Forty-one years in India: from subaltern to commander-in-chief

by Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts

Finding the former place in possession of the Afghans, Major Green, who was in command of the regiment, made for the further post, where he arrived with the loss of only three men killed and three wounded.

Rumours of an assault It was not easy to get reliable information as to the movements or intentions of the enemy while we were surrounded in Sherpur; but from spies who managed to pass to and from the city under cover of night, I gathered that plans were being made to attack us.

It was not, however, until the 21st that there were any very great signs of activity. On that and the following day the several posts to the east of the cantonment were occupied preparatory to an attack from that quarter; and I was told that numbers of scaling-ladders were being constructed. This looked like business. Next, information was brought in that, in all the mosques, mullas were making frantic appeals to the people to unite in one final effort to exterminate the infidel; and that the aged Mushk-i-Alam was doing all in his power to fan the flame of fanaticism, promising to light with his own hand at dawn on the 23rd (the last day of the Moharram, when religious exaltation amongst Mahomedans is at its height) the beacon-fire which was to be the signal for assault.

The night of the 22nd was undisturbed, save by the songs and cries of the Afghans outside the walls, but just before day the flames of the signal-fire, shooting upwards from the topmost crag of the Asmai range, were plainly to be seen, followed on the instant by a burst of firing.

Our troops were already under arms and at their posts, waiting for the assault, which commenced with heavy firing against the eastern and southern faces. The most determined attack was directed against the two sections commanded by Brigadier-General Hugh Gough and Colonel Jenkins, who by their able dispositions proved themselves worthy of the confidence I had reposed in them.

It was too dark at first to see anything in front of the walls, and orders were given to reserve fire until the advancing masses of the assailants could be clearly made out. Gough's Mountain guns, under Lieutenant Sherries, then fired star-shells, which disclosed the attacking force up to a thousand yards off. The 28th Punjab Infantry were the first to open fire; then the Guides, the 67th, and 92nd, each in their turn, greeted by their volleys the ghazis who approached close to the walls. Guns from every battery opened on the foe moving forward to the attack, and from 7 to 10 a.m. the fight was carried on. Repeated attempts were made to scale the south-eastern wall, and many times the enemy got up as far as the abattis, but were repulsed, heaps of dead marking the spots where these attempts had been most [persistent].[³]

Attack and counter-attack Soon after 10 a.m. there was a slight lull in the fighting, leading us to believe that the Afghans were recoiling before the breechloaders. An hour later, however, the assault grew hot as ever, and finding we could not drive the enemy back by any fire which could be brought against them from the defences, I resolved to attack them in flank. Accordingly, I directed Major Craster, with four Field Artillery guns, and Lieutenant-Colonel Williams, with the 5th Punjab Cavalry, to move out over the hollow in the Bimaru range and open fire on a body of the enemy collected in and around the village of Kurja Kila. This fire had the desired effect; the Afghans wavered and broke.

From that moment the attacking force appeared to lose heart, the assault was no longer prosecuted with the same vigour, and by 1 p.m. it had ceased altogether, and the enemy were in full flight.

This was the Cavalry's opportunity. I ordered Massy to follow in pursuit with every available man, and before nightfall all the open ground in the neighbourhood of Sherpur was cleared of the enemy. Simultaneously with the movement of the Cavalry, a party was despatched to destroy some villages near the southern wall which had caused us much trouble, and whence it was necessary the enemy should be driven, to facilitate the entrance of Brigadier-General Charles Gough the next day, for that officer had arrived with his brigade within about six miles of Sherpur, where I could see his tents, and gathered from the fact of his pitching them that he meant to halt there for the night. The villages were found to be occupied by ghazis, who refused to surrender, preferring to remain and perish in the buildings, which were then blown up. Two gallant Engineer officers (Captain Dundas, V.C., and Lieutenant C. Nugent) were most unfortunately killed in carrying out this duty.

The relief I felt when I had gathered my force inside the walls of Sherpur on the evening of the 14th December was small compared to that which I experienced on the morning of the 24th, when I realized that not only had the assault been abandoned, but that the great tribal combination had dissolved, and that not a man of the many thousands who had been opposed to us the previous day remained in any of the villages, or on the surrounding hills. It was difficult to form an accurate estimate of the numbers opposed to us. As the Contingent from the more distant districts advanced, they received accessions from every place they passed, and as they neared Kabul they were joined by the inhabitants of the numerous villages, and by the disaffected in the city. It was calculated by those best able to judge that the combined forces exceeded 100,000, and I myself do not think that an excessive computation.