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Updated: June 16, 2025
Shelton, however, was opposed to the scheme, since if carried out it would avert or postpone the accomplishment of his policy of retreat on Jellalabad; Elphinstone was against it in the inertia of debility, and the project gradually came to be regarded as abandoned.
Accordingly on November 11th the brigade quitted Gundamuk, and hurried down rather precipitately, and with some fighting by the way, to Jellalabad, which was occupied on the 14th. Some members of the Gundamuk council of war, foremost among whom was Broadfoot, argued vigorously in favour of the return march to Cabul.
Before Sir Sam Browne moved forward from Jellalabad to Gundamuk he had been able to report to the Viceroy the death of Shere Ali. That unfortunate man had seen with despair the departure on December 10th of the last Russian from Cabul sure token that he need hope for nothing from Kaufmann or the Tzar.
The European troops in Jellalabad would be out of meat rations early in April, and Havelock's calculation was that the grain, on which mainly subsisted the native soldiers, who had been on half rations since the new year, would be exhausted before the middle of that month.
English officers have before now gone through trying sieges, as, for instance, Lawrence and Havelock at Lucknow, and Sale at Jellalabad, but it would be difficult in the whole of the military history of England to find a case in which an officer was left single-handed to contend with such frightful odds for so long a time. The siege lasted 317 days, very nearly as long as the siege of Sebastopol.
Most of the officers wished to abandon the city and make terms with the Afghans, in spite of the lesson that had already been given them of what was the fate of those who trusted to Afghan faith. Only Broadfoot and Havelock opposed violently this resolution, and in the end their views prevailed. Jellalabad was to be defended by the garrison till general Pollock arrived from the East.
"This is an Indian Army List of three years back," he explained, "and here is the very gentleman we want-'Heatherstone, J. B., Commander of the Bath, my dears, and 'V.C., think of that, 'V.C. 'formerly colonel in the Indian Infantry, 41st Bengal Foot, but now retired with the rank of major-general. In this other column is a record of his services 'capture of Ghuznee and defence of Jellalabad, Sobraon 1848, Indian Mutiny and reduction of Oudh.
At about three-quarters of a mile from Jellalabad, a flanking fire was opened from one of the forts on that column, and Sir Robert ordered Colonel Dennie to storm it. Accordingly, rushing on with his men of the gallant 13th, he passed the outer wall through an opening, but found himself exposed to a murderous fire from the inner keep.
The dirt and vermin of their habitation were abominably offensive to people to whom scrupulous cleanliness was a second nature. But the captives were allowed to take exercise within a limited range; they had among them a few books, and an old newspaper occasionally came on to them from Jellalabad, with which place a fitful correspondence in cypher was surreptitiously maintained.
He insisted on the halt of the column at Bootkhak until the following morning, when he would provide supplies, but he demanded an immediate subsidy of 15,000 rupees, and that Pottinger, Lawrence and Mackenzie should be given up to him as hostages that the force would not march beyond Tezeen until tidings should arrive that Sale had evacuated Jellalabad.
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