Why Britain Invaded Afghanistan in 1839: The Fear of Russia That Led to War- Part One

Why Britain Invaded Afghanistan in 1839: The Fear of Russia That Led to War- Part One

Why would Britain send an army deep into Afghanistan when the country itself posed no direct threat to British territory?

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Entrance to the Bolan Pass from DadurArmy of the Indus used the Bolan Pass during the 1839 invasion of Afghanistan.

Today I want to start a new series looking at the First Anglo-Afghan War, one of the most disastrous conflicts of the Victorian era. Over the next few weeks, I want to look at why Britain became involved in Afghanistan, how the campaign initially seemed to succeed, and how events eventually led to the terrible retreat from Kabul.

To understand why British troops went into Afghanistan in 1839, we need to look beyond Afghanistan.

Much of India was controlled by the British East India Company. India was enormously important to British trade, wealth and influence, and British officials were constantly worried about anything that might threaten their position there.

One of their greatest fears was Russia.

During the early 19th century, the Russian Empire was expanding south through Central Asia. British politicians and military officials were becoming increasingly concerned that Russian influence might eventually reach Afghanistan and that it may even threaten British-controlled India.

This rivalry between Britain and Russia later became known as the Great Game.

Afghanistan was situated between the Russian Empire in the north and British India to the south-east, which made it hugely important.

At the time, Dost Mohammad Khan was the most powerful ruler in Afghanistan and controlled Kabul.

Afghanistan had been divided by years of rivalry following the decline of the Durrani Empire. Dost Mohammad had gradually emerged from these struggles and took control of Kabul in 1826. But he faced serious problems of his own.

One of the most important concerned the city of Peshawar.

Peshawar had previously been under Afghan control but had been captured by the Sikh Empire, ruled by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Dost Mohammad wanted British help to recover the city.

The British, however, had already developed an important relationship with Ranjit Singh and were unwilling to support an Afghan attack against him.

So Dost Mohammad started looking elsewhere for help.

In 1837, a Russian representative, Captain Ivan Vitkevich, arrived in Kabul. To British officials, his presence appeared to confirm their fears that Russia was attempting to gain influence over Afghanistan.

Britain also had its own representative in Kabul, Alexander Burnes.

Burnes had been sent to negotiate with Dost Mohammad and explore the possibility of strengthening relations between Afghanistan and British India.

Dost Mohammad was willing to cooperate, but he again raised the question of Peshawar.

British officials refused to support his claim.

With negotiations failing and a Russian representative also present in Kabul, the British government in India increasingly began to view Dost Mohammad as unreliable.

At around the same time, Persia, with Russian support, was besieging the Afghan city of Herat. To British officials, this made the threat appear even more serious and increased their fears that Russian influence could spread closer to India.

Instead, they decided to support another man.

Shah Shuja Durrani had once ruled Afghanistan but had been driven from power many years before. He was living in exile under British protection.

British officials believed that if Shah Shuja could be restored to the Afghan throne, he would become a friendly ruler who could help prevent Russian influence from spreading towards India.

In October 1838, the Governor-General of India, Lord Auckland, issued what became known as the Simla Manifesto.

It attempted to justify British intervention in Afghanistan and presented the restoration of Shah Shuja as necessary for the security of British India.

An agreement had already been made between the British, Shah Shuja and Ranjit Singh.

The plan was now clear.

Dost Mohammad would be removed.

Shah Shuja would be restored.

And Afghanistan would, British officials hoped, become a reliable barrier between Russian expansion and British India.

Late in 1838, a large force known as the Army of the Indus began preparing to advance into Afghanistan.

At first, British leaders expected the campaign to be relatively straightforward.

Instead, their decision to interfere in Afghan politics would begin a chain of events that ended in one of the most famous military disasters of the 19th century.

In Part Two, I want to look at how the British army entered Afghanistan and how Shah Shuja was placed back on the throne.

Klymentiy Sheptytsky: The Monk Who Hid Jewish Children During the Holocaust - Then Died in a Soviet Prison

Klymentiy Sheptytsky: The Monk Who Hid Jewish Children During the Holocaust - Then Died in a Soviet Prison

Today I want to find out a little about Klymentiy Sheptytsky, a Ukrainian Catholic monk and priest who helped to protect Jewish people during the Holocaust and later died as a prisoner of the Soviet Union.

Klymentiy was born Kazimierz Maria Szeptycki on the 17th of November 1869 in Prylbychi, near Lviv, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

He came from a prominent Polish-Ruthenian noble family and was the sixth of seven sons, although two of his brothers died young. His older brother, Andrey Sheptytsky, would later become the Metropolitan Archbishop and head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Klymentiy was highly educated. He studied in Kraków, Munich and Paris before earning a doctorate in law from the Jagiellonian University in 1892.

For a while, his life was very different from the one he would go on to choose. He helped to manage his family’s estates and became involved in politics, even serving in the Austrian parliament from 1900.

After leaving politics, Klymentiy became drawn towards religious life.

In 1911, he entered a Benedictine monastery in Germany. He later joined the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and became a member of the Studite monastic community, taking the religious name Klymentiy.

He was ordained as a priest on the 28th of August 1915 and eventually became an important leader within the Studite monasteries.

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Lviv and the surrounding region came under German occupation. Jewish communities faced persecution and deportation.

Klymentiy worked closely with his brother Andrey to help save Jewish people.

Studite monasteries were used as places of refuge, and Jewish children were among those secretly hidden within religious communities. At the Univ monastery, Jewish boys could sometimes be hidden among the monks and the other young people living there.

Klymentiy helped to organise this network of protection and was directly involved in sheltering people whose lives were in danger.

Among those who survived with the help of the Sheptytsky brothers were Kurt Lewin and David Kahane, both of whom later wrote about their experiences.

When Soviet forces returned to the region in 1944, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church faced renewed persecution.

Klymentiy became one of the most senior remaining leaders of the Church after many other clergy were arrested.

On the 5th of June 1947, Soviet authorities arrested him.

He was imprisoned and pressured to abandon his allegiance to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, but he refused.

Klymentiy was eventually sentenced to eight years in prison.

He never completed the sentence.

On the 1st of May 1951, at the age of 81, Klymentiy Sheptytsky died in Vladimir Central Prison in the Soviet Union.

In 1995, Yad Vashem honoured him as Righteous Among the Nations for risking his life to help save Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Six years later, on the 27th of June 2001, Pope John Paul II beatified Klymentiy during a visit to Lviv.

Klymentiy Sheptytsky lived through two brutal occupations, but continued to protect others and remain faithful to his beliefs. 

Anne of Burgundy: The Duchess Who Helped Hold the English-Burgundian Alliance Together

Anne of Burgundy: The Duchess Who Helped Hold the English-Burgundian Alliance Together

We have been finding out about some of the people connected to John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. We have already looked at his son, Philip the Good and Philip’s second wife Bonne of Artois. But today I want to find out a little about John’s daughter, Anne of Burgundy.

Anne was born on the 30th of September 1404. Her father was John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and her mother was Margaret of Bavaria. Her brother Philip later became the Duke of Burgundy after their father’s death in 1419.

Anne was part of one of the most powerful noble families in Europe.

On the 13^th of May 1423, she married John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, at Troyes in France.

The marriage was politically important. Bedford was the brother of Henry V and had become Regent of France for his young nephew Henry VI. England relied on its alliance with Burgundy to maintain its position in France.

Anne’s marriage helped to strengthen the relationship between her husband and her brother Philip the Good. Anne and Bedford had no children together.

After Joan of Arc was captured and moved into English custody, Anne was in Rouen during Joan’s trial. Anne, or women acting on her behalf, reportedly examined Joan to confirm her claim that she was a virgin.

Sadly, Anne’s life was short. She died in Paris on the 13th of November 1432, aged just 28.

Her death also had political consequences. Bedford married Jacquetta of Luxembourg the following year, and his relationship with Anne’s brother Philip gradually deteriorated.

In 1435, Burgundy abandoned its alliance with England and made peace with Charles VII of France.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes: The Portuguese Diplomat Who Defied Orders to Help Thousands of People Escape

Aristides de Sousa Mendes: The Portuguese Diplomat Who Defied Orders to Help Thousands of People Escape

Today I want to find out a little bit about Aristides de Sousa Mendes. He was a Portuguese diplomat whose decision to defy his own government helped thousands of refugees to escape from France during the Second World War.

Aristides was born on the 19th of July 1885 in Cabanas de Viriato in Portugal. He had a twin brother named César.

The brothers studied law at the University of Coimbra, and Aristides graduated in 1907. That following year, he married Maria Angelina Coelho, and they would eventually have a large family.

Aristides entered the Portuguese diplomatic service and spent much of his career working abroad. His postings included British Guiana, Zanzibar, Brazil, the United States, Spain and Belgium.

In 1938, he was appointed Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux in south-western France.

During the Second World War Portugal remained neutral, but it offered a possible escape route for refugees trying to leave Europe. If people could cross Spain and reach Portugal, many hoped that they could then travel to safer countries.

However, the Portuguese government under António de Oliveira Salazar had introduced restrictions that controlled which refugees could get visas.

In November 1939, a government instruction known as Circular 14 placed particular restrictions on several groups and required many visa applications to receive prior approval from Lisbon.

Sousa Mendes began to struggle with these rules.

He began to issue visas in cases where official permission had not been granted, and he was warned by the Portuguese authorities about it.

Then, in May and June 1940, the situation became much more desperate.

German forces were advancing through France, Paris fell and enormous numbers of refugees were travelling south, hoping to escape before it was too late.

Bordeaux became crowded with frightened people searching for a way out.

Among those Sousa Mendes encountered was Rabbi Chaim Kruger, who had escaped from Belgium with his family. Sousa Mendes offered to help them, but Kruger reportedly encouraged him to consider the many other refugees who were also desperately seeking visas.

Sousa Mendes faced an extraordinary moral decision.

In June 1940, he decided that he could no longer follow the instructions he had been given that stopped him from helping people whose lives were in danger.

He began issuing visas on a huge scale without discriminating according to nationality or religion.

His family, members of his staff and others helped him process the growing number of applications.

Sousa Mendes also travelled to the Portuguese consulate in Bayonne, where he continued helping refugees. Even after Portuguese officials attempted to stop him, he carried on issuing documents and assisting people trying to cross into Spain and eventually Portugal.

Exactly how many people received visas because of Sousa Mendes is still debated by historians. Claims that he personally saved 30,000 people have been questioned, but surviving records confirm that thousands of visas were issued, while other documents from the chaotic weeks of June 1940 have not survived.

Whatever the exact number was, his actions allowed thousands of people to escape from occupied France.

There were serious consequences.

Sousa Mendes was recalled to Portugal and was subjected to disciplinary proceedings for disobeying government orders.

In October 1940, Salazar punished him and that effectively brought his diplomatic career to an end.

His financial circumstances gradually became extremely difficult, and Sousa Mendes spent his later years trying to clear his name.

His wife Angelina died in 1948, and Aristides died in Lisbon on the 3rd of April 1954 at the age of 68. Sadly he did not live to see his reputation restored.

Recognition finally came after his death.

In 1966, Yad Vashem recognised Aristides de Sousa Mendes as Righteous Among the Nations for helping Jewish people escape persecution.

Following the end of Portugal's dictatorship, efforts were made to restore his reputation. In 1988, the Portuguese parliament formally rehabilitated him and restored him to the diplomatic service posthumously.

Faced with thousands of frightened people, he decided that following orders wasn’t as important as helping people who were in danger.

Cuthbert Tunstall: The Tudor Bishop Who Survived Four Very Different Monarchs

Cuthbert Tunstall: The Tudor Bishop Who Survived Four Very Different Monarchs

I found out the other day about Reginald Pole, and I wanted to find out a little more about some of the people connected to him. So today I want to talk about Cuthbert Tunstall, an English bishop, scholar and royal adviser whose remarkable career stretched across the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Cuthbert was born in around 1474 at Hackforth in Yorkshire. He was the illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Tunstall and he received an impressive education. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge before continuing his studies at the University of Padua in Italy.

Tunstall became very accomplished, he studied law, mathematics, Greek and Hebrew. He moved with some of the greatest humanist thinkers of the time and became friends with Thomas More and Erasmus.

His knowledge and experience soon got him a place working in royal service.

During the reign of Henry VIII, Tunstall was employed on several diplomatic missions and became Master of the Rolls in 1516. In 1522, he was appointed Bishop of London, and the following year he became Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal.

He also published a book on mathematics in 1522, believed to have been the first printed book produced in England devoted entirely to the subject.

However, religion would increasingly dominate his career.

Tunstall opposed the spread of Protestant ideas and he rejected William Tyndale’s request for support in translating the Bible into English. In 1526, copies of Tyndale’s English New Testament were publicly burned in London under Tunstall’s authority.

In 1530, Cuthbert became Bishop of Durham, succeeding Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

Tunstall and Pole knew one another and corresponded, but they reacted very differently to Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Pole became one of Henry’s biggest critics and he completely rejected the king’s claim to supremacy over the English Church.

Tunstall was also uncomfortable with many of Henry’s religious changes. He had supported Catherine of Aragon during the dispute over Henry’s marriage, but rather than openly defying the king, he eventually accepted Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England.

His ability to compromise helped him survive where others did not.

That changed during the reign of Edward VI. As England moved further towards Protestantism, Tunstall opposed some of the new religious reforms. In 1551 he was confined in London, then imprisoned in the Tower and was deprived of the bishopric of Durham in 1552.

Like many others his fortunes changed again when the Catholic Mary I became queen.

Tunstall was released and eventually restored as Bishop of Durham. Reginald Pole also returned to England during Mary’s reign, becoming papal legate and later the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury as England was reconciled with Rome.

Despite his Catholic beliefs, Tunstall appears to take a more moderate approach towards Protestants within his diocese.

When Elizabeth I succeeded Mary in 1558, however, Tunstall refused to recognise the new royal supremacy over the Church.

He was deprived of his bishopric again in September 1559 and he was placed under house arrest at Lambeth Palace.

Cuthbert Tunstall died there on the 18th of November 1559 at the age of around 85.

His life is particularly fascinating because he lived through almost the entire upheaval of the English Reformation. He tried repeatedly to balance his Catholic beliefs with loyalty to the Crown, but by the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign, he had finally reached a point where he was no longer prepared to compromise.

The lives of Cuthbert Tunstall and Reginald Pole show just how difficult it could be to navigate the religious upheaval of Tudor England. Each of them made very different decisions, but they both remained important figures throughout a period when England’s religion was changing dramatically.

Jan Żabiński and his wife Antonina Żabińska: The Couple Who Hid Jewish People Inside the Warsaw Zoo

Jan Żabiński and his wife Antonina Żabińska: The Couple Who Hid Jewish People Inside the Warsaw Zoo

Today I want to find out a little bit about Jan Żabiński and Antonina Żabińska. They were a Polish couple who used their home and the grounds of the Warsaw Zoo to help Jewish people escape persecution during the Second World War.

Jan Żabiński was born on the 8th of April 1897 in Warsaw. He had a love of animals and became a zoologist and scientist. During the years between the two world wars, Jan helped to establish the Warsaw Zoo and became its director in 1929.

Antonina Erdman was born on the 18th of July 1908. She also had an interest in animals and became a writer. She produced stories and books inspired by the natural world. She married Jan, and they lived with their family in a villa inside the grounds of Warsaw Zoo.

Their lives changed massively when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.

Warsaw was heavily bombed and the zoo was badly damaged. Many animals were sadly killed and others were removed from the zoo, leaving the zoo almost entirely empty.

During the German occupation, Jan was appointed as superintendent of Warsaw’s public parks. His work allowed him to enter the Warsaw Ghetto, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were being forced to live in terrible conditions.

Jan used these visits as an opportunity to make contact with Jewish friends and acquaintances. He helped people escape from the ghetto and worked with Antonina to provide them with temporary places to hide.

Some were sheltered inside the Żabiński family villa and others were hidden in empty animal enclosures and buildings around the zoo.

The danger was huge. German soldiers sometimes entered the zoo grounds, meaning those that were hiding there could have been discovered at any moment.

Antonina played an important role in keeping everyone safe. She provided them with food and developed ways of warning them when danger was approaching. Their young son Ryszard also helped the people sheltering with the family.

The zoo often acted as a temporary stopping point. Once it became possible, many of those that were hiding there were moved to other places where they could continue to live in secret.

Jan was also involved with the Polish underground resistance, the Home Army. In 1944, he fought during the Warsaw Uprising. He was wounded and later captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.

Antonina stayed in Warsaw and continued to care for the people who still depended upon the family for help.

The exact number of people helped by the Żabińskis is difficult to work out, but hundreds of Jewish people are believed to have passed through the zoo or received assistance from them during the occupation.

After the war, Jan returned to his work at Warsaw Zoo, while Antonina continued writing. In 1968, she published a memoir describing life at the zoo during the occupation.

In 1965, Yad Vashem recognised Antonina and Jan Żabiński as Righteous Among the Nations for risking their own safety to help Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Antonina died on the 19th of March 1971, and Jan died on the 26th of July 1974.

Their story later became widely known through the book and film The Zookeeper’s Wife, but behind that title was a real family who turned their home and their zoo into places of refuge.

Ellen Terry: The Victorian Actress Who Became Britain’s Leading Shakespearean Star

Ellen Terry: The Victorian Actress Who Became Britain’s Leading Shakespearean Star

Today I want to find out a little about Ellen Terry, one of the most celebrated actresses of the Victorian era. Her remarkable career lasted for almost seventy years, taking her from the London stage as a child performer to becoming one of Britain’s best-known Shakespearean actresses.

Alice Ellen Terry was born on the 27th of February 1847 in Coventry, Warwickshire. Acting was very much a family profession. Her parents, Benjamin and Sarah Terry, were both performers, and several of Ellen’s brothers and sisters would also go on to work in the theatre.

Ellen was introduced to the stage incredibly young. At just nine years old, she appeared as Mamillius in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale at the Princess’s Theatre in London. She went on to play other Shakespearean roles during her childhood, including Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Prince Arthur in King John.

By her teenage years, Ellen was already an experienced performer, appearing in theatres around Britain as well as in London.

Her personal life, however, became complicated at an early age.

As a teenager, Ellen became acquainted with the respected artist George Frederic Watts, who was around thirty years older than her. Watts painted several portraits of the young actress, and the pair married in February 1864, just days before Ellen’s seventeenth birthday.

The marriage was really unhappy and they separated within a year.

Ellen eventually returned to acting, but in 1868 she left the stage again after beginning a relationship with architect and designer Edward William Godwin. As Ellen was still legally married to Watts, their decision to live together caused a huge scandal in Victorian society.

Ellen and Godwin had two children, Edith and Edward, but their relationship eventually came to an end. By 1874, Ellen had returned to the theatre once again.

Her comeback was extremely successful.

She received particular praise for her performance as Portia in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Her reputation continued to grow, and in 1878 she began the professional partnership that would define much of her career.

Actor and theatre manager Henry Irving invited Ellen to become his leading lady at London’s Lyceum Theatre.

Irving and Terry became one of the most famous theatrical partnerships of the Victorian period.

Ellen appeared opposite Irving in numerous productions and became particularly associated with Shakespeare. Her roles included Ophelia in Hamlet, Desdemona in Othello, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII.

Her portrayal of Portia remained one of her best-known performances.

Ellen and Irving also toured extensively, including several highly successful visits to North America. For more than twenty years, she was widely regarded as one of Britain's leading Shakespearean actresses.

One of the most memorable images of Ellen came from her appearance as Lady Macbeth in 1888. Her green costume was decorated with thousands of shimmering beetle-wing cases and was later immortalised in a famous portrait by artist John Singer Sargent.

After leaving the Lyceum, Ellen continued performing, although an attempt to manage London’s Imperial Theatre in 1903 was unsuccessful.

She later went on lecture tours in Britain, America and other places, speaking about Shakespeare’s female characters and sharing her theatrical experience.

Ellen also embraced the relatively new format of cinema. Beginning in 1916, she appeared in several silent films while continuing to perform and lecture.

Her contribution to British theatre eventually received official recognition. In 1925, King George V appointed her Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, making her one of the earliest actresses to receive such an honour for her professional career.

Ellen Terry died on the 21st of July 1928 at her home, Smallhythe Place in Kent, at the age of eighty-one.

 

Her career helped to raise the status of professional actresses, and her performances, photographs, portraits and surviving recordings continue to preserve her story.