Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/148

 124

AFGHANISTAN

Oxus, and had lived for ten years in exile with the Russians. In March 1880 he came back across the Abdurrah- r^ver’ and began to establish himself in the man benorthern province of Afghanistan. The Viceroy comes of India, Lord Lytton, on hearing of his reAm,r appearance, instructed the political authorities at Kabul to communicate with him. By skilful negotiations a meeting was arranged, and after pressing in vain for a treaty he was induced to assume charge of the country upon his recognition by the British as Amir, with the understanding that he should have no relations with other foreign powers, and with a formal assurance from the Viceroy of protection from foreign aggression, so long as he should unreservedly follow the advice of the British Government in regard to his external affairs. The province of Kandahar was severed from the Kabul dominion; and the Sirdar Sher Ali Khan, a member of the Barakzai family, was installed by the British representative as its independent ruler. For the second time in the course of this war a conclusive settlement of Afghan affairs seemed now to have been attained; and again, as in 1879, it was AyubKhan immediately dissolved. In July 1880, a few rahmanUr days after the proclamation of Abdurrahman as Amir at Kabul, came news that Ayub Khan, Sher All’s younger son, who had been holding Herat since his father’s death, had marched upon Kandahar, had utterly defeated at Maiwand a British force that went out from Kandahar to oppose him, and was besieging that city. Sir Frederick Roberts at once set out from Kabul with 10,000 men to its relief, reached Kandahar after a rapid march of 313 miles, attacked and routed Ayub Khan’s army on 1st September, and restored British authority in southern Afghanistan. As the British ministry had resolved to evacuate Kandahar, Sher Ali Khan, who saw that he could not stand alone, resigned and withdrew to India, and the Amir Abdurrahman was invited to take possession of the province. But when Ayub Khan, who had meanwhile retreated to Herat, heard that the British forces had retired, early in 1881, to India, he mustered a fresh army and again approached Kandahar. In June the fort of Girisk, on the Helmund, was seized by his adherents ; the Amir’s troops were defeated some days later in an engagement, and Ayub Khan took possession of Kandahar at the end of July. The Amir Abdurrahman, whose movements had hitherto been slow and uncertain, now acted with vigour and decision. He marched rapidly from Kabul at the head of a force, with which he encountered Ayub Khan under the walls of Kandahar, and routed his army on 22nd September, taking all his guns and equipage. Ayub Khan fled toward Herat, but as the place had meanwhile been occupied by one of the Amir’s generals he took refuge in Persia. By this victory Abdurrahman’s rulership was established. In 1884 it was determined to resume the demarcation, by a joint commission of British and Russian officers, of the northern boundary of Afghanistan. The work went on with much difficulty and contention, until in March 1885, when the Amir was at Rawalpindi for a conference with the Viceroy of India, Lord DufFerin, the news came that at Panjdeh, a disputed place on the boundary held by the Afghans, the Russians had attacked and driven out with some loss the Amir’s troops. For the moment the consequences seemed likely to be serious ; but the affair was arranged diplomatically, and the demarcation proceeded up to a point near the Oxus river, beyond which the Commission were unable to settle an agreement. During the ten years following his accession in 1880 Abdurrahman employed himself in extending and consolidating his dominion over the whole country. Some

[history

local revolts among the tribes were rigorously suppressed ; and two attempts to upset his rulership—the first by Ayub Khan, who entered Afghanistan from ... Persia, the second and more dangerous one by man’s Ishak Khan, the Amir’s cousin, who rebelled system of against him in Afghan Turkestan—were de- sovernfeated. By 1891 the Amir had enforced meat’ his supreme authority throughout Afghanistan more completely than any of his predecessors. In 1895 the Amir’s troops entered Kafiristan, a wild mountainous tract on the north-east, inhabited by a peculiar race that had hitherto defied all efforts to subjugate them—and they have since been gradually reduced to submission. Meanwhile the delimitation of his northern frontier, up to the point where it meets Chinese territory on the east, has been completed and fixed by arrangements between the Governments of Russia and Great Britain; and the eastern border of the Afghan territory, towards India, has also been mapped out and partially laid down, in accordance with a convention between the two Governments. The Amir not only received a large annual subsidy of money from the British Government, but he also obtained considerable supplies of war material; and he moreover availed himself very freely of facilities that were given him for the importation at his own cost of arms through India. With these resources, and with the advantage of an assurance from the British Government that he would be aided against foreign aggression, he was able to establish an absolute military despotism inside his kingdom, by breaking down the power of the warlike tribes which *held in check, up to his time, the personal autocracy of the Kabul rulers, and by organizing a regular army well furnished with European rifles and artillery. Taxation of all kinds wTas heavily increased, and systematically collected. The result was that whereas in former times the forces of an Afghan ruler consisted mainly of a militia, furnished by the chiefs of tribes who held land on condition of military service, and urho stoutly resisted any attempt to commute this service for money payment, the Amir had at his command a large standing army, and disposed of a substantial revenue paid direct to his treasury. Abdurrahman executed or exiled all those whose political influence he saw reason to fear, or of whose disaffection he had the slightest suspicion; his administration was severe and his punishments were cruel; but undoubtedly he put down disorder, stopped the petty tyranny of local chiefs, and brought violent crime under some effective control in the districts. Travelling by the high roads is now comparatively safe; although it must be added that the excessive exactions of dues and customs have very seriously damaged the external trade. In short, Abdurrahman’s reign produced an important political revolution, or reformation, in Afghanistan, vrhich has risen from the condition of a country distracted by chronic civil -wars, under rulers whose authority depended upon their power to hold down or conciliate fierce and semi-independent tribes in the outlying parts of the dominion, to the rank of a formidable military state governed autocratically. How long such a system will outlast the death of its founder in 1901, in the hands of his successor Habibulla, has yet to be seen; for in Asia a centralized administration and a standing army are institutions which depend for their maintenance entirely on the ruler’s personal courage and capacity. Up to Abdurrahman’s reign the strength of the Afghan nation lay in its warlike character, in the readiness of the tribes to combine for opposing and harassing an invader, and in the local independence of powerful clans or chiefs. How that the power of the chiefs has been levelled down, and the fighting strength