On 2nd Nov 1841, an uprising broke out in Kabul against the British. Senior British officer and Deputy Envoy, Sir Alexander Burnes was caught with a Kashmiri concubine in his house, an act which was absolutely unacceptable by the Afghans. Burnes, along with his aides were killed as a result.
Now fearful of their safety in Kabul, British commander, Colonel John Shelton's troops, despite his misgivings, reached Bala Hisar without being opposed. However after staying there for a week, they realised that they won't be able to defend in case of an Afghan attack. They decided to withdraw from Kabul. Shelton's force evacuated the citadel and moved into a cantonment outside the city.
The Afghans had been taking back occupied forts from the British everywhere. It cost the British hundreds of lives to secure the surroundings, only to be taken back by Afghans a few days later. The Afghans had pulled cannons up the hill of Behmaru which overlooked the cantonments. The cannons were used to open fire into the cantonments.
On 23rd Nov 1841, the battle of Behmaru took place, under Nawab Muhammad Zaman Khan, Aminullah Khan Logari as his Wazir and Abdullah Khan Achakzai as his commander-in-chief,
Shelton took his men out again to retake the hills which proved disastrous. The Afghans' long-barrelled jezails had a longer range than the British Brown Bess muskets. They were systematically gunned down by Afghan snipers while Shelton refused to retreat.
George St. Patrick Lawrence, who had watched helplessly from his post in the cantonment during the battle, wrote of his horror at witnessing how "our flying troops [were] hotly pursued and mixed up with the enemy, who were slaughtering them on all sides: the scene was so fearful that I can never forget it."
The Afghan guerilla warfare was something that the British failed to outwit.
Cover image: pashtunology
Sources:
Afghanistan in the age of empires
Return of a King