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AFGHANISTAN

acquirement (to which must certainly be added the arts and graces of good manners) education seems to be limited to the physical development of the youth by instruction in horsemanship and feats of skill. Such advanced education as exists m Afghanistan is centred in the j)riests and physicians ; but the ignorance of both is almost phenomenal. Authorities.—Since Afghanistan has been mapped and surveyed no comprehensive account ol the country has been published. Apart from the survey reports and gazetteers ol the Indian Government, the following are the chief recent sources of information:—Kaye. History of the War in Afghanistan, 1878.— Malleson. History of Afghanistan. London, 1879. W. 1 . Simpson. “Jalalabad Region,” B.G.S. Proc., vol. i. 18/9. Dr H. W. Bellew. Afghanistan and the Afghans. London, 1879’;' “The Ethnography of Afghanistan,” Asiatic Quarterly lleview, Oct. 1891.—Major Holuich. “Geographical Results of the Afghan Campaign,” R.G.8. Proc., vol. i. 1879.—Hensman. London, 1881.—Major W. Broadfoot. 4The Afghan War. ‘Reports on Part of the Ghilzai Country, supplementary paper, R.G.S., vol. i. Part III. 1885.—C. L. Griesbach. “Afghan and Persian Field Notes,” Gcol. Survey of India, vol. xix. Part I. 1886; “Field Notes from Afghanistan,” Geol. Survey of India, vol. xix. Part IV. 1886.—Captain A. C. Yate. England and Russia face to face in Asia. Edinburgh, 1887.—Major 0. E. Yate. Northern Afghanistan. Edinburgh, 1888.—Maitland and Talbot. “Journeys in Afghanistan,” R.G.S. Proc., vol. ix.^ 1887.—W. L. Dallas. “The Climatology of Afghanistan,” J.U.S. India, vol. xx. 1891. — Oldham. “Evolution of Indian Geography,” Geog. Journ., vol. iii. 1894.—Major H. Raverty. “The Independent Afghan and Pathan Tribes,” Asiatic Quarterly Review, vol. vii. 1894.—Dr Gray. At the Court of the Amir. London, 1895.—Hon. G. N. Curzon. . “A Recent Journey in Afghanistan,” P.R.I. 14, 1896. —Sir G. Robertson. The Kafir of the Hindu Kush. London, 1896.— Sir T. Holdich. “The Origin of the Kafir of the Hindu Kush,” Geog. Journal, wol. vii. 1896. (t. h. h.*) Recent History. In following the history of the course of affairs in Afghanistan during the 19 th century, it should be Saddozais remembered that the Saddozais and Barakzais and Barak- are two branches of the Durani tribe, which was zais. raised to dominant power by its chief, Ahmed Khan, the founder of an Afghan kingdom under the Saddozai dynasty towards the end of the 18th century. His descendants had ruled, amid many vicissitudes, at Kabul, until in 1818 the assassination by the reigning Amir of his powerful minister, Fatteh Khan Barakzai, led to a revolt headed by the Barakzai family, which ended in the shah expulsion of the Saddozai Shah Shujah, and the %Tujah and establishment at Kabul of Dost Mahommed, Dost Ma- Fatteh Khan’s son ; while Shah Shujah took hommed. refuge in the Punjab. By this time the political situation of Afghanistan had become materially affected by the consolidation of a formidable military dominion on its eastern frontier in the Punjab, under Ranjit Singh and his Sikh army. Ranjit Singh took advantage of the distracted condition of Afghanistan to seize Kashmir, and in 1823 he defeated the Afghans in a battle which gave him the suzerainty of the Peshawar province on the right bank of the Indus, though an Afghan chief was left to administer it. Ten years later Shah Shujah, the exiled Saddozai Amir, made a futile attempt to recover his kingdom. He was defeated by Dost Mahommed, when Ranjit Singh turned the confusion to his own account by seizing Peshawar and driving the Afghans back into their mountains. At this point begins the continual interference of England and Russia in the affairs of Afghanistan, which has ever fnterfer- since exercised a dominant influence upon all ence of subsequent events and transactions. It has European not only transformed the situation of the ruling Powers. Amirs, but has also profoundly affected the Asiatic policy of the two European Governments. Shah Shujah’s enterprise in 1833 had been supported by the co-operation of Ranjit Singh, and encouraged by the British Viceroy, Lord W. Bentinck. Although the expedition failed, the result was to excite jealousy of the

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British designs; and the Russian envoy at Tehran instigated the Shah of Persia to attack Herat, the important frontier fortress of north-western Afghanistan, which was then in the possession of an independent chief. In 1837, in spite of remonstrances from the British representative at Tehran, a Persian army besieged the city, but the appearance of British troops on the southern coast of Persia compelled the Persians to withdraw from Herat in 1838. The rivalry between England and Russia was now openly declared, so that each movement from one side was followed by a counter move on the Afghan chessboard from the other side. The British ministry had been seriously alarmed at the machinations of Russia and the attitude of Dost Mahommed at Kabul; and it was determined that the most effective means of securing their own interests within the country would be by assisting Shah Shujah to recover his sovereignty. A tripartite treaty was made between Ranjit Singh, the British GovernorGeneral of India, and Shah Shujah; and a British army marched up the Bolan Pass to Kandahar, occupied that city, pushed on northwards to Ghazni, which was taken by assault, and entered Kabul in 1839. As Dost Mahommed had fled across the northern mountains, Shah Shujah was proclaimed king in his stead. But this ill-planned and hazardous enterprise was fraught with the elements of inevitable failure. A ruler imposed upon a free people by foreign arms is British always unpopular; he is unable to stand alone ; policy in and his foreign auxiliaries soon find themselves Afghanobliged to choose between remaining to uphold lstanhis power, or retiring with the probability that it will fall after their departure. The leading chiefs of Afghanistan perceived that the maintenance of Shah Shujah’s rule by British troops would soon be fatal to their own power and position in the country, and probably to their national independence. They were insatiable in their demands for office and emolument, and when they discovered that the Shah, acting by the advice of the British envoy, was levying from among their tribesmen regiments to be directly under his control, they took care that the plan should fail. Without a regular revenue no effective administration could be organized; but the attempt to raise taxes showed that it might raise the people ; so that for both men and money the Shah’s government was still obliged to rely principally upon British aid. All these circumstances combined to render the new regime weak and unpopular ; since there was no force at the ruler’s command except foreign troops to put down disorder or to protect those who submitted; while the discontented nobles fomented disaffection and the inbred hatred of strangers in race and religion, among the general Afghan population. The result was that after two years’ occupation of the country, in the vain hope of establishing a national government under Shah Shujah, the British found their own situation untenable; for the fierce and ■warlike tribes broke out into incessant revolt, until a serious insurrection at Kabul in the winter of 1841-42 compelled the British army to make an ignominious and disastrous retreat. The whole force was lost on the road between Kabul and Jalalabad ; but Jalalabad was successfully defended by its British garrison, and General Nott held out at Kandahar until General Pollock’s temporary re-occupation of Kabul in 1842 restored in some degree the military reputation of Great Britain. The British troops then completely evacuated the country. Dost Mahommed, who had been a state prisoner in India, was replaced on the Kabul throne; and the policy of intervention in Afghan affairs was suspended for nearly forty years. It has been said that the declared object of this policy