Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80, Part 2 — Chapter IV - The December Storm, part 1

CHAPTER III: THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM

Sir Frederick Roberts had been hurried forward on Cabul charged with the duty of avenging the perpetration of a foul and treacherous crime, 'which had brought indelible disgrace upon the Afghan nation.'

The scriptural injunction to turn the other cheek to the smiter has not yet become a canon of international law or practice; and the anti-climax to an expedition engaged in with so stern a purpose, of a nominal disarmament and a petty fine never exacted, is self-evident.

Our nation is given to walk in the path of precedent; and in this juncture the authorities had to their hand the most apposite of precedents.

Pollock, by destroying the Char bazaar in which had been exposed the mangled remains of Burnes and Macnaghten, set a 'mark' on Cabul the memory of which had lasted for decades.

Cavagnari and his people had been slaughtered in the Balla Hissar, and their bones were still mingled with the smouldering ruins of the Residency.

Wise men discerned that the destruction of the fortress followed by a homeward march as swift yet as measured as had been the march of invasion, could not but have made a deep and lasting impression on the Afghans; while the complications, humiliations, and expense of the long futile occupation would have been obviated.

Other counsels prevailed.

To discover, in a nation virtually accessory as a whole after the fact to the slaughter of the mission, the men on whom lay the suspicion of having been the instigators and the perpetrators of the cruel deed, to accord them a fair trial, and to send to the gallows those on whose hands was found the blood of the massacred mission, was held a more befitting and not less telling course of retributive action than to raze the Balla Hissar and sow its site with salt.

Skilfully and patiently evidence was gathered, and submitted to the Military Commission which General Roberts had appointed.

This tribunal took cognisance of crimes nominally of two classes.

It tried men who were accused of having been concerned in the destruction of the British mission, and those charged with treason in having offered armed resistance to the British troops acting in support of the Ameer, who had put himself under their protection.

Of the five prisoners first tried, condemned, and duly hanged, two were signal criminals.

One of them, the Kotwal or Mayor of Cabul, was proved to have superintended the contumelious throwing of the bodies of the slaughtered Guides of the mission escort into the ditch of the Balla Hissar.

Another was proved to have carried away from the wrecked Residency a head believed to have been Cavagnari's, and to have exhibited it on the ridge above the city.

The other three and many of those who were subsequently executed, suffered for the crime of 'treason' against Yakoub Khan.

Probably there was no Afghan who did not approve of the slaughter of the Envoy, and who would not in his heart have rejoiced at the annihilation of the British force; but it seems strange law and stranger justice to hang men for 'treason' against a Sovereign who had gone over to the enemy.

On the curious expedient of temporarily governing in the name of an Ameer who had deserted his post to save his skin, comment would be superfluous.

Executions continued; few, however, of the mutinous sepoys who actually took part in the wanton attack on the British Residency had been secured, and it was judged expedient that efforts should be made to capture and punish those against whom there was evidence of that crime, in the shape of the muster-rolls of the regiments now in the possession of the military authorities.

It was known that many of the disbanded and fugitive soldiers had returned to their homes in the villages around Cabul, and early in November General Baker took out a force and suddenly encircled the village of Indikee, on the edge of the Chardeh valley--a village reported full of Afghan sepoys.

A number of men were brought out by the scared headmen and handed over, answering to their names called over from a list carried by Baker; and other villages in the vicinity yielded a considerable harvest of disbanded soldiers.

Before the Commission the prisoners made no attempt to conceal their names, or deny the regiments to which they had belonged; and forty-nine of them were found guilty and hanged, nearly all of whom belonged to the regiments that had assailed the Residency.

On 12th November Sir Frederick Roberts proclaimed an amnesty in favour of all who had fought against the British troops, on condition that they should surrender their arms and return to their homes; but exempted from the benefit were all concerned in the attack on the Residency.

The amnesty was well timed, although most people would have preferred that fewer sepoys and more Sirdars should have been hanged.

Our relations with the Ameer during the earlier part of his residence in the British camp were not a little peculiar.

Nominally he was our guest, and a certain freedom was accorded to him and his retinue.

There was no doubt that the Sirdars of the Ameer's suite grossly abused their privileges.

Whether with Yakoub Khan's cognisance or not, they authorised the use of his name by the insurgent leaders.

Nek Mahomed, the insurgent commander at Charasiah, was actually in the tents of the Ameer on the evening before the fight.

To all appearance our operations continued to have for their ultimate object the restoration of Yakoub Khan to his throne.

Our administrative measures were carried on in his name.

The hostile Afghans we designated as rebels against his rule; and his authority was proclaimed as the justification of much of our conduct.

But the situation gradually became intolerable to Yakoub Khan.

He was a guest in the British camp, but he was also in a species of custody.

Should our arms reinstate him, he could not hope to hold his throne.

His harassed perplexity came to a crisis on the morning of the 12th October, the day of General Roberts' durbar in the Balla Hissar, which he had been desired to attend.

What he specifically apprehended is unknown; what he did was to tell General Roberts, with great excitement, that he would not go to the durbar, that his life was too miserable for long endurance, that he would rather be a grass-cutter in the British camp than remain Ameer of Afghanistan.

He was firmly resolved to resign the throne, and begged that he might be allowed to do so at once.

General Roberts explained that the acceptance of his resignation rested not with him but with the Viceroy, pending whose decision matters, the General desired, should remain as they were, affairs continuing to be conducted in the Ameer's name as before.

To this the Ameer consented;

his tents were moved to the vicinity of General Roberts' headquarters, and a somewhat closer surveillance over him was maintained.

Secrecy meanwhile was preserved until the Viceroy's reply should arrive.

The nature of that reply was intimated by the proclamation which General Roberts issued on the 28th October.

It announced that the Ameer had of his own free will abdicated his throne and left Afghanistan without a government.

'The British Government,' the proclamation continued, 'now commands that all Afghan authorities, chiefs, and sirdars, do continue their functions in maintaining order....

The British Government, after consultation with the principal sirdars, tribal chiefs, and others representing the interests and wishes of the various provinces and cities, will declare its will as to the future permanent arrangements to be made for the good government of the people.'

This _ad interim_ assumption of the rulership of Afghanistan may have been adopted as the only policy which afforded even a remote possibility of tranquillity.

But it was essentially a policy of speculative makeshift.

The retributive and punitive object of the swift march on Cabul can scarcely be regarded as having been fulfilled by the execution of a number of subordinate participants and accessories in the destruction of the mission and by the voluntary abdication of Yakoub Khan.

That the Afghan 'authorities, chiefs, and sirdars,' would obey the command to 'maintain order' issued by the leader of a few thousand hostile troops, masters of little more than the ground on which they were encamped, experience and common sense seemed alike to render improbable.

The Afghans subordinated their internal quarrels to their common hatred of the masterful foreigners, and the desperate fighting of December proved how fiercely they were in earnest.

Yakoub Khan had been regarded as merely a weak and unfortunate man, but the shadows gradually darkened around him until at length he came to be a man under grave suspicion.

General Roberts became satisfied from the results of the proceedings of the court of inquiry, that the attack on the Residency, if not actually instigated by him, might at least have been checked by active exertion on his part.

Information was obtained which convinced the General that the ex-Ameer was contemplating a flight toward Turkestan, and it was considered necessary to place him in close confinement.

He remained a close prisoner until December 1st.

On the early morning of that day he was brought out from his tent, and after taking farewell of the General and his staff, started on his journey to Peshawur, surrounded by a strong escort.

If the hill tribes along his route had cared enough about him to attempt his rescue, the speed with which he travelled afforded them no time to gather for that purpose.

During those uneventful October and November days, when the little army commanded by General Roberts lay in its breezy camp on the Siah Sung heights, there was no little temptation for the unprofessional reader of the telegraphic information in the newspapers to hold cheap those reputedly formidable Afghans, whose resistance a single sharp skirmish had seemingly scattered to the winds, and who were now apparently accepting without active remonstrance the dominance of the few thousand British bayonets glittering there serenely over against the once turbulent but now tamed hill capital.

One may be certain that the shrewd and careful soldier who commanded that scant array did not permit himself to share in the facile optimism whether on the part of a government or of the casual reader of complacent telegrams.

It was true that the Government of India had put or was putting some 30,000 soldiers into the field on the apparent errand of prosecuting an Afghan war.

But what availed Roberts this host of fighting men when he had to realise that, befall him what might in the immediate or near future, not a man of it was available to strengthen or to succour him?

The quietude of those cool October days was very pleasant, but the chief knew well how precarious and deceitful was the calm.

For the present the Afghan unanimity of hostility was affected in a measure by the fact that the Ameer, who had still a party, was voluntarily in the British camp.

But when Yakoub's abdication should be announced, he knew the Afghan nature too well to doubt that the tribal blood-feuds would be soldered for the time, that Dooranee and Barakzai would strike hands, that Afghan regulars and Afghan irregulars would rally under the same standards, and that the fierce shouts of 'Deen!

deen!'

would resound on hill-top and in plain.

Cut loose from any base, with slowly dwindling strength, with waning stock of ammunition, it was his part to hold his ground here for the winter, he and his staunch soldiers, a firm rock in the midst of those surging Afghan billows that were certain to rise around him.

Not only would he withstand them, but he would meet them, for this bold man knew the value in dealing with Afghans of a resolute and vigorous offensive.

But it behoved him above all things to make timely choice of his winter quarters where he should collect his supplies and house his troops and the followers.

After careful deliberation the Sherpur cantonment was selected.

It was overlarge for easy defence, but hard work, careful engineering, and steadfast courage would redeem that evil.

And Sherpur had the great advantage that besides being in a measure a ready-made defensive position, it had shelter for all the European troops and most of the native soldiery, and that it would accommodate also the horses of the cavalry, the transport animals, and all the needful supplies and stores.

An Afghan of the Afghans, Shere Ali nevertheless had curiously failed to discern that the warlike strength of the nation which he ruled lay in its intuitive aptitude for irregular fighting; and he had industriously set himself to the effort of warping the combative genius of his people and of constituting Afghanistan a military power of the regular and disciplined type.

He had created a large standing army the soldiery of which wore uniforms, underwent regular drill, obeyed words of command, and carried arms of precision.

He had devoted great pains to the manufacture of a formidable artillery, and what with presents from the British Government and the imitative skill of native artificers he was possessed at the outbreak of hostilities of several hundred cannon.

His artisans were skillful enough to turn out in large numbers very fair rifled small-arms, which they copied from British models; and in the Balla Hissar magazine were found by our people vast quantities of gunpowder and of admirable cartridges of local manufacture.

There were many reasons why the Cabul division of Shere Ali's army should be quartered apart from his turbulent and refractory capital, and why its cantonment should take the form of a permanent fortified camp, in which his soldiers might be isolated from Cabul intrigues, while its proximity to the capital should constitute a standing menace to the conspirators of the city.

His original design apparently was to enclose the Behmaroo heights within the walls of his cantonment, and thus form a great fortified square upon the heights in the centre of which should rise a strong citadel dominating the plain in every direction.

The Sherpur cantonment as found by Roberts consisted of a fortified enciente, enclosing on two sides a great open space in the shape of a parallelogram lying along the southern base of the Behmaroo heights.

When the British troops took possession, only the west and south faces of the enciente were completed; although not long built those were already in bad repair, and the explosion of the great magazine when the Afghan troops abandoned the cantonment had wrecked a section of the western face.

The eastern face had been little more than traced, and the northern side had no artificial protection, but was closed in by the Behmaroo heights, whose centre was cleft by a broad and deep gorge.

The design of the enciente was peculiar.

There was a thick and high exterior wall of mud, with a banquette for infantry protected by a parapet.

Inside this wall was a dry ditch forty feet wide, on the inner brink of which was the long range of barrack-rooms.

Along the interior front of the barrack-rooms was a verandah faced with arches supported by pillars, its continuity broken occasionally by broad staircases conducting to the roof of the barracks, which afforded a second line of defence.

The closing in of the verandah would of course give additional barrack accommodation, but there were quarters in the barrack-rooms for at least all the European troops.

In the southern face of the enciente were three gateways, and in the centre of the western face there was a fourth, each gate covered adequately by a curtain.

Between each gate were semicircular bastions for guns.

In the interior there was space to manoeuvre a division of all arms.

There was a copious supply of water, and if the aspect of the great cantonment was grim because of the absence of trees and the utter barrenness of the enclosed space, this aesthetic consideration went for little against its manifest advantages as snug and defensible winter quarters.

Shere Ali had indeed been all unconsciously a friend in need to the British force wintering in the heart of that unfortunate potentate's dominions.

Human nature is perverse and exacting, and there were those who objurgated his memory because he had constructed his cantonment a few sizes too large to be comfortably defended by Sir Frederick Roberts' little force.

But this was manifestly unreasonable; and in serious truth the Sherpur cantonment was a real godsend to our people.

Supplies of all kinds were steadily being accumulated there, and the woodwork of the houses in the Balla Hissar was being carried to Sherpur for use as firewood.

On the last day of October the force quitted the Siah Sung position and took possession of Sherpur, which had undergone a rigorous process of fumigation and cleansing.

The change was distinctly for the better.

The force was compacted, and the routine military duties were appreciably lightened since there were needed merely piquets on the Behmaroo heights and sentries on the gates; the little army was healthy, temperate, and in excellent case in all respects.

The dispositions for field service made at the outset of the campaign by the military authorities have already been detailed.

Regarded simply as dispositions they left nothing to be desired, and certainly Sir Frederick Roberts' force had been organised and equipped with a fair amount of expedition.

But it was apparent that the equipment of that body of 6500 men--and that equipment by no means of an adequate character, had exhausted for the time the resources of the Government as regarded transport and supplies.

Promptitude of advance on the part of the force to which had been assigned the line of invasion by the Khyber-Jellalabad route, was of scarcely less moment than the rapidity of the stroke which Roberts was commissioned to deliver.

The former's was a treble duty.

One of its tasks was to open up and maintain Roberts' communications with India, so that the closing of the Shutargurdan should not leave him isolated.

Another duty resting on the Khyber force was to constitute for Roberts a ready and convenient reserve, on which he might draw when his occasions demanded.

No man could tell how soon after the commencement of his invasion that necessity might arise; it was a prime _raison d'être_ of the Khyber force to be in a position to give him the hand when he should intimate a need for support.

Yet again, its presence in the passes dominantly thrusting forward, would have the effect of retaining the eastern tribes within their own borders, and hindering them from joining an offensive combination against the little force with which Roberts was to strike at Cabul.

But delay on delay marked the mobilisation and advance of the troops operating in the Khyber line.

There was no lack of earnestness anywhere; the eagerness to push on was universal from the commander to the corporal.

But the barren hills and rugged passes could furnish no supplies; the base had to furnish everything, and there was nothing at the base, neither any accumulation of supplies nor means to transport supplies if they had been accumulated.

Weeks elapsed before the organisation of the force approached completion, and it was only by a desperate struggle that General Charles Gough's little brigade received by the end of September equipment sufficient to enable that officer to advance by short marches.

Roberts was holding his durbar in the Balla Hissar of Cabul on the day that the head of Gough's advance reached Jellalabad.

No man can associate the idea of dawdling with Jenkins and his Guides, yet the Guides reaching Jellalabad on October 12th were not at Gundamuk until the 23d, and Gundamuk is but thirty miles beyond Jellalabad.

The anti-climax for the time of General Bright's exertions occurred on November 6th.

On that day he with Gough's brigade reached so far Cabulward as Kutti Sung, two marches beyond Gundamuk.

There he met General Macpherson of Roberts' force, who had marched down from Cabul with his brigade on the errand of opening communications with the head of the Khyber column.

The two brigades had touch of each other for the period of an interview between the Generals, and then they fell apart and the momentary union of communication was disrupted.

General Bright had to fall back toward Gundamuk for lack of supplies.

The breach continued open only for a few days, and then it was closed, not from down country but from up country.

Roberts, surveying the rugged country to the east of Cabul, had discerned that the hill road toward Jugdulluk by Luttabund, was at once opener and shorter than the customary tortuous and overhung route through the Khoord Cabul Pass and by Tezeen.

The pioneers were set to work to improve the former.

The Luttabund road became the habitual route along which, from Cabul downwards, were posted detachments maintaining the communications of the Cabul force with the Khyber column and India.

Nearly simultaneous with this accomplishment was the accordance to Sir Frederick Roberts of the local rank of Lieutenant-General, a promotion which placed him in command of all the troops in Eastern Afghanistan down to Jumrood, and enabled him to order up reinforcements from the Khyber column at his discretion, a power he refrained from exercising until the moment of urgent need was impending.

After his interview at Kutti Sung with General Bright, Macpherson, before returning to Cabul, made a short reconnaissance north of the Cabul river toward the Lughman valley and into the Tagao country inhabited by the fanatic tribe of the Safis.

From his camp at Naghloo a foraging party, consisting of a company of the 67th escorting a number of camels and mules, moved westward toward a village near the junction of the Panjshir and Cabul rivers, there to obtain supplies of grain and forage.

The little detachment on its march was suddenly met by the fire of about 1000 Sari tribesmen.

Captain Poole, observing that the tribesmen were moving to cut him off, withdrew his party through a defile in his rear, and taking cover under the river bank maintained a steady fire while the camels were being retired.

The Safis were extremely bold and they too shot very straight.

Captain Poole was severely wounded and of his handful of fifty-six men eight were either killed or wounded, but their comrades resolutely held their position until reinforcements came out from the camp.

The Safis, who retired with dogged reluctance, were not finally routed until attacked by British infantry in front and flank.

After they broke the cavalry pursued them for six miles, doing severe execution; the dead of the 67th were recovered, but the poor fellows had been mutilated almost past recognition.

General Macpherson returned to Sherpur on the 20th November, having left a strong garrison temporarily at Luttabund to strengthen communications and open out effectually the new route eastward.

General Roberts, with all his exertions, had been unable to accumulate sufficient winter of grain for his native troops and forage for his cavalry and baggage animals.

Agents had been purchasing supplies in the fertile district of Maidan, distant from Cabul about twenty-five miles in the Ghuznee direction, but the local people lacked carriage to convey their stocks into camp, and it was necessary that the supplies should be brought in by the transport of the force.

The country toward Ghuznee was reported to be in a state of disquiet, and a strong body of troops was detailed under the command of General Baker for the protection of the transport.

This force marched out from Sherpur on November 21st, and next day camped on the edge of the pleasant Maidan plain.

Baker encountered great difficulties in collecting supplies.

The villages readily gave in their tribute of grain and forage, but evinced extreme reluctance to furnish the additional quantities which our necessities forced us to requisition.

With the villagers it was not a question of money; the supplies for which Baker's commissaries demanded money in hand constituted their provision for the winter season.

But the stern maxim of war is that soldiers must live although villagers starve, and this much may be said in our favour that we are the only nation in the world which, when compelled to resort to forced requisitions, invariably pays in hard cash and not in promissory notes.

Baker's ready-money tariff was far higher than the current rates, but nevertheless he had to resort to strong measures.

In one instance he was defied outright.

A

certain Bahadur Khan inhabiting a remote valley in the Bamian direction, refused to sell any portion of his great store of grain and forage, and declined to comply with a summons to present himself in Baker's camp.

It was known that he was under the influence of the aged fanatic Moulla the Mushk-i-Alum, who was engaged in fomenting a tribal rising, and it was reported that he was affording protection to a number of the fugitive sepoys of the ex-Ameer's army.

A political officer with two squadrons of cavalry was sent to bring into camp the recalcitrant Bahadur Khan.

His fort and village were found prepared for a stubborn defence.

Received with a heavy fire from a large body of men while swarms of hostile tribesmen showed themselves on the adjacent hills, the horsemen had to withdraw.

It was judged necessary to punish the contumacious chief and to disperse the tribal gathering before it should make more head, and Baker led out a strong detachment in light marching order.

There was no fighting, and the only enemies seen were a few tribesmen, who drew off into the hills as the head of Baker's column approached.

Fort, villages, and valley were found utterly deserted.

There were no means to carry away the forage and grain found in the houses, so the villages belonging to Bahadur Khan were destroyed by fire.

Their inhabitants found refuge in the surrounding villages, and there was absolutely no foundation for the statements which appeared in English papers to the effect that old men, women, and children were turned out to die in the snow.

In the words of Mr Hensman, a correspondent who accompanied the column: 'There were no old men, women, and children, and there was no snow.'

British officers cannot be supposed to have found pleasure, on the verge of the bitter Afghan winter, in the destruction of the hovels and the winter stores of food belonging to a number of miserable villagers; but experience has proved that only by such stern measures is there any possibility of cowing the rancour of Afghan tribesmen.

No elation can accompany an operation so pitiless, and the plea of stern necessity must be advanced alike and accepted with a shudder.

Of the necessity of some such form of reprisals an example is afforded in an experience which befell General Baker a few days later in this same Maidan region.

He visited the village of Beni-Badam with a small cavalry escort.

The villagers with every demonstration of friendliness entertained the officers and men with milk and fruit, and provided corn and forage for their horses.

There were only old men in the village with the women and children, but no treachery was suspected until suddenly two large bodies of armed men were seen hurrying to cut off the retreat, and it was only by hard fighting that the General with his escort succeeded in escaping from the snare.

Next day he destroyed the village.

Baker probably acted on general principles, but had he cared for precedents he would have found them in the conduct of the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war.

He remained in the Maidan district until the transport of the army had brought into Sherpur all the supplies which he had succeeded in obtaining in that region, and then returned to the cantonment.

By the terms of the proclamation which he issued on the 28th October Sir Frederick Roberts was announced as the dominant authority for the time being in Eastern and Northern Afghanistan.

He occupied this position just as far as and no further than he could make it good.

And he could make it good only over a very circumscribed area.

Even more than had been true of Shah Soojah's government forty years previously was it true of Roberts' government now that it was a government of sentry-boxes.

He was firm master of the Sherpur cantonment.

General Hills, his nominee, held a somewhat precarious sway in Cabul in the capacity of its Governor, maintaining his position there in virtue of the bayonets of his military guard, the support of the adjacent Sherpur, and the waiting attitude of the populace of the capital.

East of Cabul the domination of Britain was represented by a series of fortified posts studding the road to Gundamuk, whence to Jumrood the occupation was closer, although not wholly undisturbed.

When a column marched out from Sherpur the British power was dominant only within the area of its fire zone.

The stretch of road it vacated as it moved on ceased to be territory over which the British held dominion.

This narrowly restricted nature of his actual sway Sir Frederick Roberts could not but recognise, but how with a force of 7000 men all told was it possible for him to enlarge its borders?

One expedient suggested itself which could not indeed extend the area of his real power, but which might have the effect, to use a now familiar expression, of widening the sphere of his influence.

From among the Sirdars who had regarded it as their interest to cast in their lot with the British, he selected four to represent him in the capacity of governors of provinces which his bayonets were not long enough to reach.

The experiment made it disagreeably plain that the people of the provinces to which he had deputed governors were utterly indisposed to have anything to do either with them or with him.

The governors went in no state, they had no great sums to disburse, they were protected by no armed escorts, and they were regarded by the natives much as the Southern states of the American Union after the Civil War regarded the 'carpet bag' governors whom the North imposed upon them.

The Logur Governor was treated with utter contempt.

The Kohistanees despitefully used Shahbaz Khan, and when a brother of Yakoub Khan was sent to use his influence in favour of the worried and threatened governor, he was reviled as a 'Kafir' and a 'Feringhee,' and ordered peremptorily back to Sherpur if he had any regard for his life.

Sirdar Wali Mahomed, the governor-nominate to the remote Turkestan, found pretext after pretext for delaying to proceed to take up his functions, and had never quitted the British camp.

When Baker returned from Maidan he reported that he had left the district peaceful in charge of the governor whom he had installed, the venerable and amiable Hassan Khan.

Baker's rear-guard was scarcely clear of the valley when a mob of tribesmen and sepoys attacked the fort in which the old Sirdar was residing, shot him through the head, and then hacked his body to pieces.

It was too clear that governors unsupported by bayonets, and whose only weapons were tact and persuasiveness, were at an extreme discount in the condition which Afghanistan presented in the end of November and the beginning of December.

CHAPTER IV: THE DECEMBER STORM

The invader of Afghanistan may count as inevitable a national rising against him, but the Afghans are a people so immersed in tribal quarrels and domestic blood-feuds that the period of the outbreak is curiously uncertain.

The British force which placed Shah Soojah on the throne and supported him there, was in Afghanistan for more than two years before the waves of the national tempest rose around it.

The national combination against Roberts' occupation was breaking its strength against the Sherpur defences while as yet the Cabul field force had not been within sight of the capital for more than two months.

There seems no relation between opportunity and the period of the inevitable outburst.

If in November 1841 the Cabul Sirdars had restrained themselves for a few days longer two more regiments would have been following on Sale's track, and the British force in the cantonments would have been proportionately attenuated.

Roberts might have been assailed with better chance of success when his force was dispersed between the Siah Sung camp, the Balla Hissar, and Sherpur, than when concentrated in the strong defensive position against which the Afghans beat in vain.

Perhaps the rising ripened faster in 1879 than in 1841 because in the former period no Macnaghten fomented intrigues and scattered gold.

Perhaps Shere Ali's military innovations may have instilled into the masses of his time some rough lessons in the art and practice of speedy mobilisation.

The crowning disgrace of 1842 was that a trained army of regular soldiers should have been annihilated by a few thousand hillmen, among whom there was no symptom either of real valour or of good leadership.

To Roberts and his force attaches the credit of having defeated the persistent and desperate efforts of levies at least ten times superior in numbers, well armed, far from undisciplined, courageous beyond all experience of Afghan nature, and under the guidance of a leader who had some conception of strategy, and who certainly was no mean tactician.

In the Afghan idiosyncrasy there is a considerable strain of practical philosophy.

The blood of the massacred mission was not dry when it was recognised in Cabul that stern retribution would inevitably follow.

Well, said the Afghans among themselves, what must be must be, for they are all fatalists.

The seniors recalled the memory of the retribution Pollock exacted--how he came, destroyed Istalif, set a 'mark' on Cabul by sending the great bazaar in fragments into the air, and then departed.

This time Istalif was not compromised; if Roberts Sahib should be determined to blow up the Char Chowk again, why, that infliction must be endured.

It had been rebuilt after Pollock Sahib's engineers had worked their will on it; it could be rebuilt a second time when Roberts Sahib should have turned his back on the city, as pray God and the Prophet he might do with no more delay than Pollock Sahib had made out yonder on the Logur plain.

So after a trial of Roberts' mettle at Charasiah, and finding the testing sample not quite to their taste, the Afghans fell into an attitude of expectancy, and were mightily relieved by his proclamation read at the Balla Hissar durbar of October 12th.

After a reasonable amount of hanging and the exaction of the fine laid on the city, it was assumed that he would no doubt depart so as to get home to India before the winter snows should block the passes.

But the expected did not happen.

The British General established a British Governor in Cabul who had a heavy hand, and policed the place in a fashion that stirred a lurid fury in the bosoms of haughty Sirdars who had been wont to do what seemed good in their own eyes.

He engaged in the sacrilegious work of dismantling the Balla Hissar, the historic fortress of the nation, within whose walls were the royal palace and the residences of the principal nobles.

Those were bitter things, but they could be borne if they were mere temporary inflictions, and if the hated Feringhees would but take themselves away soon.

But that hope was shattered by the proclamation of October 28th, when the abdication of the Ameer was intimated and the British _raj_ in Afghanistan was announced.

Yes, that pestilent _zabardasti_ little General, who would not follow the example of good old Pollock Sahib, and who held Yakoub Khan and sundry of his Sirdars in close imprisonment in his camp, had now the insolence to proclaim himself virtually the Ameer of Afghanistan!

Far from showing symptom of budging, he was sending out his governors into the provinces, he was gathering tribute in kind, and he had taken possession of Shere Ali's monumental cantonment, under the shadow of the Behmaroo heights on which Afghan warriors of a past generation had slaughtered the Feringhee soldiers as if they had been sheep; and it was the Feringhee General's cantonment now, which he was cunningly strengthening as if he meant to make it his permanent fortress.

Yakoub Khan had gained little personal popularity during his brief and troubled reign, but he was an Afghan and a Mahomedan; and his deportation to India, followed shortly afterwards by that of his three Ministers, intensified the rancour of his countrymen and co-religionists against the handful of presumptuous foreigners who arrogantly claimed to sway the destinies of Afghanistan.

_Cherchez la femme_ is the keynote among Western peoples of an investigation into the origin of most troubles and strifes; the watchword of the student of the springs of great popular outbursts among Eastern nations must be _Cherchez les prêtres_.

The Peter the Hermit of Afghanistan was the old Mushk-i-Alum, the fanatic Chief Moulla of Ghuznee.

This aged enthusiast went to and fro among the tribes proclaiming the sacred duty of a _Jehad_ or religious war against the unbelieving invaders, stimulating the pious passions of the followers of the Prophet by fervent appeals, enjoining the chiefs to merge their intestine strifes in the common universal effort to crush the foreign invaders of the Afghan soil.

The female relatives of the abdicated Ameer fomented the rising by appeals to popular sympathy, and by the more practical argument of lavish distribution of treasure.

The flame spread, tribesmen and disbanded soldiers sprang to arms, the banner of the Prophet was unfurled, and the nation heaved with the impulse of fanaticism.

Musa Khan, the boy heir of Yakoub, was in the hands of the Mushk-i-Alum, and the combination of fighting tribes found a competent leader in Mahomed Jan, a Warduk general of proved courage and capacity.

The plan of campaign was comprehensive and well devised.

The contingent from the country to the south of the capital, from Logur, Zurmat, and the Mangal and Jadran districts, was to seize that section of the Cabul ridge extending from Charasiah northward to the cleft through which flows the Cabul river.

The northern contingent from the Kohistan and Kohdaman was to occupy the Asmai heights and the hills further to the north-west; while the troops from the Maidan and Warduk territories, led by Mahomed Jan in person, were to come in from the westward across the Chardeh valley, take possession of Cabul, and rally to their banners the disaffected population of the capital and the surrounding villages.

The concentration of the three bodies effected, the capital and the ridge against which it leans occupied, the next step would be the investment of the Sherpur cantonment, preparatory to an assault upon it in force.

The British general through his spies had information of those projects.

To allow the projected concentration to be effected would involve serious disadvantages, and both experience and temperament enjoined on Roberts the offensive.

The Logur contingent was regarded as not of much account, and might be headed back by a threat.

Mahomed Jan's force, which was reckoned some 5000 strong, needed to be handled with greater vigour.

Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees were less formidable, and might be dealt with incidentally.

Roberts took a measure of wise precaution in telegraphing to Colonel Jenkins on the 7th December to march his Guides (cavalry and infantry) from Jugdulluk to Sherpur.

On the 8th General Macpherson was sent out toward the west with a column consisting of 1300 bayonets, three squadrons, and eight guns.

Following the Ghuznee road across the Chardeh valley, he was to march to Urgundeh, in the vicinity of which place it was expected that he would find Mahomed Jan's levies, which he was to attack and drive backward on Maidan, taking care to prevent their retreat to the westward in the direction of Bamian.

On the following day General Baker marched out with a force made up of 900 infantrymen, two and a half squadrons, and four guns, with instructions to march southward toward the Logur valley, deal with the tribal gathering there, then bend sharply in a south-westerly direction and take up a position across the Ghuznee road in the Maidan valley on the line of retreat which it was hoped that Macpherson would succeed in enforcing on Mahomed Jan.

In that case the Afghan leader would find himself between two fires, and would be punished so severely as to render it unlikely that he would give further trouble.

To afford time for Baker to reach the position assigned to him Macpherson remained halted during the 9th at Aushar, a village just beyond the debouche of the Nanuchee Pass, at the north-western extremity of the Asmai heights.

On that day a cavalry reconnaissance discovered that the Kohistanee levies in considerable strength had already gathered about Karez Meer, some ten miles north-west of Cabul, and that masses of Afghans presumably belonging to the force of Mahomed Jan were moving northward in the Kohistan direction, apparently with the object of joining Meer Butcha's gathering at Karez.

It was imperative that the latter should be dispersed before the junction could be effected, and Sir Frederick Roberts had no option but to order Macpherson to alter his line of advance and move against the Kohistanees.

Necessary as was this divergence from the original plan of operation, it had the effect of sending to wreck the combined movement from which so much was hoped, and of bringing about a very critical situation.

If Lockhart's reconnaissance had been made a day earlier, Macpherson might probably have utilised to good purpose by dispersing the Kohistanees, the day which as it was he spent halted at Aushar.

He might have accomplished that object equally well if, instead of the cavalry reconnaissance made by Lockhart, Macpherson himself had been instructed to devote the 9th to a reconnaissance in force in the direction of Karez Meer.

[Illustration: Map of Cabul and surroundings.

] The country being held unsuited for the action of wheeled artillery and cavalry, Macpherson left his details of those arms at Aushar, and marched on the morning of the 10th on Karez with his infantry and mountain guns.

As his troops crowned the Surkh Kotul they saw before them an imposing spectacle.

The whole terrain around Karez swarmed with masses of armed tribesmen, whose banners were flying on every hillock.

Down in the Pughman valley to the left rear, were discerned bodies of the hostile contingent from the west, between which and the Kohistanees no junction had fortunately as yet been made.

Macpherson's dispositions were simple.

His mountain guns shelled with effect the Kohistanee tribesmen, and then he moved forward from the Surkh Kotul in three columns.

His skirmishers drove back the forward stragglers, and then the main columns advancing at the double swept the disordered masses before them, and forced them rearward into their entrenched position in front of the Karez village.

There the resistance was half-hearted.

After a brief artillery preparation the columns carried the position with a rush, and the Kohistanees were routed with heavy loss.

Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees well beaten, Macpherson camped for the night near Karez.

Baker had reached his assigned position in the Maidan valley, and there seemed a fair prospect that the operation against Mahomed Jan as originally designed might be carried out notwithstanding the interruption to its prosecution which had been found necessary.

For there was good reason to believe that the Afghan commander and his force, whose strength was estimated at about 5000 men, were in the vicinity of Urgundeh, about midway between Macpherson at Karez and Baker in the Maidan valley.

If Mahomed Jan would be so complaisant as to remain where he was until Macpherson could reach him, then Roberts' strategy would have a triumphant issue, and the Warduk general and his followers might be relegated to the category of negligable quantities.

Orders were sent to Macpherson to march as early as possible on the morning of the 11th, follow up the enemy who had been observed retiring toward the west and south, and endeavour to drive them down toward General Baker.

He was further informed that the cavalry and horse-artillery which he had left at Aushar would leave that village at nine A. M.

under the command of Brigadier-General Massy, and would cross the Chardeh valley by the Urgundeh road, on which he was directed to join them on his march.

The specific instructions given to General Massy were as follows: 'To advance from Aushar by the road leading directly from the city of Cabul toward Urgundeh and Ghuznee' (the main Ghuznee road), 'to proceed cautiously and quietly feeling for the enemy, to communicate with General Macpherson, and to act in conformity with that officer's movements, but on no account to commit himself to an action until General Macpherson had engaged the enemy.'

Macpherson marched at eight A. M.

, moving in a south-westerly direction toward Urgundeh by a direct track in rear of the range of hills bounding the western edge of the Chardeh valley.

To the point at which it was probable that he and Massy should meet he had considerably further to travel than had the latter from the Aushar camp, and Macpherson's force consisted of infantry while that of Massy was cavalry and horse-artillery.

Massy left Aushar at nine A. M.

in consideration of the shorter distance he had to traverse, and he headed for Killa Kazee, a village near the foothills of the western ridge about four miles from Aushar as the crow flies.

He did not comply with the letter of his instructions to follow the Ghuznee road because of the wide detour marching by it would have involved, but instead made his way straight across country.

That he should have done this was unfortunate, since the time he thus gained threw him forward into a position involving danger in advance of any possible co-operation on the part of Macpherson, who was still far away from the point of intended junction while Massy was comparatively near it.

Massy's force consisted of two squadrons 9th Lancers and a troop of 14th Bengal Lancers, escorting four horse-artillery guns.

He had detached a troop of 9th Lancers to endeavour to open communication with Macpherson, in compliance with his instructions.

As he approached Killa Kazee, Captain Gough commanding the troop of 9th Lancers forming the advance guard, sent back word that the hills on either side of the Ghuznee road some distance beyond the village were occupied by the enemy in considerable force.

Massy, in his unsupported condition and destitute of any information as to Macpherson's whereabouts, would have shown discretion by halting on receipt of this intelligence pending further developments.

But he probably believed that the Afghans flanking the road were casual tribesmen from the adjacent villages who were unlikely to make any stand, and he determined to move on.

What he presently saw gave him pause.

A great mass of Afghans some 2000 strong were forming across the Ghuznee road.

From the hills to right and left broad streams of armed men were pouring down the hillslopes and forming on the plain.

The surprise was complete, the situation full of perplexity.

That gathering host in Massy's front could be none other than Mahomed Jan's entire force.

So far from being in retreat southward and westward, so far from waiting supinely about Urgundeh until Macpherson as per programme should drive it on to the muzzles of Baker's Martinis, here it was inside our guard, in possession of the interior line, its front facing toward turbulent Cabul and depleted Sherpur, with no obstruction in its path save this handful of lancers and these four guns!

Massy's orders, it was true, were to act in conformity with Macpherson's movements, and on no account to commit himself to an action until that officer had engaged the enemy.

Yes, but could the framer of those orders have anticipated the possibility of such a position as that in which Massy now found himself?

There was no Macpherson within ken of the perplexed cavalryman, nor the vaguest indication of his movements.

The enemy had doubled on that stout and shrewd soldier; it was clear that for the moment he was not within striking distance of his foe, whether on flank or on rear.

No course of action presented itself to Massy that was not fraught with grave contingencies.

If he should keep to the letter of his orders, the Afghan host might be in Cabul in a couple of hours.

Should he retire slowly, striving to retard the Afghan advance by his cannon fire and by the threatening demonstrations of his cavalry, the enemy might follow him up so vigorously as to be beyond Macpherson's reach when that officer should make good his point in the direction of Urgundeh.

If on the other hand he should show a bold front, and departing from his orders in the urgent crisis face to face with which he found himself should strain every nerve to 'hold' the Afghan masses in their present position, there was the possibility that, at whatever sacrifice to himself and his little force, he might save the situation and gain time for Macpherson to come up and strike Mahomed Jan on flank and in rear.

For better or for worse Massy committed himself to the rasher enterprise, and opened fire on the swiftly growing Afghan masses.

The first range was held not sufficiently effective, and in the hope by closer fire of deterring the enemy from effecting the formation they were attempting, the guns were advanced to the shorter ranges of 2500 and 2000 yards.

The shells did execution, but contrary to precedent did not daunt the Afghans.

They made good their formation under the shell fire.

Mahomed Jan's force had been estimated of about 5000 strong;

according to Massy's estimate it proved to be double that number.

The array was well led; it never wavered, but came steadily on with waving banners and loud shouts.

The guns had to be retired; they came into action again, but owing to the rapidity of the Afghan advance at shorter range than before.

The carbine fire of thirty dismounted lancers 'had no appreciable effect.'

The outlook was already ominous when at this moment Sir Frederick Roberts came on the scene.

As was his wont, he acted with decision.

The action, it was clear to him, could not be maintained against odds so overwhelming and in ground so unfavourable.

He immediately ordered Massy to retire slowly, to search for a road by which the guns could be withdrawn, and to watch for an opportunity to execute a charge under cover of which the guns might be extricated.

He despatched an aide-de-camp in quest of Macpherson, with an order directing that officer to wheel to his left into the Chardeh valley and hurry to Massy's assistance; and he ordered General Hills to gallop to Sherpur and warn General Hugh Gough, who had charge in the cantonment, to be on the alert, and also to send out at speed a wing of the 72d to the village of Deh Mazung, in the throat of the gorge of the Cabul river, which the Highlanders were to hold to extremity.

The enemy were coming on, the guns were in imminent danger, and the moment had come for the action of the cavalry.

The gallant Cleland gave the word to his lancers and led them straight for the centre of the Afghan line, the troop of Bengal Lancers following in support.

Gough, away on the Afghan left, saw his chief charging and he eagerly 'conformed,' crushing in on the enemy's flank at the head of his troop.

'Self-sacrifice' the Germans hold the duty of cavalry; and there have been few forlorner hopes than the errand on which on this ill-starred day our 200 troopers rode into the heart of 10,000 Afghans flushed with unwonted good fortune.

Through the dust-cloud of the charge were visible the flashes of the Afghan volleys and the sheen of the British lance heads as they came down to the 'engage.'

There was a short interval of suspense, the stour and bicker of the _mêlée_ faintly heard, but invisible behind the bank of smoke and dust.

Then from out the cloud of battle riderless horses came galloping back, followed by broken groups of troopers.