Abdur Rahman Khan also known by his epithets, The Iron Amir, was Amir of Afghanistan from 1880 to his death in 1901. He is known for perpetrating the Hazara Genocide, but also uniting the country after years of internal fighting and negotiation of the Durand Line Agreement with British India.
European influence in Afghanistan has been present in the country since the Victorian era, when the competing imperial powers of Britain and Russia contested for control over Afghanistan as part of the Great Game.
The Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British and Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet. The two colonial empires used military interventions and diplomatic negotiations to acquire and redefine territories in Central and South Asia. Russia conquered Turkestan, and Britain expanded and set the borders of British colonial India. By the early 20th century, a line of independent states, tribes, and monarchies from the shore of the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Himalayas were made into protectorates and territories of the two empires.
The following events happened during 1921 in Afghanistan.
Sher Ali Khan was Amir of Afghanistan from 1863 to 1866 and from 1868 until his death in 1879. He was one of the sons of Dost Mohammed Khan, founder of the Barakzai dynasty in Afghanistan.
The Second Anglo-Afghan War was a military conflict fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the latter was ruled by Sher Ali Khan of the Barakzai dynasty, the son of former Emir Dost Mohammad Khan. The war was part of the Great Game between the British and Russian empires.
The Treaty of Gandamak officially ended the first phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The Afghan emir Mohammad Yaqub Khan ceded various frontier areas as well as Afghanistan's control of its foreign affairs to the British Raj.
The Provisional Government of India was a government-in-exile established in Kabul on December 1, 1915 by the Indian Independence Committee during World War I with support from the Central Powers. Its purpose was to enrol support from the Afghan Emir as well as Russia, China, and Japan for the Indian nationalist movement. Established at the conclusion of the Kabul Mission composed of members of the Berlin Committee, German and Turkish delegates, the provisional government was composed of Mahendra Pratap as President, Maulana Barkatullah as Prime Minister, Deobandi Maulavi Ubaidullah Sindhi as Home Minister, Deobandi Maulavi Bashir as Minister of War, and Champakraman Pillai as Foreign Minister. The provisional government found significant support from the internal administration of the Afghan government, although the Emir refused to declare open support, and ultimately, under British pressure it was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1919.
The following lists events that happened during 1902 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1904 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1919 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1923 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1925 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1929 in Afghanistan. The Afghan Civil War continued from the previous year.
The Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition, also known as the Kabul Mission, was a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan sent by the Central Powers in 1915–1916. The purpose was to encourage Afghanistan to declare full independence from the British Empire, enter World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and attack British India. The expedition was part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy, a series of Indo-German efforts to provoke a nationalist revolution in India. Nominally headed by the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap, the expedition was a joint operation of Germany and Turkey and was led by the German Army officers Oskar Niedermayer and Werner Otto von Hentig. Other participants included members of an Indian nationalist organisation called the Berlin Committee, including Maulavi Barkatullah and Chempakaraman Pillai, while the Turks were represented by Kazim Bey, a close confidante of Enver Pasha.
Mohammad Gul Khan Momand, was both a literary figure and a politician in Afghanistan. He also served as an Army Officer during Afghanistan's Independence war in 1919. He served numerous Government and Leadership positions including Home Minister of Afghanistan.
Relations between Afghanistan and Russia first emerged in the 19th century. At the time they were placed in the context of "The Great Game", Russian–British confrontations over Afghanistan from 1840 to 1907. The Soviet Union was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. On 28 February 1921, Afghanistan and the Soviet Russia signed a Friendship Treaty. The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan against the Basmachi movement in 1929 and 1930.
Bilateral relations of Afghanistan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland span a long and eventful history, dating back to the United Kingdom's Company rule in India, the British-Russian rivalry in Central Asia, and the border between modern Afghanistan and British India. There has been an Afghan embassy in London since 1922 though there was no accredited Afghan ambassador from 1981 to 2001.
In the 16th century, the Tsardom of Russia embarked on a campaign to expand the Russian frontier to the east. This effort continued until the 19th century under the Russian Empire, when the Imperial Russian Army succeeded in conquering all of Central Asia. The majority of this land became known as Russian Turkestan—the name "Turkestan" was used to refer to the area due to the fact that it was and is inhabited by Turkic peoples, excluding the Tajiks, who are an Iranian ethnicity. Upon witnessing Russia's absorption of the various Central Asian realms, the British Empire sought to reinforce India, triggering the Great Game, which ended when both sides eventually designated Afghanistan as a neutral buffer zone.
The Afghan Civil War was fought from 9 June 1863 to January 1869. It began as a result of Dost Mohammad Khan's death on 9 June 1863 and the subsequent power struggles among his sons. Dost Mohammad consolidated his power in the second half of his reign within his inner family. His sons were appointed governors of provinces and effectively acted autonomous from the central government. This would inevitably lead to his sons fighting for control after his death.
