Threatening outlook.
As the year 1841 wore away, disappointments and anxieties began to tell on Sir William Macnaghten. Shah Shuja was a useless burden, like the old man of the sea on the shoulders of Sinbad. The hill tribes had closed the passes between Cabul and Jellalabad, and in October Sir Robert Sale was sent with a brigade to re-open communications. Sale fought his way to Jellalabad, and there entrenched his troops and waited for reinforcements.
Outbreak and murder.
On the 2nd November there was an outbreak in the city of Cabul. Burnes barricaded his house, but was soon environed by an angry mob of Afghans. He sent an urgent message to the British cantonment for a battalion of infantry, and two field-pieces, which at that early hour could have penetrated the city and effected his deliverance. But the danger was underrated, and no force was sent lest it should offend Shah Shuja. That same afternoon the gateway of the house was burnt down by the mob, and Burnes and twenty-three others were brutally murdered.
Afghan revolt.
By this time the outbreak had culminated in an insurrection. The population of the villages round about had joined the rioters, and thousands of Afghans were hurrying into the city of Cabul in the hope of plunder. Later in the afternoon two battalions of British infantry tried to cut a way through the narrow streets and crowded bazaars, but found the task beyond their power, and were compelled to return to the British cantonment. Akbar Khan, the eldest son of Dost Mohammed, appeared at the head of the insurrection; whilst Shah Shuja was shut up in the Bala Hissar, helplessly waiting for the British to suppress the rebellion, and deliver him from the fury of his subjects.
Murder of Macnaghten.
Sir William Macnaghten and General Elphinstone were paralysed by the dangers and anxieties of their position. Provisions were running short in the British cantonment; supplies were withheld by the people of Cabul; and soldiers and sepoys were becoming demoralised. At last it was decided to retreat to Jellalabad—the half-way house between Cabul and Peshawar; and negotiations were opened with Akbar Khan for the supply of provisions and carriage. The greed of the Afghans was insatiable. Akbar Khan demanded vast sums as ransom, and the surrender of British officers as hostages for the payment. On the 23rd December, 1841, there was a final meeting between Sir William Macnaghten and the Afghan chiefs, and the British minister and envoy was suddenly attacked and murdered by Akbar Khan.
British disaster in the Khyber, 1842.
Notwithstanding the murder, negotiations were re-opened. In January, 1842, the British forces began to retreat from Cabul, followed by Akbar Khan and a large army of Afghans. More money was demanded, and more hostages were surrendered, including British ladies and children. Then followed treacheries and massacres. The British army, numbering four thousand troops and twelve thousand camp-followers, entered the Khyber Pass beneath a heavy fall of snow. The hill tribes crowned the precipitous heights on either side, and poured a murderous fire on the retreating masses, whilst the soldiers of Akbar Khan joined in the horrible work of murder and plunder. The whole of the surviving force perished in the Khyber Pass with the exception of a surgeon named Brydon, who escaped on a pony to Jellalabad, and lived to tell the tale for more than thirty years afterwards.