Events now moved swiftly, as the hastily assembled, 35,000-strong British force crossed the frontier into Afghanistan at three points. Its first objectives were to seize the Khyber Pass, Jalalabad and Kandahar, and after some brief but fierce engagements these were achieved. On learning of the British incursion, the Emir had hastily turned to General Kaufman, asking for the urgent dispatch of the 30,000 troops he believed he had been promised. But to his dismay he was told that this was out of the question in mid-winter, and was advised instead to make his peace with the invaders. As the British consolidated their positions, while awaiting further orders from Calcutta, the desperate Emir decided to go in person to St Petersburg to plead with the Tsar for help, as well as to the other European powers. But first he released his eldest son, Yakub Khan, whom he had been holding under house-arrest, and appointed him Regent, leaving him to contend with the British. He then set off northwards, accompanied by the last of the Russian officers from General Stolietov’s mission.
On reaching the Russian frontier, however, he was refused entry on Kaufman’s orders. So much for the treaty of friendship which the latter had persuaded him to sign. Abandoned by the Russians, at war with the British, the unfortunate Sher Ali had no one left to turn to. His spirit and health broken, and refusing all food and medicine, he died at Balkh in February 1879. A few days later the British received word from Yakub Khan that his father had ‘cast off the raiment of existence, obeyed the voice of the Great Summoner, and hastened to the land of Divine Mercy’. The accession of Yakub Khan, who had long opposed his father, to the throne offered both sides the chance to reconsider the situation. It soon became apparent to the British that the new Emir lacked the wholehearted support of many of the chiefs and therefore was anxious to hold the discussions which his father had so adamantly refused.
Having written to Yakub Khan to express the condolences of the British government over the death of his father, Cavagnari followed this with a letter proposing terms for ending the war and for the withdrawal of British troops from his kingdom. The terms were fairly harsh, and included the Emir surrendering control of Afghanistan’s foreign policy to London, his agreeing to the stationing of British missions at Kabul and elsewhere, and the ceding to Britain of certain territories lying close to the Indian frontier, including the Khyber Pass. In fact, the invasion had more or less come to a halt, for the British commanders were finding the going difficult, what with fierce resistance from the local tribes, the harsh winter, widespread sickness, and inadequate transport. But the Emir was aware that with the arrival of spring it would be merely a question of time before the invaders, reinforced from India, reached Kabul. After much hard bargaining, therefore, he agreed to most of the British demands. In return he received a guarantee of protection against the Russians, or for that matter his covetous neighbours the Persians, and an annual subsidy of £60,000.
The treaty was signed by the Emir in person at the village of Gandamak, where forty years earlier the remnants of the ill-fated Kabul garrison had made a gallant last stand against the Afghans. Somewhat tactlessly, Yakub Khan and his commander-in-chief arrived dressed in Russian uniforms. On May 26, to the anger of the majority of Afghans, the agreement was signed. Under the Treaty of Gandamak, as it is known, Cavagnari was to proceed to Kabul as the first British Resident there since the murders of Sir Alexander Burnes and Sir William Macnaghten in the disastrous winter of 1841. Lord Lytton was delighted with the outcome. Firm action had produced the intended results, including the departure of the last of the Russians from Kabul, and a demonstration to the Afghans of just how much Kaufman’s promises were worth. There was much self-congratulation in London and Calcutta. Queen Victoria, who followed Central Asian and Indian affairs very closely, was especially pleased at seeing Tsar Alexander outmanoeuvred thus. Cavagnari, whose father had been one of Napoleon’s generals and who himself was perhaps the outstanding frontier officer of the day, was given a knighthood as a reward for his highly successful handling of the negotiations, and to give him the necessary status for his new and delicate role at Yakub Khan’s court. But not everyone was so sanguine about the deal he had struck with the notoriously slippery Afghans. Some felt that the Emir had given in to British demands rather too easily. They remembered the treachery, not to mention the consequent disaster, which had followed India’s last interference in Afghanistan’s affairs after similar Russian intrigues at Kabul. ‘They will all be killed,’ Sir John Lawrence, the former Viceroy, declared on hearing of Cavagnari’s appointment. However, in the general euphoria, such warnings went unheeded.
The night before Sir Louis Cavagnari’s departure for Kabul he was entertained to dinner by General Sir Frederick Roberts, VC, who had also been knighted for his part in the successful campaign, but who harboured grave doubts about the mission’s dispatch. Roberts had intended to propose a toast to Cavagnari and his small party, but had found himself utterly unable to do so because of his fears for their safety. The following day he saw them depart. ‘My heart sank’, he wrote afterwards, ‘as I wished Cavagnari goodbye. When we had proceeded a few yards in our different directions we both turned back, retraced our steps, shook hands once more, and parted for ever.’ Despite the anxieties of his friends and colleagues, Cavagnari was confident that he could handle any difficulties that might arise. Indeed, at his own suggestion, he took only a modest escort with him, fifty infantrymen and twenty-five cavalrymen, all from the Corps of Guides. Commanding them was Lieutenant Walter Hamilton, who had won a Victoria Cross during the recent battle for the Khyber Pass, while Cavagnari’s own staff consisted of two other Europeans, a secretary and an Indian Army medical officer.
After an uneventful journey the mission reached the Afghan capital on July 24, 1879. Although there was an uneasy atmosphere, they were well received. There were artillery salutes and an attempted rendering by an Afghan military band of ‘God Save the Queen’, while Cavagnari himself was borne into the capital on the back of an elephant. He and his party were then conducted to the Residency which had been prepared for them inside the walls of the Bala Hissar and not far from the Emir’s own palace. For a few weeks all went well, but then Cavagnari reported that a large body of Afghan troops had arrived in Kabul at the end of a tour of duty at Herat. They were said to be extremely disgruntled because they were owed three months’ pay, and also angry at discovering the British mission’s presence in the capital. Cavagnari and his companions were strongly advised by Afghan officials not to venture outside the Bala Hissar as trouble was expected. Nonetheless, on September 2, he sent a message which concluded with the words ‘All well’. They were the last that were ever to be heard from the mission.
As Calcutta anxiously awaited further news from Kabul, St Petersburg was endeavouring to restore its amour propre in Central Asia following the hurried departure of its mission from Afghanistan and the disappointing outcome of its recent war with Turkey. Nor had these been its only disappointments. Kashgar, on which it had long had its\ eye, had suddenly reverted to Chinese rule, together with the rest of Sinkiang. After years of procrastination, the Emperor had finally moved against Yakub Beg, dispatching a large army westwards with orders to recover the lost territories. The force, whose leisurely progress included the planting and harvesting of its own crops, took three years to reach its destination. On hearing of its approach, Yakub Beg hastily assembled a 17,000-strong army and set out eastwards to meet the Chinese. But this time they were more than a match for him. Following the rout of his army, he was forced to flee to Kashgar. There, in May 1877, to the relief of his subjects, he died. Some said it was from a stroke, others from poison. Whatever the truth, by December of that year Kashgar was safely back in the Emperor’s hands, and three powerful empires – those of Britain, Russia and China – now faced one another across the Pamirs. Only Hi and its principal town Kuldja remained in Russian hands.
This snatching of Kashgar from their grasp must have been a blow to the Russians, and particularly to Kaufman, the architect of the Tsar’s Central Asian empire. However, worse was to follow. During the recent war with Turkey, Kaufman’s plans for further expansion had been momentarily checked while his energies were directed towards getting ready the invasion force for its march on India. And yet it was quite evident, at least to the hawks in London and Calcutta, that Russian ambitions in Central Asia were still far from satisfied. Significantly, as Burnaby had noticed, their latest staff maps showed no southern frontier to the Tsar’s territories there. Sure enough, when the immediate threat of war with Britain faded, it became apparent that fresh moves were being planned. In the autumn of 1878, a Russian staff officer, Colonel N. L. Grodekov, rode from Tashkent via Samarkand and northern Afghanistan to Herat, carefully surveying the route. In Herat he carried out a thorough examination of the city’s defences, and claimed on his return that its inhabitants were eager for Russian rule. At the same time other Russian military explorers were busy surveying the Karakum desert and the Pamirs, while further east Colonel Nikolai Prejevalsky, accompanied by a Cossack escort, was endeavouring to reach Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, from the north.
These renewed Russian activities were hardly calculated to add to the peace of mind of those responsible for the defence of India. Then, on September 9, 1879, St Petersburg made its first forward move in Central Asia since the annexation of Khokand four years earlier. This time the Russians struck against the great Turcoman stronghold of Geok-Tepe, on the southern edge of the Karakum desert, roughly half-way between the Caspian Sea and Merv. Their aim was to conquer this wild and lawless region, thereby stabilising their southern flank from Krasnovodsk to Merv, and eventually to construct a railway through it linking up with Bokhara, Samarkand and Tashkent. Used to fighting rabble armies of ill-led and untrained tribesmen, the Russians had not reckoned on the warlike qualities of the Turcomans. At first the Russians looked set to bombard the huge, mud-built fortress into submission with their artillery. But then, impatient for victory, they called off the guns and attempted to storm it with their infantry. The Turcomans, fighting for their lives, flung themselves on the Russians, whom they greatly outnumbered, forcing them to flee. Only with difficulty were the pursuing Turcomans beaten off, and the Russians able to retreat back across the desert towards Krasnovodsk. It was the worst defeat they had suffered in Central Asia since the ill-fated Khivan expedition of 1717. It also represented a shattering blow to Russian military prestige, and the general who had commanded the force was brought back to St Petersburg in disgrace. However, the bad news that month was not confined to the Russians, for four days earlier the British had received tidings every bit as alarming.
The first to learn of them was General Sir Frederick Roberts at Simla. He was awoken in the early hours of September 5 by his wife who told him that a man bearing an urgent telegram was wandering around the house looking for someone to sign for it. Roberts tore open the envelope. The news it contained was horrifying. A native agent sent by Cavagnari at Kabul had arrived exhausted at the frontier to say that the Residency was being attacked by three regiments of mutinous Afghans. The British were still holding out when the runner left Kabul. Nothing further was known. It was just as Roberts had feared, and Lawrence had warned. After informing the badly shaken Viceroy, who had so keenly backed the dispatch of Cavagnari, Roberts telegraphed the frontier posts nearest to Kabul ordering them to spare no efforts or money to discover what was happening in the Afghan capital. He did not have to wait long. That same evening it was learned that the Residency had been stormed by the mutineers and that all those inside had been killed after a desperate but hopeless resistance.
In fact, several members of the escort survived, being elsewhere in the city at the time of the attack, and from them and from others a detailed account of the mission’s last hours was later pieced together. Spurred on by their mullahs, the disaffected troops had marched on the Bala Hissar to demand their pay from the Emir. There they had jeered at their comrades of the Kabul garrison for their defeat by the infidel British during the recent campaign. In an attempt to appease them, the Emir ordered them to be given one month’s back pay, but this was not enough to satisfy them. Someone then suggested that they should obtain the rest from Cavagnari, who was known to have money at the Residency, which was only 250 yards away. When he refused to give them anything, they began stoning the building. Others attempted to force their way in, and shots were fired at them by the escort. Swearing vengeance, the angry Afghans ran back to their barracks to collect their rifles, before returning in force to the Residency. An all-out attack was now launched on the building, which was neither chosen nor designed to resist a siege. Little had been learned, it appears, from the massacre, in almost identical circumstances, of Sir Alexander Burnes, some forty years earlier. Surrounded by other buildings from which fire could be directed from close range against the defenders, the Residency consisted merely of a cluster of bungalows inside a compound.
Directed by Lieutenant Hamilton, the escort managed to hold off the attackers for most of the day. Considering that the Emir’s palace was so close, he could hardly have failed to hear the shooting or the uproar. In addition, three messengers were sent to him asking for immediate assistance. The first two were killed, but the third got through. Yet Yakub Khan made no attempt to interfere, or to pay off the troops. To this day his role in the affair remains uncertain, though there is no real evidence to suggest that he was anything other than powerless to control his rampaging troops, and feared that if he tried to they might turn their fury against him too. Meanwhile, the fighting around the Residency had been getting fiercer. Already Sir Louis Cavagnari had been killed, gallantly leading a sortie aimed at driving the attackers back and clearing a space around the main building. The Afghans next brought up two small field guns and opened up with these at point-blank range. Immediately Hamilton led a charge against them, seizing both guns before they could do further damage. The mission surgeon was mortally wounded while taking part in this sortie. Despite several attempts, under heavy fire, the defenders were unable to drag the guns into a position from where they could be turned against the attackers.
For several hours Lieutenant Hamilton and those of the seventy-strong escort who remained alive continued to defy the Afghans, although by now several of the outbuildings were ablaze. But finally, using ladders, some of the attackers managed to clamber on to the roof of the main Residency building, in which the defenders were preparing to make their last stand. Savage hand-to-hand fighting followed, and soon Hamilton and his surviving European companion, the mission secretary, were both dead, leaving only a dozen Guides still fighting. The Afghans called on the Indians to drop their rifles and surrender, declaring that they intended them no harm, all their hostility being directed against the British. Ignoring this, and led by one of their officers, the Guides made one last desperate charge, dying to a man. No fewer than 600 of the attackers, it was later ascertained, had perished during the twelve-hour battle. ‘The annals of no army and no regiment can show a brighter record of bravery than this small band of Guides,’ declared the official report of the enquiry. ‘By their deeds they have conferred undying honour, not only on the regiment, but on the whole British Army.’ Had Indian troops then been eligible for the Victoria Cross, almost certainly at least one would have been awarded. As it was, the two words ‘Residency, Kabul’ were added to the long list of battle-honours on the Guides’ regimental colours.
Within hours of news of the massacre being confirmed, General Roberts was on his way up to the frontier to take command of a hurriedly assembled punitive force, with orders to march as soon as possible on the Afghan capital. At the same time other units were ordered to reoccupy Jalalabad and Kandahar, which had only just been returned to the Afghans under the Treaty of Gandamak. The Emir, meanwhile, had hastily sent a message to the Viceroy expressing his deepest regrets for what had happened. Having learned of the British advance towards his capital, however, he dispatched his chief minister to intercept Roberts and beg him to advance no further, declaring that he personally would punish those responsible for the attack on the mission and the deaths of Cavagnari and the others. But Roberts was convinced that he was merely trying to delay the advance until the onset of winter, and to give his subjects time to organise resistance. Thanking the Emir for his offer, he replied: ‘After what has recently occurred, I feel that the great British nation would not rest satisfied unless a British army marched to Kabul and there assisted Your Highness to inflict such punishments as so terrible and dastardly an act deserves.’ The advance would therefore proceed, as ordered by the Viceroy, ‘to ensure Your Highness’s personal safety and aid Your Highness in restoring peace and order at your capital.’
Early in October, having encountered little opposition, Roberts reached Kabul. Almost the first thing he did was to visit the spot where Cavagnari and his men had died. ‘The walls of the Residency, closely pitted with bullet holes, gave proof of the determined nature of the attack and the length of the resistance,’ he wrote. ‘The floors were covered with bloodstains, and amidst the embers of a fire we found a heap of human bones.’ He ordered an immediate search to be made for any other remains of the victims, but no further traces were found. His next move was to set up two commissions of enquiry. One was to determine whether the Emir had, in fact, played any part in the massacre, while the other was to establish who the ringleaders and principal participants were. The enquiry into Yakub Khan’s role was to prove inconclusive, although he was indicted of having been ‘culpably indifferent’ to the mission’s fate. In the meantime, however, he had announced his abdication as Emir, declaring that he would rather be a humble grass-cutter in the British camp than try to rule Afghanistan. In the end he was given the benefit of the doubt, and sent into exile in India with his family.
In his efforts to bring the murderers to justice, Roberts offered rewards for information leading to convictions. This inevitably served as an invitation to some to settle old scores. As a result, a number of those accused were convicted on very dubious evidence. Others, however, were undoubtedly guilty, like the Mayor of Kabul, who had carried Cavagnari’s head in triumph through the city. In all, nearly a hundred Afghans were hanged on gallows erected by Roberts’s engineers inside the Bala Hissar, overlooking the spot where Cavagnari and his companions had fought vainly for their lives. On the morning of their execution, a large crowd looked down in angry silence from the surrounding walls and rooftops, while British troops with fixed bayonets stood guard over the condemned men. ‘Facing the ruined Residency’, wrote an officer of the Guides, ‘is a long grim row of gallows. Below these, bound hand and foot and closely guarded, is a line of prisoners. A signal is given, and from every gibbet swings what was lately a man. These are the ringleaders . . . who hang facing the scene of their infamy.’
At home a fierce controversy broke out over the harshness of Roberts’s methods, and he himself was widely criticised. In fact, he had been told to act mercilessly by Lord Lytton, who had advised him before his departure: ‘There are some things which a Viceroy can approve and defend when they have been done, but which a Governor-General in Council cannot order to be done.’ Lytton had even considered burning Kabul to the ground, though he had later abandoned the idea. Among the first to criticise Roberts was The Times of India, which declared: ‘ It is to be regretted that a good many innocent persons should have been hanged while he was making up his mind as to their degree of guilt.’ Four days later, the equally respected Friend of India observed: ‘We fear that General Roberts has done us a serious national injury by lowering our reputation for justice in the eyes of Europe.’ Other newspapers warned that Roberts was – in the words of one – ‘sowing a harvest of hate’. Certainly trouble was not slow in coming. What followed that Christmas not only gravely threatened the British garrison in Kabul, but was also ominously reminiscent of what had followed Sir Alexander Burnes’s murder in 1841.
Inflamed by their hatred of the British, and possibly encouraged by rumours that a 20,000-strong Russian force was on its way to support them, a number of tribes had begun to advance towards Kabul from the north, south and west. They were led by a 90-year-old Muslim divine who called for a holy war against the infidel invaders. Learning of this threat, Roberts decided to forestall the Afghans by dispersing them before they could join forces for a combined attack on Kabul. For unlike the ageing General Elphinstone, whose professional incompetence and procrastination had led to the 1842 disaster, Roberts was a fighting soldier of outstanding ability (some said the best since Wellington), who had won a Victoria Cross in the Indian Mutiny. Nevertheless, he at first gravely underestimated the numerical strength of the advancing enemy, and as a result failed to defeat or disperse them. By this time, following a series of unexplained explosions in the Bala Hissar which had partially demolished it, the 6,500-strong British garrison was quartered in cantonments which Sher Ali had built for his own troops just outside the capital. Here, in December 1879, the British braced themselves for an onslaught by the combined Afghan force, which was said to number anything up to 100,000 armed tribesmen.
But this time, despite the Afghans’ overwhelming superiority in sheer numbers, Roberts held most of the trump cards. Not only were his troops highly trained and experienced, but they were also equipped with the latest breech-loading rifles and two Gatling machine-guns, enabling them to direct a murderous fire against anyone approaching the British position. In addition he had a dozen 9-pounder field guns and eight 7-pounder mountain guns, whereas the Afghans had no artillery. Furthermore, he had enough ammunition to last for four months, and had gathered enough food and fuel to see them through the long Afghan winter. To deprive the enemy of any advantage they might gain at night, he had star shells which could light up the entire countryside. Finally, thanks to one of his spies, he knew precisely when and how the Afghans intended to attack. So it was that in the early hours of December 23 the entire British garrison was standing to, fingers on triggers, peering into the darkness of the surrounding plain.
Then suddenly, an hour before first light, wave after wave of screaming tribesmen, led by suicide-bent Muslim fanatics known as ghazis, began to hurl themselves against the British positions. In all, Roberts estimated, they numbered some 60,000. Star shells from his artillery now lit up the battlefield, bewildering the Afghans and making their white-robed and turbaned figures easy targets for the British infantry and gunners. At one time, through sheer weight of numbers, the charging Afghans managed to get perilously close to the perimeter wall, but they were driven back before they could swarm across it. After four hours of fierce and bitter fighting, as the Afghan dead piled up around the British positions, the attack began to lose its momentum. Realising that all hopes of victory were now lost, some of the tribesmen started to slip away. Finally, hotly pursued by Roberts’s cavalry, the rest turned and fled towards the hills. By noon the battle was over. The Afghans had lost at least 3,000 men, the British only 5.
However, although the struggle for the capital had been decisively won, the war was still far from over. So long as the British remained in Afghanistan, and the country was without a ruler, any hopes of peace being restored were remote. Equally remote were the prospects of Britain being able to look to Afghanistan as a bastion against a Russian invasion of India. All that Lytton had succeeded in doing was to turn the hand of every Afghan against the British. It was at this moment, when the Viceroy was despairing of what to do next, that a possible solution arose, albeit from an entirely unexpected quarter.
For twelve years, Abdur Rahman, grandson of the great Dost Mohammed, and nephew of the late Sher AH, had been living in exile in Samarkand under the protection of General Kaufman and in receipt of a pension from the Tsar. He had been forced to leave Afghanistan after losing the throne, to which he was the legitimate heir, to Sher Ali following his grandfather’s death. Confident that he more or less had Sher AH in his pocket (and papers found by Roberts in Kabul showed this to be so), Kaufman had been perfectly content to let things remain as they were. But Sher Ali’s death, and Britain’s aggressive new policy towards Afghanistan, had changed all that. With the clear intention of putting his own candidate on the vacant throne before the British installed theirs, Kaufman now urged Abdur Rahman to return home at once and claim his birthright. Accordingly, in February 1880, accompanied by a small force of supporters armed with the latest Russian rifles (not to mention promises of further assistance if required), Abdur Rahman crossed the Oxus into northern Afghanistan.
News of his advance soon reached Roberts in Kabul, to be followed by reports that the tribes of the north were rapidly flocking to his banner as he rode southwards. The sudden appearance on the scene of this contender for the throne was to lead to some rapid thinking in London and Calcutta. For there, at that very moment, British plans for the future of Afghanistan were under urgent discussion. All question of a permanent occupation, with its enormous cost in lives and money, had been ruled out. The consensus was that the country should be broken up, thereby making it more difficult for the Russians, or any other potential enemy, to gain control of it. But, more immediately, it had to be decided who was to rule in Kabul when the British garrison there was withdrawn. Until this was settled, General Roberts and his troops would obviously have to remain, with the former to all intents and purposes occupying the throne. Obviously Kaufman was gambling on Abdur Rahman, whom he knew to be extremely able and to enjoy considerable popularity, eventually gaining sufficient support to drive the British out. This would effectively turn Afghanistan, or a large part of it anyway, into a Russian dependency. Or so Kaufman must have reasoned.
For once, however, the British displayed a rare stroke of imagination towards Afghanistan. On the face of it, Abdur Rahman was a protégé of Russia’s, whose claim to the throne represented a serious threat to India’s security. But more likely, it was reasoned, at heart he was neither pro-Russian nor anti-British, but pro-Afghan. In which case it might be better if, instead of opposing his claim to the Emirship, the British welcomed it, thereby pre-empting Kaufman. From everything that was known about Abdur Rahman, moreover, it appeared that he was the only Afghan leader with the necessary qualities of character and personality to rule and unite this turbulent people. Moreover, having seen his predecessors let down by the Russians on more than one occasion, despite extravagant promises, he might even prefer to look to the British in future for protection or other assistance. It was therefore decided to offer Abdur Rahman the throne. Talks followed, and an agreement was reached. Under the terms of this, the British would withdraw from Kabul, leaving a Muslim agent as their sole representative. In return Abdur Rahman agreed to have no relations with any foreign power other than Britain, which for its part undertook not to interfere in any territories ruled by him. On July 22, 1880, at a special durbar to the north of Kabul, the 40-year-old Abdur Rahman was publicly proclaimed Emir, making a ceremonial entry into his capital a little later. He was to prove a tough and capable ruler, and a reliable neighbour to the British, though certainly no lackey.
His own position, however, was still far from secure. He only controlled the Kabul region and parts of the north. Much of the rest of Afghanistan was still in turmoil, for his accession to the throne had not gone unchallenged. Moreover, he dared not show himself to be friendly with the British, who had put him on the throne, lest, like Shah Shujah, he be accused of being their puppet and of being kept in power by the force of their bayonets. ‘I was unable to show my friendship publicly,’ he wrote years later, ‘because my people were ignorant and fanatical. If I showed any inclination towards the English, my people would call me an infidel for joining hands with infidels.’ His trump card, however, was the fact that the British were going, and he did not hesitate to make it appear to his people as though this was all his doing. In fact, it was with considerable relief that the British handed over control of Kabul to Abdur Rahman. For two things had happened which precipitated the need for a speedy departure.
One was a change of government at home. The Tories had been heavily defeated, largely because of their handling of the Afghan crisis, and Gladstone’s Liberals were once again in power after six years in opposition. Lord Lytton, who had been appointed Viceroy by Disraeli, had gone, following vicious criticism by Gladstone, and been replaced by Lord Ripon, a former Lord President of the India Council. Even before the defeat of the Tory administration, it had been decided to evacuate Kabul, but the Liberals now pledged themselves to abandon totally Disraeli’s forward policies. Gladstone believed the Russian threat to India to be greatly exaggerated, despite the seemingly incriminating evidence of Kaufman’s machinations which Roberts had uncovered in Kabul. Forward policies, Gladstone was convinced, merely provoked or panicked the Russians into acting similarly. He likewise refused to publish details of Kaufman’s secret correspondence with Sher AH, or of the treaty they had signed, lest this rock the boat needlessly at a time when Anglo-Russian relations were momentarily tranquil. By the time these were finally published, in the Tory newspaper The Standard a year later, they had lost most of their impact.
The other, far more pressing reason for the departure of Roberts and his troops from Kabul was a dreadful piece of news which reached them from Kandahar just six days after Abdur Rahman had been proclaimed Emir. The trouble had originated in Herat, then ruled by Ayub Khan, Abdur Rahman’s cousin, and a rival for his throne. It was Ayub Khan’s declared aim to drive the infidel British from Afghanistan and then wrest the throne from his cousin. Towards the end of June 1880, accompanied by an 8,000-strong force of infantry and artillery, and gathering support as he advanced, Ayub Khan set out for Kandahar, then occupied by a small British garrison. When word of his unexpected advance reached Kandahar, 2,500 British and Indian troops were hastily dispatched westwards to intercept him. However, intelligence was scanty, and it was not realised quite how formidable Ayub Khan’s force was, nor that he possessed modern artillery. Worse, local Afghan troops, supposedly loyal to Abdur Rahman, who had been sent to reinforce the British units, began to desert to the advancing enemy, whose ranks had by now swelled to at least 20,000.
The engagement took place at the tiny mud village of Maiwand, on the open plain forty miles west of Kandahar. The officer commanding the British force, Brigadier-General George Burrows, had orders to do battle with Ayub Khan’s troops only ‘if you consider yourself strong enough to do so’. But not realising the strength of the enemy, and anyway confident that British troops could always defeat a far larger Afghan army by means of superior tactics and weapons, he decided to attack. By the time he realised his error it was too late. The result was one of the worst defeats ever suffered by the British in Asia. Ayub Khan was an able commander, well versed in modern warfare. Unlike Burrows he was a veteran of numerous engagements, and he used this experience to advantage by quickly seizing what high ground there was before hostilities began. So well trained were his artillerymen, moreover, that the British afterwards insisted that there were Russians among them.
Outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and outgunned, and tormented by heat and thirst, the British and Indian troops nonetheless fought magnificently. Much of the fighting was hand-to-hand. Afghans were pulled on to British bayonets by their beards, while other attacks were beaten off with rocks as ammunition ran low. Finally the order was given for a fighting withdrawal to Kandahar under cover of darkness. By the time the shattered remnants of the force reached Kandahar to break the appalling news to the garrison there, Burrows had lost nearly a thousand of his men, even if they had left nearly five times that number of the enemy dead or dying on the plain around Maiwand. Having buried his own dead (leaving the British corpses to the vultures), Ayub Khan now turned his attention to the capture of Kandahar. Immediately, the garrison prepared to face a siege. For a start, because of the risk of treachery from within, it was decided to take the drastic step of expelling from the city all male Afghans of fighting age. More than 12,000 were ordered out, many at gunpoint, by the 3,000 defenders.
The first that anyone in India knew of the disaster was when the telegraph operator at Simla received an urgent, clear-the-line signal. Moments later came the grim tidings from Kandahar. ‘Total defeat and dispersion of General Burrows’s force. Heavy loss in both officers and men.’ The final death toll was not yet known, the message added, as small groups of survivors were still coming in. The troops of the garrison had been moved into the citadel and were preparing to face a siege by a victorious and vastly superior enemy. When word of the calamity reached Kabul, the first British troops had already begun to leave for India. Immediately, the evacuation was halted. The garrison had been considerably reinforced since General Roberts’s victory there, and it was decided to dispatch him at once at the head of a 10,000-strong force to destroy Ayub Khan’s army and relieve Kandahar. The 300-mile forced march was expected to take him a month, for all supplies had to be carried, and the route lay across harsh and hostile territory. In fact, it was one of the most rapid marches in military history. The entire force, including infantry, cavalry, light artillery, field hospitals, ammunition and even mutton on the hoof, reached the beleaguered city in twenty days.
On hearing that the greatly feared Roberts was on his way to avenge the British defeat, Ayub Khan took fright and withdrew from his positions around Kandahar. He even sent a message to Roberts insisting that the British had forced him to do battle with them at Maiwand, and asking the general how matters could best be resolved between himself and the British, with whom he insisted he wished to be friends. But Roberts was in no mood for such dalliance. Within hours of reaching Kandahar he had reconnoitred the new Afghan positions in the hills to the west of the city. The following morning he struck. This time, numerically speaking, the two sides were evenly matched, although the Afghans enjoyed considerable superiority in artillery. At first Ayub Khan’s troops resisted ferociously, pouring down a heavy fire on the advancing British. Soon, however, the bayonets of the 72nd Highlanders and the kukris of the 2nd Gurkhas began to tell. By lunchtime all the Afghan artillery was in Roberts’s hands, and as darkness fell the battle was over. British losses totalled only 35 dead, while the Afghans left more than 600 corpses on the battlefield, taking as many others with them as they fled. Although weakened by illness, Roberts had commanded the entire operation from the saddle, taking occasional sips of champagne to keep up his strength.
With Britain’s military prestige in Central Asia now restored, thanks to Roberts’s two brilliant victories, and with a strong and friendly ruler on the throne in Kabul, only one obstacle remained in the way of the government’s decision to evacuate Afghanistan. This was the contentious question of Kandahar. In view of the fact that it lay astride the approach route from Herat to the Bolan Pass, many argued that it should not be evacuated, warning that Russian agents would move in the moment the British garrison left. Even the military were split down the middle, though all were agreed that it should be immediately reoccupied if the Russians seized Herat. In the end the Cabinet decided to offer Kandahar to Abdur Rahman on the grounds that the less the British interfered in the affairs of Afghanistan, the less hostility there would be towards them, and the more inclined the Afghans would be to resist the Russians as they previously had the British. Abdur Rahman was slow in taking up the British offer, and as a result his cousin Ayub Khan seized Kandahar shortly after the British had evacuated it. He did not hold it for long, however. Following Roberts’s route southwards, Abdur Rahman led his own troops against Kandahar, wresting first it and then Herat from his rival, who escaped into Persia. These two victories now left Abdur Rahman master of virtually the whole of Afghanistan.
The British had successfully if painfully eradicated all Russian influence at Kabul, and had at last established a reasonably stable and united buffer state, under a friendly ruler, in Afghanistan. But they would not be allowed to rest on their laurels for long. While London might have decided to abandon forward policies in Central Asia, St Petersburg certainly had not. Within weeks of the last British troops leaving Afghanistan, the Russians were once more on the move.