Retreat from Kabul: The First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-1842 (Conflicts of Empire)

by George Bruce

  He spent the money mostly on homosexual orgies, but turned to abduction for what money could not buy. The Bombay Times published a letter from his medical attendant on 21 October 1840 telling how he had enticed British soldiers into his residence, drugged them and performed homosexual acts upon them while they were unconscious. In his anxiety to back up Shah Shuja, Macnaghten prevented action against these and other criminal acts, so that among the Afghan population the British name began to stink no less than the King’s and his sons.

  By contrast, Dost Mahommed’s sons were remembered for their manly and intelligent behaviour.

  Yet the British were blind to the signs and warnings of approaching danger. The wives, daughters and young children of officers, noncommissioned officers and men had made the long perilous journey from India to Kabul and Kandahar to settle down in bungalows built there especially for them.

  Lady Macnaghten, residing in the spacious house of the British mission, presided over the social activities of Kabul. She was challenged in her self-appointed role by Lady Sale — Florentia — a tall bony woman with plain features and a fearless disposition. Wife of the recently knighted General Sir Robert Sale, her daughter was married in Kabul to Lieutenant John Sturt who became the chief engineer officer at Kabul.

  A bandstand was built in the middle of the large parade ground in the cantonments and there in the early evening officers in red or blue coatees, gold shoulder-scales, crimson sashes and sword belts competed with the highly paid political officers in formal black suits for the attentions of the young unmarried ladies in voluminous crinolines and extravagant hats.

  Here, while the British bandsmen played military marches on trumpet and trombone, the off-duty troops and their womenfolk, a proud and glittering assembly, paraded as if Kabul would be their home for ever.

  There were dinner parties and dances — a racecourse, cricket and sports events; there were engagements and marriages. Captain Warburton of the Bengal Artillery, fell in love with and married a niece of Dost Mahommed, Burnes and Macnaghten being witnesses (his son became Colonel Sir Robert Warburton, a famous administrator in India). Sergeant Dean married a beautiful Kabul girl.

  But behind the facade of gaiety, entertainment and fraternisation in Kabul a note of danger was apparent and throughout 1841 the tempo of hostilities quickened as to the rhythm of a fanatical drumbeat.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  General Sir Willoughby Cotton returned to India while the mountain passes in the south of Afghanistan echoed to the boom of British artillery and the sharp crack of the tribesmen’s jezails.

  Uktur Khan, a bold and impetuous Durani chief, angered by the ceaseless demands of the Shah’s tax collectors, raised the standard of rebellion in Kandahar province and later routed Mahommed Allum Khan at the head of a primitive force of the Shah. General Nott sent Captain Farrington, leading 800 sepoys backed by cavalry and guns to cross the River Helmund in pursuit to defeat Uktur Khan’s 1,500 tribesmen on 3 January 1841.

  This quietened the Duranis temporarily, yet it merely proved all over again that without British arms the Shah’s crown was worth no more to him than a box of sawdust. And despite the victory both General Nott, commanding the southern military region at Kahdahar, and Major Rawlinson, the astute political agent there, knew the British position in the country to be extremely dangerous.

  Nott looked to the efficiency of his troops and fulminated against the system of government. Rawlinson warned Macnaghten that there were signs that Shah Shuja had actually known of Uktur Khan’s revolt, but had avoided telling the British because he wished to influence the chiefs in his own favour.

  Macnaghten scoffed at these sinister accusations and informed the Shah, who became ‘well-nigh frantic’. Declaring that such lies were the invention of the agents of Moolah Shikore — the former Vizier whom he had recently deposed — he threatened to seize them and ‘having ripped up their bellies hang them up as food for the crows’.

  Yet Macnaghten sympathised with the Shah and told Rawlinson in a sharply worded letter: ‘I think you should sift these atrocious rumours to their head as diligently as possible. You have had a troublesome task lately and have been doubtless without leisure to weigh probabilities; but it may make the considerations of all questions more simple if you will hereafter take for granted that as regards us “the king can do no wrong”.’

  Rawlinson countered with the assertion that the only way to pacify and rule the province under the Shah’s regime was by ‘the forcible removal to India of at least fifty or sixty of the most powerful and turbulent of the Durani Khans’ — a ruthless project that could have ended incessant fighting, but which Macnaghten turned down with the observation that ‘Government would never tolerate for a moment the notion of such wholesale expatriation’.

  Instead he and the Shah sought to pacify the region by recalling the corrupt agents of Moolah Shikore, inviting the chiefs to petition the Shah with their complaints and announcing his decision to visit them in Kandahar in the autumn of 1841.

  It did little to help matters. The system of tax collection was perhaps the root cause of much of the trouble. Hordes of collectors billeted themselves on citizens, living well at their expense until they paid whatever tax was demanded — a system of blackmail that could be made as unpleasant as was necessary to reach a settlement.

  In comparison, Dost Mahommed, formerly ruling largely by consent, had no need for a large and costly standing army. Moreover, his way of life being more modest he had taxed the people less. Shah Shuja had by now imported over 800 women for his harem, and scores of dancing girls. His officials, cronies from his exile, his many sons — all needed lucrative posts for which the citizens and peasantry must pay. His grinding taxes enraged the people and just as today redress for wrongs is sought in litigation the Afghans sought it with the sword and jezail.

  Aware that the use of British troops in the last resort to enforce payment added to the hostility with which the Afghans now regarded them, Macnaghten ordered Usman Khan, Shuja’s new minister, to end the system of billeting tax collectors. But the needs of the Shah were enormous — he had been driven to borrow from the bankers to feed and clothe his regiment of women.

  By early 1841 he and his government were bankrupt. There was a deficit of £100,000 — even though the Shah’s army was paid by India, and to introduce a fairer system of revenue collection while rebellion threatened on all sides was considered impossible. Things therefore went on more, or less as they were, with hostility towards the British and the Shah growing stronger day by day and with Macnaghten still insisting on seeing the situation ‘couleur de rose’, as he put it in an optimistic letter to Major Rawlinson on 27 February 1841.

  ‘All things considered, the present tranquillity of this country is to my mind perfectly miraculous,’ he remarked. ‘I look forward to the time when his Majesty will have an honest and efficient administration of his own, though the time must be far distant if ever it should arrive (certainly it cannot arrive during the present generation to whom anarchy is second nature) when we can dispense with our Hindustanee contingent. Here, we are gradually ferreting out abuses and placing matters on a firm and satisfactory basis.’

  Macnaghten for good reason insisted on the tranquillity of the country, however loud grew the noise of conflict. He was expecting confirmation of his hopes for promotion to the dazzling heights of the governorship of Bombay — a princely appointment, the highest to which any civilian official in India could aspire.

  It would crown his highly successful career and lead to a peerage; but since British policy in Afghanistan was almost entirely his creation there would be a black mark against him were he to leave the country in a state of chaos and insurrection — indeed, the Governor-General might even request him to postpone his departure until all was well; and in Afghanistan that prospect was remote. So Macnaghten minimised the risings and the hostility — everything was tranquil — couleur de rose.

  But only in his imagination. He had s
ent Brigadier Shelton who was en route for Kabul with reinforcements, to subdue a tribe of mountain warriors, the Sanga Khels, who had taken to raiding convoys in the Khyber Pass. Shelton, a tough, unpopular, one-armed martinet, scaled the cliffs of the narrow defile at their lowest point, advanced on the tribesmen from the rear, destroyed, one after the other, all the 144 forts with which they dominated the defiles, in a short but brilliant campaign in which he lost only nine men.

  At the same time, the Ghilzyes between Kandahar and Ghazni had again turned hostile. Macnaghten decided to occupy Kelat-i-Ghilzye, a fortress in the very heart of their homeland, from which he would be able to crush risings more easily and guard his communications through the valley of the Turnak River.

  Furious at this bold intrusion the Ghilzyes assembled to prevent it and attacked a force of 700 infantry, cavalry and artillery commanded by Colonel Wymer. But the. British artillery showered the Ghilzyes with grape-shot; the infantry stood firm under repeated charges and with well-delivered volleys and thrusting bayonets drove the Ghilzyes off.

  And next, Uktur Khan, in the south, having gathered a fresh force of some 6,000 men after his earlier defeat, took up a strong position on the right bank of the River Helmund, west of Kandahar, awaiting the opportunity to attack with profit.

  Such was the so-called tranquillity in early 1841 — with discontent, treachery and persistent insurrection in the south and west threatening Kabul and the north too, regions to which the surrender of Dost Mahommed had brought a temporary lull.

  Meantime, the question of a successor to Sir Willoughby Cotton to command the troops in Afghanistan had caused much speculation. Public opinion seized upon General Nott because of his knowledge and experience of the Afghan scene no less than his fighting ability. But Nott, known for his contempt for the political officers, had already been passed over two years before in favour of Cotton. Even though Lord Auckland now realised he was best equipped for the post and wanted him, Macnaghten appears to have blocked his appointment.

  And so while almost the whole army hoped for Nott’s appointment, the General himself, as his biographer, Stocqueler, noted ‘cherished no such expectations. He had had large experience of the jobbery of the Auckland administration; he knew that his plain speaking had made him unpalatable to the folks in power.’ In one of his frequent letters to his daughters Maria, Letitia and Charlotte, Nott wrote at this time: ‘I cannot alter my nature… I cannot conceal my hatred and indignation at the oppression, cruelty and dishonourable conduct, and therefore, I am unfit for the scenes passing in this country. I cannot bend my spirit or bring my mind to their level, consequently I must suffer the injustice of those dressed in authority.’

  Only two days after sending this letter the gallant Nott saw with surprise in orders the name of Major-General Elphinstone to command in Afghanistan, for he it was Auckland had chosen, thus at once upholding the sacred principle of seniority and assuring Macnaghten of a suitably pliant commander.

  The most fateful step of all had now been taken.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Like Keane before him, Major-General William George Keith Elphinstone was a favourite of fortune. He had held a commission in the Guards and was said to be ‘one of the most gentleman-like members of the Household Brigade’. Aged sixty, he had been commanding the Benares division of the Bengal army since arriving in India two years earlier in 1839, having returned to the active list only in 1837 after several years on half-pay.

  He was a conscientious officer but had seen no active service since Waterloo, and very little before that. Nevertheless, his ability there in command of the 33rd Foot — or it could have been his aristocratic connections, for he was a grandson of the 10th Lord Elphinstone — had won him the orders of Commander of the Bath, of St. Anne of Austria and of William of Holland.

  All that was twenty-five years ago, when he was in the prime of life. In 1841, by contrast, his crippling gout and rheumatism gave him unceasing pain and he was so lacking in mental and physical energy that it must surely have been clear that he had one foot in the grave when the command was offered him.

  To be fair, Elphinstone himself had no ambitions at this time except to return home to England and die quietly in bed. Certainly he had no wish to command in Afghanistan, hundreds of miles away over the rugged mountains among a turbulent, rebellious nation, when he could hardly walk more than a few paces.

  But Lord Auckland seemed to think that nothing more was needed of the general than to parade occasionally at the head of his troops, make obeisance to Shah Shuja and carry out the orders of the wise and far-seeing Macnaghten.

  Knowing his own incapacity Elphinstone had at first turned down the Governor-General’s offer, but Auckland had put considerable pressure upon him and finally he accepted, but only because he thought it wrong in a soldier not to go where he was ordered. It was a pathetic decision — the invalid general chivvied through his sense of duty into a command that could only end in tragedy.

  General Keane was carried in a palanquin because he enjoyed it more than riding on horseback. Elphinstone rode in a palanquin because he was usually incapable of mounting a horse. And so, early in April 1841, he arrived in Kabul, exhausted after the long and tiring journey.

  At the very start of his command the General’s none too robust morale was undermined in a clash with Macnaghten. Brigadier Shelton’s brigade, which should by now have been in Kabul to strengthen the garrison, had been marched up and down the country for weeks quelling minor risings at the behest of the political officers. Now Macnaghten asked the General to order it back 100 miles through the Khyber Pass to escort of all things, another convoy of women from Peshawar for the Shah’s harem. Elphinstone protested, but Macnaghten got his way. It was the first setback for Elphinstone’s authority.

  Another, more significant setback followed. Sick though Elphinstone was, he saw at first glance that the British were in a hopeless position at Kabul. The cantonments stretched for more than half a mile across the plain and were 600 yards broad, yet protected only by a low rampart and a narrow ditch with circular blockhouses at the four corners.

  Fenced gardens hemmed it in so that there was no clear line of fire; several small forts still held by the Afghans commanded it on three sides and the Behmaru Hills, from which Afghan 6-pounder guns could hit it, commanded the fourth or west side.

  Three or four hundred yards from the south corner there was a village of mud huts surrounded by a low wall in which marksmen could hide. ‘… The troops,’ Lieutenant Vincent Eyre of the Bengal Artillery, wrote later, ‘could not move a dozen paces from either gate without being exposed to the fire of some neighbouring hostile fort garrisoned by marksmen who seldom missed their aim.’

  Had Elphinstone been a younger, resolute general he would at once have defied political domination and insisted on taking over the impregnable Bala Hissar, the only place where his reserves of food, ammunition and medical stores could safely be kept. Indeed, in it he could have housed the entire garrison, for Lieutenant Sturt of the Engineers was then completing additional barracks there.

  But Elphinstone was ill and so incapable of overriding Macnaghten’s opposition. With fatal weakness he left the fortress in Shuja’s hands.

  Knowing, however, that something had to be done to improve the British defensive position, he urged upon Macnaghten the construction of a small fort near one corner of the cantonments, which could hold all the ammunition and much of the stores, yet be defended by about 200 men. Macnaghten agreed, the work was put in hand and the cost, a modest £2,400, was reported to Lord Auckland.

  Some weeks later, on 28 June 1841, came a peremptory note from his secretary saying that the Government could not allow this expenditure. The mean refusal of this small sum of money caused the abandonment of work which could have given the garrison some real security.

  Within a few weeks of assuming command Elphinstone had thus twice been overridden in issues which were strictly his business — once by Macnaghten and once
by Auckland. Likely it is that the ailing old man shrugged his shoulders and decided to go with the stream.

  Auckland, believing up to a point Macnaghten’s contention that Afghanistan was tranquil, had good reason to oppose every pound of additional expenditure. In the spring he had again been under fire from the Board of Control, both about the military reversals the British had suffered and the cost of the entire campaign. And Sir John Hobhouse wrote arguing that the country must either be abandoned now to Shah Shuja or be held, and pacified at all costs with a much larger force under open British rule.

  In reply Auckland admitted that Dost Mahommed’s exile in India and the Russian retreat from their threatening march to Khiva had disposed of two good reasons for the British staying on. Yet he pointed out that the British presence commanding the avenues of invasion gave a sense of security to India, which, he said, was of vital importance. He argued that there was no need for an immediate decision; the main cities should be held and for this the existing forces were enough.

  The view of Sir Jasper Nicholls, Commander-in-Chief and military member of the Governor-General’s Council, about the advisability of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, had for some reason not been obtained. But Sir Jasper protested in his journal on 8 May 1841: ‘We cannot afford the heavy, yet increasing drain upon us. Nine thousand troops between Quetta and Kurachee; at least 16,000 of our army and the Shah’s to the north of Quetta. The King’s expenses to bear in every part — 28 political officers to pay, besides Macnaghten — Dost Mahommed’s allowances — barracks — a fort or two to build — loss by exchange, etc. To me it is alarming.’ And a few days later on 20 May: ‘It will never do to have India drained of a million and a quarter annually for a rocky frontier requiring about 25,000 men and expensive establishments to hold it even by threats as at present.’