A Lesson From History

With the retreat from Afghanistan nearly completed .....

Sir William Robertson Got Afghanistan Spot On ....

.... well ahead of President Biden's arbitrary 11th September 2021 deadline, its perhaps time for a lesson from history.

I am currently (as one of my three books on the go), reading the memoirs of Sir William Robertson, 1st Baronet, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO, who has the singular distinction of rising from a humble enlisted cavalry trooper, to Field Marshall of the British Empire. After leaving school aged 13 he first served as garden boy for the local vicar, then later as a footman for an aristocratic family, until he then joined the British Army as a trooper in the 16th Lancers, in 1877, aged just 'seventeen and three quarters' .... the book "From private to field Marshall" is his 1921 memoirs, an early copy of which I bought on eBay for very little money. 

Now what makes this relevant to the situation in Afghanistan today, is that during this distinguished soldiers rise from boy trooper (his family were not wealthy or connected, his father was a postmaster, so he never purchased an officers commission), he served as an army intelligence officer on the notorious North West Frontier of the British Raj (British ruled India), and had direct contact with Afghanistan when the British and Russians were still playing 'The Great Game' in the region (which incidently he thought was a complete waste of time, and that India was never in danger of Russian invasion because the terrain and hostile natives made it impossible).

On Afghanistan at that time, based on his experience writing the "Gazetteer and Military Report on Afghanistan" in 1892/93, he said:

"Afghanistan is one of the most difficult countries in the world to govern, for the inhabitants, about five millions in number, are not of the same stock and lineage, and do not possess the same political interests and tribal affinities. The only bond of union among them is that of religion, and even this is neither strong nor durable, owing to the division of the people into the great hostile sects of the faith of Muhammed, Shiahs (sic) and Sunnis.The latter are now far more numerous than the former

The two principal Afghan tribes, properly so-called, are the Duranis and Ghilzais, the former being found chiefly in the Kandahar and Farah Provinces and the Ghilzais in the Kabul Province. The Ghilzais are said to be descendants of "Ghalzoe," i.e. "the son of a thief," whose birth took place within three months of the marriage of his parents. In the northern provinces the inhabitants are for the most part alien to the Afghan, being Turkomans in Turkistan and of Persian origin in Herat.

 

The army, of which the Amir was proud, was about 130,000 strong, of whom 100,000 were regulars, and 30,000 were local militias. It comprised the three arms, cavalry, artillery and infantry. Considered as a theatre of war, Afghanistan is a waterless, treeless, foodless, roadless, mountainous country, and has been described as Spain once was - a country in which a large army will starve and a small one will be murdered.

The chief mountain range, the Hindu Kush, has a general elevation of between 12,000 and 18,000 feet, and is everywhere precipitous and arid. A more desolate and inhospitable region can not be imagined. The routes leading through the country between the Russian and Indian frontiers we used to classify in three groups: Pamirs line, Kabul line, and Khandahar line. I will refer to the Pamirs line later, merely saying here that the distance to the Russian frontier to Peshawar is about 600 miles. By the Kabul line there are several alternative routes as far as the capital, the distance from the Oxus to Peshawar is about 450 miles. By Herat and Khandahar the distance to Quetta is 650 miles.

 

These distances, coupled with what has been said about the country, will serve to show the enormous difficulties to be overcome in conducting military operations on any of these three lines. The Amir's policy was to permit no kind of interference with his internal affairs .... "  

Now considering that this was written in 1921, based upon his intelligence report of 1892/93, its amazing how true it still was in December 1979, when the Soviet Union sent troops into the country. 

And also still as relevant in late 2001 and early 2002, when the US troops entered the country. Both countries felt that they had good causes to invade, and both felt that the lessons of the past could be ignored or overcome by the technological might of their armed forces .... no doubt Darius the Great, Alexander the Great, and every invader of the region ever since held much the same opinion, but even the few successful military campaigns, have never resulted in permanent occupations. 

Those who fail to heed and learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past ... this always was, and always will be 'a land of stone and men'.