Foreword: In October 1842, the British Empire, which invaded Afghanistan for the first time, hastily ended the war after throwing tens of thousands of corpses outside Kabul, and soon after, the Afghan king Dost Mohammed, who was under house arrest in India, returned to Kabul and ascended the throne again, and Akbar Khan, who personally ended the 16,000 British expeditionary force, also successfully became the prime minister of his father, so under the deterrence of the two, the British Empire did not dare to fight Afghanistan for 36 years, and all this with the old king Dost Khan. The death of Muhammad changed for a moment.
1. Tragic King Hill Ali
In 1845, at the age of 29, Akbar Khan was poisoned by an Indian doctor, and on May 26, 1863, Dost Mohammed, who was fighting to the death against the Persians, also died of illness. Although the throne passed smoothly into the hands of Dost Muhammad's third son, Hill Ali, who simply did not have the power of his father and brother.
▲ Hill Ali
In fact, Hill Ali himself was a very contradictory monarch, although during his reign he vigorously reformed, formed a Western-style new army, set up a translation bureau, newspapers, etc., and repaired roads, which greatly promoted the exchange between Afghanistan and the West, and was known as a pioneer of Afghanistan's modernization. But in terms of governance, it was a mess, and brothers, nephews, and even sons coveted the throne and attacked Shir Ali one after another, and Afghanistan was in turmoil for a while. In September 1870, Shir Ali's son, Yaqub, was defeated in a power struggle and was placed under house arrest in Kabul, while his other son, Ayyub, went into exile in Persia, where he became governor of Herat, an important border town in Afghanistan.
▲ Hill Ali and his group of "well-behaved and sensible" sons and brothers
Fast forward to the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century, after conquering the three Central Asian countries, Russia quickly set its sights on Afghanistan again, and in 1874, after the British ruling party came to power, it also strongly advocated the invasion of Afghanistan, so Afghanistan once again became the gladiatorial arena of the two empires. In June 1878, Russia took the lead in sending a delegation to Kabul to negotiate an alliance with Afghanistan and provide asylum for Afghanistan.
▲ British Expeditionary Force
As a result, this move instantly detonated the British, who were unwilling to accept Afghanistan to fall to Tsarist Russia like this, and hurriedly sent a delegation to Kabul, but was stopped by Hill Ali on the way, so the angry British immediately decided to invade Afghanistan for the second time.
2. The menacing British army
As in the first invasion of Afghanistan, the British army easily occupied Kandahar, and then the British army in full swing went directly to Kabul, and Hill Ali, who was unable to resist, hurriedly asked Russia for help, but the Russians did not hesitate to betray Afghanistan and did not mobilize a single soldier in the face of the British invasion. The unwilling Hill Ali personally rushed to Russia to seek rescue, and when he left, he temporarily passed the throne to Yakub, who had been under house arrest for many years, but Hill Ali, who went to Russia, did not get his wish, because Russia did not want to have a showdown with the British in Afghanistan, and finally the physically and mentally exhausted Hill Ali died in despair, and his son Yakub inherited the throne.
▲ The Indian Legion in the British Army
The mess left by his father on the other side, Yakubu, who had just ascended to the throne, was unable to clean it up, and seeing that the British army had arrived in Kabul, Yakubu could only choose to surrender and become the puppet emperor of the British. After the second occupation of Afghanistan, the British Sir Carwagneri became the emperor of Afghanistan, and in order to completely control Afghanistan at one time, the British forced Yakub to sign the "Gandamak Treaty", here I excerpt several important articles:
1. The British government will maintain permanent peace with the king of Afghanistan, his heirs and his subjects.
2. Afghanistan will establish diplomatic relations with other countries according to the advice of the British, and the king of Afghanistan shall not be at war with foreign troops without the consent of the British, and the security of Afghanistan will be fully entrusted to the British, and the British will withdraw their troops immediately after repelling the invading forces in Afghanistan.
3. Britain will send a representative to Afghanistan and will send troops to defend British interests. In the event of an accident, the army will have the right to move throughout Afghanistan, including the border areas.
4. Kandahar, Jalalabad, Khurram, Bihin and other areas, as well as territories controlled by British troops, are under the protection and administrative control of the British government. The British retained control of the Khybor Pass and the Michni Fields between Peshawar and Jalalabad, as well as the disposition of relations between the independent tribes in the neighbouring areas.
▲ Afghan rebel army
In short, Afghanistan's diplomatic power, key areas, and important mountain passes into India were all controlled by the British, and when the treaty came out, Afghanistan was shocked and humiliated, and the sense of humiliation was no less than that of the people who learned of the "Treaty of Nanjing". As in the first invasion of Afghanistan, British rule in Afghanistan did not last long, and in 1879 the Afghans, whose standard of living had plummeted, launched a major uprising.
The rebels stormed the British delegation's office, and the Duke of Cavagnali and his guards were executed by the angry people, and the angry people soon welcomed the angry people in the places where the British gathered, such as machine factories, ammunition depots, and fortresses. The British commander Roberts immediately moved troops from all over the country, and only then did he barely hold on to Kabul.
▲ fierce Ayub
Yakubu, on the other hand, chose to turn a blind eye to the popular uprising, neither supported the rebel army nor helped the British army, and even found Roberts to ask for abdication after lying down, as if everything that happened in Afghanistan had nothing to do with him. The British, in desperation, had no choice but to choose Yakub's brother Rahman to become a new generation of puppet emperors under the intervention of Russia. In this way, the uprising in Afghanistan continued until July 1880, when Ayyub, who opposed the British rule, raised the banner of resistance and decided to make an expedition from Herat to Kabul to recover Afghanistan.
3. The Battle of Maivand
Ayyub received positive responses from various forces along the way after his expedition to Kandahar, and for a time Ayyub's team expanded to more than 12,000 people. Brigadier General Roberts, who received the news, immediately sent a brigade of about 2,500 British troops to volley. One might say 12,000 against 2,500, and Afghans can win with their eyes closed. For details, please refer to the Battle of Bali Bridge, where the British and French forces pushed down the 30,000 Mongol cavalry of Seng Lingqin with 5 casualties. Moreover, there were more than 4,500 Buraku in Ayyub's ranks, most of whom were not even soldiers, but only guerrillas.
▲ British troops in formation
On July 26, 1880, the two sides met in the village of Maiwand, near Kandahar, and the battle broke out, when the British sent artillery to bombard the Afghan troops that came within range.
Three hours later, the Afghan soldiers began to attack, the British army was on the defensive, and it was not long before the Afghan cavalry appeared on the left flank of the British army, and the British army urgently sent two rifle companies to support the Indian infantry on the left flank.
▲ The Battle of Maivand
Then there was confusion on the right flank of the British army, and the cavalry on the left flank attacked frantically, and the rifle company also ran out of ammunition due to the long shooting, and soon withdrew from the battle, as a result, the Indian infantry on the left flank watched the British withdraw, and their morale instantly fell into a trough. Seeing that the situation of the battle was unfavorable, the British commander hurriedly sent cavalry to charge the Afghans, but the cavalry charge could not turn the tide of the battle, so the British army began a great rout, and the rout was so hasty that even the Royal Cavalry artillery could only leave part of the artillery in place.
▲ The British Royal Cavalry artillery who retreated frantically
The British troops who fled along the way were chased and killed by Afghan soldiers one after another, and some British troops even left seriously wounded in order to flee for their lives. It is said that John Watson, the assistant in the Sherlock Holmes series, was wounded in the Battle of McWant, and then chased around by the Afghan rebels, but fortunately a soldier threw him on horseback, and John Watson saved his life and became Holmes's assistant after returning home.
▲ Sherlock Holmes and Watson, in the novel, Zhongsheng is a wounded soldier who retired from McWonder
Conclusion: In the Battle of McWant, if the British army had not run fast and reinforcements had arrived in time, all of these 2,500 people would have to be accounted for. After this battle, the British army, who had seen the mountain combat ability of the Afghans, hurriedly began to recruit Sikhs and Nepalese who were equally strong in mountain combat ability, which showed that they were really scared.
▲ Rahman
Unfortunately, although Ayyub eventually surrounded Kandahar, the Afghan rebels were defeated with the support of tens of thousands of soldiers led by Roberts himself. The British, realizing that they could not stand on their feet in an uninterrupted uprising, approached King Rahman to negotiate, saying that as long as Rahman accepted the Treaty of Gandamak, the British would withdraw their troops and give Rahman a sum of money every year, but Rahman, who had no resistance, agreed to the British proposal, and soon the British withdrew from Afghanistan in full, but diplomatic power and important areas were still firmly controlled by the British.
▲Comparison of the territory of Afghanistan before and after the Second Afghan War of Resistance against Britain, World War I directly turned Afghanistan into a landlocked country
After the British left, Ayyub took advantage of the situation to occupy Kandahar, and Rahman, who played soy sauce throughout the whole process, was considered to have come to the spirit, and immediately took advantage of the Ayub expedition to Kandahar, sent troops to occupy Ayyub's old nest Herat, and then defeated the sleepy Ayub in Kandahar to consolidate his throne and gladly became a vassal of the British.