Anglo-Afghan wars
Anglo-Afghan wars (1838-1919). The steady advance southwards of the Russian empire into central Asia and the equally relentless advance north-westwards of the British dominion in India in the first half of the 19th century forced Afghanistan—the kingdom of Kabul—into the uneasy position of a buffer state between the two. The possibility of a Russian invasion of India via Kabul and the Khyber Pass or via Herat, Kandahar, and the Bolan Pass obsessed the authorities in Calcutta and London. The attitude of the emir at Kabul was thus of paramount importance and in 1837 a British envoy, Alexander Burnes, was despatched to Kabul to enlist Emir Dost Muhammad's firm support. The latter was anxious to obtain a British alliance but the price he required was assistance in the return of the former Afghan possession of Peshawar, seized by the Sikhs in 1834 (see Sikh wars). It was a price the British would not pay because, forced to choose between the Afghans and the Sikhs, they preferred to stay with the powerful kingdom of the Punjab, under its able ruler, Ranjit Singh. Dost Muhammad, despairing of British support, therefore prepared to listen to the Russians and a Russian envoy, Vitkevich, arrived in Kabul on 19 December 1837 while Burnes was still there.
Convinced that the emir was now pro-Russian, the governor-general of India, Lord Auckland, decided to cut the Gordian knot by replacing Dost Muhammad with a former ruler, Shah Shuja. The Sikhs were persuaded to enter a Tripartite Treaty for this purpose and in December 1838 the British army of the Indus assembled at Ferozepore in the Punjab to escort Shah Shuja to Kabul. It made its way slowly down the Indus and then up the Bolan Pass to Kadahar. There, in May 1839, it was joined by another force from Bombay, and the combined force reached Kabul on 7 August 1839, having stormed the immensely powerful fortress of Ghazni en route. Shah Shuja was installed as emir and Dost Muhammad fled, eventually surrendering in November 1840 and being exiled to Calcutta.
It soon became clear that Shah Shuja lacked popular support. A British army could not be maintained in Afghanistan indefinitely and by October 1841 there were ominous signs of Afghan insurrection. Elphinstone, who had succeeded Keane, was an infirm, vacillating man, and his political advisers, Macnaghten and Burnes, faced with the potential ruin of their Afghan policy, were reluctant to accept the evidence of a growing revolt. The storm burst in November 1841 when Burnes was murdered by a mob. Feeble attempts to retrieve the situation strengthened Afghan opposition. At the end of December Macnaghten attempted to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal with Muhammad Akbar Khan, Dost Muhammad's son and leader of the insurgents round Kabul. At a conference on 23 December 1841 Macnaghten was treacherously murdered but Akbar offered to allow the British force at Kabul to retire in peace. It was a trap and when the British began their retreat on 6 January 1842 they came under immediate attack from Akbar's tribesmen. Under constant attack and enfeebled by the bitterly cold weather, the army and its followers were gradually destroyed in the passes leading to India and only a handful escaped. At Jalalabad a garrison under Brig Sale hung on under constant siege and in the south Maj Gen Nott maintained his position at Kandahar.
When news of the outbreak reached India preparations were made to assemble a relief force under Maj Gen George Pollock at Peshawar. Pollock took his time in cementing morale among his troops and in careful preparation. He began his advance on Kabul on 5 April 1842, and, picketing the heights as he went, relieved Jalalabad a few days later. There ‘the Army of Retribution’ remained for some months while the new governor-general, Lord Ellenborough, tried to decide what to do. Finally, Nott at Kandahar was given permission to retire via Kabul if he wished. Pollock seized the opportunity to advance to Kabul to meet Nott and the two armies were united there on 17 September 1842. Pollock succeeded in rescuing the British captives still in Afghan hands and after blowing up the Kabul bazaar as an act of retribution the combined forces reached Peshawar on 6 November. A grand review was held at Ferozepore and the first Anglo-Afghan War was at an end. Shah Shuja having been murdered the preceding March, Dost Muhammad was released from captivity and reassumed his throne.
The British annexation of the Punjab in 1849 after two bloody wars brought the boundaries of Afghanistan and British India into contact. But Dost Muhammad was absorbed in consolidating his kingdom and the British, shocked by their defeat in 1841-2, were averse to risking further meddling in Afghanistan and followed a policy of ‘masterly inactivity’ until 1876. In that year a new Conservative administration under Disraeli decided that the expansion and consolidation of Russia in central Asia, which had also brought its southern border into direct contact with Afghanistan, constituted a real threat to India. Attempts to persuade the emir, Sher Ali, to enter into an alliance and to accept a resident British envoy failed and Viceroy Lytton became convinced that Sher Ali had become pro-Russian rather than simply neutral.
In the summer of 1878, at the height of the Near Eastern crisis, Sher Ali was pressured into receiving a Russian mission but refused to receive a parallel British embassy. That gave Lytton the excuse he needed and three British columns invaded Afghanistan in November 1878, defeating the Afghans in the Khyber Pass at Ali Masjid and in the Kurram valley at Peiwar Kotal; in the south, Kandahar was occupied virtually without a fight. Sher Ali fled, dying in February 1879, and his successor, his eldest son Yakub Khan, sued for peace, which was signed at Gandamak in May 1879. It provided inter alia for a British envoy to reside at Kabul. In September 1879 the envoy, Cavagnari, was murdered in Kabul with his escort. The only readily available striking force was the column under Roberts at Kurram and in October he occupied Kabul after a decisive victory at Charasia. Yakub Khan was deposed and exiled to India on suspicion of involvement in Cavagnari's death and Roberts proceeded to execute some scores of Afghans suspected of being involved in the envoy's murder. Two months after seizing Kabul a popular uprising forced Roberts to abandon Kabul and retire into his base at Sherpur where he was besieged for three weeks. On 23 December 1879 he defeated a major attack, routing his besiegers and reoccupying Kabul.
In May 1880 Sir Donald Stewart marched from Kandahar to Kabul, defeating an Afghan attack at Ahmed Khel en route, and took over the overall command from Roberts. The British still had no political solution and could see no option but to break up the country while retaining Kandahar. At this point in the summer of 1880 Abdurrahman Khan, a nephew of Sher Ali long exiled in Russia, decided to try his luck and entered Afghanistan. The British accepted him as emir of Kabul and of whatever he could control, except for Kandahar which was to remain in British hands. At this moment Sher Ali's younger son Ayub Khan, the governor of Herat, decided to make his own bid for the throne. He and his army were intercepted by a British brigade force at Maiwand. The British force was utterly defeated on 27 July 1880 and the survivors besieged until the famous Kabul to Kandahar march by Roberts at the end of August, who then defeated Ayub outside Kandahar on 1 September 1880.
Kabul had been evacuated by the British in August 1880 and the cabinet after much debate decided to give up Kandahar, finally evacuating Afghanistan in May 1881. Abdurrahman then gradually established his rule over the whole of Afghanistan, agreeing nevertheless to conduct his foreign relations in agreement with the government of India. Abdurrahman died in 1901, having successfully united Afghanistan and restored good relations with the British. His son Habibullah continued that policy but was murdered in 1919 and a period of dynastic instability followed. Habibullah's third son, Amanullah, emerged on top but his hold was shaky and in an effort to bolster his popularity he decided to invade India to seize the old Afghan frontier provinces west of the Indus and to proclaim full Afghan independence. It was a shrewd move because he could count on the support of his fellow-religionists among the Pathan transborder tribes and it caught the Indian army in the throes of post-war demobilization.
Afghan troops crossed the frontier in April 1919, occupying the village of Bagh from which the water supply to the advanced British post at Landi Kotal at the entrance to the Khyber Pass could be cut. War was declared on 6 May 1919 and despite severe transport and communications difficulties in the Khyber, the Afghan army was quickly dislodged. The Afghan base of Dakkha was occupied and arrangements made to advance and occupy the Afghan provincial capital of Jalalabad. This advance was suspended as a result of further Afghan invasions from Khost into the Kurram and Tochi valleys further south, under the Afghan Gen Nadir Khan. By now the war had been complicated by the participation of the hostile Pathan tribes. In the Tochi valley of northern Waziristan, the advanced British posts were withdrawn and the focus of attention became the important British post of Thal at the entrance to the Kurram, where a British brigade was besieged until relieved by a column under Brig Gen Dyer, subsequently responsible for the Amritsar massacre. The Afghan army was pushed back over the border and the hostile tribes gradually subdued.
Further south, in Baluchistan, the threat of an Afghan invasion was countered by the British attacking the strong Afghan fortress of Spin Baldak, which guarded the road to Kandahar. The fort was stormed and captured in an old-style assault on 27 May 1919, putting an end to the Afghan threat. A peace treaty was signed on 8 August 1919, bringing the third Anglo-Afghan war to a close but also formal recognition of full Afghan independence. The war had caused upheaval among the transborder tribes, leading to a major campaign in Waziristan in 1919-21, and was perhaps the most critical frontier campaign ever fought by the Indian army.
— Brian Robson
