The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (61 page)

Angered by the Emir’s rebuff, Lord Lytton now urged the Cabinet to waste no further time and to authorise an immediate declaration of war. But London decided that a final ultimatum should first be presented to the Emir. This warned him that unless, by sundown on November 20, he had apologised in full for his discourtesy in refusing a British mission while welcoming
a
Russian one, military operations would begin against him forthwith. In the meantime, to exacerbate matters, the Russian Foreign Ministry, which had earlier denied all knowledge of Stolietov’s mission, had come up with a highly unsatisfactory explanation, insisting that it was purely a matter of courtesy and in no way conflicted with their former assurances that Afghanistan lay outside their sphere of influence. It did little to subdue Lytton’s fear of what they were really up to in Afghanistan, or his suspicion that Britain was being made a fool of.

By the time the ultimatum to Sher Ali expired on November 20, no answer had been received from him. The following day three columns of British troops began their advance on Kabul. Ten days later a letter arrived from the Emir agreeing to the dispatch of a British mission. But it failed to offer the apology also demanded by the Viceroy. Anyway it was far too late now, for the Second Afghan War had already begun. Lytton was determined to teach the Emir a lesson he would not easily forget, and at the same time make it perfectly clear to St Petersburg that Britain would tolerate no rivals in Afghanistan.

·29·
Bloodbath at the Bala Hissar

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.