6 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province in the last 4 weeks bringing into question why our troops are there and whether they can they succeed in their mission when it is by no means certain what their mission is.
History shows that foreign powers rarely prosper in remote Afghanistan and certainly not in the long-term as the once mighty Soviet Union learned to their cost.
One earlier British military success there occurred in September 1880 when Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Roberts led a force of 2,562 British and 7,151 Indian troops to relieve surviving troops from a defeat on 27 July by the Afghan ruler Ayub Khan at Maiwand; who were besieged in Kandahar 40 miles to the west . The relief force from Kabul reached Kandahar on 31st August 1880 and rescued the beleaguered defenders. Roberts had force marched his troops 300 miles, through hot and harsh terrain, in three weeks, a feat which entered the annals of army history.
Much later, in 1914, when Grandfather Charles Gordon was training with the Northumberland Fusiliers in Buckinghamshire he was billeted with a Mr Arnold and family in Chesham. One evening Grandad arrived back at the Arnold's complaining bitterly about a 20 mile route march he had completed that day. Mr Arnold, who was a veteran of that long march from Kabul, chided him; "Charlie" he said " that's nothing, you should have been on the march from Kabul to Kandahar."
The British and Indian regiments were to finally withdraw from Afghanistan in 1881 following the Treaty of Gandamak whereby a large part of Afghan territory became part of India, including much mountainous tribal territory. 65 years of conflict between tribes there and the British and Indian armies followed. Roll forward to Helmund province, July 2006 where a small and underesourced British force is on a hiding to nothing.
"Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it"
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