So this dread of Russia was really the cause of the coercive expedition despatched in 1839; but the ostensible cause was different, and is characteristic of the methods which have led to our gradually obtaining supreme power in Hindostan. A domestic quarrel had arisen as to the succession to the Afghan throne which Dost Mahomed Khan, assumed to incline towards Russia, had seized, and which Shah Sujah, a son of the late monarch, also claimed. Thus primarily war was undertaken, to nominally place on the throne a prince unpopular and bad, and whose tenure of authority therefore only lasted just as long as he had British bayonets at his back. There was little serious opposition in the first phase of the campaign. The advance was made by way of Quettah and the Bolan on Candahar. The Khan of Khelat foresaw the difficulty that was to come. He knew that Dost Mahomed was a man of ability and resource, and that his rival was the reverse. “You have brought an army into the country” he remarked to Burnes, “but how do you propose to take it back again?” The so-called native army, which was supposed to accompany Sujah and which was paid by us, did not contain a single Afghan, and was, though native, purely alien. The hill tribes assailed the columns in the mountain defiles, as might have been expected, and whenever they were taken, they were shot or hanged, no quarter being given![57] This must be taken into serious consideration when we blame the Afghans for the dreadful revenge, later on, came. The losses in men and animals in crossing the mountain barrier had been already heavy. The supplies were so insufficient that the men were on half, the camp followers on quarter, rations. Still, Candahar fell without resistance, Ghazni was stormed by the 13th Light Infantry and Bengal Europeans, and an uninterrupted march to Cabul was followed by the peaceful occupation of the city. But the capital of the unfortunate Khan of Khelat was taken by the 2nd and 17th Foot, and the Khan himself slain. Finally another column, under Wade, forced the Khyber Pass, took Jellalabad, and the conquest of the country seemed complete. But no European could venture far outside the camps or out of the range of British guns. In 1841 the Khyber Pass was virtually closed by the insurgent tribes. Sale, with the 13th and some Sepoy troops, was sent to clear it, and was shut up in Jellalabad in October of that year; and when the bitter winter came, and the garrison of Cabul, which had been reinforced by the 44th Foot, attempted to return to India, the whole force was either destroyed or made prisoners. Only one man, Dr. Brydon, escaped alive to Jellalabad, to relate the awful tale. The whole details of the termination of the first occupation of Cabul are both dreadful and humiliating. All told, some twenty thousand human beings actually perished in the retreat. Thus, with Sale shut up in Jellalabad, Ghazni retaken by the Afghans and its garrison butchered,