The Dark Defile (19 page)

At around this time, intelligence arrived that to the west in Herat Yar Mohammed was planning to profit from the situation by attacking Kandahar, while to the southeast in the Sikh domains Ranjit Singh’s successors were obstructing the movement of British supplies intended for Afghanistan and plotting with Ghilzai chiefs, who had taken refuge with them, and with the Sindi rulers against the British. Macnaghten complained to a colleague, “
Herat on the one side and the Sikhs on the other are terrible thorns—and I do not anticipate that we shall ever have fair play from either until we find ground and opportunity for coercing them into good behaviour.
” Under pressure from all directions, he urged Auckland to restore Peshawar and the lands up to the Indus to Afghan rule—the very thing for which Dost Mohammed had asked and been refused on the grounds that it would alienate the now dead Ranjit Singh, and which, had it been granted, would have saved many thousands of lives.

At this
critical time Macnaghten also dispatched a long note to Auckland’s aide Henry Torrens in Calcutta, setting out the manifold problems that had confronted the British since arriving in Kabul, perhaps with the intention of fending off criticisms of his management of affairs thus far. “The Afghans are a nation of bigots,” he asserted. “Besides an intolerance of our creed [religion] there is an intolerance of our customs, and it behoves us therefore to be very wary in our attempts at innovation: nor ought it ever to be forgotten that a system, though excellent in itself, may not be good as applied to this country, nor though good, may it be such as to admit the due appreciation of its advantages. It requires the most cautious steering to refrain, on the one side from alarming popular prejudices, and on the other from leaving the Government in the same imbecile state in which we found it.”

Macnaghten railed that “our enemies try to impress the people with a belief that we are the rulers of the country” and suggested it was difficult for Shah Shuja—though “there is not an abler or better man than himself in all his dominions”—to live up to his subjects’ expectations since, impoverished by the campaign to restore him, he lacked “the means either of rewarding his friends or conciliating his enemies.” Just as Western officials would do in regard to President Hamid Karzai more than 160 years later, he urged a publicly deferential approach toward Shah Shuja so that he should not appear to be just a puppet of the British, though adding that in private “I have never ceased to urge upon his Majesty the great importance of selecting a competent minister, of reforming his army, and of reducing his expenditure within the limits of his income.”

However, before Torrens had time to receive and digest Macnaghten’s note, the local situation had deteriorated yet further. In early September, according to Atkinson, “information reached Kabul that the whole country between the Hindu Kush and the Oxus River had risen in favour of Dost Mohammed who, with his eldest son Akbar Khan, was advancing with a force of horsemen supplied by Uzbek tribal leaders towards Bamiyan.” The emir’s approach frightened a detachment of Shah Shuja’s levies into falling back from their remote northern outpost to Bamiyan, whence, on 7 September, Cotton hastily dispatched reinforcements under Colonel William Dennie, who had distinguished himself at the assault on Ghazni. Five days later, a depressed and anxious Macnaghten wrote to Auckland reporting Cotton’s view that unless the British army was instantly strengthened, “we cannot hold the country”—a view with which he strongly agreed. The menace of Dost Mohammed seemed only too real. Atkinson wrote that “so completely had the enemy closed up every source of intelligence and so difficult was it to collect the least exact information of his whereabouts at the time that Dost Mohammed actually slept about three miles from our camp at Bamiyan on the night of 17 September, and the first knowledge our troops had of his proximity was furnished next morning, by some hundreds of Uzbeks on the heights and others descending into the valley.”

However, on 18 September, a day when Macnaghten had never felt “
so much harassed in body and mind,
” came a turn for the better. If the British had been uncertain of Dost Mohammed’s intentions, he had been similarly anxious about theirs, writing to a chief, “
For God’s sake, tell me the news! Will the Feringhees run or fight?
” Unclear also of the exact British whereabouts, he had begun advancing toward Bamiyan. When Dennie in turn learned that some of the emir’s men had been sighted, he concluded they could only be an advance party and sent troops and artillery to confront them, before following himself with further troops. After rendezvousing with his own men, together they encountered their enemy in a narrow valley. Dennie realized by their numbers that this was no advance guard but Dost Mohammed’s entire force. He ordered his artillery to fire on the densely packed mass of enemy cavalry. Dost Mohammed’s six thousand Uzbek horsemen fled, leaving behind tents, baggage, kettledrums, standards and his only artillery piece. He himself only escaped destruction or capture because of the speed of his horse, but many of his followers were pursued and cut down.

Macnaghten could breathe again, and when the news reached Auckland he wrote to London praising “
this brilliant achievement … which with reference to the small number of our troops engaged … cannot fail to be productive of the best moral effect.
” In the aftermath of the emir’s flight, Dr. Percival Lord persuaded the wali of Kulum, one of the most important local tribal leaders, to withdraw his support from Dost Mohammed. The emir, though, remained defiant, claiming he was as indestructible as a wooden spoon: “
You may throw me hither and thither, but I shall not be hurt.
” He must have been heartened when an entire recently and locally recruited regiment of Shah Shuja’s infantry took advantage of the disturbances to desert to him. Their defection reinforced Burnes’s view that “
Sheets of foolscap are written in praise of the Shah’s contingent, and, as God is my judge I tremble every time I hear of its being employed … Shah Shuja never can be left without a British army, for his own contingent will never be fit for anything.
”

Meanwhile in Kabul, despite news of the rout of Dost Mohammed’s men at Bamiyan, the atmosphere remained tense. Atkinson believed that had Dost Mohammed been able to get close to Kabul, “our game with our handful of troops would have been a desperate one.” So many soldiers had been sent north that the city itself had been left vulnerable. “Great excitement prevailed everywhere. Our camp was about two miles from the Balla Hissar, and we had constantly an alarm that a night attack would be made upon us; picquets were strengthened and a sharp look-out was kept … In the Balla Hissar, artillery was placed, and the gates and magazine were doubly guarded. During the whole of September and October, the city continued in a state of extreme agitation; armed men in the streets, sharpening their swords at the cutlers’ shops, looked fierce and threatening; and day after day a revolt was whispered to be at hand. Under such circumstances, no one could feel at ease. The Kizzilbashis and Afghans who had joined the Shah were in dismay, and with good reason, for should the conspiracy meet with even temporary success, their heads would soon have been severed from their bodies, or their bowels ripped up.”

He described how an “active system of espionage” was set up “to discover the plans of the conspirators … known to be meditating mischief.” Learning of a plot to seize Shah Shuja during one of the visits he was fond of making to a garden two miles from the citadel, the British discouraged him from going there, while across the city key plotters were arrested. According to Atkinson, this “had a talismanic effect … their followers, as is generally the case in eastern conspiracies, became at once paralyzed and powerless.”

Deciding that Kohistan had to be subdued before the situation there grew any worse, in late September Macnaghten dispatched a brigade under “Fighting Bob” Sale. His mission was to discourage the chiefs from supporting Dost Mohammed as well as to punish them for having defied orders to muster levies and pay taxes by destroying the many fortresses and strongholds studding the valleys of Kohistan. This demonstration of military might was to go hand in hand with a softer, subtler approach. Alexander Burnes and Mohan Lal, accompanying Sale, were to send agents into the forts and villages to try to bribe Dost Mohammed’s adherents to desert his cause. However, despite their efforts and though by late October Sale had reduced several forts to rubble, the main rebel chiefs were at large and, as Macnaghten had always feared, joined forces with Dost Mohammed.

The situation appeared grave when, on 2 November 1840, an advance party of Sale’s cavalry unexpectedly encountered Dost Mohammed and several hundred horsemen in the valley of Purwandurrah, north of Kabul. The emir ordered his men to attack, and in response Captain Fraser, leading the British forces, commanded, “
Front! Draw swords!
” Yet though the British officers charged toward the enemy, not all their troops followed. Two squadrons of the Second Bengal Native Cavalry dawdled behind, then, seeing their officers—including Dr. Lord, who had been accompanying the party as an observer—cut down in fierce fighting, turned and fled. Some of Dost Mohammed’s men pursued the escaping cavalry for more than a mile, while the emir with the rest of his force almost reached the British infantry and artillery positions. However, Dost Mohammed decided not to expose his men to the guns and, ordering a retreat, galloped away victorious, blue standard fluttering. Alexander Burnes was so alarmed that he at once dispatched a messenger to Macnaghten urging him to recall all troops immediately to Kabul to resist what he predicted would be a full-scale rising in Kohistan on behalf of Dost Mohammed.

According to Atkinson, an eyewitness, two days later Macnaghten was taking his customary evening ride and pondering Burnes’s advice. As he was approaching the gate of his residence “a horseman, passing his escort … rode suddenly up to him, and said, ‘Are you the Envoy?’ ‘Yes, I am the Envoy.’ ‘Then,’ rejoined the horseman, ‘here is the Emir.’ ‘What Emir? Where is he?’ ‘Dost Mohammed Khan!’ was the reply.” The amazed Macnaghten then saw “the very ex-chief himself alighting from his horse, and claiming his protection. The whole scene was truly electrical.” Macnaghten invited Dost Mohammed to accompany him into the residence. When the envoy asked him why he had defied the will of the British government for so long, he replied that it was his fate—he could not control destiny.

Dost Mohammed’s decision to surrender himself at this critical point is puzzling. Perhaps, having won the encounter at Purwandurrah, he had decided that honor was satisfied and that there was no point continuing to resist a more powerful enemy. Perhaps he had simply grown weary or fallen into the despondency to which Josiah Harlan claimed he was prone. The Reverend Gleig concluded that Dost Mohammed “felt that for the present his game was played out.” Later Afghan historians would blame him for giving up at the very moment when the British were vulnerable and he might have gone on to rally mass support against them, but he had probably not fully appreciated how exposed the British were at the end of long supply and communication lines to India.

For the moment, the emir seemed genuinely relieved to be in British custody. He offered Macnaghten his sword, commenting that he had no further use for it, but the envoy just as graciously begged him to keep it. In fact, Dost Mohammed had taken the precaution, while on his way to Kabul to surrender, of exchanging his own fine sword for the more ordinary blade of his attendant. Atkinson, observing the fallen leader closely, thought that he looked haggard and careworn. Instead of the tall, spare, handsome man he had imagined from the accounts of others, Dost Mohammed “[is] on the contrary, robust, and large-limbed; his nose is sharp and aquiline; his eye-brows are highly-arched, and his forehead falls back at a striking angle. His moustache and beard are grey. They had not been dyed, he said afterwards, from the time he quitted Kabul.” However, he was clearly not without vanity, saying to Macnaghten, “They told me you were an old man; but I do not think so; how old are you?” When Macnaghten replied that he was nearly fifty, Dost Mohammed responded, “Ah! That is just my age.” He was, in fact, nearer sixty. Macnaghten ordered a tent to be pitched in the gardens for Dost Mohammed, who, after eating a hearty meal after the sun had gone down since it was Ramadan, slept soundly. Macnaghten’s military secretary Captain George Lawrence, who kept guard during the night, found him deep asleep every time he checked on him.

The next day, as the astonishing news spread throughout the city that Dost Mohammed was in British custody, Atkinson noticed Kabul had become suddenly tranquil, “totally free from the least trace of agitation.” Dost Mohammed was not to remain there for long. On 12 November Sir Willoughby Cotton left with some of his forces for Jalalabad, where he intended to winter with Shah Shuja. With him went Dost Mohammed, beginning his journey into exile in India. Shah Shuja had refused to see the emir before his departure, which probably spared both of them some embarrassment. Shah Shuja had, of course, wanted his enemy dead. He had told Lawrence that several of his men had offered to bring in Dost Mohammed and had asked slyly, “If in apprehending the Emir, it should so happen that he should be killed, what then would be the Envoy’s opinion?”

WHILE DOST MOHAMMED had still been at large, Macnaghten had declared that “
no mercy should be shown to the man who is the author of all the ills that are now distracting the country
” and had mentioned the possibility of his execution. However, with Dost Mohammed safely in custody, Macnaghten made clear to Shah Shuja that there was no question of executing the man whom he was treating more as a guest than a prisoner. Indeed, Macnaghten had undergone an extraordinary change of heart, praising the emir as “
a wonderful fellow
” and asking Auckland to treat him generously. As if his earlier disputes with Burnes over the respective merits of the two rulers had never occurred, he wrote urging that Dost Mohammed should be treated “
with liberality
,” saying Shah Shuja “had no claim upon us. We had no hand in depriving him of his Kingdom, whereas we ejected the Dost, who never offended us, in support of our policy of which he was the victim.” Burnes had an affectionate meeting with Dost Mohammed before the latter departed Kabul, and gave his old friend an Arab horse.