First Anglo-Afghan War

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First Anglo-Afghan War
Date 1839–1842
Location Afghanistan
Result British withdrawal from Afghanistan
Belligerents
Afghanistan Flag of the United Kingdom British Empire
Commanders
Dost Mohammad,
Akbar Khan		 John Keane,
William Elphinstone
Casualties and losses
7,000+ killed & wounded 5,062 killed
Afghan civilians = Unknown
British civilians = 12,000 killed
 
First Anglo-Afghan War

The First Anglo–Afghan War lasted from 1839 to 1842. It was one of the first major conflicts during The Great Game, the Nineteenth Century competition for territory and influence between Great Britain and Russia, and also marked one of the major losses of the British after the consolidation of India by the British East India Company. From the British point of view, the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42) (often called "Auckland's Folly") was an unmitigated disaster.

Contents

[edit] Causes

To justify his plan, 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 British pretence that their troops were merely supporting Shah Shuja's small army in retaking what was once his throne fooled no one. Although the Simla Manifesto stated that British troops would be withdrawn as soon as Shuja was installed in Kabul, Shuja's rule depended entirely on British arms to suppress rebellion and on British funds to buy the support of tribal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 British and Indian troops under the command of Sir John Keane(subsequently replaced by Sir Willoughby Cotten and then by the spectacularly incompetent 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 India, 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] Occupation

Some British troops returned to India, 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 Mohammad Akbar. In a secret meeting, MacNaghten offered to make Akbar Afghanistan's vizier in exchange for allowing the British to stay. Rather than betray his countrymen, Akbar ordered MacNaghten thrown in prison. Along the way to prison, an angry mob killed MacNaghten and his dismembered corpse was paraded through Kabul.

[edit] Retreat and massacre

Main article: Massacre of Elphinstone's army
Afghans attacking the retreating British and Indian army.
Afghans attacking the retreating British and Indian army.

On January 1, 1842 following some unusual thinking by Elphinstone an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependents from Afghanistan. Five days later, the retreat began, The departing British contingent numbered around 14–16,000, of about 4,500 military personnel, and over 10,000 civilian camp followers; the military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion, the 44th.

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 Gandomak, 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.

[edit] Legacy

The complete destruction of the garrison prompted brutal retaliation by the British against the Afghans and touched off yet another power struggle for dominance of Afghanistan. Shuja, his British protectors gone, remained in power only a few months before being assassinated in April 1842. In the autumn of 1842, British forces from Kandahar and Peshawar entered Kabul just long enough to rescue the few British prisoners and burn the citadel and Great Bazaar. Although the foreign invasion provided the Afghan tribes with a temporary sense of unity they had previously lacked, the loss of life and property was followed by a bitter resentment of foreign influence.

Remnants of an Army by Elizabeth Butler depicting William Brydon.
Remnants of an Army by Elizabeth Butler depicting William Brydon.

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 Muzaffar al-Din, 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] 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

[edit] External links

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