Nearly the entire Kabul garrison of 16,000 British and Indian troops, their families and servants, were slaughtered by Afghan forces as they tried to retreat. Then, British troops marched back in the same year, razing much of Kabul to the ground in revenge. So basically, the British took Kabul again, but the war lasted several more years and they were back again in 1919. Later, Britain signed a treaty accepting its empire would never stretch beyond the Khyber Pass and granting the Afghans their independence.