In the following year, 1891, columns twice moved against the Orakzai clans in the Miranzai valley, the operations against the Hazaras were repeated for the second time, and hostilities, resulting in the subjugation of Hunza and Nagar and the occupation of Chitral, broke out. The troops of the Amir were also on active service in 1891, occupying the Asmar valley in December under the Sipah Salar Ghulam Haidar Khan, a proceeding aimed in a measure at the Government of India, who were contemplating similar action. In 1892 troops again were sent across the frontier, moving against the Isazai clan in the Trans-Indus Isazai territory. The entire frontier was now in a restless state; and, as the tension between Kabul and Calcutta had increased steadily, it seemed desirable that the Amir should be given an opportunity to declare his intentions. Lord Lansdowne thereupon invited Abdur Rahman to visit India; and, when the Amir refused on the plea of the disturbed condition of his country, the Viceroy suggested that a meeting should take place on the Indo-Afghan frontier. Again the Amir of Afghanistan demurred; when, since hostilities appeared inevitable and preparations for war were in progress, the proposal that a British mission should visit Kabul, which Abdur Rahman had first addressed to Lord Ripon and repeated to Lord Dufferin in 1887, was taken up. Abdur Rahman was informed that a military mission under the personal direction of Lord Roberts, the Commander-in-Chief in India, and escorted by a brigade of British troops, would visit Jelalabad. Lord Roberts had been the active exponent of the forward policy since Lord Lansdowne had assumed vice-regal office. The long series of military operations in the frontier region, which had resulted from his energetic direction of affairs, made his selection for a peaceful mission obnoxious to the Amir, who naturally also appreciated the objections of the people of Afghanistan to receive a visit from the hero of the 1878-80 war. Moreover, the situation in Afghanistan itself, at the time when this ultimatum was despatched to Kabul, was menaced with the danger of widespread rebellion. The Hazaras had led the revolt against the Amir and disaffection was manifested even in the capital. Abdur Rahman’s natural adroitness never stood him in better stead than at this period. Returning a polite and very diplomatic reply to the notification to the Government of India, he stated that he was sending to the Viceroy his own personal representative. After a little interval, Mr. (now Sir Salter) Pyne was entrusted with letters for the Viceroy and the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Mr. (now Sir Mortimer) Durand. By travelling slowly and acting with studied deliberation Mr. Pyne achieved his employer’s object, which was to procrastinate until Lord Roberts, then on the eve of his return to England, had left India. By these means war was undoubtedly averted, misunderstandings abridged, and the way paved by Mr. Pyne for the visit of the Durand Mission, the Amir’s envoy stipulating for an unescorted civil mission.
ABDUR RAHMAN’S PALACE AT JELALABAD
At this time questions in dispute with Afghanistan were not alone occupied with the vexed areas in occupation by the independent tribes along the north-western frontier of India. The Russians had raised again the Agreement of 1873, by which the northern boundary of Afghanistan was defined by the course of the Oxus, and were pressing for its literal fulfilment. Since the conflict at Pendjeh and the Boundary Commission of 1884-87, Russia had turned her attention to the Pamirs where, hitherto, China and Afghanistan had been solely concerned. Fort Pamir, a frontier post, had been erected by Captain Yonoff on the Sarez Pamir in 1891; the brutal massacre of sixteen Afghan soldiers under Shams-ud-Din Khan by the same officer had occurred at Somatash on the Alichur Pamir, June 22, 1892; and in the month before the arrival of the Durand Mission there had been a further Russo-Afghan encounter on the Badakshan border. These disorders were, perhaps, inseparable from a situation in which the rights of the case were so violently opposed to the policy, interests and intentions of Russia. Insistence upon the justice of the Afghan claim without supporting force would have been futile. The Amir’s invitation therefore offered opportunity for settling not only the very serious problem of the tribes on the north-western frontier of India, but, equally, the question of jurisdiction on the Pamirs.
The Durand Mission left Peshawar on September 19, 1893, accompanied by
| Envoy. | Political Assistants. | Medical. | Military. |
| Mr. Mortimer Durand. | Captain MacMahon. | Major Fenn. | Colonel Ellis. |
| Captain Manners Smith. | |||
| Mr. Clarke. | |||
| Mr. Donald. | |||
The usual honours were paid upon arrival in Kabul. The Mission was met by General Ghulam Haidar Khan, lodged in the Indikki Palace, the residence of Habib Ullah Khan, and presented with a ziafat of 33,895 Kabuli rupees. After preliminary conferences, in pursuance of instructions from Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Mortimer Durand on November 11, 1893, addressed to Abdur Rahman the following letter:
When your Highness came to the throne of Afghanistan, Sir Lepel Griffin was instructed to give you the assurance that if any foreign Power should attempt to interfere in Afghanistan and if such interference should lead to unprovoked aggression on the dominions of your Highness, in that event the British Government would be prepared to aid you to such extent and in such manner as might appear to the British Government necessary in repelling it, provided that your Highness followed unreservedly the advice of the British Government in regard to your external relations. I have the honour to inform your Highness that this assurance remains in force, and that it is applicable with regard to any territory which may come into your possession in consequence of the Agreement which you have made with me to-day in the matter of the Oxus frontier. It is the desire of the British Government that such portion of the Northern frontier of Afghanistan as has not yet been marked out should now be clearly defined. When this has been done, the whole of your Highness’s frontier towards the side of Russia will be equally free from doubt and equally secure.
And upon November 12, 1893, Abdur Rahman’s acceptance of the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1873 was confirmed by a note signed by himself and the British envoy.