Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/71

 CHAPTER VI

'The Military Promenade'

The retreat of the Persians from Herát, with the consequent failure of Russia's supposed designs against what our statesmen were pleased to call the Western Frontier of India, seemed to leave Lord Auckland without a pretext for sending a British army into Afghánistán. There was nothing more to fear for the present from Russian aggressiveness masked by Persian arms. Our secret enemies inside India ceased to foster vague hopes of a speedy deliverance from British rule. The Russian Government protested that Count Simonich had acted contrary to his instructions, and Viktevitch was afterwards received at Petersburg so coldly that he blew out his brains. It seemed so easy to draw back betimes from a foolhardy enterprise to which nothing in the Tripartite Treaty had directly committed us; which Shujá himself regarded with keen disfavour; and towards which no solid help could be expected from our Sikh ally, who would never think of allowing a British army to march across the Punjab. But Lord Auckland felt that the time for drawing back was past. Some weeks before the safety of Herát became officially known to him, he