Afghanistan

by A. Hamilton

GROUNDS OF PALACE OCCUPIED BY THE DANE MISSION

The visitation of Providence upon Abdur Rahman could hardly have come at a more inopportune moment. Although the peace of the Indian frontier in 1901 was disturbed only by the Mahsud-Waziri operations, resulting from the legacy of hate which our activities on the Waziristan border during Lord Elgin’s administration had bequeathed to Lord Curzon, the action of Russia in the previous year in respect of Russo-Afghan relations had made it quite clear that the harmony of Mid-Asia was involved in the disastrous failure of British arms in the Transvaal. Nothing had ever been more probable than that an irruption of disorder throughout Afghanistan would attend the death of the late Amir. It was upon this contingency that, in the past, much thought and no little speculation had turned. Even if historical parallels were ignored, there were so many claimants to the accession in the field that the wiseacres of the chancelleries throughout the world had freely prophesied the decease of Abdur Rahman to be the signal for a general mêlée in Asia, in which Russia and Great Britain would support the rival factions. The Russians, no less than ourselves, shared these premonitions; and, when the precarious condition of Abdur Rahman’s health became actually alarming in the spring of 1901, there was a wealth of suggestion in the silent preparation which took place along the Russo-Afghan and Indo-Afghan borders. Under the watchful ægis of Lord Curzon no sign of the apprehensions to which the death of Abdur Rahman gave rise in the mind of the Government of India was permitted to become public. While the first indication of a recrudescence of Russian activity along the Afghan border had been given nearly two years before, a fresh fillip to the situation was imparted by the sudden departure for the Afghan frontier of the Russian Minister of War, General Kuropatkin, who quitted St. Petersburg immediately after the receipt of the tidings of the Amir’s demise. Almost the earliest act of the former Governor-General of Asiatic Russia upon his arrival in Trans-Caspia was to release from imprisonment at Merv, on October 19, 1901, six Afghans who had been charged with espionage. Summoning them to his presence, he gave them the following message of good-will to the new Amir:

A misfortune has befallen Afghanistan. The Amir Abdur Rahman is dead and Habib Ullah, one of his sons, has ascended the throne. We Russians have always considered ourselves friends of Afghanistan and we wish to remain so in the present change of Government. Therefore, in setting you at liberty, I command you to report yourselves to your nearest chieftain and to repeat to him the words you have heard from the Russian Minister of War.

While General Kuropatkin moved from Merv to Tashkent, where he was engaged in an inspection of the garrison, besides taking part in the ceremonies attendant upon the turning of the first sod of the Tashkent division of the Orenburg-Tashkent Railway, the Government of India replied to his act of overt insolence by entrusting to the chief of the Mahommedan Mission, which left Peshawar for Kabul on November 20, 1901, an invitation for his Highness the Amir of Afghanistan to visit India. In spite of certain pre-occupation, General Kuropatkin, during his visit to Central Asia, found time to devote considerable attention to Abdur Rahman’s successor. Before December 11, when the deputation of Indian Mahommedans quitted Kabul for their own homes, Habib Ullah received from the Governor of Mazar-i-Sharif an intimation that the Governor of Tashkent would send towards the close of the winter 1901-02 a deputation of Mahommedan officials from Russian Turkestan to participate in the Nauroz festival on March 21 at Kabul. Accompanying the escort were to be several batteries of field guns with supplies of ammunition, intended as a gift to his Highness in commemoration of his accession.

The significance of these circumstances was not lost upon Habib Ullah, whose perception would indeed have been dim if the antagonism of Anglo-Russian interests at the Court of Kabul had escaped his notice. An inkling of his attitude towards foreign affairs had been given when, in the very early days of his reign, he had ordered his people to observe Abdur Rahman’s prohibition against any use of the Quetta-Chaman extension between the first station on the southern side of the Khwaja Amran tunnel and the terminus at its northern extremity. In view of this, more than ordinary interest attached to the pronouncement which, it was anticipated, Habib Ullah would make to the members of the Indian Mission of Condolence.

At their first reception Habib Ullah’s attitude hardly commended itself to the pleasure of his guests. Inquiring what were the intentions of the Government of India in respect of his father’s subsidy, the invitation from the Viceroy was handed to him. After expressing satisfaction at the compliment which had been paid to him and alluding to the difficulty of accepting the invitation for some time, he hinted that the obligations contracted by Abdur Rahman were not binding upon himself. Finally, he threw the delegates a crumb of comfort in the assurance that he would follow in the footsteps of his lamented father. At a later date, in full Durbar and attended by the Mission, he expounded his policy, reiterating his intention to respect Abdur Rahman’s prejudices in regard to the introduction of telegraphs, the construction of railways, the reorganisation of the army, the appointment of a European British agent to Kabul and the adoption of Western customs—even the use of foreign medicines was banned. Schools for instruction in the Persian and Arabic languages, and the Mahommedan faith, would be opened, but the country would be jealously guarded against every form of external aggression.

For reasons which did not transpire, but which would not be difficult to determine, the visit of a Mahommedan deputation from Russian Turkestan did not take place. Meanwhile, astonishment at the promulgation of the recent ordinances had barely subsided when Habib Ullah began to press attentions upon his former tutor and pestilential frontier fanatic, Najib-ud-Din, the Mullah of Hadda, this action at once introducing into the arena of Anglo-Afghan relations a disquieting figure. Ostensibly with a view to honouring his former teacher, Habib Ullah detached certain disciples from the mullah’s entourage for a Mahommedan crusade in Kafiristan, increased his sacerdotal powers by placing a large section of the frontier within his religious jurisdiction, ordered a new mosque to be built for him and invited him to participate in the Installation ceremonies at the Nauroz, presenting him with the gift of an elephant and howdah for the journey. Invitations to the Nauroz celebrations were issued to other leading spirits in the frontier disturbances of 1897, including the notorious Mullah Powindah from Waziristan, the troublesome fire-eater Mullah Said Akbar from Tirah and the Safi Mullah. Following so closely upon the semi-contemptuous rejection of the representations which the Government of India had made through the deputation of Indian Mahommedans, Habib Ullah’s predilection for the society of men who had already incurred the displeasure of the Government of India made manifest the fact that the impulse of bigotry was stronger in him than the dictates of policy. The late Amir was accustomed to use the mullahs to consolidate his own authority and to interpose a fretful hedge of fanaticism between his kingdom and the outside world. But he knew also how to curb their insolence when occasion required, and he made them all—kazis, imams and muftis—servants of the state. This adroitness in professing a militant orthodoxy and in securing at the same time the supremacy of the state over the church in Afghanistan, has been described as one of the most remarkable proofs of Abdur Rahman’s political genius.

Habib Ullah’s action in immersing himself in religious affairs so soon as he had ascended the throne, belonged to a different category. It gave rise to misgivings with regard to his capacity to hold the helm of state with the same firmness and clearness of vision as had enabled his father to descry the various shoals ahead. In any case since it boded no good to the peace of the frontier, it drew down upon the Amir a polite but unmistakable remonstrance. The effect of this was not lost upon the throne; and when the aged mullah pleaded, in excuse of his inability to attend the Nauroz, the difficulties of a journey across the hills in March, the point was conceded by his late pupil. Moreover, the Amir’s attitude at the Nauroz was circumspect and remarkable only for a very colourless exposition of the divine character of the shariat, the strict fulfilment of which he enjoined upon all good Mahommedans. Five days after the celebration of the Nauroz, however, the summons to the Hadda Mullah was repeated, but the Amir’s reception of this distinguished prelate was sufficiently cool to disarm criticism.

Administrative and domestic difficulties beset Habib Ullah at an early date in his career as Amir of Afghanistan. Before the summer of 1902 had waned the discovery of a palace intrigue with extensive ramifications induced him, at a Durbar on June 8, to order the re-establishment of the Secret Intelligence Branch in Kabul, the reports from which were to be presented to him each morning. At the same time, in an interesting attempt to temper despotism with justice, he ordained that an influential rais from each tribe should be associated with each local governor to assist in the disposal of tribal cases. More important matters were to come before a Council of State in Tribal Affairs, which he now proceeded to create. It was composed of leading members of various tribes; and weekly meetings were to take place in Kabul under his own presidency. Almost the first matter to engage the consideration of this body was, in August 1903, a joint protest from the Ghilzais, Duranis and Suliman Khels against the application of Abdur Rahman’s scheme of calling up one man in eight for military service. In preference to this measure the objectors propounded the suggestion that musketry instructors should be appointed to all large villages. Acceptance of any modification of Abdur Rahman’s plan was deferred until the return of Nasr Ullah Khan from a tour of inspection of the military conditions of the state, which the Amir had projected.

As these events were occurring at Kabul, it became evident in Europe, that although Russia had not returned to the charge in respect of her communication to the Foreign Office on February 6, 1900, she had not abandoned the purpose which she had in view. In the middle of August 1902 the Russian authorities, in defiance of their treaty limitations, twice secretly addressed the Afghan Government, concealing this grave breach of their obligations towards us by an impudent agitation in the press for liberty of direct communication with Afghanistan. On August 31, the mouthpiece of the Russian Foreign Office, the Novoe Vremya, contained the following startling observation: