[29] Before the fortress, the British were attacked by a force of the Ghilji tribesmen fighting under the banner of jihad who were desperate to kill farangis, a pejorative Pashtun term for the British and were beaten off. All the honours awarded for this war are considered to be non-repugnant. [14] The British denied that they were invading Afghanistan, claiming they were merely supporting its "legitimate" Shuja government "against foreign interference and factious opposition. The departing British contingent numbered around 16,500, of which about 4,500 were military personnel, and over 12,000 were camp followers. A new Amir - Abdur Rahman Khan selected by the British, ratified and confirmed the Gandamak treaty once more. [53] In a flammable situation, the spark was provided unintentionally by Burnes. "[69] Lady Sale took a bullet in her wrist while she had to watch as her son-in-law Sturt had "...his horse was shot out from him and before he could rise from the ground he received a severe wound in the abdomen". Le livre s'achève sur la chute de Bala Hissar à Kaboul, et le massacre des Britanniques et de leurs auxiliaires après d'âpres combats (presque tous les détails sont tirés de sources d'époque) ; le héros et sa femme s'enfuient à cheval vers l'Himalaya. Encyclopædia Britannica. The Afghans resented the British presence and the rule of Shah Shuja. On 10 October 1841, the Ghazis in a night raid defeated the Thirty-fifth Native Infantry, but were defeated the next day by the Thirteenth Light Infantry. [18], Major General Sir Frederick Roberts led the Kabul Field Force over the Shutargardan Pass into central Afghanistan, defeated the Afghan Army at Charasiab on 6 October 1879, and occupied Kabul two days later. "Retreat From Kabul: The Catastrophic Defeat In Afghanistan, 1842". Yaqub Khan, suspected of complicity in the massacre of Cavagnari and his staff, was obliged to abdicate. [25] The commander in India, Sir Henry Fane chose the regiments by drawing lots, which led to the best British regiment, the Third Foot, being excluded while the worst, the Thirteenth Light Infantry were included in the Grand Army of the Indus. [79] The Afghans took only 9 prisoners and killed the rest. Russian control then extended as far as the northern bank of the Amu Darya. [42] The East India Company's second political officer Sir Alexander Burnes was especially noted for his insatiable womanizing, settling an example ardently imitated by his men. Shir Ali Khan, l’émir d’Afghanistan, tenta sans succès de faire arrêter les émissaires russes, mais ils arrivèrent à Kaboul le 22 juillet 1878. On November 12, 1893, the Durand Line Agreement was reached. The British formed a square and defeated the first couple of the Afghan attacks, "driving the Afghans several times down the hill" before running out of ammunition. [64] Five days later, the withdrawal began. Pour la seconde fois, le Raj britannique envahit lAfghanistan. Lord Lytton, vice-roi des Indes, dépêcha néanmoins une mission diplomatique à Kaboul en septembre 1878, mais les émissaires britanniques furent interceptés alors qu'ils s’approchaient de l'entrée orientale du défilé de Khaïber, ce qui déclencha la deuxième guerre anglo-afghane. Ghazni was well-supplied, which eased the further advance considerably. [39] 'Ata wrote: "Burnes was especially shameless. The Pashtun tribesmen had no military training, but the ferociously warlike Pashtuns were forever fighting each other, when not being called up for service for the tribal levy by the Emir, meaning most Pashtun men had at least some experience of warfare. One Afghan nobleman Mirza 'Ata wrote: "The English drank the wine of shameless immodesty, forgetting that any act has its consequences and rewards-so that after a while, the spring garden of the King's regime was blighted by the autumn of these ugly events...The nobles complained to each other, "Day by day, we are exposed, because of the English, to deceit and lies and shame. Scholars now favour a different interpretation that the fear of the East India Company was in fact the decision of Dost Mohammed Khan and the QQajar Ruler of Iran to form an alliance and extinguish Sikh rule in Punjab. A Kashmiri slave girl who belonged to a Pashtun chief Abdullah Khan Achakzai living in Kabul ran away to Burnes's house. [60] The mob smashed in to Burnes's house, where he, his brother Charles, their wives and children, several aides and the sepoys were all torn to pieces. Cette technique d'exécution aurait été une « spécialité » des femmes de la tribu pachtoune des Afridi[17],[18]. [15] He returned to Mazar-i-Sharif, where he died on 21 February 1879. Yaqub Khan, suspect de complicité dans le massacre de Cavagnari et de ses hommes, fut contraint d'abdiquer. [16], With British forces occupying much of the country, Sher Ali's son and successor, Mohammad Yaqub Khan, signed the Treaty of Gandamak in May 1879 to prevent a British invasion of the rest of the country. Les captifs britanniques étaient attachés sur le sol et leur bouche maintenue entrouverte par un bâton ou un morceau de bois ; les femmes pachtounes urinaient à tour de rôle jusqu'à l'asphyxie du condamné[11],[12],[13],[14],[15],[16]. Le ghazi Mohammad Jan Khan Wardak organisa la résistance et attaqua l'armée britannique au camp de Sherpur, près de Kaboul, en décembre 1879 : ce fut un échec cuisant. [41] Afghanistan was such a desperately poor country that even the salary of a British private was considered to be a small fortune, and many Afghan women willingly become prostitutes as an easy way to get rich, much to the intense fury of their menfolk. The war was part of the Great Game between the British and Russian empires. [48], By this time, the British had vacated the fortress of Bala Hissar and relocated to a cantonment built to the northeast of Kabul. [72], On 9 January 1842, Akbar sent out a messenger saying he was willing to take all of the British women as hostages, giving his word that they would not be harmed, and said that otherwise his tribesmen would show no mercy and kill all the women and children. On 13 November 1839, while en route to India, the Bombay column of the British Indian Army attacked, as a form of reprisal, the Baloch tribal fortress of Kalat,[34] from where Baloch tribes had harassed and attacked British convoys during the move towards the Bolan Pass. When the British and Indian soldiers had withdrawn, the Afghans agreed to let the British attain all of their geopolitical objectives, as well as create a buffer between the British Raj and the Russian Empire. [52] Macnaughten did not take the threat seriously at first, writing to Henry Rawlinson in Kandahar on 7 October 1841: "The Eastern Ghilzyes are kicking up a row about some deductions which have been made from their pay.