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

by Sir John William Kaye

It was the opinion of the Governor-General at this time, that although the British army could not with safety be wholly withdrawn, a force consisting of some five or six regiments of all arms would be sufficient to keep Shah Soojah upon his throne. The Bombay troops were to be withdrawn, en masse, by the Bolan Pass; and a portion of the Bengal army by the route of Jellalabad and the Khybur. The posts at which it was expedient to plant the remaining troops were, in the opinion of the Governor-General, the two chief cities of Caubul and Candahar; and the principal posts on the main roads to Hindostan—Ghuznee and Quettah, on the West, and Jellalabad and Ali-Musjid on the East. The orders which Sir John Keane had issued, before the Governor-General’s minute had reached Caubul, anticipated with much exactness the instructions of the Governor-General. A brigade under Colonel Sale was to remain in Afghanistan. Sir John Keane was to take the remainder of the Bengal troops back to India by the Khybur route; and General Willshire was to lead the Bombay column down by the western line of the Kojuck and the Bolan.

Such were the intentions both of the Supreme Government and the local authorities, when Prince Timour arrived at Caubul, accompanied by Captain Wade, and the little force that had made good his entry into Afghanistan by the eastern passes. It was on the 3rd of September that Cotton, Burnes, and other British officers, with a guard of honour, went out to receive the Prince. With befitting pomp, the procession made its way through the narrow streets of Caubul to the Balla Hissar; and there were those who said that the gaiety of the heir-apparent and his cortège fairly shone down the King’s.

Wade had done his duty well. The magnitude of the operations to the westward has somewhat overlaid the more modest pretensions of the march through the eastern passes; and it may be doubted whether the merit of the achievement has ever been fully acknowledged. Viewed as the contribution of the Sikh Government towards the conquest of Afghanistan, it is absolutely contemptible. Runjeet lay dying when the troops were assembling; and his death was announced before they commenced their march. He was the only man in the Sikh empire who was true at heart to his allies, and all genuine co-operation died out with the fires of his funeral pile. To Wade this was embarrassing in the extreme. But the greater the inefficiency of the Sikh demonstration, the greater the praise that is due to the English officer who triumphed over the difficulties thrown in his way by the infidelity of his allies.

Wade found himself at Peshawur with a motley assemblage of Hindoos, Sikhs, and Afghans, on the good faith of a considerable portion of whom it was impossible to rely. The Prince himself was soon found to be an absolute cypher. His most remarkable characteristic was, to speak paradoxically, that he had no character at all. He was a harmless, respectable personage, with an amount of apathy in his constitution which was sometimes advantageous to those in whose hands he placed himself; but which, at others, engendered an amount of impracticability that was very embarrassing and distressing. It was plain that, whatever was to be accomplished, must be accomplished by the energy of the British officers. Left to themselves, the Sikhs, aided by the Afghans who had joined the standard of the Prince, would never have forced the Khybur Pass. This formidable defile was supposed to be, if vigorously defended, impassable; and the long halt at Peshawur had given the Afreedis, if they were not inclined to sell the passage, abundant time to mature their defensive operations, and Akbar Khan, who was coming down from Caubul to oppose the march of Wade and the Sikh auxiliaries, every opportunity of perfecting his plans.

It was not until the 25th of July that Wade and Prince Timour found themselves before Ali-Musjid. The Afreedis, on that and the preceding day, had made some show of resistance; and our troops—the regulars under Captain Farmer, and the irregulars under Lieutenant Mackeson,[1]—had done good service; whilst Colonel Sheikh Bassawan, with the Sikh auxiliaries, had exhibited an amount of zeal which had won the confidence of the British officers. So closely now did Wade invest the place, so determined was the attitude he had assumed, and so successful was the play of his guns,[2] that on the night of the 26th the garrison evacuated the fortress; and on the following morning the allies took possession of Ali-Musjid in the name of the Shah. The Ameer’s son had not come down to its defence.

There was little more work for Wade and his auxiliaries. Akbar Khan, who had pitched his camp at Dakha—a place to the south of Jellalabad—had now broken it up and retired to join his father, who had by this time discovered that the greater danger was to be apprehended from the western line of attack, and had therefore recalled his son to the capital. The Shah-zadah and his party, therefore, advanced without further opposition. Opposite Dakha, on the other side of the Caubul river, was the fort of Lalpoorah, where dwelt Sadut Khan, chief of the Momund tribe. His conduct had evinced strong feelings of hostility to the Suddozye Princes. He was now, therefore, to be reduced, and his chiefship conferred on another. Throughout our entire connexion with Afghanistan, it was seldom our good fortune to select fitting objects whereon to lavish our bounty. It was generally, indeed, our lot to set up the wrong man. But the case of Tora-baz Khan, who was appointed to the chiefship of Lalpoorah, was one of the few fortunate exceptions to this calamitous rule. In this man we found a faithful ally; and when misfortunes overtook us, he was not unmindful of the benefits he had received at our hands.

On the 3rd of September, Wade and the Shah-zadah reached Caubul. The operations of the motley force which they had led through the difficult passes of Eastern Afghanistan have been dwarfed, as I have said, by the more ostentatious exploits of Sir John Keane’s bulkier army; but it is not to be forgotten, that it was in no small measure owing to the operations of Wade’s force that the resistance offered to Keane’s army was so slight and so ill-matured. It was long before Dost Mahomed ceased to regard the movement through the Khybur with greater anxiety than that of the main army along the western route. Akbar Khan and his fighting men never met Wade in the field; but they were drawn away from the capital at a time when they might have done good service in the West; and it is in no small measure owing to this division of the Ameer’s military strength, that he was unable to offer any effectual resistance to the march of the British army from Candahar. Nor, when we take account of the circumstances which facilitated our success at the outset of the war, ought it ever to be overlooked that Wade, from his forward position at Peshawur, was enabled to open a correspondence with parties at Caubul favourable to the restoration of the monarchy, and to win over many adherents to the Shah before he approached his capital. It was in no small measure owing to Wade’s diplomacy, carried on mainly through the agency of Gholam Khan, Populzye, that the Kohistanees were induced to rise against the Ameer.[3] These were important services. Wade carried on the work with much address; and there were able men associated with him.[4] But the whole affair was a melancholy illustration of the lukewarmness, if not of the positive infidelity, of our Sikh allies. It was plain that, thenceforth, we were to expect little from their alliance, but ill-concealed attempts to thwart and baffle the policy to which they were parties.

The month of September passed pleasantly over the heads of the officers of the Army of the Indus. The fine climate, the fair scenery, and the delicious fruits of Caubul, were all things to be enjoyed, after the sufferings and privations of the long and toilsome march from Hindostan. Then there were shows, and spectacles, and amusements. The troops were reviewed; and the officers rode races; and the Shah, ever delighting in pageantry and parade, established an order of knighthood, and held a grand Durbar, at which the ceremony of investure was performed with becoming dignity and grace. And the officers, happy in the belief that they were soon about to turn their backs on Afghanistan for ever, went about purchasing memorials of their visit to Caubul, or presents to carry back to their friends.

But the hopes of many were doomed to disappointment. On the 18th of September, the Bombay column commenced its march to India, by the route of the Kojuck and the Bolan; and it was believed that a large portion of the Bengal troops would soon be in motion towards the provinces, along the eastern country just traversed by Colonel Wade. A country in which wine was selling at the price of 300 rupees a dozen, and cigars at a rupee a piece,[5] was not one in which the officers of the army were likely to desire to pitch their tents for a sojourn of any long continuance. When, therefore, it began to be reported among them that the original intentions of withdrawing the troops, with the exception of a single brigade, had been abandoned, there was a general feeling of disappointment. The official order was looked for with anxiety; and on the 2nd of October it appeared.[6] The principal portion of the division was to be left in Afghanistan, under Sir Willoughby Cotton; and only a comparatively small detachment was to march to the provinces with Sir John Keane. A week afterwards, orders were issued for the disposition of the troops, and the military occupation of Afghanistan was complete.[7]

A change so great as this in the military arrangements, consequent on the restoration of Shah Soojah, could only have been brought about by a belief in the presence of some new and pressing danger. Dost Mahomed had been driven across the Hindoo-Koosh; but it was believed that he might there be hospitably received by some of the petty Oosbeg chiefs, between Bameean and Balkh; and that he might, united with them, gather sufficient strength to encourage him to turn his face again towards the South, and to sweep down upon the country which had been wrested from him. It had not, at first, been conceived that the prospect of the Ameer’s recovery from the heavy blow which had descended upon him, was sufficiently imminent to indicate the necessity of making any preparations upon a large scale to arrest his return to Afghanistan. But it was considered expedient to send a detachment of the Shah’s troops, with some field artillery, to Bameean, the extreme frontier station of the Shah’s dominions. Accordingly, on the 12th of September, a detachment had marched for the Hindoo-Koosh. A troop of Native Horse Artillery, which had just come in from Candahar, formed the most remarkable portion of this little force. The difficulties of the road to be traversed were such as no European artillery had ever before encountered.[8] But, in spite of this, the 4th troop, 3rd Brigade of Horse Artillery, under Lieutenant Murray Mackenzie (leaving its captain dead at Caubul), made good its way to Bameean; and the Shah’s Goorkha regiment, with other irregular details, accompanied it to its dreary winter-quarters in the mountainous recesses of the great Caucasian range.