History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ and his Vuzeer, Yar Mahomed Khan, and the whole city, feel sensible of the sincerity of the friendship of the British Government, and Mr. Pottinger and myself fully participate in their gratitude to Providence for the happy event I have now the honour to report.”

      In giving publicity to this important intelligence, the Governor-General deems it proper at the same time to notify, that while he regards the relinquishment by the Shah of Persia of his hostile designs upon Herat as a just cause of congratulation to the Government of British India and its allies, he will continue to prosecute with vigour the measures which have been announced, with a view to the substitution of a friendly for a hostile power in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, and to the establishment of a permanent barrier against schemes of aggression upon our north-west frontier.

      The Right Hon. the Governor-General is pleased to appoint Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger, of the Bombay Artillery, to be Political Agent at Herat, subject to the orders of the Envoy and Minister at the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk. This appointment is to have effect from the 9th of September last, the date on which the siege of Herat was raised by the Shah of Persia.

      In conferring the above appointment upon Lieutenant Pottinger, the Governor-General is glad of the opportunity afforded him of bestowing the high applause which is due to the signal merits of that officer, who was present in Herat during the whole period of its protracted siege, and who, under circumstances of peculiar danger and difficulty, has, by his fortitude, ability, and judgment, honourably sustained the reputation and interests of his country.

      By order of the Right Hon. the Governor-General of India,

      W. H. Macnaghten,

      Secretary to the Government of India, with the

      Governor-General.

      When the Persian army was before Herat—when the Afghan garrison was on the eve of surrender—when the chiefs of Caubul and Candahar were prostrating themselves at the feet of Mahomed Shah, the expedition for the restoration of Shah Soojah was one of doubtful honesty and doubtful expediency. The retrogression of the Persian army removed it at once from the category of questionable acts. There was no longer any question about it. The failure of Mahomed Shah cut from under the feet of Lord Auckland all ground of justification, and rendered the expedition across the Indus at once a folly and a crime. The tripartite treaty did not pledge the British Government to send a single soldier beyond the frontier. The despatch of a British army into the heart of Afghanistan was no part of the covenant either with Runjeet Singh or Shah Soojah. It was wholly an after thought. When Macnaghten, after his conferences with the Maharajah of the Punjab and the ex-King of Caubul, returned to Simlah to lay the result of his mission before the Governor-General, the British Government had pledged itself only to furnish a handful of European officers to raise and discipline the Shah’s regiments; and so little had any obligation been imposed upon us to surround the ex-King with our battalions, on his restoration to his old dominions, that he himself expressed an eager hope that he would be suffered to advance as an independent prince, and not as a mere puppet in our hands.[268]

      To march a British army into Afghanistan was not, therefore, an obligation upon the Indian Government; it was their deliberate choice. The avowed object of the expedition, as set forth in the November declaration, was the establishment of a friendly power in Afghanistan. But the subversion of an existing dynasty could only be justified on the ground that its hostility threatened to disturb the peace and tranquillity of our own dominions. Whatever the hostility of the Barukzye Sirdahs may have been when Mahomed Shah was before the gates of Herat, it had now ceased to be formidable. It was obvious that the chiefs of Caubul and Candahar were little likely to exaggerate the power of a Prince that had brought all his military resources to bear upon the reduction of a place of no reputed strength, and, after an ineffectual struggle of nine months’ duration, had retreated, either because he was unequal to the longer continuance of the contest, or because the British Government had landed 500 Sepoys on an island in the Persian Gulf. It was only in connection with the Russo-Persian movement that an alliance with the rulers of Afghanistan had become a matter of concernment to the British Government. It was only by a reference to the crisis which had thus arisen that the Indian Government could in any way justify their departure from the course of non-interference laid down by the Court of Directors, and recognised by Lord Auckland and his predecessors. But now that the danger, to the counteraction of which the expedition across the Indus was directed, had passed away, the expedition was still to be undertaken. A measure so hazardous, and so costly as the march of a British army to the foot of the Hindoo-Koosh, was only justifiable so long as it was absolutely indispensable to the defence of our Indian possessions; but if so extreme a measure had ever been, it was no longer necessary to the security of India, now that the army of Mahomed Shah, defeated and disgraced, was on its way back to the capital of Persia. The expedition now to be undertaken had no longer any other ostensible object than the substitution of a monarch, whom the people of Afghanistan had repeatedly, in emphatic, scriptural language, spued out, for those Barukzye chiefs who, whatever may have been the defects of their government, had contrived to maintain themselves in security, and their country in peace, with a vigour and a constancy unknown to the luckless Suddozye Princes. Had we started with the certainty of establishing a friendly power and a strong government in Afghanistan, the importance of the end would have borne no just relation to the magnitude of the means to be employed for its accomplishment. But at the best it was a mere experiment. There were more reasons why it should fail than why it should succeed.[269] It was commenced in defiance of every consideration of political and military expediency; and there were those who, arguing the matter on higher grounds than those of mere expediency, pronounced the certainty of its failure, because there was a canker of injustice at the core. It was, indeed, an experiment on the forbearance alike of God and of man; and therefore, though it might dawn in success and triumph, it was sure to set in failure and disgrace.

      BOOK III.

       Table of Contents

      [1838–1839.]

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