The End of the Anglo-Persian War
Richard Cavendish remembers the events of March 4th, 1857
In all sixty-three years of Queen Victoria’s reign, there was not one in which British soldiers were not fighting somewhere in the world for queen, country and empire. The minor Anglo-Persian conflict of 1856-57 was fought in Persia, but the bone of contention was Afghanistan, which was a disputed buffer zone between the British in India, the Russians and the Persians.
All three wanted control of it and none of them wanted it in the hands of either of the others.
The Anglo-Afghan War of 1838-42 had been a costly failure and Dost Muhammad, the Afghan warlord of Kabul, had extended his sway over much of the country by 1854. He decided his interests lay with the British rather than the Russians and concluded a formal alliance with the British government in 1855.
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