Afghanistan and the First Anglo-Afghan War
Afghanistan was at the heart of the Great Game rivalry between Britain and Russia in Central Asia for control of India, occupying a place at the crossroads of Central Asia, controlling access to Southern Asia and India.
The 19th-century rivalry between Britain and Russia in Central Asia, for control of access to India, known as the Great Game, dominated British foreign policy in the area.
Afghanistan was at the heart of this manoeuvring, occupying a place at the crossroads of Central Asia, controlling access to Southern Asia and India.
Britain feared that Russia would be able to advance south through Afghanistan and reach India via the Khyber and Bolan passes. To prevent this, Britain saw the need to maintain Afghanistan as a friendly buffer state. To bring this about however, it was necessary to overthrow the popular ruler, Dost Mohmmed Khan, and replace him with the deeply unpopular puppet ruler, the exiled Shuja Shah.
This war of regime change, the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839-1842, was to show the limits of British military power, at a time when Britain probably had the greatest army in the world, when confronting a much smaller nation facing an existential crisis. At first Britain thought that it had everything under control after making rapid progress, but it then cut back on the financial support it had offered local chiefs. This, together with the indecisiveness of the elderly British commander, Lord Elphinstone was to lead to utter disaster and the complete humiliation of the British army. Faced with an Afghan uprising in 1841 Elphinstone negotiated a retreat to Jalalabad with the son of Dost Mohamed. The column of 4,500 troops and 12,500 camp followers set out on the march from Kabul, but the negotiated safe-passage treaty proved worthless, with the Afghans taking married officers and their wives’ hostage, and the rest of the column perishing either from the harsh climate in the mountains, or attacks by local tribesmen, with only one European survivor.
This led to the notorious British ‘Army of Retribution’ which attacked Kabul to free hostages and razed large parts of the city. After this Britain abandoned Afghanistan altogether and Dost Mohammed was restored to the throne.
Many accounts were published at the time, and we are fortunate to have four classic works.
The Military Operations at Cabul, 1843, by Lieutenant Vincent Eyre, is the classic work on the lives of those taken hostage on the march. Several editions were published but our edition is notable for containing Eyre’s complete series of lithographed portraits of the prisoners as well as their captor, Akbar Khan. This is a scarce and valuable edition.
Joseph Greenwood served under General Pollock who led the ‘Army of Retribution’. His optimistically titled Narrative of the late victorious Campaign in Affghanistan (1844), is one of the rarer books on the subject and doesn’t flinch from giving an honest account of the atrocities carried out. Ours is a very handsome copy bound in green morocco.
The finest illustrated book on Afghanistan is James Rattray’s The Costumes of the Various Tribes (1848). This large format work containing 29 superb hand-coloured lithographs, was the result of Rattray’s participation in the latter half of the war having travelled to Afghanistan in 1841. He records the local tribes in detail and with a sympathetic eye as he was able to converse with some of them being fluent in Persian. Rattray’s text is also of interest as he also recounts the harrowing experience of the British troops as well as providing an explanation of the pictures themselves.
John William Kaye (1814-1876) served in the British army in India, and later in the India Office. He was a great chronicler of the army but probably his finest work was History of the War in Afghanistan, 2 vols (1851). Its1350 pages are packed with otherwise unobtainable material, containing unpublished letters and journals by prominent political and military figures in Afghanistan. An indispensable contemporary account, our copy is handsomely bound.
Written by Julian Mackenzie
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