History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 1 (of 3) / Third Edition

CHAPTER II.

[April-August, 1839.]

Arrival at Candahar—The Shah’s Entry into the City—His Installation—Nature of his Reception—Behaviour of the Douranees—The English at Candahar—Mission to Herat—Difficulties of our Position—Advance to Ghuznee.

On the 25th of April, Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk re-entered the chief city of Western Afghanistan. As he neared the walls of Candahar, riding in advance of his Contingent, some Douranee horsemen had gone out to welcome him; and as the cavalcade moved forward, others met him with their salutations and obeisances, and swelled the number of his adherents. It is said that some fifteen hundred men, for the most part well dressed and well mounted, joined him before he reached the city.

Accompanied by the British Envoy, his Staff, and the principal officers of his Contingent, and followed by a crowd of Afghans, the Shah entered Candahar. There was a vast assemblage of gazers. The women clustered in the balconies of the houses, or gathered upon the roofs. The men thronged the public streets. It was a busy and an exciting scene. The curiosity was intense. The enthusiasm may have been the same. As the royal cortège advanced, the people strewed flowers before the horses’ feet, and loaves of bread were scattered in their way. There were shouts and the sound of music, and the noise of firing; and the faces of the crowd were bright with cheerful excitement. The popular exclamations which were flung into the air have been duly reported. The people shouted out, “Welcome to the son of Timour Shah!” “We look to you for protection!” “Candahar is rescued from the Barukzyes!” “May your enemies be destroyed!” It was said, by some who rode beside the Shah, to have been the most heart-stirring scene they ever witnessed in their lives. Thus greeted and thus attended, the King rode to the tomb of Ahmed Shah, and offered up thanksgivings and prayers. Then the procession returned again through the city, again to be greeted with joyous acclamations; and “the eventful day,” as the Court chroniclers affirmed, “passed off without an accident.”

The welcome thus given to the Shah, on his public entry into his western capital, filled Macnaghten with delight. The future appeared before him bright with the promise of unclouded success. It seemed to him that the enthusiastic reception of the Shah would be a death-blow to the hopes of Dost Mahomed, and that in all probability the Ameer would fly before us like his brothers. It was encouraging intelligence to communicate to the Governor-General; so on his return from the royal progress through the city, Macnaghten sate down and wrote thus to Lord Auckland:

Encouraged by the presumed “adoration” of the people, it was now determined to give them another opportunity of testifying the overflowing abundance of their loyalty and affection. So the 8th of May was fixed upon for a general public recognition of the restored sovereign, on the plains before Candahar. Both columns of the British army had now arrived. The troops were to pass in review-order before the king; and other ceremonial observances were to give éclat to the inauguration. Upon a raised platform, under a showy canopy, sate the restored monarch of the Douranee Empire. He had ridden out at sunrise under a royal salute. The troops had presented arms to him on his ascending the musnud, and a salute of a hundred and one guns had been fired in honour of the occasion. Around him were the chief military and political officers of the British Government. Everything went off as it had been ordered and arranged, and most imposing was the spectacle of the review-march of the British troops. But the King had then been a fortnight at Candahar, and the curiosity of the people had subsided. There was no popular enthusiasm.[319] The whole affair was a painful failure. The English officers saluted the King; and the King made a speech about the disinterested benevolence of the British Government. Greatly pleased was his Majesty with the exhibition; and when the troops had been dismissed, he said that its moral influence would be felt from Pekin to Constantinople.[320] But the miserable paucity of Afghans who appeared to do homage to the King, must have warned Shah Soojah, with ominous significance, of the feebleness of his tenure upon the affections of the people, as it bitterly disappointed and dismayed his principal European supporters. Every effort had been made to give publicity to the programme of the ceremony; and yet it is said, by the most trustworthy witnesses, that barely a hundred Afghans had been attracted, either by curiosity or by loyalty, to the installation of the adored King.

Such were the mere outward facts of Shah Soojah’s reception as recorded by the chroniclers of the day. Surrounded by his own Contingent, and supported by the British army, he had advanced unopposed to Candahar. But the brief local excitement, which his entrance into the city had aroused, cannot be regarded as national enthusiasm. When the first outbreak of curiosity had subsided the feeling which greeted the restored King was rather that of sullen indifference than of active devotion. In the vicinity of Candahar the Douranee tribes constituted the most influential section of the inhabitants. They had been oppressed and impoverished by the Barukzye Sirdars, and had longed to rid themselves of the yoke of their oppressors. But when the representative of the Suddozye dynasty, under which they had been pampered and protected, appeared at the gates of the Douranee Empire, they had neither spirit nor strength to make a strenuous effort to support or to oppose the restored monarch. It is doubtful whether, in the conjuncture which had then arisen, the Douranees, had they possessed any military strength, would have openly arrayed themselves on the side of the Shah; for although they hated the Barukzyes who had oppressed them, there were the strongest national and religious feelings to excite them against a Prince who had brought an army of Franks to desolate their country. Had they stood erect in their old pride of conscious power, a mighty conflict would have raged within them. The antagonism of personal and national interests would have rent and convulsed them; and it is not improbable that in the end, abhorring the thought of an infidel invasion, they would have determined to support the cause of the Sirdars. But when Shah Soojah was advancing upon Candahar, the Douranees were in a state of absolute feebleness and paralysis. They held aloof, for they had neither power nor inclination to take any conspicuous part in the revolution which was then brooding over the empire.

But when, supported by his Feringhee allies, the Shah had established himself in Candahar, the Douranees, offering their congratulations and tendering their allegiance, gathered round the restored monarch. The issue of the contest seemed no longer doubtful. The dominion of the Barukzye Sirdars had received its death-blow. The restoration of the Suddozye dynasty was certain; and with whatever feelings the Douranees may have inwardly regarded it, it was politic to make an outward show of satisfaction and delight. The change had been effected without their agency; but they might turn it to good account. So they clustered around the throne, and began to clamour for the wages of their pretended forbearance. They put forward the most extravagant claims and pretensions; bargained for the restoration of all the old privileges and immunities which they had enjoyed under Ahmed Shah and his successors; and would fain have swept the entire revenues of the state into their own hands.

It was plain that the King could not recognise the claims which were thus profusely asserted. But it would have been imprudent, at such a time, to have offended or disappointed these powerful tribes. The Shah had established himself at Candahar. Kohun-dil-Khan and his brothers had fled for safety across the Helmund, and sought an asylum in Persia.[321] But Dost Mahomed was still dominant at Caubul. There was work yet to be done. There were dangers yet to be encountered. It was necessary, therefore, to conciliate the Douranees. So steering, as well as he could, a middle course, the Shah granted much that was sought from him; but he did not grant all. He restored the Sirdars to the chieftainships of their clans, and to the offices which they had been wont to hold about the Court. He gave them back the lands of which they had been denuded, and granted them allowances consistent with the rank which they had been suffered to reassume. Some vexatious and oppressive imposts were removed, and a considerable remission of taxation was proclaimed. But the system of assessment which the Barukzye Sirdars had introduced was continued in operation; and the same revenue officers continued to collect the tax. These men were thoroughly hateful to the Douranees. They had been the willing instruments of Barukzye oppression, and had carried out the work of their masters with a ferocity, strengthened by the recollection of one of those old hereditary blood-feuds, which keep up from generation to generation a growth of unextinguishable hate.

If any feelings of delight at the thought of the restoration of the Suddozye dynasty welled up anywhere in the breasts of the people of Afghanistan, it was among these Douranee tribes. As the grandson of Ahmed Shah, they were prepared to welcome Shah Soojah. They were prepared to welcome him as the enemy of the Barukzye Sirdars. But the ugly array of foreign bayonets in the background effectually held in control all their feelings of national enthusiasm. They regarded the movement for the restoration of the Suddozye Prince in the light of a foreign invasion; and chafed when they saw the English officers settling themselves in the palaces of their ancient Princes.

In the meanwhile, the Army of the Indus remained inactive at Candahar. The halt was a long and a weary one. Provisions were miserably scarce. It was necessary to remain under the city walls until a sufficiency could be obtained, and to obtain this sufficiency it was necessary to await the ripening of the crops. Every one was impatient to advance. The delay was painful and disheartening. There were no compensating advantages to be obtained from a halt under the walls of Candahar. Save a few who had the real artist’s eye to appreciate the picturesque, the officers of the force were disappointed with the place. They had believed that they were advancing upon a splendid city; but they now found themselves before a walled town, presenting so few objects of interest that it was scarcely worth exploring. After the desolate tracts over which they had passed, the valley of Candahar appeared to the eye of our officers to be a pleasant and a favoured spot. There were green fields, and shady orchards, and running streams, to vary the surrounding landscape. But they found the city itself to be little better than a collection of mud-houses, forming very unimposing streets.[322] The city was in ruins. “The interior consisted only of the relics of houses of forgotten Princes.”[323] There was altogether an air of dreariness and desolation about the place. Many of the houses had been thrown down by repeated shocks of earthquake, and had not been rebuilt. The public buildings were few; but conspicuous among them was the tomb of Ahmed Shah, whose white dome, seen from a distance, stood up above the houses of the city, whilst a spacious mosque, with its domes and minarets, seen also from afar, enshrined a relict of extraordinary sanctity—the shirt of the Prophet Mahomed.

When the British arrived before Candahar in April, 1839, it was said that the principal inhabitants had forsaken the place. But enough remained to give an animated and picturesque aspect to the city. The streets and bazaars were crowded with people of different castes and different costumes—Afghans, Persians, Oosbegs, Beloochees, Armenians, and Hindoos; whilst strings of laden camels everywhere passing and repassing, enhanced the picturesque liveliness of the scene.

There was little to break the monotony of the halt at Candahar. The movements of the enemy, and the probabilities of a stirring or a languid campaign were discussed in our officers’ tents; and when, on the 9th of May, a brigade under Colonel Sale—an officer who had already done much good service to his country, and was destined now to play a conspicuous part in the great Central-Asian drama—was despatched to Ghiresk, a place some seventy-five miles in a westerly direction from Candahar, in pursuit of the fugitive Sirdars, there were few officers in Keane’s army who did not long to accompany it. But the campaign was a brief and an inglorious one—Sale marched to Ghiresk and returned to Candahar. The Sirdars had abandoned the place, and fled across the Persian frontier. They had but a handful of followers, and they were powerless to offer any resistance to our advancing troops. From Kohun-dil-Khan and his brothers nothing was to be apprehended. Their very names were soon almost forgotten by the Feringhees who had driven them from their homes. Candahar and the surrounding country was in possession of the restored Suddozye Princes. But Shah Soojah and his supporters still looked anxiously towards the north, where Dost Mahomed, the ablest and the most powerful of the Barukzye brotherhood, was still mustering his fighting men—still endeavouring to rouse the chiefs to aid him in the defence of his capital against the often-rejected King, who had now come back to them again, supported by the gold and bayonets of the infidels.

But the very circumstances which might be supposed to work to our disadvantage, and to give strength to the enemy, really favoured our cause. The protracted halt at Candahar gave Dost Mahomed and his adherents abundant time to mature their measures of defence. Whilst the British army was starving in that city, the Barukzyes at Caubul might have been collecting troops and strengthening their defences for a vigorous and well-organised opposition. But to Dost Mahomed this continued halt was altogether unintelligible. He could not understand why, if they really purposed to advance upon Caubul, Macnaghten and Keane were wasting their strength in utter idleness at Candahar. It was the Ameer’s belief that the British were projecting a movement upon Herat; that the Army of the Indus would branch off to the westward; and that its operations against Caubul would be deferred to the following year. Believing this, Dost Mahomed turned his thoughts rather to the defence of the eastern than of the western line of road. It had been arranged, under the Tripartite treaty,[324] that Prince Timour, the eldest son of Shah Soojah, accompanied by Captain Wade and a Sikh force, should penetrate the passes beyond Peshawur, and advance upon Caubul by the road of Jellalabad and Jugdulluck. This force was now advancing. Dost Mahomed sent out against it some of his best fighting men, under the command of his favourite son, Akbar Khan—the young chief who was destined to stand out with such terrible prominence from among the leading personages distinguished in the later history of the war.

No thought, however, of a movement upon Herat weighed at this time on Macnaghten’s mind. It appeared to him little desirable to march a British army into the dominions of Shah Kamran, so long as there was a possibility of attaining the desired results by any means less costly and hazardous. There was little immediate prospect then of Mahomed Shah returning for the re-investment of Herat. There was no pressing danger to be combated. So Macnaghten determined to send, instead of a British army, a British mission to Herat, with a handful of engineer and artillery officers, and a few lakhs of rupees, to be expended on the defences of the place.

It was in the month of September, 1838, that, after a nine months’ investment of Herat, Mahomed Shah struck his camp, and turned his face towards his own capital. Eldred Pottinger had saved the city from the grasp of the Persians. But his work was not yet done. The wretched people were starving. The necessary evils of the protracted siege had been greatly enhanced by the grinding cruelty of Yar Mahomed. To have left Herat immediately on the departure of the Persian army would have been to have left the inhabitants to perish. Moreover, the accursed traffic in human flesh, which the Persian Prince had set forth as the just cause of his invasion of Herat, had not been suppressed. So Pottinger remained in Herat, and Stoddart, having witnessed the breaking up of the Persian camp, joined his brother-officer in the city, and then the two began to labour diligently together in the great cause of universal humanity.

But these labours were distasteful to the Wuzeer. Pottinger and Stoddart had done the work which Yar Mahomed required of them. The one had driven off, and the other had drawn off, the Persian army. He did not desire that they should interfere with his internal tyranny. To oppress the helpless people at his will seemed to be his rightful prerogative. The slave-trade, which he carried on with such barbarous activity, was the main source of the Heratee revenue. The English officers did not propose to effect its suppression without securing adequate compensation to the slave-dealing state. But Yar Mahomed viewed all their proceedings with jealousy and suspicion; and two months after the close of the siege of Herat, they were grossly insulted in the presence of the King, and ordered to withdraw themselves beyond the limits of the Heratee territory.

Stoddart had work to do in another quarter. He quitted Herat and made his way to Bokhara. But Pottinger was solicited to postpone his departure, and the dawn of the new year still found him at the Court of Herat. He only remained to be insulted. In January, 1839, another outrage was committed upon him. His house was attacked by the retainers of Yar Mahomed. One of his public servants was seized and mutilated. As the year advanced, the hostile temper of the Wuzeer became more and more apparent. Tidings of the advance of Shah Soojah and his British allies had reached Herat; and although the integrity of that state had been especially guaranteed by the Tripartite treaty, and British money was then maintaining both the government and the people of Herat, Yar Mahomed began to intrigue both with the Persian Court and the Candahar Sirdars, and endeavoured to form a confederacy for the expulsion of the Shah and his allies from Afghanistan.[325]

But the Persian Court was little inclined to commit itself to an act of such direct hostility against Great Britain. The Army of the Indus continued to advance; there was no prospect of any organised opposition. Our success was sufficiently intelligible to Yar Mahomed. He respected success. So, when Shah Soojah entered Candahar, and the British army encamped beneath its walls, the Wuzeer hastened to congratulate the Shah upon his restoration, and sent a friendly mission to the British camp. In return for this, Macnaghten now determined to despatch a British officer to Herat, to negotiate a friendly treaty with Shah Kamran. His first thought was to entrust the duty to Burnes; but Burnes was disinclined to undertake it; and Sir John Keane was of opinion that he could not be spared.

So the choice of the Envoy fell upon Major Todd, an officer of the Bengal Artillery, who had been for many years employed in Persia, instructing the artillerymen of Mahomed Shah in the mysteries of his profession, and assisting the British Mission in matters lying beyond the circle of mere military detail. Thoroughly acquainted with the languages and politics of Western Asia, a man of good capacity, good temper, and good principle, he appeared to be well fitted for the office which the Envoy now thought of delegating to him. He had been in the camp of Mahomed Shah during the siege of Herat, and had been employed in the negotiations which had arisen between the two contending states. He had subsequently travelled down through Afghanistan to India, charged with information for the Governor-General, and had then recommended himself, by the extent of his local knowledge and general acquirements, scarcely more than by the integrity of his character and the amiability of his disposition, for employment upon the Minister’s staff. He was military secretary and political assistant to Mr. Macnaghten when the Envoy deputed him to Herat. There went at the same time other officers, whose names have since been honourably associated with the great events of the Central-Asian War—James Abbott and Richmond Shakespear, of the Bengal Artillery; and Sanders, of the Engineers, who fell nobly upon the field of Maharajhpore.[326] They went to strengthen the fortifications of the place, and they took with them guns and treasure.

A few days after the departure of the Mission to Herat, the army recommenced its march. It had been halted at Candahar from the 25th of April to the 27th of June. During this time the harvest had ripened; the carriage-cattle had gained strength; but sickness had broken out among our troops. The heat under canvass had been extreme. Fever, dysentery, and jaundice had been doing their work; and many a good soldier had been laid in a foreign grave. Money, too, had been painfully scarce. It had been scattered about so profusely on our first arrival at Candahar, that now an empty treasury stared Macnaghten in the face; and he tried in vain to negotiate a loan. All these were dispiriting circumstances; and there were others which pressed heavily upon the mind of the Envoy. It was becoming clearer to him every day that the Afghans regarded the intrusion of the British into their dominions with the strongest feelings of national hatred and religious abhorrence. A different class of men from the Belooch marauders, who had carried off our cattle and plundered our stores in the southern country, were now surrounding our camp. If our people straggled far from their supports, they did it at the peril of their lives. “Remember, gentlemen, you are not now in Hindostan,”[327] was the significant warning which broke from Shah Soojah, when two young officers,[328] returning from a fishing excursion along the banks of the Urghundab, had been cut down by a party of assassins. It was plain, too, that the Ghilzyes of Western Afghanistan—the original lords of the land—were disinclined to bend their necks to the Suddozye yoke. They had rejected the overtures made to them. They were not to be bought by British gold, or deluded by British promises. Perhaps they may have doubted the sincerity of the latter. Already were Shah Soojah and Macnaghten scattering about those promises even more freely than their money; and already were they ceasing to respect the obligation of fulfilling them. The Ghilzyes now regarded us with unconquerable mistrust. There was every prospect of their long continuing to be a thorn in the flesh of the restored monarch and his supporters—a wild and lawless enemy, not to be reduced to loyalty by Douranee Kings, or to subjection by foreign bayonets.

This, at all events, had been learnt at Candahar during the two months’ halt of our army, which, when everything has been said on the subject of supplies, seems still to demand from the pen of the historian something more in the way of explanation. The supplies had now come into camp. They might not be available for the troops on the line of march to Caubul;[329] but there was no longer any excuse for protracting the halt. So, on the 27th of June, as Runjeet Singh, the old Lion of Lahore, was wrestling with death at his own capital, the British army resumed its march; and on the 21st of July was before the famous fortress of Ghuznee.

CHAPTER III.

[June—August: 1839.]

The Disunion of the Barukzyes—Prospects of Dost Mahomed—Keane’s Advance to Ghuznee—Massacre of the Prisoners—Fall of Ghuznee—Flight of Dost Mahomed—Hadjee Khan, Khaukur—Escape of Dost Mahomed—Entry of Shah Soojah into Caubul.

The disunion of the Barukzye brethren lost Afghanistan to the Sirdars. The bloodless fall of Candahar struck no astonishment into the soul of Dost Mahomed. He had long mistrusted his kinsmen. Candahar, too, was the home of the Douranees. He knew that the Barukzyes had nothing to expect from the allegiance of that powerful tribe. He knew that they were little inclined to strike a blow for the existing dynasty; but he knew at the same time, that they were so prostrate and enfeebled, that the Suddozye Prince would derive no active assistance from them—that they would only throw into the scale the passive sullenness and harmless decrepitude of men broken down by a long course of oppression.

If Dost Mahomed and the Candahar Sirdars had leagued themselves firmly together, without jealousy and without suspicion—if they had declared a religious war, and appealed to the Mahomedan feelings of the people—if they had, by their own energy and activity, encouraged Mehrab Khan of Khelat to array himself against the invaders, and throwing themselves heart and soul into the cause, had opposed our passage through the Bolan and Kojuck Passes, they might have turned to the best recount the sufferings of our famine-stricken army, and have given us, at the outset of the campaign, a check from which we should not have speedily recovered. But it seems to have been the design of Providence to paralyse our enemies at this time, and so to lure us into greater dangers than any that could have beset us at the opening of the campaign.

But although with slight feelings of astonishment Dost Mahomed now contemplated the successful establishment of Shah Soojah at Candahar, it could not have been without emotions of bitterness and mortification that he beheld his countrymen either flying ignobly before the invaders, or bowing down without shame before the money-bags of the infidels. It was a sore trial to him to see how almost every chief in the country was now prepared to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. He had not sufficient confidence in his own strength, or the loyalty of his people, to believe that he could offer any effectual resistance to the approach of the Suddozye King, supported as he was by British bayonets and British gold. His enemies were advancing upon Caubul, both along the eastern and western lines of approach; and he was necessitated to divide his strength. Nor could he even give his undivided attention to his foreign enemies. There were danger and disaffection at home. The Kohistan was in rebellion.[330] He could see plainly that the Kuzzilbashes were against him. Indeed, all the bulwarks of national defence which he could hope to oppose to the advancing enemy, were crumbling to pieces before his eyes. Believing that all nationality of feeling was utterly extinct in the souls of his brethren, it had, ever since he had established himself at Caubul, been his policy to place the least possible amount of power in their hands, and to entrust all his delegated authority to the hands of his sons. His only trust now was in them. Akbar Khan had been despatched through the eastern passes to oppose the march of Wade and the Sikhs; Hyder Khan was in command of the garrison of Ghuznee; and Afzul Khan, with a body of horse, was in the neighbourhood of that fortress, instructed to operate against the flanks of our army in the open country. The Ameer himself was at the capital waiting the progress of events, and husbanding his strength for the final conflict.

In the Ameer’s camp there seems to have been little knowledge of the movements and designs of the enemy. It had been for some time believed that it was the intention of the British chiefs to march upon Herat, and now again it was the opinion that they purposed to mask Ghuznee and move at once upon Caubul. It seems, therefore, to have been the design of Dost Mahomed that Afzul Khan and Hyder Khan, having suffered us to advance a march or two beyond Ghuznee, should fall upon our rear, whilst Dost Mahomed himself was to give us battle from the front.[331] But he had not measured aright the policy of the British Commander. It was not Sir John Keane’s intention to mask Ghuznee, but to reduce it.

The strength of Ghuznee was the boast of the Afghans. They believed that it was not to be carried by assault. On the other hand, Sir John Keane, persuaded that it was not a place of any strength, had advanced upon Ghuznee without any siege guns. A battering train had been brought up, with great labour and at great expense, to Candahar, and now that it was likely to be brought into use, and so to repay the labour and the expense, Sir John Keane dropped it by the way. He was nearing the strongest fortress in the country; he knew that it was garrisoned by the enemy, and that, if he advanced upon it, it would be vigorously defended. He determined to advance upon it; and yet, with an amount of infatuation which, although after-events have thrown it into the shade, at the time took the country by surprise, and was, perhaps, unexampled in Indian warfare, he left his heavy guns at Candahar, and advanced upon Ghuznee with nothing but light field-pieces. He had been told that it was a place of no considerable strength, and that it would give him no trouble to take it. Major Todd and Lieutenant Leech had seen Ghuznee, and their reports had dissipated the anxieties of the Commander-in-Chief. So he found himself before a place which he subsequently described as one of “great strength both by nature and by art,” without any means of effecting a breach in its walls.

The city of Ghuznee lies between Candahar and Caubul—about 230 miles distant from the former, and ninety miles from the latter place. The entire line of country from Candahar to Caubul is, in comparison with that which lies between Caubul and Peshawur, an open and a level tract, opposing no difficulties to the march of an army encumbered with artillery and baggage. As a city, it was of less importance than either Caubul or Candahar.[332] But the strength of the citadel had been famous throughout many generations; and the first sight of the fortress, as it burst suddenly on the view of our advancing army, “with its fortifications rising up, as it were, on the side of a hill, which seemed to form the background to it,” must have thrust upon every officer of the force the conviction that, at Candahar, they had all underrated the strength of the place. It obviously was not a fortress to be breached by nine-pounder and six-pounder guns.

From the fortifications of the citadel Hyder Khan looked out through a telescope, and beheld our British columns advancing slowly and steadily across the plain. Some preparations had been made for external defence; but not on any extensive scale. Parties of the enemy were posted in the villages and gardens around the fort; but our light companies soon dislodged them. The morning was spent in brisk skirmishing;[333] the range of the enemy’s guns was tried; the engineers reconnoitred the place; and then it was determined that the camp should be pitched upon the Caubul side of the city. It was reported that Dost Mahomed himself was advancing from the capital, and it was expedient to cut off his direct communication with the fort. Not without some confusion the camp was pitched. Had Afzul Khan descended with his cavalry upon us at this time, he might have wrought dire mischief amongst us.

Day had scarcely dawned on the 22nd of July, when Sir John Keane, accompanied by Sir Willoughby Cotton and the engineers, ascended the heights commanding the eastern face of the works, and reconnoitred the fortress. He had determined on carrying the place by assault. In ignorance of the means whereby this was to be accomplished, the King had recommended that the army should leave Ghuznee to itself, and march on at once to Caubul. It was evident that the light field-pieces which Keane had brought up with him from Candahar could not breach the solid walls of Ghuznee. “If you once breach the place,” said the Shah, “it is yours; but I cannot understand how you are to breach it—how you are to get into the fort.” But Sir John Keane did understand this; for his engineers had taught him. He understood, though he had left his siege train behind, that there was still a resource remaining to him. Though the walls could not be breached, a gate, Captain Thomson assured him, might be blown in with gunpowder.

The gate to be blown in was the Caubul gate. All the others had been built up. The military historians leave it to be surmised by the reader that the knowledge of this important fact was derived from the reconnaissances of the British Commander and his engineers. The truth is, that the British had then in their camp a deserter from the Ghuznee garrison—a Barukzye of rank, who had been induced to turn his traitorous back upon his tribe. Abdool Reshed Khan was the nephew of Dost Mahomed. When the “Commercial Mission” was in Afghanistan, Mohun Lal had made the acquaintance of this man. The Moonshee seems to have been endowed with a genius for traitor-making, the lustre of which remained undimmed to the very end of the war. He now began to operate upon his friend; and he achieved a brilliant success. Abdool Reshed was not deaf to the voice of the charmer. Mohun Lal wrote him a seductive letter, and he determined to desert. As the British army approached Ghuznee he joined our camp. “I introduced him,” says Mohun Lal, “to the Envoy, who placed him under the immediate disposal of Lord Keane. The information which he gave to Major Thomson, the chief engineer, relative to the fortifications of Ghuznee, was so valuable and necessary, that my friend Abdool Reshed Khan was requested to attend upon him in all his reconnoitring expeditions.” He was precisely the man we wanted. He gave us all the information we required. He taught us how to capture Ghuznee.

Having determined to enter Ghuznee through an entrance effected by an explosion of gunpowder, Keane began to issue his instructions for the assault, which was to take place before daybreak on the following morning. Every preparation was made, and every precaution was taken to ensure success. It was a day of expectation and anxiety, and not wholly uneventful. On that 22nd of July was made known to us, with fearful demonstrativeness, the character of those fanatic soldiers of Islam, who have since become so terribly familiar to us under the name of Ghazees. Incited by the priesthood, they flock to the green banner, eager to win Paradise by the destruction of their infidel foes, or to forestall the predestined bliss by dying the martyr’s death in the attempt. A party of these fearless followers of the Prophet had assembled in the neighbourhood of Ghuznee, and now they were about to pour down upon the Shah’s camp, and to rid the country of a King who had outraged Mahomedanism by returning to his people borne aloft on the shoulders of the infidels. A gallant charge of the Shah’s Horse, led by Peter Nicolson, who took no undistinguished part in the after-events of the war, checked the onslaught of these desperate fanatics; and Outram, with a party of foot, followed them to the heights where the cavalry had driven them, and captured their holy standard. Some fifty prisoners were taken. It is painful to relate what followed. Conducted into the presence of Shah Soojah, they gloried in their high calling, and openly reviled the King. One of them, more audacious than the rest, stabbed one of the royal attendants. Upon this, a mandate went forth for the massacre of the whole.

The Shah ordered them to be beheaded, and they were hacked to death, with wanton barbarity, by the knives of his executioners. Coolly and deliberately the slaughter of these unhappy men proceeded, till the whole lay mangled and mutilated upon the blood-stained ground.[334] Macnaghten, a little time before, had been commending the humane instincts of the King. The humanity of Shah Soojah was nowhere to be found except in Macnaghten’s letters. It is enough simply to recite the circumstances of a deed so terrible as this. It was an unhappy and an ominous commencement. The Shah had marched all the way from Loodhianah without encountering an enemy. And now the first men taken in arms against him were cruelly butchered in cold blood by the “humane” monarch. The act, impolitic as it was unrighteous, brought its own sure retribution. That “martyrdom” was never forgotten. The day of reckoning came at last; and when our unholy policy sunk unburied in blood and ashes, the shrill cry of the Ghazee sounded as its funeral wail.

A gusty night had heralded a gusty morn, when Keane, inwardly bewailing the absence of his heavy guns, planted his light field-pieces on some commanding heights opposite the citadel, and filled the gardens near the city walls with his Sepoy musketeers. No sound issued from the fortress, nor was there any sign of life, whilst unseen under cover of the night, and unheard above the loud wailings of the wind, the storming column was gathering upon the Caubul road, and the engineers were carrying up their powder-bags to the gate. The advance was under Colonel Dennie, of the 13th Light Infantry; and the main column under Brigadier Sale.[335] Captain Thomson, of the Bengal Engineers, directed the movements of the explosion party; and with him were his two subalterns, Durand and Macleod, and Captain Peat, of the Bombay corps. Three hours after midnight everything was ready for the assault.

Then Keane ordered the light batteries to open upon the works of Ghuznee. It was a demonstration—harmless but not useless; for it fixed the attention of the enemy, and called forth a responsive fire. A row of blue lights along the walls now suddenly broke through the darkness and illuminated the place. The enemy had been beguiled by the false attack, and were now looking out towards our batteries, eager to learn the nature of the operations commenced by the investing force. And whilst the Afghans were thus engaged, anticipating an escalade and manning their walls, the British engineers were quietly piling their powder-bags at the Caubul gate.

The work was done rapidly and well. The match was applied to the hose. The powder exploded.[336] Above the roaring of the guns and the rushing of the wind, the noise of the explosion was barely audible.[337] But the effect was as mighty as it was sudden. A column of black smoke arose; and down with a crush came heavy masses of masonry and shivered beams in awful ruin and confusion. Then the bugle sounded the advance. Dennie at the head of his stormers, pushed forward through the smoke and dust of the aperture; and soon the bayonets of his light companies were crossing the swords of the enemy who had rushed down to the point of attack. A few moments of darkness and confusion; and then the foremost soldiers caught a glimpse of the morning sky, and pushing gallantly on, were soon established in the fortress. Three hearty, animating cheers—so loud and clear that they were heard throughout the general camp[338]—announced to their excited comrades below that Dennie and his stormers had entered Ghuznee.

Then Sale pressed on with the main column, eager to support the stormers in advance; and as he went he met an engineer officer of the explosion party, who had been thrown to the ground, shattered and bewildered by the concussion,[339] and who now announced that the gate was choked up, and that Dennie could not force an entrance. So Sale sounded the retreat. The column halted. There was a pause of painful doubt and anxiety; and then the cheering notes of the bugle, sounding the advance, again stirred the hearts of our people. Another engineer officer had reported that, though the aperture was crowded with fallen rubbish, Dennie had made good his entrance. Onward, therefore, went Sale; but the enemy had profited by the brief pause. The opposition at the gateway now was more resolute than it would have been if there had been no check. The Afghans were crowding to the gate; some for purposes of defence, others to escape the fire which Dennie was pouring in upon them. Sale met them amidst the ruins—amidst the crumbled masonry and the fallen timbers. There was a sturdy conflict. The Brigadier himself was cut down;[340] but after a desperate struggle with his opponent, whose skull he clove with his sabre, he regained his feet, again issued his commands; and the main column was soon within the fortress. The support, under Colonel Croker, then pushed forward; the reserve in due course followed; the capture of Ghuznee was complete; and soon the colours of the 13th and 17th regiments were flapping in the strong morning breeze on the ramparts of the Afghans’ last stronghold.[341]

But there was much hard fighting within the walls. In the frenzy of despair the Afghans rushed out from their hiding-places, sword in hand, upon our stormers, and plied their sabres with terrible effect, but only to meet with fearful retribution from the musket-fire or the bayonets of the British infantry. There was horrible confusion and much carnage. Some, in their frantic efforts to escape by the gateway, stumbled over the burning timbers, wounded and exhausted, and were slowly burnt to death. Some were bayoneted on the ground. Others were pursued and hunted into corners like mad dogs, and shot down, with the curse and the prayer on their lips. But never, it is said by the historians of the war, after the garrison had ceased to fight, did the wrath of their assailants overtake them. Many an Afghan sold his life dearly, and, though wounded and stricken down, still cut out at the hated enemy. But when resistance was over, mercy smiled down upon him. The appeals of the helpless were never disregarded by the victors in their hour of triumph. The women, too, were honourably treated. Hyder Khan’s zenana was in the citadel; but not a woman was outraged by the captors.[342]

Resistance over, the Commander-in-Chief and the Envoy entered Ghuznee by the Caubul gate. Shah Soojah, before the contest was over, had ridden down to the point of attack, and watched the progress of events with the deepest interest, but with no apparent want of collectedness and nerve.[343] Keane and Macnaghten now led him up to the citadel. The wife of Hyder Khan, and the other women of his zenana, were conducted, under the orders of the political and military chiefs, by John Conolly, a cousin of the Envoy, to a house in the town, where they were placed under the charge of the Moonshee Mohun Lal.[344] But Hyder Khan himself had not yet been discovered. The Suddozye Prince and the British chiefs were inquiring after the commander of the garrison; but no tidings of him were to be obtained. He might have been concealed in the fortress, or he might have effected his escape. Accident only betrayed the position of the young Sirdar. He was found in a house near the Candahar gate, by an officer of the Company’s European regiment.[345] At once acknowledging that he was the governor of Ghuznee, he threw himself upon the mercy of his captors. Conducted to Keane’s tent, the Sirdar was guaranteed his personal safety, and placed under the charge of Sir Alexander Burnes.[346] He was unwilling at first to appear in the presence of Shah Soojah; but the assurances of the Commander-in-Chief overcame his reluctance, and Keane conducted him both to the Mission and to the King. Instructed as to the reception he was to accord to the fallen Barukzye chief, the Suddozye monarch received him with an outward show of kindness, and, with a dignified courtesy which he so well knew how to assume, declared that he forgave the past, and told him to go in peace.

And so Ghuznee fell to the British army, and was made over to the Suddozye King. It cost the victors only seventeen killed and a hundred and sixty-five wounded. Of these last eighteen were officers. The carnage among the garrison was most fearful. Upwards of five hundred men were buried by the besiegers; and many more are supposed to have fallen beyond the walls, under the sabres of the British horsemen. Sixteen hundred prisoners were taken. Immense stores of grain and flour, sufficient for a protracted defence, fell into our hands; and a large number of horses and arms swelled the value of the captured property.

The fall of Ghuznee—a fortress hitherto deemed by the Afghans impregnable—astounded Dost Mahomed and his sons, and struck terror into their souls. Afzul Khan, who was hovering about the neighbourhood, prepared to fall upon our baffled army, found, to his wonderment, that the British colours were waving over the far-famed citadel of Ghuznee, and immediately sought safety in flight. Abandoning his elephants and the whole of his camp-equipage which fell as booty into the hands of Shah Soojah, the Sirdar fled to Caubul. His father, greatly incensed, ordered him immediately to halt, and “peremptorily refused to receive him.”[347] He had expected something better from one who had done such good service on the boasted battle-field of Jumrood.

In little more than four-and-twenty hours after the fall of Ghuznee, intelligence of the event reached the camp of the Ameer. He at once assembled his chiefs, spoke of the defection of some of his people, expressed his apprehension that others were about to desert him, and declared his conviction that, without the aid of treachery, Ghuznee would not have fallen before the Feringhees. Then he called upon all present, who wavered in their loyalty, at once to withdraw from his presence, that he might know the extent of his resources, and not rely upon the false friendship of men who would forsake him in the crisis of his fate. All protested their fidelity. A council of war was held, and the Newab Jubbar Khan was despatched to the British camp[348] to treat with Shah Soojah and his allies.

The Newab mounted his horse and rode with unaccustomed rapidity to Ghuznee. Mohun Lal went out to meet him some miles beyond the camp; and Burnes received him at the piquets. A tent was pitched for his accommodation near the Envoy’s; and he was well received by the British Mission. The King received him, too, with the same well-trained courtesy that he had bestowed on Hyder Khan—but the efforts of the Newab were fruitless. He tendered on the part of the Ameer submission to the Suddozye Prince; but claimed, on the part of the brother of Futteh Khan, the hereditary office of Wuzeer, which had been held so long and so ably by the Barukzyes. The claim was at once rejected, and the mockery of an “honourable asylum” in the British dominions offered in its stead. Jubbar Khan spoke out plainly and bluntly, like an honest man. His brother had no ambition to surrender his freedom and become a pensioner on the bounty of the British Government. Had his cause been far more hopeless than it was, Dost Mahomed, at that time, would have rather flung himself upon the British bayonets than upon the protection of the Feringhees. Jubbar Khan then frankly stating his own determination to follow the fortunes of his brother, requested and received his dismissal.[349]

The Newab returned to the Ameer’s camp. All hope of negotiation was now at an end, and Dost Mahomed, with resolution worthy of a better fate, marched out to dispute the progress of the invaders. At the head of an army, in which the seeds of dissolution had already been sown, he moved down upon Urghundeh. There he drew up his troops and parked his guns. But it was not on this ground that he had determined to give the Feringhees battle. The last stand was to have been made at Maidan, on the Caubul river—a spot, the natural advantages of which would have been greatly in his favour. But the battle was never fought. At Urghundeh it became too manifest that there was treachery in his camp. The venal Kuzzilbashes were fast deserting his standard. There was scarcely a true man left in his ranks. Hadjee Khan Khaukur, on whom he had placed great reliance, had gone over to the enemy, and others were fast following his example. This was the crisis of his fate. He looked around him and saw only perfidy on the right hand and on the left. Equal to the occasion, but basely deserted, what could the Ameer do? Never had the nobility of his nature shone forth more truly and more lustrously. In the hour of adversity, when all were false, he was true to his own manhood. Into the midst of his own perfidious troops he rode, with the Koran in his hand; and there called upon his followers, in the names of God and the Prophet, not to forget that they were true Mahomedans—not to disgrace their names and to dishonour their religion, by rushing into the arms of one who had filled the country with infidels and blasphemers. He besought them to make one stand, like brave men and true believers; to rally round the standard of the commander of the faithful; to beat back the invading Feringhees or die in the glorious attempt. He then reminded them of his own claims on their fidelity. “You have eaten my salt,” he said, “these thirteen years. If, as is too plain, you are resolved to seek a new master, grant me but one favour in requital for that long period of maintenance and kindness—enable me to die with honour. Stand by the brother of Futteh Khan, whilst he executes one last charge against the cavalry of these Feringhee dogs; in that onset he will fall; then go and make your own terms with Shah Soojah.”[350] The noble spirit-stirring appeal was vainly uttered; few responded to it. There was scarcely a true heart left. With despairing eyes he looked around upon his recreant followers. He saw that there was no hope of winning them back to their old allegiance he felt that he was surrounded by traitors and cowards, who were willing to abandon him to his fate. It was idle to struggle against his destiny. The first bitter pang was over; he resumed his serenity of demeanour, and, addressing himself to the Kuzzilbashes, formally gave them their discharge. He then dismissed all who were inclined to purchase safety by tendering allegiance to the Shah; and with a small handful of followers, leaving his guns still in position, turned his horse’s head towards the regions of the Hindoo-Koosh.[351]

It was on the evening of the 2nd of August that Dost Mahomed fled from Urghundeh. On the following day the British army, which had moved from Ghuznee on the 30th of July, received tidings of his flight. It was now determined to send a party in pursuit. It was mainly to consist of Afghan horsemen; but some details from our cavalry regiments were sent with them, and Captain Outram, ever ready for such service, volunteered for the command. Other officers—bold riders and dashing soldiers[352]—were eager to join in the pursuit; and a party of ten, with about five hundred mounted men, mustered that afternoon before the Mission tents, equipped for the raid.

If the success of this expedition had depended upon the zeal and activity of the officers, Dost Mahomed would have been brought back a prisoner to the British camp; for never did a finer set of men leap into their saddles, flushed with the thought of the stirring work before them. But when they set out in pursuit of the fallen Ameer, a traitor rode with them, intent on turning to very nothingness all their chivalry and devotion. There was an Afghan chief known as Hadjee Khan Khaukur, of whom mention has been made. He was a man of mean extraction, the son of a goat-herd,[353] but from this low estate had risen into notice, and obtained service with Dost Mahomed. It was not in his nature to be faithful. He deserted Dost Mahomed, and attached himself to the Candahar Sirdars. On the advance of the British army he deserted the Sirdars, and flung himself at the feet of the Suddozye. Delighted with such an accession to his strength, the King appointed him Nassur-ood-dowlah, or “Defender of the State,” and conferred on him a Jaghire of the annual value of three lakhs of rupees.

At Candahar, whence the Sirdars had fled, the Hadjee, profoundly conscious of the hopelessness of their cause, broke out into loyalty and enthusiasm, and was, to all outward seeming, a faithful adherent of the Shah. But as he entered the principality of the Caubul Ameer, he seemed to stand upon more uncertain ground; the issue of the contest was yet doubtful. Dost Mahomed and his sons were in the field. So the Hadjee made many excuses; and fell in the rear of the British army. He was sick; it was necessary that he should march easily; he could not bear the bustle of the camp. Keeping, therefore, a few marches in the rear, he followed our advancing columns, with his retainers; and there, it is said, “enjoyed the congenial society of several discontented and intriguing noblemen.”[354]

If Ghuznee had not fallen, Hadjee Khan and his friends would have gone over in a body to the Ameer, and on the slightest information of a reverse having befallen us, would have flung themselves on our rear. But the fall of this great Afghan stronghold brought the Hadjee again to the stirrup of the Shah; and he was again all loyalty and devotion. Confident of his fidelity, and perhaps anxious to establish it in the eyes of all who had viewed with suspicion the proceedings of the Hadjee, the King now put it to the proof. The man had once been Governor of Bameean. He knew the country along which the Ameer had taken his flight. What could be better than to entrust the conduct of the expedition to the veteran chief? The King and Macnaghten were of the same mind; so Hadjee Khan, who had been for some time in treasonable correspondence with Dost Mahomed, was now despatched to overtake him and bring him back a prisoner to the camp of the Shah.

The result may be easily anticipated. Hadjee Khan cheerfully undertook the duty entrusted to him. The enterprise required the utmost possible amount of energy and promptitude to secure its success. The Ameer and his party were more than a day’s journey in advance of his pursuers. Every hour’s delay lessened the chance of overtaking the fugitive. So the Hadjee began at once to delay. The pursuers were to have started four hours after noon; Hadjee Khan was not ready till nightfall. Then he was eager to take the circuitous high road instead of dashing across the hills. His people lagged behind to plunder. He himself, when Outram was most eager to push on, always counselled a halt, and in the hour of need the guides deserted. The Ameer was now but little in advance; he was encumbered with women, and children, and much baggage. He had a sick son,[355] on whose account it was necessary to diminish the speed of his flight. Outram seemed almost to have the Ameer in his grasp; when Hadjee Khan again counselled delay. It was necessary, he said, to wait for reinforcements. The Ameer had two thousand fighting men. The Afghans under Hadjee Khan were not to be relied upon. They had no food: their horses were knocked up; they were unwilling to advance. Angry and indignant, Outram broke from the Hadjee in the midst of his entreaties, and declared that he would push on with his own men. Again and again there was the same contention between the chivalrous earnestness of the British officer and the foul treachery of the Afghan chief. At last, on the 9th of August, they reached Bameean, where Hadjee Khan had repeatedly declared that Dost Mahomed would halt, only to learn that the fugitives were that morning to be at Syghan, nearly thirty miles in advance. The Ameer was pushing on with increased rapidity, for the sick Prince, who had been carried in a litter, was now transferred to the back of an elephant, and his escape was now almost certain. The treachery of Hadjee Khan had done its work. Outram had been restricted in his operations to the limits of the Shah’s dominions; and the Ameer had now passed the borders. Further pursuit, indeed, would have been hopeless. The horses of our cavalry were exhausted by over-fatigue and want of food. They were unable any longer to continue their forced marches. The game, therefore, was up. Dost Mahomed had escaped. Hadjee Khan Khaukur had saved the Ameer; but he had sacrificed himself. He had overreached himself in his career of treachery, and was now to pay the penalty of detection. Outram officially reported the circumstances of the Hadjee’s conduct, which had baffled all his best efforts—efforts which, he believed, would have been crowned with success[356]—and the traitor, on his return to Caubul, was arrested by orders of the Shah. Other proofs of his treason were readily found; and he was sentenced to end a life of adventurous vicissitude as a state prisoner in the provinces of Hindostan.[357]

So fled Dost Mahomed Khan across the frontier of Afghanistan. His guns were found in position at Urghundeh by a party of cavalry and horse artillery sent forward to capture them. They were mostly light pieces;[358] and neither the ordnance nor the position which had been taken up, could be considered of a very formidable character.[359] It has been already said, however, that the Ameer had fixed upon another spot on which to meet the advancing armies of the Shah and his allies—a spot well calculated for defence, which, three years afterwards, Shumshoodeen Khan selected for his last stand against the battalions of General Nott; but on which, like his distinguished clansman, he never gave us battle.

On the 6th of August, Shah Soojah and the British army appeared before the walls of Caubul. On the following day the King entered the capital of Afghanistan. The exile of thirty years—the baffled and rejected representative of the legitimacy of the Douranee Empire, was now at the palace gates. The jingling of the money-bags, and the gleaming of the bayonets of the British, had restored him to the throne which, without these glittering aids, he had in vain striven to recover. The Balla Hissar of Caubul now reared its proud front before him, It was truly a great occasion. The King, gorgeous in regal apparel, and resplendent with jewels, rode a white charger, whose equipments sparkled with Asiatic gold.[360] It was a goodly sight to see the coronet, the girdle, and the bracelets which scintillated upon the person of the rider, and turned the fugitive and the outcast into a pageant and a show. There were those present to whom the absence of the Koh-i-noor, which, caged in Hyde Park, has since become so familiar to the sight-seers of Great Britain, suggested strange reminiscences of the King’s eventful career. But the restored monarch, wanting the great diamond, still sparkled into royalty as he rode up to the Balla Hissar, with the white-faced Kings of Afghanistan beside him. In diplomatic costume, Macnaghten and Burnes accompanied the Suddozye puppet. The principal military officers of the British army rode with them. And Moonshee Mohun Lal, flaunting a majestic turban, and looking, in his spruceness, not at all as though his mission in Afghanistan were to do the dirty work of the British diplomatists, made a very conspicuous figure in the gay cavalcade.[361]

But never was there a duller procession. The King and his European supporters rode through the streets of Caubul to the palace in the citadel; but as they went there was no popular enthusiasm; the voice of welcome was still. The inhabitants came to the thresholds of the houses simply to look at the show. They stared at the European strangers more than at the King, who had been brought back to Caubul by the Feringhees; and scarcely even took the trouble to greet the Suddozye Prince with a common salaam. It was more like a funeral procession than the entry of a King into the capital of his restored dominions. But when Shah Soojah reached the palace from which he had so long been absent, he broke out into a paroxysm of childish delight—visited the gardens and apartments with eager activity—commented on the signs of neglect which everywhere presented themselves to his eyes—and received with feelings of genial pleasure the congratulations of the British officers, who soon left his Majesty to himself to enjoy the sweets of restored dominion.

The restoration of Shah Soojah-ool Moolk to the sovereignty of Afghanistan had thus been outwardly accomplished. The Barukzye Sirdars had been expelled from their principalities; a British garrison had been planted in Candahar and in Ghuznee; and a British army was now encamping under the walls of Caubul. A great revolution had thus been perfected. The Douranee monarchy had been restored. The objects contemplated in the Simlah manifesto had been seemingly accomplished, and the originators of the policy which had sent our armies thus to triumph in Afghanistan shouted with exultation as they looked upon their first great blaze of success.