Parliament was prorogued on the 15th of August, and it had hardly risen when the predicted calamity in Afghanistan arrived. As experienced Anglo-Indians had anticipated, Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British Envoy at Cabul, was murdered, and his suite massacred (3rd September), by the fanatical soldiers of the Ameer. During the short period of his residence, Cavagnari had justified the arguments of those who averred that a European Envoy would never be able to furnish his Government with any valuable information from Cabul. The only intelligence worth having that was received by the Indian Government came from native sources, and it had consisted of warnings that Cavagnari’s life was in grave peril.[147] It was necessary to order an Army of Vengeance to enter Afghanistan, and this was done. But, in England, the verdict of public opinion was that Lord Beaconsfield’s Afghan policy had proved an irredeemable failure. It was no longer possible to dream of avoiding the costly and harassing annexation of Afghanistan, by extending over it a veiled British Protectorate, to be administered by a British Envoy at Cabul as Political Resident. There was no alternative but a military occupation, which meant that England must be ready to hold down by the sword a country as large as France, as impracticable for military movements as Switzerland, and inhabited by wild fanatical tribes as fierce, lawless, and savage as the hordes of Ghengis Khan.[148] The Army of Vengeance under Sir Frederick Roberts, after much toil and many struggles, fought its way through the Shutargardan Pass, and captured Cabul on the 12th of October. The Ameer, Yakoob Khan, was forced to abdicate, and he was deported to Peshawur, and in the meantime Roberts governed the country by sword and halter. The hillmen attacked his communications. The attitude of the Cabulees was, from the first, threatening, though General Roberts disregarded the warnings of the Persian newswriters, who told him that Afghanistan was going to rise about his ears. On the 14th of December the insurrection broke out in Cabul, and Roberts had to leave the city and fight his way round to the cantonments at Sherpore, where his supplies were stored, and where he took refuge, and was soon besieged. In fact, in the middle of December the public learnt with extreme anxiety that every British post in Afghanistan was surrounded by swarms of fierce insurgents, and that a rescuing army must be organised at Peshawur without delay. Cabul itself was in the hands of Mahomed Jan, the victorious Afghan leader. Bitterly did Englishmen recall Lord Beaconsfield’s speech a month before at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, in which he assured his audience that the operations in Afghanistan “had been conducted with signal success,” that the North-West frontier of India had been strengthened and secured, and that British supremacy had been asserted in Central Asia. Fortunately, ere the year closed, General Gough, who had advanced from