Chapter XVI: Part 16

The Crown Prince, at the side of “Papa” Wrangel, is looking on from the Gammelmark height on the opposite side of the bay, while his cousin, the “Red Prince,” and his staff have taken their stand on the Spitzberg, well to the rear of the line of zigzags. The stormers swarm up the breastworks like ants, and some of them fall back upon the heads of their comrades mortally struck by Danish bullets. At last they reach the top of the parapets and see the whites of their enemies’ eyes, and a short but desperate hand-to-hand encounter ensues. Many of the Danes, seeing the foe thus upon them, throw down their arms and surrender, but many will not give in, and are shot or struck down with bullet, bayonet, and butt.

At Fort 2 the Prussians cannot force their way through the palisades, and are consequently slaughtered as they stand. “Better one of us than ten!” cries a pioneer, Klinké by name (for a monument now stands to his memory on the exact scene of his heroism), who rushes forward with a bag of powder and blows at once the palisades and his own person into atoms--sacrificing himself to save his comrades, and thus secure himself a golden register in the annals of the Prussian army. The stormers now dash on and up, and presently the black-and-white flag of Prussia is seen waving on the parapets of the redoubt. It sinks again, but is once more raised to remain, and in less than a quarter of an hour from the time that the stormers sprang out of their trenches they are masters of six redoubts. It was all done, so to speak, in the twinkling of an eye--short, sharp, and decisive. From the six redoubts thus so swiftly rushed, the Prussians made a sweep to the rear of the others, and captured them in much the same manner, though one fort spared them the necessity of fighting for it by surrendering.

As it was at Fort 2 where the highest act of individual heroism had been performed on the side of the Prussians by brave pioneer Klinké, so it was also within this redoubt that Danish courage found its most brilliant exponent in the person of Lieutenant Anker. The Prussians were quite aware that a man of more than usual bravery was posted here, for they had admired the stubborn valour with which the redoubt had always been defended. And when at last they had stormed their way behind its parapets, they beheld the man himself whose acts had hitherto moved their admiration. He had spiked some of his guns, and was in the act of firing another when a Prussian officer sprang upon him, and, clapping a revolver to his breast, cried, “If you fire, I fire!” Anker hesitated, and finally desisted. But just afterwards he took up a lighted match and was making for the powder magazine, when the Prussian officer cut him over the head with his sword, only just in time to prevent him from blowing up himself and a considerable number of his foes. He was then taken prisoner, and his lifelike figure may now be seen on the fine bronze bas-relief of the Storming of the Düppel Redoubts, which adorns the Victory Column in Berlin.

The Danes had been defeated--not so much because the Prussians were braver men, which they were not, as because the latter were armed with better guns and rifles, and more expert at handling them; but, above all things, because they had taken their foes by surprise. For it cannot be doubted that this was the fact. Said a Danish officer who was taken prisoner: “We waited all morning, thinking the assault might still be given, although we had expected that it would take place still sooner; we waited under the terrific cannonade kept up against us, while hour after hour passed slowly away. At last we said to ourselves that we must have been misinformed, or that the Prussians had changed their minds, and the reserves were withdrawn. It was past nine o’clock when I left the forts and went back to breakfast. While thus engaged, I heard somebody utter an exclamation of dismay. ‘What is that? The Prussian flag floats over Fort 4!’ And so it was--the forts were lost.”

But there was still another and a better reason for concluding that the Danes had not yet awhile expected the Prussian assault, and that was the circumstance that the _Rolf Krake_, most daring and deviceful of warships, did not immediately appear upon the scene to pour its volleys of shell and shrapnel into the flanks of the storming columns. True, it was lying at the entrance to the bay (Wenningbund), like an ever-vigilant watch-dog; but by the time it had got its steam up and come to where it was most wanted, the Prussians were already within the Danish redoubts, and, after firing a few ineffectual rounds, the monitor had to retire again well battered with Prussian cannon-balls, but by no means beaten yet like the battalions which had held the forts.

Yet even these battalions, when beaten out of the redoubts, continued to cling tenaciously to the ground behind them, and once or twice they even made a counter-attack with the object of recovering their lost positions. But Prussian ardour proved too much for Danish obstinacy; and at last the Danes in the country behind the forts, after several hours’ fighting, were all swept back to the bridge-head in their rear, and then over into the island of Alsen, leaving their foes undisputed masters of all the field.

This latter phase of the fight was well described by a correspondent with the Danes, who wrote:--“Düppel was lost, but the battle was by no means at an end. Indeed, as we watched the terrible cannonade from 12 at noon till 3 or 4 p.m., the violence of the fire seemed to increase at every moment. Anything more sublime than that sight and sound no effort of imagination can conjure up, and we stood spellbound, entranced, rooted to the spot, in a state that partook of wild excitement and dumb amazement--a state of being which spread equally to the dull hinds, ploughmen, woodmen, and the foresters, and their families of wives and children, as they emerged from fields, woods, and huts, and clustered in awestruck, dumbfounded groups around us. The flashes of the heavy artillery outsped the rapidity of the glance that strove to watch them; the reports were far more frequent than the pulsations in our arteries, and the reverberation of the thunder throughout the vast spreading forest lengthened out and perpetuated the roar with a solemn cadence that was the grandest of all music to the dullest ear. The air seemed all alive with these angry shells. I have witnessed fearful thunderstorms in my day in southern and in tropical climates; but here the crash and rattle of all the tempests that ever were seemed to be summed up in the tornado of an hour. Nor was all that noise by any means deafening or stunning. It came to us lingering far and wide in the still air, softened and mellowed by the vastness of space, every note blending admirably and harmonising with the general concert--the greatest treat that the most consummate pyrotechnic art could possibly contrive for the delight of the eye and ear.”

Many of the Danes surrendered, but many more were taken prisoners; and as they came along the Prussian soldiers shook them good-naturedly by the hand and tried to cheer them up. Few of the men seemed to want cheering up, being only too glad, apparently, to have escaped with their lives, though their officers looked gloomy enough over their defeat. The Prussians found these captive Danes “sturdy fellows, but by no means soldierly-looking,” with their “rich sandy hair reaching far below the nape of their necks.” And, to tell the truth, their victors, no less than their admirers throughout Europe, expected that they would have made a far more vigorous defence; for desperate a defence could scarcely have been called which resulted in the capture of their chief redoubts within the brief space of about ten minutes.

The Prussians had won a glorious victory, but a dear one; for in dead they had lost 16 officers and 213 men, and in wounded 54 officers and 1,118 men. Among the officers who were wounded--mortally, as afterwards proved--was the brave General von Raven, who, as he was being borne to the rear, exclaimed: “It is high time that a Prussian General should again show how to die for his King.” On the other side General du Plat was also killed, while in dead and wounded officers and men and prisoners the Danish loss otherwise amounted to about 5,500. Among the trophies of victory which fell into the hands of the Prussians were 118 guns and 40 colours.

On being informed of all this, King William telegraphed from Berlin--“To Prince Frederick Charles. Next to the Lord of Hosts, I have to thank my splendid army under thy leadership for to-day’s glorious victory. Pray convey to the troops the expression of my highest acknowledgment and my kingly thanks for what they have done.” On seeing that victory was his, the “Red Prince” had bared his head and muttered a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord of Hosts, while some massed bands played a kind of _Te Deum_. “In the broad ditch to the rear of Fort No. 4,” wrote Dr. Russell, “the bands of four regiments had established themselves, and while the cannon were firing close behind them, they played a chorale, or song of thanksgiving, for the day’s success. The effect was striking, and the grouping of the troops and of the musicians, with their smart uniforms and bright instruments, standing in the deep trench against the shell-battered earthwork, and by palisades riven and shattered and shivered by shot, was most picturesque.”

But King William was not content with telegraphing to his troops, through his nephew Prince Frederick Charles, his acknowledgment of their bravery. Following hard on his telegram his Majesty himself hurried to the seat of war, with his “blood-and-iron” Minister, Bismarck, at his side, and passed in review the troops who had so stoutly stormed the redoubts of the Danes. These troops appeared on parade in the dress and equipment they had worn on the day of their great feat, and in the course of their march past jumped a broad drain to show his Majesty how nimbly they had stormed in upon the Danes. A fortnight later a select number of the Düppel stormers escorted into Berlin the guns--more than a hundred in number--which they had captured from the Danes, and were received with tremendous enthusiasm.

But this popular jubilation grew louder still when a few weeks later the war was ended altogether by the storming of the island of Alsen, into which the Danes had retired after their defeat at Düppel and entrenched themselves down to the water’s edge. In the deep darkness of a summer night (June 29th) the Prussians, in 160 boats, crossed the channel--about eight hundred yards broad--between the mainland and the island, though not without the usual amount of harassing opposition from the _Rolf Krake_, and under a murderous fire jumped ashore and made themselves master of the position in a manner which made some observers describe the affair as a mere “skirmish and a scamper.”

But all the same it was a feat which recalled the “Island of the Scots,” as sung by Ayton, and will always live in military history as a splendid feat of arms.

ROBERTS’ BATTLES ABOUT CABUL

BY ARCHIBALD FORBES

LORD ROBERTS OF CANDAHAR & WATERFORD]

The Afghan War of 1878–79 was terminated by the completion of what is known as the “Treaty of Gundamuk,” which was signed at that place in May, 1879, by Yakoub Khan--who, on the flight of his father, Shere Ali, had succeeded that ill-starred potentate as Ameer of Afghanistan--and by Major (afterwards Sir Louis) Cavagnari, representing Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India. This treaty gave practical--although, as it turned out, only temporary--effect to the “scientific frontier” of North-Western India, on the attainment of which the late Lord Beaconsfield, when Prime Minister, greatly plumed himself. The “scientific frontier” detached from Afghanistan and annexed to British India for the time being a large tract of territory. The Treaty of Gundamuk stipulated that a British envoy should thenceforth be resident in the Afghan capital; and to the onerous and dangerous post, at his own request, was assigned the resolute and cool-headed officer to whose wise and calm strength of will was mainly owing the accomplishment of the treaty. Sir Louis Cavagnari took with him to Cabul a subordinate Civil Servant, a surgeon, and a small escort of the famous “Guides,” commanded by the gallant Hamilton.

On the night of September 4th, 1879, a weary trooper of the Guides--one of the few who had escaped the slaughter--rode into a British outpost on the Shutargurdan height, with the startling tidings that Sir Louis Cavagnari, the members of his mission and the soldiers of his escort, had been massacred in the Balla Hissar of Cabul on the 3rd. The news reached Simla by telegraph on the morning of the 5th, and next day Sir Frederick Roberts, accompanied by Colonel Charles Macgregor, C.B., was speeding with relentless haste to the Kurum valley, the force remaining in which from the previous campaign was to constitute the nucleus of the little army of invasion and retribution, to the command of which Roberts was appointed. In less than a month he had crossed the Shutargurdan, and temporarily cutting loose from his base in the Kurum valley, was marching swiftly on Cabul, whence the Ameer Yakoub Khan had fled and thrown himself on Roberts’ protection.

All told, the army which Roberts led on Cabul was the reverse of a mighty host. Its entire strength was little greater than that of a Prussian brigade on a war-footing. Its fate was in its own hands, for, befall it what might, it could hope for no timely reinforcement. It was a mere detachment marching against a nation of fighting-men plentifully supplied with artillery, no longer shooting laboriously with jizails, but carrying arms of precision equal or little inferior to those in the hands of our own soldiery. But the men of Roberts’ command, Europeans and Easterns, hillmen of Scotland and hillmen of Nepaul, plainmen of Hampshire and plainmen of the Punjaub, strode along buoyant with confidence and with health, believing in their leader, in their discipline, in themselves. Of varied race, no soldier who followed Roberts but came of fighting stock; ever blithely rejoicing in the combat, one and all burned for the strife now before them with more than wonted ardour, because of the opportunity it promised to exact vengeance for a deed of foul treachery. Roberts’ column of invasion consisted of a cavalry brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Dunham Massy, and of two infantry brigades, the first commanded by Brigadier-General Macpherson, the second by Brigadier-General Baker, with three batteries of artillery, a company of sappers and miners, and two Gatling guns.

The soldiers had not long to wait for the first fight of the campaign. At dawn, of October 6th, Baker marched out from Charasiah towards his left front, against the heights held by an Afghan host in great strength and regular formation. Sweeping back the Afghan hordes with hard fighting, Baker wheeled to his right, marched along the lofty crest, rolling up and driving before him the Afghan defence as he moved towards the Sung-i-Nagusta gorge, which the gallant Major White[5] had already entered. While Baker had been turning the Afghan right, White and his little force had been distinguishing themselves not a little. After an artillery preparation, the detached hill covering the mouth of the pass had been won as the result of a hand-to-hand struggle. Later had fallen into the hands of White’s people all the Afghan guns, the heights to the immediate right and left of the gorge had been carried, the defenders driven away, and the pass opened up. Artillery fire crushed the defence of a strong fort commanding the road through the pass. The Afghans were routed, and on the following day the whole division passed the defile and camped within sight of the Balla Hissar, and the lofty mountain chain overhanging Cabul. In the fight of Charasiah less than half of Roberts’ force had been engaged, and this mere brigade had routed the army of Cabul and captured the whole of the artillery the latter had brought into the field. The Afghan loss was estimated at about three hundred; the British loss was twenty killed and sixty-seven wounded.

On the 9th the camp was moved forward to the Siah Sung heights, a mile eastward from the Balla Hissar (the palace and citadel of Cabul), to dominate which a regiment was detached; and a cavalry regiment occupied the Sherpur cantonment, the great magazine of which had been blown up, and whence the regiments which had been quartered in the cantonment had fled.

It was a melancholy visit which Sir Frederick Roberts made to the Balla Hissar on the 11th. Through the dirt and squalor of the lower portion, he ascended the narrow lane leading to the ruin which a few weeks earlier had been the British Residency. The commander of the avenging army looked with sorrowful eyes on the scene of heroism and slaughter, on the smoke-blackened ruins, the blood-splashes on the white-washed walls, the still smouldering _débris_, the half-burned skulls and bones in the blood-dabbled chamber where apparently the final struggle had been fought out. He stood in the breach in the quarters of the staunch and faithful Guides, where the gate had been blown in after the last of the sorties made by the gallant Hamilton, and lingered in the tattered wreck of poor Cavagnari’s drawing-room, its walls dinted with bullet-pits, its floor and divans brutally defiled. Next day, under the flagstaff from which waved the banner of Britain, he held a durbar in the audience chamber of the palace--in front and in flank of him the pushing throng of obsequious sirdars, arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow; behind them, standing immobile at attention, the guard of British infantry, with fixed bayonets which the soldiers longed to use.

Promptitude of advance on the part of the force to which had been assigned the supporting line of invasion by the Khyber-Jellalabad route was of scarcely less moment than the rapidity of the stroke which Roberts was commissioned to deliver. But delay on delay marked the mobilisation and advance of the troops operating by the Khyber line. There was no lack of earnestness anywhere, but the barren hills and rugged passes could furnish no supplies; the country in rear had to furnish everything, and there was nothing at the base of operations, neither any accumulation of supplies nor means to transport supplies if they had been accumulated. Communications were opened from Cabul with the Khyber force and India, it was true, but no reinforcement came to Roberts from that force until the 11th December, when there arrived the Guides, 900 strong, brought up by Jenkins from Jugdulluck by forced marches. Five weeks earlier, when the Kurum line of communication was closed for the winter, Roberts had received the welcome accession of a wing of the 9th Lancers, Money’s Sikh regiment, and four mountain guns: his strength was thus increased to about 7,000 men.

For some weeks after Roberts’ arrival at Cabul, almost perfect quiet prevailed in and around the Afghan capital, but the chief was well aware how precarious and deceitful was the calm. When the impending announcement of Yakoub Khan’s dethronement and deportation should be made, Roberts knew the Afghan nature too well to doubt that the tribal blood-feuds would be soldered for the time, that Dooranee and Baraksai would strike hands, that Afghan regulars and Afghan irregulars would rally under the same standards, and that the fierce shouts of “Deen! deen!” would resound on hill-top and in plain. He was ready for the strife, and would not hesitate to strike quick and hard, for Roberts knew the value of a resolute and vigorous offensive in dealing with Afghans. But it behoved him, above all things, to make timely choice of his winter-quarters where he should collect his supplies and house his troops and their followers. After careful deliberation the Sherpur cantonment, a mile outside of Cabul, was selected. It was overlarge for easy defence, but hard work, skilled engineering, and steadfast courage would remedy that evil. And Sherpur had a great advantage in that, besides being in a measure a ready-made defensive position, it had shelter for all the troops and would accommodate also the horses of the cavalry, the transport animals, and all the needful supplies and stores.

The deportation to India of Yakoub Khan and his three principal ministers was the signal for a general rising. The Peter the Hermit of Afghanistan in 1879 was the old Mushk-i-Alum, the fanatic chief moulla (or priest) of Ghuznee, who went to and fro among the tribes proclaiming the sacred duty of a religious war against the unbelieving invaders. The combination of fighting tribes found a competent leader in Mahomed Jan, a Warduk general of proved courage and capacity. The plan of campaign was comprehensive and well devised. A contingent from the Logur country south of Cabul was to seize the Sher Darwaza heights, stretching southward from Cabul toward Charasiah. The northern contingent from the Kohistan and Kohdaman was to occupy the Asmai heights north-west of the city, while the troops from the Maidan and Warduk territory away to the south-westward of the capital, led by Mahomed Jan in person, should come in by Urgundeh across the Chardeh Valley, take possession of Cabul, and rally to their banners the disaffected population of the city and the surrounding villages. The concentration of the three bodies effected, Cabul and the ridge against which it leans occupied, the next step was to be the investment of the Sherpur cantonment, preparatory to an assault in force upon that stronghold.

The British general, through his spies, had information of those projects. To allow the projected concentration would be fraught with mischief, and both experience and temperament enjoined in Roberts a prompt initiative. He resolved, in the first instance, to deal with Mahomed Jan’s force, which was reckoned some 5,000 strong; the other contingents might be disregarded for the moment. On the 8th of December Baker marched out with a force consisting of 900 infantry, two and a half squadrons, and four guns, with instructions to break up the tribal assemblage in the Logur valley, march thence south-westward, and take a position across the Ghuznee road in the Maidan valley, on the line of retreat which it was hoped that Macpherson would succeed in enforcing on Mahomed Jan. Macpherson was to move westward with 1,300 bayonets, three squadrons, and eight guns, across the Chardeh valley to Urgurdeh, where it was expected that he would find Mahomed Jan’s levies, which he was to attack and drive southward to Maidan upon Baker. Should this combination come off, the Afghan leader would find himself, it was hoped, between the upper and the lower millstone, and would be punished so severely as to hinder him from giving further trouble.

It happened, however, as Macpherson was about starting on the 9th, that a cavalry reconnaissance found the Kohistanee levies in considerable strength about Karez Meer, some ten miles north-west of Cabul. It was imperative promptly to disperse them, and Macpherson, on the 10th, had to alter his line of advance and move against the Kohistanees, a divergence from the original plan which had the effect of wrecking the previously arranged combined movement and bringing about a very critical situation. After a sharp fight Macpherson routed the Kohistanees, and halted on the ground for the night. In the hope that the combination might still be effected, he was ordered to march south-west toward Urgundeh on the morning of the 11th, where it was hoped he would find Mahomed Jan and drive him towards Baker. Macpherson had left his cavalry and wheeled guns at Aushar on the eastern edge of the Chardeh valley; and he was informed that they would leave that place at 9 a.m. of the same day, under the command of Brigadier-General Massy, and move across the valley in the direction of Urgundeh, where Macpherson, it was expected, would re-unite himself with them. Massy’s orders were to proceed cautiously to join Macpherson, but “on no account to commit himself to an action until the latter had engaged the enemy.”

Macpherson marched from Karez Meer at eight a.m. of the 11th. Massy left Aushar an hour later, and went across country instead of keeping to the road. His force consisted of two squadrons 9th Lancers, a troop of Bengal Lancers, and four horse artillery guns. Near Killa Kazee his advance guard sent back word that the hills in front were occupied by the enemy in considerable force. Massy halted when he saw some 2,000 Afghans forming across the road, and from the hills to right and left broad streams of armed men pouring down the slopes and massing in the plain. The surprise was complete, the situation full of perplexity. There was no Macpherson within ken of Massy. If he retired, he probably would be rushed. If, on the other hand, he should show a bold front, and, departing from his orders in the urgent crisis face to face with which he found himself, should strain every nerve to “hold” the Afghan masses in their present position, there was the possibility that he might save the situation and give time for Macpherson to come up. Massy, for better or for worse, committed himself to the offensive, and opened fire on the Afghan masses. But they were not daunted, and the guns had again and again to be retired. The outlook was ominous when Roberts arrived on the scene. He acted promptly, as was his wont, directing Massy to retire till he found an opportunity to charge; he sent General Hills back to Sherpur to warn its garrison to be on the alert, and to order the despatch at speed of a wing of the 72nd Highlanders to the village of Deh Mazung in the throat of the gorge of the Cabul river, which the Highlanders were to hold to extremity.

The moment seemed to have come for the action of the cavalry. Colonel Cleland led his lancers straight for the centre of the Afghan line. Captain Gough, away on the Afghan left, eagerly “conformed,” crushing in on the enemy’s flank at the head of his troop. There have been few forlorner hopes than the errand on which, on this ill-starred day, over 200 troopers rode into the heart of 10,000 Afghans flushed with unwonted good fortune. Through the dust-cloud of the charge were visible the flashes of the Afghan volleys and the sheen of the British lance-heads as they came down to the “engage.” There was a short interval of suspense, the din of the _mêlée_ faintly heard, but invisible behind the bank of smoke and dust. Then from out the obscurity of the battle riderless horses came galloping back, followed slowly by broken groups of dismounted troopers. Gallantly led home, the charge had failed. What other could have been the result? Sixteen troopers had been slain, seven were wounded; two brave young officers lay dead where they fell. Cleland came out with a sword cut and a bullet wound, which latter gave him his death a few months later. The Afghans pressed on. A gun had to be spiked and abandoned, its officer, Lieutenant Hardy, remaining by it until killed; three other guns stuck fast in a watercourse. All four were gallantly recovered by Colonel Macgregor the same afternoon by a most skilful and daring effort, which only he would have ventured upon. The retreat was stubborn and orderly; but there was an anxious interval at Deh Mazung until the Highlanders came through the gorge at the double; when, after a short interval of firing, the Afghans climbed the slopes of the Sher Derwasa heights, and occupied the summit of the Tahkt-i-Shah. Macpherson, marching in, struck and broke the Afghan rear. On the 12th, Baker fought his steadfast way back to Sherpur. The casualties of the 11th were not light--thirty men killed and forty-four wounded. The Afghans were naturally elated by the success they had achieved, and it was clear that Mahomed Jan had a quick eye for opportunities and some skill in handling men.

From the Sher Derwasa heights Macpherson, with barely 600 men, attempted, on the morning of the 12th, to carry the rocky summit of the Tahkt-i-Shah, but after a prolonged and bitter struggle it had to be recognised that the direct attack by so weak a force, unaided by a diversion, could not succeed. Macpherson remained on the ground he had actually won, informed that on the following morning he was to expect Baker’s co-operation from the south. The casualties of the abortive attempt included three officers, one of whom--Major Cook, V.C., of the Goorkhas, than whom the British army contained no better soldier--died of his wounds.

The lesson of the result of attempting impossibilities had been taken to heart, and the force which Baker led out on the morning of the 13th was exceptionally strong, consisting as it did of the 92nd Highlanders and the Guides infantry, a wing of the 3rd Sikhs, a cavalry regiment, and eight guns. Marching in the direction of the lateral spur stretching out from the main ridge eastward towards Beni Hissar, Baker observed that large masses of the enemy were quitting the plain villages in which they had been spending the winter night, and were hurrying upward to gain and hold the summit of the spur, which constituted the main defensive position of the Afghan reserve. His opportunity flashed upon the ready-witted Baker. By gaining the centre of the spur he would cut in two the Afghan mass, holding its continuous summit, and so isolate and neutralise the portion of that mass in position from the centre of the spur to its eastern extremity. To effect this stroke it was, however, necessary that he should act with promptitude and energy. His guns opened a hot fire on the Afghan bodies holding the crest of the spur. His Sikhs, extended athwart the plain, protected his right flank; his cavalry on the left cut into the groups of Afghans hastening to ascend the eastern extremity of the spur. With noble emulation the Highlanders and the Guides sprang up the rugged slope, their faces set towards the centre of the summit line. Major White, who had already earned many laurels in the campaign, led on the 92nd; the Guides, burning to make the most of their first opportunity to distinguish themselves, followed eagerly the gallant Jenkins, the chief who had so often led them to victory on other fields. Lieutenant Forbes, a young officer of the 92nd, heading the advance of his regiment, reached the summit accompanied only by his colour-sergeant. A band of Ghazees rushed on the pair, and the sergeant fell dead. As Forbes stood covering the body, he was overpowered and slain. The sudden and bloody catastrophe staggered for a moment the soldiers following their officer, but Lieutenant Dick Cunyngham rallied them immediately and led them forward at speed. For his conduct on this occasion Cunyngham worthily received the Victoria Cross.

With rolling volleys the Highlanders and the Guides reached and won the rocky summit. The Afghans momentarily defended the position, but the British fire swept them away, and the bayonets disposed of the Ghazees, who fought and died under their standards. The severance of the Afghan line was now complete. A detachment was left to maintain the isolation of some 2,000 of the enemy who had been cut off; and then swinging to their right with a cheer Baker’s regiments swept along the spur towards the main ridge and the Takht-i-Shah. As they rushed forward they rolled up the Afghan line, and the enemy fled in panic flight. Assailed from both sides, for Macpherson’s men were climbing the north side of the peak, and shaken by the fire of the mountain guns, the garrison of the Takht-i-Shah evacuated the position. Baker’s soldiers toiled vigorously upward towards the peak, keen for the honour of winning it; but that honour justly fell to their comrades of Macpherson’s command, who had striven so valiantly to earn it on the previous afternoon, and who had gained possession of the peak and the standards left flying on its summit a few minutes in advance of the arrival of White’s Highlanders and Jenkins’ Guides. As the midday gun was fired in the Sherpur cantonment, the flash of the heliograph from the peak told that the Takht-i-Shah was won.

While the fight was proceeding on the mountain summits, another was being fought on the Siah Sung upland springing out of the plain, within artillery range of Sherpur. On this elevation had gathered masses of Afghans from the turbulent city and from the villages about Beni Hissar, with intent to hinder Baker’s return march. The Sherpur guns shelled them, but they held their ground, and the cavalry galloped out from the cantonment to disperse them. The Afghans showed unwonted resolution; but the British horsemen were not to be denied. Captains Butson and Chisholme led their squadrons against the Afghan flanks, and the troopers of the 9th Lancers swept their fierce way through and through the hostile masses. But in the charge Butson was killed, and Chisholme and Trower were wounded; the sergeant-major and three men were killed, and seven men were wounded. Brilliant charges were delivered by the other cavalry detachments, and the Siah Sung heights were ultimately cleared. The Guides’ cavalry attacked, defeated, and pursued for a long distance a body of Kohistanees marching north apparently with intent to join Mahomed Jan. The casualties of the day were sixteen killed and forty-five wounded--not a heavy loss, considering the amount of hard fighting. The Afghans were estimated to have lost in killed alone from 200 to 300 men.

The operations of the 13th were successful so far as they went, but the actual results attained scarcely warranted the belief that the Afghans had suffered so severely that they would now break up their combination and disperse to their homes. The General, indeed, was under the belief that the enemy had been “foiled in their western and southern operations.” But the morning of the 14th effectually dispelled the optimistic anticipations indulged in overnight. At daybreak large bodies of Afghans, with many standards, were discerned on a hill about a mile northward of the Asmai heights, from which hill and from the Kohistan road they were moving on to the Asmai crest. They were presently joined there by several thousands climbing the steep slopes rising from the village of Deh Afghan, the northern suburb of Cabul. It was estimated that about 8,000 men were in position on the Asmai heights, and occupying also a low conical hill beyond their north-western termination. The array of Afghans displayed itself within a mile of the west face of the Sherpur cantonment, and formed a menace that could not be brooked. To General Baker was entrusted the task of dislodging the enemy from the threatening position, with a force consisting of about 1,200 bayonets, eight guns, and a regiment of native cavalry. Baker’s first object was to gain possession of the conical hill already mentioned, and thus debar the Afghan bodies on the Asmai heights from receiving accessions either from the hill further north or by the Kohistan road. Under cover of the artillery fire, the Highlanders and Guides occupied the conical hill after a short conflict. A detachment of all arms was left to hold it, and Colonel Jenkins, who commanded the attack, set about the arduous task of storming from the northward the formidable position of the Asmai heights. The assault was led by Brownlow’s brave Highlanders of the 72nd, supported on their right by the Guides operating on the enemy’s flank, and the Afghan position was heavily shelled from the plain and the cantonment.

In the face of a heavy fire the Highlanders and Guides climbed the rugged hillside leading up to the Afghan breastworks, on the northern edge of the summit. The British shrapnel fire had driven many of its defenders to seek shelter down in Deh Afghan; but the Ghazees in the breastworks fought desperately, and died under their standards as the Highlanders carried the defences with a rush. The crest--about a quarter of a mile long--was traversed under heavy fire, and the southern breastwork on the Asmai peak was approached. It was strong, and strongly held; but a cross-fire was brought to bear on its garrison, and then the frontal attack, led gallantly by Corporal Sellar of the 72nd, was delivered. After a hand-to-hand grapple, in which Highlanders and Guides were freely cut and slashed by the Ghazees, the position, which was full of dead, was carried, but with considerable loss. The Afghans streamed down from the heights, torn as they descended by shell-fire and musketry-fire: when they took refuge in Deh Afghan that place was heavily shelled. The whole summit of the Asmai heights was now in British possession, and it seemed for the moment that a decisive victory had been won.

But scarcely had Jenkins found himself in full possession of the Asmai position, when the fortune of the day was suddenly overcast. A great host of Afghans, estimated to number from 15,000 to 20,000, had debouched from the direction of Indiki into the Chardeh valley, and was moving swiftly northward with the apparent object of forming a junction with the masses occupying the hills to the north-west of the Asmai heights.

Cavalry scouts galloping from the Chardeh valley brought in the tidings that large bodies of hostile infantry and cavalry were hurrying across the valley in the direction of the conical hill, which was being held by Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, with only 120 Highlanders and Guides. Baker, recognising Clark’s weakness, reinforced that officer with four mountain guns and 100 bayonets--a reinforcement which proved inadequate. The guns, indeed, opened fire on the Afghan bodies crossing the valley and drove them out of range; but these bodies coalesced dexterously with the host advancing from Indiki, and then the great Afghan mass, suddenly facing to the right, struck the whole range of the British position, stretching from near the Cabul gorge on the south to and beyond the conical hill on the north. The most vulnerable point was about that eminence. Baker sent Clark a second reinforcement, and 200 Sikhs doubled out from Sherpur to further strengthen him. But the Afghans, swarming up from out the Chardeh valley, had the shorter distance to travel, and were beforehand with the hurrying reinforcements. As the Afghan front and flank attacks developed themselves, they encountered from the garrison of the conical hill a heavy rifle fire, and shells at short range tore through the loose rush of Ghazees; but the bhang-maddened fanatics sped on and up without wavering. As they gathered behind a mound for the final onslaught, Captain Spens with a handful of his Highlanders, charged out on the forlorn hope of dislodging them. A rush was made on the gallant Scot; he was overpowered and slaughtered after a desperate resistance, and the charge of the infuriated Ghazees swept up the hillside. In momentary panic the defenders yielded the ground, carrying downhill with them the reinforcement of Punjaubees which Captain Hall was bringing up. Two of the mountain guns were lost, but there was a rally at the foot of the hill, under cover of which the other two were extricated. The Afghans refrained from descending into the plain, and directed their efforts towards cutting off the British troops still in position on the Asmai heights.

ROBERTS’
BATTLES ABOUT
CABUL.

December, 1879.]

It was estimated that the Afghan strength disclosed this day did not fall far short of 40,000 men; and General Roberts, reluctantly compelled to abandon for the time any further offensive efforts, determined to withdraw the troops from all isolated positions and to concentrate his whole force within the protection of the Sherpur cantonment. The orders issued to Baker and Macpherson, gradually to retire into the cantonment, were executed with skill and steadiness. Macpherson coolly marched through Deh Afghan, his baggage sent on in front under a guard. Jenkins’ evacuation of the Asmai position was conspicuously adroit. Baker held a covering position until all the other details had steadily made good their retirement, and he was the last to withdraw. By dusk the whole British force was safely concentrated within the cantonment, and the period of the defensive had begun. The casualties of the day were serious--35 killed and 107 wounded. During the week of fighting the little force had lost altogether, in officers and men, 83 killed and 192 wounded.

Although overlarge for its garrison, the Sherpur cantonment possessed many of the features of a strong defensive position. On the southern and western faces the massive and continuous enceinte made it impregnable against any force unprovided with siege artillery; but on the eastern face the incomplete wall was low, and the northern line of defence on the Behmaroo heights was defective until strengthened by a series of blockhouses supporting a continuous entrenchment studded with batteries. The space between the north-western bastion and the heights was closed by an entrenchment supported by a laager of Afghan gun-carriages and limbers; the open space on the north-eastern angle was similarly fortified; the unfinished eastern wall was heightened by built-up tiers of logs, and its front, as elsewhere, was covered with _abattis_ wire entanglements, and other obstacles. The enceinte was divided into sections, to each of which was assigned a commanding officer with a specified detail of troops; and a strong brigade of European infantry was under the command of Brigadier-General Baker, ready at short notice to reinforce any threatened point. Before the enemy cut the telegraph wire, in the early morning of the 15th, Sir Frederick Roberts had informed the authorities in India of his situation and need for reinforcement.

During the 15th and 16th the Afghan troops were busily engaged in sacking the Hindoo and Kuzzilbash quarters of Cabul, in looting and wrecking the houses of chiefs and townsfolk who had shown friendliness to the British, and in fiercely quarrelling among themselves over the spoil. On the 17th and 18th they made sundry ostentatious demonstrations against Sherpur, but these were never formidable. Although they made themselves troublesome with some perseverance during the daytime, they consistently refrained from night-attacks, to which ordinarily the Afghan hillmen are much addicted. There never was any investment of Sherpur, nor indeed any approximation to an investment. The Afghan offensive was not dangerous, but annoying and wearisome. It was pushed, it was true, with some resolution on the 18th, when several thousand men poured out of the city, and skirmished forward under a cover of the gardens and enclosures on the plain between Cabul and the cantonment. Some of the more adventurous were able to get within four hundred paces from the enceinte, but could make no further headway, although they long maintained a brisk fire. The return fire was chiefly restricted to volleys directed on those few of the enemy who offered a sure mark by exposing themselves; and shell-fire was chiefly used to drive the Afghan skirmishers from their cover in the gardens and enclosures. On the morning of the 19th it was found that in the night they had occupied the Meer Akhor fort, a few hundred yards in front of the eastern face of the enceinte. Baker went out on the errand of destroying it, with 880 bayonets, two guns, and a party of sappers. In the approach through the mist, a sudden volley struck down several men, and Lieutenant Montenaro, of the mounted battery, was mortally wounded. The fort was heavily shelled, its garrison was driven out, and it was blown up.

For the moment circumstances had enforced on Roberts the wisdom of accepting the defensive attitude, but he nevertheless knew himself the virtual master of the situation. He had but one anxiety--the apprehension lest the Afghans should not harden their hearts to deliver a real assault on his position. That apprehension was not long to give him concern. On the 20th the enemy took strong possession of the Mahomed Shereeff fort on the southern face of Sherpur; and they maintained themselves there during the two following days against the fire of siege guns mounted on the bastions of the enceinte. On the 21st and 22nd large numbers of Afghans quitted the city, and passing eastward behind the Siah Sung heights, took possession in great force of the forts and villages outside the eastern face of Sherpur, which should have been destroyed previously. On the afternoon of the 22nd a spy brought in the intelligence that Mahomed Jan and his brother chief had resolved to assault the cantonment early on the following morning. His tidings were true; and the spy was even able to communicate the details of the plan of attack. The 2,000 men who were holding the King’s Garden and the Mahomed Shereeff post had been equipped with scaling-ladders, and were to make a false attack, which might become a real one, against the western section of the front. The principal assault, however, was to be made against the eastern face of the Behmaroo village, unquestionably the weakest part of the defensive position. The 23rd was the last day of the Mohurrum--the great Mahomedan religious festival--when fanaticism would be at its height; and further to stimulate that incentive to valour, the Mushk-i-Alum was his holy self to kindle the beacon fire on the Asmai height which would be the signal to the faithful to rush to the attack.

The information proved perfectly accurate. All night long the shouts and chants of the Afghans filled the air. Purposeful silence reigned throughout the cantonment. In the darkness the soldiers mustered and quietly fell into their places. The officers commanding sections of the defence made their dispositions. The reserves were silently standing to their arms. Every eye was toward the Asmai height, shrouded still in the gloom of the night. A long tongue of flame shot up into the air, blazed brilliantly for a few moments, and then waned. At the signal a fierce fire opened from before one of the gateways of the southern face, the flashes indicating that the marksmen were plying their rifles within two hundred yards of the enceinte. The bullets sped harmlessly over the defenders sheltered behind the parapet, and in the dusk of the dawn reprisals were not attempted. But this outburst of powder-burning against the southern face was a mere incident. What men listened for and watched for was the development of the true assault on the eastern end of the great parallelogram. The section-commanders there were General Hugh Gough, in charge of the eastern end of the Behmaroo heights, and Colonel Jenkins from the village down past the native hospitals to the bastion at the south-eastern corner. The defending troops were the Guides from Behmaroo to the hospital, in which were 100 Punjaubees; and beyond to the bastion the 67th reinforced by two companies of the 92nd. From beyond Behmaroo and the eastern trenches and walls as day broke, there came a roar of voices so loud and menacing that it seemed as if an army 50,000 strong was charging down on our thin line of men. Led by Ghazees, the main body of Afghans, who had been hidden in the villages and orchards on the east side of Sherpur, rushed out in one dense horde, and every throat was filling the air with shouts of “Allah-il-Allah!” The roar surged forward as the line advanced, but it was answered by such a roll of musketry that it was drowned for the moment, and then merged into the general turmoil of sound that told our men with Martinis and Sniders were holding their own against the assailants.

When the first attack was made the morning was so dark and misty that the outlook from the trenches was restricted, and the order to the troops was to hold their fire until the enemy should be distinctly visible. The Punjaubee detachment in the hospital opened fire prematurely, and presently the Guides, holding Behmaroo and the trenches on the slopes, followed the example, and sweeping with their fire the terrain in front of them broke the force of the attack when its leaders were still several hundred yards away. Between the hospital and the corner bastion, the men of the 67th and 92nd awaited with impassive discipline the word of permission to begin firing. From out the mist at length emerged dense masses of men, some of whom were brandishing swords and knives, while others loaded and fired when hurrying forward. The order to fire was not given until the leading Ghazees were within eighty yards, and the mass of assailants not more than two hundred. Heavily struck by volley on volley, they recoiled, but soon gathered courage to come on again; and for several hours there was sharp fighting, repeated efforts being made to carry the low eastern wall. So resolute were the Afghans that more than once they reached the _abattis_, but each time they were driven back with heavy loss. About ten o’clock there was a lull, and it seemed that the attacking force was owning the frustration of its attempts; but an hour later there was a partial recrudescence of the fighting, and the assailants once more came on. The attack, however, was not pushed with much vigour, and was soon beaten down, but the Afghans still maintained a threatening attitude, and the fire from the defences was ineffectual to dislodge them. The General then determined to take them in flank, and with this intention sent out into the open through the Behmaroo gorge four field-guns escorted by a cavalry regiment. Bending to the right, the guns came into action on the Afghan right flank, and the counterstroke had an immediate effect. The enemy wavered, and soon were in full retreat. The Kohistanee contingent, some 5,000 strong, cut loose and marched away northward with obvious recognition that the game was up. The fugitives were scourged with artillery and rifle fire; and Massy led out the cavalry, swept the plain, and drove the lingering Afghans from the slopes of Siah Sung. The false attacks on the southern face from the King’s Garden and the Mahomed Shereef fort never made any head. Those positions were steadily shelled until late in the afternoon, when they were finally evacuated, and by nightfall all the villages and enclosures between Sherpur and Cabul were entirely deserted. Some of these had been destroyed by sappers from the garrison during the afternoon, in the course of which operation two gallant Engineer officers, Captain Dundas and Lieutenant Nugent, were unfortunately killed by the premature explosion of a mine.

Mahomed Jan had been as good as his word: he had delivered his stroke against Sherpur; and that stroke had utterly failed. With its failure came promptly the collapse of the national rising. Before daybreak of the 24th the formidable combination, which had included all the fighting elements of North-Eastern Afghanistan, and under whose banners it was believed that more than 100,000 armed men had mustered, was no more. Not only had it broken up--it had disappeared. Neither in the city itself nor in the adjacent villages, nor on the surrounding heights, was a tribesman to be seen. So hurried had been the Afghan dispersal that the dead were left to lie unburied where they had fallen. His nine days on the defensive had cost Sir Frederick Roberts singularly little in casualties: his losses were eighteen killed and sixty-eight wounded. The enemy’s loss in killed and wounded, from first to last of the rising, was reckoned to be not under 3,000.

On the 24th the cavalry rode far and fast in pursuit of the fugitives, but they overtook none, such haste had the fleeing Afghans made. On the same day Cabul and the Balla Hissar were reoccupied, and General Hills resumed his functions as military governor of the city, _vice_ the old moulla Mushk-i-Alum, departed precipitately to regions unknown. Cabul had the aspect of having undergone a siege at the hands of an enemy; the bazaars were broken up and deserted. After making a few examples, the General issued a proclamation of amnesty, excluding therefrom only five of the principal leaders and fomenters of the recent rising. This policy of conciliation bore good fruit; and a durbar was held on January 9th, 1880, at which were present about 300 sirdars, chiefs, and headmen from the various provinces. Although the country remained disturbed, there were no more outbreaks. Cabul and Sherpur were strongly fortified, military roads were made, and all cover and obstructions for the space of 1,000 yards outside the enceinte of Sherpur were swept away. In March the Cabul force had increased to a strength of about 11,500 men and twenty-six guns; and General Roberts formed it into two divisions, one of which he himself commanded, the other being commanded by Major-General John Ross.

On 2nd May, Sir Donald Stewart arrived at Cabul from Candahar, and took over from Sir Frederick Roberts the command in North-Eastern Afghanistan.

[_Photo., Lock & Whitfield. Regent St., W._

SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS IN 1880.]

CUSTOZZA.

_By A. Hilliard Atteridge._]