nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47arrived Herat regiments were a prime target for her intrigue; not only were
they penniless and starving, they had been commanded by ‘Abd Allah
Jan. As for the officers of the Balkh regiment, many of them were already
partisans of Ishaq Khan and ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan. According to Katib,
the Queen had even bribed General Da’ud Shah, Ya‘qub’s commander -in-
chief, to tell the regiments not to accept the two months’ pay and rebel.
If this were the case, then it may explain Da’ud Shah’s decision to
muster regiments that were in a mutinous state inside the Bala Hisar rather
than outside the citadel’s walls. Under normal circumstances no troops,
armed or otherwise, would have been allowed to enter the royal citadel for
the risk they posed to the Amir was too great. General Da’ud Shah prob-
ably knew the troops would not accept just two months’ pay and attack the
Amir’s palace, but the plot unravelled after the mutineers were beaten back
from the palace walls and attacked the Residency instead. When the Guides
killed and wounded several mutineers, the soldiers were more intent on
avenging their comrades’ deaths than they were in storming Ya‘qub Khan’s
palace. No doubt the prospect of looting the Residency’s full treasury was
an additional incentive. By the time the last defender was slain and the
Residency pillaged, it was dusk and the exhausted troops withdrew to break
the fast and share out the booty.
General Roberts and the occupation of KabulCavagnari’s death made the occupation of Kabul inevitable and the Khost
Field Force, commanded by General Frederick Roberts, was ordered
to march on the Afghan capital. In Kabul itself Ya‘qub Khan somehow
managed to hold out in the Bala Hisar, even though the rest of the city
was out of his control. Roberts made relatively easy progress to Kabul until
he reached Chahar Asiyab, on the outskirts of Kabul, where he defeated
a force of tribal levies and government forces after a sharp engagement.
Amir Ya‘qub Khan then came into Roberts’s camp to submit and he and a
number of his followers were arrested.
Lord Lytton was deeply affected by his friend’s death as well as by the
shattering of his Forward Policy, and his instructions to Roberts made it
clear that he was on a mission of both personal and Britannic revenge.
Roberts had ‘perfectly unfettered... freedom of action’ to punish any civil-
ian or soldier implicated in the attack on the Residency. Suspects were to
be subjected to ‘the roughest and readiest kind’ of justice and Roberts was
specifically ordered not to keep any written records of the judicial proceed-
ings. The accused had no right of appeal and the military courts Roberts set