PEIWAR KOTUL. December 2nd., 1878.

Major-General Roberts, V.C. (now General Sir F. Roberts, V.C.), at the outbreak of the second Afghan war was Quartermaster-General of the Bombay Army, and was appointed by the Viceroy, Lord Lytton, to the command of the force which was to invade Afghanistan by the Kuram Valley. The Kuram Field Force was 262not numerically strong, but it included some of the finest regiments in the Indian Army, with two seasoned British regiments; and most of the officers were men of much experience in campaigning. The cavalry, consisting of one squadron of the 10th. Hussars and the 12th. Bengal Cavalry, was under Colonel Hugh Gough, C.B., V.C., and the infantry, in two brigades, were commanded by Brigadier-General Cobbe, of the 17th. Regiment, and Brigadier-General Thelwell, C.B. At dawn on November 21st., the same day that the column under Sir S. Browne commenced its advance, General Roberts crossed the river at Thall, and a few days later occupied the Kuram fort, which the enemy abandoned on his approach. The Afghans then took up a very strong position on the Peiwar Kotul, about twelve miles off, where they determined to make a stand. On November 30th. the British force approached the enemy’s position, and a heavy fire was opened upon them from the ridge occupied by the Afghans. For a time a sharp exchange of shots took place, but the British were gradually withdrawn from under fire, and encamped beyond the range of the guns of the enemy. The snow was falling thickly in the Peiwar Kotul, the cold was intense, and supplies were difficult to keep up, but three days elapsed while General Roberts reconnoitered the almost impregnable post of the Afghan army, and matured his plans. It was found that the position of the enemy was too strong to be successfully attacked in front, so the General determined, while making a feigned frontal attack, to become a real attack in time, to turn the Afghan position by a long and difficult night march of nearly ten miles, to the summit of the hills on the right of the Kotul. This march, one of the most hazardous ever undertaken, he directed in person, and failure meant ruin, if not utter annihilation; as the entire force at his disposal was little more than 3,300 men, of whom only 900 were Europeans, against an army of 3,500 regular Afghan troops, with eighteen guns, besides hundreds of tribesmen. The attention of the enemy was occupied in their front by the pioneers constructing a battery, and a demonstration made by some artillery and cavalry; when at 10 p.m., December 2nd., the troops detailed for the turning force, consisting of the 29th Native Infantry and 5th. Ghoorkas, a wing of the 72nd. Highlanders, the 2nd. Punjaub Infantry, and 23rd. Pioneers, under Brigadier Thelwell, with a 263four gun elephant battery, fell silently into their ranks without sound of drum or bugle, and the march commenced. The encampment they left was 8,000 feet above the sea level, and as the column ascended the cold became intense, a cutting wind blowing; the ground also for the first half of the distance traversed was very rough and broken, intersected by ravines and watercourses. The men tramped on in silence, when an act of treachery nearly proved fatal to the whole force. Two shots were fired in rapid succession in the ranks of the 29th. Native Infantry, which startled all, and a halt was immediately made. The offenders could not then be discovered, but the general ordered the 5th. Ghoorkas, and two companies of the 72nd. to head the column, and the march was resumed.^[91] Shortly before daybreak the van of the column found itself in contact with the first Afghan outpost, and its way barred by an abattis of felled trees, eight feet in height. The enemy lining this defence fired upon the men of the 5th. Ghoorkas, who, gallantly led by Major Fitzhugh and Captain Cook, sprang over the breastwork and engaged the Afghans hand to hand. Driven from this defence, the enemy fell back upon another, eighty yards in the rear, and made another stand; but the Ghoorkas, supported by the 72nd., and aided by the fire of two guns, under Captain Kelso, who was shot through the head while advancing, carried stockade after stockade in the grey light of the dawn; and within half an hour of the firing of the first shot, all were in the possession of the British, and the line of the Afghan defence turned. General Roberts flashed the news of his success to Brigadier-General Cobbe, who had commenced to carry out the front attack on the Khotul, and had been heavily engaged with the batteries at the head of the Pass since daybreak. For some hours he made no great progress, as the enemy resisted desperately, but he kept a large number of the enemy within their entrenchments, and prevented them from going to the assistance of their defeated comrades on the left. Roberts now advanced against the Afghan main body, which had been strengthened with fresh troops, and taken up a strong position in the dense woods surrounding the plateau. The Punjaubees were met with such a heavy fire that they fell back, being unsupported by the Ghoorkas and Highlanders, in spite of the general’s efforts in person to rally them. The 23rd. Pioneers and an elephant battery now came up, and the Ghoorkas and 72nd. followed; and, after a hot contest of some hours, the Afghans finding their retreat threatened, and General Cobbe’s brigade in possession of their defences in front, fled in such haste that they left their tents standing, their baggage, and everything they had. By this time the short winter day was drawing to a close, and that night the British troops encamped at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet, but luckily with good fires, as the thermometer registered over twenty degrees of frost. In this brilliant action the total British loss was—Major Anderson, of the 23rd. Pioneers, and Captain Kelso killed, and General Cobbe wounded; and ninety Europeans and natives killed and wounded. The Afghan loss was severe, and six field pieces and eleven mountain guns were captured. A few days after this defeat, Shere Ali fled from Cabul to Balkh, with the intention of seeking refuge in Russia; but, while waiting for permission from the Russian Government to take this step, fell ill of a fever and died, in February, 1879. The British troops engaged at Peiwar Kotul were the 12th. Bengal Cavalry, the 8th. and 72nd. Regiments, the 23rd. and the 29th. Bengal Infantry, the 5th Ghoorkas, and the 2nd. and 5th. Punjaub Infantry.

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