John Keane, 1st Baron Keane

John Keane, 1st Baron Keane , GCB GCH (born February 6, 1781 in Belmont , Ireland ; † August 26, 1844 in Burton Lodge , Hampshire , England ) was a British Lieutenant General and led the first British attack in the First Anglo-Afghan War .

Life

Keane joined the British Army in 1792 at the age of eleven . In the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula , he led a brigade as a lieutenant colonel . As a major general , he commanded the 3rd Brigade in the Battle of New Orleans , where he was wounded. 1818-1819 he was Governor of St. Lucia , Commander in Chief in the West Indies and 1827-1829 Governor of Jamaica . Keane later became Commander in Chief of the Army for the Bombay Presidency in British India .

In order to overthrow the ruler of Afghanistan Dost Mohammed and reinstate the former ruler Schodscha Shah Durrani , Keane led the Army of the Indus to Afghanistan in the spring of 1839 . Combined troops of the British Army and troops of the British Indian Army , approx. 16,500 British and Indian troops as well as approx. 35,000 servants and family members marched over the Bolan Pass . On April 25, 1839, the Army of the Indus reached Kandahar , which fell without a fight. The next stop on the way to Kabul was the fortified city of Ghazni . In the Battle of Ghazni on July 23, General Keane defeated an Afghan army under Hyder Khan there. On July 30th, Keane marched with his troops to Kabul and took the city on August 7th without a fight. The Army of the Indus returned to India and Keane handed over command in Afghanistan to Willoughby Cotton . For his victory in this campaign, Keane was raised to Baron Keane , of Ghuznee and of Cappoquin in the County of Waterford .

literature

• Haythornthwaite, Philip J .: The Colonial Wars Source Book . ISBN 978-1-85409-436-0
• Macrory, Patrick: Retreat from Kabul, The catastrophic british defeat in Afghanistan, 1842 , 2002 ISBN 978-1-59921-177-0

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baron Keane 1839-1844	Edward Arthur Wellington Keane