afghanistanfurther military intervention beyond the Khyber and Bolan passes. Over
the next three decades, Imperial Russian forces pushed south and annexed
all of the Central Asian Khanates without facing any military response
from Britain. By the late 1860s Russia’s frontier in Central Asia had been
drawn on the Amu Darya, Afghanistan’s northern border.
Militarily, Pollock and Nott’s campaigns in the summer and autumn of
1842 went some way to restore British military prestige. The annexation of
Sind the following year and two successful wars against the Sikhs (1845–6;
1848–9), which led to the annexation of the Punjab, helped to rehabilitate
the shattered reputation of the Indian Army and pushed the northwest-
ern frontier of British India to the Khyber. These and other victories and
territorial acquisitions made it that much easier for Imperial historians to
portray the First Afghan War as an exception rather than the rule.
Britain’s Central Asian policy, however, was in tatters and Anglo-
Afghan relations could not have been worse. The conduct of Burnes and
Macnaghten reinforced Afghan distrust of British diplomacy and led
to hostility to Britain per se. Britain now faced the monumental task of
rebuilding trust with a ruler whom she had defamed, deposed and exiled,
and a government and people who were even less willing to risk engaging
with European powers or civilization.