For many foreigners, the history of Afghanistan reads like a morose, Shakespearean tragedy. A litany of armies ventured into the fabled "graveyard of empires," sometimes well-intentioned, only to face insurmountable challenges and withdraw in humiliating defeat. Without a doubt, the quintessential Afghan tragedy is the First Anglo-Afghan War, the subject of Diana Preston's book, The Dark Defile: Britain's Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838-1842.
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As Kabul and growing parts of the country rose up in rebellion, the British embarked on an inglorious retreat in January 1842 led by Sir William Hay Macnaghten, Britain's chief representative to Kabul, and Major General William Elphinstone, commander of the British Army in Afghanistan. The British-led force, which numbered about 4,500 soldiers and included a large contingent of Indian sepoys, was eviscerated as it battled through biting cold, knee-deep snow and apoplectic tribesmen. Dr. William Brydon, the lone European survivor to reach the British fort at Jalalabad, later recalled: "This was a terrible march, the fire of the enemy incessant, and numbers of officers and men, not knowing where they were going from snow-blindness, were cut up."
