Empire: World History - 80. 1842: The Retreat from Kabul

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

As the British occupation of Kabul collapses, the troops flee. What follows is one of the darkest events in British imperial history. A treacherous journey through mountain passes in crippling winter conditions leaves the British at the mercy of the Afghan forces. Over 15,000 men, women, and children leave the capital, legend says only one man survives. Listen as William and Anita discuss the bloody, brutal, first retreat from Kabul. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening, and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mptopopuk.com. Hello, Empire Podcast listeners, Anita here. Look, this episode is going to be one perhaps if you're of a delicate disposition, or you've got small children or even slightly bigger children who don't like. gory story. You may not want to listen to it with them. Anyway, just a friendly warning on with the show. Welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Durhampool. Now, we have something very

important to clear up. So there was an awful... This is you on your loins, isn't it? I'm slightly obsessed with the... Which, for some reason, you started me off. I know it's girding your loins. You've said girt your loins, and it's not a T, it's a D, girding your loins. And I just... It's slightly different. The sea-girt walls. Yes, I know. But that's... But why did you say it? Yes.

It's right. Gert is a verb. Gert is a noun. You're saying this, Professor, as if you knew this all along. You were the one who's girting. I just went along with you girting. Okay, so it's a biblical thing. And I have found a guide to how to gird up your lines.

Where have you found this? This girding guide. Well, I tell you, the gurding. It's a girl gird guerd guides. Anyway, so in biblical times, people used to wear very long tunics and they were heavy and they came down to your ankles and you wouldn't be able to fight in battle. So girding means to wheeke them. And there are steps to this. Number one.

That's the Scots translation of girders. Okay. So number one, hoist up your tunic. So all the fabric is above your knees. This will give you mobility. Then gather all the extra material in front of you. So the back of the tunic is snug against your backside. I hope you're all taking notes.

This is a bit like wearing a kilt. No, it's more like a nappy. The excess fabric is gathered in front to pull it underneath and between your legs and to your rear. This feels much like a diaper. There you go, nappy, told you. And then, next step number four,

half of the material in each hand, bringing it back around the front and then you tie it in a knot. You are literally pulling up your skirt, twizzling it up and tying it up at the front. Can we get back to the first Afghaw wall? Anita. They're all very well girding your loins. Back to the serious business.

We never disappeared down rabbit holes. Listen, if you ever want to gird your loins, look online. There is a step-by-step guide. Okay, so look, at the last episode of Empire, we were talking about how the Brits thought they, you know, they'd done pretty well. They'd made it through a horror narrow pass. They'd managed to take Ghazni without a cannon being fired.

Dorsh Mohammed is lying in a pit somewhere. and is unable to challenge their candidate, Sharshooter. And it all seems peachy with, you know, what you were saying, the pheasant shoots or pigeon shoots and cow, pig sticking ducks and all of that kind of thing. And amateur theatricals, wherever the British go, the amateur theatrical follows, plus Lady Sales piano. Piano recitals given by her daughter, Alexander. It turns out, I just checked. Turns out it wasn't Lady Sale who played the piano herself.

It was her beautiful daughter, Alexander, who was the only girl in the whole contubed. and therefore the object of the affection of 10,000 men. Right, okay. Which she enhanced by playing piano. Well, I mean, she's a one, isn't she, ladies, sail? Is she a one? Okay, so I'm going to start with a quote, and then you can tell us what this all means to us,

okay, William. At 9 a.m., the troops moved off, a crouching, drooping, dispirited army so different from the smart, light-hearted body of men. They appeared some time ago. The men sinking a foot deep into snow each step. My heart sunk within me under the conviction that we were a doomed force. This is very different to the duck shooting merriment that we were talking about in the last episode.

It is indeed. And what you just read was a very moving description by somebody called George Lawrence of the retreat from Kabul, which is the subject of today's podcast. And we left you last time with the British in control of Kabul, having invaded Afghanistan. But very quickly, their position grows more and more tenuous. When they try and cut their costs, they sack half the nobles in Sharshuj's court. The nobles then murder the post boys and cut the communications with India. And very soon, it's clear that the thing is getting very tense and it's about to blow. But this doesn't stop Alexander Burns from seducing the girlfriend of Abdullah Khan Atschakshai. And we left you last time with Abdullah Khan Achexai gathering his troops and saying we've got to stop the British right here right now.

Otherwise, they will continue to ride the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity. And that's exactly what they did do. And what happens is that the mob, which I'm going to look on at Chucks Eye, gathers, goes straight to the house of Burns. They demand that the girl be given up. Burns appears at the top window out of his bath in his dressing gun. Because that's going to help. There's a sort of Hugh Hefner look is going to enhance his possibilities with the crowd. of angry men.

And the crowd begins shooting at him. He has a bodyguard which shoots back. This is because he has chosen to live in the old town of Kabul away from the other British, so there's no artillery or any sort of, you know, no one's coming to help him. No one's coming to help him. And then they start shooting lighted arrows

and firing them into his house. And the whole thing catches fire very quickly. And as he rushes out with his girlfriend, and they hack him to pieces. What happens to her? I mean, does anyone know what happens to her? I can't think it's great. No, I don't think it's going to be a happy ending that story either.

And he is the first victim of the uprising. And as we know in Afghanistan, once uprisings and jihads begin, they tend to gather momentum very quickly. The British suddenly realized, belatedly, having done amateur theatricals and duck shoots and Scottish reels for a year now, the British suddenly realized that their contumment is in a completely indefensible position. It hasn't got defensive walls. It is sitting beneath a whole ring of mountains.

Sharshujah is the opposite end of Kabul, the far side of the old town, on the Bala Hissar, which is a fortified area, but they've chosen not to move in there because Shashuja wanted it in space. Yeah, I mean, Bala Hesar, we should say, is like a very ancient castle of Afghan kings. It's, you know, it is fortified with very thick. I mean, what period do we know? Well, it's still there. It's still there today. I mean, it was old when Alexander passed in its initial form. Right, exactly.

So it's an age-old fortress. Yeah. But I think in its current form, the Sharsha's grandmother was a mogul princess, and she rebuilt the buildings within very much in the mogul style. Right. With these beautiful wooden pillared halls that are there in the lithographs. Very little of this survives inside the fort. day, which is now just got barracks inside.

I managed to get permission to get inside on one occasion, although that's where all the intelligent departments were based. And the walls survive very, very well, but very little of the interior pavilions, rather like the Red Fort in Delhi, is just modern barracks. How did the hell did you get in there if the intelligence services were sitting in there? Because I met some of the people from the intelligence services. Oh, okay. And there was one point when I was following the route of the retreat from Kabul,

exactly the story we will be telling over the next 40 minutes. And this was considered to be rather foolhardy. And the British representative sent me off to these guys to get a little panic button, which is a thing you can put in your pocket, it's the shape of a compass and a small thing. And you can press it if you get into trouble. And it allows you, I think, 20 seconds of audio, which you're meant to identify your captors.

Wow. which I'd say I never actually used. But so I'd met these guys and went up to the fore. Okay, okay. So you were legitimately there because I was thinking, you know, I mean, as much as I adore you, and you know I adore you, James Bond, you are not. It's like swinging through a window.

Swinging. I've always wanted to fancy myself. Swinging through a window of Balahist. You can have a good chifty around. Okay, that explains that. Okay, so there Shashuja. There were no climbing ropes. The grappling eyes.

Cram poms. So, okay. So Shashuja is at the other end of town. He can't help. Burns has just been hacked to pieces. But when the blood is up, the blood is up. What happens next? So the Afghans quickly realized that the British have not even bothered to defend their military supplies. And through some idiotic decision, they had put their military supplies in a small fortress near the Balahasa, the opposite end of the plane from the cantoonement. And so the first thing the Afghans do after they've killed Burns is to go and raid the British supplies and capture

all their cannon and their gunpowder and their spare rifles. Wow. And they use all these immediately against the British. They haul the cannon up onto the mountains above the cantooment and begin shelling the British contumment with their own cannon. So what is McNaughton? McNaughton glass half full and not rose-tinted but blue-tinted spectacles on. What does he do? So McNaughton is completely taken surprised by this. He hasn't seen it coming. He thinks the Afghans are, he calls them children. They are children. They will come around when their father tells them to behave, he says. And he goes out to meet one of the leaders, Akbar Khan of the uprising. And because from the beginning, this complete chaos, the British military commander is a guy called Elfinston. He's known as Elfie Bay by Emily Eden, who had him grouse shooting in Scotland. they first met him and he got the job because he was Auckland's old grouse shooting companion. But he hasn't seen action since Waterloo, which is now, I think, 30 years earlier. And he's got gout and he can barely get onto his horse.

And anyway, so when the news comes, Burns' house has been burnt down and Burns has been burnt to death. Elphinston gets onto his horse. He falls off his horse. The horse falls on him and that's Elfinston out in the picture for the rest of the uprising. By the way, that's unusual. That's how, I mean, you know, in many years time, Robert Peel, you know, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, that's how he dies. He's on a horse. His horse falls on him. He falls off the horse, horse falls on him and crushes him to death. Interesting. Anyway, Efferson aside. So the whole, Elfinson is no more in action.

Then who takes over. So McNaughton decides, I'm going to sort this out. I'm going to go and meet the rebel leader. And he meets Doss Mohammed's son, Akbar Khan, at an array. spot. And because there's chaos, the escort, which is meant to be supporting McNaughton, does not arrive. So McNaughton just goes with, I think, three bodyguards, including this character, George Lawrence. And previously, as a measure of peacemaking, McNaughton has sent his horse and carriage as a present to Akbar Khan the night before. And on arrival at this meeting, he presents Akbar Khan with two very lovely pistols. that he admired on a previous meeting. So he's busy buttering up At Bar Khan

and thinks he can sort out this child, as he calls him. What he hasn't expected is that Abar Khan is now so furious because his father, Doss Muhammad, is still locked up in the pit in Bukhara. He regards McNaughton as being responsible for destroying his father's kingdom, and he's in no mood to make peace. He makes a sign to his men.

Lawrence and the other three companions are pinioned, and he shoots McNartner. with the pistols he's just been given. Wow. And then cuts him up. And McNaughton's body is paraded on a meat hook in the bazaar. Wow. So Burns is out.

McNaughton's out. Shoshuja is under siege in the Balahisar. Elphinson has fallen off his horse and the horse has fallen on him. And so it's left to this deeply unpleasant man called Brigadier Shelton to organise the defence. And Shelton is, by all accounts, a complete fool. and he marches his army out onto the top of a hill above the contunement and forms a perfect square. Now, the last time he had seen action at Waterloo, this had been the solution.

The British squares were the famous unbreakable thing that saw off Napoleon. But it's not what's suitable in Afghanistan, where the Afghans are all armed with these long jazales that can fire about half a mile. Yeah, and they can sort of sit behind rocks and high up places and meet their mark very easily. Exactly that. And so Shelton has marched his force up. up top of the hill, they sit like a parade ground in a square and the Afghans just shoot up at them. And Shelton just stands there for two hours, not sure what to do as line after line of his troops are picked off.

And then he marches the stragglers down and they are ambushed by Afghan cavalry as they march down the hill. And only a few of them make it in. And this is the point when it really becomes clear that there's going to be no solution to this. Plus, in between the burning down of Burns's house and Burns's death and this final humiliating battle with Shelton's square being picked apart by Afghan snipers, in between that, winter snow has arrived and blocked the passes to India. So the last hope, I think the whole thing was deliberately done so that it was done at a time when it would be impossible to reinforce the British contumption. They were on their own. Well, yeah. I mean, the winters have so often been a pivotal player in both Russia and in Afghanistan. I know, I mean, from all the bloodshed that you've just talked about, this seems almost ridiculous to mention, but I will anyway.

The grand piano got burned, in case you're wondering. The foxhams got eaten. The foxhands got eaten. They ran out of dark. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's all horrific. But I just thought I'd flag it because we've been banging on about that piano for quite a long time. So the winter is setting in. And this, I suppose, is the backdrop for that first quote that I gave of the sad trudging through snow

because they've got to get the hell out of dodge now, don't they, the Brits? So what happens next is that there are protracted negotiations with Akbar Khan. And Ab Khan is rather a movie hero. He's very good looking. We have accounts from people from as early as the 1830s talking about this sort of matinee idle looks of Akbar Khan. And there are epic poems which I've had translated for this by my great friend Bruce Wernel, who does these wonderful translations of Afghan poetry, which go into sort of unnecessary detail about Akbar Khan's marriage night.

He's very much the kind of Bollywood movie idol of Afghanistan in the 1830s. And he has every intention of making sure the British never, ever dare set foot in Afghanistan ever again. I just looked him up for. He's kind of like a charroa Khan sort of looks. Well, no, I mean, for those who don't know, there is, there is something, yeah, no, he's good-looking, good-looking fella. Aquiline sort of features and very sort of, you know, that pronounced sort of arm and shape eye and, yeah, good-looking. Anyway, he drags out the negotiations. And the British can't work out what's going on because they are prepared to march out.

They're going to be allowed to take their small arms. They have to surrender contumments and all their artillery. and they can't quite work out what the problem is. And what actually happening, of course, is that Akbar Khan is preparing a whole series of ambushes that are going to wipe out the whole army, and he has no intention of letting a single man get out of life. But this is going to take some time.

So for two weeks, the negotiations go backwards and forwards, and the British begin to run out of food. They begin to run out of firewood. The temperature drops. The blizzards begin. And by the time that the retreat begins on the 6th of January, There is about four feet of snow on the ground outside the contunements. And already the Afghans begin to break into the cantoomments and take all the artillery and all the stuff that they've been given.

And the retreat begins at 9 a.m. in this sort of freezing blizzard. And we have some horrific accounts. One of which, and you'll enjoy this, Anita, is by my great, great uncle, Colin McKenzie. Oh, not another one. Are you serious? I am serious. sake. We like to have at least wonderable in every episode. This is getting ridiculous. Okay. Look him up. Colin McKenzie. Colin McKenzie. He's one of the best looking men you've ever seen because he's dressed up in Afghan kit. Okay. So what does Uncle Colin do? Uncle Collins writes

an account and says, I always remembered as one of the most heart-rending sights of that humiliating day, fixing my eyes by chance on a little Hindustani child, perfectly named. naked, sitting on the snow with no mother or father near her. She was a beautiful little girl, about two years old, just strong enough to sit upright with her little legs doubled underneath her, hair curling and waving locks around a soft little throat, and her great black eyes dilated to twice their normal size, fixed on the armed men, the passing cavalry, and all the strange sights that met her gaze. Many other children as young as innocent I saw Slane on the road, and women with their long dark hair wet with their own blood. The rearguard had to fight their whole way out

to Bugrami the first day's camp and passed through literally a continuous line of poor wretches, men, women and children dead and dying from the coals and the wounds who unable to move and treated their comrades to kill them and put an end to their misery. That's horrific. It's absolutely horrific. It's a nightmare and they're sniping from the minute the British These are Afghan children and these are, you know, sort of native. No. No. So who are these?

These are not Afghan children. So when always got to remember with the East Indy companies, the armies are not white Brits. Of course they're white British officers. Of course they're sepoys, yes. But they're sepoys. So these are sepoys and sepoys families. And the sepoys sometimes have their families with them, but they also have camp followers who are, you know, the Sices daughters and the cooks and the cleaners.

Cooks and the children and this sort of stuff. Wow. And as we saw on the way in, you know, as well as all the pickles and the potted hams and all the kind of stuff that they were bringing in, the Cherutes and the Odo Colon, there were hundreds of camp followers who were always treated with disdain and never provided for. Of course. And now they have to retreat along with the sepoys and along with the, there's a very small number, I think there's two regiments of British army troops led by Shelton and the rest is East India

soldiers who are from Averd and from Bengal, their Indians, from North India. And they're way out of their comfort zone. There's one regiment of East India Company horse, Skinner's horse led by James Skinner's son, also called James, who's called Handsome Jim and an incredibly cheery guy, but he doesn't make it beyond day two of the retreat. We have many accounts of this, because almost everyone who was part of it wrote an account to make sure that nothing like this ever happened again. And the first night, they're just camping where the airport now is they have made it no further than about six miles from the old city. So, I mean, you're talking about Kabul Airport, which was the center of so many people's, you know, attention with the retreat, the American retreat from there. Exactly that. And so they make it to Bagramme, where the modern airport is. And behind them, the night sky turns red because the Afghans having looted the contumments, just as they did in Bagram two years ago when the Americans retreated, they then set light to the contunements. And so there's no retreat. Well, I was going to say there's no clearer way of saying, your only way is forward. So they burn it behind them. And then the night cold sets in. And because these are Hindustani sepoys from UP, where they have these really hot summers and no real winter to speak of,

nothing that a single shawl won't sort out. None of these guys know what to do. And they lie, if they haven't got tense, they just lie in the snow. And when they wake up the following morning, on the first morning of the retreat, they find that their fingers and their toes have gone black and looked like burnt wood. This is frostbite. And within the next couple of days, their fingers and toes fall off.

And they continue to have to retreat and they're on the hands and knees. Yes. And then the sniping starts again. And it's relentless horror. It is like a relentless nightmare for these people. The Afghans know how to survive. They know they're hardy people who know this land.

So they are able to survive and fight in these conditions because they dig foxholes. They cover themselves with shawls. Shores with like, you know, there's burning coals. So can I just describe this? Because I saw this. I mean, I've seen sort of, you know, Peshwarimen do this, which is burning embers in a kind of like a tin almost or a clay pot. And that hangs around the body, around the neck, I guess, and sort of down low. And then you've got a shawl on top of it.

So you've got insulation and you've got heat. And they go body to body. they lie next to each other, using each other's body heat to keep them from freezing. And they, as you say, they completely cover themselves with shawls and nothing is open to the air. And as a result, the Afghans wake up very cold following morning, but with all their bits intact. Yeah, they've got all their fingers and toes. From night one, the Hindustan is. Is Lady Sale still, is she alive still? She's still retreating with this grief, isn't she?

Lady Sale and her daughter, Alexandra, who is, I think six months pregnant at this point, is reaching. She's down to turban. and she is leading the retreat because she is this extraordinary indomitable figure. She doesn't have a husband anymore because her husband has led a force to Jalalabad and is now besieged in Jalalabad. We should say at the same time as Kabul has fallen apart, better organized generals have successfully defended themselves. So fighting bobsail has gathered sheep and resources and is sitting very happily in Jalalabad to the south. another man called Sir William Knott, who is by far the most experienced general, but who is too plain spoken for Auckland and has a regional accent which Auckland doesn't like,

and he gets sent off to Kandahar. And Not is basically should have been in charge of the whole thing, but Shelton is put above him. And Shelton's an idiot. Shelton is a complete idiot and has screwed everything up, while Not has kept perfect order in Kandahar. So it isn't like it couldn't have been done. It's that there were complete idiots in charge and they screwed.

up. Okay, so this retreat continues and those who can still walk, continue to walk or trudge through this ever horrifying scene of snow and blood and frostbite. And Akbar Khan has arranged brilliant ambushes at every point. He's built special sniper positions the whole way south. Oh, tell us about the Kurd-Kal Kabul. I mean, again, the Kurd-Karbal Pass is such an important place. First of all, the topography of it. Kyrgyz Kavu Pass is still the way you get to Kabul by land. And I've done it. And it's this sort of dizzying descent. It's a very, very steep journey. I did this with an ex-Taliban general come in to join Karzai.

And he was sent as my man called Gigdulik, who was a former Afghan Olympic wrestling champion. And I went down the Korkable to following this route with this guy. How wide is it? Well, the modern road has blasted a modern way through it. but the old road, which is the one that was taken at the time, is very narrow and very, very steep. So narrow with like very absolutely precipices on one side. But perfect for snipers. And what you have again is this is the moment when the Brits finally road is they've got the wrong weapons.

They've got the old musket, the brown bess, which doesn't have rifling in the barrel. It just has this enormous slug. And this was an extraordinary weapon which won, for example, the Battle of Culloden and the Battle of Placie and all these colonial battles that the East India company had fought. But it's not good for mountain warfare because it's something to be used at short distance. It's a lead slug like a dumb-dum bullet that expands inside the victim. But the Afghans have got these jazales with long barrows, which you see the moguls using from the 1640s, which are heavy and difficult to use, but they are sniper efficient. They can be fired from half a mile. And the whole way down this pass, the Afghans are in position with their jazales waiting for the

British picking them off. So, I mean, one of the accounts says, you know, these Gisales are so unmistakable in their character. It can never be forgotten by those whose ears have once been startled by their unfamiliar sound. I mean, what is that unfamiliar sound? Why do they sound different to other weapons? So what they hear as they enter a valley is this high ringing sound. And it's very eerie because it echoes across all the valleys.

And the Brits don't know what it is initially. what it is in fact is the ramrods of the Afghans going down the barrels, ramming the shot and the gunpowder down the barrel. But it makes this very distinctive noise. So metal on metal. Metal on metal with this rhythmic, repetitive sound. And they can't see where it's coming from, but this is the Afghan snipers preparing for the arrival of the army. So the first day they leave, there are about 12,000 camp followers, so ordinary Indians who've come to look after. the army as a job of work, protecting about 6,000 East India Company and British troops. By the first

night, a thousand are dead. The second night, there's only, I think, 3,000 left. Then they go on this massive high pass where they are at their most exposed to the cold, and I think only 500 come down. and there they are met by the famous holly hedge at Chigdalak. And the Hakbar Khan has actually built a barrier using the... Holly bushes. The holly bushes to make sure that no one can get over it. And not even the cavalry can make it over this. They try and jump it, they get caught on it, and there's thorns and there's...

It's very cleverly built. And at that point, I think only about 200 men. make it over the holly hedge. The Sam is extraordinary of around 12,000, only 200. I mean, that's just bloodshed on such an awful, awful scale. And this is the point at which Elfinston insists that the ladies surrender. And my ancestor, Colin McKenzie, survives and writes his memoir because he's one of the men, the officers instructed to lead the women to Akbar Khan, who's off to give them safe passes.

Now, Apka Khan has broken every agreement that he's made so far. He's murdered McNaughton. He's prepared ambushes where he promised safe passage. But they have no option but to trust him on this. So they hand over their women, Lady Sale, her daughter, Alexandra, and all the other women in the camp are handed over with the single man, Colin McKenzie, there to guard them. And they become the hostages.

How are they treated? What does he say? On this occasion, Apakhan treats them admirably. and they all live to write memoirs, as we'll hear later on. It's time to take a break now, but before I do that, I'd like to just give a little reading from my book, Return of a King, about what happened to the troops when they met the Holly Hedge. By nine the following night, after a day under continual fire,

and when it was clear that all the remaining leaders had been either captured or killed, most of the survivors now maddened with hunger, and especially with thirst, after been marching or rather hunted like wild beasts for 24 hours, decided that their only hope was to press on in the dark. They found, however, their way was blocked by a formidable thorny barrier of prickly holly oak, well twisted together about six feet high, which had been erected across the narrowest part of the pass.

Those who tried to tear it down with their bare hands or claw the way up it were shot down as they did so. Very few made it over. one who failed to do so was a sepoi named Sita Ram, who later wrote his memoirs. Incidentally, this memoir has sometimes been considered to be a fake and has now been proved to be a genuine article. So this is an Indian sepoi from Benares recording what happened to him at the Holly Hedge that night. He said, when the General Saab left, all discipline fell away. As a result, the Afghans were able to annoy us all the more.

A number of sepoys and followers went across to the... enemy in an effort to save their lives. My regiment had disappeared and I attached myself to the remnants of a European regiment. I thought that by sticking to them, I might have some chance of getting away from this detestable country. But, alas, who can withstand fate? We went on fighting and losing men every step of the road. We were attacked in front, in the rear, at the top of hills. In truth, it was hell itself. I cannot describe the horrors. And last we came to a high wall that blocked the road. tried to force this, our whole party was destroyed. The men fought like gods, not men, but numbers prevailed against them. I was struck down by a Zazel ball on the side of my head. When I came to,

I found that I had been tied crossways upon a horse, which was being led rapidly away from the fighting towards Kabul. I now learnt that I was being taken there to be sold as a slave. I begged to be shot or have my throat cut and abused the Afghans in Pushnu and in my own language. But My captor threatened to make me a Muslim on the spot if I did not keep quiet. What dreadful carnage I saw on the road, legs and arms protruding from the snow, Europeans and Hindustanis half buried. It was a sight I shall never forget as long as I live. Join us after the break where we find out what happens to the Brits who survive this absolute carnage.

Join us then. Welcome back. So before the break, it was the absolutely startling. fact that 12,000 men, women and children can set out the British contingent and 200 are left after six days of walking through hell. It's cold. They've had frostbite. They've been shot at. There is no escape. There's no way back. They just have to keep going forward. The women have been taken and throw themselves on the mercies of a man who has broken every single agreement that he's made. This is just a dreadful parlous situation.

Could I, can I? Yes. So as the hostages head back towards Kabul, they have to pass the dead bodies from the previous days' carnage. And as they're being escorted through the pile of corpses, they see these terrible scenes, sepoys and camp followers who've been stripped and robbed and who refused, those refused instantly have been stabbed and cut down. With the Indian camp followers, the Afghans, if they're not interested in enslaving them, if they're not beautiful women, or very virile men who could be used as slaves, they simply strip them naked and let them go into the snow,

knowing that they'll die. So there's all these people with frostbite, wandering around naked, many crying out for help as the hostages head back to Kabul. And this is McKenzie's account. The gills eyes had now tasted blood and clearly showed their tigerish nature, becoming very savage and fierce in their demeanor towards ourselves,

demanding that we should be given up to them for sacrifice, brandishing their long blood-stayed knives in our faces and telling us to look on the heaps of carcasses around us, for we should soon be among them. You came to Kabul for fruit, did you? How'd you like it now, they cried. As we proceeded, we met numbers of the enemy's horse and foot, returning to Kabul laden with plunder of all kinds.

One miscreant had a little Indian girl seated on the horse beside him. So these very moving scenes of absolute carnage. Where is Elfonston in all of this, William? I mean, this is a man who is the author of this devastation in many ways because he just read everything wrong from the beginning. Where is he? So Elfinston has been unwell since the beginning of the uprising because he fell off his horse.

The horse fell on him and crushed, I think, some innards or, anyway, he's badly injured. And he's carried off in a litter with the women. And Abakhan looks after the hostages, in fact. And it could be on a, but it also more likely is a realistic assessment that Doss Muhammad, who we last heard of in a pit in Bakara, he'd actually escaped from the pit and given himself up to the British and has now been sent back to British India.

So there's a hostage swap right there. Exactly. So he is now living in Missouri, where Woodstock School now is. They have the building is still there where he was kept. And he has this little court living in India. That Bakar wants to keep hostages in order to swap them for his father. And get his dad back. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So the only people who do manage to make it over the Holly Hedge, there are some, I mean, and not many at all. Do they get any respite at all once they get over it? So after the Holly Hedge, there's a few cavalrymen, some lancers, and the 44th foot under Shelton. He has somehow managed to make it through.

The useless Shelton? The useless Shelton has made it through. And they make it another 10 or 15 miles down the valley. and at this stage there are 20 offices and 45 privates of Shelton's 44th foot, a couple of artillerymen and sepoys. And they're exposed as dawn breaks on the top of a hill outside the village of Gundamuk, 10 miles further on from the Jug Dulac Holly hedge. And overwhelmingly outnumbered, every hut had poured forth its inhabitants to plunder and murder, according to the one survivor, with only 20 muskets.

and two rounds of ammunition each, the troops decide to make their last stand. And this is the famous picture, the last stand of the 44th. And they felt that they'd been disgraced by this occasion when Shelton marched them up to the top of the hill, and they just fled down the hill in the end in ignominy. So again, they form a square at the top of the hill

and defend themselves driving the Afghans several times down the hill until they had exhausted the last of their rounds, and then they fought on with bareness. but again, the Afghans know what to do with the British Square. They just pull back and they shoot their jazales from a distance. And one by one, the Brits are all slaughtered. And the Afghans take only nine prisoners. One of those is Captain Thomas Souter,

who wraps the regimental colours of the 44th around his waist and was taken captive by the Gilzai tribesman, who assumed that someone so colourfully dressed must be worth a ransom. Thinking I was some great man from looking so flash, he wrote, I see it was seized by two fellows after my sword had dropped from my hand by a severe cut on the shoulder and my pistol missing fire. They hurried me from this spot to a distance, took my clothes off me except my trousers and cap, and led me away to a village. Meanwhile, the horsemen have made it to the Garden of Nimla. There's a beautiful Mughal garden which has been kept up.

And I think Shah Jahan built it and left an endowment. So amazingly, amid all this chaos and anarchy, there are still garden. keeping this beautiful garden. So they arrive there. And the gardeners offer them food. They haven't eaten for four days. So they get off their horses. And the gardeners come with must and nun with yogurt and bread.

And as they're eating the yogurt and bread, they clobber them to death with their mattocks. Wow. I mean, this is just horrific. These are like, you know, people have gone through so much. And I must be thinking, I'm still alive. I'm still alive. I'm still alive. I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. Wow.

But you also, it's an indication of how much they were hated by the Afghans. Oh, quite. So there are three men left heading towards Jalalabad. Right. And two of them are lances. And one is the doctor of the contumment, Dr. Briden. Dr. Briden. And I like the story of Dr. Briden.

Tell us about him. And just when they think they're within sight of Jalalabad. And they think that they can make it through. then suddenly another party of Afghan horsemen come at them. Two of the lancers are shot dead. And one of them with a sword comes from Dr. Briden and he makes a terrific sword cut onto Briden's head. But Dr. Briden, a good Scotsman, is a reader of Blackwoods magazine. Such a great story. Which is a hard bat book rather like sort of granta but hardback in this period of history.

Yeah. And he's put it inside his forage cap, presumably to read when it. it's too cold to sleep at night. Fantastic. And the sword goes through the spine of Blackwoods magazine, but does not cut Bryden at all. Can I just say? Literature saves people.

It just does. It really does. It just does. Yeah. And Dr. Brighton makes it through and gets to Jalalabad. And I actually have to say, last week you may remember when we were last recording. Oh yes, when you kept looking out of your window, really annoyingly.

I guess my window away from my microphone, only to be told off by professional broadcaster. I'll tell you what. I just was trying to point out that the ear is not the most vocal part of your body as it chatted to the microphone. It's true. But at that point, I was, again, not only 10 miles away from the battlefield of Glutton, but 10 miles away from the resting place of Dr. Bryden. And I've been to his grave on the Black Isle, on the northern shore of the Buley Firth, looking on to Fort George. What's the inscription on it? It's a couple of years since I've seen it. I can't remember the exact description, but it's the most peaceful and beautiful place. and this was a guy who not only survived this, he then goes with an incredibly bad luck

and is posted next, having survived the first Africa war, he's posted to Luck Now, where he survives the siege of Lucknow in 1857 to 8. Oh, my word. And then dies peacefully in his bed in the Black Island, Scotland, and buried beside the Buley Firth. Well, he's the luckiest man of his generation, it sounds like, or the unluckiest.

I don't know which way you think it. But it's a sort of extraordinary scene. So fighting Bob Sale, a lady Sayle's husband, is in charge of the garrison at Jalalabad, and they can hear all the gunshots and they know exactly what's going on. And they dare not go far out because they are outnumbered and they are vulnerable too. But fighting Bob, knowing that his wife is out there, sends a search party to scour the planes, thinking that there are other British soldiers still alive, but they find only the corpses of the lancers. And that night, lamps are raised on the gates.

and bugles blown to guide any last stragglers, but none limp in. A strong wind was blowing from the south, which set the sound of bugles all over the town, wrote one cadet in the Jalalabad garrison. A terrible wailing sound of those bugles, I will never forget. It was a dirge for our slaughtered soldiers, heard and heard throughout the night. It had an inexpressibly mournful and depressing effect. Of the 16,500 men, women and children who left Kabul, Only one had made it through.

It's one of the great scenes. And of course, there's that famous picture by Lady Butler, which the Afghan started producing postcards of and selling in Carville recently. Well, I mean, the very famous picture, describe it. This is an audio medium. So it has Dr. Briden limping in on his nag, and you can see the troops looking out from the walls of Tjalabad, and a single white horse is coming through the gateway to come and rescue Dr. Briden.

And what I discovered was that, you know, for all this legend, which is the famous legend that only one man makes it from the retreat from Kabul, in actual fact, that's not true. It's a myth. And there are all sorts of fighters in the British force who know how to survive in the hills. Of course, among them are the Gurkers. So in the week that follows, initially they think Dr. Briden is the only survivor. But in the week that follows, many Gurkhas make it through. And they've seen the Holly Hedge barrier, known what was the waiting for them in ambush and they're not going to walk straight into an ambush, they're too smart. So they walk over the hills and they come to Jalalabad by a different more secular route. And they're in perfectly good Nick? They're all right. I think there's about a hundred Gurkhas that appear in perfect order at Jalalabad in the next week. Also more bizarrely, a man called Mr. Berness, who's the Greek grocer of the contumment, who appears having sheltered in a cave with a bottle of Uso for a week. That's a fabulous story.

And then there's other sort of strange survivors too. I mean, the more you look, the more you find. The following year, a bunch of sepoys give themselves up at Myrud because they have just attended the Kummela, which was at Hardwa that year. Okay, so the Kumela, for those who don't know, is a special, enormously important, significant Hindu festival, which is the confluence of the different holy rivers of India and the Qum, you know, that mixing is, very auspicious and people flock to Haradwar, which is one of the holy sites of a river. And I mean, it's hundreds of thousands of people get to the Komala, so that's where they went.

And these guys had walked, again, they didn't go through the Holly Hedge, which was a death trap. They just walked up the mountain and came down the other side and bumped into a party of Hindu pilgrims. What we often forget is that Ghazni was a major centre of the cult of the goddess of Durga. And when you go to the Kabul Museum today, or certainly pre-Taliban era, there are the huge images of Durga from Ghazni. And it was a place of Hindu pilgrimage. So these soldiers, these sepoys, having walked up the hill, come down and join in with a bunch of saddos. I mean, I have to say, if the Taliban have left a statue of a very powerful woman up, I'd be very surprised. It's not their bag, is it really?

Well, I mean, in answer to that, the Kabul Museum is still intact this time. They haven't actually gone and beaten it up a second time. They did the first time. But since the fall of Kabul two years ago, the Kabul Museum is shuttered, but it's still intact. Anyway, so these sepoys are escorted out of Afghanistan by the saddos who tell the sepoys to dress as saddues in order to save themselves. And the Afghans give them safe passage. They're holy men. They respect that.

And they then give themselves up at myrout cantoonement after the Kumela and are tried and court-martialed, which isn't the most benign response. Or they're taken to be deserters. Right. Well, they were meant to just go through the Minza with everyone else. That was the implication, exactly that. Okay. So then you're left with Lady Sale, who is sent off with the other hostages and the dying Elfinston. They passed 200 dead bodies, many of them, European, the whole naked, covered with large gaping wounds, stripped of all they possessed, crawling on their hands and knees.

Has her pregnant daughter? Does her pregnant daughter make it? A pregnant daughter gives birth successfully in captivity. Right. And at this point, Akbar Khan begins to arrange negotiations with the British to swap the women for Dasmohamed. And that is indeed what happens. Well, there are stories of this time, and I don't know whether you know the veracity of cannibalism for these sort of people just to survive, sort of eating the flesh of comrades. So I think the least attractive fate of the camp followers who are often stripped naked, have lost their fingers and their toes.

And so they're useless to the Afghans even as slaves. And they're literally left to go feral in the streets. And you're right, there are reports of cannibalism. And when the English army comes back in the Army of Retribution, which is what we'll talk about in the next episode, this terrible, terrible death force called the Army of Retribution that just why. wipes out everything before them. They come across hundreds of these poor characters who've just got stumps for legs, who've been left to starve, and are sitting, begging outside the walls of Kabul. I mean, it's a tragic, tragic fate. And is there, I mean, because this is such a tragic fate, and often you see, even when there is a victorious army and their opponents are

so reduced and destroyed, there's often compassion. Is there compassion from the Afghans for what has happened here? Absolutely not. And we know this because one of the most exciting finds when I was researching this book was this account of this Afghan who is with the British force called Mirza Atta. And he's a very proud Afghan, very proud of what he's done. And yet he's reporting in a sense from the British ranks. And he's seeing the British meet the fate they deserve in his view. And his account, when he writes this chilling account of the defeat of the British and the total destruction of this army. He writes, it is said that 40,000 English troops had been in Kabul, and that many were taken captive en route, others remained as cripples and beggars in Kabul,

and that the rest perished in the mountains, like a ship sunk without trace, for it is no easy thing to invade and occupy the kingdom of Khorasan. Well, on that note, we are going to leave it for this episode, but join us for the next Empire podcast when we talk about the Army of Retribution. Till then, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand. And me, William Duremberg.