Ahmad Shāh Durrānī, also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī, was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is regarded as the founder of the modern Afghanistan. In July 1747, Ahmad Shah was appointed as King of the Afghans by a loya jirga in Kandahar, where he set up his capital. Primarily with the support of the Pashtun tribes, Ahmad Shah pushed east towards the Mughal and Maratha Empires of India, west towards the disintegrating Afsharid Empire of Iran, and north towards the Khanate of Bukhara of Turkestan. Within a few years, he extended his control from Khorasan in the west to North India in the east, and from the Amu Darya in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.
Emir Dost Mohammad Khan Barakzai, nicknamed the Amir-i Kabir, was the founder of the Barakzai dynasty and one of the prominent rulers of Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War. With the decline of the Durrani dynasty, he became the Emir of Afghanistan in 1826. He was the 11th son of Payendah Khan, chief of the Barakzai Pashtuns, who was killed in 1799 by King Zaman Shah Durrani.
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.
William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple is a Delhi-based Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, photographer, broadcaster and critic. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world's largest writers festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.
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.
Istālif is a village 29 kilometres (18 mi) northwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, situated at an elevation of 1,693 metres (5,554 ft) in the Shomali Plains, west of Kalakan and south-west of Bagram. It is the center of Istalif District, Kabul Province, Afghanistan. Istalif is famous for its handmade glazed potteries.
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 1842 retreat from Kabul 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.
The Battle of Jamrud was fought between the Emirate of Afghanistan under Emir Dost Mohammad Khan and the Sikh Empire under Maharaja Ranjit Singh on 30 April 1837. Afghan forces confronted the Sikh forces at Jamrud. The garrisoned army was able to hold off the Afghans till Sikh reinforcements arrived to relieve them.
Mir Masjidi Khan is one of many celebrated Afghan resistance leaders from Shamali Plain who opposed the installation of Shuja Shah Durrani as Emir of Afghanistan by the Government of British India during the First Anglo-Afghan War. He kept up a fierce struggle against the occupation forces in and around Kabul and Northern Afghanistan, until his death.
Jan Prosper Witkiewicz was a Lithuanian orientalist, explorer and diplomat in Russian service. He was a Russian agent in Kabul just before the First Anglo-Afghan War.
Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, written by the Scottish historian William Dalrymple and published in 2012, is an account of the First Anglo–Afghan War from 1839 to 1842.
The remnants of an army, Jellalabad (sic), January 13, 1842, better known as Remnants of an Army, is an 1879 oil-on-canvas painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler. It depicts William Brydon, assistant surgeon in the Bengal Army, arriving at the gates of Jalalabad in January 1842. The walls of Jalalabad loom over a desolate plain and riders from the garrison gallop from the gate to reach the solitary figure bringing the first word of the fate of the "Army of Afghanistan".
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.
Padshah Sultan Shah Shuja Durrani was ruler of the Durrani Empire from 1803 to 1809. He then ruled from 1839 until his death in 1842. Son of Timur Shah Durrani, Shuja Shah was of the Sadduzai line of the Abdali group of ethnic Pashtuns. He became the fifth King of the Durrani Empire.
The Battle of Nimla took place between June-July 1809, due to a conflict between Mahmud Shah Durrani and Shah Shuja Durrani over the succession for the Durrani throne. The battle resulted in a victory for Mahmud Shah and allowed him to secure the throne, where he reigned from 1809 to 1818. This was his second reign before he was deposed.
The Expedition of Shuja ul-Mulk took place between 28 January 1833 to July 1834. The expedition was led by Shah Shuja Durrani, the deposed Afghan Emperor who wished to re-claim his throne. Shah Shuja rallied forces while in exile in the Sikh Empire and marched through Sindh to Kandahar, besieging it. Shah Shuja would be defeated by the Barakzai rulers of Kandahar and Kabul.
The Kabul Uprisings was several uprisings led by the Kohistani Tajiks and their chiefs notably Mir Masjidi Khan and his brother Mir darwish Khan. It was one of the first major uprisings against the British during the first Anglo-afghan war and it resulted in a victory for the Kohistanis thus an Afghan victory
