Among acts of gallantry, Lieutenant Hardy of the Royal Horse Artillery refused to leave a wounded fellow officer, Lieutenant Forbes of the Bengal Lancers, and they died together. The Revd J.W. Adams won the Victoria Cross pulling two men of the 9th Lancers from beneath their fallen horses and out of a ditch to safety and giving up his horse to a wounded lancer. Those who could not escape died under the Afghan knives. Roberts, with the bulk of the force, was retiring toward the Deh-I-Mazang gorge, others to the Nanachi gorge, when MacPherson and his brigade appeared, marching at top speed to the sound of the guns. He struck the rear of Mohammed Jan’s force, pushing them towards the Deh-I-Mazang gorge. There, in response to Roberts’s message to Gough, were 200 men of the 72nd Highlanders who got to the gorge just before the Afghans arrived and stopped them with well-timed volleys.
The arrival of Smith-Windham and Massy’s survivors spread alarm at Sherpur, but the crisis was over. Mohammed Jan’s forces drifted southward away from the Nanachi gorge, and this gave MacGregor the opportunity to retrieve the spiked guns, which were dragged back to Sherpur, repaired and restored to service. Roberts soon had all his troops concentrated, apart from Baker’s force, and was reinforced at midnight when the bulk of the Guides Cavalry and Infantry reached Sherpur after a forced march. Although Mohammed Jan had missed an opportunity to cut off the British and Indian force from the camp, he had outmanoeuvred Roberts. MacPherson had averted disaster by his initiative and speedy march; Roberts, with the wings of panic and terror beating about Massy’s small force, had kept his head and acted quickly sending for the Highlanders. Poor intelligence and the unbroken string of victories had led him into the classic mistake of underestimating his enemy. He had lost thirty killed and forty-seven wounded, mostly from Massy’s force.6 The situation had been transformed and the British had been driven back in disorder. Roberts commented tersely in his diary for 11 December: ‘Great [large] fight – enemy beat back our Cavalry and four H[orse] A[rtillery] guns [lost]. MacPherson then beat them.’7 The Afghans had nearly repeated the annihilation of 1842. Luckily Baker arrived at 6.00 p.m. on 12 December with fresh strength, having been told by heliograph of the events of the 11th.
Roberts had tried on the 12th to recapture the initiative by sending a force under Lieutenant Colonel Money to dislodge Mohammed Jan’s forces from Takht-i-Shah, but he was held up by fierce resistance, ammunition ran low and Roberts decided to await the return of Baker’s Brigade before continuing the attack. On the 13th, Baker’s force, with its advanced guard under Major George White, attacked the heights and gained their first objective, advancing towards Money’s men. But when further parties of the enemy seized villages on the Sherpur road, cutting off Baker’s line of retreat, he had to attack and clear these villages. Then an urgent heliograph from Sherpur told him the enemy were advancing on the rear of the cantonment. The city and surrounding countryside were in general insurrection and Roberts had insufficient men to dominate the area. By the end of the 13th, he withdrew all troops to Sherpur except for Money’s force. The enemy had been dispersed whenever encountered, but Roberts had been unable to re-establish his dominance.
On the 14th, Baker was sent out again with a force of infantry, cavalry and guns against heights crowded with Afghans whose numbers were increasing and were so dense that when Roberts telegraphed to an outpost to know whether the enemy were in force on the plain to the west of Asmai, the answer was: ‘Yes, the plain reminds me of Epsom Downs on the Derby day.’8 Attacked in front and rear, the Afghan forces crumbled and by mid-morning the heights were in Baker’s hands. The triumph was short-lived, as fresh waves of Afghans advanced and threw themselves into the attack. After a gallant defence two guns and a key hill were lost and Gough was unable to restore the situation with cavalry. Roberts bowed to Afghan pressure at about 2.00 p.m. and recalled all his troops, the withdrawal successfully carried out despite overwhelming numbers. He greeted each unit personally as it marched in in good order. Total losses since 8 December had been eighty-one killed and 213 wounded. Lieutenant Combe wrote: ‘By Jove! ... within twenty-four hours we are locked up, closely besieged, after a jolly good licking and all communications with the outer world cut off.’9 Roberts noted in the margin of Surgeon Joshua Duke’s history: ‘We were overpowered and had to retire into Sherpur where everything had been prepared for such a contingency: food, forage and ammunition were there sufficient for the winter, and tho’ the position was larger than our force could conveniently defend, it was scarcely possible for us to be turned out of it. Treachery alone would have effected this.’ Yet had Sherpur been attacked that day by Mohammed Jan’s army, it might have fallen. Luckily, the Afghans were resting on their laurels, some looting the Hindu and Qizilbash* quarters, others clearing the Bala Hissar of the powder in the magazine. The looters made for houses of those who co-operated with the invaders. Sirdar Wali Mohammed, who was known to have been on good terms with the British invaders, slipped into Sherpur, while the ladies of his harem were stripped and searched by Afghans. All citizens of Kabul were ordered to hand over stocks of grain and food, the ex-Amir’s mother gave her jewels and personal fortune to the cause, and secured the nomination of Musa Khan, Yakub’s young son, as Amir.10
Roberts confided to his diary of the 15th: ‘Busy putting our defences into order. The enemy would have had a better chance if they had attacked last night.’ By the next day preparations were complete. All posts were withdrawn except Lataband, a commanding position which served as a link between Kabul and Jugdulluk, thus keeping open the route for Brigadier Charles Gough’s advance to Sherpur’s relief. A telegraph line connecting the two extremities of the Sherpur camp and some intervening points was invaluable when fog made flags and heliograph ineffective. The garrison had grain for men and forage for animals, ammunition and medical supplies. ‘I profited by the experience and soldierly instinct of my father, who served in the first Afghan War/ wrote Roberts. ‘He repeatedly warned ... of the necessity of rendering their position at Kabul secure; of the danger of ... placing the treasure and the commissariat stores outside the British entrenchment.’11
The Sherpur perimeter was about 5 miles, its east wall incomplete and northern face open. The garrison filled gaps with gun carriages and barbed-wire entanglements, and built trenches and a blockhouse to dominate the gorge through the Bemaru Heights. The elite Corps of Guides held the weakest parts. Roberts had some 7,000 men dispersed around the 8,000 yards. A massive assault might break through by sheer weight of numbers, but fortunately Mohammed Jan had no siege artillery. The snowy weather was intensely cold, and the men were given hot and nourishing drinks and four blankets. Sentries in their greatcoats were white figures standing rigidly like ghosts, the snowflakes softly covering them from head to foot and freezing as they fell. By contrast, Afghan sharpshooters could retire to the warmth of Kabul and the villages. Rumours of impending night attacks added to the strain which began to take a toll of the defenders, who were barely adequate to cover the perimeter.
Roberts had his work cut out to keep up morale at this stage. Durand recorded in his diary that for some days there had been something very like panic, ‘and officers bearing Her Majesty’s Commission were not ashamed to talk of the “luck” of men sent down invalided a few days ago’. It was hardly surprising that Roberts himself had felt moments of depression, but for the most part he kept his usual cheerful countenance, encouraged in the hope that Charles Gough’s Brigade, which had reached Lataband, would advance to his rescue.12
Two good auguries for the siege occurred on the first day: about noon the sun shone out through a cold leaden sky, and the besieged saw with pleasure the Lataband heliograph 21 miles away flashing; a short message was sent and received; then a lucky shot from Captain Campbell’s howitzer bounced at extreme range, landing in a hollow killing eight men.13 The defenders remained active, and a sortie mined a village obstructing their field of fire and blew it up. At Simla the Commander-in-Chief Haines had admired the calm and confident tone of Roberts�
�s communications. ‘People sleep better after Roberts’ telegrams ... He is certainly doing his work most admirably/ Haines commented in October. Suddenly, in early December, he realized the situation had changed and ordered men to be pushed forward from Peshawar. In fact, they were to have no influence.14
On 12 December, Roberts had telegraphed Bright who was to support him that he wanted Brigadier General Charles Gough’s Brigade despatched. Bright had ordered Gough not to advance until he received reinforcements but Gough moved forward to Jagdalak, gathering troops as he went. On the 20th it appeared the wings of panic were beating even around Roberts’s head, for he signalled Gough to advance to his succour. Neither man knew what forces lay between them. The line was cut immediately after the message arrived and Gough’s outposts were attacked, but ‘in a half-hearted way’, as Gough admitted. On 21 December, he set out for Kabul despite harsh conditions, snow on the ground, temperatures close to freezing, in fog and low cloud. As his column advanced they heard heavy firing from the direction of Kabul. Had Roberts’s force been destroyed?
On 22 December, Roberts had been warned by the servant of one of his cavalry rissalders that an assault was planned for the early hours of the following morning, the last day of the festival of Mohurram, the signal being the lighting of a bonfire on the Asmai Heights by the Mushk-i-Alam himself. There would be a demonstration against the south wall, but main attacks would be launched against Bemaru village and the east wall. If they succeeded, the attack on the south would be renewed. The troops spent the night rolled in their waterproof sheets and blankets beside their arms. Those on duty wore thick sheepskin jackets and Roberts ordered tinned soup or cocoa issued. Sentries heard the sound of wooden scaling ladders being dragged over frozen snow. An hour before dawn the troops stood to.
A shot rang out and then a brilliant, dazzling light from the Asmai Heights gave the signal for attack. Covered by fire from the King’s Garden, the Afghans rushed forward, first a decoy to the south, then the main attack along the lower eastern wall. The defenders heard the strange slapping sound of thousands of Afghan sandals on the snow and cries of ‘Allah il Allah!’ The attack was spearheaded by ghazis, religious fanatics prepared to sacrifice their lives. Roberts estimated their strength at 50,000, probably too many. MacGregor thought it about 15,000, but no doubt at least treble the defenders’ effective strength. The guns fired star shell to illuminate the advancing masses at a thousand yards, and the cries of the attackers merged in a roar with the fire of the defenders’ Martini-Henry and Snider rifles, the artillery’s case shot and high explosive. The defenders’ fire had awful effect and the attackers fell in scores. One large standard serving as a rallying point for the Afghans was borne along for many yards, then suddenly went down as the bearers fell under the defenders’ fire. Superior numbers could not prevail against disciplined, resourceful, well-armed defenders. The fiercest attack against the eastern perimeter was met by Roberts’s best troops, the Guides, the 28th Bengal Native Infantry, 67th Foot and 92nd Highlanders. At 10 o’clock the attack slackened and when resumed an hour later it was not pressed home with the same determination.
Roberts’s tactical timing did not desert him and he now ordered four guns escorted by cavalry to move out through the gorge in the Bemaru heights to bring flanking fire to bear on the Afghans near the eastern end of the heights. The Afghans began to evacuate this position. Just after midday, sensing that the turning point had come, Roberts despatched the remainder of the cavalry under Massy through the gorge, followed by Baker with Sappers and Miners, Highlanders and Sikhs, and two guns. Leaving Baker to sweep through the villages and enclosures east and south-east of Sherpur, Massy sent cavalry detachments to block different roads from the immediate vicinity. By now the Afghans were in full retreat, and more infantry moved out attacking villages and strongpoints. Through the afternoon the work of dislodging the enemy was pursued with grim severity. Corpses strewed the ground for upwards of half a mile or more on the line of retreat towards Kohistan. Two or three lancers or sowars were told off to each straggler, using their carbines when the Afghan had been hemmed in. Late in the afternoon the troops were recalled and manned the perimeter of the cantonment as before, but the battle was over.15 A supreme Afghan effort had failed and the point was hammered home when Brigadier Charles Gough’s force arrived unopposed next morning. He had advanced through a snowy, ominously silent, deserted country to be met a mile from Sherpur by a patrol of 12th Lancers and then Roberts himself. Gough had done well, and the Commander-in-Chief Haines recorded his ‘high appreciation of the very able and satisfactory manner in which Brigadier-General Gough conducted this extremely difficult operation’. Roberts thought he was too slow, which angered Gough, who continued to think Roberts had ordered him to advance through thousands of hostile Afghans ignoring military precautions. He admitted to his wife in a letter of 2 January 1880: ‘Roberts has lots of pluck and determination, and never gives way to any sort of despair,’ but he felt he had carelessly failed to anticipate the Afghan rising or fortify Sherpur sufficiently in time.16
In the semi-official Russian account, Major General Soboleff, sometime chief of the Asiatic Department of the Russian General Staff, wrote that Mohammed Jan had used the Ghilzais or Mujaheddin to attack Sherpur and pin down Roberts’s forces while he slipped away, and the manoeuvre ‘enabled this clever Afghan General to carry out one of the most difficult and complex of military manoeuvres – the orderly retreat of an army without loss.’17 This is difficult to prove, but may well be true. Nonetheless, both sides fought as if it were life and death at Sherpur, for three hours the issue hung in the balance and had the Afghans broken in, Roberts’s force would have been destroyed. He estimated enemy losses at 3,000; the British and Indians suffered only five killed and twenty-eight wounded. His diary for the 23rd reads proudly: ‘Grand day – beat off enemy and cleared them out of neighbouring villages.’ He sent telegrams to his wife and to the Viceroy, writing of his garrison in the snow: ‘All and every night in most severe weather officers and men were at their posts or sleeping with their arms in the vicinity of the trenches.’ ‘Hardships and exposure were cheerfully borne.’18
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Roberts discovered that the thousands who had opposed him had gone. Kabul and the Bala Hissar were swiftly occupied and cavalry were despatched to harry the retreating forces. Mohammed Jan, the Mushk-i-Alam, and the young, newly proclaimed Amir, Musa Jan, made good their escape to Ghazni. Around Sherpur, Roberts’s troops cleared every village and enclosure within a thousand yards, the Kabul River was bridged in three places, roads were laid out, and forts and blockhouses placed on heights and at other important points. Sherpur’s extended lines were not however impregnable, and a renewed large-scale attack would have tested Roberts’s force. The Hindu merchants of Kabul had had their shops and bazaars wrecked and plundered by the Afghans. They therefore took the view that 20,000 men were required to guard Sherpur and an equal force in the city, and being certain the British did not have these numbers, decamped to Peshawar.19 Roberts was nonetheless determined to maintain the initiative and sent cavalry to burn villages where there had been trouble. The village of Bagwhana, whose inhabitants took up arms and where Roberts nearly lost his life in a nullah, was put to the torch, and four headmen were taken to Kabul and hanged for alleged complicity in the deaths of Lieutenants Forbes and Hardy.20
Christmas passed with six inches of snow on the ground and sombre thoughts by the garrison of comrades lost. But on Hogmanay, New Year’s Eve, the Gordons celebrated in Scots style with pipers and grog, and at Roberts’s quarters they cheered, calling him from his bed to partake. He obeyed despite the objections of his staff who wanted their commander to enjoy a restful night. With good humour and an eye to morale, he said, ‘You have always answered when I called on you, and now I answer your call as readily.’ George White, sharing in the Gordons’ high spirits, sent festive greetings to his wife:
The March to Kandahar- Roberts in Afghanistan Page 13