TRAGIC RETREAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1939, Page 11

TRAGIC RETREAT

EVACUATION FROM KABUL. The retreat of Napoleon from Moscow had no more distressing features than the evacuation of Kabul by the British forces and their allies in January, 1842. British occupation of the city had become unpopular by 1941, and on November 2 revolt broke out, and Sir Alexander Burnes and other officers were massacred. It was then found that it was more difficult to get out of Kabul than in; it was impossible to send relief forces to the city in time, and the British in Kabul were left to look after themselves.

On January 6, 1842, an army of 4500 men, with 12,000 camp followers, began a disastrous retreat from Kabul, over country that was under frost and snow, and harassed by the Afghan forces. On the third tragic day the retreating force passed through a narrow defile in which they were subjected to fire on all sides, and there about three thousand perished. On the fourth day an attempt at conciliation resulted in the Afghans taking over the care of the women in the party. The remaining soldiers, paralysed with cold, could hardly hold their rifles and after two more days the force was reduced to a mere handful. General Elphinstone and two other officers gave themselves up as hostages for the safety of the troops at this stage, but in vain, for massacres reduced the little force to forty-five soldiers and a score of officers.

On 13 the garrison of the fortress of Jellahabad saw a man approaching the walls on a little pony that could barely walk. The exhausted man was Dr Bryden, the only survivor of the force that had left Kabul a week before. The only others saved were the officers who had given themselves up as hostages and the women in the care of the Afghans.