United States or Cuba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nott sent a detachment to occupy the fortress of Khelat-i-Ghilzai, between Candahar and Ghuznee, thus rendering the communications more secure; and later, Macnaghten bribed the chiefs by an annual subsidy of L600 to abstain from infesting the highways. The terms were cheap, for the Ghilzai tribes mustered some 40,000 fighting men.
It was resolved to evacuate Khelat-i-Ghilzai and take on its garrison with the column, which on the 25th resumed its march to Candahar.
For commissariat reasons one division under Stewart presently moved by the Cabul road on Khelat-i-Ghilzai, which was found empty, the Afghan garrison having evacuated it. Simultaneously with Stewart's departure from Candahar Biddulph marched out a column westward toward the Helmund, remaining in that region until the third week in February.
There was no relaxation in the rate of marching, and Khelat-i-Ghilzai was reached on the eighth day from Ghuznee, showing a daily average of nearly seventeen miles. The 24th was a halt day at Khelat-i-Ghilzai, where Sir Frederick Roberts received a letter from General Primrose in Candahar, describing the sortie made on the village of Deh Khoja and giving details of his situation.
The Duranis are numerically strongest and live in the vicinity of Kandahar. Next in importance are the Ghilzais, estimated at 30,000 fighting men living in the triangle Kabul, Jelalabad, Khelat-i-Ghilzai; until 1747 they furnished the rulers of Afghanistan.
The distance from Cabul to Candahar is about 320 miles, and the march naturally divides itself into three parts; from Cabul to Ghuznee, ninety-eight miles; from Ghuznee to Khelat-i-Ghilzai, one hundred and thirty-four miles; and from Khelat-i-Ghilzai to Candahar, eighty-eight miles, Ghuznee was reached on the seventh day, the daily average being fourteen miles excellent work for troops unseasoned to long continuous travel, tramping steadily in a temperature of from 84 deg. to 92 deg. in the shade.
The Ghilzai tribes of the region between Candahar and Ghuznee had accepted a subsidy to remain quiet, but the indomitable independence of this wild and fierce race was not to be tamed by bribes, and the spirit of hostility was manifesting itself so truculently that a British garrison had been placed in Khelat-i-Ghilzai, right in the heart of the disturbed territory.
As soon as the news reached him of the destruction of Cavagnari's mission he had promptly concentrated his troops, and so early as the third week of September he was in a position to carry out his orders to create a diversion in aid of Roberts' advance on Cabul by making a demonstration in the direction of Ghuznee and placing a garrison in Khelat-i-Ghilzai.
The chosen route was by the left bank of the Sutlej to its junction with the Indus, down the left bank of the Indus to the crossing point at Roree, and from Sukkur across the Scinde and northern Belooch provinces by the Bolan and Kojuk passes to Candahar, thence by Khelat-i-Ghilzai and Ghuznee to Cabul.
Colonel Wymer was sent from Candahar with a force, escorting a convoy of stores intended for the equipment of Khelat-i-Ghilzai.
Word Of The Day