European influence in Afghanistan

[citation needed] In 1834 Dost Mohammad defeated an invasion by the former ruler, Shuja Shah Durrani, but his absence from Kabul gave the Sikhs the opportunity to expand westward.

In 1836 Dost Mohammad's forces, under the command of his son Akbar Khan, defeated the Sikhs at the Battle of Jamrud, a post fifteen kilometres west of Peshawar.

The Great Game set in motion the confrontation of the British and Russian empires, whose spheres of influence moved steadily closer to one another until they met in Afghanistan.

The débâcle of the Afghan civil war left a vacuum in the Hindu Kush area that concerned the British, who were well aware of the many times in history it had been employed as an invasion route to South Asia.

In the early decades of the 19th century, it became clear to the British that the major threat to their interests in India would not come from the fragmented Afghan empire, the Iranians, or the French, but from the Russians, who had already begun a steady advance southward from the Caucasus winning decisive wars against the Ottomans and Persians.

The British viewed Russia's absorption of the Caucasus, the Kyrgyz and Turkmen lands, the Khanate of Khiva, and the Emirate of Bukhara with equal suspicion as a threat to their interests in the Indian subcontinent.

As a prelude to his invasion plans, the Governor-General of India Lord Auckland issued the Simla Manifesto in October 1838, setting forth the necessary reasons for British intervention in Afghanistan.

The forces from Kandahar and Jalalabad again defeated Akbar Khan, retook and sacked Ghazni and Kabul, rescuing the prisoners before withdrawing through the Khyber Pass.

In the years immediately following the First Anglo-Afghan War, and especially after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British in India, Liberal Party governments in London took a political view of Afghanistan as a buffer state.

The previous year the British had signed an agreement with the Russians in which the latter agreed to respect the northern boundaries of Afghanistan and to view the territories of the Afghan Emir as outside their sphere of influence.

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 in order to put a quick end to the conflict.

Ghazi Mohammad Jan Khan Wardak staged an uprising and attacked British forces near Kabul in the Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment in December 1879, but his defeat there resulted in the collapse of this rebellion.

Roberts then led the main British force from Kabul and decisively defeated Ayub Khan in September at the Battle of Kandahar, bringing his rebellion to an end.

He transplanted his most powerful Pashtun enemies, the Ghilzai, and other tribes from southern and south-central Afghanistan to areas north of the Hindu Kush with predominantly non-Pashtun populations.

Provincial governors had a great deal of power in local matters, and an army was placed at their disposal to enforce tax collection and suppress dissent.

Despite his distinctly authoritarian personality, Abdur Rahman called for a loya jirga, an assemblage of royal princes, important notables, and religious leaders.

According to his autobiography, Abdur Rahman had three goals: subjugating the tribes, extending government control through a strong, visible army, and reinforcing the power of the ruler and the royal family.

During his visit to Rawalpindi in 1885, the Amir requested the Viceroy of India to depute a Muslim Envoy to Kabul who was noble birth and of ruling family background.

The clearest manifestation that Abdur Rahman had established control in Afghanistan was the peaceful succession of his eldest son, Habibullah Khan, to the throne on his father's death in October 1901.

Although Abdur Rahman had fathered many children, he groomed Habibullah to succeed him, and he made it difficult for his other sons to contest the succession by keeping power from them and sequestering them in Kabul under his control.

Like all foreign policy developments of this period affecting Afghanistan, the conclusion of the "Great Game" between Russia and Britain occurred without the Afghan ruler's participation.

Habibullah did, however, entertain an Indo-German–Turkish mission in Kabul in 1915 that had as its titular head the Indian nationalist Mahendra Pratap and was led by Oskar Niedermayer and the German legate Werner Otto von Hentig.

Although his reign ended abruptly, he achieved some notable successes, and his efforts failed as much due to the centrifugal forces of tribal Afghanistan and the machinations of Russia and Britain as to any political folly on his part.

Amidst intrigue in the Afghan court, and political and civil unrest in India, he sought to divert attention from the internal divisions of Afghanistan and unite all faction behind him by attacking the British.

The troops that were stationed in India were mainly reserves and Territorials, who were awaiting demobilisation and keen to return to Britain, whilst the few regular regiments that were available were tired and depleted from five years of fighting.

As a counterbalance to deficiencies in manpower and morale, the British had a considerable advantage in terms of equipment, possessing machine guns, armoured cars, motor transport, wireless communications and aircraft and it was the latter that would prove decisive.

He wrote: "It is a matter of great regret that the throwing of bombs by zeppelins on London was denounced as a most savage act and the bombardment of places of worship and sacred spots was considered a most abominable operation.

[8] The fighting concluded in August 1919 and Britain virtually dictated the terms of the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919, a temporary armistice that provided, on one somewhat ambiguous interpretation, for Afghan self-determination in foreign affairs.

Mahmud Tarzi, a highly educated, well-traveled poet, journalist, and diplomat, was a key figure that brought Western dress and etiquette to Afghanistan.

King Amanullah was so impressed with the social progress of Europe that he tried to implement them right away, this met with heavy resistance from the conservative society and eventually led to his demise.