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

afghanistan

As Nott advanced on the citadel the Ghilzais attacked, whereupon Nott
responded with grapeshot and disciplined musket fire, which led to great
slaughter among the lightly armed Ghilzais. Despite suffering heavy losses,
the Ghilzais repeatedly charged the British line until, after more than five
hours, the survivors fled. For the first and last time in Afghanistan, British
and Indian troops had fought a battle for which they had been trained and
on their own terms.
Nott’s victories in the Helmand and at Qalat-i Ghilzai reinforced
Macnaghten’s belief that Afghanistan was pacified and he compounded
this error by grossly underestimating the strength of the rebellions. Akhtar
Khan’s Durranis he dismissed as a ‘bag of ragamuffins’, while rebellion
was deemed to be second nature to the Ghilzais. ‘Those who knew this
country when it was ruled by the Barukzayes,’ he wrote in August 1841,
‘are amazed at the metamorphosis it has undergone, and with so little
bloodshed.’ 20 So when Henry Rawlinson, the political officer in Kandahar,
warned Macnaghten that these revolts were but the beginning of more
serious trouble, he was pompously rebuked for his:

unwarrantably gloomy view of our position, and entertaining and

disseminating rumours favourable to that view. We have enough

of difficulties and croakers without adding to the number need-

lessly... These idle statements may cause much mischief, and,

often repeated as they are, they neutralise my protestations to the

contrary. I know them to be utterly false as regards this part of the

country, and I have no reason to believe them to be true regarding

your portion of the kingdom. 21

Neither Elphinstone nor Macnaghten was able to see, let alone read,
the writing on the wall and constantly ignored the warnings of experienced
Indian officers and Afghan well-wishers. Even though Macnaghten himself
admitted to Auckland that ‘we are wretchedly weak’, 22 more Indian troops
were withdrawn and by the end of October 1841, there was just one British
and one Indian regiment in Kabul, supported by a corps of Shah Shuja‘
al-Mulk’s untried and potentially untrustworthy levies.
In order to raise the 12,000 troops that the British believed was the
minimum needed to sustain Shah Shuja‘ on the throne, Burnes drew up
plans for the reform of the kingdom’s military. 23 Modelled on the British
army, a completely new officer corps was to be raised based on merit
rather than birth and pedigree – ironic given that the British army was as
deeply entrenched in its own class system as the Afghan military. An initial