THE AFGHAN WARS OF 1839-42, AND OF 1878 TO —P
FROM KAYE'S "HISTORY."
[TO THE EDITOR OF TIIIC "SPECTATOR.'] SIR,—In 1839 the British forced a Sovereign (Shah Soojah) on the throne of Afghanistan, ousting Dost Mahomed. In 1878, the same Government placed another (Yakoob Khan) on the throne of Afghanistan,—after being the death of his father. The following is extracted from the " Conclusion " of Kayo's
"History" of the former war :—
"On January 20th, 1843, Dost Mehemet] arrived at Lahore, on his way to the frontier of Afghanistan [ .e., to resume the government of his country, our puppet, Shah Soojah, having been murdered]. The proclamations which were issued by the Supreme Government in 1842 are, in themselves, the best commentaries on the war in Afghanistan. The Governor-General of 1842 passed sentence of con- demnation upon the measures of the Governor-General of 1838. No failure so total and overwhelming as this is recorded in history. No lesson so grand and impressive is to be found in the annals of the world. Of the secondary onuses which contributed to the utter pro- stration of an unholy policy, much, at different times, has been written in the course of this narrative, much more might now be written, in conclusion, of the mighty political and military errors which were baptisod in the blood and tears of our unhappy countrymen. These errors are so patent, are so intelligible, they have been so often laid bare by the hand of the anatomist, and they have been so copiously illustrated in these volumes, that I do not now propose to enlarge upon them. But if none of these causes had been in operation to defeat and frustrate our policy, it must still have broken down, under the ruinous expenditure of public money which the armed occupation of Afghanistan entailed upon the Govern- ment of India. It is upon record that this calamitous war cost the natives of India, whose stewards we are, some fifteen millions of money. All this enormous burden fell upon the revenues of India, and the country for long years afterwards groaned under the weight. The bitter injustice of this need hardly be insisted upon. The Afghan war was neither initiated by the East India Company, nor at any stage approved of by that groat body. The Ministers of the Crown were responsible for the invasion of Afghanistan, but the revenues of the East India Company, in spite of a feeble effort to shift a part of the burden to the British Exchequer, wore condemned to bear the expense. It was adroitly designed, indeed, from the beginning that the Company should bear the charges of the expedition. And what was gained by the war ? What are the advantages to be summed up on the other side of the account ? The expedition was undertaken with the object of erecting in Afghanistan a barrier against encroachment from the West. The advance of the British Army was designed to check the aggressions of Persia on the Afghan frontier, and to baffle Russian intrigues, by the substitution of a friendly for an unfriendly Power in the countries beym id the Indus. After an enormous waste of blood and treasure, we left every town and village of Afghanistan bristling with our enemies. Before the British Army crossed the Indus, the English name had been honoured in Afghanistan. Some dim traditions of the splendour of Mr. Elphinstone's Mission had been all that the Afghans associated with their thoughts of the English nation, but in their place we left galling memories of the progress of a desolating army. The Afghans arc an unforgiving race, and everywhere from Candahar to Caubul, and from Caubul to Peshawer, were traces of the injuries we had inflicted on the tribes. There was scarcely a family in the country which had not the blood of kindred to revenge upon the accursed Foringhoes. The door of reconciliation seemed to be closed against us, and if the hostility of the Afghans be an element of weakness, it seemed certain that We must have contrived to secure it When, in 1S, the usurpation of the Shah of Persia again aroused. Kaglaral to a sense of the necessity of 'doing something' to 'Wrest Herat from his grasp, she found in the Caubul Amea a willing because an interested ally. The very policy ,y1Lich ought to have been pursued in 1837—the policy which •vas recommended by Sir John MeNeile—is that which then pres',ilted itself, but under what altered circumstances! If, instead of expelling Dost Mahomed from his principality, we had advan -Jed him a little money to raise, and lent him a few officers to dri.11, an army, the Persians would not, twenty years afterwards, have been lining the walls of Herat. When the old diffloulty, therefoie, presented itself with a new face in 1856, England adopted ir. 'a modified form this once rejected policy. She supplied money and arms to Dost Mahomed, to enable him to resist the tick) of Kujjur invasion. Because Persia was aggres- sive on one side of the Afghan frontier, she meditated no aggressions on the other. She did not make war upon the ruler of Afghanistan, in revenge for hostile intrigues at the Persian capital, and hostile movements in the Persian camp. But when Persia offended her, she struck promptly at Persia. The demonstration was successful. Herat was evacuated, and all claims to sovereignty yielded by the Shah ; and whatever may be its results, whatever may be the verdict of history upon the policy of the Persian war of 1856-57, it will, at least, be recorded that it had not, like the war which I have endeavoured to chronicle, the foul stain of injustice upon it. Whether, as many now contend, a later and more terrible disaster owes, primarily, its origin to our humiliating expulsion from Afghanistan, it is not my duty to inquire. The calamity of 1842 was retribution sufficient, without any conjectural additions, to stamp in indelible characters upon the page of history the great truth that the policy which we pursued in Afghanistan was unjust, and that therefore it was signally disastrous. It was, in principle and in acts, an unrighteous usurpation, and the curse of God was on it from the first. Our successes at the outset were a part of that curse. They lapped us in false security, and deluded us to our overthrow. This is the great lesson to be learnt from the contemplation of all the circumstances of the Afghan war, —' The Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite.' " On reading the above quotations, the following questions naturally arise :—Is the war of 1878-9 as unrighteous a war ? Has it been "initiated by the Ministers of the Crown P" Are the revenues of India to bear the expenses ? If that war cost the natives of India "fifteen millions of money," what will this new war cost them P If those people "groaned under the weight of that enormous burden," can they bear such a weight again, and how ? If, instead of expelling Shere Ali, we had made him our friend, should we not have enabled him to resist the tide of Russian encroachment ? If, instead of showing hostility against Afghanistan, we had acted promptly against Russia, would not the demonstration have been successful, and should we not have thus escaped entering on a war without the "foul stain of injustice" upon it ? And must we not remem- ber the great lesson to be learned from the contemplation of all the circumstances of the old Afghan war,—" The Lord Go of recompenses shall surely requite"? Hoping that you may have room for the above, and that your readers will judge of the
present by the past, I am, Sir, &c., R. G. A. L.
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