Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎22r] (44/312)

away from. But they are part of the price we must
be ready to pay for empire. We cannot govern two
hundred millions of subjects by the terror of the
British name without showing, when the occasion
arises, that our power is really to be feared.
It is, therefore, an impending necessity that
the defiance of S here A li must be answered
by the invasion of Afghanistan with an over
whelming force, and the permanent occupation of
the strongest places in the A meer's territory.
Nothing less than the entry of an imposing British
force into Cabul can annul the effects of the blow
which S here A li has ventured to deal. W© are
not exclusively or even chiefly concerned with the
influence of events upon the public opinion, so far
as there is any, of the Afghans and the hill
tribes ; it is an Indian question, not a Central
Asian question, with which we have to deal, and it
is necessary for the country to understand that no
! mere formal " apology " on the part of the A meer
will do away with the ill-consequences of his wanton
outrage. As we have said, the national sentiment
upon this point is thoroughly sound and just; there
is no recklessly combative disposition, there is no
vindictive feeling whatever, but there is a deter
mination not to allow the immense interests of the
Anglo-Indian Government to be compromised by
timidity or vacillation. The strongest measures
will be most readily approved, and in the
long run, we are sure, they will be found the most
effective and the most economical. The orders
given on Monday to General R oberts , who is in
command of the frontier field force of twelve thou-
' sand men, were, of course, only provisional, and
i the Cabinet at home must direct the future course
of events ; but there happily has not been an hour's
delay in making such a demonstration at least as
may warn the* Afghans of our determination. It
may be, as has been suggested, that an active
campaign cannot be undertaken with safety at this
Reason of the year among the passes of the
mountains which separate our territory from
that of S here A li . But if so there is all
the more reason for making it plain that a
crushing blow is to fall next spring. S here A li
must be made to understand at once that, whether
retribution be instant or be delayed for a few
months, he cannot hope tc> escape it. In armed
resistance, as he will soon be instructed by his friends
and counsellors, there is no hope for him. Russia
will not assist him, at least there are as yet no sjgna
that she will venture upon playing her last trump
card in the great game of Asiatic policy. The
time is not come, in the opinion of her statesmen
and strategists, for contesting the power of
England in Asia, and after the extraordinary efforts
of the war with Turkey it would not probably be
convenient for her to engage in a struggle for life
and death beyond the barren plains of the half-
conquered desert between Orenburg and Balkh. It
is possible that the spirit of lawless adventure
which has lured Russia to tamper with Afghan policy
may carry her still farther, and that the bitter
hatred of England which is fostered by the Govern
ment may be employed to avert the dangers of
revolutionary troubles at home. But, though
possible, such an aggressive line of conduct is most
improbable, and Russia will no doubt be content,
as the Anglo-Russian newspapers repeat with satis
faction, to have embroiled England and Afghanistan,
and to watch the issue of the conflict. To
wait upon what the chapter of accidents may dis
close is now the only prudent policy for Russia, and
though she may set prudence at nought once more,
we should not be justified m reckoning on such a
course of folly. At the same time, it must be
remembered that we have ample reasons, if we
chose to pick a quarrel, for dragging Russia from
behind the mask; of S here A li's Government.
For the present it seems that our task is simply
to punish the insolence—by whom inspired we need
not ask—of S he re A ll The undertaking is by no
means so arduous and uncertain as some amongst us
try to demonstrate. In the former Afghan wars our
armies easily overran the Afghan territory, and
always routed the Afghan troops in the field. It
is true that military and political incompetence,
and, we are sorry to add, moral guilt, led, as Sir
J ohn K aye's history clearly shows, to the destruc
tion of one out of the three brigades which occupied
Afghanistan, and this melancholy episode in the story
is dwelt upon by the anti-Imperial school of critics
as if it included all that is recorded of our Afghan
invasion. But the rising at Cabul, which might
have happened at Peshawur, or, indeed, at Alla-
j habad, though a disaster, was such a disaster as
I prudence might have averted, and as energy might
have instantly repaired It was repaired—though
Lord C arnarvon , and some Liberal speakers and
writers who follow him, choose to forget the fact of
the progress of the <£ Army of Vengeance "—and so
effectually that for years no Afghan ventured to
dispute the power of England, and D ost M ahomed
himself considered an English alliance one of the
main guarantees of his rule. During all the tre
pidations caused by the massacre at Cabul and the
retreat of E lphinstone's army Candaharand Jella-
labad were held by the British troops as firmly as
Lucknow was held during the Mutiny. The second
invasion, under P ollock , was a series of triumphs
almost more complete than that of the commanders
who brought the mutinous Sepoys Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank. to submission in
1858. If the policy which prevailed at the time in
the Imperial Government unwisely insisted upon
the withdrawal of the victorious troops, who were as
completely triumphant as the British army was in
Oude after the suppression of the Mutiny, the lesson of
history must not for this reason be perverted from
its true meaning, Mr. B axter has given a key note
to several of the Liberal journals by affirming that
" there is nothing more terrible in the history of
1 our Indian possessions than the results of the last
campaign in that quarter of the world," The
assertion, we must presume, is the outcome of
what Dr. J ohnson honestly called "sheer
ignorance," for no one will accuse Mr. B axter
of any deliberate misrepresentation. But what
ever may be the origin of the ridiculous legend, it
is necessary that its falsity should be exposed.
Our last campaign in Afghanistan was a com
plete triumph, and it affords less reason for
declftnng another struggle upon the same ground
than does our conflict with the mutineers of 1857,
We hold India, nevertheless, encouraged not dis
heartened by the trials of the Mutiny, and the
history of the Afghan wars of past days should
teach us that we can punish S here A li and occupy
Cabul, not without risks and toils, but with a certain
prospect of ultimately establishing our power on
: this side of the Hindoo Koosh and so foiling the)
designs of Russia.
OUR LAST AFGHAN WAR.
The imminent possibility of another Afghan
war lends interest to the history of the last,
in regard to which much misconception and
many delusions have prevailed. As the year
1837 was drawing to a close men's minds
turned anxiously to the far East, where the
political horizon had assumed a lurid hue ; and aa
the year 1838 passed by, greater anxiety and |
apprehension were aroused by the progress of!
events in the Indian borderlands. There was one
j drama, on a small scale perhaps, round which the
| whole interest of the question settled, yet that
j drama not only demonstrated the nature of the
j rival forces, but it also reduced to a focus all the
antipathies of the various Powers in Western
Asia. That drama was the siege of Herat, ;
and round that fortress and within its walls j
might be seen Russian ambition, Persian chi
cane, Afghan vacillation, and English indomitable
resolution all personified. It was but the prelude
to " the great game in Central Asia." Forty years j
later on we come down to the mortal strife between
Russia and the Porte, and after twelve months'
alarm and anxiety we are once more on the
threshold of events not widely disconnected in their
origin from those that marked the years 1839-40.
Once more we have Russian ambition, Afghan
vacillation—if it should noc be termed by the
harsher epithet of treachery—and Persian chicane
brought prominently before us by recent events in
Cabul and Teheran, To complete the simile, there
only remains proof to be given of such resolution as
was possessed by Eldred Pottinger. " The great
game," of which one scene terminated under the walls
of Herat forty years ago, is still in progress, and we
are approaching one of the most important acts, if
not the last act of all. Let us, then, trace back the
story of our last Afghan war, how it arose, what it
resulted in, what were its mistakes, and what its
glory and practical results.
It is unnecessary to follow in any detail the
policy of the Indian Government before the Simla
inaniiesto, and the signature of the Tripartite
Treaty to which Lord Auckland, Shah Shuja-ul-
Mulk, and Runjeet Singh were the signatories.
Before the close of the year 1838 it had been
resolved to invade Afghanistan in conjunction with
the Sikhs, and to place the Sudosye Prince Shuja
upon the throne. For more than twenty yeors
that Monarch had lived in exile within the
borders of Hindostan, and now he was at last
within reach of his former power, through the hos
tility which llunjeet Singh entertained for his