Under the absolute Amir

by Frank A. Martin

The Amir said that no one knew to what country the Haddah moullah belonged, for he had no known relations, and during Shere Ali’s reign the moullah had been allowed to do much as he liked with the people, and raise revolt at his pleasure. He himself, however, had made inquiries, and found out the moullah’s mode of procedure, and had arranged to capture him, but the moullah received timely information of his intention, and escaped across the frontier, where he shortly afterwards raised the Shinwari and other tribes against him, and for some months gave considerable trouble, and it was not until four thousand or so had been killed that the tribes were quieted. And this was the man whose actions he was held responsible for.

The Haddah moullah had great influence with the tribes, the Amir said, and had sent agents to the Jelalabad and Laghman districts, where they induced some three thousand men to join them, but the governor of Jelalabad got news of it and stopped them, and on asking by whose permission they were going on this jihad (religious war), they replied that they were told by the agents of the moullah the Amir had given permission. The Amir said that of their leaders he had four sheikhs and two maliks, who carried the green jihad flag, in prison in Kabul, and he knew what to do with them, but the other leaders had escaped.

It was on this occasion that two men were brought in before the Amir as refugees from India, who had returned according to the amnesty issued by the Amir a few years before to all who had been driven out of the country; but the Amir said that the men were lying, and he had ample proof that they were spies from Ayoob Khan, who wanted reports of all said and done in his durbar. He said that both Ayoob Khan and Yakoob Khan yearly spent large sums of money in trying to get information of what he was doing, and to show how little he feared their influence, the Amir said: “If they will pay their money to me I will send them weekly or monthly reports, and give them all news of what happens, and my reports will be true ones, for no one else knows what I do or intend doing, and not even my most trusted officials know of any secret matters of importance.”

The Amir’s great wish, as he often expressed it when I have been in durbar, was to make his country rich by developing all its resources and bringing it on a level with other countries, and had he been gifted with health no doubt much would have been done towards it; but he was confined to his room mostly, and had to depend on his officials for information, and they proved a poor staff to lean on.

In another letter the Amir received about this time from the Indian Government, he told me that it was written that he had been faithful for twenty years, and yet in the same letter it was also written that he was buying too much war material, and that the Parliament in England would perhaps get suspicious. He could not reconcile these two statements, and said he came to the country as ruler without arms, and was recognized and acknowledged as Amir by the English, and his first act as ruler was to help them in providing for General Roberts’ army on its march from Kabul to Kandahar by giving orders all along the route to the maliks, and others in authority, to bring in provisions for the English army at each camping place, and in no way to molest them, whereby the English were enabled to march rapidly and without trouble to Kandahar. According to his treaty with the English it was necessary for them to furnish him with the latest arms to enable him to stand as her ally between her and Russia; but, instead of having them given to him, he had bought war material himself, and was now told not to do so. When the Russians extended their railway to Khuskh, they asked him to take advantage of it by trading that way, and he sent a copy of the letter to the Indian Government, asking what answer he should give, and they replied, “Give no answer;” but he was forced to reply or it might end in trouble or war, so he replied to the Russians that they had constructed this railway without consulting him, and had they done so in time he would have asked his merchants and people their opinion and what they wished, but they had made the railway for their own convenience, and his country did not want it, as their camels and pack-horses were sufficient for their own needs. He said he sent a copy of his reply to the Indian Government, who wrote back to say he had done well. He said he did not blame the English officials for what they wrote, because they were under the orders of the Parliament, but his idea of the Parliament was that it was like the Kabul public hamam (Turkish bath), where many are speaking at once, and the reverberations of sound from the big dome overhead mingles one man’s talk with that of others, so that all sequence of speech is lost in the confusion of sounds.

The great Boer War had just commenced at that time, and the Amir said he had spent several nights in anxious thought, for it seemed possible that the Russians might take advantage of this to advance through his country on India, but when he put himself in the place of the Russians and viewed the situation from their side, and he had spent many years in exile in Russia, and knew them and their ways and policy, he found much to fear from Afghanistan, for a war with them meant a general rising of Islam, which would spread to Russian Asia, and they had not enough troops for all that this meant, for the Mussulman countries she had conquered were insecurely held, and the people hated their conquerors, and as the Afghans would prefer death to being enslaved, and their women and children taken, it would be too great an undertaking to quell these risings, and fight Afghanistan and India at the same time.

About the Boer War he said he was very much grieved to hear of the number of troops lost. He had had a large experience in fighting, and from the different pictures and plans he had seen, he thought the fighting arrangements were not good, for the Boers were entrenched and hidden, and the English advanced on them in the open, and as the bodies of men are not made of steel, it is impossible to stand against the hail of bullets which modern weapons storm out every minute. He said he could send fifty thousand troops to help the British, but Afghans are unused to ships, and would be demoralized if sent in them, but England must always remember that he was ready to fight for her on his side or in India. He once told me an anecdote of the time when he was in Russia, and the Russo-Turkish War was raging. He was asked to join the Russian army with his followers in this war, for they told him they had heard that he was a great general, and would like to test his powers. But he was in no mood to fight for the Russians, particularly as they were fighting against his co-religionists, so he replied that to fight on their side would give them no opportunity of testing his merits and bravery, for all the Russians were brave and good fighters, and he would be one among many. Therefore it was better they should let him fight on the enemy’s side, and then when he was fighting against them, his ability, or want of it, would be made apparent, and they could judge for themselves. They asked him no more, he said.

In speaking of the foregoing matters the Amir said these and other anxieties were hard for one man to bear. He had to be strong enough to fight Russia both for the sake of his country, and because of his treaty with the English, and yet he was told he was buying too much war material. He tried to keep on the best of terms with his ally, and was told he stirred up the tribes to fight against them. Then, again, he had many reforms at heart for the benefit of his country, and his own officials were unreliable, and he could not ascertain the true wishes and views of the people, so that he might alter those laws which pressed upon them, and help them to better themselves, and yet he must strive that his people live in peace, security, and prosperity.

Although Amir Abdur Rahman was an exceptionally able man, he had received little or no education and training, except in the hard school of adversity, and the history of his adventures and adversities until he was made Amir would form a stirring romance. He was undoubtedly the strongest ruler Afghanistan has known, for when he came to the throne lawlessness reigned and had reigned for all time throughout the country, and no man’s life was safe who could not protect himself, and when he died a solitary traveller might journey from one end of the country to the other in safety. He was also a man of great personal courage, as those who fought against him knew, and he was relentless in vengeance for any wrong done him.

He told me an anecdote one day of when he was at war with other members of his family and had lost all but a remnant of his followers. He had taken refuge in a village fort, and one of his followers had treacherously betrayed his whereabouts to his enemy, who came that night with a large number of soldiers, and surrounding the fort, clamoured at the gate for his surrender. He was without provisions for his men and horses, and was greatly outnumbered, so that fighting was useless, and he determined on stratagem as a means of getting out of the difficulty, for his capture, he knew, meant death. So putting on a large posteen (sheepskin coat) which covers the body down to the feet, and is usually worn at night, covering the head as well as the body, he had himself let out of a small door at the side of the fort, and with a pistol in his hand which he kept hidden under the sheepskin he mingled with the soldiers outside, who did not molest him thinking he was one of themselves. Eventually he came to where his enemy was standing, and watching his opportunity when none of the others were near he seized him from behind, and clapping the pistol to the back of his head, ordered him to make no outcry or instant death would follow, and then by roundabout ways he led his prisoner to the small door he came out from, and got him into the fort. Here, as a condition of life, he made him give orders from the wall for his followers to retire to a considerable distance, and thereafter he effected his escape and got clear away with his men.