CHAPTER III.
[June—August: 1839.]
The Disunion of the Barukzyes—Prospects of Dost Mahomed—Keane’s Advance to Ghuznee—Massacre of the Prisoners—Fall of Ghuznee—Flight of Dost Mahomed—Hadjee Khan, Khaukur—Escape of Dost Mahomed—Entry of Shah Soojah into Caubul.
The disunion of the Barukzye brethren lost Afghanistan to the Sirdars. The bloodless fall of Candahar struck no astonishment into the soul of Dost Mahomed. He had long mistrusted his kinsmen. Candahar, too, was the home of the Douranees. He knew that the Barukzyes had nothing to expect from the allegiance of that powerful tribe. He knew that they were little inclined to strike a blow for the existing dynasty; but he knew at the same time, that they were so prostrate and enfeebled, that the Suddozye Prince would derive no active assistance from them—that they would only throw into the scale the passive sullenness and harmless decrepitude of men broken down by a long course of oppression.
If Dost Mahomed and the Candahar Sirdars had leagued themselves firmly together, without jealousy and without suspicion—if they had declared a religious war, and appealed to the Mahomedan feelings of the people—if they had, by their own energy and activity, encouraged Mehrab Khan of Khelat to array himself against the invaders, and throwing themselves heart and soul into the cause, had opposed our passage through the Bolan and Kojuck Passes, they might have turned to the best recount the sufferings of our famine-stricken army, and have given us, at the outset of the campaign, a check from which we should not have speedily recovered. But it seems to have been the design of Providence to paralyse our enemies at this time, and so to lure us into greater dangers than any that could have beset us at the opening of the campaign.
But although with slight feelings of astonishment Dost Mahomed now contemplated the successful establishment of Shah Soojah at Candahar, it could not have been without emotions of bitterness and mortification that he beheld his countrymen either flying ignobly before the invaders, or bowing down without shame before the money-bags of the infidels. It was a sore trial to him to see how almost every chief in the country was now prepared to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. He had not sufficient confidence in his own strength, or the loyalty of his people, to believe that he could offer any effectual resistance to the approach of the Suddozye King, supported as he was by British bayonets and British gold. His enemies were advancing upon Caubul, both along the eastern and western lines of approach; and he was necessitated to divide his strength. Nor could he even give his undivided attention to his foreign enemies. There were danger and disaffection at home. The Kohistan was in rebellion.[330] He could see plainly that the Kuzzilbashes were against him. Indeed, all the bulwarks of national defence which he could hope to oppose to the advancing enemy, were crumbling to pieces before his eyes. Believing that all nationality of feeling was utterly extinct in the souls of his brethren, it had, ever since he had established himself at Caubul, been his policy to place the least possible amount of power in their hands, and to entrust all his delegated authority to the hands of his sons. His only trust now was in them. Akbar Khan had been despatched through the eastern passes to oppose the march of Wade and the Sikhs; Hyder Khan was in command of the garrison of Ghuznee; and Afzul Khan, with a body of horse, was in the neighbourhood of that fortress, instructed to operate against the flanks of our army in the open country. The Ameer himself was at the capital waiting the progress of events, and husbanding his strength for the final conflict.
In the Ameer’s camp there seems to have been little knowledge of the movements and designs of the enemy. It had been for some time believed that it was the intention of the British chiefs to march upon Herat, and now again it was the opinion that they purposed to mask Ghuznee and move at once upon Caubul. It seems, therefore, to have been the design of Dost Mahomed that Afzul Khan and Hyder Khan, having suffered us to advance a march or two beyond Ghuznee, should fall upon our rear, whilst Dost Mahomed himself was to give us battle from the front.[331] But he had not measured aright the policy of the British Commander. It was not Sir John Keane’s intention to mask Ghuznee, but to reduce it.
The strength of Ghuznee was the boast of the Afghans. They believed that it was not to be carried by assault. On the other hand, Sir John Keane, persuaded that it was not a place of any strength, had advanced upon Ghuznee without any siege guns. A battering train had been brought up, with great labour and at great expense, to Candahar, and now that it was likely to be brought into use, and so to repay the labour and the expense, Sir John Keane dropped it by the way. He was nearing the strongest fortress in the country; he knew that it was garrisoned by the enemy, and that, if he advanced upon it, it would be vigorously defended. He determined to advance upon it; and yet, with an amount of infatuation which, although after-events have thrown it into the shade, at the time took the country by surprise, and was, perhaps, unexampled in Indian warfare, he left his heavy guns at Candahar, and advanced upon Ghuznee with nothing but light field-pieces. He had been told that it was a place of no considerable strength, and that it would give him no trouble to take it. Major Todd and Lieutenant Leech had seen Ghuznee, and their reports had dissipated the anxieties of the Commander-in-Chief. So he found himself before a place which he subsequently described as one of “great strength both by nature and by art,” without any means of effecting a breach in its walls.