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Updated: June 27, 2025
It is in memory of the officers and men of the Royal Engineers who fell in the South African and Afghan campaigns. Their names are recorded in crudely coloured mosaic tablets in the upper of the two arcades below. The window at the end of the north aisle is in memory of Lieut. T. Rue Henn, R.E., killed at Maiwand in 1880.
The effective garrison on the night of the 28th numbered 4360, including the survivors of the Maiwand brigade. So alert were the Afghans that a cavalry reconnaissance made on the morning of the 29th, found the cantonments plundered and partly burned and the vicinity of Candahar swarming with armed men.
How would the cheek of Walter Scott, or of Leyden, have blushed at the names of Majuba, The Soudan, Maiwand, and many others that recall political cowardice or military incapacity! Only he who told how The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood could have fitly rhymed a score of feats of arms in which, as at M'Neill's Zareeba and at Abu Klea,
The story of British relations with Afghanistan is one which illustrates the infinite capacity of our race to "muddle through" to some more or less satisfactory settlement. This was especially the case in the spring and summer of 1880, when the accession of Mr. Gladstone to power and the disaster of Maiwand changed the diplomatic and military situation.
About ten A.M. the advance guard occupied the village of Mundabad, about three miles south-west of Maiwand. West of Mundabad, close to the village, was a broad and deep ravine running north and south.
The tidings of the Maiwand disaster reached Cabul on the 29th July by telegram from Simla. The intention of the military authorities had already been intimated that the Cabul force should evacuate Afghanistan in two separate bodies and by two distinct routes.
In four hours from the time the fight began, the Afghan army was driven from the position it had taken up, its camp and all its appurtenances falling into our hands, as well as thirty-one guns and two Horse Artillery guns, which had been captured at Maiwand. They had made certain of victory, for not a tent was struck, nor a single mule-load of baggage off.
There was a further reason why Maiwand should be promptly occupied; the brigade had been obtaining its supplies from that village, and there was still a quantity of grain in its vicinity to lose which would be unfortunate. The brigade, now 2600 strong, struck camp on the morning of the 27th. The march to Maiwand was twelve miles long, and an earlier start than 6.30 would have been judicious.
There was certainly nothing impossible in such an endeavour, since Maiwand is nearer Candahar than is Khushk-i-Nakhud. Why, in the face of the information at his disposal and of the precautions enjoined on him to hinder Ayoub from slipping by him toward Ghuznee through Maiwand and up the Khakrez valley, General Burrows should have remained so long at Khushk-i-Nakhud, is not intelligible.
Hearing that 2000 of the enemy's horsemen and a large number of ghazis had hurried forward in advance of the main body to Maiwand, he determined to attack them there. At 6.30 A.M. on July 27 he struck camp and moved forwards with his little force of 2599 fighting men.
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