Before Sir Sam Browne moved forward from Jellalabad to Gundamuk he had been able to report to the Viceroy the death of Shere Ali. That unfortunate man had seen with despair the departure on December 10th of the last Russian from Cabul—sure token that he need hope for nothing from Kaufmann or the Tzar. His chiefs unanimous that further resistance by him was hopeless, he released his son Yakoub Khan from his long harsh imprisonment, constituted him Regent, and then followed the Russian mission in the direction of Tashkend. Kaufmann would not so much as allow him to cross the frontier, and after a painful illness Shere Ali died on February 21st, 1879, near Balkh in northern Afghanistan. He was a man who deserved a better fate than that which befell him. His aspiration was to maintain the independence of the kingdom which he ruled with justice if also with masterfulness, and he could not brook the degradation of subjection. But, unfortunately for him, he was the 'earthen pipkin' which the 'iron pot' found inconvenient. There had been plenty of manhood originally in his son and successor Yakoub Khan, but much of that attribute had withered in him during the long cruel imprisonment to which he had been subjected by his father. Shere Ali's death made him nominal master of Afghanistan, but the vigour of his youth-time no longer characterised him. He reigned but did not rule, and how precarious was his position was evidenced by the defection of many leading chiefs who came into the English camps and were ready to make terms.
After the flight of Shere Ali some correspondence had passed between Yakoub Khan and Major Cavagnari, but the former had not expressed any willingness for the re-establishment of friendly relations. In February of his own accord he made overtures for a reconciliation, and soon after intimated the death of his father and his own accession to the Afghan throne. Major Cavagnari, acting on the Viceroy's authorisation, wrote to the new sovereign stating the terms on which the Anglo-Indian Government was prepared to engage in negotiations for peace. Yakoub temporised for some time, but influenced by the growing defection of the Sirdars from his cause, as well as by the forward movements of the forces commanded by Browne and Roberts, he intimated his intention of visiting Gundamuk in order to discuss matters in personal conference with Major Cavagnari. A fortnight later he was on his way down the passes.
Instructions had been given by the Viceroy that Yakoub Khan should be received in the British camp with all honour and distinction. When his approach was announced on May 8th, Cavagnari and a number of British officers rode out to meet him; when he reached the camp, a royal salute greeted him, a guard of honour presented arms, and Sir Sam Browne and his staff gave him a ceremonious welcome. Cavagnari had full powers to represent his Government in the pending negotiations, as to the terms of which he had received from the Viceroy detailed instructions. The Ameer and his General-in-Chief, Daoud Shah, came to the conference attired in Russian uniforms. The negotiations were tedious, for the Ameer, his Minister, and his General made difficulties with a somewhat elaborate stupidity, but Cavagnari as a diplomatist possessed the gift of being at once patient and firm; and at length on May 26th the treaty of peace was signed, and formally ratified by the Viceroy four days later. By the treaty of Gundamuk Afghanistan was deprived for the time of its traditional character of a 'buffer state,' and its Ameer became virtually a feudatory of the British Crown. He was no longer an independent prince; although his titular rank and a nominal sovereignty remained to him, his position under its articles was to be analogous to that of the mediatised princes of the German Empire. The treaty vested in the British Government the control of the external relations of Afghanistan. The Ameer consented to the residence of British Agents within his dominions, guaranteeing their safety and honourable treatment, while the British Government undertook that its representatives should not interfere with the internal administration of the country. The districts of Pisheen, Kuram, and Sibi were ceded to the British Government along with the permanent control of the Khyber and Michnai passes, and of the mountain tribes inhabiting the vicinity of those passes; all other Afghan territory in British occupation was to be restored. The obligations to which the treaty committed the British Government were that it should support the Ameer against foreign aggression with arms, money, or troops at its discretion, and that it should pay to him and his successor an annual subsidy of £60,000. Commercial relations between India and Afghanistan were to be protected and encouraged; a telegraph line between Cabul and the Kuram was forthwith to be constructed; and the Ameer was to proclaim an amnesty relieving all and sundry of his subjects from punishment for services rendered to the British during the war.
That the treaty of Gundamuk involved our Indian Empire in serious responsibilities is obvious, and those responsibilities were the more serious that they were vague and indefinite, yet none the less binding on this account. It is probable that its provisions, if they had remained in force, would have been found in the long run injurious to the interests of British India. For that realm Afghanistan has the value that its ruggedness presents exceptional obstacles to the march through it of hostile armies having the Indian frontier for their objective, and this further and yet more important value that the Afghans by nature are frank and impartial Ishmaelites, their hands against all foreigners alike, no matter of what nationality. If this character be impaired, what virtue the Afghan has in our eyes is lost. In his implacable passion for independence, in his fierce intolerance of the Feringhee intruder, he fulfils in relation to our Indian frontier a kindred office to that served by abattis, cheveux de frise, and wire entanglements in front of a military position. The short-lived treaty, for which the sanguine Mr Stanhope claimed that it had gained for England 'a friendly, an independent, and a strong Afghanistan,' may now be chiefly remembered because of the circumstance that it gave effect for the moment to Lord Beaconsfield's 'scientific frontier.'
The withdrawal of the two northern forces to positions within the new frontier began immediately on the ratification of the treaty of Gundamuk, the evacuation of Candahar being postponed for sanitary reasons until autumn. The march of Sir Sam Browne's force from the breezy upland of Gundamuk down the passes to Peshawur, made as it was in the fierce heat of midsummer through a region of bad name for insalubrity, and pervaded also by virulent cholera, was a ghastly journey. That melancholy pilgrimage, every halting-place in whose course was marked by graves, and from which the living emerged 'gaunt and haggard, marching with a listless air, their clothing stiff with dried perspiration, their faces thick with a mud of dust and sweat through which their red bloodshot eyes looked forth, many suffering from heat prostration,' dwells in the memory of British India as the 'death march,' and its horrors have been recounted in vivid and pathetic words by Surgeon-Major Evatt, one of the few medical officers whom, participating in it, it did not kill.
CHAPTER II: THE OPENING OF THE SECOND CAMPAIGN
There were many who mistrusted the stability of the treaty of Gundamuk. Perhaps in his heart Sir Louis Cavagnari may have had his misgivings, for he was gifted with shrewd insight, and no man knew the Afghan nature better; but outwardly, in his quiet, resolute manner, he professed the fullest confidence. Cavagnari was a remarkable man. Italian and Irish blood commingled in his veins. Both strains carry the attributes of vivacity and restlessness, but Cavagnari to the superficial observer appeared as phlegmatic as he was habitually taciturn. This sententious imperturbability was only on the surface; whether it was a natural characteristic or an acquired manner is not easy to decide. Below the surface of measured reticent composure there lay a temperament of ardent enthusiasm, and not less ardent ambition. In subtlety he was a match for the wiliest Oriental, whom face to face he dominated with a placid dauntless masterfulness that was all his own. The wild hill tribes among whom he went about escortless, carrying his life continually in his hand, recognised the complex strength of his personal sway, and feared at once and loved the quiet, firm man, the flash of whose eye was sometimes ominous, but who could cow the fiercest hillman without losing a tittle of his cool composure.
[Illustration: From a Photograph by Bourne & Shepherd: Sir Louis
Cavagnari and Sirdars]
Cavagnari had negotiated the treaty of Gundamuk, the real importance of which consisted in the Afghan acceptance of a British Resident at Cabul. The honour, the duty, and the danger naturally fell to him of being the first occupant of a post created mainly by his own mingled tact and strength. Many of his friends regarded him in the light of the leader of a forlorn hope, and probably Cavagnari recognised with perfect clearness the risks which encompassed his embassy; but apart from mayhap a little added gravity in his leave-takings when he quitted Simla, he gave no sign. It was not a very imposing mission at whose head he rode into the Balla Hissar of Cabul on July 24th, 1879. His companions were his secretary, Mr William Jenkins, a young Scotsman of the Punjaub Civil Service, Dr Ambrose Kelly, the medical officer of the embassy, and the gallant, stalwart young Lieutenant W. R. P. Hamilton, V.C., commanding the modest escort of seventy-five soldiers of the Guides. It was held that an escort so scanty was sufficient, since the Ameer had pledged himself personally for the safety and protection of the mission. The Envoy was received with high honour, and conducted to the roomy quarters in the Balla Hissar which had been prepared as the Residency, within easy distance of the Ameer's palace. Unquestionably the mission was welcome neither to the Afghan ruler nor to the people, but Cavagnari, writing to the Viceroy, made the best of things. The arrival at the adjacent Sherpur cantonments of the Herat regiments in the beginning of August was extremely unfortunate for the mission. Those troops had been inspired by their commander Ayoub Khan with intense hatred to the English, and they marched through the Cabul streets shouting objurgations against the British Envoy, and picking quarrels with the soldiers of his escort. A pensioned sepoy who had learned that the Afghan troops had been ordered to abuse the Eltchi, warned Cavagnari of the danger signals. Cavagnari's calm remark was, 'Dogs that bark don't bite.' The old soldier earnestly urged, 'But these dogs do bite, and there is danger.' 'Well,' said Cavagnari, 'they can only kill the handful of us here, and our death will be avenged.' The days passed, and it seemed that Cavagnari's diagnosis of the situation was the accurate one. The last words of his last message to the Viceroy, despatched on September 2d, were 'All well.' The writer of those words was a dead man, and his mission had perished with him, almost as soon as the cheerful message borne along the telegraph wires reached its destination.
In the morning of September 3d some Afghan regiments paraded without arms in the Balla Hissar to receive their pay. An instalment was paid, but the soldiers clamoured for arrears due. The demand was refused, a riot began, and the shout rose that the British Eltchi might prove a free-handed paymaster. There was a rush toward the Residency, and while some of the Afghan soldiers resorted to stone-throwing, others ran for arms to their quarters, and looted the Arsenal in the upper Balla Hissar. The Residency gates had been closed on the first alarm, and fire was promptly opened on the rabble. The place was never intended for defence, commanded as it was at close range from the higher level of the Arsenal, whence a heavy continuous fire was from the first poured down. The mob of the city in their thousands hurried to co-operate with the mutinied soldiers and share in the spoils of the sack, so that the Residency was soon besieged. As soon as the outbreak manifested itself Cavagnari had sent a message to the Ameer, and the communication admittedly reached the latter's hands. He had more than 2000 troops in the Balla Hissar, still at least nominally loyal; he had guaranteed the protection of the mission, and it behoved him to do what in him lay to fulfil his pledge. But the Ameer sat supine in his palace, doing no more than send his General-in-Chief Daoud Shah to remonstrate with the insurgents. Daoud Shah went on the errand, but it is questionable whether he showed any energy, or indeed desired that the besiegers should desist. It was claimed by and for him that he was maltreated and indeed wounded by the mob, and it appears that he did ride into the throng and was forcibly dismounted. He might perhaps have exerted himself with greater determination if he had received more specific orders from his master the Ameer. That feeble or treacherous prince never stirred. To the frequent urgent messages sent him by Lieutenant Hamilton, he replied vaguely: 'As God wills; I am making preparations.' Meanwhile the little garrison maintained with gallant staunchness hour after hour the all but hopeless defence.' While the fighting was going on,' reported the pensioner who had previously warned Cavagnari, 'I myself saw the four European officers charge out at the head of some twenty-five of the garrison; they drove away a party holding some broken ground. When chased, the Afghan soldiers ran like sheep before a wolf. Later, another sally was made by a detachment, with but three officers at their head. Cavagnari was not with them this time. A third sally was made with only two officers leading, Hamilton and Jenkins; and the last of the sallies was made by a Sikh Jemadar bravely leading. No more sallies were made after this.' About noon the gates were forced, and the Residency building was fired; but the defenders long maintained their position on the roof and in a detached building. At length the fire did its work, the walls and roof fell in, and soon the fell deed was consummated by the slaughter of the last survivors of the ill-fated garrison. Hamilton was said to have died sword in hand in a final desperate charge. Tidings of the massacre were carried with great speed to Massy's outposts in the Kuram valley. The news reached Simla by telegraph early on the morning of the 5th. The authorities there rallied from the shock with fine purposeful promptitude, and within a few hours a telegram was on its way to General Massy's headquarters at Ali Khel instructing him to occupy the crest of the Shutargurdan Pass with two infantry regiments and a mountain battery, which force was to entrench itself there and await orders.