Kaye - History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 2 (of 3)

HISTORY

OF

THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, F.R.S.

THIRD EDITION.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
WM. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE,

Publishers to the India Office.
1874.

LONDON.
PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.

BOOK IV.

BOOK V.

[1841-1842.]

BOOK VI.

THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

BOOK IV.

[August-December: 1839.]

Dawn of the RestorationDifficulties of our PositionProposed Withdrawal of the ArmyArrival of Colonel WadeHis OperationsLord on the Hindoo-KooshEvils of our PolicyDefective AgencyMoollah ShikoreOur Political AgentsOperations in the Khybur PassThe Fall of Khelat.

Restored to the home of his fathers, Shah Soojah was not contented. Even during the excitement of the march to Caubul he had complained of the narrow kingdom to which he was about to return; and now, as he looked out from the windows of his palace over the fair expanse of country beneath him, he sighed to think that the empire of Ahmed Shah had been so grievously curtailed.

Very different, indeed, was the Douranee Empire, over which the sceptre of Shah Soojah was now waved, from that which his father had handed down to Zemaun Shah and his brothers, to be sacrificed by their weakness and disunion. The kingdom, which had once extended from Balkh to Shikarpoor, and from Herat to Cashmere, had now shrunk and collapsed. On every side its integrity had been invaded. Cashmere and Mooltan had fallen to the Sikhs; Peshawur had been wrested from the Afghans by the same unscrupulous neighbour; the independence of Herat had been guaranteed to a branch of the Royal family; the Beloochees had asserted pretensions unknown in the times of Ahmed Shah; the petty Princes on the northern hill-frontier no longer acknowledged their allegiance to Caubul. In whatsoever direction he turned his eyes, he beheld the mutilations to which the old Douranee Empire had been subjected; and yearned to recover some of the provinces which had been severed from the domain of his fathers.

But the kingdom to which he had been restored was more extensive than he could govern. There were many difficult questions to be solved, at this time; the first and the most important of which related to the continuance of his connexion with his Feringhee allies. The British Government had now done all that it had undertaken to do. It had escorted Shah Soojah to his palace gates, and seated him upon the throne of his fathers. In accordance with Lord Aucklands manifesto, the time had now arrived for the withdrawal of the British army. But it was obvious that the British army could not yet be withdrawn. The Shah had no hold upon the affections of his people. He might sit in the Balla Hissar, but he could not govern the Afghans. Such, at least, was the conviction which by this time had forced itself upon Macnaghtens mind. If the British Minister had ever contemplated the early abandonment of the restored King, the idea had now passed away. The Shah himself felt no confidence in his own strength. He did not believe that the power of Dost Mahomed was irretrievably broken, but still saw him, in imagination, flitting about the regions of the Hindoo-Koosh, raising the Oosbeg tribes, and pouring down for the recovery of Caubul.