Part 46 (1/2)
He was a man who had travelled all over Central Asia, who was in every way qualified for his task. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he was too well qualified for carrying out the simple commercial instructions with which the English Government had tentatively, perhaps timidly, entrusted him. But the discovery of Russian intrigues in full swing at the Kabul court sent commerce to the right-about. Burnes was in the thick of diplomacy without delay, and ere long formal questioning and reply was going on between Russian and English amba.s.sadors regarding the former's influence on the Indian borderland, which elicited a categorical denial of any ulterior object on the part of Russia.
But Dost-Mahomed for all that refused to accede to England's somewhat impertinent request, that he should dismiss the Russian agent from his court. And so began a quarrel which is barely settled to-day.
Sir Alexander Burnes left Kabul in dudgeon, and almost immediately after his departure matters came to a crisis by the Persians--avowed allies of Russia--besieging Herat. Now, Herat was considered by diplomatists and the military alike the key of India, and in 1838, after many _pour parlers_, manifestoes, and embroglios, the combined armies of the tripart.i.te alliance, that is to say, the British, the Sikhs, and Shah-Sujah, marched on the Punjab to reinstate the latter on his long-vacated throne in Kabul. In all the long history of India no more unwarrantable invasion was ever undertaken, though half a hundred good reasons were given for it at the time, and could be found for its defence even now by those who fail to see that Dost-Mahomed was, as Eastern potentates go, quite a decent ruler. There is but one possible excuse. England chose her career deliberately, thinking not at all of Afghanistan, but of Russia.
After a halt at Ferozepore, where the allies a.s.sembled and where festivities were held, Runjeet-Singh, an old man now, blind of one eye, desperately marked with smallpox, and inconceivably ugly, tripped over a carpet, to the horror of his court (who considered it an evil omen), and fell flat on his nose at the feet of a big English gun he was examining; and where, also, Henry Havelock, one of the new school of the Church-Militant, exclaimed in horror at ”the ladies of a British Governor-General 'watching' choral and dancing prost.i.tutes”
(surely a somewhat over high-toned description of that deadliest of dull and decorous entertainments, an Indian _nautch_). After all this a fairly-triumphant march was made through Scinde (where the Ameer of that country, after a distinct promise that no riverside forts should be touched, was fairly diddled out of the one at Bukkhur, on the shameless plea that it stood on an island), through Quetta to Kandahar and Ghuzni (which made a good resistance); so to Kabul, which was entered on the 7th August 1839, when Shah-Sujah ran about the pa.s.sages of the Bala-Hissar palace like a child, clapping his hands with delight at finding himself back again after thirty years' absence.
So far good. But, meanwhile, Runjeet-Singh had died, and our rear was endangered by the almost open enmity of his successor. Thus a limited garrison, only, had to be left in Kabul; and in addition, Dost-Mahomed's first flight had proved to be but a prelude to desperate resistance. Still, armed occupation was held of the town of Kabul, cantonments were built for the British regiments and sepoys which formed the garrison, in which the troops pa.s.sed the winter and summer of 1841 in comfort. Then came disaster.
What caused the outbreak is a mystery. So far as one can judge, it began in private revenge upon Sir Alexander Burnes. His house was the first attacked on the 2nd November 1841 by a mob thirsting for blood and plunder. He attempted to calm them by harangue. He offered large sums for his own and his brother's escape, but they were both cut down, every sepoy murdered, every man, woman, or child on the premises brutally killed.
And here follows _in petto_ an antic.i.p.ation of what occurred some fifteen years later, when a like ma.s.sacre broke out at Meerut in 1857.
A general paralysis seems to have attacked those in authority. Here, there, everywhere, in isolated posts, Englishman and sepoy fought together and fell together bravely; but at headquarters decision disappeared, and Brigadier Shelton finally settled, weakly, to hold the cantonments, instead of retiring on the fortified and almost impregnable Bala-Hissar, where there was a plentiful store of provision. The mistake was fatal. Within a month a treaty had to be signed which was practically unconditional surrender. Dost-Mahomed was to be reinstated; Shah-Sujah allowed to follow his friends back to India. ”The terms secured,” writes Sir William McNaghten, ”were the best obtainable.” At any rate, at the time, it was hoped that they would save the lives of some fifteen thousand human beings. But fate was against it. Sir William McNaghten, failing in a side-intrigue which, even had it succeeded, would have been barely possible with honour, was foully murdered, and on the 6th of January about four thousand five hundred fighting-men and twelve thousand camp followers, men, women, and children, were driven out into the inclement winter cold to find their way, as best they could, over peak and pa.s.s back to Hindustan.
The horrors of that terrible march will scarcely bear telling. Over three thousand found freedom at once by being ma.s.sacred, wantonly ma.s.sacred by mountain tribes in the first pa.s.s; the rest, without food, without fuel, without tents, pressed on, fighting fiercely as they forced their way eastwards.
It was on the 13th of January that the English garrison at Jellalabad, looking out up the pa.s.ses, saw one man swaying in his saddle, scarce able to keep his seat, urging his jaded, outworn pony eastward, still eastward!
It was Dr Bryden, the only man who came through. But he brought the welcome news that some women and children, and a few men, were prisoners, and so far safe.
Naturally, there was no more question now as to the rights or wrongs of war. These captives had to be rescued, and punishment meted out to many murderers. Both objects were accomplished within the year, but not by Lord Auckland; for Lord Ellenborough succeeded him at the time of the Kabul disaster, when matters were at their worst. There was some difficulty in finding a candidate for the throne. Shah-Sujah himself had in the interval been shot through the head, and his son, whom the mob of Kabul had first set up as a puppet-king and then imprisoned, had no stomach for further sovereignty. A younger member of the family was, however, eventually found willing to face a.s.sa.s.sination for the sake of a doubtful crown.
His kings.h.i.+p, which only lasted till the British forces were withdrawn, at least secured the preservation of the Bala-Hissar, which otherwise, as a punishment to Kabul, would have been razed to the ground; as it was, the Great Bazaar, a building entirely devoted to commerce, was destroyed instead, possibly because Sir William McNaghten's body had been exposed upon it.
Thus, in 1843, the first Afghan war came to an end with the absurd incident of the Gates of Somnath. These were supposed to be still hung at the entrance of Mahomed-the-Despoiler's tomb at Ghuzni. So, with an odd mixture of sham Orientalism and latter-day romanticism, they were taken down, carried back to India to form the subject of a most marvellous effusion addressed to the chiefs and peoples of India, which goes by the name of ”Ellenborough's Song of Triumph,” in which these gates, ”so long the memorial of your national humiliation,” are said to have ”become the proudest record of your national glory!”
And after all, they were _not_ the Gates of Somnath!
Almost immediately after this the relations with Scinde became strained. The Ameer had, in truth, just cause of complaint in a breach of treaty regarding the pa.s.sage of troops across the Indus, and after much discussion the sword became the only possible arbiter. So Sir Charles Napier commenced the war which, conducted by consummate skill throughout, ended virtually with the victory of Miani and the annexation of Scinde.
It was towards the end of the next little war, this time with Scindiah, that Lord Ellenborough was recalled, and Sir Henry Hardinge, being sent to govern in his stead, found himself instantly plunged in a war of far greater magnitude with the Sikhs, with whom, after the death of old Runjeet-Singh, friendly relations had ceased. In truth, the kingdom was in a state of tumult. The army, which consisted of almost the whole nation (since every Sikh is by birth and faith a fighter), realising that the whole power was virtually in its hands, clamoured for new conquests. Dhuleep-Singh, the heir, was a minor; his mother, nominally guardian, had no influence, and finally, forced by circ.u.mstances, gave her consent to an invasion of British territory.
It was an unprovoked, and yet not altogether unwelcome a.s.sault, and it met with instant and overpowering reply. On the 13th December 1845 the Sikh army crossed the Sutlej in force, and on the very same day a British proclamation was issued, formally declaring that all possessions of Maharajah Dhuleep-Singh, on the British bank of the river, were annexed. Swift battle followed. At Moodki on the 18th December, on the 22nd at Ferozeshah, on the 20th January at Aliwal; finally, the 10th February saw the last stand made at Sobraon, a village which stood then on the eastern bank of the sliding river. It stands now on the western, for the Sutlej has s.h.i.+fted.
Swift, and short, and sure, was the campaign, curiously enough leaving little of rancour behind it amongst the tall, upstanding Sikhs. ”You were so much better than we were,” said an old Sikh worthy, who had gone through the four defeats, as he showed an infinitesimal slice of his little finger tip; ”just so much--no more! but you were better led.” And the keen old eyes ranged cheerfully over the wide wheat plain, intersected by silver-s.h.i.+ning streaks of sliding river, that had once been the battle-field of Sobraon, and the old voice went on exultingly over the tale of how he had knelt to receive the British cavalry at Aliwal, and knelt on, through three consecutive charges, until he had fallen unconscious amongst his dead comrades.
A treaty of peace was signed at Lah.o.r.e twelve days after Sobraon, which stipulated for the formal cession of the whole Cis-Sutlej country and an indemnity of 1,500,000, 500,000 of which was to be paid immediately, and the remaining 1,000,000 to be discharged by the cession of Kashmir and Hazara.
This practically ended Lord Hardinge's Governor-Generals.h.i.+p, and late in 1847 Lord Dalhousie took up the office.
The whole of the next year was taken up with a war in Scinde which spread to the northern half of the Punjab beyond Lah.o.r.e, which--despite the cession of Hazara--still remained practically unsubdued. After the taking of Multan and the defeat of Mulraj's troops, Lord Gough marched northwards against Shere-Singh, defeated him at Ramnuggar, fought an indecisive battle against him at Chillianwala, and finally, on the 21st February 1849, at Gujerat, completely annihilated the Sikh army, taking all their guns.
Resistance was thus at an end, and the Punjab as far as Peshawar was coloured red in the map of India.
The proclamation of the Governor-General in announcing the fact is worthy of quotation as a finish to the long history of English dealings with Hindustan.
”The Government of India formerly declared that it decreed no further conquest, and it proved by its acts the sincerity of its profession.