Every man of the reserves was hurried into the fighting line; the soldiers were steadied by the energetic efforts of their officers and settled down to a steady and continuous fire from their breechloaders; the guns poured their shells into the hostile masses; and the fire of the forty-pounders on the left effectually arrested the attempt of the Afghan horse to move round that flank. The hard-fought combat lasted for an hour; at ten o'clock the 'cease fire' sounded, and the British victory was signal. The enemy was dispersing in full flight, and the cavalry was chasing the fugitives across the plain on the right. How reckless had been the whirlwind charges of the ghazees was evidenced by the extraordinary number of their dead whose corpses strewed the battlefield. In no previous conflict between our troops and the Afghans had the latter suffered nearly so heavily. More than 1000 dead were counted on the field, and many bodies were carried away; on a moderate computation their total loss must have been between 2000 and 3000, and that in an estimated strength of from 12,000 to 15,000. The casualties of the British force were seventeen killed and 124 wounded, of whom four died of their wounds. The injuries consisted almost wholly of sword slashes and knife stabs received in hand-to-hand encounters. The pursuit was soon recalled, but the Hazaras took up the chase with ardour and in the rancour of vengeance slew and spared not.
Sir Donald Stewart tarried on the field only long enough to bury his dead and have his wounded attended to; and soon after noon his force resumed its march. Ghuznee was reached on the 21st, where there was a halt of three days. It had been reported that the indomitable Mushk-i-Alum was raising the tribesmen of Zurmut and Shilgur to avenge the defeat of Ahmed Khel, and a cavalry reconnaissance made on the 22d had found a gathering of 2000 or 3000 men about the villages of Urzoo and Shalez, six miles south-east of Ghuznee. On the morning of the 23d a strong column commanded by Brigadier-General Palliser moved on the villages, which were found occupied in considerable force. They were too solidly built to be much injured by artillery fire, and the Afghans lay close in the shelter they afforded. Palliser hesitated to commit his infantry to an attack. Sir Donald Stewart having arrived, ordered the infantry to carry the villages without delay, and the affair was soon over, the tribesmen suffering severely from the rifle fire as they evacuated the villages, and later in the pursuit made by the cavalry and horse-artillery. On the following day the march toward Cabul was resumed.
On the 16th April Major-General Ross had been despatched from Cabul by Sir Frederick Roberts on the mission of joining hands with Stewart's division. On the 20th Ross opened heliographic communication with Sir Donald, and was informed of the latter's victory at Ahmed Khel. But the junction of the two forces was not accomplished until the 27th; and in the interval the force commanded by General Ross had received considerable annoyance at the hands of tribal levies gathered by local chiefs. The tribesmen interfered with the roadmaking operations of his sappers in the vicinity of Sheikabad, and some fighting occurred in very rugged country on the 23d. Trivial loss was experienced by his command, but the demonstrations of the tribesmen evinced with what inveterate determination, notwithstanding so many severe lessons, the Afghans persisted in their refusal to admit themselves conquered. Driven away with severe loss on the 25th, those indomitable hillmen and villagers were back again on the following morning on the overhanging ridges; nor were they dispersed by the 'resources of civilised warfare' until more of them had paid with their lives the penalty of their obstinate hostility. On the 28th, at Sheikabad, Sir Donald Stewart took leave of the division which he had led from Candahar, and proceeded to Cabul with General Ross' force to assume the chief command in North-Eastern Afghanistan. His division turned aside into the Logur valley, where it remained at until the final concentration about Cabul in anticipation of the evacuation. By the reinforcement brought by Stewart the Cabul field force was increased to a strength of about 18,000 men.
CHAPTER VII: THE AMEER ABDURRAHMAN
The occupation of Afghanistan by the British troops had been prolonged far beyond the period originally intended by the authorities. But the strain of that occupation was great, and although it had to be maintained until there should be found a ruler strong enough to hold his own after the evacuation, the decision was definitely arrived at to withdraw from the country before the setting in of another winter. Mr Lepel Griffin, a distinguished member of the political department of the Indian Civil Service, reached Cabul on 20th March, his mission being to further the selection and acceptance of a capable ruler to be left in possession. The task was no easy one. There was little promise in any of the Barakzai pretenders who were in Afghanistan, and in the address which Mr Griffin addressed in Durbar to a number of sirdars and chiefs in the middle of April, he preserved a tone at once haughty and enigmatical. One thing he definitely announced, the Viceroy's decision that Yakoub Khan was not to return to Afghanistan. The State was to be dismembered. As to the future of Herat the speaker made no allusion; but the province of Candahar was to be separated from Cabul and placed under an independent Barakzai prince. No decision could for the present be given in regard to the choice of an Ameer to rule over Cabul. The Government desired to nominate an Ameer strong enough to govern his people and steadfast in his friendship to the British; if those qualifications could be secured the Government was willing and anxious to recognise the wish of the Afghan people, and nominate an Ameer of their choice.
But in effect the choice, so far as the English were concerned, had been already virtually made. On the 14th of March Lord Lytton had telegraphed to the Secretary of State advocating the 'early public recognition of Abdurrahman as legitimate heir of Dost Mahomed, and the despatch of a deputation of sirdars, with British concurrence, to offer him the throne, as sole means of saving the country from anarchy'; and the Minister had promptly replied authorising the nomination of Abdurrahman, should he be found 'acceptable to the country and would be contented with Northern Afghanistan.' Abdurrahman had known strange vicissitudes. He was the eldest grandson of the old Dost; his father was Afzul Khan, the elder brother of Shere Ali. After the death of the Dost he had been an exile in Bokhara, but he returned to Balkh, of which province his father had been Governor until removed by Shere Ali, made good his footing there, and having done so advanced on Cabul, taking advantage of Shere Ali's absence at Candahar. The capital opened its gates to him in March 1866; he fought a successful battle with Shere Ali at Sheikabad, occupied Ghuznee, and proclaimed his father Ameer. Those were triumphs, but soon the wheel came round full circle. Afzul had but a short life as Ameer, and Abdurrahman had to retire to Afghan Turkestan. Yakoub, then full of vigour and enterprise, defeated him at Bamian and restored his father Shere Ali to the throne in the winter of 1868. Abdurrahman then once more found himself an exile. In 1870, after much wandering, he reached Tashkend, where General Kaufmann gave him permission to reside, and obtained for him from the Czar a pension of 25,000 roubles per annum. Petrosvky, a Russian writer who professed to be intimate with him during his period of exile, wrote of him that, 'To get square some day with the English and Shere Ali was Abdurrahman's most cherished thought, his dominant, never-failing passion.' His hatred of Shere Ali, his family, and supporters, was intelligible and natural enough, but why he should have entertained a bitter grudge against the English is not very apparent; and there has been no overt manifestation of its existence since he became Ameer. To Mr Eugene Schuyler, who had an interview with him at Tashkend, he expressed his conviction that with £50,000 wherewith to raise and equip an army he could attain his legitimate position as Ameer of Afghanistan. Resolutely bent on an effort to accomplish this purpose, he was living penuriously and saving the greater part of his pension, and he hinted that he might have Russian assistance in the prosecution of his endeavour. The selection of a man of such antecedents and associations as the ruler of a 'buffer' state in friendly relations with British India was perhaps the greatest leap in the dark on record. Abdurrahman came straight from the position of a Russian pensionary; in moving on Afghanistan he obeyed Russian instructions; his Tashkend patrons had furnished him with a modest equipment of arms and money, the value of which he undertook to repay if successful. It is of course possible that those functionaries of a notoriously simple and ingenuous government started and equipped him in pure friendly good nature, although they had previously consistently deterred him. But there was not a circumstance in connection with Abdurrahman that was not suspicious. Three distinct hypotheses seem to present themselves in relation to this selection as our nominee; that Lord Lytton had extraordinary, almost indeed preternatural foresight and sagacity; that he was extremely fortunate in his leap in the dark; that he desired to bring to the naked reductio ad absurdum the 'buffer state' policy. When Abdurrahman began his movement is uncertain. So early as the middle of January it was reported at Sherpur that he had left Tashkend, and was probably already on the Afghan side of the Oxus. In a letter of February 17th Mr Hensman speaks of him as being in Badakshan, where his wife's kinsmen were in power, and describes him as having a following of 2000 or 3000 Turcoman horsemen and possessed according to native report of twelve lakhs of rupees. On the 17th of March Lord Lytton telegraphed to the Secretary of State that he was in possession of 'authentic intelligence that the Sirdar was in Afghan Turkestan, having lately arrived there from Badakshan.'
[Illustration: The Ameer Abdurrahman.]
It was regarded of urgent importance to ascertain definitely the disposition of Abdurrahman, and whether he was disposed to throw in his lot with the British Government, and accept the position of its nominee in Northern Afghanistan. The agent selected by Mr Griffin to open preliminary negotiations was a certain Mohamed Surwar, Ghilzai, who had been all his life in the confidential service of the Sirdar's family. Surwar was the bearer of a formal and colourless letter by way simply of authentication; but he also carried full and explicit verbal instructions. He was directed to inform the Sirdar that since he had entered Afghan Turkestan and occupied places there by force of arms, it was essential for him to declare with what object he had come, and whether actuated by friendly or hostile feelings toward the British Government, which for its part had no ill-feeling toward him because of his long residence within the Russian Empire and his notoriously close relations with that power. That the British Government was able to benefit him very largely in comparison with that of Russia; and that wisdom and self interest alike suggested that he should at once open a friendly correspondence with the British officers in Cabul. That his opportunity was now come, and that the British Government was disposed to treat him with every consideration and to consider most favourably any representations he might make. It had no intention of annexing the country, and only desired to see a strong and friendly chief established at Cabul; and that consequently the present communication was made solely in Abdurrahman's own interest, and not in that of the British Government. He was desired to send a reply by Surwar, and later to repair to Cabul, where he should be honourably received.
Surwar returned to Cabul on 21st April, bringing a reply from Abdurrahman to Mr Griffin's letter. The tone of the reply was friendly enough, but somewhat indefinite. In conversation with Surwar as reported by the latter, Abdurrahman was perfectly frank as to his relations with the Russians, and his sentiments in regard to them. It had been reported that he had made his escape clandestinely from Tashkend. Had he cared to stand well with us at the expense of truth, it would have been his cue to disclaim all authority or assistance from the Russian Government, to confirm the current story of his escape, and to profess his anxiety to cultivate friendly relations with the British in a spirit of opposition to the power in whose territory he had lived so long virtually as a prisoner. But neither in writing nor in conversation did he make any concealment of his friendliness toward the Russians, a feeling which he clearly regarded as nowise incompatible with friendly relations with the British Government. 'If,' said he to Surwar, 'the English will in sincerity befriend me, I have no wish to hide anything from them'; and he went on to tell how the Russians had forbidden him for years to make any effort to interfere in Afghan affairs. This prohibition stood until information reached Tashkend of the deportation of Yakoub Khan to India. Then it was that General Kaufmann's representative said to him: 'You have always been anxious to return to your country; the English have removed Yakoub Khan; the opportunity is favourable; if you wish you are at liberty to go.' The Russians, continued Abdurrahman, pressed him most strongly to set out on the enterprise which lay before him. They lent him 33,000 rupees, and arms, ammunition, and supplies; he was bound to the Russians by no path or promise, but simply by feelings of gratitude. 'I should never like,' said he, 'to be obliged to fight them. I have eaten their salt, and was for twelve years dependent on their hospitality.'
Surwar reported Abdurrahman as in fine health and possessed of great energy. He had with him a force of about 3000 men, consisting of four infantry and two cavalry regiments, with twelve guns and some irregulars. He professed his readiness, in preference to conducting negotiations through agents, to go himself to Charikar in the Kohistan with an escort, and there discuss matters with the English officers in person. Surwar testified that the Sirdar had with him in Turkestan no Russian or Russian agent, and this was confirmed through other sources. He had sent forward to ascertain which was the easiest pass across the Hindoo Koosh, but meanwhile he was to remain at Kondooz until he should hear again from Mr Griffin.