THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. XXII.-DECEMBER 1878.

THE AFGHAN CRISIS.

THE announcement of the imminency of another Afghan war has taken the British public by surprise, but to those who have been behind the scenes, and have watched with anxious interest the progress of events on and beyond the Indian frontier, it has been evident for some years past that such an issue was almost inevitable. There have been, indeed, two distinct elements of mischief, ever present and ever threatening danger, which, unless effectively checked, were certain sooner or later to necessitate our armed intervention at Cabul. One of these was the intractable character of the ruler of Afghanistan ; the other the persistent advance of Russia towards the Indian borderlands. I propose in the following sketch to trace in outline the scope and tendency of each of these factors, and to show how, by their united action, they have led up to the present crisis, merely premising that I am personally responsible for the various statements and opinions contained in this paper, and am in no way to be regarded as the mouthpiece of the Government, or of the department with which I am connected.

It is now fifteen years since Shir Ali commenced to rule, having succeeded to power on the demise of his father, the famous Dost Mahomed Khan, who died at Herat in 1863. This event occurred a few days after he had succeeded in recovering that city from his nephew and son-in-law Sultan Ahmed Khan, who, although declared by treaty to be independent, had held for many years the greater VOL. IV.-No. 22.

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part of Western Afghanistan as the self-constituted vassal of Persia. Shir Ali had been nominated heir-apparent some years previously on the death of his elder brother Gholam Hyder, being selected for the post, not in virtue of seniority-for there was another brother Mahomed Afzal, his senior in point of years, who afterwards gave much trouble-but because he was judged by his father to be the most capable of his surviving sons to hold the Afghans together and support the power and dignity of the family. From the very commencement of his reign, however, he encountered strong and continuous opposition. Three of his brothers successively rose in revolt and threw the whole country into disorder. The fickle Afghans at one time would rally round his standard in imposing strength, at another would leave him quite unsupported. During the following five years, indeed, he experienced every vicissitude of fortune, wielding occasionally the full patriarchal authority of his father from the central seat of government at Cabul, but more frequently a fugitive, beleaguered by his enemies, or seeking refuge in the distant provinces of the west. The trials which he now underwent left an indelible mark on his character. Always of a morbid temperament, and subject to extremes both of elation and depression, his conduct at this period of his career was sometimes so extravagant-especially after the violent death of his eldest and favourite. son, Mahomed Ali-as to give rise to a popular belief in his insanity. For months after the fatal encounter at Kujbáz, his mind certainly seemed to have given way. He was long immersed in the profoundest melancholy, and showed no concern or interest in the future, when suddenly, under the pressure of imminent danger, he recovered his energies, and, plunging into active life, displayed high qualities both as a soldier and as a civil governor.

The origin of his ill-feeling to the British Government dates from this period. As his nomination to be heir-apparent in 1858 had been duly notified by his father to Calcutta and acknowledged, under instructions from the Government, by the Commissioner at Peshawer, it is probable that when he reported his accession to power in 1863 and expressed his intention of following the laudable example of his father in maintaining the strong ties of amity and friendship subsisting between the British Government and the Afghan State,' he expected a courteous-perhaps a cordialresponse; and it is moreover certain that such a response would have greatly strengthened his position, which at that time was far from secure; but he was doomed to disappointment. For six months his letter remained unacknowledged, and when at length, in December 1863, an answer was vouchsafed, it was couched in the coldest terms of official formalism. Again having fought his way to power in 1864, without our aid, without even our encouragement, his first impulse, after consolidating his authority at Cabul, was to make

a direct proposal for a new treaty of friendship with the British Government, in reply to which he was merely told that the old treaty of 1855 was still in force, and was sufficient to meet the requirements of the occasion. Later still, after he had suffered reverses and was isolated at Herat, he made several informal appeals to the generosity of the British authorities, insisting on his hereditary claim to our support as his father's only rightful successor in the government of the Afghan nation; but his advances were for the third time repelled; and he had the further mortification shortly afterwards to find that his two rebellious brothers, Mahomed Afzal and Mahomed Azim, were in succession recognised by us as the de facto rulers of Cabul and Candahar, in virtue of their conquest of those places, but in utter disregard of Dost Mahomed's wishes as to the transmission of his power. I have no hesitation in calling this the crucial period of our relations with Shir Ali, and in asserting that the slights which he then received at our hands, acting on a naturally suspicious disposition, gave rise to those deep-seated feelings of mistrust which, in spite of conciliation, in spite of repeated acts of generosity upon our part, have ever since marked his intercourse with his British allies. There are, indeed, several remarkable papers in the records of the Indian Government, which testify to Shir Ali's feelings before the Amballa conference, and which are of interest in showing the grounds of his original dislike to us. 'The English,' said Shir Ali, smarting under a sense of his wrongs, 'look to nothing but their own interests, and bide their time. Whosoever's side they see strongest for the time they turn to him as their friend. I will not waste precious life in entertaining false hopes from the English, and will enter into friendship with other governments;' and again he complained that we had lit a fire in the country by the declaration that we would acknowledge any one who should win his way to the throne, which, unless extinguished by some direct assurance to the contrary, would render the peaceable government of the Afghans impossible for the future.'

Now I have no intention of imputing blame to the responsible authorities of that period. It certainly was my opinion at the time, as it has been ever since, that we ought to have accepted Shir Ali's overtures in the first instance, and to have at least accorded to him the same support that we had accorded to his father, in which case five years of internecine war would have been avoided, and our protégé, having with our assistance nipped insurrection in the bud, would in all probability have proved in the future a grateful and efficient ally; but I am free to admit that the lights of that day were not as the lights of the present, and that, viewing the position from the purely Indian stand-point, there was much to be said in favour of Sir John Lawrence's famous policy of masterly inactivity.' Waiving, therefore, the further discussion of this subject, as involving much argument

and leading to no practical result, I go on at once to the Amballa conference.

The visit of Shir Ali to Amballa in 1869, on the invitation of the Viceroy, forms an important epoch in the Afghan drama. Had our appreciation of the gravity of the crisis been as matured at that time as it is at present, the epoch might have been a decisive one; for Shir Ali, though still brooding over his supposed wrongs, was not by any means alienated. He had conceived certain definite hopes and fears, not unreasonable in themselves, and a frank and full acceptance of the position on our part might have won his confidence for ever. Had we been prepared, indeed, in 1869, to undertake the same responsibilities, with a view to retaining a dominant influence at the court of the Amir, to which we have become reconciled by later events -had the same terms indeed been offered to Shir Ali at Amballa that have been recently offered at Peshawer-there can be no doubt that we should have heard nothing of Russian interference in Cabul for the present generation at any rate; but public feeling at that time had not been educated up to the point required, and our statesmen, as usual, waited upon public feeling, adhering in the meantime to the old principle of reducing our liability to intervene to the lowest possible limit. The result accordingly of the conference at Amballa, though successful in its main features-inasmuch as Shir Ali, strongly impressed with the magnificence and cordiality of his reception, returned to Cabul a firm and true personal friend of the Viceroy'scannot be said to have satisfied either one party or the other. The British Government having learned from experience that it was impossible to maintain close relations with the Afghans, or even to acquire due information of what was passing in the country, except through the agency of its own officers, would have willingly revived, with such modifications as the lapse of time rendered necessary, the Fourth Article of the Treaty of 1857 with Dost Mahomed, which provided for the establishment of British officers at Cabul, Candahar, and Balkh ; and communications in this spirit were accordingly opened with Shir Ali's confidential advisers at Amballa. But although the proposition, which was of far more practical importance to us than any amount of mere friendly profession, appears to have been acquiesced in to the extent of admitting British officers anywhere but at Cabul, still no definite engagement was taken; and ultimately Lord Mayo, finding that the measure was not particularly agreeable either to Shir Ali or his ministers, desisted from its further discussion. Nor did Shir Ali meet with any better success in pressing his own personal objects. He had come to Amballa, intent on forming an offensive and defensive alliance with the British Government. He expected, on the one hand, to be assured of full protection against Russian aggression which he saw looming in the distance, and, on the other, to be guaranteed against a renewal of his domestic troubles;

but on both these heads he was disappointed. All that he could obtain was a vague and general assurance of support. He was told, firstly, that any attempt on the part of his rivals to disturb his position would be viewed by the British Government with 'severe displeasure;' and he was told, secondly, with regard to the risk of external pressure, that he would be strengthened from time to time as circumstances might seem to require,' and his applications for assistance would always be received with consideration and respect.' And it may be added, as a proof how completely up to this time the home authorities had failed to realise the importance of the Afghan alliance, that even this modified promise of support, barely sufficing as it did to prevent a break-down of the Amballa conference, was very coldly received in England-the Viceroy, indeed, being directed to discourage any possible expectation of our armed intervention in Shir Ali's favour.

Up to this point, if there had been any shortcomings in the mutual relations of Shir Ali and the British authorities, they had been on our side rather than on his; but from this time forward the balance of the account certainly inclined in the opposite direction. As long as Lord Mayo lived, the Amir, although perhaps dissatisfied at heart, showed no outward marks of irritation, and the letter of condolence which he wrote on the occasion of the Viceroy's death has been often quoted as a fine example of honourable and loyal sentiment; but shortly afterwards the old feelings of mistrust seem to have returned in full vigour, and our most innocent-nay, our most considerate-acts were construed into causes of offence. His first formal ground of complaint was in reference to the Seistan arbitration. He believed, or affected to believe, that he had received unfair treatment at our hands, a large portion of the province of Seistan, which had been at one time under Afghan rule, having been adjudged to Persia; but it is only just to the arbitrator, Sir F. Goldsmid, to point out that he was not authorised to disturb the general features of the existing territorial distribution. Persia had long previously recovered Seistan proper with our tacit consent-inasmuch as we had told the Shah he must make good his rights by force of arms-and, being then actually in possession, could not be expected tó surrender her conquest. General Goldsmid's functions were restricted to the delimitation of a frontier line through districts of doubtful dependency; and I am bound to say, as the result of a very careful scrutiny of his proceedings under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty, that the award which excited so much ill-will at Cabul, and which was equally ill received at Teheran, seems to me to have been conducted on principles of the most rigid impartiality. It would have been, indeed, a gross violation of ethnographical propriety if Seistan proper had been adjudged to Cabul, for the Seistanees not only are not Afghans, but on the contrary are Persians of