Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎75v] (154/312)

costly force in operations that may last longer than your
gentrals seem at present to anticipate. It must be a large
lorce for this further reason—one that will at once strike you as
very much to the purpose : it will not be enough for you to
come successfully out of this bigger and more troublesome ^
war at the end. You must proceed from one success to
another invariably. You cannot afford one signal defeat,
either at the outset or in the middle of the campaign;
because any such disaster might have the result of insurrectionary
troubles in India itself. Further, you already see that the
more difficult the war becomes through that system of unofficial
warfare behind it which may possibly come into operation, the
more you will be obliged, in common prudence, not only to
pour plenty of men upon the frontier, but not to weaken the
forces necessary at all times to watch the armies of your
native princes: which we happen to know as well as you
do are larger and better equipped than your countrymen gene
rally are aware of. Now consider all these things: ponder
not only what I have said but what I have left unsaid;
and ask yourselves whether it is worth your while to run all
these risks, and to incur these great costs, while your home
revenue is running down and the Indian treasury is exhausted,
for the sake of combating our wishes as to Roumelia,
Bulgaria, our indemnity, and your Turkish Convention. Allow
us our way in these matters unobstructed, and what can
we promise you ? We can promise you that you may dis
miss your fears of unofficial war; all talk of alliance with the
Ameer will cease; he will be left high and dry; he may even
be persuaded to apologize at the last moment, and all will end
happily."
Now we leave it to our readers to say whether we have not
sketched in this imaginary speech a very probable account of
the situation as it is, or as it will be, at this rate, a few-
weeks hence. For ourselves, we believe it to be very far from
fanciful. What we doubt is, how it will be met. The temp
tation to fall in with the imaginary Russian persuasions seems
to us extremely great; and if the Government have really
adopted the course attributed to them of " awaiting the course
of events," we shall expect to see our Ministers reduced by-
and-by to face the somewhat serious consequences of either
resisting such persuasions or succumbing to them. Whether
they can get out of the difficulty by immediate action we
do not undertake to say.
SUMMARY OF THIS MORNING'S NEWS.
The Standard publishes a despatch from Bombay which states that,
according to the latest news received there from Simla, an opportunity has
been afforded to the Ameer Shere Ali of making amends for the affront he
offered to the British envoys. The telegram adds that, in any case, the
Government will insist on a permanent position being assigned to our
troops behind Candahar. The Russian newspapers continue to discuss the
question at great length. The Russki Mir advocates support of the Ameer
on the ground that every success of Russian policy in Asia would be
an ostensible defeat of Great Britain. The Golos asserts that the Ameer
has not acted precipitately, but has calculated the consequences of his refusal.
"The feeling (the Golos says) that exists among the semi-dependent Indian
tribes, the probability of Persia's friendly neutrality, the relations of the Ameer
to the Sultan, who fears his conversion into an Indian Maharajah, and lastly the
assurance that in case of war he has nothing to fear from Russia, and can
therefore leave the western and northern frontiers of Afghanistan undefended,
will greatly increase the military chances of the Ameer in his combat with his
enemy."
The nature of the Indian native army is, the Times of India observes,
" not in the least understood at home." The statement so freely made
a short time ago by the newspapers in this country—that the native army
was not only capable of extension to any number (some journals even
going so far as to say that a million native troops might, if necessary,
be carried into Europe) but that it was already mobilized to admit of
that extension—is altogether founded on error. In sober truth, there is
no scheme of mobilization at all in India. The Indian army consists of
the regiments whose numbers are printed in the Army List; but of the
mobilization which could immediately increase it by only 20,000 men
it unfortunately knows nothing. The menaces of Russia and the
obstructiveness of the Ameer will not be without their uses if they instruct
the English people that it is not the reduction of the Indian army
they ought now to discuss but its mobilization. These war-clouds may
pass away, like so many others, but we invite the worst effects of the
tempest by neglecting to prepare shelter against its terrors; and armies,
it must be remembered, are being raised, equipped, and drilled on the
other side. The policy of waiting for a war to begin in order to find
the troops for it is so thoroughly English that neither Russians nor
Afghans can be supposed to regard it with favour. This is a policy
that has been successful sometimes; but it is not a policy suited to
a period when the whole world is unsettled by ever-recurring rumours
and intrigues, and when the lust of warlike nations for battle and spoil
is inflamed by the recent successes of the Russians in Europe and Asia.