The Graveyard of Empires, Vol. II: From Defeat to Destruction – The Grand Army of the Indus and the British-Indian Retreat from Kabul

 “The good management, for which the [British rule] is so celebrated, seems to have left the heads of … the commanders.”
– Subedar Sita Ram

Introduction:

It is perhaps a lie, or at the very least a fib, to title this article “from defeat to destruction” – given that the British faced very little resistance in Afghanistan during their first year in the country. If you have read my previous article in the series, you will know this – the British took virtually every objective they needed to without so much as firing a shot. Also described in that previous article, however, is the less than stellar levels of planning and preparedness of the British and Indian force that had mounted this invasion. If you are interested in the long list of planning errors made by the British – an exceedingly rare misstep in their otherwise exceptional record – please consult my previous article here.

Despite these planning errors, objectives such as Kandahar or Gazni or even Kabul fell to the advancing British-Indian forces with little to no resistance. However, in the face of this success, the soldiers on the march suffered – and they began to do so long before they reached Afghanistan. And when they left the country, they would suffer still more – especially those soldiers that were part of the Kabul Garrison. This article tells that story; the story of the common soldier, fighting and dying in the dry, blistering heat and cold, frigid temperatures of Afghanistan.

For a more in-depth discussion about the source I will be using for the narration, please consult my previous article! In short, the source is “From Sepoy to Subedar”, a chronicle of Subedar Sita Ram’s experiences in the Bengal Presidency Army of the East India Company in the first half of the 19th Century. He partook in many noteworthy campaigns (such as the invasion of Afghanistan) and those that have become footnotes in public memory (such as the 2 Gurkha Wars), before being sold into slavery by Afghan fighters after he was captured during the Retreat from Kabul. He would be rescued by a British raiding party in 1846, after which he would continue his enlistment (though, by then, he’d been made an officer and conferred the rank of subedar) and serve until the 1850s, retiring some time just before the Indian Rebellion/Mutiny of 1857.

A Short Introduction to the Grand Army of the Indus:

A soldier from the Bombay Native Infantry, ca. 1800

Before consulting the monumental work that is “From Sepoy to Subedar”, it is worth understanding the force of which Subedar Sita Ram was a part. Modern scholarship has delved deep into the history of this force – titled by the British the “Grand Army of the Indus” – and provides the contemporary reader with much more detailed information on the Army’s composition than one would imagine. Works such as William Dalrymple’s The Return of a King or articles written during the 2nd half of the 20th century (such as, notably, Louis Dupree’s “The First Anglo-Afghan War [etc]”) paint a vibrant image of the Grand Army of the Indus.

The Grand Army of the Indus was made of 3 “divisions”. 2 of these were British-Indian and the other Afghani.[1] To understand this make-up of forces, it is critical to understand a man called Shah Shuja and why the British supported him. To cut a very long and very complex story, very short:

With this background, the Grand Army of the Indus was gathered in Bombay in the monsoon of 1838. The 3 divisions were built up as follows:

The Bombay “Bombay Ducks” Division:

By every margin, this was the smallest division in the force and was made up of regiments from the Bombay Presidency Army. Its 5,600 fighting men were divided into the following British and Indian regiments:

Soldier from the 27th Bombay Native Infantry, 19th Century

The Bengal Division:

The Bengal Division was the largest division in the Grand Army of the Indus and the most well trained, drilled and most experienced. Its 9,500 fighting men (one of them being Subedar Sita Ram) were organised into the following British and Indian regiments (it is here important to note that Poona Horse was moved from the Bombay to the Bengal Division right before the Retreat from Kabul):

Shah Shuja’s Levy:

The Afghani force, known officially as Shah Shuja’s Levy, was not a professional army. It was about 6,000 strong and made up of Afghanis, Baluchis and Pashtuns loyal to Shah Shuja. It had more in common with the armies of Feudal Europe in its structure than the rest of the Grand Army of the Indus. Its 6,000 men – though officered by the British – were not well trained and were badly equipped. It was not formally organised into regiments or battalions, and – as Subedar Sita Ram notes – the largest organised units in the Levy were groups of friends and most soldiers tended to fight as individuals.

Subedar Sita Ram’s Account of the Expedition:

The British-Indain Garrison at Kandahar

A quick note: we cannot be sure of the exact regiment that Subedar Sita Ram served under, though it is likely the 43rd BNI, – this is for various reasons discussed in my previous article.

The British demonstrated their only good planning at the start of the campaign by avoiding entering Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass, which had been fortified by the armies of the Emirate of Kabul. They chose instead to ride across the dry heat of the plains that constitute modern-day Pakistan (but was then the Sikh Empire) and cross into Afghanistan at Quetta. Until the Retreat from Kabul, this was the worst part of the expedition for the troops. Subedar Sita Ram recounts:

“Our march was in the middle of the cold weather [i.e when it would have been monsoon in India, as this was in the middle of August] and yet the heat was such that numbers of European soldiers and sepoys died from the effects; on one day thirty-five men fell victim to it. At this stage the sepoy army had almost determined to return to India and there were signs of mutiny in all three armies [i.e divisions]. … We went through one valley called Dadhar which was the mouth of hell. It was low-lying and surrounded by hills so that no air ever came there.[3]… Then we came to the Bolan Pass and here many people [referring to local civilians] were killed by the tribesmen [Baluchis]. They murdered everyone whenever they had the opportunity, and rolled large boulders down the mountain sides. The watercourses were all blocked, and the wells were filled with pilu wood [a poisonous tree bark that grows in Afghanistan that causes dysentery] that made the water stink, so as to make one sick even when approaching the well.”

Soon after this, the Grand Army of the Indus reached the safety of Quetta where they could rest and refit – but not for long. They were on the march again before the Army could have any meaningful rest and they marched for Kandahar. By now, they’d crossed into Afghanistan.

“The hill men do not like venturing far into the plains and seldom leave their homes for more than a few miles to raid a village or attack a caravan. They are very formidable behind their rocks from where they can fire their long jezails [an outdated musket design local to Afghanistan] that throw a ball three times the size of a musket-ball with accuracy at 400 yards, but they could never withstand a volley of our musketry at close quarters. They fight as individuals, and not in formed bodies like the Company’s troops. … These hill tribes are supposedly subject to the ruler of Kabul, and Shah Shujah sent frequently to inform them that the English were his friends. However, this made no difference—they fired at, and attacked, the Shah’s soldiers just as much as the Sirkar’s [i.e the British]. Truly they were a lawless set of bloodthirsty savages.

It was during this march of unheard of hardship that I saw, for the first time in my service, dissensions arise among the officers. The Bombay Commander-in-Chief and the Bengal general quarrelled.2? The former thought his army the best. All the Bombay officers looked with contempt on the Bengal Army, and we were much abused by the regular sepoys who called us ‘irregulars’.[4] ‘Lad Kain’ [i.e Lt. Gen. Sir John Keane, GOC the expedition and an officer of the Bombay Army] sahib was of higher rank than our general and he gave orders for some of the force to be left behind in Sind. The good management, for which the Sirkar is so celebrated, seems to have left the heads of both the commanders. As we approached Kandahar the truth began to dawn on us that despite all the assurances Shah Shujah had given us in Hindustan, that the Afghans were longing for his return, in reality they did not want him as their ruler.”

Keane rested his army for 2 months in Kandahar and left behind a small garrison under the flag of the Bengal Army. Then, they marched on Ghazni and Kabul. The force besieged Ghazni for about a week before it fell with little fighting.

“The leading citizens and the women all came out and begged protection from the English General sahib. The [Afghan] Governor [of Gazni] could nowhere be found and no-one knew whether he had been killed or not. After looking for him all over the place an officer found him hiding in a house. He was just about to fire at him when the man called out that he was Hyder Ali. He was taken to the General who treated him very kindly. This man spoke out very boldly to the Commander-in-Chief. He said he was fighting for his country and his amir. The Afghans had never annoyed the British; why, therefore, had they come into his country to set up a king whom they all hated? They had brought death and desolation into many Afghan families. He ended by saying—‘kill me if you like, but if you let me go, I shall ever be found as your enemy, and do all in my power to excite the people against you, and drive you all out of Kabul!’

The General sahib was not angry. He told Hyder Ali that he was a brave man and that he respected his feelings. But he, the General, was acting under the orders of his Government, whose servant he was. Once again I saw here the curious customs in war of the English. Had this man said half as much before a rajah or nawab, he would have been cut to pieces on the spot. And yet, in this instance, and in open durbar, the very sahibs who had fought against him cried out Barekilla! Barekilla! (Bravo! Bravo!). This was wonderful! Why do they fight? Not to kill their enemies but to have the pleasure of capturing them and then letting them go! Truly, their ways are unaccountable. It was also very odd that this man so brave in speech was found in hiding after the battle!”

After the fall of Ghazni, the force marched on Kabul. On the march to Kabul, they were met by many messengers sent by Dost Mohammad Khan and the message was, on each occasion, the same – the Emir of Kabul was ordering the British to leave his country. The British ignored these messages and, when they reached Kabul, they found it undefended and took it without much fighting. Dost Mohammad Khan had fled north, to the mountains. Here, Shah Shuja was proclaimed the new Emir, but as Subedar Sita Ram records:

“The army entered Kabul without any fighting and the Shah was proclaimed king. But here, as at Kandahar, the people took no part in the rejoicings; these were all made by the Shah’s own soldiers and his court. The hearts of the people were with the Amir, and not with Shah Shujah.”

Now, the army garrisoned Kabul. As was the custom in the British Army and the Presidency Armies at the time, the garrison – or cantonment – was established outside the city limits, though a few officers did choose to live within Kabul. This meant that when the Afghans – in 1841 – rebelled against Shah Shuja and the few British officers within Kabul, the army was nowhere nearby to help. In November of 1841, as Sita Ram records, ‘misfortune and calamity came upon the English’.

“About two years after the English first came to Kabul a rebellion broke out in the city itself. At the beginning only a few discontented Afghans were involved but they surrounded the house of [Alexander] Burnes sahib, the political officer, and set it on fire.[5] As Burnes was escaping through the garden by a small door, he was cut down by his Afghan servant. Two or three other English officers were also killed. Once the report got around that Burnes sahib had been murdered the mob joined in the rioting and fighting took place all over the city. The outburst was so sudden that our officers were taken by surprise. Some of them lived in the city, and others near the king’s garden, two miles away. However the English still held their own, but every day tribes came to join in the rebellion, and treachery showed itself in the Shah’s court.

Now came misfortune and calamity upon the English. All their stores were looted or burnt by the enemy and the spirits of the army were much depressed. The cold was so intense that it rendered the sepoy portion of the army next to useless. It was soon rumoured that Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammed, had arrived with many troops and that he commanded in person. There was fighting every day, and because there was no good food for the European soldiers, they lost spirit and did not fight as well as they used to do. There were enemies on all sides. …

We were annoyed day and night in the cantonment by cannon fire. The enemy seemed to increase by thousands and their long matchlocks outranged our muskets. Although they would never withstand a regular charge, so long as they could find cover behind walls, houses, etc., their fire was very distressing. We repeatedly drove the Afghans from the hills round Kabul but they re-occupied them in even greater strength as soon as we withdrew. The Afghans wore sheepskin coats, called nimchees or poshteens, and these often turned sword cuts and even musket balls. The general opinion was that some of them were invulnerable, and especially a tribe called Bedouranis. On one occasion I saw a party of their horsemen approach within twenty paces of a ravine where a regiment of ours was concealed. The officers made their men reserve their fire and then the whole regiment sprang up and opened fire. However, not more than three or four horses went away without riders. This dispirited the sepoy army very much and, as the cold increased, we became helpless. Men lost the use of their fingers and toes which fell off after great suffering. The whole English army was in a miserable plight, since the men were worn out by continual fighting, guard duties, and bad food.”

By December, the British-Indian Garrison at Kabul had lost all its General Officers; Alexander Burnes had been killed, more junior General Officers had perished either in combat or to disease and Maj. Gen. William Elphinstone – who was already elderly and unfit for leadership – the commander of the Garrison had been grievously injured after being thrown from his horse. The most senior man left in the Garrison was a civil servant by the name of William Hay Macnaghten. Macnaghten, advised by the wounded Elphinstone, sought to negotiate with the Afghans the peaceful withdrawal of the beleaguered Garrison – it was clear that the Garrison, should they be besieged throughout an Afghani winter, would have been destroyed. Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammad Khan, agreed to such a withdrawal. However, when Macnaghten travelled to Akbar Khan’s camp to finalise the agreement, he – and his party – were executed by Akbar Khan.

“Both the senior political officers [Burnes and Macnaghten] had now been murdered. The General sahib [Elphinstone] was going to take vengeance on the city, but the officers [of the regiments] represented that their men were too weak to take the offensive. Nevertheless it would have been better to have died fighting than massacred in the retreat which followed. Wisdom seemed to have departed from everyone. The usual energy of the English officers had vanished. They had suffered such severe trials that their spirits had been depressed by misfortune. There wererumouts that Shah Shujah had joined the Sirdars against the English; now that things were going so badly, he was afraid of being thought their friend.

The retreat of our army, in the middle of the winter and with the snow four feet deep, now began.”

The retreat to Jalalabad was chaos and an ill-disguised massacre of British and Indian troops and civilians.

“They fired into us from the hills and we were as helpless as a handcuffed prisoner. Akbar Khan himself was following us. When we complained of this treachery, he swore that it was happening against his will, and that he could not control the Ghilzais [a hill tribe]. He demanded more officers be given up as hostages. I do not know why this was agreed, apart from the fact that sense had left the brains of everyone, as I have already said. Once the enemy had the officers in their power, our army was deprived of leaders. Every sahib taken away was as bad as two hundred men lost. At last the Afghans said they would only protect the English army on condition that the General was given up. To everyone’s amazement, he agreed to go, but with the example of Burnes and ‘Macnaten’ before him, what could he expect?

When the General sahib left all discipline fell away. As a result the Afghans were able to annoy us the more and cut off more men than ever. A number of sepoys and followers went over to the enemy in an effort to save their lives. My regiment had disappeared and I attached myself to the remnants of a European regiment. I thought that by sticking to them I might have some chance of getting away from that detestable country. But alas! alas! Who can withstand fate? We went on fighting and losing men at every step of the road. We were attacked in front, in the rear, and from the tops of hills. In truth it was hell itself. I cannot describe the horrors. At last we came upon a high wall of stones that blocked the road; in trying to force this, our whole party was destroyed. The men fought like gods, not men, but numbers prevailed against them.

I was struck down by a jezail ball on the side of my head. After this I knew nothing until I found myself tied crossways upon a horse which was being led rapidly away from the fighting towards Kabul. I now learned that I was being taken there to be sold as a slave. I begged to be shot, or have my throat cut, and abused the Afghans in Pushtu and in my own language. Many a knife shook in its sheath, but my captor could not prevent me speaking, and as the fear of death had no effect on me he threatened to make me a Moslem on the spot if I did not keep quiet.

What dreadful carnage I saw along the road—legs and arms protruding from the snow, Europeans and Hindustanis half buried, horses and camels all dead! It was a sight I shall never forget as long as I live. My captor, seeing that I desired death above anything else, became more merciful. I was taken from the horse and tied in a camel pannier. This, bad as it was, was better than hanging downwards from a pony. The Afghan rubbed my wound with snow which took away the pain; the ball had only ploughed up the skin where it had grazed my skull. In four or five days we reached Kabul where I was clothed in Afghan garments and sold in the market place as a slave. Rich Afghans valued Hindustanis as servants and employed many of them. I was a fine-looking, strong man, and I fetched 240 rupees. One Osman Beg purchased me. At the same time as I was sold, there were several other sepoys, and also a few Europeans for sale. The latter were intended to be used as instructors for the Afghan Army, and since they were supplied with some skins of Shiraz wine, they did not appear to lament their fate as we did.

I saw one sahib [i.e officer] among the Europeans; he belonged to the Company Bahadur’s [?] army. He spoke to me and said that the Sirkar would send a large army and re-conquer the country; if our lives were spared we should all be rescued.”

This European officer, identified to be Robert Waller (who was enslaved, along with his wife, though they would both survive slavery) of the Bengal Artillery, seemed to have been a soothsayer. In March of 1842, barely a few months after the remainder of the Kabul Garrison had reached Jalalabad, the British organised a fearsome force known as the Army of Retribution. The Army of Retribution was officered by Major Generals George Pollock, William Nott and Robert Sale – the only truly competent officers in the entire British Indian force in Afghanistan. And the Army of Retribution truly lived up to its name, ravaging the forces of Dost Mohammad Khan, taking no prisoners and burning villages to the ground. They rescued the vast majority of Indians and Britons enslaved by the Afghans, however by the time they returned in October, they had not found Sita Ram who – with his master – had relocated into the Hindu Kush Mountains to wait out the Army of Retribution. He would return to India in 1846 by getting himself sold to a convoy of merchants travelling to Delhi, where he met officers of his regiment and had the convoy arrested for slavery (which was, by now, illegal in all parts of the British Empire).

[1] The EIC maintained 3 standing armies in India; the Bombay Presidency Army, the Bengal Presidency Army and the Madras Presidency Army.

[2] There were 8 Bengal Light Cavalry regiments. All 8 were disbanded. Many of the British officers of the 8 regiments also resigned their commission as they believed their unit(s) to be loyal and would not serve without their men.

[3] The Dadhar valley is equated to the closest manifestation of Hell on Earth by locals and is hot for the majority of the year.

[4] The Bombay Army was staffed with more upper class officers, all of whom were generally more incompetent than the Bengal Army officers.

[5] I have narrated the story of Alexander Burnes in my previous article.

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