by Craig Murray
It was a remarkable achievement successfully to interpret a play like this – not just a linguistic feat, but one of storytelling, timing and wit. There is nothing more deadening than sequential translation. Burnes was interpreting heavy comedies, about drawing-room society, littered with ponderous double entendres, like The Irish Ambassador:
A mighty accomplished petticoat politician; but whether she’s in for foreign affairs, or for my home department, or what may be the nature of the document in question, are points for a future Congress, and to me the most interesting of all my complicated transactions!2
Yet we are told that, ‘the interpreter never failed to bring the jokes of the actors home to them …’ Presumably Burnes was gloriously extemporising, which tells us something about his extraordinary gifts.
Alex also found time to keep up his wider intellectual interests, collecting geological specimens and antiquities. He was delighted to find that Jabbar Khan had succeeded in multiplying the potatoes. Burnes now had the experiment repeated in Ghazni, Kandahar and Jalalabad. It is an effort to recall that the potato was only introduced as a crop into Burnes’ native Angus fifty years before his birth; he introduced it into Afghanistan. Burnes also made an extensive collection of ancient coins, particularly from the Bactrian civilisation founded by Alexander’s Greek colonists. To get the coins back safely to Britain, he gave them to his departing friend Colonel Charles Fox, illegitimate son of Lord Holland of Holland House. Fox later sold Burnes’ collection to the Royal Museum in Berlin, now the Altes Museum.
Willoughby Cotton was summoned back to be Acting Commander in Chief in Calcutta. Robert Sale was now in command in Kabul, and General Nott in Kandahar. The government in London was keen to capitalise on the popularity of a triumphant campaign. Lord Keane of Ghazni was ennobled, Sir William Hay Macnaghten made a baronet, and a shower of lesser awards rained down on the British camps. Burnes, however, was ignored. He took this as an indication of the hostility from Auckland which he believed to be the motive behind Macnaghten’s retention in Kabul. Macnaghten wrote Burnes three sympathetic letters at Alex being overlooked. The snub added to Burnes’ growing disillusionment. He wrote to Lord: ‘I ought never to have come here, or allowed myself to be pleased with fair though false words.’
As the long winter wore on, snow and ice lost their charms. Complained Dennie, ‘it continues to descend untiringly, and […] every object is covered with a mantle some feet in thickness of this boundless white […] we are absolutely prevented from moving out of our houses’.3 For the common soldiers it was worse – twenty-seven soldiers of the 13th Foot died of pneumonia. By mid-February Dennie’s thermometer, which had recorded 125°F (51.5°C) in the shade at Dadur nine months previously, had fallen to 0°F (–18°C), below which it could not measure. The 13th had only 200 men fit for duty, and all their camels died.
The Commissariat at Kabul had entered contracts with the small Armenian population for the supply of arrack in place of rum. Dost Mohammed had banned alcohol in Kabul with some effect; this must be seen in the context of a religious revivalism in Central Asia, bringing a much narrower form of Islam. Havelock deplored the return of alcohol to the city, commenting ‘the Affghans, like other nations invaded by our armies, will soon be taught the difference between Britons drunk and Britons sober’.4 Military drunkenness contributed to the unpopularity of the occupation.
Burnes had taken up residence close to the base of the hill of the Bala Hissar and not far from the gates of the Qizilbash quarter. From his roof Burnes could look over the orchards of the houses of Afghan nobility, including many old friends. He bought Russian mirrors in the bazaar and scraped off the silver backing, fixing the glass into wooden frames, and installing Kabul’s first windows. In the freezing winter this made the house much cosier than the original wooden latticework, and lighter inside. Burnes kept open house for both Afghans and British officers. Neither did he bear grudges: among his guests was fellow Freemason Josiah Harlan. Dr Kennedy was astonished by Harlan’s shiny pea-green satin blouse, maroon trousers, silver lace girdle and high leather boots; not having met many Americans. The little Frenchman Argoud also turned up, this time hoping to gain employment with Shuja, although again unlucky.
In October 1839 copies reached a furious Burnes in Kabul of the Parliamentary Papers containing the tendentiously edited versions of his despatches from Kabul.5 He wrote to James Holland:
The exposition of the Governor-General’s views in the Parliamentary Papers is pure trickery […] I however acquit Lord Auckland of the fraud […] All my implorations to Government to act with promptitude and decision had reference to doing something when Dost Mohammed was King, and all this they have made to appear in favour of Shah Shoojah being set up! But again, I did advocate the setting up of Shah Shoojah, but when was this? When my advice had been rejected, and the Government were fairly stranded. I […] asked leave to withdraw, but Lord Auckland proved to me that it would be desertion at a critical moment, and I saw so myself, but I entered upon the support of his policy not as what was best, but what was best under the circumstances which a series of blunders had produced.6
The British early became acutely aware that Shuja was less popular than Dost. Havelock noted ‘the people of Cabool […] contrasting the mild and frank manners of their ex-Ameer with the repulsive haughtiness of their Shah’.7 Pashtun tribal organisation militates strongly against central leadership. Ethnographers have classified Pashtuns as having an ‘explicit segmentary lineage organisation’8 – meaning there are several competing families and tribal sub-sets, none of which have an overriding claim to dominance. In this analysis, rebellion was directed at any centralising authority, against the British as against Dost’s own centralising efforts. But we must also take into account the undoubted religious element to the anti-British feeling.
It was now plain Shuja could not hope to meet the cost of his Disciplined Force. Burnes had repeatedly reported that the great problem of government was that, with the loss of Kashmir and Peshawar and of tribute from Sind, the government had insufficient money to meet its obligations without resorting to methods which caused great hostility among the tribes.
Burnes proposed financial reform of the kingdom, with emphasis on simplifying and reducing customs duties while making their collection more efficient, in pursuit of his long-standing schemes for stimulating trade. He attempted to centralise collection of duties on the customs house in Kabul, ending a complex web of local arrangements. This involved a constant battle against corrupt officials. Burnes concentrated on taxing the substantial quantity of coin and bullion that flowed through Afghanistan to India from Russia, China and Central Asia, and he increased central revenue from this source fivefold.
He acted as spymaster for the agents and newswriters throughout Central Asia. In addition, based on the knowledge carefully culled by Leech and himself, he negotiated agreements with the Ghilzais and the Khyber chiefs, fixing the payment levels for keeping the passes open. The rates were higher than those paid by Dost, but below the rates paid by Shuja prior to 1809.9 While this broke promises that Shuja would restore historic rates, the tribal leaders accepted that the country had deteriorated meantime, but that rates would be improved once circumstances allowed. While the British paid, these agreements generally worked.
But Burnes was continually thwarted in his administrative efforts by the corrupt and incompetent wazir, Mullah Shukhr. The wazir’s faculties had declined and he could no longer function effectively. Burnes noted ‘so completely is this poor man’s memory gone, that he never recognises a man he has once seen; so that the commonest business requires half a dozen notes’. A few weeks later and Burnes’ sympathy had lessened; ‘Bad ministers are in every government solid grounds for unpopularity; and I doubt if a King ever had a worse set than Shah Shoojah.’10
Alex was disappointed that Macnaghten was still Envoy. It had always been understood between them that Macnaghten would return to Calcutta as soon as Shuja was established. At th
e end of November 1839 Alex wrote caustically to Holland that Auckland seemed ‘literally to believe that the whole of Afghan politics would stand still if Macnaghten left the country’.11 Just before Christmas he vented the same frustration to George Jacob:
I drive the coach while Macnaghten is with the King. On our arrival here, the Envoy made a bold push to get away […] but the Governor-General beseeched him to stay a while longer, and appointed your humbler servant Resident in Candahar, but this I declined, and now I get Rs 2,500 for staying here. The obnoxious crime of being a young man is I suppose what keeps me a second so long, but I get on well with Macnaghten, and only want responsibility to be a happy man.12
Auckland himself had planned to quit the scene at this stage. Like Bentinck before him, he intended to appoint an acting Governor-General and to leave without awaiting a successor. But Thomas Robertson declined the acting appointment; and Auckland decided that, given the Russian threat to Khiva and chaos in the Punjab, he should remain in India a while longer.
It was a relief for Burnes when Macnaghten, Sale and Shuja left for winter quarters at Jalalabad three thousand feet lower. It was a poor replacement for Afghanistan’s former winter capital of Peshawar, but enjoyed a significantly milder climate than Kabul. Jalalabad had much declined, through earthquakes and constant warfare. There was only one decent house, which Macnaghten commandeered, leaving Shuja to cobble together a collection of the best hovels. They took four regiments with them plus the bulk of the artillery and the sappers, leaving only HM 13th Foot, the 35th NI and three guns with Burnes and Dennie to hold Kabul.
Macnaghten chose Percival Lord, the man with most experience of the small states north of Kabul, to regularise relations between them and Shuja, and attempt to deal with Dost. The former Emir, with his customary energy and skill, had increased his force in Balkh and even made inroads into the territory of Murad Beg, taking the Saigan and Kamard valleys and forcing Murad to hand over caravan tolls on trade between Kabul and Central Asia. This gave the Emir money to pay his supporters and continue the struggle.
Lord, now based in Bamian, reported to Burnes and Macnaghten that a dangerous alliance was developing between Murad Beg, Mir Wali and Dost, which might raise all of Turkestan south of the Oxus (modern northern Afghanistan) to fight Shuja. Macnaghten planned to send a brigade over the Hindu Kush into Khulm when the passes reopened in the spring of 1840. Meantime, leading a small force of Gurkhas, irregular cavalry and horse artillery, Lord conducted a winter campaign and annexed Saigan to Kabul. With outstanding officers in George Broadfoot and Colin Mackenzie, Lord, who was acquiring a taste for this kind of thing, suggested that annexation of Balkh and other northern territories would help provide increased revenues desperately needed in Kabul.
Alex had written to James Burnes that ‘I had a grand mission to Cabool and a fine lot of fellows with me’13 and he remained in close touch with Wood, Lord and Leech now; they frequently backed each other up in official correspondence. Burnes now strongly supported Lord, adding that the Russian advance on Khiva would be countered by such a move, and as always advocating the return of Peshawar to Kabul. Macnaghten, who was finally coming to realise that the paltry revenues of Kabul made his whole project unviable, was inclined to agree. But Auckland, concerned that he had already pushed British forces much too far from India, vetoed further territorial expansion, setting the northern frontier at Bajgah, which the enterprising Lord had just annexed.
The British had suffered several defeats in the Khyber pass. An outpost held by 300 Najibs, or Punjab Muslims, recruited by Mackeson, had been massacred. Two attempts to resupply the garrison at Ali Musjid had resulted in humiliating retreat. Sale and Macnaghten therefore came down through the Khyber pass in late November 1839, after Mackeson had reaffirmed the subsidies of the Khyber tribes. They continued to Peshawar, where Willoughby Cotton had been waiting as the guest of Avitabile, having learnt that Sir Jasper Nicholls had after all arrived to take command in Calcutta. At one of Avitabile’s grand dinners on 3 December 1839, Cotton, Macnaghten and Sale received from Burnes a letter detailing the fall of Kelat to General Wilshire. Avitabile conjured up an impromptu yet magnificent firework display. The following morning another letter arrived, from Auckland, ordering Cotton back to command in Afghanistan. Before returning to Kabul they were joined in Peshawar by Edward Conolly, returning from bringing up the officers’ wives to the army in Afghanistan, led by Mrs Macnaghten and Lady Sale.14 Probably meeting their wives was the real reason Macnaghten and Sale had gone to Peshawar.
Burnes’ ability to affect policy had not improved, but at least he now had no superior immediately to hand, and he assumed the social leadership of the British in Kabul. On 31 December 1839 he threw a Hogmanay party and presided over it in his kilt. Neville Chamberlain wrote:
We had a very merry party though we had nothing to drink but brandy and gin. At about 2 in the morning we […] commenced dancing reels, Captain Sinclair standing on the table, dressed in the Highland costume, playing the bagpipes. Burnes […] is liked by everyone, as there is no political humbug in him unlike most persons in that employ […] [He is] a general favourite, and very justly so as he is, I think, the most unaffected, gentlemanlike, pleasant and amusing man that I have had the good fortune to meet.15
Ironically, Palmerston toasted in that New Year at his Broadlands estate with the Tsar’s special Envoy, Baron Ernst De Brunow, having the previous month hosted a glittering banquet at the Foreign Office for the Tsarevitch in honour of the new-found amity between Britain and Russia. The Tsar had despatched De Brunow to London to secure a joint policy towards the Ottoman Empire. Exactly two years after Burnes hosted Witkiewicz to Christmas dinner in Kabul and sparked Palmerston to start a war, Palmerston hosted De Brunow to pheasant shooting and demonstrated that war’s utter futility.16
Palmerston overplayed his hand. De Brunow advocated restraint in Central Asia, noting bluntly ‘if we go on at this rate the Cossack and the Sepoy will soon cross bayonets on the banks of the Oxus’.17 Confident in the British conquest of Afghanistan, Palmerston rejected De Brunow’s offer of mutual recognition of the independence of all states between the territories of Britain and Russia in Asia. Nesselrode had eaten humble pie by disavowing Witkiewicz and Simonicz, but Palmerston now rubbed his nose in it. The long-term outcome was Russian conquest of Central Asia.
Nesselrode had in fact personally approved Witkiewicz’ Kabul mission, but not his detailed offers. He believed the schemes to assist Dost against Ranjit Singh not worth the conflict it would provoke with Britain. Crucially, Nesselrode had managed to convince Tsar Nicholas I, who had previously given personal backing to Simonicz. However, the blow to Russian prestige of the British invasion of Kabul was too great to go unanswered, particularly as contrasted with Russo-Persian failure before Herat.
The British consistently overestimated the threat posed by the Russian expedition to Khiva. They were conditioned to do so – the British invading force had set off under the impression they were countering a Russian advance, and the Khiva expedition fitted this rationale. But Burnes was responsible for the intelligence from Central Asia, and he failed adequately to filter the alarmist reports of his agents. Throughout the winter of 1839/40 Khiva dominated British strategic thinking and diverted their energies from the urgent tasks of government in Kabul. On 19 December 1839 Burnes wrote:
But everything […] has been cast into the shade by the expedition which the Russians have now pushed into Central Asia. I had […] numerous reports respecting their wagons, their material etc all of which is on a grand scale, giving rise to serious apprehension that their plans are not confined to the chastisement of the petty Khan of Khiva […]
However, Burnes still had a generous intellectual outlook:
Her attack on Khiva is justified by all the laws of nations, and in a country like England where slave dealing is so odiously detested, liable to find favor in men’s eyes […] Yet the time chosen […] leads to the assertion that Russia ha
s put forth her forces merely to counteract our policy […] England and Russia will divide Asia between them and the two Empires will enlarge like circles in the water, till they are lost to nothing, and future generations will search for both of us in these regions, as we now look for the remains of Alexander and his Greeks.18
Russian frontier authorities had been contemplating action against Khiva for thirty years, but it took Perovsky’s special relationship with the Tsar to get permission to go ahead. Perovsky was genuinely outraged at Khiva’s taking of Russian slaves, but he also wanted to counter British influence. He wrote to the Tsar that Russia had much more justification for the annexation of Khiva than the French had to take Algeria.19
Nesselrode was anxious to avoid a clash between British and Russian expeditionary forces. In March 1839 in St Petersburg a committee of Nesselrode, Perovsky and War Minister Chernyshev came to this conclusion:
Beyond its stated principal aim [the freeing of slaves] it must have another still more important; to establish and consolidate the influence of Russia in Central Asia, weaken the long-standing impunity of the Khivans, and especially that constancy with which the English government, to the detriment of our industry and trade, strives to spread its supremacy in those parts […] however […] we consider it more convenient to postpone the mission to Khiva until the end of the expedition undertaken by the Governor-General of the British possessions in India against the ruler of Kabul, Dost Mohammed.