Peshawar taken under Hari Singh Nalwa

Who: Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa, with Mahan Singh Hazarawala as his deputy, sent by Ranjit Singh; Sultan Muhammad Khan, the Barakzai sardar who governed Peshawar as a tributary of the Sikhs; and Dost Muhammad Khan, the ruler at Kabul.

What: Ranjit Singh had seized Peshawar in 1811 but left it in the hands of feudatory governors, among them Yar Muhammad Khan and, from 1830, Sultan Muhammad Khan. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism records that the province came under direct Sikh control in 1834, and that in May 1834 Sultan Muhammad Khan was replaced at Peshawar by Hari Singh Nalwa and given a handsome jagir. Wikipedia dates the annexation to 6 May 1834 and says Nalwa took the city after brief fighting; the Encyclopaedia records only the change of governor. Nalwa became governor, and he was allowed to issue coins in his own name at Peshawar in 1834.

Where: Peshawar and its valley, now in Pakistan, close to the eastern approach to the Khyber Pass at Jamrud.

Why it mattered: Direct rule at Peshawar carried the Sikh frontier to the Khyber and set the Lahore Darbar against Dost Muhammad Khan. According to the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Dost Muhammad declared a holy war to recover Peshawar in 1835, and Sultan Muhammad Khan, who had joined him, soon went over to the Sikh camp instead. In 1836 Nalwa built a fort at Jamrud to block invasion from the north-west, and the Afghan attack on it in 1837 cost him his life. The Peshawar province, which the Encyclopaedia says comprised the Peshawar valley and its dependencies, remained part of the Sikh kingdom until the war of 1848 and 1849.