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

by George Bruce

On 5 December the Afghans cut off all chance for lightning retreat by destroying a vital bridge over the Kabul River, and Elphinstone let them do so without having a single shot fired to stop it. Continuing their offensive the next day they surprised the British garrison of Mahomed Shereef’s fort, who, without resistance abandoned their arms and 6,000 rounds of ammunition and fled from an attack, which, in Lady Sale’s words, ‘a child with a stick might have repulsed’.

  Lieutenant Hawtrey, deserted by his men, stayed to throw six grenades before escaping. Furiously, Lady Sale called this defeat ‘the most shameful of all the runaways that has occurred’.

  Lieutenant Hawtrey’s company, ashamed at their unheroic flight, volunteered to retake the fort with him ‘without the assistance of any other troops’. Elphinstone asked Captain Sturt, the engineer officer, if the fort was practicable and tenable. Sturt replied with sarcasm: ‘Practicable if the men will fight — tenable if they don’t run away.’

  It summed up the whole situation of the British force in Kabul; but the demoralisation and despair from which the troops suffered was almost entirely the fault of General William George Keith Elphinstone.

  Every day now the weather grew colder; and the troops, the sepoys especially, shivered in the freezing barracks. On 8 December Captains Boyd and Johnstone wrote to Elphinstone to report ‘from personal knowledge of the country to the north or north-east of cantonments, the utter impossibility of obtaining, either by force or otherwise, the smallest quantity of grain or forage of any kind…’.

  The transport animals, almost skin and bone, the British and the Moslems now used for meat. A committee had chosen all the useless animals to be slaughtered. ‘So there will be plenty of cheap meat,’ Lady Sale commented, ‘as tattoos (ponies) and camels have for some time past been eaten: even some of the gentlemen ate camel’s flesh, particularly the heart, which was esteemed equal to that of the bullock. I was never tempted by these choice viands; so cannot offer an opinion regarding them.’

  Elphinstone, pressing the reluctant Macnaghten to negotiate, sent him a copy of the commissariat officers’ letter. In reply, Macnaghten curtly asked him to state in writing whether or not it was his opinion that any further attempt to hold out would merely cause the sacrifice of the Shah and the British, and that negotiation for a safe retreat was the only alternative. Elphinstone hastily sent still another letter analysing their plight and ended with the request that Macnaghten ‘should lose no time in entering into negotiations’.

  Macnaghten, still no doubt hoping that the Bombay governorship was not yet lost to him, now had written evidence that what he believed to be a shameful surrender had been forced on him by the General. In India the inevitable inquiry would be bound to exonerate him and put the blame entirely on the General’s shoulders.

  His hope for rescue from Kandahar was now almost all that was left, for his efforts to weaken the rebels by assassinating their chiefs had brought the death of two chiefs — Meer Musjidi and Abdullah Khan — but none of the weakness or disorder in their ranks for which he had presumably hoped.

  In fact, the event had harmed Macnaghten. Abdullah was only wounded by the shot fired at him, but he died a few days later from poison which Abdul Azeec claimed also to have administered.

  Both assassins had demanded the balance of the blood money, but Mohun Lal refused it because, he said, they had failed to bring him the chiefs’ heads, according to their contract. The facts of the case leaked, the blame was laid at Macnaghten’s door and it was never forgotten. But Macnaghten still hoped bribery would succeed where assassination had failed, as we shall see.

  Then on 10 December came the news from Colonel Palmer, who commanded the garrison at Ghazni, that the brigade which Nott had sent from Kandahar had been forced back by deep snows in the mountains.

  Macnaghten’s last real hope, it seems, was gone. It must have been a bitter blow, for on 11 December one day’s food only for the fighting-men was at hand in the cantonments and the camp-followers were already starving. Camels and bullocks were dying; food could be obtained neither by fighting — Elphinstone would not fight, nor by purchase, because the villagers were frightened to sell. Macnaghten could hold out no longer, but he by no means gave up. He still had more cards up his sleeve.

  He drew up the terms of a treaty and met the chiefs by arrangement on 11 December about a mile from the cantonments on the banks of the Kabul River, Captains Lawrence, Trevor, Mackenzie and a few troopers going with him as escort.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Afghan servants spread horse blankets on the river bank, and the leading chiefs, among whom was Mahommed Akbar, sat down, facing the British representatives. After formal expressions of goodwill on both sides, Macnaghten took from his pocket the white paper scroll on which he had written the draft treaty in Persian.

  It must have been a grim moment for him, signalling as it did the total wreck of the great adventure of which perhaps more than anyone he was the architect. Even if he was lucky, and survived, the Bombay governorship in face of this surrender, would never now be his. Macnaghten’s career had already been ruined, but he fought on.

  The preamble for the treaty was a brilliant passage of diplomatic understatement and evasion — ‘Whereas it has become apparent from recent events that the continuance of the British army in Afghanistan for the support of Shah Shuja-ool-Moolk is displeasing to the great majority of the Afghan nation; and whereas the British Government had no other object in sending troops to this country than the integrity, welfare and happiness of the Afghans, and, therefore, it can have no wish to remain when that object is defeated by its presence…’

  Feelings of reluctant admiration for the wily envoy must surely have flashed behind the bearded faces — except probably that of Akbar Khan, whose bearing was according to Lawrence, ‘very haughty’. Sir William went on to read out the first article — ‘that our troops should march with all practicable expedition to Peshawar’. Akbar interrupted — ‘Why should you not march tomorrow?’ The other chiefs checked him and he was silent for the remaining two hours of the meeting. They had better plans.

  The treaty provided that the British should quit Afghanistan and return to India unmolested and with honour, taking with them supplies and transport which the Afghans would sell them; property left behind by the British would be taken care of and sent to India as soon as possible; Dost Mahommed and his family would be allowed to return to Afghanistan, Shah Shuja abdicating and returning to India with the British, or staying in Afghanistan on a suitable pension, as he wished; and without the consent of the Afghan Government no British force should again enter the country.

  The articles were discussed with calmness and moderation and agreed in the main by the chiefs, who bound themselves to them on oath. Finally, they agreed to send in provisions at once and the British were to march out of the cantonments within three days. The meeting then ended, Captain Trevor accompanying the chiefs into the city, and Moosa Khan, one of Akbar Khan’s followers, going with the British, both hostages for the mutual fulfilment of the treaty.

  A shot whistled over the heads of Macnaghten and the others as they rode back to the cantonments and a large body of Afghan cavalry tried to ride them down until the chiefs warded them off. It was a significant mark of the doubtful hold the chiefs had on their followers.

  The British garrison, on hearing of the agreement, looked forward with satisfaction to a speedy withdrawal to India, but they were soon to know the true worth of Afghan promises.

  On 13 December the British rode out of the Bala Hissar — leaving it to the Shah and his army — and with as much grain as they could take with them were escorted across the plain to the cantonment by Akbar Khan.

  As the last of them left, a number of Akbar Khan’s troops tried to force their way inside. The gates closed abruptly and the Shah ordered his troops to fire. Many of Akbar Khan’s men were killed. Lawrence ‘heartily desired that similar energy might be shown by our own leaders, who appeared quite paraly
sed and incapable of adopting any measures to secure our honour and our safety…’

  The three days stipulated in the treaty passed, the cold worsened, but none of the promised provisions or the transport animals were delivered. ‘Forage had for many days been so scarce,’ wrote Eyre, ‘that the horses and cattle were kept alive by paring off the bark of the trees, and by eating their own dung over and over again, which was regularly collected and spread before them. The camp-followers were destitute of other food than the flesh of animals that expired daily from starvation and cold.’

  To the commissariat officer, Captain Johnson, who had at last hoped to be able to supply proper rations, this trickery was infuriating. ‘A lakh of rupees (£10,000) advanced to Mahomed Akbar for the purchase of camels — not one as yet forthcoming,’ he noted. ‘The Seeah Sung gateway, through which all supplies come in is daily infested by parties of Afghans calling themselves Ghazees, or fighters for religion. They are, without exception, the most bare-faced, impertinent scoundrels under the sun. Armed with swords, daggers and matchlocks they acknowledge no leader, but act independently — they insult and taunt the whole of us…’

  Afghan traders bringing in grain or boosah (bran) were plundered and beaten; the troops and cattle were both starving, yet no action was taken, though the ramparts were lined with troops and cannon. When these attacks were reported to the chiefs, their answer was: ‘We cannot stop it — they are not under our control, but if they misbehave themselves fire upon them.’

  Elphinstone forbade this — it might offend the Afghans. On 14 December Captain Johnson saw thirty donkeys loaded with bran for his cattle approach the gateway. The Ghazees insulted the drovers, beat them and drove them off, threatening them with death if they came again to sell food. Furious, Johnson reported the matter to the General. Nothing was done. The next day a flock of sheep Johnson had recently bought were grazing outside the cantonments, when two Ghazees attacked the shepherd. He fled and so did the two Ghazees with the sheep. Two British sentries with loaded muskets stood idly by. Johnson again reported this to the General, who replied: ‘They had no business to go outside!’

  ‘All this time,’ fumed Johnson, almost at his wits end, ‘our garrison are starving!’

  ‘They know that we are starving,’ noted Lady Sale — ‘that our horses and cattle have neither grain, bhoosa (chopped straw) nor grass. They have pretty well eaten up the bark of the trees and the tender branches; the horses gnaw the tent pegs. I was gravely told that the artillery horses had eaten the trunnion of a gun… Nothing is satisfied with food except the pariah dogs, who are gorged with eating dead camels and horses.’

  On 16 December Macnaghten pressed the chiefs to carry out their side of the treaty. They then told him in writing in defiance of the treaty that so long as the British held the fort which contained reserves of ammunition and weapons and three other forts close to and commanding the cantonments, their people had no confidence in the British promise to leave the country and they would not furnish provisions until these forts were handed over.

  Sir William took this reply to the General. He urged him instead to march out at once in order of battle and enter Kabul, or fight the enemy beneath its walls — ‘expressing his own earnest hope’, says Lawrence, ‘that the General, now that he had been reinforced by the fresh troops from the Bala Hissar, would adopt this clear and obvious course’.

  But General Elphinstone would have no fighting. He gave up the forts the same evening. They were immediately occupied by the Afghans, and the entire cantonments were now at the Afghans’ mercy.

  ‘The envoy and I,’ Lawrence recalls, ‘stood on a mound near the mosque while the forts were being evacuated by our men, and I am not ashamed to say it was with eyes moistened with tears from grief and indignation, we witnessed these strongholds, the last prop of our tottering power in Kabul, which it had cost us so much blood to seize and defend, made over, one after another to our treacherous and exulting enemies.’

  Food or no food, the chiefs now had the British at their mercy. They tauntingly sent in one day’s supply of grain and promised 2,000 camels and 400 ponies for the march to Jellalabad. Then, on 20 December, continuing their cat-and-mouse tactics, they demanded the immediate surrender of all 9-pounder guns and ammunition, thus seeking to disarm the British of their one effective weapon.

  Macnaghten refused, and reported the fact to Elphinstone, and still struggling to avoid disaster again proposed, says Lawrence, ‘to break off all negotiations as futile and vain and to take our chance in the field, as he felt sure we would beat them if we only marched out boldly and met the rebels in the open plain’.

  But the enfeebled old man argued that the abandonment of our position was the only solution. Lieutenant Sturt then tried to persuade him to start a fighting retreat to Jellalabad and hold it, together with Sale’s force. ‘But neither the General nor his immediate advisers could bring themselves to adopt a course which would have saved the national honour at the risk of sacrificing the whole force,’ Eyre noted.

  Snow began to fall next day and ‘from morning to evening prayer it fell with frightful persistence and before sunset was lying many inches upon the ground’. The bitter winter had now joined the Afghans against the British.

  On 21 December the chiefs put on the screw still more — they demanded four hostages as security for the British quitting the cantonments and retreating. This too was accepted, still further tying British hands. The chiefs first asked for Brigadier Shelton, but he refused flatly to go, so four other officers were handed over. Mrs. Trevor pleaded with the chiefs that her husband, Captain Trevor, who had been a hostage since the 11th, when the treaty was agreed, should be returned to her. The chiefs agreed. Trevor returned that day to his wife and to the last two days he would ever spend with her — for her plea was to cost him his life.

  All this time the chiefs mulcted the British of huge sums of money for camels, bullocks and ponies, but never once delivered them. On 22 December Vincent Eyre revenged the British a little for this treachery. He was ordered to conduct an Afghan over the ammunition store so that this officer could choose what would be most useful to the chiefs. Eyre recommended a large pile of 8-inch shells, but the mortars for them were then in Jellalabad. ‘He eagerly seized the bait and departed in great glee, with his prize laden on some old ammunition wagons,’ Eyre relates.

  Macnaghten all this time, still had not given up hope of avoiding what he knew would be a disastrous rout through the winter snows — he was now doing his utmost to sow strife between chiefs of the anti-British confederation — many of them traditionally hostile to each other. ‘It is not easy,’ Kaye writes with some truth, ‘to group into one lucid and intelligible whole all the many shifting schemes and devices which distracted the last days of the Envoy’s career… He appears to have turned first to one party, then to another, eagerly grasping at every new combination that seemed to promise more hope than the last.’

  Macnaghten realised that among the chiefs there was no unity, merely temporary allegiance, and that all of them thought first of themselves and their own tribal interests. This situation as time, and his available money began to run out, he began desperately to exploit.

  He first tried to get the Ghilzyes to come out openly on the British side against the Barukzyes, the tribe which Akbar Khan and his father Dost Mahommed led, and whose rule the Ghilzyes feared. The treaty had been agreed with the Barukzyes and their allies, but since they had broken its terms by failing to deliver provisions and transport animals, Macnaghten seems to have felt himself free to negotiate with any of the other tribes best able to protect the helpless British. He therefore offered heavy bribes to the Ghilzyes and the Kuzzilbashes — the warlike descendants of the one-time Persian occupiers — to come out openly on the side of the Shah.

  His secret correspondence with his tireless agent Mohun Lal at this time reveals his desperate last-moment efforts to sow the seeds of rebellion against Akbar Khan. On 20 December he wrote to Mohun
Lal: ‘You can tell the Ghilzyes and Khan Shereen that after they have declared for his Majesty and us and sent in 100 kurwars (7,000 lb.) of grain to cantonments, I shall be glad to give them a bond for five lakhs of rupees (£50,000)… I fear for Mahommed Shah that he is with Akbar; but you will know best. You must let me know before sunrise if possible, what is likely to be the effect of this proposal, as I must talk accordingly to the Barukzyes, who have shown no disposition to be honest…’

  But he apparently received no answer, for the next day in another note to Mohan Lal, he developed this plan for alliance with the Ghilzyes and Kuzzilbashes against the Barukzyes in more detail — it was his only hope now. ‘In conversing with anybody,’ he cunningly advised, ‘you must say that I am ready to stand by my engagement with the Barukzyes and other chiefs associated with them; but that if any portion of the Afghans wish our troops to remain in the country, I shall think myself at liberty to break the engagement which I have made to go away…

  ‘If the Ghilzyes and Kuzzilbashes wish us to stay, let them declare so openly in the course of tomorrow, and we will side with them. The best proof of their wish for us is to send us a large quantity of grain this night… If they do this and make their salaam to the Shah early tomorrow, giving his Majesty to understand that we are along with them, I will write to the Barukzyes and tell them my agreement is at an end; but if they (Ghilzyes and Kuzzilbashes) are not prepared to go all lengths with us, nothing should be said about the matter, because the agreement I have made is very good for us.’

  Macnaghten, who seemed to have a premonition that time was more precious than gold now for him, had timed his letter 4 p.m. Desperately anxious about the danger of his scheming, he sent another note an hour later: ‘Do not let me appear in this matter,’ he warned, ‘say that I am ready to stand by my engagement, but that I leave it to the people themselves.’ And still more anxiously an hour later in another note timed 6 p.m.: ‘If any grain is coming in tonight let me have notice of it a few minutes before. Anything that may be intended in our favour must appear before noon tomorrow.’