The First Anglo Afghan
War 1838 - 1842
The First Anglo Afghan War was one of
England's greatest defeates. It is amazing in the
enormity and completeness of their loss. While
intreresting as a view of English Imperialism it is
especially poignant today in light of a similar American
adventure in Afghanistan that is at this point as
on-going.
From The Imperial Gazetteer of India:
"The 'Army of the Indus,' amounting to 21,000 men,
assembled in Upper Sind (1838), and advanced through the
Bolan Pass, under the command of Sir John Keane. Kandahar
was occupied in April, 1839, and Shah Shuja was crowned
in his grandfather's mosque; Ghazni was captured in July.
Dost Muhammad, finding his troops deserting, crossed the
Hindu Kush and Shah Shuja entered the capital (August 7).
The war was thought to be at an end, and Sir John Keane
returned to India, leaving behind at Kabul 8,000 men,
besides Shah Shuja's force, with Sir William Macnaghten,
assisted by Burnes, as special Envoy.
During the two following years Shah Shuja and his allies
remained in possession of Kabul and Kandahar. Dost
Muhammad surrendered in November, 1840, and was sent to
India. From the beginning, however, insurrection against
the new government had been rife. In November, 1841,
revolt broke out violently at Kabul with the massacre of
Burnes and other officers. Disaster after disaster
occurred. At a conference with Dost Muhammad's son, Akbar
Khan, who had taken the lead of the Afghans, Sir William
Macnaghten was murdered by that chiefs own hand. On
January 6, 1842, after a convention to evacuate the
country had been signed, the British garrison, still
numbering 4,500 soldiers, of whom 690 were Europeans,
with some 12,000 followers, marched out of the camp. The
winter was severe, the troops demoralized, the march a
scene of confusion and massacre, and the Afghans made
hardly a pretence of keeping the terms of the convention.
On January 13, the last survivors of the force mustered
at Gandamak only twenty muskets. Of those who left Kabul,
Dr. Brydon alone reached Jalalabad, wounded and
half-dead, but ninety-two prisoners were afterwards
recovered. The garrison of Ghazni had already been forced
to surrender; but General Nott held Kandahar with a stern
hand, and General Sale, who had reached Jalalabad from
Kabul at the beginning of the outbreak, maintained that
important point gallantly.
To avenge these disasters and recover the prisoners,
preparations were made in India on a fitting scale. In
April, 1842, General Pollock relieved Jalalabad, after
forcing the Khyber Pass, and in September occupied Kabul,
where Nott, after retaking and dismantling Ghazni, joined
him. The prisoners were recovered from Bamian; the
citadel and central bazaar of Kabul were destroyed; and
the army finally evacuated Afghanistan in December, 1842.
Shah Shuja had been assassinated in April, 1842; and Dost
Muhammad, released by the British, was able to resume his
position at Kabul, which he retained till his death in
1863."
The Imperial Gazetteer of India Vol. VI
Argaon TO Bardwan New Edition Published Under The
Authority Of His Majesty's Secretary Of State For India
In Council Oxford At The Clarendon Press 1908
Shameful Desectration of Graves by the
British
Shortly before we reached Ghazni we
passed close by the garden of the tomb of Sultan Mahmud
(Roza i Sultan Mahmud), in which in former days stood the
celebrated mausoleum of the renowned founder of Ghazni
and its race of kings. This tomb, which has always been
held in the greatest veneration by the people, and was at
one time regarded as a sacred sanctuary for criminals,
was desecrated by the British before their final
departure from the country in 1843; and
its celebrated gates of sandal-wood were deported into
Hindustan as a trophy of vengeance. Ghazni, Afghanistan
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