nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47itself yet again caught up in the fallout from a European confrontation. The
Russian intervention in the Ottoman-held Balkans and Caucasus raised
the prospect of Britain going to war with Russia and the possibility that
Russia might open a second front and occupy Herat or Afghan Turkistan.
Sher ‘Ali Khan made one last attempt to mend the fence and appointed
a new envoy authorized to continue the talks. The Amir also hinted he
might be willing to compromise and allow a British officer to be stationed
in Herat, if Britain agreed to the demilitarization of Quetta. However,
when his envoy tried to cross the Indian frontier he was turned back and
informed that, since the Viceroy had terminated the negotiations, there
was no point proceeding any further.
The failure of the Peshawar talks and the breakdown in Anglo-Afghan
relations was a matter of the deepest concern for Sher ‘Ali Khan. It raised
the possibility that Britain might covertly encourage a more Anglophile
member of his family, such as Ya‘qub Khan, to seize the throne – some-
thing that Lytton was indeed discussing with London. Furthermore, since
Britain was not prepared to provide arms or cash, Afghanistan was now far
more vulnerable to Russian intervention or a Russian-backed attempt by
an Afzalid pretender, such as ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, to topple the Amir.
Sher ‘Ali Khan therefore ordered a general mobilization under the banner
of jihad, which Lytton misinterpreted as evidence that the Amir, incited by
Russia, was planning to raise the Frontier tribes and attack India. Nothing
could have been further from the truth. Sher ‘Ali Khan’s sole concern was
the defence of his own throne and kingdom against a possible Russian, or
British, intervention.
In an attempt to mediate and persuade Sher ‘Ali Khan to join an
anti-Russian coalition, in September 1877 the Ottoman Caliph sent
a mission to Kabul, only for the Amir to complain to the ambassador
how, after a decade of negotiation, he had failed to secure any significant
benefit from the Anglo-Afghan relationship. 46 Friendship with Britain,
he declared, was ‘a word written on ice’ and he was no longer prepared
to ‘waste precious life in entertaining false hopes from the English’. 47
The Ottoman envoy could do little. He had no authority from Britain
to mediate between the Amir and London and the British government
treated the whole venture with some scepticism, especially as the Turks
had applied to locate an Ottoman representative in Peshawar. What the
Ottoman mission did accomplish, however, was the beginning of a closer
relationship between Afghanistan and Turkey, which laid the foundation
for a pan-Islamic movement that would play an important part in Afghan
internal affairs, and in Anglo-Afghan relations, over the ensuing years.