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Updated: June 18, 2025
Commercial relations between India and Afghanistan were to be protected and encouraged; a telegraph line between Cabul and the Kuram was forthwith to be constructed; and the Ameer was to proclaim an amnesty relieving all and sundry of his subjects from punishment for services rendered to the British during the war.
Hamilton was said to have died sword in hand in a final desperate charge. Tidings of the massacre were carried with great speed to Massy's outposts in the Kuram valley. The news reached Simla by telegraph early on the morning of the 5th.
The action of the English cavalry, as at Ahmed-Kheyl, was suicidal in receiving the enemy's charge practically at a halt. Occasionally shelter trenches were used, but disapproved. The opposition to dismounted cavalry duty is still so great, in the British army, that the mounted arm is paralyzed for effective service. Very little was done by the horse artillery with the Kuram column.
We would fain come at them with the bayonet. Why are we kept back in the trenches, Sahib?" "Peace! It shall come in good time." They passed into another cabin reserved for native officers. A tall Sikh rose to a half-sitting posture and saluted. "What is your name?" "H Sing, Sahib." "There was a H Sing with me in '78," said the Field-Marshal meditatively. "With the Kuram Field Force.
Twenty-four hours later, natives from Cabul brought the news over the Shaturgurdan Pass into the Kuram Valley. Thence it was telegraphed to Simla. The terrible news created a shock throughout all India. But no time was lost in taking measures to avenge the massacre.
Lord Beaconsfield's vaunted 'scientific frontier, condemned by a consensus of the best military opinions, was rejected by the Liberal Government which had recently acceded to power, whose decision was that both the Khyber Pass and the Kuram valley should be abandoned.
The Kuram force wintered in excellent health spite of the rigorous climate, and toward the end of March 1879 its forward concentration about Ali Kheyl was ordered, which was virtually accomplished before the snow had melted from the passes in the later weeks of April.
Three strategic passes lead from Afghanistan into India: the Khyber Pass, the Bolan Pass, and the Kuram Valley. When, in 1878, the English marched into Afghanistan they proceeded in three columns from Peshawar, Kohat, and Quetta to Cabul, Ghazni, and Kandahar respectively. These three roads have also been laid down as our lines of march. Public opinion considers them the only possible routes.
His sick and wounded sent back to Fort Kuram, General Roberts advanced to Ali Khel, and thence made a reconnaissance forward to the Shutargurdan Pass, whose summit is distant from Cabul little more than fifty miles. Its height is great upwards of 11,200 feet but it was regarded as not presenting serious obstacles to the advance by this route of a force from the Kuram valley moving on Cabul.
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