The Great Game of Afghanistan

The Great Game of Afghanistan – The land of Afghanistan is a mesmerizing and mysterious barren land. A land where tribal culture and customs is fiercely followed. A land of few resources, which foreign powers have tried to occupy in history and paid the price in blood. The British did it in 1842 and the Russians in 1990.

On 13^th Jan 1842, a sentry at the British fort of Jalalabad (Current day Pak-Afghan border town - then part of British India) saw a wounded man riding on a half dead Horse. The man had a sword cut wound on his head and when enquired, he said he was Dr. William Brydon, Surgeon of the British Indian Expedition army in Afghanistan. When asked where the rest of the army was, he gave the legendary reply – “I am what is left of the army”. The single survivor from an army of 15,000.

Portrait of injured Brydon arriving at Jalalabad fort

In 1830s, the British were increasingly getting paranoid at the thought of Russia occupying Afghanistan. The Russian occupation would have brought them to the borders of India. The British could not afford losing India, the jewel in the British crown. The paranoia culminated in the British gov in India deciding to send an expeditionary force into Afghanistan on the pretext of it being misgoverned and replace the current ruler, Dost Mohammad with Shuja Shah (who had been in exile in India for 15 years). Dost Mohammad was keeping equal distance from the Russians and the British, but nevertheless was considered not favourable to British interests.

In 1839, a British force with 21,000 Indian soldiers started for Kabul. The British took Kabul without a fight and installed Shuja as the king. In subsequent months, the British settled in a cantonment like lifestyle, amazed at Afghan hospitality and peace prevailing. Slowly they started interfering in Afghan way of living, fraternizing with Afghan women, trying to do away with the feudal system of warlords. What the British did not realize was that the Afghans were very stringent in their way of life, customs and culture, and resented seeing a foreign army and ruler in their land. Shuja was perceived as an outsider, having spent most of his life in British captivity in India.

The subsequent growing dissent and rise of Afghan revolt suddenly after 3 years, is a long story to be captured in this blog.

The Afghans revolted with such ferocity in Nov 1839, that in Jan 1842, the British surrendered in Kabul and handed over their artillery to the Afghans in return for a promise of safe passage to Jalalabad, 90 miles from Kabul. As soon as the retreat started, the Afghans attacked 15000 force of soldiers and camp followers, with the same guns surrendered by the British earlier.

The brutal and continuous slaughter of men, women and children continued for the next 30 miles, by which only 40 men of the 15000 who started the retreat, remained alive. Finally the remaining soldiers took the last stand at Gandamak. Brydon and a few men had become separated from the main column before Gandamak and while the rest were killed one by one, he somehow managed to reach the fort of Jalalabad.

The British would later send an army of retribution, which would go on to raze Kabul to ground but having learnt their lesson, they would never occupy Afghanistan again, leaving the Afghans to decide their fate.

A portrait of the last stand at Gandamak

Note of Interest – 15 years after the Afghan massacre, Brydon was inside the Residency of Lucknow when it was sieged by the Indian mutineers in summer of 1857. The siege of Lucknow was the longest siege laid to a british garrison during India’s first war of independence (It lasted well into the 2^nd half of 1858). Brydon would survive the siege.

Two of the regiments from the Afghan campaign, the Poona Horse and the Bombay Sappers would go on to become legendary & decorated regiments in post-independent India, winning honours in India’s wars with Pakistan.

- Suyash Nigam