afghanistanharrowing account of the pillage and slaughter of Maimana and ‘Alam
Khan’s repressive reign, the Amir was appalled. When ‘Alam Khan arrived
in Kabul the following year to celebrate Nauroz, instead of being welcomed
as a hero, the Amir ordered an audit of his accounts and placed him under
house arrest. A few months later it was announced that ‘Alam Khan had
died. According to the official version of events, the sardar’s leg had been
broken after his horse kicked him, and he subsequently contracted typhus
and died. What actually happened was that the Amir had ordered his
grooms to beat him to death during a visit to his stables. Following the
assassination, Sher ‘Ali Khan confiscated all of ‘Alam Khan’s property
and appointed Shahghasi Loynab Sherdil Khan as governor of Balkh in
his stead.
The Russian conquest of Khiva and the Simla ConferenceRelations between Britain and Afghanistan had markedly deteriorated by
the time Maimana fell. In 1870 General Kaufman initiated a correspond-
ence with Sher ‘Ali Khan, which the Amir dutifully showed to the Kabul
wakil, who made copies and sent them to India. The Amir then followed
the Viceroy’s advice on how to reply. Despite this show of loyalty, Forward
Policy advocates used the correspondence to claim that Sher ‘Ali Khan was
moving too close to Russia. Allegations about the Amir’s alleged disloyalty
intensified two years later when Kaufman offered to meet with Afghan offi-
cials to discuss frontier issues. At the end of 1873 Kaufman even hinted that
Russia had made some kind of alliance with Afghanistan. Russophobes in
the British government made much about the growing influence of Russia
at the Afghan court and claimed that Sher ‘Ali Khan was increasingly
untrustworthy. Forward Policy advocates called for Britain to demand
a formal presence in the Afghan capital and other key cities, partly to
ensure the Amir toed the British line and partly to keep an eye on Russian
activities in Central Asia.
Ironically, Kaufman’s correspondence was due primarily to British
pressure on the Russian Foreign Ministry to demarcate Afghanistan’s
northwestern frontier, a policy designed to prevent possible Russian
military expansion up the Murghab or across the Amu Darya. This corres-
pondence made little headway, so at the end of 1872 Britain unilaterally
declared the Amu Darya from Lake Sar-i Kul, also known as Lake Victoria
or Wood’s Lake, in the Wakhan to Khwaja Saleh, northwest of Andkhui, to
be the official northern frontier of Afghanistan. Russia eventually agreed
to this boundary, but Sher ‘Ali Khan was incensed, for Britain had not