The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (63 page)

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 But, more immediately, it had to be decided who was to rule in Kabul when the British garrison there was withdrawn.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.