Return of a King: The Battle For Afghanistan by William Dalrymple

despatches, they maintained that Dost Mohammad was actually the least powerful of the various rulers of Afghanistan, with less influence than his half-brothers in Kandahar or ‘the most respectable ruler’ Kamran Shah Sadozai, Shah Shuja’s ineffectual cousin in Herat. In reality, none of this had ever been the case and was now less true than ever – Dost Mohammad had established his suzerainty from the Hindu Kush to the Khyber, had got his half-brothers in Kandahar to accept his leadership after saving them from Shah Shuja’s siege and, to crown it all, had now been declared the Amir and the leader of the Afghan jihad. Burnes was right: Dost Mohammad was the dominant power in Afghanistan and potentially a powerful pro-British ally to the Company’s north, if only Calcutta could change its course and embrace him.
    Burnes was on the spot, and clearly in a better position to weigh up the relative strengths of the different powers than any other British official, but Macnaghten had never liked the ambitious young Scot whom he believed to be naive, inexperienced and over-promoted. He therefore encouraged Auckland to trust instead the veteran spymaster of Ludhiana. ‘Where there is a difference of opinion between them,’ wrote Macnaghten to Auckland, ‘I should be disposed to concur with Capt Wade, whose arguments and conclusions rest on recorded facts, whereas those of Capt Burnes seem for the most part to be formed from the opinion of others, or from the impression made on his mind by circumstances which have come within his observation but which may in reality not be so unusual as to justify inferences which he has derived from them.’ 79
    Meanwhile, Wade, as before, was encouraging Auckland to bring Shah Shuja back into play. ‘Less violence would be done to the prejudices of the people, and to the safety and well being of our relations with other powers, by facilitating the restoration of Shah Shuja than by forcing the Afghans to submit to the sovereignty of the Ameer,’ he advised. ‘After the late encounter with the Sikhs, the disputes of parties at Kabul ran so high that had the Shah appeared in the country, he might, I am informed, have become master of Kabul and Kandahar in two months.’ 80
    In addition to these distortions, neither Wade nor Macnaghten seemed to have briefed Lord Auckland on how recently Ranjit Singh had occupied Peshawar, or how central its importance was to the Afghans, who still regarded it as their second capital. As a result, Auckland took the factually inaccurate position that the town was unequivocally a Sikh possession, and that Dost Mohammad was being unreasonable and aggressive in wanting it back. For this reason he continued to discourage Burnes from altering in any way the status quo.
    Auckland also began to take on Wade’s view that it was in the interests of the Sikhs, and therefore of the British, for Afghanistan to remain fragmented, rather than to help Dost Mohammad consolidate his rule and accept him as an ally. ‘A very powerful Mahomedan State on our Frontier might prove to be a source of constant excitement or even serious danger,’ he told London. ‘Chiefships, balancing each other, and disposed by their position and circumstances to court our friendship, are surely far more safe and preferable neighbours.’ Nor did Lord Auckland believe, contrary to all the evidence, that Herat was in danger from the Persians or that the Barakzais were likely to make an alliance with the Shah of Persia. ‘These Afghans have no natural sympathy with the Persian Government and will retain no close connection with it if left secure in their remaining possessions,’ he wrote. 81 It was a comprehensive misreading of the situation: by underrating Dost Mohammad’s power, Auckland and his hawkish advisers misunderstood both the reality of his steadily growing hold on Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush and the balance of power between the Sikhs and the Afghans. They also underestimated