Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
No doubt he was weary of the fugitive life he had been leading, but to pronounce him afraid that the Kohistanees or any other Afghans would betray him is to ignore the fact that he had been for months among people who might, any hour of any day, have betrayed him if they had chosen.
After a brief artillery preparation the columns carried the position with a rush, and the Kohistanees were routed with heavy loss. Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees well beaten, Macpherson camped for the night near Karez.
The Kohistanees despitefully used Shahbaz Khan, and when a brother of Yakoub Khan was sent to use his influence in favour of the worried and threatened governor, he was reviled as a 'Kafir' and a 'Feringhee, and ordered peremptorily back to Sherpur if he had any regard for his life.
The whole terrain around Karez swarmed with masses of armed tribesmen, whose banners were flying on every hillock. Down in the Pughman valley to the left rear, were discerned bodies of the hostile contingent from the west, between which and the Kohistanees no junction had fortunately as yet been made. Macpherson's dispositions were simple.
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.
If Lockhart's reconnaissance had been made a day earlier, Macpherson might probably have utilised to good purpose by dispersing the Kohistanees, the day which as it was he spent halted at Aushar.
They came, they did homage to the Shah and swore allegiance to him; they went away from the capital pledging each other to his overthrow, and jeering at the scantiness of the force they had seen at Cabul. Intercepted letters disclosed their schemes, and in the end of September Sale, with a considerable force, marched out to chastise the disaffected Kohistanees.
There was an Afghan force still in arms at Istalif, a beautiful village of the inveterately hostile Kohistanees; a division marched to attack it, carried the place by assault, burnt part of it, and severely smote the garrison. Utter destruction was the fate of Charikar, the capital of the Kohistan, where Codrington's Goorkha regiment had been destroyed.
It was imperative that the latter should be dispersed before the junction could be effected, and Sir Frederick Roberts had no option but to order Macpherson to alter his line of advance and move against the Kohistanees.
Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees were less formidable, and might be dealt with incidentally. On the 8th General Macpherson was sent out toward the west with a column consisting of 1300 bayonets, three squadrons, and eight guns.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking