nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47Pottinger, who was in Herat travelling through Afghanistan in disguise,
secured an audience with Yar Muhammad Khan, Kamran’s wazir. When
he announced that he was a British officer he was given charge of the city’s
defences. 47 Pottinger’s actions at the siege of Herat made him a national
hero. Dubbed the Hero of Herat, British imperial mythology claimed it was
Pottinger who singlehandedly ensured the city did not fall. He did indeed
rally Herat’s dispirited defenders and organize its defences, but his real
achievement was cajoling Shah Kamran and Wazir Yar Muhammad Khan
not to surrender. Pottinger’s presence in Herat now meant Britain had
representatives in both camps, so while Pottinger did his best to drag out
the siege as long as possible, Stoddard and McNeill turned the diplomatic
screws on Shah Muhammad Khan.
Initially British officials thought that Herat would fall within a matter
of weeks. Meanwhile the campaign of Asaf alDaula on the Murghab and
in Maimana caused further concern. In late 1837 Dr Lord, the physician on
the Burnes Mission who had travelled to Qunduz to treat Murad Beg for an
ophthalmic complaint, wrote to inform Burnes of the submission of Mizrab
Khan of Maimana and the amirs of the Chahar Wilayat, and declared that
nothing now stood in the way of the Persian army occupying Balkh and
Qunduz. This news came on the back of reports that a Persian envoy had
arrived in Kandahar and was negotiating an alliance with Sher Dil Khan.
For a while it seemed that Herat, Balkh and Kandahar were likely to fall;
a scenario that the Governor General believed would open the door for
Russian influence and even a possible invasion of India.
In October 1837 Burnes wrote to Sher Dil Khan warning him that
Britain regarded the presence of the Persian ambassador as a hostile act,
but a month later Sher Dil Khan signed the treaty anyway. Under its terms
Persia agreed that on the fall of Herat it would be placed in the hands of the
Kandahar sardars, who would govern the province in the name of the Shah.
Persia also pledged military support in the event Kandahar were attacked
by Britain, Shah Shuja‘ or Dost Muhammad Khan. Having concluded the
treaty, Sher Dil Khan sent a large force of tribal levies to assist the Persian
siege of Herat. The situation became even more critical, as far as Britain was
concerned, when Count Ivan Simonich, the Russian envoy at the Persian
court, guaranteed the treaty, assigned a Russian artillery officer to advise
the Shah on the prosecution of the siege, and even gave him money to
pay his soldiers.
When Count Nesselrode, Russia’s foreign minister, heard what
Simonich had done, he repudiated his envoy’s actions and recalled him.
Nesselrode then wrote a formal apology to the British government, but by