Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/492

 from Quetta to Kandahar, one to demonstrate in the Khyber Pass, and the third under Roberts to occupy the Kurram and Khost valleys and thence threaten Kabul. In November Roberts moved up the Kurram and found a large Afghan force holding the Peiwar Kotal. Roberts turned the Afghan position by a skilful night march and routed the Afghans, who abandoned their guns and baggage, the loss to the British column being less than a hundred killed and wounded. Shere Ali at once fled to Turkestan, and his successor, Yakub Khan, signed on 26 May 1879 the Treaty of Gandamuk, which conceded all that the British government had demanded. At the end of 1878 Roberts was promoted major-general, and he received the K.C.B. and the thanks of parliament for the victory at the Peiwar Kotal. Roberts, who knew the Afghans well, was not satisfied that the British position in Afghanistan was secure, and his doubts were soon justified. In July 1879 a political mission led by Sir Louis Cavagnari [q.v.] went to Kabul, and in September Cavagnari with his staff and escort was treacherously murdered. Roberts at once returned to the Kurram, and led his force, which had been strengthened, on towards Kabul. No opposition was met until at Charasia, twelve miles south of Kabul, an Afghan army was found in position. On 6 October Roberts, aided by an attack against the Afghan left, gallantly and skilfully led by Major (afterwards Sir George) White [q.v.], turned the enemy's right and again routed them with trifling loss to his own force. He then occupied Kabul without further fighting. After arranging for the administration of the capital, he transferred his force in November to the cantonments of Sherpur in its vicinity, and here he was suddenly attacked on 11 December by masses of Afghans. After enduring a short siege he repulsed decisively a great assault on his lines (23 December), and this repulse broke the Afghan resistance. In the summer of 1880 Abdur Rahman was recognized by the British government as ameer, the war appeared to be at an end, and orders were issued for the return of the troops to India. Suddenly a fresh storm broke. In July a force of Afghans, which gathered reinforcements as it advanced, invaded Western Afghanistan from Herat, and on 27 July attacked and defeated a British brigade at Maiwand, nearly half the brigade being killed or wounded, while the Afghans captured large quantities of arms and ammunition. The small garrison of Kandahar appeared to be in danger, and Roberts at once proposed that he should lead a column from Kabul to its relief. Roberts had brought his transport to a high state of perfection, and he started from Kabul on 9 August with a picked body of 10,000 men. In the first fourteen days he covered 225 miles through difficult country, but encountered no opposition. He then learned that Kandahar was in no immediate danger and he completed the remaining 88 miles to Kandahar, which he entered on 31 August, at a more leisurely pace. On 1 September he met and defeated the Afghans outside Kandahar, and the pacification of Afghanistan was completed without further difficulty. The march to Kandahar and its triumphant conclusion appealed irresistibly to a public gravely perturbed by the disaster of Maiwand and racked with anxiety as to the fate of Kandahar. Roberts became at once a popular hero. He received the G.C.B. and a baronetcy, and was made commander-in-chief of the Madras army. The march to Kandahar was made possible by Roberts's prompt and bold decision, his careful forethought, the sound organization of his transport, and by the confidence in his leadership with which he inspired his men; but, as he always maintained, it was not as a military feat to be compared with his advance on Kabul in the previous year. The actions of the Peiwar Kotal and Charasia established his reputation amongst soldiers as a tactician; as an organiser of transport in a mountainous country he was without an equal; while his neat figure, fine horsemanship, charm of manner, and constant care for the lives and welfare of his men, won from them a devotion which was not the least of the causes of his success. The name ‘Bobs’ became one to conjure with in India.

In the autumn of 1880 Roberts came to England for a rest, and was received with all honour. As a firm believer in the forward policy he strongly advocated the retention of Kandahar, but was unable to persuade Mr. Gladstone's government to agree. While he was in England the news came home of the disaster of Majuba Hill (27 February 1881). He was at once sent to South Africa, but on reaching Cape Town he learned that Sir Henry Evelyn Wood [q.v.] had already arranged peace with the Boers. He therefore came straight back to England, and left for India again in the autumn of 1881 to take up his command in Madras. Four years later, when Sir Donald Stewart vacated the chief command in India, Roberts was universally 466