On the afternoon of the 7th a violent explosion was heard in the Beni Hissar camp from the direction of the Sherpur cantonment north of Cabul, near the site of the British cantonments of 1839-41. Next morning information came in that the Sherpur magazine had been blown up, and that the cantonment had been abandoned by the Afghan regiments which had garrisoned that vast unfinished structure. General Massy led out part of his brigade on a reconnaissance, and took possession of the deserted Sherpur cantonment, and of the seventy-five pieces of ordnance parked within the walls. Massy had observed from the Siah Sung heights that the Asmai heights, overhanging the Cabul suburb of Deh Afghan, were held by a large body of Afghan soldiery, a force, it was afterwards learned, composed of the remnants of the regiments defeated at Charasiah, three fresh regiments from the Kohistan, and the rabble of the city and adjacent villages, having a total strength of nearly 3000 men, with twelve guns, under the leadership of Mahomed Jan, who later was to figure prominently as the ablest of our Afghan enemies. Massy heliographed his information to General Roberts, who sent Baker with a force to drive the enemy from the heights; and Massy was instructed to pass through a gap in the ridge and gain the Chardeh valley, where he might find opportunity to intercept the Afghan retreat toward the west. Massy pierced the ridge at the village of Aushar, and disposed his troops on the roads crossing the Chardeh valley. Meanwhile Baker found the ascent of the Sher Derwaza heights so steep that the afternoon was far spent before his guns came into action, and it was still later before part of his infantry effected their descent into the Chardeh valley. Reinforcements necessary to enable him to act did not reach him until dusk, when it would have been folly to commit himself to an attack. A night patrol ascertained that the Afghans had evacuated the position under cover of darkness, leaving behind their guns and camp equipage. On the 9th the divisional camp moved forward to the Siah Sung heights, a mile eastward from the Balla Hissar, and there it was joined by Baker, and by Massy, who on his way to camp led his wearied troopers through the city of Cabul without mishap or insult. The Goorkha regiment was detached to hold the ridge commanding the Balla Hissar, and a cavalry regiment was quartered in the Sherpur cantonment to protect it from the ravages of the villagers.
A melancholy interest attaches to the visit paid by Sir Frederick Roberts to the Balla Hissar on the 11th. Through the dirt and squalor of the lower portion he ascended the narrow lane leading to the ruin which a few weeks earlier had been the British Residency. The commander of the avenging army looked with sorrowful eyes on the scene of heroism and slaughter, on the smoke-blackened walls, the blood splashes on the whitewashed walls, the still smouldering debris, the half-burned skulls and bones in the blood-dabbled chamber where apparently the final struggle had been fought out. He stood in the great breach in the quarters of the Guides where the gate had been blown in after the last of the sorties made by the gallant Hamilton, and lingered in the tattered wreck of poor Cavagnari's drawing-room, its walls dinted with bullet-pits, its floor and walls brutally defiled. Next day he made a formal entry into the Balla Hissar, his road lined with his staunch troops, a royal salute greeting the banner of Britain as it rose on the tall flagstaff above the gateway. He held a Durbar in the 'Audience Chamber' in the garden of the Ameer's palace; in front and in flank of him the pushing throng of obsequious Sirdars of Cabul arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow; behind them, standing immobile at attention, the guard of British infantry with fixed bayonets which the soldiers longed to use. The General read the mild proclamation announcing the disarmament of the Cabulese and the punishment of fine which was laid upon the city, but which never was exacted. And then he summarily dismissed the Sirdars, three only, the Mustaphi, Yahuja Khan the Ameer's father-in-law, and Zakariah Khan his brother, being desired to remain. Their smug complacency was suddenly changed into dismay when they were abruptly told that they were prisoners.
Another ceremonial progress the General had to perform. On the 13th he marched through the streets of Cabul at the head of his little army, the bazaars and dead walls echoing to the music of the bands and the wild scream of the bagpipes. In the Afghan quarter no salaams greeted the conquering Feringhees, and scowling faces frowned on the spectacle from windows and side-streets. Three days later occurred an event which might have been a great catastrophe. Captain Shafto of the ordnance was conducting an examination into the contents of the arsenal in the upper Balla Hissar, and had already discovered millions of cartridges, and about 150,000 lbs. of gunpowder. Daoud Shah, however, expressed his belief that at least a million pounds were in store. Captain Shafto, a very cautious man, was pursuing his researches; the Goorkhas were quartered in the upper Balla Hissar near the magazine shed, and the 67th occupied the Ameer's garden lower down. On the 16th a dull report was heard in the Siah Sung camp, followed immediately by the rising above the Balla Hissar of a huge column of grey smoke, which as it drifted away disclosed flashes of flame and sudden jets of smoke telling of repeated gunpowder explosions. The 67th, powdered with dust, escaped all but scathless; but the Goorkha regiment had been heavily smitten. Twelve poor fellows were killed, and seven wounded; among the former were five principal Goorkha officers.
The Balla Hissar was promptly evacuated. Occasional explosions occurred for several days, the heaviest of those on the afternoon of the 16th, which threw on the city a great shower of stones, beams, and bullets. By a jet of stones blown out through the Balla Hissar gate four Afghans were killed, and two sowars and an Afghan badly hurt. Captain Shafto's body and the remains of the Goorkhas were found later, and buried; and the determination was formed to have no more to do with the Balla Hissar, but to occupy the Sherpur cantonment. Meanwhile General Hugh Gough was despatched with a small force of all arms to escort to Cabul Money's gallant garrison of the Shutargurdan, and to close for the winter the line of communication via the Kuram valley. Colonel Money had undergone with fine soldierly spirit and action not a few turbulent experiences since Roberts had left him and his Sikhs on the lofty crest of the Shutargurdan. The truculent Ghilzais gave him no peace; his method of dealing with them was for the most part with the bayonet point. The last attempt on him was made by a horde of Ghilzais some 17,000 strong, who completely invested his camp, and after the civility of requesting him to surrender, a compliment which he answered by bullets, made a close and determined attack on his position. This was on the 18th October; on the following day Gough heliographed his arrival at Kushi, whereupon Money took the offensive with vigour and scattered to the winds his Ghilzai assailants. On 30th October the Shutargurdan position was evacuated, and on the 3d November the Cabul force received the welcome accession of headquarters and two squadrons 9th Lancers, Money's 3d Sikhs, and four mountain guns.
CHAPTER III: THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM
Sir Frederick Roberts had been hurried forward on Cabul charged with the duty of avenging the perpetration of a foul and treacherous crime, 'which had brought indelible disgrace upon the Afghan nation.' The scriptural injunction to turn the other cheek to the smiter has not yet become a canon of international law or practice; and the anti-climax to an expedition engaged in with so stern a purpose, of a nominal disarmament and a petty fine never exacted, is self-evident. Our nation is given to walk in the path of precedent; and in this juncture the authorities had to their hand the most apposite of precedents. Pollock, by destroying the Char bazaar in which had been exposed the mangled remains of Burnes and Macnaghten, set a 'mark' on Cabul the memory of which had lasted for decades. Cavagnari and his people had been slaughtered in the Balla Hissar, and their bones were still mingled with the smouldering ruins of the Residency. Wise men discerned that the destruction of the fortress followed by a homeward march as swift yet as measured as had been the march of invasion, could not but have made a deep and lasting impression on the Afghans; while the complications, humiliations, and expense of the long futile occupation would have been obviated. Other counsels prevailed. To discover, in a nation virtually accessory as a whole after the fact to the slaughter of the mission, the men on whom lay the suspicion of having been the instigators and the perpetrators of the cruel deed, to accord them a fair trial, and to send to the gallows those on whose hands was found the blood of the massacred mission, was held a more befitting and not less telling course of retributive action than to raze the Balla Hissar and sow its site with salt. Skilfully and patiently evidence was gathered, and submitted to the Military Commission which General Roberts had appointed. This tribunal took cognisance of crimes nominally of two classes. It tried men who were accused of having been concerned in the destruction of the British mission, and those charged with treason in having offered armed resistance to the British troops acting in support of the Ameer, who had put himself under their protection. Of the five prisoners first tried, condemned, and duly hanged, two were signal criminals. One of them, the Kotwal or Mayor of Cabul, was proved to have superintended the contumelious throwing of the bodies of the slaughtered Guides of the mission escort into the ditch of the Balla Hissar. Another was proved to have carried away from the wrecked Residency a head believed to have been Cavagnari's, and to have exhibited it on the ridge above the city. The other three and many of those who were subsequently executed, suffered for the crime of 'treason' against Yakoub Khan. Probably there was no Afghan who did not approve of the slaughter of the Envoy, and who would not in his heart have rejoiced at the annihilation of the British force; but it seems strange law and stranger justice to hang men for 'treason' against a Sovereign who had gone over to the enemy. On the curious expedient of temporarily governing in the name of an Ameer who had deserted his post to save his skin, comment would be superfluous. Executions continued; few, however, of the mutinous sepoys who actually took part in the wanton attack on the British Residency had been secured, and it was judged expedient that efforts should be made to capture and punish those against whom there was evidence of that crime, in the shape of the muster-rolls of the regiments now in the possession of the military authorities. It was known that many of the disbanded and fugitive soldiers had returned to their homes in the villages around Cabul, and early in November General Baker took out a force and suddenly encircled the village of Indikee, on the edge of the Chardeh valley—a village reported full of Afghan sepoys. A number of men were brought out by the scared headmen and handed over, answering to their names called over from a list carried by Baker; and other villages in the vicinity yielded a considerable harvest of disbanded soldiers. Before the Commission the prisoners made no attempt to conceal their names, or deny the regiments to which they had belonged; and forty-nine of them were found guilty and hanged, nearly all of whom belonged to the regiments that had assailed the Residency.
On 12th November Sir Frederick Roberts proclaimed an amnesty in favour of all who had fought against the British troops, on condition that they should surrender their arms and return to their homes; but exempted from the benefit were all concerned in the attack on the Residency. The amnesty was well timed, although most people would have preferred that fewer sepoys and more Sirdars should have been hanged.
Our relations with the Ameer during the earlier part of his residence in the British camp were not a little peculiar. Nominally he was our guest, and a certain freedom was accorded to him and his retinue. There was no doubt that the Sirdars of the Ameer's suite grossly abused their privileges. Whether with Yakoub Khan's cognisance or not, they authorised the use of his name by the insurgent leaders. Nek Mahomed, the insurgent commander at Charasiah, was actually in the tents of the Ameer on the evening before the fight. To all appearance our operations continued to have for their ultimate object the restoration of Yakoub Khan to his throne. Our administrative measures were carried on in his name. The hostile Afghans we designated as rebels against his rule; and his authority was proclaimed as the justification of much of our conduct. But the situation gradually became intolerable to Yakoub Khan. He was a guest in the British camp, but he was also in a species of custody. Should our arms reinstate him, he could not hope to hold his throne. His harassed perplexity came to a crisis on the morning of the 12th October, the day of General Roberts' durbar in the Balla Hissar, which he had been desired to attend. What he specifically apprehended is unknown; what he did was to tell General Roberts, with great excitement, that he would not go to the durbar, that his life was too miserable for long endurance, that he would rather be a grass-cutter in the British camp than remain Ameer of Afghanistan. He was firmly resolved to resign the throne, and begged that he might be allowed to do so at once. General Roberts explained that the acceptance of his resignation rested not with him but with the Viceroy, pending whose decision matters, the General desired, should remain as they were, affairs continuing to be conducted in the Ameer's name as before. To this the Ameer consented; his tents were moved to the vicinity of General Roberts' headquarters, and a somewhat closer surveillance over him was maintained.
Secrecy meanwhile was preserved until the Viceroy's reply should arrive. The nature of that reply was intimated by the proclamation which General Roberts issued on the 28th October. It announced that the Ameer had of his own free will abdicated his throne and left Afghanistan without a government. 'The British Government,' the proclamation continued, 'now commands that all Afghan authorities, chiefs, and sirdars, do continue their functions in maintaining order…. The British Government, after consultation with the principal sirdars, tribal chiefs, and others representing the interests and wishes of the various provinces and cities, will declare its will as to the future permanent arrangements to be made for the good government of the people.'
This ad interim assumption of the rulership of Afghanistan may have been adopted as the only policy which afforded even a remote possibility of tranquillity. But it was essentially a policy of speculative makeshift. The retributive and punitive object of the swift march on Cabul can scarcely be regarded as having been fulfilled by the execution of a number of subordinate participants and accessories in the destruction of the mission and by the voluntary abdication of Yakoub Khan. That the Afghan 'authorities, chiefs, and sirdars,' would obey the command to 'maintain order' issued by the leader of a few thousand hostile troops, masters of little more than the ground on which they were encamped, experience and common sense seemed alike to render improbable. The Afghans subordinated their internal quarrels to their common hatred of the masterful foreigners, and the desperate fighting of December proved how fiercely they were in earnest.