The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (62 page)

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.