to the throne, was in France. Later, in 1935, Hashim Khan recalled Shah
Wali Khan and appointed him Minister of Defence in an attempt to offset
Da’ud’s popularity with the military, but he and Da’ud quickly fell out and
Shah Wali was sent back to France.
Hashim Khan set out to widen Afghanistan’s relations with other
nations. In 1934 Afghanistan joined the League of Nations and the United
States formally established diplomatic relations, though initially the Afghan
desk was the responsibility of the Tehran embassy. It was not until after the
United States entered the Second World War that the State Department
opened a Legation in Kabul in 1942. However, in 1938, with war in Europe
again threatening, the American Inland Exploration Company (aiec)
became interested in Afghanistan’s natural resources, particularly oil, and
secured an exclusive 75-year concession to exploit the country’s mineral
reserves. aiec sent a survey team into northeastern Afghanistan, which
led to protests by the ussr to the Afghan government, but the survey
concluded that the lack of accessibility and infrastructure made any oil
or mineral extraction unprofitable and the company surrendered its
concession. 2 Afghan officials, brought up in the belief instilled by Amir
‘Abd al-Rahman Khan that their country had vast mineral wealth, were
angered by aiec’s withdrawal, which helped foster a lack of confidence that
American companies would fulfil their contractual obligations.
Afghan-German and Anglo-Afghan relations
and the Second World WarUnder the regency of Hashim Khan, Afghan relations with Germany
became ever closer, with Zabuli urging closer ties with the Third Reich.
Zabuli even went as far as to provide intelligence to the German embassy in
Kabul. Hashim Khan renewed the Afghan-German alliance, secured new
loans to purchase German military equipment and German technical aid
to Afghanistan increased substantially. In 1935 a German mission travelled
to Nuristan, ostensibly to gather botanical, linguistic and anthropological
data as it was believed the Nuristanis were Aryans. 3 The following year
Afghanistan sent a team to the Olympic Games in Berlin, which were
attended by King Zahir Shah, Hashim Khan, Zabuli and other senior
government officials. During their visit, the king, Zabuli and other senior
officials had a personal audience with Chancellor Hitler and his inner
circle, and during the opening ceremony all the Afghan Olympians gave
the Nazi salute. 4 The outcome of this visit was a German loan of 15 million
Reichsmark as well as additional commercial, educational and political
a house divided, 1933–73