In 1839 a large British army invaded Afghanistan in order to place upon the throne a ruler deemed more friendly to the British in Delhi than the incumbent Dost Mohammed. Many voices in London warned against the foolhardy enterprise, among them that of the Duke of Wellington, who foresaw shame and disaster. The enterprise started well. The army conquered all before it, including reputedly impregnable fortresses. But only two years after being established in Kabul, attached on all sides by the hostile Afghans, the British retreated in mid-winter, 1842, trying to regain India. Of the 16,000 soldiers and others who left the city, only one person survived the journey as far as Jalalabad. It was one of the worse catastrophes to befall the British Empire.
- ISBN10 0192851772
- ISBN13 9780192851772
- Publish Date 23 October 1986
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 12 February 1993
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Oxford Paperbacks
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 288
- Language English