Retreat from Kabul; The Catastrophic British Defeat in Afghanistan, 1842

by Patrick Macrory

• ISBN13: 9781585745791
• ISBN10: 1585745790
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2002-02-01
• Publisher: The Lyons Press

Summary

In January 1842 a solitary horseman, bruised and bleeding, made his way slowly to the safety of the British garrison ninety miles from Kabul. He was all that remained of Britain's Army of the Indus -- four thousand English and Indian troops, and twelve thousand followers -- that had left Kabul a week before. Retreat from Kabul is the absorbing and gruesome story of how the world's greatest military power learned a bloody and previously unimagined lesson by underestimating the iron resistance of Afghans to foreign invasion and intrigue. It is a tale of heroism in the face of unspeakable brutality, of diplomatic folly, of great sacrifice, and heartrending tragedy. It is an entrancing look, well-told and extensively researched, at what happens when cultures collide -- a cautionary tale of the results of trying to control by force a country whose people deeply resent the foreign invader. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Sir Patrick Macrory was educated in England at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford He was knighted for his chairmanship of the Commission on Local Government in Northern Ireland. He died in 1993

Table of Contents

Foreword	5	(4)
General Sir Michael Rose
Preface	9	(1)
Preface to the 2002 edition	10	(3)
Prologue	13	(4)
The Approach March	17	(49)
The Triumph	66	(52)
The Rising	118	(79)
The Catastrophe	197	(41)
The Aftermath	238	(45)
Index	283