of the British army, that he had succeeded his father at
Kabul. The negotiations that followed ended in the conclusion
of the treaty of Gandamak in May 1879, by which Takub Khan
was recognized as amir; certain outlying tracts of Afghanistan
were transferred to the British government; the amir placed
in its hands the entire control of his foreign relations,
receiving in return a guarantee against foreign aggression;
and the establishment of a British envoy at Kabul was at last
conceded. By this convention the complete success of the
British political and military operations seemed to have been
attained; for whereas Shere Ali had made a treaty of alliance
with, and had received an embassy from Russia, his son had now
made an exclusive treaty with the British government, and had
agreed that a British envoy should reside permanently at his
court. Yet it was just this final concession, the chief and
original object of British policy, that proved speedily fatal
to the whole settlement. For in September the envoy, Sir
Louis Cavagnari, with his staff and escort, was massacred at
Kabul, and the entire fabric of a friendly alliance went to
pieces. A fresh expedition was instantly despatched across
the Shutargardan Pass under Sir Frederick Roberts, who defeated
the Afghans at Charasia near Kabul, and entered the city in
October. Yakub Khan, who had surrendered, was sent to India;
and the British army remained in military occupation of the
district round Kabul until in December (1879) its communications
with India were interrupted, and its position at the capital
placed in serious jeopardy, by a general rising of the
tribes. After they had been repulsed and put down, not without
some hard fighting, Sir Donald Stewart, who had not quitted
Kandahar, brought a force up by Ghazni to Kabul, overcoming
some resistance on his way, and assumed the supreme command.
Nevertheless the political situation was still embarrassing,
for as the whole country beyond the range of British effective
military control was masterless, it was undesirable to withdraw
the troops before a government could be reconstructed which
could stand without foreign support, and with which diplomatic
relations of some kind might be arranged. The general
position and prospect of political affairs in Afghanistan
bore, indeed, an instructive resemblance to the situation just
forty years earlier, in 1840, with the important differences
that the Punjab and Sind had since become British, and that
communications between Kabul and India were this time secure.
Reign of Abdur Rahman.---Abdur Rahman, the son of the late
amir Shere Ali's elder drother, had fought against Shere Ali
in the war for succession to Dost Mahommed, had been driven
beyond the Oxus, and had lived for ten years in exile with the
Russians. In March 1880 he came back across the river,
and began to establish himself in the northern province of
Afghanistan. The viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, on hearing
of his reappearance, instructed the political authorities
at Kabul to communicate with him. By skilful negotiations
a meeting was arranged, and after pressing in vain for
a treaty he was induced to assume charge of the country
upon his necognition by the British as amir, with the
understanding that he should have no relations with other
foreign powers, and with a formal assurance from the viceroy
of protection from foreign aggression, so long as he should
unreservedly follow the advice of the British government in
regard to his external affairs. The province of Kandahar
was severed from the Kabul dominion; and the sirdar Shere
Ali Khan, a member of the Barakzai family, was installed
by the British representative as its independent ruler.
For the second time in the course of this war a conclusive
settlement of Afghan affairs seemed now to have been attained;
and again, as in 1879, it was immediately dissolved. In July
1880, a few days after the proclamation of Abdur Rahman as amir
at Kabul, came news that Ayub Khan, Shere Ali's younger son, who
had been holding Herat since his father's death, had marched upon
Kandahar, had utterly defeated at Maiwand a British force that
went out from Kandahar to oppose him, and was besieging that
city. Sir Frederick Roberts at once set out from Kabul with
10,000 men to its relief, reached Kandahar after a rapid march
of 313 miles, attacked and routed Ayub Khan's army on the
1st of September, and restored British authority in southern
Afghanistan. As the British ministry had resolved to evacuate
Kandahar, the sirdar Shere Ali Khan, who saw that he could
not stand alone, resigned and withdrew to India, and the
amir Abdur Rahman was invited to take possession of the
province. But when Ayub Khan, who had meanwhile retreated to
Herat, heard that the British forces had retired, early in
1881, to India, he mustered a fresh army and again approached
Kandahar. In June the fort of Girishk, on the Helmund, was
seized by his adherents; the amir's troops were defeated some
days later in an engagement, and Ayub Khan took possession
of Kandahar at the end of July. The amir Abdur Rahman, whose
movements had hitherto been slow and uncertain, now acted
with vigour and decision. He marched rapidly from Kabul
at the head of a force, with which he encountered Ayub Khan
under the walls of Kandahar, and routed his army on 22nd
September, taking all his guns and equipage. Ayub Khan fled
toward Herat, but as the place had meanwhile been occupied
by one of the amir's generals he took refuge in Persia.
By this victory Abdur Rahman's rulership was established.
In 1884 it was determined to resume the demarcation, by a
joint commission of British and Russian officers, of the
northern boundary of Afghanistan. The work went on with
much difficulty and contention, until in March 1885, when
the amir was at Rawalpindi for a conference with the viceroy
of India, Lord Dufferin, the news came that at Panjdeh,
a disputed place on the boundary held by the Afghans, the
Russians had attacked and driven out with some loss the amir's
troops. For the moment the consequences seemed likely to
be serious; but the affair was arranged diplomatically, and
the demarcation proceeded up to a point near the Oxus river,
beyond which the commission were unable to settle an agreement.
During the ten years following his accession in 1880 Abdur
Rahman employed himself in extending and consolidating his
dominion over the whole country. Some local revolts among the
tribes were rigorously suppressed; and two attempts to upset
his rulership--the first by Ayub Khan, who entered Afghanistan
from Persia, the second and more dangerous one by Ishak
Khan, the amir's cousin, who rebelled against him in Afghan
Turkestan---were defeated. By 1891 the amir had enforced his
supreme authority throughout Afghanistan more completely than
any of his predecessors, In 1895 the amir's troops entered
Kafiristan, a wild mountainous tract on the north-east,
inhabited by a peculiar race that had hitherto defied all
efforts to subjugate them, but were now gradually reduced to
submission. Meanwhile the delimitation of the northern
frontier, up to the point where it meets Chinese territory
on the east, was completed and fixed by arrangements between
the governments of Russia and Great Britain; and the eastern
border of the Afghan territory, towards India, was also mapped
out and partially laid down, in accordance with a convention
between the two governments. The amir not only received a
large annual subsidy of money from the British government, but
he also obtained considerable supplies of war material; and he,
moreover, availed himself very freely of facilities that were
given him for the importation at his own cost of arms through
India. With these resources, and with the advantage of an
assurance from the British government that he would be aided
against foreign aggression, he was able to establish an
absolute military despotism inside his kingdom, by breaking
down the power of the warlike tribes which held in check, up
to his time, the personal autocracy of the Kabul rulers, and
by organizing a regular army well furnished with European
rifies and artillery. Taxation of all kinds was heavily
increased, and systematically collected. The result was
that whereas in former times the forces of an Afghan ruler
consisted mainly of a militia, furnished by the chiefs of
tribes who held land on condition of military service, and
who stoutly resisted any attempt to commute this service for
money payment, the amir had at his command a large standing
army, and disposed of a substantial revenue paid direct to his
treasury. Abdur Rahman executed or exiled all those whose
political influence he saw reason to fear, or of whose
disaffection he had the slightest suspicion; his administration
was severe and his punishments were cruel; but undoubtedly he
put down disorder, stopped the petty tyranny of local chiefs
and brought violent crime under some effective control in the
districts. Travelling by the high roads during his reign was
comparatively safe; although it must be added that the excessive
exactions of dues and customs very seriously damaged the external
trade. In short, Abdur Rahman's reign produced an important
political revolution, or reformation, in Afghanistan, which
rose from the condition of a country distracted by chronic
civil wars, under rulers whose authority depended upon their
power to hold down or conciliate fierce and semi-independent
tribes in the outlying parts of the dominion, to the rank
of a formidable military state governed autocratically. He
established, for the first time in the history of the Afghan
kingdom, a powerfully centralized administration strong enough
to maintain order and to enforce obedience over all the country
which he had united under his dominion, supported by a force
sufficiently armed and disciplined to put down attempts at
resistance or revolt. His policy, consistently maintained,
was to permit no kind of foreign interference, on any pretext,
with the interior concerns or the economical conditions of his
country. From the British government he accepted supplies of
arms and subsidies of money; but he would make no concessions
in return, and all projects of a strategical or commercial
nature, such as railways and telegraphs, proposed either
for the defence or the development of his possessions, seem
to have been regarded by the amir with extreme distrust,
as methods of what has been called pacific penetration --so
that on these points he was immovable. It was probably due
to the strength and solidity of the executive administration
organized, during his lifetime, by Abdur Rahman that, for
the first time in the records of the dynasty founded by Ahmad
Shah in the latter part of the 18th century, his death was
not followed by disputes over the succession or by civil war.
Succession of Habibullah.--The amir Abdur Rahman died
on the 1st of October 1901; and two days later his eldest
son, Habibullah, formally announced his accession to the
rulership. He was recognized with acclamation by the army,
by the religious bodies, by the principal tribal chiefs and
by all classes of the people as their lawful sovereign; while
a deputation of Indian Mahommedans was despatched to Kabul
from India to convey the condolences and congratulations
of the viceroy. The amir's first measures were designed
to enhance his popularity and to improve his internal
administration, particularly with regard to the relations of
his government with the tribes, and to the system introduced
