1823
Battle of Nowshera
The setting
Nowshera, on the Kabul river in modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
The Kabul river and the hill of Pir Sabak. The Sikh army had a river between its two problems.
Reveal the outcome
Recorded sideAfghan forces under Azim Khan Barakzai, with Yusufzai levies
Recorded resultdefeated; Azim Khan withdrew toward Kabul and died within months
Sikh victory, and the most expensive one of the reign.
How the atlas explains it
It worked, and the entry should not pretend it worked cleanly. The Nihang charge that carried Pir Sabak was frontal, unsupported and enormously costly, and Phula Singh died in it. Azim Khan's main body never crossed the river to support the Yusufzai holding the hill - so the Sikhs beat the two halves of an army that never combined. The victory is as much about a failure of Afghan coordination as about the charge that is remembered.
What followed
Peshawar becomes tributary and later annexed; Afghan power east of the Khyber is finished. ⚠ Akali Phula Singh's death is the lane's sharpest instance of a commander remembered ENTIRELY for the manner of his death: he was the leader of the Akali Nihangs and an independent power in the state, and the record of him is dominated by twenty minutes on one hill.