View source for First Anglo-Afghan War

{{Short description|1838–1842 British-Afghan war}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| image             = Storming Column entering Fortress at Ghuznee.jpg
| image_size        = 300px
| caption           = Lithograph depicting British-Indian force storming the fortress during the [[Battle of Ghazni]], 23 July 1839
| conflict          = First Anglo-Afghan War
| partof            = the [[Great Game]]
| date              = 1 October 1838 – 12 October 1842
| place             = [[Afghanistan]]
| result            = [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Barakzai Afghan]] victory
| combatant1        = '''Barakzais'''<br>'''[[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1826–1880).svg|15px]] [[Emirate of Kabul]]'''<br>'''{{flagicon image|Flag of Afghanistan (1880–1901).svg}} [[Principality of Kandahar]]'''<br>Khulm{{efn|August 1840; November 1841 onwards}}<br>Afghan tribes<br>Baloch tribes{{efn|Mainly from the [[Marri (tribe)|Marri]] and [[Bugti]] tribes}}<br>[[Barakzai dynasty|Barakzai loyalists]]<br>'''Supported by:'''<br>{{flagicon image|FlagofKalat.svg}} [[Khanate of Kalat]]
| combatant2        = '''Sadozais'''<br>'''{{flag|British Empire}}'''<br>'''{{flag|Durrani Empire|name=Durrani Kingdom}}'''<br>'''[[Maimana Khanate]]'''<br>Khulm{{efn|August 1840; September 1840 – November 1841}}<br>[[Durrani Dynasty|Sadozai loyalists]]<br>'''Supported By:'''<br>{{flag|Sikh Empire}}
| commander1        = '''[[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1830s).svg|14px]] [[Dost Mohammad Khan]]'''{{Surrendered}}<br>'''[[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1826–1880).svg|15px]] [[Wazir Akbar Khan|Mohammad Akbar Khan]]'''{{WIA}}<br />{{Collapsible list
| title = Kabul:
| [[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1830s).svg|14px]][[Mohammad Afzal Khan]]{{WIA}}
| [[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1830s).svg|14px]] [[Ghulam Haidar Khan]]{{Surrendered}}
| [[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1830s).svg|14px]] Nawab Jabbar Khan{{Surrendered}}
| [[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1830s).svg|14px]] Mohammad Akram Khan
| [[File:Flag of Afghanistan (1830s).svg|14px]] Mohammad Zaman Khan
}} 
----
{{Collapsible list
| title = Kandahar:
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Afghanistan (1880–1901).svg}} '''[[Kohan Dil Khan]]'''
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Afghanistan (1880–1901).svg}} Mihr Dil Khan
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Afghanistan (1880–1901).svg}} Rahm Dil Khan
}}
----
{{Collapsible list
| title = Afghan rebels:
| [[Mir Masjidi Khan]]{{Assassinated}}
| Akhtar Khan{{Executed}}
| Abdullah Khan Achakzai
| Aminullah Khan Logari
| Mohammad Shah Khan Sulaimankhail
}}
----
| commander2        = '''[[File:Seal of Shah Shuja Ul Mulk of the Durrani empire and dynasty.jpg|16px]] [[Shuja Shah Durrani]]'''{{Assassinated}}<br>'''[[File:Seal of Shah Shuja Ul Mulk of the Durrani empire and dynasty.jpg|16px]] [[Fateh Jang Durrani]]'''{{Surrendered}}<br>'''[[File:Seal of Shah Shuja Ul Mulk of the Durrani empire and dynasty.jpg|16px]] [[Sultan Shahpur Durrani]]'''{{Surrendered}}<br />{{Collapsible list
| title = Sadozais:
| Ghulam Mohammad Khan
| [[List of Durrani Wazirs|Mullah Shakar]]
| [[List of Durrani Wazirs|Mohammad Osman Khan]] {{Surrendered}}
| [[Zaman Shah Durrani]] {{Surrendered}}
| Safdar Jang Durrani{{Surrendered}}
| Timur Mirza Durrani{{Surrendered}}
}}
----
{{Collapsible list
| title = British: 
| {{flagicon|British Empire}} [[Robert Peel]]
| {{flagicon|British Empire}} [[William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne|William Lamb]]
| {{flagicon|British Empire}} [[William George Keith Elphinstone|William Elphinstone]]{{KIA}}
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland|Lord Auckland]]
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[Henry William Barnard|Sir Henry William Barnard]]
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[John Keane, 1st Baron Keane|John Keane]]
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[Willoughby Cotton|Sir Willoughby Cotton]]
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[Sir George Pollock, 1st Baronet|George Pollock]]
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[Henry Marion Durand]]
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[Robert Sale]]
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[John Shelton (British Army officer)|John Shelton]]{{POW}}
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} John Connolly{{KIA}}
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[William Hay Macnaghten]]{{KIA}}
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} Robert Salusbury Trevor{{KIA}}
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} Edward Connolly{{KIA}}
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} [[Alexander Burnes]]{{KIA}}
| {{flagicon|East India Company}} Percival Lord{{KIA}}
}}
----
{{Collapsible list
| title = Sadozai loyalists: 
| Mir Wali of Khulm{{efn|August 1840 – November 1841}}
| Hajji Khan Kakar{{AWOL}}
}}
----
| strength1         = 
| strength2         = 
| casualties1       = Unknown
| casualties2       = 15,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adamec |first=Ludwig W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AAHna6aqtX4C&dq=First+Anglo-Afghan+War+afghan+deaths&pg=PA145 |title=Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan |date=2012 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-7815-0 |page=145 |language=en |quote=The war cost Britain £20 million and some 15,000 lives of all ranks and camp followers.}}</ref>–40,000 British dead{{sfn|Dalrymple|2013|p=314}}
| campaignbox       = {{Campaignbox First Anglo-Afghan War}}{{Campaignbox Conflicts in Afghanistan (1823-1973)}}
}}

The '''First Anglo-Afghan War''' ({{langx|ps|د افغان او انگرېز لومړی جنگ}}; {{langx|fa|جنگ اول افغان و انگلیس}}) was fought between the [[British Empire]] and the [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Emirate of Kabul]] from 1838 to 1842. The British initially successfully invaded the country taking sides in a [[war of succession|succession dispute]] between emir [[Dost Mohammad Khan]] ([[Barakzai dynasty|Barakzai]]) and former King [[Shah Shujah Durrani|Shah Shujah]] ([[Durrani dynasty|Durrani]]), whom they reinstalled upon occupying [[Kabul]] in August 1839. The main British Indian force occupied Kabul and endured harsh winters. The force and its [[camp follower]]s were almost completely massacred during its [[1842 retreat from Kabul]].<ref name="Kohn">{{Cite book |last=Kohn |first=George Childs |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qTDfAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |title=Dictionary of Wars. Revised Edition |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-95494-9 |location=London/New York |page=5}}</ref><ref name="baxter">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2001 |title=The First Anglo–Afghan War |encyclopedia=Afghanistan: A Country Study |publisher=Claitor's Pub. Division |location=Baton Rouge, LA |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+af0012) |access-date=23 September 2011 |last=Baxter |first=Craig |author-link = Craig Baxter |editor-last=Federal Research Division, Library of Congress |isbn=1-57980-744-5}}</ref>

The British then sent what was widely termed an "[[Kabul Expedition (1842)|Army of Retribution]]" to Kabul to avenge the destruction of the previous forces. After recovering prisoners, they left Afghanistan by the end of the year. Dost Mohammed returned from exile in India to resume his rule.

It was one of the first major conflicts during the [[Great Game]], the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between Britain and Russia.<ref name="keay419">{{Cite book |last=Keay |first=John |title=India: A History |publisher=Grove Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8021-4558-1 |edition=revised |location=New York, NY |pages=418–19 |author-link=John Keay}}</ref>

==Background==
{{further|History of Afghanistan}}

===Causes===
The 19th century was a period of diplomatic competition between the British and Russian empires for spheres of influence in [[South Asia]] known as the "[[The Great Game|Great Game]]" to the British and the "Tournament of Shadows" to the Russians.<ref name="Perry, James page 110">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 110.</ref> With the exception of [[Paul I of Russia|Emperor Paul]] (whose 1800 order to invade India was cancelled after his assassination in 1801), no Russian [[tsar]] ever seriously considered invading India. However, for most of the 19th century, Russia was viewed as "the enemy" in Britain; any Russian advance into Central Asia, into what is now Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, was always assumed (in London) to be directed towards the conquest of India, as the American historian [[David Fromkin]] observed, "no matter how far-fetched" such an interpretation might be.<ref>Fromkin, David "The Great Game in Asia" pp. 936–51 from ''Foreign Affairs'', Volume 58, Issue 4, Spring 1980 pp. 937–38</ref> In 1832, the [[Reform Act 1832|First Reform Bill]] lowering the franchise requirements to vote and hold office in the United Kingdom was passed, which the ultra-conservative Emperor [[Nicholas I of Russia]] openly disapproved of, setting the stage for an Anglo-Russian "cold war", with many believing that Russian autocracy and British democracy were bound to clash.<ref>Fromkin, David "The Great Game in Asia" pp. 936–51 from ''Foreign Affairs'', Volume 58, Issue 4, Spring 1980 p. 938</ref> In 1837, [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Lord Palmerston]] and [[John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton|John Hobhouse]], fearing the instability of [[Afghanistan]], the [[Sindh]], and the increasing power of the [[Sikh Empire|Sikh kingdom]] to the northwest, raised the spectre of a possible Russian invasion of [[Company rule in India|British India]] through Afghanistan. The British tended to misunderstand the foreign policy of the Emperor Nicholas I as anti-British and intent upon an expansionary policy in Asia; whereas in fact though Nicholas disliked Britain as a liberal democratic state that he considered to be rather "strange", he always believed it was possible to reach an understanding with Britain on spheres of influence in Asia, believing that the essentially conservative nature of British society would retard the advent of liberalism.<ref>Riasanovsky, Nicholas ''Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825–1855'', Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959 p. 255.</ref> The main goal of Nicholas's foreign policy was not the conquest of Asia, but rather upholding the ''status quo'' in Europe, especially by co-operating with Prussia and [[Austria]], and in isolating France, as [[Louis Philippe I]], the King of the French was a man whom Nicholas hated as an "usurper".<ref>Riasanovsky, Nicholas ''Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825–1855'', Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959 pp. 257–58.</ref> The duc d'Orleans had once been Nicholas's friend, but when he assumed the throne of France after the revolution of 1830, Nicholas was consumed with hatred for his former friend who, as he saw it, had gone over to what he perceived as the dark side of liberalism.<ref>Riasanovsky, Nicholas ''Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825–1855'', Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959 p. 258.</ref> The idea that Russia was a threat to the East India Company is one version of events. Scholars now favour a different interpretation that the fear of the East India Company was in fact the decision of Dost Mohammed Khan and the Qajar Ruler of Iran to form an alliance and extinguish Sikh rule in Punjab. The British feared that an invading Islamic army would lead to an uprising in India by the people and princely states therefore it was decided to replace Dost Mohammed Khan with a more pliant ruler. "Rumours could cost lives and Empire itself. Therefore instead of fixating on the oriental other, the East India Company played up the threat of the Russian bear".<ref name="Husain">{{Cite book |last=Husain |first=Farrukh |title=Afghanistan in the age of empires: the great game for South and Central Asia |date=2018 |publisher=Silk Road Books |isbn=978-1-5272-1633-4 |pages=81, 412}}</ref>

In 1834, [[Shah Shuja Durrani]] [[Expedition of Shuja ul-Mulk|invaded Kandahar]] with the aid of the British, but was defeated.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=205}}

The Company sent an envoy to [[Kabul]] to form an alliance with Afghanistan's Amir, [[Dost Mohammad Khan]] against Russia.<ref name="Iranica">L. W. Adamec/J. A. Norris, [http://iranicaonline.org/articles/anglo-afghan-wars Anglo-Afghan Wars], in ''[[Encyclopædia Iranica]]'', online ed., 2010</ref><ref name="Iranica2">J.A. Norris, [http://iranicaonline.org/articles/anglo-afghan-relations-a-survey-from-the-earliest-times-to-the-death-of-the-last-barakzay-ruler-in-1357-s Anglo-Afghan Relations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130517000650/http://iranicaonline.org/articles/anglo-afghan-relations-a-survey-from-the-earliest-times-to-the-death-of-the-last-barakzay-ruler-in-1357-s |date=2013-05-17 }}, in ''[[Encyclopædia Iranica]]'', online ed., 2010</ref> Amidst the Afghan civil war, the Sikhs seized Peshawar from the Peshawar sardars and subjugated them. The British feared the [[Dal Khalsa (Sikh Army)|''Dal Khalsa'']], and they considered the Sikh army to be a far more formidable threat than the Afghans who did not have a well-disciplined army, instead of having only a tribal levy where under the banner of ''jihad'' tribesmen would come out to fight for the Emir.<ref name="Perry, James page 111">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 111.</ref> For this reason, Lord Auckland preferred an alliance with the Punjab over an alliance with Afghanistan.<ref name="Perry, James page 111" /> The British could have had an alliance with the Punjab or Afghanistan, but not both at the same time.<ref name="Perry, James page 111" />

When [[Governor-General of India]] [[George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland|Lord Auckland]] heard about the arrival of Russian envoy Count [[Jan Prosper Witkiewicz]] (better known by the Russian version of his name as [[Yan Vitkevich]]) in Kabul and the possibility that Dost Mohammad might turn to Russia for support, his political advisers exaggerated the threat.<ref name=keay419/> [[Alexander Burnes]], the Scotsman who served as the East India Company's chief political officer in Afghanistan, described Witkiewicz: "He was a gentlemanly and agreeable man, of about thirty years of age, spoke French, Turkish and Persian fluently, and wore the uniform of an officer of the Cossacks".<ref name="Macintyre, Ben p. 205">Macintyre, Ben ''The Man Who Would Be King'', New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002 p. 205</ref> The presence of Witkiewicz had thrown Burnes into a state of despair, leading one contemporary to note that he "abandoned himself to despair, bound his head with wet towels and handkerchiefs and took to the smelling bottle".<ref name="Macintyre, Ben p. 205" /> Dost Mohammad had in fact invited Count Witkiewicz to Kabul as a way to frighten the British into making an alliance with him against his archenemy [[Ranjit Singh]], the Maharaja of the Punjab, not because he really wanted an alliance with Russia. The British had the power to compel Singh to return the former Afghan territories he had conquered whereas the Russians did not, which explains why Dost Mohammad Khan wanted an alliance with the British. Burnes wrote home after having dinner with Count Witkiewicz and Dost Mohammad in late December 1837: "We are in a mess home. The emperor of Russia has sent an envoy to Kabul to offer...money [to the Afghans] to fight Rajeet Singh!!! I could not believe my own eyes or ears."<ref name="Perry, James page 111" /> On 20 January 1838, Lord Auckland sent an ultimatum to Dost Mohammad telling him: "You must desist from all correspondence with Russia. You must never receive agents from them, or have aught to do with them without our sanction; you must dismiss Captain Viktevitch [Witkiewicz] with courtesy; you must surrender all claims to Peshawar".<ref>Macintyre, Ben ''The Man Who Would Be King'', New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002 pp. 205–06</ref> Burnes himself had complained that Lord Auckland's letter was "so dictatorial and supercilious as to indicate the writer's intention that it should give offense", and tried to avoid delivering it for long as possible.<ref>Macintyre, Ben ''The Man Who Would Be King'', New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002 p. 206</ref> Dost Mohammad was indeed offended by the letter, but in order to avoid a war, he had his special military advisor, the American adventurer [[Josiah Harlan]], engage in talks with Burnes to see if some compromise could be arranged.<ref name="Macintyre, Ben pp. 206">Macintyre, Ben ''The Man Who Would Be King'', New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002 pp. 206–07</ref> Burnes in fact had no power to negotiate anything, and Harlan complained that Burnes was just stalling, which led to Dost Mohammad expelling the British diplomatic mission on 26 April 1838.<ref name="Macintyre, Ben pp. 206" />

British fears of a Persian and Afghan invasion of India took one step closer to becoming a reality when negotiations between the Afghans and Russians broke down in 1838. The [[Qajar dynasty]] of Persia, with Russian support, attempted the [[Siege of Herat (1838)|Siege of Herat]].<ref name="Perry, James page 110" /> Herat, in Afghanistan, is a city that had historically belonged to Persia; the Qajar shahs had long desired to take it back. It is located in a plain so fertile that is known as the "Granary of Central Asia"; whoever controls Herat and the surrounding countryside also controls the largest source of grain in all of Central Asia.<ref>Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 pp. 110–11.</ref> Russia, wanting to increase its presence in Central Asia, had formed an alliance with [[Qajar Persia]], which had territorial disputes with Afghanistan as Herat had been part of the [[Safavid Persia]] before 1709. Lord Auckland's plan was to drive away the besiegers and replace Dost Mohammad with [[Shuja Shah Durrani]], who had once ruled Afghanistan and who was willing to ally himself with anyone who might restore him to the Afghan throne. At one point, Shuja had hired an American adventurer - [[Josiah Harlan]] - to overthrow Dost Mohammad Khan, despite the fact Harlan's military experience comprised only working as a surgeon with the East India Company's troops in the First Burma War.<ref>Macintyre, Ben ''The Man Who Would Be King'', New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002 p. 32</ref> Shuja Shah had been deposed in 1809 and had been living in exile in British India since 1818, collecting a pension from the East India Company, which believed that he might be useful one day.<ref name="Perry, James page 111" /> The British denied that they were invading Afghanistan, claiming they were merely supporting its "legitimate" Shuja government "against foreign interference and factious opposition."<ref name=baxter/> Shuja Shah by 1838 was barely remembered by most of his former subjects and those that did viewed him as a cruel, tyrannical ruler who, as the British were soon to learn, had almost no popular support in Afghanistan.<ref name="Perry, James page 112">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 112.</ref>

On 1 October 1838, Lord Auckland issued the Simla Declaration attacking Dost Mohammed Khan for making "an unprovoked attack" on the empire of "our ancient ally, Maharaja Ranjeet Singh", going on to declare that Shuja Shah was "popular throughout Afghanistan" and would enter his former realm "surrounded by his own troops and be supported against foreign interference and factious opposition by the British Army".<ref name="Perry, James page 112" /> As the Persians had broken off the siege of Herat and the Emperor Nicholas I of Russia had ordered Count Vitkevich home (he was to commit suicide upon reaching St. Petersburg), the reasons for attempting to put Shuja Shah back on the Afghan throne had vanished.<ref name="Perry, James page 110" /> The British historian Sir [[John William Kaye]] wrote that the failure of the Persians to take Herat "cut from under the feet of Lord Auckland all ground of justification and rendered the expedition across the Indus at once a folly and a crime".<ref name="Perry, James page 112" /> But at this point, Auckland was committed to putting Afghanistan into the British sphere of influence and nothing would stop him from going ahead with the invasion.<ref name="Perry, James page 112" /> On 25 November 1838, the two most powerful armies on the Indian subcontinent assembled in a grand review at Ferozepore as [[Ranjit Singh]], the Maharajah of the Punjab brought out the ''Dal Khalsa'' to march alongside the sepoy troops of the East India Company and the British troops in India with Lord Auckland himself present amid much colorful pageantry and music as men dressed in brightly colored uniforms together with horses and elephants marched in an impressive demonstration of military might.<ref name="Perry, James pp. 109">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 pp. 109–10.</ref> Lord Auckland declared that the "Grand Army of the Indus" would now start the march on Kabul to depose Dost Mohammed and put Shuja Shah back on the Afghan throne, ostensibly because the latter was the rightful Emir, but in reality to place Afghanistan into the British sphere of influence.<ref name="Perry, James page 110" /> Speaking in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington condemned the invasion, saying that the real difficulties would only begin after the invasion's success, predicting that the Anglo-Indian forces would rout the Afghan tribal levy, only to find themselves struggling to hold on, as the [[Hindu Kush]] mountains and Afghanistan had no modern roads, and calling the entire operation "stupid" since Afghanistan was a land of "rocks, sands, deserts, ice and snow".<ref name="Perry, James page 112" />

===Forces===
British India at this time was a proprietary colony run by the [[British East India Company|East India Company]], which had been granted the right to rule India by the British Crown.<ref>Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 pp. 112–13.</ref> India was only one of several proprietary colonies in the British Empire around the world, where various corporations or individuals had been granted the right to rule by the Crown, with for instance [[Rupert's Land]], which was a vast tract covering most of what is now Canada being ruled by the [[Hudson's Bay Company]], but India was easily the most wealthy and profitable of all the proprietary colonies. By the 19th century, the East India Company ruled 90 million Indians and controlled 70 million acres (243,000 square kilometres) of land under its own flag while issuing its own currency, making it into the most powerful corporation in the world.<ref name="The Company That Ruled The Waves">{{Cite news |date=17 December 2011 |title=The Company That Ruled The Waves |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2011/12/17/the-company-that-ruled-the-waves |access-date=2017-06-09}}</ref> The East India Company had been granted monopolies on trade by the Crown, but it was not owned by the Crown, though the shares in the East India Company were owned by numerous MPs and aristocrats, creating a powerful Company lobby in Parliament while the Company regularly gave "gifts" to influential people in Britain.<ref name="The Company That Ruled The Waves" /> The East India Company was sufficiently wealthy to maintain the three [[Presidency armies]], known after their presidencies as the [[Bengal Army]], the [[Bombay Army]] and the [[Madras Army]], with the supreme field headquarters for commanding these armies being at [[Shimla|Simla]].<ref name="Perry, James page 112" /> The East India Company's army totaled 200,000 men, making it one of the largest armies in the entire world, and was an army larger than those maintained by most European states.<ref name="The Company That Ruled The Waves" /> The majority of the men serving in the presidency armies were Indian, but the officers were all British, trained at the East India Company's own officer school at the [[Addiscombe Military Seminary|Addiscombe estate]] outside of London.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 113.</ref> Furthermore, the politically powerful East India Company had regiments from the British Army sent to India to serve alongside the East India Company's army.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" /> Officers from the British Army serving in India tended to look down on officers serving in the company's army, and relations between the two armies were cool at best.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" />

The regiments chosen for the invasion of Afghanistan came from the Bengal and Bombay armies.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" /> The commander in India, Sir [[Henry Fane (British Army officer)|Henry Fane]], chose the regiments by drawing lots.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" /> The units from the Bengal Army going into Afghanistan were Skinner's Horse, the 43rd Native Infantry and the 2nd Light Cavalry, which were all Company regiments while the [[16th The Queen's Lancers|16th Lancers]] and the [[Somerset Light Infantry|13th Somersethire Light Infantry]] came from the British Army in India.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" /> The units from the Bombay Army chosen for the Grand Army of the Indus were the 19th Native Infantry and the Poona Local Horse, which were Company regiments, and the [[Queen's Regiment|2nd Queen's Regiment]], the [[Royal Lincolnshire Regiment|17th Lincolnshire Regiment]], and the 4th Dragoons, which were all British Army regiments.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" /> Of the two divisions of the Grand Army of the Indus, the Bombay division numbered fifty-six hundred men and the Bengal division numbered ninety-five hundred men.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" /> Shuja recruited 6,000 Indian mercenaries ("Shah Shujah's Levy")<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ram |first=Subedar Sita |title=From Sepoy to Subedar |year=1988 |isbn=0-333-45672-6 |page=86|publisher=Papermac }}</ref> out of his pocket for the invasion.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" /> Ranjit Singh, the elderly and ailing Maharaja of the Punjab and the British assembled in a grand review at Ferozepore as Ranjit Singh, the Maharajah of the Punjab brought out the ''Dal Khalsa'' to march alongside the sepoy troops of the East India Company and the British troops in India.<ref name="Perry, James pp. 109"/> Ranjit Singh agreed to a treaty with the British viceroy Lord Auckland to restore Shah Shoja to the Afghan throne in Kabul. In pursuance of this agreement, the British army of the Indus entered Afghanistan from the south, while Ranjit Singh's troops went through the Khyber Pass and took part in the victory parade in Kabul.<ref name=britranjit>[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ranjit-Singh-Sikh-maharaja Ranjit Singh] Encyclopædia Britannica, Khushwant Singh (2015)</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth Pletcher|title=The History of India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VsujRFvaHI8C&q=ranjit+singh+entered+kabul&pg=PA248|year=2010|publisher=Britannica Educational Publishing|isbn=9781615302017}}</ref> Accompanying the invasion force were 38,000 Indian camp followers and 30,000 camels to carry supplies.<ref name="Perry, James p. 113" />

The Emirate of Afghanistan had no army, and instead under the Afghan feudal system, the tribal chiefs contributed fighting men when the Emir called upon their services.<ref name=":1">Yapp, M.E. Journal Article The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan pp. 333–81 from ''The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', Volume 27, Issue 2, 1964 p. 338.</ref> The Afghans were divided into numerous ethnic groups, of which the largest were the Pashtuns, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, and the Hazaras, who were all in their turn divided into numerous tribes and clans. Islam was the sole unifying factor binding these groups together, though the Hazaras were Shia Muslims while the rest were Sunni Muslims. The Pashtuns were the dominant ethnic group, and it was with the Pashtun tribes that the British interacted the most. The Pashtun tribesmen had no military training, but the ferociously warlike Pashtuns were forever fighting each other, when not being called up for service for the tribal levy by the Emir, meaning most Pashtun men had at least some experience of warfare.<ref name="Perry, James page 111" /> The Pashtun tribes lived by their strict moral code of ''[[Pashtunwali]]'' ("the way of the Pashtuns") stating various rules for a Pashtun man to live by, one of which was that a man had to avenge any insult, real or imagined, with violence, in order to be considered a man. The standard Afghan weapon was a matchlock rifle known as the [[jezail]],<ref name="Perry, James page 111" /> the range and accuracy of which, combined with the sniping tactics of the Afghans, made it superior to the British [[Brown Bess]] smoothbore muskets.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hodge |first1=Carl Cavanagh |title=War, Strategy and the Modern State, 1792–1914 |date=25 November 2016 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-315-39137-3 |page=57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iCAlDwAAQBAJ&dq=jezail&pg=PA57 |language=en}}</ref>

==War==
===British invasion of Afghanistan===
{{Main|Battle of Ghazni}}

[[File:The Wild Pass of Siri-Kajoor, 1840 (c) - NAM 1016304.jpg|thumb|Sir-I-Khajur in the Bolan Pass, 1839]]
The "Army of the Indus" which included 21,000 British and Indian troops under the command of [[John Keane, 1st Baron Keane]] (subsequently replaced by [[Willoughby Cotton|Sir Willoughby Cotton]] and then by [[William Elphinstone (major-general)|William Elphinstone]]) set out from [[Punjab region|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. It included an immense train of 38,000 camp followers and 30,000 camels, plus a large herd of cattle. The British intended to be comfortable – one regiment took its pack of foxhounds, another took two camels to carry its cigarettes, junior officers were accompanied by up to 40 servants, and one senior officer required 60 camels to carry his personal effects.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ewans |first=Martin |url=https://archive.org/details/afghanistanshort00ewan/page/63 |title=Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2002 |isbn=0-06-050508-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/afghanistanshort00ewan/page/63 63]}}</ref>

[[File:The Opening into the Narrow Pass above the Siri Bolan, 1839- NAM 1016305.jpg|thumb|left|The Opening in to the Narrow Path above the Siri [[Bolan Pass|Bolan]] from [[James Atkinson (Persian scholar)|James Atkinson]]'s ''Sketches in Afghaunistan'']]
By late March 1839 the British forces had crossed the [[Bolan Pass]], reached the southern Afghan city of [[Quetta]], and begun their march to Kabul. They advanced through rough terrain, across deserts and 4,000-metre-high{{dubious|date=January 2018}} mountain passes, but made good progress and finally set up camps at [[Kandahar]] on 25 April 1839. After reaching Kandahar, Keane decided to wait for the crops to ripen before resuming his march, so it was not until 27 June that the Grand Army of the Indus marched again.<ref name="Perry, James page 116">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 116.</ref> Keane left behind his siege engines in Kandahar, which turned out to be a mistake as he discovered that the walls of the Ghazni fortress were far stronger than he expected.<ref name="Perry, James page 116" /> A deserter, Abdul Rashed Khan, a nephew of Dost Mohammad Khan, informed the British that one of the gates of the fortress was in bad state of repair and might be blasted open with a gunpowder charge.<ref name="Perry, James page 116" /> Before the fortress, the British were attacked by a force of the [[Ghilji]] tribesmen fighting under the banner of ''jihad'' who were desperate to kill ''farangis'', a pejorative Pashtun term for the British, and were beaten off.<ref name="Perry, James page 117">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 117.</ref> The British took fifty prisoners who were brought before Shuja, where one of them stabbed a minister to death with a hidden knife.<ref name="Perry, James page 117" /> Shuja had them all beheaded, which led Sir John Kaye, in his official history of the war, to write this act of "wanton barbarity", the "shrill cry" of the ''Ghazis'', would be remembered as the "funeral wail" of the government's "unholy policy".<ref name="Perry, James page 117" />

On 23 July 1839, in a surprise attack, the British-led forces [[Battle of Ghazni|captured]] the fortress of [[Ghazni]], which overlooks a plain leading eastward into the [[Khyber Pakhtunkhwa]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Forbes |first=Archibald |year=2014 |title=The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8428/pg8428-images.html |access-date=27 February 2019 |publisher=Project Gutenberg EBook}}</ref> The British troops blew up one city gate and marched into the city in a euphoric mood. During the battle, the British suffered 200 killed and wounded, while the Afghans suffered 500 killed and 1,500 captured. Ghazni was well-supplied, which eased the further advance considerably.<ref name="Husain" /><ref name="Sandes">Sandes, Lt Col E.W.C., 'The Indian Sappers and Miners' pp 133-147. The Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1948.</ref>

Following this and an uprising of [[Tajiks]] in [[Istalif]],<ref name="king">{{Cite book |last=Dalrymple |first=William |title=The Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-307-95828-0 |edition=First |location=New York |oclc=792880742}}</ref> the British marched to Kabul with no resistance from Dost Mohammad's troops. With his situation rapidly deteriorating, Dost Mohammed offered to accept Shuja as his overlord in exchange for becoming his wazir (a common practice in [[Pashtunwali]]), which was promptly turned down. In August 1839, after thirty years, Shuja was again enthroned in Kabul. Shuja promptly confirmed his reputation for cruelty by seeking to wreak vengeance on all who had crossed him as he considered his own people to be "dogs" who needed to be taught to obey their master.<ref name="Perry, James p. 121">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 121.</ref>

In the absence of the traditional winter capital of Peshawar, on November 2 Shuja left the [[Bala Hissar, Kabul|Bala Hissar]] to seek refuge from the cold in Jalalabad.<ref name="king" />

===Qalat/Kalat===
On 13 November 1839, while en route to India, the Bombay column of the British Indian Army attacked, as a form of reprisal, the Baloch tribal fortress of [[Kalat, Pakistan|Kalat]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holdsworth |first=T W E |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/14410/ |title=Campaign of the Indus: In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division |date=1840 |publisher=Private Copy |access-date=2014-11-25|pages = 111–127}}</ref> from where [[Baloch people|Baloch]] tribes had harassed and attacked British convoys during the move towards the Bolan Pass.

===Dost Mohammed flees to Bukhara and growth of Resistance===
With Shah Shuja's regime continuing to grow in unpopularity, resistance already began formulating in Autumn 1839, with raids from Ghilzais attacking the Kabul-Ghazni road led to the death of British Lieutenant Colonel Herring.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=249}} Beyond the Hindu Kush, diplomats of Dost Mohammad were sent to the rulers of Balkh and [[Emirate of Bukhara|Bukhara]] to appeal to them for aid against the British.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=249}} These risks forced the British to continue to keep troops they were planning to send back to India. Dost Mohammad's request for aid, however, did not come lightly received, as Dost Mohammad had invaded the realm of Balkh just before the British invasion.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=249}} As from this invasion, Dost Mohammad had annexed Saighan, Balkh, Kahmard, and Duab.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=249}}

In the winter of 1839, against the advice of Jabbar Khan, Dost Mohammad traveled to Bukhara to be received in person to appeal to the ruler of Bukhara in person.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=249}} Dost Mohammad along with his sons, Akram Khan and Afzal Khan were initially well received, respected as guests. However, it came clear that the ruler of Bukhara was not willing to support Dost Mohammad.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Instead, Dost Mohammad was essentially put under house arrest, and later treated as a prisoner. Suspicions even rose that the ruler of Bukhara would try to have Dost Mohammad and his sons poisoned.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} It was not until the following summer did Dost Mohammad escape, and through a series of events, made his way to Khulm.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} However, following this, he found out that Jabbar Khan had accepted Mcnaghten's offer of amnesty and took back the women and children of Dost Mohammad's camp.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Despite his family being in British hands, Dost Mohammad did not show any intent to surrender.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}}

The Mir Wali raised a force of over 6,000 Uzbeks, and in September 1840, marched up to Surkhab, forcing the British to abandon their outposts of Ajar, Kahmard, and Bajgah, falling back on Bamiyan.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} During the encounter at Bajgah, half of Shah Shuja's cavalry while the entire force's officers defected to the resistance's side, while the remaining Afghan levies were captured and disarmed.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Dost Mohammad followed up this success by marching on Bamiyan, however he encountered Colonel Dennie, who had an army of Gurkhas and native cavalrymen.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Despite being outnumbered, Dennie ordered his Gurkhas to storm the enemy positions, successfully routing the Uzbek army.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Dennie then pursued the retreating army with his cavalrymen, slaying those who had defected and the rest of the Uzbek army.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}}

Following this victory, Dr Lord, the political officer in Bamiyan, offered Dost Mohammad honourable exile in India if he surrendered.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Only to be informed that Dost Mohammad was “determined to conquer or fall in the attempt”.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} The Mir Wali and Murad Beg had sought co-operation, as they believed Dennie posed a threat and could possibly march all the way to Khulm.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Dennie, however, was not in a position to do so due to the already overstretched Bamiyan garrison facing shortage of manpower, and as a result, they decided not to garrison Saighan, Kahmard, or Ajar.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=250}} Threats of a British sponsored attack from Herat by [[Kamran Shah Durrani|Shah Kamran]] were a threat, and this forced the Wali of [[Maimana Khanate|Maimana]] to pledge allegiance to Shah Shuja's rule.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=251}}

===Battle of Parwan Darra and the “Surrender” of Dost Mohammad Khan (2 November 1840)===
{{main|Parwan Campaign (1840)}}

On 2 November 1840, Dost Mohammad finally confronted Sale's forces, halting his advance and engaging battle at Parwan Darra.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=254}} Dost Mohammad held a strong defensive position with over 400 cavalrymen, with his forces dug in on a ridge overlooking Sale's advance.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=254}}{{sfn|Dalrymple|2013|p=180}} Sale sent Captain Fraser and his Bengal horse force to attack the enemy infantry, however, only a handful of men followed the order, leaving the British officers to charge against the Afghan force alone and essentially without any support.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=254}} Dr Lord, earlier political officer of Bamiyan who offered Dost Mohammad terms of surrender was killed amongst this fighting that broke out.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} According to British historian [[William Dalrymple]], Lord led a cavalry charge which was too late to realize that the rest of the force fled from the field.{{sfn|Dalrymple|2013|p=180}} Fortunately, Fraser survived this charge and returned to British lines, however, with his sabre nearly severed at the wrist.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}}

Dost Mohammad, seeing what had happened ordered his cavalry to lead a counter-attack, whereupon the disorganized Bengal horse force was routed, with the Afghan Cavalry chasing them in pursuit and killing many.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} According to the depictions of Jonathan Lee, the 2nd Bengal Horse was disgraced for their inability to follow orders, later disbanded, and erased from records.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} Nonetheless, following this route, Sale ordered his infantry and Qizilbash to storm the heights, and after heavy fighting and heavy casualties, they secured the ridge, to their dismay where they saw Dost Mohammad withdraw his forces in good order.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} Both sides withdrew, and later, the Afghans re-occupied the ridge, which was left undefended.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} With the ridge position, they fired onto the British camp below. As the following day came, Timur Mirza and Burnes urged Sale to abandon the campaign.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} This was due to the Afghan troops loyal to Shah Shuja who had not deserted, already being on the edge of mutiny, as well as Sale losing hundreds of men and many more wounded with nothing to show for it.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} With supplies running low as well, he obliged and returned to Charikar, crossing the Panjshir river, with those villages he had campaigned for at great cost quickly being reoccupied.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}}

[[File:Dost Mohammad Khan’s Surrender 1840.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Dost Mohammad Khan’s surrender in 1840 following his victory at Parwan Darra.]]
Despite Sale having little to show for the campaign and the trail of devastation left by him, Sale called Parwan Darra a victory.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} However he was unable to conceal the fact of the 2nd Bengal horse defying orders, and as a result, many British officers were killed.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} Atkinson, the armies surgeon general, called the encounter a “disaster”, Kaye also called the battle a defeat.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} However, early in the evening of 2 November 1840, a horsemen identified as Sultan Muhammad Khan Safi rode up to Macnaghten, as with this, he was followed by another lone horsemen, who came up to Macnaghten.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}} This horsemen was no other than [[Dost Mohammad Khan]].{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}}

Dost Mohammad's surrender has been given much speculation by historians as to why he surrendered.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} A number of explanations range from Dost Mohammad's surrender, oddly even after his victory at Parwan Darra.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} According to Jonathan lee, some of these depictions include Dost Mohammad believing that the British were destined to rule between the Indus and more.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} Others claim according to Jonathan lee, that, after the defeat at Saighan, Dost Mohammad was free to surrender without loss of honour.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} Another theory being that Dost Mohammad surrendered due to the brave suicidal charge done by Captain Fraser and Dr Lord, where he could have recognized resistance as futile.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} This theory however, did not make any sense as where the 2nd Bengal horse faced many defy orders to charge with them, the British lost multiple men due to this and inevitably, the battle.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} Another theory to Dost Mohammad's surrender was his family being in custody with the British, and about to be exiled to British India.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} This theory is even less credible, however, due to the fact that the British promising to treat them honourably, as Dost was in no position regardless to change this.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} Nonetheless, whatever reason Dost Mohammad had surrendered for, it was clear he was not surrendering as a defeated man, as he had successfully defeated the British at Parwan Darra, and even forced their withdrawal from Bamiyan.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} The revolt in Kohistan also put the military favor within Dost Mohammad's reach, yet for some reason, he decided to give up resistance.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} [[Mohan Lal Kashmiri|Mohan Lal]] gives the most clear and coherent theory was to why Dost Mohammad surrendered, as according to Lal, Dost Mohammad Khan was plotted against, and in battle, a sniper planned to assassinate him.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} As further explained by Lal, this was plotted out by Kohistani Amirs, who would then blame the British for this.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} Lal's accounts and claims are supported by letters to Dost Mohammad Khan from Sultan Muhammad Khan of Nijrab, who had warned the Amir of a plot that was circulating from Maliks who were planning to betray and assassinate him.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}} Abd al-Karim Alawi, who wrote a near contemporary account of the First Anglo-Afghan War, elaborates further on the details of this plot.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=256}}{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} According to Al-Karim, Sales and Burnes were in contact with the Malik of ‘Ali Hissar, who agreed to kill or capture Dost Mohammad and his two sons in exchange for a substantial payment.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} According to confidential information shared by British officers, Macnaghten and Burnes had been intercepting communications from Sultan Muhammad Khan of Nijrab, and his supporters.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} As a result, Macnaghten forged a letter from a well-wisher in Kabul, sending a letter to Dost Mohammad Khan, where it warned the Amir of a plot on his life.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} Dost Mohammad Khan, having read this letter, was convinced that there was indeed, a plot on his life, as he did not have reason to trust the Kohistanis, as decades prior, he attacked and razed the region.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} As a result, the only person he seemed to have trusted was Sultan Muhammad Khan of Nijrab.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} As a result, Dost Mohammad’s options were limited, as the Mir Wali and Murad Beg signed a treaty with Shah Shuja, no longer offering sanctuary for Dost Mohammad.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} His experience in Bukhara and how he had to escape swayed Dost Mohammad from trying to seek refuge in Balkh, as he could be imprisoned, or even killed.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} Therefore, he went to the only choice he could think of, the British.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} The British cantonment at Kabul was only a few hours ride from Parwan Darra, and he had already received assurances that he would be treated honourably in captivity and exile.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} As a result, Dost Mohammad’s “surrender” is treated by Jonathan Lee and many other historians as nothing akin to surrender, rather seeking refuge with the British government through an old tradition of grabbing the stirrup.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} An old Turco-Mongolian tradition called rikab giriftan.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=257}} Atkinson states that Dost Mohammad was seeking the protection of the British government through this action, and as a result, a famous sketch was produced showing Macnaghten and Dost Mohammad shaking hands as a sign of friendship.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} According to Jonathan Lee, Akbar Khan had later stated that his father “Thrown himself upon the honour of the British government, in times of need”.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} Macnaghten was elated to hear the news, as according to Jonathan Lee, he stated: “The Afghans are gunpowder and the Dost is a lighted match”.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} Dost Mohammad was treated honourably, and even was housed in the Bala Hissar, with Dost Mohammad allowed to meet his family, and write to his sons that were in open resistance.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} Dost Mohammad was also allowed to ride on horse with an escort.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} During his stay in the Bala Hissar, he held a secret court, with many coming to pay their respects to the former Amir.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} This had shown Dost Mohammad's popularity, and opposite to Shah Shuja's claims, Shah Shuja was seen as unpopular by many.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} In Macnaghten's letters, it was shown that he expressed sympathy for Dost Mohammad, showing a very clear contrast to what he referred to him now compared to two years prior, where he denounced Dost Mohammad in the Simla declaration.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}} Macnaghten even asked the Governor General to treat Dost Mohammad better than when they had Shah Shuja in his exile, since to his statement: “We ejected the Dost, who never offended us, in support of our policy, of which he was the victim”.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=258}}

===Occupation and rising of the Afghans===
[[File:THE RETREAT FROM AFGHANISTAN, 1842..gif|thumb|left|Afghan forces attacking retreating British-Indian troops]]
The majority of the British troops returned to India, leaving 8,000 in Afghanistan, but it soon became clear that Shuja's rule could only be maintained with the presence of a stronger British force. The Afghans resented the British presence and the rule of Shah Shuja. As the occupation dragged on, the East India Company's first political officer [[William Hay Macnaghten]] allowed his soldiers to bring their families to Afghanistan to improve morale;<ref>Dupree, L. Afghanistan. Princeton: Princeton Legacy Library, 1980. p. 379</ref> this further infuriated the Afghans, as it appeared the British were setting up a permanent occupation.<ref>Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 pp. 120–21</ref> Macnaghten purchased a mansion in Kabul, where he installed his wife, crystal chandelier, a fine selection of French wines, and hundreds of servants from India, making himself completely at home.<ref name="Perry, James p. 121" /> Macnaghten, who had once been a judge in a small town in Ulster before deciding he wanted to be much more than a small town judge in Ireland, was known for his arrogant, imperious manner, and was simply called "the Envoy" by both the Afghans and the British.<ref name="Perry, James p. 121" /> The wife of one British officer, Lady [[Florentia Sale]] created an English style garden at her house in Kabul, which was much admired and in August 1841 her daughter Alexadrina was married at her Kabul home to Lieutenant John Sturt of the Royal Engineers.<ref name="Perry, James p. 121" /> The British officers staged horse races, played cricket and in winter ice skating over the frozen local ponds, which astonished the Afghans who had never seen this before.<ref name="Perry, James p. 121" />

Afghanistan had no army, and instead had a feudal system under which the chiefs would maintain a certain number of armed retainers, principally cavalry together with a number of tribesmen who could be called upon to fight in a time of war; when the Emir went to war, he would call upon his chiefs to bring out their men to fight for him.<ref name=":1" /> In 1840, the British strongly pressured Shuja to replace the feudal system with a [[standing army]], which threatened to do away with the power of the chiefs, and which the Emir rejected under the grounds that Afghanistan lacked the financial ability to fund a standing army.<ref>Yapp, M.E. "The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan" pp. 333–81 from ''The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', Volume 27, Issue 2, 1964 pp. 339–40.</ref>

[[File:The army of the Indus entering Kandahar.jpg|thumb|British army entering [[Kandahar]]]]
Dost Mohammad successfully defeated the British at the [[Parwan Campaign (1840)|battle of Parwan Darra]] on 2 November 1840. However, following his victory, he surrendered and was sent to India in exile after hearing rumours of assassination plots against him.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=255}}

In 1839–40, the entire rationale for the occupation of Afghanistan was changed by the Oriental Crisis when Mohammad Ali the Great, the ''vali'' (governor) of Egypt who was a close French ally, rebelled against the Sublime Porte; during the subsequent crisis, Russia and Britain co-operated against France, and with the improvement in Anglo-Russian relations, the need for a buffer state in Central Asia decreased.<ref>Yapp, M.E "British Perceptions of the Russian Threat to India" pp. 647–65 from ''Modern Asian Studies'', Volume 21, No. 4 1987 p. 656.</ref> The [[Oriental Crisis of 1840]] almost caused an Anglo-French war, which given the long-standing Franco-Russian rivalry caused by Nicholas's detestation of Louis-Philippe as a traitor to the conservative cause, inevitably improved relations between London and St. Petersburg, which ultimately led to the Emperor Nicholas making an imperial visit to London in 1844 to meet Queen Victoria and the Prime Minister Lord Peel. As early as 1838, Count [[Karl Nesselrode]], the Russian Foreign Minister, had suggested to the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, [[Ulick de Burgh, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde|Lord Clanricarde]], that Britain and Russia sign a treaty delimiting spheres of influence in Asia to end the "Great Game" once and for all.<ref>Yapp, M.E "British Perceptions of the Russian Threat to India" pp. 647–65 from ''Modern Asian Studies'', Volume 21, No. 4 1987 p. 659.</ref> By 1840 Clanricarde was reporting to London that he was quite certain a mutually satisfactory agreement could be negotiated, and all he needed was the necessary permission from the Foreign Office to begin talks.<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647">Yapp, M.E "British Perceptions of the Russian Threat to India" pp. 647–65 from ''Modern Asian Studies'', Volume 21, No. 4 1987 p. 660.</ref> From Calcutta, Lord Auckland pressed for acceptance of the Russian offer, writing "I would look forward to a tripartite Treaty of the West under which a limit shall be placed to the advance of England, Russia and Persia and under which all shall continue to repress slave dealing and plunder".<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647" /> Though Britain rejected the Russian offer, after 1840 there was a marked decline in Anglo-Russian rivalry and a "fair working relationship in Asia" had developed.<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647" /> The British Foreign Secretary [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Lord Palmerston]] rejected the Russian offer to end the "Great Game" as he believed that as long as the "Great Game" continued, Britain could inconvenience Russia in Asia to better achieve her foreign policy goals in Europe much more than Russia could inconvenience Britain in Asia to achieve her foreign policy goals in Europe.<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647" /> Palmerston noted that because the British had more money to bribe local rulers in Central Asia, this gave them the advantage in this "game", and it was thus better to keep the "Great Game" going.<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647" /> Palmerston believed it was Britain that held the advantage in the "Great Game", that the Russian offer to definitely mark out spheres of influence in Asia was a sign of weakness and he preferred no such treaty be signed.<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647" /> From Palmerston's viewpoint accepting the Russian offer would be unwelcome as the end of the "Great Game" in Asia would mean the redeployment of Russian power to Europe, the place that really counted for him, and it was better to keep the "Great Game" going, albeit at a reduced rate given the tensions with France.<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647" /> At the same time, the lowering of Anglo-Russian tension in the 1840s made holding Afghanistan more of an expensive luxury from the British viewpoint as it no longer seemed quite as essential to have a friendly government in Kabul anymore.<ref name="Yapp, M pp. 647" />

By this time, the British had vacated the fortress of [[Bala Hissar, Kabul|Bala Hissar]] and relocated to a [[cantonment]] built to the northeast of Kabul. The chosen location was indefensible, being low and swampy with hills on every side. To make matters worse, the cantonment was too large for the number of troops camped in it and had a defensive perimeter almost two miles long. In addition, the stores and supplies were in a separate fort, 300 yards from the main cantonment.<ref>David, Saul. ''Victoria's Wars'', 2007 Penguin Books. p. 41</ref> The British commander, Major-General George Keith Ephinstone who arrived in April 1841 was bed-ridden most of the time with gout and rheumatism.<ref>Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 124</ref>

Between April and October 1841, disaffected Afghan tribes were flocking to support resistance against the British in Bamiyan and other areas north of the [[Hindu Kush]] mountains. They were organised into an effective resistance by chiefs such as [[Mir Masjidi Khan]]<ref>Who after his demise in 1841, was replaced by his son Mir Aqa Jan, see Maj (r) Nur Muhammad Shah, Kohistani, ''Nur i Kohistan'', Lahore, 1957, pp. 49–52</ref> and others. In September 1841, Macnaghten reduced the subsidies paid out to Ghilzai tribal chiefs in exchange for accepting Shuja as Emir and to keep the passes open, which immediately led to the Ghazis rebelling and a ''jihad'' being proclaimed.<ref name="Yapp, M.E pp. 333">Yapp, M.E. "The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan" pp. 333–81 from ''The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', Volume 27, Issue 2, 1964 pp. 334–35.</ref> The monthly subsidies, which were effectively bribes for the Ghazi chiefs to stay loyal, was reduced from 80,000 to 40,000 rupees at a time of rampant inflation, and as the chiefs' loyalty had been entirely financial, the call of ''jihad'' proved stronger.<ref name="Yapp, M.E pp. 333" /> Macnaghten did not take the threat seriously at first, writing to Henry Rawlinson in Kandahar on 7 October 1841: "The Eastern Ghilzyes are kicking up a row about some deductions which have been made from their pay. The rascals have completely succeeded in cutting communications for the time being, which is very provoking to me at this time; but they will be well trounced for their pains. One down, t'other come on, is the principle of these vagabonds".<ref name="Perry, James p. 125">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 125.</ref>

Macnaghten ordered an expedition. On 10 October 1841, the Ghazis in a night raid defeated the Thirty-fifth Native Infantry, but were defeated the next day by the Thirteenth Light Infantry.<ref name="Perry, James p. 125" /> After their defeat, which led to the rebels fleeing to the mountains, Macnaghten overplayed his hand by demanding that the chiefs who rebelled now send their children to Shuja's court as hostages to prevent another rebellion.<ref>Yapp, M.E. "The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan" pp 333–81 from ''The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', Volume 27, Issue 2, 1964 p. 335.</ref> As Shuja had a habit of mutilating people who displeased him in the slightest, Macnaghten's demand that the children of the chiefs go to the Emir's court was received with horror, which led the Ghazi chiefs to vow to fight on. Macnaghten, who had just been appointed as the governor of Bombay was torn between a desire to leave Afghanistan on a high note with the country settled and peaceful versus a desire to crush the Ghazis, which led him to temporize, at one moment threatening the harshest reprisals and the next moment, compromising by abandoning his demand for hostages.<ref name=":0">Yapp, M.E. "The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan" pp. 333–81 from ''The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', Volume 27, Issue 2, 1964 p. 336.</ref> Macnaghten's alternating policy of confrontation and compromise was perceived as weakness, which encouraged the chiefs around Kabul to start rebelling.<ref name=":0" /> Shuja was so unpopular that many of his ministers and the Durrani clan joined the rebellion.<ref name=":0" />

On the night of 1 November 1841, a group of Afghan chiefs met at the Kabul house of one of their number to plan the uprising, which began in the morning of the next day.<ref name="Perry, James p. 125" /> In a flammable situation, the spark was provided unintentionally by the East India Company's second political officer, Sir Alexander 'Sekundar' Burnes. A Kashmiri slave girl who belonged to a Pashtun chief Abdullah Khan Achakzai living in Kabul ran away to Burne's house. When Ackakzai sent his retainers to retrieve her, it was discovered that Burnes had taken the slave girl to his bed, and he had one of Azkakzai's men beaten.<ref name="Dalrymple, William p. 292">Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 292.</ref> A secret ''jirga'' (council) of Pashtun chiefs was held to discuss this violation of ''pashtunwali'', where Ackakzai holding a Koran in one hand stated: "Now we are justified in throwing this English yoke; they stretch the hand of tyranny to dishonor private citizens great and small: fucking a slave girl isn't worth the ritual bath that follows it: but we have to put a stop right here and now, otherwise these English will ride the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity, to the point of having all of us arrested and deported to a foreign field".<ref name="Dalrymple, William p. 292" /> At the end of his speech, all of the chiefs shouted "''Jihad''".<ref name="Dalrymple, William p. 292" /> November 2, 1841 actually fell on 17 Ramadan which was the anniversary date for the battle of Badr. The Afghans decided to strike on this date for reasons of the blessings associated with this auspicious date of 17 Ramadan. The call to jihad was given on the morning of 2 November from the Pul-i-khisti mosque in Kabul<ref name="Husain" />

Lady Sale wrote in her diary on 2 November 1841: "This morning early, all was in commotion in Kabul. The shops were plundered and the people all fighting."<ref>Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 pp. 125–26.</ref> That same day, a mob "thirsting for blood" appeared outside of the house of the East India Company's second political officer, Sir Alexander 'Sekundar' Burnes, where Burnes ordered his sepoy guards not to fire while he stood outside haranguing the mob in Pashto, attempting unconvincingly to persuade the assembled men that he did not bed their daughters and sisters.<ref name="Perry, James p. 126">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 126.</ref> Captain William Broadfoot who was with Burnes saw the mob march forward, leading him to open fire with another officer writing in his diary that he "killed five or six men with his own hand before he was shot down".<ref name="Perry, James p. 126" /> The mob smashed in to Burnes's house, where he, his brother Charles, their wives and children, several aides and the sepoys were all torn to pieces.<ref name="Perry, James p. 126" /> The mob then attacked the home of the paymaster Johnston who was not present, leading to later write when he surveyed the remains of his house that they "gained possession of my treasury by undermining the wall...They murdered the whole of the guard (one officer and 28 sepoys), all my servants (male, female, and children), plundered the treasury...burnt all my office records...and possessed themselves of all my private property".<ref name="Perry, James p. 126" /> The British forces took no action in response despite being only five minutes away, which encouraged further revolt.<ref name="Perry, James p. 126" /> The only person who took action that day was Shuja who ordered out one of his regiments from the Bala Hissar commanded by a Scots mercenary named Campbell to crush the riot, but the old city of Kabul with its narrow, twisting streets favored the defenders, with Campbell's men coming under fire from rebels in the houses above.<ref>Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 pp. 126–27.</ref> After losing about 200 men killed, Campbell retreated back to the Bala Hissar.<ref name="Perry, James p. 127">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 127.</ref> After hearing of the defeat of his regiment, Shuja descended into what Kaye called "a pitiable state of dejection and alarm", sinking into a deep state of depression as it finally dawned on him that his people hated him and wanted to see him dead.<ref name="Perry, James p. 127" /> Captain Sturt was sent to the Bala Hissar by Elphinstone to see if it were possible to recover control of the city later that afternoon, where his mother-in-law Lady Sale noted in her diary: "Just as he entered the precincts of the palace, he was stabbed in three places by a young man well dressed, who escaped into a building close-by, where he was protected by the gates being shut."<ref name="Perry, James p. 127" /> Sturt was sent home to be cared for by Lady Sale and his wife with the former noting: "He was covered with blood issuing from his mouth and was unable to articulate. He could not lie down, from the blood choking him", only being capable hours later to utter one word: "bet-ter".<ref name="Perry, James p. 127" /> Lady Sale was highly critical of Elphinstone's leadership, writing: "General Elphinstone vacillates on every point. His own judgement appears to be good, but he is swayed by the last speaker", criticising him for "...a very strange circumstance that troops were not immediately sent into the city to quell the affair in the commencement, but we seem to sit quietly with our hands folded, and look on".."<ref name="Perry, James p. 127" /> Despite both being in the cantonment, Elphinstone preferred to write letters to Macnaghten, with one letter on 2 November saying "I have been considering what can done tomorrow" (he decided to do nothing that day), stating "our dilemma is a difficult one", and finally concluding "We must see what the morning brings".<ref>Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 128.</ref> The British situation soon deteriorated when Afghans stormed the poorly defended supply fort inside Kabul on 9 November.

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, while simultaneously disbursing large sums of money to have him assassinated, which was reported to Akbar Khan.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} 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 and slain by Akbar Khan. Macnaghten's body was dragged through the streets of Kabul and displayed in the bazaar.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} Elphinstone had partly lost command of his troops already and his authority was badly damaged.

===Destruction of Elphinstone's army===
{{Main|1842 retreat from Kabul}}

[[File:Remnants of an army2.jpg|thumb|350px|''[[Remnants of an Army]]'' by [[Elizabeth Thompson|Elizabeth Butler]] depicting the arrival of assistant surgeon, [[William Brydon]], at [[Jalalabad]] on 13 January 1842]]
On 1 January 1842, following some unusual thinking by Major-General [[William George Keith Elphinstone]], which may have had something to do with the poor defensibility of the cantonment, an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependents from Afghanistan.<ref>Macrory, Patrick. "Retreat From Kabul: The Catastrophic Defeat In Afghanistan, 1842". 2002 The Lyons Press p. 203</ref> Five days later, the withdrawal began. The departing British contingent numbered around 16,500, of which about 4,500 were military personnel, and over 12,000 were [[camp follower]]s. Lieutenant [[Vincent Eyre]] commented about the camp followers that "These proved from the very first mile a serious clog on our movements".<ref name="Perry, James p. 133">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 133.</ref> Lady Sale brought with her 40 servants, none of whom she named in her diary while Eyre's son was saved by a female Afghan servant, who rode through an ambush with the boy on her back, but he never gave her name.<ref name="Perry, James p. 133" /> The American author [[James M. Perry]] noted: "Reading the old diaries and journals, it is almost as if these twelve thousand native servants and sepoy wives and children didn't exist individually. In a way, they really didn't. They would die, all of them - shot, stabbed, frozen to death - in these mountain passes, and no one bothered to write down the name of even one of them".<ref name="Perry, James p. 133" /> The military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion, [[44th Regiment of Foot]].

They were attacked by Ghilzai warriors as they struggled through the snowbound passes. On the first day, the retreating force made only five miles and as Lady Sale wrote about their arrival at a village of Begramee: "There were no tents, save two or three small palls that arrived. Everyone scraped away the snow as best they might, to make a place to lie down. The evening and night were intensely cold; no food for man or beast procurable, except a few handfuls of ''bhoosay'' [chopped stew], for which we had to pay five to ten rupees".<ref name="Perry, James p. 134">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 134.</ref> As the night fell and with it, the temperature, dropped well below freezing. The retreating force then learned that they lost all of their supplies of food and their baggage.<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 pp. 366–67</ref> On the second day all of the men of the Royal Afghan Army's 6th regiment deserted, heading back to Kabul, marking the end of the first attempt to give Afghanistan a national army.<ref name="Perry, James p. 134" /> For several months afterwards, what had once been Shuja's army was reduced to begging on the streets of Kabul as Akbar had of all of Shuja's mercenaries mutilated before throwing them on the streets to beg.<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 369.</ref> Despite Akbar Khan's promise of safe conduct, the Anglo-Indian force was repeatedly attacked by the Ghilzais, with one especially fierce Afghan attack being beaten off with a spirited bayonet charge by the 44th Foot.<ref name="Perry, James p. 134" />

While trying to cross the Koord-Kabual pass in the Hindu Kush that was described as five miles long and "so narrow and so shut in on either side that the wintry sun rarely penetrates its gloomy recesses", the Anglo-Indian force was ambushed by the Ghilzai tribesmen.<ref name="Perry, James p. 135">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 135.</ref> Johnson described "murderous fire" that forced the British to abandon all baggage while camp followers regardless of sex and age were cut down with swords.<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 373</ref> Lady Sale wrote: "Bullets kept whizzing by us" while some of the artillerymen smashed open the regimental store of brandy to get drunk amid the Afghan attacks.<ref name="Perry, James p. 135" /> Lady Sale wrote she drank a tumbler of sherry "which at any other time would have made me very unlady-like, but now merely warmed me."<ref name="Perry, James p. 135" /> Lady Sale took a bullet in her wrist while she had to watch as her son-in-law Sturt had "...his horse was shot out from him and before he could rise from the ground he received a severe wound in the abdomen".<ref name="Perry, James p. 135" /> With his wife and mother-in-law by his side in the snow, Sturt bled to death over the course of the night.<ref name="Perry, James p. 135" /> The incompetent, naive and gullible Elphinstone continued to believe that Akbar Khan was his "ally", and believed his promise that he would send out the captured supplies if he stopped the retreat on 8 January.<ref name="Perry, James p. 136">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 136.</ref> Adding to the misery of the British, that night a ferocious blizzard blew in, causing hundreds to freeze to death.<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 375</ref>
[[File:Last-stand.jpg|thumb|The last stand of the 44th Foot, during the [[Massacre of Elphinstone's Army]]]]

On 9 January 1842, Akbar sent out a messenger saying he was willing to take all of the British women as hostages, giving his word that they would not be harmed, and said that otherwise his tribesmen would show no mercy and kill all the women and children.<ref name="Perry, James p. 135" /> One of the British officers sent to negotiate with Akbar heard him say to his tribesmen in Dari (Afghan Farsi) – a language spoken by many British officers – to "spare" the British while saying in Pashto, which most British officers did not speak, to "slay them all".<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 374</ref> Lady Sale, her pregnant daughter Alexandria and the rest of British women and children accepted Akbar's offer of safe conduct back to Kabul.<ref name="Perry, James p. 135" /> As the East India Company would not pay a ransom for Indian women and children, Akbar refused to accept them, and so the Indian women and children died with the rest of the force in the Hindu Kush.<ref name="Perry, James p. 136" /> The camp followers captured by the Afghans were stripped of all their clothing and left to freeze to death in the snow.<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 pp. 383–84</ref> Lady Sale wrote that as she was taken back to Kabul she noticed: "The road was covered with awful mangled bodies, all naked".<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 384</ref>

In the early morning of 10 January, the column resumed its march, with everyone tired, hungry, and cold.<ref name="Perry, James p. 136" /> Most of the sepoys by this time had lost a finger or two to frostbite, and could not fire their guns.<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 379</ref> At the narrow pass of Tunghee Tareekee, which was 50 yards long, and only 4 yards wide, the Ghizye tribesmen ambushed the column, killing without mercy all of the camp followers. The Anglo-Indian soldiers fought their way over the corpses of the camp followers with heavy losses to themselves.<ref name="Perry, James p. 136" /> From a hill, Akbar Khan and his chiefs watched the slaughter while sitting on their horses, being apparently very much amused by the carnage.<ref name="Perry, James p. 136" /> Captain Shelton and a few soldiers from the 44th regiment held the rear of the column and fought off successive Afghan attacks, despite being outnumbered.<ref name="Perry, James p. 136" /> Johnson described Shelton as fighting like a "bulldog" with his sword, cutting down any Afghan who tried to take him on so efficiently that by the end of the day no Afghan would challenge him.<ref>Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 380.</ref> On the evening of 11 January 1842, General Elphinstone, Captain Shelton, the paymaster Johnston, and Captain Skinner met with Akbar Khan to ask him to stop his attacks on the column.<ref name="Perry, James p. 137">Perry, James ''Arrogant Armies'', Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 p. 137.</ref> Akbar Khan provided them with warm tea and a fine meal before telling them that they were all now his hostages as he reckoned the East India Company would pay good ransoms for their freedom, and when Captain Skinner tried to resist, he was shot in the face.<ref name="Perry, James p. 137" /> Command now fell to Brigadier Thomas Anquetil.<ref name="Perry, James p. 137" />

The evacuees were killed in huge numbers as they made their way down the {{convert|30|mi|km}} of treacherous gorges and passes lying along the [[Kabul River]] between Kabul and [[Gandamak]], and [[Massacre of Elphinstone's army|were massacred]] at the [[Gandamak]] pass before a survivor reached the besieged garrison at [[Jalalabad]]. At Gandamak, some 20 officers and 45 other ranks of the 44th Foot regiment, together with some artillerymen and sepoys, armed with some 20 muskets and two rounds of ammunition to every man, found themselves at dawn surrounded by Afghan tribesmen.<ref name="Dalrymple, William p. 385">Dalrymple, William ''Return of a King'', London: Bloomsbury, 2012 p. 385</ref> The force had been reduced to fewer than forty men by a withdrawal 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. Of the weapons remaining to the survivors at Gandamak, there were approximately a dozen working muskets, the officers' pistols, and a few swords. The British formed a square and defeated the first couple of the Afghan attacks, "driving the Afghans several times down the hill" before running out of ammunition. They then fought on with their bayonets and swords before being overwhelmed.<ref name="Dalrymple, William p. 385" /> The Afghans took only 9 prisoners and killed the rest.<ref name="Dalrymple, William p. 385" /> The remnants of the 44th were all killed except Captain James Souter, Sergeant Fair, and seven soldiers who were taken prisoner.<ref>Blackburn, Terence R. (2008). ''The extermination of a British army: the retreat from Cabul''. New Delhi: A.P.H. Publishing Corporation. p. 121</ref> The only soldier to reach Jalalabad was Dr. [[William Brydon]] and several sepoys over the following nights. Another source states that over one hundred British were taken prisoner.<ref name="ewans2002">{{Cite book |last=Ewans |first=Martin |url=https://archive.org/details/afghanistanshort00ewan/page/70 |title=Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2002 |isbn=0-06-050508-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/afghanistanshort00ewan/page/70 70]}}</ref> One British NCO fled from Gandamak to Gujrat India on foot according to a source cited from The Times of 2 March 1843 by Farrukh Husain who writes: "The oddest account of escape from Gundamuck concerns that of a dark-skinned faqir who appeared in India in rags but was in fact a Scottish non commissioned officer who fled all the way to a British army Camp Deesa in Gujrat India, "This morning a strange man came into camp, covered with hair, and almost naked his face burnt very much; he turned out to be Lance-Sergeant Philip Edwards of the Queen's 44th Regiment who escaped the general slaughter at Gundamuch, Afghanistan, and after travelling 15 months in a southerly direction by the sun, he found his way into camp here, not knowing where he was.""<ref name="Husain" />

Many of the women and children were taken captive by the Afghan warring tribes; some of these women married their captors, mostly Afghan and Indian camp followers who were wives of British officers. Children taken from the battlefield at the time who were later identified in the early part of the 20th century to be those of the fallen soldiers were brought up by Afghan families as their own children.<ref name="Shultz">{{Cite book |last1=Shultz |first1=Richard H. |url=https://archive.org/details/insurgentsterror00shul |title=Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat |last2=Dew |first2=Andrea J. |date=2006-08-22 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-50342-6 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="Toorn">{{Cite book |last=Toorn |first=Wout van der |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IARhBwAAQBAJ&q=First+Anglo-Afghan+%22afghan+victory%22&pg=PT97 |title=Logbook of the Low Countries |date=2015-03-17 |publisher=Page Publishing Inc |isbn=978-1-63417-999-7 |language=ar}}</ref><ref name="Henshall">{{Cite book |last=Henshall |first=Kenneth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RX52MsrFdl4C |title=A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower |date=2012-03-13 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-36918-4}}</ref><ref name="Little">{{Cite book |last1=Little |first1=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTuZJxwYltEC&pg=PA385 |title=Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution |last2=Understanding |first2=Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious |date=2007-01-08 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-85358-3}}</ref><ref name="Steele">{{Cite book |last=Steele |first=Jonathan |url=https://archive.org/details/ghostsofafghanis0000stee |title=Ghosts of Afghanistan: Hard Truths and Foreign Myths |date=2011-01-01 |publisher=Counterpoint Press |isbn=978-1-58243-787-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ghostsofafghanis0000stee/page/110 110] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

===Second British expedition===
{{further|Kabul Expedition (1842)}}

At the same time as the attacks on the garrison at Kabul, Afghan forces beleaguered the other British contingents in Afghanistan. These were at Kandahar (where the largest British force in the country had been stationed), [[Battle of Jellalabad|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 defeated near Jalalabad and plans were laid for the recapture of Kabul and the restoration of British control.

However, Lord Auckland had suffered a [[stroke]] and had been replaced as governor-general by [[Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough|Lord Ellenborough]], who was under instructions to bring the war to an end following a change of government in Britain. Ellenborough 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 [[William Nott (British general)|General William Nott]] advanced from Kandahar, capturing Ghazni and partially demolishing the city's fortifications. Meanwhile, [[George Pollock|General George Pollock]], who had taken command of a demoralized force in Peshawar used it to clear the [[Khyber Pass]] to arrive at Jalalabad, where [[Robert Sale|General Sale]] had already lifted the siege. From Jalalabad, General Pollock inflicted a further crushing defeat on Akbar Khan. As the expedition advanced through Afghanistan, they bore witness to the countless dead comrades who perished following the retreat from Kabul. This enraged the British who took revenge on Afghan civilians by razing villages, murdering men and raping women. [[Neville Bowles Chamberlain]] described the killings as "truly wicked."<ref name="king" /> The combined British forces defeated all opposition before [[Battle of Kabul (1842)|taking Kabul]] in September. A month later, having rescued the prisoners and demolished the city's main [[bazaar]] as an act of revenge for the destruction of Elphinstone's column, they withdrew from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. Dost Muhammad was released and re-established his authority in Kabul. He died on 9 June 1863. During his lifetime no Russian mission was established in Afghanistan. Dost Mohammad is reported to have said:

<blockquote>I have been struck by the magnitude of your resources, your ships, your arsenals, but what I cannot understand is why the rulers of so vast and flourishing an empire should have gone across the Indus to deprive me of my poor and barren country.<ref name=ewans2002/></blockquote>

==Aftermath==
Many voices in Britain, from [[George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen|Lord Aberdeen]]<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1839/mar/19/affairs-in-the-east 'no man could say, unless it were subsequently explained, this course was not as rash and impolitic, as it was ill-considered, oppressive, and unjust.'] [[Hansard]], 19 March 1839.</ref> to [[Benjamin Disraeli]], had criticized the war as rash and insensate. The perceived threat from Russia was vastly exaggerated, given the distances, the almost impassable mountain barriers, and logistical problems that an invasion would have to solve. In the three decades after the First Anglo-Afghan War, the Russians did advance steadily southward towards Afghanistan. In 1842, the Russian border was on the other side of the [[Aral Sea]] from Afghanistan. By 1865 [[Tashkent]] had been formally annexed, as was [[Samarkand]] three years later. A peace treaty in 1873 with Amir [[Mohammed Alim Khan|Alim Khan]] of the [[Manghit#Manghit Dynasty|Manghit Dynasty]], the ruler of [[Bukhara]], virtually stripped him of his independence. Russian control then extended as far as the northern bank of the Amu Darya. The war would also be renowned as the "greatest military humilation of the nineteenth century" for the British.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bizhan|first=Nematullah|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DNEwDwAAQBAJ&dq=shere+ali+khan&pg=PT96|title=Aid Paradoxes in Afghanistan: Building and Undermining the State|date=14 August 2017|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-351-69265-6|language=en}}</ref>

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

[[Elizabeth Thompson|Lady Butler]]'s [[Remnants of an Army|famous painting]] of Dr. William Brydon, initially thought to be the sole survivor, gasping his way to the British outpost in [[Jalalabad, Afghanistan|Jalalabad]], helped make Afghanistan's reputation as a [[Graveyard of empires|graveyard for foreign armies]] and became one of the great epics of empire.

In 1843, the British army [[chaplain]], G.R. Gleig, wrote a memoir of the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War, describing it as:
{{blockquote|a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.<ref>Gleig, George R. [https://books.google.com/books?id=YnYIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA181 ''Sale's Brigade In Afghanistan''], John Murray, 1879, p. 181.</ref>}}

The [[Afghan Church|Church of St. John the Evangelist]] located in [[Navy Nagar]], [[Mumbai]], [[India]], more commonly known as the Afghan Church, was dedicated in 1852 as a memorial to the dead of the conflict.

==Financial cost of the war==
During the fiscal year of 1840—1841, the campaign in Afghanistan had cost over 1 million [[Pound sterling|British pounds]]. Furthermore, half a million pounds were used towards the upkeep of garrisons in Sindh. The upkeep cost the Indian government heavily, drawing them into a deficit of over a million pounds, to which the government was borrowing loans heavily. This became increasingly unsustainable, and as a result, British forces in Afghanistan were ordered to be reduced to all but two regiments, with one being in stationed [[Kabul]], and the other in [[Kandahar]]. Auckland intended to withdraw most troops by the next year, also informing Macnaghten that by 1842, spending had to be cut from 1 million pounds, to just 30,000.{{sfn|Lee|2019|p=264-265}}

==Battle honour==
The [[battle honour]] of 'Afghanistan 1839' was awarded to all units of the [[Presidencies of British India|presidency]] armies of the East India Company that had proceeded beyond the Bolan Pass, by gazette of the governor-general, dated 19 November 1839, the spelling changed from 'Afghanistan' to '{{sic|Affgha|nistan|hide=y}}' by Gazette of India No. 1079 of 1916, and the date added in 1914. All the honours awarded for this war are considered to be [[Repugnant battle honours of the Indian Army|non-repugnant]]. The units awarded this battle honour were:
* 4th Bengal Irregular Cavalry – [[Skinner's Horse|1st Horse]]
* 5th Madras Infantry
* Poona Auxiliary Horse – [[Poona Horse]]
* Bombay Sappers & Miners – [[Bombay Engineer Group]]
* [[31st Bengal Infantry]]
* 43rd Bengal Infantry
* [[19th Bombay Infantry]]
* 1st Bombay Cavalry – [[13th Duke of Connaught's Own Lancers|13th Lancers]]
* 2nd, [[3rd Bengal Light Cavalry]] – mutinied in 1857
* 2nd, 3rd Companies of [[Bengal Sappers and Miners]] – mutinied in 1857
* 16th, 35th, 37th, 48th Bengal Infantry – mutinied in 1857
* 42nd Bengal Infantry (5th LI) – disbanded 1922

==Fictional depictions==
* It was depicted in an 1842 panorama in London. The exhibition was advertised as: "a comprehensive and interesting VIEW OF CABUL, including every object of interest in the city, the Bala Hissar, the river Cabul, with a distant view of the Himalaya Mountains and the Pass of Khurd Cabul, where the British army were so treacherously destroyed. The whole illustrated by numerous groups of figures descriptive of the manngers of the Afghanese."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HMA2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA806|title = The Athenæum: A Journal of Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music, and the Drama|year = 1842}}</ref>
* The First Anglo-Afghan war is depicted in a work of historical fiction, ''[[Flashman (novel)|Flashman]]'' by [[George MacDonald Fraser]]. (This is Fraser's first ''Flashman'' novel.)
* The ordeal of Dr. Brydon may have inspired the story of [[Dr. John Watson]] in [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]‘s first [[Sherlock Holmes]] novel ''[[A Study in Scarlet]]'', although his wound was suffered in the second war{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}.
* Emma Drummond's novel ''Beyond all Frontiers'' (1983) is based on these events, as are [[Philip Hensher]]'s ''Mulberry Empire'' (2002) and ''Fanfare'' (1993), by Andrew MacAllan, a distant relation of Dr [[William Brydon]].
* [[G.A. Henty]]'s children's novel ''[[To Herat and Kabul]]'' focuses on the Anglo-Afghan War through the perspective of a Scottish expatriate teenager named Angus. [[Theodor Fontane]]'s poem, ''Das Trauerspiel von Afghanistan'' (''The Tragedy of Afghanistan'') also refers to the massacre of Elphinstone’s army.<ref>''[http://berlinbooks.org/brb/2010/01/the-tragedy-of-afghanistan/ The Tragedy of Afghanistan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130315053955/http://berlinbooks.org/brb/2010/01/the-tragedy-of-afghanistan/ |date=15 March 2013 }}''. Retrieved 2013-08-21.</ref>
* [[Victoria (British TV series)|''Victoria'']] (2017) episode "A Soldier's Daughter" dramatizes Brydon's survival in the retreat. In the show, Queen Victoria responds to the loss of life in the retreat with a speech at the launch of {{HMS|Trafalgar|1841|6}}, and by privately meeting and honouring Brydon.<ref>{{Cite web |last=WETA |title='Victoria' Season 2: "A Soldier's Daughter/The Green-Eyed Monster" Recap |url=https://blogs.weta.org/tellyvisions/2018/01/14/victoria-season-2-soldiers-daughterthe-green-eyed-monster-recap |access-date=2019-02-09 |website=Telly Visions |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Season 2, Victoria {{!}} History in Images: Victoria Season 2 Episode 1 {{!}} Masterpiece {{!}} Official Site |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/specialfeatures/history-in-images-victoria-season-2-episode-1/ |access-date=2019-02-09 |website=Masterpiece |language=en-US}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Second Anglo-Afghan War]]
* [[Third Anglo-Afghan War]]
* [[Invasions of Afghanistan]]
* [[Waziristan campaign (1919–1920)]]
* [[Waziristan campaign (1921–1924)]]
* [[Waziristan campaign (1936–1939)]]
* [[Pink's War]]
* [[Waziristan rebellion (1948-1954)]]
* [[Military history of Afghanistan]]
* [[Chapslee Estate]]
* [[European influence in Afghanistan]]
* [[Military history of Britain]]
* War artist [[James Rattray]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite book|last=Dalrymple|first=William|title=[[Return of a King|Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan]]|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2012|isbn=978-1-4088-1830-5|location=London|author-link=William Dalrymple (historian)}}
* {{Cite thesis |last=Findlay |first=Adam George |title=Preventing Strategic Defeat: A Reassessment of the First Anglo-Afghan War |degree=PhD |publisher=[[University of New South Wales]] |url=http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/fapi/datastream/unsworks:35792/SOURCE02?view=true |place=Canberra |format=PDF |year=2015}}
* {{Cite book|last=Lee|first=Jonathan L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kSWDDwAAQBAJ|title=Afghanistan: A History from 1260 to the Present|date=15 January 2019|publisher=Reaktion Books|isbn=978-1-78914-010-1|language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Fowler |first=Corinne |title=Chasing Tales: Travel Writing, Journalism and the History of British Ideas about Afghanistan |publisher=Brill {{!}} Rodopi |year=2007 |isbn=978-90-420-2262-1 |location=Amsterdam |doi=10.1163/9789401204873}}
* {{Cite book |last=Greenwood |first=Joseph |url=https://archive.org/details/narrativelatevi00greegoog |title=Narrative of the Late Victorious Campaign in Affghanistan, under General Pollock: With Recollections of Seven Years' service in India |publisher=Henry Colburn |year=1844 |location=London |author-link=Joseph Greenwood}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hopkirk |first=Peter |title=[[The Great Game (Hopkirk book)|The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia]] |publisher=John Murray |year=1990 |isbn=978-1-56836-022-5 |location=London |author-link=Peter Hopkirk}}
* {{Cite book |last=Kaye |first=John William |url=https://www.wdl.org/en/item/17712/ |title=History of the War in Afghanistan |publisher=Richard Bentley |year=1851 |location=London |author-link=John William Kaye}}
* {{Cite book|last=Macrory|first=Patrick A.|title=The Fierce Pawns|publisher=J. B. Lippincott Company|year=1966|location=New York}}
* {{Cite book|last=Macrory|first=Patrick A.|title=Retreat from Kabul: The Catastrophic British Defeat in Afghanistan, 1842|publisher=Lyons Press|year=2002|location=Guilford, Connecticut|oclc=148949425|isbn=978-1-59921-177-0}}
* {{Cite book |last=Morris |first=Mowbray |url=https://www.wdl.org/en/item/11794/ |title=The First Afghan War |publisher=Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington |year=1878 |location=London}}
* {{Cite book|last=Perry|first=James M.|title=Arrogant Armies: Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=1996|isbn=978-0-471-11976-0|location=New York|author-link=James M. Perry}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|First Anglo-Afghan War}}
* [http://britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/ghuznee.htm First Afghan War (Battle of Ghuznee)]
* [http://britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/kabul-1842.htm First Afghan War (Battle of Kabul 1842)]
* [http://britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/siege-jellalabad.htm The Siege of Jellalabad]
* [http://britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/kabul-gandamak.htm First Afghan War (Battle of Kabul and retreat to Gandamak)]
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8428 The Afghan Wars 1839–42 and 1878–80] by [[Archibald Forbes]], from [[Project Gutenberg]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140811070509/http://afghanistan-photos.com/crbst_31.html Pictures of the First Anglo-Afghan War]
* ''[http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11306/ The War of Kabul and Kandahar]'', circa 1850

{{Anglo-Afghan War}}
{{Afghanistan topics}}
{{Pashtun nationalism}}
{{British colonial campaigns}}
{{British overseas territories}}
{{authority control}}

[[Category:First Anglo-Afghan War| ]]
[[Category:Anglo-Afghan Wars|01]]
[[Category:Emirate of Afghanistan|Anglo-Afghan War 01]]
[[Category:1839 in Afghanistan]]
[[Category:Invasions of Afghanistan|Anglo-Afghan War 01]]
[[Category:Invasions by the United Kingdom|Anglo-Afghan War 01]]
[[Category:Wars involving Afghanistan|Anglo-Afghan War 01]]
[[Category:Wars involving the United Kingdom|Anglo-Afghan War 01]]
[[Category:Battles involving British India|Anglo-Afghan War 01]]
[[Category:History of the Indian Army Corps of Engineers]]
[[Category:History of the Bombay Engineer Group]]
[[Category:History of the Bengal Engineer Group]]
[[Category:Military history of Afghanistan]]
[[Category:Military history of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa|Anglo-Afghan War 01]]
[[Category:1839 in British India]]
[[Category:19th-century military history of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Wars of succession involving the states and peoples of Europe]]
[[Category:Wars of succession involving the states and peoples of Asia]]
[[Category:Khanate of Kalat]]