Battle of Maiwand The Battle of Maiwand on 27 July 1880 was one of the principal battles of the Second Anglo - Afghan War . Under the leadership of Ayub Khan , the Afghans defeated two brigades of British and Indian troops under Brigadier - General George Burrows , though 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 . The battle ( 27 July 1880 ) . Before the battle the campaign had gone well for the British . They had defeated Afghan tribesmen at Ali Masjid , Peiwar Kotal , Kabul , and Ahmed Khel , and they had occupied numerous towns and villages , including Kandahar , Dakka , and Jalalabad . Ayub Khan , Shere Ali ' s younger son , who had been holding Herat during the British operations at Kabul and Kandahar , set out towards Kandahar with a small army in June 1880 , and a brigade under Brigadier - General Burrows was detached from Kandahar to oppose him . Burrows ' brigade , some 2 , 500 strong with about 500 British troops including a battery of 9 - pounder cannons , advanced to Helmand , opposite Gereshk , to oppose Ayub Khan , but was there deserted by the levies of Shere Ali , the British - appointed wali of Kandahar . The levies were defeated and 4 smoothbore 6 - pounder guns and 2 smoothbore 12 - pounder howitzer s captured . Burrows fell back to a position at Kushk - i - Nakhud , halfway to Kandahar where he could intercept Ayub Khan if he headed for either Ghazni or Kandahar . He remained there a week during which time the captured guns were added to his force with additional gunners drawn from the British infantry . On the afternoon of the 26th July information was received that the Afghan force was making for the Maiwand Pass a few miles away . Burrows decided to move early the following day to break - up the Afghan advance guard . At about 10 am horsemen were seen and engaged , and the brigade started to deploy for battle . Burrows was not aware that it was Ayub ' s main force . The Afghans , who numbered 25 , 000 including Afghan regular troops and five batteries of artillery including some very modern Armstrong guns . The Afghan guns gradually came into action and a three hour artillery duel ensured at an opening range of about 1700 yards , during which the British captured smoothbore guns on the left expended their ammunition and withdrew to replenish it . This enabled the Afghans to force the left hand battalion back . The left flank comprising Indian infantry regiments gave way and rolled in a great wave to the right , the 66th Regiment , the backbone of defence , were swept away by the pressure of the Ghazi attack . E Battery / B Brigade Royal Horse Artillery ( Captain Slade commanding ) and a half - company of Bombay Sappers and Miners under Lieutenant Henn ( Royal Engineers ) stood fast , covering the retreat of the entire British Brigade . E / B RHA kept firing until the last moment , two sections ( four guns ) limbering up when the Afghans were 15 yards away , but the third section ( Lt Maclaine ) was overrun . Maclaine was captured and held as a prisoner in Kandahar , where his body was found at Ayub Khan ' s tent during the British attack on 1 September , apparently murdered to prevent his liberation . The British guns captured during the action were also recovered at Kandahar . E / B RHA came into action again some 400 yards back . The Sappers and Miners retreated as the guns withdrew . Henn and 14 of his men afterwards joined some remnants of the 66th Foot and Bombay Grenadiers in a small enclosure at a garden in a place called Khig where a determined last stand was made . Though the Afghans shot them down one by one , they fired steadily until only eleven of their number were left , and the survivors then charged out into the masses of the enemy and perished . Henn was the only officer in that band and he led the final charge . The retreat to Kandahar ( 27 – 28 July 1880 ) . Word of the disaster reached Kandahar the following day and a relief force was dispatched . This met the retreating force at Kokeran . The British were routed , but managed a withdrawal due to their own efforts and the apathy of the Afghans . Of the 2 , 476 British troops engaged , the British and Indian force lost 21 officers and 948 soldiers killed , and eight officers and 169 men were wounded : the Grenadiers lost 64 % of their strength and the 66th lost 62 % , including twelve officers , of those present ( two companies being detached ) ; the cavalry losses were much smaller . British and Indian regimental casualties ( listed by brigade ) were : One estimate of Afghan casualties is 3 , 000 , reflecting the desperate nature of much of the fighting , although other sources give 1 , 500 Afghans and up to 4 , 000 Ghazis killed . Awards for bravery . Two Victoria Crosses were awarded for acts of valour performed during the battle and during the retreat to Kandahar . Both medals went to members of E / B Battery , RHA . One was awarded to Sergeant Patrick Mullane , for attempting to save the life of a wounded colleague during the withdrawal of their battery from the field ; the other went to Gunner James Collis , who during the retreat to Kandahar drew the attention of enemy fire upon himself instead of upon wounded colleagues . Aftermath . The battle dampened morale for the British side , but was also partly a disappointment for Ayub Khan , Governor of Herat and commander of the Afghans in this battle , because he had lost so many men to gain a small advantage . Ayub Khan did manage to shut the British up in Kandahar , resulting in General Frederick Roberts ' s famous 314 - mile relief march from Kabul to Kandahar in August 1880 . The resulting Battle of Kandahar on September 1 was a decisive victory for the British . The loss of the Queen ' s Colour and Regimental Colour of the 66th ( Berkshire ) Regiment of Foot at the Battle of Maiwand , following so soon upon the loss of the Colours of the 1st / 24th ( 2nd Warwickshire ) Regiment at the Battle of Isandlwana ( 22 January 1879 ) during the Anglo - Zulu War , resulted in Colours no longer being taken on active service . Maiwand in poetry , art , and fiction . Poetry . Rudyard Kipling , who had researched this battle in 1892 , included this small yet dramatic poem about the action at Maiwand in his Barrack - Room Ballads collection . " That Day " extract : - Poems of the victory at Maiwand have passed into Pashtun and Afghan folklore . As Afghan legend would have it , the battle created an unlikely hero in the shape of an Afghan woman called Malalai , who on seeing the Afghan forces falter , used her veil as a standard and encouraged the men by shouting out She also spoke the following landay ( Pashto Poetry ) : Art . The battle was the subject of several paintings and was covered extensively in the illustrated press . Frank Feller , a Swiss artist domiciled in England painted " The Last Eleven at Maiwand " in 1882 depicting a small group of men from the 66th Regiment making a last stand . The events surrounding E / B Battery Royal Horse Artillery were portrayed by Godfrey Douglas Giles , Richard Caton Woodville and Stanley Wood . A cast iron statue of a lion ( the Maiwand Lion ) was built by George Blackall Simonds in Reading and unveiled in 1886 to commemorate those who died in battle . A monument was built in the 1950s on the Maiwand Square in Kabul in commemoration of the battle by an Afghan architect Is - matulla Saraj . A memorial was erected in central London to a remarkable canine survivor of the engagement : Bobbie , the regimental mascot . Bobbie was wounded during the fighting , but was spotted the following day by survivors , making his way back to the fort . Fiction . The fictional Doctor Watson , companion of Sherlock Holmes , was wounded in the Battle of Maiwand ( as described in the opening chapter of " A Study in Scarlet " ) . He may have been based upon the 66th regiment ' s Medical Officer , Surgeon Major Alexander Francis Preston . The battle of Maiwand is also mentioned in Jeffery Deaver ' s short story " The Westphalian Ring " . The main character , Peter Goodcastle , had served in the Royal Horse Artillery there and had turned to burglary to avenge the shoddy treatment he had suffered on his return to Britain . In the short story , he was arrested by none other than Dr . Watson , but later managed to escape suspicion by outsmarting Sherlock Holmes . So the two men may have already met earlier .