afghanistanthe Amir to overhaul his administration, but the Amir had stalled for he
was not prepared to risk angering powerful individuals by meddling with
the well-established patronage system. On 2 September, in what would be
his last official communication, Cavagnari cabled Lytton ‘all well’. Early on
the following morning General Da’ud Khan, Amir Ya‘qub’s commander-
in-chief, ordered the Herat regiments to muster, without weapons, inside
the lower Bala Hisar to receive their pay, but when they were told they
would receive only two months’ wages they pelted the general and their
officers with stones, forcing them to seek shelter in the Amir’s palace. The
mutineers then tried to storm Amir Ya‘qub’s residence, only to be met with
stern resistance from a handful of Arab ghulams. An unidentified person
then shouted that they should ask the British envoy for their money and
they rushed to the Residency. When Cavagnari refused to disburse any
money, the mutineers began to stone the Guides and eventually Cavagnari
ordered them to open fire, killing or wounding several attackers in the
process. The deaths enraged the troops even more and they sent for re -
inforcements and their weapons from Sherpur. Meanwhile they looted the
bazaars and the nearby arsenal. Reinforced and now armed to the teeth,
the soldiers attacked the Residency with renewed vigour while mullahs in
the Old City broke their silence and called from the minarets for everyone
to come and join the attack.
The defence of the Residency, according to one Afghan eyewitness, was
‘miraculous’. Despite overwhelming odds and heavy loss of life, the Guides
held out for most of the day. Eventually the buildings were set alight and
the attackers broke down the main door of the sarai, set up a field gun
in the courtyard, and prepared to fire point-blank into the house where
the defenders had taken refuge. Cavagnari, Dr Kelly, the mission’s phys-
ician, Jenkyns, the mission’s Oriental Secretary, and Lieutenant Hamilton,
along with those Guides still capable of fighting, made a series of sorties to
spike the gun, only to be killed or mortally wounded. The survivors were
offered their lives – the Sikhs on condition they converted to Islam – but
the offer was rejected and so Muslim Pathans and Punjabi Sikhs fought
side by side and were slain to the last man. In the end, only two sepoys
lived to tell the tale. 8
Cavagnari’s death and the massacre of his escort was a mortal blow
to Lytton’s Afghanistan policy and British prestige, as well as a personal
tragedy as Cavagnari was a friend of the Viceroy. In his dispatch to Disraeli
notifying him of the massacre, Lytton reported that: ‘The web of our policy
so carefully and patiently woven has been rudely shattered... All that I was
most anxious to avoid in the conduct of the late war and negotiations has