Lahore, Kabul & the Great Game

The Tripartite Treaty (1838)

By the late 1830s, the struggle between Lahore and Kabul was no longer confined to the battlefield.

Peshawar remained under the Sikh Empire. Dost Muhammad Khan remained determined to recover it. And beyond Afghanistan, Britain was becoming increasingly concerned about Persian and Russian influence approaching the north-western frontier of India.

Suddenly, the dispute over Peshawar formed part of something much larger.

Lahore, Kabul and the East India Company were being drawn into the same diplomatic struggle.

After Jamrud

The Battle of Jamrud in 1837 had demonstrated that the Sikh Empire could hold its position near the Khyber.

It had not settled the political dispute.

For Dost Muhammad Khan, the loss of Peshawar remained one of the central problems of his rule. For Ranjit Singh, returning the city was equally unacceptable. Peshawar had become part of the western frontier Lahore had spent decades constructing.

Both rulers therefore began looking beyond direct warfare.

Diplomacy became another battlefield.

Alexander Burnes in Kabul

In 1836, the East India Company selected Alexander Burnes for what began as a commercial mission to Kabul.

But the situation around Afghanistan quickly transformed it into something political. Burnes found himself dealing with the dispute between Dost Muhammad and Ranjit Singh while British officials also watched developments in Persia and Central Asia.

He attempted to find a compromise between Kabul and Lahore.

Dost Muhammad was willing to discuss different arrangements over Peshawar - including proposals under which he might recognise Ranjit Singh's supremacy in return for recovering the territory.

But the Lahore Durbar showed no willingness to surrender it.

The British East India Company was also unwilling to pressure Ranjit Singh into doing so as the relationship with the Sikh Empire was considered too important to risk over Peshawar.

The Peshawar Problem

This left the British in an awkward position.

They wanted a friendly ruler in Kabul but the thing Dost Muhammad wanted most from them was something they could not easily give him.

Peshawar belonged to Ranjit Singh's empire.

Supporting Dost Muhammad's claim risked damaging Britain's relationship with Lahore - one of the strongest independent states remaining between British India and Afghanistan.

British officials therefore encouraged reconciliation, but they would not force Ranjit Singh to return the city and Burnes's attempt to bridge the dispute ultimately failed.

Persia, Russia and Herat

In 1837, Persian forces besieged Herat - a strategically vital city in western Afghanistan, controlling routes between Persia, Central Asia and India.

Britain viewed growing Persian influence and the Russian connections surrounding it with increasing suspicion. Afghanistan now appeared strategically important not simply because of its relationship with Punjab, but because British officials feared that rival powers might gain influence closer to India.

Dost Muhammad also maintained contacts with Persia and Russia while his negotiations with Britain stalled.

What had begun as a dispute over Peshawar was becoming connected to the broader contest for influence across Central and South Asia, what would later become associated with the Great Game.

The Return of Shah Shuja

Shah Shuja Durrani had lived in exile for years and had repeatedly attempted to regain his throne.

His relationship with Maharaja Ranjit Singh stretched back decades - from Shah Shuja's exile and the transfer of the Koh-i-Noor to earlier agreements concerning Afghanistan and the territories now controlled by Lahore.

By 1838, British and Punjabi officials were considering Dost Muhammad’s removal from the throne to restore Shah Shuja to Kabul.

The Sikh Empire controlled the Punjab routes towards Afghanistan and held the very territories that Shah Shuja had once claimed as part of the Afghan monarchy. British records from 1838 show extensive negotiations with both Ranjit Singh and Shah Shuja over the proposed restoration.

The Tripartite Treaty

In June 1838, negotiations produced the agreement remembered as the Tripartite Treaty.

It joined three political interests:

Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the Lahore Darbar.

Shah Shuja Durrani.

The British Government in India.

Ranjit Singh signed the agreement on 26 June 1838, with Shah Shuja's assent secured during the following negotiations. For Lahore, one provision was particularly important.

Shah Shuja formally abandoned his claims to territories formerly associated with Afghan rule that were now controlled by the Sikh Empire.

These included Kashmir, Attock and Peshawar, alongside other territories acquired during Ranjit Singh's expansion. The agreement therefore did something warfare alone could not - it gave diplomatic recognition from the proposed Afghan monarch to Lahore's western conquests.

The treaty also established arrangements for Shah Shuja's restoration. Lahore would provide military cooperation under agreed conditions, while Shah Shuja agreed that once restored he would not independently conduct foreign relations without the consent of the British and Sikh governments.

The agreement also dealt with disputes concerning Sindh and earlier territorial claims.This was therefore much more than a simple military alliance.

It was an attempt to construct an entirely new political order around Afghanistan.

Dost Muhammad would be removed.

Shah Shuja would return.

Britain would gain a ruler in Kabul it considered more acceptable.

And Ranjit Singh's possession of the north-western territories would be recognised by the restored Afghan monarchy.

Lahore and the British

Yet cooperation did not mean that Ranjit Singh simply opened Punjab to British control.

When the British prepared the Army of the Indus for the invasion of Afghanistan, the most direct route ran through Punjab and towards the Khyber.

Ranjit Singh was reluctant to allow the main British army to march across his kingdom.

As a result, the principal British force travelled by the much longer route through Sindh and the Bolan Pass.

A smaller force, involving Shah Shuja's son Shahzada Taimur, British officers and Sikh troops, operated through the Peshawar-Khyber route.

It was a revealing arrangement.

Lahore cooperated in the Afghan expedition while retaining control over how foreign armies moved through its own territory.

The Meeting at Ferozepore

Before the campaign began, the alliance was displayed dramatically at Ferozepore in November 1838.

Lord Auckland, the British Governor-General, met Ranjit Singh while the Army of the Indus assembled nearby. British and Sikh forces were reviewed before one another.

The British army numbered roughly 14,000–15,000 men at Ferozepore, while a much larger Sikh force was also paraded and demonstrated its manoeuvres before the visiting British leadership.

The Road to Kabul

The invasion began soon afterwards.

The main Army of the Indus travelled south-west through Sindh before crossing the Bolan Pass into Afghanistan.

Shah Shuja accompanied the expedition. British forces entered Kandahar and later captured Ghazni before advancing towards Kabul. Meanwhile, operations through the Khyber involved forces connected to Lahore and Shah Shuja's son.

By the summer of 1839, the plan negotiated the previous year was becoming reality. Dost Muhammad abandoned Kabul. Shah Shuja was restored to the Afghan throne.

But Ranjit Singh never saw the final result.

The Maharaja's Final Year

On 27 June 1839, Maharaja Ranjit Singh died in Lahore.

The Afghan campaign was still unfolding. Only weeks later, Shah Shuja entered Kabul under British protection. Ranjit Singh's final years had therefore ended almost exactly where his rise had begun - with Afghanistan shaping the politics of Punjab. But the relationship had been transformed.

The frontier Ranjit Singh inherited had once allowed power to move eastwards into Punjab.

The frontier he left behind placed Lahore at the centre of decisions reaching westwards towards Kabul.

Yet the Tripartite Treaty also opened a new and uncertain chapter.

British armies had crossed the Indus.

Afghanistan was entering the First Anglo-Afghan War.

And in Lahore, the ruler who had held the Sikh Empire's alliances, army and political system together for four decades was gone.

June 1839. Lahore fell silent.