This is mentioned because the incident is made use of as evidence for the "annexation at any price policy" of the English. In this case, at any rate, they did not err.
But now, over the horizon of a fairly peaceful India, its statesmen saw, looming in the distance, the shadow of Russia, and all thought, all energies, turned to the north-west frontier. Between it and the territory already swayed by Calcutta lay the Sikh nation and the five fruitful Doabas of the Punjâb. Of these England knew little, save what she had learnt from Megasthenes the Greek, and Arrian's Anabasis.
One or two courteous interviews had passed with Runjeet-Singh, the Sikh king, but that was all. It was sufficient, however, to show him able, a man not to be easily swayed. His life-history confirms this. Left king at the age of twelve, with a profligate mother who for years had carried on an intrigue with the chief Minister-of-State, and an exceedingly ambitious mother-in-law, he managed to rid himself speedily of their influence, and ere long take his position as monarch of a far larger kingdom than he had inherited. His conquests eastwards were, indeed, only checked by meeting with British-protected states, and he kept an eye steadily on both Kâbul and Kashmîr. The former he hoped to gain by using Shâh-Sujah, the deposed Ameer, as a stalking-horse; and as a bribe for help promised, but never given, he succeeded in extorting from the latter the celebrated Koh-i-nur diamond. The latter, and Peshawar, he wrested from the Afghâns, with the aid of two French officers who opportunely arrived on the scene. So much for the Punjâb. Below it, still on the western border, lay Scinde, an independent state. Beyond it, Persia, with which England already had relations. But what of Afghanistan? There Mr Elphinstone's attempt to establish connection had ended with Shâh-Sujah's flight.
It was determined, therefore, to attempt an embassy to Dost-Mahomed, his usurping successor, and Sir Alexander Burnes was chosen as the delegate.
He was a man who had travelled all over Central Asia, who was in every way qualified for his task. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he was too well qualified for carrying out the simple commercial instructions with which the English Government had tentatively, perhaps timidly, entrusted him. But the discovery of Russian intrigues in full swing at the Kâbul court sent commerce to the right-about. Burnes was in the thick of diplomacy without delay, and ere long formal questioning and reply was going on between Russian and English ambassadors regarding the former's influence on the Indian borderland, which elicited a categorical denial of any ulterior object on the part of Russia.
But Dost-Mahomed for all that refused to accede to England's somewhat impertinent request, that he should dismiss the Russian agent from his court. And so began a quarrel which is barely settled to-day.
Sir Alexander Burnes left Kâbul in dudgeon, and almost immediately after his departure matters came to a crisis by the Persians--avowed allies of Russia--besieging Herât. Now, Herât was considered by diplomatists and the military alike the key of India, and in 1838, after many pour parlers, manifestoes, and embroglios, the combined armies of the tripartite alliance, that is to say, the British, the Sikhs, and Shâh-Sujah, marched on the Punjâb to reinstate the latter on his long-vacated throne in Kâbul. In all the long history of India no more unwarrantable invasion was ever undertaken, though half a hundred good reasons were given for it at the time, and could be found for its defence even now by those who fail to see that Dost-Mahomed was, as Eastern potentates go, quite a decent ruler. There is but one possible excuse. England chose her career deliberately, thinking not at all of Afghânistân, but of Russia.
After a halt at Ferôzepore, where the allies assembled and where festivities were held, Runjeet-Singh, an old man now, blind of one eye, desperately marked with smallpox, and inconceivably ugly, tripped over a carpet, to the horror of his court (who considered it an evil omen), and fell flat on his nose at the feet of a big English gun he was examining; and where, also, Henry Havelock, one of the new school of the Church-Militant, exclaimed in horror at "the ladies of a British Governor-General 'watching' choral and dancing prostitutes" (surely a somewhat over high-toned description of that deadliest of dull and decorous entertainments, an Indian nautch). After all this a fairly-triumphant march was made through Scinde (where the Ameer of that country, after a distinct promise that no riverside forts should be touched, was fairly diddled out of the one at Bukkhur, on the shameless plea that it stood on an island), through Quetta to Kandahâr and Ghuzni (which made a good resistance); so to Kâbul, which was entered on the 7th August 1839, when Shâh-Sujah ran about the passages of the Bâla-Hissâr palace like a child, clapping his hands with delight at finding himself back again after thirty years' absence.
So far good. But, meanwhile, Runjeet-Singh had died, and our rear was endangered by the almost open enmity of his successor. Thus a limited garrison, only, had to be left in Kâbul; and in addition, Dost-Mahomed's first flight had proved to be but a prelude to desperate resistance. Still, armed occupation was held of the town of Kâbul, cantonments were built for the British regiments and sepoys which formed the garrison, in which the troops passed the winter and summer of 1841 in comfort. Then came disaster.
What caused the outbreak is a mystery. So far as one can judge, it began in private revenge upon Sir Alexander Burnes. His house was the first attacked on the 2nd November 1841 by a mob thirsting for blood and plunder. He attempted to calm them by harangue. He offered large sums for his own and his brother's escape, but they were both cut down, every sepoy murdered, every man, woman, or child on the premises brutally killed.