There is but one conclusion possible from these strange proceedings. The demands made upon the Ameer were made in the hope that he would refuse to concede them, and so furnish the Indian Government with a pretext for attacking him. The last thing which Lord Lytton desired was that the Ameer should accept his demands. And, therefore, as soon as it became apparent that Shere Ali was prepared to do this rather than forfeit the protection and friendship of the British Government, Lord Lytton broke up the conference, which (be it remembered) he had himself proposed. Lord Lytton, not Shere Ali, without provocation or ostensible cause, assumes towards Afghanistan "an attitude of isolation and scarcely veiled hostility;" and Lord Salisbury thus comments upon the situation (October 4, 1877):—
"In the event of the Ameer ... spontaneously manifesting a desire to come to a friendly understanding with your Excellency, on the basis of the terms lately offered to, but declined by him, his advances should not be rejected. If, on the other hand, he continues to maintain an attitude of isolation and scarcely veiled hostility, the British Government ... will be at liberty to adopt such measures for the protection and permanent tranquillity of the North-West frontier of her Majesty's Indian dominions as the circumstances may render expedient, without regard to the wishes of the Ameer Shere Ali or the interests of his dynasty."
Here, at last, we get at the veritable purpose of this tortuous policy. As we suspected, the "terms offered to the Ameer, and unhappily not declined by him," were a mere pretence. The real object was the "protection of the North-West frontier"—in other words, the acquisition of a "scientific frontier"—without regard to the wishes of the Ameer, or the interests of his dynasty. The Ameer was to be "irretrievably alienated" by menacing his independence; and then the "irretrievable alienation" was to be made the pretext for carrying the menace into execution. What the "scientific frontier" was the reader will find, if he refers to my article on "India and Afghanistan," in the October number of this Review.
The threat, however, for reasons I shall state presently, could not be carried into execution at once. The negotiations at Peshawur were carefully concealed from the knowledge of the public. Neither in India nor in England was it known that the British agency was withdrawn from Kabul. The Pioneer—the official journal in India—was instructed to inform its readers that the Ameer was animated with feelings of the utmost cordiality towards us; and Lord Lytton made a speech in the Council Chamber expounding his frontier policy. He glanced first at the policy of his predecessors. His sensitive spirit was much grieved by its apathetic character. It seemed to him "atheistic," and "inhuman," and "inconsistent with our high duties to God and man as the greatest civilizing Power." Then, warming with his subject, he set forth his own idea of a frontier policy in the following grandiloquent fashion:—
"I consider that the safest and strongest frontier India can possibly possess would be a belt of independent frontier States, throughout which the British name is honoured and trusted; within which British subjects are welcomed and respected, because they are subjects of a Government known to be unselfish as it is powerful, and resolute as it is humane; by which our advice is followed without suspicion, and our word relied on without misgiving, because the first has been justified by good results, and the second never quibbled away by timorous sub-intents or tricky saving clauses—a belt of States, in short, whose chiefs and populations should have every interest, and every desire, to co-operate with our own officers in preserving the peace of the frontier, developing the resources of their own territories, augmenting the wealth of their own treasuries, and vindicating in the eyes of the Eastern and Western world their title to an independence, of which we are ourselves the chief well-wishers and supporters."
It is hardly credible that the same man who gave expression to these magnificent sentiments had just caused the Ameer to be informed that he did not regard the promises made to Shere Ali, by Lords Northbrook and Mayo, as binding upon the Government of India, because they were "verbal." "His Excellency the Viceroy," said Sir Lewis Pelly to the Ameer's Envoy, "instructs me to inform your Excellency plainly, that the British Government neither recognizes, nor has recognized, the obligation of these promises." And the official journal called upon India to rejoice, because one result of the conference had been the cancelling of these "verbal promises and engagements," which the Government had found "very embarrassing."
It is plain from the foregoing that Shere Ali was a doomed man long before the appearance of a Russian Mission in his capital. We did not declare war at once, simply because we were then in danger of a war with Russia in Bulgaria. And the Government were still possessed of sufficient prudence not to attempt an invasion of Afghanistan simultaneously with a campaign on the Balkans. But the sore was carefully kept open by "our attitude of isolation and scarcely veiled hostility;" and if the Russian Embassy had not appeared in Kabul, some other pretext for war would indubitably have been found. The Government of India—or rather Lord Lytton—affected to be greatly alarmed at the advent of this Russian Mission, but his subsequent proceedings show that he seized upon the incident with greediness as enabling him to carry out his long-meditated project for the destruction of an old and faithful ally. A single fact will suffice to prove this. What I have already related shows that, up to this time, the Ameer Shere Ali had given us no cause of quarrel whatever. He had been desirous, against the dictates of his own judgment, to agree to what was asked of him rather than forfeit the friendship of the English Government. The estrangement between him and ourselves was the result of our policy—not his. Lord Lytton was solely and wholly responsible for it. The Russian Embassy, as Lord Lytton knew perfectly well, was due to no overtures made by Shere Ali to the Russians in Central Asia, but to the silly exhibition of seven thousand Sepoys at Malta, by means of which we had recently earned the ridicule of Europe. Moreover, as the Treaty of Berlin was an accomplished fact before the Russians had appeared in Kabul, their arrival there was a matter of comparatively trifling significance. How, then, did Lord Lytton act? He organized a Mission under the command of Sir Neville Chamberlain to proceed to Kabul; and at the same time directed our Vakeel, Gulam Hussein Khan, to go before it to Kabul, and obtain the permission of the Ameer for its entrance to his territories. So far there is nothing to object to, but mark what follows.
While yet Sir Neville Chamberlain with his Mission was at Peshawur, Gulam Hussein Khan, from Kabul, reported to Sir Neville as follows:—"If Mission will await Ameer's permission, everything will be arranged, God willing, in the best manner, and no room will be left for complaint in the future.... Further, that if Mission starts on 18th, without waiting for the Ameer's permission, there would be no hope left for the renewal of friendship or communication."
These reports were received by Sir Neville Chamberlain on 19th September, and on the same day the Viceroy ordered the Mission to attempt to force its way through the Khyber Pass. All Europe knows the sequel. The Afghan officer in charge of the fort at Ali Musjid declined to let the Mission pass; but, while obeying his orders firmly, behaved, as Major Cavagnari reported, "in a most courteous manner, and very favourably impressed both Colonel Jenkins and myself." And then was telegraphed home the shameless fiction that he had threatened to fire on Major Cavagnari, and that the majesty of the Empire had been insulted.
It is hard to write with calmness when one has to speak of actions like these. It is, I trust, impossible for any Englishman to read of them without the keenest shame and remorse. What, however, we have to consider at present is their effect upon the native mind. There is not, we may be certain, a single native Court throughout India where they have not been discussed again and again; and there is but one conclusion which could be drawn from them. It is, that despite of all we may say, we allow neither pledges, promises, nor treaties to stand in our way, if we imagine that they are in opposition to the material interests of the moment. There is not a native prince in India but will have seen the fate of his descendants in the doom which has fallen upon the unhappy Shere Ali. It is a fate which no loyalty can avert—which no treaties are powerful enough to ward off. Shere Ali was loyal; Shere Ali was fenced about by treaty upon treaty: he and his father had been our friends and faithful allies for more than forty years; but none the less, the English Government no sooner coveted his territory than they determined upon his destruction. For eighteen months was that Government engaged in secretly weaving the toils around its victim, and when at last it struck, it struck with a calumny upon its lips.