Ghazni for a prolonged siege, had garrisoned it and placed his
son Ghulam Haidar Khan in command. His idea was apparently that
it should detain the invaders sufficiently to allow of his raising the
Ghilzais and of recalling his son Akbar Khan and his forces from the
^ Calcutta about 1,850 miles ; Simla about 650 miles.
FALL OF GHAZNI AND ENTRY INTO KABUL. I39
head of the Khyber. Ghulam Haidar had orders to brick up the
g-ateways, and he had obeyed these instructions, except with regard
to the Kabul gate, which had not been closed permanently in order to
keep communication with Kabul. The defences of Ghazni proved
stronger than they had been said to be, and as the heavy guns had
been left behind, and provisions were almost at an end, it was decided
to blow in the Kabul gate and storm the place. Before dawn of the
23rd July 1839, a party under Captain Peat of the Bombay Engineers,
with Lieutenants McLeod, and Durand (afterwards Sir H. M. Durand),
of the same corps demolished the gate, and Ghazni was taken by storm.
Ghulam Haidar Khan was made prisoner.^ Great stores ofprovisions
were found, and were welcomed by the troops, who had been on
reduced allowances of food. This success decided the Durani nobles,
who had hitherto held aloof, to join Shah Shuja, and it upset all Dost
Muhammad's plans. The latter had taken up a position at Maidan
two stages in advance of Kabul ; but on receiving news of the fall of
Ghazni and the capture of his son, he gave up the idea of making a
stand, and sent away his family towards Balkh. Akbar Khan also had
fallen back before the advance of Sir Claude Wade, accompanied by
a mixed force of Sikh auxiliaries and of locally raised levies, and by
Prince Timur. Akbar Khan joined his father, and at the head of a
band of resolute followers he covered the retreat of the Amir.
The progress of Shah Shuja from Ghazni to Kabul wore an air of
triumph, owing to the crowds that thronged the road, and who had
abandoned their villages and daily avocations, to witness the spectacle.
To the people of the country, accustomed to the tumult of their
national forces, the orderly movements of the foreign troops, which
were bringing back Shah Shuja to his capital, must have appeared
most wonderful. It was probably not the Shah whom they wished so
much to see, as the white-faced strangers of whose existence the
greater number of the spectators had never even heard. The State
entry into Kabul was, however, the crowning event of the campaign.
It was effected on the 7th of August. Everything that could
render it imposing was done. An escort was furnished by mounted
European Corps, the 4th Light Dragoons, the i6th Lancers, a squadron
each, and a troop of Horse Artillery. The Shah was accompanied by
the Envoy and Minister, by Sir John Keane, the Political and Military
staff, and most of the officers of the Army, which had brought him
back. It was a pageant that might well have recalled the visits of
* This was the first Military operation undertaken in the reign of our late
Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, and the first victory in her reign.
140 THE KINGDOM OF AFGHANISTAN.
the Emperors of Delhi to this city in days long- passed. The Jewels
that decked the person of the Shah, and the brilliant uniforms of his
imposing- retinue, were seen to full advantage in the light of that
summer afternoon, as the cavalcade paced throug-h the streets of
Kabul towards the citadel ; the tread of the horses echoing between
the buildings on either side of the narrow thoroughfares, and under
the massive archways of the gate that had been thrown open to admit
the King and his followers into the precincts of the Bala Hisar. A
candid witness, one who left Kabul before the troubles began, has
recorded the fact that the dense crowds that lined the streets, and
crowded the walls, and house tops, gazed at the procession with an
impassive demeanour. Merely rising as the Shah rode by and
sitting down at once after he had passed.' Shah Shuja-ul-Mulk had
not seen the Bala Hisar of Kabul for 30 years, and it is said that the
tears streamed from his eyes, as he noted the ravages which neglect
and the Civil wars had wrought, the signs of which were visible on
every side ; and as he recounted the splendours which as a young man
he had witnessed, during the life-time of his father Shah Timur, and
in the brief siege of his brother — the unhappy Shah Zaman.
^ Major W. Hough, Depy. Judge Advocate-General of the "Bengal Column"
of the Army of the Indus.
For the relations between the Amir Dost Muhammad and the Persian Govern-
ment, which led up to the siege of Herat in 1837-38, see Appendix V.
CHAPTER XV.
The first Afghan War. — Restoration of the Sadozais. — National
movement against foreign interference in the government,
AND PRESENCE IN THE CoUNTRY MURDER OF ShAH ShUJA
Final Abandonment of Kabul, and extinction
OF THE Sadozais.
DOST MUHAMMAD, who had ruled for 13 years In the city
which witnessed his rival's apparent triumph, had made
good his flig-ht to Balkh, where he collected his followers
and made plans for the future. He had been in communi-
cation with the Rulers of Bokhara and decided to seek an asylum in
his capital. In deference, however, to the opposition of his brother,
the Nawab Jabbar Khan, the families of the Amir, and his sons, and
their followers, were left in Khulm in the care of his brother. The
fugitives received an honourable welcome in Bokhara ; but after a
time the demeanour of their host changed, and restrictions were
placed on the movements of the refugees who were unable to leave
the capital.
The restoration of Shah Shuja apparently had been successful. No-
where had any serious opposition been experienced. The Army on
which Dost Muhammad had expended the greater part of his slender
revenue, had been stationed in the vicinity of the Khyber Pass front-
ing the Sikhs, and had not been available to oppose the invasion.
The Kandahar Sardars, owing to their unpopularity, had been unable
to offer any resistance to the Shah and his foreign supporters.
Ghazni, which Dost Muhammad had hoped would delay the advance,
and give time for the raising of the tribal forces, had fallen, and no
opposition could be offered to the occupation of the capital itself.
Left to himself, Shah Shuja might have been able to restore his
authority, for the supremacy of the Barakzais had not been firmly
established.
" The Shah was known to be by no means deficient in ability.
Macnaghten himself described him to Rawlinson as a shrewd, cool.
142 THE KINGDOM OF AFGHANISTAN.
sensible, calculating: character. His courage was of a doubtful hue "
(the result probably of his reverses, the weakness of his cause and
adherents — and the certainty of death, or of a more dreadful fate if
he fell into the hands of his enemies) ; " but this natural timidity
could not fail of receiving assurances from the presence of a disci-
plined body of foreign mercenaries — the contingent- — well-armed and
well-officered, whilst th6 occupation of the key points of his country
would have enabled the Shah to maintain such a grip of Kabul,
Ghazni, and Kandahar, that nothing but an army well provided
with battering guns could have shaken his hold upon these important
points. Shah Shuja might possibly, with such a bit in the mouths of
the people, and with conciliatory conduct towards the chiefs, for
whose restless but petty ambition he could have found scope in the
Civil and Military service of the State, soon would have been in a
position to brave the return of Dost Muhammad. Freed from the
dictation of a British Envoy, and from the domineering presence
of a British Army, provided that his financial measures had proved
judicious, his popularity would have increased, and with it his real
strength.
" He would have had the winter, which from its severity imposes
rest and peace, as a season in which to consolidate his administra-
tion ; it would have given him leisure to work on the characters and
wishes of the chiefs, and raise an influential party favourable to his
reign."'
In addition, there was a party in his favour, whom the severities of
Dost Muhammad had alienated— led by an influential chief of the
Popalzai clan. This would have proved a valuable nucleus round
which to create a group of influential persons favourable to the
restored government of the Sadozais. The revolutions, and blood-
shed, of the past thirty years had probably rendered a large section
of the population not sorry for a respite ; and lastly an important
factor in favour of the Shah was his previous friendship with the
Ghilzais, A great part of these warlike, powerful, tribes had held
aloof from the Barakzais. Against these advantages, however, there
was the autocratic, and haughty character of the Shah himself, too
deeply ingrained to allow of a change. The infirmities of mind and
body, due to his advanced age, added to his difficulties. None of the
younger members of the Sadozai Family possessed any force of charac-
ter, or ability, and they were of no assistance at all to the aged Shah
^ The first Afghan war and its causes ; by Sir H. M. Durand, K.C.S.I., C.B.,
pp. 1 90- 1 91.
THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN. I43
in his critical position ; the Sadozais also had no clan at their back on
whose devotion they could rely. The misfortunes, and the ill-success
attending Shah Shuja, had probably caused men to be very chary of
joining an unlucky Prince, and of supporting a dying cause. Every
Barakzai on the other hand acknowledged Dost Muhammad's claim
on his services ; and Afghans' reverence for a strong and brave man
had been won by him.
The determination to occupy the country until such time as the
government of the Shah had been sufficiently established to be able to
dispense with the presence of foreign troops, proved fatal to our own
influence in Afghanistan ; and to the Shah himself. The situation is
summed up in a few words by one who was competent to pronounce a
verdict : — " A mock king, a civil administration hated because, under
foreign dictation and dissonant from the feelings of the Afghans, an
envoy, the real king ruling by the gleam of British bayonets, and
thus enabled to impose his measures, however crude or unpalatable.
A large army, raising by its consumption the price of provisions and
preying on the resources of a very poor country."^
As early as October 1839, the Khyberis, who had once been Shah
Shuja's very good friends, were in rebellion on account of reductions of
the subsidies which they received. In the following month, Lord
Keane, with the troops returning to India, had to fight his way through
the Pass. The Ghilzai rising (the spring of 1840) was quieted by the
rough handling they received at the hands of a small expeditionary
force despatched from Kandahar, and an annual subsidy of ;£«3,ooo.
The surrender of Nawab Jabbar Khan, with the families in his
charge, on the 3rd of July, was the result of the operations of British
troops and the Shah's local corps in the valleys to the north of the
Hindu-Kush. The escape of Dost Muhammad from Bokhara and his
appearance on the left bank of the Oxus, was followed by revival of
intrigues in his favour. His agents were busy in the Kohistan and
in the capital, and two of his sons were stirring up the Ghilzais in
Zurmat. A column under Sir Robert Sale, in the Kohistan, met with
determined resistance. But the measures taken to counteract the
efforts made by Dost Muhammad's partisans, and by him in person,
proved so effectual that he decided to avoid an ignominious betrayal
into the hands of his enemies by the more dignified course of a
voluntary surrender to the envoy in person, which he put into effect
on the 3rd of November. It showed his own opinion as to the con-
1 The first Afghan war and its causes ; by Sir H. M. DurancI, K.C.S.I., C.B
pp. 193-194-
144 THE KINGDOM OF AFGHANISTAN.
dition of his affairs. On the 12th he marched to India with
Sir Willoug-hly Cotton, and for a time he resided in Ludhiana, from
where he was removed to Calcutta.
Prince Timur governed Kandahar as his father's representative,
but the officials about him owed their selection to the sole qualification
of having shared the exile of the Shah. They were the creatures of
Mulla Shakur (the Ishakzai), an ancient adherent of the Shah, whom
the latter had appointed to be his first Minister. The tardy removal
of Mulla Shakur, and the appointment of Muhammad Usman Khan'
in his place, however, did nothing to mitigate the popular feeling of
dislike that was rapidly gaining strength. The rapacity and venality
of the Kandahar officials soon provided Major Rawlinson, the Political
Officer, and General Nott, Commanding the troops at Kandahar, with
grave cause for apprehensions of impending troubles. With the
support afforded to the Government by the presence of British troops,
the right hitherto enjoyed by the Afghans of rebelling against their
sovereign's tyranny, could not be exercised with impunity. In
December 1840, Akhter Khan, an Alizai Chief of the Zamindawar, drew
together the bolder spirits among the discontented in Southern
Afghanistan, and the native Royalist party had been driven from the
field. The victories of Wymer, on the 9th May, over the Ghilzais, and
of Griffin on the 17th of August, and the success won by Chambers
over the Ghilzais once more on the 5th of August, had cowed for
time the insurgents in the south. But neither the Political nor the
military officers in Kandahar were deceived by the success of the
operations. Under the surface the evil spread in all directions, but the
warnings from Major Rawlinson in Kandahar and from Pottinger in
the Kohistanere failed to disturb the false sense of security thyt
prevailed in Kabul.
Other causes also created a bitter feeling against the foreigners,
whowereoccupyingtheircountry,andinspiredthe Afghans with a deadly
hatred towards them. The reduction of the subsidies paid to the
Ghilzai tribes, who occupied the country between Kabul and Jalalabad,,
caused these tribesmen to break out into open rebellion. Amin-ullah
Khan, Chief of Lohgar, had been threatened with removal by the
Vazier (whom the Shah had created Nizam-ud-daulah), and this
brought matters to a crisis at the capital, where a report had been,
circulated that certain influential persons were to be removed to India,
when Sir William Macnaghten left Kabul, to take up the appointment
of Governor of Bombay, and the time of his depature was drawing
^ Son of the Vazier to Shah Zaman, Wafadar Khan.
THE NATIONAL RISING. I45
near. The indecisive actions fought by Sir Robert Sale, against the
Ghilzais, were magnified into victories by the nationalists ; and a
colour was given to the reports by the ill-advised Treaty of Tezeen made
with the insurgents by Major Macgregor. Moreover, Akbar Khan, the
second son of Dost Muhammad, had escaped from Bokhara, and was
now at hand to direct the national movement, and lead the insurgents.
The people of the Kohistan were thoroughly disaffected, and resolved
to avenge the destruction of their forts and villages. Foremost among
them was the Saiad Mir Masjidi, who had rendered himself famous for
the defence of his fort at Tutamdarra. The preachings of the Mullas,
and the exhortations of Akbar Khan, roused the Kohistanis to action.
On the niirht of the ist November they entered Kabul. They were
met by insurgent Ghilzais, and by the local malcontents headed by the
Chief of Lohgarh — the Kazilbash held aloof from the movement, — who
was deep in the confidence of both the Shah and the Envoy : they deter-
mined to act at once. On the morning of the 2nd November 1841, the
storm burst, and Kabul was in an uproar. Burnes was killed and the
Treasury containing ;^i 70,000 in cash was plundered. The Shah
who knew the temper of his people called for aid to the British troops
in Cantonments, and the blundering attempt to save Burnes, and the
Treasury, made by Campbell at the head of the Shah's Hindustani
corps was unsuccessful, and was defeated with heavy loss.
There were some 4,500 good troops in Cantonments, a force
sufficient under an able commander to have crushed the rising eflfectually.
Ability, however, was lacking, and that which followed is too well
known to need repetition — well might the Shah, as he saw from the
Bala Hisar the melancholy spectacle presented by the inaction of our
troops, exclaim — " the English are mad."'
** There was an unearthly faintness upon their hearts ; and it was
as though some great crime had caused the wrath of God to settle
down upon the host, withering the hearts of its leaders, unnerving the
right arms of England's soldiery, and leaving them no power to stand
before their enemies.^" On the 23rd of December 184 1 the British
Envoy was murdered at an interview with Muhammad Akbar, and
on the 6th of January the disastrous retreat towards Jalalabad was
commenced ; a week later, Dr. Brydon brought the news to the garrison
of Jalalabad that *' Elphinstone's army, guns, standards, honour, all
being lost, was itself completely annihilated. "3
^ The first Afghan War and its causes ; by Sir H. M. Durand, K.C.S.I., C.B. 357.
- Ibid. 372.
â– â– Ibid. 378.
146 THli KINGDOM Ol" AFGHANISTAN.
The retreat of the British troops trom Kabul, and the efforts made
by Muhammad Akbar Khan to effect the destruction of Sale's force in
Jalalabad, either by treachery or by force, had drawn most of the
turbulent spirits of the national party from the capital, and Shah
Shuja made frantic efforts to create a party in his own interests. The
Prince Shahpur was so far successful that he induced the Chiefs in
Kabul to visit the Shah, who gave them a formal reception on the 19th
February. Muhammad Akbar did not relish the turn that affairs had
taken in the capital, combined with his ill-success at Jalalabad ; and
he vehemently urged the leaders to force the Shah to declare himself
openly on the side of the nationalists. Mir Haji, son of the Chief Priest
of Kabul, was elected as their leader, and a great crowd of Ghazis
streamed out of Kabul with banners displayed, to reinforce their
countrymen round Jalalabad, and the Shah declared his willingness to
accompany them. On the 2nd of April 1842, his tents were pitched at
Siah Sang,' and the next day he held a reception of the leading men
at that place. In order to be prepared for another term of exile, he is
said to have concealed on his person, a bag containing his choicest
jewels, the value of the gems was estimated at 50 lakhs of rupees.
After the reception was over, he was left to be the prey of his melan-
choly forebodings, and in his perturbation, he decided to return to the
Bala Hisar. After a restless night, he finally made up his mind to
return to camp. At the last moment he is said again to have
hesitated, but in the end he entered his litter and passed out for ever
from the gate of the citadel.
The Shah's movements had been made known to Shuja-ud-Daulah,
son of that Zaman Khan Barakzai, whom a faction of the nationalists
had made their Amir at the commencement of the outbreak. Shuja-ud-
Daulah had waited all night in the cemetery between the Bala Hisar
and Siah Sang, and when the litter of the aged Shah approached, the
conspirators opened fire on the party. The Shah sprang from his
conveyance and ran for his life and took shelter from the bullets in a
dry irrigation channel. When the Chief rode up to the litter, which the
bearers were hurrying towards the Bala Hisar, and found it empty, he
lost his nerve, and was about to fly, when his principal adherent Jafir
Khan, a Murad Khani Kazilbash, whom the Vazier had proscribed,
seized his bridle and adjured him to complete the task he had under-
taken. A careful search revealed the Shah crouching in his shelter
and with their weapons the conspirators set him free from the cares
of this life. His corpse was stripped of the jewels he wore on h is
^ About 2 miles to the east of the Bala Hisar
DEATH OF SHAH SHUJA. I47
clothes, and when all was quiet, one of his personal attendants, who
was concealed close by, crept out of his hiding place and carried his
master's body to the Bala* Hisar. Shah Shuja was murdered in the
morning of the 4th April 1842 ; in the 65th year of his life. He was a
scholar, and had attained to some distinction in literature. His poems
are still admired in India, and in his own country. He amused himself
in his exile by writing his memoirs in Persian. His fidelity to his foreign
allies gradually became doubtful. His position as a puppet must
have galled his autocratic and proud nature, and he must have seen
that he was regarded with contempt by those whom his foreign
allies held down by force, and he maj- have tried hard to remove
this feeling, and to create a party that would be not inimical to him,
in case of a general rising of his countrymen : the extreme probability
of which he was quite able to foresee.
Prince Fath Jang was raised to the throne of the Sadozais in the
Bala Hisar, by the members of the Royal Family, and their adherents.
He obtained some trifling successes over the partisans of Zaman
Khan, but he was eventually forced to shut himself up in the citadel,
and his cause was weakened by the defection of the Lohgar Chief
Amin-ullah Khan, who joined Muhammad Akbar, when that redoubt-
able Chief reached Kabul, wounded alike in body and in his pride by
his complete defeat in the open field by the despised garrison of
Jalalabad on the 7th April.
The relief of Jalalabad and the advance of British troops on Kabul
from that direction and from Kandahar, had tamed Akbar Khan's pride,
and he agreed to recognise Fath Jang as his sovereign, claiming the
position of Vazier for himself. This was a short-lived arrangement,
for the latter obtained possession of letters written by his master to
General Pollock, and these gave the Barakzai an opportunity to depose
the puppet King, who was stripped of the remains of Shah Shuja's
wealth. He made his escape from the Bala Hisar, and a solitary
Afghan, clad in filthy rags, who rode into the British camp at Gandamak
in September 1842, announced himself as Fath Jang, King of Kabul.
After the re-occupation of the city, he was restored to the throne,
with Ghulam Muhammud Khan, the Bamizai, son of the late Mukhtar-
ud-Daulah, as his first minister. Prince Shahpur accompanied Sir John
McCaskil's column into the Kohistan, which dispersed the formidable
gathering of the tribesmen headed by the Naib Amin-ullah Khan
Lohgari, and burnt Istalif. On the withdrawal of the British troops,
Prince Fath Jang very wisely seized the opportunity of removing the
family of the Sadozais from Afghanistan, and of resigning a position he
148 THE KINGDOM OF AFGHANISTAN.
saw no prospect of retaining after that army had retired ; and on the
nth October he abandoned Kabul. Prince Shahpur, however, was
advised by some of the Chiefs, for he had become popular with a party
of the latter, to make an attempt to govern the country. The
Sadozais had been thoroughly discredited, and their cause was recog-
nised as dead. The Vazier Ghulam Muhammad was intriguing for
the return of Akbar Khan, who had been lurking behind the Hindu
Kush at Tashkurgan. Prince Haidar, who tried to govern
Baniian, fled before the redoubtable Barakzai and arrived at Kabul
without a single follower. Prince Shahpur, wisely followed his
friends' advice, and while there was yet time to escape, he made off
with his family by the Karkagh Pass, across the hills towards Jalalabad,
where the ill-omened Muhammad Usman Khan, Sadozai, was still the
governor. The Jabbar Khel Ghilzais, who inhabit the Assarah
(Hisarak) district, captured the fugitives, but owing to the good offices
of Azimgul Khan, the Prince was allowed to pass on to Peshawar,
while the Jabbar Khel escorted his family with all due respect to that
place.
In the occupation of Afghanistan by foreigners, and especially by
pork-eating Europeans, the Afghans professed to recognise the fulfil-
ment of that vision of the holy Ako, in which he had seen the skin of
a hog spread in the dwelling of his host ; and in the retreat, and
massacre, of the foreign troops the prediction of the Shekh that it was
not to be regarded as altogether an unfavourable omen. The belief in
the fulfilment of the vision was greatly strengthened by the coincidence
that the invasion of Afghanistan by British troops, occurred in the
year of the Hog, according to the Turkish mode of reckoning in which
each year in a cycle is named after an animal.
The effect of the recovery of the British captives, and the destruc-