Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 20, 2025
In 1809 the reigning Ameer of Afghanistan, Shah Soojah-ul-Moolk, was dispossessed of his throne and an exile. Runjeet Singh, the Sikh ruler of Punjaub, plundered and imprisoned him at Lahore, and obtained from him the famous Koh-i-noor, the great diamond which is now among the crown jewels of Great Britain. Eventually Soojah escaped from Lahore and became a pensioner of the East India Company.
Herat was the only remnant of Afghan territory that still remained to a member of the legitimate royal house. Its ruler was Shah Kamran, son of that Mahmoud Shah who, after ousting his brother Shah Soojah from the throne of Cabul, had himself been driven from that elevation, and had retired to the minor principality of Herat.
The belief that he would leave behind him a quiescent Afghanistan, and Shah Soojah firmly established on its throne, was the complement, to a proud and zealous man, of the satisfaction which his promotion afforded. One distasteful task he had to perform before he should go. The Home Government had become seriously disquieted by the condition of affairs in Afghanistan.
Near the end of February there reached Nott a letter two months old from Elphinstone and Pottinger, ordering him to evacuate Candahar and retire to India, in pursuance of the convention into which they had entered. The Dooranee chiefs astutely urged that Shah Soojah, no longer supported by British bayonets, was now ruling in Cabul, as an argument in favour of Nott's withdrawal.
Nothing will ever make the Afghans submit to the hated Shah Soojah, who is most certainly as great a scoundrel as ever lived. Nott's conclusions were in the main justified by after events, but the correctness of his premiss may be questioned.
The chiefs had anticipated that they would be called around the vice-throne of Prince Timour; but Shah Soojah made the same error as that into which Louis XVIII. fell on his restoration. He constituted his Court of the men who had shared his Loodianah exile.
All men whose experience gave weight to their words opposed this 'preposterous enterprise. Mr Elphinstone, who had been the head of a mission to Cabul thirty years earlier, held that 'if an army was sent up the passes, and if we could feed it, no doubt we might take Cabul and set up Shah Soojah; but it was hopeless to maintain him in a poor, cold, strong and remote country, among so turbulent a people. Lord William Bentinck, Lord Auckland's predecessor, denounced the project as an act of incredible folly.
After the introductory palavers, Macnaghten read the proposed treaty, whose purport was as follows: that the British should evacuate Afghanistan forthwith unmolested, furnished with supplies and accompanied by hostages, on their march to India; that the Dost, his family, and other Afghan political exiles, should be allowed to return to their country; that Shah Soojah should have the option of remaining at Cabul or going down to India; that amnesty should be accorded to all adherents of Shah Soojah and his British allies; that all prisoners should be released; and that perpetual friendship and mutual good offices should thenceforth endure between the British and the Afghans.
To embrace the proffered alliance of Dost Mahomed, or force Shah Soojah upon the country, and prepare for the reception of the Persians and Russians, by kindling a civil war? The latter was the course determined on! A league was formed, known in the history of our time as the Tripartite Treaty including Runjeet Singh, Shah Soojah, and the British government.
The two main objects of the venturesome offensive movement to which Lord Auckland had committed himself were, first, the raising of the Persian siege of Herat if the place should hold out until reached the recapture of it if it should have fallen; and, secondly, the establishment of Shah Soojah on the Afghan throne.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking