XL. 1841. 101. of the de rangements in positions where, so far from being able to act offen- CHAP. sively against the Affghans, they were unable to take any effective steps to defend themselves. Instead of locating the British forces and their magazines in the Infatuation Bala-Hissar, where there was ample accommodation for fensive arthem, and they would have been in perfect security, they at Cabul. were placed in cantonments outside both the citadel and the walls, in a low situation, commanded in different directions by heights and buildings which swept them on every side. These cantonments, so situated, were of great extent, above a mile in circumference, and surrounded by a rampart so low that a British officer backed a small pony to scramble down the ditch and over the wall. The troops, who had been at first placed in the Bala-Hissar, were withdrawn by Macnaghten's orders to make way for a hundred and sixty ladies of the harem. To crown the whole, the entire commissariat stores, with the provisions for the army for the winter, were placed neither in the Bala-Hissar nor the cantonments, but in a small fort outside both, and connected with the cantonments by an undefended passage, commanded by an empty fort and a walled garden, inviting the occupation of the enemy. 1 Kaye, i. Calcutta And this under the direction of officers trained in the 612, 613; Peninsular War, and boasting of having been bred in the Review. school of Wellington !1 * of the Brit These infatuated measures had been commenced before, 102. and were in progress when General Elphinstone assumed Conduct the command; so that he is responsible only for their ish. having been carried on and persisted in during the summer and autumn, when every day was adding to the proofs of the enormous peril with which they were attended. One fifth of the sums lavished upon the traitor Yar * The engineer officers must be entirely relieved from this reproach. They strongly urged the placing the troops in the Bala-Hissar, and the erecting of additional works and barracks on that important fortress, but in vain. Durand, the chief engineer, was particularly urgent on this point. The responsibility of neglecting or overruling his advice rests with Sir William Macnaghten who sacrificed everything to a show of security.-KAYE, i. 613, note. CHAP. Mahommed to add to the fortifications of Herat, would XL. have rendered the Bala-Hissar utterly impregnable, and 1841. placed the British force in perfect security. "The fine Martin, climate," says the eloquent annalist of the war, "braced and exhilarated the British officers. There was no lack of amusement; they rode races, they played at cricket, they went out fishing, they got up dramatic entertainments. When winter came, and the lakes were frozen, they astonished the natives by skating on the ice. But amidst these harmless amusements there were others which filled the natives with the intensest hate. The inmates of the zenana were not unwilling to visit the quarters of the Christian stranger. For two long years 1 Kaye, i. had this shame been burning into the hearts of the 614,615; Cabulese; complaints were made, but they were made in 438; Shah vain. The scandal was open, undisguised, notorious; reLord Auck- dress was not to be obtained; it went on till it became 1842; Ibid. intolerable; and the injured began then to see that the only remedy was in their own hands.”1* Soojah to land, Jan. 103. Breaking But the hand of fate was upon them; and an aggression upon an independent State, alike unjustifiable in right and indefensible in expedience, was about to be overtaken death of by a terrible retribution. For some time it had been out of the insurrec tion, and Burnes, Nov. 2. observed that symptoms of hostility were evinced by the inhabitants of Cabul towards the British troops, and that stones were thrown at the sepoys from the roofs of the houses; but these incidents excited little attention, so resolute were all concerned not to admit that there was any ground for apprehension. On the evening of the 1st November, Burnes congratulated Macnaghten on his approaching departure during a period of profound peace, and at that very moment a conclave of chiefs was held in his immediate vicinity, to concert the means of an imme "I told the envoy what was going on, and was not listened to. I told him that complaints were daily made to me of Affghan women being taken to Burnes's moonshee, and of their drinking wine at his house; and of women having been taken to the Chasme, and of my having witnessed it.”—SHAH SOOJAH to LORD AUCKLAND, January 17, 1842. MARTIN, 438. It broke out CHAP. XL. diate and most formidable insurrection. simultaneously in several places at once in the city, and with the utmost violence. Instantly the shops were plun- 1841. dered, the houses of the British officers attacked, and their servants insulted and threatened. Among the first houses assailed were those of Sir Alexander Burnes, and Captain Johnson, the paymaster of the Shah's forces. Burnes had been warned of his danger, and recommended to retire to the Bala-Hissar; but he bravely resolved to remain at his post. With a mistaken lenity, he forbade his sepoy guard to fire on the insurgents, and preferred haranguing them from a gallery in the upper part of his house. He might as well have addressed so many wild beasts. Nothing was heard in the crowd but angry voices clamouring for the heads of the English officers, wild dissonant cries, and threats of vengeance. Presently shots issued from the infuriated multitude thirsting for blood and plunder, and a general assault upon the houses was made. Broadfoot, who sold his life dearly, was the first to fall; a ball pierced his heart. Meanwhile a party of the insurgents had got possession of Burnes' stables, and found their way into his garden, where they were calling upon him to come down. He did so in disguise, seeking to escape; he was recognised, set upon, and murdered, with his brother, Lieut. Burnes, of the Bombay army. The sepoys who composed the guard fought nobly when permitted to do so, but they were overpowered by numbers, and cut off to a man. From this scene of murder the mob proceeded to the treasury, which they forced open by setting fire to the gateway. The guard of sepoys, twenty-eight in number, were massacred, every human being in the house was murdered, treasure to the amount 1 Thornton, of £17,000 carried off, and the building set on fire and vi. 252-254; burnt to the ground.1 Emboldened by the impunity with 438, 439; which these crimes were committed, the mob now gave 15; Eyre's full rein to their passions, burning houses, plundering 18, 30.' shops, and massacring men, women, and children in every Martin, Kaye, ii. 5 Journal, XL. 1841. CHAP. part of the city indiscriminately; and all this when five thousand British troops were in cantonments within half an hour's march, not one of whom was ordered out to arrest the disorders! The Affghans themselves admitted that a hundred men, resolutely commanded, would have sufficed at the outset to crush the insurrection. * 104. and supine in command of the troops. During this eventful day, big, as the event proved, with Inactivity the whole fate of the Affghanistan expedition, a brigade ness of those of troops, under General Shelton, was moved, with four guns, into the Bala-Hissar, but the remainder of the troops were kept in cantonments. No step was taken to send assistance to Sir Alexander Burnes or Captain Johnson; and the only effort attempted to check this revolt was by the Shah, who despatched a small body of troops, with two guns, against the insurgents, who were too weak to effect anything at the late period when they were brought into action, and with difficulty effected their retreat with their guns. Brigadier Shelton in vain urged that not a moment should be lost in acting vigorously against the enemy. Orders were sent to Captain Trevor, who with a regiment of sepoys lay at Coord Cabul, to advance to the capital, which he immediately did, and next day orders and counter-orders were given, but nothing was done. Major Griffiths also came Nov. 2, up from the same place, having bravely fought his way ii. 21-28; through several thousand insurgents; yet nothing was vi. 254-255. attempted to avenge Burnes' murder, or the outraged majesty of the British name. The consequence was that Nov. 3. 1 Shelton's Report, 1841; Kaye, Thornton, "Not only I, but several other officers, have spoken to Affghans on the subject; there has never been a dissenting voice that, had a small party gone into the town prior to the plunder of my treasury and the murder of Burnes, the insurrection would have been instantly quashed. This was also the opinion of Captain Trevor, at that time living in the town. Captain Mackenzie has given an equally emphatic opinion to the same effect. The mob at first did not exceed a hundred men--thirty only, in the first instance, were sent to surround Burnes' house. One and all of the Affghans declared that the slightest exhibition of energy on our part in the first instance, more especially in reinforcing my post and that of Trevor, would at once have decided the Kuzilbashes, and all over whom they possessed any influence, in our favour."JOHNSON'S MS. Journal; EYRE's Journal; KAYE, ii. 17, 18. XL. 1841. the insurgents, emboldened by impunity, increased rapidly CHAP. in numbers, spread themselves out in every direction, occupied post after post as they were successively abandoned by the British, and before nightfall on the second day the whole capital was in their possession. The only attempt made to impede them was with three companies and two guns, who were of course unable to effect anything. 105. Commis Nov. 5. The extreme danger of the British position was now apparent to all, and Macnaghten, seriously alarmed, wrote Loss of the urgent letters both to Captain M'Gregor to send up sariat Fort. Sale's force from Jellalabad, and to Candahar to stop the return of the troops on their march to India through that city, and send them back to his relief. But neither of these succours could be expected for some weeks, and meanwhile the danger was pressing, and such as could only be met by instant and decisive measures. The artillery, always weak, and inadequate to the wants of the troops, was divided between the cantonments and the Bala-Hissar, so that neither had an adequate amount of that necessary arm. The Commissariat Fort, as already mentioned, was situated outside both the Bala-Hissar and the cantonments, and though it contained the whole provisions and stores of the army, it had no guns, and was garrisoned only by eighty sepoys, under Ensign Warren. Between this fort and the cantonments was another fort, called the Shereef's Fort, which commanded the passage between the two. General Elphinstone had on the preceding day proposed to occupy this fort with his own troops, but Macnaghten opposed it, declaring it would be impolitic to do so. The consequence was, it was occupied by the enemy, whose marksmen swarmed around it in every direction, and kept up from behind the stone enclosure which surrounded it a deadly fire upon any reinforcements sent out to support Warren's little party in the Commissariat Fort. In vain that officer sent message after message to Elphinstone to announce that he was hard pressed, and if not relieved |