Blavatsky H.P. - From Calcutta

From Calcutta

by H. P. Blavatsky Translated from Russian by V. V. Baziukin

February 4

While speaking about Spain and the means to conquer it, Henry IV is said to have put it this way, “Make an invasion of her with a large army, and you will all die of starvation; advance on her with a small one, and you will be overcome by the masses of the population hostile to you.” These historical words of the great king of France were quoted as a late reflection by Sir Henry Durand in his criticism of the first invasion of Afghanistan. They could have served as a good warning for the second invasion as well, a few months ago. But although the above words were commented on, and much was discussed about them, the warning, however, has proved futile. “Everything about this expedition,” says Durand of the first attack, “was questionable, even down to the most important of all issues, provisions for the troops: Afghanistan well deserved the reputation that Spain once had in the eyes of Henry IV.”

Despite the “gloss” deftly put by the official Pioneer newspaper, despite the thick pieces of plaster with which it so generously fills up the cracks discovered daily by the public in this hitherto impregnable wall of Anglo-Indian politics, the building is cracking and constantly threatening destruction. Woe to her, the arrogant conqueror, if the masses of India ever wake up from their age-old lethargy! It will be all up with her, as soon as the beast senses that the hand holding it so tightly begins to weaken and that at least one link from the chain that firmly fastened it has already crackled!..

In view of the unexpected and decisive resistance from the enemy in Afghanistan, she cannot, for the time being, even to dream of an offensive. According to eyewitnesses, every step of the army in Afghanistan at this time of the year is fraught with such difficulties that no other country can give the slightest idea. Terrible cold and snowstorms; valleys and mountains covered with deep snow; roads pitted everywhere with potholes and even failures, flooded immediately with the freezing water of countless waterfalls; fields intersected in all directions by deep ditches and groves and separated from one another by high strong walls. All around, over a space of many miles, excellent natural shelters stretch almost continuously and in all directions, thus enabling enemy skirmishers to disturb any army, especially if it is burdened, as at present, with carts and a long tail of idle Indians and Kizilbashis, looking for salvation in its rear. They will have to take every village, the slightest fortress or wall by storm, since the mountain gun is completely “powerless” against the Afghan wattle-and-daub walls. Such tactics will require new reinforcements in a very short time, because in hand-to-hand combat, where the superiority of weapons and military tactics is completely worthless, the Afghans are in no way inferior to the British in strength or courage, while in some respects, — being, unlike British soldiers, fresh and not exhausted by hardships — even surpass the English. The tactic of ever-increasing reinforcements has already been tried and failed, like everything else.

“I don’t think,” says the Calcutta newspaper, l’enfant terrible of English-language journalism, Amrita Bazaar Patrika (January 30), speaking about these difficulties, “that after our army has fallen into a trap more than once, surrounded by 30,000 Afghans, the government would express the slightest desire to repeat the experience. To be able to successfully face off against such an enemy, we certainly need great forces; it is in this danger that the specter of starvation appears before us. The Khyber transport is not strong enough to be relied upon to bring provisions from Peshawar; in all likelihood they will have to share the requisitions in the country, forcing it to sell us its far-hidden reserves by force — a task easier to solve in words than in deeds. But the main difficulty will be that, as we move forward, we will have to lay our lines of communication further and further; this will create a new need to have not only a large number of mobile battalions strong enough to guard the convoy, but also to have regiments in reserve in the theater of operations itself in order to successfully disperse the Kabul detachments.”

The great need for a stronger escort and means of transportation was demonstrated last December, when a handful of predators attacked the transport, robbed it clean and carried away, among other booty, 145 bales of warm clothing for soldiers, sewn by Allahabad and other ladies with their own hands, and sent by them as a gift to the troops. The ladies, it seems, have not taken comfort to this day: the mere thought that their patriotic concern, at this very moment, covers the grease-smeared bodies of dirty Afghans drives them to furious despair.

But even retreat is fraught with great danger. The slightest movement back will immediately set all the Afghan population against them, not to mention the loss of “English prestige” in the East. Perhaps, according to the dispatch of General Roberts, the soldiers are “all on fire to punish the enemy,” but their heat, apparently, is destined to smolder for a long time, and then — who knows? — it might cool down altogether. And Roberts could not hide the fact that, meanwhile, they, one by one, even “freeze” under the breath of frost, smallpox, cholera and other oriental delights. No “Russian spies” are necessary to see this, for it is enough to read London newspapers like Vanity Fair and others. Should they decide to retreat, the Afghans will disturb them to the very gates of Peshawar and continue to rob and kill every lagging soldier, as they had done more than once with complete impunity under the very walls of Sherpur, or before that in 1842. In those days, the victorious army, full of enthusiasm after the successful sack of Kabul, was returning to India with all the charm of a conqueror. And yet, due to the relentless persecution of the Kabulis, who attacked them from the rear and almost tortured them to death, the poor English soldiers, according to the unanimous testimony of the historians of this sad first expedition, “looked more like a battered partisan detachment than a victorious army” after returning home.

But there is a third thing for the British — staying trapped in their camps, doing nothing and waiting for spring, when, according to the Calcutta correspondent of the Times (who is well known to us as one of the “wise men”), the militant fervor of the Afghans will cool down, “and the time will come for revenge and reprisals.” Only, according to all local newspapers, except the Pioneer, this last choice is the most dangerous of all three. I will cite the highlights of the most important publications:

“It has now been positively proven that camp life during this winter time gives rise to the most terrible diseases and has already caused a severe mortality among the troops. Moreover, this idle life gives every chance for successful uprisings, as was the case during the recent rebellion. Once the troops are allowed to sink into a state of long inactivity, their mullahs will immediately begin to preach jihad; and then not a single soldier, not to mention ordinary Afghans, will dare to refuse to take up arms to exterminate the army of the hated feringhees. That will be a hand-to-hand fight to the death; it is precisely in this possibility that the main danger for the British lies.” Then, “the view of troops plunged into inactivity with pitched tents in the very heart of their country alone will be enough to arouse in them the most infernal feelings of revenge, and throw themselves at once into the arms of the Russians.”

Besides, no one sees any use in a camped, inactive army, which is the source of countless troubles, the main one being the need to scrape out the last crumbs from India's rapidly drying up treasuries, bringing it closer to complete bankruptcy every day.

“The absence of any definite plan,” says Amrita, “has a bad influence on all the classes of India. The leaders of our troops in Afghanistan, having found themselves in a hole and not knowing what to do next, are completely at a loss: either they start acting like crazy, or they sit like deluded fools. Today they hang innocent people, under the pretext of intimidating the Afghans, and tomorrow they embrace tenderly traitors who positively deserve the gallows. The tribes that have been really friendly to us so far, are quite rightly beginning to suspect us and no longer dare to show us their goodwill for fear of incurring the revenge of enemies from whom we do not even know how to protect them…”

The Pioneer correspondent repeats the same thing, describing the recent sacking of Kabul by the Anglo-Indian troops:

“The Hindus and Kizil-Bashis, who relied so much on our protection, have every right to revile us now for leaving them with such cruelty to their own fate, while the Mohammedans who plundered their dwellings, insulted their women and kept them in a paroxysm of horror for ten whole days, now frankly laugh at us and at our impotence to reach them in their distant villages.”

And these poor things, like the Bulgarians did before the Turks, are about to flee to Hindustan, where they will die of hunger. Yet, they prefer all sorts of hardships rather than be subjected again to the frantic robbery by a terrible horde of savages.

Now, all this has ceased to be a secret, at least for the inhabitants of India. It is plain as daylight that the Anglo-Indian government, in its haste to avenge the death of poor Cavagnari, did not calculate all the chances. A cry of rage drowned out the voice of reason, and they failed. True, they did avenge Cavagnari, but would revenge lose any of its sweetness if they had waited a few months? That was the vengeance incited mostly by the local Protestant clergy, the head of which went so far as to publish in the Englishman a long pastoral epistle (!), where he sternly drilled into his Christian flock that there are cases in history “when a Christian should forget his faith for the time being and, girded with the sword of destruction, indulge in merciless, but just vengeance!” (Sic.) But what else is their occupying army serving them now, besides such momentary vengeance? It has ensconced itself in Sherpur and, despite the dispatches of General Roberts promising all sorts of feats in the future, sits like a mouse in a trap and drags out the most bitter existence, according to the testimony of its own officers. The treasury of India is exhausted by the army's demands and feeds 40,000 parasites with the last crumbs paid by a people groaning under this overwhelming burden of taxes. But that is not all. The real war has made recruiting volunteers almost impossible in India. Therefore, all “reinforcements” will, perhaps, have to be sent by England itself. Military service grows unpopular among the native troops every day. Here is what a correspondent of a Calcutta newspaper reported about the situation in one regiment of the 2nd Native Army after it had returned from Ali Masjid and Peshawar to Rawalpindi for replenishment. “In December, the regiment lost 68 people, while in January the entire number of people fit for service in it was only 32. In fact, this regiment has ended its miserable existence. In the native mind, the conviction is daily rooted that going to Delhi for a soldier is as good as a journey to where no traveler has ever returned,” the correspondent states. “Strong displeasure has settled among the troops in the Kurram Valley, and their mere murmur is enough to intimidate volunteers. One soldier wrote to his fellow countryman asking him to announce to his village that none of its residents should enter the service, as what awaited the recruit was long sufferings, with the deliverer death at the end.” These words went like lightning through not one, but many villages, and as a result the conscription was zero in this neighborhood. The Kabul army is no less embittered against the government, and this greatly hinders the recruitment.

Meanwhile, discontent is growing in India. The native press is agitated and, despite the Black Act, is becoming bolder every day. With unusual bitterness and force of expression, it protests against the further advance of the army, and even hints that the latter's presence may soon become more necessary in India itself than in Kabul.

“But England wants nothing but conquest,” says Amrita Bazar Patrika. “With its offensive movement, our army will temporarily escape the judgment of the British nation — and this is enough for it for the time being. Only, such a movement means the complete ruin of India and her starving population; but it is one of those “trifles” which will not stop our government from appealing to the worst instincts of the British nation, if only to save its own credit in her eyes, even if only for the shortest time!”

That's the whole result of this war so far.

“Be that as it may, we find the following as a result achieved so far: the bankruptcy of the treasury and the population; a complete cease of inner prosperity; the extermination of thousands of camels and mules; permanent tax increases; reduction of funds for cultivating the land; the weakening of trade and the resultant decrease in state revenues; a complete change in the feelings of the native army towards their British officers; the loss of a good name by England, the ever-increasing hostility of the Muslim population towards them, and finally, obvious pretexts provided by the government to unrest and rebellion among the people suppressed by ever growing taxes. The crowning glory is the withdrawal of the last troops and garrison from Bombay, and leaving the city and the entire residence to their own fate! Would not Dr. Hunter include these benefits among the other good deeds done by the British for the Indian Empire?” asks bitterly the Bombay Review, a purely English organ, at the end.

Meanwhile, things are not getting better; so, it is necessary to shift the blame on someone — at least, in the shape of some beneficent diversion. And now all the blame falls on Russia!! Again, some of her intrigues have been dug up, this time not in Kabul, but in the capital of Kashmir, and they are raising a hubbub throughout India, hoping, perhaps, to divert attention from their own tricks with such a cry. How right, how photographically exact is the description given by Malcolm McKell of the spirit of the English conservative press!

“Russophobes,” he writes, “positively imagine that England has received the divine right of political intrigue (he writes in one of the London weekly magazines), and intriguing against Russia in their eyes is both noble and patriotic. But as soon as Russia, even in self-defense, dares to try resistance, she is immediately put on trial as a traitorous, deceitful state, whose promises should not be given the slightest faith. It is precisely this disgusting, sickening hypocrisy of this kind of polemic that revolts me most of all.”

And if the Englishman himself is sick of it, one might well ask what should be happening in the soul of every Russian! Professor Wordsworth truly remarks that if any friendly relations between Russia and England ever become impossible, then English Russophobic press alone will have to be thanked for this.

Meanwhile, today (February 4), a telegram brings the news that a detachment sent by General Roberts for reconnaissance and several spies have been stopped by armed men between Argandeh and Maidan, and therefore they could not reach Ghazni. Another party of Kizil-Bashis were murdered and robbed by the Jadrani tribe on the way to Kabul. In Lohar, Hassan Khan was almost killed by mountain tribes who flatly refused him tribute and directly announced that they did not recognize Mohammad-Djan as their ruler. All this does not really confirm the enthusiasm of the Afghan peoples proclaimed by official dispatches in favor of the so-called new emir Muza-Jan.

Bitter is, then, the fate of this unfortunate candidate for the shaky throne of Yaqub Khan!..

Thus, difficulties alone are the result of the Afghan expedition, so far!

R. B.

Footnotes

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