Following the overthrow of Shah Shuja in 1809 and his successor in 1818, Afghanistan disintegrated into tribal warfare. Different factions controlled the population centers of Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat as well as the Kashmir and Peshawar regions. Dost Mohammad Khan eventually achieved a measure of dominance in 1826 in the areas of Kabul and Ghazni. Balkh was lost to northern invaders, and Shuja, even with British assistance, failed to regain Kandahar in 1833. In the meantime, the Russians had been exerting influence on the Persians. In 1837, a Persian army with Russian officers accompanying it advanced on Herat. The Persian advance and the presence of a Russian commercial agent in Kabul caused Great Britain to demand that Dost Mohammad renounce contacts with Persia and Russia, expel the Russian agent from Kabul, and recognize the Indian Sikh conquest of Peshawar. When a strongly worded British note made the capture of Herat into a threat to India, the Persian army was withdrawn and the Russian agent recalled. The Governor General of India, Lord Auckland, was determined that Shuja, whom he believed he could control, should rule in Kabul and Kandahar. The “Great Game” overshadowed the diplomatic and military maneuvering between Russia and Britain where Afghanistan was the playing field.
On 26 April 1839, an invading British army occupied Kandahar, took Ghazni on 22 July, and reached Kabul on 6 August. When Dost Mohammad fled, the British installed Shuja on the throne. British soldiers moved to garrisoned Bamian, Jalalabad, and Charikar. An uneasy peace settled upon a region ruled by an unpopular Afghan puppet supported by English bayonets. The remainder of the country was controlled by tribal leaders, mostly Pashtun.
British envoy William Macnaghten unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with the other Afghan leaders to form alliances with Shah Shuja who remained in power only while the British occupied the country. Macnaghten’s murder by Dost Mohammad’s son, coupled with successful Afghan attacks against the British garrison and the diplomatic residency in Kabul, led to the final abandonment of the city in January 1842. Of 16,500 British soldiers, families, Sepoy infantry and cavalry, and camp followers who left together from Kabul, there were only 123 Europeans and about 2,000 Sepoys who survived the Afghan attacks and the harsh winter trek. On 5 April, Shah Shuja was assassinated. The British garrison at Ghazni surrendered, but those at Kandahar and Qalat withdrew safely. Tribal anarchy plagued Afghanistan until Dost Mohammad returned in 1843 to fight 20 years to wrest control of the eastern region from rival warlords.
The Persians took advantage of the chaotic conditions to occupy Herat in October 1856. When the British declared war, the Persians withdrew. It would not be until Herat was captured by Dost Mohammad in 1863 that most of present-day Afghanistan would be consolidated under his control. In the meantime, concerned that British intervention in Afghanistan threatened their interests, the Russians steadily pushed southward, reaching the Amu Darya River in 1869, the present-day border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Four years later, in 1873, an Anglo-Russian Convention established the Amu Darya as the boundary between Afghanistan and Russia.
Following the cycle of Afghan strongmen, warfare erupted throughout the country when Dost Mohammad died in 1863. For six years his sons fought a fratricidal war until Sher Ali Khan succeeded in becoming ruler in Kabul. Again, the Persians took advantage of the family discord to occupy southeastern Afghanistan. Great Britain had long been concerned about any Russian expansion toward the Mediterranean. While the Crimean War of 1853 led to limits being placed on Russian expansion into Europe and Turkey, the British became alarmed by subsequent Russo-Turkish wars and Russian intentions. The Treaty of San Stefano that ended the war was viewed so unfavorably by Great Britain that Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli threatened Russia with war if it were not revised. Fortunately, the 1878 Congress of Berlin alleviated British tension, but suspicions of Russian expansion remained strong.
Unfortunately for Afghanistan, the Russians sent an uninvited diplomatic mission in summer 1878 to Kabul. When they were slow to withdraw after formal protest, the British sent forces into Afghanistan in November 1878 to precipitate what is called the Second Anglo- Afghan War. Sher Ali Khan unsuccessfully solicited Russian assistance and died in Mazar-e- Sharif.
The inability of the Afghan tribes to unite against the British and Sher Ali’s death led to the Treaty of Gandamak on 26 May 1879. A disturbing aspect of the fighting had been that the British were unable to distinguish friendly Afghans from enemy tribesmen. Although they had been defeated and the treaty had, in reality, imposed British rule of Afghanistan from Kabul and control of foreign affairs, the Afghan tribes could not be controlled. Native troops from Herat revolted. The British garrison fought desperately in Kabul, and another British force was defeated near Kandahar. British retaliation left more than 1,000 Afghans dead.
This combination of calamities culminated in another British withdrawal, and Abdur Rahman Khan became ruler in Kabul. He ruthlessly put down numerous tribal revolts, forcibly relocated the dissident Pashtuns from the south to the north, relieved tax burdens on non-Pashtuns, named provincial governors without regard to tribal affiliation, and raised an army that would be loyal to him. During his reign, Sir Mortimer Durand crafted the Durand Line to serve as either an international boundary or a demarcation line between Indian and Afghan influence, depending on the views of those nations at any specific time in history. Rather than settling differences, the line became the stimulus for future fighting between Afghanistan and British-controlled India and later between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The British also delineated the Afghan borders with India and China in the extreme northeast part of the country, although the Chinese did not officially recognize the demarcation until 1964. After Abdur Rahman’s death in 1901, Afghanistan enjoyed the first peaceful transfer of power in history. The country was united as never before, and a geographic area to serve as a buffer between Russia and British India had been defined. During the reign of Abdur Rahman’s son, Habibullah, at the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention, Russia conceded that Afghanistan was outside its sphere of influence. Habibullah Khan did not agree to the convention, but the Russians and British imposed it anyway.
As World War I engulfed Europe, the Turks and Germans pressured Habibullah to join them in an attack on British India. Habibullah’s response was to approach the British with an offer. If Great Britain would relinquish control of Afghan foreign policy, he would stall the Central Powers in the region. The threat relieved, British control over Afghan foreign policy continued. Then, Habibullah was mysteriously assassinated—by whom has never been determined.
Although several of Habibullah’s sons and his brother claimed succession, his third son, Amanullah, who controlled the treasury and the army, gained most Afghan tribes’ loyalty. His reign as emir brought significant change to Afghanistan. As British troops withdrew to fight in the Great War, the Afghan tribes began launching small raids against British border posts. Sensing weakness, in May 1918, Amanullah used his army in several attacks. This precipitated the Third Anglo-Afghan War. After the initial setbacks, the British rallied and countered with air attacks against Kabul and Jalalabad. After a month of fighting, negotiations were sought. The Treaty of Rawalpindi, signed 8 August 1919, ended Great Britain’s 40-year control of Afghan foreign policy but did not stop tribal attacks on British border posts.
After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Reds had brutally oppressed Muslims during their consolidation of power in the southern regions. Amanullah wanted to stabilize the situation on his northern frontier and to play off his northern neighbor against the British to his east. In 1921, Russia and Afghanistan signed a Treaty of Friendship—the first treaty signed by the Afghans since regaining control of their foreign policy. The Soviets considered the treaty a diplomatic strike against a European power