TOPICS OF . THE DAY.
THE AFGHAN REVOLT.
VAKOOB KHAN'S statement that he was powerless, shut
up in his palace with five attendants, is, we believe, literally true, and gives the key to the history of the Afghan revolt of September 3rd. It was a popular insurrection, such as has often occurred in Asia, an uprising of a whole people, animated with a common idea and a common hatred, with the priesthood blessing the enterprise, with the armed section of the populace whom we call soldiers leading the attack ; with the nobles all sympathising, but in concealment ; and with some highly placed woman in the background, raging at once with fanaticism and personal hopes and hatreds, and fur- nishing the needful stimulants to the mob in money, promises, and taunts. Amidst such a movement an Asiatic prince is usually as powerless as his own pipe-bearer. Unless he commands a foreign guard, as the Mogul Emperors always did, knowing no law but his orders, or possesses, like the Khalifs, a religious hold over the mob, he has absolutely no means of restoring order. There are no agents of the law. The nobles have made up their minds to disregard him. The soldiers are executing the plot. The mob are urging on the soldiers. The priests are calling him an apostate. The "children " of the Palace, the personal devotees of the Sovereign, are loyal to him, but not to those whom they, like the soldiers and the mob, consider foes; and the Prince is alone, virtually a prisoner until the work is done. It is in our minds a certainty, for reasons every Resident will recognise, that Yakoob Khan knew well the form and the ex- tent of the danger to the Embassy, and probably even the time ; but there is no reason whatever for charging him with treachery or lukewarmness, and will be none, even if, overborne by circumstances, or, as he will think, by Fate, he heads the popular war of resistance to the British. Lord Salisbury, in spite of all the opinions of all experts, of Lord Lawrence, Lord Northbrook, and Sir H. Lumsden, of Dost Mahommed's resist- ance to the proposal, of Share Ali's refusal to accept it, of Yakoob Khan's reluctance, displayed at Gundamuck for days, resolved on the personal triumph over the Russians of placing an Envoy where they had failed to place one, and from the moment of his extorted assent to the reception of the Embassy the power of the Ameer ended. He had agreed to admit the hated Infidel Ambassador as a master into Afghanistan, and the Afghans felt as an Edinburgh mob would feel if the Nuncio were received here as Cardinal Polo was received, and installed in the Foreign Office to dictate the policy of Great Britain. The people resolved from the first to declare war, and they declared it, as in Cabul they have always done, and in Constantinople they used for centuries to do, by outrage on the Envoy, whose " sacredness " they acknowledge as fully as ourselves, and whom they there- fore attack, as the most unmistakable of defiant insults, the clearest of assurances that it is war to the knife. On any day after the solemn entry the Mission might have been massacred. Within a week Yakoob K'uan knew that Cavag- nari's life was in danger, and warned him that he must not ride abroad, a warning met with the proud and wise reply that England had many more to send. Within a fortnight the infallible Oriental sign of brewing trouble—insult to the attendants of the great man, usually as sacrosanct as the magnate himself—was apparent to the native news-writers, and in the last days of August the arrival of the Heratee regiments in the capital removed the only lingering cause of hesitation. All Afghans were at one in the affair, but the new strength removed the last chance of resistance from Yakoob Khan, who might otherwise have bought or persuaded enough soldiers to make the attack abor- tive, and after the usual summons from the soldiery to the Prince to execute the popular will and dismiss the Envoy, the Mission was attacked. Yakoob Khan wept and tore his robes and pleaded powerlessness, in the fashion which has been Asiatic since David did the same ; but the declaration of war had been resolved on, and it was made in the brutal, old Asiatic way. If Yakoob had flung himself before the Envoy, he would only have been bound or killed. The first shot must have told all in the Mission, and especially the Envoy, what was intended, and from Sir Louis Cavagnari down- wards all members of the Mission behaved as became the Power which had despatched them. The daring young Franco-Irishman, whore Lord Lytton had so trusted and promoted, offered neither surrender, nor terms, nor concessions,
but fought on doggedly ; and the Guides—whose conduct ought to be acknowledged by some honour to their regiment, to come personally from the Queen—died to a man in his defence. The resistance, as usual, was successful while the walls stood ; then, as usual, fire was employed ; and then the ex- hausted survivors of the party, forced out of the building, were cut down in their hopeless charge by the swarming swordsmen. It was a declaration of war to the knife, made in the brutal Asiatic way, as Akbar Khan made it, as Moolraj made it, as- Theebau would try to make it, if he could ; a popular revolt, in, which every Afghan, except the nominal Prince, had in senti- ment or in action his own share. This will, we know, be denied. We fully expect to hear Ministers, who were con- fident that Afghanistan was " friendly," pour out denun- ciations of the ruffians of Cabul, as if the revolt were a city riot, and we read day by day nonsensical telegrams of Afghan adhesions ; but in truth the Afghan race has risen, as we fear the English people will know within a fortnight, by a too certain proof. When they bear that Candahar is in insur- rection, that the insurgents are beaten, but that the bazaars. are in flames, and General Stewart forced to quit the city, and commence a march to Quettah which may be most disastrous,. they will recognise that those who warned them of the uni- versal and incurable hate of the Afghan people for the white Infidels, Russians and English alike, understood them better- than the Ministers who believed that if the Viceroy were only sufficiently persistent, Afghans, like Turks, would sullenly give. way. They will give way when Fate has declared against. them,—that is, when they are conquered, but not till then.
It is now imperative to march upon Cabul. Resolutely as we have opposed the foolish policy and the wicked war which have produced this disastrous result, we acknowledge fully that the British Government cannot, in honour or in policy, avoid this terrible necessity. The Afghan people, with every circumstance of insult, defiance, and brutality, have declared war, and England and India together must accept the challenge. The cry for vengeance on the Cabulees is of course merely the cry of an irritated people, for all Cabul was in the revolt, every man was a ringleader,— and we cannot massacre a people. We have stated else- where the policy which we trust this Government, weakly reckless as it is, will yet follow for the permanent removal of danger ; but for the present, whatever the consequences or the cost, the British flag must fly from the Bala Hisser. If it does not, we shall never be well served again, and never deserve- to be ; and we shall not hold India five years. Every princi- pality inclined to revolt will think it may be the one which, for political reasons, may not be reconquered. But we protest most earnestly against the cry for instant action, and heroic " rushes," and theatric blows with which the " imperialists receive intelligence of any disaster. The British Empire is not going to pieces because a fanatic little people in the centre of Asia have chosen to insult and defy it. " The gown will be washed white," without the foolish enter- prises on which the London journalists are inclined to urge us. We suppose Lord Lytton, a man who always mistakes phos- phorus for lightning and activity for energy, did, in his first surprise, order a sudden movement on Cabul, which has been exaggerated at home into the storm of the city within ten days, but his great officers must by this time have got hold of
the reins again. If a soldier crosses the frontier before. October, except to strengthen Stewart in Candahar, we shall risk a disaster to which Isandlana was insignifi- cant. Nobody is ready, and to move unready on an armed people, who may all run away, as they did last year, but may all die defending their cities to the last, is not war, but silly recklessness. It is quite certain that the northern• or Khyber force cannot move without reinforcements, reatdriel„ and food,—that is, without large means of transport, which,. after the frightful mortality among the camels, cannot be gathered together without time. There are not Europeans enough left, after the outburst of cholera and dysentery, to- hold Jellalabad ; and if Sepoys are to be employed, adequate provision must be previously secured. Ignorant people write nonsense about compressed provisions, and forget that the first offer of them to Sepoys would be the signal for a mutiny and a caste war. The supporting army must be gathered in the Khyber, but it cannot be collected without reasonable time and forethought. The southern or Bolan Division is quite out of the reckoning. General Stewart's force is thin, ill- supplied, and too small to defend its communications against serious attack, and he can no more " march on Cabul," three hundred miles off, and half-way to the sky besides, than he
can march on Tobolsk. Unless we misread every sign reported—and especially that gratuitous assurance from the Mussulman Governor that he is devoted to the swine- eating Infidels—General Stewart has a work before him in holding Candahar, which will overtask even his tried capacity. The advance must be left to General Roberts, and General Roberts—Irish dare-devil as he is, and ready for any reckless effort—is not in strength to move. He has four English regiments with him, but they do not count 2,800 effectives, and five Native regiments, certainly not 3,000 more. He must protect the Peiwar and the Koorum with Europeans, for they will be swarming with Jajis, Turrees, Momunds, and all manner of ruffianly clansmen with jezails ; and he must establish a post at Khushi, in the plain, unless he wants his road to the rear completely closed. He will then reach the long and dangerous ascent from the plain to Cabul, 6,500 feet in air, with less than 2,000 Europeans and as many natives, and in all human probability will be admitted to Cabul, and besieged there. He must have 2,000 more Europeans and some large guns, and a fortnight's provisions, and a month's supply of materiel, to bo decently safe ; and if he gets them before the 10th of October, the supply Services, taken utterly by surprise, and up to their ears in the quarrels with native contractors which follow a campaign, will do all that reason- able men expect. There ought, men may allege, to have been a heavy force in the Koorum ready for instant movement, but those who say so do not know this Government. It is a Government of fireworks, not of fore- thought, as unready as if it were pledged to retrench- ment and non-intervention. The country must accept things as they are, and as they are it cannot wisely insist on meeting the Afghan declaration of war without a carefully prepared and deliberate campaign, to be commenced by a force which, if not sufficient itself, can rely on irresistible sup- port. We must go to Cabul ; but we must go coolly, in regular military fashion, and in pursuit of an object broader and loftier than a childish vengeance on a mob, among whom those actually most guilty will not be found.
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