A swell history (I'm planning to engineer a comeback of the adjective swell) of the Great Game and the catastrophic British war in Afghanistan. Seems to have many parallels to our current misadventure there. Includes some newly translated Afghan poetry that deepens our comprehension of the story and the way it is thought of in Afghanistan today. One of the many pleasures of reading history is the reader's knowledge of the approaching catastrophe. I find it quite similar to watching a horror movie and the principle character decides to go back to get the cat. The audience screams for her not to be such an idiot or covers their eyes and sinks lower in their seat. This story is like that.
For some reason I associate this story with the poem and movie Gunga Din, but this might be erroneous. ( )

Interesting and depressing history of the British Empire's first conquest (1839) and defeat in Afghanistan. Very well researched and written. Slow and plodding at first but finishing with a 200 pages of gory train wreck. the British had no idea what they were trying to alter.
As history has shown Afghanistan is no place for outsiders. It is a living museum of 7th century Asian culture. It is good and bad but not to be altered. Western adventurism has only introduced more dangerous weapons to this brutal culture. The best that can be hoped for both the world and Afghanistan is that we stay out and they stay in. ( )

The pattern of the story is familiar to students of contemporary history. A Western power invades Afghanistan. Their army easily overcomes the forces of the local government and occupies the country. The victory soon turns sour, however, as missteps in dealing with the complex tribal politics of the region soon engender an uprising in the mountainous countryside. Eventually, exhausted by the drain on their resources, the army withdraws, leaving the victorious survivors to squabble over the remains and rebuild their country.

This is a narrative that could easily describe the decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and increasingly it looks to be the inevitable outcome of the ongoing U.S.-led operation as well. But it is also one that could also serve as a summary of the British invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1830s. It was those parallels which inspired William Dalrymple to write a history of the first Anglo-Afghan War, one that spotlights the folly of such an effort and the disastrous consequences for all involved.

To tell the story of the invasion, Dalrymple begins not with the British but with the Afghans, specifically with the Afghan ruler Shah Shuja. A member of the Durrani dynasty, he was overthrown in 1809 by his half-brother and predecessor, Shah Mahmoud, and forced into exile. Over the next 29 years Shuja mounted three attempts to reclaim his throne by force, all of which were thwarted by his successors. In between these attempts Shuja languished in Ludhiana, where he and his entourage subsisted on a pension provided by the British East India Company on the off chance that they might need an Afghan monarch at some point.

Shuja’s fourth opportunity to reclaim the throne came about as a result of the growing Anglo-Russian competition in the region. As Russia advanced into central Asia, securing the northwestern frontier of India became an increasing anxiety for both East India Company officials and British politicians. Fearing that Russia would ally with the current ruler of Afghanistan, Dost Mohammad Khan, the company’s governor-general, Lord Auckland, decided to remove Dost Mohammad and reinstall Shah Shuja on the throne. Allying with the neighboring Sikh kingdom, Auckland used the Sikhs’ war with Afghanistan over the Peshawar Valley as the pretext for a joint invasion of the country, which began in December 1838.

Over the next eight months the British forces gradually occupied Afghanistan. Dalrymple’s account of the invasion stresses the arrogance of the British, who brought with them a massive train of camp followers and camels carrying luxury goods. Though their march though the rough terrain took a toll on their ranks the Afghan tribal levies proved a poor match against British-trained sepoys on the open battlefield, and Dost Mohammad fled Kabul ahead of its capture in August 1839. With Shah Shuja restored to the throne the British withdrew the bulk of their forces, but the remaining British presence soon alienated the Afghan population. This was exacerbated by the company’s parsimony, as efforts to curtail the massive financial drain of the occupation on the company’s coffers by reducing payments to tribal leaders soon turned them against Shah Shuja’s reign. The result was an uprising in November 1841 that forced the British out of Kabul.

Despite the growing signs of Afghan disaffection, the British were unprepared for the scale of the attack on their forces. Dalrymple’s description of the fighting underscores the poor decisions made by British leaders throughout the period, particularly those of the company’s pompous political officer, William Hay Macnaghten, and the ailing commanding general, William Elphinstone, whose disregard for the deteriorating situation left British personnel vulnerable to the rising. While an agreement to withdraw was reached at the start of 1842, the retreating British forces came under constant attack as they withdrew under punishing winter weather, with many of those who survived subsequently enslaved by Afghan tribesmen.

Though the newly-elected Tory government under Robert Peel wanted to end the British intervention, news of the uprising was greeted with a determination for vengeance. An “Army of Retribution” was quickly gathered to relieve other besieged garrisons and to punish the Afghans. Dalrymple does not minimize the atrocities committed by British forces, who gutted whole villages during their march on the Afghan capital. After retaking Kabul in September 1842, however, the British withdrew just a month later, leaving a ravaged kingdom to be ruled a restored Dost Mohammad, who over the next two decades confirmed his dynasty’s hold on the throne and established the borders of the country as it is known today.

Given the epic fate of Britain’s intervention of Afghanistan there have been no shortage of books written about it. Yet Dalrymple’s account surpasses them all, thanks to his lucid writing and incorporation of Afghan and Persian sources ignored by previous authors. These he uses to create an account that provides a wealth of insight into the Afghan perspective of the conflict, one all too often lacking in most English language chronicles. Using them he spins an engrossing account of a war which produced no winners but cast a shadow in the region that stretches down to the present day. It is difficult to imagine a better book ever being written about the first Anglo-Afghan War, nor one that is more necessary reading for anyone who thinks that a war in the region could produce a positive outcome. As Dalrymple so powerfully demonstrates, the Afghans have more than enough experience with invasion to thwart the will of any conqueror. ( )

A book of detailed and fascinating history. An enlightening back-story giving insight and understanding to the current situation in Afghanistan. ( )

After reading City of Djinns, William Dalrymple had become one of my favorite authors.
Whereas that book was a slender but intense personal account rolled into a historical narrative of The City, Return of a King seemed like the opposite: sprawling with dozens upon dozens of characters, describing solely events of almost 200 years ago.

But this is as good of a historical narrative as any other that you could read. What really shines through is the author's empathy and even keel. Criticism, praise, and sympathy is set in appropriate measures towards all parties. Even more so, Dalrymple has a keen sense of the times; although he does judge the morality of the actors, its tempered by the prevailing mores rather than on modern/post-modern terms.

It is thrilling, exhilarating, and more than anything else, heart breaking. Well-deserved of all the awards it has garnered. ( )