Thread by @NafeesRehmanDr

#OTD in September 1879, The Afghan troops mutinied and killed the British envoy Louis Cavagnari at Kabul. along with his 70-men escort, and their bodies were dumped in a mass grave.
The murder of Cavagnari sparked the 2nd phase of the 2nd-Anglo-Afghan war - a war that the British

started for no good reason but only out of their colonial pride, ego and greed. There is no explanation till this date that what faults of the Afghans angered the British so much that it merited an invasion of their country, for a 2nd time in 40 years.

After their success against an unprepared Afghan army, the British signed a 'friendly' agreement that otherwise is quite notorious & disliked by the Afghans and is known as #TreatyOfGandamak.

The murder of the British envoy wounded the ego of the British.

https://twitter.com/NafeesRehmanDr/status/1015539575010349057?s=20

So they sent yet another army under Gen. Roberts to take revenge, brutal and horrific enough to repair their pride.

Yet he had the following to say to the British empire:

"And offensive though it may be to our pride, the less they see of us, the less they will dislike us."

Though the popular British accounts blame the inability of their installed Amir Sardar Yakub Khan to pay salaries to the Afghan troops for mutiny, however, Afghans hated Yakub & the British alike for the treaty of Gandamak, and the way their country & people had been treated.

Afghans would call anyone who supported the British and Sardar Yakub as Yakubzai or Cavagnari to express their dislike & contempt for those people. Afghan soldiers attacked their own commanders as well. Daud Shah, Afghan commander in chief, narrowly escaped death at their hands.