Return of a King Taster Plates

7/29/2019 Return of a King Taster Plates

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Shah Shuja, grandson o Ahmad Shah Abdali and the head o the Sadozai clan, ruled the

remains o his grandathers empire rom 1803: Our intention, he wrote, was that rom the

moment o mounting the throne, we would so rule our subjects with justice and mercy, that

they should live in happiness within the shade o our protecting wings. Within six years he

had been deeated by his Barakzai enemies and had had to ee into exile in India.

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Dost Mohammad was his

athers eighteenth son by a

low-status wie. His rise to

power was brought about by

his own ruthlessness, efciency

and cunning. Dost Mohammad

slowly increased his hold

on power, until in 1835 he

declared a jihad against theSikhs and had himsel ormally

anointed as Amir.

Akbar Khan (above and right), the most

intelligent and eective o the sons o

Dost Mohammad, pictured below.

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The Barakzais


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Three courtly Aghan

horsemen, as drawn by the

artists o the Elphinstone

Mission in 1809.

The Chaous Baushee in

his dress o ofce

A Dooraunee Gentleman

The Umla Baushi in

his dress o ofce

The Peoples of Afghanistan

PrivateCollection,photographco

urtesyofSimonRay,London

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A amily rom Kafrstan (above left), a Kharoti Ghilzai (above right) and (below) Pashtun horse

traders. Aghanistan was a country sharply divided along tribal, ethnic and linguistic lines.

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RMN(MuseGuimet,Paris)/ThierryOllivier


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Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler and great enemy o Dost Mohammad who created a powerul

kingdom in the Punjab.

Ranjit Singh, the Lion o the Punjab, and his nobles.

Two inantrymen rom Ranjit Singhs

state o the art Fauj-i-khas regiment,

trained or him by ex-Napoleonic

veterans.

Sikh horsemen.

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shmoleanMuseum,UniversityofOxford

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The Sikhs


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Sir Claude Wade, a Bengal-born Persian

scholar, was one o the original spymasters

in the Great Game that grand contest

o imperial competition, espionage and

conquest that engaged Britain and Russia

until the collapse o their respective Asian

empires, and whose opening moves were

being played out at this period.

The Scottish agent o the Great Game,

Alexander Burnes, in the feld in Aghan

dress. He always complained that this

amous image did not look in the least

like him.

Major Eldred Pottinger, nephew o Wades

great rival Sir Henry Pottinger, was in

Herat disguised as a Muslim horse trader

when the Qajar Persian army attacked it.

Mohan Lal Kashmiri, Alexander Burness

brilliant Indian assistant and intelligence

chie, understood Aghanistan better

than any o the British. As long as they

ollowed his advice, all went well.

Henry Rawlinson ran into Vitkevitchs

Cossacks by chance in the hal-light o

dawn while lost on the Persian-Aghan

rontier. His record-breaking ride rom

Mashhad to Teheran brought news o the

secret Russian mission to Aghanistan. He

later become political agent in Kandahar

during the British occupation.

MacNeill, the Russophobe British

ambassador in Tehran whose cable, The

Russians have ormally opened their

diplomatic intercourse with Kabul convinced

the British that Dost Mohammad needed to

be replaced. Lord Auckland should now take

a decided course, he advised, and declare

that he who is not with us is against us... We

must secure Aghanistan.

Ivan Vitkevitch was a young Polish

nobleman who, while in exile on the

Cossack steppe, became ascinated with the

Turkic culture o what is now Uzbekistan,

Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. He was the

perect intelligence agent to take on

Burnes, and ater much shadowing o each

others ootsteps, the pair fnally met or

Christmas dinner in Kabul in 1838.

Edward Law, 1st Earl o Ellenborough,

was the frst to turn anxiety about Russia

into public policy. Our policy in Asia

must ollow one course only, he wrote in

his diary, to limit the power o Russia.

NationalPortraitGallery,London

JohnMurray

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Playing the Great Game


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Alexander Burnes, the dashing Scottish intelligence ofcer sent out to gather inormation

on the non-existent Russian threat to British interests in the east. When the book he wrote

about his travels became a huge success, the Russians, who read it in French translation,

were prompted to embark on intelligence gathering o their own, sending Vitkevitch frst to

Bukhara then Kabul. Hawkish paranoia in London thus ended up bringing into being the

very threat it had most eared and so was born the Great Game.


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Sir William Hay Macnaghten, seen here with his amous blue-tinted spectacles. A bookish

ormer judge rom Ulster who had been promoted rom his court room to run the Companys

bureaucracy, he became Lord Aucklands Russophobe, protocol-obsessed Political Secretary.

His jealousy o the ast-promoted Burnes led him to support the idea o replacing Dost

Mohammad Khan with Shah Shuja, an idea Burnes strongly opposed. The two men, who

never got on, became the dysunctional centre o the British administration in Aghanistan.


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In July 1838, Macnaghten

visited Shah Shuja and his

court in Ludhiana and curtly

inormed him that ater thirty

years in exile he was to be

replaced on his throne in Kabul

with the help o the British.

Shah Shujas court in exile. From let to right: Prince Timur, Shah Shuja, Prince Sadarjang

and Mullah Shakur Ishaqzai.

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George Eden, Lord Auckland, the British

Governor-General, a clever but complacent

man with little knowledge o the region.

Emily Eden, one o Lord Aucklands

unmarried sisters and the writer o some o

the Rajs most witty and waspish letters.


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Reliant on the Russophobic

fltering o intelligence by

Wade and Macnaghten, Lord

Auckland ailed to heed

the more accurate message

rom Burnes on the ground,

and became convinced o

Dost Mohammads anti-

British position. Poor, dear

peaceul George has gone to

war, wrote his sister Emily.

Rather an inconsistency in

his character.

The Edens The Sadozais


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Skinners Horse riding out to war.

Two sepoys o the Bengal Native Inantry. A Bajaur jezailchi.

Kabul inantry.

NationalArmyMuseum

PrivateCollection

RMN(museGuimet,Paris)/ThierryOllivier

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Paris)/ThierryOllivier

Preparations for War


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The British-Indian Army o the Indus make their way east...

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Scenes rom the line o march o a Bengal Regiment. This Victorian precursor o the strip

cartoon probably shows the Army o the Indus heading through Sindh and approaching

Aghanistan.

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Entrance to the Bolan Pass, rom Dadur. In spring 1839 a 12,000-strong British-Indian orce,

the Army o the Indus under Sir John Keane, orced the Bolan Pass and captured Kandahar.

The invasion aimed to replace Dost Mohammad with Shah Shuja, who was considered to be

more pro-British.

As they navigated the narrow passes o Baluchistan, the Army o the Indus was vulnerable to

ambush by the Baluchis, who hid in the ravines; skirmishes and sniping attacks were common.

It was the mouth o hell, remembered the sepoy Sita Ram. The Baluchis now began to

harass us by night attacks and drove o long strings o our camels. They murdered everyone

whenever they had the opportunity and rolled large boulders down the mountain sides.


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The Storming o Ghuznee. Ater orcing the Bolan Pass and capturing Kandahar, the Army

o the Indus advanced on the ormidable ortied walls o Ghazni, protected by thick,

sixty-oot-high walls, a major problem or the British who had let their heavy artillery in

Kandahar. Mohan Lal Kashmiri, Burness invaluable intelligence chie, discovered that one o

the gates was not bricked up and could be stormed i taken by surprise.

In April 1839, the Army o the Indus captured the city o Kandahar without a ght. Here

Shah Shuja held a durbar within sight o the dome o the tomb o his grandather, Ahmad

Shah Abdali.

The Durbar-Khaneh o Shah Shoojah-ool-Moolk at Kabul. Ater the seizure o Ghazni,

Dost Mohammad fed Kabul and Shuja was re-installed as Shah in August 1839. This

Mughal-style reception hall in the Bala Hisar was where he would hold his durbars, and

where he irritated his nobles and his British ocers by making them stand or hours. As the

British ocer-turned-artist, Lockyer Willis Hart, noted: This orm and ceremony, so hateul

to the Aghans, was the Kings oible, and sometimes carried to an absurd extent.


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The Kabul Bazaar during the British occupation.

The retinue o Shah Shooja-ool-Moolk. This image includes Mahomed Shah Ghilzai,

Akbars Khans ather-in-law (on the let) who was bought over by the Anglo-Sadozai regime

and was awarded with the earsome ceremonial title o Chie Executioner. He would become

one o the leading rebels and more than anyone else was responsible or the 1842 massacre o

the retreating British garrison in the high Ghilzai passes.

Rattrays sketch o the rows o tents during the early days o the occupation beore the

building o the cantonments. The rock o the Bala Hisar rises to the rear let o the picture.

The women o Kabul were to prove irresistible to the occupying British troops with

disastrous results.

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Amir Dost Mohammad surrenders to the British envoy Sir William Hay Macnaghten in

November 1840. Macnaghten and his aides were out riding in the valley o Qila-Qazi near

Kabul when the surrender occurred.

Aghan insurgents prepare an attack on the British cantonments outside Kabul. This image

shows how the elegant colonial cantonments, with the Mission Compound on the let, were

surrounded by hills on all sides and almost impossible to deend.

Aghan oot soldiers o the insurrection against the

British occupation re their accurate long-barrelled

jezails down onto the inde ensible British position in

the cantonment.

The elderly and ineective

gout-riddled British military

commander in Aghanistan,

General William Elphinstone,

collapsed into nervous indecision

at the outbreak o the uprising.

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15/18

Major-General Sir Robert Henry Sale, known to his

men as Fighting Bob or always throwing himsel

into the ercest combat.

Lady Sale, turbaned in captivity.

Alexandrina Sturt (ne Sale), taken

hostage by Akbar Khan after the

massacre in the Khurd Kabul Pass.

Captain Colin Mackenzie

commanded the deence o the

commissariat ort against the

Aghan insurgents. Both he and

Lawrence (right) became celebrities

on their return and enjoyed posing

in Aghan costume.

The interior o the ort where the British hostages were kept.

Captain Skinner, here

a hostage prior to the

British withdrawal, would

be killed in action at the

Jagdalak Pass during the

Retreat o1842.George Lawrence

Eyre, the artist, in sel-

portrait.

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The last survivors o the 44th Foot were exposed and surrounded at dawn as they stood at

the top o the hill o Gandamak. Overwhelmingly outnumbered, the troops made their last

stand. They ormed a square, and deended themselves, driving the Aghans several times

down the hill until they had exhausted the last o their rounds, and then ought on with their

bayonets. Then, one by one, they were slaughtered.

Lady Butlers amous oil, The Remnants of an Army, which depicts Dr Brydons exhausted

arrival at the walls o Jalalabad on his collapsing nag.

The British Garrison at Jalalabad, rom the top turret o which an eagle-eyed

sta ocer was able to spot Dr Brydons approach and send out rescuers.


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General William Nott, one o themost senior Company generals

in India, was a brilliant strategist

and ever-loyal to his sepoys the

ne manly soldiers to whom he

was ercely attached. He was to

prove much the most eective o

the British military commanders.

In August 1842 he marched

across Aghanistan, deeating all

the orces sent against him, and

arrived in Kabul on 17 September,

two days ater Pollock had

retaken the city.

The Army o Retribution arrived in Kabul in September 1842. Ater releasing the British

hostages, they destroyed the great Chahar Suq covered bazaar. A new mosque built in

celebration o the British deeat was also razed to the ground, and res started across the

city. The cry arose that Cabul was given up to plunder...

The meticulous but merciless

Major-General George Pollock,

commander o the Army o

Retribution which laid waste to

south-eastern Aghanistan andburned Kabul to the ground.

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Dost Mohammad (seated, to the left of the ring of dancers) is received in Lahore, on his way

back to Kabul. He was restored to the throne in 1842 ollowing the nal British withdrawal

and the treacherous assassination o Shah Shuja by his own godson. He would reign until his

death in 1863.

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Return of a King Taster Plates