Chapman described the careful arrangements in a paper later given to the Royal United Services Institute in London. An officer of the Quartermaster General’s department was specially entrusted with the duty of gaining intelligence through Afghan agents. Copies of maps prepared during Stewart’s march had not reached Kabul from India in August, but tracings of original sheets were supplied to brigades and were copied to regiments so that the officers could have a general idea of the country. An extra tin of pea soup was issued to every two British soldiers, usually eaten before the march, extra rum to those who drank spirits, and extra meat to those not taking rum. Thirty days’ supply of basic rations were taken, plus a few days of mutton on the hoof; the villagers proved willing to sell their houses for firewood. Quartermaster Major Badcock recorded that they came in freely and forage was ‘in abundance’, proof of Abdur Rahman’s co-operation5
Roberts and his staff had their work cut out for them with the long days, heat and dust, bitter cold at night, a column of 10,000 men and three-quarters that number of camp followers straggling along with impractical footwear, and many beasts of burden, the head of the column 7 miles ahead of the tail, and only the invaluable heliograph enabling them to keep in touch and save delays. Shortage of water was a constant problem, aggravated by the thick choking dust thrown up by the columns and temperatures soon rising over 100° Fahrenheit. The tail of the column arrived late after the day’s march and some men fell out from exhaustion, having had little sleep. The work of the men was increased by night guards, and parties to collect firewood and cut forage for the animals; George White told the Viceroy: ‘I was very tired every day, although I had a horse to ride on the march, and no fatigues nor working parties after it was over.’ The troops, however, mostly remained in good form, encouraged by a tot of rum on arrival at camp, but the bulk of the followers and especially the doolie-bearers were in increasingly bad shape. Periodically a bitter wind swept across the Afghan plateau and through the passes, chilling these inadequately dressed followers. Behind the column Afghans hovered, looking for plunder or hoping to a send a hated unbeliever to eternal perdition. Rearguard duty became more and more irksome, the camp followers becoming so weary and footsore that some hid themselves in ravines, making up their minds to die, and entreating when discovered to be left where they were. Every baggage animal that could possibly be spared was used to carry the worn-out followers. Roberts always rode forward after the breakfast halt, chose that night’s camping ground, and then sometimes rested, but often rode back for miles to meet troops and cheer them by the news that camp was near. The order would then be given for bands to strike up, and the men would finish the march with renewed spirit. Roberts wrote in his diary for his wife:
As soon as I am satisfied with the ground for our encampment ... I then eat 2 or 3 hardboiled eggs, or a bit of cold chicken I carry with me and drink some cold tea. This quite refreshes me and if there is any shade obtainable ... I take a short snooze until the troops arrive. I always go out and see them march in. The men like it ... It shows them all that I take an interest in them, and that I don’t take shelter or get rest before them.6
Two days beyond Ghazni, with 133 miles covered, he received a letter from an outpost commander reporting Kandahar closely invested. Four days later, on 21 August, he received a heliograph message of a disastrous sortie five days before against Ayub’s force which resulted in severe losses.
After the return of the Maiwand Brigade, the Kandahar garrison had 450 sick and wounded men to care for, leaving 3,250 men to defend the walls, by no means a large force for a perimeter of 6,000 yards. The expulsion of the male Pathans of fighting age from the city made the task easier. Brooke, a man of spirit, had embarked on an active defence, leading sorties to destroy enclosures around the city which might provide cover for snipers. On the 12th, the defenders sallied out into a walled, loopholed orchard and suffered losses while inflicting even more. ‘I think this will be the last of our excursions outside,’ wrote the Revd Cane. ‘It is getting a bit too hot for us.’ Cane tried to cheer up those with long faces, but many remembered only too vividly the horrors of the retreat from Maiwand. Nonetheless, the siege was desultory and the investment incomplete, making possible sallies by Brooke and by the cavalry. Water could be brought in. There was plenty of food, but grain and hay for the animals was rationed. On 13 August, Ayub occupied closer villages northeast of the city and it was reported he was preparing scaling ladders. The chief Royal Engineer, Colonel Hills, prepared a plan for a sortie into Deh Kwaja, the closer and larger of the two nearest villages, to destroy enemy guns and loopholed walls. Brooke was inevitably chosen to lead the venture, but he was against the plan, believing advantages gained would not be commensurate with losses.
Early on the morning of 16 August, a hundred cavalrymen were sent out unseen round to the south-east of Deh Kwaja. Then, following a bombardment of half an hour, Brooke led 800 infantry supported by 100 cavalrymen directly into the village. The preliminary bombardment had warned every Afghan for miles about, who streamed to help the garrison of the threatened village, while the initial cavalry force, by cutting off Afghan retreat actually prevented them from running away. Instead, they fought resolutely from stronghold to stronghold. The columns came under heavy fire and many were hit. Primrose decided to recall them, but did so with a bugler sounding the retreat from the battlements of Kandahar, which also told the Afghans what was happening. As Brooke and his men fought their way desperately back towards Kandahar, Primrose and Hills watching on the walls engaged in angry mutual recriminations over the plan. Brooke refused to abandon Captain Cruikshank of the Royal Engineers who had been badly wounded while blowing up houses in the centre of the village, and for him the delay proved fatal. He fell dead, shot through the back from the walls they had just abandoned, and the men had to give way to a furious ghazi charge, abandoning the Brigadier’s body and leaving Cruikshank to his fate. The losses were 108 dead and 116 wounded, too many for a garrison with extended defences. Revd Cane summed up the widely held view: ‘[The sortie] has weakened our garrison and dispirited our men ... General Brooke was a man we could ill spare & poor Cruickshank was one of those good, hardworking fellows one does not often meet with ... I hope General Roberts is not more than 10 days off. I have a fearful lot of sick & wounded to visit now.’
In fact, among the besiegers there was also disillusion and sinking morale by now, for Brooke’s sortie had inflicted serious losses among Ayub’s high-ranking friends and relatives in Deh Kwaja, who it was intended would play a part in his planned general assault. Indeed, the fighting spirit shown by Brooke’s force caused Ayub to withdraw, leaving the siege very much an open affair. That Brooke was the life and soul of the garrison was shown by Primrose’s supine lack of enterprise over the following days. Wrote Cane angrily:
Here we are – not one of the enemy in sight & we remain doing nothing & waiting for 15,000 men to come & relieve us!... Our generals seem to have lost their senses. The whole garrison is wild with indignation. We have about 1,000 cavalry eating their heads off & not one outside the gates. General Primrose is responsible. I always put him down as an old woman.
Then, on 26 August, Cane happily recorded the flash of a heliograph from Roberts’s force.7
The last section of the march had been more easily completed than the first two. On 23 August, at Khelat-i-Ghilzai where there was ample water and forage, Roberts heard that the Kandahar garrison, although closely shut up, was no longer in immediate danger, and gave his men a day’s rest. Lieutenant Robertson recorded his gratitude for a full night’s rest instead of the three hours sleep he had been having nightly. The Bombay sepoys of the Khelat garrison told frightful stories of Ayub’s numbers and invincibility, warning Roberts’s Sikhs and Gurkhas that they had but a week more to live. Roberts’s answer was to take the garrison with him as he pushed on, two companies of the 66th, the 2nd Baluchis, and a hundred of the Sind Horse, 966 men in all.8 The following day he received a letter fro
m Kandahar informing him that Ayub had withdrawn his siege and shifted his camp. On the morning of the 27th, Gough was sent forward with two cavalry regiments, covering the 34 miles to Robat in ten hours while the main column advanced about halfway. Gough was accompanied by Captain Stratton, the principal signaller, who contacted Kandahar by heliograph. He then signalled Roberts that Ayub was well entrenched west of Kandahar and strengthening his position for the coming battle. On 28 August, the Political Officer, St John, and Major Adam, Primrose’s Chief of Staff, rode out from Kandahar to discuss the situation. Roberts sent Badcock and Low, his quartermasters, to see to provisions. Major Leach was commissioned to prepare a detailed map of the country between Kandahar and Argandab, where the coming battle would most likely be fought. Meanwhile, Ayub sent an emissary to offer terms, claiming that he had been forced to fight at Maiwand by Burrows attacking him. Roberts was not impressed, and told him to give up his prisoners and surrender unconditionally to the authorities at Kandahar.
Despite his energy, Roberts himself felt knocked up by the heat and sun, and on the 27th was overcome by fever and was compelled to be carried in a doolie, a sick cart, ‘a most ignominious mode of conveyance for a General on service’. In the journal letter he kept for his wife he first mentioned the illness only on the morning of 1 September as ‘a very nasty fever ... quite the worst attack I have had for some years, and in the great heat regularly floored me.’ With a sick list averaging 550 daily from poor food, blistered feet from the impractical boots and sandals, heat stroke and exhaustion – but only nine soldiers and eleven followers killed or missing, the latter probably murdered by tribesmen prowling at night – Roberts wanted a pause. The state of the soldiers’ footwear can be judged from his telegram requesting boots for most of his soldiers and ‘that several thousand pairs will be sent to Kandahar, and also shoes for the 92nd Highlanders and great coats, as only a hundred remained fit to be worn, and these were worn by rotation for night duties’.9
Meanwhile, Roberts divided the last 20 miles into two short marches in order that men and animals might arrive as fresh as possible, and on the morning of the 31st they marched into Kandahar, just over 313 miles from Kabul. The fever left him extremely weak and he was carried in a litter until 2 or 3 miles from Kandahar. Then he mounted his famous grey, Vonolel, to meet General Primrose and Brigadier Burrows, who came out to receive the column. There are conflicting accounts of the state of the garrison. It appears that only some officers and men crowded round the new arrivals, ‘loud in their expressions of gratitude for our having come so quickly to their assistance’. Roberts was scathing in his memoirs about the morale of those besieged, and that they had not hoisted the Union Jack as a sign of defiance until the relieving force was close at hand. General Vaughan, correspondent of The Times, and Lieutenant Travers of the Gurkhas, wrote of the garrison’s air of depression and that there was no greeting with bands and music. ‘The appearance of the place was depressing in the extreme,’ wrote George White. ‘A few soldiers, white and black, stood on the walls; very few came out to meet us. No bands nor music & not a cheer.’ ‘Say what apologists may, the garrison had distinctly lost heart,’ wrote Major Gerard of the cavalry later. ‘One old brother officer of mine, who had been present at Maiwand, was especially outspoken on the subject.’ Nor were the besieged confident at Roberts choosing to camp on the enemy’s side of Kandahar. Did Roberts and the others exaggerate the poor morale of the garrison? Revd Cane thought the trouble was the garrison commanders, not the men: T always put [General Primrose] down as an old woman. I now find he is indolent, vacillating & without a single idea beyond extreme caution... I suppose that a division has scarcely ever before been under such an effete lot of commanders.’10
During his second halt, at Robat on the 29th, Roberts had received a letter from Major General Phayre which put out of the question all hope of co-operation by the forces advancing from Quetta, the leading brigade being still occupied in the passage of the Kojak Pass. Phayre’s column had not set out from Quetta until 21 August, and had undergone severe privations. Behind the comments of observers who wrote with wry smiles of ‘the race for the peerage’ was the assumption that Roberts had the pick of the Indian Army to avenge Maiwand. Help from Phayre would have assisted materially in the battle, but on 3 September, two days after Roberts’s decisive victory, he was still 26 miles away.11
Roberts, senior to Primrose, assumed command as Simla meant him to do. It was not in his nature to delay. He already had a good idea of the enemy’s situation from Major Adam, and that afternoon Gough, with the 3rd Bengal Cavalry, infantry and two guns, accompanied by Chapman, conducted a close reconnaissance. He was pressed by the enemy and the whole of Roberts’s force stood to arms as he fell back. He now had a full picture of enemy dispositions, supplemented by Roberts – ‘seedy as I was’ – struggling up a hill for a view. Gough’s withdrawal was interpreted by Ayub’s men as the defeat of a British assault, increasing their confidence that they could stand their ground. During the night piquets of MacGregor’s 3rd Brigade came under attack, and at daybreak the men stood to arms. At 6.00 a.m. they were dismissed for breakfast and tents were struck, while Roberts summoned his senior officers and issued orders for the attack.
Ayub had skilfully posted his men behind a line of serrated ridges 3 miles distant in the Argandab Valley. The Baba Wali Kotal breached this, but so strong were Ayub’s defences that an attack into this gap was an invitation to disaster, as Gough’s reconnaissance had seen. Instead, the southern end of the ridge terminating in Pir Paimal Hill left another gap through which a force might attempt a turning movement, and Major Adam had recommended this route. The obstacles were fire from guns on Pir Paimal Hill and the stony villages with enclosed orchards and gardens providing strongpoints for defence. Roberts’s plan was similar to those for the Peiwar Kotal and Charasia. He ordered Primrose’s Bombay troops to make a feint against the Baba Wali pass while he launched the main attack round the southern end of Pir Paimal, intending then to sweep northwards along its western slopes to attack Ayub’s camp. Gough would take the cavalry across the Argandab and by a wider march cut off the Afghans’ likely route of retreat. Enemy strength was estimated at 4,800 regulars with thirty-two guns, and 8,000 irregulars and tribesmen. Haines had warned that Ayub’s troops were better than any so far faced in Afghan battle, although the correspondent Hensman thought their strength lay in the undrilled fanatical ghazis in their white costumes representing the purity of the devout, but only a third of the latter had rifles. The Afghan regulars carried Martinis, Sniders, Enfields and old-fashioned matchlocks or jezails. Some were dressed in the full kit of the 66th Regiment, taken from bodies at Maiwand.12
Battle of Kandhahar
Roberts deployed nearly 11,000 men and thirty-two guns. MacPherson’s and Baker’s 1st and 2nd Brigades would carry out the main attack, with MacGregor’s 3rd Brigade in support. Hanna, historian of the war, thought Roberts’s plan of battle was both simple and sound, every major and minor unit supporting the rest.13
Whether by anticipation or chance, Ayub, who had proved himself a resourceful commander, reinforced the two villages of Abbassabad and Gundimullah during the night. His apparent victory the previous day had given his men great heart and morale was high. It was the same among Roberts’s regiments. By 9.00 a.m. on 1 September, British and Indian troops had breakfasted and were in position, and Roberts took his place on Karez Hill. Brilliant sunshine shone out of a clear late summer sky. A tough battle was anticipated and Roberts allowed two days to achieve victory. Pir Paimal Hill immediately to his front, which concealed Ayub’s camp on the Argandab, was 500 or 600 feet high, and bright with the standards of crowds of tribesmen along the skyline. Almost at its foot the large village of Gundimullah, whose flat-roofed houses, built upon a knoll, rose tier upon tier, was simply black with the heads of the enemy. Gundigan to its left was equally strongly held.
The British guns opened the ball, first the 40-pounders brought from Kandahar�
��s walls, then the screw guns of Roberts’s force, and the feint attack was made by the Bombay troops on the enemy’s left flank opposite Baba Wali. It was a sensible gesture to use them, but their role was subsidiary: Roberts had marched his elite troops from Kabul for one purpose, to beat Ayub. Against the Afghan right, leading regiments of MacPherson’s and Baker’s brigades advanced, the Gordons in magnificent style. So clear was the air that cavalry onlookers could see their kilts waving. As a tremendous but ill-directed fire was opened upon them, George White dashed forward at their head. At Maiwand the Afghan artillery had had a static target. Now the speed of advance and the counter-battery fire rendered the guns ineffectual. The 2nd Gurkhas who had been working their way round on the left sprang up and raced the Scotsmen into attack. The Seaforths and 2nd Sikhs of Baker’s Brigade took a wider curve to storm to the village of Gundigan. The walled orchards and gardens, numerous enclosures and irrigation canals favoured defence, and the Afghans resisted fiercely. Gundimullah was taken in tough hand-to-hand fighting, and the dense network of walled enclosures and orchards around Gundigan was captured shortly afterward. Baker’s force overcame fierce resistance, but the Seaforths lost their commander, Brownlow, mortally wounded by a shot in the throat.
MacPherson’s Brigade, hugging the face of the Pir Paimal ridge, advanced against fierce resistance by a series of rushes. White, as always in the thick of the fighting, was astonished at the speed of the Gurkhas’ and Highlanders’ advance, the little Nepalese and the burly Scotsmen vying with one another. Brigadier MacPherson, ‘cool as a cucumber’ (in White’s words), led from the front. At last, fearing encirclement now Pir Paimal was lost, the Afghans began to abandon their positions and make off through orchards and gardens fringing the east bank of the Argandab, a continuous black stream of fugitives followed by lighter figures in khaki firing into them at close quarters.
The March to Kandahar- Roberts in Afghanistan Page 17