16. The British Try to Escape Afghanistan
Unfortunately for the nineteenth-century British, they were about to discover what the Soviets learned in the twentieth century and the Americans would in the twenty-first: the Afghans were an obstreperous and turbulent lot. Britain’s puppet ruler proved incapable of controlling Afghanistan, and chaos soon engulfed the country. By 1841, discontent had flared into open revolt as the Afghan tribes rebelled against the British and their pet ruler. As the countryside was lost and supply lines to India were cut off, British control shrank to the garrisoned cities. Eventually, the British controlled little more than the grounds of their fortified garrisons.
The British sought a face-saving escape from what had become an untenable situation. They removed their puppet ruler, dusted off the ruler whom they had deposed in 1839, and reinstalled him in power. In exchange, they extracted his promise to control the unruly Afghan tribes long enough for the British to evacuate Afghanistan and withdraw in peace.
