The adventures of a former Montrose Academy student who became a renowned 19th century British diplomat in Afghanistan were brought alive to a group of his successors this week.
The academy’s archive group and Higher history pupils were visited by Dr Iain Findlay who gave a talk about one of their predecessors, Alexander Burnes.
Dr Findlay has been researching Burnes’ extraordinary career for a book he is planning to write.
Burnes was born in Montrose in 1805 and having left the academy at the age of 16 with a cadetship he set sail for India in 1821 and a career that has echoes of the present.
He served as a diplomat in India, during which time his explorations did much to bring hitherto unknown regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, parts of the Soviet Union and Iran to the attention of the western world.
In the late 1830s, to protect its holdings in India, the British allied themselves with an Afghan ruler, Dost Mohammed. He had united warring Afghan factions after seizing power in 1818 and seemed to be serving a useful purpose to the British. But in 1837, it became apparent that Dost Mohammed was beginning a flirtation with the Russians.
The British resolved to invade Afghanistan and an army of more than 20,000 British and Indian troops set off from India for Afghanistan in late 1838. They marched unopposed into the Afghan capital city of Kabul.
Dost Mohammed was toppled as the Afghan leader and the British installed Shah Shuja, who had been driven from power decades earlier.
The original plan was to withdraw all the British troops, but Shah Shuja’s hold on power was shaky, so two brigades of British troops had to remain in Kabul.
Along with the British Army were two major figures assigned to essentially guide the government of Shah Shuja, one being Alexander Burnes and the other Sir William McNaghten.
The men were well-known and very experienced political officers. Burnes had lived in Kabul previously and had written a book about his time there.
The British forces staying in Kabul could have moved into an ancient fortress overlooking the city, but Shah Shuja believed that would make it look like the British were in control.
Instead, the British built a new base that would prove very difficult to defend. Burnes, feeling quite confident, lived outside the cantonment, in a house in Kabul.
The Afghan population deeply resented the British troops. Tensions escalated and despite warnings from friendly Afghans that an uprising was inevitable, the British were unprepared in November 1841 when an insurrection broke out in Kabul.
A mob encircled Burnes’ house and he tried to offer the crowd money to disburse, but to no effect. The lightly defended residence was overrun. Burnes and his brother were both brutally murdered.