Consider the following wars and arrange them in correct chronological order.
1. First Anglo-Mysore War
2. Second Anglo-French War
3. First Anglo-Sikh War
4. First Anglo-Afghan War
Select the correct a

Question

Consider the following wars and arrange them in correct chronological order.
1. First Anglo-Mysore War
2. Second Anglo-French War
3. First Anglo-Sikh War
4. First Anglo-Afghan War
Select the correct answer from the code given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, 2, 1, 4, 3. Taking the four wars by the year each began: the Second Anglo-French War — that is the Second Carnatic War, the second round of the Anglo-French contest in the Deccan — ran from 1749 to 1754; the First Anglo-Mysore War, fought by Haidar Ali against the Company, the Nizam and the Marathas, ran from 1767 to 1769 and ended with the Treaty of Madras; the First Anglo-Afghan War began in 1839, on the strength of Lord Auckland's Simla Manifesto of 1838, and ended in 1842 with the destruction of the retreating British force; and the First Anglo-Sikh War was fought in 1845-46, closing with the Treaty of Lahore. That gives 1749 - 1767 - 1839 - 1845, which in the question's numbering is 2, 1, 4, 3.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Gets the second half right — Afghan before Sikh — but opens by putting the First Anglo-Mysore War (1767-69) before the Second Anglo-French War (1749-54). The Anglo-French contest in the Carnatic was over more than a decade before Haidar Ali fought the Company.  (c) Wrong at both ends: it opens with Mysore before the Anglo-French war and closes with the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46) before the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42). This is the option you land on if you simply assume the list is already in order.  (d) Correct on the opening pair, then reverses the 1840s. The First Anglo-Afghan War began in 1839 and the catastrophic retreat from Kabul was in January 1842 — three years before the First Anglo-Sikh War broke out in 1845.

Concept: The four wars mark four different phases of British expansion. The Carnatic or Anglo-French wars of the mid-eighteenth century were where the Company first learned to intervene in Indian succession disputes and to fight with sepoy armies — Dupleix's technique, later turned against the French. Mysore under Haidar Ali was the first Indian power to give the Company a genuine fright in the south. The First Anglo-Afghan War belongs to a wholly different logic: a 'forward policy' beyond the north-west frontier, driven by fear of Russian influence in Central Asia. The Anglo-Sikh wars finished the job, absorbing the last large independent Indian state, the Punjab, after Ranjit Singh's death.

State PCS 2025 Q23 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q23 — History PYQ with Answer