Looking towards Jallalabad. Taken from a picquet during an engagement, 1919 (b/w photo)

‘Looking towards Jallalabad. Taken from a picquet during an engagement’, 1919. Photograph by Randolph Bezzant Holmes (1888-1973), 3rd Afghan War, 1919. This view depicts an engagement on Dakka plain with the Kabul river visible to the right. Dakka, a staging post en route to Jelalalabad, was initially occupied by the British on 13 May 1919, but Brigadier-General Guy Baldwin’s choice of camp location, near Loe Dakka, was poorly suited for defence and he failed to secure the surrounding heights. Two days later, Major-General Charles Fowler arrived at Dakka and assumed command. He ordered the camp to be moved two miles further west and made an effort to picquet the hills to the south and west of the camp. But before all of these improvements could be made, the camp came under artillery barrage and then an infantry assault. This Afghan attack was defeated and the British launched a counter-attack the following day. However, they were unable to consolidate their position and it was not until 17 May that the heights around Dakka were finally secured and the Afghans were forced to withdraw. From an album of 43 photographs, 1920 circa-1925 compiled by Maj G A Clarke, 12th Pioneers (The Kelat-i-Ghilzie Regiment).