Afghans Retake Peshawar During Sepoy Rebellion

[MerryPrankster]

I'm reading "Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander The Great to the Fall of the Taliban" by Stephen Tanner.

In the book, he makes a reference to how Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Afghanistan, missed an opportunity to retake Peshawar from the Raj during the Sepoy Mutiny. Tanner says the British might actually cede him Peshawar in exchange for him not attacking any more, since they feared an Afghan onslaught during the Mutiny.

So...

Is this plausible? And if they did cede him Peshawar, how long would he be able to keep it?

 

[XanXar]

they might be able to take it but they wont be able to keep it in the long run

 

[Anaxagoras]

There were some British officers who thought it might be a good idea to hand it over as a bribe to not intervene during the mutiny, but this idea was firmly squelched by John Nicholson (an extraordinary man!) and others.

If the Afghans had actually taken the town by force while the British were distracted, I imagine that they would have waited until the rebellion had been suppressed and then returned to kick him out again. Their blood was up in those days, and there were plenty of Gurkha and Sikh troops available who hated the Afghans with a passion. They might even try a punitive expedition to Kabul to teach the Afghans a lesson, though remembering the events of twenty years before, they would not have tried to stay.