Chapter XLI: Conclusion

I have not gone into the details of the movements of the Cabul-Candahar force after the Battle of Candahar, as there was no further opposition, and the military programme carried out was only of local importance. The brigades were marched back to India as quickly as possible, with the exception of the 9th Lancers and 6-8 R.A., which were left at Candahar. The following letter, written in Candahar, will throw some light on the strategy of the action on September 1st:—

CANDAHAR, _20th September_.

There is but one opinion here as to the unsoundness of the criticisms
upon General Roberts’s action of the 1st; it is that the critics have
jumped to conclusions on imperfect reports, having taken the first
meagre telegrams as their guide. By an incessant study of small-scale
maps they gained a superficial knowledge of the Argandab Valley, and
were fully convinced that the proper mode of directing the attack
would have been to throw an intercepting force 30 or 40 miles in rear
of Mazra, and then to have attacked Ayub from Candahar—no doubt by way
of the Pir Paimal village. They point their arguments by adding that
our cavalry pursuit was really inoperative, as only 400 of the
fugitives were killed, while the great mass escaped. Admitted that
after we had rolled them back from Pir Paimal the great majority got
off scot-free, this by no means proves that a weak brigade could have
cut off their retreat; for it seems to be forgotten that not one, but
many, roads were open to them, while the mountainous nature of the
country on the higher reaches of the Argandab was all in favour of
trained hill-men such as Afghans always are. Their cavalry and many
thousands of footmen made straight for the Khakrez Valley, knowing
well that once the range of hills, eight miles west and north-west of
the Argandab, was reached, they were quite safe. There was no
necessity at all for their retirement northwards up the Argandab—or
rather north-eastwards—and it is quite an open question if any brigade
we could have spared would have even seen many of the fugitives.
General Roberts’s first and greatest duty was to induce Ayub Khan to
give him battle, and not to cause a scare in his camp by premature
strategical movements, 30 or 40 miles up the Argandab Valley. It may
not be known, also, that when the infantry was encamped near
Shar-i-Safa, one march from Robat, on August 27th the news from
Candahar led us to believe that Ayub might possibly forsake Mazra and
try to escape in the Ghazni direction by way of the Argandab stream.
General Roberts at once recognized the necessity of barring any
movement _in force_ in this direction, and a column of about 2,000 men
was told off to march by way of Bori, and Dala, and block the road up
the Argandab. But when heliographic communication with Candahar was
opened up later in the day, and Colonel St. John’s reports showed that
Ayub was busy strengthening his position at Mazra, the order given for
the column to move out was at once countermanded. It was known that
the Afghan force was mainly composed of men from Zamindawar, Candahar,
and Herat—the Cabuli element being very small, and the Kizilbashes and
Kohistanis being already in treaty with Colonel St. John to desert at
short notice. The main body of real fighting men, therefore, would
seek safety in flight, after defeat, not northwards towards
Khelat-i-Ghilzai, but to the west and north-west, where the hills
offered them shelter until they could regain their homes. This line of
flight was really taken; but as our cavalry brigade under General Hugh
Gough could not reach the Kokaran Ford until Gundigan and the orchards
about had been cleared by General Baker’s Infantry Brigade, Ayub Khan
and his cavalry escort—leaving Mazra, it should be remembered, at
11.30 A.M.—had easily covered the seven or eight miles of ground
between the river and the slopes of the hills bounding the Khakrez
Valley on the south. Besides, the tactics of the fugitives were such
as to neutralize any pursuit or the action of any intercepting force:
hundreds took refuge in the villages, buried their arms, or hid them
securely away, and came out to greet our troops in the guise of
harmless peasants. If these had been slaughtered in cold blood the
cavalry would have returned with the report that not 300 or 400, but
1,300 or 1,400 of the enemy had been killed. I do not make this
statement on my own unsupported authority, but on the direct testimony
of cavalry officers engaged in the pursuit. Thus the 9th Lancers gave
chase to a large number of men evidently in full flight. On coming up
with them, the Lancers found these fugitives without arms, and though
there could be no reasonable doubt that they had hidden their weapons
some little time before, Lieutenant Colonel Bushman ordered his men to
spare their lives. The Lancers rode among them, and if any man had
been detected with a knife or pistol he would probably have paid the
forfeit of his life. In other instances small bands were hunted into
villages, and when the cavalry rode up men appeared holding little
children in their arms, and prayed for mercy. What was to be done to
an enemy resorting to such manœuvres? Our cavalry could not take
prisoners as they had to continue the pursuit: and these units of the
Mazra army were shown that mercy which they refused to our men
retreating from Maiwand!

Again, any intercepting force thrown into the Argandab Valley could
not hope to co-operate with the force attacking from Candahar; they
would have been a detached corps of observation, merely watching for
Afghans fleeing into their arms. First of all they must have been sent
completely away from our main body either at Shar-i-Safa or Robat in
order to cross the hills by the only available _kotal_ near Dala
(between 30 and 40 miles above the Baba Wali Kotal); for the Murcha
Kotal was held in force by Ayub. They could not approach to within 20
miles of Mazra, for a further advance would have been to court an
attack by overwhelming numbers, while General Roberts was marching
from Robat to Candahar. The safety of 2,000 men would have been
endangered, while the only object they could have gained would have
been the interception of a few hundred of Cabulis, who would probably
have taken to the precipitous hills and escaped in the night. The
Argandab Valley narrows greatly, 30 or 40 miles above Mazra, and
cavalry would have been worse than useless with the intercepting (?)
column. It cannot be urged with too much emphasis, that Ayub Khan’s
line of retreat, _if his army were defeated_, was in the Khakrez
direction, for his men, in their slack discipline, would make for
their own villages and not rush off at a tangent towards
Khelat-i-Ghilzai. All Afghan “armies,” so-called, and Ayub’s was
perhaps more worthy of respect than any we have yet met, have a power
of dispersion which is unrivalled. Organized pursuit against them is
almost impossible: unless every mountain path and torrent bed within
50 miles could be searched at once.

General Roberts has had more experience in Afghan warfare than any
other of our commanders; and his tactics were based on sounder
principles than those advocated by critics unversed altogether even in
the details of past actions. To say Pir Paimal could have been carried
with fewer troops than those engaged is to beg the whole question. The
action of Ahmed Khel proved that when fanaticism is at red-heat, 5,000
or 6,000 men may charge right into our ranks. Would it have been wise
to have dispensed with General Macgregor’s brigade (some 2,000 strong)
as a reserve in case of such another charge down from the Baba Wali
Kotal upon General Macpherson’s right flank? And yet General Macgregor
had about the number of men which would have been absorbed if the
much-talked of “intercepting column” had been waiting, 30 or 40 miles
up the Argandab Valley, ignorant of what was happening at Candahar. It
may be urged that there were 4,000 men of the Candahar garrison at
General Roberts’s disposal; but it would have been unwise to ask much
of a garrison still suffering from the shock of the terrible disaster
at Maiwand, and only half-realizing that they were no longer besieged
within the walls of Candahar. That I am not exaggerating the
depression prevailing in the Bombay Division, will be clear from the
fact that General Primrose, on the evening of the 31st August,
personally stopped a string of mules which were leaving the citadel
with bread and barley for the Bengal troops. Our reconnaissance was
returning, and there was certainly heavy rifle-fire beyond Karez hill,
while the enemy’s guns on Baba Wali Kotal were also adding to the din.
Our troops were holding Picquet Hill, and our camp was within 2,500
yards of the Eedgah Gate, out of which an officer in the Commissariat
Department was conducting the little convoy. Between that convoy and
“danger” were some 10,000 picked men, nearly all British, Sikhs, and
Ghoorkas; but the “risk” of allowing the bread and grain to be carried
a mile and a half was pronounced “too great” by General Primrose
himself. The Commissariat officer, knowing food was needed in camp,
managed to gain permission to take on the mules laden with bread, and
he saw nothing to disturb him on the road. The ground between the
north-western bastion and the nearest wall of cantonments (1,200 yards
away) is as bare as the Sahara, and it was not likely the enemy’s
cavalry picquet below the Baba Wali Kotal would have charged out a
couple of miles to capture the mules, even if they had seen them. The
story is told not to detract from General Primrose’s judgment and
ability, but to illustrate the unhealthy feeling and want of tone in
the garrison, in spite of the efforts of brave and resolute men to
wipe out the recollection of Maiwand and Deh-i-Khwaja from the minds
of their fellows.

I have tried to write without undue dogmatism: but I may have been
betrayed into laying too great a stress upon “probabilities,” viz.,
that the enemy’s line of retreat would be towards Khakrez and not up
the narrow Argandab Valley, and that Ayub’s irregulars might have
furnished a band of desperate men led by ghazis to make a
counter-attack from Baba Wali Kotal. I have carefully avoided any
reference to the entrenched camp of Ayub at Mazra, which our spies
assured us existed, and which General Macgregor’s Brigade, fresh and
untouched by fire, were intended to storm if Generals Macpherson and
Baker had been checked in their progress. I think these probabilities
were justified fully so far as the retreat is concerned, while the
knowledge that we had all our forces concentrated behind Karez and
Picquet Hills may have prevented the masses of men about the Baba Wali
Kotal (in the earlier part of the day) from making a counter-attack.
If there is one part which criticism may fairly seize upon, and which
our own Brigadiers would be the first to acknowledge, it is the want
of cavalry with General Ross when the 72nd and 2nd Sikhs on the one
hand, and the 92nd and 2nd Ghoorkas on the other, rolled back the
enemy at the turning-point of the Pir Paimal spur. The basin leading
towards Mazra and the open ground due west towards the Argandab was
covered with men in full flight, and 500 sabres could have swept into
them with terrific effect. It is, I believe, an axiom that no division
shall now go into action without one regiment of cavalry attached to
it, but all through the war we have brigaded all our cavalry, and on
several occasions the want of 500 troops to follow up _rapidly_ an
infantry attack has been severely felt. Witness in particular the
first action of Charasia, when the Afghans fled towards Indikee; and
the storming of the ridge leading up to the Takht-i-Shah Peak when the
open ground beyond Beni Hissar was black with fugitives. General Hugh
Gough and his splendid cavalry brigade of 1,600 sabres and lances did
all that men could do to gain the Kokaran Ford, and cut up such bodies
of men as they could overtake; but if one regiment had been spared
from that brigade to have followed up our infantry advance there would
have been rare work for the troops about Pir Paimal. The answer, of
course, to this is that the network of orchards and walled enclosures,
with intersecting channels, seemed to shut out cavalry from
participating in that part of the action; there was no one as usual to
tell us of the grand open ground when the ridge was turned.

------------------------------------------------------------------------