Retreat from Kabul: The First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-1842 (Conflicts of Empire)

by George Bruce

  Auckland’s policy, which he had made clear to Macnaghten, was that the Shah should reform the abuses in government which he had inherited from Dost Mahommed; make his army efficient and reliable, and encourage trade so as to increase revenue from taxation to pay officials’ salaries and troops’ wages.

  Auckland believed that this policy would enable all British soldiers to be withdrawn by the autumn of 1840 — except for those officers who would stay for a time to run the Shah’s army. And the Shah would thus be left to rule his dominions under the guidance of a British Envoy.

  This policy was based on a clear directive of Sir John Hobhouse, President of the East India Company Board of Control in London, to whom the Governor-General was responsible. Hobhouse, as early as March 1839, when the army was crossing the Afghan frontier, had told Auckland: ‘It is of the utmost importance not only so far as India, but as Europe is concerned, that there should be no appearance of any intention on your part to acquire any permanent possession beyond the frontier.’

  He meant, of course, that there would be trouble with Russia should it appear that England sought permanent possessions beyond India’s frontier. Again, in September, after the Shah entered Kabul, he stressed the point even more strongly. ‘Above all remember,’ he wrote to Auckland, ‘that not only the Home Authorities but their Parliamentary critics look with the utmost apprehension, not to say jealousy, at any extension of the British power beyond the Indus.’ The views of Sir John Hobhouse were in this matter largely those of Palmerston, who had tried carefully not to antagonise Russia.

  But late in August 1839 Palmerston in London heard from Colonel Pottinger, British Envoy in Herat — the independent principality in western Afghanistan, near the Persian border — the alarming news that a Russian army was marching on Khiva, on the River Oxus, in Turkestan (now one of the states of southeastern U.S.S.R.). Pottinger expressed the opinion that if successful, a Russian advance towards Herat might follow, with Persian assistance — a clear potential danger for India.

  The outcome was that Hobhouse, following agreement with Palmerston, urged upon Auckland in a letter dated 4 September 1839 what was termed ‘a bolder policy’ towards Herat. This, of course, meant possible occupation and keeping British troops in Afghanistan until the issue was settled.

  Behind this new development was Palmerston’s belief that diplomatic action in Teheran had failed to produce evidence of friendship between England and Persia. Afghanistan therefore replaced Persia in Palmerston’s policies as the first line of defence of India against attack from the north-west. And this radical change implied for the time being a much more permanent British military presence in Afghanistan.

  Macnaghten had learned in late August of the Russian march on Khiva and at once he used this information to try to persuade General Keane to agree to leave in Kabul a much larger British force — for this was one of the things upon which Macnaghten, now practically Shah of Afghanistan, had set his heart. But Keane was by no means sure that Russia was capable of transporting her army across large tracts of central Asia to what Macnaghten called the banks of the Oxus. Jokingly he put off the Envoy with the remark that the only banks he now thought of were those of the Thames, for he had a house at Maidenhead.

  But Macnaghten was not so easily put off. He seems to have been determined both to keep as much as he could of the army and also, it became clear, to embark upon some new military action that would increase his fame.

  He therefore tried to embroil Keane in an absurd scheme that would serve his purpose. He showed the General a letter he said he was about to send to Auckland and asked for Keane’s agreement on its contents. After referring to the proposed stay of most of the Bengal force in Kabul, the letter said that already — in view of the urgency, without waiting for the Governor-General’s agreement — a force had been marched against distant Bokhara, to pursue Dost Mahommed, free the British Envoy, Colonel Stoddart, whom the ruler there had imprisoned; and march on north-west hundreds of miles to forestall Russia’s troops at Khiva.

  Keane managed somehow to control himself when he read of actions said to be occurring that he would never even have contemplated. Not trusting himself to write a reply, he showed his contempt by returning the letter to Macnaghten with a verbal message by an aide-de-camp — that he could not even consider joining in forwarding it to Auckland and the next day he bluntly told Macnaghten why such an expedition was an absurdity.

  First, the mountain passes over which Macnaghten proposed to send the troops rose he said, to some 12,000 feet above sea-level. Snow was likely to start falling at that height within a few weeks. The troops would be isolated in the mountain town of Bamian for six or eight months. It would be impossible during winter to get supplies to them. Finally, he insisted, the Shah’s troops, not the British, should undertake such a task; or, if British troops were absolutely essential, they should wait until the spring and then march in some force.

  But Macnaghten was undismayed. Set upon his military adventure ‘to drive Dost Mahommed beyond the Oxus’ at once, despite all that Keane had told him he ordered Captain Hay to march west to Bamian next day, 11 September 1839, with one of the Shah’s new Ghurka regiments, 200 cavalry, 3,000 Afghan irregular and a troop of Bengal Horse Artillery — all from the Shah’s forces.

  On arrival there, Captain Hay, an experienced soldier, was to place himself under the orders of Dr. Lord, one of the medical staff, who had been seconded for political duties and who had no knowledge whatsoever of military matters. To one of the officers of the proposed force who wisely suggested waiting for two days until an engineer would be back with a report on the route over the mountains, Macnaghten replied sharply that he did not like difficulties being made and Captain Hay had no alternative but to march at once. He and his infantry toiled for a month on the 100-mile journey to Bamian, surmounting the towering passes with cumbersome guns and ammunition wagons, in order, as Henry Durand noted ‘to lodge an excellent battery of horse artillery in a position where it could be of no use’.

  Then, on the strength of an alarmist report from Dr. Lord that Dost Mahommed had assembled a large army and was marching to reconquer his kingdom — it turned out to be an Afghan invention — Macnaghten persuaded Keane to agree to leave the entire Bengal division of the Anglo-Indian army in Afghanistan when the General himself returned to India.

  Shah Shuja was now saddled with a substantial foreign army in the country. There is no doubt that while Dost Mahommed was free to be a magnet for the discontented — a focus of rebellion — he was desperately anxious that the British should stay to do the fighting for which his own troops were still not reliable.

  On the other hand, he hated the gleaming foreign bayonets for the lie they gave to the fiction that he was king by popular consent.

  Durand believed at this time that with a reliable and efficient force of his own occupying key points of the country Shuja would have been able to hold Kabul, Kandahar and Ghazni against all but an army with powerful artillery, which Dost Mahommed certainly would not command. With such domination of the country, reinforced by conciliation of the chiefs, for whose restless but petty ambitions he could have found outlets in the civil and military service of the State, Shuja could have braved any attempted return of Dost Mahommed.

  And freed from the domineering presence of the Anglo-Indian army his popularity and his real power over the country would increase — always provided his financial measures proved fair.

  The winter, whose extreme cold discouraged fighting in Afghanistan, would have enabled the king to have consolidated his power and to have raised a party of influential chiefs favourable to his reign.

  But from the very outset these hopes were vain. First, the Shah’s force showed no sign of becoming an effective fighting machine, even though it had been strengthened by increasing the number of British officers from two to five for each regiment. For the British hated their role, regarding it only as a stepping-stone to a lucrative political post.

&nb
sp; Secondly, there was hardly a man among the chiefs whom the king could ask to join a government. They were all jealous of each other’s power and in these feudal social conditions the King would never have found it possible to promote one at the possible expense of the other. As Vizier, or chief minister, he had appointed the worst man he could have chosen — Moolah Shikore, his companion in exile, whose faculties, Burnes says, were seriously impaired by age and disease. But he was not too old to be dangerous.

  He appointed corrupt subordinates to collect taxes, while to satisfy Shah Shuja’s demands as well as those of the collectors, the assessments had to be fixed at an exorbitant level. British forces were sent to aid in the revenue collection; often they were asked by the Shah’s collector to attack the forts and villages of the obstinate.

  Among so proud a race as the Afghans fierce resentment was aroused at what was seen as foreign oppression. In search of additional revenue, Moolah Shikore appointed corrupt judges who sold verdicts to the highest bidder. Law and justice were soon seen to be a sham.

  But Moolah Shikore was stupid as well as corrupt. When the presence of the army caused a shortage of grain in Kabul and the surrounding districts, he seized the granaries and sold what remained at an inflated price fixed by himself — an act which caused much distress and spread discontent with the speed of a forest fire.

  Later, wishing to placate Shah Shuja, he decided to replant the gardens of the royal palace and so conscripted a few hundred poor peasants to do it for nothing. Burnes tells how they were dragged into Kabul from their country hovels at seed time, when it was vital to sow their own lands, and forced to work planting flowers, without food or wages. Burnes warned Moolah Shikore that he would personally see to it that serious trouble would follow were they not paid. They were given a small pittance.

  When those people who felt that they had been dealt with unjustly appealed to Macnaghten’s officials the officials protested to Moolah Shikore, who thereupon punished the plaintiffs for daring to appeal.

  The Shah contributed to this discontent as well. To those whom he wished to reward for services rendered, he conferred grants of land or houses owned by chiefs he believed were disloyal. The holders naturally resisted this confiscation, and Shah Shuja, lacking armed forces under his own command, turned to Macnaghten for enforcement.

  Macnaghten, who had the sole power to order military action and who could not let the Shah lose face, sent troops to dispossess the land-holders — thus openly supporting injustice.

  Dost Mahommed had ruled with severity, but on the whole fairly. Shah Shuja became known for tyranny and oppression from the earliest days of his return. The chances therefore of his ever being able to survive without the permanent support of a foreign army were small indeed.

  Meantime, as winter approached, officers and men in Kabul settled down to enjoy the delights of any army of occupation in a strange land.

  How did Kabul look then? Officers and men passing through the walls via the great gateways — always armed, though the people at first seemed friendly — found themselves in narrow winding alleys of flat-roofed houses of sun-baked mud round open courtyards, with here and there the taller house with its lofty tower, of a chief. Frequently they came up against great gateways of wood built across the streets which stopped all progress.

  The Bala Hissar — the royal palace and fortress — was built into a rocky hill overlooking the city and consisted of three or four stories of brick and stone with the fortress at the top dominating the palace, the walled-in area below and the entire city. It was virtually impregnable.

  Perhaps most interesting to the English soldiers of 1839 were the great bazaars, the chief of which was the Charchutta, which they found to be made up of four white stucco arcades — tall and wide passages crowded with horses, camels and even elephants, for sale.

  Another of the arcades sold food — great doggets of mutton stuck on iron spikes, huge loaves of bread, fruit of every kind and trays of sweet cakes. In still another arcade were costly jewellery, silks, furs, carpets, embroidered skull caps and the baggy trousers, wide sashes and huge turbans worn by the Afghans. Fountains played into great stone basins at the intersections of the arcades.

  In a street running from the Peshawar gate of the city to the bazaar, the British crowded the stalls of the sword and gunsmiths, the bookbinders, leather-workers and saddlers. Kabul bazaar at this time was a great mart for the produce and manufactures of all central Asia, a fabulous place for the young men from the quiet towns and villages of England to wander in.

  And for young men with leisure, no worries and swords at their sides there were other diversions, too. Occasionally as they strolled through the crowded narrow streets, the windows of fine trellis and lattice-work that encased the balconies a few feet above would slide aside and sparkling eyes in a beautiful face framed in long dark hair looked down invitingly upon them.

  The British assessed the situation with speed. Word went round that the Afghan ladies were willing and that affairs were possible. The facts of the situation probably came from Sir Alexander Burnes, who having spent some time in Kabul earlier, was well aware of local inclination and who, shortly after the arrival of the British there, had acquired several Afghan and Kashmiri girls and installed them in the house with which Shah Shuja had presented him.

  The main reason for this laxity was that among the Kabulees many men were homosexual and apart from attending dutifully to the strict demands of procreation, they neglected the physical needs of their wives.

  Within a month or two of their arrival, most young unmarried officers were involved with Kabul women; and this continued among many of the single men even after the arrival of the wives and daughters of English officers in 1840. Meetings with the Afghan women were mostly in secret, in houses many officers obtained from Shah Shuja for this purpose.

  The men of Kabul, cuckolded by their conquerors, probably shrugged their shoulders and pretended not to know, but in time they grew to look upon the English as lascivious infidels and their early friendship turned to hate.

  The army’s moralising chaplain, the Reverend G. R. Gleig, grieved at these careless ways, noted later: ‘Whatever errors they committed, the great mass of the garrison of Kabul atoned for them terribly; and the survivors, as years pass over them, will doubtless… become convinced that the gratification of the moment is purchased at too high a price, if it occasion deep or permanent suffering to others.’

  But this was, of course, only one small part of the pursuits of the English in Kabul. Horse-racing and cricket were organised. Shah Shuja gave a valuable sword as a prize for riding, won by Major Daly of the 4th Light Dragoons. Soon the Afghans as well were taking part in flat racing and steeple-chasing. Cricket they were prepared to watch, but they never took off their flowing robes and huge turbans to join in the energetic bowling, batting and fielding.

  Both nations enjoyed wrestling, teams were formed and the Afghans, who prided themselves upon their skill in what was regarded as a national sport, were surprised to see their most noted wrestlers thrown time after time by the British champions. The British also attended the cock-fighting mains held among the Afghans, and betting, as was the custom, cheerfully lost their pay.

  This fraternisation led the Afghan chiefs to invite senior British officers out to their forts for shooting and feasting, while in Kabul this hospitality was returned by the officers in regimental messes and in the houses they had acquired. A theatre was built, amateur theatricals were begun and light comedies were put on to amuse the Afghans; Burnes and others skilled in their dialects, translating the dialogue.

  But the British were still looked upon by the Afghans as infidel invaders, blind to their feelings, customs and language. And it was in any case impossible for bitterness to fade when Macnaghten was known to be planning further war against them. And this, in a spirit of revenge he was about to begin.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The first targets of Macnaghten’s desire for revenge wer
e the chiefs of the Ghilzyes, who he recalled were hostile during the army’s march between Kandahar and Ghazni; and the Khan of Khelat, Mehrab Khan. Though certainly not actively hostile — the Khan had even restrained the tribes in his domain during the passage of the army — he had yet failed to supply it with the grain he had promised. So it was forthwith decided on Burnes’s recommendation to overthrow him and add his territories to those of Shah Shuja.

  The formidable Captain Outram was on 7 September 1839 sent off with a force of 500 cavalry and infantry of the Shah’s force and Captain Abbot’s battery of 9-pounders to punish the Ghilzyes. Quickly and efficiently Outram destroyed their forts and scattered their troops, sowing anew seeds of hatred where conciliation and goodwill were needed. He then sent his force back to Kabul, marched across hostile country with only two guides and within forty-eight hours joined General Willshire, who had been assigned the task of dealing with Mehrab Khan while returning to India with the Bombay division.

  The Khan had done all he could to come to terms with Macnaghten and Shuja, but nothing short of his surrender would satisfy Macnaghten. The Khan was to be deposed and sent into exile.

  Mehrab Khan had good cause to hope for success in his negotiations with Shah Shuja and Macnaghten, having years before given the Shah shelter and protection when he was fleeing the country — hospitality that probably saved Shuja’s life. Expecting therefore, some remembrance of his earlier service, even when he heard days before of the approach of Willshire’s force he made no preparations for defence.

  The day before Willshire’s arrival, Captain Bean, the regional political agent, came to tell him Macnaghten’s terms — unconditional surrender and exile for life with his wife and son. The Khan, who must have been shocked by this evidence of Shuja’s ingratitude, replied that he would fight and die rather than surrender. Captain Bean rejoined Willshire, and the Khan sent his wife and son to hide in the mountains. He then called in a few hundred tribesmen from nearby villages and awaited the clash with the British.