Two British and East India Company armies forced through the Khyber Pass and advanced on the Afghan capital from Kandahar and Jalalabad to avenge the complete annihilation of the British-Indian military-civilian column in January 1842.

They arranged passage through Sindh for an army which invaded Afghanistan and restored the former ruler Shah Shuja Durrani, who had been deposed by Dost Mohammed thirty years earlier and who had been living as a pensioner in India.

They also agreed safe passage for supplies and reinforcements with Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Sikh Empire, in return for inducing Shah Shuja to formally cede the disputed region of Peshawar to him.

The ineffectual commander of the Kabul garrison, General William George Keith Elphinstone, failed to react to the uprising.

Here, a brigade of Bengal units commanded by Brigadier Wild, with a Sikh contingent, had made an ineffectual attempt to break through the Khyber Pass in late December 1841.

The Sikhs had deserted and the Bengal units were demoralised by cold, lack of clothing and rumours of the disaster to Elphinstone's army.

The captive General Elphinstone had sent orders to the other garrison commanders that they were to evacuate their positions under the terms of the capitulation he had agreed with Akbar Khan.

Nott and Sale ignored Elphinstone's order, but Colonel Thomas Palmer at Ghazni obeyed it, withdrawing from the easily defended citadel into vulnerable buildings in the city.

[4] Shah Shuja still held the fortress of Bala Hissar in Kabul and was attempting to bribe chiefs and tribes to his cause, although he was no longer supported by the British.

He even attempted to improve his standing within Afghanistan by demanding that the British comply with the terms Elphinstone had agreed with Akbar Khan.

The Afghans, under a chieftain named Mirza Ahmed, bypassed him and attacked the city, setting fire to a gate to gain entry.

After wavering for some weeks, Sale had led a sortie by the garrison of Jalalabad on 19 February, to capture grazing sheep to replenish his supplies of food.

After temporising for several weeks and secretly asking for British help from India, he reluctantly emerged from the Bala Hissar at the end of March to join the jihad proclaimed by Akbar Khan.

He ordered Nott and Pollock to retreat, arguing that once the British had evacuated Afghanistan, negotiations with Akbar Khan for the release of the hostages could proceed calmly.

After a sharp engagement on 13 September, they defeated some 15,000 tribesmen deployed by Akbar Khan at the Tezin Pass, and the way to Kabul was clear.

Instead, Pollock sent Qizilbashi irregular cavalry under Richmond Shakespeare (his Military Secretary) and infantry under Brigadier Sale to rescue them.

They found that when news of the Afghan defeats reached their guards, the hostages, including Sale's own wife, had negotiated their own release in return for payments.

Although the march was far better organised than Elphinstone's retreat, large numbers of stragglers were left behind to be rescued by the rearguard or abandoned to die.

Part of one division commanded by General McGaskill was ambushed near Ali Masjid at the narrowest point of the Khyber Pass on 3 November and destroyed.

He half-heartedly supported the Sikhs during the Second Anglo-Sikh War in return for a promise that Peshawar would be restored to Afghan rule, but the British never abandoned the city.

The supposed Somnath Gates which had been laboriously carried back to India were paraded through the country, but were declared to be fakes by Hindu scholars.