Archibald Forbes, The Afghan Wars, 1892
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emma_in_dreamArchibald Forbes, The Afghan Wars of 1839 and 1379 (1892)
Archibald Forbes had a ridiculously action-packed life. He started out in the army but was invalided out and instead became a war correspondent. One might almost say *the* war correspondent.
He was one of the first to begin using telegrams to send in his reports, with his first work covering the Prussian campaign in Paris in 1871 (by which I mean entering the city with the Prussian invading forces). He survived nearly being drowned in a fountain as a German spy by a French mob, and stayed in the city for the duration of the 1871 commune/massacres/civil war.
In 1873 he represented the Daily News at the Vienna exhibition; subsequently he saw fighting in Spain, on both sides; and in 1875 he accompanied the Prince of Wales on his visit to India. In 1876, he was with Michael Gregorovitch Tchernaieff and the Russian volunteers in their Serbian campaign. In 1877 he witnessed the Russian invasion of Turkey, and was presented to Alexander II as the bearer of important news from the Schipka Pass. On this occasion, the emperor conferred upon him the order of St. Stanislaus for his services to the Russian soldiers.
His life makes Flashman’s life look plausible, though, of course, they had different motives for being at the centre of things.(1)
During 1878, after a brief visit to Cyprus to witness the British occupation, he lectured in England upon the Russo-Turkish war. In 1878-9 he went out to Afghanistan, and accompanied the Khyber Pass force to Jellalabad. He was present at the capture of Ali Musjid, and marched with several expeditions against the hill tribes.
From Afghanistan, he went to Mandalay before zipping back to cover the Zulu war. After the victory of Ulundi, he rode 110 miles to Landman's Drift in twenty hours. Two days after his arrival there he appeared in a state of utter exhaustion before Pietermaritzburg, having ridden by way of Ladysmith and Estcourt, an additional 170 miles, in thirty-five hours. The news of Ulundi first reached England through his agency, he having completely outpaced the official despatch rider. He put in a claim for the Avar medal on the strength of this, but the request was refused by the war office which considered that he was sometimes too critical of their military leaders.
It is his experiences in Afghanistan that fed into *The Afghan Wars*, first published in eight volumes in 1892. The book covered the two major 19th century British campaigns in Afghanistan.
The first from 1839 to 1842 began with the intelligence officer’s head being paraded through Kabul on a spike and ended in the virtually total destruction of the British army, with a sole survivor stumbling out of the Khyber pass to warn the outpost at Jellalabad that all was lost
The entire retreat was disastrous, with about 12,000 camp followers and 4,500 military personnel (some British troops and some Indian troops commanded by white officers) setting out while the survivors measured in dozens. The retreating force made their way slowly through the snow, under constant harrying, losing their supplies, walking into ambush after ambush.
When you read the accounts, they are the stuff of nightmares – people waking up after sleeping to find those next to them had frozen to death; women passing their children to strangers galloping past after their own horses went down under artillery fire; the negotiations for passage out involving one of the British officers hearing the Afghan leader say to his tribesmen in Dari – a language spoken by many British officers – to "spare" the British while saying in Pashto, which most British officers did not speak, to "slay them all"; the female camp followers (having dishonoured themselves by following the British) being stripped naked by the Afghans and left to freeze to death in the snow; panicked troops rushing into a pass under fire only to meet panicked followers rushing in the other direction, with people trampled the death; a last stand at Gandamak on a slight hill in thigh high blood stained snow where they formed a square that held out for some hours until being overrun.
Contemporary British accounts did not refer to this as a war but as ‘the Disaster in Afghanistan’ and they had a brief rerun in late 1842 to demolish parts of the capital and recover prisoners. They set up a puppet Government, and bowed out.
You would have thought that this experience would have meant they would leave well enough alone, but Afghanistan seems to have some fatal attraction for superpowers. The
second Anglo-Afghan campaign in 1878 to 1880 was nominally successful for the British, ending with them marching out with a largely intact army. Once again, the intelligence officer and British representative was slaughtered (along with his servants, hangers on and anyone unlucky enough to be in the area) but the Afghans opted for pitched battles, where the British were able to overwhelm them. They retreated, having got some nominal treaty concessions.
This is the war that Forbes attended and he died in 1900, so was not present for the third Anglo-Afghan war of 1919 (once again, strange, fatal attraction).
With material like this, Forbes’ book could hardly fail to be thrilling. It’s a style of military history that we don’t read so much anymore, full of open jingoism and purple prose.
‘The patriotism of a savage race is marked by features repulsive to civilised communities, but through the ruthless cruelty of the indiscriminate massacre, the treachery of the stealthy stab, and the lightly broken pledges, there may shine out the noblest virtue that a virile people can possess. A semi-barbarian nation whose manhood pours out its blood like water in stubborn resistance against an alien yoke, may be pardoned for many acts shocking to civilised communities which have not known the bitterness of stern and masterful subjugation’
But it is still massively accurate. I read this passage to my co-worker, who was previously in the British army in Afghanistan. He says it would be an entirely accurate description today (except for minor variations in spelling):
‘Afghanistan fifty years ago [1840s], and the same is in a measure true of it to-day, was rather a bundle of provinces, some of which owned scarcely a nominal allegiance to the ruler in Cabul, than a concrete state. Herat and Candahar were wholly independent, the Ghilzai tribes inhabiting the wide tracts from the Suliman ranges westward beyond the road through Ghuznee, between Candahar and Cabul, and northward into the rugged country between Cabul and Jellalabad, acknowledged no other authority than that of their own chiefs.’
He said Herat is lovely country (but hard to see beyond the compounds) and that the Ghilzai people are notoriously ‘mad’. He also showed me photos of a ‘tank graveyard’ which is a well known ‘tourist’ attraction in the area.
Forbes quotes Sir Frederick Roberts, the leader of the second British invasion force who concluded: "We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. It may not be very flattering to our amour propre, but I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us.’ My co-worker also agrees.
(1) Forbes also wrote Barracks, Bivouacs, and Battles (1891) which sounds a lot like Flashman’s Dawns and Departures of a Soldier’s Life.
Archibald Forbes had a ridiculously action-packed life. He started out in the army but was invalided out and instead became a war correspondent. One might almost say *the* war correspondent.
He was one of the first to begin using telegrams to send in his reports, with his first work covering the Prussian campaign in Paris in 1871 (by which I mean entering the city with the Prussian invading forces). He survived nearly being drowned in a fountain as a German spy by a French mob, and stayed in the city for the duration of the 1871 commune/massacres/civil war.
In 1873 he represented the Daily News at the Vienna exhibition; subsequently he saw fighting in Spain, on both sides; and in 1875 he accompanied the Prince of Wales on his visit to India. In 1876, he was with Michael Gregorovitch Tchernaieff and the Russian volunteers in their Serbian campaign. In 1877 he witnessed the Russian invasion of Turkey, and was presented to Alexander II as the bearer of important news from the Schipka Pass. On this occasion, the emperor conferred upon him the order of St. Stanislaus for his services to the Russian soldiers.
His life makes Flashman’s life look plausible, though, of course, they had different motives for being at the centre of things.(1)
During 1878, after a brief visit to Cyprus to witness the British occupation, he lectured in England upon the Russo-Turkish war. In 1878-9 he went out to Afghanistan, and accompanied the Khyber Pass force to Jellalabad. He was present at the capture of Ali Musjid, and marched with several expeditions against the hill tribes.
From Afghanistan, he went to Mandalay before zipping back to cover the Zulu war. After the victory of Ulundi, he rode 110 miles to Landman's Drift in twenty hours. Two days after his arrival there he appeared in a state of utter exhaustion before Pietermaritzburg, having ridden by way of Ladysmith and Estcourt, an additional 170 miles, in thirty-five hours. The news of Ulundi first reached England through his agency, he having completely outpaced the official despatch rider. He put in a claim for the Avar medal on the strength of this, but the request was refused by the war office which considered that he was sometimes too critical of their military leaders.
It is his experiences in Afghanistan that fed into *The Afghan Wars*, first published in eight volumes in 1892. The book covered the two major 19th century British campaigns in Afghanistan.
The first from 1839 to 1842 began with the intelligence officer’s head being paraded through Kabul on a spike and ended in the virtually total destruction of the British army, with a sole survivor stumbling out of the Khyber pass to warn the outpost at Jellalabad that all was lost
The entire retreat was disastrous, with about 12,000 camp followers and 4,500 military personnel (some British troops and some Indian troops commanded by white officers) setting out while the survivors measured in dozens. The retreating force made their way slowly through the snow, under constant harrying, losing their supplies, walking into ambush after ambush.
When you read the accounts, they are the stuff of nightmares – people waking up after sleeping to find those next to them had frozen to death; women passing their children to strangers galloping past after their own horses went down under artillery fire; the negotiations for passage out involving one of the British officers hearing the Afghan leader say to his tribesmen in Dari – a language spoken by many British officers – to "spare" the British while saying in Pashto, which most British officers did not speak, to "slay them all"; the female camp followers (having dishonoured themselves by following the British) being stripped naked by the Afghans and left to freeze to death in the snow; panicked troops rushing into a pass under fire only to meet panicked followers rushing in the other direction, with people trampled the death; a last stand at Gandamak on a slight hill in thigh high blood stained snow where they formed a square that held out for some hours until being overrun.
Contemporary British accounts did not refer to this as a war but as ‘the Disaster in Afghanistan’ and they had a brief rerun in late 1842 to demolish parts of the capital and recover prisoners. They set up a puppet Government, and bowed out.
You would have thought that this experience would have meant they would leave well enough alone, but Afghanistan seems to have some fatal attraction for superpowers. The
second Anglo-Afghan campaign in 1878 to 1880 was nominally successful for the British, ending with them marching out with a largely intact army. Once again, the intelligence officer and British representative was slaughtered (along with his servants, hangers on and anyone unlucky enough to be in the area) but the Afghans opted for pitched battles, where the British were able to overwhelm them. They retreated, having got some nominal treaty concessions.
This is the war that Forbes attended and he died in 1900, so was not present for the third Anglo-Afghan war of 1919 (once again, strange, fatal attraction).
With material like this, Forbes’ book could hardly fail to be thrilling. It’s a style of military history that we don’t read so much anymore, full of open jingoism and purple prose.
‘The patriotism of a savage race is marked by features repulsive to civilised communities, but through the ruthless cruelty of the indiscriminate massacre, the treachery of the stealthy stab, and the lightly broken pledges, there may shine out the noblest virtue that a virile people can possess. A semi-barbarian nation whose manhood pours out its blood like water in stubborn resistance against an alien yoke, may be pardoned for many acts shocking to civilised communities which have not known the bitterness of stern and masterful subjugation’
But it is still massively accurate. I read this passage to my co-worker, who was previously in the British army in Afghanistan. He says it would be an entirely accurate description today (except for minor variations in spelling):
‘Afghanistan fifty years ago [1840s], and the same is in a measure true of it to-day, was rather a bundle of provinces, some of which owned scarcely a nominal allegiance to the ruler in Cabul, than a concrete state. Herat and Candahar were wholly independent, the Ghilzai tribes inhabiting the wide tracts from the Suliman ranges westward beyond the road through Ghuznee, between Candahar and Cabul, and northward into the rugged country between Cabul and Jellalabad, acknowledged no other authority than that of their own chiefs.’
He said Herat is lovely country (but hard to see beyond the compounds) and that the Ghilzai people are notoriously ‘mad’. He also showed me photos of a ‘tank graveyard’ which is a well known ‘tourist’ attraction in the area.
Forbes quotes Sir Frederick Roberts, the leader of the second British invasion force who concluded: "We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. It may not be very flattering to our amour propre, but I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us.’ My co-worker also agrees.
(1) Forbes also wrote Barracks, Bivouacs, and Battles (1891) which sounds a lot like Flashman’s Dawns and Departures of a Soldier’s Life.
