The Dark Defile (3 page)

In 1739 the Persian Nadir Shah marched his armies through Kabul and down the Khyber Pass to sack Delhi and carry off treasures such as the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan’s jeweled peacock throne. A few years later, the Afghan king Ahmad Shah also sacked Delhi and removed most of the treasures that Nadir Shah had left behind. His successors, albeit less able and with a weaker grip on their dominions, had also shown an enduring interest in invading from the northwest. Having witnessed these incursions, by the early nineteenth century Britain determined to turn the Afghans from potential aggressors to partners in providing a line of defense for India against invaders, whether inspired by European geopolitics or more local ambitions.

In March 1809, with thick snow still blanketing the peaks of the surrounding mountains, Elphinstone and his party, which included 200 cavalrymen, 200 infantrymen and a string of 600 baggage camels, reached the Afghan king’s winter capital of Peshawar at the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, then an Afghan possession. The Mogul emperor Akbar had given Peshawar its name, meaning “Advanced Post,” in the sixteenth century and saw it, as the British would, as key to the defense of his realm against invaders from the northwest. The arrival of this British delegation roused huge curiosity, and so many people pressed around that the king’s horsemen sent to escort the entourage through the city “charged the mob vigorously, and used their whips without compunction,” as Elphinstone recalled. He was particularly struck by a tall thin man—“with swelling muscles, a high nose, and an animated countenance,” wearing a white plumed conical red hat and mounted on a fine gray horse—who, brandishing a spear and shouting in a loud, deep voice, not only dispersed the mob but rode furiously “at grave people sitting on terraces.” His name, Elphinstone was told, was Russool the Mad.

The new arrivals were comfortably accommodated in a large airy house and offered refreshments of sugared almonds and sherbet. The king, Shah Shuja, sent dishes from the royal kitchens for their meals. However, a week passed, and Elphinstone had still not seen him because of elaborate court protocol that even the mild-mannered Elphinstone found “a little unreasonable.” He was told that “the ambassador to be introduced is brought into a court by two officers who hold him firmly by the arms. On coming in sight of the King, who appears at a high window, the ambassador is made to run forward for a certain distance, when he stops for a moment, and prays for the King. He is then made to run forward again, and prays once more; and after another run, the King calls out ‘Khellut’ (a dress) [meaning ‘give him a dress of honor’] which is followed by a Turkish word ‘Getsheen’ (begone) from an officer of state, and the unfortunate ambassador is made to run out of the court and sees no more of the King, unless he is summoned to a private audience to his Majesty’s closet.”

This ritual was, however, “adjusted”—Elphinstone did not say how—and at last amid a great din, which he described as sounding like a charge of cavalry, he was brought before the ruler. Shah Shuja was sitting “on a very large throne of gold or gilding” covered with pearl encrusted cloth. “His appearance was magnificent and royal: his crown and all his dress were one blaze of jewels,” and he was surrounded by eunuchs. He was “a handsome man, about thirty years of age, of an olive complexion, with a thick black beard. The expression of his countenance was dignified and pleasing, his voice clear and his address princely.”

At first sight a dazzled Elphinstone thought that the king “had on armour of jewels.” On closer inspection, he realized he was wearing “a green tunic, with large flowers in gold and precious stones, over which were a large breastplate of diamonds, shaped like two flattened fleur de lis, an ornament of the same kind on each thigh, large emerald bracelets on the arms … In one of the bracelets was the Koh-i-Nur, known to be one of the largest diamonds in the world.” Shah Shuja’s crown was nine inches high and “seemed to be radiated like ancient crowns, and behind the rays appeared peaks of purple velvet.”

Before long Elphinstone had become a frequent visitor to the king, afforded the honor of meeting him in private in his harem. Elphinstone’s mission was to persuade Shah Shuja to agree to an alliance to defend Afghanistan against invasion by France and Russia should they advance from the west through Persia. If pressed, he had permission to offer Shah Shuja arms and ordnance to defend his kingdom, though no troops. The two men got on well. On one occasion the king expressed his hope that Elphinstone would have a chance to see Kabul and all his territories, “which were now to be considered as our own.” His manners impressed the envoy, who wrote, “It will scarcely be believed of an eastern Monarch, how much he had the manners of a gentleman, or how well he preserved his dignity, while he seemed only anxious to please.” Courteous though he appeared, Shah Shuja had, however, little interest in either British fears or ambitions—his own position was far too precarious.

THE PRECEDING THIRTY years of Afghan history read like a particularly bloody revenge tragedy. Although travelers through Afghanistan would frequently pay tribute to the kindness, generosity, honor and bravery of those they met, blood feuds were common and disputes almost invariably settled by violence. A British soldier later killed during the First Afghan War observed,
“They know no law but force and the sword; and every man among them is armed from head to foot—a state which they never quit by day or night, so insecure is life and property among them and so little dare they trust each other!”

Afghan society was feudal. In return for their lands, tribesmen paid their chief tribute in goods and money and when so ordered fought for their chief, who in turn was obliged to provide troops to the king when he needed to raise an army. However, the nature of “kingship” differed from Western tradition. Instead of being a united kingdom under a strong ruler, Afghanistan was—even when at its most unified—a loose grouping of semiautonomous tribes, some speaking different languages and looking physically different from their neighbors. Chiefs and elders ruled these tribes, and their support for the king in Kabul ebbed and flowed, depending on circumstances—something the British and, indeed, others would never quite fully understand. In each tribe the gathering of elders—the
jirgha
—played almost as important a role as the titular ruler. While Elphinstone admired the Afghans’ independent spirit and belief that “all Afghans are equal,” he deplored some of the consequences. “I once strongly urged on a very intelligent old man … the superiority of a quiet and secure life under a powerful monarch, to the discord, the alarms and the blood which they owed to their present system,” to which the old man warmly replied, “We are content with discord, we are content with bloodshed, but we will never be content with a master.”

For a brief period in the mid-eighteenth century, Shah Shuja’s grandfather, Ahmad Shah, had melded an empire that included Kashmir, the Punjab, Sind and Baluchistan, and controlled the trade routes between Persia, Central Asia and India. Today Afghans regard him as one of the founding fathers of their state. The title Durr-i-Dauran (Pearl of the Age) was conferred on him, and the tribe to which his family clan—the Sadozai—belonged took the name Douranee (Pearl of Pearls). However, even before Ahmad Shah’s death, the Douranee empire was fragmenting, and during the reign of his lackluster son the process accelerated. A particular obstacle to stability was
“the dire results of polygamy.”
Afghan chiefs had many wives and so many children they often lost count of the number. Thus in each generation there were large numbers of brothers and half brothers who might sometimes combine in pursuit of a common goal, but who were just as likely to battle savagely among themselves on the slightest of pretexts.

Shah Shuja himself had many half brothers and one full brother, Zaman Shah, who between 1793 and 1801 ruled Afghanistan. However, in an unfortunate series of events that had all the usual complicated elements of blood feud and internecine rivalry, a half brother had ousted Zaman Shah. The cycle had begun in 1799 when Zaman Shah executed the leader of the powerful Barakzai family clan of the Douranee tribe for plotting against him. The dead chief left twenty-two sons, of whom the eldest, Futteh Khan, swore revenge. He persuaded Zaman Shah’s half brother Mahmud, governor of the western city of Herat, to revolt. Together they toppled Zaman Shah and had him blinded, ordering his eyeballs to be pierced with the tip of a dagger—a traditional method of neutralizing rivals. Mahmud then ascended the throne with the powerful Futteh Khan by his side as his vizier.

When Shah Shuja learned what had happened to his full brother, he determined on revenge and proclaimed himself king, briefly seizing Kabul until forced to flee. In 1803 he tried again, this time successfully defeating and capturing his rival, Mahmud. He ordered him to be blinded but then rescinded the command—a rare humane gesture that proved to be a mistake. Futteh Khan escaped and by the time of Elphinstone’s visit to Peshawar had raised a rebellion against Shah Shuja with the aim of restoring Mahmud to the throne.

Despite his initial welcoming of Elphinstone, Shah Shuja soon advised him to leave unless the British would agree to assist him against his enemies, just as they wished for his help against the French, Russians and Persians. Elphinstone had no authority to agree to such a thing, and in any case Shah Shuja and his advisers suspected the motives of the British and doubted whether they were half as powerful as they claimed. In a letter Elphinstone described a conversation with a court mullah: “Our reputation was very high for good faith and for magnanimous conduct to cornered princes,” the mullah said, “but he frankly owned that we had the character of being very designing, and that most people thought it necessary to be very vigilant in all transactions with us.”

However, while Elphinstone was still in Peshawar, news came that Shah Shuja’s enemies had captured the southern city of Kandahar and that the armies he had sent to Kashmir to impose his authority there had been destroyed. In need of friends—even “very designing” ones—Shah Shuja agreed to conclude a treaty with the British that rejoiced that “the veil of separation” between the two countries had been lifted. Under the treaty he promised to prevent Britain’s enemies entering his lands, while the British promised to reimburse any costs he incurred in so doing. What Elphinstone could not have known was that by this time, as a result of Baghdad Jones’s efforts, the Persian shah had also signed a friendship treaty with the British.

Despite the fact that Shah Shuja would lose his throne to Mahmud within weeks of Elphinstone’s departure, his mission had been highly useful. Though he had only visited the fringes of Afghanistan, never even penetrating the Khyber Pass, he had garnered a large amount of intelligence about the region. Using such information, the surveyor who had accompanied him drew the first map of what we now know as Afghanistan. Both his map and Elphinstone’s reports, based as they were mainly on hearsay, would be carefully scrutinized by senior company officials and British politicians as the pace of the Great Game accelerated.

The following year, the displaced Shah Shuja retook Kandahar but was soon evicted by its nobles, who resented his hauteur and autocratic behavior—traits that would later bedevil British attempts to impose him on the Afghans. Not long after, he was imprisoned in Kashmir until “rescued” by the troops of Ranjit Singh, who coveted the fabulous Koh-i-Nur diamond that was still in Shah Shuja’s possession. Despite yielding up this prize, Shah Shuja remained a prisoner in Lahore. Realizing that Ranjit Singh had no intention of helping him, he enterprisingly disguised himself as a beggar and escaped through the city’s sewers. In 1816 he reached the British hill station of Ludhiana to join his blind brother Zaman Shah, who had also been given asylum there.
⁵

Having ousted Shah Shuja, the pleasure-loving Mahmud spent most of his time in the harem, leaving the able Futteh Khan, his vizier, as the de facto ruler. It was a familiar pattern—a king from the Sadozai family clan of the Douranee tribe with a powerful adviser from the Barakzai family clan of the same tribe by his side. Futteh Khan restored order and then mounted a series of ambitious campaigns in which he was assisted by one of his younger brothers, Dost Mohammed. Eager to impress, he made himself useful to his older brother as an “enforcer.” When only fourteen, Dost Mohammed killed a man whom he merely suspected of treachery. He also drank heavily. The American Josiah Harlan, who knew Dost Mohammed, described his drunken orgies when “friend and colleague, master, man and slave, all indiscriminate and promiscuous actors in the wild, voluptuous, licentious scene of shameful bacchanals, they caroused and drank with prostitutes and singers and fiddlers, day and night.”

In 1816, on Futteh Khan’s orders, Dost Mohammed seized the western city of Herat through subterfuge. However, he then violated the harem, stripping the women, noblewomen of the Sadozai royal house, of their jewels and even their clothes. Such an outrage by a member of one clan against another could not go unpunished. Dost Mahommed fled to Kashmir, and his elder brother, as head of the Barakzais, paid for his moment of madness. First, Mahmud’s son Kamran blinded Futteh Khan with the point of a dagger. Then, when he refused to write to Dost Mohammed ordering him to surrender, Mahmud had him slowly butchered before him. First his ears were sliced off, then his nose, then his hands, then—the unkindest cut of all—his beard, at which Futteh Khan at last broke down. A British officer to whom an eyewitness sent an account of the murder explained that
“the beard of a Mahommedan is a member so sacred that honour itself becomes confounded with it; and he who had borne with the constancy of a hero the taunts and tortures heaped upon him, seemed to lose his manhood with his beard, and burst into a passion of tears.”
The torture finally ended when, after his feet had been cut off, Futteh Khan’s throat was slit.

The cycle continued. Dost Mohammed and his brothers in turn swore to avenge Futteh Khan’s death, raised an army, seized Kabul and forced Mahmud and Kamran to flee to Herat. Soon, however, fighting broke out between Dost Mohammed and his numerous brothers, from which by 1826 he finally emerged as the acknowledged head of the Barakzais, dominating what Josiah Harlan called “a community of scorpions.” He renounced drinking and all his other former vices and devoted himself to the serious business of ruling, though at the time he only controlled Kabul and the territory of Ghazni to the south. One of his brothers ruled in Peshawar nominally on his behalf, but in effect independently, while several other brothers set themselves up as autonomous rulers in Kandahar and elsewhere.