No elation can accompany an
operation so pitiless, and the plea of stern necessity must be advanced
alike and accepted with a shudder. Of the necessity of some such form of
reprisals an example is afforded in an experience which befell General
Baker a few days later in this same Maidan region. He visited the village
of Beni-Badam with a small cavalry escort. The villagers with every
demonstration of friendliness entertained the officers and men with milk
and fruit, and provided corn and forage for their horses. There were only
old men in the village with the women and children, but no treachery was
suspected until suddenly two large bodies of armed men were seen hurrying
to cut off the retreat, and it was only by hard fighting that the General
with his escort succeeded in escaping from the snare. Next day he
destroyed the village. Baker probably acted on general principles, but
had he cared for precedents he would have found them in the conduct of
the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war. He remained in the Maidan
district until the transport of the army had brought into Sherpur all the
supplies which he had succeeded in obtaining in that region, and then
returned to the cantonment.
By the terms of the proclamation which he issued on the 28th October Sir
Frederick Roberts was announced as the dominant authority for the time
being in Eastern and Northern Afghanistan.
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