Afghanistan. A History from 1260 to the Present - Jonathan L. Lee (2018)

afghanistan

the Behmaru Heights. Tepa­yi Behmaru, the eastern hill, was within
jezail range of the northern part of the cantonment where Macnaghten’s
Residency was located. To the east and south lay several high­walled
compounds, or qal‘as, and walled gardens, which too were within range
of the Afghans’ long­barrelled, flintlock rifles. Yet none of these fortified
compounds were levelled and most were not even garrisoned. Even more
extraordinary, the commissariat and munitions store were located in two
of these qal‘as outside the cantonment walls. In Kaye’s words, the canton­
ment ‘stood, bare and defenceless, as sheep­pens, whilst the wolves were
howling around them’. 1 The only thing that commended the site was that
there was an abundance of water from shallow wells.
A number of officers were permitted to reside in the Old City. They
included Alexander Burnes and his younger brother, who rented a house
near the Qizilbash quarter of Chindawal, and Captain Johnson, paymaster
for Shah Shuja‘ al­Mulk’s troops, who rented a house near Burnes. Since
Johnson thought it would be personally inconvenient to keep the regimen­
tal fund inside the Bala Hisar, he always had several lakh of rupees in his
house. Fewer than thirty sepoys were deployed to guard these two dwellings.

Shah Shuja‘ al-Mulk’s administration and relations

with British forces

Once back on his throne Shah Shuja‘ proceeded to undermine the British
position by alienating powerful tribes and imprisoning their leaders,
including ’Amin Allah Khan Logari, who, despite being of low birth,
commanded several thousand heavily armed tribesmen; ‘Abd al­‘Aziz Khan,
a Jabbar Khel Ghilzai who was brother­in­la w to Dost Muhammad Khan;
and Nawab Muhammad Zaman Khan, the eldest surviving son of Payinda
Khan and titular head of the Barakzais. Nawab Zaman Khan had formerly
been governor of Kashmir and Jalalabad under Shah Zaman and had great
influence with the Ghilzais of Tezin and Gandamak as well as the Jabbar
Khel. He was lured to Kabul with promises of safe conduct underwritten
by Macnaghten and told that, in return for swearing allegiance to Shah
Shuja‘, he would be treated with due honour and appointed to an appro­
priate position in the new government. Instead, when he arrived in Kabul,
Shah Shuja‘ denied Nawab Zaman Khan an audience and placed him under
house arrest. Harlan, who had acted as intermediary in the negotiations,
was furious and blamed Burnes for this breach of faith. Burnes retaliated
by denouncing Harlan as an enemy of Britain and persuaded Macnaghten
to expel him from Afghanistan. When Harlan arrived in India, he found