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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
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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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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.
MaharajaRanjitSinghinaBazaar,LI118.110,PrivateLender,A
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.
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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
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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.
The People of Kabul
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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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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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