Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/72

 and captured the whole of the enemy's tents, cattle, and a good supply of ammunition. The Afghans fled to the hills; the heights were attacked, and position after position carried at the point of the bayonet. Having dispersed the enemy and punished the villagers of Mamú Khel, Pollock busied himself in collecting supplies at Gandamak, and in making all necessary arrangements for the advance on Kábul. Letters arrived from Nott on 6 Sept., and Pollock, having secured sufficient supplies and leaving a strong detachment at Gandamak, advanced on 7 Sept. in two divisions, the first, which he himself accompanied, under the immediate command of Sir Robert Sale, the second under Major-general McCaskill. Pollock encountered the enemy on the 8th when advancing on the Jagdalak pass. The position occupied by the enemy was one of great strength and difficult of approach. The hills on each side were studded with ‘sungahs’ or breastworks, and formed an amphitheatre inclining towards the left of the road. After shelling the ‘sungahs’ for some time, Sale with much courage dispersed the enemy, and Pollock pushed on his troops, rejecting the advice of Sale to give the men rest after the fatigues of the day and to spare the cattle. He wisely deemed it best to give the enemy no time to rally, even at the cost of some of the baggage animals. Captain Troup, who was at this time at Kábul, a captive with Akbar Khan, subsequently told Pollock that, had he not pushed on, the sirdar would have sallied out of Kábul with twenty thousand men. Pollock reached Seh Baba on the 10th, and Tezin on 11 Sept., and was joined on the same day by the second division.

Akbar Khan had sent the captives to Bamian, and, on learning that Pollock had halted at Tezín, at once determined to attack him there. He opened fire in the afternoon of 12 Sept. Pollock immediately attacked the enemy, some five hundred of whom had taken post along the crest and upon the summit of a range of steep hills running from the northward into the Tezin valley. They were taken by surprise, and driven headlong down the hills. Hostilities were suspended by the approach of night. At dawn preparations were made for forcing the Tezin pass, a most formidable pass, some four miles in length. The Afghans, numbering some twenty thousand men, had occupied every height and crag not already crowned by the British. Sale, with whom was Pollock, commanded the advanced guard. The enemy were driven from post to post, contesting every step, but overcome by repeated bayonet charges. At length Pollock gained complete possession of the pass; but the fight was not over. The Afghans retired to the Haft Kotal, an almost impregnable position on hills seven thousand eight hundred feet above the sea, and the last they could hope to defend in front of Kábul. But Pollock's force had now become accustomed to victory, and was burning to wipe out the stain of the disasters that had befallen Elphinstone's army near the same spot. The Haft Kotal was at length surmounted and the enemy driven from crag to crag. Pollock, having completely dispersed the enemy by these operations, on 12 and 13 Sept. pursued his march. The passage through the Khurd Kábul pass was unmolested, but the scene was a painful one, for the skeletons of Elphinstone's force lay so thick on the ground that they had to be dragged aside to allow the gun-carriages to pass. Bútkháh was reached on the 14th, and on the 15th the force encamped close to Kábul. The British flag was hoisted with great ceremony in the Bála Hisár on the morning of the 16th. Akbar Khan, who had commanded the Afghans in person at Tezin, fled to the Ghorebund valley. On the following day Nott arrived from Kandahar and encamped at Arghandeh, near Kábul. The armies of Nott and Pollock were encamped on opposite sides of Kábul (Nott having shifted his camp to Kalát-i-Sultán), and Pollock assumed command of the whole force. Immediately upon his arrival at Kábul Pollock despatched Sir Richard Shakespear with seven hundred Kazlbash horsemen to Bamian to rescue the captives, and on 17 Sept. he sent a request to Nott that he would support Shakespear by sending a brigade in the direction of Bamian. Nott, however, who was annoyed by Pollock's victory in the race to Kábul, objected, saying his men required rest for a day or two, and excused himself from visiting Pollock on the plea of ill-health. Pollock, whose amiability was never in doubt, went on the 17th to see Nott, and, finding that he was still indisposed to send a brigade, directed Sale to take a brigade from his Jalálábád troops and push on to the support of Shakespear. The captives had, however, by large bribes effected their own deliverance, and, starting for Kábul on the 16th, met Shakespear on the 17th, and arrived in Pollock's camp on 22 Sept.

Pollock ascertained that Amír Ullah Khan, one of the fiercest opponents of British authority in Afghanistan, was collecting the scattered remnant of Akbar's forces in the kohistan or highlands of Kabul. He therefore sent a strong force, taken from both his own and Nott's division, under McCaskill, whose operations were crowned with complete suc-