THE TWENTY-THIRD WAR : THE AFGHAN WAR. 45 



THE TWENTY-THIRD WAR: THE AFGHAN WAR. 



1878. 



The Afghan War, of 1878, arose from the same miserable causes 

 which led to the disastrous Afghan War in 1842, referred to 

 previously, namely, from a frantic fear and hatred of Russia, which 

 afterwards proved to have been a mere phantom. 



The causes which led to the War of 1842, and the War of 1878, 

 bears a striking resemblance. In 1842, it was urged on by the will 

 of two men. Lord Palmerston in England, and Lord Auckland in 

 India, against the judgment of most experienced Indian Statesmen at 

 home and abroad. 



In 1878, there can be little doubt that its real promoters were 

 Lord Beaconsfield in England, and Lord Lytton in India, the latter 

 inspired by the former ; and it is no secret that it was utterly opposed 

 by Lord Lawrence, Lord Northbrook, Sir Charles Trevelyan, and many 

 other eminent men of great weight and experience in Indian affairs. 



Public opinion, unhappily, at home was misled, and public passion 

 inilamed by a reckless distortion of facts — on the one hand, that 

 Russia was prompted by a fixed hostility to England, and of a 

 deliberate design to undermine the foundations of our Indian Empire ; 

 and, on the other hand, by a furious abuse of the Ruler of Afghanistan 

 as a fierce and faithless barbarian, hostile to England, and conspiring 

 with Russia, which, I have no hesitation in saying, was grossly 

 exaggerated. 



Now, what are the facts ? 



A great War, and a most deplorable War (which it was in the power of 

 England to have averted had she compelled Turkey to have accepted 

 the decisions of the Conference at Constantinople), had raged from 

 July, 1877, to March, 1878, between Russia and Turkey, and which 

 had resulted, as everybody knew it would result, in the complete over- 

 throw of the Turkish Power, and the march of the armies of Russia 

 up to the gates of Constantinople. 



At that supreme moment, Lord Beaconsfield, as the Prime Minister 

 of England, bid Russia to stay her march, and in effect said to her : — 



"Thus far, thou proud wave Romanoff, shalt thou go, and no further," 

 and he followed up his command by (i) ordering the British Fleet to 

 move up to the Dardanelles ; (2) by summoning the military forces of 

 the Crown from India to Malta ; (3) by calling out the Reserves ; (4) 

 and by a vote of ;^6,ooo,ooo sterling, in order to hasten forward the 

 preparations for War. 



