The British Camp at Kandahar, 1879

Watercolour by W W Blackburne.

Kandahar, in south-east Afghanistan, was captured by Lieutenant-General Donald Stewart's force without a struggle on 8 January 1879. Blackburne painted this view of the British cantonment in the months that followed when the occupation of the city was relatively uneventful, but following Ayub Khan's victory at Maiwand on 27 July 1880 the Kandahar force was besieged.