First Anglo - Afghan War The First Anglo - Afghan War ( also known as Auckland ' s Folly ) was fought between the British East India Company and Afghanistan from 1839 to 1842 ; 4 , 500 British and Indian soldiers , plus 12 , 000 of their camp follower s , were killed by Afghan tribal fighters . It was one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game , the 19th century competition for power and influence in Asia between the United Kingdom and Russia . Causes . In the 1830s the British Empire was firmly entrenched in India , but by 1837 Lord Palmerston and John Hobhouse , fearing the instability of Afghanistan , the Sindh , and the increasing power of the Sikh kingdom to the north , raised the spectre of a possible Russian invasion of India through Afghanistan . The Russian empire was slowly extending its domain into central Asia , and this was seen as an encroachment south that might prove fatal for the British Company rule in India . The British sent an envoy to Kabul to form an alliance with Afghanistan ' s Emir Dost Mohammad Khan against Russia . Dost Mohammad had recently lost Afghanistan ' s second capital of Peshawar to the Sikh Empire and wanted support to retake it , but the British were unwilling . When Governor - General of India Lord Auckland heard about the arrival of a supposed Russian envoy in Kabul and the possibility that Dost Mohammad might turn to Russia for support , his political advisers exaggerated the threat . British fears of a Russian invasion of India took one step closer to becoming a reality when negotiations between the Afghans and Russians broke down in 1838 . The Persians , with Russian support , attempted the Siege of Herat ( 1838 ) but backed down when Britain threatened war . Russia , wanting to increase its presence in South and Central Asia , had formed an alliance with Persia which had territorial disputes with Afghanistan as Herat had been part of the Safavids before 1709 . Lord Auckland ' s plan was to drive away the besiegers and replace the ruler of Afghanistan with one who was pro - British , Shuja Shah Durrani . " To justify his plan , Lord Auckland issued the Simla Manifesto in October 1838 , setting forth the necessary reasons for British intervention in Afghanistan . The manifesto stated that in order to ensure the welfare of India , the British must have a trustworthy ally on India ' s western frontier . The [ official ] British [ position ] that their troops were merely supporting [ Shah ] Shuja ' s small army in retaking what was once his throne " was generally seen as pretext for incorporating Afghanistan into the British empire . " Although the Simla Manifesto stated that British troops would be withdrawn as soon as Shuja was installed in Kabul , Shuja ' s rule depended entirely on British arms to suppress rebellion and on British funds to buy the support of tribal chiefs . The British denied that they were invading Afghanistan , claiming they were merely supporting its legitimate Shuja government " against foreign interference and factious opposition . " Invasion of Afghanistan by British - led Indian army . An army of 21 , 000 British and Indian troops under the command of John Keane , 1st Baron Keane ( subsequently replaced by Sir Willoughby Cotton and then by William Elphinstone ) set out from Punjab in December 1838 . With them was William Hay Macnaghten , the former chief secretary of the Calcutta government , who had been selected as Britain ' s chief representative to Kabul . By late March 1839 the British forces had crossed the Bolan Pass , reached the Afghan city of Quetta , and begun their march to Kabul . They advanced through rough terrain , across deserts and 4 , 000 - metre - high mountain passes , but made good progress and finally set up camps at Kandahar on 25 April 1839 . On 22 July 1839 , in a surprise attack , the British - led forces captured the fortress of Ghazni , which overlooks a plain leading eastward into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . The British troops blew up one city gate and marched into the city in a euphoric mood . In taking this fortress , they suffered 200 men killed and wounded , while the Afghans lost nearly 500 men . 1 , 600 Afghans were taken prisoner with an unknown number wounded . Ghazni was well - supplied , which eased the further advance considerably . Following this , the British achieved a decisive victory over Dost Mohammad ' s troops , led by one of his sons . Dost Mohammad fled with his loyal followers across the passes to Bamyan , and ultimately to Bukhara . In August 1839 , after almost thirty years , Shuja was again enthroned in Kabul . Qalat / Kalat . On November 13 , 1839 , while en route to India , the Bombay column attacked , as a form of reprisal , the Baluchi tribal fortress of Kalat , from where Baloch tribes had harassed and attacked British convoys during the move towards the Bolan Pass . Occupation and rise of the Afghans . The majority of the British troops returned to India , leaving 8 , 000 in Afghanistan , but it soon became clear that Shuja ' s rule could only be maintained with the presence of a stronger British force . The Afghans resented the British presence and the rule of Shah Shuja . As the occupation dragged on , William Hay Macnaghten allowed his soldiers to bring their families to Afghanistan to improve morale ; this further infuriated the Afghans , as it appeared the British were setting up a permanent occupation . Dost Mohammad unsuccessfully attacked the British and their Afghan protégé , and subsequently surrendered and was exiled to India in late 1840 . By this time , the British had vacated the fortress of Bala Hissar and relocated to a cantonment built to the northeast of Kabul . The chosen location was indefensible , being low and swampy with hills on every side . To make matters worse , the cantonment was too large for the number of troops camped in it and had a defensive perimeter almost two miles long . In addition , the stores and supplies were in a separate fort , 300 yards from the main cantonment . Between April and October 1841 , disaffected Afghan tribes were flocking to support Dost Mohammad ' s son , Akbar Khan , in Bamiyan and other areas north of the Hindu Kush mountains , organised into an effective resistance by chiefs such as Mir Masjidi Khan and others . In November 1841 , a senior British officer , Sir Alexander ' Sekundar ' Burnes , and his aides were killed by a mob in Kabul . The British forces took no action in response , which encouraged further revolt . The British situation soon deteriorated when Afghans stormed the poorly defended supply fort inside Kabul on November 9 . In the following weeks the British commanders tried to negotiate with Akbar Khan . Macnaghten secretly offered to make Akbar Afghanistan ' s vizier in exchange for allowing the British to stay , while simultaneously disbursing large sums of money to have him assassinated , which was reported to Akbar Khan . A meeting for direct negotiations between Macnaghten and Akbar was held near the cantonment on 23 December , but Macnaghten and the three officers accompanying him were seized and slain by Akbar Khan . Macnaghten ' s body was dragged through the streets of Kabul and displayed in the bazaar . Elphinstone had partly lost command of his troops already and his authority was badly damaged . Destruction of Elphinstone ' s army . On 1 January 1842 , following some unusual thinking by Elphinstone , which may have had something to do with the poor defensibility of the cantonment , an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependants from Afghanistan . Five days later , the withdrawal began . The departing British contingent numbered around 16 , 500 , of which about 4 , 500 were military personnel , and over 12 , 000 were camp follower s . The military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion , 44th Regiment of Foot . They were attacked by Ghilzai warriors as they struggled through the snowbound passes . The evacuees were killed in huge numbers as they made their way down the of treacherous gorges and passes lying along the Kabul River between Kabul and Gandamak , and were massacred at the Gandamak pass before a survivor reached the besieged garrison at Jalalabad . The force had been reduced to fewer than forty men by a withdrawal from Kabul that had become , towards the end , a running battle through two feet of snow . The ground was frozen , the men had no shelter and had little food for weeks . Of the weapons remaining to the survivors , there were approximately a dozen working muskets , the officers ' pistols and a few swords . The remnants of the 44th were all killed except Captain James Souter , Sergeant Fair and seven soldiers who were taken prisoner . The only Briton to reach Jalalabad was Dr . William Brydon . Reprisals . At the same time as the attacks on the garrison at Kabul , Afghan forces beleaguered the other British contingents in Afghanistan . These were at Kandahar ( where the largest British force in the country had been stationed ) , Jalalabad ( held by a force which had been sent from Kabul in October 1841 as the first stage of a planned withdrawal ) and Ghazni . Ghazni was stormed , but the other garrisons held out until relief forces arrived from India , in spring 1842 . Akbar Khan was defeated near Jalalabad and plans were laid for the recapture of Kabul and the restoration of British hegemony . However , Lord Auckland had suffered a stroke and had been replaced as Governor - General by Lord Ellenborough , who was under instructions to bring the war to an end following a change of government in Britain . Ellenborough ordered the forces at Kandahar and Jalalabad to leave Afghanistan after inflicting reprisals and securing the release of prisoners taken during the retreat from Kabul . In August 1842 General Nott advanced from Kandahar , pillaging the countryside and seizing Ghazni , whose fortifications he demolished . Meanwhile , General Pollock , who had taken command of a demoralized force in Peshawar used it to clear the Khyber Pass to arrive at Jalalabad , where General Sales had already lifted the siege . From Jalalabad , General Pollock inflicted a further crushing defeat on Akbar Khan . The combined British forces defeated all opposition before taking Kabul in September . A month later , having rescued the prisoners and demolished the city ' s main bazaar as an act of retaliation for the destruction of Elphinstone ' s column , they withdrew from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass . Dost Muhammad was released and re - established his authority in Kabul . He died on June 9 , 1863 . Legacy . Many voices in Britain , from Lord Aberdeen to Benjamin Disraeli , had criticized the war as rash and insensate . The perceived threat from Russia was vastly exaggerated , given the distances , the almost impassible mountain barriers , and logistical problems that an invasion would have to solve . In the three decades after the First Anglo - Afghan War , the Russians did advance steadily southward towards Afghanistan . In 1842 the Russian border was on the other side of the Aral Sea from Afghanistan ; but five years later the Tsar ' s outposts had moved to the lower reaches of the Amu Darya . By 1865 Tashkent had been formally annexed , as was Samarkand three years later . A peace treaty in 1873 with Amir Alim Khan of the Manghit Dynasty , the ruler of Bukhara , virtually stripped him of his independence . Russian control then extended as far as the northern bank of the Amu Darya . In 1878 , the British invaded again , beginning the Second Anglo - Afghan War . Lady Butler ' s famous painting of Dr . William Brydon , initially thought to be the sole survivor , gasping his way to the British outpost in Jalalabad , helped make Afghanistan ' s reputation as a graveyard for foreign armies and became one of the great epics of empire . In 1843 British army chaplain G . R . Gleig wrote a memoir of the disastrous ( First ) Anglo - Afghan War , of which he was one of the very few survivors . He wrote that it was Battle Honour . The battle honour of ' Afghanistan 1839 ' was awarded to all units of the presidency armies of the East India Company that had proceeded beyond the Bolan Pass , by Gazette of the Governor - General , dated 19 November 1839 , the spelling changed from ' Afghanistan ' to " by Gazette of India No . 1079 of 1916 , and the date added in 1914 . All the honours awarded for this war are considered to be non - repugnant . The units awarded this battle honour were : Fictional depictions . The First Anglo – Afghan war was depicted in a work of historical fiction , Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser . This work is Fraser ' s first ' Flashman ' novel . The ordeal of Dr . Brydon may have influenced the story of Dr . John Watson in Sherlock Holmes , although his wound was suffered in the Second war . Emma Drummond ' s novel ' Beyond all Frontiers ' ( 1983 ) is based on these events , as are Philip Hersher ' s " Mulberry Empire " ( 2002 ) and " Fanfare " ( 1993 ) , by Andrew MacAllan , a distant relation of Dr William Brydon . G . A . Henty ' s children ' s novel To Herat and Kabul focuses on the Anglo - Afghan War through the perspective of a Scottish expatriate teenager named Angus . Theodor Fontane ' s poem , " Das Trauerspiel von Afghanistan " also refers to the massacre of Elphinstone ’ s army .