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Afghanistan Between the Great Powers, 1938–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Milan L. Hauner
Milan L. Hauner
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin—Madison
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Extract

The increased interest in Afghanistan, highlighted by the Soviet invasion of that country in December 1979, calls for the reassessment of the more recent political history of Afghanistan, particularly its relations with the great powers. In this connection the period of World War 11 has often been treated superficially, and until today there has been only one book (L. W. Adamec, Afghanistan's Foreign Affairs to the Mid- Twentieth Century: Relations with the USSR, Germany, and Britain [Tucson, 1974]) which contains adequate coverage of the war years. These years ought to be considered as a watershed for the entire region since they clearly foreshadowed the events to come, which we are observing today with great amazement and alarm.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , November 1982 , pp. 481 - 499
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

NOTES

2 Agabekov, G. S., Cheka za rabotoi (Berlin, 1931), pp. 276–283;Google ScholarAnonymous, , “The Borderlands of Soviet Central Asia: Afghanistan,” Central Asian Review 4 (1956), 177–181.Google Scholar

3 See Hauner, M., “The Soviet Threat to Afghanistan and India 1938–1940,” Modern Asian Studies 15. 2 (1981). 287–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 The first pioneering study using German archival sources is Inge Kircheisen's “Umkampftes Vorfeld lndiens,” in Glasneck, J. and Kircheisen, I., Türkei und Afghanistan: Brennpunkte der Orienipolitik im weiten Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1968);Google Scholar see also Glaesner, H., “Das Dritte Reich und der Mittlere Osten. Politische und wirtschaftliche Beziehungen Deutschlands zur Türkei 1933–1939, zu Iran 1939–1941 und zu Afghanistan 1933–1941,” Ph.D. diss., University of Wurzburg, 1976;Google Scholar and Hauner, M., “The Significance of Afghanistan: Lessons from the Past,” The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 279 (07 1980), 240–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Afghanistan, Political Review for 1941, para. 2.

6 Term borrowed from L. B. Poullada's paper “Afghan-American Relations: The Crucial Years,” presented at the 9th Wisconsin Conference on South Asia, Madison, , 11 8, 1980.Google Scholar See also Hauner, M., “Anspruch und Wirklichkeit: Deutschland als Dritte Macht in Afghanistan, 1915–1939,” in: Kettenacker, L. et al. , eds., Festschrfi für Paul Kluge (Munich, 1981), pp. 222–244.Google Scholar

7 Fraser-Tytler to Halifax, No. 85 of 28/6/1938, para. 5, FO 37 1/22257.

8 For details see Hauner, , “Soviet Threat,” 294 ff.Google Scholar

9 Fraser-Tytter to Halifax, No. 151 of 16/11/1938, para. 4, FO 371/22257.

10 COS (40)252 of 8/3/1940.

11 Halder, F., Kriegstagebuch 1939–1942, Jacobsen, H. A., ed., Vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1962), pp. 150, 156;Google ScholarDocuments on German Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Series, D., Vol. VIII (London, HMSO, 1961–1964), No. 514 (hereafter DGFP/D/ VIII);Google Scholar more comprehensively in Hauner, , India in Axis Strategy: Germany. Japan, and Indian Nationalists in the Second World War (Stuttgart, 1981), p. 176.Google Scholar

12 Hàuner, , India in Axis Strategy, pp. 159–173.Google Scholar

13 Afghanistan: Political Review for 1940, para. I, FO 371/27032.

14 Ibid., para. 4 and 5.

15 See Hauner, , “Soviet Threat,” p. 307.Google Scholar For the text of the Soviet-Afghan Trade Agreement of 23 July 1940, see Teplinsky, L. B., 50 let Sovetsko-Afghanskikh Otnosheniy (Moscow, 1971), p. 105.Google Scholar

16 As under. note 13 above, para. 8.

17 Ibid.

18 DGFP/D/X, Nos. 158, 220, 228; GFO 2345H/E48421–48.

19 Bhagat, Ram Talwar, The Talwars of Pathan Land and Subhas Chandra 's Great Escape (New Delhi, 1976), pp. 55–121;Google ScholarChand, Uttam, When Bose Was Ziauddin (Delhi, 1946);Google Scholar GFO 195/239117– 126; see also Adamec, L. W., Afghanistan's Foreign Affairs to the Mid- Twentieth Century (Tucson, Ariz., 1974), pp. 247–248.Google Scholar

20 Schramm, P. E. et al. , eds., Oberkommando der Wehrmacht: Kriegstagebuch. Wehrmachtsfuhrungsstab, Vol. I (Frankfurt, 1961), pp. 71E, 128, 136;Google ScholarHalder, , Kriegstagebuch, pp. 292, 354;Google ScholarHiligruber, A., Hitlers Strategie: Politik und Kriegfuhrung 1940–1941 (Frankfurt, 1965), pp. 383–387, 415.Google Scholar “Barbarossa,” code name of Hitler's directive No. 21 of December 18, 1940, with the aim to “crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign,” was launched on June 22, 1941. For the text see Trevor-Roper, H. R., ed., Hitler's War Directives 1939–1945 (London 1966), pp. 93–98.Google Scholar

21 Afghanistan: Summary of Situation January-June 1941, lOR L/P&S/12/ 1778.

22 Fraser-Tytler to Amery, No. 36 of 29/5/1941. IOR L/ P&S/ 12/1572; CAB 68/8:W.P.(R)(41)28.

23 Dispatch No. 36 of 29/5/ 1941, paras. 6 & 19, IOR L/P&S/12/1572.

24 Ibid., para. 12.

25 GF0 617/249965–70.

26 DGFP/D/Xlll, No. 44.

27 Fraser-Tytler to Eden, No. 227 of 11/7/1941, WO 106/3765.

28 Hauner, , India in Axis Strategy, pp. 316–17; see also Adamec, Afghanistan, pp. 251–253.Google Scholar

29 Hauner, , India in Axis Strategy, pp. 309–310, 314–315.Google Scholar

30 Kabul to FO London, No. 328 of 27/9/ 1941, IOR L/P&S/12/1778.

31 IO to 001, No. 10880 of 6/9/ 1941, repeated to Moscow and Kabul, WO 208/26.

32 Ibid., Kabul to FO London, Nos. 307 and 308, 11/9/ 1941.

33 Minutes by M.l.2., dated 8, 13, 14 and 15/9, 1/10/1941, WO 108/26.

34 Ibid., M.l.2. file: Policy for Afghanistan, September–November 1941.

35 Ibid.: GOl to 10, No. 6338 of 127sol;11/1941, and comments by M.l.2. and D.D.M.1. of 15/11/1941; General Headquarters Weekly Summary of North-West Frontier and Afganistan, No. 44 of 7/11/1941; Kabul Weekly Intelligence Summary, No. 46 of 15/11/1941.

36 Hauner, , India in Axis Strategy, pp. 326–327.Google Scholar

37 Cf, . Hauner, M., “One Man against the Empire: The Faqir of Ipi and the British in Central Asia on the Eve of and during the Second World War,” Journal of Contemporary History, I (1981), 183–212.Google Scholar

38 For more details see Hauner, M., India in Axis Strategi, pp. 513–515, 524–527, 554–558. I am dealing with this extraordinary agent of World War II in a separate paper entitled “The Last Great Game,” read at the 9th Wisconsin South Asia Conference, Madison, November 8, 1980.Google Scholar

39 Wylie to Eden, No. 41 of 6/3/1942, IOR R/ 12/1/149; see also Mansergh, N. et al. , eds., The Transfer of Power 1942–1947: Constitutional Relations between India and Britain, Vol. I (London, HMSO, 1971), No. 256.Google Scholar

40 Wylie to Eden, Afghanistan, Political Review for 1942, para. 2, FO. 371/34920.

41 General Headquarters Weekly Intelligence Summary of North-West Frontier and Afghanistan, No. II of 20/3/ 1942.

42 GF0 86/62935–38, 617/250201; see also Kircheisen, , Umkampftes Vorfeld, pp. 259–260.Google Scholar

43 GF0 86/62925–40, 329/195469–70, 5147H/ E303610.

44 GF0 86/62945–6.

45 IO Minutes of the Approach by the Afghan Government to the Axis, Ext. 4727, dated 2– 3/9/ 1942, FO 371/31324, IOR L/P&S/12/1789.

46 Wylie to Eden, 8/8/1942, LOR RI 12/1/128, L/P&S/ 12/1789.

47 CAB 68/9 W.P.(R)(42)38.

48 GF0 86/62965, 195/140279–82. 617/250197, 1065/312912; correspondence in files FO 371/ 34928–30, IOR L/P&S/12/ 1798, 1799, 1933, WO 208/30.

49 Conversation between Sir Olaf Caroe, Foreign Secretary to the GOI, and the Afghan Prime and Foreign Ministers, 12/4/1943, FO 371/51841.

50 Afghanistan, Political Review for 1944, para. 7, IOR L/P&S/l 12/1572.

51 Ibid., para. I; see also Afghanistan, Political Review for 1945, para. 2, IOR LI P&S/ 12/1572.

52 Afghanistan, Political Review for 1944, paras. 3, 4, 5, 8, 10; Afghanistan: Political Review for 1945, paras. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

53 Afghanistan. Political Review for 1944, para. 7. See also FO 371/399957.

54 Afghanistan, Political Review for 1945, para. 10.

55 Compiled from GFO 195/140279–82, 140339–46, 1064/312647, 1066/312998, 313045, 313076, 1081/316375–8, 316381–428, 1082/316604; see also WO 208/30, FO 371/34930, 39945–9, 39957, 39972, IOR L/P&S/12/1661, 1798.

56 Afghanistan, Political Review for 1943, para. II.