Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1903 — AFGHAN IS A FIGHTING MAN. [ARTICLE]

AFGHAN IS A FIGHTING MAN.

Peculiarities of the Army Created by Abdurrahman. The Afghan is essentially a fighting man, says the London Times, and, though the army which Abdurrahman created has, In tho main, so far made for peace by securing the Internal tranquillity of Afghanistan, even the old ameer discovered in the latter part of his reign that It was necessary to keep It occupied, but that it was not pasy to find suitable occupation for it. The discipline of a standing army in puch a country as Afghanistan Is apt to get lax in the idle times of peace. Under an oriental military despotism the army exists for active fighting, and all its Instincts rebel against long periods of inaction. It wants the extitement and, above all, the opportunities of individual aggrandizement and tnricbment which active service alone furnishes. For a long time Abdurrahman kept his army fairly well occupied in putting down all his own rivals and subjugating the tribes rrhose loyalty he had cause to suspect. When that was accomplished Kaflrstan, with its “pagan” tribes, offered mother outlet for the martial energies Df the Afghan Mussulmans. But In proportion as the successive lelimitations of boundaries and ipheres of Influence have diminished the area of doubtful ownership withn which the military appetite of the Afghan commanders could be gratiSed without any serious risk of external complications, the task of providing occupation for the Afghan army lias become more and more difficult, »nd with the maintenance of Internal peace that difficulty must go on increasing. The sops which Habibullah has from time to time thrown to his army in the shape of increased pay and improved rations shojy that he himself is alive to the difficulty, but measures of that kind can hardly he regarded as more than temporary makeshifts. One is bound to bear in mind in this connection that the fighting instincts of the Afghan have always prompted him In the past to look toward the south rather than the north. The plains of India, which his fathers repeatedly ransacked, are still to him the legendary land of conquest and booty, and if once he came to believe that the English were powerless to arrest the forces of Russian gravitation, he might well be tempted by prospect of such stakes as Russia would spread before him to exchange a losing for a winning partner.