ABSTRACT
According to the Simla Manifesto, ‘when once he [Shah Shuja] shall be secured in power, and the independence and integrity of Afghanistan established, the British army will be withdrawn’. A straightforward course of action would have been to have capitalised on the success of the campaign and to have put this declaration promptly into effect. No doubt substantial sums of money would have been needed in order to keep the Shah on his throne, but the key points of the country were secure and, with winter coming on, he would have had a breathing space in which to consolidate his rule. With adequate funding, he might have been able to conciliate the chiefs on whose support he would have to rely, by providing subsidies and opportunities for paid military service. The judgement of a contemporary observer of the scene was that:
he might possibly … with conciliatory conduct towards the chiefs, for whose restless but petty ambition he could have found scope in the civil and military service of the State, soon have been in a position to brave the return of Dost Mohammed. Freed from the dictation of a British envoy, and from the domineering presence of a British army, provided that his financial measures had proved judicious, his popularity would have increased, and with it his real strength.1
