Anglo-Afghan Wars

The Anglo-Afghan Wars were a series of military confrontations between Afghan rulers and forces representing British India. The wars were largely precipitated by Russian imperial expansion in Central Asia, which created a rivalry between the Russian Empire and the British Empire that historians commonly call the Great Game. During the Great Game, Russian colonial interests developed to the country's south, while British colonial interests extended north from their regional base in India. The intrigue reached a breaking point in Afghanistan, resulting in a series of three military conflicts: the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842), the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880), and the Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919).

Background

During the early part of the nineteenth century, Russia formed an alliance with Britain and other European states, including Austria and Prussia, in a bid to neutralize the increasingly powerful First French Empire led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte abdicated the throne in 1814 after an Austrian-Prussian-Russian alliance took Paris. Apart from a brief return to power in 1815, Bonaparte's rule was over and the First French Empire fell into decline.

Great Britain had been one of the First French Empire's main adversaries, and the regression of French influence in Europe created an opportunity for Russia to consolidate power and adopt its own expansionist policies. By the 1830s, Russia had supplanted France as Britain's chief European imperial adversary, leading the two countries into a period of intense competition for territory and influence in Central Asia. At the time, India was Britain's primary colonial holding in the region, and it was also one of the most important pieces of the British Empire. Britain defended India and its associated colonial holdings with the powerful Anglo-Indian Army.

Meanwhile, Russia captured the Central Asian tribal lands and khanates to its south, conquering a growing range of territory in the region and inching closer to Britain's colonial base in South Asia. The boundaries of the British and Russian Empires continued to approach one another and were separated by a de facto border that ran across Asia through Tibet, Persia (Iran), and Afghanistan.

During the 1830s, British and Russian leaders h attempted to form alliances with the Afghan emir Dost Mohammad Khan. In 1838, negotiations between the Afghan emir and Russian representatives reached an unfavorable conclusion, leading the British to suspect that Russia was planning to invade and overtake Afghanistan. Britain then backed a countermeasure designed to return Shah Shoja, an ousted rival of Dost Mohammad Khan, to power. The objective of the British operation was to secure a reliable ally to the west of India and neutralize Russia's growing influence in the region.

Overview

In December of 1838, approximately 21,000 Anglo-Indian Army troops began a march toward Afghanistan. They reached the Afghan city of Quetta in March of 1839, conquering it and Kandahar with relative ease. In July of 1839, the army vanquished the remaining forces of Dost Mohammad Khan, who fled. Shah Shoja retook the throne and Britain, appearing to have achieved its objective, withdrew. The British left about 6,000 soldiers to defend Shah Shoja's grip on power, but Dost Mohammad Khan launched a counterattack in 1840 in a bid to regain his title. Britain supplied Shah Shoja with more troops, who managed to capture Dost Mohammad Khan and bring him to India as a prisoner of war. Dost Mohammad Khan's son, Mohammad Akbar Khan, united more fighters to his side and struck back against the British in 1841. Meanwhile, the Afghan people were growing increasingly unhappy with the ongoing presence of foreign powers. This led to the assassination of British diplomat and statesman Captain Alexander Burnes in Kabul. Seeking not to stoke rising anti-British sentiment, the British took no counteraction against Burnes's assassination. Shah Shoja then decided to sever his ties with Britain, leading the Anglo-Indian Army to withdraw. During their withdrawal, the Anglo-Indian troops were ambushed and massacred by Mohammad Akbar Khan's forces. Shah Shoja, whose popularity with his subjects was plummeting, was assassinated. Although the British launched a retaliatory campaign and rescued several key prisoners from Kabul, their plans to launch a massive invasion and turn Afghanistan into a British colony ended when George Eden, the reigning regional British governor-general, suffered a stroke. Eden had been a major supporter of the proposed campaign to take Afghanistan, but his successor, Edward Law, elected to pursue a peaceful settlement. Law released Dost Mohammad Khan from prison, allowing him to return to his throne and marking the conclusion of the First Anglo-Afghan War.

The Second Anglo-Afghan War broke out in 1878, when Britain and Russia once against clashed over Russian expansionism. Britain sought to install a new military presence in Afghanistan to fend off Russian advances toward India. As the British negotiated terms with reigning Afghan emir Sher Ali Khan, Russia sent troops to Kabul, who arrived in advance of a similar British military-diplomatic mission. Sher Ali Khan reached a tentative agreement with Russia and refused to receive the British party, leading Britain to deploy more troops. Sher Ali Khan died in 1879 and was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Ayub Khan. Russia did not honor the alliance it made with Mohammad Ayub Khan's predecessor, and the new Afghan emir allowed the British to assume control of Afghanistan's foreign relations in May of 1879. However, in September of 1879, Mohammad Ayub Khan was complicit in the slaughter of British military administrator Sir Louis Cavagnari and his staff by breakaway Afghan troops who wanted the British out of Kabul. This led the British to oust Mohammad Ayub Khan by force, replacing him with Abdur Rahman Khan. The British reached an agreement with Abdur Rahman Khan that allowed them to maintain a limited military presence in exchange for recognizing Afghanistan's independence in 1880, ending the war.

The Third Anglo-Afghan War took place in 1919. It began when new Afghan leader Amanullah Khan mounted an attack on British India in rejection of Britain's continued influence in Afghanistan. This undeclared war lasted from May 4, 1919 until June 3, 1919, and seized on the unique opportunity presented by the situation that followed World War I (1914–1918). Russia's tsarist despots had been overthrown by a 1917 revolution that stalled the country's imperialist influence. Meanwhile, British India was plagued by unrest, rioting, and uprisings. Amanullah Khan also distrusted the British, who appeared to favor renegotiations of the subsidies Britain had advanced Afghanistan in exchange for its neutrality during World War I. Britain capitulated to Amanullah Khan's offensive, striking the 1919 Treaty of Rawalpindi, which secured British and international recognition of Afghanistan's full independence.

Bibliography

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