Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎8r] (16/312)

but it must not be forgotten, hpwever,
that the whole area tinted with black dots
indicates mountainous country of more than
5,000 feet, and where the boundaries most nearly
approach each other of nearly 20,000 feet absolute
height. The passage of these mountains is
attended with considerable danger for even small
parties, with all the appliances and means to boot.
Surgeon-Major Bellew says, in speaking of the
journey over the passes from India to Kashgar,
made by the Embassy to Kashgar in 1874, that
four hundred yaks were provided to carry their
luggage, and that even these animals pant
distressingly. That many of the attendants were j
affected by the elevation with headache, nausea, and |
giddiness, sothatseveraltumbledofftheirponiesand
grazed their cheeks and hands upon the rocks and
ice. He adds : '• Just as I was going to sleep, in
the hopes of forgetting the pain that racked my
head, and the nausea that well-nigh floored me, I
was started up by a sense of immediate suffoca
tion. A few deep but unsatisfying gasps and a
reeling giddiness brought my head on the pillows
again to dose dreamily awhile, only to start up
afresh and go through the same process over
again, and so on till the bugle bade me rise. The
exertion of dressing, a luxury I henceforward
carefully denied myself till we got down to a
dressing level, well-nigh finished me." We
might multiply this testimony by reference to all
the recent travellers who have crossed the
passes anywhere betweea the Mustagh, on
the east of our map, and the Bamian,
west of Cabul, showing conclusively the imprac- |
ticability of this country for the march of any
modem army. The only route by which India
can be approached by land is from the direction of
Astrabad, on the Caspian Sea, by Herat, Girishk,
Kandahar, Kalat-i-Ghilzi, Cabul, andtheKhyber
Pass, or perhaps by the Gumal Pass, or leaving j
this line at Kandahar and proceeding by Quetta 1
and the Bolan Pass. These lines have been well
described by a recent writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. , in a pamphlet pub
lished under the title, "Is a Russian Invasion of
India Feasible ?" He says :
Suppose the general commanding an invading army at
Herat decides his piincipal line of operations should be
through the Khyber Pass. To reach Firozpur on the
Sutlej the distances are as follows :
Herat, via Qirishk to Cabul 637 miles, or 56 marches.
Cttbul to Firozpur 413 „ 62 „
1,200 miles requires 108 days.
If one day's halt be allowed after every seven marches,
infantry would occupy a hundred and tweuty-three days i
in travelling the distance—say, four months and a half.
But as the Punjanb is intersected by five large rivers,
the most favourable season of invasion is when these
I streams are at their lowest, which is during the first few
j weeks of January, when the climate in Upper India is
I very suitable for field operations. The distance of 885 miles
■ from Herat to the Khyber, or fifty-nine days' march, should
be accomplished before the last day of the year, and with
this object Herat should be quitted in the early part of
i October. It would be imprudent for an invader of India
to rely entirely on Afghan neutrality or amity, and it is
probable he would not advance from Herat until he had
arranged by negotiation or force for garrisoning certain
towns to protect the lines of his communication with his
base, which, if he had originally moved from Persia, would
be Herat, and, if a railway under his military control con
nected Samarkand and Cabul, would be Central Asia; or
he might move two armies at the same time from both bases
respectively, the Persian force moving, on the Bolan vii
Kandahar, the Central Asian force advancing on the
Khyber by Samarkand and Cabul, It is possible that
the Afghans would temporise with a European invader
in possession of Herat, and in command of a large and
highly disciplined army, and perhaps join him, in the
hope of sharing the spoils of India. With the treachery
habitual to the Afghan, it might prove unfaithful to him
in the event of reverses. No prudent general, therefore,
Would move without a convention for the surrender of
certain places, which he would fortify and garrison.
The Khyber will then have to be forced, and the
neutrality of its tribes purchased, or their alliance perhaps
bought with promises of the plunder of Hindostan.
To sum up possible accidents of an invasion by the
Khyber, to be successful 885 miles of communication
have to be protected, a great pass forced or gained, and
perhaps five great battles fought before the Punjaub was
lost to the defenders of India,
Let us now suppose that the Bolan pass be selected for
an invasion from Herat. The distances to be traversed
will be as follows :—
Herat, via Ginshk to Kandahar 300 miles, or 28 marches.
Kandahar by the Bolan to Sukkur 893 „ 34 „
Bukkur to Firozpur 457 „ 36 „
1,150 „ 98 „
Allow, as before, a day's halt after a week 's march, and
the journey for infantry marching will take one hundred
and twelve days, or four months within a week.
The task before the army advancing in this direction
would be, first, to capture and fortify Kandahar if it was
not surrendered peacefully; next, to force the Bolan
Pass, and to occupy Sukkur and Northern Scinde before
moving up towards Firozpur.
The Bolan is hardly a pass, but a succession of ravines
and gorges, having a gradual descent from west to east,
and not being inhabited by tribes as fierce or as numerous
as those who have guarded from time immemorial the
hills of the Khyber, no great ijlifficulty would be ex
perienced by a modem and well-appointed European
army in forcing a passage, unless opposed, as most likely
would happen, by British troops at Quetta. The southern
extremity of the Bolan defile is ten marches from Sukkur,
and it is probably here an invader would meet with his
first supreme danger or disaster. But the pass is of great
length—66 miles—and in width narrows from three miW
at the southern extremity to 150 feet at the northern
end.
General Havelock says:—" The predatory tribes
of the Bolan or of the ranges of hills between
them and Kandahar are not formidable enemies in
their defiles, but the difficu lties of the descent
after passing the Bolan are, to a large army,
from the want of forage and water, appalling."
Of the difficuliy attending a passage through the
Khyber in the face of hostile tribes, we have suf
ficient' evidence in the retreat of the British army in
1842 from Cabul, when out of a force of some 4,500
men and 20,000 or so of camp followers only one
lived to reach Peshawur to tell the awful tale.
On the British side, which we have considered as
the defending force, an army fully equipped could
be sent out from England and massed on any part
of our present frontier in less than six weeks.
We have now railway communication from Kur-
rachee by Hyderabad to Sukkur on the Indus,
Here there is a break, as the river cannot yet be
bridged; but on the opposite shore the railway
takes up again and runs to Mooltan, Lahore, and
along the Ganges Valley to Calcutta, with con
nection to Bombay. A branch line from Lahore,
already completed as far as the Pdver Cheaab, is
being rapidly pushed forward to Peshawur. From
Peshawur the British mission, after receiving the
hostages of the Khyberi, or tribes thatlnhabit the
neighbourhood of the Khyber Pass, will traverse
that pass and proceed to Cabul, which lies in a
sort of cirque or blind valley, at an elevation of
6,000 feet above the sea, with mountains of from
12,000 to 20,000 feet towering over them on all
sides. The passes across these in the west and
south are not so difficult as those described in the
Hindu Kush and Karakorum ranges.
A small force has already moved up to occupy
Quetta, at the head of the Bolan Pass, and proba
bly Residents will soon be stationed amongst the
independent tribes that fringe the Indian frontier,
and serve as a sort of buffer between India and
Afghanistan. Finally, an interesting and useful
study might be made by comparing what has been
actually accomplished lately, and with what loss
and outlay, by a Russian force moving from its
base through a friendly country, where supplies
could be readily obtained, and where railway and
road were ready to hand, with a force moving
ten times the distance from its base through a
country where large tracts are waste and water
less, sometimes hard, sometimes sandy, inter
spersed with stretches of salt desert, and occasion
ally rugged and cut up, as though it had been
purposely rendered roadless and difficult of
transit, where much of the country produces
barely enough to support the present sparse popu
lation, and where for long distances it is totally
uninhabitable.