0:00:06 > 0:00:09Afghanistan - one of the most isolated,
0:00:09 > 0:00:12barren landscapes on Earth.
0:00:12 > 0:00:17It's difficult to believe that any empire would want to invade it,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20and yet it's become the unlikely target,
0:00:20 > 0:00:25and obsession of some of the world's greatest empires and superpowers.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31In 1839, up these city walls above Kabul,
0:00:31 > 0:00:35marched red-coated veterans of Waterloo.
0:00:35 > 0:00:41In 1879, Highlanders charged to the sound of the bagpipes.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44In 1979, Russian special forces
0:00:44 > 0:00:48swooped over these hills in their helicopters.
0:00:48 > 0:00:54And in 2001, an American-led coalition invaded Afghanistan.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59Each of these invasions has ended in tragedy and humiliation,
0:00:59 > 0:01:03and each has sparked a fierce Afghan resistance.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08We have never, ever liked to be conquered.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10It's really easy to get into Afghanistan.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13It's just the getting-out part that is very difficult.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17Don't go into Afghanistan and get, whatever you do,
0:01:17 > 0:01:19involved in a tribal war.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22HE CHANTS
0:01:22 > 0:01:25Starting with the British invasions of the 19th century,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28how has this history forged the Afghanistan of today?
0:01:28 > 0:01:30And what is it about this place
0:01:30 > 0:01:34and the paranoia and aggression of empires
0:01:34 > 0:01:38that has created repeated tragedy?
0:01:38 > 0:01:41In these two films, I want to explore what dragged
0:01:41 > 0:01:44these great nations into Afghanistan,
0:01:44 > 0:01:48and why they found it so difficult to leave.
0:02:06 > 0:02:12To sense some of the complexity of the Afghanistan that Victorian Britain chose to invade,
0:02:12 > 0:02:15you don't even need to leave contemporary London.
0:02:15 > 0:02:20I've come to Ealing for an evening of Afghan food, music and traditional costume
0:02:20 > 0:02:24with a group of Afghans now resident here in west London.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26HE GREETS THEM IN THEIR LANGUAGE
0:02:28 > 0:02:31'In this room, a dizzying array of ethnic groups,
0:02:31 > 0:02:35'Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara,
0:02:35 > 0:02:38'Turkmen, Nuristani, all Afghans,
0:02:38 > 0:02:42'and all holding different religious and political views.'
0:02:45 > 0:02:49The divisions and consequences of war have led to more than
0:02:49 > 0:02:53five million Afghans fleeing their country since the 1980s.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57Do you think, for example, Britain should remain in Helmand?
0:02:57 > 0:03:01Until they will have the infrastructure in the proper way,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03I think they should remain.
0:03:03 > 0:03:07- You don't think the British should remain in Helmand?- Absolutely not.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12The microcosm of Afghanistan is there in that room,
0:03:12 > 0:03:16and some of these people are now sitting down together round a table,
0:03:16 > 0:03:20and in those histories and the suspicions of who joined the jihad,
0:03:20 > 0:03:22who came from which ethnic group,
0:03:22 > 0:03:26are many of the fissures that continue to haunt Afghanistan today.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31And all this complexity and Afghan history, both ancient and modern,
0:03:31 > 0:03:33so difficult to understand,
0:03:33 > 0:03:38so often overlooked, still matters deeply for all of us today.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41And it continues to preoccupy commentators,
0:03:41 > 0:03:46such as Akbar Ahmed, who I've come to meet here in Washington DC.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49Professor Ahmed, a Pakistani who once worked as an administrator
0:03:49 > 0:03:52on the North-West Frontier with Afghanistan,
0:03:52 > 0:03:54arrived in the States where he now teaches,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57a day before the World Trade Center attack.
0:03:57 > 0:04:02But his direct appeal to the White House for caution fell on deaf ears.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10I think on 9/11 the US administration had no idea about Afghanistan,
0:04:10 > 0:04:13its tribes, its history,
0:04:13 > 0:04:18but it was so motivated, so intensely motivated
0:04:18 > 0:04:22by a sense of anger, a sense of revenge, a sense of honour,
0:04:22 > 0:04:26that, at all costs, it had to rush into Afghanistan.
0:04:26 > 0:04:31I said many, many superpowers have gone charging into Afghanistan.
0:04:31 > 0:04:32Be very careful.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36And that is the big problem, that when you combine arrogance
0:04:36 > 0:04:39with a lack of knowledge of that part of the world,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42you are almost guaranteed to run into trouble.
0:04:42 > 0:04:47I sensed this tension myself when I walked across Afghanistan shortly after 9/11.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51I found a hospitable and attractive country
0:04:51 > 0:04:53but still deeply conservative,
0:04:53 > 0:04:57isolated and difficult for a foreigner to understand.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00It made me reflect on the superpowers who have
0:05:00 > 0:05:03so often invaded the mountains of Afghanistan,
0:05:03 > 0:05:07how often they get caught up in their own strategic games,
0:05:07 > 0:05:09how easily they become out of touch,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13failing to grasp the complexity and resistance of Afghanistan.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18And I felt the same was true for the British in the 19th century.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23When they came, they were focused not on Afghanistan itself, but its neighbours.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27If I were a British Redcoat standing on this wall in 1839,
0:05:27 > 0:05:31I would have been told that the reason I was here was that
0:05:31 > 0:05:35British India lay to the east and Russia lay to the north,
0:05:35 > 0:05:39and Afghanistan was trapped between two expanding empires.
0:05:42 > 0:05:48Afghanistan, a largely barren country, but with a rich Islamic civilisation,
0:05:48 > 0:05:52had long fought and traded with its Muslim and Asian neighbours,
0:05:52 > 0:05:54but it had never encountered
0:05:54 > 0:05:57a non-Muslim power as alien as Britain.
0:05:57 > 0:05:59And yet, in the 1830s,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02Afghanistan was perceived, as it is believed to be today,
0:06:02 > 0:06:07to be an immediate threat to British national security,
0:06:07 > 0:06:12a place for the politicians and generals of empire to fret about.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16For hundreds of years,
0:06:16 > 0:06:19all the conflicts had happened here in Europe
0:06:19 > 0:06:22and suddenly it exploded east.
0:06:22 > 0:06:27Russia raced towards Japan, Britain came into India,
0:06:27 > 0:06:29and as these great empires expanded,
0:06:29 > 0:06:31there was this zone in between,
0:06:31 > 0:06:35almost a blank space on the map with very, very few towns,
0:06:35 > 0:06:39a place of deserts and mountains.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43And although these two empires were still 4,000 miles apart,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46they were certain that they were about to meet.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49They were going meet here, in Afghanistan.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00As Britain and Russia stretched and flexed, Afghanistan,
0:07:00 > 0:07:04one of the most remote and impoverished kingdoms in the world,
0:07:04 > 0:07:08found itself sandwiched between two empires who both claimed,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10at least, to be its friend.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15Britain feared Russia might creep south towards British-ruled India,
0:07:15 > 0:07:21the jewel in the crown of the Empire, and the second centre of British political power.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24But suspicions worked both ways.
0:07:24 > 0:07:26The Russians were equally nervous
0:07:26 > 0:07:28about Britain moving north from its base in India.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39Sensing that these two empires would collide in Afghanistan,
0:07:39 > 0:07:44the British government was hungry for intelligence on this blank space.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46A spy was despatched.
0:07:46 > 0:07:54Alexander Burnes, a man I believe to be one of our greatest ever political officers.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58This is not a man actually in fancy dress.
0:07:58 > 0:07:59He's in disguise.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03One of dozens of British officers who made their reputations
0:08:03 > 0:08:07doing journeys which were almost suicidal.
0:08:09 > 0:08:14Burnes was one of the very first to study Afghanistan for British intelligence.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17His spying mission was both extraordinary and brave.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21In 1831, travelling undercover in disguise,
0:08:21 > 0:08:27he surveyed the route all the way from India through Kabul to Bukhara,
0:08:27 > 0:08:31and produced the first detailed accounts of Afghan politics.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35He set off with no protection into one of the most dangerous
0:08:35 > 0:08:36and unknown parts of Asia,
0:08:36 > 0:08:39a place where his predecessors had been killed,
0:08:39 > 0:08:43where he was having to run the gauntlet of slave traders,
0:08:43 > 0:08:47where he was a Christian moving through some regions which were fanatically Muslim
0:08:47 > 0:08:49and which were famous for killing infidels.
0:08:49 > 0:08:55Trying to rely all the way not on his sword but, as he says in a letter to his mother -
0:08:55 > 0:08:58on his languages, on his charm, on his politeness.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04Along with the suicidal danger of what Burnes did
0:09:04 > 0:09:10was the incredible reward because, when he returned back to London having completed this journey,
0:09:10 > 0:09:14this nearly 12-month journey through largely unknown country,
0:09:14 > 0:09:17he was a massive celebrity.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20He returned 28 years old, had an audience with the king,
0:09:20 > 0:09:22was made a member of the Athenian Club,
0:09:22 > 0:09:25got a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30And the book Burnes wrote, Travels To Bukhara,
0:09:30 > 0:09:32became an overnight bestseller.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37But, although it gave Britain a unique insight into this largely unknown land,
0:09:37 > 0:09:42according to historian William Dalrymple, his visit also terrified the Russians
0:09:42 > 0:09:47and had an unanticipated, counterproductive effect.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51There are British agents in Central Asia long before the Russians
0:09:51 > 0:09:54had taken any interest in cities like Bukhara and Khiva.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57And it's only when Burnes' travel book Journeys Into Bukhara
0:09:57 > 0:10:01is translated into French and becomes widely read in Moscow,
0:10:01 > 0:10:05that the Russians think they should send an agent in
0:10:05 > 0:10:08to make sure the British are not manoeuvring
0:10:08 > 0:10:11and making plots in their backyard.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18Shortly after Burnes was sent back to Kabul in 1836,
0:10:18 > 0:10:21he spotted this Russian agent, Jan Vitkevich,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24and the Russian's arrival terrified the British.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26They became, in turn, very suspicious
0:10:26 > 0:10:30of Russia's ambitions in the country.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33And this mutual paranoia led to more and more
0:10:33 > 0:10:37foreign intelligence operations around Afghanistan,
0:10:37 > 0:10:42with rival officers like Vitkevich and Burnes sending back
0:10:42 > 0:10:45countless reports on each other's activities.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51The Russians called it The Tournament of Shadows.
0:10:51 > 0:10:56The British now remember it, thanks to Rudyard Kipling's later writing,
0:10:56 > 0:10:59as The Great Game.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05One of my favourite books is Kipling's Kim,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09which describes The Great Game through the eyes of this young English boy,
0:11:09 > 0:11:12who's working on the North-West Frontier as a spy.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16It's incredibly dangerous work, his intrigues with the Russians.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18He's a secret agent, he's deniable,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21he's at arm's length from the British government.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26But, of course, this was a game that had two teams and on the other side,
0:11:26 > 0:11:31the Russians, men like Vitkevich, travelling into Kabul,
0:11:31 > 0:11:34developing relationships with the Afghan king,
0:11:34 > 0:11:36returning with his own documents and maps,
0:11:36 > 0:11:38the beginning of a whole tradition,
0:11:38 > 0:11:43whereby whenever the British saw a Russian painter turn up in the city,
0:11:43 > 0:11:45a Russian hunter turn up on the frontier,
0:11:45 > 0:11:50they would immediately assume that this was a double game of espionage.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53It was all these fears and suspicions of empire
0:11:53 > 0:11:56that were to turn Afghanistan into a battleground,
0:11:56 > 0:12:00according to Britain's former ambassador to Moscow,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02historian Sir Rodric Braithwaite.
0:12:02 > 0:12:08They thought that the Russians are getting their agents into Kabul and we must forestall them.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12We've got to do something here, with these Russians allegedly coming over the frontiers.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14The Russians had a mirror image view of us.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18They saw our agents penetrating northern Afghanistan
0:12:18 > 0:12:21into areas of central Asia, which they thought were their interest.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24They believed that these guys would come with propaganda,
0:12:24 > 0:12:29Islamic propaganda, weapons, money, and stir up these places against the Russians,
0:12:29 > 0:12:31so they were as terrified as we were.
0:12:38 > 0:12:43By 1839, the British government was increasingly obsessed with the Russian threat.
0:12:45 > 0:12:50Key advisers, men who'd never set foot in Afghanistan,
0:12:50 > 0:12:53began to claim that Russia might use Afghanistan
0:12:53 > 0:12:56as a stepping stone for the invasion of British India.
0:12:56 > 0:13:01Britain's man on the ground in Afghanistan, Alexander Burnes,
0:13:01 > 0:13:04thought that Afghanistan should be left well alone,
0:13:04 > 0:13:09but a small group of policy-makers in the government of India had very different ideas.
0:13:09 > 0:13:13They ignored Burnes completely.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17In their minds Afghanistan was an empty failed state into which Russia would move.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24The hawks decided the answer was regime change,
0:13:24 > 0:13:28to topple the sitting king of Afghanistan, Dost Mohammad,
0:13:28 > 0:13:30and replace him with their own man.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36British intelligence felt they had the perfect candidate,
0:13:36 > 0:13:41Shah Shuja, a man who'd been living in British India for 30 years,
0:13:41 > 0:13:43urbane and beautifully dressed,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46a man who could be relied upon to do Britain's bidding.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51To justify themselves, they published a document
0:13:51 > 0:13:54claiming that Dost Mohammad, who was trying to keep his distance
0:13:54 > 0:13:58from both Russia and Britain, was in fact disloyal to the British
0:13:58 > 0:14:03and represented an imminent and urgent threat to the British Empire.
0:14:05 > 0:14:07The motives are always very mixed.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10It's both the aggressive, expansive imperial instinct,
0:14:10 > 0:14:13plus the terror that it's going come up against a brick wall or
0:14:13 > 0:14:15somebody's going to come and take it all away from you.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19And the trouble with intervention is that you may
0:14:19 > 0:14:21or may not have identified the right target
0:14:21 > 0:14:24but you then tend to use the wrong means for dealing with it.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32So were the hawks right to fear Russia?
0:14:32 > 0:14:37Here in Moscow, I've come to meet an eminent Russian historian of the period,
0:14:37 > 0:14:40Professor Tatiana Zagarodnikova.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44I wanted to ask her if Russia was really preparing to invade
0:14:44 > 0:14:47Afghanistan as a bridgehead for an attack on India.
0:14:49 > 0:14:57That was a time of colonisation of smaller, weaker states and that was a process all over the world,
0:14:57 > 0:15:00not only in Great Britain and in Russia.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03The same in France,
0:15:03 > 0:15:06the same in other great powers.
0:15:06 > 0:15:11Great Britain at that time considered every step of Russia,
0:15:11 > 0:15:17either in Europe or in Asia,
0:15:17 > 0:15:22and maybe even in Africa, as a Russian step towards India.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27Everything was considered as the Russians' march to India.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29Were the British paranoid?
0:15:29 > 0:15:33Well it was just, to my mind, it was a game,
0:15:33 > 0:15:38kind of making face,
0:15:38 > 0:15:40towards audience, towards public opinion.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44Another thing is that that was a wonderful pretext
0:15:44 > 0:15:50in the parliament to demand more money for military purposes,
0:15:50 > 0:15:55for keeping big armies in India, and so on.
0:15:58 > 0:16:02The hawks were obsessed with putting their man on the throne,
0:16:02 > 0:16:07but their belief in a Russian threat was more faith than reality.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10The dossier was torn to pieces in the British press.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15Everyone from the Duke of Wellington attacked the idea as madness,
0:16:15 > 0:16:19but rather than calling off the mission, these men pushed on
0:16:19 > 0:16:25and, within a few weeks, the Army of the Indus was marching into Afghanistan.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29As we know in our own time, if you create a phantasm,
0:16:29 > 0:16:31a horror figure of your own imaginings,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34that figure can actually come into being.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36You can imagine a threat into life.
0:16:36 > 0:16:42Just like the neo-cons had wanted to topple Saddam Hussein long before 9/11,
0:16:42 > 0:16:46and 9/11 gave the neo-cons the excuse they were looking for.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48In the same way the hawks, the Russophobes,
0:16:48 > 0:16:51in the British establishment in Simla and in Calcutta,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54had been wanting to pre-empt the Russians in central Asia.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56MILITARY DRUM AND PIPE MUSIC PLAYS
0:17:01 > 0:17:05As they wound their way through the narrow passes towards Kabul,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08the British Army were supremely confident.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12They'd never been defeated in central Asia,
0:17:12 > 0:17:16and many in the army were treating it as a game.
0:17:16 > 0:17:21A lot of the young officers were behaving as though they were going on a grand picnic.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23Their generals were enraged.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26These 22-year-olds were travelling with camel trains,
0:17:26 > 0:17:30piled with mess silver, with eau de cologne, with exotic wines.
0:17:30 > 0:17:36The 16th Lancers even managed to bring their own pack of foxhounds towards Afghanistan.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47The Army of the Indus arrived in Kabul in April 1839,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50and as they swaggered into the city
0:17:50 > 0:17:54they had little idea of the horrors ahead.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04The British entered Kabul in squadrons,
0:18:04 > 0:18:07the Royal Horse Artillery in gold,
0:18:07 > 0:18:08the Lancers in scarlet,
0:18:08 > 0:18:10the Dragoons in blue,
0:18:10 > 0:18:13the ostrich feathers on the hats of the envoys,
0:18:13 > 0:18:16with all the glory of a parade, a victory parade.
0:18:16 > 0:18:22But around them in the crowded bazaar - blank faces, hostility, suspicion.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26Britain had taken a decisive step
0:18:26 > 0:18:31and placed an army of occupation in this distant and unlikely land.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34But as the soldiers settled into life in Kabul,
0:18:34 > 0:18:38their need for security made them live in protected compounds,
0:18:38 > 0:18:40separate from the Afghan people,
0:18:40 > 0:18:45and this only encouraged suspicions on both sides.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49The English knew so little about the real life of Kabul.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51If they came down to the city at all,
0:18:51 > 0:18:53they travelled in armed groups,
0:18:53 > 0:18:58seeing hostile Afghan faces, glimpses of tiny windows,
0:18:58 > 0:19:02blank mud walls and they had very, very little idea
0:19:02 > 0:19:07about the rich civilisation behind those doors.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20Largely hidden from and totally misunderstood by most British troops,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24was a culture of extraordinary richness,
0:19:24 > 0:19:26a culture of calligraphy,
0:19:26 > 0:19:28miniature painting and poetry,
0:19:28 > 0:19:33with sophisticated Afghan forms of law, government and patronage.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42The occupation dragged on
0:19:42 > 0:19:46and the British only became more and more entrenched
0:19:46 > 0:19:49and the Afghans began to get anxious.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51The thing that really worried the Afghans was when
0:19:51 > 0:19:56the women began to arrive and European babies were born,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59that the British were here to stay.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07The British, in the towers of their fort,
0:20:07 > 0:20:11and the Afghans gazing back at them from their family compounds,
0:20:11 > 0:20:16began to look at each other with deepening mistrust and incomprehension.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22I've come to a rain-soaked Boston
0:20:22 > 0:20:26to meet a world authority on Afghan anthropology and history,
0:20:26 > 0:20:28Professor Tom Barfield.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32Appropriately, I met him here in the Helmand Restaurant.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37And I wanted ask him about some of the many differences between these cultures.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42If you go to an Afghan feast, people are very religious,
0:20:42 > 0:20:45but they're religious at the end of the meal.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48You thank God for having eaten a wonderful meal.
0:20:48 > 0:20:50As one of my Afghan friends said to me,
0:20:50 > 0:20:53"Why do you Americans pray before the meal?
0:20:53 > 0:20:56"You haven't eaten it. You have no idea whether God deserves
0:20:56 > 0:20:58"the praise or not, or the host."
0:20:58 > 0:21:01But the lesson that I took from him
0:21:01 > 0:21:05is that we foreigners are too keen to praise the fact that
0:21:05 > 0:21:09the feast is here and the Afghans say, "There's one more step.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13"Let's eat the feast and decide whether it deserves it."
0:21:13 > 0:21:17So the Afghans tend to look more at the outcome, than at the intentions.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20'And that logic appears to apply
0:21:20 > 0:21:23'to how Afghans choose the perfect leader.'
0:21:23 > 0:21:28The ideal ruler says to the Afghans that,
0:21:28 > 0:21:32"Without me, these foreigners would invade and occupy our country.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35"Without me and my skill,
0:21:35 > 0:21:38"Afghanistan would not be independent.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41"I am defending a Muslim nation."
0:21:41 > 0:21:44At the same time, he turns to the foreigners and says,
0:21:44 > 0:21:50"Only I can keep control of the Afghans and I can only do that if you send me money and weapons."
0:21:50 > 0:21:56By 1841, Britain's choice of ruler had proved a disaster.
0:21:56 > 0:22:00Once Shah Shuja was on the throne, Afghans quickly saw him as weak,
0:22:00 > 0:22:03as corrupt and, worst of all,
0:22:03 > 0:22:07as a puppet of a foreign non-Muslim government.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11In a courtyard in Kabul, I asked Afghan academic Omar Sharifi
0:22:11 > 0:22:15about how Afghans perceived Shah Shuja.
0:22:48 > 0:22:52If you were an Afghan seeing a red-coated British soldier in the street,
0:22:52 > 0:22:54what would your reaction be?
0:23:15 > 0:23:18Nobody really knew what was happening in Afghanistan.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21Optimistic British officers felt that with a bit more time,
0:23:21 > 0:23:23and a bit more money, they were going to be able to win.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26And, suddenly, when rumours began to spread
0:23:26 > 0:23:28through the tea houses and the bazaars
0:23:28 > 0:23:31that British officers were interfering with Afghan women,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35a match had been lit, which would spark an insurgency.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37Suddenly, up and down the country,
0:23:37 > 0:23:41Afghans began to feel that their culture had been insulted,
0:23:41 > 0:23:42that their king was only a puppet,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45and that they needed to fight for Afghanistan
0:23:45 > 0:23:49and for Islam against a foreign military occupation.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03Dost Mohammad, the emir the British had deposed
0:24:03 > 0:24:06to make way for Shah Shuja, was in exile.
0:24:06 > 0:24:11But he and his family used the presence of non-Muslim occupiers
0:24:11 > 0:24:15to mobilise Afghans by calling for a jihad.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18And for many Afghans, this action was
0:24:18 > 0:24:22the birth of the modern state of Afghanistan,
0:24:22 > 0:24:25the moment around which they united as a nation.
0:24:25 > 0:24:27By November 1841,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31Muslims in Kabul were ready to join this jihad.
0:24:31 > 0:24:35But the British were taken completely by surprise.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39Even Alexander Burnes, our envoy so prized for his local knowledge,
0:24:39 > 0:24:44completely underestimated how dangerous the situation had become.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48Alexander Burnes loved Kabul and Afghan culture.
0:24:48 > 0:24:52He was used to walking through the streets as though he was at home in Scotland.
0:24:52 > 0:24:57If you'd asked him, he would have said he could have trusted Afghans with his life.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01But on that night in November 1841,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04he walked home to a city that had changed.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08He looked into eyes that no longer greeted him
0:25:08 > 0:25:13and, as he made his way back through the narrow streets towards his house,
0:25:13 > 0:25:16he was seeing a hostility that he hadn't sensed before.
0:25:18 > 0:25:23By dusk, an armed mob had surrounded his house.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28In one last attempt, he walked out onto the balcony of his house
0:25:28 > 0:25:31and in his most confident manner, in beautiful Persian,
0:25:31 > 0:25:35appealed to their sense of hospitality, of generosity,
0:25:35 > 0:25:37their treatment of a guest.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42But he got nothing back and, in the end,
0:25:42 > 0:25:48he had to send a desperate message to the British garrison asking for help,
0:25:48 > 0:25:52and, for the first time, retreated back into his house knowing that
0:25:52 > 0:25:56the only thing that stood between him and death were the gates of his house.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11Burnes' home, his paradise where he'd entertained for so long,
0:26:11 > 0:26:15the Kabul that he loved, had become a death trap.
0:26:20 > 0:26:22Burnes' last glimpse of a city that he loved
0:26:22 > 0:26:26and thought the most beautiful in the world was not of gardens,
0:26:26 > 0:26:30not of poetry, but a last desperate sprint across his neighbours' roofs
0:26:30 > 0:26:34hoping that he could find a way out, but the crowd was everywhere.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37He wrapped a turban around his head, dropped down,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40praying he wouldn't be recognised and for a moment he wasn't.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44But then the cry went up - "Sikander Burnes". He was hacked down.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50And the next morning his head was on a pole in the bazaar.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04The day before Burnes' death, the British had been congratulating
0:27:04 > 0:27:07themselves on the peace and tranquillity in Afghanistan.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10The day after, everything had collapsed.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14A British trooper came staggering into the fort
0:27:14 > 0:27:17with five musket wounds in his body, cuts to his head and shoulders,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21stark naked, having just escaped from the Afghan insurgents.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24The food was lost, the ammunition was running down,
0:27:24 > 0:27:27and within three days of Burnes' death,
0:27:27 > 0:27:32the British generals were talking about a treaty of surrender
0:27:32 > 0:27:34and a retreat from Kabul.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37The British Commander, General Elphinstone,
0:27:37 > 0:27:39tried to negotiate with the Afghans.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42The Afghans offered him safe passage,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45provided the British handed over their heavy weapons
0:27:45 > 0:27:47and retreated immediately to India.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50It must have felt like an impossible decision.
0:27:50 > 0:27:55If the garrison tried to stay, they could starve and be wiped out.
0:27:55 > 0:27:57But if they were to retreat,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01could they really trust the assurances of their enemy?
0:28:01 > 0:28:05I faced a similar dilemma on a smaller scale
0:28:05 > 0:28:08when I was a Deputy Governor in the south of Iraq
0:28:08 > 0:28:10after the invasion in 2004.
0:28:10 > 0:28:12Our compound was under siege.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14We were being attacked by Sadarist militia,
0:28:14 > 0:28:18and their commander came to us and said that if we agreed
0:28:18 > 0:28:21to leave our weapons and hand ourselves over to him,
0:28:21 > 0:28:24he would take us safely out of the fort and back.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28At the time I thought it was a trick, a trick to massacre us,
0:28:28 > 0:28:32and I felt, again, the same thing when I read this history.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36In Iraq, we stayed and defended the compound,
0:28:36 > 0:28:40but the British in Kabul, in 1841, were deeply divided.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44Many young officers were determined to fight on,
0:28:44 > 0:28:49but Elphinstone overruled them and ordered a retreat.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52All the troops, their wives and children,
0:28:52 > 0:28:55were forced to leave the relative safety of their compound,
0:28:55 > 0:29:01and to try and reach the British garrison in Jalalabad nine days' march east of Kabul.
0:29:03 > 0:29:06They made painfully slow progress
0:29:06 > 0:29:09and, after two days, this straggling column of soldiers
0:29:09 > 0:29:14and civilians met their fate beneath this mountain.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19This valley is the jaws of hell.
0:29:19 > 0:29:21Into this, in mid-winter,
0:29:21 > 0:29:24the cream of the British army marched
0:29:24 > 0:29:29and they were treated as though they were in a slaughterhouse.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40By the time they reached this valley, Khord Kabul,
0:29:40 > 0:29:43they had spent two nights out in the open, in three-foot snow
0:29:43 > 0:29:47in temperatures of minus 15 without tents,
0:29:47 > 0:29:50waking up to discover frozen corpses around them.
0:29:50 > 0:29:57They staggered into this valley, starving, frozen, with no supplies,
0:29:57 > 0:30:02and 80 miles to go, and it was at that point that the attack began.
0:30:17 > 0:30:24Behind every bolder was an Afghan with a musket taking careful aim,
0:30:24 > 0:30:27able to pick off, individually, 3,000 people and kill them
0:30:27 > 0:30:30as they made their way through the valley.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37And it continued, not just for one or two miles,
0:30:37 > 0:30:40but for five miles of a ravine.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51By the time they reached the end of that valley,
0:30:51 > 0:30:5590% of the British army had been extinguished.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12A handful of soldiers managed to fight their way through,
0:31:12 > 0:31:14but only to meet their fate later.
0:31:14 > 0:31:20What we've got here is the last stand of the 44th Foot at Gandamak.
0:31:20 > 0:31:2350 men make it to the village of Gandamak.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26They stand on this low hill and they have run out of ammunition,
0:31:26 > 0:31:28they're relying only on their bayonets.
0:31:28 > 0:31:31And the picture we see here is half of them are dead
0:31:31 > 0:31:34and the Pathans are about to close in
0:31:34 > 0:31:37and end it with their swords.
0:31:37 > 0:31:43Of the 17,000 men, women and children who'd set out nine days earlier from Kabul,
0:31:43 > 0:31:47only one made it to the British garrison in Jalalabad.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51One man has made it on from there, this Dr Brydon.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54And in this picture, Dr Brydon is sitting on his old nag,
0:31:54 > 0:31:59about to collapse and he is seen limping towards Jalalabad,
0:31:59 > 0:32:03and they assume he's only the first of thousands of troops to make it,
0:32:03 > 0:32:06and the gates are opened and a party sent out.
0:32:06 > 0:32:08And they realise he's the only one.
0:32:08 > 0:32:12And that night the commanding officer orders the bugles to be sounded all night.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18The wind was blowing very strongly that night and,
0:32:18 > 0:32:22rather than billowing out into the plain of Jalalabad,
0:32:22 > 0:32:28it blew back into the town, and he said that the noise of the trumpets
0:32:28 > 0:32:33echoing amid the wail of the wind sounded like an elegy to the dead army.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38The British Empire never had, and never would,
0:32:38 > 0:32:40experience a defeat like it.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43The first Afghan war was a major event for the Afghans.
0:32:43 > 0:32:47We always see it through our perspective as the great imperial disaster,
0:32:47 > 0:32:50but for the Afghans, this was their Trafalgar,
0:32:50 > 0:32:54their Battle of Britain, their Waterloo, all in one.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58They were the only non-colonial power
0:32:58 > 0:33:03to see off a modern westernised army in the 19th century,
0:33:03 > 0:33:06on the sort of magnificent scale that they did,
0:33:06 > 0:33:12and completely destroyed an entire Victorian army at the very peak of Britain's power.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18For Afghans, this had confirmed that they were a warrior nation,
0:33:18 > 0:33:22one even capable of seeing off a great power like Britain,
0:33:22 > 0:33:26but Western historians point to another legacy that resonates today.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31The first time there's really a feeling of jihad inside Afghanistan
0:33:31 > 0:33:33is the first Anglo-Afghan war.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36After that, it never really goes away.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38Beginning with the British invasions,
0:33:38 > 0:33:44Afghans begin to perceive themselves as fighting an outside non-Muslim world.
0:33:44 > 0:33:46Now, they had known this before.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48When they raided India, that was jihad, you know.
0:33:48 > 0:33:53You got to go into infidel lands and take home a lot of good stuff.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56But inside Afghanistan, you couldn't do jihad.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00Now when these foreigners invaded, people would say, "Yes, we're fighting non-Muslims."
0:34:03 > 0:34:06The British government would have liked to cover up
0:34:06 > 0:34:09the extent of this tragedy, but it was not to be.
0:34:09 > 0:34:13Almost every last grisly detail was immortalised
0:34:13 > 0:34:15in the bestselling diaries of Lady Sale,
0:34:15 > 0:34:19wife of one of the senior officers in the Kabul Army.
0:34:19 > 0:34:24She was captured during the retreat and later released,
0:34:24 > 0:34:28and her original diaries and letters are kept here in the British Library.
0:34:28 > 0:34:34I took a look at them with historian Jane Robinson.
0:34:34 > 0:34:38Well, the book ran into several reprints in the first couple of years.
0:34:38 > 0:34:43It sold 7,500 copies, which was huge, and it was serialised in The Times.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46And the response to it was unprecedented, I think,
0:34:46 > 0:34:50because this was the first time that a woman, a British woman,
0:34:50 > 0:34:52had written from the theatre of war.
0:34:53 > 0:34:59Lady Sale's account of the retreat from Kabul was shockingly explicit.
0:34:59 > 0:35:02To see women and children and soldiers and camp followers
0:35:02 > 0:35:04in various states of decomposition,
0:35:04 > 0:35:07and she actually describes it...
0:35:07 > 0:35:10I see here that some of the text has been excised,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12I think as possibly being too strong.
0:35:12 > 0:35:14This was horrific stuff.
0:35:14 > 0:35:18"Subsequently we heard that scarcely any of these poor wretches escaped
0:35:18 > 0:35:20"and that, driven to the extreme of hunger,
0:35:20 > 0:35:25"they'd sustained life by feeding on their dead comrades."
0:35:25 > 0:35:28And she knew that the army was doomed.
0:35:28 > 0:35:33She does say earlier on, "I fear that nobody is going to survive this."
0:35:33 > 0:35:38The newspaper serialisation sparked a macabre fascination
0:35:38 > 0:35:41with the savagery of the Afghans.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44She was a British representative in Kabul.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47She was part of the establishment there, part of the machine.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51And the fact that she had been attacked by the Afghans,
0:35:51 > 0:35:54it meant that the Afghans were particularly dastardly
0:35:54 > 0:35:57because they had attacked what was most, not sacred,
0:35:57 > 0:35:59but almost sacred, about British society abroad.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02But, actually, that's extremely unfair because, in fact,
0:36:02 > 0:36:05the Afghans went out of their way to save all the women and children.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08Yes, but that's not what the audience got from this. Not at all.
0:36:08 > 0:36:10What they saw was the sensation.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13What they was the dead bodies. What they saw was the cannibalism.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18Perhaps to limit the damage to our imperial reputation,
0:36:18 > 0:36:22the British spun this as a story of heroism and bravery.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27The way this was treated when it was published was, indeed, propaganda, I think.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30She was paraded before Queen Victoria.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34There was a city named Sale in Australia. There was a ship named Sale in the Navy.
0:36:34 > 0:36:36And she was promoted as a heroine.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40She was made into a celebrity to try and distract, I think.
0:36:40 > 0:36:45- We're defeated, but we turn out of the defeat the fact that we're really lions.- Yes, yeah.
0:36:50 > 0:36:53The British Empire had been humiliated.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56And the defeat was seared into our historical memory,
0:36:56 > 0:37:02creating a view of Afghanistan as a graveyard of empire, an unconquerable land.
0:37:03 > 0:37:09But that's only part of the story, because later that year the British sent an army of retribution,
0:37:09 > 0:37:13which sought savage revenge for its losses
0:37:13 > 0:37:16and razed to the ground Kabul's historic bazaar.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19But, having dealt the Afghans a punishing blow,
0:37:19 > 0:37:25instead of occupying the country, they ended the first Anglo-Afghan war with a deal.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31At this point they announce, "Now we're going to withdraw.
0:37:31 > 0:37:35"But now you can see that if we want to come back, we can do it.
0:37:35 > 0:37:37"You guys have not defeated us militarily.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39"Now we need to cut a deal."
0:37:39 > 0:37:43And they take Dost Mohammad, the ruler that they had dispossessed,
0:37:43 > 0:37:45they say, "OK, you can go back again."
0:37:45 > 0:37:49So it's like Dost Mohammad part two,
0:37:49 > 0:37:53but he tells the British, "I understand your needs. You must understand mine,"
0:37:53 > 0:37:56and the two sides come to a modus vivendi.
0:37:56 > 0:38:02So, yes, the Afghans can claim a great victory but, on the other hand, the ruler they've put back in power
0:38:02 > 0:38:05understands what Britain needs to such an extent
0:38:05 > 0:38:08that when the mutiny occurs in India in 1857,
0:38:08 > 0:38:10the so-called Sepoy rebellion,
0:38:10 > 0:38:14and the Afghans are urged to march on Peshawar to ally with the rebels,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17Dost Mohammad says, "No, I've signed an agreement with the British and,
0:38:17 > 0:38:19"besides, I think they'll win."
0:38:23 > 0:38:27The Afghans took enormous pride in their resistance to the British,
0:38:27 > 0:38:29and the political settlement led to
0:38:29 > 0:38:31a period of confidence and relative stability,
0:38:31 > 0:38:37during which time the British and the Afghans treated each other with a wary respect.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43But the rivalry between Russia and Britain only continued to intensify.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51A thousand miles from Afghanistan, in 1854,
0:38:51 > 0:38:55the two powers fought a brutal war in the Crimea.
0:38:55 > 0:39:00And, if anything, the fears of Russian ambition was growing.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05Then, in the late 1870s, Russians again appeared in Kabul.
0:39:05 > 0:39:11A new generation of British hawks decided the only response was again to invade.
0:39:11 > 0:39:14Again, there was a public outcry.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17Again, imperial paranoia triumphed
0:39:17 > 0:39:21and once again a British army, this time 40,000 strong,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24was marching into Afghanistan.
0:39:24 > 0:39:26To prevent Kabul being taken,
0:39:26 > 0:39:30the Afghan emir signed an agreement with the British that a new envoy,
0:39:30 > 0:39:35Sir Louis Cavagnari, another swashbuckling multilingual officer,
0:39:35 > 0:39:37was installed in Kabul.
0:39:37 > 0:39:43Remembering that Burnes had been massacred escaping from his unfortified house in the old city,
0:39:43 > 0:39:48Cavagnari took up residency in this ancient citadel, the Bala Hisar.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51Sir Louis Cavagnari, the new British envoy,
0:39:51 > 0:39:55rode in on his elephant into this citadel with a tiny escort.
0:39:55 > 0:40:00He'd taken three lessons from the death of his predecessor Alexander Burnes.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03Always live within the fortified citadel.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06Don't come in with a large army of occupation,
0:40:06 > 0:40:08and never touch the local women.
0:40:08 > 0:40:14But despite all his care, he was soon hearing rumours that the Afghans wanted to kill him.
0:40:14 > 0:40:18Cavagnari thought he had learned from Burnes that it was
0:40:18 > 0:40:20better to be in the Bala Hisar,
0:40:20 > 0:40:23but this was actually the palace of the Afghan kings,
0:40:23 > 0:40:27and his presence there also caused offence.
0:40:29 > 0:40:34Here I met up with Prince Ali Seraj, a member of the Afghan royal family
0:40:34 > 0:40:36whose palace this was.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42People were not very pleased that a British Ambassador had been put in the Bala Hisar.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44Why were the angry about that?
0:40:44 > 0:40:46Because it reminded them of the first Anglo-Afghan war,
0:40:46 > 0:40:50they forget here comes the British again you know,
0:40:50 > 0:40:53and they're here to occupy Afghanistan once again.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57We have never, ever liked to be conquered.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01We have accepted poverty because we want to be free.
0:41:01 > 0:41:03They don't understand the Afghan psyche.
0:41:03 > 0:41:07They forget that they were in India and they took the East Indian Company,
0:41:07 > 0:41:09you know, were so successful in India, they think,
0:41:09 > 0:41:13"Oh, Afghanistan, rowdy people with baggy pants and turbans," you know,
0:41:13 > 0:41:15we're easy to rule, easy to control,
0:41:15 > 0:41:19but they forgot that Afghanistan is a nation of warriors.
0:41:19 > 0:41:24I couldn't help asking him if we were making the same mistakes today.
0:41:24 > 0:41:28There was an American, I'll not say which organisation, he say,
0:41:28 > 0:41:32"Oh, Prince Ali, I have received a billion dollars from the United States."
0:41:32 > 0:41:34I said, "What are you going to do with this money?
0:41:34 > 0:41:38He said, "Well, we're going to roll into the village and we're going to build things."
0:41:38 > 0:41:42I said, "Sir, if you roll into the village, they'll roll you out."
0:41:42 > 0:41:46I said, "You roll up to the village, then you send an emissary inside the village,
0:41:46 > 0:41:49"talk to the elders. They will do one of two things.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53"Either invite you in or they will send somebody out to meet with you.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56"Then once they invite you in, you sit down and you talk to them,
0:41:56 > 0:41:58"but don't tell them what you're going to do.
0:41:58 > 0:42:00"Ask them what they want.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03"Respect. If you do that, you will have them in your pocket."
0:42:03 > 0:42:08The Afghan king who'd negotiated with the British was seen as weak.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12Ordinary Afghans hated the deal he'd struck with the British
0:42:12 > 0:42:16and they hated the presence of Cavagnari in Kabul.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20Finally, an Afghan regiment mutinied and marched on his residence.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23Cavagnari looked out on the screaming mob,
0:42:23 > 0:42:26knowing the nearest reinforcements were hundreds of miles away.
0:42:26 > 0:42:28He led a suicidal charge,
0:42:28 > 0:42:33was killed, and his mutilated corpse was put on display.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38Mortified by his death and desperate to salvage their credibility,
0:42:38 > 0:42:41Britain launched another invasion into Afghanistan.
0:42:41 > 0:42:45The commander of the lead column, General Roberts, was told
0:42:45 > 0:42:51"Your objective should be to strike terror and to strike it swiftly and deeply."
0:42:51 > 0:42:54Four weeks after the envoy was killed,
0:42:54 > 0:42:59a Highland Regiment had fought its way to the top of that ridgeline
0:42:59 > 0:43:02and the next day General Roberts had seized Kabul.
0:43:02 > 0:43:06He came here to the citadel where he saw the blood-spattered walls
0:43:06 > 0:43:10and the mangled corpse of the envoy and his comrades.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14Enraged, General Roberts set up a gallows on the wall.
0:43:14 > 0:43:15He hanged a hundred Afghans,
0:43:15 > 0:43:19demolished the palaces of the Afghan nobility
0:43:19 > 0:43:22and, at that point, with honour satisfied,
0:43:22 > 0:43:24many suggested he should withdraw.
0:43:24 > 0:43:28But the Afghan king had been deposed, the country was unstable,
0:43:28 > 0:43:35Britain had taken responsibility for Afghanistan and leaving no longer seemed an option.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40While General Roberts sat in Kabul,
0:43:40 > 0:43:43the countryside was now in revolt.
0:43:43 > 0:43:46Suddenly, a jihad had been called against them and when
0:43:46 > 0:43:51they looked out on a winter evening from their small camp in Kabul,
0:43:51 > 0:43:54they could see right along this ridgeline,
0:43:54 > 0:43:5960,000 watch fires burning from Afghans bent on their destruction.
0:44:00 > 0:44:05It must have seemed as though history was repeating itself exactly,
0:44:05 > 0:44:11and the one lesson that Britain should be taking away was never to invade Afghanistan.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15This time, unlike his predecessor,
0:44:15 > 0:44:19General Roberts decided to stay and fight and he was able, just,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23to withstand the siege of his compound in Kabul.
0:44:23 > 0:44:28But in Helmand Province, the Afghans completely defeated and wiped out another British unit,
0:44:28 > 0:44:32this time in the Battle of Maiwand.
0:44:32 > 0:44:37It's one of Afghanistan's most famous victories
0:44:37 > 0:44:40and I met Abbie Aryan, an Afghan living in London,
0:44:40 > 0:44:42at this British memorial to Maiwand.
0:44:42 > 0:44:44History has it that the Afghans won
0:44:44 > 0:44:48because of the rousing battle cry of a young woman called Malalai.
0:44:50 > 0:44:52She's an ordinary Afghan girl.
0:44:52 > 0:44:56As she's standing in the battle, she can see that the Afghans are losing
0:44:56 > 0:44:59and she stood there, took her veil off and said,
0:44:59 > 0:45:02"If you love your country and if you're a real Pashtun,
0:45:02 > 0:45:06"and if you don't want to be ashamed, you have to go and fight the British."
0:45:06 > 0:45:11- Remember when Elizabeth stood in front of Spanish Armada...- Uh-huh.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14- ..gave this speech to the British army?- Yep.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16To us, that was equivalent to that.
0:45:16 > 0:45:18And by revealing her face, actually, in some ways,
0:45:18 > 0:45:22it's a kind of shame for her and her family, everybody sees her face.
0:45:22 > 0:45:24But she's going to die so it doesn't matter?
0:45:24 > 0:45:28Absolutely. And she, in fact, she dies in the battle as well,
0:45:28 > 0:45:32but the encouragement she gave to the Afghans there was immense.
0:45:32 > 0:45:36Unlike the massacre of the British army in the retreat from Kabul,
0:45:36 > 0:45:39Maiwand was not covered in a serialisation in The Times.
0:45:39 > 0:45:43So although a thousand British soldiers were killed,
0:45:43 > 0:45:46this memorial in Reading is almost all that remains,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49and its meaning is now largely forgotten.
0:45:49 > 0:45:52But ask an Afghan and you get a very different response.
0:45:52 > 0:45:58This battle, like the retreat from Kabul, is still the stuff of legend.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01As an Afghan child, as you learn how to walk,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05- you know about the battles we had with the British.- Uh-huh.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08It is part of our DNA It's part of our life.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11Maiwand is like a legend in Afghanistan.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14I think, in a way, the British try to justify it, saying,
0:46:14 > 0:46:18"Oh, it was really sunny hot day. We didn't have as much as...
0:46:18 > 0:46:20"Afghans had superior fire power."
0:46:20 > 0:46:24How can Afghan army have a superior fire power than the British?!
0:46:25 > 0:46:30British troops fighting in Helmand today are often warned by local Afghans
0:46:30 > 0:46:36that they will meet the same fate as befell their predecessors in Helmand at Maiwand.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39We say that all doors are always open for invaders.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43Look from Alexander The Great, all the way to the British and today.
0:46:43 > 0:46:45It's really easy to get into Afghanistan.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48It's just the getting-out part that's very difficult.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51We always don't mind foreign invaders getting in there,
0:46:51 > 0:46:55relaxing and feeling comfortable, then we start our fight.
0:46:55 > 0:46:57This is our traditional way of doing things.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00What do you think an Afghan villager feels they're fighting for?
0:47:00 > 0:47:04For their home and country. For their independence.
0:47:04 > 0:47:08They don't like foreign invading army to come through their villages.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11To do it with your mighty force and say,
0:47:11 > 0:47:14"Look, I'm here, I'm going to provide you peace and security."
0:47:14 > 0:47:17This is a joke, honestly is, because nobody believe that.
0:47:17 > 0:47:22Afghans wouldn't accept that - as how can somebody bring peace with a gun and weapons?
0:47:22 > 0:47:23You can't do that.
0:47:26 > 0:47:31A thousand British soldiers had been massacred at the Battle of Maiwand,
0:47:31 > 0:47:33the war was turning against Britain,
0:47:33 > 0:47:36but the response this time was immediate.
0:47:36 > 0:47:42There followed one of the most celebrated marches of the entire Victorian era,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45General Roberts, with an elite band of Ghurkhas and Highlanders,
0:47:45 > 0:47:50set off from Kabul, through unknown territory with no support.
0:47:50 > 0:47:55320 miles, in 20 days,
0:47:55 > 0:47:59in 100-degree heat, arrived safe at Kandahar,
0:47:59 > 0:48:06and won a decisive victory that brought the second Anglo-Afghan war to a close.
0:48:10 > 0:48:14Having won a victory, the question was, what would Britain do next?
0:48:14 > 0:48:19All the fears, all the pride that had dragged them into Afghanistan was still there.
0:48:19 > 0:48:21They'd spent blood and treasure.
0:48:21 > 0:48:26There were so many reasons to try to continue an occupation
0:48:26 > 0:48:31and yet they decided to declare a victory and get out.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34And this is because, despite all these fears,
0:48:34 > 0:48:38the British Empire had a lot of people who knew the region well,
0:48:38 > 0:48:42who spoke the languages well, who understood their limits,
0:48:42 > 0:48:45who understood that it couldn't be done.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49And nobody summed it up better than General Roberts himself.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54He said, "We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan
0:48:54 > 0:48:59"and, offensive though it may be to our pride, the less they see of us,
0:48:59 > 0:49:02"the less they will dislike us."
0:49:12 > 0:49:15After decades of battling Russian influence in Afghanistan,
0:49:15 > 0:49:19the British Empire, at the peak of its power,
0:49:19 > 0:49:24bowed to Afghan realities and struck a deal with their opponent.
0:49:24 > 0:49:28Just as in 1842, Britain again allowed the most powerful
0:49:28 > 0:49:33Afghan leader to take the throne, even though he was their enemy.
0:49:33 > 0:49:36Abdur Rahman was an ally of the Russians
0:49:36 > 0:49:38and had been living on Russian soil,
0:49:38 > 0:49:44but he was the only man who seemed to have the support and authority to control the country.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48It's as though after ten years of fighting the Taliban today,
0:49:48 > 0:49:51the United States and their allies left Afghanistan
0:49:51 > 0:49:53and put the Taliban back in charge.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58This extraordinary gamble paid off.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01For his part, the new king, Abdur Rahman,
0:50:01 > 0:50:05demanded a massive subsidy and no internal interference in his country.
0:50:05 > 0:50:08In return, Britain got control of Afghan foreign policy
0:50:08 > 0:50:14and, most importantly, Abdur Rahman did not allow the Russians to threaten British India.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17For Britain, it was a perfect solution.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27And even when Europe descended into the First World War,
0:50:27 > 0:50:29Afghanistan remained neutral.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34But this would change in the aftermath of that Great War,
0:50:34 > 0:50:38as the great powers of Europe met here in Versailles.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44Here, empires were broken up, new nation states were created,
0:50:44 > 0:50:48and Afghanistan, although excluded from the negotiating table,
0:50:48 > 0:50:50had its own ambitions.
0:50:54 > 0:50:55For the first time, Afghanistan,
0:50:55 > 0:50:58so often on the receiving end of British firepower,
0:50:58 > 0:51:01itself became the principle aggressor.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06The new king of Afghanistan saw Britain exhausted by war,
0:51:06 > 0:51:09facing unrest in India.
0:51:09 > 0:51:11He called another jihad, took his chance
0:51:11 > 0:51:14and invaded British India through the Khyber Pass.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20Although Britain saw off this unexpected aggression,
0:51:20 > 0:51:23they suffered twice as many casualties as the Afghans.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27But with Russia no longer the threat of old,
0:51:27 > 0:51:33Britain saw less need for an interest in Afghanistan and granted the Afghans full independence.
0:51:36 > 0:51:40But what Afghanistan did with that independence was the opposite
0:51:40 > 0:51:42of what the British expected.
0:51:45 > 0:51:50The new king, Amanullah, revealed himself to be a moderniser.
0:51:50 > 0:51:56The British policy was really to keep Afghanistan locked in the Middle Ages.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59The last thing they wanted was Afghanistan to change
0:51:59 > 0:52:05and modernise and then, suddenly, in 1919, modernity came.
0:52:05 > 0:52:09British ideas came to Afghanistan against Britain's will,
0:52:09 > 0:52:15and this great process of modernisation came not through the empire,
0:52:15 > 0:52:20came not through British bayonets, but through an Afghan king.
0:52:20 > 0:52:25King Amanullah ruled from this extravagant palace in a European style,
0:52:25 > 0:52:28which he built on the outskirts of Kabul,
0:52:28 > 0:52:33and he championed a new modernising intellectual elite in Afghanistan.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36But the country that he was determined to transform
0:52:36 > 0:52:39had changed little in the century that had passed
0:52:39 > 0:52:41since Britain first took an interest here.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44It was a country with almost blanket illiteracy,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47a fragmented country of isolated villages
0:52:47 > 0:52:50and mountain valleys under feudal rule,
0:52:50 > 0:52:53the way Britain had found it and left it.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00Dreaming of modernity, in 1927,
0:53:00 > 0:53:03Amanullah embarks on a grand European tour,
0:53:03 > 0:53:06the first such trip by an Afghan ruler.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15The Afghan king arrived in Britain for a full state visit.
0:53:15 > 0:53:18The flags were out and a slightly anxious British government
0:53:18 > 0:53:25responded in time-honoured fashion by taking him to shop for guns and for cars,
0:53:25 > 0:53:29which his impoverished country could hardly afford.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38And when he toured the Rolls Royce factory,
0:53:38 > 0:53:42he bought a fleet of cars to take back home.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46It started a long love affair between Afghan royalty and Rolls Royce.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49And this car was later part of their fleet,
0:53:49 > 0:53:53now owned by businessman Richard Raynsford.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57For an Afghan, possessing this car shows that you are part of an international group.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00You're no longer part of an isolated country at the other end of the world.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03Well, that's right. He was a very sophisticated man.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05When he went to Europe in 1928,
0:54:05 > 0:54:08he was not just looking for Rolls Royce cars,
0:54:08 > 0:54:12he was looking, really, to...means to be inspired by the west
0:54:12 > 0:54:15to how he could modernise his very backward country.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18And, therefore, the Rolls Royce trip to the Derby works
0:54:18 > 0:54:23was part of that overall quest for inspiration and for modernisation.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32A car like this at the time was a pretty expensive thing.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35It would cost as much as a house in Fulham.
0:54:35 > 0:54:36About £1,500 for the chassis
0:54:36 > 0:54:40and another £1,500 pounds, even more, up to 2,000, for the body,
0:54:40 > 0:54:44depending on how exotic a body was ordered by the excited owner.
0:54:49 > 0:54:52What would an Afghan have felt, looking at this kind of car?
0:54:52 > 0:54:55It'd be like looking at something equivalent to the space shuttle,
0:54:55 > 0:54:57I imagine, to an Afghanistan farmer or peasant.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04'I think it's tempting today when we look at a car like this
0:55:04 > 0:55:08'to imagine Amanullah as some sort of corrupt dictator
0:55:08 > 0:55:12'who was spraying money around on Rolls Royces,'
0:55:12 > 0:55:16but in fact, really, this is part of his love of technology or machinery.
0:55:16 > 0:55:21It's as though he's returning to the country with a jet engine or a new computer system.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26He's coming back with whole new interests in railways and printing machines,
0:55:26 > 0:55:28and mining technology and medicine,
0:55:28 > 0:55:34but for the conservatives in Afghanistan, this is all very dangerous and very dubious.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38The big story that's spreading through the streets when he arrives
0:55:38 > 0:55:42is he's bringing back a new machine to turn human corpses into soap.
0:55:42 > 0:55:47Amanullah was just beginning to discover how conservative his country still was.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51Wild rumours were circulating about how he had become a Catholic,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54ate pork, drank alcohol.
0:55:54 > 0:55:57He became perceived as a foreigner in his own land,
0:55:57 > 0:56:01attempting to impose a foreign ideology on his own people.
0:56:03 > 0:56:07It's easy to laugh at Amanullah and, indeed, there's a lot that you can laugh at him for.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09For example, he gathered the tribal elders
0:56:09 > 0:56:13and insisted they wore pinstriped trousers and western jackets,
0:56:13 > 0:56:17but there was also a highly developed serious programme of reform.
0:56:17 > 0:56:20In fact, the most radical programme for state transformation
0:56:20 > 0:56:23in Afghanistan came from an Afghan.
0:56:23 > 0:56:26He wanted parliamentary elections, a progressive constitution,
0:56:26 > 0:56:29education, particularly for women.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33And, in the end, when photographs were circulated in the bazaar
0:56:33 > 0:56:36of his wife, the queen, with her head uncovered,
0:56:36 > 0:56:40with pearls over a plunging neckline, he had to flee,
0:56:40 > 0:56:48the wheels of that new Rolls Royce spinning vainly in the snow, to exile in Italy.
0:56:52 > 0:56:56It is ironic, when, today, we're concerned with the powerful hold of Islam
0:56:56 > 0:56:59and the problems of establishing democracy in that country,
0:56:59 > 0:57:05that the only attempt in this whole period to modernise and democratise Afghanistan
0:57:05 > 0:57:09didn't come from British rule, but from the Afghans themselves.
0:57:13 > 0:57:17So why did the British go into Afghanistan in the 19th century?
0:57:17 > 0:57:20It wasn't really about Afghanistan in the end.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23It was about the fears of empire, fear of empty space,
0:57:23 > 0:57:28fear of the Russians, fear in the end about their own credibility, their pride.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34In the second film, two superpowers come calling,
0:57:34 > 0:57:36and these armies invade Afghanistan,
0:57:36 > 0:57:40not just to protect their selfish strategic aims,
0:57:40 > 0:57:44but also with the objective of bringing profound social change,
0:57:44 > 0:57:48and reshaping Afghanistan more in their own image.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51And the result for the people of Afghanistan,
0:57:51 > 0:57:56and their invaders, was to be even greater horror and tragedy.
0:57:56 > 0:58:00If you were going to pass a message to the American
0:58:00 > 0:58:03and British troops today, what would you say to them?
0:58:37 > 0:58:40Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd