A War Correspondent in Afghanistan
by Peter Harrington December 27, 2001
It is early December. British solders are close to Jalalabad. Some are searching caves, others are watching for enemy snipers. They haven't reached Kandahar yet. One journalist sent to cover the campaign writes: “When I entered the Khyber Pass I was quite alone, not meeting a person till I passed the Gorge”. The next day, he writes: “Got washed up in Khyber River , eat a bite which was in our bags, and went up to the ridge where we found the Chief in doubts whether the place was empty or not which it turned out to be. Went in the place with the Chief and staff.” There are caves all around and his the journalist is intrigued so he decides to visit them. At midday on December 8 he goes off: “Crossed the Kabul River on a raft. Two Gurkhas were sent with me to go to the Caves. Only recesses, from a few feet to 20 or 30 – arched, some remains of plaster – over 100 of them, in 2 groups.” The correspondent begins to observe the locals and finds a man with hair as fair as his own with blue eyes. “He was quite a light as a German. He said he was a Shinarie, and gave his name as Pozai Khan.” Snow is appearing on the mountain tops and he comments on the beauty of the landscape.
But some things are different. There are no B-52's flying over head, nor American special forces in evidence. The nearest Russian troops are hundreds of miles away to the north, and no one has heard of Osama Bin Laden. The word ‘Taliban' is meaningless. To this correspondent, the World Trade Center could be some office in the City near the Bank of England. He has never heard of CNN although he is aware of Reuters. He has never read TIME but he does read THE TIMES when copies are available. For this is not December 2001 but December 1878. And our correspondent is William Simpson, a 55-year old Scotsman working for the Illustrated London News . In his world, there is no television nor emails and faxes. There are no instant images beamed across the world by satellites. For the average middle class Briton in 1870's, he has to wait several weeks before he can glimpse monochromatic images of the war in Afghanistan in his Saturday weekly, although he will have read about the events in his daily newspaper thanks to the telegraph. The British are back in the country trying to coerce the Afghan leaders into staying loyal to the Empire rather than shifting their allegiance to the Russians who have territorial designs on the region. British India has to be protected at all costs and it is not the first time that they have had to go into the country to put down the Afghans. Traveling on horseback accompanied by his syce – or servant - Simpson will record his impressions of the landscapes, the people, the soldiers and the military events, in pencil, ink and water-color and send them off with the official dispatches. There might be one or two sepia photographic prints included in the package made by John Burke who is also accompanying the army, but with the current technology, it will not be possible to publish these in any newspapers.
Simpson's pictures will be carried by horse or mule back down the Khyber Pass to Peshawer, then carried to the coast at Bombay where they will be put on board a P&O steamer. From there, the ship will travel via Aden up to Suez and then through the canal opened only nine years earlier. The journey across the Mediterranean will take them to Brindisi on the southern coast of Italy where the baggage containing the sketches will be placed on board a steam engine for the lengthy journey across Italy , through the Alpine tunnels and on to northern France . At the Channel, they will be put onto another steamer for the short crossing to Dover , where the baggage containing the drawings along with the official dispatches is loaded onto a train and taken up through Kent to Charing Cross Station. From there, a horse-drawn carrier will take them to 198 The Strand , home of the Illustrated London News , the leading illustrated weekly of the day in Britain . The next day, office staff will transfer the images onto wooden blocks by engraving the lines with mental tools. These will be inked and printed onto large paper sheets alongside text. Over six weeks since leaving Simpson's sight, the picture will be published. His first scene, a wash drawing of the supply wagons hauled by bullocks near Peshawer drawn on November 15, 1879 will not be seen by the public until the issue of Saturday, January 4, 1879 arrives.
This special artist will stay in Afghanistan until June 1879. At this time, there is a lull in activity. A peace treaty has been signed at Gundamuck in May and as things appear to be winding down, Simpson is recalled by his paper. His interest in the antiquities of the country has been aroused by his visits to various caves and his observation of ancient Buddhist remains, and he hopes that if he can get to Kabul , it will be only a short journey to view the two giant Buddhas at Bamian. A British mission plans to go to Kabul and he dearly would like to accompany it, but as it will not be leaving for another month, he has to forego the opportunity as duty calls. Throughout the campaign, Simpson has developed a friendship with Major Louis Cavagnari, the British envoy who is heading the mission to Kabul , and the officer promises to send the artist some sketches of the Bamian statues. They part company and the war artist heads for the coast. The mission eventually arrives in the capital but things go badly wrong on September 3, 1879 , when the members of the British mission including Cavagnari are massacred. When he hears the news, Simpson is reminded of a moment when the two of them had sat on a mountainside, he sketching an old Afghan man who was recounting his experiences to Cavagnari about fighting the British almost forty years earlier. The following year, Simpson wrote: “I have a strong conviction that on the 3 rd Sep. last, when the Afghan soldiers were surging against the Mission House, clamouring for blood, and the desperate defence was becoming hopeless, that Sir Louis Cavagnari must have had his memory brought back by the mere association of ideas, to the striking description we heard together sitting on the side of the Suffaid Koh.”
The British respond by sending in further troops and the war flares up again. They advance from Kabul and eventually Kandahar is taken on September 1, 1880 . But our artist is back in the safety of London , and it is left up to soldiers who have some artistic talent to submit sketches to the Illustrated London News . Simpson has kept a diary of his experiences in Afghanistan , and he has collected all his drawings and sketches from his newspaper office and mounted them in an album. In 1953 that album crossed the Atlantic to Rhode Island , and in 1999 it was reunited with the diary which traveleed from Australia (where Simpson's descendents had settled). Both now reside in Brown University Library in Providence .
Peter Harrington is curator of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University Library
Reprinted from The Providence Journal with permission.