The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [508]
‘Akbar’ had found several. He had even suggested that in the circumstances it was to Shere Ali's credit that he had stood out against Russian pressure as long as he had, while as for that review, it had, in his opinion, almost certainly been held less from a desire to do the self-invited visitors honour than as a covert warning – a visual demonstration of the military strength that Afghanistan could bring against any would-be aggressor…
‘It is believed in Kabul,’ wrote Akbar, ‘that the Amir has not only come to no arrangement with the Russian Envoy, but is at the moment only playing for time until he sees what action the British Government will take to counter this move. You will undoubtedly hear reports that he has spoken with great bitterness of the way in which he has been treated by Her Majesty's Government; but I have not heard it suggested that he has any intention of yielding to a new friend what he has refused to an old ally, and I would emphasize yet again, and most strongly, that everything I have seen and heard, both in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan, confirms my belief that Shere Ali is neither pro-Russian nor pro-British, but merely an Afghan who is striving to preserve the independence of his country against heavy odds – to name only two, a revolt by the Herati Ghilzais and the fact that his exiled nephew Abdur Rahman, now living under Russian protection, is widely believed to be willing to accede to any terms that his hosts may choose to demand, in return for his uncle's throne.’
But no amount of ‘special pleading’ could offset the shock and anger of the Viceroy and his advisers on hearing the news that a Russian Envoy had been received by the Amir, and welcomed with all honour, after Great Britain herself had been refused permission to send a similar mission to Kabul. This was an affront that no patriotic Englishman could be expected to stomach, and urgent letters were dispatched to London, pressing for permission to demand that the perfidious Shere Ali should consent to receive a British Mission in Kabul without any further shilly-shallying.
Faced with the irrefutable fact that a Russian Envoy had indeed been received by the Amir, the Foreign Secretary had given his consent, and the Viceroy had immediately set about selecting members for the Mission. The Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army, General Sir Neville Chamberlain, was chosen to lead it, with two officers – one of them Major Louis Cavagnari – appointed to accompany him for ‘political duties’. The party would include a Military Secretary and two aides-de-camp, and Lieutenant Colonel Jenkins was given command of the escort, drawn from his own Regiment and consisting of Major Stewart, Captain Battye, a hundred sabres of the Cavalry and fifty bayonets of the Infantry of the Queen's Own Corps of Guides.
The Mission was to set out for Kabul in September, but meanwhile a native emissary would leave immediately armed with a letter from the Viceroy to the Amir, advising him of the British Envoy's arrival and demanding that arrangements should be made for the safe passage of the Mission through His Highness's territory.
To emphasize the Government's displeasure, the emissary selected for this delicate task was a gentleman who some fourteen years earlier, before the days of Viceroys, had been appointed by the then Governor-General, Lord Lawrence, as Native Envoy to Kabul, and later been summarily recalled for abusing his position by intriguing against Shere Ali himself.
Not surprisingly, this choice of messenger did nothing