The Anglo-Afghan Wars 1839-1919

by Gregory Fremont-Barnes

Overview

During the 19th century Britain entered into three brutal wars with Afghanistan, each one saw the British trying and failing to gain control of a warlike and impenetrable territory. The first two wars (1839–42 and 1878–81) were wars of the Great Game; the British Empire's attempts to combat growing Russian influence near India's borders. The third, fought in 1919, was an Afghan-declared holy war against British India – in which over 100,000 Afghans answered the call, and raised a force that would prove too great for the British Imperial army. Each of the three wars were plagued by military disasters, lengthy sieges and costly engagements for the British, and history has proved the Afghans a formidable foe and their country unconquerable. This book reveals the history of these three Anglo-Afghan wars, the imperial power struggles that led to conflict and the torturous experiences of the men on the ground. The book concludes with a brief overview of the background to today's conflict in Afghanistan, and sketches the historical parallels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472810083
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/06/2014
Series:	Guide to... , #40
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	902,935
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Gregory Fremont-Barnes holds a doctorate in Modern History from the University of Oxford and serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. A prolific author, his books include Waterloo 1815: The British Army's Day of Destiny and many others on military and naval subjects covering the 18th to the 21st centuries. Holding a particular interest in insurgency and counterinsurgency, his wider work for the UK Ministry of Defence on these subjects regularly takes him to Africa, the Middle East and South America. As an academic advisor, Dr Fremont-Barnes has accompanied many groups of British Army officers and senior NCOs in their visits to numerous battlefields of the Peninsular War, the Waterloo campaign, Normandy and the Falklands.
Gregory Fremont-Barnes holds a doctorate in Modern History from the University of Oxford. As a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, he has written extensively on a range of subjects covering military affairs since the 18th century. In addition to teaching cadets, he travels widely for the Ministry of Defence, running courses for foreign military and intelligence officers, and spent two years in Afghanistan on Operation Toral.

Gregory Fremont-Barnes holds a doctorate in Modern History from the University of Oxford, where he studied under the distinguished military historians Sir Michael Howard, Regius Professor of Modern History, and Robert O'Neill, Chichele Professor of the History of War. After leaving Oxford, he moved to Japan, where he spent eight years as a university lecturer in European and American history. He is the author of numerous books, including The French Revolutionary Wars, The Peninsular War, 1807-1814, The Fall of the French Empire, 1813-1815, The Boer War, 1899-1902, Trafalgar 1805: Nelson's Crowning Victory, lson's Sailors,
The Wars of the Barbary Pirates: To the Shores of Tripoli, the Rise of the U.S. Navy and Marines. He is also editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as well as co-editor of the five-volume Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

Chronology 10

Part l The First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-42

Origins and background of the war 14

Warring sides 18

The fighting 20

How the war ended 33

Portrait of a civilian: Florentia, Lady Sale (1787-1853) 37

The world around war: the playground of the Great Game 43

Part II The Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1878-81

Origins and background of the war 50

Warring sides 54

The fighting 56

How the war ended 72

Portrait of a soldier: Arthur Male, Army chaplain, 13th Hussars 74

Part III The Third Anglo-Afghan War, 1919

Origins and background of the war 80

Warring sides 82

The fighting 83

How the war ended 85

Conclusion and consequences 86

Bibliography and further reading 92

Index 94

Editorial Reviews

Other recommendations for specialty military history collections include... Gregory Fremont-Barnes' The Anglo-Afghan Wars 1839-1919, considering the history of Afghanistan and its military battles.” —The Bookwatch (January 2010)

From the Publisher