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Updated: June 1, 2025
Many of these paths are followed by Kuchis in their annual migrations southward, with their families and household goods piled up in picturesque heaps on their hardy camels, or with large herds of sheep and goats, in search of fresh pasturage. South of the Hindoo Kush we find most of the eastern routes to our northwest frontier to converge in one point, very near to Jelalabad.
An eminent German authority wrote: "Kabul and other towns were levelled with the ground; Akbar's troops were blown from guns, and the people were collected together and destroyed like worms." General Pollock carried the famous Khaiber Pass, in advancing to the relief of Jelalabad in April, 1842.
The British troops at Candahar and Jelalabad were ordered to march upon Cabool, where, as an enduring mark of the retributary visit, in addition to pillaging the shops, setting fire to the houses, and murdering the unresisting inhabitants, they destroyed not the fortress but the bazaar, the great commercial depôt of Central Asia! The objects of the war were now accomplished.
Jelalabad, held by 2,400 men under General Sale, still withstood the storm like a rock of iron. General Nott, the energetic officer commanding at Kandahar, on receiving the news of the destruction of the British, blew up the citadel of the town, destroyed every thing not necessary to his object, and started, August 8, 1842, for Ghazni, which he also destroyed, September 6th.
During her captivity Lady Sale had been able to write letters to her husband, who was shut up with his garrison in Jelalabad, and her great desire was that he should be able to hold the place until relief arrived. On March 15 a rumour reached her that it had been captured by the Afghans, but to her great delight she heard later that the rumour was false.
The most northerly column, that of General Sir Samuel Browne, had Peshawur as its base of supplies. Some 16,000 strong, it easily captured the fort of Ali Musjid at the mouth of the Khyber Pass, then threaded that defile with little or no opposition, and pushed on to Jelalabad.
It is a policy which aims at obtaining the frontier Gilgit, Chitral, Jelalabad, Kandahar. In pursuance of that policy we have been led to build many frontier forts, to construct roads, to annex territories, and to enter upon more intimate relations with the border tribes. The most marked incident in that policy has been the retention of Chitral.
It was a result with which the British authorities were not likely to remain satisfied. The news of the massacre sent a thrill of horror through the civilized world. Retribution was the sole thought in British circles in India. A strong force was at once collected to punish the Afghans and rescue the prisoners. Under General Pollock it fought its way through the Khyber Pass and reached Jelalabad.
The horrors of Moscow were repeated in the Khurd Kabul, and the noblest attributes of humanity were exemplified in the acts of the officers and soldiers of the doomed party. Only twenty of this entire force survived. The news of this horrible disaster was brought to Jelalabad by the only man who penetrated the Afghan environment, Dr. Brydon.
This productive character of the immediate neighborhood of Kandahar, and its commanding position within reach of other fertile districts, would give to this place, under a strong, stable, and just government, as much prosperity and happiness as falls to the lot of any place in the world." Jelalabad stands on the Kabul River, about half-way between Kabul and the Khaiber Pass.
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