The Dark Defile (43 page)
Authors: Diana Preston
Kabul Bazaar, fruit season.
City of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. (© The British Library Board [Folio 11, 1840]. “City of Kandahar, Its Principal Bazaar and Citadel, Taken from the Nakkara Khuana,” by Robert C. Carrick.)
One of the two giant statues at Bamiyan, destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001.
Alexander “Bokhara” Burnes, renowned traveler, political officer and British resident in Kabul.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Punjab, Britain’s ally and ruler of the Sikhs.
Captain Colin Mackenzie, hostage and survivor.
General George Pollock.
Lady (Florentia) Sale, spirited diarist of the conflict, and her husband, Brigadier “Fighting Bob” Sale.
As this book is intended primarily for the general reader I reference quotes from the following primary sources only where their origin might otherwise be unclear in the context. (Full details of the editions used are in the bibliography.)
Atkinson, J.
The Expedition into Afghanistan
Broadfoot, W.
The Career of Major George Broadfoot
(compiled from Broadfoot’s own papers by Major W. Broadfoot)
Dennie, Colonel W.,
Personal Narrative of the Campaigns in Afghanistan, Sinde, Beloochistan etc.
Durand, Sir H. M.
The First Afghan War and Its Causes
Eyre, V.
The Military Operations at Kabul
Gleig, Reverend G. R.
Sales’s Brigade in Afghanistan
Harlan, J.
Central Asia—Personal Narrative of General Josiah Harlan, 1823–1841
_____
.
A Memoir of India and Afghanistan
Havelock, H.
Narrative of the War in Afghanistan in 1838–39
Johnson, Captain. Diary in
Blackwoods Magazine
, March 1906
Kennedy, Dr. R. H.
Narrative of the Campaign of the Army of the Indus in Sind and Kabul in 1838–9
Lal, M.
Journal of a Tour Through the Punjab, Afghanistan and Parts of Persia
_____
.
Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul
Lawrence, Sir G.
Reminiscences of Forty-Three Years in India
Mackenzie, H.
Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier’s Life
, which includes long extracts from Colin Mackenzie’s journals. (A detailed letter from Mackenzie to Eyre describing Macnaghten’s assassination is included at Appendix 15 in Stocqueler’s compendium of official papers and personal narratives,
Memorials of Affghanistan
[
sic
].)
Masson, C.
Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and the Punjab and Kalat
Ram, Subedar Sita.
From Sepoy to Subedar.
(The authenticity of this account had been queried because of some inconsistencies and inaccuracies. However, like most historians, I have accepted its veracity. Any errors seem to me to be attributable to the distance in time between the events described and when they were set down.)
Sale, Lady.
A Journal of the Disasters in Afghanistan, 1841–2
Stocqueler, J. H.
Life of Sir William Nott
, which includes much of Nott’s
Memoirs and Correspondence.
(All quotes from Nott come from this book unless otherwise stated.)
Sir John Kaye’s detailed
History of the War in Afghanistan
was published shortly after the war (in 1851, revised in 1857) and used and attributed many contemporary primary sources. Despite the heated debates about the war that were still continuing at the time Kaye’s history was published, the authenticity of the documents he quotes was never queried. This is important since some, for example Eldred Pottinger’s journal of Herat, were subsequently destroyed in a fire in his study.
ABBREVIATIONS
AUCK | Auckland Papers, British Library |
BROU | Broughton Papers, British Library |
ELLEN | Ellenborough Papers, British National Archives (formerly Public Record Office [PRO]) |
P. P. | Parliamentary Papers for 1839, 1843 and 1859 about the Afghan War and its background. (The 1859 papers are a full edition—produced at Parliament’s request by Sir John Kaye—of those published in 1839, from which some documents were completely missing and some had been edited, leading to them being called “garbled.”) |
WELLES | Wellesley Papers, British Library |
PRELUDE
1 “The consequence … that country”: Quoted in Sir J. W. Kaye,
History of the War in Afghanistan
, vol. 1, p. 378.
1 “The colours … subjects”: Major Hamlet Wade, quoted in H. Mackenzie,
Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier’s Life
, vol. 1, p. 272.
2 Learning … Mecca: Hawkins’s account of his journey to and life at the Mogul court is from
Early Travels in India
, edited by W. Foster, pp. 81 and 83.
3 “the abandoned … wealth … every spark … extinguished”: T. Wilkinson,
Two Monsoons,
p. 4.
5 “a delegation … the East”: Quoted in J. H. Waller,
Beyond the Khyber Pass
, p. xxv.
6 “He is … govern”: Queen Victoria’s letter to her uncle the Belgian king of 11 June 1844, Benson and Asher,
The Letters of Queen Victoria—1837–1861
, vol. 2, p. 14.
7 “Poor … she … shrink”: Quoted in J. Morris,
Heaven’s Command,
p. 26.
7 Although the United States, of which Michigan became the twenty-sixth state in 1837, and its 17 million population might seem at this stage of history to have been remote from jockeyings for power in Central Asia, this is not entirely the case. British cotton manufacturers preferred the less brittle, longer-staple, American cotton to that produced in India. Slaves in the southern cotton fields were laboring to produce the raw material for Britain’s cotton mills which fueled its commercial aspirations. Also, many academic historians have seen parallels between America’s push westward and Russian expansion south and east into Central Asia. In the case of Georgia, where gold had been discovered in the western hills, American expansion was by a treaty at least as “unequal” as that by which the British compelled the Chinese to cede Hong Kong. It forced the Cherokee from their homes in Georgia onto the so-called Trail of Tears in late spring 1838 on which a quarter of the thirteen thousand who set out died.
CHAPTER ONE
Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes describing Mountstuart Elphinstone’s journey are from his
Account of the Kingdom of Caubul
.