Return of a King: The Battle For Afghanistan (56 page)

Shah Shuja, Macnaghten, even his old grouse-shooting companion ‘Elphy Bey’, were to be left to sort out the mess on their own. No help would be coming from Calcutta.

Snow fell heavily in Kabul during the second week of December, billowing down from the Hindu Kush, instantly turning the dusty grey hills around the city a dazzling white, settling thickly on the parapets of the cantonment and freezing the Kabul River. ‘The snow did not trouble the Sardars and ghazis who were in their element,’ wrote Mirza ‘Ata, ‘but the army from India was unused to snow and many died. Many others became incapable of fighting because of the intense cold.’
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Yet for Macnaghten the snow was the least of his worries. He had, as agreed, handed over the two remaining fortresses overlooking the cantonment as well as the large down-payments demanded by the sardars, including 20,000 rupees to Akbar Khan, but still the promised food and fodder had only arrived in dribs and drabs and the army and their pack animals remained on the verge of starvation.
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Nor was there any sign of the promised carts and baggage animals the English would need to transport their goods back to India. As a result, the 14 December deadline for the departure of the army passed without the slightest movement. Meanwhile, any remaining defiance within the cantonment had ebbed into a cowed anxiety and fear. ‘So great was the want of common sense’, wrote Mackenzie,

that hundreds of the enemy, armed to the teeth, were allowed to insinuate themselves into the cantonments and to walk about spying everything. A Ghilzai drew his sword on Lt Sturt within a few yards of a loaded 6-pounder, because that officer endeavoured to keep back the man’s insolent comrades. So strictly were the sentries forbidden to fire, that our camp followers and friendly Afghans were often robbed and even killed a dozen yards from our walls, and the mess sheep of the 5th Cavalry were captured within 150 yards of the ramparts, under the eyes of the whole garrison.
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Realising the desperate state the British were in, Akbar Khan now increased his demands. More cannon were to be surrendered. Yet more hostages were demanded. Seeing the bottomless pit that they were falling into, Macnaghten again raised with his commanders the idea of retreating to the Bala Hisar or even reopening hostilities with the Afghans now that their guard was down, ‘to march out at once in order of battle [in Lawrence’s words], and enter Kabul or fight the enemy beneath its walls, expressing his own earnest hope that the General, now that he had been reinforced by the fresh troops from the Bala Hisar, would adopt this clear and obvious course’.
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Again Shelton and Elphinstone opposed all his plans, seeming more determined than ever to march out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. ‘The forts were the same evening given up and immediately occupied by Afghans,’ added Lawrence. ‘The Envoy and I stood on a mound near the mosque whilst they were being evacuated by our men, and I am not ashamed to say that it was with eyes moistened with tears from grief and indignation, we witnessed these strongholds, the last prop of our tottering power in Kabul, which it had cost us so much blood to seize and defend, made over, one after another, to our treacherous and exulting enemies.’
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Then, without warning, a small chink of light and hope appeared. On 20 November, Nizam al-Daula, the Prime Minister Macnaghten had foisted on Shuja, sent news that his old patron, Nawab Zaman Khan, the Barakzai leader who had initially taken on the leadership of the revolt, ‘was offended because of the people rallying around Mohammad Akbar, and sent word that he wanted to become an ally of the English. The English, who sought safety from the sharp edge of Afghan swords, considered the Nizam al-Daula’s letter tidings from heaven.’
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At the same time, news came that many of the rebel troops were discontented with Akbar Khan due to the high price of food.
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Macnaghten immediately embarked on a renewed attempt to divide and rule. Desperate to avoid the potential catastrophe of a midwinter retreat through hostile mountains, he tried various schemes at once, ‘grasping at every new combination that seemed to promise more hope than the last’. Through Mohan Lal, both the Qizilbash and the Ghilzai chieftains were offered the large sum of 20,000 rupees to break with the rebels and rally to the support of the British. ‘If any portion of the Afghans wish our troops to remain in the country,’ he declared, ‘I shall think myself at liberty to break the engagement which I have made to go away, which engagement was made believing it to be in accordance with the wishes of the Afghan nation.’

But Macnaghten was hopelessly out of his depth. ‘It is very difficult to know what to do,’ he wrote in confusion to Mohan Lal at this time.
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He didn’t understand the strength of the marriage ties which linked the Ghilzais to Akbar Khan, nor did he even begin to comprehend the degree to which most Afghans hated their Kafir occupiers. Moreover, Mohan Lal was being watched and Akbar’s spies were passing on detailed information about all the Envoy’s amateurish attempts at intrigue. There were also damaging rumours circulating among the rebels that Macnaghten was offering money to anyone who would assassinate Akbar and the other hostile chiefs. According to Mirza ‘Ata, ‘Macnaghten wrote a secret letter to the chiefs, to the effect that whoever would bring Sardar Muhammad Akbar Khan’s severed head would be rewarded with a sum of 10,000 Rupees and would be appointed assistant to the Envoy. As soon as the Khans read this, they immediately passed the original on to Akbar Khan who kept it with him.’
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The story could well be true. Certainly there is evidence from the correspondence of Mohan Lal that a paid assassin called Abdul Aziz sent in an invoice to Mohan Lal for the killing of Abdullah Khan Achakzai, saying he shot him in the back with a poisoned bullet while he was fighting Shelton on 23 November, implying that Mohan Lal had indeed offered a bounty for the killing of rebel leaders.
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It is extremely unlikely he would have dared to do so without some sort of authorisation from the Envoy.

Hearing this, Akbar Khan decided to set a trap to expose Macnaghten’s duplicity. On the evening of 22 December, he sent out two of his cousins to the cantonment. They were escorted by Captain James Skinner, a young Anglo-Indian cavalry commander and the son of the founder of Skinner’s Horse, who had been captured and arrested on the first day of the uprising as he tried to flee from the city in a woman’s burkha.

Over dinner, the Barakzai envoys made Macnaghten a startling new offer. The British could stay in Afghanistan until the spring, they said, and Shuja remain as shah, if the British supported Akbar Khan’s bid to be wazir and to gain hold of the real reins of power. If Macnaghten would make a written undertaking to help him, make a colossal down-payment of £300,000 and an annuity of £40,000, then Akbar Khan would be happy to bring him the head of Aminullah Khan Logari. Macnaghten was apparently being offered a chance to tear up the recently agreed treaty and cut a secret deal with Akbar Khan. Given the extreme weakness of the British position, the terms were suspiciously generous, but, conceited to the last, Macnaghten seems to have convinced himself that his recent intrigues were so brilliant that Akbar had been forced to compromise in order to safeguard his position. Aminullah’s head Macnaghten rejected, saying the arrest of Aminullah Khan and handing him over as a prisoner to the British would be enough; but he swallowed the rest of the bait, and signed a Persian document putting his consent in writing. According to Mohan Lal, ‘The offer was not received by the Envoy altogether without suspicion; but as he has no hope of military aid, and considered the idea of a retreat disgraceful to the British name, he was like a drowning man catching at straws.’
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For Akbar Khan, this was the final evidence he needed of the duplicity of the Envoy. He showed the document to Aminullah Khan and warned the other chiefs of Macnaghten’s willingness to betray his agreements with them and do a secret deal behind their backs. Then he sent a message to Macnaghten to meet him again the following morning to finalise details of the plot. Macnaghten agreed.

George Lawrence, Mackenzie and Trevor were summoned by the Envoy at dawn and told about the offer. According to Lawrence, Macnaghten said:

that he had every reasonable hope it would bring our present difficulties to an early and happy termination, and that Akbar was to give up Aminoollah Khan as a prisoner to us. Sir William then warned me to be ready to gallop to the King with the intelligence and to acquaint him with Akbar’s proposal. On me again remarking that the scheme seemed a dangerous one and asking if he did not apprehend any treachery, he replied, ‘Dangerous it is, but if it succeeds it is worth all risks. The Rebels have not fulfilled even one Article of the Treaty and I have no confidence in them, and if by it we can only save our Honour, all will be well. At any rate I would sooner suffer a hundred deaths than live the last six weeks over again.’

At this point, Hasan Khan, the head of Mackenzie’s jezailchis who had faithfully led the retreat from the commissariat fort, intervened and ‘repeatedly warned Sir William of the likelihood of a fatal termination to his hazardous interviews with the Afghan chiefs. He argued that surely he was the better judge of the intentions of his own countrymen than Sir William could be, and that among them no dishonour was attached to what we call treachery.’ Mackenzie also pointed out that the offer sounded very suspicious, but Macnaghten replied: ‘A plot! Let me alone for that – trust me for that!’ To Elphinstone, who also raised the same objection, Macnaghten replied smugly: ‘Leave it to me. I understand these things better than you.’

Shelton was supposed to send a military escort with Macnaghten, but the cavalry, disorganised as ever, were not ready to leave. After a short wait, the impatient Macnaghten decided to head off for his appointment with just his small personal guard, accompanied by his three assistants, Lawrence, Trevor and Mackenzie. Akbar Khan was already waiting at the agreed rendezvous. He had brought with him his relative Sultan Jan Barakzai, his father-in-law, the Ghilzai chief Mohammad Shah Khan, and a third chief whom the British did not recognise but who was in fact Aminullah Khan’s younger brother, who had come to bear witness to Macnaghten’s act of treachery.

The meeting started courteously enough. The Envoy presented Akbar with a valuable horse that he had previously complimented, and the young rebel leader politely thanked Macnaghten for double-barrelled pistols which the Envoy had sent to him along with his carriage and a pair of horses the day before. The party dismounted, and horse blankets were spread on a small hillock which the Afghans pointed out as being free from snow and whose position partially concealed them from the cantonment. The Envoy then sat down beside Akbar Khan, with Trevor and Mackenzie next to him. Lawrence stood behind Macnaghten until, pressed by Akbar, he knelt on one knee. Lawrence then pointed out the growing number of Afghans converging on the spot, saying that, if the subject of the conference was of a secret nature, the other men had better withdraw. Macnaghten repeated this to Akbar, who replied, ‘They are all in the secret.’ ‘Hardly had he so said,’ Lawrence wrote later, ‘when I found my Arms locked, my pistols and sword wrenched from my belt and myself forcibly raised from the ground and pulled along. Mahomed Shah Khan Ghilzai who held me called out, “Come along if you value your life!” I turned and saw the Envoy lying, his head where his heels had been and his hands locked in Akbar’s, consternation and horror depicted on his countenance.’
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As Lawrence was being dragged away, according to Mirza ‘Ata:

The Sardar [Akbar] shouted at Macnaghten, ‘You are the Minister of a great King, the head of a glorious army, all foreign dignitaries pay tribute to your knowledge and accomplishments. But I must beg to differ, and consider you a fool, one whose word cannot be relied on, who reveals his inner treachery by what he writes! You have not been able to get the better of us in battle and now you seek to destroy us by deceit. You faithless, cheating trickster! So quick to betray our agreement! Do you think I would trust you rather than my fellow citizens of Kabul? Do you think it would be so easy to get us to mutually destroy each other for your convenience? Do you realise what a ridiculous figure you cut? Shame on you: you are a laughing stock! My intention was to have you honourably accompanied out of Kabul back to India; but your scheme was to have me assassinated. Your mind is darkened with black smoke and vain imaginings! Now you had better come with me into the city of Kabul!’

Panicking, Macnaghten tried to escape, ‘like a pigeon fluttering to fly free from the grip of a hawk’. Akbar ‘grabbed him, drew his thirsty sword, then tore open the Envoy’s liver and lopped off his head. The headless corpse of the illustrious Saheb Macnaghten, the Chief Minister, like the carcase of a rabid dog, was dismembered and dragged into the city. It was then hung up, with his head and top hat, at the Four-Roofed Bazaar.’
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Colin Mackenzie, who was an eyewitness, gives a slightly different account. He wrote that, as a group of armed Afghans approached the seated party, Akbar Khan asked Macnaghten to move aside as he had something confidential to say to him. As Macnaghten leaned towards him, Akbar Khan suddenly screamed ‘Bigir! Bigir!’
meaning ‘Seize! Seize!’ at which he pinioned the Envoy. Akbar’s face wore an expression ‘of the most diabolical ferocity’ while Macnaghten’s face was ‘full of horror and astonishment’. Macnaghten cried ‘Az barae Khooda!’ – ‘For God’s sake’ – as Akbar caught him by his waist and tried at gunpoint to force him to mount the horse to go into the city with him. ‘The Envoy refused and said, “What do you wish to do with me?”’ Sultan Jan then said to Akbar, ‘Be quick otherwise we shall all be caught by the troops which are coming out from the cantonment.’ On this, Akbar Khan shot the Envoy with the double-barrelled pistol he had just been given. Macnaghten was still alive, but Akbar ordered his servant to finish him off with a jezail, and it was this which put an end to the life of the British Envoy. Akbar then had his head cut off, and ordered his body to be dragged through the streets along with that of Captain Trevor, who had been murdered by Sultan Jan.
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