The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

The calm that followed on the conclusion of the first period of the war was rudely broken. Sir Louis Cavagnari’s sanguine belief in a friendly Afghanistan was ill founded. But unlike the close of the first period of the previous war in 1843 to 1844, the massacre of the Resident and his people, which caused the second “army of vengeance,” took place while they were in apparently peaceful occupation of the Residency, and in Cabul, and not when in full retreat on India. There was even less warning of disaster in 1878 than in 1844.

When the news came there were troops in the Khyber, and Kurram Vallies, and at Candahar. In the Kurram Valley rapidly assembled the brigades of Macpherson and Baker, in which served the 72nd, the 67th, and the 92nd European Regiments, with many gallant Sikh and Ghoorka battalions, well provided with artillery and a cavalry brigade, in which were the 9th Lancers. Pushing on at once beyond the Peiwar Kotal, the Shaturgardan Pass was occupied before the enemy could get there, and garrisoned; and then the army, pushing on by Ali Kehl, in the Logar Valley, first met and defeated the insurgent Afghans at Charasia, where twenty guns were taken with but little loss. Yet another skirmish, and the army reached Cabul. The 67th was the first to enter, playing the quickstep that had been played long years before by the unhappy 44th, and the army then took up cantonments in the fortified district of Sherpur without the city walls.

Here for many a week they were practically shut in. The Shaturgardan garrison was isolated until relieved by Gough, and then that line of communication was abandoned and a fresh one opened by Gandamak and the Khyber. Throughout the whole of December there was almost continual fighting. General Roberts, slender as his force was, fully recognised the overwhelming advantage of the offensive in such a war and with such a people. Wherever armed bands gathered, there a force was sent. Often enough it barely carried out its purpose, and only then with heavy loss, because of the overwhelming numbers and determined bravery of the enemy. On one occasion the 9th Lancers suffered heavily, and three guns were temporarily abandoned; and at length the tribal gathering was too large to face, and, seizing Cabul, the Afghans shut up the small British army within its defences at Sherpur. But it was not for long. An attack on the 23rd December was beaten sternly back, and again the hostile host melted away and left Cabul alone. A few days after, Gough, with reinforcements, including the 9th Regiment, arrived by way of the Khyber.

Meanwhile, Sir Donald Stewart had moved up from Candahar, as Nott did in 1844. Meeting the enemy at Ahmed Kehl with his small force, which included the 59th and some of the 60th, he was victorious, though heavily outnumbered, and at one time, because of the desperate gallantry of the Ghazi charge, in a position of some peril; while, after entering Ghazni, he had a second “affair” at Urzoo, and then joined hands with General Ross’s force of Sikhs, Ghoorkas, and the 9th Foot, which had had another fight at Charasia before communication with the relieving column was effected.

Sir Donald Stewart now assumed supreme command at Cabul. Abdul Rahman was recognised as Amir by the Indian Government; and preparations were made, on the establishment of his authority, to abandon the Afghan capital and withdraw the army to India.

Meanwhile, General Primrose, with the 66th and 7th Fusiliers and some native troops, had been left in Candahar. The total garrison numbered less than 3000 men. But, hearing of the advance of another of the Afghan pretenders, Ayub Khan, from Herat, a considerable portion of the garrison, including the 66th, was pushed out to the north, as far as the Helmund, to check his advance. In this General Burrowes, who commanded, was unsuccessful. The battle of Maiwand was a terrible disaster, brought on chiefly, if not entirely, by taking up a fatally bad position to resist a powerful force furnished with a well-served artillery.

Here the 66th lost their colours, notwithstanding the desperate bravery of the remnant that rallied round them. Olivey and Honeywood carried the colours on that dreadful day, and the latter was heard to cry, as he held the standard on high, “Men, what shall we do to save this?” when he fell dead, as did Sergeant-major Cuphage, who next tried to take it. Colours—the signa militaria still, though not of such importance as a rallying centre in these days of extended order and fire fight, as in the days of line formation and the Brown Bess—lost as these were lost reflect honour, and not discredit, on the history of a regiment.

Remarking on the use of colours in the past during battle, Sir Charles Napier writes: “Great is the value of the standard; it is a telegraph in the centre of the battle to speak the changes of the day to the wings. Its importance has therefore been immense in all ages, among all nations, and in all kinds of war. ‘Defend the colours! form upon the colours!’ is the first cry and the first thought of a soldier, when any mischance of battle has produced disorder; then do cries, shouts, firing, blows, and all the combat thicken round the standard; it contains the symbol of the honour of the band, and the brave press round its bearer.” So it has ever been since the standard-bearer of the Tenth Legion threw the honoured insignia of his regiment among the British-Celtic, or Belgic, militia on the Dover coast, when Christianity had not yet dawned. The breech-loader has caused the colours to be omitted in the battle-order paraphernalia of modern war, and, as gunpowder had, in the past, destroyed some of the glory and panoply of the mediæval host, so it has lessened some of the picturesqueness of the line of battle of to-day.

Worn-out colours have one of three endings. First, and naturally, in the church of the district whose name the regiment bears, because the consecrated banners find fitting resting-place in consecrated buildings. Next, with the colonels of the regiments, who may be well expected to revere the standards of the battalions which have honoured them by such a gift. And lastly, as the old 50th did when it was made a royal regiment, and when, in place of the black standard, it received one of royal blue; then the silk of the old colours was burned with careful reverence, and the ashes placed in the lid of the regimental snuff-box, made out of the wood of the staff, on which is also engraven the names of those who had borne the colours in the storm of battle.

The sentiment that dwells around the regimental colours has been very well expressed by the late Sir Edward Hamley. Speaking of the colours of the 43rd, now resting and rusting peacefully in Monmouth church, he says—