For much of the 19th century, there was an impression that the next ‘great war’ would be fought between Russia and Britain. Such a war would not be fought over hegemony in Europe, however, but over influence in Central Asia. This expectation of conflict was ultimately the product of Russian encroachment into Afghanistan and Persia, a move that ignited British paranoia over the security of ‘the jewel in the crown’ of its empire, India. Although this rivalry, dubbed “The Great Game” by a British officer, never culminated in a direct war between the two powers, both Britain and Russia continuously machinated to gain dominance over the other’s sphere of influence in Asia for over a century.
In spite of the fear politicians in London held of Russia’s southward expansion, the belief that this represented an attempt to invade India was unfounded. Although the Russian Empire had undertaken the rapid expansion of its borders into swathes of territory to the south of Siberia throughout the early 19th century, Russian forces would never attempt to carry out an invasion of British India. In reality, this British mistrust of Russian intentions was fundamentally the result of the interplay of existing ideological differences and Russian actions that seemed to confirm British suspicions.
The inherent conflict between the systems of democracy and autocracy strained relations between the two empires, with the maintenance of the tradition of absolute monarchy being integral to every Russian policy at the time. By contrast, the British claimed to be promoting the values of liberal democracy in the expansion of their empire. However, it was a threat to trade, not democracy, that was the impetus for the first British attempt to fend off Russian encroachment.
In 1838, the colony of India was the property of the East India Company, which feared the growing instability in Afghanistan, viewing it as a potential opportunity for a Russian invasion. Afghanistan was in civil war while foreign armies simultaneously invaded from Persia and Punjab. Thus, the company aimed to establish British influence in Afghanistan in order to create a buffer that would protect British trade from the Russian threat. To achieve this, the company would need to pick a side in the conflict.
Afghanistan’s emir, Dost Mohammad Khan, planned to form an alliance with Britain, which had the power to force Sikh armies to relinquish territories conquered by the Maharaja of Punjab, Ranjit Singh. However, Dost Mohammad’s plan soon crumbled once a British diplomat reported that the emir was in talks with the Russian Empire at the same time. Unfortunately for Dost Mohammad, he had only initiated negotiations with Russia as a method of scaring Britain into accepting an alliance, so negotiations with Russia also fell through. Therefore, once the British delegation left Kabul, Dost Mohammad was left without an alliance with either Russia or Britain.
To make matters worse, the Russians took to backing Qajar Persia, which was attempting to reclaim Herat, a city at the heart of a plain that acted as Afghanistan’s largest source of grain. As a result, the British committed to responding to this growing Russian influence. On 1 October 1838, the East India Company decided to support the return of Shuja Shah Durrani to power, a cruel and unpopular previous ruler of Afghanistan. In the Simla Declaration, Lord Auckland additionally declared his support for Punjab in its war with Afghanistan and announced British military intervention in Afghanistan to drive out the Persian invaders and replace Dost Mohammad with Shuja Shah.
At this point, however, the Qajar siege on the city of Herat had broken, with any potential Russian influence in Afghanistan leaving along with the Persian army. Despite this, Lord Auckland still pursued his aim of placing Afghanistan under British control. Therefore, on 25 November 1838, Auckland assembled the ‘Grand Army of the Indus’, consisting of Ranjit Singh’s Sikh army, named the Dal Khalsa, and the East India Company’s sepoys.
In December, this 21,000-man army set off into Afghanistan, followed by an immense train of camels and servants. Throughout the spring and summer of 1839, the ‘Grand Army’ gradually marched closer to Kabul, capturing the key fortress of Ghazni. The army’s journey to Kabul was met with relatively little resistance, owing to how Dost Mohammad’s forces were away quelling a Tajik uprising in the East. In fact, the British-backed claimant to the throne, Shah Shuja, was crowned emir of Afghanistan that autumn, with the city of Kabul falling into combined British and Sikh control without resistance. The previous emir of Afghanistan, Dost Mohammad, entered into exile.
Lord Auckland’s plan had been a success, but this was soon to change. The British aim in initiating the First Anglo-Afghan War was to instate Shah Shuja as the ruler of Afghanistan, which could act as a crucial ally in the region and a barrier between the British and Russian empires. This plan, however, hinged on Shah Shuja’s ability to continue his reign in Afghanistan. Auckland’s crucial mistake was that he entirely overestimated the people of Afghanistan’s support or even recognition of Shah Shuja as king. It had been 30 years since his last reign, and he had become infamous for his almost maniacal cruelty.
Widespread efforts of resistance against the rule of Shah Shuja began almost immediately. Dost Mohammad returned to Afghanistan in the summer of 1840 after being briefly imprisoned by the ruler of neighbouring Bukhara. However, despite the initial success of Dost Mohammad’s resistance, which won a victory over British forces in the Parwan Campaign, he would eventually surrender to British forces.
Satisfied that Shuja could continue his rule without such extensive British military involvement, the majority of the ‘Grand Army’ returned to India. The remaining British delegation in Kabul was placed under the command of an East India Company officer named William Hay Macnaghten. British officers bought houses in Kabul, bringing their families into the country, contributing to further popular hatred of Shuja and the British in Afghanistan.
This discontent erupted into violence in November 1841. After a gathering of local chiefs and even some of Shuja’s own ministers on the night of 1 November, a Jihad was declared against the new emir of Afghanistan. Shuja’s supporters were massacred the following morning, with Dost Mohammad’s son, Akbar Khan, ordering the execution of Macnaghten personally.
Realising that there was no hope in maintaining control of Afghanistan, British forces under the command of Major-General Elphinstone began to retreat back to India. Despite Akbar Khan’s supposed promise of a safe exodus out of Afghanistan, the British column of 16,500 soldiers and civilians was mercilessly slaughtered in the mountains by tribesmen. Only a single British soldier and a couple of sepoys reached the column’s original destination of Jalalabad.
The annihilation of Elphinstone’s army triggered a new British expedition to Kabul in 1842; this time the motive was revenge instead of an attempt to swing “The Great Game” in their favour. The British expedition advanced rapidly, capturing Kabul in September, just a month after the expedition set out. The campaign was intended to be punitive, with the brutal sackings of Kabul and Charikar reflecting how enraged the soldiers in ‘the Army of Retribution’ were at the massacre earlier that year.
The expedition left Afghanistan later that year, and Dost Mohammad was allowed to resume his rule. The First Anglo-Afghan War had been an unmitigated disaster. What had begun as an attempt to protect British interests from an imagined Russian threat had devolved into a campaign of senseless revenge. With British losses exceeding 40,000 soldiers and civilians, the war was undoubtedly one of Britain’s most humiliating defeats in the century.
The failure to turn Afghanistan into a puppet state demonstrated that the “Great Game” could not be won by the British. It was Britain’s first major conflict in the “Great Game”, and it demonstrated the effect of the exaggeration of the Russian threat. If Britain was unable to hold Afghanistan for a year, how could politicians in London reasonably expect Russia to achieve the logistical impossibility of an invasion of India through Afghanistan? Regardless, playing the “Great Game” would continue to be a crucial aspect of British foreign policy for the remainder of the 19th century.
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Rezun, M. (1986). The Great Game Revisited. International Journal, 41(2), 324–341. https://doi.org/10.2307/40202372