar to Caubul, and from Caubul to Peshawur, were traces of the injuries we had inflicted upon the tribes. There was scarcely a family in the country which had not the blood of kindred to revenge upon the accursed Feringhees. The door of reconciliation seemed to be closed against us; and if the hostility of the Afghans be an element of weakness, it seemed certain that we must have contrived to secure it.
It has been said that the tendency of all these great movements in Central Asia has been to diminish the mutual jealousies and apprehensions of the British and the Muscovite powers, by revealing, in all their true proportions, the tremendous quicksands which lie waiting to engulph our armies in the inhospitable countries between the borders of the Russian and the Indian Empires. But although both states have learnt—the one from her Afghan, the other from her Khivan expedition—terrible lessons not to be forgotten, it may still be questioned whether the Cossack and the Sepoy are further apart than they were. The “Macadamisation” of Sindh and the Punjab has given England a forward position, which, advantageous as it is in itself, may have stimulated Russia to increased activity, whilst our awful disasters in Afghanistan have encouraged anew the aggressions of the Persian, and the intrigues of his Muscovite ally, by revealing the sources of our disinclination to entangle our armies again in its perilous defiles.
It needed but the announcement of the arrival of a Persian army at Herat, and the establishment of Persian dominion in the province, to consummate the completeness of the failure. After a lapse of twenty years from the date of the first siege of Herat, we found that the very event which had stimulated our English statesmen to decree the invasion of Afghanistan, had actually come to pass. The Shah of Persia had conquered Herat, and his viceroy held the key of the “Gate of India” in his hand. It was still believed to be essential to the security of our Indian empire either to maintain the integrity of Herat, as an independent principality, or to attach it to the territories of the de facto ruler of Afghanistan. Dost Mahomed was still that ruler. For some time after his restoration, he had been the enemy of the British Government; but, as years passed, and the memory of his humiliation grew fainter and fainter, he had come to recognise the wisdom of an alliance with his opponents; and, in 1852, a treaty of general alliance between the two states was concluded at Herat, by Hyder Khan and John Lawrence. When, therefore, in 1856, the usurpations of the Shah of Persia again roused England to a sense of the necessity of “doing something” to wrest Herat from his grasp, she found in the Caubul Ameer a willing, because an interested, ally. The very policy which ought to have been pursued in 1837—the policy which was recommended by Sir John M’Neill—is that which then presented itself, but under what altered circumstances, for our adoption. If, instead of expelling Dost Mahomed from his principality, we had advanced him a little money to raise, and lent him a few officers to drill, an army, the Persians would not, twenty years afterwards, have been lining the walls of Herat. When the old difficulty, therefore, presented itself with a new face in 1856, England adopted, in a modified form this once-rejected policy. She supplied money and arms to Dost Mahomed, to enable him to resist the tide of Kujjur invasion. Because Persia was aggressive on one side of the Afghan frontier, she meditated no aggressions on the other. She did not make war upon the ruler of Afghanistan, in revenge for hostile intrigues at the Persian capital, and hostile movements in the Persian camp. But when Persia offended her she struck promptly at Persia. The demonstration was successful. Under a treaty, signed at Paris by the English and Persian ambassadors, Herat was evacuated, and all claims to sovereignty yielded by the Shah; and, whatever may be its results,—whatever may be the verdict of history upon the policy of the Persian War of 1856-1857, it will at least be recorded, that it had not, like the war which I have endeavoured to chronicle, the foul stain of injustice upon it.
Whether, as many now contend, a later and more terrible disaster owes primarily its origin to our humiliating expulsion from Afghanistan, it is not my duty to inquire. The calamity of 1842 was retribution sufficient, without any conjectural additions, to stamp in indelible characters upon the page of history, the great truth that the policy which was pursued in Afghanistan was unjust, and that, therefore, it was signally disastrous. It was, in principle and in act, an unrighteous usurpation, and the curse of God was on it from the first. Our successes at the outset were a part of the curse. They lapped us in false security, and deluded us to our overthrow. This is the great lesson to be learnt from the contemplation of all the circumstances of the Afghan War—“The Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite.”