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

by Sir John William Kaye

The Outbreak at Caubul—Approaching Departure of the Envoy—Immediate Causes of the Rebellion—Death of Sir Alexander Burnes—His Character—Spread of the Insurrection—Indecision of the British Authorities.

Brightly and cheerfully the month of November dawned upon the retiring envoy and his successor. Macnaghten was about to lay down the reins of office, and turn his face, in a day or two, towards Bombay. Burnes, rejoicing in the thought of being “supreme at last” (but somewhat disquieted by the silence of government on the subject), was stretching out his hand to receive the prize he had so long coveted. The one was as eager to depart as the other to see the departure of his chief; and both were profoundly impressed with the conviction that the great administrative change was about to be effected under an unclouded sky.

There were others, however, who viewed with different eyes the portents that were gathering around them—others who warned the envoy and Burnes of the dangers of such a confederacy as had been formed against the British in Afghanistan. Among these was Captain Colin Mackenzie, an officer of the Madras army, whose enquiring and adventurous spirit had prompted him to seek service in Afghanistan, and who had soon recommended himself to the Envoy by his intelligence and high character for political employment. He told Macnaghten at the end of October that Akbar Khan, the ablest and most determined of Dost Mahomed’s sons, had arrived at Bameean from Bokhara, and that he surely meditated mischief. But the envoy only replied that if it were so, Oosman Khan, the Wuzeer, would have known and reported the circumstance to him. About the same time, Lieutenant John Conolly, a young relative of Macnaghten, and a member of his personal staff, told him that a rising in the city was meditated, and that the shopkeepers knew so well what was coming, that they refused to sell their goods to our people lest they should be murdered for favouring the Feringhees.

Among these, also, was Mohun Lal. Before the arrival of Captain Macgregor from the Zoormut country, he had been deputed to accompany General Sale’s camp, and on his return to Caubul, he had laid the result of his observations, whilst on that expedition, before Sir Alexander Burnes. Entering fully upon the nature and extent of the confederacy, the Moonshee emphatically declared his opinion that it would be dangerous to disregard such threatening indications of a coming storm, and that if the conspiracy were not crushed in its infancy, it would become too strong to be easily suppressed. Burnes replied that the day had not arrived for his interference—that he could not meddle with the arrangements of the Envoy; but that Macnaghten would shortly turn his back upon Caubul, and that measures should then be taken to conciliate the Ghilzyes and Kohistanees, by raising their allowances again to the point from which they had been reduced. On the 1st of November, Mohun Lal again pressed the subject of the hostile confederacy upon the expectant minister. Burnes stood up from his chair, and said, with a sigh, that the time had come for the British to leave the country;[98] but, on the same evening, he congratulated Sir William Macnaghten on his approaching departure at a period of such profound tranquillity.[99]

On that very evening the hostile chiefs met and determined, in conclave, upon the measures to be taken for the overthrow of the British power in Afghanistan. To rouse the people into action by a skilful use of the king’s name, seemed to be the safest course of procedure. But doubts arose as to whether it were wiser to enlist the loyal sympathies of his subjects, or to excite their indignation against him. It might be announced, on the one hand, that the King had given orders for the destruction of the infidels; or a report might be spread that he had declared his intention of seizing the principal chiefs, and sending them prisoners to London. It would seem that the rebels did both; and at the same time lulled the suspicions of the Envoy by frequent visits to his house, and loud assurances of friendship. Abdoollah Khan, Achekzye, announced the certainty of their expatriation in a letter to the principal Sirdars, whilst the other object was accomplished by forging the King’s seal to a document, ordering the destruction of the Feringhees, or rather, forging the document to the seal.[100] Men of different tribes and conflicting interests had made common cause against the Feringhees. Barukzye, Populzye, Achekzye, and Ghilzye chiefs were all banded together. Why they should have fixed upon that particular 2nd of November for the first open demonstration at Caubul it is not easy to conjecture. To have waited a few days would have been to have waited for the departure of the Envoy, of the General, and of a considerable body of troops from Afghanistan. The supposition, indeed, is, that however widely spread the disaffection, and however extensive the confederacy, the first outbreak was not the result of any general organisation, but was the movement only of a section of the national party. It was too insignificant in itself, and there was too little evidence of design in it, to have sprung out of any matured plan of action on the part of a powerful confederacy. What that confederacy was may be gathered from Macnaghten’s admission, that when, early in December, he met the Afghan leaders at a conference, he saw assembled before him the heads of nearly all the chief tribes in the country.

The meeting on the night of the 1st of November was held at the house of Sydat Khan, Alekozye. Foremost among the chiefs there assembled was Abdoollah Khan. By nature proud, cruel, and vindictive, this man was smarting under a sense of injuries inflicted upon him by the restored Suddozye government, and of insults received from one of Shah Soojah’s British allies. On the restoration of the King, Abdoollah Khan had been dispossessed of the chiefship of his tribe, and had ever since been retained about the Court, rather as a hostage than as a recognised officer of the government. Ever ready to promote disaffection and encourage revolt, he had seen with delight the rising of the Ghilzyes, and during their occupation of the passes had been eagerly intriguing with the chiefs. Aware of Abdoollah Khan’s designs, Burnes sent him an angry message—called him a dog—and threatened to recommend Shah Soojah to deprive the rebel of his ears. When the chiefs met together on the night of the 1st of November, this indignity was rankling in the breast of the Khan. The immediate course to be pursued came under discussion, and he at once proposed that the first overt act of violence on the morrow should be an attack on the house of the man who had so insulted him. The proposal was accepted by the assembled chiefs; but so little did they anticipate more than a burst of success at the outset, that not one of them ventured personally to take part in a movement which they believed would be promptly avenged.

Day had scarcely dawned on the 2nd of November, when a rumour reached the cantonments, and was at once conveyed to the Mission-house, that there was a commotion in the city. John Conolly, who was to have accompanied him to Bombay, was giving directions about the packing of some of the Envoy’s chattels, when an Afghan rushed wildly in, and announced that there was an insurrection in the city. Conolly went out immediately, heard the firing in the streets, and hastened to convey the intelligence to Macnaghten.[101] The Envoy received it with composure. There was nothing in it, he thought, to startle or to dismay a man with sound nerves and a clear understanding. Presently a note was brought him from Burnes. It stated that there was great excitement in the city, especially in the neighbourhood of his residence; but it spoke slightingly of the disturbance, and said that it would speedily be suppressed. Assistance, however, was sought. Burnes wanted military support; and Macnaghten, still little alarmed by the tidings that had reached him, hurried to the quarters of the General. It was thought to be only a slight commotion. And so it was—at the outset. But before any assistance was sent to Burnes, he had been cut to pieces by an infuriated mob.

The houses of Sir Alexander Burnes and of Captain Johnson, the paymaster of the Shah’s troops, were contiguous to each other in the city. On the preceding night, Captain Johnson had slept in cantonments. The expectant Resident was at home. Beneath his roof was his brother, Lieutenant Charles Burnes; and Lieutenant William Broadfoot, an officer of rare merit, who had been selected to fill the office of military secretary to the minister elect, and had just come in from Charekur to enter upon his new duties. It was now the anniversary of the day on which his brother had been slain by Dost Mahomed’s troopers, in the disastrous affair of Purwundurrah; and it must have been with some melancholy recollections of the past, and some dismal forebodings of the future, that he now looked down from the upper gallery of Burnes’s house, upon the angry crowd that was gathering beneath it.

Before daylight on that disastrous morning a friendly Afghan sought admittance to Burnes’s house, eager to warn him of the danger with which he was encompassed. A plot had been hatched on the preceding night; and one of its first objects was said to be the assassination of the new Resident. But Burnes had nothing but incredulity to return to such friendly warnings. The man went. The insurgents were gathering. Then came Oosman Khan, the Wuzeer, crossing Burnes’s threshold, with the same ominous story on his lips. It was no longer permitted to the English officer to wrap himself up in an impenetrable cloak of scepticism. Already was there a stir in the streets. Already was an excited populace assembling beneath his windows. Earnestly the Afghan minister spoke of the danger, and implored Burnes to leave his house, to accompany him to the Balla Hissar, or to seek safety in cantonments. The Englishman, deaf to these appeals, confident that he could quell the tumult, and scorning the idea of quitting his post, rejected the friendly counsel of the Wuzeer, and remained to face the fury of the mob.