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

by Sir John William Kaye

And thus sinking more and more deeply in the great slough of humiliation, the unhappy leaders of the Caubul force groaned through the festal Christmas season. No thought of the dear homes of England inspired them to uphold England’s dearest honour. On the 26th of December, encouraging letters were received from Macgregor at Jellalabad, and from Mackeson at Peshawur, setting forth that reinforcements were on their way up from India, and urging the authorities at Caubul to hold out to the last. Addressed to Macnaghten, these letters were opened by one who had carried to Macnaghten’s duties all Macnaghten’s constancy and courage. He saw in these tidings fit opportunity to urge again upon the military leaders the duty of continued resistance. Moreover, there were intestine feuds in the city; the enemy were weakened by disunion; Shah Soojah seemed to be gathering strength; and Oosman Khan, Barukzye, who really desired the salvation of the British force, had offered to conduct it safely to Peshawur for five lakhs of rupees. These facts were communicated to Elphinstone, who summoned a council of war. The two Brigadiers, Shelton and Anquetil, Colonel Chambers, and Captains Grant and Bellew, met the military and the political chief at the house of the former. Earnestly, and almost hopefully, Pottinger set forth these encouraging circumstances, and besought the military chiefs not to treat with the enemy. The reasons with which he enforced his request, were as weighty as the spirit which informed them was noble. He contended that they had no right to bind their government to future measures which might be injurious to the public welfare; that they had no right to order other commanding officers to abandon the trusts confided to them; no right to sacrifice large sums of public money to purchase their own safety. He contended, too, that the enemy were not to be trusted; that, in all human probability, they would betray us; and that it would be safer, therefore, as it would be more honourable, to make a great effort to occupy the Balla Hissar till the spring, or else to fight their way to Jellalabad, and there await the promised reinforcements.

Eldred Pottinger had not the gift of speech—had not a commanding presence; but there was natural eloquence in these plain soldierly words, and the resolute bearing of the man imparted dignity to his utterance of them. Almost was the General, though greatly enfeebled at this time by disease, roused into action by them. But Shelton vehemently contended that neither course suggested by Pottinger was practicable, and that it was better to pay any sum of money than to sacrifice the force. In this opinion the council of war, true to the character of such assemblies, unanimously concurred. So grievously disappointed and mortified as he was, Pottinger renewed his diplomatic intercourse with the enemy, and proceeded to give effect to the terms of the hated treaty.

Captain Lawrence, who since his seizure at the fatal conference, had resided in the house of Akbar Khan in the city, was sent for to draw the bills, and on the 27th of December came into cantonments. Fourteen lakhs of rupees were then signed away. Then came a more dreadful concession. The enemy demanded the immediate surrender of our guns. All but six field-pieces, which were to be suffered to accompany the retreating force, were now to be given up to the triumphant Afghans. This was the sorest trial that the British garrison had yet been called upon to encounter. It burnt in our humiliation as with a brand of iron. The troops chafed under this crowning indignity; and the military chiefs, when the hour of surrender came, shrunk from the mortifying necessity of giving up to a barbarous foe those muniments of war, which soldiers of all nations honour, and some almost idolise. But they could not bring themselves to risk a renewal of the conflict by openly refusing to accede to the demand. So, Pottinger hoping, perhaps, that something might yet arise to break off the negotiations, determined to procrastinate. He began by giving up the Shah’s guns, two by two, on successive days; but if this alleviated the pain of the concession, it did not really soften the disgrace.

From day to day, guns, waggons, small arms, and ammunition were surrendered to the enemy. The hostages, too, were given up. Lieutenants Conolly and Airey were already in the hands of the Afghans. Now Captains Walsh and Drummond, and Lieutenant Warburton and Webb, were sent to join them in captivity.[203] The enemy were anxious to get some of the married families into their hands; but there was a general unwillingness on the part of the officers to suffer their wives and children to be cast upon the forbearance of an enemy supposed to be so cruel, so treacherous, and so unscrupulous. On the 29th, such of the sick and wounded as were believed to be unable to bear the fatigues of the march, were sent into the city; and two medical officers, Drs. Berwick and Campbell, were appointed to take charge of them.

On the 1st of January, 1842, the ratified treaty was sent in, bearing the seals of eighteen of the Afghan Sirdars. It contained all the stipulations already detailed, except that relating to the surrender, as hostages, of the English ladies. Even without this crowning indignity it was miserably degrading. There is nothing, indeed, more painful in all this painful history than the progress of the negotiations which resulted in the accomplishment of this treaty. The tone of the enemy throughout was arrogant, dictatorial, and insulting; whilst the language of our diplomatists was that of submission and self-abasement. It is so rare a thing for Englishmen to throw themselves upon the clemency and forbearance of an insolent foe, that when we see our officers imploring the Afghan chiefs “not to overpower the weak with suffering,”[204] we contemplate the sad picture of our humiliation with as much astonishment as shame. The disgrace rests on the military commanders. Pottinger, had he not been overruled in council, would have snapped asunder the treaty before the faces of the chiefs, and appealed again to the God of Battles.

There were other things, too, to humble us. The state of affairs in cantonments was something very grievous to contemplate. The Ghazees hovering round the walls were insulting our people at their very gates, and bearding them at the very muzzles of their guns. Intercepting the supplies of grain which the commissariat had purchased with so much difficulty, they drove off the cattle and ill-treated their attendants. The chiefs declared that they had no power to prevent these outrages, and told the British authorities that they should order the garrison to fire upon all who molested them. Officers and men alike were burning to chastise the wretches who thus insulted their misfortunes; but they were not suffered to fire a shot. The Afghans had triumphed over us so long with impunity that they now believed the Feringhees had sunk into hopeless cowardice, and had become as patient of injury and insult as a herd of broken-spirited slaves.[205]

All this was very hard to bear. Other trials, too, were upon them. All who had friends in the city—and many of our officers had among the Caubulees faithful and long-tried friends—were now receiving from them alarming intimations of the dangers that threatened them on the retreat. It was no secret, indeed, either in the city or in cantonments, that the promises of the chiefs were not to be depended on, and that treachery was brewing for the destruction of our wretched force. Mohun Lal warned Pottinger that the chiefs were not to be believed, and that unless their sons accompanied the army as hostages, it would be attacked upon the road. To this Pottinger replied: “The chiefs have signed the treaty, and their sons accompany us. As for attacking us on the road, we are in the hands of God, and him we trust.”[206] Again, Mohun Lal wrote that the troops would be attacked as soon as they quitted cantonments; but it was too late now to recede. Other warning notes of still more ominous import were sounded at this time. Moollah Ahmed Khan told Captain Johnson, that Akbar Khan had sworn that he would obtain possession of the English ladies as a pledge for the safe return of his own wives and family; and annihilate every soldier of the British army, with the exception of one man, who should reach Jellalabad to tell the story of the massacre of all his comrades.[207]

But to those who pondered well the dangers that threatened the retreating force in the gloomy defiles between Caubul and Jellalabad, there was something more terrible still than the vindictive treachery of the Afghan tribes. Ever since the 18th of December, snow had been falling heavily at intervals—sometimes from morning to evening, with terrible perseverance. It was now lying more than ankle-deep upon the ground. Already had the Sepoys and the camp-followers begun to faint under the cruel sufferings of a frosty winter, fearfully aggravated by the exhaustion of all the firewood in their reach. The trees in cantonments had already been cut down and consumed. What was once a flourishing grove or orchard (for they were mainly fruit-trees) had now become a desert. But the sufferings which these wretched men, transplanted from the torrid plains of Hindostan, were now enduring in the Caubul cantonment, seemed but faintly to foreshadow the misery of a long march through the dreadful snow. Even to the hardy people of the North such a march, it was known, must be a sore trial; but to the weak and effeminate strangers from the plains of Hindostan, who had followed our fortunes into those dreary regions, it seemed to threaten nothing short of absolute extermination.

Those few first days of January were days of painful doubt and anxiety. Every preparation for the march had been made by the garrison. For some time our officers had been gathering together and securing such property as they could take with them, and destroying what they were compelled to abandon. Every night, since the commencement of the new year, they had retired to rest, believing that the army would commence its march on the following morning; but the movement was delayed day after day, because the chiefs had not completed their promised arrangements for the safe conduct of the force. At last, on the evening of the 5th of January, the engineer-officer received instructions actually to commence the work, which he had been so long in readiness to accomplish. He was ordered to cut an opening through the rampart-walls of the cantonment to allow the egress of the troops, more rapidly and less confusedly, than they could pass out through the gates. The chiefs had not sent the promised safeguard; but, contrary to the advice of Major Pottinger,[208] the military authorities determined to march out of their entrenchments. And so, on the following morning, the British force, beaten and disgraced, commenced its ill-fated retreat towards the provinces of Hindostan.