Sir Frederick Roberts left Simla on ET September along with Colonel
Charles Macgregor, C.B., the brilliant and daring soldier whom he had
chosen as chief of staff, and travelling night and day they reached Ali
Khel on the 12th. The transport and supply difficulty had to be promptly
met, and this was effected only by making a clean sweep of all the
resources of the Peshawur district, greatly but unavoidably to the
hindrance of the advance of the Khyber column, and by procuring carriage
and supplies from the friendly tribes of the Kuram. Notwithstanding the
most strenuous exertions it was not until the 1st October that Roberts'
little army, having crossed the Shutargurdan by detachments, was
rendezvoused at and about the village of Kushi in the Logur plain, within
forty-eight miles of Cabul. Some sharp skirmishes had been fought as the
troops traversed the rugged ground between Ali Khel and the Shutargurdan,
but the losses were trivial, although the General himself had a narrow
escape. A couple of regiments and four guns under the command of Colonel
Money were left in an entrenched camp to hold the Shutargurdan.
The massacre of the British mission had no sooner been perpetrated than
Yakoub Khan found himself in a very bad way. The Cabul Sirdars sided with
the disaffected soldiery, and urged the Ameer to raise his banner for a
_jehad_ or religious war, a measure for which he had no nerve.
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