ISLAMABAD - Eminent British writer William Dalrymple has launched his famous book “Return of a king- The battle for Afghanistan 1839-42,” in Pakistan.
The book is the story of Britain’s worst-ever imperial defeat that saw the killing of 18,000 of its soldiers that had marched to Afghanistan.
The book was launched at the British High Commission on Tuesday.
It predicts humiliating defeat for the US in Afghanistan the way Britain and Russia faced.
According to the writer, Britain invaded Afghanistan in 1839. “That’s when the problem started. The British Army left in 1842, after first suffering and then avenging its worst military disaster of the 19th century,” he stated while giving a detailed account of the events.
“Britain had first cast a fearful eye towards Afghanistan when Napoleon threatened to cross Persia and descend through the Khyber Pass on British India, where vast, tenuously held territories had recently been conquered by the East India Company. Then the rapidly lengthening shadow of Tsarist Russia on the map of Central Asia caused the same terror among policymakers in London and Calcutta,” Dalrymple said adding that the Brits and Russians had faced humiliating defeat in Afghanistan and the United States was likely to face the ‘similar consequences.’