"Compulsive reading." --The New York Times

 

"Retells the story of conquest, complacency and disaster with verve and veracity."--The New Yorker

 

"All the excitement and contention of one of those Errol Flynn pictures about the Khyber Pass and the wild Northwest Frontier: officers disguised as natives, wild cavalry charges, massacres, the courageous young captains and the hidebound old generals."--Los Angeles Times

 

"The excitement never flags." --The Times, London 

Sir Patrick Macrory was educated in England at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford. Among his best-selling military histories is Lady Sale: The First Afghan War, which he edited. He was knighted for his chairmanship of the Commission on Local Government in Northern Ireland. He died in 1993.

Using research from contemporary letters, dispatches, and journals, author
Patrick Macrory provides a gripping account of what is known as the First Afghan War.
 
The war was Britain's folly: at the height of its power in India, Britain sought to create stability in the subcontinent—and prevent Russian and Persian encroachments—by removing a colorful and popular leader from the Afghan throne and replacing him with the unpopular, though legitimate, king.
 
The experiment ended with a British resident in Kabul butchered by an angry mob, a British envoy shot by an Afghan leader during a discussion—his dismembered corpse hung in the Kabul bazaar—and the ill-fated retreat of the British, which resulted in the death of 16,000 people.
 
Retreat From Kabul is the compelling and gruesome story of how the world's greatest military power learned a bloody and previously unimagined lesson by underestimating the Afghan' iron resistance to foreign invasion and intrigue. It is a tale of heroism in the face of unspeakable brutality, of diplomatic folly, of great sacrifice, and of terrible tragedy. It is an entrancing look at what happens when cultures collide.

Imprint: The Lyons Press
Distributor: The Globe Pequot Press
Publication Date: 11-01-2007
Pages: 288
Measurements: 8.50in X 5.50in