During the summer of 1840 insurrections had to be put
down by force in several places. In November of the same year Dost
Mohammed defeated the English in the Perwan Pass. From that time
until the autumn of 1841 a sultry calm reigned in the country.
The English commanders, although fully aware of the state of mind of
the people, neglected to take the most simple measures of
precaution.
The local control was vested in a mixed military and civil council,
consisting of General Elphinstone, unfitted by disease and natural
irresolution from exercising the functions of command, and Sir
William McNaghten, the British envoy, whose self-confidence and
trust in the treacherous natives made him an easy victim. In the
centre of an insurrection which was extending day by day under their
eyes and under their own roofs, these representatives of a powerful
nation, with a small but effective force, deliberately buried their
heads in the sand of their credulity, not realizing the nature of
the danger which for weeks was evident to many of their
subordinates.
Finally a force of the insurgents, under the direction of the son of
the deposed ruler, Akbar Khan, threw off the disguise they had
assumed before the English, and taking possession of the Khurd Kabul
Pass near the city, entirely cut off the retreat to India which
Elphinstone had commenced.
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