History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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      On the 28th of January, 1833, he quitted his residence at Loodhianah, and endeavouring, as he went, to raise money and to enlist troops for his projected expedition, moved his camp slowly to Bahwulpore, and thence, across the Indus, to Shikarpoor, where he had determined to rendezvous.

      But having thus entered the territory of the Ameers of Sindh as a friend, he did not quit it before he had shown his quality as an enemy, by fighting a hard battle with the Sindhians, and effectually beating them. The pecuniary demands which he had made upon them they had resisted; and the Shah having a considerable army at his command, deeply interested in the event, thought fit to enforce obedience. Early in January, 1834, an engagement took place near Rori, and the pride of the Ameers having been humbled by defeat, they consented to the terms he demanded, and acknowledged the supremacy of the Shah.[79]

      Having arranged this matter to his satisfaction, Shah Soojah marched upon Candahar, and in the early summer was before the walls of the city. He invested the place, and endeavoured ineffectually to carry it by assault. The Candahar chiefs held out with much resolution, but it was not until the arrival of Dost Mahomed from Caubul that a general action was risked. The Sirdar lost no time in commencing the attack. Akbar Khan, the chief’s son, who, at a later period, stood out so prominently from the canvas of his country’s history, was at the head of the Barukzye horse; Abdul Samat Khan[80] commanded the foot. No great amount of military skill appears to have been displayed on either side. Akbar Khan’s horsemen charged the enemy with a dashing gallantry worthy of their impetuous leader; but a battalion of the Shah’s troops, under an Indo-Briton, named Campbell, fought with such uncommon energy, that at one time the forces of the Barukzye chiefs were driven back, and victory appeared to be in the reach of the Shah. But Dost Mahomed, who had intently watched the conflict, and kept a handful of chosen troops in reserve, now let them slip, rallied the battalions which were falling back, called upon Akbar Khan to make one more struggle, and, well responded to by his gallant son, rolled back the tide of victory. Shah Soojah, who on the first appearance of Dost Mahomed had lost all heart, and actually given orders to prepare for flight, called out in his desperation to Campbell, “Chupao-chupao,”[81] then ordered his elephant to be wheeled round, and turned his back upon the field of battle. His irresolution and the unsteadfastness of the Douranees proved fatal to his cause.

      The Douranee tribes had looked upon the advance of the King with evident satisfaction. Trodden down and crushed as they had been by the Barukzyes, they would have rejoiced in the success of the royal cause. But they had not the power to secure it. Depressed and enfeebled by long years of tyranny, they brought only the shadow of their former selves to the standard of the Suddozye monarch. Without horses, without arms, without discipline, without heart to sustain them upon any great enterprise, and without leaders to inspire them with the courage they lacked themselves, the Douranees went into the field a feeble, broken-spirited rabble. Had they been assured of the success of the enterprise, they would at least have assumed a bold front, and flung all their influence, such as it was, into the scales on the side of the returned Suddozye; but remembering the iron rule and the unsparing vengeance of the Barukzye Sirdars, they dreaded the consequences of failure, and when the crisis arrived, either stood aloof from the contest, or shamefully apostatised at the last.

      The few, indeed, who really joined the royal standard contrived to defeat the enterprise; for whilst the Shah’s Hindostanees were engaging the enemy in front, the Douranees, moved by an irrepressible avidity for plunder, fell upon the baggage in the rear, and created such a panic in the ranks that the whole army turned and fled. It was not possible to rally them. The battle was lost. The Barukzye troops pushed forward. Campbell, who had fallen like a brave man, covered with wounds, was taken prisoner, with others of the Shah’s principal officers; and all the guns, stores, and camp-equippage of the Suddozye Prince fell into the hands of the victors. The scenes of plunder and carnage which ensued are said to have been terrible. The Shah fled to Furrah, and thence by the route of Seistan and Shorawuk to Kelat. The Candahar chiefs urged the pursuit of the fugitive, but Dost Mahomed opposed the measure, and the unfortunate Prince was suffered to escape.

      But scarcely had the Sirdar returned to Caubul when he found himself compelled to prepare for a new and more formidable enterprise. Runjeet Singh was in possession of Peshawur. The treachery of Sultan Mahomed Khan and his brothers had rebounded upon themselves, and they had lost the province which had been the object of so much intrigue and contention. In their anxiety to destroy Dost Mahomed, they opened a communication with the Sikhs, who advanced to Peshawur ostensibly as friends, and then took possession of the city.[82] Sultan Mahomed Khan ignominiously fled. The Sikh army under Hurree Singh consisted only of 9000 men, and had the Afghans been commanded by a competent leader they might have driven back a far stronger force, and retained possession of the place. The Peshawur chiefs were everlastingly disgraced, and Peshawur lost to the Afghans for ever.

      But Dost Mahomed could not submit patiently to this. Exasperated against Runjeet Singh, and indignant at the fatuous conduct of his brothers, he determined on declaring a religious war against the Sikhs, and began with characteristic energy to organise a force sufficiently strong to wrest Peshawur from the hands of the usurpers. To strengthen his influence he assumed, at this time, the title of Ameer-al-Mominin (commander of the faithful[83]), and exerted himself to inflame the breasts of his followers with that burning Mahomedan zeal which has so often impelled the disciples of the Prophet to deeds of the most consummate daring and most heroic self-abandonment. Money was now to be obtained, and to obtain it much extortion was, doubtless, practised. An Afghan chief has a rude and somewhat arbitrary manner of levying rates and taxes. Dost Mahomed made no exception in his conduct to “the good old rule,” which had so long, in critical conjunctures, been observed in that part of the world. He took all that he could get, raised a very respectable force, coined money in his own name, and then prepared for battle.

      At the head of an imposing array of fighting men, the Ameer marched out of Caubul. He had judged wisely. The declaration of war against the infidel—war proclaimed in the name of the Prophet—had brought thousands to his banner; and ever as he marched the great stream of humanity seemed to swell and swell, as new tributaries came pouring in from every part, and the thousands became tens of thousands. From the Kohistan, from the hills beyond, from the regions of the Hindoo-Koosh, from the remoter fastnesses of Toorkistan, multitudes of various tribes and denominations, moved by various impulses, but all noisily boasting their true Mahomedan zeal, came flocking in to the Ameer’s standard. Ghilzyes and Kohistanees, sleek Kuzzilbashes and rugged Oosbegs, horsemen and foot-men, all who could wield a sword or lift a matchlock, obeyed the call in the name of the Prophet. “Savages from the remotest recesses of the mountainous districts,” wrote one, who saw this strange congeries of Mussulman humanity,[84] “who were dignified with the profession of the Mahomedan faith, many of them giants in form and strength, promiscuously armed with sword and shield, bows and arrows, matchlocks, rifles, spears and blunderbusses, concentrated themselves around the standard of religion, and were prepared to slay, plunder, and destroy, for the sake of God and the Prophet, the unenlighted infidels of the Punjab.”

      The Mussulman force reached Peshawur. The brave heart of Runjeet Singh quailed before this immense assemblage, and he at once determined not to meet it openly in the field. There was in his camp a man named Harlan, an American adventurer, now a doctor and now a general, who was ready to take any kind of service with any one disposed to pay him, and to do any kind of work at the instance of his master.[85] Clever and unscrupulous, he was a fit agent to do the Maharajah’s bidding. Runjeet despatched him as an envoy to the Afghan camp. He went ostensibly to negotiate with Dost Mahomed; in reality to corrupt his supporters. “On the occasion,” he says, with as little sense of shame as though he had been performing an exploit of the highest merit, “of Dost Mahomed’s visit to Peshawur, which occurred during the period of my service with Runjeet Singh, I was despatched by the Prince as ambassador to the Ameer. I divided his brothers against him, exciting their jealousy of his growing power, and exasperating the family feuds with which, from my previous acquaintance, I was familiar, and stirred up the feudal lords of his durbar, with the prospects of pecuniary advantages. I induced his brother, Sultan Mahomed Khan, the СКАЧАТЬ