afghanistanin Peshawar until the spring to allow additional reinforcements to be sent
and for his troops’ morale to improve. Finally, on 31 March 1842, Pollock
marched out of Peshawar at the head of 8,000 troops. In order to clear
the Khyber Pass of the Afridis and their barrier, Pollock sent the Highland
regiments, with bagpipes playing, to surmount the heights. After bitter
fighting, the enemy fled and abandoned ‘Ali Masjid. The army met with
little opposition for the rest of the march through the Khyber Pass. When
Sale heard that Pollock had broken through, he marched out of Jalalabad,
defeated Akbar Khan and recovered several guns that had been taken from
the Kabul garrison. Finally, on 16 April 1842, Pollock arrived in Jalalabad
and Akbar Khan fled to the safety of his father-in-law’s tribe in Laghman.
The column sent from Quetta reached Kandahar in early May and
managed to relieve the beleaguered troops in Qalat-i Ghilzai, but they were
too late to save the Ghazni garrison. Faced with starvation and with their
water supply cut off, Colonel Palmer, the commander, had surrendered in
early March 1842 after he received a pledge of safe conduct. However, as
soon as they were in the open plains the Ghilzai attacked, killing the gar -
rison almost to the last man and taking the few surviving officers hostage.
Nott eventually defeated the Ghilzai, retook Ghazni and joined Pollock in
Kabul before both armies withdrew back to India.
George Alfred Croly,
Khoord Caubel Pass,
1842 , ink wash over
pencil sketch. Croly
was a member of
Pollock’s ‘Army of
Retribution’. His
drawing shows the
army as it approached
Kabul and the
skeletons of those
who died in the retreat
of 1841/2.