History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 2 (of 3) / Third Edition

by Sir John William Kaye

Your letter of the 7th arrived this morning. I don’t like reverting to unpleasant discussions, but you know well that I have been frank with you from the beginning, and that I have invariably told you of what I thought I had reason to complain. This may be confined to one topic—your taking an unwarrantably gloomy view of our position, and entertaining and disseminating rumours favourable to that view. We have enough of difficulties and enough of croakers without adding to the number needlessly. I have just seen a letter from Mr. Dallas to Captain Johnson, in which he says the state of the country is becoming worse and worse every day. These idle statements may cause much mischief, and, often repeated as they are, they neutralise my protestations to the contrary. I know them to be utterly false as regards this part of the country, and I have no reason to believe them to be true as regards your portion of the kingdom, merely because the Tokhees are indulging in their accustomed habits of rebellion, or because Aktur Khan has a pack of ragamuffins at his heels. As I have said before, there is nothing in these matters which might not have been foreseen, or which ought to cause us the slightest uneasiness. We will take such precautions as shall prevent the Ghilzyes from annoying us; and this is all that is requisite for the present. We may safely leave the rest to time. As to the documents protesting against the appointment of Sunmud, I look upon them as pure fudge. Send for the Janbaz. Let them make a forced march by night, and come in the rear of Aktur. Seize the villain, and hang him as high as Haman, and you will probably have no more disturbances. The Janbaz may remain out while the collections are going on, if necessary. I have already explained to you that I never intended offering a reward for Aktur’s head, nor should I approve of encouraging the man who has a blood-feud with him to put him out of the way. This, besides being objectionable, would be superfluous, because his enemy must know that we could not be otherwise than gratified at the removal of so atrocious a traitor. With regard to the Tymunees, all I meant was, that they should be encouraged to seize Aktur if he attempted to take refuge in their territory, and I thought that a large pecuniary reward would be necessary to overcome their natural scruples to such a proceeding.[69]

But these Douranee children were now again to be corrected. Though “all was content and tranquillity from Mookoor to the Khybur,” it was necessary that our troops should be continually in the field. And it was not always child’s play in which they were summoned to engage. Aktur Khan was, at the end of June, still in arms before Ghiresk, with a body of three thousand men, and it was necessary to strike a blow at the rebel chief. Macnaghten saw the necessity of “tolerating his audacity no longer,” and although he, at first thought that a “judicious use of the Janbaz would extirpate the villain,” he consented to send out a regular force against the rebel chief to “hunt him to the world’s end.”

So Woodburn, a fine dashing officer, who commanded one of the Shah’s regiments, was sent out against him, with his own corps (the 5th Infantry), two detachments of Janbaz, or Afghan Horse, under Hart and Golding, and some guns of the Shah’s Horse Artillery, under Cooper. On the 3rd of July he found the enemy posted on the other side of the Helmund river; mustering, it was said afterwards, six thousand men, in six divisions, with a Moollah, or priest at the head of each, and with each a standard, bearing the inscription, “we have been trusting in God; may he guide and guard us!”[70] Woodburn tried the fords, but they were impassable. Hart, however, had passed them at another point, but, finding himself unsupported, he returned. This was in early morning. Four hours after noon the enemy struck their camp, and soon afterwards commenced the passage of the river. Woodburn made his arrangements for their reception. The Douranees made a spirited attack, but Woodburn’s infantry, well supported by Cooper’s guns, met them with too prompt and sure a fire to encourage them to greater boldness. The Janbaz, already graduating in treachery and cowardice, covered themselves with that peculiar kind of glory which clung to them to the end of the war. It was a busy night. The enemy far outnumbered Woodburn; but the steady gallantry of his gunners and his footmen achieved the success they deserved. Before daybreak the enemy had withdrawn. It would have been a great thing to have followed up and dispersed the rebels, but with all the country against him, and a body of horse at his back on which no reliance could be placed, it would have been madness to make the attempt. So Woodburn, having written for reinforcements, pushed on to Ghiresk, whence he wrote that he believed the rebellion was far more extensive than was supposed, and that the population of Candahar were quite as disaffected as the rebels on the banks of the Helmund.

The month of August, however, found the Envoy still cheerful and sanguine. The convulsions of the Douranees and the spasms of the Ghilzyes were regarded by him as the accompaniments only of those infantine fevers which were inseparable from the existence of the tribes. In vain Rawlinson, with steady eye watching those symptoms, and probing with deep sagacity the causes of the mortal ailments out of which arose all those fierce throes of anguish, protested that throughout Western Afghanistan there was a strong national feeling against us; and that difficulties and dangers were coiling their serpent folds around us with irresistible force. Macnaghten still asked what we had to fear, and thus, on the 2nd of August, addressed his less sanguine colleague:

I am not going to read you a lecture, first, because when you indited your letter of the 28th ult. you pleaded guilty to the influence of bile; and secondly, because at the present writing I must own the same impeachment; but I must pen a few remarks, in the hope of inducing you to regard matters a little more “couleur de rose.” You say, “The state of the country causes me many an anxious thought—we may thresh the Douranees over and over again, but this rather aggravates than obviates the difficulty of overcoming the national feeling against us—in fact, our tenure is positively that of military possession, and the French in Algiers, and the Russians in Circassia, afford us an example on a small scale of the difficulty of our position.” Now upon what do you found your assertion that there is a national feeling against us, such as that against the French in Algiers or the Russians in Circassia? Solely, so far as I know, because the turbulent Douranees have risen in rebellion. From Mookoor to the Khybur Pass all is content and tranquillity, and wherever we Europeans go we are received with respect, and attention, and welcome. But the insurrection of the Douranees is no new occurrence. The history of the rule of the Barukzye Sirdars would show that they were engaged in one continuous struggle with their turbulent brethren. If they were able to reduce them to subjection with their contemptible means, what should we have to fear from them? We have given them something to lose which they had not before, and you may rely upon it that they will be quiet enough as soon as they are satisfied (which they ought to be pretty well by this time) of the futility of opposition, provided some means are adopted of preventing Yar Mahomed from carrying on his intrigues. Then, the Ghilzyes have been in arms. True. But it would have been unreasonable to suppose that they should surrender their independance without a struggle, and we have now put the bit in their mouths. I do not concur with you as to the difficulty of our position. On the contrary, I think our prospects are most cheering, and with the materials we have there ought to be little or no difficulty in the management of the country.

It is true the population is exclusively Mahomedan, but it is split into rival sects; and we all know that of all antipathies the sectarian is the most virulent. We have Hazaras, Ghilzyes, Douranees, and Kuzzilbashes, all at daggers drawn with each other, and in every family there are rivals and enemies. Some faults of management must necessarily be committed on the first assumption of the administration of a new country, and the Douranee outbreak may be partially attributed to such faults; but what, after all, do such outbreaks signify? The modern history of India teems with such instances. There is hardly a district in which some desperate adventurer has not appeared at some time or other, and drawn the entire population after him. The whole province of Bareilly, in 1817, rose against us on a religious war-cry. The whole province of Cuttack, shortly afterwards, followed the standard of the rebel Jugbeneda, and we had infinite trouble in quelling the insurrection. Instances of this kind might be infinitely multiplied, and yet we find the effects of such outbreaks are very evanescent. The people of this country are very credulous. They believe any story invented to our prejudice; but they will very soon learn that we are not the cannibals we are painted. Mr. Gorman’s fate was doubtless very melancholy; but are there no assassinations in other countries? I read in the Bombay Times only this morning an account of a cavalry officer being shot at in the open day in one of our villages. You say, “The infatuated towns-people are even beginning now to show their teeth; there have been three cases to-day of stones thrown from the tops of the houses on Sepoys’ heads walking along the streets.” Certainly our troops can be no great favourites in a town where they have turned out half the inhabitants for their own accommodation; but I will venture to say there is not a county town in England where soldiers are quartered in which similar excesses have not happened. European and Native soldiers have traversed the town of Candahar unarmed; and though it is to be apprehended that their conduct has been occasionally very aggravating, only two assaults have been committed upon them. When I went to Hyderabad in 1810, and for many years after, no European could venture to show himself in the city, such was the state of feeling against us. Look upon this picture and on that. Now I believe the lieges of Hyderabad look upon us as very innocent Kaffirs.

You are quite right, I think in directing Pattinson to accept the submission of all the rebels, save Aktur, who may be desirous of coming in. They should be required to furnish security for appearance sake. But these people are perfect children, and should be treated as such. If we put one naughty boy in the corner, the rest will be terrified. We have taken their plaything, power, out of the hands of the Douranee chiefs, and they are pouting a good deal in consequence. They did not know how to use it. In their hands it was useless and even hurtful to their master, and we were obliged to transfer it to scholars of our own. They instigate the Moollahs, and the Moollahs preach to the people; but this will be very temporary. The evil of it we must have borne with, or abandoned all hope of forming a national army.[71]

The Douranee children, however, required more chastisement. No man could have done more than Woodburn did with his means; but those means were insufficient. It was the custom then, both against the Ghilzyes and the Douranees, to send out detachments sufficiently large to accomplish, with the aid of their guns, small victories over the enemy, and so to increase the bitterness of their hostility, without breaking their strength. Aktur Khan was still in arms. Banded with him was Akrum Khan, another Douranee chief, inspired with like bitter hatred of the restored monarch and his Feringhee allies. A force under Captain Griffin, who had been sent to reinforce Woodburn at Ghiresk, now went out against them. It was strong in the mounted branch. Eight hundred sabres, three hundred and fifty bayonets, and four six-pounder guns, followed Griffin into the field of Zemindawer. On the 17th of August he came up with the insurgents. It was a moment of some anxiety. The Janbaz had not by their conduct under Woodburn won the confidence of the British officers. Nott always mistrusted them, and the feeling was, not unreasonably, shared by others.[72] But here they were associated with the men of the King’s regular cavalry, and they may have felt the danger of defection. Be the cause what it may, they did not shrink from the encounter. The enemy were strongly posted in a succession of walled gardens and small forts, from which they opened a heavy matchlock fire upon our advancing troops; but the fire of our guns and musketry drove them from their inclosures, and then the cavalry, headed by the young Prince Sufder Jung, who had something more than the common energy of the royal race, charged with terrific effect, and utterly broke the discomfited mass of Douranees. The victory was a great one. Aktur Khan fled. The Douranees were disheartened; and for a time they sunk into the repose of feebleness and exhaustion.

The Ghilzyes, too, had received another check. Colonel Chambers, early in August, had been sent out against them, with a party of his own regiment, (the 5th Light Cavalry), the 16th and 43rd Sepoy Regiments, and some details of Irregular Horse. He came up with the enemy on the morning of the 5th; but before he could bring the main body of his troops into action, a party of his cavalry had fallen upon them and scattered them in disastrous flight. There was nothing left for them after this but submission; and soon the chief instigator of the movement had “come in” to our camp.