Major-General Garvock, in the Umbeyla campaign among the
mountains to the north of Peshawar, and was present at the
storm of Lalu, the capture of Umbeyla, and the destruction of
Mulka, receiving for his services the medal and clasp.
In 1867 Roberts was appointed assistant quartermaster-general to Sir Donald Stewart’s Bengal Brigade for Abyssinia. He showed judgment in embarking each unit complete in every detail, instead of dispatching camp equipage in one ship, transport in another, and so on, as was customary. He arrived at Zula, Annesley Bay, in the Red Sea, the base of the expedition, on the 3rd of February 1868, and remained there as senior base staff officer during the four months’ campaign. At its close he superintended the re-embarkation of the whole army. His duties were so well performed that Sir Robert Napier sent him home with his final dispatches. He was three times “mentioned,” and received a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy and the war medal. He returned to India the following year as first assistant quartermaster-general. In the autumn of 1871 he made the arrangements for the expedition into Lushai, between south-east Bengal and Burma, fitted out two columns under Brigadiers-General Bourchier and Brownlow, and himself accompanied the first. A road, over 100 m. long, was cut through dense gloomy forests in stifling heat, and the column was attacked by cholera; but the object of the expedition was successfully accomplished, and Roberts, who was present at the capture of the Kholel villages and the action in the Northlang range, and commanded the troops at the burning of Taikum, was mentioned in dispatches and made a Companion of the Bath. On his return in March 1872, he became deputy quartermaster-general in Bengal, and in 1875 quartermaster-general and colonel. He settled the details of the great camp of exercise at Delhi on the occasion of the visit of the prince of Wales in January 1876, and attended H.R.H. at the manœuvres. He also superintended the arrangements for the great durbar at Delhi on the 1st of January 1877, when Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress of India.
In 1878 Roberts was appointed to the command of the Frontier Field Force at Abbottabad, in Hazara; but in the autumn, on the repulse of the Chamberlain Mission by the Afghans, and the formation of three columns to advance into Afghanistan by the Khyber, the Bolan and the Kurram passes, he was given the command of the Kurram Field Force, with the rank of major-general. Concentrating his column at Thal, he advanced to Kurram towards the end of November, and having formed an advanced base there, moved on to Habib Kila. Under cover of preparations for a front attack on the Peiwar Kotal, he reconnoitred that formidable position, and on the night of the 1st of December moved part of his force to attack the Spingawi Kotal, in order to turn the Afghan left flank, leaving the remainder of the force to feign a front attack on the Peiwar, and to guard the camp. After a very difficult night march the Spingawi Kotal was carried at daybreak on the 2nd, and, later, the Afghans on the Peiwar Kotal, threatened in rear, abandoned the position. The next morning Roberts occupied the Peiwar, and on the 6th advanced to Ali Khel. He reconnoitred the Shutargardan and the Sapari passes, and made a strong reconnaissance through Khost, in which some fighting took place, and at the end of January returned to Hagir Pir, in Kurram, where his force remained in occupation. In July Major Cavagnari, the British envoy to the new amir, Yakub Khan, passed through Kurram on his way to Kabul, and, shortly afterwards, Roberts left his Kurram command and went to Simla to take his seat on the army commission, where he strongly advocated the abolition of the three Presidency armies, and the substitution for them of four army corps, a measure which was carried out sixteen years later. While he was at Simla, news arrived on the 5th of September of the murder of Cavagnari and his companions at Kabul. The Peshawar Valley Force had been broken up; Sir Donald Stewart was still at Kandahar, but most of his troops had started for India; Roberts, therefore, had the only force ready to strike rapidly at Kabul. It was hastily reinforced, and he hurried back to Kurram to take command, as a lieutenant-general, of the Kabul Field Force (7500 men and 22 guns); By the 19th of September a brigade was entrenched on the Shutargardan, and as, Roberts advanced, the Amir Yakub Khan came into his camp. An Afghan force of 8000 men blocked the way in a strong position on the heights beyond Charasia, and on the 6th of October Roberts repeated the tactics that had done him such good service at the Peiwar in the previous year, and sending Brigadier-General T. D. Baker with the greater part of his force to turn the Afghan right flank, threatened the pass in front with the remainder. By the afternoon Baker had seized the position, and the enemy, severely defeated, were in full retreat. Kabul was occupied without further opposition.
The city was spared, but punishment was meted out to those convicted of complicity in the murder of the British Mission. Yakub Khan abdicated on the 12th of October, and was eventually deported to India. The troops occupied the Sherpur cantonments; but in November a religious war was proclaimed by the Mullahs, and early in December, in order to prevent a threatening combination of Afghan tribes against him, Roberts moved out two columns to attack them in detail. After considerable fighting around Kabul, the numbers of the enemy were so great that he was forced to concentrate his troops again at Sherpur, the defences of which had been greatly improved and strengthened. Sherpur was invested by the enemy, and early on the 23rd of December was attacked by over 100,000 Afghans. They were driven off with great loss; and on making a second attempt to storm the place, were met by Roberts, who moved out, attacked them in flank, and defeated them, when they broke and dispersed. Roberts now recommended the political dismemberment of Afghanistan, and negotiations were carried on with the northern tribes for the appointment of an amir for the Kabul district only. On the 5th of May Sir Donald Stewart arrived with his column from Kandahar and assumed the supreme command in Afghanistan, Roberts retaining, under Stewart, the command of the two Kabul divisions, and organizing an efficient transport corps under Colonel R. Low, which was soon to be of inestimable value. On the 22nd of July Abdur Rahman was proclaimed Amir of Kabul; and Roberts was preparing to withdraw his troops to India by the Kurram route, when news arrived that a British brigade had been totally defeated at Maiwand on the 27th of July, and that Lieutenant-General Primrose was besieged in Kandahar. Roberts was ordered to proceed thither at once with a specially selected column of 10,000 troops and his new transport corps. He started on his famous march on the 9th of August and arrived at Kandahar on the morning of the 31st, having covered 313 miles in twenty-two days. On the following day he fought the battle of Kandahar and gained a complete victory. His services in the Afghan campaigns of 1878 to 1880 are recorded in eight Gazettes, and were recognized by the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, of the Government of India, and of the Governor-General in Council. He was created K.C.B., G.C.B. and a baronet, received the medal with four clasps and the bronze star, and was given the command of the Madras army.
Before proceeding to Madras, Roberts went home on furlough, and when the news of the disaster at Majuba Hill in South Africa arrived in London at the end of February 1881, he was appointed governor of Natal and commander-in-chief in South Africa. He arrived at Cape Town to find that peace had been made with the Boers, and that instructions were awaiting him to return home. The same year he attended the autumn manœuvres in Hanover as the guest of the German emperor. He declined the post of quartermaster-general to the forces in succession to Sir Garnet Wolseley, and returned to India, arriving at Madras in November. The following year he visited Burma with the viceroy, and in 1885 attended the meeting between Abdur Rahman and Lord Dufferin at Rawalpindi at the time of the Panjdeh incident, in connexion with which he had been nominated to the command of an army corps in
