a Russian mission was received with honour. This led to a declaration of
war. British armies advanced by three routes--the Khyber, the Kurram and
the Bolan--and without much opposition occupied the inner entrances of
the passes. Shere Ali fled to Afghan Turkestan, and there died. A treaty
was entered into with his son, Yakub Khan, at Gandamak, by which the
British frontier was advanced to the crests or farther sides of the
passes and a British officer was admitted to reside at Kabul. Within a
few months the British resident, Sir Louis Cavagnari, was treacherously
attacked and massacred, together with his escort, and a second war
became necessary. Yakub Khan abdicated, and was deported to India, while
Kabul was occupied in force.
Lord Ripon.
At this crisis of affairs a general election in England resulted in a
change of government. Lord Lytton resigned with the Conservative
ministry, and the marquis of Ripon was nominated as his successor in
1880. Shortly afterwards a British brigade was defeated at Maiwand by
the Herati army of Ayub Khan, a defeat promptly and completely retrieved
by the brilliant march of General Sir Frederick Roberts from Kabul to
Kandahar, and by the total rout of Ayub Khan's army on the 1st of
September 1880. Abdur Rahman Khan, the eldest male representative of the
stock of Dost Mahommed, was then recognized as amir of Kabul. Lord Ripon
was sent out to India by the Liberal ministry of 1880 for the purpose of
reversing Lord Lytton's policy in Afghanistan, and of introducing a more
sympathetic system into the administration of India. The disaster at
Maiwand, and the Russian advance east of the Caspian, prevented the
proposed withdrawal from Quetta; but Kandahar was evacuated, Abdur
Rahman was left in complete control of his country and was given an
annual subsidy of twelve lakhs of rupees in 1883. In the second purpose
of his administration Lord Ripon's well-meant efforts only succeeded in
setting Europeans and natives against each other. His term of office was
chiefly notable for the agitation against the Ilbert Bill, which
proposed to subject European offenders to trial by native magistrates.
The measure aroused a storm of indignation amongst the European
community which finally resulted in the bill being shorn of its most
objectionable features. Lord Ripon's good intentions and personal
sympathy were recognized by the natives, and on leaving Bombay he
received the greatest ovation ever accorded to an Indian viceroy.
The Panjdeh scare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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