Reign of Habibullah, 1901-19

Habibullah, although Abdur Rahman's eldest son and heir, was the child of a slave mother, and he had to keep a close eye on the palace intrigues that swirled around the person of Abdur Rahman's most distinguished wife (a granddaughter of Dost Mohammad), who sought the throne for her son. Secure in his rule by virtue of the support from the army created by his father, Habibullah was not as domineering as Abdur Rahman, and his reign saw the rising influence of religious leaders, as well as that of Mahmoud Beg Tarzi. Tarzi, a highly educated and well-traveled poet and journalist, founded an Afghan nationalist newspaper with the ruler's agreement, and until 1919 he used it as a platform for reform, for rebuttal to clerical criticism of Western-influenced changes in government and society, and for espousing full Afghan independence (from British control of its foreign policy). Although Tarzi often fell into disagreement with Habibullah in the later years of his reign, Tarzi's passionate Afghan nationalism influenced a generation of Asian nationalists, and the ruler could not but agree with his demands for an end to British tutelege.

Habibullah came to power at a time when Britain was once again pushing forward its outposts in the Pashtun areas. Upon Habibullah's succession to the throne, the British viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, took the surprising step of demanding that Habibullah renegotiate the treaty reached between his father and the British. Because the British had always demanded that treaty commitments be honored by a ruler's successor, Habibullah was insulted and wary of new British demands. He refused Curzon's invitation (virtually an order) that he come to India for consultation on this matter. If Curzon had had his way, another British invasion of Afghanistan might have resulted, but a more judicious policy prevailed.

The Afghan monarch cleverly decided that, if the British did not regard the old treaty as binding, he need no longer let Britain control Afghan foreign policy. He made known his interest in establishing diplomatic relations with Russia, Japan, Turkey, the United States, and other countries and, no doubt as he had expected, the British quickly sent a mission to negotiate a new agreement, which was reached early in 1905. New demands that the British had been prepared to press upon the Afghans were dropped, and the 1905 Anglo-Afghan treaty was little more than a replacement of the previous one.

Several other foreign policy events with implications for the future occurred in the reign of Habibullah. A boundary with Iran was fixed to replace the ambiguous delineation that had been made by a British commission in 1872 but which had been unsatisfactory to both the Iranians and the Afghans. The British were keen to draw the boundary, concerned as they were with Russian influence at the Iranian court and in the areas adjacent to Afghanistan. In mid-1904 a boundary commission completed its work, which was accepted by both states. A further effort to reach agreement on the distribution of the waters of the Helmand River was more difficult. The scheme proposed in May 1905 was accepted by Habibuflah but not by the Iranian government.

Like all the foreign policy developments of this period that affected Afghanistan, the conclusion of the Great Game between Russia and Britain occurred without the participation of the Afghan ruler. The great power configuration changed in the early years of the twentieth century. Four factors combined to bring about the new situation: Russia's defeat in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, the rising power of Germany in Europe, continued Russian interest in Iran, and British interest in lands adjacent to India (such as Tibet). By 1906 the Russians and the British-brought together by their alliance against Germany in Europe-were discussing a division of spheres of influence in Central Asia and the Middle East, and by 1907, after 18 months of negotiation, they had reached an agreement. The 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention not only divided the region into areas of Russian and British influence but also established the foundation for Afghan neutrality. The convention included provisions for dividing Iran into areas of Russian influence in the north and British in the east and south and granting each side the right to occupy its area of influence if threatened by a third party (a provision that provided the legal pretext for British and Russian occupation of Iran during World War II); providing for Russian acquiescence in Afghanistan's exclusion from its sphere of influence and Russian agreement to consult with Britain on all matters relating to Afghanistan; and providing British agreement not to occupy or annex Afghanistan or interfere in its internal affairs.

A final clause of the convention required Afghan consent to make the treaty binding, but when Habibullah refused to accept the treaty in the making of which he had had no voice, the Russians and the British declared the agreement valid anyway. Encouraged by the Russian defeat by the Japanese, Habibullah wanted British support in an attack on Russia to regain the lands in Turkestan taken by the Russians in the nineteenth century. Britain, far more interested in the European power struggle and the defense of India through an Afghan buffer state, was uninterested in such a scheme.

During World War I Afghanistan remained neutral, despite pressure to support Turkey when its sultan proclaimed his nation's participation in a holy war. Habibullah did, however, entertain a Turco-German mission in Kabul in 1915. Although, after long procrastination, he won agreement from the Central Powers to a huge payment and provision of arms if he would attack British India, the crafty Afghan ruler clearly viewed the war as an opportunity to play one side off against the other, for he also offered the British to hold off the Central Powers from an attack on India in exchange for an end to British control of Afghan foreign policy.

This page maintained by Luke Griffin and last updated on 01/14/2002 .