Afghanistan - Go to Your God Like a Soldier

Afghanistan - Go to Your God Like a Soldier

"When you're wounded and left,

On Afghanistan's plains,

And the women come out,

To cut up your remains,

Just roll on your rifle,

And blow out your brains,

And go to your Gawd,

Like a soldier."

(Rudyard Kipling)

Afghanistan and the Legacy of the 'Great Game'

1.Prologue

It was in 1805 when Lord Horatio Nelson won his stunning victory over the combined fleets of France and Spain off Cape Trafalgar, at the southern tip of Spain. A few hours later, dying on his flagship HMS Victory, the news was brought to him that the French had been vanquished. Nelson passed away soon after, leaving a yet-to-be constructed eponymous column in a London square named in honour of his triumph and an aura of invincibility that clung to the Royal Navy for more than a century. In more practical terms his victory ensured for the British a command of the seas that was to go unchallenged till the Battle of Jütland in 1916 and not given up till the Washington Treaties six years later. This command of the world's oceans made the British Empire, in effect, invulnerable and beyond the reach of the jealousies of the European great powers. It meant Britain had a free hand to do what it liked in its far-flung possessions stretching from the Caribbean to Asia.

2. A History of Borders and Power

In only three places on the globe was there a land frontier of potential danger for the British:

One was the border between Canada and the fledgling United States, but since the end of the War of 1812, Britain and the United States had grown progressively closer; as was seen in Britain's unwillingness to become involved in the Civil War some sixty years later. Indeed the Monroe Doctrine which stated the U.S.'s refusal to tolerate any new European incursions in the Western hemisphere was in fact if not in spirit guaranteed by the Royal Navy. No-one could play any games in the western hemispere without the permission of Her Majesty's government. War with America then as ever since, was if not unthinkable definitely something to be avoided.

There was a second land border, with China, in the north-east of India but the Chinese empire was so decrepit and internally weak that no forseeable threat was apparent there for the power of Great Britain. That left only the north-west frontier of India and here the potential for conflict seemed great. Tsarist Russia, itself an expansionist power of great resolve, was slowly pushing eastwards and southwards. It was only a matter of time, people believed, until the Russians crossed swords with the British and Afghanistan was the likeliest venue for such a meeting.

3. The Cause of War

India was then the jewel in the British imperial crown and one of the pillars of British greatness. Control of India gave Britain the use of a large army bigger than the British army itself and so many of Britain's overseas possessions were simply way-stations on the sea routes to India or naval bases with which to protect them. So important was India to Britain's position in the world and so great a prize did the British feel it to be, that they were unable to think of Russia's expansion in central Asia as anything other than a push towards the ultimate gaol of a Russian domination of India. And so was born the forward policy which reflected Britain's deep-seated fears of the Russian intentions and dictated British eastern policy almost up to the Second World War.

By the third decade of the nineteenth century, the Russians were firmly established on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea and casting covetous eyes at the great Central Asian oasis cities of Merv, Khiva and Bokhara. They also had a strong presence in Persia and in a precursor of the 'Great Game', so famously described by Rudyard Kipling in his novel 'Kim', the rival British and Russian missions in Teheran competed with each other to maximise their influence at the court of the Persian Shah.

4. and Russia enters the scene !

In 1837, a Persian army stiffened by 'unofficial' Russian advisers entered Afghanistan and laid siege to the city of Herat, long claimed by the Persians as theirs. Luckily for the Heratis, a British officer by the name of Eldred Pottinger chanced to be in the city incognito when the siege began. He offered his services to the Herati Grand Vizier and soon assumed control of all Herat's defences. With great skill, energy and personal courage he held off the Russian- backed Persian besiegers.

It was then that Henry Rawlinson, a young British subaltern from the mission in Teheran, made an alarming discovery. One day near the eastern border of Persia, on a journey to the Shah of Persia's camp on the way to Herat, he glimpsed a group of mounted men ahead of him that seemed to be in European uniforms. Later when he caught up with the group, he found them to be a Russian officer and his escort of Cossacks. The Russian greeted Rawlinson with a correct politeness but it soon became apparent that he was being evasive. The Russian officer claimed he was taking gifts to the Shah of Persia, but the language barrier meant Rawlinson was completely unable to ascertain if what the Russian said was true. Rawlinson was understandably suspicious. Still he continued on his journey to the Shah. When he arrived, he requested an audience with the ruler at which he relayed his news. The Shah informed Rawlinson the gifts were not for him but for Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Afghanistan. Indeed, the Russians had even asked the Shah for safe conduct for the party through the Shah's domains. Just then the Russian and his Cossacks rode into the camp. The Russian's name was Vitkevich, he spoke both French and Persian as well as Turkish and other central Asian tongues and he was indeed headed for Kabul. Rawlinson, who had just ridden 700 miles from Teheran, promptly turned his horse around and rode back to raise the alarm. When the news reached Calcutta and London that's exactly what it caused.

5. The Power Play in Kabul

When Vitkevitch arrived in Kabul he found that a British officer of great repute was already there and had the ear of Dost Mohammed. That officer was Alexander Burnes, who was already something of a hero in England. A few years before he had managed to enter the closed city of Bokhara and on his return to England had been been even invited to spent several hours with King William IV to brief him on this amazing journey. On his outward journey to Central Asia, Burnes had stopped in Kabul and somehow had managed to befriend Dost Mohammed, the Emir of Afghanistan. Now, at the request of his political masters in Calcutta, he was back in Kabul trying to arrange a treaty with the Emir.

6. A Short Insider's View into Afghanistan's History

Known to Europeans since the days of Alexander, Afghanistan is a land of mountains, ferocious warriors, uncompromising Islam, vicious tribal rivalries and a political complexity that entwines bloodlines, religion, history, opportunism and treachery into a mix as incomprehensible to the outsider today as it has ever been. In the early 19th century it was also a land of great mystery, as only few Europeans ever had penetrated its interior and little was known of its rulers other than that, in the previous century, they had sacked Delhi in a most expert manner.

Geography, however, laid this tiny piece of mountains, rocks and valleys squarely in the path of the two then most expansionist powers on earth and soon its topography would be read of in newspapers from London to St.Petersburg to Calcutta, what meant 'All around the Globe'!

Since the collapse of the great Durrani empire founded in the 18th century the country had been in an almost constant state of anarchy and Civil War, but the current ruler, Dost Mohammed was an impressive man by all accounts and promised to bring a measure of stability to a land which had seen little in previous decades. He had shown great skill and strength in overcoming his elder brothers on the way to the throne and now had only two possible opponents to worry about. One of these was Kamran Shah, ruler of Herat and the other Shah Shujah deposed twenty years before by the family of Dost.

Shujah had first been a refugee at the Punjabi court of Ranjit Singh and then a pensioner of the British. Comfortably lodged in the city of Ludhiana, he implored anyone who would listen to help him regain his lost throne.

Dost Mohammed had two external problems. The Persians wished to seize the province of Herat on Afghanistan's eastern border and Ranjit Singh held the province of Peshawar, taken from Afghanistan by his armies, in the west. Dost Mohammed desperately wanted Peshawar back.

As was already stated, on his first visit to Kabul, Alexander Burnes had become very close to Dost Mohammed and such was the trust between the two men that Burnes had even been offered the command of the great emir's armies. Burnes, with his eyes then fixed on the mysterious town of Boukhara, had politely refused and continued on his ride to glory and fame. The Dost had been understandably greatly saddened by his friend's departure, but anyhow, he wanted to come to some kind of accommodation with the British concerning the needle in his heel that was the province of Peshawar.

It could only be returned to Afghanistan at the expense of Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Sikh kingdom in the Punjab and Ranjit had no wish to give the rich, fertile province up. He was also a most faithful ally of the British and the government in Calcutta would do nothing to jeopardise that friendship or even weaken the Sikhs' position in exchange of a second, advantageous treaty.

7. Dost Mohammed and Russia- A great mistake in Diplomacy

As such, in 1835 the emir Dost Mohammed made overtures to the Czar of All the Russias and it was in response to these diplomatic efforts that the so-called Vitkevitch mission was despatched. Vitkevitch entered the town of Kabul on Christmas Eve, 1837. And to his great bedazzlement the expert Orientalist and soldier already found a concurrent happily sitting there: Alexander Burnes!

With the politeness that characterised so many of these direct Anglo-Russian meetings in the early days of the 'Great Game', Burnes invited his Russian rival to dinner.

Burnes still had the favour of Dost Mohammed and for a while Vitkevitch felt his mission was going nowhere. Then in January of 1838 Lord Auckland, Governor-General in Calcutta, wrote a letter to Dost Mohammed that completely undermined the efforts of Burnes. It was designed to make Dost Mohammed give up both his claims to Peshawar and his flirtations with the Czar and ..it was written in such a style that left no doubt as to the threatening nature of the message!

Burnes was devastated. All his work of years and years was in destroyed, for Dost Mohammed could only accept the conditions of the letter by making a humiliating withdrawal. In April of 1838 the emir asked his British soldier-friend to leave Kabul. Burnes and Dost Mohammed parted amicably and in sadness, but now being left alone with the emir, the rival of the British, the Russian Vitkevitch suddenly had the ear of the ruler of Afghanistan.

In the east of the country the Persian siege of Herat continued with little success and eventually Count Simonich, the head of the Russian mission in Teheran, took personal control of the Shah's army and planned a great assault. Once more the British officer and adventurer Pottinger and the Heratis were able to beat the attackers off. This was all too much for Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary. British troops were landed on Kharg Island at the head of the Persian Gulf, and the Shah was informed, in frank terms, that a continuation of the siege would mean war with Great Britain. On September 9th, 1838 the Persians gave in and the siege was finaly over.

Lord Palmerston also pressured the Russian government in the person of Count Nesselrode, the Tsar's foreign minister. The evidence of Russian machinations was impossible to refute and in order to save face the Russian government insisted its subordinates had been acting without authorisation. Nesselrode was dismissed, General Simonich recalled from the mission in Teheran and disgraced and Vitkevitch ordered to return to Russia. In St. Petersburg in late 1838, Vitkevich committed suicide, although some whispered that the British Secret Service had him assassinated by a payed killer.

8. The Great Game begins

Herat was safe, the Shah and his army had returned to Persia and the Russian government was evasive. Lord Auckland, Great Britain's man in Calcutta however, was still upset over Dost Mohammed's rejection of his letter of January 1838. He decided to settle the Afghan matter once and for all and listened to the words of his special advisor William Macnaghten. Macnaghten was a political officer and a highly talented linguist and he had a plan. Ranjit Singh and his Sikh armies would be persuaded to invade Afghanistan, depose Dost Mohammed and install the deposessed Shah Shujah on the throne. In return Shah Shujah would give up all Afghan claims to Peshawar.

There was only one b-moll in this plan: Ranjit Singh, whose eastern frontier bordered Afghanistan and who had a healthy respect for the fighting spirit of the Afghans, refused to allow his troops to be used in such an adventure.

Still Macnaghten pushed his plan and Auckland was keen to listebn to this highly acclaimed expert. In June of 1838, Ranjit Singh, Shah Shujah and the British signed a secret treaty, whereby Shah Shujah would relinquish his claim to Peshawar and in return be assisted in his effort to regain the throne of Afghanistan (There was no mention of Sikh troops in the agreement!) Ranjit Singh must have been a fairly happy man that day; he had received Peshawar in perpetuity and wasn't obliged to commit a single bayonet to Shah Shujah's quest for the throne at Kabul. Burnes himself was horrified: In his mind Dost Mohammed -the old friend - was a much better man to have as Emir of Afghanistan then Shingh, the ever complaining pretender. Nothwithstanding his renomée and experience, Burnes was overruled on the issue: On October 1st 1838, Auckland publisjhed the so-called 'Simla Manifesto'. It stated that in the light of Dost Mohammed's dalliance with powers other than the British Empire, he had shown himself to be unfriendly and would therefore be removed from the throne and replaced by Shah Shujah, the legitimate pretender to the throne at Kabul. This unhappy intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation smelled of hypocrisy of the highest order. What the British had found so unacceptable when practised by the Russians they were now prepared to do themselves - and even worse! The 'Great Game' did not know constrains, retenue and a sense of honour!

9. An Army prepares to strike

The forces chosen to effect Auckland's grand design were called the 'Army of the Indus'. They were to be led by a General Keane, who would conduct a classic soldierly advance ( that would see at least one daring coup-des-armes). At home in England, there seemed little doubt that the army would succeed in it's endeavours but, as the old Duke of Wellington was to remark, the political problems would begin where the military successes left off 'and 'ol' Arthur was an expert; he was the man who in his youth and under' the general-governourship of Richard Lord Mornington his eldest brother had conquered all Central India for King George III. To earn a bit of fame, some repute and a 'Order of the Bath, before becoming the 'Conquerour of the Conquerour of the World' on the bloody fields of Waterloo one Summer Day in 1815!). Attached to the army as envoy to the court of the yet-to-be-installed Shah Shujah was Macnaghten the political officer, confident and eager to see his plan succeed. His deputy would be Alexander Burnes, the man who knew intimately the actual ruler of Kabul. Together they would lead their fellow British soldiers to one of the most humiliating debacles in the history of their country!

The force chosen to replace Shah Shujah on the throne of Afghanistan was called the Army of the Indus. It consisted of 9,500 troops, both Indian and British, of the Honourable East India Company's forces and about 6,000 men in Shah Shujah's army. Before they left, the army was paraded in front of Ranjit Singh and Lord Auckland at the city of Ferozepore not far from Ranjit's capital at Lahore. It was an impressive sight. There were nine regiments of foot, a regiment of Queen's cavalry, two companies of 'John Company's' horsemen, artillery, engineers, military bands and vast quantities of baggage. Apart from the military necessities of ammunition and food, the British in India went to war with as many of the comforts of home as their pack animals and coolies could carry. On the march to Kabul one regiment's officers had two camels just to carry their cigars. One brigadier needed sixty camels for his own personal baggage. To handle all the mundane tasks of military life the British took along their servants. Every regiment had 600 native stretcher-bearers. Every platoon had cooks, water carriers, men who polished brasses and men who washed clothes. The cavalry units had grooms and blacksmiths. Every officer was allowed up to ten servants and often they had many more. Some had a servant just to prepare their tobacco water pipes. Added to all these were the servants' families, musicians, entertainers and companies of prostitutes. When the army moved off in early 1838, there were the 16,500 fighting men and a vast crowd of around 38,000 camp followers.

10. Opening of the Game

The shortest route would have been through the Khyber Pass but Ranjit Singh was unwilling to allow such a force to traverse his domains, so it was decided to cross the Indus and march south into Sind. In Sind there were some Amirs whose fealty was claimed by Shah Shujah and he wanted to take this opportunity to teach them a lesson. The Army of the Indus dutifully did this, the unruly Amirs hastily swearing allegiance to Shah Shujah when faced with such an army. By the spring of 1839, the army had arrived at the Bolan Pass. It was 55 miles long and controlled by Baluchi chieftains. Burnes was able to buy their acquiescence and the journey through the pass went unhindered. The army had been expected to live off the country but the winter had been hard and it was difficult to buy provisions. Again Burnes' purse came to the rescue and he was able to buy a flock of 10,000 sheep from the Baluchis, albeit at grossly inflated prices. With bellies full of mutton the army continued on its way. The Baluchis, although eager to empty Burnes' purse of its gold gave him little encouragement in his endeavour. Always they warned Burnes about proceeding with the expedition saying Shah Shujah was deeply unpopular in Afghanistan and Dost Mohammed greatly admired. Success would be difficult , if not impossible, for Burnes to effect.

11. Kandahar ?

The first test of Shah Shujah's acceptability would come at Kandahar. The second city in Afghanistan and its southern capital, it was ruled by a brother of Dost Mohammed. With the warnings of the Baluchis and Macnaghten's refusal to pay heed to them fresh in his mind, Burnes was happy to hear that as the Army of the Indus approached the city, its ruler had fled north to Kabul. On April 25th 1839 Shah Shujah rode into Kandahar at the head of his own troops. As he road through the streets the people threw flowers in front of his horse and cheered. Macnaghten felt vindicated and decided to hold a ceremonial durbar outside the city where the inhabitants could show their gratitude to Shah Shujah for 'liberating' them. It was a grand affair and General Keane marched his troops, with banners flying and bands playing, past the revue stand. Only about a hundred Kandaharis came out of the city to watch and this was a more telling judgement on Shah Shujah than the rapturous crowds that had greeted his armed entry into the city. If Macnaghten was perturbed by the lack of enthusiasm for Shah Shujah, he hid it well and as the army progressed he bought the allegiance of the tribes whose territories the army traversed with great quantities of gold.

12. Ghazni

The next city they came to was very different from Kandahar. Ghazni was a great fortress built on a mountainside with high walls sixty feet thick. Throughout Asia it was known to be impregnable. The British, never ones to be impressed by Asiatic hyperbole, were unpleasantly surprised when they came upon the town. The walls were high and thick and the British had not brought their siege guns with them. The light fieldpieces they were equipped with were enough for any set-piece battle but useless against such towering masonry. To send back for and haul forward the heavy guns would take many weeks and time was pressing. Another way had to be found and only one seemed to have any chance of success. If the engineers could blow up one of the city's gates and a storming party were rushed through then surely the place would fall. It would be an extremely dangerous undertaking for the engineers though, and only those with great courage could be called on to do the deed. Luckily there was such a man in the Army of the Indus. Henry Durand, Liuetenant of the Bengal Engineers was given this unenviable task. Still recovering from a fever he prepared his charges and his party of sappers. It was also lucky that there was a clever Kashmiri by the name of Mohan Lal on Burnes staff and it seems he had an old aquaintance inside the city. Somehow he made contact with the man and learned that all of the city's gates had been walled up from the inside and would thus be impervious to even the biggest charges placed against their outside. Only the Kabul gate was left unwalled.

13. Plans for Battle

General Keane planned a series of attacks on the other side of the city with the intention of drawing defenders away from the Kabul gate so Durand would have a chance of setting his charges. The attack took place at night in a strong gale and everything went according to plan. The Afghans were diverted, Durand was able to lay his charges and after an anxious few moments when he was unable to light the fuse, successfully got a spark and as the fuse burned scrambled back to safety. The gate disappeared in a great explosion of smoke and fire and the British storming party rushed through the now empty gateway and into the city. A bugler became confused and mistakenly blew the retreat, and this caused the support troops to hesitate leaving the storming party alone inside the city for a few desperate minutes. The mistake was soon rectified and the troops charged forwards. Inside the city the Afghans fought with great courage but they were little match for the disciplined redcoats, veterans of a hundred other sieges. In less than an hour the city was taken, the British losing only 17 men , the Afghans more than 500. Hearing news of the fall of Ghazni, a force of 5,000 Afghan horsemen sent from Kabul to stop the advance of the Army of the Indus, turned round and retired. Great amounts of food and other stores were found in Ghazni and at a stroke the logistical problems which seemed to be the only danger facing Keane's command disappeared and the army halted for a well-earned rest.

14. The Storming of Kabul

By June 30th, the army was ready to continue on its march and within a week found itself outside Kabul without meeting any serious resistance. The city itself fell without a shot being fired. The next day, with Macnaghten by his side, Shah Shujah rode into the city he had left so many years before. There was no joyous welcome, or even the pretence of one as at Kandahar. Instead the crowds watched silently as the procession entered the city. It was obvious to all that British gold and British steel were all that would keep Shah Shujah on his throne.

15. Conquerors !

After Shah Shujah was installed on the throne in Kabul, life was not particularly onerous for the British there. The city was quiet and it was not long before General Keane and most of the army returned to India. Soon the British felt secure enough to move from their cramped quarters in the Bala Hissar citadel to a cantonment built on the plain just outside the city. Although the cantonment was only a mile from the city, it was poorly sited to cope with any kind of siege. With a foolishness that pre-dated that of General Wheeler at Cawnpore almost twenty years later, the main commissariat building and thus almost all the stores was left outside the perimeter. All around the cantonment were orchards which provided a beautiful setting for officers' early morning rides but made a mockery of the military necessity for clear fields of fire. The plain itself was criss-crossed with hundreds of irrigation ditches which could give good cover to an advancing attacker. On the hills above were scores of old watchtowers and keeps, like so many tumbledown Martello towers, and they added to the 'goldfish bowl' atmosphere that soon made everyone feel that everything they did was watched by a hundred pairs of brooding eyes.

16. Mistakes of Diplomacy

Still the British seemed to enjoy themselves and settled down to a lifestyle not markedly different from that they lived in the hill-stations of India. They arranged race meetings, played polo, enjoyed amateur dramatics and played cricket, that most boring of England's legacies to the sporting life. Food was plentiful and the Kabuli bazaar merchants eager to do business with their new visitors. Some officers even sent for their wives and families to come join them and it is perhaps a pity that not more had done so for many officers cast lecherous eyes at the dark-eyed women of Kabul and liaisons, not particularly discreet, became common. In a land were pederasty was more often viewed as a preference rather than a sin, this was a dangerous tack to take. The women could be frighteningly willing but their cuckolded husbands remained just that, cuckolds. The bitterness of these men would stoke the fires of Afghan discontent and help lead to disaster. When the city finally exploded and the killing began, they would be in the forefront of the mob.

One of the greatest womanisers was Sir Alexander Burnes, newly knighted and deputy to Sir William Macnaghten, Britain's envoy to the court of Shah Shujah. Such behaviour by any officer was reprehensible but for a man in Burnes' position it was very inflammatory indeed. Burnes entertained lavishly at his residence in the city (Macnaghten preferred to live in the cantonment) and he was easily the most conspicuous example of a foreign presence that was rapidly coming to repel most Afghans. His would be one of the first heads to fall.

18. The Reign of Corruption

For a while, however, things seemed to go quite well. Some tribes were bribed with gold, others crushed by punitive expeditions and this carrot and stick approach came to fruition on November 3rd, 1840 when Dost Mohammed himself surrendered to Macnaghten as the latter was enjoying his evening ride. The Dost was sent into exile in India. So confident was Macnaghten that he sent the government his celebrated message in which he declared that all was quiet 'from Dan to Bersheeba'. Macnaghten was hot for the post of Governor of Bombay, one of the top three positions in British India, and perhaps his ardour to leave Afghanistan clouded his judgement. Others were more perceptive. Henry Rawlinson, now in Kandahar saw the rising discontent. Eldred Pottinger, working in the country north of Kabul, felt it growing and reported as such. His warnings fell on deaf ears. In Kabul itself there was serious cause for alarm. Prices had risen with the arrival of so many well-paid red-coated consumers. Shah Shujah had foolishly raised taxes to pay for a lifestyle many Kabulis felt unnecessary and inappropriate and the cuckolded husbands were highly vocal in their whispered claims of honour outraged and welcomes overstayed.

19. A Black Raven Arrives

As a sense of foreboding was building up in the cantonment a new commander had arrived. His name was General Elphinstone. He was almost sixty years old and had last seen combat at Waterloo (at the head of the 33. Regiment of Infantry, which had been the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, while he was earning his military reputation in India, Portugal and Spain!), more than twenty years before. He was crippled by gout and had the leadership qualities of a sheep. Though everyone agreed he was an affable old gent, as a commander he was met with absolutely no respect and worse, a great degree of scorn. Only once it seems did he make a useful comment when in a casual conversation with another officer he remarked that if things went badly, it was vital the passes were quickly cleared of Afghans so that he might get his army away. For weeks trouble had been brewing. There were rumours of attacks on outlying British outposts guarding the lines of communication back to India and winter was rapidly approaching when the passes would be closed by snow, making reinforcement of the British garrison impossible. The British were lucky in that Mohan Lal, the astute Kashmiri on Burnes' staff was an invaluable source of information on what was happening in the city. Unfortunately, at a crucial time Burnes chose to ignore Lal's warnings.

20. Rumours of Disaster

On November 1st 1841, Lal came to Burnes and told him the mood in the city was ugly and that Burnes' residence was to be attacked the next day. Burnes, however, felt safe enough with his sepoy guard and the cantonment full of British troops only a mile away and he brushed aside Lal's misgivings. At first light the next morning a mob began to gather outside the building. Rumours spread that the residency contained a treasury full of gold and as the day wore on the mob grew larger and noisier. Burnes tried to persuade them to disperse. He then ordered them to and when this failed offered them money to return to their homes. This last only served to convince the mob that the rumours of gold were true and increased their desire to have it. Finally Burnes told his sepoy guard to open fire. What might have worked at the beginning when the crowd was small, now had no chance with the great mob already highly inflamed. The sepoys were too few and they were easily overpowered. One of Burnes' companions, an English officer called Broadfoot, was shot as he tried to hold off the mob.

Nobody knows exactly how Burnes died. Some said his native servants offered to wrap him in a carpet and carry him to safety through the mob busily looting the house, but Burnes refused this very sensible idea. Others say an Afghan he trusted offered to take him to safety disguised in native dress and this time Burnes accepted. Outside in the garden the Afghan suddenly declared to the mob, " Here is Sikander (Alexander) Burnes!" and the enraged Kabulis fell upon him with their long knives and hacked him to pieces. We do know that in the cantonment, the firing could be easily heard and the British did almost nothing. Some troops were sent into the city, but not to the residency only to the Bala Hissar. There they were met by fleeing troops belonging to Shah Shujah. He, at least, had tried to help Burnes but the force he sent to rescue the Englishman was first stopped then turned back by what was looking more like a general rising every minute.

21. A Shock of Civilisations

The paralysis that was to affect senior officers in the Indian Mutiny when faced with the shock of a frenzied native challenge to their authority now struck Elphinstone and Macnaghten. Perhaps Macnaghten was so concerned with his career that he wished to minimise the damage a full scale British assault on the city would cause his reputation as a political officer. Most junior officers and men were outraged at the murder of Burnes and wished to storm into the city in revenge. The Kabulis expected the British to do just that and when they didn't the confidence of the Afghans increased, along with their numbers, and the prestige of the British was fatally weakened. As the days passed the British seemed to cower in their cantonment, the Afghans grew bolder and what had began as a riot evolved into a general uprising and then a siege of the British garrison. The British, with 4,500 men were still a formidable force had they but had the will to use it. There was sniping on the cantonment but the Afghans, who had a great respect for British artillery, never mounted any major assault on the British position. On November 23rd, the British finally ventured out of the cantonment, but not to strike at the heart of the insurrection. The Afghans had hauled two guns up one of the overlooking hills and it was to dislodge these that the British sallied forth. They destroyed the two Afghan guns easily and then they turned their attention to a nearby village full of Afghan insurrectionists. The British, however, had made a crucial mistake in only taking one field piece with them on the attack. At first this gun cleared the Afghans from in front of the advancing infantry, but it soon overheated and couldn't be fired. The attack on the village was repulsed and a great force of Afghan horsemen and infantry closed in on the British. The redcoats promptly formed square as they had done in every similar emergency since Waterloo. The Afghans, seeing the British gun out of action simply stayed out of range of the British muskets and opened fire with their longer ranged jezails. The British troops broke, were rallied by their brigadier and then the gun came back into action again. Once more the Afghans suffered heavy casualties but they had learned their lesson and concentrated their fire on the gun crew. Soon the gun was impossible to operate and the Afghan attack stiffened. It was too much for the British troops and once more they broke. This time they didn't stop until they were safe inside the cantonment. They left over 300 of their comrades dead on the field.

To compound their difficulties the British learned that Mohammed Akbar, son of Dost Mohammed, had arrived in Kabul with a force of 6,000 men and had assumed the leadership of the uprising. There were now almost 30,000 Afghans in arms against the British in Kabul. Akbar promptly forbade the selling of any food to the cantonment on pain of death and the inflow of supplies stopped completely. The British seemed to forget that though their position looked perilous they still had, in the person of Dost Mohammed safely in exile in India, the ultimate hostage. Still they were surprised when Akbar offered them a truce. His immediate demands were for the removal of Shah Shujah, the return of Dost Mohammed and an end to the British presence in Kabul. These terms were rejected by Macnaghten and he set about trying to divide the Afghans.

22. Abandoning Kaboul ?

At a second meeting Macnaghten issued what amounted to a capitulation that stated the British desire to withdraw their support from Shah Shujah and quit Afghanistan immediately. Macnaghten reasoned that some chiefs saw the potential return of Dost Mohammed, a strong ruler, as being a threat to their own power and actually preferred the weaker Shah Shujah. He sniffed an opportunity to divide and rule. It was a dangerous web to weave but Macnaghten felt confident in his skill as an intriguer. With Mohan Lal as his intermediary he tried to sow dissension in the Afghan ranks. When Akbar returned with new terms for the British , Macnaghten's efforts appeared to be working. The new terms allowed Shah Shujah to remain on the throne with Akbar as his Grand Vizier, the British could stay until spring and then leave peacefully with their honour intact. A meeting was arranged by the banks of the Kabuli river to cement the new agreement.

Macnaghten was warned by everyone that this could be a trap, but he reacted angrily to the suggestion that his judgement in this matter was flawed. Still, as the meeting was to be held only half-a-mile from the cantonment he asked Elphinstone to have some troops ready just in case. This Elphinstone neglected to do. Macnaghten should have listened to the prophets of doom for, unbeknownst to him, Akbar had been playing a double game and had out-intrigued the intriguer. Akbar had told the chiefs who were open to Macnaghten's intrigues that the British were not to be trusted and the new terms he had proposed were simply designed to show these chieftains that this was so. When Macnaghten rode out of the cantonment with three other political officers on December 23rd, he was riding to his death.

23. A Great Misunderstanding

Macnaghten met Akbar and his party and soon they were seated on carpets spread out in the snow. The accompanying British political officers were asked to join them. When they were seated Akbar asked Macnaghten if the new terms were accaptable. Macnaghten replied, "Why not?" and with these words sealed his own fate. Akbar ordered his men to seize the four Britons. The three political officers were thrown onto the backs of Afghan horses whose riders galloped off in the direction of the city. One of them fell off and was cut to pieces by the enraged Afghans. Macnaghten was dragged down a slope and shouting "For God's sake!" in Persian, was brutally murdered. Some say that Akbar slew Macnaghten with a pair of pistols that Macnaghten himself had given to Dost Mohammed. Later that day Macnaghten's corpse, with the head and limbs cut off, was hung from a pole in the bazaar. His severed limbs were carried round the city in triumph. Even though the commotion at the meeting place had been seen by the troops in the cantonment, again Elphinstone did nothing.

24. The Man who did nothing !

The continued refusal of Elphinstone to take any kind of retaliatory action made the Afghans realise they had nothing to fear from the British and gave them complete control in any future negotiations. It was a miserable Christmas, cold, hungry and fearful, that the inhabitants of the cantonment were to spend that year. Pottinger was ordered to obtain the best terms he could from Akbar and though still insisting that it was not to late to strike at the Afghans, he was overruled and had no choice but to negotiate what was , in effect, the humiliating surrender of the once proud Army of the Indus. Akbar demanded that the redcoats leave immediately, surrendering all their artillery and leaving some married officers and their families as hostages for the good faith of the British. Pottinger had no choice but to accede to Akbar's demands, managing only to have army be allowed to keep three mule-guns and six other fieldpieces and that the hostages to be held by the Afghans would be officers but not their families. Akbar promised to provide an armed escort to see the British safely through the passes and provisions for the journey.

And so, as the winter closed in, the British prepared for the most horrific march in their history.

24. …..and horror begins

The First and Second days there was still a chance to avert disaster and Pottinger, the hero of Herat, urged Elphinstone to move lock stock and barrel into the Bala Hissar, from where a siege might successfully be endured. Elphinstone refused. Pottinger further urged him not to trust the obviously treacherous Mohammed Akbar. His pleas were ignored and Elphinstone accepted Akbar's offer of safe passage to India. It was to be the most terrible retreat in the history of British arms. It began on January 6th, 1842 and ended in absolute disaster barely a week later.

The nearest British garrison and therefore the only place where safety could be guaranteed was in the city of Jalalabad, and it lay over ninety miles away. It doesn't seem so far, but it was a ninety mile treck over snow-covered mountain paths and passes, through desolate country held by warlike tribesmen with a great hatred for the British. The British had little confidence in their leaders and even less in the trustworthiness of Mohammed Akbar's promises of safe conduct through the passes. It was therefore a very cold, dispirited throng, there was such confusion it could not be called an army, that left their home of the last three years and headed for the mountains. Almost 17,000 people left the cantonment that dark day.

25. The March to Death

About 700 were Europeans, both soldiers and civilians, another 3,800 were Indian soldiers and more than 12,000 camp followers. There were bullock carts, mules, camels, horses, and ponies. The European women and children were carried on the carts or in great baskets slung over the sides of the camels but the Indian camp followers and their families had to struggle along on foot as best they could. Four hundred men of the 44th Foot and a hundred cavalrymen made up the vanguard. Then came the British women and children, then the main body of the army and finally the scrambling mass of camp followers. There was no sign of Akbar's promised escort and the horror started immediately after the rearguard left the compound with the Afghans swarming over the walls into the cantonment eager for loot. The rearguard itself came under sniper fire and many men were hit in the first hour or so of the retreat. It was only to get worse. Afghan horsemen rushed the column again and again, driving off baggage animals and killing both soldiers and unarmed camp followers. By the end of the first day only five miles had been covered and much of the baggage had been lost. As the army tried to make camp, stragglers continued to stagger in asking where their units were. Nobody seemed to know. All was confusion and pointed to a lack of any effective leadership that had already led, and would again lead,to tragedy. Only one tent had survived the Afghan attacks and it was used by some women and children and senior officers that night. Everyone else had to lay down in the snow and the following morning many woke up with frostbitten limbs. Many didn't wake up at all. When the army moved off, those with frostbitten feet had to be left behind. On the second day, the sniping and mounted attacks continued and in one the Afghans captured two mule guns, leaving only one other mule gun and two heavier pieces as the total ordnance available to the British. And then Mohammed Akbar appeared, scolding the British for leaving before his escort had been made ready. This was nonsense as the time and place for the escort to meet the British had been very precisely set; Akbar's men just hadn't shown up. Akbar suggested the British halt for the day while he negotiated safe passage through the upcoming Khoord-Cabool pass with the local chieftains who controlled it. How Elphinstone could believe such things was beyond the comprehension of the men under his command, but he did and the army dutifully halted. Akbar also asked for three British political officers, Pottinger among them, as hostages. Again Elphinstone supinely gave in to the demand. It must have seemed like a sentence of death to Pottinger and his two companions but they obeyed their commander's orders and went with the Afghans. It was to save their lives.

26. The Passes of Fear

The Khoord-Caboul PassOn January 8th, the third day, the weakened, cold , hungry army moved into the Khoord-Caboul pass. Its four-mile length was to become a charnel house. From the heights above the Afghan tribesmen poured down a withering fire on the Army of the Indus that had no hope of retaliation. Again Akbar's guarantees were shown to be false. Flight was the only option and everyone moved as quickly as possible to escape the fire of the long-barrelled Afghan jezails (guns). The pass was narrow and there was a partly frozen stream wandering along its bottom. The stream had to be forded some thirteen times before the exit of the pass was reached. When the main body finally reached the end of the pass and a temporary safety , the Afghan tribesmen descended on the stragglers and slew them wickedly. Perhaps 3,000 men, women and chidren were lost in that bloody defile. Some said they saw Akbar himself riding through the killing zone shouting in Persian (which many of the British knew) to spare the British and in Pashto (the language of the tribesmen) urging them to kill everyone.

27. The King’s Fool

The history of the British Empire as I could read it in many books and primary sources was very often a simple narrative of the daring deeds of great men. Many of them were indeed great and their deeds seemingly superhuman. For every hero, for every Pottinger or Nicolson or Colin Campbell (of the Indian Mutiny), however, there were a hundred fools and incompetents and a great part of the tragedy that befell the Army of the Indus was that its commander, General Elphinstone was decidedly one of the latter. On January 9th, Elphinstone felt it prudent once more to trust Mohammed Akbar and give credence to his protestations of friendship. Akbar again offered his protection, this time to British women and children and any of their husbands that chose to go along. Nine children, eight women and two men accepted. It was a fortuitous decision they made for though they would be held captive for many months they would live through the ordeal. The attacks on the column, however, didn't cease and many more fell to Afghan knives and musket balls the next day. Some went snowblind, others succumbed to the cold and the Indian troops, far from their warm plains, suffered terribly and perished by the score. By the evening of January 10th, though no accurate count could be made, estimates suggested of the 16,500 souls who had struck out for Jalalabad, only 750 soldiers and 4,000 civilians remained alive. As the incessant attacks continued Akbar sent messages relaying his difficulty in controlling the local tribesmen and whether this were true or not, no-one now believed him - except Elphinstone. On January 12th, with a mere 200 effectives at his disposal and 2,000 camp followers to protect, Elphistone rode into Akbar's camp to discuss yet another offer of safe passage. It was again a false hope for in the camp it became obvious that even if Akbar had in fact wished to protect the British, he was certainly unable to do so. Though it does not excuse his earlier treachery, perhaps his tales of uncontrollable tribesmen were true. Elphinstone was held as another hostage by Akbar, though the general did manage to smuggle a message back to the army instructing the senior officer to move on without delay. Relieved of the suffocating command of Elphinstone and his disgraceful inability to grasp the nettle, the desperately weak British pulled a surprise on their Afghan tormentors. A barrier of thornbushes had been built across the narrow pass and not expecting the British to move further that day it had been left unguarded. In the darkness the redcoats advanced to the barrier and cursing under their breaths tried to tear it down with their bare hands. Just as they made a breach, they were discovered and the night was suddenly rent by musket flashes, screams, war cries and the glint of flashing Afghan blades in the moonlight. The army was attacked from above and in the rear and according to Dr. Brydon, an army surgeon, the last vestiges of discipline were swept away and it became every man for himself. Brydon was pulled from his horse and only an old copy of Blackwood's Magazine, that he had stuffed in his cap and which cushioned an Afghan knife thrust, saved his life. Alone and with no mount Brydon scrambled through the thornbush barricade. He came across a terribly wounded Indian subadhar ( NCO) of horse. The man was still clutching the bridle of his pony and this he gave to Brydon with a muttered hope that God would send him safe to Jalalabad. Then the man died and Brydon mounted the pony and rode off never knowing the name of the man who had been the provider of his salvation.

28. From the Claws of Death

The last day only two groups had clawed their way out of the jaws of death. Brydon attached himself to one of them. It consisted of fourteen mounted men and together they raced for Jalalabad. The other group were on foot and was made up of 45 soldiers and 20 officers, mostly of the 44th Foot. This group were able to get as far as the village of Gandamak. It was only 30 miles from Jalalabad: one day's march, only one day. They were surrounded by Afghans, however, and with only forty rounds between them the British formed square and prepared for the end. The Afghans asked the British to hand over their weapons, promising to spare their lives. The British refused. The Afghans then tried to disarm them and in the wild melee of hand to hand fighting that followed all but four were slain. Brydon's group had pushed on and only 15 miles from Jalalabad they halted for a rest at the village of Futtebad. The seemingly friendly villagers offered them food and the weary British accepted. It was another trap and as the British rested scores of Afghan horsemen poured into the village. Five only escaped from Futtebad and soon their pursuers had killed four of them. Only Brydon was left and three more times he was attacked on the last few miles to safety. God only knows how he survived. The second last attack saw a jezail bullet come so close it broke off the blade of his sword. In the last attack Brydon in desperation threw the hilt of his sword in an Afghan face. Brydon was wounded, the pony was wounded but they struggled on and after a while Brydon found himself completely alone, his pursuers having melted away. It was then that a hawk-eyed lookout on the walls of Jalalabad saw the lone rider struggling painfully across the plain in front of the city and a cavalry patrol was sent out to bring Brydon in. For days afterwards, a great bonfire was kept burning in front of Jalalabad's Kabuli gate, and others on the the city's ramparts. Bugles sounded out there plaintive cries in the hope that their calls might guide in any stragglers. None ever came. The 44th Foot make a last stand at Gandamak!

29. The Aftermath of Disaster

The British returned to Kabul within a few months. Before the retreat had even begun a new Governor-General, Lord Ellingburgh was on his way to Calcutta to replace Lord Auckland. The government had changed in Britain and Peel's Tories wished to withdraw all the garrisons from Afghanistan, primarily because of the exorbitant costs of maintaining them there. When the awful news reached London, however, it became obvious that Britsh prestige could only be restored by a punitive expedition.

The old and wise Duke of Wellington was particularly concerned by the blow that Britain's reputation had suffered and adamant that reputation must be regained. Unencumbered by dead wood such as Elphinstone, the British swept through the passes after the spring thaw and relieved the garrisons holding Kandahar and Jalalabad. As the armies advanced, they passed hundreds of skeletons and the men were enraged by the fate that had befallen their comrades during the retreat. As usual it was the Afghan villages on the line of march that suffered for this and many atrocities were committed by the vengeful British soldiers. When Ghazni was reached it again fell and this time the British pulled down its formidable defences. With Kabul not far away and with no hope of the British being stopped Akbar sent the hostages he had collected the previous winter, Pottinger and Elphinstone included, to Bamiyan in the north of the country. He also lured Shah Shujah out of the Bala Hissar under a promise of safe conduct and then had him brutally murdered. Although Shah Shujah was dead the Bala Hissar continued to hold out, proving the tragedy of the retreat could have been averted if only Elphinstone had listened to Pottinger's advice. Two British armies converged on Kabul, one under the command of General Pollock, the other of General Nott. As they advanced it became apparent that Macnaghten had been correct in his assessment of the Afghan chiefs' loyalty to Akbar. Many did indeed fear the return of Dost Mohammed and strong rule and the death of Shah Shujah had brought this possibility much closer. Akbar's support dwindled and he fled before the British armies reached his capital. He sent word to Bamiyan that the hostages were to be taken to Bokhara and there sold as slaves. His plan was foiled by Pottinger, however. Resourceful as ever, Pottinger had subborned his gaoler with a bribe of 20,000 rupees and a promise of a pension of 1,000 rupees per month. The 22 officers, 37 other ranks, 19 wives and 22 children were now free but isolated in the north and they began to prepare the old fort in which they had been held to withstand a siege. Pottinger even managed to persuade the hostages' former guards to stay on and protect them from Mohammed Akbar's wrath. Pollock led his troops into Kabul on September 15th. Akbar was gone and the city fell without a fight. Pollock immediately installed Shah Shujah's son Futteh on the throne and turned his thoughts to the hostages. He despatched a Captain Sir Richard Shakespear, with an escort of 600 Kizilbashi irregular cavalrymen, to ride north and rescue them. It was a tearful meeting when Shakespear came across Pottinger and the other hostages. Tears of joy for their survival and tears of grief when they heard of what had befallen their former comrades.

Elphinstone had died during his captivity and this at least saved him from the humiliation of a possible court-martial, regarding his conduct of the Army of the Indus' affairs, had he survived. There now was left only the question of a suitable punishment of the Kabulis. Some officers wished to destroy the Bala Hissar, some to burn the whole city. In the end Pollock settled for blowing up the great covered bazaar, one of the marvels of Asia. So strong was the structure it took Pollock's engineers two days to successfully complete the job and in the meantime the British troops embarked on an orgy of looting that affected both friends and enemies of the British alike.

On October 11th, the British pulled out of Kabul and withdrew all their forces to India. It would be more than 35 years before they came back. Ranjit Singh, the dissolute ruler of the Punjab died not long after the debacle in Afghanistan and the squabbling of his heirs led to two Anglo-Sikh wars which saw the British heavily defeated at the battles of Aliwal and Chillianwalla, but ultimately victorious.

They annexed the Punjab and its northwestern province of Peshawar, thus pushing the frontier of British India across the Indus and up to the very gates of the Khyber Pass. The Afghan tribesmen remained as ferocious and surly as ever and over the next century generations of British subalterns would receive their baptisms of fire in the incessant round of border skirmish and punitive expedition that would mark Anglo-Afghan relations up to the very day the British quit India. Shah Shujah's son was deposed soon after the British left and it became apparent to the government in Calcutta that Dost Mohammed was the only man who could bring any semblance of order to Afghanistan. During his exile in India he had come to admire the British and feel great affection for them. When finally he was allowed to return to Afghanistan and again take up the throne, he proved himself to be a good friend to the British: just as Alexander Burnes had said he would.