History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ hold upon him. He ought to be precluded from receiving any other foreign representative or agent of any kind at his Court, and should agree to transact all business with foreign powers through the British agent. Unless something of this kind should be done, we shall never be secure; and until Dost Mahomed Khan or some other Afghan shall have got both Candahar and Herat into his hands, our position here must continue to be a false one.”[210]

      At this time, the Envoy in Persia, though profoundly convinced that the Candahar Sirdars were not to be trusted, and that the game they were playing was one injurious to the interests of Great Britain, seemed to repose confidence in the good feeling of Dost Mahomed, and to believe that it would be easy to secure his alliance. Of the intrigues of the former he wrote: “Kohun Dil Khan is playing a double game, and trying to strengthen himself by the alliance with Persia against both Caubul and Herat. He has put himself in communication with the Russian minister here, who has sent by the return envoy, Tej Mahomed Khan, Barukzye, a letter and presents. The letter will not find its way to the Khan,[211] for I am sending it to Lord Palmerston; but the presents have been forwarded, and it appears that Kohun Dil was the first to open the correspondence, and I think it not improbable that he had been advised to do so by Aziz Mahomed Khan, the agent formerly sent hither, who found the Court apparently devoted to Russia. I hope you will be able to put a stop to the intercourse, which I have only been able to impede and interrupt for a time.”

      Such were the views and recommendations of Mr. M’Neill. Among the few officers in the Company’s service who at that time had any knowledge of the politics of Central Asia, not one was more conspicuous than Captain Claude Wade, who had held for some years the delicate and responsible office of Governor-General’s agent on the North-Western Frontier. It was natural that, in such a conjuncture, the opinions of so well-informed and experienced an officer should have been sought by the Supreme Government. Captain Wade, through whose office the Trans-Indian correspondence passed, now therefore, on forwarding to government a copy of Mr. M’Neill’s letter, freely expressed his opinion against the proposal to consolidate the Afghan Empire under the rule of the Caubul Ameer. “In my opinion,” he wrote to Mr. Colvin, the private secretary of the Governor-General, “such an experiment on the part of our government would be to play into the hands of our rivals, and to deprive ourselves, as it were by a felo-de-se, of the powerful means which we have in reserve of controlling the present rulers of Afghanistan. The attempt to reduce the country to the sway of one of them would be an arduous enterprise. The chief obstacle in the way of Dost Mahomed would be in the opposition of those who are inimical to him and his family, and these include every other Douranee tribe in the country, to whom, therefore, the knowledge of such a design would render our name generally odious—whilst the attempt itself would undoubtedly lead the Toorkomans and other great bordering tribes to view with jealousy the powers of a chief whose interests they would soon have the sagacity to discover we had adopted for the purpose of serving our own interests at their expense.”

      “Our policy,” continued Captain Wade, “ought not to be to destroy, but to use our endeavours to preserve and strengthen the different governments of Afghanistan as they at present stand; to promote among themselves a social compact, and to conduce, by our influence, to the establishment of that peace with their neighbours, which we are now endeavouring to produce between them and the Sikhs on one side, and the Sikhs and Sindhians on the other. Whilst distributed into several states, the Afghans are, in my opinion, more likely to subserve the views and interests of the British Government than if we attempted to impose on them the yoke of a ruler to whose authority they can never be expected to yield a passive obedience. Though undoubtedly weak, they would collectively be fully adequate to the defence of their country, when they have derived the advantages of a more decided intercourse with our government than at present exists. … Supposing that we were to aid Dost Mahomed to overthrow in the first place his brother at Candahar, and then his Suddozye rival at Herat, what would be the consequence? As the system, of which it is intended to be a part, would not go to gratify the longing wish of Mahomed Shah for the annexation of Herat to his dominions, the first results would be, that the Shah-zadah Kamran would apply to Persia, and offer, on the condition of her assistance to save him from the fate which impended over his head, to submit to all the demands of that general, which Kamran has hitherto so resolutely and successfully resisted, and between his fears and the attempts of Dost Mahomed Khan to take it (Herat), which is regarded by every one who has studied its situation as the key to Afghanistan, would inevitably fall prostrate before the arms of Persia, by the effect of the very measures which we had designed for her security from Persian thraldom.”[212]

      The expediency of maintaining the integrity of Herat was not at this time more palpable than the injustice of destroying it. But it hardly seems to have entered into the consideration of our Indian statesmen, that to transfer Herat, or any other unoffending principality from the hands of one ruler to those of another, was to perpetrate an act of political tyranny not to be justified by any reference to the advantages resulting from such a course. We had not, at that time, the shadow of a pretext for breaking down the independence of Herat. Kamran, indeed, was at this time about to play the very game that tended most to the advancement of British interests. Had he formed an alliance with Persia, having for its end the recovery of his father’s dominions—had he advanced, with a confederate Persian army, upon Caubul and Candahar, and consented to abandon Herat as the price of Kujjur assistance—some pretext might have been found in these aggressive measures for the confiscation of the principality. But Herat was now about to erect itself into a barrier against Russo-Persian invasion, and to fight single-handed the first great battle of resistance at the gates of Afghanistan.

      Mr. M’Neill’s project for the consolidation of the Afghan Empire found little favour in the eyes of our Indian statesmen; but there were many who thought that, without any acts of spoliation and oppression, the de facto rulers of Afghanistan might be so encouraged and conciliated by small offers of assistance, as to secure their friendly co-operation in the great work of resisting invasion from the westward. But when Captain Burnes was despatched to Caubul, his powers were so limited, that, although he was profuse in his expressions of sympathy, he had not the authority to offer substantial assistance; and when he ventured to exceed the instructions of government, he was severely censured for his unauthorised proceedings.

      His mission failed. What wonder? It could by no possibility have succeeded. If utter failure had been the great end sought to be accomplished, the whole business could not have been more cunningly devised. Burnes asked everything; and promised nothing. He was tied hand and foot. He had no power to treat with Dost Mahomed. All that he could do was to demand on one hand and refuse on the other. He talked about the friendship of the British Government. Dost Mahomed asked for some proof of it; and no proof was forthcoming. The wonder is, not that the Ameer at last listened to the overtures of others, but that he did not seek other assistance before.

      No better proof of his earnest desire to cement an alliance with the British Government need be sought for than that involved in the fact of his extreme reluctance to abandon all hope of assistance from the British, and to turn his eyes in another direction. It was not until he was driven to despair by resolute refusals from the quarter whence he looked for aid, that he accepted the offers so freely made to him by other States, and set the seal upon his own destruction. “Our government,” said Burnes, “would do nothing; but the Secretary of the Russian Legation came with the most direct offers of assistance and money, and as I had no power to counteract him by a similar offer, and got wigged for talking of it at a time when it would have been merely a dead letter to say Afghanistan was under our protection, I was obliged of course to give in.”[213] What better result Lord Auckland could have anticipated, it is hard to say. If the failure of the Mission astonished him, he must have been the most sanguine of men.

      I am unable to perceive that there was anything unreasonable or unfriendly in the conduct of Dost Mahomed at this time. That, from the very first, he was disappointed, there is no doubt. He had formed exaggerated ideas of the generosity and munificence of the British Government in the East, and, doubtless, expected great things from the contemplated alliance. The Mission had scarcely been a day in Caubul, when the feelings of the Ameer were shocked, the СКАЧАТЬ