Formidable as this revolt of the Giljyes was found to be, we are led to suspect that both Sir W. Macnaghten and Sir A. Burnes were misled, probably by the Shah's government, very greatly to underrate its importance and its danger. The force under Colonel Monteath,[16] which in the first instance was sent to suppress it, was so small that it was not only unable to penetrate into the country it was intended to overawe or to subdue, but it was immediately attacked in its camp, within ten miles of Cabul, and lost thirty-five sepoys killed and wounded.
Two days afterwards, the 11th October, General Sale marched from Cabul with H.M.'s 13th light infantry, to join Colonel Monteath's camp at Bootkhak; and the following morning the whole proceeded to force the pass of Khoord-Cabul, which was effected with some loss. The 13th returned through the pass to Bootkhak, suffering from the fire of parties which still lurked among the rocks. The remainder of the brigade encamped at Khoord-Cabul, at the further extremity of the defile. In this divided position the brigade remained for some days, and both camps had to sustain night attacks from the Affghans—"that on the 35th native infantry being peculiarly disastrous, from the treachery of the Affghan horse, who admitted the enemy within their lines, by which our troops were exposed to a fire from the least suspected quarter. Many of our gallant sepoys, and Lieutenant Jenkins, thus met their death."
On the 20th October, General Sale, having been reinforced, marched to Khoord-Cabul; "and about the 22d, the whole force there assembled, with Captain Macgregor, political agent, marched to Tezeen, encountering much determined opposition on the road."
"By this time it was too evident that the whole of the Eastern Giljyes had risen in one common league against us." The treacherous proceedings of their chief or viceroy, Humza Khan, which had for some time been suspected, were now discovered, and he was arrested by order of Shah Shoojah.
"It must be remarked," says Lieutenant Eyre, "that for some time previous to these overt acts of rebellion, the always strong and ill-repressed personal dislike of the Affghans towards Europeans, had been manifested in a more than usually open manner in and about Cabul. Officers had been insulted and attempts made to assassinate them. Two Europeans had been murdered, as also several camp-followers; but these and other signs of the approaching storm had unfortunately been passed over as mere ebullitions of private angry feeling. This incredulity and apathy is the more to be lamented, as it was pretty well known that on the occasion of the shub-khoon, or first night attack on the 35th native infantry at Bootkhak, a large portion of our assailants consisted of the armed retainers of the different men of consequence in Cabul itself, large parties of whom had been seen proceeding from the city to the scene of action on the evening of the attack, and afterwards returning. Although these men had to pass either through the heart or round the skirts of our camp at Seeah Sung, it was not deemed expedient even to question them, far less to detain them.
"On the 26th October, General Sale started in the direction of Gundamuk, Captain Macgregor having half-frightened, half-cajoled the refractory Giljye chiefs into what proved to have been a most hollow truce."
On the same day, the 37th native infantry, three companies of the Shah's sappers under Captain Walsh, and three guns of the mountain train under Lieutenant Green, retraced their steps towards Cabul, where the sappers, pushing on, arrived unopposed; but the rest of the detachment was attacked on the 2d November—on the afternoon of which day, Major Griffiths, who commanded it, received orders to force his way to Cabul, where the insurrection had that morning broken out. His march through the pass, and from Bootkhak to Cabul, was one continued conflict; but the gallantry of his troops, and the excellence of his own dispositions, enabled him to carry the whole of his wounded and baggage safe to the cantonments at Cabul, where he arrived about three o'clock on the morning of the 3d November, followed almost to the gates by about 3000 Giljyes.
The causes of the insurrection in the capital are not yet fully ascertained, or, if ascertained, they have not been made public. Lieutenant Eyre does not attempt to account for it; but he gives us the following memorandum of Sir W. Macnaghten's, found, we presume, amongst his papers after his death:—
"The immediate cause of the outbreak in the capital was a seditious letter addressed by Abdoollah Khan to several chiefs of influence at Cabul, stating that it was the design of the Envoy to seize and send them all to London! The principal rebels met on the previous night, and, relying on the inflammable feelings of the people of Cabul, they pretended that the King had issued an order to put all infidels to death; having previously forged an order from him for our destruction, by the common process of washing out the contents of a genuine paper, with the exception of the seal, and substituting their own wicked inventions."
But this invention, though it was probably one of the means employed by the conspirators to increase the number of their associates, can hardly be admitted to account for the insurrection. The arrival of Akber Khan at Bameean, the revolt of the Giljyes, the previous flight of their chiefs from Cabul, and the almost simultaneous attack of our posts in the Koohdaman, (called by Lieutenant Eyre, Kohistan,) on the 3d November—the attack of a party conducting prisoners from Candahar to Ghuznee—the immediate interruption of every line of communication with Cabul—and the selection of the season of the year the most favourable to the success of the insurrection, with many other less important circumstances, combine to force upon us the opinion, that the intention to attack the Cabul force, so soon as it should have become isolated by the approach of winter, had been entertained, and the plan of operations concerted, for some considerable time before the insurrection broke out. That many who wished for its success may have been slow to commit themselves, is to be presumed, and that vigorous measures might, if resorted to on the first day, have suppressed the revolt, is probable; but it can hardly be doubted that we must look far deeper, and further back, for the causes which united the Affghan nation against us.