Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880): Maiwand and Kandahar

The Second Anglo-Afghan War was fought between British India and Afghanistan from November 1878 to September 1880. Britain invaded to block Russian influence in Kabul and won most of the battles, but suffered a heavy defeat at Maiwand and faced a widespread uprising. In the end it left Afghanistan, keeping control of the country’s foreign policy under a new amir.

Background: the Great Game

Throughout the nineteenth century Britain and Russia competed for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry known as the Great Game. Britain’s First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839 to 1842 had ended in a disastrous retreat from Kabul. In the following decades Russia advanced through Central Asia, taking Tashkent in 1865 and Samarkand in 1868.

In 1878, during the crisis that led to the Congress of Berlin, Russia sent a mission under General Stoletov to Kabul, where Amir Sher Ali Khan reluctantly received it in July. The Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, demanded that Afghanistan accept a British mission too. When the British envoy, General Sir Neville Chamberlain, was stopped at Ali Masjid in the Khyber Pass on 21 September 1878, Lytton issued an ultimatum.

The first campaign, 1878-1879

On 21 November 1878 three British-Indian columns invaded through the Khyber Pass, the Kurram valley and towards Kandahar. Frederick Roberts won a notable victory at Peiwar Kotal on 2 December. Sher Ali fled north, hoping in vain for Russian help, and died at Mazar-i-Sharif in February 1879.

His son Mohammad Yaqub Khan made peace. By the Treaty of Gandamak, signed on 26 May 1879, he accepted British control of Afghanistan’s foreign relations and a permanent British resident in Kabul, and handed over the Kurram valley, Pishin and Sibi districts and control of the Khyber Pass, in return for an annual subsidy.

Uprising in Kabul

The British resident, Sir Louis Cavagnari, arrived in Kabul in July 1879. On 3 September Afghan soldiers protesting over unpaid wages attacked the residency, and Cavagnari and his escort of the Corps of Guides were killed after a long defence. Roberts advanced on Kabul, defeated Afghan forces at Charasiab on 6 October and occupied the city. Yaqub Khan abdicated and was sent to India, and a number of Afghans accused of involvement in the attack were executed.

In December 1879 tribal forces rallied by religious leaders, including the elderly Mushk-i-Alam, besieged Roberts in the fortified Sherpur cantonment outside Kabul. Their assault on 23 December was beaten off, but the British controlled little beyond their camps. Looking for a ruler acceptable to Afghans, they turned to Abdur Rahman Khan, a nephew of Sher Ali who had returned from exile in Russian Central Asia; he was recognised as amir in July 1880.

Maiwand and the march to Kandahar

Meanwhile Ayub Khan, a son of Sher Ali and governor of Herat, marched on Kandahar. On 27 July 1880, near the village of Maiwand, his army, estimated at 12,000 to 25,000 regular troops and tribal fighters, met a brigade of about 2,500 British and Indian soldiers under Brigadier-General George Burrows. After hours of artillery fire and attacks, the brigade’s line broke. Nearly 1,000 British and Indian troops were killed, among them some 290 men of the 66th Regiment of Foot, while Afghan losses, though uncertain, were probably heavier.

The survivors retreated to Kandahar, which Ayub Khan besieged. Roberts set out from Kabul on 8 August with about 10,000 picked troops and covered roughly 300 miles in about three weeks, a march that made him a national hero. On 1 September 1880 he defeated Ayub Khan at the Battle of Kandahar.

Aftermath and legacy

In Britain the war had become controversial. Gladstone attacked the forward policy of Disraeli’s government in his Midlothian campaign, and the Liberals won the election of April 1880. The new government decided to withdraw, and the last British troops left Kandahar in April 1881. Abdur Rahman Khan, who ruled until 1901, defeated Ayub Khan in 1881 and built a strong central state, while Britain kept control of his foreign policy. The Durand Line of 1893 later fixed much of the border between Afghanistan and British India.

In Afghanistan, Maiwand is remembered as a great victory, and tradition credits a young woman, Malalai of Maiwand, with rallying the Afghan fighters. In Britain the Maiwand Lion in Reading, unveiled in 1886, commemorates the men of the 66th Regiment, and Arthur Conan Doyle made his Dr Watson a veteran wounded at Maiwand.

Timeline

• 1878, July: A Russian mission is received in Kabul.
• 1878, 21 September: The British mission is turned back at Ali Masjid.
• 1878, 21 November: British-Indian forces invade Afghanistan.
• 1879, 26 May: The Treaty of Gandamak is signed.
• 1879, 3 September: Cavagnari is killed in Kabul.
• 1879, 23 December: Afghan assault on the Sherpur cantonment is repulsed.
• 1880, 27 July: Battle of Maiwand.
• 1880, 1 September: Battle of Kandahar.

Why it matters

The Second Anglo-Afghan War showed again how hard it was for an outside power to hold Afghanistan, even after winning its battles. It fixed Afghanistan’s role as a buffer state between the British and Russian empires and left memories of Maiwand that still shape national identity in Afghanistan.