, 1880-08-21
THE DISASTER IN CANDAHAR.

~ ohu A0tO cuACtCu Al uOuO on lU6S UE
such deep humiliation. We described tue
country a fortnight since as a NOR IS. from
which the Government must ~extricate itself:
but we ought rather to have called it a quick
sand, from which extrication might prove i'm
possible. Every step the nation takes to es.
cape seems to land is feet in a yet more te7a-
ciOus sand. The first rush was no sooner over
and a semblance of peace secured by the ex-
torted Treaty of Gundamuck, tn IAN the mul-
der OF the Resident compelled US 10
a second and far more extensive campaign.
mat was no sooner terminated, after a terri
Die expenditure both of money and lives, and a
new Native Government acknowledged, and a
withdrawal into India arranged, than a fright
ini disaster once more renders it imperative
not only to stand fast, but to increase the al
ready large army which is exha listing the
resources OF India in an admittedly sterile
effort. Providence seems to mock at our efforts
to undo the mischief We have wrought, and to
insist that the nation, for once, shall see and
hear the full consequence of its crime. There
is even a kind of dramatic completeness in the
method of our punishment. The nominal
object of our invasion-in reality, a gross in
stance OF buccaneering-was to force the AT
ghans to admit a British Resident in Cabul;
and because we succeeded, because the Resi-
dent was at last accepted, we were dragged
into q second war, employing sixty thousand
men. We were still unwilling to retire with
out something to show for all the lives and
money expended, and therefore kept Candahar
IN our own hands, or those of our vassal, and
because We kept it, we have again to employ
our whole strength to avenge a defeat which,
unAvengcd, may turn the whole course Of his
tory. Not a man can quit Afghanistan until
Ayoub Khan's army bias been scatte red, and it
will be we'll if we have not Afgbanistan to re-
conquer, 10 a campaign to which all that have
preceded it will seem like trifes.
As we pointed out some time since, the
formal announcement that the British had de-
cided to dismember Afghanistan, and keep its
richest province under their own control,
exasperated the Army at Herat beyond endur-
ance. The ~soldiery knew perfectly we'll that
the Candaharees, apart from a few traders,
desired no foreign rule they held Shere Ali,
the new Wall, to be eithor a traitor or a fool ;
they foresaw quite clearly that the British
would never rest in Candahar, and they
resolved not to surrender the old kingdom
without a struggle. Whether they compelled
Ayouh Khan to march, or whether that Prince,
who, though %indolent, has been trusted by his
family with great commands, saw that his
hour had come, is not yet known. At all
events, he marched on Candahas, and with the
results which he and his soldiery had ~foreseen.
The force swelled at every step, the moment
they reached fhe Helmund the Wallis army
mutiDied and joined them, and from every
part of Afghanistan the fighting men gathered
to Ayoub Khan. till the British Vioeroy was
Informed and reported to London that AyOub
Khan bad in a few days been joined by 1900
'"Ghazis." or fanatics, the nickname by which
the English describe the picked irregulars of
the nationalist party. Altogether he found
himself in command of $4,000 men. On the
23rd inst. the main body crossed the river,
and found before them a British Division oil all
arms, terribly attenuated in numbers, and sup
ported only by body of the Wallis cavalry,
who may or may not have proved faithful, but
who must have been constant objects of suspl-
Dion. So perversely confident were the Indian
authorities 10 the ''frieudliness' of the Canda-
harees, who must necessarily like subjug alton
by men able to build railways, that even when
Sir Donald Stewart had been despatched from
Candahar to take Ghuznee and strengthen the
British In Cabul, the Reserve Division, organ
issd 10 Bombay by Sir R, Temples forethought
was not ordered to advance, and the provinces
was lett ln charge of a garrison, we fear, less
than $500 strong, with a most dangerously
low proportion Of European electives. We Do
not believe that, allowing for the sick, there
were 1000 white men in all in Candahar
and when General Burrows advanced to the
Helmund to meet Ayoub Khan, half of these
must have been left in the city, which othe.
wise, although 80 "friendly," was certain to
rise behind him. 1t is true. General Phayre