Shah Shujah (Afghanistan)

Shah Shujah in his Kabul palace

Shah Shujah ( Persian شاه شجاع, DMG Šāh Šuǧāʿ ; * 1780 ; † April 5, 1842 ), also known as Shuja al-Mulk (Šuǧāʿ al-Mulk) , was Shah of Afghanistan from 1803 to 1809 and during the First British-Afghan War from 1839 to 1842 . He was an Abdali - / Durrani Rulers from the Popalzi - Clan of Sadozi .

Life

After Timur Shah Durrani's death in 1793, there were protracted battles between his 23 sons for the succession to the throne. Zaman Shah , the fifth son of Timur, ascended the throne after he had invited his brothers in Kabul to negotiate, captured them and forced them to accept him under threat of starvation. Only two of the brothers were absent: Mahmud Shah Durrani and Shah Shuja. In 1801 there was a conspiracy against Zaman, but it failed; the conspirators were executed. A little later Mahmud took power in Kabul. In 1803, Shah Shuja took Kabul and deposed his brother Mahmud. In 1805 a Persian attack on Herat failed . As early as 1810, the rule of Shah Shujah ended again, and Mahmud took power again. Shah Shujah fled to British-ruled India and lived there in exile for 29 years.

In 1833/34 a first attempt to regain power in Afghanistan failed . With the Shimla Manifesto of October 1, 1838, the British Governor General Lord Auckland deposed the Shah of Afghanistan, Dost Mohammed , and Shah Shuja again. In the spring of 1839, around 16,500 British and Indian troops and around 35,000 servants and family members under the command of General Sir John Keane invaded Afghanistan over the Bolan Pass and opened the First Anglo-Afghan War . On November 23, 1840, Dost Mohammed surrendered, and Shah Schuja was again Shah of Afghanistan as the “puppet king”. In the country, however, resistance increased. In mid-1841 there were around 30,000 armed Afghan fighters facing around 4,500 British-Indian soldiers. Mohammed Akbar, a son of Dost Mohammed, worsened the situation in Kabul with 6,000 men. The British surrendered after fierce fighting against promise of safe conduct, and on January 6, 1842, the retreat began under General William Elphinstone . Of the total of 17,000 people, only the British military doctor Dr. William Brydon as the only survivor the city of Jalalabad . In response to this defeat, a punitive expedition was sent out. Two armies under General George Pollock and General William Nott shocked Jalalabad and Kandahar in the spring . Even before British troops marched into Kabul, Shah Shuja was lured out of the citadel of Bala Hissar and murdered by Mohammed Akbar . Dost Mohammed was reinstated as the Shah of Afghanistan.

literature

• William Dalrymple: Return of a King. The Battle for Afghanistan. Bloomsbury, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4088-2287-6
• Jules Stewart: On Afghanistan's Plains. The Story of Britain's Afghan Wars . IB Tauris, London / New York 2011. ISBN 978-1-84885-717-9