Battle of Maiwand.

some influence, baleful to England, kept back those Asiatics from their usually heedless rush. Their guns came up and opened fire on Burrows' line. Even the white quivering groups of their ghazis forebore to charge with their whetted knives, but clung to a gully which afforded good cover 500 yards away from the British front and right flank; there the Afghan regulars galled the exposed khaki line, while their cannon, now numbering thirty pieces, kept up a fire to which Maclaine's twelve guns could give no adequate reply.

[Illustration: Battle of Maiwand]

It has been stated by military critics that Burrows erred in letting the fight at the outset become an affair of artillery, in which he was plainly the weaker. Some of his guns were put out of action; and in that open plain there was no cover for the fighting line, the reserves, or the supporting horse. All of them sustained heavy losses from the unusually accurate aim of the Afghan gunners. But the enemy had also suffered under our cannonade and musketry; and it is consonant with the traditions of Indian warfare to suppose that a charge firmly pushed home at the first signs of wavering in the hostile mass would have retrieved the day. Plassey and Assaye were won by sheer boldness. Such a chance is said to have occurred about noon at Maiwand. However that may be, Burrows decided to remain on the defensive, perhaps because the hostile masses were too dense and too full of fight to warrant the adoption of dashing tactics.

After the sun passed his zenith the enemy began to press on the front and flanks. Burrows swung round his wings to meet these threatening moves; but, as the feline and predatory instincts of the Afghans kindled more and more at the sight of the weak, bent, and stationary line, so too the morale of the defenders fell. The British and Indian troops alike were exhausted by the long march and by the torments of thirst in the sultry heat. Under the fire of the Afghan cannon and the frontal and flank advance of the enemy, the line began to waver about 2 P.M., and two of the foremost guns were lost. A native regiment in the centre, Jacob's Rifles, fled in utter confusion and spread disorder on the flanks, where the 1st Bombay Grenadiers and the 66th line regiment had long maintained a desperate fight. General Nuttall now ordered several squadrons of the 3rd Light Cavalry and 3rd Sind Horse to recover the guns and stay the onrushing tide, but their numbers were too small for the task, and the charge was not pressed home. Finally the whole mass of pursued and pursuers rolled towards the village of Khig and its outlying enclosures.

There a final stand was made. Colonel Galbraith and about one hundred officers and men of the 66th threw themselves into a garden enclosure, plied the enemy fiercely with bullets, and time after time beat back every rush of the ghazis, now rioting in that carnival of death. Surrounded by the flood of the Afghan advance, the little band fought on, hopeless of life, but determined to uphold to the last the honour of their flag and country. At last only eleven were left. These heroes determined to die in the open; charging out on the masses around, they formed square, and back to back stood firing on the foe. Not until the last of them fell under the Afghan rifles did the ghazis venture to close in with their knives, so dauntless had been the bearing of this band[322].

They had not fought in vain. Their stubborn stand held back the Afghan pursuit and gave time for the fugitives to come together on the way back to Candahar. Had the pursuit been pushed on with vigour few, if any, could have survived. Even so, Maiwand was one of the gravest disasters ever sustained by our Indian army. It cost Burrows' force nearly half its numbers; 934 officers and men were killed and 175 wounded. The strange disproportion between these totals may serve as a measure of the ferocity of Afghans in the hour of victory. Of the non-combatants 790 fell under the knives of the ghazis. The remnant struggled towards Candahar, whence, on the 28th, General Primrose despatched a column to the aid of the exhausted survivors. In the citadel of that fortress there mustered as many as 4360 effectives as night fell. But what were these in face of Ayub's victorious army, now joined by tribesmen eager for revenge and plunder[323]?

In face of this disaster, the British generals in Northern Afghanistan formed a decision commendable alike for its boldness and its sagacity. They decided to despatch at once all available troops from Cabul to the relief of the beleaguered garrison at Candahar. General Sir Frederick Roberts had handed over the command at Cabul to Sir Donald Stewart, and was about to operate among the tribes on the Afghan frontier when the news of the disaster sent him hurrying back to confer with the new commander-in-chief. Together they recommended the plan named above.

It involved grave dangers: for affairs in the north of Afghanistan were unsettled; and to withdraw the rest of our force from Cabul to the Khyber would give the rein to local disaffection. The Indian authorities at Simla inclined to the despatch of the force at Quetta, comprising seven regiments of native troops, from Bombay. The route was certainly far easier; for, thanks to the toil of engineers, the railway from the Indus Valley towards Quetta had been completed up to a point in advance of Sibi; and the labours of Major Sandeman, Bruce, and others, had kept that district fairly quiet[324]. But the troops at Quetta and Pishin were held to be incapable of facing a superior force of victorious Afghans. At Cabul there were nine regiments of infantry, three of cavalry, and three mountain-batteries, all of them British or picked Indian troops. On August 3, Lord Ripon telegraphed his permission for the despatch of the Cabul field-force to Candahar. It amounted to 2835 British (the 72nd and 92nd Highlanders and 2nd battalion of the 60th Rifles, and 9th Lancers), 7151 Indian troops, together with 18 guns. On August 9 it struck camp and set out on a march which was destined to be famous.

Fortunately before it left the Cabul camp on August 9, matters were skilfully arranged by Mr. Griffin with Abdur Rahman, on terms which will be noticed presently. In spite of one or two suspicious incidents, his loyalty to the British cause now seemed to be assured, and that, too, in spite of the remonstrances of many of his supporters. He therefore sent forward messengers to prepare the way for Roberts' force. They did so by telling the tribesmen that the new Ameer was sending the foreign army out of the land by way of Candahar! This pleasing fiction in some measure helped on the progress of the force, and the issue of events proved it to be no very great travesty of the truth.

Every possible device was needed to ensure triumph over physical obstacles. In order to expedite the march through the difficult country between Cabul and Candahar, no wheeled guns or waggons went with the force. As many as 8000 native bearers or drivers set out with the force, but very many of them deserted, and the 8255 horses, mules and donkeys were thenceforth driven by men told off from the regiments. The line of march led at first through the fertile valley of the River Logar, where the troops and followers were able to reap the ripening crops and subsist in comfort. Money was paid for the crops thus appropriated. After leaving this fertile district for the barren uplands, the question of food and fuel became very serious; but it was overcome by ingenuity and patience, though occasional times of privation had to be faced, as, for instance, when only very small roots were found for the cooking of corn and meat. A lofty range, the Zamburak Kotal, was crossed with great toil and amidst biting cold at night-time; but the ability of the commander, the forethought and organising power of his Staff, and the hardihood of the men overcame all trials and obstacles.

The army then reached the more fertile districts around Ghazni, and on August 15 gained an entry without resistance to that once formidable stronghold. Steady marching brought the force eight days later to the hill fort of Kelat-i-Ghilzai, where it received a hearty welcome from the British garrison of 900 men. Sir Frederick Roberts determined to take on these troops with him, as he needed all his strength to cope with the growing power of Yakub. After a day's rest (well earned, seeing that the force had traversed 225 miles in 14 days), the column set forth on its last stages, cheered by the thought of rescuing their comrades at Candahar, but more and more oppressed by the heat, which, in the lower districts of South Afghanistan, is as fierce as anywhere in the world. Mr. Hensman, the war correspondent of the Daily News, summed up in one telling phrase the chief difficulties of the troops. "The sun laughed to scorn 100° F. in the shade." On the 27th the commander fell with a sharp attack of fever.

Nevertheless he instructed the Indian cavalry to push on to Robat and open up heliographic communication with Candahar. It then transpired that the approach of the column had already changed the situation. Already, on August 23, Ayub had raised the siege and retired to the hills north of the city. That relief came none too soon appeared on the morning of the 31st, when the thin and feeble cheering that greeted the rescuers on their entrance to the long beleaguered town told its sad tale of want, disease, and depression of heart. The men who had marched 313 miles in 22 days--an average of 14-1/4 miles a day--felt a thrill of sympathy, not unmixed with disgust in some cases, at the want of spirit too plainly discernible among the defenders. The Union Jack was not hoisted on the citadel until the rescuers were near at hand[325]. General Roberts might have applied to them Hecuba's words to Priam:--

Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis
Tempus eget.

As for the morale of the relieving force, it now stood at the zenith, as was seen on the following day. Framing his measures so as to encourage Ayub to stand his ground, Roberts planned his attack in the way that had already led to success, namely, a frontal attack more imposing than serious, while the enemy's flank was turned and his communications threatened. These moves were carried out by Generals Ross and Baker with great skill. Under the persistent pressure of the British onset the Afghans fell back from position to position, north-west of Candahar; until finally Major White with the 92nd, supported by Gurkhas and the 23rd Pioneers, drove them back to their last ridge, the Baba Wali Kotal, swarmed up its western flank, and threw the whole of the hostile mass in utter confusion into the plain beyond. Owing to the very broken nature of the ground, few British and Indian horsemen were at hand to reap the full fruits of victory; but many of Ayub's regulars and ghazis fell under their avenging sabres. The beaten force deserved no mercy. When the British triumph was assured, the Afghan chief ordered his prisoner, Lieutenant Maclaine, to be butchered; whereupon he himself and his suite took to flight. The whole of his artillery, twenty-seven pieces, including the two British guns lost at Maiwand, fell into the victor's hands. In fact, Ayub's force ceased to exist; many of his troops at once assumed the garb of peaceful cultivators, and the Pretender himself fled to Herat[326].

Thus ended an enterprise which, but for the exercise of the highest qualities on the part of General Roberts, his Staff, the officers, and rank and file, might easily have ended in irretrievable disaster. This will appear from the following considerations. The question of food and water during a prolonged march in that parched season of the year might have caused the gravest difficulties; but they were solved by a wise choice of route along or near water-courses where water could generally be procured. The few days when little or no water could be had showed what might have happened. Further, the help assured by the action of the Ameer's emissaries among the tribesmen was of little avail after the valley of the Logar was left behind. Many of the tribes were actively hostile, and cut off stragglers and baggage-animals.

Above and beyond these daily difficulties, there was the problem as to the line of retreat to be taken in case of a reverse inflicted by the tribes en route. The army had given up its base of operations; for at the same time the remaining British and Indian regiments at Cabul were withdrawn to the Khyber Pass. True, there was General Phayre's force holding Quetta, and endeavouring to stretch out a hand towards Candahar; but the natural obstacles and lack of transport prevented the arrival of help from that quarter. It is, however, scarcely correct to say that Roberts had no line of retreat assured in case of defeat[327]. No serious fighting was to be expected before Candahar; for the Afghan plundering instinct was likely to keep Ayub near to that city, where the garrison was hard pressed. After leaving Ghazni, the Quetta route became the natural way of retirement.

As it happened, the difficulties were mainly those inflicted by the stern hand of Nature herself; and their severity may be gauged by the fact that out of a well-seasoned force of less than 10,000 fighting men as many as 940 sick had at once to go into hospital at Candahar. The burning days and frosty nights of the Afghan uplands were more fatal than the rifles of Ayub and the knives of the ghazis. As Lord Roberts has modestly admitted, the long march gained in dramatic effect because for three weeks he and his army were lost to the world, and, suddenly emerging from the unknown, gained a decisive triumph. But, allowing for this element of picturesqueness, so unusual in an age when the daily din of telegrams dulls the perception of readers, we may still maintain that the march from Cabul to Candahar will bear comparison with any similar achievement in modern history.

The story of British relations with Afghanistan is one which illustrates the infinite capacity of our race to "muddle through" to some more or less satisfactory settlement. This was especially the case in the spring and summer of 1880, when the accession of Mr. Gladstone to power and the disaster of Maiwand changed the diplomatic and military situation. In one sense, and that not a cryptic one, these events served to supplement one another. They rendered inevitable the entire evacuation of Afghanistan. That, it need hardly be said, was the policy of Mr. Gladstone, of the Secretary for India, Lord Hartington (now Duke of Devonshire), and of Lord Ripon.

On one point both parties were agreed. Events had shown how undesirable it was to hold Cabul and Central Afghanistan. The evacuation of all these districts was specified in Lord Lytton's last official Memorandum, that which he signed on June 7, 1880, as certain to take place as soon as the political arrangements at Cabul were duly settled. The retiring Viceroy, however, declared that in his judgment the whole Province of Candahar must be severed from the Cabul Power, whether Abdur Rahman assented to it or not[328]. Obviously this implied the subjection of Candahar to British rule in some form. General Roberts himself argued stoutly for the retention of that city and district; and so did most of the military men. Lord Wolseley, on the other hand, urged that it would place an undesirable strain upon the resources of India, and that the city could readily be occupied from the Quetta position, if ever the Russians advanced to Herat. The Cabinet strongly held this opinion. The exponents of Whig ideas, Lord Hartington and the Duke of Argyll, herein agreeing with the exponents of a peaceful un-Imperial commercialism, Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain. Consequently the last of the British troops were withdrawn from Candahar on April 15, 1881.

The retirement was more serious in appearance than in reality. The war had brought some substantial gains. The new frontier acquired by the Treaty of Gandamak--and the terms of that compact were practically void until Roberts' victory at Candahar gave them body and life--provided ample means for sending troops easily to the neighbourhood of Cabul, Ghazni, and Candahar; and experience showed that troops kept in the hill stations on the frontier preserved their mettle far better than those cantoned in or near the unhealthy cities just named. The Afghans had also learnt a sharp lesson of the danger and futility of leaning on Russia; and to this fact must be attributed the steady adherence of the new Ameer to the British side.

Moreover, the success of his rule depended largely on our evacuation of his land. Experience has shown that a practically independent and united Afghanistan forms a better barrier to a Russian advance than an Afghanistan rent by the fanatical feuds that spring up during a foreign occupation. Finally, the great need of India after the long famine was economy. A prosperous and contented India might be trusted to beat off any army that Russia could send; a bankrupt India would be the breeding-ground of strife and mutiny; and on these fell powers Skobeleff counted as his most formidable allies[329].

It remained to be seen whether Abdur Rahman could win Candahar and Herat, and, having won them, keep them. At first Fortune smiled on his rival, Ayub. That pretender sent a force from Herat southwards against the Ameer's troops, defeated them, and took Candahar (July 1881). But Abdur Rahman had learnt to scorn the shifts of the fickle goddess. With a large force he marched to that city, bought over a part of Ayub's following, and then utterly defeated the remainder. This defeat was the end of Ayub's career. Flying back to Herat, he found it in the hands of the Ameer's supporters, and was fain to seek refuge in Persia. Both of these successes seem to have been due to the subsidies which the new Ameer drew from India[330].

We may here refer to the last scene in which Ayub played a part before Englishmen. Foiled of his hopes in Persia, he finally retired to India. At a later day he appeared as a pensioner on the bounty of that Government at a review held at Rawal Pindi in the Punjab in honour of the visit of H.R.H. Prince Victor. The Prince, on being informed of his presence, rode up to his carriage and saluted the fallen Sirdar. The incident profoundly touched the Afghans who were present. One of them said: "It was a noble act. It shows that you English are worthy to be the rulers of this land[331]."

The Afghans were accustomed to see the conquered crushed and scorned by the conqueror. Hence they did not resent the truculent methods resorted to by Abdur Rahman in the consolidation of his power. In his relentless grip the Afghan tribes soon acquired something of stability. Certainly Lord Lytton never made a wiser choice than that of Abdur Rahman for the Ameership; and, strange to say, that choice obviated the evils which the Viceroy predicted as certain to accrue from the British withdrawal from Candahar[332]. Contrasting the action of Great Britain towards himself with that of Russia towards Shere Ali in his closing days, the new Ameer could scarcely waver in his choice of an alliance. And while he held the Indian Government away at arm's length, he never wavered at heart.

For in the meantime Russia had resumed her southward march, setting to work with the doggedness that she usually displays in the task of avenging slights and overbearing opposition. The penury of the exchequer, the plots of the Nihilists, and the discontent of the whole people after the inglorious struggle with Turkey, would have imposed on any other Government a policy of rest and economy. To the stiff bureaucracy of St. Petersburg these were so many motives for adopting a forward policy in Asia. Conquests of Turkoman territory would bring wealth, at least to the bureaucrats and generals; and military triumphs might be counted on to raise the spirit of the troops, silence the talk about official peculations during the Turkish campaign, and act in the manner so sagaciously pointed out by Henry IV. to Prince Hal:--

                     Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.

In the autumn of 1878 General Lomakin had waged an unsuccessful campaign against the Tekke Turkomans, and finally fell back with heavy losses on Krasnovodsk, his base of operations on the Caspian Sea. In the summer of 1879 another expedition set out from that port to avenge the defeat. Owing to the death of the chief, Lomakin again rose to the command. His bad dispositions at the climax of the campaign led him to a more serious disaster. On coming up to the fortress of Denghil Tepe, near the town of Geok Tepe, he led only 1400 men, or less than half of his force, to bombard and storm a stronghold held by some 15,000 Turkomans, and fortified on the plan suggested by a British officer, Lieutenant Butler[333]. Preluding his attack by a murderous cannonade, he sent round his cavalry to check the flight of the faint-hearted among the garrison; and, before his guns had fully done their work, he ordered the whole line to advance and carry the walls by storm. At once the Turkoman fire redoubled in strength, tore away the front of every attacking party, and finally drove back the assailants everywhere with heavy loss (Sept. 9, 1879). On the morrow the invaders fell back on the River Atrek and thence made their way back to the Caspian in sore straits[334].

The next year witnessed the advent of a great soldier on the scene. Skobeleff, the stormy petrel of Russian life, the man whose giant frame was animated by a hero's soul, who, when pitched from his horse in the rush on one of the death-dealing redoubts at Plevna, rose undaunted to his feet, brandished his broken sword in the air and yelled at the enemy a defiance which thrilled his broken lines to a final mad charge over the rampart--Skobeleff was at hand. He had culled his first laurels at Khiva and Khokand, and now came to the shores of the Caspian to carry forward the standards which he hoped one day to plant on the walls of Delhi. That he cherished this hope is proved by the Memorandum which will be found in the Appendix of this volume. His disclaimer of any such intention to Mr. Charles Marvin (which will also be found there) shows that under his frank exterior there lay hidden the strain of Oriental duplicity so often found among his countrymen in political life.

At once the operations felt the influence of his active, cheery, and commanding personality. The materials for a railway which had been lying unused at Bender were now brought up; and Russia found the money to set about the construction of a railway from Michaelovsk to the Tekke Turkoman country--an undertaking which was destined wholly to change the conditions of warfare in South Turkestan and on the Afghan border. By the close of the year more than forty miles were roughly laid down, and Skobeleff was ready for his final advance from Kizil Arvat towards Denghil Tepe.

Meanwhile the Tekkes had gained reinforcements from their kinsmen in the Merv oasis, and had massed nearly 40,000 men--so rumour ran--at their stronghold. Nevertheless, they offered no serious resistance to the Russian advance, doubtless because they hoped to increase the difficulties of his retreat after the repulse which they determined to inflict at their hill fortress. But Skobeleff excelled Lomakin in skill no less than in prowess and magnetic influence. He proceeded to push his trenches towards the stronghold, so that on January 23, 1881, his men succeeded in placing 2600 pounds of gunpowder under the south-eastern corner of the rampart. Early on the following day the Russians began the assault; and while cannon and rockets wrought death and dismay among the ill-armed defenders, the mighty shock of the explosion tore away fifty yards of their rampart.

At once the Russian lines moved forward to end the work begun by gunpowder. With the blare of martial music and with ringing cheers, they charged at the still formidable walls. A young officer, Colonel Kuropatkin, who has since won notoriety in other lands, was ready with twelve companies to rush into the breach. Their leading files swarmed up it before the Tekkes fully recovered from the blow dealt by the hand of western science; but then the brave nomads closed in on foes with whom they could fight, and brought the storming party to a standstill. Skobeleff was ready for the emergency. True to his Plevna tactics of ever feeding an attack at the crisis with new troops, he hurled forward two battalions of the line and companies of dismounted Cossacks. These pushed on the onset, hewed their way through all obstacles, and soon met the smaller storming parties which had penetrated at other points. By 1 p.m. the Russian standard waved in triumph from the central hill of the fortress, and thenceforth bands of Tekkes began to stream forth into the desert on the further side.

Now Skobeleff gave to his foes a sharp lesson, which, he claimed, was the most merciful in the end. He ordered his men, horse and foot alike, to pursue the fugitives and spare no one. Ruthlessly the order was obeyed. First, the flight of grape shot from the light guns, then the bayonet, and lastly the Cossack lance, strewed the plain with corpses of men, women, and children; darkness alone put an end to the butchery, and then the desert for eleven miles eastwards of Denghil Tepe bore witness to the thoroughness of Muscovite methods of warfare. All the men within the fortress were put to the sword. Skobeleff himself estimated the number of the slain at 20,000[335]. Booty to the value of £600,000 fell to the lot of the victors. Since that awful day the once predatory tribes of Tekkes have given little trouble. Skobeleff sent his righthand man, Kuropatkin, to occupy Askabad, and reconnoitre towards Merv. But these moves were checked by order of the Czar.

A curious incident, told to Lord Curzon, illustrates the dread in which Russian troops have since been held. At the opening of the railway to Askabad, five years later, the Russian military bands began to play. At once the women and children there present raised cries and shrieks of dread, while the men threw themselves on the ground. They imagined that the music was a signal for another onslaught like that which preluded the capture of their former stronghold[336].

This victory proved to be the last of Skobeleff's career. The Government having used their knight-errant, now put him on one side as too insubordinate and ambitious for his post. To his great disgust, he was recalled. He did not long survive. Owing to causes that are little known, among which a round of fast-living is said to have played its part, he died suddenly from failure of the heart at his residence near Moscow (July 7 1882). Some there were who whispered dark things as to his militant notions being out of favour with the new Czar, Alexander III.; others pointed significantly to Bismarck. Others again prattled of Destiny; but the best comment on the death of Skobeleff would seem to be that illuminating saying of Novalis--"Character is Destiny." Love of fame prompted in him the desire one day to measure swords with Lord Roberts in the Punjab; but the coarser strain in his nature dragged him to earth at the age of thirty-nine.

The accession of Alexander III., after the murder of his father on March 13, 1881, promised for a short time to usher in a more peaceful policy; but, in truth, the last important diplomatic assurance of the reign of Alexander II. was that given by the Minister M. de Giers, to Lord Dufferin, as to Russia's resolve not to occupy Merv. "Not only do we not want to go there, but, happily, there is nothing which can require us to go there."

In spite of a similar assurance given on April 5 to the Russian ambassador in London, both the need and the desire soon sprang into existence. Muscovite agents made their way to the fruitful oasis of Merv; and a daring soldier, Alikhanoff, in the guise of a merchant's clerk, proceeded thither early in 1882, skilfully distributed money to work up a Russian party, and secretly sketched a plan of the fortress. Many chiefs and traders opposed Russia bitterly, for our brilliant and adventurous countryman, O'Donovan, while captive there, sought to open their eyes to the coming danger. But England's influence had fallen to zero since Skobeleff's victory and her own withdrawal from Candahar[337].

In 1882 a Russian Engineer officer, Lessar, in the guise of a scientific explorer, surveyed the route between Merv and Herat, and found that it presented far fewer difficulties than had been formerly reported to exist[338]. Finally, in 1884, the Czar's Government sought to revenge itself for Britain's continued occupation of Egypt by fomenting trouble near the Afghan border. Alikhanoff then reappeared, not in disguise, browbeat the hostile chieftains at Merv by threats of a Russian invasion, and finally induced them to take an oath of allegiance to Alexander III. (Feb. 12, 1884)[339].

There was, however, some reason for Russia's violation of her repeated promises respecting Merv. In practical politics the theory of compensation has long gained an assured footing; and, seeing that Britain had occupied Egypt partly as the mandatory of Europe, and now refused to evacuate that land, the Russian Government had a good excuse for retaliation. As has happened at every time of tension between the two Empires since 1855, the Czar chose to embarrass the Island Power by pushing on towards India. As a matter of fact, the greater the pressure that Russia brought to bear on the Afghan frontier, the greater became the determination of England not to withdraw from Egypt. Hence, in the years 1882-4, both Powers plunged more deeply into that "vicious circle" in which the policy of the Crimean War had enclosed them, and from which they have never freed themselves.

The fact is deplorable. It has produced endless friction and has strained the resources of two great Empires; but the allegation of Russian perfidy in the Merv affair may be left to those who look at facts solely from the insular standpoint. In the eyes of patriotic Russians England was the offender, first by opposing Muscovite policy tooth and nail in the Balkans, secondly by seizing Egypt, and thirdly by refusing to withdraw from that commanding position. The important fact to notice is that after each of these provocations Russia sought her revenge on that flank of the British Empire to which she was guided by her own sure instincts and by the shrieks of insular Cassandras. By moving a few sotnias of Cossacks towards Herat she compelled her rival to spend a hundredfold as much in military preparations in India.

It is undeniable that Russia's persistent breach of her promises in Asiatic affairs exasperated public opinion, and brought the two Empires to the verge of war. Conduct of that description baffles the resources of diplomacy, which are designed to arrange disputes. Unfortunately, British foreign affairs were in the hands of Lord Granville, whose gentle reproaches only awakened contempt at St. Petersburg. The recent withdrawal of Lord Dufferin from St. Petersburg to Constantinople, on the plea of ill-health, was also a misfortune; but his appointment to the Viceroyalty of India (September 1884) placed at Calcutta a Governor-General superior to Lord Ripon in diplomatic experience.

There was every need for the exercise of ability and firmness both at Westminster and Calcutta. The climax in Russia's policy of lance-pricks was reached in the following year; and it has been assumed, apparently on good authority, that the understanding arrived at by the three Emperors in their meeting at Skiernewice (September 1884) implied a tacit encouragement of Russia's designs in Central Asia, however much they were curbed in the Balkan Peninsula. This was certainly the aim of Bismarck, and that he knew a good deal about Russian movements is clear from his words to Busch on November 24, 1884: "Just keep a sharp look-out on the news from Afghanistan. Something will happen there soon[340]."

This was clearly more than a surmise. At that time an Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission was appointed to settle the many vexed questions concerning the delimitation of the Russo-Afghan boundary. General Sir Peter Lumsden proceeded to Sarrakhs, expecting there to meet the Russian Commissioners by appointment in the middle of October 1884. On various pretexts the work of the Commission was postponed in accordance with advices sent from St. Petersburg. The aim of this dilatory policy soon became evident. That was the time when (as will appear in Chapter XVI.) the British expedition was slowly working its way towards Khartum in the effort to unravel the web of fate then closing in on the gallant Gordon. The news of his doom reached England on February 5, 1885. Then it was that Russia unmasked her designs. They included the appropriation of the town and district of Panjdeh, which she herself had previously acknowledged to be in Afghan territory. In vain did Lord Granville protest; in vain did he put forward proposals which conceded very much to the Czar, but less than his Ministers determined to have. All that he could obtain was a promise that the Russians would not advance further during the negotiations.

On March 13, Mr. Gladstone officially announced that an agreement to this effect had been arrived at with Russia. The Foreign Minister at St. Petersburg, M. de Giers, on March 16 assured our ambassador, Sir Edward Thornton, that that statement was correct. On March 26, however, the light troops of General Komaroff advanced beyond the line of demarcation previously agreed on, and on the following day pushed past the Afghan force holding positions in front of Panjdeh. The Afghans refused to be drawn into a fight, but held their ground; thereupon, on March 29, Komaroff sent them an ultimatum ordering them to withdraw beyond Panjdeh. A British staff-officer requested him to reconsider and recall this demand, but he himself was waived aside. Finally, on March 30, Komaroff attacked the Afghan position, and drove out the defenders with the loss of 900 men. The survivors fell back on Herat, General Lumsden and his escort retired in the same direction, and Russia took possession of the coveted prize[341].

The news of this outrage reached England on April 7, and sent a thrill of indignation through the breasts of the most peaceful. Twenty days later Mr. Gladstone proposed to Parliament to vote the sum of £11,000,000 for war preparations. Of this sum all but £4,500,000 (needed for the Sudan) was devoted to military and naval preparations against Russia; and we have the authority of Mr. John Morley for saying that this vote was supported by Liberals "with much more than a mechanical loyalty[342]." Russia had achieved the impossible; she had united Liberals of all shades of thought against her, and the joke about "Mervousness" was heard no more.

Nevertheless the firmness of the Government resembled that of Bob Acres: it soon oozed away. Ministers deferred to the Czar's angry declaration that he would allow no inquiry into the action of General Komaroff. This alone was a most mischievous precedent, as it tended to inflate Russian officers with the belief that they could safely set at defiance the rules of international law. Still worse were the signs of favour showered on the violator of a truce by the sovereign who gained the reputation of being the upholder of peace. From all that is known semi-officially with respect to the acute crisis of the spring of 1885, it would appear that peace was due solely to the tact of Sir Robert Morier, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, and to the complaisance of the Gladstone Cabinet.

Certainly this quality carried Ministers very far on the path of concession. When negotiations were resumed, the British Government belied its former promises of firmness in a matter that closely concerned our ally, and surrendered Panjdeh to Russia, but on the understanding that the Zulfikar Pass should be retained by the Afghans. It should be stated, however, that Abdur Rahman had already assured Lord Dufferin, during interviews which they had at Rawal Pindi early in April, of his readiness to give up Panjdeh if he could retain that pass and its approaches. The Russian Government conceded this point; but their negotiators then set to work to secure possession of heights dominating the pass. It seemed that Lord Granville was open to conviction even on this point.

Such was the state of affairs when, on June 9, 1885, Mr. Gladstone's Ministry resigned owing to a defeat on a budget question. The accession of Lord Salisbury to power after a brief interval helped to clear up these disputes. The crisis in Bulgaria of September 1885 (see Chapter X.) also served to distract the Russian Government, the Czar's chief pre-occupation now being to have his revenge on Prince Alexander of Battenberg. Consequently the two Powers came to a compromise about the Zulfikar Pass[343]. There still remained several questions outstanding, and only after long and arduous surveys, not unmixed with disputes, was the present boundary agreed on in a Protocol signed on July 22, 1887. We may here refer to a prophecy made by one of Bismarck's confidantes, Bucher, at the close of May 1885: "I believe the [Afghan] matter will come up again in about five years, when the [Russian] railways are finished[344]."

Thus it was that Russia secured her hold on districts dangerously near to Herat. Her methods at Panjdeh can only be described as a deliberate outrage on international law. It is clear that Alexander III. and his officials cared nothing for the public opinion of Europe, and that they pushed on their claims by means which appealed with overpowering force to the dominant motive of orientals--fear. But their action was based on another consideration. Relying on Mr. Gladstone's well-known love of peace, they sought to degrade the British Government in the eyes of the Asiatic peoples. In some measure they succeeded. The prestige of Britain thenceforth paled before that of the Czar; and the ease and decisiveness of the Russian conquests, contrasting with the fitful advances and speedy withdrawals of British troops, spread the feeling in Central Asia that the future belonged to Russia.

Fortunately, this was not the light in which Abdur Rahman viewed the incident. He was not the man to yield to intimidation. That "strange, strong creature," as Lord Dufferin called him, "showed less emotion than might have been expected," but his resentment against Russia was none the less keen[345]. Her pressure only served to drive him to closer union with Great Britain. Clearly the Russians misunderstood Abdur Rahman. Their miscalculation was equally great as regards the character of the Afghans and the conditions of life among those mountain clans. Russian officers and administrators, after pushing their way easily through the loose rubble of tribes that make up Turkestan, did not realise that they had to deal with very different men in Afghanistan. To ride roughshod over tribes who live in the desert and have no natural rallying-point may be very effective; but that policy is risky when applied to tribes who cling to their mountains.

The analogy of Afghanistan to Switzerland may again serve to illustrate the difference between mountaineers and plain-dwellers. It was only when the Hapsburgs or the French threatened the Swiss that they formed any effective union for the defence of the Fatherland. Always at variance in time of peace, the cantons never united save under the stress of a common danger. The greater the pressure from without, the closer was the union. That truth has been illustrated several times from the age of the legendary Tell down to the glorious efforts of 1798. In a word, the selfsame mountaineers who live disunited in time of peace, come together and act closely together in war, or under threat of war.

Accordingly, the action of England in retiring from Candahar, contrasting as it did with Russia's action at Panjdeh, marked out the line of true policy for Abdur Rahman. Thenceforth he and his tribesmen saw more clearly than ever that Russia was the foe; and it is noteworthy that under the shadow of the northern peril there has grown up among those turbulent clans a sense of unity never known before. Unconsciously Russia has been playing the part of a Napoleon I.; she has ground together some at least of the peoples of Central Asia with a thoroughness which may lead to unexpected results if ever events favour a general rising against the conqueror.

Amidst all his seeming vacillations of policy, Abdur Rahman was governed by the thought of keeping England, and still more Russia, from his land. He absolutely refused to allow railways and telegraphs to enter his territories; for, as he said: "Where Europeans build railways, their armies quickly follow. My neighbours have all been swallowed up in this manner. I have no wish to suffer their fate."

His judgment was sound. Skobeleff conquered the Tekkes by his railway; and the acquisition of Merv and Panjdeh was really the outcome of the new trans-Caspian line, which, as Lord Curzon has pointed out, completely changed the problem of the defence of India. Formerly the natural line of advance for Russia was from Orenburg to Tashkend and the upper Oxus; and even now that railway would enable her to make a powerful diversion against Northern Afghanistan[346]. But the route from Krasnovodsk on the Caspian to Merv and Kushk presents a shorter and far easier route, leading, moreover, to the open side of Afghanistan, Herat, and Candahar. Recent experiments have shown that a division of troops can be sent in eight days from Moscow to Kushk within a short distance of the Afghan frontier. In a word, Russia can operate against Afghanistan by a line (or rather by two lines) far shorter and easier than any which Great Britain can use for its defence[347].

It is therefore of the utmost importance to prevent her pushing on her railways into that country. This is the consideration which inspired Mr. Balfour's noteworthy declaration of May 11, 1905, in the House of Commons:--

As transport is the great difficulty of an invading army, we must not allow anything to be done which would facilitate transport. It ought in my opinion to be considered as an act of direct aggression upon this country that any attempt should be made to build a railway, in connection with the Russian strategic railways, within the territory of Afghanistan.

It is fairly certain that the present Ameer, Habibulla, who succeeded his father in 1901, holds those views. This doubtless was the reason why, early in 1905, he took the unprecedented step of inviting the Indian Government to send a Mission to Cabul. In view of the increase of Russia's railways in Central Asia there was more need than ever of coming to a secret understanding with a view to defence against that Power.

Finally, we may note that Great Britain has done very much to make up for her natural defects of position. The Panjdeh affair having relegated the policy of "masterly inactivity" to the limbo of benevolent futilities, the materials for the Quetta railway, which had been in large part sent back to Bombay in the year 1881, were now brought back again; and an alternative route was made to Quetta. The urgent need of checkmating French intrigues in Burmah led to the annexation of that land (November 1885); and the Kurram Valley, commanding Cabul, which the Gladstone Government had abandoned, was reoccupied. The Quetta district was annexed to India in 1887 under the title of British Baluchistan. The year 1891 saw an important work undertaken in advance of Quetta, the Khojak tunnel being then driven through a range close by the Afghan frontier, while an entrenched camp was constructed near by for the storage of arms and supplies. These positions, and the general hold which Britain keeps over the Baluchee clans, enable the defenders of India to threaten on the flank any advance by the otherwise practicable route from Candahar to the Indus.

Certainly there is every need for careful preparations against any such enterprise. Lord Curzon, writing before Russia's strategic railways were complete, thought it feasible for Russia speedily to throw 150,000 men into Afghanistan, feed them there, and send on 90,000 of them against the Indus[348]. After the optimistic account of the problem of Indian defence given by Mr. Balfour in the speech above referred to, it is well to remember that, though Russia cannot invade India until she has conquered Afghanistan, yet for that preliminary undertaking she has the advantages of time and position nearly entirely on her side. Further, the completion of her railways almost up to the Afghan frontier (the Tashkend railway is about to be pushed on to the north bank of the Oxus, near Balkh) minimises the difficulties of food supply and transport in Afghanistan, on which the Prime Minister laid so much stress.

It is, however, indisputable that the security of India has been greatly enhanced by the steady pushing on of that "Forward Policy," which all friends of peace used to decry. The Ameer, Abdur Rahman, irritated by the making of the Khojak tunnel, was soothed by Sir Mortimer Durand's Mission in 1893; and in return for an increase of subsidy and other advantages, he agreed that the tribes of the debatable borderland--the Waziris, Afridis, and those of the Swat and Chitral valleys--should be under the control of the Viceroy. Russia showed her annoyance at this Mission by seeking to seize an Afghan town, Murghab; but the Ameer's troops beat them off[349]. Lord Lansdowne claimed that this right of permanently controlling very troublesome tribes would end the days of futile "punitive expeditions." In the main he was right. The peace and security of the frontier depend on the tact with which some few scores of officers carry on difficult work of which no one ever hears[350].

In nearly all cases they have succeeded in their heroic toil. But the work of pacification was disturbed in the year 1895 by a rising in the Chitral Valley, which cut off in Chitral Fort a small force of Sikhs and loyal Kashmir troops with their British officers. Relieving columns from the Swat Valley and Gilgit cut their way through swarms of hillmen and relieved the little garrison after a harassing leaguer of forty-five days[351]. The annoyance evinced by Russian officers at the success of the expedition and the retention of the whole of the Chitral district (as large as Wales) prompts the conjecture that they had not been strangers to the original outbreak. In this year Russia and England delimited their boundaries in the Pamirs.

The year 1897 saw all the hill tribes west and south of Peshawur rise against the British Raj. Moslem fanaticism, kindled by the Sultan's victories over the Greeks, is said to have brought about the explosion, though critics of the Calcutta Government ascribe it to official folly[352]. With truly Roman solidity the British Government quelled the risings, the capture of the heights of Dargai by the "gay Gordons" showing the sturdy hillmen that they were no match for our best troops. Since then the "Forward Policy" has amply justified itself, thousands of fine troops being recruited from tribes which were recently daring marauders, ready for a dash into the plains of the Punjab at the bidding of any would-be disturber of the peace of India. In this case, then, Britain has transformed a troublesome border fringe into a protective girdle.

Whether the Russian Government intends in the future to invade India is a question which time alone can answer. Viewing her Central Asian policy from the time of the Crimean War, the student must admit that it bears distinct traces of such a design. Her advance has always been most conspicuous in the years succeeding any rebuff dealt by Great Britain, as happened after that war, and still more, after the Berlin Congress. At first, the theory that a civilised Power must swallow up restless raiding neighbours could be cited in explanation of such progress; but such a defence utterly fails to account for the cynical aggression at Panjdeh and the favour shown by the Czar to the general who violated a truce. Equally does it fail to explain the pushing on of strategic railways since the time of the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902. Possibly Russia intends only to exert upon that Achilles heel of the British Empire the terrible but nominally pacific pressure which she brings to bear on the open frontiers of Germany and Austria; and the constant discussion by her officers of plans of invasion of India may be wholly unofficial. At the same time we must remember that the idea has long been a favourite one with the Russian bureaucracy; and the example of the years 1877-81 shows that that class is ready and eager to wipe out by a campaign in Central Asia the memory of a war barren of fame and booty. But that again depends on more general questions, especially those of finance (now a very serious question for Russia, seeing that she has drained Paris and Berlin of all possible loans) and of alliance with some Great Power, or Powers, anxious to effect the overthrow of Great Britain.

If Great Britain be not enervated by luxury; if she be not led astray from the paths of true policy by windy talk about "splendid isolation"; if also she can retain the loyal support of the various peoples of India,--she may face the contingency of such an invasion with firmness and equanimity. That it will come is the opinion of very many authorities of high standing. A native gentleman of high official rank, who brings forward new evidence on the subject, has recently declared it to be "inevitable[353]." Such, too, is the belief of the greatest authority on Indian warfare. Lord Roberts closes his Autobiography by affirming that an invasion is "inevitable in the end. We have done much, and may do still more to delay it; but when that struggle comes, it will be incumbent upon us, both for political and military reasons, to make use of all the troops and war material that the Native States can place at our disposal."