The March to Kandahar- Roberts in Afghanistan

by Rodney Atwood

  2. Moorhouse, G., India Britannica, London, 1983, pp. 161-4 for modernizing.

  3. Roberts family and his background see Bayley, W.J., “The Roberts Family of Waterf ord’, Journal of the Waterford and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, ii (1895), pp. 98-103; grandmother a Rajput: Moorhouse, India Britannica, p. 184; his half-brother: Dalrymple, W., The Last Mughal: the Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857, London, 2006, pp. 291-2; Saksena, R.B., European & Indo-European Poets of Urdu & Persian, Lucknow, 1941, pp. 128-53. In 1911 Eurasians were officially dubbed ‘Anglo-Indians’. His blindness in one eye was not widely known and was revealed to a wider public by the Daily Express of 28 October 1930. See NAM, Ellison papers 8704-35-711.

  4. Parents’ ambitions: The Times, 30 September 1932, p. 13, ‘Field Marshal Lord Roberts – Field Marshal and Reformer – Some Personal Memories’ by Brigadier General H.F.E. Lewin and from the preface of Letters written during the Indian Mutiny by Fred. Roberts. Afterwards Field-Marshal Earl Roberts. With a preface by his daughter Countess Roberts, London, 1924. His letter is quoted on p. xviii.

  5. Bobs 5504-64, item No. 9, final Addiscombe report; 41 Yrs, I, p. 1; Adams, R.J.Q., ‘Field Marshal Earl Roberts: Army and Empire’, in J.A. Thompson and Arthur Meija, Edwardian Conservatism, London, 1988, p. 41.

  6. Roberts’s early career in India; 41 Yrs and James, D., Field Marshal Lord Roberts, London, 1954, pp. 15-16. Information about artillery service on the frontier from Will Townend and Tony Young of the Royal Artillery Historical Society; loose formations, see Moreman, T.R., The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare, 1849-1947, London, 1998, pp. 13-15.

  7. Rapid rise in QMG’s department, Bobs 225, ‘Some turning points of my career’.

  8. For Mutiny background see inter alia Hibbert, C, The Great Mutiny: India 1857, London, 1978, pp. 1-78; David, S., The Indian Mutiny 1857, London, 2002, pp. 1-77; James, L., Raj: the Making of British India, London, 1998, pp. 221-38; Spear, P., Penguin History of India, vol. II, London, 1990, pp. 139-41; Sen, S.N., Eighteen Fifty-Seven, Calcutta, 1957.

  9. Incompetent British leaders: Roberts, Indian Mutiny Letters, pp. 2-15; Hibbert, The Great Mutiny, pp. 120-1.

  10. Nicholson: 41 Yrs, I, pp. 59-60; Roberts, Indian Mutiny Letters, p. 7; Fortescue, Sir J., A History of the British Army, 13 vols, 1899-1930, xii, p. 474 and Allen, C, Soldier Sahibs: the Men who Made the Northwest Frontier, London, 2001, pp. 44-7, 53-6 and 163-7.

  11. David, Indian Mutiny, pp. 143-4 and Allen, Soldier Sahibs, p. 276.

  12. Allen, Soldier Sahibs, p. 290; 41 Yrs, I, pp. 129-30.

  13. Porter, B., The Lion’s Share: a Short History of British Imperialism 1850–1995, London and New York, 1996, p. 43.

  14. Roberts, Indian Mutiny Letters, pp. 24-5.

  15. Allen, Soldier Sahibs, pp. 323-7 and Roberts, Indian Mutiny Letters, pp. 58-61.

  16. Roberts, Indian Mutiny Letters, pp. 59-60; 41 Yrs, I, pp. 258-9.

  17. Forbes-Mitchell, W., The Relief of Lucknow, London, 1962, originally published 1893, pp. 36-7.

  18. Roberts, Indian Mutiny Letters, pp. 29 & 120-1: Hope-Grant’s despatch in Bobs 5504-64, No. 15, 8 February 1858; Colonel Wemyss Fielden in Kipling, R., Something of Myself, London, 1937, pp. 193-4.

  19. Jones, Captain O., Recollections of a Winter Campaign in India 1857-8, London, 1859.

  Chapter 2

  1. 41 Yrs, I, pp. 25-6.

  2. Jones, Recollections of a Winter Campaign, p. 145.

  3. Roberts, Indian Mutiny Letters, p. 119.

  4. Details of courtship, early marriage and C-in-C’s words: Lady Roberts’s obituary, The Times, 22 December 1920, p. 13; 41 Yrs, I, pp. 459-60, 471 & 473-4.

  5. Burne, Major General Sir O.T., Memories, London, 1907, pp. 48 & 50.

  6. 41 Yrs, I, p. 489 & II, pp. 26-7; James, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, p. 63.

  7. Saksena, European & Indo-European Poets, pp. 128-53; from Dalrymple, Last Mughal, pp. 291-2 one could easily think his role much more active; Abraham Roberts’s biographer, Lieutenant Colonel I. Edwards-Stewart, does not mention the illegitimate children in A John Company General: the Life ofLt. General Sir Abraham Roberts, Bognor Regis, 1983. Tony Heathcote kindly pointed out the reference in Dalrymple to me.

  8. 41 Yrs, II, pp. 387-8; Gilmour, D., The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj, London, 2006; Spear, Penguin History of India, II, pp. 145-55; Fergusson, N., Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, London, 2003, pp. 168-88 & 215-18; Porter, Lion’s Share, pp. 37-48.

  9. Army reforms: Spiers, E.M., Army and Society 1815-1914, London, 1980, pp. 135-40; Heathcote, T.A., The Military in British India, Manchester, 1995, pp. 119-23; MacMunn, Major G.F., The Armies of India, London, 1911, Chapter iv.

  10. 41 Yrs, I, p. 454; Bobs 225, ‘Some turning points’; Robson, B., ‘Roberts’, ODNB.

  11. James, Lord Roberts, p. 61.

  12. Elsmie, Stewart, pp. 15 & 186; 41 Yrs, II, pp. 29-30.

  13. Robson, B. (ed.), Roberts in India: The Military Papers of Field Marshal Lord Roberts 1876-1893, Stroud, 1993, p. 7, letter of 21 May 1874; Bobs 49, R to Napier, 11 June 1874 and Bobs 49, Napier to R, 21 January 1879; James, Lord Roberts, p. 68 mentions a difficult relationship at first; but the letters exchanged with Napier in Bobs 49 speak clearly of their mutual admiration; 41 Yrs, II, p. 71; IOL, Mss Eur. F234,3, vol. Ill, R to Grant Duff, 11 August 1883.

  14. Elsmie, Stewart, pp. 186-7.

  15. Mayo’s assassination: ibid., pp. 191-4.

  16. Heathcote, Afghan Wars, pp. 88-9.; James, Roberts, pp. 77-8; Preston, A., ‘Sir Charles MacGregor and the Defence of India, 1857-1887’, The Historical Journal, XII, I (1969), p. 70; Sykes, Durand, pp. 81-6.

  Chapter 3

  1. Blake, R., Disraeli, London, 1966, pp. 760 & 765; E.J. Feuchtwanger, Democracy and Empire: Britain 1865-1914, London, 1989, pp. 129-31; Porter, The Lion’s Share, chapter III.

  2. Mary Lutyens, The Lyttons in India: an Account of Lord Lytton’s Viceroyalty 1876-1880, London, 1979, pp. 96-7 & 155; Gopal, S., British Policy in India 1858-1905, Cambridge, 1965, p. 66; Blake, Disraeli, p. 656; Washbrook, D., ‘Lytton’, ODNB.

  3. Bobs 225 ‘Some turning points’; Robson, Roberts in India, p. 1; ibid., p. 423nl notes that the paper is not extant; Balfour, Lady B., The History of Lord Lytton’s Indian Administration 1876 to 1880, London, 1899, p. 51.

  4. Blood, General Sir B., Fourscore Years and Ten, London, 1933, pp. 140ff; Conn, Bernard S., ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India’, in Eric Hosbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 186-7; Roberts, A., Salisbury: Victorian Titan, London, 1999, p. 215; Lytton, Robert, 1st Earl, Personal and Literary Letters, 2 vols, London, 1906, II, pp. 48-9.

  5. Balfour, Lytton’s Indian Administration, pp. 114 & 189-239; Moon, Sir P., The British Conquest and Dominion of India, London, 1989, pp. 841-4.

  6. Rait, R.S., The Life of Field Marshal Sir Frederick Paul Haines, London, 1911, p. 212.

  7. Preston, ‘Sir Charles MacGregor and the Defence of India, pp. 70-2; Preston, ‘Wolseley, the Khartoum Relief Expedition and the Defence of India’, p. 260.

  8. Robson, Roberts in India, p. 3; 41 Yrs, II, pp. 100-2.

  9. 41 Yrs, ii, p. 107.

  10. Preston, ‘Sir Charles MacGregor’, pp. 64-5 & 67. Trousdale deals mainly with the war, trivializes MacGregor’s writings and dwells at length on his (and Roberts’s) defects of character. 41 Yrs, ii, pp. 103 et seq. for forward school’s arguments; p. 105n similar circumstances preceding both 1st and 2nd Afghan Wars, i.e. Russian officers at Kabul.

  11. Hanna, I, pp. 183-93; James, Raj, pp. 372-3.

  12. Balfour, Lord Lytton’s Indian Administration, pp. 39-40 and 51; NAM, 9011-42-13, No. 18, Spenser Wilkinson papers, Wm Nicholson to Wilkinson, 15 September 1893.

  13. MacGregor, II, pp. 108-9.

  14. Roberts, P.E., History of British India under the Company and the Crown, Oxford, 1977, p. 434.

  15. Blake, Disraeli, pp. 575 et seq.

>   16. G.W. Forrest, The Life of Field Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, Edinburgh and London, 1909, pp. 476-7.

  17. Robson (ed.), Roberts in India, pp. 47-8; Forrest, Sir Neville Chamberlain, pp. 480-2 & 484-5; Cavagnari had hoped to precipitate matters by a coup de main, seizing Ali Masjid by surprise attack. See Beckett, I.F.W., The Victorians at War, London, 2003, pp. 113-20.

  18. That Lytton’s was the chief responsibility is admitted by nearly all authorities. His justification is in IOL L/P & S 20/MEMO5/5, Memorandum by Sir O.T. Burne. MEM05/1.

  19. Blake, Disraeli, pp. 662-3.

  20. Forrest, Sir Neville Chamberlain, p. 485.

  21. Roberts, History of British India, p. 441; IOL, Mss Eur. C336, Notes by Sir Torick Ameer Ali, p. 15; Northbrook’s responsibility: Preston, ‘Sir Charles MacGregor’, pp. 70-2; Hanna’s views, I, pp. 278-9 and Lord Roberts in War, pp. 10-11.

  22. IOL Mss Eur. D1227/1, f.6, Melgund to mother, 22 January 1879.

  23. Bobs 92-18.

  24. Lytton, Personal & Literary Letters, II, p. 133.

  25. Bobs 92-18; Robson, pp. 71-3 & 80.

  Chapter 4

  1. Lutyens, Lyttons in India, p. 140; Hanna, I, pp. 320-53; Elsmie, Stewart, p. 214; Robson, p. 69.

  2. Heathcote, Afghan Wars, pp. 103-4; Anglesey, Marquess of, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816-1919, 5 vols, London, 1973-1986, III, p. 159; Sandes, E.W.C., The Military Engineer in India, 2 vols, Chatham, 1933-5, I, p. 379; IOL, Mss Eur. F108/101(a), P6/9, 13 March 1879.

  3. IOL, L/MIL/5/678 No. 2538 including despatch 5 December 1878 for Roberts’s quote; L/MIL/5/679, No.4749, information from Russian sources; Soboleff, Major General L.N., The Anglo-Afghan Struggle, translated by Major Gowan, Calcutta, 1885, p. 40; Robson, pp. 18-21 & 66-7; Durand, Sir M., The Life of Field Marshal Sir George White, V.C., 2 vols, London, 1915, p. 162; Gerard, Lieutenant General Sir M.G., Leaves from the Diary of a Soldier and Sportsman 1865-1885, London, 1903, pp. 229-30 & 310-11 including -bullets from Dum-Dum’.

  4. Heathcote, Afghan Wars, pp. 105-6; Elsmie, Stewart, pp. 215-18.

  5. Hanna, I, pp. 330-2.

  6. Ibid., I, pp. 279 & 336; Heathcote, Afghan Wars, p. 104: Robson, p. 80.

  7. MacGregor, II, p. 157.

  8. Sykes, Sir Mortimer Durand, p. 89.

  9. The battle: IOL, L/MIL/5/678, No. 2538 incl. Roberts’s despatch 5 December 1878; MacGregor, II, pp. 158-68; Hanna, II, pp. 80-5; Robson, pp. 80-6; Heathcote, The Afghan Wars, pp. 106-10 with a good illustration; Hanna, Lord Roberts in War, pp. 17-19; Roberts’s success: C.G. Robertson, Kurum, Kabul & Kandahar, Edinburgh, 1881, pp. 41-2; Robson, p. 115n; Rait, Haines, p. 254; NAM, Haines papers 8108/9-44, No. 23. For doubts see No. 21.

  10. Bobs, 147-2, Colley to Roberts, 8 December 1878.

  11. Hanna, II, pp. 97-8 and nl.

  12. Bobs 92-18 diary for 1878 for ‘I am glad it is all over’; IOL, Mss Eur. C212/2, ff.8-9; 41 Yrs, II, pp. 149-56.

  13. Hanna, II, p. 201, nl.

  14. Ibid., II, pp. 144 et seq.; Robson, p. 157.

  15. MacGregor, II, pp. 178-80; Colquhoun, Major J.A.S., With the Kurram Field Force 1878-9, London, 1881, pp. 204-5.; IOL 17/14/35, ‘Papers relating to proceedings of Major General Roberts’, report of Major Collis, 20 March 1879; IOL, L/P & S/MEMO 2, copy of report of Major General Roberts in the Khost Valley; Hanna, II, pp. 205-29.

  16. Hanna, II, pp. 205-29; Robson, pp. 92-4 ; Bobs 160, R. to Major General Martin Dillon, 7 February 1879. Hanna, Lord Roberts in War, pp. 22-3, argues that the raid was unnecessary and leaves a slur on his reputation. The last would be true if anyone remembered it; the former is easier seen in retrospect.

  17. Robson (ed.), Roberts in India, pp. 81-3 & 85-7; IOL L/MIL/17/ 14/35, ‘Return to an Address of ... the Commons, dated 16 June 1879 ... relating to the Proceedings ... in the Khost Valley’.

  18. Vaughan, General Sir J.L., My Service in the Indian Army – and After, London, 1904, pp. 181-2 & 191. See the hostile assessment by Hanna, II, p. 314n.

  19. Hanna, II, pp. 133 et seq.; Heathcote, Afghan Wars, p. 112.

  20. Blake, Disraeli, pp. 666-72.

  21. Vaughan, Service in the Indian Army, p. 196.

  22. Hanna, II, p. 345; Heathcote, Afghan Wars, pp. 112-13; Robson, pp.111-13.

  23. Heathcote, Afghan Wars, p. 114.

  24. Robson, p. 214.

  Chapter 5

  1. 41 Yrs, II, pp. 177-9; IOL, L/MIL/5/681, No. 7119a, 20 July 1879; NLS, Minto letters, Lady R to Minto, 27 October 1879.

  2. Forrest, Neville Chamberlain, p. 494; Ensor, R.C.K., England 1870-1914, Oxford, 1960 (originally published 1936), p. 63n2.

  3. Lutyens, Lyttons in India, p. 158.

  4. MacGregor, II, pp. 281-7 incl. account of Risaldar-Major Kakshband Khan; Younghusband, Colonel G.J., The Story of the Guides, London, 1908, pp. 97-116; IOL, Mss Eur. C212/2, ff. 16 & 17.

  5. IOL, Mss Eur. C405, Duke, p. 405; see also IOL/P & S 20/MEMO5/6, report of commission investigating.

  6. Heathcote, Afghan Wars, pp. 117-18; Lutyens, Lyttons in India, p. 159; Hanna, III, p. 42.

  7. P. Fredericks, The Sepoy and the Cossack, London, 1972, p. 210.

  8. Blake, Disraeli, p. 674.

  9. MacGregor, II, pp. 3-5; Hanna, III, p. 44; Durand, Sir George White, I, p. 166.

  10. NAM, Gough papers, 8304-32-222, 22 March 1880, italics original; MacGregor, III, pp. 4-5; NLS, Minto papers, Lady Roberts to Melgund, 27 October 1879 & 24 March 1880; Sykes, P., Sir Mortimer Durand, London, 1926, p. 89.

  11. 41 Yrs, II, pp. 186-7.

  12. Robson, Roberts in India, pp. 119-22.

  13. Ibid., pp. 123-4; Heathcote, Afghan Wars, p. 119.

  14. Sykes, Sir Mortimer Durand, p. 62; Bobs 92-19; IOL, Mss Eur. F108/ 101(a), P.6/33,15 September 1879; F108/97(a), 24 November 1879; Durand, Sir George White, p. 162.

  15. Colquhoun, With the Kurram Field Force, pp. 327-8 & 339.

  16. IOL, L/P & S/MEMO 3; Soboleff, Anglo-Afghan Struggle, pp. 50-1.

  17. NAM 7804-16-8 and 9, 18 & 20 September 1879; MacGregor, III, pp. 5-7; Hensman, Howard, The Afghan War, London, 1881, p. 5; Fredericks, Sepoy and Cossack, p. 211; ‘bare bones and sores’ is from Sykes, Durand, p. 90. See Russian praise: Soboleff, Anglo-Afghan Struggle, pp. 55 & 58.

  18. Vaughan, My Service, p. 212.

  19. Hanna, III, pp. 45-6; ‘I think all this blackmail’ is in Sir CM. MacGregor, The Life and Opinions, edited by Lady MacGregor, 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1888, II, p. 107.

  20. IOL, Mss Eur. C405; Duke, J., Recollections of the Cabul Campaign 1879 and 1880, London, 1882, p. 113; Robson, Roberts in India, p. 125; Hanna, III, p. 56; Trousdale, pp. 91-2.

  21. Bobs 92-19; Trousdale, p. 99; Robson, Roberts in India, p. 125.

  22. Trousdale, pp. 104-5; Robson, pp. 123-6.

  23. Robson, Roberts in India, pp. 122-4, letters of 12 & 13 September 1879.

  24. Sykes, Sir Mortimer Durand, p. 95.

  25. Robson, Roberts in India, pp. 129-133, telegrams of 13 & 21 October 1879.

  26. 41 Yrs, II, pp. 202-6.

  27. The Second Afghan War. Abridged and re-edited in the Intelligence Branch of the QMG’s department, Simla by Lieutenant F.G. Cardew, Calcutta, 1897,1, pp. 204-5.

  28. IOL, Mss Eur F108/98(a), P3/57, White to brother, 15 November 1879, and F108/1, mss copy, letter of Major Hammond, 3 December 1879 for ‘Major White then led’.

  29. Soboleff, Anglo-Afghan Struggle, p. 58.

  30. Battle of Charasia: IOL, L/MIL/5/681, Nos. 7959 & 7961 end. R’s despatches 20 and 22 November 1879; MacGregor, III, pp. 29-33; IOL, Mss Eur. F108/101(a) 6/36a, White to his wife; Hanna, III, pp. 77-9; Robson, pp. 128-9. White was recommended for the VC thrice, being turned down firstly because he was ‘only doing his duty’. See Durand, Sir George White, I, pp. 247, 263, 267 & 275.

  31. IOL, Mss Eur. F108/101(a), P6/36, letter of 15-17 October 1879; SOAS Library, PP MS 55/31, Durand to sister, No. 19, 26 October 1879.

  32. IOL, L/MIL/5/681, No. 7959. Major General Greaves AG to Colonel Johnson,
Sec Mil Department, 5 November, enclosing R’s despatch of 20 October 1879 and L/MIL/683 no. 12, 513, copy of Roberts’s despatch 22 November 1879.

  Chapter 6

  1. Robertson, Kurum, Kabul & Kandahar, p. 100; also photos of J. Burke in Khan, Omar, From Kashmir to Kabul: the Photographs of John Burke and William Baker 1860-1900, Ahmedabad, India, 2002.

  2. Hensman, Afghan War, pp. 51-6, also quoted in MacGregor, III, p. 43; Mss Eur. C403, Duke pp. 160-3; Trousdale, p. 104; IOL/P & S20/MEMO5/6 report of commission; IOL, Mss Eur. F108/101 (a), F6/36, White to wife, 15 October 1879; Sykes, Sir Mortimer Durand, p. 98.

  3. SOAS Library, Durand Papers MS PP 55/21, diary, 13 October 1879; Sykes, Sir Mortimer Durand, pp. 96-7.

  4. Mss Eur. C405, p. 188; MacGregor, III, pp. 51-2. Durand and MacGregor are the sources of the cat story, not mentioned by others. Trousdale, p. 106 and SOAS Library, PP MS 55/21, 13 October 1879.

  5. IOL, Mss Eur. C212/2 ff.31 and 43. ‘A dispensary at Cabul’, 18 March 1880; Hensman, Afghan War, pp. 298-9 & 302; and MacGregor, III, pp. 73-4.

  6. Trousdale, p. 108.

  7. Robson, pp. 136-7; Vaughan, My Service in the Indian Army, pp. 143 and 212-13.

  8. Bobs 82-19.

  9. Robson, pp. 138-40.

  10. SOAS Library, PP 55/31, no. 19,25 October 1879 and M21, diary, 18 & 30 October; Robson, Roberts in India, pp. 138-43 for MacGregor’s report.

  11. Allen, Soldier Sahibs, pp. 167, 173-5, 286-8, 321, 326 & 337-8.

  12. Trousdale, pp. 82-3; SOAS Library PP MS 55/21, diary, 18 October 1879; Robson, Roberts in India, pp. 119-22.

  13. Trousdale, pp. 111-14 & 149-50; SOAS Library, PP MS 55/31, No. 19, 18 & 25 October 1879: ‘Even MacGregor, whose feelings towards the Afghans are strong, is shocked at what goes on, and has got off some condemned prisoners.’; Soboleff, Anglo-Afghan Struggle, pp. 92-3; IOL/P & S 20/MEMO5/6, investigation of committee reporting Kotwal carried out Amir’s orders to throw bodies into ditch.

  14. Hanna, III, p. 140 citing the view of Hensman; ‘Hanging is too good for them’: Mss Eur. D1227/1, 2 March 1879; ‘cold-blooded murder like this’: Mss Eur. C405, Duke, p. 251.