History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ the Governor-General’s vice-regal court; and perhaps not the least of his recommendations as a travelling companion was that he could amuse the ladies of Lord Auckland’s family with as much felicity as he could assist the labours of that nobleman himself.

      Mr. John Colvin was the private secretary of the Governor-General, and his confidential adviser. Of all the men about Lord Auckland, he was believed to exercise the most direct influence over that statesman’s mind. Less versatile than Torrens, and less gifted with the lighter accomplishments of literature and art, he possessed a stronger will and a more powerful understanding. He was a man of much decision and resolution of character; not troubled with doubts and misgivings; and sometimes, perhaps, hasty in his judgments. But there was something noble and generous in his ambition. He never forgot either the claims of his country or the reputation of his chief. And if he were vain, his vanity was of the higher, but not the less dangerous class, which seeks rather to mould the measures and establish the fame of others than to acquire distinction for self.

      Such were the men who accompanied Lord Auckland to the Upper Provinces of India. About him also clustered the common smaller staff of military aides-de-camp; and not very far in the background were the two sisters of his lordship—ladies of remarkable intelligence and varied accomplishments, who are supposed to have exercised an influence not wholly confined to the social amenities of the vice-regal camp. Lord Auckland was not wanting in judgment or sagacity, and his integrity of purpose is undoubted; but he lacked decision of character; he too often mistrusted his own opinions, and yielded his assent to those of irresponsible advisers less single-minded and sagacious than himself. The men by whom he was surrounded were among the ablest and most accomplished in the country; but it was for the most part a dangerous kind of cleverness that they possessed; there was too much presumption in it. These secretaries, especially the two younger ones, were too ardent and impulsive—they were of too bold and ambitious a nature to be regarded as anything better than perilous and delusive guides. But Lord Auckland entrusted himself to their guidance. Perhaps, he scarcely knew to what extent he was swayed by their counsels; but it is my deliberate conviction, that if he had not quitted Calcutta, or if he had been surrounded by older and more experienced advisers, he would have followed a line of policy more in accordance with his own feelings and opinions, and less destructive to the interests of the empire.

      But, so surrounded, Lord Auckland journeyed by easy stages towards the cool mountain-ranges of the Himalayah; and as he advanced, there came to the vice-regal camp tidings, from time to time, of the progress or no-progress of Mahomed Shah’s army before Herat, and of Burnes’s diplomatic movements at the Court of the Caubul Ameer. There was much in all this to perplex Lord Auckland. He was in all sincerity a man of peace. They who best knew his character and that of his chief secretary,[215] predicted that if war could, in any way, be avoided, there would be no war. But from all quarters came disturbing hints and dangerous promptings; and Lord Auckland thus assailed, had not resolution enough to be true to his own moderate and cautious character.[216] Mr. M’Neill had despatched Major Todd from Herat to the camp of the Governor-General; and had urgently solicited Lord Auckland to adopt vigorous measures for the intimidation of Persia and the defence of Herat, which, it was alleged, could not much longer resist the efforts of the investing force. Nothing short of the march of a British army upon Herat was thought by some sufficient to stem the tide of Russo-Persian invasion. The British Government, seeing everywhere signs of the restless aggressive spirit of Russia, and the evident tendency of all her movements towards the East, had written strong letters to the Governor-General, urging him to adopt vigorous measures of defence. His own immediate advisers were at hand to second the suggestions both of Mr. M’Neill and the British Minister; and so Lord Auckland, though he hesitated to undertake a grand military expedition across the Indus, was persuaded to enter upon defensive measures of a dubious character, affecting the whole question of the sovereignty of the Douranee Empire.

      The open, acknowledged danger, to be met by vigorous measures on the part of our Anglo-Indian statesmen, was the attempt of Mahomed Shah to destroy the integrity of Herat, and his asserted claims to the sovereignty of Ghuznee and Candahar. It is true that by the ninth article of the treaty with Persia, England was especially bound not to interfere in any quarrels between the Afghans and the Persians; but our statesmen both in the East and the West, saw a ready means of escape from these conditions in the circumstances of the assault on Mr. M’Neill’s courier, which, however contemptible in themselves, were sufficient to bring about a temporary rupture between Persia and Great Britain. Lord Auckland was slow to encourage an idea of the expediency of such direct interference as would be involved in the passage of a British army across the great boundary line of the Indus. But he saw the necessity of so establishing our influence in Afghanistan as to erect a secure barrier against invasion from the westward; and now that he had abandoned all desire to propitiate Dost Mahomed and the Barukzye chiefs, and had begun to think of carrying out his objects through other agency, it was only natural that he should have turned his thoughts, in the first instance, to the Suddozye pensioner of Loodhianah, who had made so many unsuccessful efforts to reseat himself upon the throne of the Douranee Empire.

      Shah Soojah had lived so long upon the bounty of the British Government, that it was only reasonable to believe that we should find in him a fast friend and a faithful ally. But when in the month of May, 1838, Lord Auckland, then at Simlah, wrote an elaborate minute, setting forth his opinions regarding the measures best calculated to secure the integrity of the western frontier of Afghanistan, and suggesting the restoration of the exiled Suddozye Prince, it was evident that he had not, at that time, grasped the grand, but perilous idea, of sending a British army into the fastnesses of Afghanistan to break down the dynasty of the Barukzyes, to set up a monarch of our own, and so to roll back for ever the tide of western invasion. He meditated nothing more at this time than the encouragement of an expedition to be undertaken by Shah Soojah and Runjeet Singh, the British Government supplying money, appointing an accredited agent to accompany the Shah’s camp, and furnishing a certain number of British officers to direct the movements of the Shah’s army.[217] It appeared to him that there were but three courses open to him; “the first to confine our defensive measures to the line of the Indus, and to leave Afghanistan to its fate; the second, to attempt to save Afghanistan, by granting succour to the existing chiefships of Caubul and Candahar; the third, to permit or to encourage the advance of Runjeet Singh’s armies upon Caubul, under counsel and restriction, and as subsidiary to his advance to organise an expedition headed by Shah Soojah, such as I have above explained.” “The first course,” argued Lord Auckland, “would be absolute defeat, and would leave a free opening to Russian and Persian intrigue upon our frontiers. The second would be only to give power to those who feel greater animosity against the Sikhs, than they do against the Persians, and who would probably use against the former the means placed at their disposal; and the third course, which in the event of the successful resistance of Herat, would appear to be most expedient, would, if the state were to fall into the hands of the Persians, have yet more to recommend it, and I cannot hesitate to say, that the inclination of my opinion is, for the reasons which will be gathered from this paper, very strongly in favour of it.”[218]

      All this is sufficiently moderate, if it is not sufficiently just. The whole question is argued simply as one of expediency. It appeared to Lord Auckland to be most expedient to construct an alliance between Runjeet Singh and Shah Soojah for the recovery of the lost dominions of the latter. England was to remain in the background jingling the money-bag. At this time, it had been arranged that Macnaghten should proceed, with little delay, to the Court of Lahore. It had been intended, in the first instance, that the mission should be merely a complimentary one. But as events began to thicken in the north-west, it appeared impossible to confine to such narrow limits the communications which he was instructed to make to the Maharajah. He was now enjoined to sound Runjeet Singh on the subject of the proposed confederate expedition against the Barukzye Sirdars of Afghanistan. These instructions were written three days after the minute of the 12th of May. It seems that in this brief interval some idea of the employment of British troops in support of the Suddozye prince had dawned upon the understanding of the Governor-General. It is certain, at least, that the letter written by Mr. Torrens speaks of a demonstration to be made “by a division of the British army occupying Shikarpoor.”[219] СКАЧАТЬ