Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

by Various

The will of their chiefs and spiritual leaders—fanatical zeal, and hatred of the domination of a race whom they regarded as infidels—may have been sufficient to incite the lower orders to any acts of violence, or even to the persevering efforts they made to extirpate the English. In their eyes the contest would assume the character of a religious war—of a crusade; and every man who took up arms in that cause, would go to battle with the conviction that, if he should be slain, his soul would go at once to paradise, and that, if he slew an enemy of the faith, he thereby also secured to himself eternal happiness. But the chiefs are not so full of faith; and although we would not altogether exclude religious antipathy as an incentive, we may safely assume that something more immediately affecting their temporal and personal concerns must with them, or at least with the large majority, have been the true motives of the conspiracy—of their desire to expel the English from their country. Nor is it difficult to conceive what some of these motives may have been. The former sovereigns of Affghanistan, even the most firmly-established and the most vigorous, had no other means of enforcing their commands, than by employing the forces of one part of the nation to make their authority respected in another; but men who were jealous of their own independence as chiefs, were not likely to aid the sovereign in any attempt to destroy the substantial power, the importance, or the independence of their class; and although a refractory chief might occasionally, by the aid of his feudal enemies, be taken or destroyed, and his property plundered, his place was filled by a relation, and the order remained unbroken. The Affghan chiefs had thus enjoyed, under their native governments, an amount of independence which was incompatible with the system we introduced—supported as that system was by our military means. These men must have seen that their own power and importance, and even their security against the caprices of their sovereign, could not long be preserved—that they were about to be subjected as well as governed—to be deprived of all power to resist the oppressions of their own government, because its will was enforced by an army which had no sympathy with the nation, and which was therefore ready to use its formidable strength to compel unqualified submission to the sovereign's commands.

The British army may not have been employed to enforce any unjust command—its movements may have been less, far less, injurious to the countries through which it passed than those of an Affghan army would have been, and its power in the moment of success may have been far less abused; but still it gave a strength to the arm of the sovereign, which was incompatible with the maintenance of the pre-existing civil and social institutions or condition of the country, and especially of the relative positions of the sovereign and the noble. In the measures we adopted to establish the authority of Shah Shoojah, we attempted to carry out a system of government which could only have been made successful by a total revolution in the social condition of the people, and in the relative positions of classes; and as these revolutions are not effected in a few years, the attempt failed.[¹⁷]

But if the predominance of our influence and of our military power, and the effects of the system we introduced, tended to depress the chiefs, it must have still more injuriously affected or threatened the power of the priesthood.

This we believe to have been one of the primary and most essential causes of the revolt—this it was that made the insurrection spread with such rapidity, and that finally united the whole nation against us. With the aristocracy and the hierarchy of the country, it must have been but a question of courage and of means—a calculation of the probability of success; and as that probability was greatly increased by the results of the first movement at Cabul, and by the inertness of our army after the first outbreak, all acquired courage enough to aid in doing what all had previously desired to see done.

But if there be any justice in this view of the state of feeling in Affghanistan, even in the moments of its greatest tranquillity, it is difficult to account for the confidence with which the political authorities charged with the management of our affairs in that country looked to the future, and the indifference with which they appear to have regarded what now must appear to every one else to have been very significant, and even alarming, intimations of dissaffection in Cabul, and hostility in the neighbouring districts.

But it is time we should return to Lieutenant Eyre, whose narrative of facts is infinitely more attractive than any speculations we could offer.

"At an early hour this morning, (2d November 1841,) the startling intelligence was brought from the city, that a popular outbreak had taken place; that the shops were all closed; and that a general attack had been made on the houses of all British officers residing in Cabul. About 8 A.M., a hurried note was received by the Envoy in cantonments from Sir Alexander Burnes, stating that the minds of the people had been strongly excited by some mischievous reports, but expressing a hope that he should succeed in quelling the commotion. About 9 A.M., however, a rumour was circulated, which afterwards proved but too well founded, that Sir Alexander had been murdered, and Captain Johnson's treasury plundered. Flames were now seen to issue from that part of the city where they dwelt, and it was too apparent that the endeavour to appease the people by quiet means had failed, and that it would be necessary to have recourse to stronger measures. The report of firearms was incessant, and seemed to extend through the town from end to end.

"Sir William Macnaghten now called upon General Elphinstone to act. An order was accordingly sent to Brigadier Shelton, then encamped at Seeah Sung, about a mile and a half distant from cantonments, to march forthwith to the Bala Hissar, or royal citadel, where his Majesty Shah Shoojah resided, commanding a large portion of the city, with the following troops:—viz. one company of H.M. 44th foot; a wing of the 54th regiment native infantry, under Major Ewart; the 6th regiment Shah's infantry, under Captain Hopkins; and four horse-artillery guns, under Captain Nicholl; and on arrival there, to act according to his own judgment, after consulting with the King.

"The remainder of the troops encamped at Seeah Sung were at the same time ordered into cantonments: viz. H.M. 44th foot, under Lieutenant-Colonel Mackerell; two horse-artillery guns, under Lieutenant Waller; and Anderson's irregular horse. A messenger was likewise dispatched to recall the 37th native infantry from Khoord-Cabul without delay. The troops at this time in cantonments were as follows: viz. 5th regiment native infantry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver; a wing of 54th native infantry; five six-pounder field guns, with a detachment of the Shah's artillery, under Lieutenant Warburton; the Envoy's body-guard; a troop of Skinner's horse, and another of local horse, under Lieutenant Walker; three companies of the Shah's sappers, under Captain Walsh; and about twenty men of the Company's sappers, attached to Captain Paton, assistant-quartermaster-general.

"Widely spread and formidable as this insurrection proved to be afterwards, it was at first a mere insignificant ebullition of discontent on the part of a few desperate and restless men, which military energy and promptitude ought to have crushed in the bud. Its commencement was an attack by certainly not 300 men on the dwellings of Sir Alexander Burnes and Captain Johnson, paymaster to the Shah's force; and so little did Sir Alexander himself apprehend serious consequences, that he not only refused, on its first breaking out, to comply with the earnest entreaties of the wuzeer to accompany him to the Bala Hissar, but actually forbade his guard to fire on the assailants, attempting to check what he supposed to be a mere riot, by haranguing the attacking party from the gallery of his house. The result was fatal to himself; for in spite of the devoted gallantry of the sepoys, who composed his guard, and that of the paymaster's office and treasury on the opposite side of the street, who yielded their trust only with their latest breath, the latter were plundered, and his two companions, Lieutenant William Broadfoot of the Bengal European regiment, and his brother, Lieutenant Burnes of the Bombay army, were massacred, in common with every man, woman, and child found on the premises, by these bloodthirsty miscreants. Lieutenant Broadfoot killed five or six men with his own hand, before he was shot down.