bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2014) — Summer 2014 // Été 2014, pp. 28–30
RETURN OF A KING: THE BATTLE
FOR AFGHANISTAN by William
Dalrymple, 2013, Bloomsbury Publishing,
London, 568 pp., $22.00.
RETURN OF A KING: THE BATTLE 1 FOR AFGHANISTAN by William « Dalrymple, 2013, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 568 pp., $22.00.
Déjà vu all over again
Rarely does one read a book dealing with events nearly 200 years ago and find it is not only a fascinating and rollicking journey but enormously relevant for today. Such is William Dalrymple’s Return of a King. It is an exhaustive examination of the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839 with new, original material from contemporaneous Afghans. As if mocked by today’s events, the British wanted to bring about and perpetuate regime change in Kabul.
Living in New Delhi much of his adult life, Dalrymple has long mined the history and art of central and south Asia. His latest book explores an area and a war which many have written about before, but no one can match him in turning that rich, prescient ore into works that are difficult to put down. Equally, his work carries relevance for today as we cope with intra and inter religious struggles, security pivots and emerged and emerging economies.
Scottish born Dalrymple’s father was a cousin of Virginia Woolf, literary talent seems to have been in the air. His first book, published in 1989, was In Xanadu, a “travel” narrative of Marco Polo’s trek from Jerusalem to Shandu, the seasonal home of Kubla Khan. Dalrymple was only 22 at the time and the book — rich in the history of the lands travelled and people observed — established him as a major writer.
Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent were more interconnected and politically over-lapping historically than is understood today. Those of us raised on a history of a world with oceans as the only road in the spread of culture, people and trade need to appreciate the history of long distance travel by land across the Euro- Asian-Indian land mass. As he has shown in earlier works, the route between Europe and Asia — the “Silk Road” — is as relevant today as it was a thousand years ago.
The significance of this vast area, especially for human migration, was given new emphasis earlier this year. DNA analysis found genetic markers linking peoples living in the Russian republic of Altai with the indigenous populations of North America. Altai is a small, remote area of the Russian Republic surrounded by Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan. Although its population today is just over 200,000 its history as a European-Asian crossroad suggests that some Turks, Mongols, Yeniseians, Tocharians, Persians or Uralic peoples crossing its lands may have made it all the way to the southern reaches of the Americas.
Perhaps we should not be surprised that in the late 18th century British and East Indian Company officials in London and Calcutta were exercised by word that the Russians were eyeing Central Asia. For many, Russian interest coupled with Napoleon’s earlier determination to separate the British from their large involvement in the Indian subcontinent, and possibly further east, was enough to convert possible Russian intent into overt intentions.
Dalrymple traces these developments throughout the early years of the 19th century in the context of changes in Persia, competing dynasties in Afghanistan and the rise of the Sikh kingdom of Raja Ranjit Singh on the western edges of East India Company’s lands. He reminds us that the Battle of the Nile between the French and British navies in August 1798 was part of Napoleon’s longer term goal of driving the British out of India. The total defeat of the French navy by Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson put an end to Napoleon’s plans for a sea route to India but throughout the rest of his reign he harboured dreams for disrupting the British in India.
Having used “General Winter” (and defence in depth) to rout Napoleon’s eastward thrust in 1812, the Russians were looking south. Before long they “had moved their frontier south and eastwards almost as fast as Wellesley [East India Company’s Governor-General in Calcutta] had moved that of the Company north and westwards, and it was becoming increasingly evident — at least to the armchair strategists in London — that the two empires would at some point come into collision in central Asia.” Wellesley (the older brother of the Duke of Wellington) regarded Afghanistan as the key asset in central Asia in blocking Russian expansionist moves into the region. He and his successors began a series of maneuvers including the expansion of British control over Afghanistan.
Dalrymple’s description of Afghanistan (or Khurasan, as Afghans called it), for the two millennia before the 19th century is still relevant. It “had had but a few hours of political or administrative unity. Far more often it had been the ‘the places in between’ the fractured and disputed stretch of mountains, flood plains and deserts separating its more orderly neighbours.” Adding to the lack of geographic cohesion were the “different tribal, ethnic and linguistic fissures fragmenting Afghan society.” Without changing a word, his historical fissures describe today’s Afghanistan — “the rivalry between the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and the Durrani and Ghilzai Pashtuns; the schism between Sunni and Shia; the endemic factionalism within clans and tribes, and especially the blood feuds within closely related lineages.”
In the early part of the 19th century, sitting at the top of these fragmenting fissures was Shah Shuja from the Sadozais part of the Durrani clan. In 1805 he was overthrown by Dost Mohammad Khan of the Barakzai side in the Ghilzai clan. While both were Pashtun, often there was less love between them than with the Tajiks and Uzbeks who made pragmatic alliances based on their own interests. (Former President Hamid Karzai is from the same sub-tribe as Shah Shuja while Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, is from the Ghilzai clan.) Once overthrown by Dost Mohammad, Shah Shuja was allowed to go to India where he was supported and protected by the East India Company and available to return to the throne when the British invaded in 1839.
While the Russians made small intelligence forays into the lands in between, Dost Mohammad was King and sought to keep intact the traditional lands of the Afghans. He was amenable to the Russian moves as a counter to feints by the remnants of the Persian Empire into western Afghanistan, especially around Herat. Pressure also came from the south where the Sikhs under Raja Ranjit Singh ended profitable raids by the Afghans across the Indus River. Throughout this period Afghanistan included Peshawar and the lands stretching to the Indus River.
The British, working through the East India Company and sitting in imperial splendor in Calcutta, were growing alarmed. They saw Dost Mohammad’s activities to keep his kingdom reasonably intact as inimical to their own position east of the Indus. “The tournament of shadows”, as the “Great Game” was seen by many, was encouraged by a variety of off-stage actors in London and St. Petersburg who saw their respective expansion of Empires as intersecting and conflicting in the lands of the Afghans. Various Embassies (travelling diplomatic missions in those days) travelled vast distances. “Intelligencers”, or British spies, recruited agents throughout the region and the British in India decided on the need for regime change in Kabul to ensure the safety of their regime throughout most of India.
Dalrymple tracks this “tournament of shadows” through committees of British officials in London and Calcutta who were required to describe the proverbial camel without having seen one. This, despite the fact they had a first rate official in Kabul — Alexander Burnes — whose understanding of the Afghans still offers valuable insights and conclusions. Not surprisingly Burnes’ value was undermined by Claude Wade, the “keeper” of Shah Shuja (keen to regain the throne).
Dalrymple captures the nature of the Calcutta regime in his description of the first visit out of Bengal by George Eden, Governor General Lord Auckland. Eden was the ancestor of another Eden who in 1956 thought that he could overturn Egyptian nationalism under Nasser. Quoting an eye witness, Dalrymple writes that the elder Eden left Calcutta with “850 camels, 140 elephants, several hundred horses, the Body Guard, the regiment that escorts us, and the camp followers. They are about 12,000 in all.”
At the time, the oddness of Auckland’s role was noted by his nephew, Captain William Osborne: “A private English gentleman and the servant of a joint stock company [that is, the East India Company], during the brief period of his government [he] is the deputed sovereign of the greatest empire in the world; the ruler of a hundred million men. There is nothing in history analogous to this position…”
The British eventually accepted Wade’s views on the need for regime change in Kabul and pulled together an army that marched out of British India, 60,000 strong, crossing the Indus in two places. It entered Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass and Kabul down the Kabul G through the Bolan Pass (south of Quetta) January 6, 1842 13,000 left Kab leading to Kandahar. On August 7, 1839, temperature “considerably b eight months after it assembled, the invapoint.” Attacked from the hills : sion force entered Kabul. Dost Mohammad is the most inhospitable fighting had fled three days earlier. Shah Shuja was the world, only one (a medic placed on the throne he had lost three arrived in Jalalabad. Correcting decades earlier. myth, Dalrymple, details tha
A prominent tribal leader of the time, following weeks many hundreds Mehrab Khan, is quoted by Dalrymple as to escape from Afghanistan a: warning “You have brought an army into back to British India.
the country, but how do you propose to British leadership, both po take it out again.” A sentiment echoed military, in London and in Ca through Afghan history. One-and-one-half responsible for this greatest years later the British had their answer. British colonial history. As 1 Shah Shuja found little popular support. cases the reaction was for rever Before long he was deserted by tribal lead-long an Army of Retribution ur ers and was seen by most Afghans as a General George Pollock was c “servant of the Kafir infidels.” As one poet early April 1842 it had relieve wrote at the time: of British troops at Jalalabad.. later the army arrived in Kabul But in this land you were doomed it to the ground. Having learnec Here your death was certain. the army quickly departed Afg was almost four decades befc
The British garrison was besieged on all British army ventured beyond sides. After several months and the death The 1880 invasion also wa: of many of the British leaders, including by possible Russian invol Burnes, it was decided to withdraw from Afghanistan; this time the Briti
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Kabul down the Kabul Gorge. On January 6, 1842 13,000 left Kabul with the temperature “considerably below zero point.” Attacked from the hills along what is the most inhospitable fighting ground in the world, only one (a medical doctor) arrived in Jalalabad. Correcting a historical myth, Dalrymple, details that over the following weeks many hundreds more were to escape from Afghanistan and make it back to British India.
British leadership, both political and military, in London and in Calcutta was responsible for this greatest debacle in British colonial history. As in all such cases the reaction was for revenge. Before long an Army of Retribution under Major- General George Pollock was created. By early April 1842 it had relieved the siege of British troops at Jalalabad. A few days later the army arrived in Kabul and burned it to the ground. Having learned its lesson, the army quickly departed Afghanistan. It was almost four decades before another British army ventured beyond Peshawar.
The 1880 invasion also was prompted by possible Russian involvement in Afghanistan; this time the British stay was even shorter than that of 1839. Again thousands of British troops died and in the words of one historian British “Forward Policy” had failed. The conclusion, long in coming, was that “if the Russians went into Afghanistan, they would have the same problems or worse.”
An overwhelming regret is that Dalrymple’s book was not available 15 years ago when the United States and several cooperating countries, including Canada, invaded Afghanistan and, like Britain in 1839, hoped to bring about regime change. Even the futile Soviet invasion of 1979 created no caution in the minds of those who enthusiastically supported and participated in the 2001 invasion.
Today, after years of war, tens of thousands dead and national treasuries badly dented, another invasion of Afghanistan is coming to an end as foreign troops depart. The debate in Canada as elsewhere is over what was achieved. Various positive social indicators have been promoted in support of the invasion, elections have been held, but fundamentally little seems to have changed. The Taliban control large swaths of the country. The newly created and western trained Afghan National Army, touted as the bulwark against the insurgency, has met with little success. The description of Afghanistan “as the places in between” still applies. Kabul seems doomed to remain a temporary resting place for short-lived regimes. The Taliban and its power base, the Pashtun Ghilzai clan, seem destined to return to power and western oriented leaders may be lucky to escape with their shoes on. Like Shah Shuja, they likely will carry the curse of being “a servant of the Kafir infidels.”
Dalrymple’s memorialization of a war more than one hundred years ago will do nothing to ease the suffering of Canada’s war wounded returning from Afghanistan or the pain of so many Canadian lives Jost there. But it powerfully underscores the need to be far better prepared before undertaking such commitments, to better consider the decision against the weight of history, and to accept full responsibility for the needs of those who pay the price. The 21st century badly needs to learn from the 19th.
Gar Pardy is a retired Foreign Service Officer and comments on foreign policy issues from Ottawa.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2014) — Summer 2014 // Été 2014, pp. 28–30. Read the rest of this issue →
