Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan

the Afghans were perceived as mere pawns on the chessboard of western diplomacy, to be engaged or sacrificed at will. It was a precedent that was to be followed many other times, by several different powers, over the years and decades to come; and each time the Afghans would show themselves capable of defending their inhospitable terrain far more effectively than any of their would-be manipulators could possibly have suspected. It

To subdue and crush the masses of a nation by military force, when all are unanimous in the determination to be free, is to attempt the imprisonment of a whole people; all such projects must be temporary and transient, and terminate in a catastrophe...

The first Embassy to Afghanistan by a western power left the Company's Delhi Residency on 13 October 1808, with the Ambassador accompanied by 200 calvary, 4,000 infantry, a dozen elephants and no fewer than 600 camels. It was dazzling, but it was also clear from this attempt to reach out to the Afghans that the British were not interested in cultivating Shah Shuja's friendship for its own sake, but were concerned only to outflank their imperial rivals: the Afghans were perceived as mere pawns on the chessboard of western diplomacy, to be engaged or sacrificed at will. It was a precedent that was to be followed many other times, by several different powers, over the years and decades to come; and each time the Afghans would show themselves capable of defending their inhospitable terrain far more effectively than any of their would-be manipulators could possibly have suspected.

No one was planning to travel light. One brigadier claimed that he needed fifty camels to carry his kit, while General Cotton took 260 for his. Three hundred camels were earmarked to carry the military wine cellar. Even junior officers travelled with as many as forty servants—ranging from cooks and sweepers to bearers and water carriers. According to Major General Nott, who had to work his way up through his career without the benefit of connections, patronage or money and who looked with a jaundiced eye on the rich young officers of the Queen's Regiments, it was already clear that the army was not enforcing proper military austerity. Many of the junior officers were already treating the war as though it were as light-hearted as a hunting trip—indeed one regiment had actually brought its own foxhounds with it to the front.

success in battle in Afghanistan was rarely decided by straightforward military victory so much as by successfully negotiating a path through the shifting patterns of tribal allegiances.

Here Elphinstone sat scribbling in his diary, trying to make sense of the Afghan character in all its rich contradictions. “Their vices,” he wrote, “are revenge, envy, avarice, rapacity, and obstinacy; on the other hand, they are fond of liberty, faithful to their friends, kind to their dependents, hospitable, brave, hardy, frugal, laborious, and prudent.”45 He was astute enough to note that success in battle in Afghanistan was rarely decided by straightforward military victory so much as by successfully negotiating a path through the shifting patterns of tribal allegiances. “The victory is usually decided by some chief going over to the enemy,” wrote Elphinstone, “on which the greater part of the army either follows his example or else takes flight.”46 c Shuja

quoting a Persian proverb, “those once bitten by a snake fear even a twisted rope.

Before Shah Shuja’s arrival, Ludhiana was known mainly as a centre of the flesh trade, through which girls from the Punjab Hill States and Kashmir – considered the fairest and most beautiful in the region – passed into slavery in the Sikh-controlled Punjab and Hindustan.

the joys and the griefs of this fleeting faithless world do not last: ‘the world is a dream—however you imagine it, it passes away; until you pass away yourself.’ 

By the time the news reached Calcutta, it had already given hope and encouragement to the many opponents of Company rule across the length and breadth of Hindustan: it was no accident that when the Great Rebellion did break out in 1857, it did so in sepoy regiments which had been deserted by their British officers in the snows of the Khord Kabul, and in civilian centres such as Lucknow, Agra, and Kanpur where the Persian presses had eagerly reprinted the Afghan epic poems and prose accounts of the British defeat.

Few, few shall part where many meet, The snow shall be their winding sheet; And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier’s sepulchre.