close of the campaign the brevet of lieutenant-colonel. In 1871, another of the little wars so frequent in our Indian chronicles took place against the Looshais, whose territory lay on the south-eastern frontier of Bengal. Lord Napier, then commander-in-chief in India, intrusted to him the preparation of the expedition and its despatch from Calcutta. Having accomplished this, he joined one of the two columns which penetrated into the difficult country of the enemy, and after a three months' campaign, reduced the offending tribe to submission. For his services on this occasion he received the Companionship of the Bath, and at the same time he had gained a step of promotion in his own department of the staff. Three years later he became Quartermaster-General in India, with the local rank of majorgeneral, when Lord Napier, in confirming the appointment, said he "considered himself fortunate in being able to nominate an officer of such ability and varied experience in the field and quarters.' It was while he was serving in this capacity that Lord Lytton appointed him commandant of the irregular force on the Punjaub frontier, and special commissioner there a post reserved for officers of the highest distinction and promise. Thus, when the invasion of Afghanistan was resolved on, Roberts was already in command on the spot, with the best means of knowing the conditions which the country offered for purposes of war, and having therefore, in addition to his antecedents, special qualifications for the active command to which he was soon after appointed. Three columns were to be employed in the invasion of Afghanistan. One, from the Lower Indus, was to turn the mountain frontier, by advancing through the Bolan Pass upon Quetta and Candahar; the other two were to penetrate the frontier range by the Kyber and Kurram Passes. Of these Roberts was to lead the central column by the Kurram, necessarily independent of the others, but combining with them for a common end. In October 1878 his forces. assembled in the valley, and, arriving at Kohat, he took the command, when his late experience in the preparation and despatch of an expedition into a hill-region must have been of most important advantage. The task that faced him there was one of uncommon difficulty. The first marches in the valley presented, indeed, no obstacles other than his experience had already made him familiar with, for the tribes there were not hostile, and the roads, though rugged, were either already practicable for his troops and artillery, or capable of being made so. Moving on the 20th November, the column, meeting with no difficulties that were not shortly overcome, and with no opposition-for the Afghans abandoned at its approach their fortified posts in the valley-reached in eight days a point near the position where the enemy first stood to fight. Right across the head of the valley, and rising to a great height, stood a line of peaks cutting the sky, the summits of steep hills which nearly to their tops were clothed with belts of fir. Between these summits lay two passes over the range. the range. That directly in front, the Peiwar Kotal, was approached by a zigzag route up a spur, commanded by an almost inaccessible ridge shooting out from the Afghan position, on to the centre of which it led. This, the route ordinarily used, was therefore surrounded with such difficulties, that, if properly held, it might be considered absolutely impracticable. The other pass was of a different kind. Down the face of the mountain-spurs to our right of the Peiwar ran a water-course called the Spingawi, seen afar off as a broad white mark on the hillside, entering the valley in which Roberts's camp lay a few miles in his rear. By ascending this water-course a ravine was reached which led up to the ridge at a point called the Spingawi Kotal, or pass; and on this pass stood the extreme left of the enemy. Thus, if the main column could be successfully led up the water-course and ravine, it would reach a point where the hill was more accessible, where it would meet with opposition only in its immediate front, and where, coming on the flank instead of the centre of the enemy's line, it might roll back his troops towards the Peiwar, forcing him to front in a new direction. The assailants would then find themselves on ground where they could meet their enemy on good terms, for between them and the Peiwar would lie only ridges and glens such as, though woody and broken, they might attack with good hope of success; while a footing there would also give them the advantage, inestimable in such a case, of possessing the entry to a second pass, which would lead them down to the direct rear of the enemy on the road to Cabul. During two days' halt to form and protect the camp, reconnaissances were made along the glens and spurs leading to the two passes. Rising everywhere steeply in the front, the whole space between our troops and the enemy's position was a network of ravines lying between abrupt ridges, mostly covered with wood, with an undergrowth of scrub, and penetrated by no tracks except those just described. It was, perhaps, inevitable that Roberts should choose the chances of the Spingawi rather than the certainties of the Peiwar. Yet the alternative was one to dismay any but a very resolute commander. The water-course was filled with huge boulders, heaped into ridges and hollows, and its steep ascent led at last to a position known to be occupied by the enemy, and so strong for defence that a night attack, in the hope of effecting a surprise, was, notwithstanding all its difficulties, preferred to an open assault. Roberts had for the attack about 3300 men in all, of whom 900 were Europeans. Of these, the main force, two-thirds of the whole, was to move by the water-course to the Spingawi, with a mountain-battery, and four heavier guns carried on elephants. The remainder, a native and a British regiment, with five guns and some cavalry, were at first to remain in camp, and join later in the general advance, by moving directly against the Peiwar when the attack of the main column should be developed. The force moving to the Spingawi was commanded by Roberts in person, and it moved from its camp at ten o'clock at night, making a circuit by its rear to the entrance of the water-course. It was believed that the enemy had 1800 men with artillery on the ridge. But he received important reinforcements during the day preceding the attack, and the numbers of the defenders far exceeded those of the forces about to assail them. To deceive the enemy, a work for guns had been begun on the main route as if to cover a direct advance, and parties had been sent out to reconnoitre as if for attacks on other points. Leaving the camp at ten o'clock at night the column made its circuit, and the head of it entered the water-course, the general being close to the advanced-guard. But now, as in the night march to Tel el-Kebir, several incidents occurred to emphasise the difficulties under which such enterprises are conducted. Two regiments and the elephant battery, forming the rear of the column, losing touch in the dark, instead of proceeding along the nullah, crossed it, and when the mistake was remedied, they had fallen so far in the rear, that the general long looked anxiously for them in the engagement, before they came up. Then, two men of the native regiment which led the column, desiring to give a treacherous warning to the enemy, fired their rifles, though without accomplishing their purpose; and finally, the head of the column went astray for a time, causing a further delay. All this time it must have been pressingly borne in on the general's mind that a failure in the present enterprise might mean a final stop to his advance. It was not as if many alternatives presented themselves to regain an advantage by manœuvre. He was hemmed into a narrow valley, where he must either force his way or retire. Should he be repulsed in the attack on the weakest point of the position, the chances against success would be indefinitely increased in a second attempt made with the same discomfited troops against an enemy forewarned, prepared, and excited by victory. The head of the column having made its way up the nullah, and then along a ravine leading directly to the point of attack, was fired on by the enemy's outposts close at hand exactly at dawn-the attack in this respect resembling that of the Second Division at Tel-elKebir, though unlike it in the important particular that the respective shares borne in the action by the Indian forces are perfectly well known, whereas the most erroneous ideas still partially prevail respecting those of the army in Egypt. The leading troops, to whose support the general brought others as they came up, carried, with considerable loss to the enemy, the stockades which fortified the pass; and our troops rolled the enemy off the spur, thereby accomplishing the primary object of causing him to draw in his left, and to form front in a new direction for the defence of the Peiwar. With some desultory fighting, the advance on that pass was continued until Roberts, having at last assembled all the troops of his column, attacked the whole line of the enemy, separated from him by a ravine, and occupying woody heights covering the pass. These woods were found so impenetrable that there was no great promise of speedy success, when aid came from another quarter. The leading troops of the left column had at length begun to ascend on the other side of the hill which Roberts occupied, and from a commanding point had perceived, through an opening in the woods, the Afghan camp and baggage-animals about 1000 yards distant. Two mountain-guns were brought up, the shells from which caused a disordered flight from the camp, in which the nearest Afghan troops began to join. Officers from the left column made their way to Roberts, and explained to him its present position; whereupon, leaving a regiment to occupy the ground he stood on, he moved the remainder of his own column towards the defile which, as has been said, led from the Spingawi height towards the rear of the Afghans on the Peiwar. This movement, and the advance of the other column, accelerated the enemy's retreat. When Roberts emerged from the woods on to the slopes looking towards Cabul, the Afghan army had already disappeared, leaving camp and artillery behind, and a regiment of the left column oc cupied the Peiwar. An enterprise With no opposition worth mention, Roberts resumed his advance to the Shutargardan through an exceedingly difficult country, and on reaching that point, looked down on the valley leading to Cabul. At this point the advance was stopped, for it had been decided that the movement on Cabul should not be continued at this season; and the general occupied himself in exploring the flanks of his communications, establishing relations with the surrounding hilltribes, and fortifying posts on the route he had traversed, in preparation for a fresh advance in the ensuing campaign. But now political events were passing which produced successive changes in the situation. The flight and death of Shere Ali were followed by the recognition as Ameer of our presumed friend and ally, his son Yakoob, by the treaty of Gundamuck, and by the mission of Cavagnari to Cabul. It was believed that hostilities were at an end, and the transport and supplies of the Kurram field - force were therefore suffered to fall to a point quite insufficient for a forward movement. But suddenly came the startling news of the murder of Cavagnari and his party, and the general uprising of the Afghan nation. Roberts, then at Simla, received orders for a prompt resumption of hostilities, and at the close of September 1879 arrived at Kooshi, beyond the Shutargardan, whither came also Yakoob, the new sovereign, and from whence the general began an immediate advance on Cabul. The late Afghan sovereign, Shere Ali, had during the last period of his rule made extraordinary preparations for war. Besides accumulating vast stores of arms and ammunition, he had increased the number of his artillery to 300 guns, and had raised sixty-eight regiments of infantry and sixteen of cavalry, equipped with arms of precision. These, however, formed but a part of the forces that could be brought against an invader. The country swarms with tribes who habitually carry arms, and are ready to assemble for any enterprise which offers the prospect of plunder. Large bands of such auxiliaries had in the preceding year reinforced the Ameer's troops against Roberts. He had, at first, for his present operations against Cabul, about 6000 infantry and cavalry, of whom 2500 were Europeans, with eighteen guns. With this small force he now plunged into the midst of that army and that warlike population of which he had merely dealt with an advanced-guard at the Peiwar, and which, from his first marches, began to attack his communications. Even the route he had come by, rugged and precarious as it was, would be lost to him when the snows fell, and he must then trust entirely to that of the Kyber, which, except at its further extremity, yet remained to be secured. It is no wonder that many of those who were watching the enterprise, and could appreciate its difficulties, were filled with dismay and foreboding. At Charasia, a short march from Cabul, Roberts found his passage barred by the enemy. Two routes lead thence to the city; one, the direct one, on the right, through a pass the other through a valley; and on a mass of hills between the two, and commanding both, stood the enemy's army. Insufficiency of transport had compelled him to leave behind, for the moment, about a third of his force; nevertheless, he did not hesitate to attack at once, believing that delay would only increase the odds against him, as every day would bring to the enemy indefinite reinforcements from the capital and surrounding country. Making a feint with his right as if to force the pass, he sent his left against the other flank, rolling it back, and forcing the enemy to abandon height after height, till they entirely gave way, leaving all their guns. The advance was then resumed, and after a few days' halt on the heights outside, the capital was occupied. Not for long, however about a mile beyond the city were the Sherpur cantonments, enclosed with high walls, and rendered strong against attack by Shere Ali, which contained buildings sufficient to shelter the whole of Roberts's force, with its animals and supplies; and here he concentrated it. Mr Low reminds us that the wisdom of this step was questioned at the time. But Roberts's reasons for taking it were of the best, and the result of the serious events which soon took place amply proved his sagacity. With the Afghan capital in his grasp, and his forces housed and supplied for months to come, he awaited the reinforcements and material from India, which should enable him in the next stage of the operations, and in conjunction with Sir Donald Stewart, who was now occupying Candahar, to proceed to extinguish the resistance of the Afghans. The head of the column from Peshawur was now in communication with him, though the line was as yet far from being firmly established; and with the setting in of winter he ceased to rely on the Kurram route, and called up to Cabul the garrison of the Shutargardan. We can understand how, when he reviewed the events which had just passed, the audacious plunge, the slender preparation for it, the determination to attack with part only of his little army the unknown but greatly superior forces on the hills of Charasia, the dispersion of the enemy, and the occupation of the capital, he should have been impressed with that opinion of them which still, notwithstanding the fame which attaches to his subsequent march to Candahar, causes him to estimate the swoop on Cabul as the most difficult and most remarkable of his achievements. But events were now in progress which brought serious interruption to the tide of success, and which indeed might perhaps have ended in a great disaster, but for his timely concentration in the compact and defensible cantonments of Sherpur. Many causes of discontent, which it is not necessary here to recapitulate, had contributed to exasperate the impatience with which the independent Afghan race saw their capital occupied by foreign troops. Roberts received information of a design for a national uprising and general attack upon him, and was apprised early in December of the movement of large bodies from the north and west upon his cantonments. Hoping to disperse these before they could concentrate round the city and rouse the surrounding population, he sent two brigades |
