afghanistanGeneral of India; while Palmerston, Melbourne’s Foreign Minister, became
one of Victorian England’s greatest politicians, twice holding the office of
Prime Minister. Auckland, Melbourne and Palmerston even had cities in
New Zealand and Australia named in their honour.
Much of the blame for the debacle was placed on the dysfunctional
political and military establishment in Kabul, in particular Elphinstone and
Macnaghten and, to a lesser degree, Burnes. This was highly convenient
since all three men were dead and in no position to defend themselves.
Even the Afghans were blamed for having the temerity to fight for their
independence and were damned as ‘a faithless enemy, stained by the foul
crime of assassination’ and guilty of ‘consummate treachery’. 46 The conclu-
sion was clear: the Afghans had only won because they cheated. As for
the chaos, anarchy and bloodshed the British left behind, Ellenborough
regarded this as Divine retribution, ‘the consequence of their crimes’. 47
Over the ensuing years the Victorian imperial propaganda machine did
its best to transform the humiliation into a heroic action; a scenario which
in the latter half of the twentieth century would come to be known as the
Dunkirk Spirit. Macnaghten’s treachery was downplayed, as was the dalli-
ance of Burnes and other officers with the wives and concubines of nobles.
Instead the emphasis shifted to the heroism of the storming of Ghazi;
Nott’s victories over the Durranis and Ghilzai; Pottinger’s defence of Herat;
Sale’s defence of Jalalabad and Pollock’s Army of Retribution. Burnes, Lord,
Arthur Conolly and Stoddard, in particular, were recast as martyrs to the
Imperial cause, men who gave their lives trying, in vain, to extend the
benefits of civilization to an ungrateful, ‘savage’ and ‘tr eacherous’ people.
So successful was this ‘spin’ that on the eve of going to war a second
time with Afghanistan, Viscount Cranbrook, Secretary of State for India,
in an address to the House of Lords, was able to dismiss the disaster of
1841/2 as ‘unfortunate’ (a very British understatement) to ‘hear hears’ from
the assembled peers:
the sufferings sustained by our troops in the [First Afghan] war...
did not happen because the country was too weak to maintain her
rights and put down all opposition by the sword, but because we
were unfortunate. We were unfortunate in our political negotiators;
we were unfortunate in our generals (Hear, hear). The commonest
precautions were neglected, and from these causes, and not from
any want of valour in the field, resulted those disasters which we
all regret (Hear, hear). 48