Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 by Various

V >> Various >> Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844

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[1] "_Miserable Russian superstition_."--This is now, we believe,
decaying. But why? Not from sounder politics, but from more accurate
geography. The Affghan campaigns, with the affairs of Bokhara, of Khiva,
and Khoondooz, have lighted up as with torches those worlds of
wilderness and obstruction; so that, in any practical sense, people are
ashamed _now_ to talk of St Petersburg as threatening Delhi or Calcutta.

But, _secondly_, what was the amended hypothesis of that expedition? Not
Russia was contemplated, aerial Russia, but Affghanistan for
herself--_that_ was the object present to Lord Auckland's thoughts; no
phantom, but a real next-door neighbour in the flesh. The purpose was to
raise Affghanistan into a powerful barrier; and against what? Not
specially against so cloudy an apparition as Russia, but generally
against all enemies who might gather from the west; most of all,
perhaps, against the Affghans themselves. It must be known to many of
our readers--that, about the opening of the present century, a rumour
went traversing all India of some great Indian expedition meditated by
the Affghans. It was too steadfast a rumour to have grown out of
nothing; and our own belief is--that, but for the intestine feuds then
prevailing amongst the Suddozye princes, (Shah Soojah and his brothers,)
the scheme would have been executed; in which case, falling in with our
own great Mahratta struggle under Lord Wellesley, such an inroad would
have given a chance, worth valuing, that the sceptre might have passed
from England--England at that time having neither steamers for the
Indus, nor improved artillery against Affghan jezails, besides having
her hands full of work. Between 1801 and 1838, it is true that things
had altered; for the better, we admit; but also for the worse. Much
stronger were we; but, on the other hand, much nearer were the Affghans.
Delhi and Agra, with their vast adjacencies, had become ours. Cutch was
ours, our outposts were pushed to the Sutlege; and beyond the Sutlege we
had stretched a network of political relations. We therefore were
vulnerable in a more exquisite sense. And on the other hand, as
respected the power of the Affghans to wound, _that_ had not essentially
declined. The Affghan power, it must be remembered, had never exposed a
showy front of regal pomp, such as oftentimes deceives both friend and
foe, masking a system of forces hollow and curious when probed by
foreign war, but had combined the popular energy arising from a rough
republican simplicity, and something even of republican freedom, with
the artificial energy for war of a despotism lodged in a few hands. Of
all oriental races, the Affghans had best resisted the effeminacy of
oriental usages, and in some respects we may say--of Mahometan
institutions. Their strength lay in their manly character; their
weakness in their inveterate disunion. But this, though quite incapable
of permanent remedy under Mahometan ideas, could be suspended under the
compression of a common warlike interest; and _that_ had been splendidly
put on record by the grandfather of Shah Soojah. It was not to be
denied--that in the event of a martial prince arising, favourably
situated for gaining a momentary hold over the disunited tribes, he
might effectually combine them for all the purposes of an aggressive
war, by pointing their desires to the plunder of India. The boundless
extent of India, the fabulous but really vast magnificence of her
wealth, and the martial propensities of the Affghans, were always moving
upon lines tending to one centre. Sometimes these motives were
stationary, sometimes moving in opposite directions; but if ever a
popular soldier should press them to a convergence, there could be no
doubt that a potent Affghan army would soon be thrown beyond the
Punjaub. An Affghan armament requires little baggage; and if it be asked
how the Affghans were to find supplies for a numerous army which they
never could subsist at home, the answer is--for that very reason,
because they would _not_ be at home. The Roman principle of making war
support war would be easily applied to the rich tracts of central India,
which an Affghan leader would endeavour to make the theatre of his
aggression. They could move faster than we could. Semi-barbarism
furnishes strength in that respect; and it would be vain to think of
acting politically upon Affghanistan, when all her martial children were
in the act of projecting themselves upon stages of action which would
soon furnish their own recompense to strength of character and to
persevering courage. In fact, the slightest review of Indian history,
ever since the first introduction of Mahometanism, justifies Lord
Auckland's general purpose of interweaving Affghanistan with the
political system of India. This was no purpose of itinerant Quixotism--
seeking enemies where none offered of themselves. Affghans were _always_
enemies; they formed the _castra stativa_ of hostility to India. For
eight hundred years, ever since the earliest invader under the Prophet's
banner, (Mahommed of Ghuznee,) the Affghans had been the scourges of
India; for centuries establishing dynasties of their own race; leaving
behind them populous nations of their own blood; founding the most
warlike tribes in Hindostan; and, not content with this representative
influence in the persons of their descendants, continually renewing
their inroads from the parent hives in Affghanistan. Could such a
people, brought by our own advance into so dangerous a neighbourhood,
have been much longer neglected?

With any safety to ourselves, certainly not. At least the outline of
Lord Auckland's policy must be approved as wise and seasonable. All the
great internal enemies of Indian peace had been reduced within English
control by former governments; others had dealt, so far as circumstances
required, with the most petulant of our outlying neighbours, Nepaul and
Burmah; and sooner or later, if mischief were to be _prevented_, as well
as healed, it would be necessary to bring Affghanistan within the
general system of cautionary ties. We wanted nothing with the
independence of that country, nor with its meagre finances; but
reasonably we might desire that she herself should not wield either for
the perpetual terror of her eastern neighbours. Westwards and northwards
furnished surely an ample range for mischief; and with those quarters of
the compass we had no mission to interfere. Like Hamlet, the Affghans
would still have a limited license for going mad, viz.--when the wind
sate in particular quarters; and along a frontier of more than a
thousand miles. Still, whilst seeing the necessity of extending the
Indian network of tranquillization to the most turbulent and vigorous of
neighbouring powers, the reader will feel a jealousy, as we do, with
respect to the time chosen for this measure:--why _then_ in particular?
After which comes a far more serious question, why by that violent
machinery, that system of deposing and substituting, which Lord Auckland
chose to adopt?

As to the question of time, it is too clear from the several
correspondences, however garbled, which have been laid before
Parliament, that Herat was a considerable element in the councils at
Calcutta. This seems so far a blunder; because of what consequence to
India, or even to Affghanistan, was the attack of an imbecile state like
Persia upon the Affghan frontier? Here, however, occurs the place for an
important distinction; and it is a distinction which may better the case
of Lord Auckland. In ridiculing the idea which regarded Russia as the
natural enemy of India, between which two mighty realms we may conceive
a _vacuum_ to exist so as to cut off all communication, we applied our
arguments to the case of a _direct_ attempt upon India. This we hold not
only to be impossible at present, but even for centuries to come, unless
Russia shall penetrate to Bokhara, and form vast colonies along the line
of the river Amor; and, if ever such changes should be made,
corresponding changes will by that time have established a new state of
defensive energy in India. The Punjaub will by that time have long been
ours: all the roads, passes, and the five great rivers at the points of
crossing, will have been overlooked by scientific fortresses; but, far
beyond these mechanic defences, Christianity and true civilization will,
by that time, have regenerated the population, who will then be
conscious of new motives for defending themselves. A native _militia_
will then every where exist; and mere lawless conquerors, on a mission
of despotism or of plunder, will have become as powerless against the
great ramparts of civilization as American savages. The supposed Russian
colonies indeed, in stages of society so advanced, would probably have
shared by that time in the social changes; possibly would themselves
form a barrier between the countries to the south and any ambitious
prince in St Petersburg. Any _direct_ action of Russia, therefore, flies
before us like a rainbow as futurity expands. But in the mean time an
_indirect_ action upon India is open to Russia even at present. That
action, which she is powerless to carry on for herself, she may
originate through Persia. And in that we see the remarkable case
realized--that two ciphers may politically form an affirmative power of
great strength by combining: Russia, though a giant otherwise, is a
cipher as to India by situation--viz. by distance, and the deserts along
the line of this distance. Persia, though not so ill situated, is a
cipher by her crazy condition as to population and aggressive resources.
But this will not hinder each power, separately weak _quoad hoc_, from
operating through the advantages of the other; as the blind man in the
fable benefits by the sight of the lame man, whom, for the sake of wider
prospect, he raises upon his shoulders; each reciprocally neutralizing
his own defects by the characteristic endowments of the other. Russia
might use Persia as her wedge for operating, with some effect, upon the
Affghans; who again might be used as the wedge of Persia for operating
upon ourselves, either immediately if circumstances should favour, or
mediately through the Seiks and the Beloochees. On this theory we may
see a justification for Lord Auckland in allowing some weight to the
Persian Shah's siege of Herat. Connected with the alleged intrigues of
the Russian agent, (since disavowed,) this movement of the Shah did
certainly look very like a basis for that joint machinery which he and
Russia were to work. Yet, on the other hand, we cannot but think that
Lord Auckland might safely have neglected it; and on the following
argument, that whatever influence Persia could have acquired in
Affghanistan through the possession of Herat, would to a certainty have
been balanced or overbalanced by an opposition growing out of that very
influence. This happened to ourselves; and this will arise always in
similar cases out of the incohesion essential, to say nothing of the
special feuds incident to the Affghan tribes, khans, and sirdars.

Whilst, therefore, we recognize, as a policy worthy of an Indian
statesman, the attempt to raise up a barrier in Affghanistan by way of
defensive outwork to India, we conceive that all which should have been
desired was a barrier against the Affghans themselves, by means of
guarantees reposing on the structure of the Affghan government, and not
any barrier against Persia as the agent of Russia; because, from the
social condition of the Affghans, Persia was always sure to raise up
barriers against herself, in exact proportion as she should attempt to
intermeddle with Affghan affairs. The remedy was certain to grow up
commensurately with the evil.

But now, quitting the question of the _when_, or why particularly at
that time Lord Auckland interfered with Affghanistan, let us touch on
the much more important question of the _how_, or by what machinery it
was that he proposed during this interference to realize his object?
Here comes the capital blunder, as we regard it, of our Affghan policy.
Lord Auckland started from the principle--and in _that_ doubtless he was
right--that the security sought for Western India could be found only in
a regular treaty of alliance with an Affghan government--firm at least
by its tenure, if circumstances forbade it to be strong by its action.
But where was such a government to be found? Who, in the distracted
state of Affghan society, was the man presumptuous enough to guarantee
any general submission to his authority? And, if no man could say this
for himself, could we say it _for_ him? Was there any great Affghan
philosopher in a cave, for whom Lord Auckland could become sponsor that
he should fulfil all the purposes of British diplomacy? We are come upon
evil ground, where not a step can be taken without cutting away right
and left upon friend and foe. Never, in fact, do we remember upon any
subject so many untruths as were uttered upon this by our own journals,
English and Indian; not untruths of evil intention, but untruths of
inconsideration or of perfect ignorance. Let us review the sum of what
was said, both as to the man chosen and the man rejected; premising
this, however, on behalf of Lord Auckland--that, if he made an evil
choice, means there were not for making a better. The case was
desperate. Not if Mr Tooke's Pantheon had clubbed their forces to create
an Affghan Pandorus, could the perfect creature have faced the
emergency. With the shafts of Apollo clanging on one shoulder, he could
not have silenced the first feud, viz. on his personal pretensions. But
with the tallies of his exchequer rattling on the other--so furiously
would a second feud have exploded, that as easily might you gather a
hail-storm into a side-pocket, as persuade the Affghans of his right to
levy taxes. Do you see the cloud of African locusts warping on the east
wind? Will they suffer you to put them into Chancery? Do you see those
eagles rising from Mont Blanc on the morning breeze? Will the crack of
your mail-coachman's whip bring them to be harnessed? In that case you
are the man to tax the Affghans. Pigs can see the wind; and it is not
less certain that Affghans can scent a tax-gatherer through the Hindoo
Koosh: in which case, off they go on the opposite tack. But no matter if
they stay--not the less with them to be taxed is to be robbed--a wrong
to be remembered on death-beds, and to be avenged were it in the fourth
generation. However, as the reckoning does not come before the banquet,
so the taxes do not come before the accession. Let us look, therefore,
at the men, the possible candidates, simply in relation to that
magnificent claim. There are two only put in nomination, Dost Mahommed
and the Shah Soojah: let us bring them forward on the hustings. Or,
considering them as horses entering at Epsom for the Derby, the first to
be classed as a five-year old, the other as "aged," let us trot them
out, by way of considering their paces.

The comments upon these men in England, whether for or against, were all
personal. The Dost was the favourite--which was generous--as he had no
solitary merit to plead except that he had lost the election; or, as the
watchmaker's daughter so pointedly said on behalf of Nigel Lord
Glenvarloch, "Madam, he is unfortunate." Searching, however, in all
corners for the undiscovered virtues of the Dost, as Bruce for the coy
fountains of the Nile, one man reported by telegraph that he had
unkenneled a virtue; that he had it fast in his hands, and would forward
it overland. He did so; and what was it? A certain pedlar, or he might
be a bagman, had said--upon the not uncommon accident in Cabool of
finding himself pillaged--"What! is there no justice to be had amongst
you? Is Dost Mohammed dead?" Upon which rather narrow basis was
immediately raised in London a glorious superstructure to the justice of
the Dost. Certainly, if the Dost's justice had ever any reference to
pedlars, it must have been a nervous affection of penitential panic
during some fit of the cholera, and as transient as the measles; his
regard for pedlars being notoriously of that kind which tigers bear to
shoulders of lamb; and Cabool has since rung with his pillagings of
caravans. But we believe the pedlar's _mot_ to have been thoroughly
misconceived. If we see a poor man bleeding to death in a village lane,
we naturally exclaim--"What! is Dr Brown, that used to practise here,
gone away?" Not meaning that the doctor could have stopped the
hemorrhage, but simply that the absence of all medical aid is shocking,
and using the doctor's name merely as a shorthand expression for that
aid. Now in the East, down from scriptural days, the functions of a
sovereign were two--to lead his people in battle, and to "sit in the
gate" for the distribution of justice. Our pedlar, therefore, when
invoking Dost Mahommed as the redresser of his wrongs, simply thought
of him as the public officer who bore the sword of justice. "He cried to
Pharaoh," or he "cried to Artaxerxes"--did not imply any reliance in
their virtue as individuals, but merely an appeal to them as
professionally the ministers of justice. "Are there no laws and no
prisons amongst you?" was the poor man's meaning; and he expressed this
symbolically under the name of him who was officially responsible for
both.

But, as one throws a bone to a dog, we do not care to dispute the point
further, if any man is resolute to settle this virtue upon the Dost as a
life-annuity. The case will then stand thus: We have all heard of
"Single-speech Hamilton;" and we must then say--"Single-virtue Dost;"
for no man mentions a second. "Justice for pedlars" will then be the
legend on his coin, as meaning that there is none for any body else. Yet
even then the voters for the Dost totally overlooked one thing. Shah
Soojah had some shadow of a pretence, which we shall presently examine,
to the throne of all Affghanistan; and a king of that compass was
indispensable to Lord Auckland's object. But Dost Mahommed never had
even the shadow of an attorney's fiction upon which he could stand as
pretender to any throne but that of Cabool, where, by accident, he had
just nine points of the law in his favour. How then could we have
supported him? "Because thou art virtuous," we must have said, are we to
support future usurpation? Because the Dost is just to pedlars, "shall
there be no more ale and cakes" for other Affghan princes? All Asia
could not have held him upright on any throne comprehensively Affghan.
Whether _that_ could have been accomplished for any other man, is
another question. Yet unless Lord Auckland could obtain guarantees from
the unity of an _Affghan_ government, nothing at all was done towards a
barrier for the Indus.

Let us resume, however, the personal discussion. The Dost's banking
account is closed; and we have carried _one_ to his credit; but, as the
reader knows, "under protest." Now let us go into the items of the
Shah's little account. Strange to say, these are all on the wrong side--
all marked with the negative sign. The drollest of all was the charge
preferred against him by our Radicals. Possibly the Chartists, the
Leaguers, and the Repealers have something in reserve against him. What
the Radicals said was to this purpose: having heard of the Shah's
compulsory flight more than once from Affghanistan, they argued that
this never _could_ have happened had he not committed some horrible
_faux pas_. What could that be? "Something very naughty, be assured,"
said another; "they say he keeps a haram."--"Ay," rejoined a third, "but
they care little about that in the East. Take my word for it, he has
been playing tricks against the friends of liberty: he has violated the
'constitution' of Caboolistan." And immediately reverting to the case of
Charles X. under the counsels of Prince Polignac, they resolved that he
must have been engaged in suppressing the liberal journals of Peshawur;
and that the Khyberees, those noble parliamentary champions of the cause
for which Sidney bled on the scaffold, had risen as one man, and, under
tricolor banners, had led his horse by the bridle to the frontiers of
the Seiks. This was the colouring which the Radical journals gave to the
Shah's part in the affair; and naturally they could not give any other
than a corresponding one to ours. If Soojah were a tyrant kicked out for
his political misdeeds, we must be the vilest of his abettors, leading
back this _saevior exul_, reimposing a detested yoke, and facilitating a
bloody vengeance. O gentlemen, blockheads! _Silent inter arma leges_--
laws of every kind are mute; and as to such political laws as you speak
of, well for Affghanistan if, through European neighbourhood, she comes
to hear of those refinements in seven generations hence. Shah Soojah saw
in youth as many ups and downs as York and Lancaster; but all in the
good old honest way of throat-cutting, without any fraternal discord on
questions of _Habeas corpus_; and had he been a luckier man in his long
rough-and-tumbles for the Affghan sceptre, so as to have escaped the
exile you reproach him with, he would not therefore, by one jot, have
been more or less a guilty one.

The _purisms_ of political delinquency had little share, therefore, in
any remorse which Shah Soojah might ever feel; and considering the
scared consciences of oriental princes in such matters, quite as little,
perhaps, had the two other counts in his London impeachment. One imputed
savage cruelty to him; the other, with a _Johnny-rawness_ that we find
it difficult to comprehend, profligacy and dissoluteness of life.

As to the cruelty, it has often been alleged; and the worst case,
besides being the only attested case, of the Shah's propensities in that
direction, is the execution of the Ghazees near the fortress of Ghuznee.
We scorn to be the palliators of any thing which is bad in eastern
usages--too many things are _very_ bad--but we are not to apply the pure
standards of Christianity to Mahometan systems; and least of all are we
to load the individual with the errors of his nation. What wounds an
Englishman most in the affair of the Ghazees, is the possibility that it
may have been committed with the sanction of his own country, officially
represented by the British commander-in-chief. But then that
consideration leads an Englishman to suspend with a stoic [Greek:
epoche], and exceedingly to doubt whether the fact could have been as it
was originally reported. So said we, when first we heard it; and now,
when the zeal of malice has ceased to distort things, let us coolly
state the circumstances. A Mahometan Ghazee is a prededicated martyr. It
is important to note the definition. He is one who devotes himself to
death in what he deems a sufficient cause, but, as the old miser of
Alsatia adds--"for a consideration;" the consideration being, that he
wins Paradise. But Paradise he will _not_ win, unless he achieves or
attempts something really meritorious. Now, in the situation of things
before Ghuznee, where a new ruler was brought in under the wing of
Feringee infidels, what meritorious service was open to him? To have
shot the commander-in-chief would have merely promoted some other
infidel. The one sole revolutionary act appropriate to the exigency, was
to shoot the Shah Soojah. There, and in one moment, would have gone to
wreck the whole vast enterprize of the Christian dogs, their eight
hundred lakhs of rupees, and their forty thousand camels. The mighty
balloon would have collapsed; for the children of the Shah, it was
naturally imagined by Affghans, would divide the support of their
father's friends. That alone would have been victory to the Mussulmans;
and, in the case of the British army leaving the land, (which then was
looked for, at any rate, after one campaign,) the three Shahzades would,
by their fraternal feuds, ensure rapid defeat to each other. Under this
state of expectations, there was a bounty on regicide. All Ghazees
carried the word _assassin_ written on their foreheads. To shoot the
Shah in battle was their right; but they had no thought of waiting for
battle: they meant to watch his privacy; and some, even after they were
captured, attempted in good earnest to sting. Such were the men--
murderers by choice and proclamation--and the following were the
circumstances:--On the afternoon immediately preceding the storming of
Ghuznee, from the heights to the southward of that fortress descended a
body of these fanatics, making right for the Shah's camp. They were
anxious to do business. Upon this, a large mass of our cavalry mounted,
went forward to skirmish with them, and drove them back with the loss of
a standard. There the matter would have stopped; but Captain Outram,
casually passing, persuaded some of the cavalry to go round the hills,
to a point where they would have intercepted the retreat of the Ghazees
upon that line. Seeing this, the devotees mounted the heights, whither
the cavalry could not follow; but Captain Outram, vexed at the
disappointment, just then remarked an English officer marching in
command of some matchlocks--him he persuaded to join the chase. Outram
leading, the whole party pushed on, under a severe fire, to the very
topmost pinnacle of the rocks, where was flying the consecrated banner,
green and white, of the fanatic Mussulmans. This was captured, the
standard-bearer was shot, thirty or forty killed, and about fifty made
prisoners.

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