doubtless with this belief in the exile's aims that
the Russians gave him L2500 and 200 rifles. His advent in Afghanistan
seemed well calculated to add to the confusion there and to the
difficulties of England. With only 100 followers he forded the Oxus and,
early in 1880, began to gather around him a band in Afghan Turkestan.
His success was startlingly rapid, and by the end of March he was master
of all that district[318].

[Footnote 318: See his adventures in _The Life of Abdur Rahman, _by
Sultan Mohammed Khan, vol. ii, chaps, v., vi. He gave out that he came
to expel the English (pp. 173-175).]

But the political results of this first success were still more
surprising. Lord Lytton, Sir Frederick Roberts, and Mr. Lepel Griffin
(political commissioner in Afghanistan) soon saw the advantage of
treating with him for his succession to the throne of Cabul. The
Viceroy, however, true to his earlier resolve to break up Afghanistan,
added the unpleasant condition that the districts of Candahar and Herat
must now be severed from the north of Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman's first
request that the whole land should form a neutral State under the joint
protection of Great Britain and Russia was decisively negatived on the
ground that the former Power stood pledged by the Treaty of Gandamak not
to allow the intervention of any foreign State in Afghan affairs. A
strong man like Abdur Rahman appreciated the decisiveness of this
statement; and, while holding back his hand with the caution and
suspicion natural to Afghans, he thenceforth leant more to the British
side, despite the fact that Lord Lytton had recognised a second Shere
Ali as "Wali," or Governor of Candahar and its district[319]. On April
19, Sir Donald Stewart routed a large Afghan force near Ghaznee, and
thereafter occupied that town. He reached Cabul on May 5. It appeared
that the resistance of the natives was broken.

[Footnote 319: Roberts, _op. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 315-323.]

Such was the state of affairs when the General Election of April 1880
installed Mr. Gladstone in power in place of Lord Beaconsfield. As has
been hinted above, Afghan affairs had helped to bring about this change;
and the world now waited to see what would be the action of the party
which had fulminated against the "forward policy" in India. As is
usually the case after ministerial changes, the new Prime Minister
disappointed the hopes of his most ardent friends and the fears of his
bitterest