Battle of Maiwand

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Maiwand
partof=Second Anglo-Afghan War


caption=Royal Horse Artillery fleeing from Afghan attack at the Battle of Maiwand
date=July 27, 1880
place=Maiwand, Afghanistan
result=Afghan victory
combatant1=flagicon|United Kingdom British Empire
combatant2=Afghanistan
commander1=flagicon|United KingdomGeorge Burrows
commander2=Ayub Khan
strength1=2,476 British/Indian troops
strength2=25,000 Afghan warriors
casualties1=969 killed
177 wounded
casualties2=2,050-2,750 killed
1,500+ woundedThe Battle of Maiwand was one of the principal battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The battle ended in defeat for the British Army and victory for the Afghan followers of Ayub Khan. The Afghan victory at Maiwand was at a cost of anywhere between 2,050 to 2,750 Afghan warriors killed and probably about 1,500 wounded.Fact|date=January 2008 On the other side, about 969 British/Indian soldiers were killed and 177 more wounded. It is however one of the few instances in the 19th century of an Asian power defeating a Western one.

The battle

Before the battle the campaign had gone well for the British. They had previously defeated Afghan tribesmen at Ali Masjid, Peiwar Kotal, Kabul and Ahmed Khel. Furthermore, they had managed to occupy countless number of towns and villages including Kandahar, Dakka and Jalalabad.

Ayub Khan, Shere Ali's younger son, who had been holding Herat during the British operations at Kabul and Kandahar, set out towards Kandahar with a small army in June 1880, and a brigade under General Burrows was detached from Kandahar to oppose him. Burrows advanced to Helmand, opposite Girishk, to oppose Ayub Khan, but was there deserted by the troops of Shere Ali, the wali of Kandahar, and forced to retreat to Kushk-i-Nakhud, half way to Kandahar. In order to prevent Ayub passing to Ghazni, Burrows advanced to Maiwand on 27 July, and attacked Ayub, who had already seized that place. The Afghans, who numbered 25,000, outflanked the British, the artillery expended their ammunition, and the native portion of the Brigade got out of hand and pressed back on the few British infantry. The British were completely routed, and had to thank the apathy of the Afghans for escaping total annihilation. Of the 2,476 British troops engaged, the British and Indian force lost 21 officers and 948 soldiers killed. Eight officers and 169 men were wounded. The Grenadiers lost 64% of their strength and the 66th lost 62%, including 12 officers. The cavalry losses were much smaller. Regimental casualties were:
* E/B Battery, Royal Horse Artillery: 14 dead 13 wounded
* 3rd Queen’s Own (Bombay Cavalry) 27 dead 18 wounded
* 3rd Scinde Horse (Bombay Army) 15 dead 1 wounded
* 66th Regiment of Foot 286 dead 32 wounded
* 1st Grenadiers 366 dead 61 wounded
* 30th Bombay NI (Jacob’s Rifles) 241 dead 32 wounded
* 2nd Company Bombay Sappers and Miners 16 dead 6 wounded

One estimate of Afghan casualties is 3,000, reflecting the desperate nature of much of the fighting, [http://www.britishbattles.com/second-afghan-war/maiwand.htm British Battles - Second Afghan War (Maiwand)] although other sources give 1,500 Afghans and up to 4,000 Ghazis killed. [ http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/campafghan1878maiwand.htm British Empire - Camp Afghan (Maiwand)]

This defeat necessitated Sir Frederick Roberts' famous march from Kabul to Kandahar. Further casualties were incurred on both sides in the aftermath of the battle, the retreat and a follow-up action a month later - perhaps accounting for the variance between the two sources.

While dealing with some mutinous Afghan troops about fifty miles from Kandahar, George Burrows, a British brigadier-general, was confronted by a large Afghan army en route from Herat. What followed was a lengthy and bloodthirsty battle of attrition, which saw the 66th Regiment (later called the Royal Berkshire Regiment) almost destroyed due to a combination of overwhelming Afghan numbers, superior Afghan artillery, use of terrain, an inexperienced Indian regiment, and the debatable leadership of Burrows.

This battle dampened morale for the British side, but was also partly a disappointment for Ayub Khan, Governor of Herat and commander of the Afghans in this battle, because he had lost so many men to gain a small advantage. Ayub Khan did manage to shut the British up in Kandahar, resulting in General Frederick Roberts' famous 314-mile relieving march from Kabul to Kandahar in August 1880. The resulting Battle of Kandahar on 1 September was a decisive victory for the British.

Maiwand in poetry, art and fiction

Poetry

Rudyard Kipling, who had researched this battle in 1892, included this small yet dramatic poem about the action at Maiwand in his Barrack-Room Ballads collection. "That Day" extract:-

:"There was thirty dead an' wounded on the ground we wouldn't keep -":"No, there wasn't more than twenty when the front began to go;":"But, Christ! along the line o' flight they cut us up like sheep,":"An' that was all we gained by doing so."

:"I 'eard the knives be'ind me, but I dursn't face my man,":"Nor I don't know where I went to, 'cause I didn't 'alt to see,":"Till I 'eard a beggar squealin' out for quarter as 'e ran,":"An' I thought I knew the voice an' - it was me!"

:"We was 'idin' under bedsteads more than 'arf a march away;":"We was lyin' up like rabbits all about the countryside;":"An' the major cursed 'is Maker 'cause 'e lived to see that day' ":"An' the colonel broke 'is sword acrost, an' cried."

Poems of the victory at Maiwand have passed into Pashtun and Afghan folklore. As Afghan legend would have it, the battle created an unlikely hero in the shape of an Afghan woman called Malalai, who on seeing the Afghan forces falter, used her veil as a standard and encouraged the men by shouting out:"Young love if you do not fall in the battle of Maiwind;":"By God someone is saving you as a token of shame;"

Art

A cast iron statue of a lion (the Maiwand Lion) was built by George Blackall Simonds in Reading and unveiled in 1886 to commemorate those who died in battle. A monument was built in the 1950s on the Maiwand Square in Kabul in commemoration of the battle by an Afghan architect Is-matulla Saraj.

A memorial was erected in central London to a remarkable canine survivor of the engagement: Bobbie, the regimental mascot. Bobbie was wounded during the fighting, but was spotted the following day by survivors, making his way back to the fort.

Fiction

Dr. John H. Watson, fictional companion of Sherlock Holmes, was based upon the 66th regiment's Medical Officer, Surgeon Major A F Preston, who was wounded in the Battle of Maiwand Gulham (as described in the opening chapter of "A Study in Scarlet") and invalided out of the British Army. [https://www.thewardrobe.org.uk/historyto1881.php The Rifles (Berkshire and Wiltshire) Museum]

ee also

*Battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War
*Bobbie

References

External links

* [http://www.angloafghanwar.info/biography/malalai.php Malalai of Maiwand]
* [http://afgan.ru/33/av3.htm Maiwand Monument]
* [http://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/collections/album/pdfs/maiwand-25.pdf Maiwand Lion, Reading, Berkshire, UK]
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/244 Project Gutenberg edition of "A Study in Scarlet" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]
* [http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2007/April/opinion_April49.xml&section=opinion&col= Remember the battle of Maiwand BY ERIC MARGOLIS 15 April 2007 ]
* [http://www.nongnu.org/afghancalendar Online Afghan Calendar with Historical dates (also Battle of Maiwand)]