"c.1840 British Cantonment, Kabul - details...?" Topic

I've been trying for a while now to find details regarding the British Cantonments outside Kabul, built in late 1839-40, after the end of the initial phase of the First Afghan War.

I have a couple of contemporary maps of the outskirts of the city and layout of the camp, which was 1000 by 600 yds, with earthwork walls and a round bastion at each corner.

But that's it. I haven't been able to find any contemporary visual reference of the cantonment itself.

Early to mid-19th Century earthwork entrenchments are not that difficult to visualize, and the same goes for circular bastions at the corners, but I'm hoping to get at least a clue as to the appearance of the single gateway included in the maps -- did it have swinging doors… was there an elevated rampart of some kind…?

If anyone can point me to any more info regarding the appearance of the cantonment in general and its gateway in particular, I'd be very grateful, and thanks in advance for taking the time to read this!

Dalrymple Return of a king has a map. The cantonment is as you describe its gate is on the eastern side. Its southwestern bastion is directly overlooked by an Afghan fort and its southern aspect faces another one. There is a colour sketch by Rattay of the lines prior to the building of the cantonment. The ground is flat.

GMF describes the cantonment and its short comings in terms of military engineering in one of his Flashman books someone else can probably tell you which one. He took pains to get things right.

Flashman! (ie, the first of the series)

I can't help you with the Kabul Cantonment, but I have done some research on the appearance of the cantonments in India at the time of the Indian Mutiny. The ones in India, had, of course, been there for some time. Some as long as a century. In general they were made up of individual one story bungalows made from local building materials. So, in Kabul, probably mud brick with wooden roofs. In India, they planted gardens with hedges and flowers, I suppose, to remind them of home. But I imagine the climate in Kabul was too harsh to support much ornamental vegetation. Maybe a few trees here and there. I will try to find a contemporary illustration of an Indian cantonment I own and send it to you.

Thanks guys.

Oh B#gger* & Advocate: that's a great idea, I will track down a copy of the original Flashman! and see if it includes any description of the cantonment gateway…

Nick: that would be great, so please do send me anything you find! As I said above, my biggest question is in regards to the gate. If you have a picture showing the gateway to a cantonment in India, it would be very helpful to my efforts!

*When I posted your user name it got bleeped!

MG do you have Dalrymple's book? If not I'll look up the relevant chapter for you.

OB, I don't have "Return of a King," but I do have both "The Fierce Pawns" and "Beyond the Khyber Pass," both of which contain this very useful map, which I used as a guide for setting up my table:

I'd certainly appreciate you looking up the relevent chapter, as there could well be something new and different which I haven't found yet. Dalrymple's book is much newer than the everything else I've read.

OB,

Thanks very much for sending me those images. They include a detail I'd never seen before: a cemetery located in front of the Bala Hissar, outside the city walls. I happen to have scratchbuilt an Afghan cemetery a few years back, so it's now sitting in the appropriate place on my tabletop, thanks to you!

Not me MG but I will post the Dalrymple stuff here starting with this.

The perimeter wall was nearly 2 miles long too extended for the garrison to defend and had a low easily escaladed rampart and a narrow ditch.

The wall walks without loop holes or machiconalations made it impossible to defend.

More to come.

The Royal Engineers who would have been responsible for building this have a museum and library in Chatham, Kent in the UK. I wonder if they would have some information on this cantonment? And if so, how do we reach out to them?