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ber. The force thus concentrated, with its magazines secure from insult or capture, would have been at liberty to act either on the offensive or defensive, according as circumstances required. All this was safe, obvious, and practicable. But ordinary military prudence, let alone ability or decision, were on this occasion wanting; and Elphinstone preferred paralyzing his whole force by giving it two separate enceintes to defend, instead of one; the larger of the two being in reality indefensible, and but little strengthened, by the precaution, which mounted guns for which there were not gunners. Trevor and Mackenzie he left to their fate.

In contrast with all this, right soldierly was the conduct of Major Griffiths, who, on receiving the order to return to Cabul, made good his way through the Passes in spite of the Ghiljie attacks, and, on the morning of the 3rd, brought in his regiment, the 37th N. I., without even the loss of any baggage, to comfort the enemy for the men they threw away in vain endeavours to disorder the march of this gallant corps. Griffiths was pressed hotly and boldly by the Ghiljies-3,000 of whom continued the pursuit of his column almost within range of Elphinstone's guns: but the enemy gained no advantage, and suffered severely from Green's three mountain guns, which were throughout this movement skilfully and boldly worked. Thus reinforced, Elphinstone now strengthened Shelton in the Bala Hissar, sending him the remainder of the 54th N. I., four guns of different calibres, and two small mortars, with the gallant but ill-fated young soldier, Green. Shelton then made dispositions for the security of the Bala Hissar, occupying the Lahore and City gates and the citadel with detachments, and the Palace Square with his reserve.

Unfortunately, Sturt, the only Engineer present, had been severely wounded by an assassin, when entering the Shah's Palace on the morning of the 2nd. He was a good and a resolute officer; and, as soon as partial recovery from his wounds enabled him to speak or write, he urged the occupation of the Bala Hissar and the abandonment of the cantonments. But petty difficulties are the bugbears of petty minds; and unhappily around the General, himself weak and undecided in judgment, were men with whom the minor considerations of the value of the public and private property to be sacrificed weighed more than the young soldier's counsel and the crisis which evoked it. Small objections and poor cavils swayed the General to delay.

Meanwhile the enemy, successful beyond their expectations, were encouraged to act with energy. They occupied those parts of

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the city, which looked upon the plain between the Bala Hissar and the cantonments: they occupied the Shah's Garden, Mahmud Khan's and Mahomed Shuriff's fort: and, thus with good cover to protect them, threatened the Commissariat Fort, and closely beset the South-western end of cantonments. The officer defending the Commissariat Fort with a party of sepoys, entertaining apprehensions for the firmness of his men, repeatedly, throughout the 4th, applied for reinforcements. Elphinstone, in lieu of this, endeavoured to withdraw the garrison, sending out three several detachments to effect this suicidal measure. The enemy, never dreaming of such imbecillity, and regarding the detachments as reinforcements, fired heavily from Mahomed Shuriff's fort and the King's Garden, and forced them back into cantonments with severe loss. The execution of the order to evacuate the fort being thus prevented, Elphinstone, now aware of the criminal folly of the step, in consequence of the entreaties of the Staff-Officers, contemplated reinforcing the garrison during the night, which might easily have been accomplished. But the time of action was spent in discussion; and, when the morning of the 5th broke, the parties destined to attack Mahomed Shuriff's fort, and to reinforce the Commissariat one, were only assembling, when the fatal announcement was made, that Lieutenant Warren, despairing of maintaining his post, had evacuated it, having cut a passage through the wall of his fort on the cantonment side. Thus, without a struggle for its defence, was this vital post abandoned and given up to the enemy; who as easily became masters of the means of existence of the force, as if the five thousand British troops, in whose face it was done, had been spell bound to the Bala Hissar and cantonments. Well might the Shah, as he gazed upon the melancholy spectacle from the Bala Hissar, exclaim-"The English are mad!"

Very different had been Mackenzie's defence of Anquetil's fort, the Shah's Commissariat depot. Nevertheless, being unsupported, he too had been forced to evacuate his post, and escaped to cantonments with great difficulty. Thus, by the 5th, the insurgents were in possession of the treasure and of the provision of the force, without having endured other than a trifling loss of men. The capture of the Treasury had been a sufficiently disgraceful event; for there can be no doubt, that had Shelton moved early to the support of Campbell's regiment, and Elphinstone, from the side of Anquetil's fort and the Kuzzilbash quarter, pushed detachments to Burnes's house, the insurgents, attacked along the line of the main

bazar from the hill side, and from the Kuzzilbash and Deh Affghan quarters, could not have had permanent success, but would have been dispersed, and probably with heavy retribution for the onslaught on the Treasury. The ignorance or the apathy of the military leaders was sufficiently inexcusable on that first occasion. Yet, it must be remembered, that the Political Chiefs had misled every one up to the very moment, when they suddenly called upon the Military Chief to act; and that Elphinstone, into whose hands the game was thus flung at a most critical instant, from his ignorance of the train of political events, was not in a fair position to judge of the nature of the crisis, and to cope with it in the manner, which full acquaintance with the thread of affairs might have ensured. After matters have been embroiled to the uttermost and rebellion is rampant, a broken painworn man may be pardoned, if he fail in two minutes to apprehend distinctly the difficulties of a position, into which two years of continuous error and mismanagement, on the part of others, unexpectedly plunge him. But, although such considerations may account for some indecision on the first flash of revolt, they form no excuse for the palsied patience, with which the Commissariat fort was not lost in fight, but ignominiously relinquished to the enemy. Many were the gallant officers around Elphinstone, who urged a more manly resolution and, had Eyre's advice been taken, the Commissariat fort would have been immediately attacked in force and must have been recaptured. But his counsel was too wise and soldierly for the vacillating weakness of the General; and, though the storm of Mahomed Shuriff's Fort was ultimately decided upon, and Eyre with his guns acted his part gallantly, the storming party never stirred from a wall, under which they found cover, and the General, though the 37th N. I. were burning with desire to be permitted to do that from which others shrunk, could not be induced to allow them. The evacuation and loss of the Commissariat fort and the abortive show of assailing Mahomed Shuríff's fort were equally disgraceful.

Orders were now sent to Sale and to Nott, directing them to advance upon Cabul. From the season at which he received them, it was impracticable for Nott to obey his instructions: but Sale was differently circumstanced; for he received the order at Gundamuck-the messenger bearing the despatches having been so fortunate as to effect the journey with speed and in safety. It has already been seen, that Griffiths, with a single regiment of sepoys and three mountain guns, had, in obedience to a similar mandate, made good his march to Cabul

from the dangerous position in which Sale had left him, and, in spite of Ghiljie attacks, had, after forcing the Khurd Cabul Pass, reached cantonments with small loss in men and much gain of honour. It is true, that Elphinstone, by thus suddenly withdrawing Griffiths from his isolated position on the road between Gundamuck and Cabul, had apparently somewhat diminished the facility of Sale's advance: but, on the other hand, Griffiths's departure had drawn after him a strong body of Ghiljies, who not only pursued him to Cabul, but remained there, to strengthen the insurgents and to partake in their successes. Sale would therefore have found the enemy weak on the line of road, had he, on receipt of his dispatches, made immediate arrangements for the security of his sick, wounded and baggage, in one of the defensible forts in his neighbourhood-and then, unencumbered, made a rapid march upon Cabul. No doubt can be entertained, that his unexpected appearance on the scene of conflict would have given a severe blow to the insurrection and new life to the British cause. Such a resolve, however, was foreign to Sale's nature; and, unluckily, the instructions were so qualified as to cast responsibility, always his peculiar terror, upon Sale's own shoulders. He therefore called a council of war, wherein compliance with the mandate from Cabul was pronounced inadvisable, and prepared to march in a contrary direction, and, throwing up connection with Cabul, to occupy Jellalabad. This decision was regretted by some of the ablest Officers in his force, foremost amongst whom was Broad foot. Humanly speaking, Sale thus denied himself the honour and the satisfaction of retrieving the state of affairs at the capital.

The relief or reinforcement of Elphinstone was, however, a wholly distinct question from a hasty retrograde movement from Gundamuck, in order to throw his Brigade, which was perfectly well able to keep the field, into Jellalabad-a place of no military strength or importance, without magazines, in utter disrepair, and so situated, that to coop up the Brigade within its dilapidated walls served no conceivable purpose, except to betray weakness and still further encourage revolt. At Gundamuck, Sale's Brigade threatened the Passes between that place and Cabul, necessarily paralyzed a portion of the Ghiljie strength, and checked Ghiljie co-operation with the insurgents at the capital; whilst, at the same time, insuring to Elphinstone the comparatively safe and easy withdrawal of the force from Cabul, should circumstances compel the adoption of so extreme a measure. Had Sale maintained his position at, or near to, Gundamuck, he might have influenced the fate of Elphinstone's army: and one of the most disastrous

retreats on record must have been spared to the British arms by the co-operation of Sale's moveable column. The severest comment upon the inutility of the precipitate occupation of Jellalabad was afforded by Sale himself, when, a.ter having long suffered himself to be blockaded and bearded by a foe, flushed with the successful destruction of Elphinstone's force, he overthrew without difficulty Mahomed Akbar in the open field, driving him in confusion from the plain with no other troops than that very Brigade, which, when the issue of the rebellion was as yet uncertain and energy might have quelled it, he withdrew from the struggle, and shut up within distant walls, there to court and abide investment at the leisure of an unembarrassed and triumphant enemy.

If Macnaghten be culpable for the effrontery with which he sought to blind and mislead others, as well as himself, as to the feelings of the Affghan people and the state of their country, he proved free from that imbecile weakness, which henceforward characterized the military leaders and their measures. His spirit chafed at the despondency evinced, at the errors committed, and at the resulting disasters. Himself a man of courage, the gloom of others did not unnerve him; and, had he insisted energetically upon the adoption of his counsel, the occupation of the Bala Hissar, Elphinstone must have yielded, and affairs might have been retrieved. But the puerile arguments brought forward by Shelton and others against this necessary step, not only influenced Elphinstone, but also led Macnaghten to waive his own and adopt analogous opinions, and, in an evil hour, to coincide in rejecting the only wise and safe course. However brightened by traits of individual heroism, it would be needless to trace in detail the gallant defence by the Gúrka battalion of Charikar, the destruction of these brave soldiers and their excellent officers, of whom Pottinger and Haughton alone miraculously escaped; the wretchedly conducted actions at the village of Beymaru, ending in discomfiture and indelible disgrace; the shameless loss of Mahomed Shuriff's fort; the relaxation of discipline, and the prostration of energy and courage, which ensued upon a long series of dishonouring reverses. The normal errors, from which flowed such fatal consequences, have been already noted; and the harrowing details of incompetency, written in the blood of brave officers and valiant men (for there were many such who fell), only form a heart-rending commentary upon the grievous truth, that the lives, and worse still, the honour of soldiers, are the price paid for the gross political and military blunders of those in authority.

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