Panjdeh Incident

Infobox Military Conflict
date= 1885
place= Afghanistan, Central and South Asia, and possibly New Zealand
result= Unknown
combatant1= UK
*AUS
*NZ
*flag|Afghanistan
combatant2= flagicon|Russia Russian EmpireThe Panjdeh Incident or Panjdeh Scare (Russian: Афганский кризис, "Afghan Crisis" or Бой за Кушку, "Battle of Kushka") was a military skirmish that occurred in 1885 when Russian forces seized Afghan territory south of the Oxus River around an oasis at Panjdeh. Competing Russian and British interests in Central and South Asia had for years been the cause of a virtual cold war known euphemistically as The Great Game, and the Panjdeh Incident came close to triggering full scale armed conflict.

An Afghan force was encamped on the west bank of the Kushk River, with a Russian force on the east bank. On 29 March 1885, the leader of the Russian forces, General Komarov, sent an ultimatum demanding an Afghan withdrawal. On their refusal, the Russians attacked them at 3 a.m. on 30 March and drove them across the Pul-i-Khishti Bridge with a loss of some 600 men. Afghan troops were reported to have been 'wiped out to a man' in their trenches.

The incident nearly gave rise to war between Britain and Russia, but the emir Abdur-Rahman, who was present at the Rawalpindi conference with Lord Dufferin at the time, regarded the matter as a mere frontier scuffle. However, members of Gladstone's cabinet, namely Lord Ripon (the new Indian Viceroy), believed withdrawal could lead to a breakdown in law and order and possible intervention from Russia.Outright war was averted with diplomacy, and Lord Dufferin managed to secure a settlement in which Russia kept the Merv Oasis, but relinquished further territories taken in their advance, and promised to respect Afghan territorial integrity in the future.

Following the incident, the Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission was established to delineate the northern frontier of Afghanistan. The commission did not have any Afghan involvement, and effectively led to Afghanistan becoming a buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire. The incident brought the southward expansion of Imperial Russia to a halt. The Russians founded the border town of Kushka in the conquered territory; it was the southernmost settlement of both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

References

*
* R.A.Johnson, "The Penjdeh Incident, 1885" in Archives: The Journal of the British Records Association, volume XXIV, 100, (April 1999): 28-48.