Sale issued directions for the formation of three columns of infantry, the centre consisting of her Majesty’s 13th Light Infantry, mustering 500 bayonets, under Colonel Dennie; the left, under Lieutenant-Colonel Monteith, C.B.; and the right, composed of one company of the 13th Light Infantry and one of the 35th Native Infantry, and the detachment of Sappers, under Lieutenant Orr (the severity of Captain Broadfoot’s wound still rendering him non-effective), the whole amounting to 360 men, commanded by Captain Havelock, of her Majesty’s 13th Light Infantry. These were to be supported by the fire of the guns of No. 6, Light Field Battery, under Captain Abbott, to which Captain Backhouse, of Shah Soojah’s Artillery, was attached, and by the whole of the small cavalry force under Captain Oldfield and Lieutenant Mayne.[72] Such were the components of the little force that was to attack the camp of the Sirdar.
At daybreak they moved out of the fort by the western gate. Akbar Khan was ready to receive them. He had drawn out his troops before the camp, with his right resting on a fort, and his left on the Caubul river. He had not less than 6000 men. The plan of action proposed by Havelock was, that they should make a sudden and vigorous onslaught on the Sirdar’s camp and drive him into the river, which at that time was a rapid and unfordable torrent. But, abandoning this simple device, Sale, on issuing from the gate, ordered Dennie forward to attack a small fort, several hundred yards to the right, from which the enemy had often molested us before, and in which they were now strongly posted. Gallantly, at the head of his men, went Dennie to the attack—a brave and chivalrous soldier ever in the advance—but an Afghan marksman covered him with his piece, and the ball passed through Dennie’s body.[73] The movement was a false one; it cost us the life of this good soldier, and well nigh lost us the battle. The force being thus divided, the Afghan horsemen came down impetuously on Havelock’s weak infantry column; and if he had not persuaded the General to recall the 13th from the fort, the action might have had a different result. The recall was not too late. Sale now gave his orders for a general attack on the Sirdar’s camp; and his orders were carried into effect with an impetuosity and success worthy of the defenders of Jellalabad. In the forcible language of the General’s despatch, on which I cannot improve, “The artillery advanced at the gallop, and directed a heavy fire upon the Afghan centre, whilst two of the columns of infantry penetrated the line near the same point, and the third forced back its left from its support on the river, into the stream of which some of his horse and foot were driven. The Afghans made repeated attempts to check our advance by a smart fire of musketry, by throwing forward heavy bodies of horse, which twice threatened the detachments of foot under Captain Havelock, and by opening upon us three guns from a battery screened by a garden wall, and said to have been served under the personal superintendence of the Sirdar. But in a short time they were dislodged from every point of their position, their cannon taken, and their camp involved in a general conflagration. The battle was over—and the enemy in full retreat in the direction of Lughman by about 7 A. M. We have made ourselves masters of two cavalry standards, recaptured four guns lost by the Caubul and Gundamuck forces, the restoration of which, to our government, is matter of much honest exultation among our troops, seized and destroyed a great quantity of materiel and ordnance stores, and burnt the whole of the enemy’s tents. In short, the defeat of Mahomed Akbar in open field, by the troops whom he had boasted of blockading, has been complete and signal.” Although our cavalry were not stopped in pursuit, as some held they might have been with advantage, the enemy’s loss was severe. “The field of battle was strewed with the bodies of men and horses, and the richness of the trappings of some of the latter seemed to attest that persons of distinction had been among the casualties.” The loss on our side was small. Eight privates of the 13th Native Infantry, and two of the 35th Native Infantry, were killed. Three officers and about fifty men were wounded.
Great was the joy which the intelligence of the victories of Pollock and Sale diffused throughout all India; and in no one breast did so much of gladness bubble up as in that of Lord Ellenborough. He wrote, that although it was his misfortune not to be a soldier by profession, he knew how to appreciate soldierly qualities and soldierly acts. It was then that, being at Benares at the time, he issued that well-known notification which conferred on Sale’s brigade the honourable title by which it has since been so well known—the title of the “Illustrious Garrison.”[74] That garrison had now done its work, and taken its place in history. Sale ceased to command at Jellalabad; and soon letters from Lord Ellenborough set aside the political functions of Macgregor. In Pollock and Nott, on either side of Afghanistan, had been vested supreme political authority; and Macgregor soon took his place beside the General, simply as his aide-de-camp. By Pollock’s side, too, holding the office of his military secretary, was Shakespear, who had done such good service in liberating the Russian slaves at Khiva; who had won his spurs by this Central-Asian exploit, and returned to India Sir Richmond Shakespear. Pollock knew the worth of these men, and turned their experience to account. But the reign of the “Politicals” was at an end. Lord Ellenborough had determined to dethrone them.
The Governor-General knew his men. He did well in trusting Pollock and Nott. But after the melancholy illustration of the trustworthiness of military officers of high rank displayed in the conduct of affairs at Caubul, the time hardly seemed a happy one for opening out the question of political and military responsibilities, and their relative effects upon the interests of the state. It is right, however, now that it has been stated how the whole system, which exercised so great an influence over events in Afghanistan, was abolished by the Governor-General, that something should be said upon the general character of the diplomatic functionaries employed on the great field of Central Asia.
There is no single controversial topic which has struck out so many sparks of bad feeling—so much personality, so much bitter invective, and I fear it must be added, so much reckless mendacity, as this question of political agency. At one time a “Political” was, by many writers, considered fair game. To hunt him down with all conceivable calumny and vituperation, was regarded as a laudable achievement. Every one had a stone to throw at him—every one howled at him with execration, or shouted at him in derision. Temperate men on this topic, became intemperate; charitable men, uncharitable; sagacity ceased to be sagacious; discrimination ceased to discriminate. All alike lifted up their voices to swell the chorus of popular indignation.
The Caubul outburst, with its attendant horrors, filled this cup of bitter feeling to the brim. It would be difficult to embody, in a page of mere description, the popular notion of an Afghan “Political.” He was believed to be a very conceited, a very arrogant, a very ignorant, and a very unfeeling personage; a pretender, who, on the strength of a little smattering of Persian and some interest, perhaps petticoat interest, in high places, had obtained an appointment, the duties of which he was not capable of performing, and the trust involved in which he was well-nigh certain to abuse. He was looked upon as a creature whose blunders were as mischievous as his pretensions were ridiculous; one, whose ideas of diplomacy were limited to the cultivation of a moustache and the faculty of sitting cross-legged on the ground; who talked largely about Durbar, rode out with a number of Sowars at his heels; and was always on the point of capturing some fugitive chief, and never achieving it after all. But this was only the more favourable aspect of the picture. There was another and a darker side. He was sometimes represented as a roaring lion, going about seeking whom he should devour; unveiling Afghan ladies and pulling Afghan gentlemen by the beard; inviting chiefs to a conference and then betraying them; blowing Sirdars from guns; conniving at wholesale massacre; bribing brothers to betray brothers, fathers their sons; keeping fierce dogs to hound them at innocent countrymen; desecrating mosques, insulting Moollahs, trampling on the Koran—in a word, committing every conceivable outrage that cruelty and lust could devise. There was no amount of baseness, indeed, of which these men were not supposed to be capable; no licentiousness to which they were not addicted; no crimes which they did not commit. This was the popular notion of an “Afghan Political.” It was constantly illustrated in oral conversation and in the local literature of the day. Men talked and wrote upon the subject as though the question—if ever question there were—had long ago been settled by common consent; and it was not until the war had been brought to a close, that a doubt was raised respecting the validity of the charges so generally brought against the Ishmaels of diplomacy in the East.
Very much of this is now mere exploded slander. I cannot say that the political officers, who distinguished themselves throughout the Afghanistan campaign, have lived down the calumny of which they were the victims. Very few of the number survive. But a reaction, in public opinion, is discernible,—a growing disposition to do justice, at least to the memories of the dead. Men speak and write more temperately on the subject. Exaggeration no longer over-strides all our utterances on this topic; and, in some cases, full justice has been done to the noble qualities of head and heart which have adorned, perhaps do adorn men amongst us, under the great “Political” reproach.
It would serve no good purpose to run from one extreme into the other. It is the evil of sudden reactions of popular feeling, that men escape from one error only to be precipitated into another of an opposite class. The system of political agency is not one of unmixed good; nor are political agents exempt from the common frailties of humanity. Many mistakes were unquestionably committed; sometimes a stronger word might without exaggeration have been applied to the things that were done in Afghanistan by our diplomatic agents. Diplomacy is, at all times, a dangerous game. It has seldom, if ever, been played in any part of the world, without some loss of purity, some departure from integrity. In Europe, the diplomatist treads a tortuous path. Guile is met with guile. Fraud is often counteracted by fraud. Minister overreaches minister. One state jockeys another. And, in the affairs of nations, arts are resorted to, which, in the concerns of private life, would stamp the wily plotter with infamy not to be escaped. But, in the East, in the midst of the worst contagion, tempted on every side, stimulated by the fear of failure, irritated by the duplicity of others, far greater is the difficulty of preserving intact the diplomatic integrity which is exposed to so many corrupting influences. I am not asserting the propriety of fighting all men with their own weapons. I have no faith whatever in the worldly wisdom, apart from all considerations of right and wrong, of playing off wile against wile—meeting treachery with treachery—lie with lie. Such tactics may succeed for a season; but, in the long run, truth and honesty will be found the most effective weapons. All I desire to plead in behalf of our Oriental diplomatists is the extraordinary temptations to which they have been exposed. Many of them were necessarily without experience in the difficult game; and, therefore, apprehensive of failure—little confident in themselves, when called upon to encounter, perhaps for the first time, the deep duplicity of Eastern intrigue. Fearful of being drawn into a snare, and deeply impressed with a sense of the responsibilities resting upon them, they have sometimes, in their eagerness to bring negotiations to a successful issue, departed from that strict line of integrity, which we could wish our countrymen ever to maintain. This much at least must be admitted—but who has ever gained a reputation as a skilful diplomatist without some deviation from the straight path of open and truthful manliness of conduct?
“If a man is too stupid or too lazy to drill his company,” wrote General Nott, “he often turns sycophant, cringer to the heads of departments, and is made a ‘Political,’ and of course puts the government to an enormous expense, and disgraces the character of his country.” Nothing was ever more unlike the truth. The Afghan “Politicals” were among the best soldiers in the country. Many of them, as Todd, Rawlinson, Nicolson, &c., were practised drill-instructors and had shown an especial fitness for this particular duty in disciplining foreign troops or raw levies. And no one, who takes account of the most honourable incidents of the Afghan War, will overlook the military services rendered by Pottinger, Macgregor, H. M. Lawrence, Mackeson, Broadfoot, Outram, and others, who are known to us as Political Agents. There have been no finer soldiers in the Indian Army than some of those who distinguished themselves during the war in Afghanistan, under the unpopular designation of “Politicals.”