Major-General Sir William Nott was a British military officer of the Bengal Army, East India Company in British India.
The First Anglo-Afghan War was fought between the British Empire and the Emirate of Kabul from 1838 to 1842. The British initially successfully invaded the country taking sides in a succession dispute between emir Dost Mohammad (Barakzai) and former emir Shah Shujah (Durrani), whom they reinstalled upon occupying Kabul in August 1839. The main British Indian force occupied Kabul and endured harsh winters. The force and its camp followers were almost completely massacred during the 1842 retreat from Kabul.
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 Battle of Maiwand, fought on 27 July 1880, was one of the principal battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Under the leadership of Ayub Khan, the Afghan forces defeated a much smaller British force consisting of two brigades of British and Indian troops under Brigadier-General George Burrows, albeit at a high price: between 2,050 and 2,750 Afghan warriors were killed, and probably about 1,500 wounded. British and Indian forces suffered 969 soldiers killed and 177 wounded.
Major-General Sir Robert Henry Sale was a British Army officer who commanded the garrison of Jalalabad during the First Afghan War and was killed in action during the First Anglo-Sikh War.
Field Marshal Sir George Pollock, 1st Baronet was a British Indian Army officer. He first saw action at the Battle of Deeg and at the Siege of Bhurtpore during the Second Anglo-Maratha War before taking part in the Anglo-Nepalese War. He also commanded the British artillery at the Battle of Prome and at Bagan during the First Anglo-Burmese War. Following a disastrous retreat from Kabul in January 1842 during the First Anglo-Afghan War, the retreating forces became stranded at the small British garrison at Jalalabad and Pollock was appointed Commander of the Force sent to relieve the garrison: he advanced through the Khyber Pass and relieved the garrison in April 1842. He then set about an unauthorised but ultimately successful mission to rescue the British hostages who had been left behind in Kabul prior to the retreat. In 1844 the Pollock Medal was created to commemorate Pollock's achievements: this medal was to be awarded to the "best cadet of the season" at the Addiscombe Military Seminary.
Major-General William George Keith Elphinstone CB was an officer of the British Army during the 19th century.
The Battle of Kabul was part of a punitive campaign undertaken by the British against the Afghans following the disastrous retreat from Kabul. Two British and East India Company armies advanced on the Afghan capital from Kandahar and Jalalabad to avenge the complete annihilation of the British-Indian military-civilian column in January 1842. Having recovered prisoners captured during the retreat, the British demolished parts of Kabul before withdrawing to India. The action was the concluding engagement to the First Anglo-Afghan War.
The Battle of Kandahar, 1 September 1880, was the last major conflict of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The battle in southern Afghanistan was fought between the British forces under command of General Roberts and the Afghan forces led by Ayub Khan. It ended with a decisive British victory, having inflicted nearly 3,000 casualties in total on the routed Afghans.
William Brydon was a British doctor who was assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, famous for reportedly being the only member of an army of 4,500 men, plus 12,000 accompanying civilians, to reach safety in Jalalabad at the end of the long retreat from Kabul.
The Battle of Ghazni took place in the city of Ghazni in central Afghanistan on Tuesday, July 23, 1839, during the First Anglo-Afghan War.
The 1842 retreat from Kabul, also called the Massacre of Elphinstone's army in the First Anglo-Afghan War, was the retreat of the British and East India Company forces from Kabul. An uprising in Kabul forced the then-commander, Major-General William Elphinstone, to fall back to the British garrison at Jalalabad. As the army and its numerous dependents and camp followers began their march, it came under attack from Afghan tribesmen. Many in the column died of exposure, frostbite or starvation, or were killed during the fighting.
Robert Carey (1821–1883) was a Major-General in the British Army, and served as Colonel in the New Zealand Wars.
The Kelat-I-Ghilzie Medal is a campaign medal issued by the British East India Company, to the defenders of the fort at Kelat-I-Ghilzie during the First Anglo-Afghan War.
Sir James Talbot Airey was an officer of the British Army. He served during the First Anglo-Afghan War and the Crimean War, rising to the rank of general.
General Sir Richard England, was a British Army officer, born at Detroit, which was then part of Upper Canada. During the Napoleonic Wars he saw active service in Walcheren, Sicily, and at Waterloo, before commanding regiments and divisions in the Crimean War and in India.
Colonel John Shelton was an officer of the British Army who commanded the 44th Regiment of Foot during the First Anglo-Afghan War and was second-in-command to Major General Sir William Elphinstone. He was one of only a small number of British soldiers to survive the disastrous 1842 retreat from Kabul, in which a British army column of 4,500 men and 12,000 civilians was massacred by Afghan tribesmen as it attempted to march to Jalalabad. He was widely disliked as a tyrannical and ineffective commander whose failures led to the annihilation of his regiment and whose accidental death was cheered by his men, but he also had a deserved reputation for great physical bravery.
General Sir Thomas Willshire, 1st Baronet, was a British Army officer.
James Rattray was a soldier and artist, born in Daventry, Northamptonshire, England, who died at Dorundah, in the Ranchi Division, Nagpore, India. At the time of making his notable sketches he was a 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd Grenadiers, Bengal Army, serving in Afghanistan.
Brigadier General Thomas John Anquetil was an officer of the British Indian Army who was the last senior officer to command the ill-fated Army of the Indus force as it retreated from Kabul in the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842. His superiors during the campaign were Generals Sir William Elphinstone and John Shelton. Elphinstone and Shelton were captured and interned by the Afghan rebels, Anquetil on the other hand would die fighting with his force in the mountain passes between Kabul and Jalalabad. The British Army and East India Company would lose 4,500 men and 12,000 civilians, massacred by Afghan tribesmen loyal to the rebel leader Wazir Akbar Khan. Anquetil was said to have died ‘fighting hand to hand with the enemy’ near Jugdulluk, close to the Kabul pass.
Afghan insurgents
United Kingdom