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On Afghanistan's Plains: The Story of Britain's Afghan Wars PDF

279 Pages·2011·1.53 MB·English
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Preview On Afghanistan's Plains: The Story of Britain's Afghan Wars

JULES STEWART is the author of Crimson Snow: Britain’s First Disaster in Afghanistan (2008); The Savage Border: The Story of the North-West Frontier (2007); The Khyber Rifles: From the British Raj to Al Qaeda (2005) and Albert: A Life (2011, I.B.Tauris). aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd ii 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM Published in 2011 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Jules Stewart, 2011 The right of Jules Stewart to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 84885 717 9 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Designed by Glen Drake Typeset in Bembo by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand Printed and bound in Sweden by Scandbook aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd iiii 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM ON A FGHANISTAN’S P LAINS The Story of Britain’s Afghan Wars Jules Stewart aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd iiiiii 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM To Ruby and Theo aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd iivv 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM Contents List of illustrations vi Foreword by General Sir David Richards xiii Acknowledgements xvi Introduction xvii 1 Cradle of Political Insanity 1 2 Victoria’s First War 29 3 The Present Happy Moment 57 4 Vengeance is Mine, Sayeth Lord Ellenborough 89 5 The Pure Instinct of Dominion 115 6 Chronic Suspicion and Undignified Alarm 131 7 Nothing but Misfortune and Disaster 163 8 Once More unto the Breach 199 Notes 233 Bibliography 247 Index 251 aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd vv 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM Illustrations Maps 1 Afghanistan and North-West Frontier ix 2 Advance of the Army of the Indus into Afghanistan, 1838 x 3 British Retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad, 1842 xi Plate section 1 Ahmad Shah Durrani, Founder of the Afghan Empire in 1747 2 Dost Mohammed with his youngest son. One of Afghanistan’s wisestemirs, Do stM o hammed ruled from 1826 to 1863. He was deposed in 1839 by the British, who placed Shah Shuja on the throne, and was restored to power in 1842 3 Shah Shuja 4 Lady Florentia Sale, whose diaries revealed the tragic events that led to the Army’s destruction on the retreat from Kabul 5 Alexander Burnes, the Government’s envoy to the Court of Dost Mohammed, was the first high-profile victim of the Kabul uprising 6 Akbar Khan was Dost Mohammed’s favourite son, and was responsible for the Army’s massacre 7 William Macnaghten, the Government’s chief political representative in Kabul, was murdered by Akbar Khan 8 The Last Stand of the 44th Regiment at Gundamuck, 1842. Painted by William Barnes Wollen. Image courtesy of the Essex Regiment Museum, Chelmsford 9 A young Pashtun tribesman awaits his victims in an Afghan Pass 10 Sher Ali Khan, known as the Iron Emir, was Afghanistan’s longest ruling king, who occupied the throne from 1863 to 1879. He died in exile after the British launched their second invasion of Afghanistan aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd vvii 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM 11 Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, the legendary military figure who led the famous march from Kabul to Kandahar, where he defeated the Afghans and won the Second Afghan War 12 The Battle of Maiwand turned into a disastrous rout that cost the British more than one thousand casualties. It was one of the few instances in the 19th century of Asian forces achieving victory over a European Army. Image courtesy of the National Army Museum 13 A Russian stands in frustration at the door to British India, padlocked out by the Treaty of Gandamak 14 After the massacre of the Cavagnari Mission in Kabul, the Afghan is fed a portion of British rule 15 Badges in the Khyber Pass of British and Indian army regiments that fought in the Afghan wars and on the North-West Frontier 16 A caravan negotiating a narrow pass in Afghanistan. These caravans were also used to transport smuggled weapons to Pashtun fighters 17 King Amanullah invaded British India in 1919, touching off the Third Afghan War. The Emir lost the war but claimed victory for having recovered Afghanistan’s full independence. He was forced to flee his country in 1929 18 The Khyber Pass, the major trade and invasion route between Central Asia and India 19 A street in the Peshawar bazaar around the time of the Third Afghan War 20 Royal Air Force BE2C biplanes, used to bomb Afghan positions in the Third Afghan War and later against rebellious Pashtun tribesmen on the North-West Frontier 21 A newspaper illustration of the RAF bombing Kabul’s Bala Hissar fortress in the Third Afghan War 22 The border crossing between the North-West Frontier and Afghanistan. Travellers are warned to leave here on the return journey and be back in Jamrud no later than 5:00pm. Image courtesy of the Field Family Collection aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd vviiii 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier. From ‘The Young British Soldier’ by Rudyard Kipling aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall__cc..iinndddd vviiiiii 22//0066//1111 55::5588 PPMM r e ti n o r F t s e W - h t r o N d n a n a t s ni a h g Af . 1 aaffgghhaann__ffiinnaall..iinndddd iixx 2266//0055//1111 55::3322 PPMM

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Britain's military involvement in Afghanistan is a contentious subject, yet it is often forgotten that the current conflict is in fact the fourth in a string of such wars dating back more than 170 years. Aiming to protect British India from the expanding Russian empire, the British fought a series o
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