The Scientific Frontier.
In all the discussions on this Frontier question, a very obvious, but all-important, fact has been persistently forgotten. It is that British rule in India is a rule based upon military supremacy; and that, therefore, our Indian army—English as well as native—is primarily a garrison, having its duties upon the places where it is quartered. We could not withdraw our troops from any part of India without incurring the risk of an outbreak in the districts thus denuded. The “Punjab Frontier Force” has always been a force distinct from the “Army of India,” and recognized as having special duties of its own. So far as I know, in the discussions on a “Scientific Frontier” no reference has been made to the above circumstance. The Indian army has been spoken of as if it were so much fighting power, which we were free to concentrate at any point we pleased. And to this oversight is due the hallucination that an improved frontier would enable us to diminish the strength of the Indian garrison (properly so called). The fact is, that before this last war we had almost the very frontier which our situation in India required. If the authority of the Ameer had extended up to the boundaries of our Empire, troubles between the two States must have occurred, resulting inevitably in the extinction of the weaker. The evil of such an extension of territory no one denies; we should not only have had to hold Afghanistan with a strong garrison—certainly not less than twenty thousand men—but we should have been compelled to maintain a frontier force, to guard against aggression from without, either from Russia or Persia. Forty thousand men would have been needed for this double duty, in addition to the pre-existing garrison of India. But by a piece of supreme good fortune the authority of the Ameer did not begin where ours left off. Between us and him were interposed the tribes which dwell in the hills along our North-Western frontier. These tribes acknowledged allegiance neither to him nor to us. Broken up and divided amongst themselves, the worst they could inflict upon us was an occasional raid into our territories; and these we could repress without having to call the Ameer to an account for the lawlessness of his subjects. A few regiments of horse and foot were all that we needed for the defence of our frontier; while as against foreign invasion we possessed a frontier that needed no defence at all. That frontier consisted of the foodless deserts and inaccessible hills of Afghanistan. These were impenetrable to an invader, so long as we retained the friendship and the confidence of the people who dwell among them. Consequently, to quote the language of Sir Henry Rawlinson, “our main object has ever been, since the date of Lord Auckland’s famous Simla Manifesto of 1838, to obtain the establishment of a strong, friendly, and independent Power on the North-Western frontier of India, without, however, accepting any crushing liabilities in return.” We all know the manner in which Lord Auckland set about obtaining the “strong, friendly, and independent Power,” and the “crushing liabilities” we had to accept in consequence. Tutored by experience, we adopted a wiser and more righteous policy, which was producing admirable results.
The difficulty of establishing a stable friendship with Afghanistan arises from the character of the people. It is the habitation, not of a nation, but of a collection of tribes, and the nominal ruler of Afghanistan is never more than the ruler of a party which, for the time, chances to be strongest. Consequently there never existed an authority, recognized as legitimate throughout the country, with which we could enter into diplomatic relations. At the same time, their divided condition crippled the Afghans for all offensive purposes. We had, therefore, nothing to fear in the way of unprovoked aggression, and our obvious policy was to win the confidence of these wild tribes and their chiefs, by carefully abstaining from encroachments on their independence. Such, in fact, has been the policy which every Governor-General has pursued in the interval which divides the “plundering and blundering” of Lord Auckland from the like achievements of Lord Lytton. And it had been attended with the greater success, because under the firm guidance of two remarkable men, Afghanistan had progressed considerably towards the status of an organized kingdom. Shere Ali had diligently trod in the footsteps of his father, the Dost, and it is in these terms that the Government of India describes the rule and policy of the Ameer in the year 1876:
“Those officers of our Government who are best acquainted with the affairs of Afghanistan, and the character of the Ameer and his people, consider that the hypothesis that the Ameer may be intimidated or corrupted by Russia (even supposing there was any probability of such an attempt being made) is opposed to his personal character and to the feelings and traditions of his race, and that any attempt to intrigue with factions in Afghanistan, opposed to the Ameer, would defeat itself, and afford the Ameer the strongest motive for at once disclosing to us such proceedings. Whatever may be the discontent created in Afghanistan by taxation, conscription, and other unpopular measures, there can be no question that the power of the Ameer Shere Ali Khan has been consolidated throughout Afghanistan in a manner unknown since the days of Dost Mahomed, and that the officers entrusted with the administration have shown extraordinary loyalty and devotion to the Ameer’s cause. It was probably the knowledge of the Ameer’s strength that kept the people aloof from Yakoub Khan, in spite of his popularity. At all events, Herat fell to the Ameer without a blow. The rebellion in Salpoora in the extreme West was soon extinguished. The disturbances in Budukshan in the North were speedily suppressed. Nowhere has intrigue or rebellion been able to make head in the Ameer’s dominions. Even the Char Eimak and the Hazara tribes are learning to appreciate the advantages of a firm rule.... But what we wish specially to repeat is that, from the date of the Umballa Durbar to the present time, the Ameer has unreservedly accepted and acted upon our advice to maintain a peaceful attitude towards his neighbours. We have no reason to believe that his views are changed.”
This “strong, friendly, and independent Power”—this edifice of order and increasing stability—the British Government deliberately destroyed in the insane expectation of finding a “Scientific Frontier” hidden somewhere in the ruins. It is difficult to conceive of an action more impolitic or more cruel. In a month the labours of forty years were obliterated, old hatreds rekindled, and the wounds of 1838, which the wise and gentle treatment of former Viceroys had almost healed, were opened afresh.
We come next to the inquiry as to what this “Scientific Frontier” is, in order to obtain which this act of vandalism was perpetrated. This is a question involved in some obscurity. The Times is the great champion of the “Scientific Frontier,” but in its columns, as also in Ministerial speeches, it changes colour like a chameleon. Sometimes it is called the “possession of the three highways leading to India,” thereby rendering the Empire “invulnerable.” At other times it is recommended to us because it protects the trade through the Bolan Pass, and enables us to threaten Kabul. The fact is that the (so-called) “Scientific Frontier”—meaning thereby the frontier we acquired by the Treaty of Gundamuck—is a make-believe, an imposture. It is not the “Scientific Frontier” in pursuit of which we “hunted the Ameer to death” and reduced his territories to a condition of anarchy.
Those who have followed the history of the war with attention will remember that in September of last year the Calcutta correspondent of the Times was smitten with a really marvellous admiration for Lord Lytton. “India,” he wrote, “is fortunate in the possession at the present time of a Viceroy specially gifted with broad statesmanlike views, the result partly of most vigilant and profound study, partly of the application of great natural intellectual capacity to the close cultivation of political science and the highest order of statecraft.” Here we have the portrait of the lion painted by himself; and it is not surprising that this superb creature should have regarded with considerable scorn the policy of his predecessors who never claimed to be “specially gifted” for the exercise of “the highest order of statecraft.” “The present measure,” the correspondent went on to say, “for the despatch of a mission to Kabul forms but a single move in an extensive concerted scheme for the protection of India, which is the outcome of a long-devised and elaborately worked-out system of defensive policy.” Here we have a fine example of the “puff preliminary.” In the issue of the Times for the 10th September this “extensive concerted scheme for the protection of India” is detailed at length, and is there plainly set forth as intended for a barrier against Russia:—
“The Indian Government are most anxious to avoid adopting any policy which would bear even the semblance of hostility towards Russia, but the extreme probability of a collision sooner or later cannot be overlooked. It is necessary, therefore, to provide for a strong defensive position to guard against eventualities. From this point of view it is indispensable that we should possess a commanding influence over the triangle of territory formed on the map by Kabul, Ghuznee, and Jellalabad, together with power over the Hindoo Khosh.... This triangle we may hope to command with Afghan concurrence if the Ameer is friendly. The strongest frontier line which could be adopted would be along the Hindoo Khosh, from Pamir to Bamian, thence to the south by the Helmund, Girishk, and Kandahar, to the Arabian Sea. It is possible, therefore, that by friendly negotiations some such defensive boundary may be adopted.”
Such were the moderate designs entertained by the Indian Government when they dispatched what they called a “friendly mission” to the Court of the Ameer. If Lord Lytton imagined that “friendly negotiations” would obtain these tremendous concessions from the Ameer, it would show that a training in “the highest order of statecraft” does not preserve even a “specially gifted” Viceroy from the credulousness of an infant. But his acts show that he entertained no such belief. He felt, as every one must feel who reads the extract I have made, that demands such as these must be preceded by a war. Hence the menacing letters addressed to the Ameer; hence the rude and insulting manner in which Sir Neville Chamberlain was ordered to attempt an entrance into Afghanistan without awaiting the permission of the Ameer; and hence, finally, the monstrous fiction of a deliberate “insult” inflicted upon us, when, in point of fact, we had been the “insulters” all along. The obvious intention throughout was to obtain a pretext for declaring war, because without a war the “Scientific Frontier” was manifestly unattainable. Lastly, when war had been determined upon, the same “official” correspondent came forward in the Times to make known the objects of the impending campaign. “We have,” he wrote, “been driven into what will probably be a costly war entirely against our will, and all our endeavours to avoid it. The occasion, therefore, will now be seized to secure for ourselves the various passes piercing the mountain ranges along the whole frontier from the Khyber to the Bolan; and further strategic measures will be adopted to dominate entirely the Suleiman range and the Hindoo Khosh.”
It is impossible not to admire the hardihood of this remarkable correspondent when he alleges that the war was “entirely against our will, and all our endeavours to avoid it.” But this is not the matter with which I am at present concerned. The official character of these communications will be denied by no one, and they make it clear that the “Scientific Frontier” was intended as a barrier against Russia, and would have made the Hindoo Khosh the external boundary of the Indian Empire. Such a frontier is manifestly the dream of a military specialist, to whose mental vision the Indian Empire, with all its diverse interests, has no existence except as a frontier to be defended against the Russians. And it illustrates the ignorance and precipitate folly which has plunged us in our present difficulties that a project so wild should have been seriously entertained. To have carried it out the subjugation of Afghanistan would have been an indispensable preliminary, and then the civilizing of it, by means of a system of roads and strong garrisons throughout the country; the entire cost of these vast operations being defrayed by a country already taxed to the last point of endurance, heavily burdened with an increasing debt, and ravaged by periodical famines. Such, however, was the “Scientific Frontier” for which a “specially gifted Viceroy,” trained in “the highest order of political statecraft,” declared war against the Ameer. But the frontier which we obtained at the close of the war, and which Ministers and Ministerial journals would have us believe is the genuine article which they wanted from the beginning, is not only not this frontier, but it has not the smallest resemblance to it.
The new frontier does not differ from the old except in three particulars. We hold the Khyber Pass as far as Lundi Kotal, and we have acquired the right to quarter troops in the Kurram Valley and the Valley of Peshin. Of these the Kurram Valley is a mere cul-de-sac, leading nowhere. But I will not ask of my readers to accept of my judgment on this matter. Among the best known advocates for a forward and aggressive policy in Afghanistan is Dr. Bellew. An accomplished linguist and an experienced traveller, he accompanied Colonel Lumsden’s mission to Kandahar in 1857; he was also a member of the mission entrusted with the settlement of the Seistan boundary question, and no man living is better acquainted with the geography and people of Afghanistan. I believe it will not be denied that Lord Lytton, during the recent war, trusted largely in his knowledge and suggestions. He has thus expressed himself on the policy of occupying the Kurram Valley:—
“The Kurram Valley would involve the addition of about one hundred and fifty miles of hill frontage to our border, and would bring us into contact with the independent Orakzais, Zaimukhts, Toris, Cabul-Khel, Waziris, and others, against whose hostility and inroads here, as in other parts of the border, we should have to protect our territory. By its possession, as we are now situated, we should be committed to the defence of a long narrow strip of land, a perfect cul-de-sac in the hills, hemmed in by a number of turbulent robber-tribes, who are under no control, and acknowledge no authority. In ordinary times its acquisition would add to the serious difficulties of our position. In times of trouble or disturbance on the border, its possession would prove a positive source of weakness, a dead weight upon our free action. In it we should run the risk of being hemmed in by our foes in the overhanging hills around, of being cut off from our communications with the garrison of Kohat, by the Orakzais on the one side, by the Waziris on the other. These are the disadvantages of the step. In return what advantages should we derive? Not one. With Kurram in our possession we certainly could not flank either the Khyber or the Goleri Pass, because between it and the one, intervenes the impassable snowy range of Sufed Koh; and between it and the other, intervenes the vast routeless hilly tract of the Waziris. From Kurram we could neither command Kabul nor Ghazni, because the route to either is by a several days’ march, over stupendous hills and tortuous defiles, in comparison with which the historical Khyber and Bolan Passes, or even the less widely-known Goleri Pass, are as king’s highways.”
This, I think, is sufficient to dispose of the Kurram Valley. If the old frontier has been rendered “invulnerable,” it is not the acquisition of the Kurram Valley which has made it so. There remains the Peshin Valley. This valley is an open tract of country lying almost midway on the line of march between Quetta and Kandahar, but nearer to the former than the latter. Three easy marches from Quetta suffice to place a traveller in the centre of it. It cannot accurately be described as an extension of our frontier, because it is dissevered from it by more than two hundred miles of difficult country. Between the valley and British territory, the lands of the Khan of Khelat are interposed in one direction, and numerous robber-tribes—Kakers, Murrees, Bhoogtees—in another. Until the valley is securely linked to the Indus by a railway from Sukkur to the Bolan Pass—a costly work, which could not be executed in less than seven years—it will be impossible to quarter more than a few thousand men in it—and these for six months of the year will be as completely detached from their base of supply and reinforcement in India, as if a tract of empty space ran between them. So far from ensuring any increased security to India by our premature occupation of this valley, we have only enhanced the chances of a hostile collision with the rulers and people of Afghanistan. We were already in military occupation of Quetta, and until easy and rapid communication had been established between Quetta and the Indus, nothing was to be gained by a yet further advance from our base. As a barrier against Russia this frontier is without meaning, and no better proof of this fact could be adduced than Sir Henry Rawlinson’s commentary upon its merits in the Article on the “Results of the Afghan War” which recently appeared in the Nineteenth Century:—
“The Afghan settlement is a very good settlement as far as it goes, but it is not immaculate—it is not complete. To yield us its full measure of defence, the Treaty must be supplemented by all legitimate precautions and supports. Persia must be detached from Russia coûte que coûte. Russia herself must not be left in any uncertainty as to our intentions. She must be made to understand ... that she will not be permitted unopposed to establish herself in strength ... even at Abiverd, nor to commence intrigues against the British power in India. She might indeed be warned that, if necessary, we were prepared in self-defence to support the Turcomans—with whom she has no legitimate quarrel—with arms or money, or even to turn the tables on her by encouraging the efforts of the Uzbegs to recover their liberty.... It would be almost fatuity at such a moment to withdraw our garrison from Candahar.... Yacub Khan must be made to see that it is as much for his interest as our own to hold an efficient body of troops in such a position that, on the approach of danger ... they might, with military alacrity, occupy Herat as an auxiliary garrison.”
And what is implied in detaching Persia from Russia he explains in another part of his Essay.
“If Russia, as there is strong reason to believe, is now pushing on to Merv or Sarakhs ... with the ultimate hope of occupying Herat, then it might very possibly be a sound policy to extend to Persia the provisions of the Asia Minor Protectorate, or even to support her actively in vindicating her rights upon the frontier of Khorassán.”
From all which it would appear that our “Scientific Frontier” is simply good for nothing until it has been supplemented by an offensive and defensive alliance with the barbarian enemies of Russia all over the world. In order to ensure the safety of India, we must protect not only our own “Scientific Frontier,” but we must guarantee the Sultan all his Asiatic possessions; we must be ready at any moment to fight for the “integrity and independence” of Persia; we must be prepared to march our troops to Herat, and to show a front against the Russians on the Oxus; we must provide the Tekeh-Turcomans with arms and money, and assist the Uzbegs in their attempts to recover their liberty. Such are the “legitimate precautions and supports” which are requisite to render the new frontier immaculate and complete. But if with a “Scientific Frontier” we remain liable to such tremendous demands as these, it passes imagination to conjecture in what respect we could have been worse off when our frontier was “haphazard.”