Empire: World History - 79. Invading Afghanistan: The Return of a King

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

It is 1839 and Britain has declared its intention: to invade Afghanistan and return Shah Shuja to the throne. Despite its vast size, the British invasion force is not impressive. Overstocked with luxuries and understocked with necessities, how will it fare as it enters the Bolan Pass and the inhospitable terrain of Afghanistan? Listen as William and Anita tell the Return of a King. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. Hello, Empire Podcast listeners. Thank you so much for listening to us. Just a quick heads up. This may not be an episode that you want to listen to with young children. Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan.

And me, William Duremberg. Can we just start with a thank you to all of the listeners who've stayed with us? And also you new listeners who've joined the podcast to come and hear us talk about Russia. We are absolutely swept away by your enthusiasm. We're so grateful. And if you really like us, tell your friends, because we're kind of now getting used to this, growing adulation. I don't know what I'll do without it.

There's kind of crazy. Very, very well. And I have to say this series was Anita's idea. We have a moment in the series when we're putting our ideas together. When we start with the theme, we sing our hymn, that Anita was right. Right back on the day that Prozogen moved into Russia, you got on the blower and said, we have to do Russia next. And I wasn't initially very taken with idea, but I've been absolutely right. Not taken with the idea is it mild? I'm always being keen on the great game. But anyway, Russia and the great game as it became, it's now our most popular series ever. It was very gracious of you. I am honestly very grateful, but honestly, I'm right most of the time. Irritating but true.

It's fine. But I'll take it. It's fine. Look, last week, it was very cliffhungery. It was very exciting, wasn't it? So we left you with the British declaring war and deciding to, invade Afghanistan, thinking that they had to do it to ensure the security of India. And that's because Russia was breathing down their necks and there were spies moving around and all sorts of movements

and machinations going on. And, you know, as we explained in a previous episode, Afghanistan is strategically so important. If you care about wealth, India looks like your piggy bank in the imperial world. It is a place where everybody wants control over commerce. And we should say this is not just a Modern idea. Today, obviously, we've got many historians looking again at the whole business of empire and the fact that India, which the British in the post-war generation, were brought up to think of as a place of famine, all those adverts have saved the children, give five pounds and save CETA's site, all that sort of thing. Now that we're seeing again, India rising, India's overtaken the British economy, it'll overtake that of Japan and Germany in the next

10 years, we are being reminded of the fact that India has always been a very rich place. In fact, along with China. It's provided about three quarters of the world's GDP for most of human history. I mean, it's interesting you mentioned China because China is, you know, potentially heading into some really serious economic headwinds. So where that leaves India, I don't know. I mean, you know, who knows what could happen. Exactly. And the perception of India as a very rich place rather than a very poor place is not a new one. And in the last episodes, we had this idea of Napoleon trying twice, first with an alliance through to Putzulte, and coming. through Egypt and then in an alliance with the Russians going through Afghanistan and the Khyber Pass

to take from the British the source of their wealth. And Napoleon identified India as the thing which had enriched Britain and made it a bigger economy for the first time in history than France. So where exactly did we jump off last time? We had these two very similar characters who had met in actually what sort of seems to be. Burns and Vickovic. Yeah, Burns and Vickovic. On opposite sides of this great game, as it was called, who actually like each other and in another world might have been really good friends because they were quite similar. Absolutely. And when we left it at the end of the last episode, Vickovich had basically won the duel because he was being supported to the hilt by Russia. And Russia was promising Doss Muhammad, the Emir of Afghanistan, everything that he

wanted. They promised him armies. They promised him money. Whatever he wanted, it was theirs. while the idiotic governor-general in Simler, Lord Auckland, was regarding Das Muhammad as his enemy and just ordering him out of the border areas and telling him to throw the Russians out, offering nothing in return, which not only was diplomatic disastrous, but was an idiotic policy. Despite the fact that Byrne had him. He loved Burns. He was all set to eat out of Burns' hands. Yeah, exactly.

And so Burns is checkmated by Vickovic, and so you're left with this Russian enverbalt. or spy, Vickovych, in command of Afghanistan. At the same time, Vickovich's boss, who's a guy called Count Siminich, who is the Russian ambassador in Tehran and in charge of their eastern policy, he has persuaded the Persian king to attack the border fortress of Herat. So you have a Russian army and Russian artillery moving across Persia and about to attack what is now Western Afghanistan with Cossacks and Russian guns. So in every way, this threat, which was at one point just a distant fever dream, has actually taken place.

But what is fascinating is that just as the whole East India Company machinery is all set to invade Afghanistan with the largest army they've put together since defeating Tbilis Sultan, 100,000 troops, just as this is about to happen, Russia actually steps down. Well, it's the most peculiar thing. I mean, it is absolutely grabbing defeat out of the jaws of victory because they're so well positioned. So why do they do that? Because Nessel Road does not want another full-scale war with Britain.

He realizes that they've come out of the whole Napoleonic era and at this stage they're not ready for a massive war with Great Britain. So Nessel Road, the foreign minister in St. Petersburg, talks to Palmerston, who's the foreign minister in London, and basically agrees to all his demands. Katsimich in Tehran will return home, Vickovic in Afghanistan will return home, the Russian army will draw from Herat, and all the causes which have led to this standoff are taken away. And yet the machinery which has gathered for war on the banks of the Sutledge in India is now unstoppable.

And the British carry on, this ridiculous plan to invade Afghanistan, even though they don't have a border with it. So there's no cause of spell eye anymore, but they're still going to go ahead. But I just, you've made me care about Wittkovich. I've grown fond of Wittkovich in your telling. Does he, I know the answer. Does he go, are you going to do a Drupal and give away the story? Does he, William, go and live happily ever after, having done a good job, well done,

Vittkovich? One of the most exciting bits of the search of Return of a King, which involved swooping into archives in Kandahar and dodging bullets and all sorts of stuff. I had more fun writing this book than anything else I've ever done. What? I'm sorry. What? I got shot at it into the sniper's bullet on the back of my car in Kandahar.

Ouch. Go on. And getting all these manuscripts, amazing manuscripts out of Afghanistan and translating them and getting the story from the Afghan side. But one of the most exciting moments was discovering what had happened to Vickovich. And there are allusions to this in a few books, but I was put onto a wonderful researcher in Moscow, who was a friend of the great British scholar of the Great Game and Central Asia, Alexander Morrison. And she found these letters. So Vickovich, having been dismissed

from Afghanistan and withdrawn by the foreign minister, just as he's on the verge of victory, everything he's worked towards in the last 20 years is a terrific achievement for this boy who had once been a rebel against the Russians, who was a young aristocrat from Lithuania, who had been exiled to the step for anti-Russian activity of starting a resistance movement called the Black Brothers. All his friends have died in these prison caps. He, by his share brilliance, has risen to the top of his profession. He's become an agent working for the Russians. And now he returns home. And different accounts are circulating about what happens next, because about A month after he returns to St. Petersburg, his landlady knocks on his door with a samovar of tea in the morning and there's no answer.

And eventually the door is broken down and there is Vickavit sprawled in a chair and a pistol on the floor and he's blown his brains out. Apparently. So immediately. I mean, I'm just talking, you know, about we're living in an era where oligarchs are falling out of windows by accident. Exactly. this is also an era when spies are being played against each other. And the fact that this Russian agent is discovered in an apparent suicide with his papers either missing or burnt. And there's a little burnt ash in the grate has exactly the same sort of conspiracy theory

effect with everyone interpreting it differently as happened with the death of progosion. A lot of people in the West assume that it's Putin. Some people in Russia are assuming it's British intelligence. This is what happens with Vickovich. And the first theory is what the British think when they hear this news. Their spies in St. Petersburg say that Vickovic went back to St. Petersburg. He presented himself to the foreign ministry and Nessel Rode sent out a message that he knew no Captain Vickovic, other than an adventurer using the name of Russia and that he's to be escorted out of the foreign ministry premises. In other words, he's been totally disowned. So that's what the British believe that he's been disowned, that he goes back to his rooms and he blows his brains out.

So that's the account that is being circulated in Whitehall. In Russia, on the other hand, they think it's a hit job by British intelligence, that it's an assassination. Clu's a change, my friend, plus a change. And they assume that some British spy has got into his lodgings, shot him, made it look like a suicide, taken all his papers from his Afghan notes and everything, burned to a few of the them in the Great to make it look like he'd burnt his papers and taken the intelligence back to London. But there's a third. There's a third version. And this is what I think actually happened because we found in Moscow some sources of Vickovich's friends, these guys who had been

patriots together at the beginning when he was a teenager in Lithuania fighting the Tsarists and regarding the Russians as occupiers of his homeland. And the story is that having come Back to St. Petersburg, although he'd been withdrawn, he was regarded as a great hero by the Russians, according to this version. And he had been received with honour by Nessel Road, which was very different for the story that the British were being told, that he had been walking around St. Petersburg. He brought himself a splendid new pair of pistols with sort of silver coupres on them, and he'd always had a great interest in armaments. And moreover, like some scene from a Tolstoy novel, he had gone to the theatre. in St. Petersburg and had been waving from a box at his friends. And the story is that as he was coming out, having been fated by everyone, because the story had come around, here was this dashing intelligence officer who'd just come back from the front, who's done amazing things in Afghanistan and achieved so much. And allegedly, waiting outside the theatre was one of his former school friends from Lithuania. And he said, Pan Vickovic, what have you done? You were once a nationalist who bled for us.

motherland, how could you have sold out like this? How could you be working for the very enemies? Oh my God, it's so cinematic. And that point, according to this version, and I think this is what actually happened, he goes back to his lodgings, covered in shame and guilt, maybe a little bit drunk to, after a night out at the theatre, and blows his brains down. Either way, he's dead. Poor focus, fade to black. I mean, it really is. It's just, it's an extraordinary story. So we're just going to, we're just going to turn our gaze or turn the camera just for a second. away from Russia and talk about Britain for a while. I mean, Russia's in the background. We're going to come back to it. But it's really important to know in the great game, what is Britain thinking

at this time? What are they thinking? What are they doing? Particularly, and what is the motivation for if you know you don't feel under, you must know that you're not under threat anymore for Russia to cut off your supply lines or your access to India. The East India company must know this. And yet they press on. Why? So there is still great Russophobia in Britain. This is now 1839 and it's only, whatever, it's 15 years since Waterloo. And what has happened is that like the Second World War, you've seen former allies turn on each other. The two forces, Russia and Britain, which joined together to defeat Napoleon, now find themselves rivals everywhere. They find themselves rivals in the Ottoman sphere, in Turkey, in Persia, in the Caucasus, and particularly in Central Asia and Afghanistan. So the East India machinery, having prepared for war, just grinds on. And I mean, the great sort of most ridiculous thing about this is not only was there no threat originally,

even the distant manifestations of that threat have now been removed, Vickovich is back in St. Petersburg and dead, Simulich has been withdrawn from Tehran, and yet still these people want to go to war. And what is driving them, of course, is not only the fact that there is momentum behind this decision to invade Afghanistan. They also want to make a profit for it. If you are a British military officer, this is your chance to double your earnings. It's always the moments of conquest that soldiers make their fortunes because they get a share of what's called the prize money, the loot. And if you go to any military country house in Great Britain where there's

been soldiers active, you will see these bits of loot on display in National Trust houses, in gorgeous stately homes across the country, things taken from Kabul or Sri Rang. Abatnam, the capital of Tipu, or Lucknow in the mutiny. These things are divided up among the soldiers. So if you're a soldier, it hugely suits you to carry on with the invasion. But also, if you are Lord Auckland and the Governor General, your big hope is that this is the moment when you can take the Indus, move into Central Asia, and turn Afghanistan and all the caravan cities beyond into markets of British goods, just as the British East Indy company had succeeded in taking the Ganges and moving British goods up to al-habad, Delhi, agran, so on.

And they just want the original Clive Conquest of India part two now to its west, taking the Indus and Afghanistan. But that's fine. I mean, you can want, you know, wishes were fishes or whatever they're saying is, that's fine. But Britain, even though you're looking at the, you know, so the expanding creeping pink on the map of India, they don't have a border with Afghanistan. This is the great irony of it. There's a huge empire. in the way, which is your people, the empire of the Punjab? The Punjab, yes. Always at the bottom of every slight difficulty in changing plans. Nothing changes there either.

But look, there is the empire of Ranjit Singh in between because Britain does not have a border. So if you want to, if you want to invade a country, helps to have contact with the country that you're going to invade. And does Ranjit Singh want the British marching across his territory? Absolutely not. just in case you're a bit hazy on the map at this point, this is more or less where the modern boundaries are, except where the kingdom of the Punjab is, is now Pakistan. So if you're India wanting to invade Afghanistan, you can't because Pakistan's in the way. And this is exactly the case in the 1830. So what they have to do is they have to persuade Ranjit Singh that they are

not going to interfere in his kingdom. And Ranjit Singh is completely clear, you are not moving British troops through my territory. He says that from the beginning. Not too keen on having a foreign army marching through because he's assembled quite a militaristic and very strong kingdom of the Sikhs. Under ex-Napoleonic generals, this is the fascinating thing for me. Al-Aard and people like that. Yeah. Al-Arad, Ventura, Italians and French who previously fought with Napoleon, who had nothing to do after Napoleon's armies, it disbanded after Waterloo. They cross Persia and Afghanistan and they find jobs for themselves running what's called the 4G caps, the special arts.

army of Ranjit Singh, which is trained very much on the Napoleonic model. OK, so now we've got to skip on now. So, okay, he's in the middle. So what does the British intend to do about this impediment? So Ranjit Singh says, you can't come through my country, but what we will do is that we will give you a terrific send-off. So they meet over the border at a place called Ferris Porch, is just inside Ranjit Singh's dominions on the border of the East India companies dominions. And there they decide to have a sort of field of the cloth of gold. old Punjabi style. As you know, the Sikhs are never going to be outdone by anyone.

And there's wonderful descriptions. There is a nephew of Lord Auckland, the Governor General, who is his ADC. And he, who's normally incredibly cynical, describes this as one of the most extraordinary spectacles he's ever seen. He says, behind us, there was a large amphia theatre of elephants belonging to our own camp. Facing them were thousands of Ranjit's followers, all dressed in yellow or red, lead satin with quantities of their lead horses trapped in gold and silver tissues and all of them sparkling like jewels. I really never saw so dazzling a sight. Three or four Sikhs would look like

Astley's circus broke loose, but this immense body of them save splendor from being melodramatic. Can I just say, Punjabis are still like that. We bring the bling. The gold tissue. Sounds very familiar from any wedding in Delhi. Exactly. But it's also sort of incredible confusion because you've got the East India Company army, you've got the Sikh army, both of them don't really trust each other. And there's one moment when there's a sort of surge towards Ranjit Singh and the Sikhs start lighting their matchlocks, expecting there's some assassination attempt with some trick in order. Again, surprisingly, the British are not trusted at this point by anyone, even their own allies. And the future historian of the

Afghan war, Sir John Kay, who's a young officer there at this field of the cloth of gold of Ferens describes a scene of indescribable, uproar and confusion. And he says that the Sikh suspect there's a British plot to do away with their beloved leader, begin to blow on their matches, that is prime their matchlocks, and grasp their weckons with an air of mingled dristrust and ferocity. But speeches begin, and Lord Auckland, who's this very sort of grey character surrounded by his two sisters, makes a most splashy answer to Ranjit's speech of welcome.

about their united armies conquering the world. And Fanny Eden, his sister, writes to the third sister in England, you'll be much taken aback, I guess, when they march hand in hand and take Wockham. She's funny. Is she the one who says, my peace-loving brother is once again. Well, that's Emily. So these two very wash-bush sisters.

And so we have this whole sort of extraordinary sort of Jane Austenie voice on all this. Yeah, yeah. And what I'd loved about writing this book, Return of a King, was that you get both the kind of Jane Austenie voices of Emily Eden, you get epic poems from the Afghan side, which I found in Kabul and Kanda are. You get all these different sources, and they're all so different from each other,

but they're all describing the same events. You know, I've always loved Emily Eden, as you know, but Fanny, I didn't realize Fanny was so funny. And she actually, at this ceremony, she ends up sitting next to Ranjik Singh at a dinner. Which is always a dodgy plasma. Well, I don't know. I just gone, no, I'd love it, to sit next to either.

of these two. And she's charmed by him because, I mean, he does this thing where he doesn't wear all his jewels. He's sort of like the anti-Pinjabi in his dress, you know. Everyone else in his court is in gold tinsul. Yes, exactly. But he's sort of white, cut the pajamas with just one single adornment, which is the Coen no diamond on his arm. Our old friend, it keeps coming back. Yeah. Okay. And he was and he was trying to get. He spends, he just not to get a drunk. That's what he's trying to do. It's flying Fanny with drink. There's a lovely description she writes. She says he tried to make me drink

the composition he calls wine but it's more like burning fire and much stronger than brandy he noted afterwards. At first he was content to let George, who's Lord Auckland, swallow it then he began plying me with gold cupfuls. I got on very well for some time

pretending to drink it and passing it to his cup bearer but he grew suspicious and put up his one eye, looked well down into the cup, shook head and gave it back to me. Next time he put his finger. To see how much she drank. Yeah, go on. Can I let me do this?

So he dipped his finger into the cup to see how much had gone. And I made Major Wade explain that ladies do not drink so much in England. Upon which he waited until George's head was turned and passed a cup to me under his arm. George was a horrid tyrant who prevented me. Isn't it great? And then on the other side, he's got Lord Ork to Z.D.C. William. and he's asking William why Lord Auckland is not married. Do you want to do this?

It's the most wonderful dialogue. Oh, yeah. Shall we, let's do it together? I'll tell you, well. Shall I do the questionnaire and you be, you be. You be Ranjit Singh and I'll be. I'll be Ranjit Singh. Okay.

Is Lord Auckland married? No. What? He has no wives at all? None. Why doesn't he marry? I don't know. Why don't you marry?

I can't afford it. Why not? Are English wives very extremely. expensive. Yes, very. That's great. And his comeback is even better. And Rajat Singh was like, I wanted one myself some time ago and I wrote to the government

about it, but they didn't send me one. But what's interesting is this is all slightly a smokescreen because Rajat Singh has this means of sort of getting everybody drunk and applying them with liquor and charming them. And then finding out where they're, they're. cavalry divisions are placed. He's a very, very canny operator. And the British realize this. And there's this lovely quote by the ADC, the nephew, William Osborne, who says, ill-looking as he undoubtedly is, the countenance of Ranjit Singh cannot fail to strike everyone as that of a very extraordinary man. So much intelligence. And the relentless wandering of his single fiery eye excites so much

interests you are forced to confess that there is no common degree of intellect and acuteness developed in his countenance, however odd his first appearance may be. Can I just say how how absolutely pleasurable it is to read these sort of intelligence reports. I mean, and I wonder whether intelligence reports these days are written in the same kind of way. In the same tone. Yeah, the same tone of, you know, sort of like sometimes just damn right affectional, you know, that that kind of being impressed by something. It's, it's really interesting. So one of the clever things that Ranjit Singh has done is not only has he stopped the main force going through the Punjab, and he said that he will send his own force up the Kaibah Pass when he's ready, and of course he

never actually does. So that means that the invasion force has to go right through what is now Balochistan via Quetta, which is this completely inhospitable route through desert. And because he's dragged his feet, it's now summer. So all the British troops have arrived on this campaign in their winter uniforms of thick Fustians and all their winter kit. And they're now expected to march through the 42 degrees of the Baluchy Desert and the Boland Pass. And so suddenly, having had all this fun and games with Ranjit Singh and drinking his hell brew and all that kind of stuff. Trademark. Trademark. They now have to actually invade Afghanistan. And it's a big army. In the end, after the Russians withdraw, they realize they won't need quite such a big army. So

but it's still 14,000 East India Company sepoys, 6,000 irregular, and these are Afghan cavalry from Roelkund, the Rihilas, hard by Sharsuja, around 21,000 troops in all, accompanied by 38,000 Indian camp followers. Now, can I just take a pause for a moment? Because we have mocked in the past in this series, Mohamed Shavangila, for bringing acrobatts, courtesans, dances, juggler. I always regret that because I love Mahmishah. Yeah, no, no.

But it was, it was not, it wasn't boding well for the battle, shall you say. But in this one, I mean, there's Lady Sale is in part of this posse. And she decides that it's a good idea to bring a grand piano. Well, that's the least of it. There's one brigadier. Wait a minute. She brings a grand piano to the invasion. Wouldn't you?

What did you say? Kandastan, of course you need. First of all, I wouldn't bring Lady Sale for a start. Lady Sale, we should explain who she is. Lady Sale is the wife of one of the more competent officers who's called Fighting Bob Sale, or Susan, Fighting Bob, because he's one of the few British officers actually does put up a fight. But it's an extraordinary army, and no one is travelling light. One brigadier claims that he needs 50 camels to carry his kit, while General Cotton took 260 for his.

300 camels a year marked for the military wine cellar, and even junior officers travel with as many as 40 servants ranging from cooks and sweepers and barrows to water carriers. And there's one camel which carries nothing except Odicolone for the officers. Odicolone, no. Plus, they have, of course, to bring their foxhams. So a whole pack of residential foxhans. They go to Afghanistan. Of course they need it. Right.

So it's a kind of complete, you know, this is this. sort of ridiculous. And there are pictures of this. I had great fun in Return of a King getting all these pictures out of the India Office Library. And there's this long sort of stripped cartoon that's about sort of 30 feet long that you can open out with a picture of all these guys with their foxhounds and grab your eyes and all the rest of it. Okay. So, so, I mean, I would venture, they don't know what they're going into, obviously carrying all their stuff. No, that's exactly it. The one thing they haven't brought with them. They've brought their odicolone. They brought their wine cellar. They brought the foxhounds. But they haven't brought them.

map. No map. Really? And the last minute, they realise they haven't got a map. And so someone at Forespoor approaches General Allard, who's this wonderful old Frenchman with a forked beard who Emily Eden loves. She says, before he eats, he tucks one end of his fork beard over one year and the other end over the other end.

He's the Napoleonic General who's working for Ranjit Singh now. Who has a lovely, beautiful Kashmiri wife and these gorgeous half French, half-cashmiri children who end up in Satrapay of all places. And there's a wonderful picture of them in retirement on the French coast. But anyway, he has, in his youth, traveled through Afghanistan and kept a very detailed journal of the different passes and roads through Afghanistan with sketch maps. And that's the best they have. So they buy this often for some unbelievable sum. They're the equivalent of several hundred thousand pounds in modern currency.

And Alard parts with his youthful sketchbook. And this is all they have. So you have these pictures of these guys streaming over the desert. and they meet some sort of Baloochie shepherds. And you can see these ant-like armies stretching off in different directions. And it's a scene one has in India today, you know, which way? And someone says, go straight. Sometimes they don't even say it.

They just point vaguely. There's not words. Of absolutely no conviction. No, disdain as well. It's like, I'm not really sure. I care where you end up, but it's somewhere there. Okay, so they're not prepared. They've got basically a juicy.

CSE piece of homework to guide them. Through some really treacherous terrain. A 30-year-old sketch map. At top of that, they've got this a ridiculous man in charge of them. There's this guy, Sir William McNaughton, who's a bookish and bespectacled former high court judge who has these blue tinted. Blue tinted glasses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the latest thing.

And he's sitting on top of an elephant translating the Arabian Knights as he invades Afghanistan. I love him because he's so peculiar, but I sort of have nerdy fop. It's the kind of thing I describe him as. And Osborne, the Waspish diarist, says, poor McNaughton should never have left the secretary's office. He's ignorant of men, even to simplicity, and utterly incapable of forming and guarding administrative measures. So it's not looking good.

No, and even worse, as if it could get worse, you know, right? They're armed with some, you know, sort of terrible map that's not a map, but it's a sketchbook of ideas and thoughts. They have got, I've just found this wonderful list from my book. There's this guy, one officer, a camel with best manila cigars, while others come with jams, pickles, shrewts, potted fish, hermetically sealed meats, plate, crockery glass, wax candles and table linen. So they can have a nice picnic. Well, all of that's fine.

Pate and creditoris are fine, but it's not going to march an army. So they suddenly realise that they don't have enough food to do this. You know, they sort of slowly starts dawning on them in the grand piano and their Ada Cologne. They thought they might be able to live off the land, but it becomes clear that is never going to happen. So there's this extraordinary moment when to feed the troops, just to get them through, burns, buys 10,000 sheep there and then. At exorbitant prices. Well, can you imagine being the shepherd? You want what?

You want? How much? You need it, how badly? I mean, that must have been quite the red letter day for whoever had the sheep. Whichever shepherd was there, exactly. And there's some guy they meet halfway through the desert and he looks at this enormous army passing and he goes up to Burns and he says, how many troops are you taking in? He said, you will manage to get them in, maybe a few of them, but how are you going to get them out? Well, join us after the break. We find out actually how very prescient, that comment turns out to be something that has sounded pretty comedic. Very soon will turn to something absolutely horrific. Join us then.

Welcome back. So just before the break, we were, I mean, we're sort of making light of a shopping list of items that these British troops were taking in for their invasion of Afghanistan. But there are very few laughs in what happens next, William. That's true. So what you've got now is, however many, nearly 20,000 East India Company sepoys, who are from the plains of Averd and Bihar. They're a long way from home. They're in their winter uniforms. And they're asked to march in military uniform through the height of the Balochie summer.

And they begin to drop like flies. Some of the wells have been poisoned. So they arrive after thousands of miles of March to find there's no water for them. And about half the troops are dead by the time they get to the Boland Pass. It is, as you say, it's not at all a comedy at this point. There are some wonderful descriptions of their struggle to get, they've got, they also got all their cannon with them, and there is no road. So the cannon is having to be dismantled, hauled up with ropes up, these mountain defiles.

I mean, can we, just before you read your thing, I mean, just to spend one moment, the topography of the Bowlin Pass is really important to know, because it is not flat, it is not wide. It is, you know, there are no clear sight lines, apart from you can go straight ahead, but anybody perched in any of the crags on either side of you has got sniper's sights on you very, very easily. I mean, what else can we tell them about Boland Pass? It's a very, very narrow pass. I've actually been through it once on a train years ago from Quetta to Lahore.

And in the 1890s, the British spent years trying to build a railway through this path. And it is like going into a tunnel for about 20 miles. It is incredibly narrow. Here's the quote again. You have brought an army into the country, he said. but how'd you propose to take it out again? I love that. I love that line. Anyway, the roads which had not been properly surveyed or improved by military engineers were almost impossible to move artillery along. At first, eight horses had to be attached to each gun, as well as lines of sepoys with drag

ropes. Then as it grew steeper and stonyer, the guns had to be dismantled and carried through by hand. Each gun, each tumbril and wagon had to be separately handed down by manual labour, wrote one of the majors. The ascent was so much. steep that some did not like to ride up it. A few camels fell and stopped the rest behind. The baggage was attacked with a considerable spirit by the Baluches at the head of the pass. Forty-nine camel loads of grain were carried off. The rearguard found on the road the mutilated bodies of many camp followers. So this is not an easy, they haven't even got to Afghanistan. They're still in Sindh, and they're already losing huge numbers of troops. But they just press on because there's no way they can go back now.

And by the time they debush into the green fields around Kandahar, they have the element of surprise because no one in Afghanistan has thought they could make it through. They thought it's absolutely madness that anyone would attempt this in the middle of summer. And did we talk about how much they lost? Because it was just like, you know, those images of when you get sort of sardines together and then packs of birds just take whatever they want again and again. And that's what it's like for these poor guys walking through the Bolin part. You know, we're talking thousands of pack animals are taking camels, horses, elephants, all of their loads, everything just, you know, fish in a barrel is just the thought. This is an Afghan account. There's an Afghan guy called Mirza Atta, and he is traveling with Shah Shudja's party at the end, at the rear of the column. and he said that he felt lucky to be alive and make it through as they were dodging the bullets

raining down from columns of Baluchy snipers sheltering the faults and crevices in the rocks above. The army entered the defiles of the Boland Pass, he wrote. The pass was rugged and stony, ringed with mountain peaks scraping the sky. The army gazed in dismay and the Baloch mountain tribes did not delay to snipe and plunder. Thousands of pack animals, horses, elephants and their loads were lost. lost. Crossing the past was extremely difficult. Already two months earlier, the English had sent two cannons and thousands of donkey loads of gunpowder to the past in order to try and clear the route and had to drag them up with ropes one by one. Other supplies were transported with similar

difficulty at the cost of losing great numbers of camels, horses, bullets, as well as soldiers who died from lack of food and water, not to mention the military equipment that was plundered. In that waterless, hellish defile. They spent three days and nights, and supplies were so scarce that half a sierra flour could not be had even for a gold rupee. Oh gosh, that is, I mean, that's such a vivid description of what would be desperation among people who are thirsty, hungry and battle-weary and frightened. But what's in their favour is that no one actually thinks they can do this. Nobody would be bonkers enough to do this.

So when they do, yeah, exactly. When they arrive the far side, they find themselves outside Kandahar, and no one sees them coming. And at this point, I think they just Kandah surrenders without even a fight. And it's so easy, they then think we'll just carry on, we'll keep this element of surprise. So they leave behind their cannon and artillery park because they've got intelligence that Guzni, the next town on the route, has no walls. And so they march on for another two weeks. And they arrive in Guzni to find that an actual fact has got the largest walls in Afghanistan.

Right. So again, this is the scrapbook of Allard is not completely up to date. Absolutely not. And traveling with the army is Burns and his wonderful Kashmiri assistant or head spy, Mohan Lall. And Moan Lall manages to debrief a deserter who's been in the fortress. And he says this whole fortress is impregnable, except the Kabul gate, which they haven't bricked up. And if you were to go tonight and just charge it with a bag of gunpowder, you have a chance

of taking it. And that's what happened. They do a surprise attack. The first night they arrive, they put an enormous sack of gunpowder next to the door. They light the fuse and they attack it. And they take Guzny in a single night. That's amazing. And without any artillery. I mean, it's, you know, amazing bravery on the party who are actually lighting. the... No, I mean, extraordinary bravery. So, I mean, that is amazing. Also, what they're doing along the way, there is their seeding revolt along the way as well. So if they're passing Afghans, you know, it's that sort of thing of, listen, we've got your real king. Your real king. He said, Dors Muhammad is not your real king. We've got Shashuja, your real king. We are here. We are here to help you, and we're here

to make everything right again. And they want those ripples. You know, you throw a pebble and the ripples go out to proliferate. And it's quite effective, isn't it? Because there is, still a real tear in sentiment among Afghans of who is their rightful king. But what legitimacy Sharshujah has is totally undermined by the fact that he's travelling with in the eyes of the Afghans, an infidel army. And there's this moment after they've taken Ghazni when a group of jihadis who have come to try and help the defenders are brought before Sharshujha. And they accuse him of being an infidel.

And one of them lunges at him with his dagger and said, You dog. You've brought infidels into Afghanistan. You will die. And of course, the guy is captured and disarmed. And then Sharshaudha just gives the order that all the prisoners should be massacred. And they're unarmed. I mean, it should be said, they're probably unarmed and bound. I mean, that is, that is barbaric. So this is what, this is the moment that everyone begins to realize that Shaschuja might not be the, might not be the, might not be the pliable returning king that they'd hope for. But they press on. And by this stage, such as the effect. of this double extraordinary victory, the surprise appearance outside Kandahar, then they've taken Ghazni, which has been very, very well armed without a single cannon to help them, that Dost Muhammad loses his nerve and he flees off to the north, gating as far as Bakara before he's arrested by the emir of Bakara and thrown into the famous pit, this horrible flea ridden pit where the emir of Baccarra throws his prisoners. In fact, there are other British prisoners, a guy called

Connolly, who ends up in there. When you say the famous pit, I've never heard of this pit. So why is this a famous pit? And when we're saying pit, because you know, you have phrases like Black Hole of Calcutta, we should explain, is it a prison, is it a cell, or is it actually a hole in the ground? What are we talking about? So the Emir Bukhara controls this Caravan city Bacara, which at this period is surrounded by wasteland, and people travelling through it have to pass through this territory, which at this point in history is not irrigated and there's no food at all.

It's also famous for its slavers, and parties which have tried to cross this are often taken away by Uzbek slavers and sold in the slave markets. And the emir is famous for locking up anyone who comes without authorization to his court. And several British explorers who've tried to pass through Bukhara have ended up in this prison. And anyone that reads the literature of the Great Game has heard about this prison. There's this character called Connolly, who I think is the guy that originally coins the phrase, great game, and from whom Kipling gets the phrase. he ends up in the pit and is eventually killed. And at this point, this is the Emir of Afghanistan, Das Mohamed, fleeing his city and longing to get shelter and sanctuary

is treated like an unauthorized evader and is simply thrown into this pit prison. There is no ladder out of it. It is covered with vermin and I think rotting bodies of people who've been in there before. It's one of the kind of regular sort of orientalist tropes. Dante's Inferno hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so as Duss Muhammad has now gone off, there is no opposition. It's very like any invasion of Afghanistan you ever read about. As soon as the strength of an invading force is clear, everyone doesn't fight and the army passes with incredible speed through the land and takes the capital. So this happened in 2001 or 2002 after 9-11, when the Americans just found they had an easy route to Kabul. It happened to the Taliban two years ago. when the American power started crumbling.

Again, the Taliban just motored on. And it happens in this case in 1839, when the army having proved itself in Guzni and in Kandahar, takes Kabul almost without a shot. So, but if they think that, you know, everyone is going to be throwing up their hands in the air saying, yay, Shashuja is back, hooray, hooray, they are wrong. Well, they are wrong, but it's not immediately clear that they're wrong.

And in fact, there's an awful lot of, oh, we told you so, you were thinking it was so difficult. And all these hawks from the East India Company political department who've been pushing for this invasion all have this moment when they say, we told you so. You know, you said it was going to be terribly difficult. Look, we've taken it and we've barely lost any troops to fighting. There's just been a little bit of a skirmish outside Guzzanee. Otherwise, it's been plain sailing. So you get this extraordinary first winter in Kabul when the British, treat it like a hill station in India. Lady Sale arrives with her grand piano intact and has enough seeds.

I mean, that's crazy. It is intact, isn't it? It's the one thing that they get. It's made it up the bowled pass somehow on the back of an elephant. Yeah. And enough seeds to begin her kitchen garden, which she fills with English blooms. She right. She had been based in Agra, and she was famed for her garden there. So she starts having a chrysanthemum competition. She's a practical woman in all respects. Yeah. Burns, meanwhile, throws a Christmas party with Scottish reels and bagpipes, rather like Rory Stewart's 50th birthday party a couple of weeks ago. Oh, do stop going on about it. For those of us who weren't there, which is basically all of us except you,

banging on about the party. Anyway, he does a foursome on a dining table in full Highland dress with an enormous kilt and sporen. And they carry on as if they're in Bengal. They go duck shooting, the foxes. some of whom have made it through the Bowman Pass alive, are taken out to hunt jackals. McNaughton continues his translation of the Arabian Nights with his blue tinted glasses. There's duck shooting. And the Afghans initially appear to be very mild.

And as a result, they lure the British into thinking that it's going to be an easy conquest. And they make their first and most vital mistake, which is to place. the cantoonments, not in the Balahasaar, the fort, up on a mountain, but in the plain outside Kabul, surrounded on all sides by hill, exactly the place to their great chagrin that the Americans placed the American embassy in the recent round. And it's a completely indefensible site. That's fascinating. Okay, so they're relaxing. They're chillaxing. The Afghans are showing resounding indifference, but not for long, because the Afghan nobles, whatever they're they're showing the front phase to, to the British, they are chafing. They're not happy. So tell us

what this unhappiness leads to. So initially, they are quite happy because many of them get jobs from Shal Shulja. They're paid to fill his court, to fill his army. And as long as the gold keeps rolling out, they're fine. But what they find very quickly at the end of the first year, remember the East Indy company is a business. It's there to make a profit. And they find that all these predictions of great markets for Manchester cottons and all the massive imports that are going to flood into the Kabul bazaars and so on, it's all complete power in the sky nonsense. The Afghans haven't got any money, they don't want to buy English goods, there's almost no trade. And very quickly, the company finds that this terrific conquest, which was surprisingly easy in the end, despite the snipers in the

Boland Pass, is making a massive loss. If you're going to keep Afghanistan, you need to put garrisons in every valley. You need to keep supplies coming in from India. Remember, the Punjab at this point is now in chaos because Ranjit Singh has just died and there's a civil war in the, and it's very difficult to get supplies through the Punjab. And it is a economic nightmare. And this is the point that all invaders find. They like the idea of invading Afghanistan because when they see it on a map, it's the roof of the world. They imagine that they can control the whole region from there. But when they get there, they find it's an economic nightmare and that the strategic benefits are outweighed by the costs. Now, might someone say this is an example

of regime change followed by not very good planning? Exactly. So what they do at the end of the first winter, and this is the crucial point, is that they cut the Afghan staff by half. So half the people who've been appointed to lucrative jobs by Shashuja now find that they're not making any money at all, and they're out of a job. So you have this growing pool of discontent. And the day that the nobles are called in and sacked, the following morning, the postboys are found in the approaches to Kabul with their necks slit. And from this point, no supplies get through to Kabul from India. The nobles make their discontent very clear by basically cutting the supplies as a warning. Is McNaughton taking these warnings seriously? Does he understand that this is the start? This is only the start of something.

MacNorton has absolutely no idea of what he's taken on. And he still thinks he's in Bengal. He's still playing cricket. He's still doing all the things that British troops do at this period, thinking that they're just fun and games and a conquered country. Burns, meanwhile, has been totally sidelined. Because McNaughton's taken over the whole administration, he describes himself as a highly paid idler. He writes to one friend in 1841, I give paper opinions but never work them out. And he's, which is bizarre because he's almost certainly the most capable man there. He is. And Mnorton, who's senior to him and hates him because he's so influential, because he's got the gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society and all the rest of it, is completely cut out.

And so all Burns can do is boast about the luxuries of his life. Lavish breakfast, cigars, drinking champagne, Madeira, claret, and fish all the way from Scotland. But what he doesn't say, and this is the crucial thing, is that he also begins carousing with the Afghan women. And this is the thing that leads to trouble, unsurprisingly. One thing you don't do if you're an occupying force in Afghanistan is sleep with the chieftain's wives. And this is exactly what Burns does. And he actually, having pulled in all sorts of women from the bazaars and filled his house, allegedly, with Afghan women.

He actually seduces the wife of one of the tribal leaders, a guy called Abdullah Khan Atchak Sai. And Abdullah Khan Atchakshai's youngest wife runs away from his house in November 1841 and takes up residence with Alexander Burns. And this is the moment. This is the spark which sets the whole thing off. And again, we have the wonderful Mirza Atta, who gives an account of this. And he writes, when on inquiry, it was found that that was where she, he had gone. The Khan, beside himself with fury, sent his attendant to fetch the girl back. But the Englishman, swollen with pride, cursing and swearing, had the Khan's attendant severely

beaten and thrown out of the house. So the Khan then summons the other tribal chieftains and says, this is my favourite quote in the whole book, now we are justified in throwing off the English yoke. They stretch the hand of tyranny and dishonour private citizens great and small. A Slave Girl isn't worth the ritual bath that follows it, but we have to put a stop right here right now. Otherwise, these English will ride the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity. Blimey. The bleat machines in operation today again, then?

That's good. That's good, isn't it? Yes, I've decided. I've made an executive decision that because so many of you do listen with your children, Calam, dust it off. any effin and jeffin is going to be bleeped we've been told off for being and if we do have scenes of very graphic violence

yes if we're salty or a bit graphic we're going to do a little warning before that I promise you okay so righteo that's so that's not good is it that's not good this is how the quote ends the other sodars his childhood friends tightened their belts and girt their loins and prepared for jihad

holy war oh dear has he girted loins just does not What is a girt of a loin? I mean, I've never understood that phrase. The loins of the Punjab, a well-dirt. I just don't. I'm going to have to look up the etymology of this,

because there's a lot of loin girting that goes on in these stories. Do you not girt your loins? I don't. I never have had cause to. In West London. No, no. I haven't. But anyway, yes, I'm going to look that up for next time, promise.

Okay, so there we are, the stage. is set for a kickback of loin-girting proportions. This is all because the English rode the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity. Well, yes. Avoid doing that in Afghanistan. Yeah, I know, really. I mean, it just has seemed just bonkers. Anyway, so join us next week when we find out what that looks like.

And until then, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William Durempu.