Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎47r] (95/312)

INTEHVIEW BETWEEN LORD A. LOFTUS
AND PEINCE GOETSCHAKOFF. ;
Berlin ^ September 27. • ;
Lord Augustus Loftus, the British Ambassador
at St. Petersburg, in passing through this city, had
an interview with Prince Gortscbakoff. It is be
lieved that the Afghanistan question will not lead to v
any explanations between England and Russia.
EVACUATION OP TCHATALDJA.
Constantinople , September 27.
The Russian troops have evacuated Tchataldja. :
The Sultan has ordered Safvet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , the Grand
; Yizier, to find some important post to be conferred ■
upon Kheredine Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , ex-Prime Minister of the If
Bey of Tunis.
; Sir Henry Layard has sent a contrihution in money
and\fi supply of provisions to the distressed Rhodope
refugees.
THE OCCUPATION OF BOSNIA.
Belgrade , September 26.
The Austrians are erecting extensive entrench
ments on the heights near Semlin, and it is expected
I that a considerable force will be concentrated in
I that town.
Details of the capture of Novi Breka, received
yesterday, state that the town was not burnt by the
Austrian bombardment, but that the suburbs, which
principally belonged to foreign merchants, were de
livered up to plunder during 24 hours. The loss is
estimated at upwards of £4-0,000. " ,
THE BRITISH EXPEDITION.
The Bombay correspondent of the Standard telegraphs
that the following is the personnel of the staff for the
expeditionary army as at present decided:—The column
concentrating at Peshawur, 15,000 strong, will be com
manded by General Crawford Trotter Chamberlain,
j C.S.I.' at present Commander of the Oude Division. He
is brother of Sir Neville Chamberlain, and distinguished
himself much in the last Afghan war. The garrison of"
Qu?ttah is being reinforced by 3,000 troops,
British and native; 4,000 troops are assembling
at Thull; the reserve of 6,000 men will be collected at
Mooltan early in October. General Roberts commands
the column at Kphat. Colonels Cobbe and Tytler will
each command a brigade of infantry. Colonel Clough
will have the cavalry brigade. The head-quarter staff
will consist ot Major Galbraith, 85th Foot, Assistant
Adjutant-General; Major Collett, Assistant Quarter
master-General j Colonel Peridns, Chief Engineer.
LLutenants Spratt and Childers will be tii- Field
Engineers of the Forca"? Captain Wynnefield
will be Telegraph Officer; and Lord William
Bere-ford one of the Aides-de-Camp General
Biddulp'n will command the Quettah column, having
as bis brigadiers Colonel Appleyard and Colonel
Nuttall,. of tlae Bombay army, with, probably Colonel
Fane, of the Staff Corps, in command of the cavalry
brigade Major Wolseley will be Assistant Adjutant--
General, Captain E. G. Stewart Assistant Quarter
master^ General, Colonel Hitchens Chief Engineer, and
Ciptain Bisset Aide-de-Camp. Colonel Stewart com-,
' mands the reserve cohmin, and Colonel Baxter and Colonel
1 Hughes v^ill be brigadiers of the infantry.-Col juel A. Hills
is appointed Assistant Adjutant-General, and Captain
E. F. Cnapman, Assistant Quartermaster-General. The
following troops, in addition to tho e before detailed,
have been ordered up to Kohat :—F Battery A Brigade,
and 11th Battery 9th Brigade, under Colonel Alfred
LindsaVi and Sth Battery 4t.h Brigade, and the 3rd
Pesbawur Mountain Battery, under Colonel Le Mesurier.
The Sth Company of Sappers and the 32 nd Pioneers
are ordered to march at. once to Quettah. The A
Battery B Brigade, G Battery 4 oh Brigade, and the;
5fch, £kh, and 11th Batteries 11th Brigade, will join
the reserve at Mooltan. A garrison battery from
Madras and one from Bombay, with a siege train,
will probably be despatched to Sukhur. A telegram
from Eawui Pindee states that the troops are all r.ady
to march, but are awaiting carriage, which is not_ ex
pected to be ready for some days. At Lahore ib is
understood that tae Viceroy will pass the winter there,
instead of going down to Calcutta. In Baroda and the
native States well affected to us public opinion is
strongly iu favour of an immediate occupation of
Afghanistan and the prompt punishment of the A . feer,
A telegram from Simla says tnat in official circles it is
1 considered that no advance upon Cabul will take place
until the spring.
THE A FGTTAN DIFFICTJLTY.
The Saturday Review says:—" Lord North brook
avoided as far as possible all interference in Afghan
affairs; but the steadv and rapid advance of Eussian
1 conquest, coinciding with the antagonism between
England and Eussia in European politics, caused much
uneasiness to Indian soldiers and statesmen. The occu
pation of Quettah, which was intended as a counter-
move, has greatly aggravated the hostile feelings of
ij the Ameer, though he may now perhaps find that he
would have done well to profit by the warning. By in
viting a Eussian Envoy to his capital Shere Ali offered
a defiance to the Indian Government, which has now
been emphatically renewed. The approach of winter
will perhaps render impossible an immediate ad
vance on Cabul, though troops are being con-
centrated at different points on the frontier, and
{ Quettah will be at once strongly reinforced. There is
little ground for hoping that the necessity of war can be
avoided. There would be no advantage in negotiating
with Eussia, which will gladly witness the expenditure Of
i English resources in a struggle that will entail no sacri
fice on herself. There is little satisfaction in the exposure
of the shallowness of numerous politicians who have f%
incessantly asserted that the p rogress of Eussia in
i Central Asia threatened no danger to England or to
India. Lord Beaconsfield himself lately repeated the
common form that there was room in Asia for England
and Eussia; nor, indeed, could the proposition be
disputed, if both Powers were permanently contented j
with their respective shares. Of two rival neigh
bours, the more aggressive contends at great advan
tage. England had no wish to meet Eussia in the North;
but the desire of abstention was not reciprocal. To the
truism that it would be difficult or impossible for a
Eussian army to invade India, it has always been re
plied that the danger was not of invasion, but of offen
sive alliance with native States. The Eussians them*
selves have fully appreciated their opportunities of an
noyance ; and it is admitted that their despatch of a
mission to Cabul was intended as a hostile measure when
war seemsd imminent in Europe. The Eussian Envoy
not only retains his position after the conclusion of
peace, but he has probably dictated the answer which
was returned to Sir Neville Chamberlain's application
tor a free passage and safe conduct. If there had been i
no Eussian conquest of Central Asia, it would not have i
been necessary to choose between unprofitable war and !
inglorious peace."
The Examiner observes that " if we are to keep India
at all, we must be prepared to fight for its'possession in
case-of need. With such an empire as we hold in the
East, Memo me impune lacesset must of necessity be our
i motto. That this should be so may be a reason against
i our holding India; but granted—as the vast majority
of English are prepared to grant—that the retention of
our Imperial power is at once our duty and our inte
rest, and it follows, as a logical deduction, that we must
keep by the sword what we have won by the sword. No
hesitation, however, as to the imperative duty of main,
taining our Imperial position is involved in the i
assertion that a war with Afghanis'an is a calamity to j
be avoided except under the pressure of absolute neces
sity. In the first place, it is a war in which success can
j only be achieved at a very heavy sacrifice of blood and
treasure; in the second, a successful war must entail
the virtual annexation of the Afghan territory; and, in
; the third place, such an annexation must inevitably
bring us ab no distant period into direct colli
sion with Eussia. For all these reasons, it has
long been & maxim of our Indian policy to avoid giving
any cause of offence to the Afghan kingdom. ...
After what has occurred we have no choice except to
bring the Ameer to reason, and the process of brinering
him to reason must almost of necessity involve a war
with Afghanistan and the annexation of Afghan terri- '
tory. Yet this is just what all the highest Indian
authorities have always cautioned us to avoid doinsr."
The Spectator remarks that " we can now less than
ever afford to receive a check or find ourselves brought
to a stand by some improvised Plevna in the Hills. If
we lose a battle, India will be in flame behind us from
end to end. Evidence obtained during the Mutiny
showed clearly that the Sepoys Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank. had gravely considered
the propriety of joining Dost Mahommed and conquer
ing India, and this time we have roused the deadly
suspicions of the Princes. Instead of quietly limiting
the force of each noble, or, if possible, coercing them in
detail, the Government has flourished magnificently
about * our policy,' has warned all the world through
the Times that the feudatory armies are doomed,
and has even specifia 1 those which it thinks
most dangerous. Ir there is a disaster, the Princes
will try whether their honour and their armies cannot
alike be saved. The evidence taken after the Mutiny
also revealed the strength of the sympathy which exists
between the Mohamedans of Bengal Proper, shown by
Sir G. Campbell to number twenty millions, and the
rulers of Afghanistan, or the pious brigands of the
Hills, and they hear now of every event day by day.
| We mus advance, therefore, with every prince listen
ing in full armour, with the Mahratta people boiling
with excitement, and with every Mussulman in Bengal j
craning to catch the signal. All that is no matter, for
we have faced it all before; but all that makes it in
dispensable that we should win, and a war in which we
1 must win will be a great and expensive war. The
numbers must be ample, the reserves profuse.
There must be no deficiency of commissariat
or cartage, no risk run of a break in commu
nications for ten days, no hesitation in guarding rail
ways, no forgetting that along the Nerbudda and on the
Deccan plateau we must be ready to strike, and strike
hard. It must be remembered that the army, when its
work is done, will not return, but mus: garrison the
' Douranne Empire ' against a disaffected people, and
against possible assault from the petty emjDire, Persia,
which will then be feverish with suspicion, and from the I
great empire, Eussia, which will then be feverish with
' delight that Great Britain has voluntarily ceased to be
impregnable and inaccessible. -Eussia thenceforward
can strike home at will, can drag our armies, when she
chooses, 8,000 miles, to fight amid roadless hills, with
two hi-mdred millions of possible rebels watching them
behind."
The Statist says:—" The hostility of Eussia in this
i matter is unmistakable. Granting that she was justified,
when war seemed imminent, to prepare to strike her
foe where most vulnerable, the justification ceased with
tho danger. She was under a standing engagement not
to interfere in Afghanistm, and in good faith ought to j
have observed that engagement as soon as she found 1
that hostilities would be averted. Now the Salisbu£j?>* j
| Schouvalott convention practically averted the danger of
a conflict, and it was agreed upon before the meeting of
the Congress, that is, between three and fovyr months
ago. Even if we concede that the carrying out of the
convention was not certain, all pending disputes were
settled by the Treaty of Berlin, and it was signed on
the IBth of July, two and a half months since. Clearly,