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

by Sir John William Kaye

If the worst comes to the worst, we must abandon all baggage and stores, and be content to march with sufficient food to convey us to Quettah, for which I believe the carriage now available will suffice.

It will be quite impossible to destroy the works of Candahar, as directed in the government letter: the worst that can be done is to blow up the gateways. I have hardly yet had time to reflect fully upon the effects, immediate and prospective, of our abrupt departure. There is no man at present on whom I can cast my eyes in all Candahar as likely to succeed to power. Sufder Jung will be a mere puppet of course, and will be liable to deposition at any moment. Should the Barukzyes triumph at Caubul, and should we no longer oppose the return of Kohundil, he will be the most likely chief to succeed; but the natural consequence of his return, and of our determined non-interference with the affairs in this quarter, will be of course to render Persian influence paramount at Herat and Candahar; and, with the prospect of a Russian fleet at Astrabad and a Persian army at Merve, it is by no means impossible that the designs which threatened us in 1838 may at last be directly accomplished. Strong measures of intimidation, both against Russia and Persia, will be our best protection.[168]

But, however great may have been the mortification which Nott and Rawlinson were now condemned to experience, the orders of the Supreme Government were so explicit, that the General believed it to be his duty at once to begin to carry them into effect. A brigade had already been equipped for the relief of Khelat-i-Ghilzye and the rescue of the Ghuznee prisoners. It was now despatched, on the 19th of May, to bring off the garrison, and to destroy the works of the former place. Colonel Wymer commanded the force. It consisted of those three noble Sepoy regiments with which he had before done such good service;[169] her Majesty’s 40th Regiment, Leslie’s troop of Horse Artillery, four guns of Blood’s battery, the Bombay cavalry details, and the Shah’s 1st Regiment of Horse. Some troopers of Haldane’s cavalry, some details of Bengal artillery, and of the Madras sappers, completed the components of the force.

Thus, in the later weeks of May, Pollock was holding his post at Jellalabad, eager to receive authority to march upon Caubul, and rejoicing in the pretext of a scarcity of carriage for delaying the withdrawal of his force; Nott, eager, too, for a forward movement, but unable to perceive in the instructions of government the least indication of an intention to place any discretionary power in his hands, was taking measures to secure, with all promptitude, the accomplishment of their wishes; and the Governor-General, from Allahabad, was writing strong letters to the Generals, impressing upon them the necessity of maintaining a discreet silence regarding the intentions of government and the future movements of the troops.

There was nothing, in truth, more desirable than this. The intentions of the Governor-General were of such a character as to render these revelations, in the existing state of things, dangerous, if not fatal, to the interests of Great Britain in the countries beyond the Indus. But official secrets are not easily kept in a country where so many copies of every public letter are forwarded to different authorities, in distant parts of the country; where so many clerks are employed to copy, and so many staff-officers allowed to read them. Before the end of May it was known, not only in General Pollock’s camp, but in all the cantonments of India, that the armies were to be withdrawn. The secret had welled out from the bureau of the Commander-in-Chief; and bets were made at the mess-tables of Jellalabad regarding the probable date of the withdrawal of the troops. No man knew better than Pollock the danger of such revelations,[170] and he did his best to counteract the evil tendency of the reports which were now the common gossip of his camp, and were soon likely to be current in all the Afghan bazaars. “I have taken steps,” he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, “to prevent any great mischief resulting, by ordering the deputy-quarter-master-general a few miles in advance, to mark out a new encamping ground; and I shall have such inquiries made among the natives about bringing supplies there, that will make them believe that I shall move forward.”

And Pollock still hoped that something might arise to wring from the Governor-General an order to march upon the Afghan capital. But the letters he received from Lord Ellenborough and Sir Jasper Nicolls were calculated not only to discourage but to embarrass him. There was no possibility of misunderstanding the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief; but the Governor-General, whilst imperatively directing the speediest possible withdrawal of Pollock’s army, was every now and then throwing out a hint that a forward movement for the chastisement of the Afghans would not be ungrateful to him. And whilst the Governor-General was obviously intending to place some discretionary power in the General’s hands, the Commander-in-Chief was writing to assure him that the orders of the Supreme Government all tended towards an immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

The letter of the 13th of May elicited no answer; but a letter written a week afterwards,[171] in which Pollock pointed out the evils and difficulties of an immediate withdrawal to Peshawur, found the Governor-General in one of his more forward and chivalrous moods. Pollock, in this letter of the 20th of May, had said: “I shall be glad if any letter from government may authorise my remaining till October or November;” and now, on the 1st of June, the Governor-General, through the Chief Secretary, replied: “It would be desirable, undoubtedly, that before finally quitting Afghanistan, you should have an opportunity of striking a blow at the enemy; and since circumstances seem to compel you to remain there till October, the Governor-General earnestly hopes that you may be enabled to draw the enemy into a position in which you may strike such a blow effectually.” And again, in the same letter: “It will be for your consideration whether your large army, one half of which would beat, in open field, everything that could be brought against it in Afghanistan, should remain entirely inactive during the period which must now apparently elapse before it can finally retire. Although you may not have, or soon be able to procure the means of moving your whole army, you may possibly be able to move a part of it rapidly against some portion of the enemy’s force incautiously exposed, and of giving it a severe blow.” This was, at all events, something gained. And the gain was a sudden one. Only three days before, the Governor-General, in a letter to Pollock, had resented the presumption of Mr. Clerk in drawing from a former letter an inference in favour of the continued occupation of Jellalabad, in the event of negotiations being on foot for the release of the prisoners, and had expressed a strong opinion that no negotiations had yet been entered upon of a nature to impede the backward movement of the force. The letter of the 1st of June was, therefore, doubly welcome. Pollock had now received a constructive permission to remain at Jellalabad until October;[172] and, as every effort was to be made in the interval to collect carriage-cattle in the provinces of Hindostan, ostensibly for the purpose of his withdrawal from Afghanistan, he determined to lose no opportunity of turning those means of withdrawal to the best possible account. If there were carriage to enable him to fall back upon Peshawur, there would be carriage to enable him to advance upon Caubul, for the mistake of hiring cattle, with local limitations affixed to the engagements, was not to be perpetuated. So General Pollock looked forward with confidence to the coming autumn, as to a time when a vigorous and decisive blow might be struck at the nation which had humbled the pride and defiled the honour of the conquerors of Hindostan.

Patiently, therefore, biding his time, Pollock turned the halt at Jellalabad to the best possible account, by endeavouring to obtain by negotiation the ransom of the British prisoners. What those negotiations were, and what was their result, should be stated in this place. It was on the evening of the 25th of April that some excitement was created in Pollock’s camp at Jellalabad, by rumours, presently confirmed, of the arrival of Captain Colin Mackenzie, one of the prisoners in the hands of Akbar Khan, with a letter from Major Pottinger, and overtures from the Sirdar. Pottinger’s letter briefly shadowed forth the terms on which Akbar Khan and his Ghilzye confederates were prepared to release the prisoners—but the language employed was rather that of inquiry than dictation. “The Sirdar,” wrote Pottinger, “wishes to know, in the first place, if we will consent to withdraw the greater part of our troops, and leave an agent with a small body of men to act with whomever the confederates may elect as chief, in which case they propose to be guided by the wishes of the two factions in Caubul, and wish us to release Dost Mahomed Khan. Secondly—They propose, that if the British Government have determined on subjecting the country and continuing the war, that the prisoners at present in Afghanistan shall be exchanged for Dost Mahomed Khan, his family and attendants, and that the issue be dependent on the sword. Thirdly—In the event of neither of these propositions being approved of, they wish to know what terms will be granted to themselves individually; whether we, in the event of their submission, will confine them, send them to India, take hostages from them, reduce their pay, or, in short, what they have to expect from our clemency.”[173]

To this General Pollock replied, that “kindness and good treatment of our prisoners would meet with due consideration at the hands of the British Government, and the release of them much more so; that if money were a consideration, he was prepared to pay into the hands of any one the Sirdar might depute to receive it the sum of two lakhs of rupees, whenever the prisoners might be delivered into his hands;” and that Mahomed Shah Khan and his brothers would be “suffered to enjoy the advantages arising from their hereditary dominions.”[174]