The British in Afghanistan 1839 to 1842

The Honourable East India Company, the London-based trading company founded in 1600, could hardly have foreseen its remarkable success as it moved inexorably from commerce to conquest laying the foundations of Britain’s Indian Empire almost by accident. And, as everyone knows, the more you have, the more you must do to keep it. By the 1830s, a buffer was deemed necessary to counter Russia’s advance into Central Asia and prevent a move on British India from beyond the River Oxus. That buffer was Afghanistan. The British incursion at the end of 1838 replaced one Afghan ruler with another and has been termed The First Anglo-Afghan War; in effect it was little more than a shambles. Mismanaged and muddled diplomacy ensured the failure of what proved a totally dysfunctional campaign. Senior officers of the Royal army who last saw action with Wellington in 1815 commanded the so-called Army of the Indus; unable to adapt to local conditions as well as to each other, their petty jealousies and distrust of the local Company forces serving with them mar a bigger picture where individual feats of courage burn like beacons against the gloom of administrative incompetence.

Blood and Blunders gives a full picture of the Afghan experience at a time when the machinery of government called for unquestioning sacrifices from its operatives – and by extension, from their womenfolk and families, some of whom were present with the army. Throughout, tragedy and comedy march side by side and high politics as practised in London, Kabul and Calcutta lacks empathy for the Afghan people and is never far from farce.

Finally, Blood and Blunders throws fresh light on the disastrous Retreat from Kabul in January 1842 at the height of winter, and asks what is – and what is not – acceptable by way of retribution against people whose way of life is under threat.