- Also called:
- Afghan Wars
- Date:
- 1878 - 1880
- 1919
- 1839 - 1842
- Location:
- Afghanistan
- Ghaznī
- Kabul
- Kandahār
- Parwan
- Participants:
- Afghanistan
- India
- United Kingdom
- Context:
- British Empire
- British raj
Anglo-Afghan Wars
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What were the Anglo-Afghan Wars?
The Anglo-Afghan Wars were a series of three conflicts (1839–42, 1878–80, and 1919) between Great Britain and Afghanistan. Britain aimed to expand its control over Afghanistan and counter Russian influence in the region.
The First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42) began with Britain's invasion to restore Shah Shojāʿ to the throne, but Afghans resisted foreign occupation, leading to a British retreat and heavy losses. The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80) was triggered by growing Russian influence in Afghanistan. British forces invaded, and although they initially gained control, the war continued after the British envoy was murdered in Kabul. The Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919 resulted from Afghanistan declaring total independence from Britain. The war was brief, and Afghanistan gained the conduct of its own foreign affairs.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
Who fought in the Anglo-Afghan Wars?
The Anglo-Afghan Wars were a series of conflicts fought between Great Britain and Afghanistan during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Britain, seeking to extend its control over Afghanistan and counter Russian influence, engaged in three major wars:
- First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842): The British fought against Afghan forces.
- Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880): British forces invaded Afghanistan. The Afghan emir, Shir Ali Khan, fled, and the British occupied Kabul. Aftermath included battles between the British and the army of Ayub Khan.
- Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919): The Afghan army skirmished with the British Indian Army.
4 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
Why did the British and Afghans go to war?
The Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839–1919) involved Great Britain seeking to extend its control over Afghanistan and prevent Russian influence in the region.
First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842): The British invaded Afghanistan to prevent Russian expansion.
Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880): Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli aimed to counter Russia's growing influence. When Afghanistan admitted a Russian envoy but refused a British one, the British invaded.
Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919): Afghanistan declared total independence from Britain, leading to conflict. The war concluded with the Treaty of Rawalpindi, granting Afghanistan control over its foreign affairs.3 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
When did these wars take place?
The Anglo-Afghan Wars were a series of conflicts between Great Britain and Afghanistan during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The wars occurred during these periods:
* First Anglo-Afghan War: (1839–1842) The British invaded Afghanistan to restore Shah Shojāʿ to the throne but eventually withdrew due to fierce Afghan resistance.
* Second Anglo-Afghan War: (1878–1880) Triggered by growing Russian influence in Afghanistan, the British invaded again but faced setbacks despite initial victories.
* Third Anglo-Afghan War: (1919) This brief conflict resulted in Afghanistan gaining complete independence from British influence.3 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What were some major events that happened during these wars?
The Anglo-Afghan Wars were a series of conflicts in the 19th and early 20th centuries between the British and Afghan forces.
Key events include:
* First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842): British forces invaded Afghanistan to restore Shah Shojāʿ to the throne. Despite initial success, the Afghans resisted, leading to a disastrous retreat from Kabul in January 1842.
* Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880): Triggered by growing Russian influence in Afghanistan, the British invaded again. They occupied Kabul, and a treaty recognized Yaʿqūb Khan as emir. However, the murder of the British envoy in Kabul led to renewed conflict and British reoccupation.
* Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919): Afghanistan declared total independence from Britain, launching the war in May 1919. The Afghans gained control over their foreign affairs, and a peace treaty was signed in Rawalpindi in August 1919, recognizing Afghanistan's independence.3 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How did the Anglo-Afghan Wars change Afghanistan and British influence in the region?
The Anglo-Afghan Wars were three conflicts in which Great Britain sought to extend its control over Afghanistan and counter Russian influence.
The inconclusive Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919 led to Afghanistan gaining conduct of its own foreign affairs. A peace treaty recognizing Afghanistan's independence was signed with Britain in 1919 and amended in 1921.
The Second Anglo-Afghan War led to the delimitation of the Indo-Afghan border, known as the Durand Line, adding tribal territory to British India. The British created the North-West Frontier Province (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) in 1901 to administer the turbulent frontier region.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Anglo-Afghan Wars, three conflicts (1839–42; 1878–80; 1919) in which Great Britain, from its base in India, sought to extend its control over neighbouring Afghanistan and to oppose Russian influence there.
First Anglo-Afghan War
Following a protracted civil war that began in 1816, the Bārakzay clan became the ruling dynasty of Afghanistan, with its most powerful member, Dōst Moḥammad Khan, ascending the throne in 1826. With Great Britain and Russia maneuvering for influence in Afghanistan, Dōst Moḥammad was forced to balance his country between the two great powers. The British, feeling that Dōst Moḥammad was either hostile to them or unable to resist Russian penetration, moved to take a direct role in Afghan affairs. First they negotiated unsatisfactorily with Dōst Moḥammad, and then an invasion of Afghanistan was ordered by the governor-general of India, Lord Auckland, with the object of restoring exiled Afghan ruler Shah Shojāʿ to the throne.
In April 1839, after suffering great privations, the British army entered Kandahār, and Shojāʿ was then crowned shah. Ghazna (now Ghaznī) was captured the following July, and in August Shojāʿ was installed at Kabul. The Afghans, however, would tolerate neither a foreign occupation nor a king imposed on them by a foreign power, and insurrections broke out. Dōst Moḥammad—who had escaped first to Balkh and then to Bukhara, where he was arrested—escaped from prison and returned to Afghanistan to lead his partisans against the British. In a battle at Parwan on November 2, 1840, Dōst Moḥammad had the upper hand, but the next day he surrendered to the British in Kabul. He was deported to India with most of his family.
Outbreaks continued throughout the country, and the British eventually found their position untenable. Terms for their withdrawal were discussed with Akbar Khan, Dōst Moḥammad’s son, but Sir William Hay Macnaghten, the British political agent, was killed during a parley with the Afghans. On January 6, 1842, some 4,500 British and Indian troops, with 12,000 camp followers, marched out of Kabul. Bands of Afghans swarmed around them, and the retreat ended in a bloodbath. Shojāʿ was killed after the British left Kabul. Although in the summer of that same year British forces reoccupied Kabul, the new governor-general of India, Lord Ellenborough, decided on the evacuation of Afghanistan, and in 1843 Dōst Moḥammad returned to Kabul and was restored to the throne.
Second Anglo-Afghan War
In November 1875 British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli appointed Lord Lytton governor-general of India. Lytton during his service there was concerned primarily with India’s relations with Afghanistan. At the time of his appointment, Russian influence was growing in Afghanistan, and Lytton had orders to counteract it or to secure a strong frontier by force.
Soon after Lytton arrived in India, he notified Shīr ʿAlī Khan—the third son of Dōst Moḥammad, who succeeded to the throne upon his father’s death—that he was sending a “mission” to Kabul. When the emir refused Lytton permission to enter Afghanistan, Lytton bellicosely declaimed that Afghanistan was but “an earthen pipkin between two metal pots.” He did not, however, take action against the kingdom until 1878, when Russia’s General Stolyetov was admitted to Kabul while Lytton’s envoy, Sir Neville Chamberlain, was turned back at the border by Afghan troops.
Viceroy Lytton decided to crush his neighbouring “pipkin” and launched the Second Anglo-Afghan War on November 21, 1878, with a British invasion. Shīr ʿAlī fled his capital and country, dying in exile early in 1879. The British army occupied Kabul, as it had in the first war, and a treaty signed at Gandamak (Gandomak) on May 26, 1879, recognized Shīr ʿAlī’s son, Yaʿqūb Khan, as emir. He subsequently agreed to receive a permanent British embassy at Kabul. In addition, he agreed to conduct his foreign relations with other states in accordance “with the wishes and advice” of the British government.
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This British triumph was short-lived, however. On September 3, 1879, the British envoy, Sir Louis Cavagnari, and his escort were murdered in Kabul. British forces were again dispatched, and before the end of October they occupied Kabul. Yaʿqūb abdicated the throne, which remained vacant until July 1880, when ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, nephew of Shīr ʿAlī, became emir. During the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the boundaries of modern Afghanistan were drawn by the British and the Russians.
Third Anglo-Afghan War
With the outbreak of World War I (1914–18), there was in Afghanistan widespread support of Ottoman Turkey against the British. However, the ruler of Afghanistan at the time, Ḥabībullāh Khan, was able to maintain a policy of noninvolvement throughout the war. When Ḥabībullāh was assassinated on February 20, 1919, by persons associated with the anti-British movement, his son Amānullāh Khan took possession of the throne. At that time Britain still exercised an important influence on Afghan affairs. In his coronation address Amānullāh declared total independence from Great Britain. This declaration launched the inconclusive Third Anglo-Afghan War in May 1919.
Fighting was confined to a series of skirmishes between an ineffective Afghan army and a British Indian army exhausted from the heavy demands of World War I. Nevertheless, the monthlong war gained the Afghans the conduct of their own foreign affairs. A peace treaty recognizing the independence of Afghanistan was signed at Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan) on August 8, 1919, and was amended in 1921. Before signing the final document with the British, the Afghans concluded a treaty of friendship with the new Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union. Afghanistan thereby became one of the first states to recognize the Soviet government, and a “special relationship” evolved between the two governments that lasted until December 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan during the Afghan War.