Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎40v] (82/312)

Cabul, to operate as the exigencies or conveniences of her
policy dictate. And elsewhere she has an unfinished programme
to fulfil—a programme the success of which may be more or less,
affected by a continuance of ability to cozen or command her
Majesty's Ministers. As a gentleman " in a position to be exception
ally well-informed " said to a newspaper correspondent who we
happen to know is himself well-informed, Russia is using the
Afghan incident to distract attention from another quarter: or
rather, as we should put it, as a promising means of bullying
the Government into a bargain for " concessions" in another
quarter. This well-informed person thinks that Russia " will show
herself quite disposed to leave Afghanistan to the mercy of
England, providing the negotiations that have lately been
entered upon at the Porte with regard to the war indemnity!
are allowed to take their course:" we should add, and provided
that England makes no serious objection to some other things
desired by the Czar—such as concession to his wishes as to the
organization of Roumelia, the occupation of that province and
of the autonomous Bulgaria, and so forth. In any case, masterly
inaction before Afghanistan all through the winter will leave ample
scope for some new " preliminary understanding" like that
which, after dishonouring and crippling the country at Berlin,
led immediately to this Afghan imbroglio. With due precau
tion, such a conspiracy might escape revelation this time ;
and our experience in the former case justifies the apprehension
that our Government will have no difficulty in resorting to
, such a means of boasting once more that they have given us
i peace with honour, and that, thanks to their astounding vigour,
the empire is rea/ty re-established on the topmost pinnacles of a
i glorious security. i
ENGLAND AND AFGHANISTAN.
S imla, Sept. 26.—Three thousand five hundred troops are to be sent to
reinforce the Quetta garrison, and a force of 4,000 men will be assembled at
Thull, at the entrance of the Koorum Valley. A reserve force of 6,ooo men
will be concentrated at Sukkur.
Sept. 27.—Nawab Gholatn Hussein Khan, the special envoy sent by the
Viceroy to Cabul, has returned to Peshawur.
B ombay, Sept. 27.—Several papers designate Lieutenant-General Crawford
^Chamberlain as the Commander-in-Chief of the army for Afgha nistan.
The news from India this morning is that no irhmediate hostilities against
the Ameer of Afghanistan are to take place. The Calcutta correspondent of
the Times telegraphs that "the Government will await for the present the
possibility of a favourable outcome of events, adopting an attitude of armed
expectation." The Quettah garrison is to be strongly reinforced, and, according .
to a Standard telegram, an advance from Quettah upon Candahar may be
expected as soon as sufficient troops have been collected. A serious outbreak is
said to have occurred in Seistan, on the frontiers of Persia and Afghanistan.
The news continues to be much discussed on the Continent. A Vienna despatch
in the Daily Telegraph says that the Austrian Government is greatly concerned
lest an Anglo-Russian conflict should result from the difficulty. M. Vambery, •
writing in the All^emeine Zeitung, declares that the conflict between England %
and Russia, which he has for fourteen years been laughed at for predicting, is |
now imminent. It could have been avoided had English statesmen not been
so obstinate and deaf to disinterested counsels. Sir Neville Chamberlain was
sent too late. M. Vambdry also suspects Russia of designs on Kashgar, which I
in her hands would be a cornmercial and political blow for England.
The Khyber Pass is a mountain defile twenty-eight miles in length,
in which there are few places where an army could find cover. In April,
1842, however, General Pollock, with a force which comprised only one
European battalion, seven native battalions, three regiments of cavalry, and
fourteen guns, succeeded in forcing his way through it, with but compara
tively small losses, although the enemy had assembled in great numbers to
oppose him, and had fortified with redoubts the heights which com
manded not only the approaches to the entrance, but also the pass
itself, the mouth of which they had barricaded by a strong breast
work of stones and bushes. The manner in which General Pollock
achieved this difficult enterprise was so admirable that in the standard
English work on minor tactics the attack is described in detail as an
example of forcing a mountain defile defended at the entrance. Broadly
speaking, the plan adopted for forcing the pass was first to clear the
heights of the enemy and then advance against the entrance. Accord
ingly, the greater part of the attacking force was formed into two
columns, one of which was to storm the heights on the right, the
other those on the left; while the remaining troops were kept in reserve
to advance against the centre of the enemy's position so soon as the
attacks on his flanks should be sufficiently developed. Both right and
left columns advanced simultaneously, the front of each covered by a
line of skirmishers followed by supports. At first the enemy offered a
determined resistance, but on both flanks the defenders were gradually
forced up the hills and finally driven in at all points. As sooii as the
flanking columns had thus gained possession of the heights, the por
tion of the force kept in reserve advanced to the mouth of the pass and
destroyed the barrier, which the enemy had abandoned on finding his
position turned; and as the crowning parties on each side gained
ground, so the central column proceeded, until, finally, driven back from
height to height, the defender, seeing his positions in the pass thus
successively out-flanked, abandoned any further opp osition.