Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute

with notes upon the strength and composition of the forces, means of transport and supply, nature of important lines of

enlist either for the "short-service" or "long-service" term; the first being for six years in the ranks and six on furlough, and the last for twelve years in the ranks

istributed as follows: forty-three per cent. in England, two per cent. in Scotland, tw

BRITISH LA

ely, from late return

establishmen

GL

======================

litia Yeoman

se

======================

as

ine

cers

4,

va

cers

1,840

orse Ar

cers

2,

Arti

cers

18

fa

cers

80

-- ------ -----

45 44,503 108,4

======================

r

gate

======================

ngents, Independent

349,

======================

'r'p'n)

======================

ine

cers

3] 23

va

ers 1

,086

orse Ar

fi

e

Arti

ers 4

0,809

fa

rs 1,4

,106 1

-- --

reg

s 61,488

=====================

r

gate

=====================

27,000, Nepaul 100,0

: Sappers a

for the artillery there are twelve sub-districts, and for the cavalry two districts. The brigade of an infantry sub-district comprises usually two line battalions, two militia battalions, the brigade dep?t, rifle volunteer corps, and infantry of the army reserve. Of the line batta

f the British army are, as a rule, detailed for a term of five years from the Li

were and are organized in

yal Horse Guards,--three regiments. The Line is composed of twenty-eight regiments, as follows: seven of dragoon guards, three of drag

r it may be well to say that, in the horse artillery, all the personnel of a battery is mounted, the better to act with cavalry or mounted infantry; under the general term "field artillery" may be classed mountain batteries (only maintained in India), field batteries proper, in which the guns are somewhat heavier, and served by gunners who are

ards, Coldstream Guards, and Scots Fusilier Guards; in all seven battalions. The Line comprises 102 regiments (204 ba

e officers are commissioned by the Queen, and, as before noted, all the details of control and recruitment are entrusted to district commanders. For instruction this force may be called out, for a peri

ilitia, is liable to army service in case of an emergency,

lieutenants, subject to the approval of the Queen. The men are recruited, armed, and instructed by the Government. Recruits are required to attend thirty drills, and aft

ar, and are subject to call in case of riot and insurrection, when each man

mposition, but in the character of its organization. This organization dates

subdivisions, and among which the Anglo-Indian army is distributed, exists a staff corps which supplies all European officers, permitted to serve wi

N REG

OPE

mman

command and

g-off

-subal

dju

rterm

cal of

TI

(captains),

"

"

rs (lieut

"

ar (serg

dars (se

ks (cor

rumm

oys (pr

a week he holds a "durbar," for the trial of offenders and transaction of general regimental business. The men are paid by the native

ulations.] In each regiment there is a drill-sergeant and drill-corporal, who receive extra pay for their services. Corporals are promoted from privates who know how to read and write in at least one character, or who have displayed extraordinary courage. The pay per month of a sepoy is equal to $3.50; havildar, $7; jemandar, $17.50; subadar, $33.50 to $50. European officers with native regiments: commandant, $620; wing-officers, $302 to $322; adjutant, $237.86; quartermaster, $187.86; medical officers, $300, monthly.

infantry twice under the fire of the Afghan mountain guns, and they behaved very steadily and coolly. Ammunition was econom

ular troops. The Achilles heel of the Indian army consists in this, that there are but eight European officers to each regiment, and of these but six would be available to lead in battle: the quartermaster and surgeon being at such a time otherwise engaged. The native officers, seldom having an opportunity to command in Peace,

0,000 European volunteers (including 4,000 railway

aintain forces aggregating 350,000 men with 4,000 guns to perform the duties of court ceremonial, garrison, military police, guards, and escorts, throughout territ

faction. Immense numbers of camels died from heat, [Footnote: Of a train of eighteen hundred unloaded camels on the road from Dadur to Jacobabad, for six days in June, six hundred died of exhaustion. In March, 1855 Col. Green, C.B., lost one hundred and seventeen horses out of four hundred, from the heat, during a march of thirty miles.] overwork, irregular food, and neglect. Owing to the dryness of the climate and intense heat of the summer the bullock-carts were perpetually falling to pieces. The mules, donkeys, and ponies gave the best results, but do not abound in sufficient quantities to enable an army in Afghanistan to dispense with camels. A successful experiment in rafting, from Jelalabad to Dakka, was tried. The rafts consisted of inflated skins lashed together with a light framework; between June 4-13, seven thousand skins were used, and, in all, 885 soldiers and one thousand tons of stores were transported forty miles down the Kabul River, the journey taking five hou

away three hundred employés. Grazing camps were established in the neighborhood of the Bolan Pass for the bullocks, and aqueducts built for the conveyance of a water supply; one of these was of masonry, more than a mile in length,

n must, to a certain extent, utilize hired tran

mpressment of drivers, who naturally (having no interest whatever in the campaign in which they are called upon to serve) render the most unwilling service and take the earliest opportunity of rendering their animals unserviceable in hopes of escaping a distasteful duty. This service is frequently so unpopul

ts had been carried away, but all the mules and men had disappeared except three drivers who belonged to me. I was very much astonished that these men had not bolted also. I had a small detachment of cavalry with me and a very excellent duffadar in charge of it. I asked him how he had managed to keep thes

art of the means of transportation employed by the British forces near their present base, and in rear of the Kabul-Kandahar line, and for that reason is noticed here. [Footnote: The use of elephants in transporting field guns in Afghanistan is emphatically discourag

ephants, vary from eight to nine feet; the Maharajah of Nahur, Sirmoor, possesses one standing ten feet five and one half inches. The age varies from 80 to 150 years, according to the best authorities, and it is recorded that those familiar with the haunts of the wild elephant have never found the bones of an elephant that had died a natural death. In freedom they roam in herds of thirty to fifty, always led by a female; mature about twen

their appearance about eighty years ago; yet prior to that time this region was under high cultivation, traces of orchards, orange groves, and iron-smelting furnaces remaining in what is now a howli

em, and by tying them with ropes; they are taught to kneel by taking them into streams ab

elephants travelled many hundreds of miles, carrying from 1,500 to 1,800 pounds (including their gear), but out of forty-four, five died from exhaustion; they are capable of working from morning to night, or of remaining under their loads for twenty hours at a stretch. [Footnote: There is no "elephant gun-d

authority (Mr. Sanderson), which seems to bear the same relation to the old gear that the open McClellan saddle does to the ordinary British hunting saddle. It consists (see illustration) of two pads entirely detached, each 4 feet long, 15 inches wide, and 6 inches thick, made of blanket covered with tarpaulin, and encased in stout sacking. One is placed on each side of the elephant's spine, and retained there by two iron arches. There is no saddle-cloth, the load re

Afghan frontier were described in 1880, by Traffic Manager Ross, of the Scin

uthorities in loading and disembarking troops and war matériel, and th

, when the both Bengal Cavalry left for Malta, 80 horses were loaded on a train in 10 minutes appears to have been clean forgotten. The Politicals were by no means silent, and the amount of knowledge they possessed of border statistics was something marvellous. Did any step appear to the military sense advisable, there was a much better, though less comprehensible, political reason why it should not be undertaken. The oracle has spoken and the behest must be obeyed. An enemy in sight who became af

he Afghan tribes were often able to raise large gatherings on chosen ground. They could always attack us; we were rarely able (except when they chose) to find them at home." This observer says the regular troops of the Ameer were not so formidable as the tribal gatherings. The presence of a tactically immovable artillery hinders the action of an Asiatic army. The mounted men are usually the first to leave when the fight is going against their side in a general engagement. One of the best specimens of their tactics was at Ahmed-Kheyl, on the

front rank were sometimes struck and jammed by bullets from the rear rank. The action of the English cavalry, as at Ahmed-Kheyl

tillery) formed a brigade, but was never used independently, nor was it instructed (although well equipped) for modern cavalry work. Th

o transfer the ammunition boxes from the bullock-carts to the backs of elephants, on account of the steepness of the hills. The mountain artill

a regimental reserve of ammunition was found to be blank cartridges, but this must be a heavy joke." Intrenching tools were carried on camels. A mixture of military and civil-engineer administration and operation is mentioned as unsatis

entries. The most approved permanent camps or "posts" were mud serais flanked by bastions at the alternate angles and overlooking a yard or "kraal." These were established about ten miles

keys; for transport of supplies a pack-train of 1,589 yabus, 4,510 mules, 1,224 Indian ponies, 912 donkeys--a total of 10,148 troops, 8,143 native followers, and 11,224 animals, including cavalry horses; 30 days' rations, of certain things, and dependence on the country for fresh meat and forage. The absence of timber on this route rendered it difficult to obtain fuel except by burning the roofs of the villages and digging up the roots of "Southern-wood" for this purpose. The manner of covering th

running east of the Indus, which forms a natural boundary to the Indian frontier, supplemented by a line of posts which are from north to south as f

Thull, over the Peiwar and Shuturgurdan passes to Kabul; third, from Dera Ismail Khan through the Guleir Surwandi and Sargo passes to Ghazni; fourth, by Quetta to Kandahar and thence to Herat, or by Gh

evation), and 44 miles further west passes through the great Khaiber Pass. This pass, 31 miles long, can, however, be turned by going to the north through the Absuna and Ta

wide. Five miles further it passes through the valley of Lalabeg 1-1/2 miles wide by 6 miles long, and then after rising for four miles it reaches the top of the Pass, which from both sides offers very strong strategical positions. From thence it descends for

er is Chardeh (1,800 feet altitude), from which the road passes through a well-cultivated country, and on through the desert of Surkh Denkor (1,892 feet altitude), which is over 8-1/2 miles from Jelalabad. From this city (elsewhere described) onward

igh plateau on which Kabul is situated; the other leads over the short but dangerous Jagdallak Pass to Jagdallak, from which there are three roads to Kabul--the northernmost over the Khinar and the third over the Sokhta passes; all these, more difficult than the Khaiber, are impassable during the winter. It was here, as already related, that the greater part of Elphinstone's command, in 1842, perished. There is a dearth of fuel and supplies by this line of communication. The second, or Thull-Kuram-Kabul,

--it leads through a winding defile to the top of the pass. Here the road is confined by perpendicular chalk rocks, the summits of which are covered with scrub timber and a luxurious growth of laurel. On the farther side of the pass the road ascends to the height of the Hazardarakht, (which is covered with snow

bouches, through the Gomal Pass, into a more promising country, in which forage may be obtained. At this point it branches to Ghazni, Kandahar, and Pishin respectively. A road exists from Mooltan, crossing the Indus at Dera-Ghazi-Khan, Mithunkot, Rajanpur, Rojan, Lalgoshi, Dadu

at the Tukl-i-Suliman, and of 7,400 near Fort Munro (opposite Dera-Ghazi-Khan), gradually diminishes in height and dwindles away till it is lost in the plains near Kusmore, at a point 12 miles from the Indus. The strip of low-land country on the west bank of the Indus up to the foot of the hills is called the Derajat. It is cut up and broken by torrents, the beds of which are generally dry wastes, and the country is, except at a few places where permanent water is found, altogether sterile and hot. If we view the physical aspect looking north and north-west from Jacobabad, we notice a wide bay of plains extending between the broken spur of the Sulimani, and a second range of hills

he Bolan is an abrupt defile--a rent in the range,--the bottom filled with the pebbly bed of a mountain torrent. This steep ramp forms for sixty miles the road from Dadur, elevation 750 feet, to the Dasht-i-Bedowlat, elevation 6,225 feet. This inhospitable plateau and the upper portion of the Bolan are subject to the most piercingly cold winds and temperature; and the sudden

s established at Quetta, ostensibly to protect an important commercial highway, but at the same time securing a military footing of great value. But the character of the lords of the soil--the Maris, for instance--has not changed for the better, and the temporary general European occupation of the country would afford an opportunity to gratify their predatory instincts, which these bandits would not hesitate to utilize. The Maris can put 2,000 men into the field and march 100 miles to make an attack. When they wish to start upon a raid they collect their wise men together and tell the warriors where the cattle and the corn are. If the reports

ndahar road leads for sixty miles through the Pass--a gradual ascent; in

south, appears a very Garden of Eden. It

ridge, dividing Pishin from the plains of Kadani, under the name of Khoja Amran. The Barshor is a deep bay of the plain, and there is an open valley within the outer screen of hills. A road strikes off here to the Ghilzai country and to Ghazni. Though intersected by some very low and unimportant hills and ridges, the Pishin plains and those of Shallkot may be looked upon as one feature. We may imagine the Shall Valley the vestibule, the K

e concentration and rendezvous of large bodies of troops, a

low, are laid out like a sea, and the mountains run out into isolated promontories;

ment to the passage of troops in dry weather, but in flood they be

s. A thirteen-foot cart road was made, over the entire length of twenty miles, by General Biddulp

e of the most important strategic points in any scheme of permanent defence for India--diverge two m

command all the level ground between the city and the pass. Beyond the gap a group of detached mountains extends, overlooking the approaches, and follows the left bank of the Argandab as far down as Panjwai, fifteen miles distant. Positions for defensive works must be sought, therefore, in fron

racteristics--plains and mountain spurs alternately,--and while gener

d this remarkable feature and the concentration of roads [Footnote: The roads which meet at Atta Karez are: the great Herat highway passing through Kokeran and crossing the Argandab opposite Sinjari, whence it lies along the open p

overed a site for a work which would command the valley of the Arga

lies the ancient castle of Girishk. The country between the Argandab and the Helmund is rolling and inclining gradually fro

rtain times, bridges would be required for military purposes. The land in th

nto one main road to the "Key." Still another road, by Bost, Rudbar, and Lash, along the course of the river, exists. Although not so direct, it is an important route to Herat; upon this road stand the ruins of the ancient city of Bost in a wond

e command of one of the principal divisions of the British forces intended to oppose the threatened advance of the Russians on Herat. It was said of him by one of the most brilliant military leaders of the age,--Skobeleff: "For General Roberts I have a great admiration. He seems to me to possess all the qualities of a great general. That

rusted the conduct of the British forces in Afghanistan, is also a very distinguished and experienced officer--p

ned men, and as the practice has been to fill up those corps ordered abroad with men transferred from other small regiments, it may come to pass that so-called "regular" regiments will consist largely of raw material. Colonel Trench of the British Army says "the organization of the regular cavalry is very defective," and especially complains of the maladministration we have just noted. Demands for cavalry for the Soudan were met by a heavy d

. He advocated certain American methods, as wind and water-mills to crush and cleanse the petrified and gravelled barley, often issued, and to cut up the inferior hay; the selection of transport employés who understand animals; and m

he revenues which have been accumulating during the last quarter of a century, but of