Sikunder Burnes

by Craig Murray

  It must have been galling for Burnes that Macnaghten was now arguing strenuously with Auckland that Herat and Peshawar should be annexed to Kabul. Macnaghten’s resistance to Kabul recovering Peshawar had caused the war in the first place. Too late, he proposed what Burnes had argued all along, that Kabul’s territory needed to be expanded into a viable buffer state.

  Auckland suggested that Peshawar might be returned to Muslim rule but as a British Protectorate. The civil war in the Punjab following the death of Ranjit Singh had already led the British to take military control. On 26 May 1841 Auckland wrote to London:

  It is not clear to me that we should hastily declare that whatever we hold, we hold strictly in trust for Maharaja Sher Singh and more particularly on the side of Peshawar […] if the Sikh authority should be dissolved and expelled, its restoration is not to be regarded as a thing practicable […] there must I presume be Sikh or there must be Mahomedan supremacy and the latter I conceive must prevail. But it must do so under our care and management […]42

  On 2 April 1841 Burnes wrote to George Jacob about his loyal Arab guards, indicating Jacob was in touch with their families. Rubica had joined one of Shuja’s newly raised bodies, the Afghan Pioneer Corps, on Rs50 a month, but still attended Burnes. Abdullah remained in Burnes’ service, and had a new Kabul wife, although Burnes was pleased he was still sending money back to his first family in India. Alex had been trying to persuade them to return to India, but they refused to leave him.43

  On 19 April 1841, Burnes made his final attempt at influencing policy, in another detailed memorandum, ‘Notes on Consolidating Afghanistan’.44 He again listed the problems of the occupation, particularly regarding unjust taxation and the billeting of troops on villagers. But he also had a new target – the network of bellicose British political officers:

  wherever our political officers are, collision forthwith follows. A native temporizes, a European officer fights; we are thus on the high road to denationalize Affghanistan instead of contributing to its stability as a kingdom; we shall subvert all its institutions, and not succeed in fixing our own in their stead […] we shall have alienated a people who were neutral […] and have to meet them as enemies.

  Again Macnaghten annotated Burnes’ memorandum, but his comments, though still defensive, are markedly less pugnacious than the previous year. To the above he merely noted:

  I shall hope that a few years of tact and patience would make this a very respectable kingdom. The people will naturally appreciate the comfort of justice and quiet after a little experience. W.M.

  Burnes suggested that Shuja be enjoined to make a more public display of piety and attachment to Islam, and take care to show even-handedness in matters of justice between his subjects and the foreigners. Alex argued that the enmity of the people was, failing fundamental reform of the administration and revenue, something the British would have to accept and guard against. His memorandum is not convincing as a solution to the problems of the occupation, which in truth could never have been made acceptable.

  Many others were trying to awaken Macnaghten to the perilous situation, chief among them Henry Rawlinson who wrote several detailed analyses of the continuing uprisings among Dourani tribes. In reply, on 13 June 1841 Macnaghten admonished Rawlinson for ‘your taking an unwarrantably gloomy view of our position […] We have enough of difficulties and enough of croakers without adding to the number needlessly.’ Again on 2 August he urged Rawlinson to ‘regard matters a little more couleur de rose’.45

  Having sacked Leech, Macnaghten was still more dissatisfied with Rawlinson and, furious that Nott distrusted and disparaged the janbaz, was still trying to get Auckland to remove Nott. On 5 September Macnaghten wrote to Rawlinson that Auckland had agreed to remove Nott: this was overtaken by events.

  Burnes to his friends put on a face of cheerful resignation. He wrote to his brother Adam, ‘I am now a highly paid idler having no less than 3500 rupees a month, as Resident at Caubul, and being, as the lawyers call it, only counsel, and that a dumb one too – by which I mean that I give out paper opinions, but do not work them out.’ He told Adam that the British Army should annex Peshawar and Herat to Kabul by conquest, and then withdraw to the Indus, which should be the permanent frontier of British India. He concluded, ‘all this common sense is however too simple for the great man [Auckland]’. Inside, Burnes was eaten by rancour, hinting to Adam that he knew dark secrets and that the war had been undertaken for the personal interests of the decision-makers. He considered himself, however, ethically bound not to turn whistleblower:

  war has the double scourge of being hateful in itself, and ruinous in its consequences. I am often half disposed […] to write on the political events which brought us here, and if I cannot print in my life, leave my executors to do it, and thus furnish food for reflection on the wisdom of the world […] but again, while a Government employee, I look on any breaches of confidence as dishonest, and I therefore hold my pen, but some day or other […] I shall record a wrinkle or two as to our advance here, which will make politicians stare, and show that there are other than state secrets. In fact, Adam, I have seen so much in my short life, that what you will not credit is in fact true, that men look alone to their own advancement, and not to their government.46

  Sadly his private papers have vanished.

  Burnes now stood to become a very wealthy man – his annual income as Resident in Kabul was over £4,000, higher than many in the aristocracy, and before him was the prospect of taking over as Envoy from Macnaghten, with a salary three times greater. He assured his family he lived well; he used part of his income to maintain his popularity with the garrison; this reflected a love of socialising. He had breakfast set for eight every morning for any officer who wished to drop in – and many usually did – and ‘discuss a rare Scotch breakfast of smoked fish, salmon grills, devils and jellies’. Burnes continually plays up his Scottish identity, and the image of him in Kabul offering Arbroath smokies to the officers is irresistible.

  He gave a weekly dinner party. In recounting the treats he imported for his guests, he refers proudly to his work on opening up the Indus to British goods, and reducing the effect of transport costs, tolls and duties:

  I can place before my friends at one-third in excess of the Bombay price my champagne, hock, madeira, sherry, port, claret, sauterne, not forgetting a glass of curacao and maraschino, and the hermetically sealed salmon and hotchpotch (veritable hotch-potch, all the way frae Aberdeen), for deuced good it is, the peas as big as if they had been soaked for bristling.

  On quiet evenings he would dine with his brother Charlie and his housemate and assistant, William Broadfoot, whose brother James had died before Alex’s eyes at Parwan. At thirty-one William was a formidable Orcadian who had raised a regiment of Afghan pioneers, now under command of another brother, George. William was described as: ‘Like a father to these men, in attention to their real wants, while he exacted from them the most implicit obedience to his orders, and punished their faults with a severity which many would have deemed ferocious.’47 Broadfoot’s sappers remained loyal to the British.

  After dinner William, Charlie and Alex would drink port and talk on. Burnes always kept an eye on events in the Montrose Review and noticed the progress of James Duke, another Montrose Freemason and friend of Joseph Hume, who had become Liberal MP for Boston and now an alderman of London, which meant he would eventually be Lord Mayor. He told Charlie, ‘I am glad of it, for he is a good fellow and deserves his prosperity.’ That summer Britain was in the middle of an election campaign. Palmerston, campaigning in Tiverton, gloried in the successful invasion:

  We carried our armies into the centre of Afghanistan, and […] rendered secure to us that vast empire which we possess in India, and the importance of which it is hardly possible to over-rate […] We brought within British influence, in one campaign, a vast extent of country larger than France, almost as big as half of Europe.48

  Despite such bombast, he was defe
ated and Sir Robert Peel formed a Tory adminstration.

  Burnes spent a great deal of time reading. He much enjoyed Tacitus, describing him as timeless wisdom for governance. In summer 1841 he was also reading Byron, Guizot, Horace Walpole and Sidney Smith. His conscience continued to trouble him – he worried he had come to Kabul for the wrong reasons. He wrote to an old Montrose friend: ‘That demon, ambition, makes us climb the high hill, as my great relative Burns said “Not for the laudable anxiety of viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the pride of looking down at our fellows.” Yet I do feel also […] that I am working for my country’s good […]’49

  Alex and Charlie had another time-consuming occupation, started in summer 1841, assisted by another resident of the house, Pandit Gaurishankar, Alex’s confidential clerk and book-keeper. Burnes was still furious at the editing of his despatches for publication by government. As it became plain how disastrous the war was, it was galling to be falsely portrayed as its author. Alex and Charlie therefore painstakingly wrote out full copies of hundreds of Burnes’ despatches of 1836 to 1838, and sent batches back with every post to James in Bombay, and copies to be kept by his agents Forbes & Co. Alex also found time to write his book ‘Cabool’ and send it to John Murray.

  Burnes’ female Kashmirian companions had now been with him over four years, so there may have been tenderness or at least familiarity in the relationship. Lal specifies that there were women for Burnes, Charlie, Leech and Burnes’ ‘assistants’ – so presumably at least Broadfoot. There were at least three living in the house. I find it reasonable to connect the professional musicians employed by Mohan Lal who lived two doors away and envisage nautch dancing. Whether the women ever dined with the men we do not know. There is an account of Allard and Ventura trying it with their Kashmiri wives, who found it too culturally uncomfortable. After four years there could have been children, but Lal does not refer to Burnes having a specific ‘wife’.50

  The new military commander at Kabul, General William Keith Elphinstone, is always described as a veteran of Waterloo. That is true, strictly speaking. But he spent the battle as a French prisoner, having been captured the evening before.51 He told the US Navy captain Charles Samuel Stewart that he had been interrogated by Napoleon in person.

  After years on the half-pay of a colonel and the declining income of his bleak Carstairs estates, Elphinstone had muddled his way into substantial debt, and had persuaded his friend Lord Raglan, Military Secretary at the War Office, to appoint him to India purely to make money. Raglan bears much of the blame for the later Charge of the Light Brigade. His appointment of Elphinstone was a still more costly error. Hobhouse tried to block it but Wellington insisted.52 The Elphinstones had been central to the British administration for four generations, and the flagship of the Company fleet was the Elphinstone Castle. If a senior Elphinstone wanted something from India, it was in the natural order of things for it to be granted.

  But Elphinstone’s operational deployment was in Auckland’ hands, and he had been placed in charge of the garrison at Meerut, an important station and key post for reinforcing Afghanistan. On 6 February 1840 Elphinstone called on Emily Eden en route to see Auckland. Elphinstone knew the Edens socially and was indignant that Auckland was his superior: ‘It seems odd that I have never seen A. since we were shooting grouse together, and now I had to ask for an audience and for employment.’ Emily Eden was appalled at his physical appearance. She ‘never made out it was the same man till a sudden recollection came over me a week ago. He is in a shocking state of gout, poor man! – one arm in a sling and very lame […]’53

  Auckland appointed Elphinstone to Kabul after a personal interview and was aware of his physical disability. Auckland was concerned at the possibility of two other fronts opening, against the Sikhs in the Punjab and the Russians in the north. His appointment of the invalid Elphinstone in these circumstances is incomprehensible.54

  Due to his continued battles with authority, in January 1841 Colonel Dennie was deprived of his brigade command and returned to command the 13th Foot. Colonel Shelton was appointed Brigadier, and started from India to Kabul. Thus the British garrison lost an extremely able second in command, in favour of a numbskull.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Dissent and Dysfunction

  The spark that launched the revolt of the eastern Ghilzais was the reduction by Rs40,000 of their subsidy for keeping open the passes into Kabul. They had done this with efficiency. There were four staging posts over the Khoord Kabul route kept supplied with provisions and horses for the British; they policed casual banditry and cleared the paths in bad weather. The arbitrary reduction in the allowance was seen as bad faith. The practice of transit subsidy in the passes dated back at least to 350 BC, and is detailed by both Arrian and Strabo. Macnaghten claimed the chiefs ‘acquiesced in the justice of the reduction’.1 That was downright delusional.

  Also cut were the sums paid to chiefs for provision of feudal cavalry. Here the cut was even larger: Rs300,000. This caused great resentment.

  A rebalancing of the Afghan state to increase central authority was necessary after bloody anarchy, and Dost Mohammed had been engaged on just this. It was resentment of his centralising efforts that led many to desert him for Shuja. Reforms which from the Emir caused resentment were never going to be acceptable from infidels.

  As British India went through its conquest cycles, the frequent wars had always been expensive. But they had paid off with revenues bringing a return on the investment. Afghanistan was a dead loss – there was no prospect even in the medium term of Afghanistan becoming profitable. The Secret Committee in London at the end of 1840 had suggested to Auckland that he consider pulling out. Auckland argued for more time time, and that expenditure could be reduced.

  Who ordered the subsidy cut is disputed. Durand blames Burnes.2 The cuts were supported by Burnes’ ally, the wazir Usman Khan, who Afghan sources claim was playing a double game to provoke resistance.3 Eldred Pottinger remonstrated with Macnaghten, who replied that ‘He could not help the reduction, his orders were peremptory,’4 and Macnaghten sent a report to Calcutta that ‘the necessities of His Majesty [Shuja] and the frequent prohibitions I had received against further reliance on the resources of the British Government appeared to admit of no alternative’.5 Calcutta had cut Macnaghten’s budget, and he had decided the cuts should fall on payments to the chiefs rather than on the central expenditure of the Shah. Macnaghten never mentioned Burnes in this context and neither did Eldred Pottinger or George Lawrence.6

  Macnaghten was cutting the wrong things. The Ghilzai subsidy reduction of £4,000 was a third of Macnaghten’s annual salary, and a fraction of the money paid to maintain Shuja’s zenana. Total annual salaries of the thirty-two British political officers in Afghanistan were £53,120. Payments of £200,000 had been made, fruitlessly, to Yar Mohammed in Herat. Mohan Lal was given the thankless task of trying to talk round the Ghilzai chiefs. They received him politely and listened carefully, then returned home and closed the passes.7 Shuja despatched Hamza Khan, a Ghilzai noble, to placate the rebels. Hamza had himself lost money by the cut, and he simply stirred up resistance. On 1 September Usman Khan presented key nobles in Kabul with documents detailing the cuts and a new pledge of allegiance to Shuja. They refused to sign.8

  Macnaghten now heard he was to be Governor of Bombay. He would occupy the beautiful mansion of Sans Pareil, become an extremely wealthy man, and he and his wife would rise a social level. In future he would be accepted in great homes not as a useful functionary but as a near equal.

  On 8 September 1841, in reaction to this news, Burnes wrote bitterly in his journal:

  I have no responsibility, and why should I work, yet it is clear that if I had carried on a correspondence with Lord Auckland as he wished, I must have injured Macnaghten […] he says he may go through Punjaub to settle affairs there. Why he has mismanaged all affairs […] yet Sir William is Governor of Bombay […] so I must change my standard of grea
tness and consider myself in total error.9

  Out of misplaced loyalty, Burnes had suppressed his opinions about the conduct of the occupation, telling them only to his closest circle. He worried that he had damaged himself through association with failed policies by not telling influential friends his true views:

  I question myself how far I am right in avoiding correspondence with Mr Elphinstone, Lord Lansdowne, and all my numerous friends in England, or even with Lord Auckland; yet I believe I am acting an honest part to Macnaghten, and to Government, and yet I fear neither the one nor the other thank me.10

  Burnes was excited to be rid of his tiresome boss. On 1 October he wrote home:

  Supreme at last – You have of course heard that Macnaghten is to be Governor of Bombay: I fear, however, that I shall be confirmed as Resident, and not as Envoy, which is a bore; but as long as I have power, and drive the coach, I do not much care. I hope I have prepared myself for the charge by hard study, and a knowledge of the country.11

  There was potentially a huge difference – Macnaghten as Envoy had the colossal salary of £11,000, while Burnes as Resident earned the still very substantial £4,200. Envoys in theory had more discretion, being plenipotentiary – they did not have to refer agreements back for approval. But in practice, the difference was not great.

  The Bombay Times under Buist thundered against the occupation, influencing opinion in India and London. However, James would not allow Buist to publish Alexander’s copied despatches, to the editor’s frustration. Alexander was not a whistleblower and said publication ‘would be neither useful nor agreeable to him’. Buist in the Bombay Times of 9 October 1841 alluded to the correspondence but stated he was precluded from publication. Burnes’ true opinions were not public before his death.