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Updated: May 19, 2025
From this village, after the loss of the Commissariat fort, our people had been drawing supplies. On the morning of the 22d the Afghans were seen moving in force from Cabul toward Behmaroo, obviously with intent to occupy the village, and so deprive the occupants of the cantonments of the resource it had been affording them.
The detachment of the 28th opened fire somewhat prematurely, and presently the Guides holding Behmaroo and the trenches on the slopes followed the example, and sweeping with their fire the terrain in front of them broke the force of the attack while its leaders were still several hundred yards away.
The detachment near Behmaroo attempted to fall back in orderly fashion, but the reinforced garrison of the village swept out upon it, surrounded it, broke it up, and threw it into utter rout with the loss of a large proportion of its strength, one whole company being all but annihilated.
A detachment under Major Swayne, sent out to forestall this occupation, found Behmaroo already in the possession of a body of Kohistanees, who had so blocked the approaches that Swayne did not consider himself justified in attempting the fulfilment of his orders to storm the place; and he contented himself with maintaining all day an ineffectual musketry fire on it.
The open space on the north-eastern angle was similarly fortified; the village of Behmaroo was loopholed, and outlying buildings to the front were placed in a state of defence. The unfinished eastern wall was heightened by logs built up in tiers, and its front was covered with abattis, a tower and garden outside being occupied by a detachment.
A series of block houses had been built along the crest of the Behmaroo heights supporting a continuous entrenchment, gun emplacements made in the line of defence, and the gorge dividing the heights strongly fortified against an attack from the northern plain.
On the southern and western faces the massive and continuous enciente made it impregnable against any force unprovided with siege artillery. But on the eastern face the wall had been built to the elevation only of seven feet, and at either end of the Behmaroo heights, which constituted the northern line of defence, there were open gaps which had to be made good.
The latter was greatly strengthened, the eastern point of the Behmaroo heights being converted into something like a regular fortress. Later, in March, when the Cabul force had increased to a strength of about 11,500 men and twenty-six guns, the command was formed into two divisions, of which the first remained under the Lieutenant-General, the second being commanded by Major-General John Ross.
Recognising the mischief wrought by the hostile occupation of our only source of supplies, the Envoy strongly urged the immediate despatch of a strong force to occupy the Behmaroo ridge, and dislodge from the village its Kohistanee garrison.
It had come to our people in those gloomy days, to regard as a 'triumph' a combat in which they were not actually worsted; and even of such dubious successes the last occurred on November 13, when the Afghans, after having pressed our infantry down the slopes of the Behmaroo ridge, were driven back by artillery fire, and forced by a cavalry charge to retreat further, leaving behind them a couple of guns from which they had been sending missiles into the cantonments.
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