First Anglo-Afghan War

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First Anglo-Afghan War
Date 1839–1842
Location Afghanistan
Result Afghan victory

British withdrawal from Afghanistan
Belligerents
Afghanistan Flag of the United Kingdom British Empire
Commanders
Dost Mohammad #,
Akbar Khan		 William Hay Macnaghten  †,
John Keane,
William Elphinstone #,
George Pollock
Casualties and losses
7,000+ killed & wounded 5,062 killed
Afghan civilians = Unknown
British civilians = 12,000 killed
 
First Anglo-Afghan War
Ghazni – Khelat –Kahun – Elphinstone – Gandamak – Jellalabad – Kabul
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The First Anglo–Afghan War lasted from 1839 to 1842. It was one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game, the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between Great Britain and Russia, and also marked one of the worst setbacks inflicted on British power in the region after the consolidation of India by the British East India Company.

Contents

[edit] Causes

To justify his plan, the Governor-General of India Lord Auckland issued the Simla Manifesto in October 1838, setting forth the necessary reasons for British intervention in Afghanistan. The manifesto stated that in order to ensure the welfare of India, the British must have a trustworthy ally on India's western frontier. The official British position that their troops were merely supporting Shah Shuja's small army in retaking what was once his throne was generally seen (at the time, as well as now) as pretext for incorporating Afghanistan into the British empire. Although the Simla Manifesto stated that British troops would be withdrawn as soon as Shuja was installed in Kabul, Shuja's rule depended entirely on British arms to suppress rebellion and on British funds to buy the support of tribal chiefs. The British denied that they were invading Afghanistan, instead claiming they were merely supporting its legitimate Shuja government "against foreign interference and factious opposition".

[edit] Invasion

Main article: Battle of Ghazni

An army of 21,000 British and Indian troops under the command of Sir John Keane (subsequently replaced by Sir Willoughby Cotten and then by Elphinstone) set out from the Punjab in December 1838. With them was William Hay Macnaghten, the former chief secretary of the Calcutta government who had been selected as Britain's chief representative to Kabul. They reached Quetta by late March 1839 and a month later took Kandahar without a battle. In July, after a two-month delay in Kandahar, the British attacked the fortress of Ghazni, overlooking a plain leading to eastward into the North West Frontier Province, and achieved a decisive victory over Dost Mohammad's troops led by one of his sons. Dost Mohammad fled with his loyal followers across the passes to Bamian, and ultimately to Bukhara. In August 1839, after almost thirty years, Shuja was again enthroned in Kabul.

[edit] Qalat/Kalat

Main article: Kalat, Pakistan (1839) (Battle honour)

On the way back to India, the Bombay column attacked 13 November 1839, as a form of reprisal, the Baluchi tribal fortress of Kalat,_Pakistan, from where unfriendly Baluchi tribes had harassed and attacked British convoys during the move towards the Bolan Pass.

[edit] Occupation

The majority of the British troops returned to India (only 8,000 remained in Afghanistan), but it soon became clear that Shuja's rule could only be maintained with the presence of British forces. The Afghans resented the British presence and Shah Shuja. As the occupation dragged on, MacNaghten allowed his soldiers to bring in their families to improve morale; this further infuriated the Afghans, as it appeared the British were settling into a permanent occupation. After he unsuccessfully attacked the British and their Afghan protégé, Dost Mohammad surrendered to them and was exiled in India in late 1840.

By October 1841, however, disaffected Afghan tribes were flocking to support Dost Mohammad's son, Mohammad Akbar Khan, in Bamian. In November 1841 a senior British officer, Sir Alexander 'Sekundar' Burnes, and his aides were killed by a mob in Kabul. The substantial remaining British forces in their cantonment just outside Kabul did nothing immediately. In the following weeks the British commanders tried to negotiate with Akbar Khan. MacNaghten secretly offered to make Akbar Afghanistan's vizier in exchange for allowing the British to stay. A meeting for direct negotiations between MacNaghten and Akbar was held near the cantonment on 23 December, but MacNaghten and the three officers accompanying him were seized by Akbar's troops. MacNaghten and Captain Trevor were murdered and their corpses dismembered and displayed in the bazaar.

[edit] Retreat and massacre

Main article: Massacre of Elphinstone's army

On 1 January 1842 following some unusual thinking by Elphinstone an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependants from Afghanistan. Five days later, the retreat began, The departing British contingent numbered around 16,000, of about 4,500 military personnel, and over 12,000 civilian camp followers; the military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion, the 44th.

Despite the safe-conduct they had been granted, as they struggled through the snowbound passes, the British were attacked by Ghilzai warriors. The evacuees were harassed down the 30 miles (48 km) of treacherous gorges and passes lying along the Kabul River between Kabul and Gandamak, and massacred at the Gandamak pass before reaching the besieged garrison at Jalalabad. The force had been reduced to fewer than forty men by a retreat from Kabul that had become, towards the end, a running battle through two feet of snow. The ground was frozen, the men had no shelter and had little food for weeks. Only a dozen of the men had working muskets, the officers their pistols and a few unbroken swords. The only Briton known to have escaped was Dr. William Brydon, though a few others were captured.

Remnants of an Army by Elizabeth Butler depicting William Brydon.

[edit] Reprisals

Along with the attacks on the garrison at Kabul, Afghan forces also beleaguered the other British contingents in Afghanistan. These were at Kandahar (where the largest British force in the country had been stationed), Jalalabad (held by a force which had been sent from Kabul in October 1841 as the first stage of a planned withdrawal) and Ghazni. Ghazni was stormed but the other garrisons held out until relief forces arrived from India in spring 1842. Akbar Khan was heavily defeated near Jalalabad and plans were laid for the recapture of Kabul and the restoration of British hegemony.

However, following a change of government in Britain, Auckland had been replaced as Governor-General by Lord Ellenborough, who was under instructions to bring the war to an end. He ordered the forces at Kandahar and Jalalabad to leave Afghanistan after inflicting reprisals and securing the release of prisoners taken during the retreat from Kabul.

In August 1842 General Nott advanced from Kandahar, pillaging the countryside and seizing Ghazni, whose fortifications he demolished. Meanwhile General Pollock, advancing through the Khyber Pass from Jalalabad, inflicted a further crushing defeat on Akbar Khan. The combined British forces took Kabul in September. A month later, having rescued the prisoners and demolished the city's main bazaar as an act of retaliation for the destruction of Elphinstone's column, they withdrew from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. Dost Muhammad was released and restored to power in Kabul.

[edit] Legacy

In the three decades after the First Anglo-Afghan War the Russians advanced steadily southward towards Afghanistan. In 1842 the Russian border was on the other side of the Aral Sea from Afghanistan, but five years later the Tsar's outposts had moved to the lower reaches of the Amu Darya. By 1865 Tashkent had been formally annexed, as was Samarkand three years later. A peace treaty in 1873 with Amir Alim Khan of the Manghit dynasty, the ruler of Bukhara, virtually stripped him of his independence. Russian control now extended as far as the northern bank of the Amu Darya.

In 1878, the British invaded again, beginning the Second Anglo-Afghan War.

Lady Butler's famous painting of Dr. William Brydon, initially thought to be the sole survivor, gasping his way to the British outpost in Jalalabad, helped make Afghanistan's reputation as a graveyard for foreign armies and became one of the great epics of Empire.

[edit] Battle Honour

The battle honour of 'Afghanistan 1839' was awarded to all units of the presidency armies of the East India Company which proceeded beyond the Bolan Pass vide Gazette of the Governor-General dated 19 November 1839, the spelling changed from 'Afghanistan' to 'Afghanistan' vide Gazette of India No 1079 of 1916, and the date added in 1914. All the honours awarded for this war are considered to be non-repugnant. The units awarded this battle honour are:

[edit] See also

[edit] Fictional depictions

The First Anglo-Afghan war was depicted in a work of historical fiction, Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser. The ordeal of Dr. Brydon may have influenced the story of Dr. John Watson in Sherlock Holmes, although his wound was obtained in the Second war.

[edit] References

  • Hopkirk, Peter, (1992) The Great Game, Kodansha Globe, ISBN 1-56836-022-3
  • Fowler, Corinne, (2007) Chasing Tales: travel writing, journalism and the history of British ideas about Afghanistan, Rodopi: Amsterdam and New York
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica (Pub. 1961)

[edit] External links

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