eneral Phayre's force
holding Quetta, and endeavouring to stretch out a hand towards Candahar;
but the natural obstacles and lack of transport prevented the arrival of
help from that quarter. It is, however, scarcely correct to say that
Roberts had no line of retreat assured in case of defeat[327]. No
serious fighting was to be expected before Candahar; for the Afghan
plundering instinct was likely to keep Ayub near to that city, where the
garrison was hard pressed. After leaving Ghazni, the Quetta route became
the natural way of retirement.

[Footnote 327: Shadbolt, _op. cit._ p. 107.]

As it happened, the difficulties were mainly those inflicted by the
stern hand of Nature herself; and their severity may be gauged by the
fact that out of a well-seasoned force of less than 10,000 fighting men
as many as 940 sick had at once to go into hospital at Candahar. The
burning days and frosty nights of the Afghan uplands were more fatal
than the rifles of Ayub and the knives of the ghazis. As Lord Roberts
has modestly admitted, the long march gained in dramatic effect because
for three weeks he and his army were lost to the world, and, suddenly
emerging from the unknown, gained a decisive triumph. But, allowing for
this element of picturesqueness, so unusual in an age when the daily din
of telegrams dulls the perception of readers, we may still maintain that
the march from Cabul to Candahar will bear comparison with any similar
achievement in modern history.

The story of British relations with Afghanistan is one which
illustrates the infinite capacity of our race to "muddle through" to
some more or less satisfactory settlement. This was especially the case
in the spring and summer of 1880, when the accession of Mr. Gladstone to
power and the disaster of Maiwand changed the diplomatic and military
situation. In one sense, and that not a cryptic one, these events served
to supplement one another. They rendered inevitable the entire
evacuation of Afghanistan. That, it need hardly be said, was the policy
of Mr. Gladstone, of the Secretary for India, Lord Hartington (now Duke
of Devonshire), and of Lord Ripon.

On one point both parties were agreed. Events had shown how undesirable
it was to hold Cabul and Central Afghanistan. The evacuation of all
these districts was specified in Lord Lytton's last official Memorandum,
that which he signed on June 7, 1880, as certain to take place as soon
as the political arrangements at Cabul