On Afghanistan's Plains: The Story of Britain's Afghan Wars

Britain's military involvement in Afghanistan is a contentious subject, yet it is often forgotten that the current conflict is in fact the fourth in a string of such wars dating back as far as the early nineteenth century. Aiming to protect the British territories in India from the expanding Russian empire, the British fought a series of conflicts on Afghan territory between 1838 and 1919. The Anglo—Afghan wars of the 19th and early 20th centuries were ill—conceived and led to some of the w...