Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42

by William Dalrymple

The cause of dissension was not a personality clash: Macnaghten remained as enamoured of the Shah as he had ever been.

There were however several issues of policy, as well as the simple realities of divided power which were now slowly coming to divide the Shah from his British backers. As Mohan Lal put it, “we neither took the reins of power in our own hands, nor did we give them in full measure into the hands of Shah Shuja ul-Mulk.

The first point of dissension was a growing disagreement over the army. Already aware of the massive cost of defending Afghanistan, and of the way it was beginning to turn a small profit in the East India Company’s account into a large loss, Auckland was under strict instructions from London to train up in Afghanistan an efficient Afghan national army for Shah Shuja.

This may have seemed a good plan in Simla, but in Kabul, Shuja was all too aware that Macnaghten’s strategy of diverting resources from the old tribal cavalry levies towards a professional standing infantry army removed his principal means of extending patronage to the chiefs.

The system was certainly corrupt: “ghost-payrolling” allowed the tribal leaders to claim financial allowances for much larger numbers of men than they actually raised. But it was nevertheless the glue that cemented the local and regional tribal leaders’ loyalty to the regime at the centre.

Nevertheless, Macnaghten insisted on driving the reforms through, maintaining that the benefits and savings would outweigh the risks involved. Payments to the chiefs duly fell by a quarter, from 1.3 million rupees in 1839 to 1 million two years later, with the bulk of the cuts falling on the eastern Ghilzai tribes who controlled and policed the vital passes between Kabul and the Khyber.

These high expectations increased their feeling of betrayal, especially when they saw that the recruits to the new Uzbek Janbaz and the Hazara Hazirbash regiments were, as Mohan Lal put it, not from the nobility but “low and petty persons.”

By appearing to threaten the entire traditional order and to take away the income of the Afghan tribal leaders, Macnaghten succeeded in alienating many of the Shah’s natural supporters who, until that point, had been quite happy to see the return of the Sadozais. It was certainly not a policy designed to endear Shah Shuja’s rule to those who could do most to disrupt it.

Both men were committed pro-Sadozai loyalists who would naturally have preferred the government of Shah Shuja to that of Dost Mohammad, but they strongly objected to the presence of the infidel British in their land, and were determined that no Kafir innovations would deprive them of their right to serve their monarch or to pay their many followers.

Shortly afterwards, Aminullah “was requested either to give up the chiefship” of his district “or to increase the sum of revenue paid by him.”67 Aminullah refused and shortly afterwards control over his district was taken from him.68 From that moment onwards, Abdullah Khan Achakzai and Aminullah Khan Logari became the two most active centres of opposition to the British in Kabul, waiting and plotting for the moment when they could take their revenge.

Shuja himself had other reasons to be wary of Macnaghten’s new Afghan national army. In particular he was unclear if a British-trained, British-officered army would ever actually be obedient to him.

For the Shah, his inability to control his own corps of the army brought home as nothing else did his own powerlessness. It was at this period that he began to sink into a deep melancholy.

As much as Shuja wanted to control the new regiments and demonstrate his sovereignty, he was also painfully aware that he simply could not afford to maintain a sizeable army without British financial support. As ever in Afghanistan, it was a struggle to find the money to pay for the enormous army needed to secure so poor, fractured and uncontrollable a country.

Long before Shah Shuja lost his patience with the interference of Macnaghten and Burnes in his internal affairs, Mullah Shakur was trying to resist British encroachment into the daily running of the country, while maintaining the appearance that Shuja was really running everything.

These were not the only things that undermined the popularity and effectiveness of Shah Shuja’s government as spring turned to summer in 1840. Many were now complaining of Shuja’s distant style, which formed a sharp contrast with the consciously egalitarian approach of Dost Mohammad.

Many of the chiefs also felt humiliated and belittled by the grandeur and distance of Shuja’s ultra-royal style: “By the late ruler the nobles were treated very attentively, almost on equal terms and enjoyed much influence,” recorded Colonel Wade’s munshi, Shahamat Ali, “while now … they found it very difficult to obtain admittance to the royal presence; and those who by flattering the ushers could do so, were made to stand at a respectful distance from his Majesty with their hands folded in a most humble manner,

As Burnes tried to explain to the Shah, “he might remedy the non-appearance of the British Officers at his Durbar by fixing a day in the week to receive them as they often came and after waiting for a long time departed without an audience.”77

But the biggest problem of all, as Macnaghten was frank enough to recognise, was simply the growing taint to Shuja’s reputation brought by his continued association with the infidel British and the spreading conviction that he was merely their puppet.

The difference of our religion is of course the chief cause of antipathy on the part of the people. The Afghans are a nation of bigots.

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While Macnaghten was correct to point to religious difference as lying at the heart of Afghan objections to the new regime, and to realise that the Muslim ’ulema were fast establishing themselves as the centre of opposition to Shuja, he was wrong to interpret their objection as mere “bigotry.” The mullahs had initially been co-opted by the Anglo-Sadozai regime, which from the beginning paid salaries to those among the ’ulema who came out in support of the Shah. But the mullahs grew in time to have good reason to dislike a regime which only intermittently patronised their institutions or helped restore their mosques, and which seized for itself many of their waqf endowments to help augment the regime’s tax revenues:

particular horror was caused when the British “went so far as to usurp control of the endowments of the great Sufi shrine of Ashiqan wa Arifan, which had been registered from the days of bygone rulers.” This was an especially tactless move as the shrine, formerly a Buddhist monastery, was Old Kabul’s most important and ancient cult centre, and for several generations had been the burial place of the Barakzais.

To aggravate matters further, the British also interfered in the mullahs’ administration of justice. The ’ulema understandably didn’t like being lectured on the Sharia by the conceited Macnaghten, who was now writing, “I have gained a complete victory over the Moollas who have since freely admitted that my knowledge of the Mahomedan Law is superior to their own.”

All this came to a head in July 1840 when, at the instigation of Mir Haji, the ‘ulema began to omit proclaiming the name of Shah Shuja at Friday prayers, on the grounds that the real rulers were the Kafirs.

It was around this time that the more perceptive of the British in Afghanistan began to realise the very delicate nature of their position and the fragility of the regime they had installed. Abraham Roberts began to worry about the extended lines of communication, the much reduced size of the British garrison, and the way that small pockets of troops were left in key urban areas where they were vulnerable to insurrection.

Even the usually optimistic Burnes began to be anxious. “There is no two days fixity of purpose,” he complained privately to his friend Jacob, “no plan of the future policy, external or internal, on which you can depend a week.

The first signs of concerted armed resistance took place in May 1840 when a column marching from Kandahar towards Ghazni was attacked by 2,000 Ghilzai horsemen. The Ghilzai were quickly driven off, leaving 200 dead behind them, but they learned the lesson that a frontal attack in flat open country was not the way to tackle the British.

Reports began to arrive that the Amir had returned to northern Afghanistan and raised the flag of holy war. In late August the troops of the small British outpost at Saighan on the frontier of the territory of the Mir Wali of Kunduz, where the valley drops to the northern plains, were forced to fall back twenty miles to a more defensible position in Bamiyan.

Around the same time, news came that a quite separate rebellion had broken out in Kohistan, only a few hours’ journey north of Kabul, where the Tajiks felt that the Shah had failed to reward them properly for their help in taking Kabul in 1839 and had betrayed all the promises that had been made to them.e

With the help of Khan Kabir, Dost Mohammad adopted the disguise of a Sufi fakir, just as Shah Shuja had done when escaping from Ranjit Singh in Lahore thirty years earlier. Initially the Amir took the wrong route, and in his panic killed the horse he had been given, riding it to its death over barren mountains. Just as he was wandering lost and alone in the high-altitude desert and about to give up hope, he was picked up by a camel caravan heading for Balkh.

For the next few weeks, the Amir kept with the caravan but, as he had no money, lived only on what he could beg. The Afghan oral tradition is full of stories of the Amir’s trials and sufferings on his travels, some of which Fayz Mohammad gathered into his history.

From this point, the Amir’s fortunes began to improve. He crossed the Oxus and made his way safely to Balkh. On the way, as he passed through the villages of northern Afghanistan, he realised that the mood had changed while he had been in prison and that disillusion with the Anglo-Sadozai regime was now widespread.

Here the Uzbek leader again offered to help him—the Mir Wali had owed his power and position entirely to Dost Mohammad’s patronage—but also brought him bad news. The Amir’s brother, Nawab Jabar Khan, had despaired of the Amir ever freeing himself from his prison and had just surrendered himself to the British authorities, along with the Amir’s harem.

Dost Mohammad now had at his disposal a small force of under a thousand Uzbek horsemen. Advancing southwards, he managed to drive away the sepoys of the first British outpost he came across. Shortly afterwards, the Afghan force at Bamiyan under Saleh Mohammad deserted and joined the Amir’s army.

Whether this was true or not, many British officers sent their families to take shelter in the Bala Hisar, along with their baggage and possessions, while Macnaghten initially refused to send reinforcements to Bamiyan, saying they could not be spared from Kabul. He then sent a series of jittery and paranoid despatches to Simla. “The Afghans are gunpowder,” he wrote, “and the Dost is a lighted match … We are surrounded by spies.”91

for all their fears, the cavalry force the Amir had mustered was still insufficient to meet a disciplined Company army in open battle. When British reinforcements were finally sent up to Bamiyan under William Dennie, the two sides met on Friday, 18 September. Dost Mohammad had possession of the chain of forts that commanded the entrance of the valley and drew up his horsemen in the centre. He sent his son Afzal Khan to command one wing, crowning the heights to the left, while the Mir Wali took the high ground on the opposite side of the valley.92 But, as the Afghans were still learning to their cost, it was always an error to concentrate their troops in a plain when the British were armed with modern cannon.

Seeing the way the battle was going, and with a severe wound on his thigh, Dost Mohammad withdrew, leaving a hundred dead on the battlefield, but saving most of his forces to fight another day. He remained, however, undaunted and instead of retreating he headed on by goatpaths and dry riverbeds over the mountains towards Kabul, intent on meeting up with the Tajik insurgents in Kohistan.

Macnaghten had sent Burnes with “Fighting Bob” Sale and two regiments to occupy the district headquarters at Charikar, and these troops were now blocking the main road between the Amir and the Kohistan rebels. Moreover, Dost Mohammad had many Kohistani enemies. Only a year previously the Kohistanis had risen against him as the British advanced on Kabul.

There followed weeks of guerrilla warfare, with Dost Mohammad making surprise attacks on government outposts and inflicting casualties, but lacking the strength to take on the massed forces of the Company. Meanwhile General Sale systematically laid waste to rebel-held villages, destroyed the rebels’ trees and crops, and besieged the rebel-held forts around the Koh Daman, while Burnes tried to bribe the Kohistan chiefs to betray and hand over the Amir.

According to Mohan Lal, much of this fighting and destruction was anyway ill judged and unnecessary: the Kohistan chiefs had made it clear that they were willing to call a halt to their insurgency and only wished for the promises made to them the previous year to be honoured. One particularly important chief, Mir Masjidi Khan, the revered Naqsbandi Pir who was the most influential leader in the area, was actually on the verge of surrendering, and had given his word he would come into Kabul and “take refuge in the mausoleum of Timur Shah, and thence proceed to wait upon the Shah and the Envoy.”

The fort at first proved too strong to storm, and the wounded and embittered Mir Masjidi managed to escape to Nijrow. In his absence his fort was destroyed, his family slaughtered and his lands distributed to his enemies.

Thus, concluded Mohan Lal, “we made the Mir our enemy for ever.”95 In due course, Mir Masjidi would return and succeed in driving the British out of Kohistan, pursuing the last survivors of the garrison to Kabul.

In mid-October, matters took another turn for the worse when a whole squadron of British-trained Kohistani troops in Charikar crossed over and joined Dost Mohammad.96 Mohan Lal thought that this was one of the most serious threats the British would ever face in their occupation of Afghanistan, with the Amir on the loose, Kohistan in flames and the rest of the tribes waiting to see who would come out victorious, “the people and chiefs being equally discontented by our not adhering to the engagements and promises we had made them.”

When the two sides did finally clash, neither was expecting it. On 2 November 1840, Sale and Burnes had cleverly been drawn by the Amir across the Panjshir and away from their base at Charikar. They were moving up the wooded valley Parwan Darra, with its lines of mud-walled forts and rich apricot orchards, heading on to attack a distant rebel fortress, when intelligence came that Dost Mohammad was just ahead and riding fast towards them. Within minutes, the Amir and his 400 cavalry had appeared in view on an elevated piece of ground just ahead of the British. Sale’s guns were at the rear, so, without waiting for them to be brought up, those at the head of the column, including Burnes’s close friend Dr. Percival Lord—known to the Afghan poets as “Daaktar”—decided to lead the attack.

Two days later, on the evening of 4 November, a very anxious Macnaghten was taking his evening ride on the outskirts of Kabul in the company of his Military Secretary, George Lawrence, and a small escort of cavalry. The news of the death of Dr. Lord and several other officers had arrived the day before, and had been followed that afternoon by an apocalyptic despatch from Burnes, urging that the British abandon all their positions north of Kabul and concentrate their troops in the capital.

If there was surprise on the British side at the arrival of the Amir, where it was presumed that he had not realised how close to victory he had come, from his own point of view Dost Mohammad was following normal Turko-Persian protocol by his surrender.

The Durranis and Hotaki Ghilzais had both risen to power as Safavid governors in the late seventeenth century, and the Durrani Empire as it was expanding had often reappointed local rulers as their governors. The system allowed for continuity and stability, and, for the defeated rulers, preservation of life and the possibility of a return to power if circumstances changed.

” By riding into Kabul and surrendering to Macnaghten on his own terms, the Amir was recognising that for the time being the game was up and a new regional force had emerged. He clearly hoped that the British might sooner or later bring him back as ruler, or that their ultimate defeat would provide opportunities for his return on his own in the future.

Unexpectedly, in the nine days he stayed in Kabul, Macnaghten and the Amir became friends: “The candle of intercourse and conversation burned brightly between them,” noted Mirza ‘Ata.101 Macnaghten even intervened on the Amir’s behalf with Auckland. “I trust the Dost will be treated with liberality,” he wrote.

We had no hand in depriving him of his Kingdom, whereas we ejected the Dost, who never offended us, in support of our policy, of which he was the victim.”102 It was the closest Macnaghten would ever come to admitting that “the gallant old Ameer,” who had always been friendly to the English, had been quite unnecessarily deprived of his throne and his kingdom.

he was prepared to forgive even Burnes, whom everyone else in the Barakzai camp regarded as a devious and slippery namak haram (literally “impure salt”—a serious insult, meaning one who had played traitor to his host).