Sir Alexander Burnes was an English soldier. He was born in 1805 at Montrose and died in 1841. He studied at the academy at Montrose, and having obtained a cadet-ship in the Indian army arrived at Bombay in 1821. His promotion was rapid, and in 1832 he was sent on a mission to Central Asia, and visited Afghanistan, Bokhara, Merv, etc, returning by way of Persia. He was then sent to England, and published his travels, which were read with a kind of enthusiasm. In 1839 he was appointed political agent at Kabul. Here, in 1841, he was murdered on the breaking out of an insurrection. Research Alexander Burnes
Baber was the founder of the Mogul dynasty which ruled northern India for 300 years. He was born in 1483 and died in 1530. He was a grandson of the great Tartar prince Timur or Tamerlane, and was sovereign of Kabul. He several times invaded Hindustan, and in 1525 finally overthrew and killed Sultan Ibrahim, the last Hindu emperor of the Patan or Afghan race. He made many improvements, social and political, in his empire, and left a valuable autobiography. Research Baber
The Ghilzai are a Pathan tribe of south-east and north-west Afghanistan. They are a stalwart race of shepherds and farmers. In the retreat from Kabul in 1842 they hovered on the flanks of the British force and almost completed its annihilation. Research Ghilzai
Sir Henry Havelock was a British soldier. He was born in 1795 at Bishop-Wearmouth, near Sunderland and died in 1857 of dysentry. Having entered the army, he served with distinction in the Burmese war of 1824 to 1826. In 1829 he married a daughter of Marshman, the celebrated missionary, became a Baptist, and was noted during the remainder of his life by his earnest religious zeal. He attained his captaincy in 1838, participated in the Afghan war, was present at the storming of Ghazni and the capture of Kabul, and in Sale's march to Jelalabad, and assisted in the defence of that city, and in the defeat of Mohammed Akbar in 1843.
He was made a Companion of the Bath, and brevet-major, took part in the Mahratta war, and distinguished himself in the Sikh war of 1845, being present at Mudki, Ferozeshah, and Sobraon. In 1851 he was promoted to the adjutant-generalship of the queen's forces in India, and he commanded a division in the Persian war of 1856 to 1857. On the outbreak of the Indian mutiny he was despatched to Allahabad in order to support Sir H. Lawrence at Lucknow and Sir H. Wheeler at Cawnpore. On his march to Cawnpore he defeated the rebels at Fattihpur, Aong, Pandunadi, and Maharajpur. On arriving at Cawnpore he found that Nana Sahib had massacred the prisoners. Pursuing his march to Lucknow, he defeated the rebels at Bithoor, and finally, with the aid of Outram, won the battle of Alumbagh. Having captured Lucknow, Henry Havelock and Outram were shut up there until relieved by Sir Colin Campbell on the 17th of November 1857. He died of dysentery at Dilkusha on the 24th. He was raised to the rank of major-general, made a K.C.B., and (before his death was known) created a baronet. Research Henry Havelock
The Taleban (Taliban) are a group of fundamentalist Pashtun Muslims trained in Pakistani religious schools and former American trained and funded Islamic fighters (mujahedin) from the Afghan civil war (in which the USSR supported the Communist government, and the USA the Islamic terrorists who sought to other throw it). The group became known to the world when they were appointed by the Pakistani government to protect a convoy trying to open up a trade route between Pakistan and Central Asia. In addition the group captured the nearby city of Kandahar, beginning a remarkable advance which led to their capture of the capital, Kabul, in September 1996. The
Taleban claimed that their aim was to set up the world's most pure Islamic state, banning frivolities like television, music and cinema, and imposing severe fundamentalist Islamic laws including execution for even minor crimes, banning girls from school and women from hospital, from the areas of Afghanistan they controlled - 90% at the time of American led attacks on them in 2001. Research Taleban
The First Anglo-Afghan War took place between 1838 and 1842 when the British invaded Afghanistan from India, deposed the Afghan ruler Dost Muhammad and installed their own puppet ruler. A rebellion against the British broke out in 1841 which forced their retreat from Kabul, and ended in a massacre of British troops in 1842. Dost Muhammad was restored in 1842.
The Second Anglo- Afghan War took place from 1878 to 1880 between Britain and Afghanistan. Concerned about Russia's increasing influence in Afghanistan, the British again invaded from India and in 1879 forced the Afghan ruler to accept the Treaty of Gandamak. A rebellion against the British broke out on September the 3rd 1879. A new emir quelled the rebellion and, though he did not challenge the 1879 treaty, he continued to counter British influence by befriending Russia.
The Third Anglo-Afghan War took place between May the 10th and August the 8th 1919 when the Afghans attempted to invade British India. Hoping to end British influence in Afghanistan, Afghan emir Amanullah launched a religious war. His plan to provoke Muslims in India to an uprising against the British failed, and his forces were soon forced out of India. Amanullah succeeded, however, in negotiating the Treaty of Rawalpindi on August the 8th, by which the British recognised Afghan independence. Research Anglo-Afghan Wars
The Battle of Jellalabad was an Afghan siege in 1841 of an isolated British outpost at Jellalabad (now Jalalabad). The siege was lifted after five months when a British counterattack routed the Afghans, driving them back to Kabul. The outpost was little more than a wide place in the road with a fort, held by about 2,000 troops under General Sir Robert Sale. After the massacre of the British force in Kabul, Jellallabad was surrounded by Afghan forces which launched a series of attacks on the force. The British managed to beat off the assaults, and even captured 300 sheep from the besieging force when rations ran short. Eventually, after five months under siege, Sale mounted an attack against the Afghan forces, captured their main camp, baggage, stores, guns, and horses and the Afghans fled to Kabul. Research Battle of Jellalabad
Afghanistan is a country in Asia. It has a total area of 647,500 km2 and a land area of 647,500 km2. The climate is extremely cold in the higher, and intensely hot in the lower regions, yet on the whole it is salubrious. The most common trees are pines, oaks, birch, and walnut. In the valleys fruits, in the greatest variety and abundance, grow wild. The principal crops are wheat, forming the traditional staple food of the people; barley,rice, and maize. Other traditional crops were tobacco, sugar-cane, and cotton, though since the 20th century opium has become a major crop.
Afghanistan consists chiefly of lofty, bare, uninhabited table-lands, sandy barren plains, ranges of snow-covered mountains, offsets of the Hindu Kush or the Himalayas, and deep ravines and valleys. Many of the last are well watered and very fertile, but about four-fifths of the whole surface is rocky, mountainous, and unproductive. The surface on the north-east is covered with lofty ranges belonging to the Hindu Kush, whose heights are often 18,000 and sometimes reach perhaps 25,000 feet. The whole north-eastern portion of the country has a general elevation of over 6000 feet; but towards the south-west, in which direction the principal mountain chains of the interior run, the general elevation declines to not more than 1600 feet. In the interior the mountains sometimes reach the height of 15,000 ft. G-reat part of the frontier towards India consists of the Suleiman range, 12,000 feet high. There are numerous practicable avenues of communication between Afghanistan and India, among the most extensively used being the famous Khyber Pass, by which the river Cabul enters the Punjab; the Gomul Pass, also leading to the Punjab; and the Bolan Pass on the south, through which the route passes to Sind.
Natural resources include opium, natural gas, crude oil, coal, copper, talc, barites, sulphur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semi-precious stones. The inhabitants belong to different races, but the Afghans proper form the great mass of the people. They are allied in blood to the Persians, and are divided into a number of tribes, among which the Duranis and Ghiljis are the most important. The Afghans are bold, hardy, and warlike, fond of freedom and resolute in maintaining it, but of a restless, turbulenttemper, and much given to plunder. Tribal dissensions have constantly been in existence, and seldom or never do all the Afghans pay allegiance to the nominal ruler of their country .The religion is 74% SunniMuslim, 15% Shia Muslim and 11% other. The official language is Pashto spoken by half the population, with 35% speaking Afghan Persian (Dari), 11% Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen), 4% thirty minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) with widespread bilingualism.
In 1738 the country was conquered by the Persians under Nadir Shah. On his death in 1747 Ahmed Shah, one of his generals, obtained the sovereignty ofAfghanistan, and became the founder of a dynasty, which lasted. about eighty years. At the end of that time Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Kabul, had acquired a preponderating influence in the country. On account of his dealings with the Russians the British resolved to dethrone him and restore Shah Shuja, a former ruler.
In April, 1839, a British army under Sir John Keane entered Afghanistan, occupied Kabul, and placed Shah Shuja on the throne, a force of 8000 being left to support the new sovereign. Sir W Macnaghten remained as envoy at Kabul, with Sir Alexander Burnes as assistant envoy. The Afghans soon organized a widespread insurrection, which came to a head on November the 2nd,1841, when Burnes and a number of British officers, besides women and children, were murdered, Macnaghten being murdered not long after. The other British leaders now made a treaty with the Afghans, at whose head was Akbar, son of Dost Mohammed, agreeing to withdraw the forces from the country, while the Afghans were to furnish them with provisions and escort them on their way.
On the 6th of January, 1842 the British left Kabul and began their most disastrous retreat. The cold was intense, they had almost no food - for the treacherous Afghans did not fulfil their promises - and day after day they were assailed by bodies of the enemy. By the 13th of January 26,000 persons, including camp-followers, women and children, were killed. Some were kept as prisoners, but only one man, Dr. Brydon, reached Jelalabad, which, as well as Kandahar, was still held by British troops. In a few months General Pollock, with a fresh army from India, retook Kabul and soon finished the war.
Shah Shuja having been assassinated, Dost Mohammed again obtained the throne of Kabul, and acquired extensive power in Afghanistan. He joined with the Sikhs against the British, but latterly made an offensive and defensive alliance with the latter. He died in 1863, having nominated his son Shere Ali his successor. Shere Ali entered into friendly relations with the British, but in 1878, having repulsed a British envoy and refused to receive a British mission (a Russian mission being meantime at his court), war was declared against him, and the British troops entered Afghanistan. They met with comparatively little resistance ; the ameer fled to Turkestan, where he soon after died; and his son Yakoob Khan having succeeded him concluded a treaty with the British at Gandamak in May, 1879, in which a certain extension of the British frontier, the control by Britain of the foreign policy of Afghanistan, and the residence of a British envoy in Kabul, were the chief stipulations. Not long after this settlement the British resident at Kabul, Sir Louis P. Gavagnari, and the other members of the mission were treacherously attacked and slain by the Afghans, and troops had again to be sent into the country. Kabul was again occupied, and Kandahar and Ghazni were also relieved; while Yakoob Khan was sent to imprisonment in India.
In 1880 Abdur-Rahman, a grandson of Dost Mohammed, was recognized by Britain as ameer of the country. He was on friendly terms with the British during his reign, which ended with his death in 1901, his son Habibullah being his successor. Encroachments by the Russians on territory claimed by Afghanistan almost brought about a rupture between Britain and Russia in 1885, and led to the delimitation of the frontier of Afghanistan on the side next Russia,
In 1926 a royal kingdom was established in Afghanistan, this was overthrown in 1973 and a republic was declared. There followed a period of unrest until in 1979 a left-wing coup occurred. Civil war ensued and the Soviet Union invaded at the invitation of the government. The American government and its allies sponsored and armed a Islamic fundamentalist
opposition - the Mujaheddin - and in 1989 the Soviets withdrew and in in 1992 the Mujaheddin gained power, installing a very fundamentalist Islamic government known as the Taliban. The Taliban were then overthrown by an American-led invasion in 2002 following the Taliban's support for those responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center in New York and a coalition of tribal warlords was put in power. Since then civil unrest has once again continued, as it always has in Afghanistan. Research Afghanistan
Gandamak is a village in Afghanistan where a massacre of British troops from Kabul occurred in 1842. Here in 1879 a frontier treaty with Yakub Khan was concluded. Research Gandamak
The Hindu Kush or Indian Caccaus, is a mountain range in central Asia. It is generally considered as a continuation of the Himalayas, which it adjoins at the Indus, and then stretches west until it unites with the Ghur Mountains in North Afghanistan. Its culminating point is in the range of Hindu-Koh, to the north of Kabul. In many features the Hindu Kush resembles the Himalayas proper, though it is lower and destitute of forests. Research Hindu Kush
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Alexander Burnes
