Return of a King: The Battle For Afghanistan by William Dalrymple Page A
Authors: William Dalrymple
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how cleverly Count Simonitch, exceeding his instructions from Moscow, was manoeuvring to bring the entire region within the Russian-led, anti-British coalition that the Russian envoy hoped would soon encompass not just Persia and Afghanistan but also Bukhara and Khiva. 82 These errors would lead in turn to more serious misjudgements.
To add to Burnes’s problems, Lord Auckland felt no sense of urgency. He was much more concerned with the trials of his viceregal camping trip and the famine in Hindustan, whose victims were now floating down the Ganges past his boat every morning. Only Burnes in Kabul was beginning to see that Auckland was in danger of sleep-walking into a major diplomatic disaster. He was acutely aware that if the British did not act quickly to secure the friendship of the Barakzais, then the Persians and the Russians would do so instead. In that case Afghanistan would be lost to British influence and handed over on a plate to its rivals. He therefore received with growing incredulity the Governor General’s successive letters ordering him not to promise anything to Dost Mohammad and refusing to act as intermediary on Peshawar.
In an effort to change Auckland’s mind, Burnes sent a long report on ‘the Political State of Kabul’ to Calcutta towards the end of November. In this he argued persuasively for the consolidation and extension of Dost Mohammad’s power as the surest means of shutting out the Russians from Afghanistan. Again he emphasised that it was not necessary to choose between the Company’s long-standing alliance with Ranjit Singh and the one he proposed with Dost Mohammad: with a little imagination and quick action on Peshawar it would be possible for the British to befriend both parties. He could not have known that in Calcutta around the same time Macnaghten was writing to Wade and strongly backing the latter’s opposing policy: one that advocated an exclusively pro-Sikh position, leaving Ranjit Singh in possession of Peshawar, and planning north of it a divided Afghanistan, with a weak Shah Shuja reinstalled in Kabul in the Amir’s place. 83
Moreover, Auckland was now becoming increasingly entrenched in his oddly rabid hostility towards Dost Mohammad who, he wrote to London, ‘ought to be satisfied that he is allowed to remain at peace and is saved from actual invasion. But he is reckless and intriguing, and will be difficult to keep quiet . . . It is a fine imbroglio of diplomacy and intrigue . . .’ 84
As the Afghan winter brought in the first snows in early December, some bad news arrived in Kabul, which made Burnes more anxious still.
The Persian army was now reported to be moving in its full strength to invest the mighty Timurid walls of Herat. This had been expected: the Persians had long-standing claims to western Afghanistan, had occupied Herat in 1805 and had plotted another attack in 1832. This latest Persian attack had been several years in the planning, and did not in fact need any Russian pressure or encouragement. But the size of the army sent to take the capital of western Afghanistan – over 30,000 strong – and the presence in the Persian camp of a large number of Russian military advisers, mercenaries and deserters working for the Persians still came as a shock to Burnes.
One reason why Burnes knew so much about what was happening in Herat was that a young British officer and player of the Great Game happened to be in the city at that moment, disguised first as a Muslim horse trader then as a sayyid [divine]. Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger was the nephew of the spymaster of Bhuj, and Burnes’s former boss, Sir Henry Pottinger. His presence in Herat was probably more than fortuitous, and provided a stream of much-needed information for the British during the siege. In British accounts, ‘the Hero of Herat’ (as Pottinger was dubbed in Maud Diver’s jingoistic Victorian novel) is usually credited with steeling the resolve of the Heratis to defend their
To add to Burnes’s problems, Lord Auckland felt no sense of urgency. He was much more concerned with the trials of his viceregal camping trip and the famine in Hindustan, whose victims were now floating down the Ganges past his boat every morning. Only Burnes in Kabul was beginning to see that Auckland was in danger of sleep-walking into a major diplomatic disaster. He was acutely aware that if the British did not act quickly to secure the friendship of the Barakzais, then the Persians and the Russians would do so instead. In that case Afghanistan would be lost to British influence and handed over on a plate to its rivals. He therefore received with growing incredulity the Governor General’s successive letters ordering him not to promise anything to Dost Mohammad and refusing to act as intermediary on Peshawar.
In an effort to change Auckland’s mind, Burnes sent a long report on ‘the Political State of Kabul’ to Calcutta towards the end of November. In this he argued persuasively for the consolidation and extension of Dost Mohammad’s power as the surest means of shutting out the Russians from Afghanistan. Again he emphasised that it was not necessary to choose between the Company’s long-standing alliance with Ranjit Singh and the one he proposed with Dost Mohammad: with a little imagination and quick action on Peshawar it would be possible for the British to befriend both parties. He could not have known that in Calcutta around the same time Macnaghten was writing to Wade and strongly backing the latter’s opposing policy: one that advocated an exclusively pro-Sikh position, leaving Ranjit Singh in possession of Peshawar, and planning north of it a divided Afghanistan, with a weak Shah Shuja reinstalled in Kabul in the Amir’s place. 83
Moreover, Auckland was now becoming increasingly entrenched in his oddly rabid hostility towards Dost Mohammad who, he wrote to London, ‘ought to be satisfied that he is allowed to remain at peace and is saved from actual invasion. But he is reckless and intriguing, and will be difficult to keep quiet . . . It is a fine imbroglio of diplomacy and intrigue . . .’ 84
As the Afghan winter brought in the first snows in early December, some bad news arrived in Kabul, which made Burnes more anxious still.
The Persian army was now reported to be moving in its full strength to invest the mighty Timurid walls of Herat. This had been expected: the Persians had long-standing claims to western Afghanistan, had occupied Herat in 1805 and had plotted another attack in 1832. This latest Persian attack had been several years in the planning, and did not in fact need any Russian pressure or encouragement. But the size of the army sent to take the capital of western Afghanistan – over 30,000 strong – and the presence in the Persian camp of a large number of Russian military advisers, mercenaries and deserters working for the Persians still came as a shock to Burnes.
One reason why Burnes knew so much about what was happening in Herat was that a young British officer and player of the Great Game happened to be in the city at that moment, disguised first as a Muslim horse trader then as a sayyid [divine]. Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger was the nephew of the spymaster of Bhuj, and Burnes’s former boss, Sir Henry Pottinger. His presence in Herat was probably more than fortuitous, and provided a stream of much-needed information for the British during the siege. In British accounts, ‘the Hero of Herat’ (as Pottinger was dubbed in Maud Diver’s jingoistic Victorian novel) is usually credited with steeling the resolve of the Heratis to defend their
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