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

by Sir John William Kaye

Upon this, Humza Khan, the governor of the Ghilzyes, was sent out to bring them back to their allegiance. “Humza Khan,” wrote Macnaghten to Macgregor, on the 2nd of October, “who is at the bottom of the whole conspiracy, has been sent out by his Majesty to bring back the Ghilzye chiefs who have fled; but I have little hope of the success of his mission.”[90] Humza Khan, whose own stipend was included in the general retrenchment, had been commissioned to carry the obnoxious measure into effect; and he had instigated the chiefs to resist it. He was now sent out to quell a disturbance of which he was himself the parent and the nurse.

These movements did not at first much alarm Macnaghten. He was intent upon his departure from Caubul; and he said that the outbreak had happened at a fortunate moment, as his own party and the troops proceeding to the provinces could quell it on their way to India. “You will have heard ere now,” he wrote on the 3rd of October, to Major Rawlinson, “of my appointment to Bombay. I could wish that this most honourable distinction had been withheld a little longer, until I could have pronounced our relations in this country as being entirely satisfactory; but, thanks in a great measure to your zealous co-operation, I may even now say, that every thing is rapidly verging to that happy consummation. No time is fixed for my departure. That will depend upon the instructions I receive from Lord Auckland. Should his Lordship direct me to deliver over my charge to Burnes, there is little or nothing, that I know of, to detain me, and I ought to be in Bombay by the middle of December. I am suffering a little anxiety just now, as the Eastern Ghilzye chiefs have turned Yaghee, in consequence, I believe, of the reduction of their allowances, and their being required to sign an ittezain against robberies. We have sent to bring them back to their allegiance, and I think there will be no difficulty about them, unless the root of the Fussad lies deeper, and they are, as some assert, in league with Mahomed Akbar. In that case, it will be necessary to undertake operations on a larger scale against Nijrow and Tugao, in the latter of which districts the Moofsids (rebels) have taken refuge. They are very kind in breaking out just at the moment most opportune for our purposes. The troops will take them en route to India. To-morrow I hope our expedition will reach the refractory forts of Zao, and teach them a most salutary lesson.”

But after a few days, he began to take a more serious view of the matter; and he urged Macgregor to return with all despatch to Caubul, that he might accompany the expedition he was about to send out against the rebels. But at the same time he wrote to Rawlinson, that he did not apprehend any open opposition; and he never seemed to doubt that the insurrectionary movement would promptly be put down.

Sale’s brigade, which was returning to the provinces, was, it has been seen, to stifle the insurrection en route to Jellalabad. Macnaghten, however, thought of strengthening the force, with a view to the operations against the Ghilzyes, and he wrote to Captain Trevor, who, pending the arrival of Macgregor, was holding the enemy in negotiation, that he believed the General would send out “two eight-inch mortars, two iron nine-pounder guns, Abbott’s battery, the 5th Cavalry, the Sappers and Miners, and the 13th Queen’s, with the 35th and 37th Native Infantry.”[91] But he continued to talk of the “impudence of the rascals,” and expressed his belief that, the insurrection put down, the country would be quieter than ever.[92] On the 9th of October, Colonel Monteith marched from Caubul, with the 35th Native Infantry, a squadron of the 5th Cavalry, two guns of Abbott’s battery under Dawes, and Broadfoot’s Sappers and Miners. That night his camp was attacked at Bootkhak—the first march on the Jellalabad road. On the 10th, therefore, Sale received orders to march at once with the 13th Light Infantry, and on the following day he started to clear the passes. On the 12th, he entered the defile of Khoord-Caubul. The enemy occupied the heights in considerable force, and, in their own peculiar style of warfare, opened a galling fire upon our advancing column. Sale was wounded at the first onset, and Dennie took command of the troops. He spoke with admiration of “the fearless manner in which the men of the 13th, chiefly young soldiers, ascended heights nearly perpendicular under the sharp fire of the insurgents;” and added, that the Sepoys of the 35th, who had fought under him at Bameean, “rivalled and equalled them in steadiness, activity, and intrepidity.”[93] The pass was cleared, and then the 13th retraced its steps to Bootkhak, whilst Monteith, with the 35th and the other details, was left encamped in the Khoord-Caubul valley.

In the mean while, Macgregor had returned from the Zoormut country. The Envoy had known him long, and had abundant confidence in the man. An officer of the Bengal Artillery, who had been a favourite member of Lord Auckland’s personal staff, he had accompanied Macnaghten to Lahore and Loodhianah, on the mission to negotiate the Tripartite treaty, and had subsequently been employed in political superintendence of the country between Caubul and Jellalabad, where, by an admirable union of the vigorous and the conciliatory in his treatment of the tribes, he had won both their respect and their affection. The Envoy now believed that Macgregor would soon restore the country to tranquillity, and was impatient until his return. Macgregor reached Caubul on the 11th of October, and soon started for Monteith’s camp. Macnaghten, who believed that the outbreak was local and accidental, looked with eagerness to the result. He took little heed of what was going on in the Kohistan. Nor did he think that the Douranee Khans, whose “noses he had brought to the grindstone,” were plotting their emancipation from the thraldom of the infidels.

But Pottinger, in the Kohistan, plainly saw the storm that was brewing—plainly saw the dangers and difficulties by which he was surrounded. As the month of October advanced, the attitude of the Kohistanees and the Nijrowees was more and more threatening. Meer Musjedee, the Nijrow chief, a man of a resentful and implacable temper, had been, some time before, described in the newspaper paragraphs of the day as stalking about the country, and sowing broadcast the seeds of rebellion. The measures of the King’s government had long before made these very people, who had risen up against the tyranny of Dost Mahomed, ripe for revolt against the more consummate tyranny of the Shah. And now, in the middle of October, Pottinger saw that the state of things was fast approaching a crisis; so he demanded hostages from the Kohistanee chiefs. To this the Envoy reluctantly consented. “And,” wrote Pottinger, in his official account of these transactions, “I only succeeded in procuring them by the end of the month, when everything betokened a speedy rupture with the Nijrowees.” By this time, indeed, Meer Musjedee had openly raised the standard of revolt, and the people were clustering around it.

Macnaghten thought very lightly of these movements in the Kohistan. Nothing disturbed his faith in the general tranquillity of the country, and the popularity of the double government. He greatly desired the settlement of the Ghilzye question, for there was something palpable and undeniable in such a movement; and he was anxious to set his face towards the provinces of Hindostan. Eagerly, therefore, he looked for intelligence from Macgregor. He had begun, however, to doubt whether so troublesome a business could be settled by peaceful negotiation. “We must thresh the rascals, I fear, after all,” he wrote to Macgregor, on the 17th; “but I don’t think that the troops will be under weigh until the 20th. Is not this provoking? Abbott has made some excuse about his guns being injured. Pray write a circumstantial plan of the best means of surrounding and preventing the escape of the villains.”[94] Abbott was not a man to make excuses of any kind, but the Envoy was becoming impatient. On the 18th, he wrote again: “It has been determined that the Sappers and Miners, the mountain train, and two companies of the 37th Native Infantry, march out to join you to-morrow morning. They will make one march to Khoord-Caubul. The next day I hope you will be joined by the 13th, the 37th, and Abbott’s battery. I hope you will arrange the plan of attack before Sale arrives.”[95] But although Macnaghten was eager to “thresh the rascals,” certain prudential considerations suggested to him that it would only be expedient to punish them as much as could “conveniently” be done. It would not be convenient, at such a time, to exasperate the insurgents too much, and drive them to block up the passes, and plunder everything that came in their way.

In the mean while, Monteith, in his isolated post in the Khoord-Caubul valley, was exposed, if not to some danger, to considerable inconvenience, for the enemy made a night-attack upon his camp, aided by the treachery of the Afghan horsemen, under the Shah’s Meer Akhor, (or Master of the Horse) who admitted the rebels within their lines. One of our officers, Lieutenant Jenkins, and several Sepoys, were killed; and a number of camels carried off by the enemy. Monteith reported the treachery of his Afghan friends, and the Envoy resented his just suspicions. But he was now to be relieved. Sale appeared with two more infantry regiments, with more guns, and more sabres; and after a brief halt, for want of carriage, which much tried the patience of the Envoy, the whole swept on to Tezeen. Here the force halted for some days, and Macgregor busied himself in negotiations with the enemy. Macnaghten had instructed him to accommodate matters, if it could be done without any loss of honour; and Macgregor was candid enough to acknowledge that the insurrection of the Ghilzyes had been brought about by “harsh and unjust” measures of our own. So he opened a communication with the rebel chiefs; and, being known to most of them, consented to a personal interview. So Macgregor met the chiefs. There was a long and animated discussion. They demanded that their salaries should be restored to their former footing, and that they should not be held responsible for robberies committed beyond their respective boundaries. To these demands Macgregor consented. But they demanded also that Shool Mahomed, who had been removed, as a rebel, from the chiefship of their tribe, should be re-instated; and this point Macgregor resolutely refused to concede, in the belief that such concession would compromise the honour of the Government. The chiefs yielded, and Macgregor returned to camp. It was supposed that the Ghilzye affair had been “patched up after a fashion;” not, perhaps, without some loss of dignity, but with as much vigour as was convenient at the time. The chiefs sent in their agents to remain with Macgregor, ostensibly to aid him in the re-establishment of the police, and post stations on the road; and Macnaghten was able to report that the affair was settled.