Imperial Echoes – Frank P.

Some time ago while thumbing through my bookshelves I brought down a little gem handed down through the family since great grand-dad acquired it. (He was the first gamekeeper at Sandringham when Queen Victoria acquired it for the Prince of Wales/Edward VII – when she was conned by Lord Palmerston into buying it from his stepson for ten times its real value).

The book, authored by Reverend CS Dawe BA, is a blatant hagiography entitled Queen Victoria and Her People. It was published in The Holborn Series by The Educational Supply Association while the Old Queen was still alive. It offers some wonderful anecdotal snippets and a little potted history of the landmarks of her reign. A series of passages give some perspective on today’s foreign adventures and I have transcribed it here for the perusal Renegade Coffee House Wallsters (RCHW), as once again Afghanistan descends into a quagmire of political folly and thuggery:

> [Extracts]:

(38) War with the Afghans.

1. During the Queen’s reign the Asiatic dominions of England and Russia have greatly extended and gradually approached each other. At length, in 1878, when there was danger of war between the two countries, it was feared that Russia would make an attack on India, pouring down her legions through the passes that open out of Afghanistan on to the plains of India. As a preliminary to that invasion Russia was desirous of securing the friendship of the Ameer of Afghanistan, as that State lay between India and the Russian territories of Central Asia. And the Ameer showed his leaning towards Russia by receiving an envoy from the Czar at Cabul, his capital, with demonstrations of friendly welcome, while unwilling to receive at his Court an envoy from the Empress of India.
2. This state of things could not be tolerated. For the safety of India it was indispensable that Afghanistan should be free from Russian influence. The English Government obtained from Russia a distinct declaration that she regarded Afghanistan as outside the sphere of her influence. At the same time the Ameer was required to receive a permanent British mission at Cabul, so that our Indian Government might be kept well informed on all matters affecting our interests and exercise a commanding influence on the Ameer’s foreign policy.
3. As the Ameer naturally objected to receive a permanent mission, which would keep watch on his relations with foreign powers, especially Russia. It was resolved by our India Government to enforce the reception. A war with Afghanistan has always been attended with peculiar difficulty and danger on account of the mountain passes to be traversed before it could be reached from India. It was now determined to take advantage of the war to obviate this difficulty in future, and to obtain a securer frontier for India by keeping possession of these passes after they were won.
4. Afghanistan was invaded by our Army in three columns. One column entered the country through the Bolan Pass, in the south, and occupied Candahar without resistance. A second column proceeded by way of the Khyber Pas, in the north, and after cleverly capturing the strong forts that barred their advance, moved up the valley to Jellabad. Meanwhile a third column under General Roberts fought its way through the Kuram Valley. The difficulties encountered by his column seemed at one place insuperable.
5. The enemy had taken up their position on the crest of a precipitous hill called the Peiwar Kotal. “I confess”, says the General, “to a feeling nearly akin to despair when I gazed at the apparently impregnable position towering above us, occupied by, as I could discern through my telescope, crowds of soldiers and a large number of guns.” Nothing remained but to try to discover some way of turning the position by a circuitous route. Such a route was discovered, but the only chance of turning it to account was to traverse it with a sufficient force before the enemy found out our intention.
6. General Roberts made elaborate preparations for making a front attack, and only three of his officers knew this was a mere feint. His real intention was to make a night march by the track which had been discovered, leaving part of his forces in front of the enemy. Under cover of the darkness the troops selected for the hazardous march crept silently out of camp, leaving the tents standing and their fires burning. Their patch led through deep gorges, and over great boulders and across mountain streams. The moonlight lit up the opposite cliffs, but their way was hidden in the dark shadow cast by the hills. With the first streak of dawn the enemy became aware of the approach of our troops, who with little to guide them but the flash of the Afghan muskets rushed to the attack, and after a gallant struggle won their way to the head of the pass.
7. “Had we not been able” says the General, “to surprise the enemy before the day dawned, I doubt whether any of us could have reached the first entrenchment. As it was, the regiment holding it fled in such a hurry that a sheepskin coat and from sixty to a hundred rounds of ammunition were left behind on the spot where each man had lain.”
8. Much remained to be done, for they were still a considerable distance from the main body of the Afghan army on the Peiwar Kotal. But before the end of the day the General had the satisfaction of seeing the Afghans in full retreat. Night, however, overtook our men before they could reach then Kotal, and so the order was given to bivouac where they were. “It was hardly a pleasant experience,” writes General Roberts, “lying on the ground without even cloaks at an elevation of 9,000 feet, and with the thermometer marking twenty degrees of frost,; but spite of cold and hunger, thoroughly content with the day’s work, and with my mind at rest, I slept as soundly as I had ever done in the most luxurious quarters, and I think others did the same.. At any rate, no one that I could hear of suffered from that night’s exposure.”
9. The Afghan troops retreated precipitately to Cabul, leaving the Kuram Valley in our possession. General Roberts made Kuram his head-quarters, and informed the inhabitants of that region that we had come to stay, and that they must in future pay obedience to our Government. The news of the remarkable feat by which these results had been obtained evoked general admiration, and secured for General Roberts a place on the roll of our great captains of war. The Queen’s pride and pleasure find expression in the following message, by telegraph, to the General and his troops: “I have received the news of the decisive victory of General Roberts, and the splendid behaviour of my brave soldiers, with pride and satisfaction, though I must ever deplore the unavoidable loss of life. Pray enquire after the wounded in my name.”
10. After the passes had been forced and all was ready for the advance on Cabul, the Ameer agreed to our terms, and the mission was sent and received. The Afghans, however, are an arrogant and conceited people, and they had not forgotten our disastrous retreat from Cabul in 1841, and believed themselves to be quite capable of resisting our advance Cabul. So they suddenly attacked the British Residency in Cabul and massacred the whole mission (1879).

(39). War with the Afghans – (continued)

1. Orders were at once given to General Roberts to march upon Cabul. On the march he was met by the Ameer who declared that he had been unable to prevent the revolt which had led to the destruction of the Embassy. As he had not moved a finger to prevent the massacre, he was sent as a prisoner to India. Great crowds gather on the hills in readiness to swoop down upon our troops and repeat the former massacre of Cabul, should the opportunity recur. But they were prudently kept aloof until it was seen to which side the victory would fall in the impending battle.

2. The Afghan troops had taken up a strong position on the ridge in front of Cabul. The operations for dislodging them began at an early hour and lasted the whole day. They covered a large extent of ground, but the general was kept well informed of all details by means of the heliograph, an instrument for giving signals by flashes of reflected sunlight. The last message, as the sun was sinking behind the hills, was to the effect that the whole of the enemy’s position was in our possession, and that the victory was complete.

3. Cabul, which was twelve miles distant, was reached on the following day, and, with its 50,000 inhabitants, was open to our troops. General Roberts at once took possession of the Ameer’s walled camp at Sherpur, outside the city, where seventy-five guns were taken. He lost no time in preparing this camp as hi winter quarters, for he knew that as the winter snows closed the passes, and cut off his force from India, he might expect the Afghans to gather like wolves around the fold.

4. Accordingly, when winter set in, the Afghans assembled in great force in Cabul, and two days before Christmas, just before dawn, an assault was made. The enemy fought with great desperation for some hours, but after being in every attempt to scale the wall, they withdrew, and the thousands upon thousands that had come to the slaughter melted away like the snow in spring, leaving our troops unmolested for the rest of the winter.

5. The great victory which our men had won cannot be rightly estimated unless the religious aspect of the war is taken into account. The Afghans are Mahomedans, and, as usual among the peoples of that religion, there were many fanatics who were most ready to give their lives, or even throw them away, in the attempt to exterminate the hated infidels, as they deem all Christians to be. These men where called Ghazis, and in many battles fought with our troops in Afghanistan, they played an important part by heir reckless valour. Even when the Afghan troops had retired from our cantonments at Sherpur, after their defeat, the Ghazis still hung round the neighbouring villages. And when our General sent troops to destroy these villages, the Ghazis refused to surrender, preferring to remain and perish in the buildings, which our engineers blew up.

6. In the spring of 1880, General Stewart marched from Candahar with his army to join General Roberts. On the way he was opposed by a large Afghan force, and as he advanced to the attack, down poured from the hills 4,000 Ghazis. The came right on without any formation, regardless of shot and sword. They intermingled with our foot and horse, went right through the ranks, and fought hand to hand without the slightest regard for their lives. They were only beaten off when a thousand lay dead.

7. In another battle, at Maiwand, eighty miles from Candahar, the Ghazis played a prominent part, and a British brigade of 2,500 men, under General Burrows, was completely routed, upwards of a thousand being left dead on the field of battle. It fell to the lot of General Roberts to retrieve this disaster. His arch from Cabul to Candahar, for this purpose, was a remarkable achievement. The march of 313 miles through a difficult and hostile country was accompanied by a force of 10,000 men, with 8,000 camp-followers, within 23 days, and the troops immediately on their arrival, attacked the enemy and gained a brilliant victory. For his distinguished services in India General Roberts has since been raised to the peerage with the title Lord Roberts of Candahar.

8. No time was lost in coming to terms with the new Ameer, Abdur Rahman, for our desire was to withdraw from the country as soon as possible, merely retaining such small portions of territory as were necessary to give India a good defensive frontier and command of the passes which an invading army must traverse in its way from Afghanistan. By relinquishing Candahar, which might have been easily retained, we gave the Afghans clear proof that we had no designs on their country, and we certainly convinced the Ameer that our great wish was to be on friendly terms with him and his people, and that we were resolved to maintain the independence of Afghanistan in the face of Russia, so as to have it as a sort of “buffer state” between the two great empires of Russia and India.

9. As we had undertaken to protect Afghanistan if attacked by Russia, a strenuous endeavour was next made to draw the exact boundary line between the two countries so as to avoid disputes. In 1885 we were on the verge of war with Russia on account of her high handed proceedings at Penjdeh, a place near the border-line claimed by Afghans and Russians alike, but fortunately the matter was peacefully arranged, and , at last, in the Jubilee year of our Sovereign Lady (1887) the Afghan boundary question was finally settled. <[end of extracts].

Ha!

Oh – vicar! If only you had known what we now know. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

I love his phraseology; as both my parents were born in the Victorian age its echoes resound somewhere in my genes. I think para 10 of the first section is the best example of the pot calling the kettle blackass I have ever seen, but not a trace of irony discernible anywhere in the book.

I can thoroughly recommend this little treasure to anyone who is interested in the development of our culture – if they can lay hands on it.