In
the late 1840's, two wars were fought against the Sikhs native
to the Punjab territory. Ranjit Singh's death left a power
vacuum, and the Sikhs fought among themselves for control of the
empire. However, both wars were costly to the British.
Sikh warriors fought bravely, the Khalsa army being almost a
match man-for-man to the better equpped and trained British, who
often outnumbered their foes by 3 to 1. Many British war
historians nominate the Sikh as the most 'respected' foreign enemy the
British ever fought against. Finally, after two wars, the Sikh
kingdom was overpowered by the unrelenting British, and the
Punjab became a part of British India. One of the spoils of the
conflict was the Koh-i-noor diamond
which, after nearly being
lost by an officer charged with its safekeeping, was sent to London and became
part of the British Crown Jewels. Perhaps the story of the two
Sikh Wars will become part of this website eventually, but for
now I will move to the Second Anglo-Afhan War, as promised.
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During the latter half of the 19th century, Russian
expansion southward in to the Central Asia states bordering her
had nearly completed. By 1873, they had overrun Tashkent,
Samarkand, and finally, the Khanate of Khiva This expansion of
course greatly alarmed British India, despite the assurances
from St Petersburg that they were not interested in the lands
beyond the Oxus. Several thousand Russian slaves had been
liberated from their Asiatic prisons, so it was not difficult to
give them a slight benefit of the doubt. In the years since
the first British foray in to Afghanistan, alliances had been
formed and broken between the Ottoman Empire, Persia, England,
France, Russia, and most of the various combinations
thereof. Rarely were the subjects of the lands they
claimed suzerainty over consulted before they found themselves,
however temporarily, under new masters.
In Afghanistan, old Dost Mohammed, restored to the throne
after the first British disaster, had died in 1863. Oddly
enough, he ended up being 'friendly" to British India almost
more than any other potentate of the time. During the Sepoy
Rebellion of 1857 in India, he remained firmly neutral, and
offered no support to the natives short-lived uprising. This was
a god-send to the British, since armed Afghan support of the
rebels could have been disastrous to the Raj. Although the
revolt did not have widespread support throughout India, there
was enough violence and bloodshed in the northern areas around
Delhi to have made Calcutta shiver at the thought of Afghan
mujahadeen swarming across the Khyber.
After the revolt was put down, with ferocity and bloodthirst
being shown by both sides, London decided that India was too
important to trust to the East India Company, and the Crown took
a much more active and far-reaching hand in Indian affairs. One
has to remember that even at its peak, British population in
India was rarely over a million, while 100 times that many
natives occupied the land. The British government now controlled
India, and had a much more day-to-day influence on what went on.
In Kabul, after Dost Mohammed's death, of surprisingly
natural causes, his sons fought over the throne. Sher Ali,
then Mohammed Afzal Khan, then Mohammed Azam Khan, and
finally Sher Ali again, who managed to hold onto it for a
while. Sher Ali. One of the things for which Amir
Sher Ali became known was his attempt to build a formal Afghan
army. Looking with envy at the well-trained, well-equipped
Russian and British military, he attempted a program of forced
conscription among the tribes scattered around his area of
influence.
Sher Ali (center) surrounded by court officials, tribal leaders,
and sons, 1869
Despite their individual war-like nature and seeming love of
conflict, this did not go over well with many, especially the
fiercely independent Pathan tribes of the Khyber. Many of the
draftees were instead supplied by northern tribes such as the
Hazara, Ghilzai, Uzbek and Tadjik. Even these tribes did
not send their best men, of course, but Ali persisted, and
within a few years nearly 50,000 men were armed and had some
training, albeit rudimentary. A large cantonment and armory was
constructed at Sherpur outside of Kabul for the rifles and few
artillery pieces he collected. Like most canny Afghan leaders,
he cleverly rationed the ammunition available to his army in a
Barney Fife-like manner.
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