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towards Ghazni and Kabul. and encamped under the walls and
turrets of Ghazni. Sirdar Ghulam Haider Khan, as the governor and
defender of Ghazni - deputed as he was from his father Amir
Dost Mohamed Khan, provided with all weapons of defence, prepared
to defend the city. The English, however, attacking the northern
gate of Ghazni set alight the gateway of Bahlol, captured the city.
and took Sirdar Ghulam Haider Khan prisoner, and placed him
under the serveillance of Yaqut Khan. The Great Amir hearing of
these events called one Nawab Jabbar Khan - one of his brothers -
and asked him to go to Ghazni on the pretext of enquiring about
the wife and children of the captured Afghan defender of the city
and to see as to what he could find and to collect what information
he could, so that something might be done about the events that
were to develop as a result of the fall of Chazni. Nawab Jabbar
Khan started on his way to Ghazni, pretending that he was the host
of one Alexander Burnes whom he had helped on many occasions, and
to try to have Sirdar Ghulam Haider Khan released and to bring him
along with him to Kabul. Upon his arrival at Ghazni, he started
parleys with the English, and after much discussion , the English
terms were made known to Sirdar Jabbar Khan, to the effect that
either the Amir ahould renounce his throne of Kabul and go to
India as a pensioner of the British government and receive one lakh
of ruppees annually ; or to fight on and let the best man win the
battle.
* * *
SECOND NOVEMBER OF 1841.
ARTICLE THIRTIETH
In the historical life of the people of Afghanistan, the days
of victory and defeat, days of gloom and of happiness, times of
greatness and of decline are intermixed, which ought to be studied
with their respective colour and effect of those times,so that the
nation may observe some of those of the days of its life when
it was under a cloud. The date of Second of November, 1841. A.D.
( 18th. Ramazan 1257. A.H. ) was a day of determination, of
steadfastness, of great stress and national up-rising.
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