Second Anglo-Afghan War

Second Anglo-Afghan War
Kandahar 92nd Highlanders.jpg
92nd Highlanders at Kandahar. Oil by Richard Caton Woodville
Date 1878–1880
Location Afghanistan
Result British victory,[1] Afghans maintain internal sovereignty but cede control of foreign relations to the British.[2]
Belligerents
Flag of Afghanistan pre-1901.svg Afghanistan United Kingdom United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Sher Ali Khan,
Ayub Khan		 Donald Stewart,
Frederick Roberts,
Samuel Browne
Casualties and losses
12,700+ dead and wounded 1,630+ dead and wounded
Second Anglo-Afghan War
Ali Masjid - Peiwar Kotal - Sherpur - Ahmed Khel - Charasiab - Maiwand - Kandahar
History of Afghanistan
Flag of Afghanistan
See also
Ariana · Khorasan
Timeline

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The Second Anglo-Afghan War, in Afghanistan known as the Second War against the English, was a war between the United Kingdom and Afghanistan that lasted from 1878 to 1880.

Contents

War

After tension between Russia and Britain in Europe ended with the June 1878 Congress of Berlin, Russia turned its attention to Central Asia. That same summer, Russia sent an uninvited diplomatic mission to Kabul. Sher Ali Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan, tried unsuccessfully to keep them out. Russian envoys arrived in Kabul on 22 July, 1878, and on 14 August, the British demanded that Sher Ali accept a British mission too.

The Amir not only refused to receive a British mission under Neville Bowles Chamberlain, but threatened to stop it if it were dispatched. Lord Lytton, the viceroy, ordered a diplomatic mission to set out for Kabul in September 1878 but the mission was turned back as it approached the eastern entrance of the Khyber Pass, triggering the Second Anglo-Afghan War. A British force of about 40,000 fighting men was distributed into military columns which penetrated Afghanistan at three different points. An alarmed Sher Ali attempted to appeal in person to the Russian Tsar for assistance, but unable to do so, he returned to Mazari Sharif, where he died on 21 February 1879.[3]

Mohammad Yaqub Khan with Britain's Sir Pierre Cavagnari on May 26, 1879, when the Treaty of Gandamak was signed, photograph by John Burke.

With British forces occupying much of the country, Sher Ali's son and successor, Mohammad Yaqub Khan, signed the Treaty of Gandamak in May 1879 to prevent a British invasion of the rest of the country. According to this agreement and in return for an annual subsidy and vague assurances of assistance in case of foreign aggression, Yaqub relinquished control of Afghan foreign affairs to Britain. British representatives were installed in Kabul and other locations, British control was extended to the Khyber and Michni passes, and Afghanistan ceded various frontier areas and Quetta to Britain. The British Army then withdrew.

However, on 3 September, 1879 an uprising in Kabul led to the slaughter of Sir Pierre Cavagnari, his guards, and staff - provoking the next phase of the Second Afghan War.

Major General Sir Frederick Roberts led the Kabul Field Force over the Shutargardan Pass into central Afghanistan, defeated the Afghan Army at Char Asiab on 6 October, 1879, and occupied Kabul. Ghazi Mohammad Jan Khan Wardak staged an uprising and attacked British forces near Kabul in the Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment in December 1879, but his defeat there resulted in the collapse of this rebellion. Yaqub Khan, suspected of complicity in the massacre of Cavagnari and his staff, was obliged to abdicate. The British considered a number of possible political settlements, including partitioning Afghanistan between multiple rulers or placing Yaqub's brother Ayub Khan on the throne, but ultimately decided to install his cousin Abdur Rahman Khan as emir instead.

Ayub Khan, who had been serving as governor of Herat, rose in revolt, defeated a British detachment at the Battle of Maiwand in July 1880 and besieged Kandahar. Roberts then led the main British force from Kabul and decisively defeated Ayub Khan in September at the Battle of Kandahar, bringing his rebellion to an end. Abdur Rahman had confirmed the Treaty of Gandamak, leaving the British in control of the territories ceded by Yaqub Khan and ensuring British control of Afghanistan's foreign policy in exchange for protection and a subsidy.

Abandoning the provocative policy of maintaining a British resident in Kabul, but having achieved all their other objectives, the British withdrew.

Timeline of battles

45th Rattray's Sikhs guard Afghan prisoners during an advance through the Khyber Pass

There were several decisive actions in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, from 1878 to 1880. Here are the battles and actions in chronological order. An asterisk (*) indicates a clasp was awarded for that particular battle with the Afghanistan Medal.

1878

  1. Battle of Ali Masjid* (Decisive British victory)
  2. Battle of Peiwar Kotal* (Decisive British victory)

1879

  1. Action at Takht-i-Pul
  2. Action at Matun
  3. Battle of Khushk-i-Nakud
  4. Battle of Fatehbad
  5. Battle of Kam Dakka
  6. Battle of Charasiab*
  7. Battle of Shajui
  8. Battle of Karez Mir
  9. Battle of Takht-i-Shah
  10. Battle of Asmai Heights (Afghan victory)
  11. Siege of Sherpur* (Decisive British victory)
Durban Maidan of Sherpur Cantonment in 1879.

1880

  1. Battle of Ahmed Khel* (British victory)
  2. Battle of Arzu
  3. Second Battle of Charasiab
  4. Battle of Maiwand (Afghan victory)
  5. Battle of Deh Koja
  6. Battle of Kandahar* (Decisive British victory)

1881

  1. Kandahar (and Afghanistan) Evacuation

Order of battle

Royal Artillery Col A. H. Lindsay

Royal Artillery Brig Gen C. G. Arbuthnot

Artillery Col Le Mesurier

Popular culture

Sherlock Holmes' friend (and story narrator) Dr. Watson briefly served in the Second Afghan War, as described in the first chapter of A Study in Scarlet. In subsequent books, occasional reference is made to the wound Watson suffered from a Jezail bullet.

M M Kaye sets the finale of her novel The Far Pavilions during the Second Afghan War, the hero, Ashton Pelham Martyn (Ashok) is sent to Kabul to assist as a British spy and his best friend is made head of the military mission that accompanies Sir Pierre Louis Cavagnari when he goes to Kabul as an advisor. The book ends with the fall of the Bala Hissar in Kabul, where the British force is living; the death of all the British force, British officers and Indian soldiers, after a bitter and hard fought battle (almost all of which is based on original sources); and the hero and his wife riding north into the Himalyas.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Barry, Michael (1984). Le Royaume de l'Insolence. La Résistance Afghane du Grand Moghol à l'Invasion Soviétique. Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 2-08-211524-0. 
  2. ↑ Rubin, Barnett R. (1995). The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. Yale University Press. p. 48. ISBN 0-300-091519-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=laG03iJF7t8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  3. ↑ Hanna, Henry Bathurst (1904). The Second Afghan War, 1878-79-80: Its Causes, Its Conduct and Its Consequences. 2. Archibald Constable & Co. pp. 150-155. http://books.google.com/books?id=GzQoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

Bibliography

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