In their anxiety to destroy Dost Mahomed, they opened a communication with the Sikhs, who advanced to Peshawur ostensibly as friends, and then took possession of the city.[82] Sultan Mahomed Khan ignominiously fled. The Sikh army under Hurree Singh consisted only of 9000 men, and had the Afghans been commanded by a competent leader they might have driven back a far stronger force, and retained possession of the place. The Peshawur chiefs were everlastingly disgraced, and Peshawur lost to the Afghans for ever.
But Dost Mahomed could not submit patiently to this. Exasperated against Runjeet Singh, and indignant at the fatuous conduct of his brothers, he determined on declaring a religious war against the Sikhs, and began with characteristic energy to organise a force sufficiently strong to wrest Peshawur from the hands of the usurpers. To strengthen his influence he assumed, at this time, the title of Ameer-al-Mominin (commander of the faithful[83]), and exerted himself to inflame the breasts of his followers with that burning Mahomedan zeal which has so often impelled the disciples of the Prophet to deeds of the most consummate daring and most heroic self-abandonment. Money was now to be obtained, and to obtain it much extortion was, doubtless, practised. An Afghan chief has a rude and somewhat arbitrary manner of levying rates and taxes. Dost Mahomed made no exception in his conduct to “the good old rule,” which had so long, in critical conjunctures, been observed in that part of the world. He took all that he could get, raised a very respectable force, coined money in his own name, and then prepared for battle.
At the head of an imposing array of fighting men, the Ameer marched out of Caubul. He had judged wisely. The declaration of war against the infidel—war proclaimed in the name of the Prophet—had brought thousands to his banner; and ever as he marched the great stream of humanity seemed to swell and swell, as new tributaries came pouring in from every part, and the thousands became tens of thousands. From the Kohistan, from the hills beyond, from the regions of the Hindoo-Koosh, from the remoter fastnesses of Toorkistan, multitudes of various tribes and denominations, moved by various impulses, but all noisily boasting their true Mahomedan zeal, came flocking in to the Ameer’s standard. Ghilzyes and Kohistanees, sleek Kuzzilbashes and rugged Oosbegs, horsemen and foot-men, all who could wield a sword or lift a matchlock, obeyed the call in the name of the Prophet. “Savages from the remotest recesses of the mountainous districts,” wrote one, who saw this strange congeries of Mussulman humanity,[84] “who were dignified with the profession of the Mahomedan faith, many of them giants in form and strength, promiscuously armed with sword and shield, bows and arrows, matchlocks, rifles, spears and blunderbusses, concentrated themselves around the standard of religion, and were prepared to slay, plunder, and destroy, for the sake of God and the Prophet, the unenlighted infidels of the Punjab.”
The Mussulman force reached Peshawur. The brave heart of Runjeet Singh quailed before this immense assemblage, and he at once determined not to meet it openly in the field. There was in his camp a man named Harlan, an American adventurer, now a doctor and now a general, who was ready to take any kind of service with any one disposed to pay him, and to do any kind of work at the instance of his master.[85] Clever and unscrupulous, he was a fit agent to do the Maharajah’s bidding. Runjeet despatched him as an envoy to the Afghan camp. He went ostensibly to negotiate with Dost Mahomed; in reality to corrupt his supporters. “On the occasion,” he says, with as little sense of shame as though he had been performing an exploit of the highest merit, “of Dost Mahomed’s visit to Peshawur, which occurred during the period of my service with Runjeet Singh, I was despatched by the Prince as ambassador to the Ameer. I divided his brothers against him, exciting their jealousy of his growing power, and exasperating the family feuds with which, from my previous acquaintance, I was familiar, and stirred up the feudal lords of his durbar, with the prospects of pecuniary advantages. I induced his brother, Sultan Mahomed Khan, the lately deposed chief of Peshawur, with 10,000 retainers, to withdraw suddenly from his camp about nightfall. The chief accompanied me towards the Sikh camp, whilst his followers fled to their mountain fastnesses. So large a body retiring from the Ameer’s control, in opposition to his will and without previous intimation, threw the general camp into inextricable confusion, which terminated in the clandestine rout of his forces, without beat of drum, or sound of bugle, or the trumpet’s blast, in the quiet stillness of midnight. At daybreak no vestige of the Afghan camp was seen, where six hours before 50,000 men and 10,000 horses, with all the busy host of attendants, were rife with the tumult of wild emotion.”[86]
Thus was this great expedition, so promising at the outset, brought prematurely to a disastrous close. Treachery broke up, in a single night, a vast army which Runjeet Singh had contemplated with dismay. The Ameer, with the débris of his force, preserving his guns, but sacrificing much of his camp-equipage, fell back upon Caubul, reseated himself quietly in the Balla Hissar, and, in bitterness of spirit, declaiming against the emptiness of military renown, plunged deeply into the study of the Koran.
From this pleasant abstraction from warlike pursuits, the Ameer was, after a time, aroused by a well grounded report to the effect that Sultan Mahomed had been again intriguing with the Sikhs, and that a plan had been arranged for the passage of a Punjabee force through the Khybur Pass, with the ultimate intention of moving upon Caubul. An expedition was accordingly fitted out, in the spring of 1837; but the Ameer, having sufficient confidence in his sons Afzul Khan and Mahomed Abkar, sent the Sirdars in charge of the troops with Meerza Samad Khan, his minister, as their adviser. The Afghan forces laid siege to Jumrood, and on the 30th of April Hurree Singh came from Peshawur to its relief. An action took place, in which both the young Sirdars greatly distinguished themselves, and Shumshoodeen Khan’s conduct was equally conspicuous. The Sikh chieftain, Hurree Singh, was slain, and his disheartened troops fell back and entrenched themselves under the walls of Jumrood. Akbar Khan proposed to follow up the victory by dashing on to Peshawur; but the Meerza, who, according to Mr. Masson, had, during the action, “secreted himself in some cave or sheltered recess, where, in despair, he sobbed, beat his breast, tore his beard, and knocked his head upon the ground,” now made his appearance, declaring that his prayers had been accepted, and “entreated the boasting young man to be satisfied with what he had done.” The advice was sufficiently sound, whatever may have been the motives which dictated it. Strong Sikh reinforcements soon appeared in sight, and the Afghan army was compelled to retire. The battle of Jumrood was long a theme of national exultation. Akbar Khan plumed himself greatly on the victory, and was unwilling to share the honours of the day with his less boastful brother. But it was not a very glorious achievement, and it may be doubted whether Afzul Khan did not really distinguish himself even more than his associate. In one respect, however, it was a heavy blow to the Maharajah. Runjeet Singh had lost one of his best officers and dearest friends. The death of Hurree Singh was never forgotten or forgiven.
The loss of Peshawur rankled deeply in the mind of Dost Mahomed. The empire of Ahmed Shah had been rapidly falling to pieces beneath the heavy blows of the Sikh spoliator. The wealthy provinces of Cashmere and Mooltan had been wrested from the Douranees in the time of the Suddozye Princes, and now the same unsparing hand had amputated another tract of country, to the humiliation of the Barukzye Sirdars. The Ameer, in bitterness of spirit, bewailed the loss of territory, and burned to resent the affront. In spite, however, of the boasted victory of Jumrood, he had little inclination to endeavour to wrest the lost territory, by force of arms, from the grasp of the Sikh usurpers. Mistrusting his own strength, in this conjuncture he turned his thoughts towards foreign aid. Willing to form almost any alliance so long as this great end was to be gained, he now looked towards Persia for assistance, and now invited the friendly aid of the British. It was in the autumn of this year, 1837, that two events, which mightily affected the future destinies of Dost Mahomed, were canvassed in the bazaars of Caubul. A British emissary was about to arrive at the Afghan capital; and a Persian army was advancing upon the Afghan frontier. Before the first snows had fallen, Captain Burnes was residing at Caubul, and Mahomed Shah was laying siege to Herat.[87]
CHAPTER VIII.
[1810–1837.]
Later Events in Persia—The Treaty of Goolistan—Arrival of Sir Gore Ouseley—Mr. Morier and Mr. Ellis—The Definitive Treaty—The War of 1826–27—The