Page:Our Indian Army.djvu/546

522 CHAPTER XXX.

Shah Sujah's Popularity proves a Delusion – Affghan Hatred of the English – Blind Confidence of the Civil Functionaries – Carelessness of the Military – Amount of British Force at Cabul – Its scattered Positions – Insurrection at Cabul – Murder of Sir Alexander Burnes and other Officers – Supineness of the Military and Civil Authorities – Increasing Strength of the Insurrection – Nocturnal Adventure – The Commissariat Fort abandoned – Dilatory Proceedings of the British – A Change in the Command – Storming of the Rika Bashee Fort – Destruction of Major Pottinger's Detachment – Arrival of Akbar Khan – Failure of an Attack on Beymaroo – Negotiations with Akbar Khan – Interview of Sir William Macnaghten with the Affghan Chiefs – Assassination of Sir William, and Captain Trevor – Disgraceful Treaty with the Affghans for leave to depart.

We have hitherto seen the operations of our Indian Army in Affghanistan, with one or two exceptions, eminently successful; and our superiority, not only in science and tactics, but in physical power and courage, triumphantly established on every occasion, over a people who were unquestionably the best and most daring soldiers we had yet encountered in the East. But we are now about to reverse the medal, and to exhibit a period of unparalleled military disaster, accompanied, we deeply regret to say, by many instances of such military weakness as make us almost doubt that the men who failed at Cabul were the conquerors of Affghanistan, and the victors in many an exploit of field and fortress. We must, however, in common justice, admit that this failure is not so much to be attributed to a want of courage in the soldiers, as to the overweening confidence of the civil authorities, which betrayed them into insuperable difficulties, and the fatal indecision and actual imbecility of their own commander, which paralysed their energies at a moment when they had nothing else to depend upon.

The expedition into Affghanistan had been undertaken