Today, we talk about the quagmire that the British stepped into when they invaded Afghanistan to begin the First Anglo-Afghan War and the role it played in the Great Game.
Today, we talk about the quagmire that the British stepped into when they invaded Afghanistan to begin the First Anglo-Afghan War and the role it played in the Great Game.
Episode 301 – The Great Game – Part Two
Last time, we covered the years before the Great Game, also known to the Russians as the Tournament of Shadows, between Russia and Great Britain began, especially the Napoleonic Era. Today, we continue discussing the tensions between two of Europe's great powers.
Before we go on, my podhoster, Buzzsprout, has added a new feature. You can now send me messages by clicking on a link in the episode's description. Please tell me what you think about the episode or podcast, whether good or bad. You certainly won't hurt my feelings if you feel something needs to be improved.
Let’s review where we are with this lengthy quote from the book The Soviet-Afghan War, written by the Russian General Staff and translated by Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress. The book was a review of the war that helped bring down the Soviet Union by military analysts in Russia. What was puzzling to them was how the Soviet military leadership failed to do a comprehensive evaluation of an invasion and subsequent war in Afghanistan, given the historical knowledge they had at their fingertips due to the era of the Great Game.
"Russia expanded her Empire into Central Asia beginning in 1734, and her interest in Afghanistan was apparent by the late 1830s. The term 'the great game' describes the Russian and British struggle for influence along the northern frontier of British India and in the entire region between Russia and India. Afghanistan was central to this contested area between two expanding empires. Russia described her motives in the region as a desire to abolish the slave trade and to establish order and control over her southern border. The British viewed the Russian expansion into the lands of the Caucasus, Georgia, Khirgiz, Turkmens, Khiva, and Bukhara as a threat to her borders. The British believed the Russian motives were to weaken British power and to gain access to a warm-water southern port. Britain described her own actions in the great game as defensive measures to protect the frontiers of British India.”
The authors further write, “The great game spilled over into Afghanistan when British forces invaded during the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839-1842. The British justified their actions as a counter to Russian influence. After hard fighting, the British withdrew. In 1869, the Russian Empire reached Afghanistan’s northern border – the Amu Darya (Oxus) river. In 1878, the arrival of a special Russian delegation in Kabul led to another British invasion and the Second Anglo-Afghan War. After more hard fighting, the British again withdrew. In the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, the Russians agreed that Afghanistan lay outside its sphere of influence and agreed to confer with Britain on all matters relating to Russian-Afghan relations. In return, Britain agreed not to occupy or annex any part of Afghanistan nor interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. This treaty held until 1919, when Afghan troops crossed into British India, seized a village, and tried to incite a popular revolt in the region. The British responded with a third invasion – and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. The political settlement resulted in Afghanistan’s full independence from British influence.”
What is astonishing is that the Soviets knew all of this and still invaded Afghanistan. Equally, and maybe even more insane, was the American invasion post 9/11. Learning about all of this makes the Great Game even more fascinating of a historical event than I had previously known. So, now on with the game.
Before we get to the game itself, we have to talk about how Russia went from being the ally of Great Britain to being its perceived enemy. It began with the defeat of Napoleon, which the British thought impossible. Here is what author Peter Hopkirk had to say in his book, The Great Game, “In the Baltic town of Vilnius, through which Napoleon’s troops marched to their doom in the summer of 1812, there stands a simple monument bearing two plaques. Together they tell the whole story. On the side with its back towards Moscow is written: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte passed this way in 1812 with 400,000 men.’ On the other side are the words: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte passed this way in 1812 with 9,000 men.’”
This crushing defeat shocked London as they wholeheartedly believed that the French would easily handle the Russian army. When they first heard of the burning of Moscow, they thought that Napoleon was responsible. When they learned the truth that it was actually the Russians who burned their former capital, they gained massive respect for their allies against the French. Hopkirk writes, "In Britain, as elsewhere, news of Napoleon's downfall was greeted with euphoria. Alexander's earlier duplicity in joining forces with him against Britain was conveniently forgotten, as relief overcame every other consideration." While everything was hunky dory between the two nations, this was not meant to last.
Tsar Alexander, full of himself with the defeat of the French, demanded that Poland be given to Russia in return for their service to Europe. This was rejected in part because of the strong objection by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh. The clash between Alexander and Castlereagh almost brought the two countries to war, but tensions were eased when the Russian Tsar consented to a plan to share Poland with Austria and Prussia. Europe was now safe from Russian expansionism, but Asia was not.
With Alexander’s death in 1825 and the ascension of Nicholas I, the concern in London was that the new Tsar was an even greater enemy of the British than his predecessor, but that was nowhere near the truth. He was the one who continued the policy of being the gendarme of Europe and a firm believer in autocracy, something the British had a real problem with. In actuality, while Nicholas disliked Britain as a liberal democratic state, which he considered to be somewhat "strange", he always thought that he could reach an understanding with Britain regarding spheres of influence in Asia. He also believed that the conservative nature of British society would hold back any thought of liberalism.
Returning to Hopkirk, "If one man could be said to be responsible for the creation of the Russian bogy, it was a much-decorated British general named Sir Robert Wilson." Supposedly, Wilson was there when Tsar Alexander met with Napoleon on the barge, where the Treaty of Tilsit was signed in 1807. Wilson quoted Alexander as saying to the French emperor, "I hate the English as much as you do, and am ready to assist you in any undertaking against them."
This must have stuck in his craw for years as when the war was over, upon his return to England, Wilson would be “…launching a one-man campaign against the Russian, Britain’s allies, and in the eyes of most people, the savior of Europe.”
Wilson would write a book, anonymously, entitled A Sketch of the Military and Political Power of Russia. It would propose that Peter the Great had, on his deathbed, talked about plans for Russia to conquer the world. His first target was Constantinople, followed by taking Persia and, eventually, India. Wilson would further claim that Alexander was a greater threat to the British Empire than Napoleon.
General Wilson would face a torrent of criticism for his position, but it would plant the seeds of Russophobia that would grow and grow over the following decades. Hopkirk writes, "Fear and suspicion of this new great power, with its vast resources and unlimited manpower, and about which so little was known, had been planted firmly and permanently in British minds. The Russian bogy was there to stay."
There were other threats that concerned the British in India. The threat of a Muslim uprising that would spread to India was a very realistic possibility. Still, because of people like General Wilson and a growing sentiment in London, that fear was pushed aside. As Farrukh Husain puts it in his book Afghanistan in the Age of Empires: the Great Game for South and Central Asia, "Rumors 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:"
Now that we have laid the groundwork on why tensions were beginning to rise between Russia and Great Britain, we have to swerve to the British side of things. Our focus for the next stage of the Bolshaya Igra is the First Anglo-Afghan War. It is the actual start of the game, as, by the time they invaded Afghanistan, Great Britain had grown paranoid about Russian expansionism.
According to worldhistory.org, “In the first half of the 19th century, the British government became almost obsessed with the idea that Russia harbored dangerous intentions towards its Empire in the subcontinent. The Russian Empire did indeed seek to expand its influence beyond Central Asia through its client state Persia, but whether or not it really wished to invade India is a much-debated point.” It wasn’t until 1838 that they began to take the threat seriously, goading them into invading Afghanistan.
The British were absolutely convinced that the Russians were going to take over Afghanistan and the crucial Khyber Pass trade route. They could not allow this to happen even though, in hindsight, with what we know, the Russians had no such intentions. The Governor-General of India at the time, George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, in the town of Shimla, published the Shimla Manifesto, dethroning Dost Mahommed Khan. He would then put a British-friendly puppet ruler, Shah Shuja, the former king of Afghanistan, on the throne. As a point of reference, Shimla was named In 1864 as the summer capital of British India. It is now the largest city and capital of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
With approximately 21,000 troops, the British marched into Afghanistan with little opposition. This was partly due to the rivalry between two tribes, the Barakzai led by Emir Dost Mohammad Khan and former King Shah Shujah of the Durrani. This tension between the two factions, along with many other tribes within the country, would eventually lead to the first Afghan Civil War, which would begin in 1863 and end in 1869, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
We are now in the year 1838, and rumors began circulating amongst the British officers in India that Russian envoy Count Jan Prosper Witkiewicz had arrived in Kabul. This raised the possibility that Dost Mohammad might turn to Russia for support. British Governor-General of India Lord Auckland heard about the visit and was originally not too worried, but his advisors began to exaggerate things, which would eventually lead to the invasion.
Lord Aukland then sent off a hastily written note to Dost Mohammad, saying, "You must desist from all correspondence with Russia. You must never receive agents from them, or have ought to do with them without our sanction; you must dismiss Captain Viktevitch with courtesy; you must surrender all claims to Peshawar." This angered the Afghan leader and led to the British ambassador's expulsion on April 26, 1838.
With the British making themselves unwelcome in Afghanistan, the Russians were not doing themselves any better. With Russian support, the Qajar dynasty of Persia attempted the Siege of Herat, a city that had been part of Persia for centuries but was now part of Afghanistan.
The siege, also known as the First Herat War, began on November 11, 1837. Its failure would be an embarrassment to both Russia and Persia. When the Persians ended the siege on September 9, 1838, the British were now convinced more than ever that the Russians were going to invade India through Afghanistan.
In December 1838, the troops entered Afghanistan, not as invaders but as support for what the British called the legitimate ruler of the country, Shuja Shah Durrani. Of course, this was utter nonsense as Durrani was overthrown way back in 1809 and had lived in exile in British India since then. Along with the 21,000 soldiers, an immense train of 38,000 camp followers and 30,000 camels, plus a large herd of cattle, followed. The arrogance of the British officers was in full sight, and one of them actually had a herd of 60 camels to carry his personal effects.
In March 1839, the British began to make it through the Bolan Pass, near the southern border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The pass was close to 1,800 meters, or 5,900 feet above sea level. They would make their way to the city of Kandahar on April 25, 1839, where they would make their encampment, waiting for some of the local crops to ripen. They would begin the next stage, which was the capture of the fortress of Ghazni. Unfortunately for the British, their leader, John Keane, left the siege engines behind in Kandahar. Despite the problems they encountered, one of which was a better-than-expected fortification of Ghazni, on July 23, 1839, the British-led forces captured the fortress. This victory led the British to make it to Kabul, where they enthroned Shuja Shah Durrani in August 1839, thirty years after his ouster. He would last for a brief three years as the head of Afghanistan.
Dost Mohammad would try again and again to recruit the various tribes of his country to join him in the revolt against the invading British but with mixed results. At one point in December, Mohammad, along with two of his sons, were put under house arrest and later treated as a prisoner. In the summer of 1840, he would escape captivity. The British offered him safe passage and a comfortable exile in India, but Mohammad refused, being quoted that he was “determined to conquer or fall in the attempt.”
Shuja Shah Durrani became increasingly unpopular as he spent a lot of time and effort seeking revenge against those who overthrew him. At one point, he executed 50 men who he thought were unloyal. That and his relationship with the British made him one of the most hated men in Afghanistan.
The British weren't always fighting their way through the country as they resorted to bribery to gain favor with the populace. It worked at first, but when they began to renege on their payments, things started to turn against them. Additionally, anger began to arise because of the fraternization between British soldiers and Afghan women. This, combined with several other factors, created explosive conditions that led to a popular uprising and out-and-out war beginning in 1841.
One thing that really irked the Afghan people was when the East India Company's first political officer, William Hay Macnaghten, allowed his soldiers to bring their families to Afghanistan to improve morale. This made the people think that the British would colonize their country, which they would not stand for.
The Afghans' problem was that they did not have a standing army. Their armed forces were all tied to the tribes to which they belonged, and there were ancient animosities between many of them. What the British had not counted on was that their mere presence and the way they behaved began to allow these divergent tribes to join together to defeat the invaders. Of course, the Russians viewed all of this in the background with amusement.
Things were about to change for the British in Afghanistan, though. In 1840, The Parwan Campaign took place between October and November. It was a result of Dost Mohammad Khan's rebellion against Shah Shuja and the British-backed regime. The Parwan campaign had over 13 battles and eventually ended in an Afghan victory. This forced Major-General Sir Robert Henry Sale to abandon the campaign and return to Kabul. It was the beginning of the end for the British in the First Anglo-Afghan War.
In a surprising turn of events, Dost Mohammad Khan, after a win against the British, decided that he had had enough. He decided to surrender after discovering several assassination plots against him by his Kohistani allies. After his stunning surrender, he was sent into exile in British India. However, this was not to last long. Following his exile, he would return to rule after his son, Wazir Akbar Khan, led a successful resistance that caused the British to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1842.
As I mentioned in the last episode, the withdrawal would be absolutely disastrous. In the race to reach Jalalabad, the British had 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers. While a treaty had been signed between the warring factions on January 1, 1842, it was not followed by either side, especially by the Afghans. Many of the tribes had not signed any agreement, so they were not bound by it. This would prove to be the death knell for those on the British side.
Over and over, the Afghans would attack the British withdrawal lines until few men and even fewer camp followers remained. Finally, on January 13, 1842, the end came. Here is an eyewitness account of the last stand, “The enemy, taking up their post on an opposite hill, marked off man after man, officer after officer, with unerring aim. Parties of Afghans rushed in an intervals to complete the work of extermination, but were as often driven back by that handful of Invincibles. At length, nearly all being wounded more or less, a final onset on the enemy sword in hand terminated the unequal struggle.”
As worldhistory.org puts it, “The retreat and destruction of an entire army was one of the worst military disasters in the history of the British Empire. Meanwhile, Shah Shuja was assassinated in April 1842. The British occupation of Afghanistan was at an end.”
Well, that brings us to the end of this episode. Join me next time when we wrap up the series on the Great Game. Just a reminder, if you want to send me a message, go to your favorite podcatcher, click on the link in the description, and tell me what you think about the podcast, both good and bad.
So, until next time, Dasvidania eh Spasiba za Vinyamineya.