Thread by @jessnevins

Picking up from yesterday--more "English Jack"!

When we last left our hero Jack, he was confronting thirteen robed men who were shouting “Death to the accursed British!”
In the fight that follows he chops off a hand. The Afghans prepare to charge him en masse, but--
1/32

https://twitter.com/jessnevins/status/1447602600967344133

“Jack does not flinch. Not he. He is every inch an Englishman.”
This jingoistic note was probably taken, in 1878, to be a patriotic, stirring moment. I think the author of “English Jack” is writing this at least half-ironically, knowing what’s to come in the serial.
2/32

English reinforcements arrive, and the thirteen Afghans flee. Jack picks up the severed hand, to find that it’s a woman’s hand and that it bears a huge opal ring which gleams “with a baleful and malignant fire.”
This is our first (but not last) hint of the supernatural.
3/32

More importantly, it’s the first (but not last) moment in which the reader is confronted with the fact that war in Afghanistan isn’t the war of cheap penny fiction. The readers knew that during the First Anglo-Afghan War Afghan women fought and died in hand-to-hand combat.
4/32

The reader would realize that the current (1878) war with Afghanistan would likely be the same way. The author of “English Jack” is hammering home that the current war was going to be an ugly one devoid of cheap heroics and full of ghastly, “unmanly” deeds.
5/32

This ran against everything the British public was being told by their leaders & pop culture: that Afghanistan would be an easy victory with a waiting, applauding audience of natives, and that there was an honorable native leader who the British could bloodlessly support.
6/32

(Does this remind anyone of anything the US might have done in the past, oh, two to three decades?)
Jack goes to his commanding officer, General Elphinstone, to tell him about the conflict in the temple. Elphinstone is this guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G…
7/32

As we’ll see later, [SPOILERS] Elphinstone was responsible for the March from Kabul (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_retr…) which killed 4,500+ British & Indian troops and around 12,000 civilians—the greatest disaster that had befallen the British Army to date.
8/32

Because of his actions before and during the March from Kabul Elphinstone is condemned by history as (quoting Wiki here) “elderly, indecisive, weak, and unwell, and…utterly incompetent for the post” of command of the Kabul garrison. To 1878 Brits he was a villain.
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(He should never have been appointed to command of the Kabul garrison—he was a very old 58 at the time, in very bad health, and not mentally equipped for the complicated situation in the city—but the British of 1878, knowing what he did, still couldn’t forgive him).
10/32

Jack tells Elphinstone about what happened. But Elphinstone and his friends are drunk and openly scornful of Jack, who is dismissively told to tell Shah Soojah about the attack at the temple.
This is a libel of Elphinstone, but consider it in the historical context.
11/32

Elphinstone was author of the March from Kabul—again, 16,500+ dead. The disaster was a shock for the British, who’d never experienced so thorough a military defeat. Elphinstone was vilified by the British public in a way that the American press would never do, say, Trump.
12/32

But in the 36 years since the March, the penny press--newspapers & penny dreadfuls & story papers—had convinced the public that the March was a one-time event, it was all Elphinstone’s fault, and that such a thing could never happen again.
13/32

“English Jack” bringing up that war & featuring Elphinstone as a character must have stung British readers—cries of “Too soon!” undoubtedly rang out across the land—and since “English Jack” had implicitly been warning about the current war by comparing it to the first war—
14/32

--the author of “English Jack” was implying here that Elphinstone wasn’t a one-off but a feature of the system.
On the way to the Shah Jack finds his friend Willie Dunbar. As they walk they debate the British presence in Afghanistan. Willie is pessimistic.
15/32

Willie feels that that none of the troops will see Britain again because stupid leadership is going to get them all killed. Jack isn’t hopeful either, but feels it’s their duty as Englishmen to serve in Afghanistan:
16/32

Since the reader of 1878 knows that Elphinstone doesn’t know better at this point in events, this is a dark passage for the reader, who can only assume that Jack and Willie will be among the men killed by Elphinstone’s incompetent leadership.
17/32

Jack and Willie reach Soojah’s palace and demand that the Shah be awoken. As they are being escorted into the Shah’s quarters they hear a whispered threat: “Betray aught and you die!” Jack and Willie are unable to see who whispered to them and continue on.
18/32

They find the Shah in his throne room, upset that someone has recently painted a cross of still-dripping blood on the roof of the throne room. The Shah is nonchalant about the conspirators’ vow to slaughter all the Europeans—infuriatingly so to Jack and Willie.
19/32

The Shah remains blithe about a massacre of the Europeans even when Jack reminds him that “those same Europeans form the sole prop of your throne.” Jack and Willie are brusque and bold in their attitudes and statements to the Shah, which infuriates him.
20/32

He threatens to switch his alliances: “Curses on these British meddlers, say I, who sought to checkmate Russia.” Jack is forced to placate him by promising that British reinforcements are on their way, which is a lie.
21/32

More reminders for the readers of the reality of imperial occupation forces trusting local rulers: you can’t, in Afghanistan or anywhere else.
Jack and Willie leave & on their way out of the palace they discover that crosses of blood have been painted on their backs.
22/32

They are fired on as they exit the palace. While running back to the British section of Kabul see the lights of what must be the long-feared Afghan uprising. Bobby & Evan join up with the other English troops at hand & march into Kabul to rescue the British families there.
23/32

They do this even though there are only 200 of them and an estimated 60,000 Afghan enemies under arms in the city.
The British troops encounter a large Afghani mob, all of whom are armed and who are carrying the head of the British paymaster on a spear.
24/32

The Afghanis and the British fight, with the British sticking to honorable English tactics and the Afghanis fighting in a “brutal” and “barbarous” fashion:
25/32

This is how the city fighting was fought during the First Anglo-Afghan War: hand-to-hand, no quarter, with Afghan civilians joining in the fights as crowds of irregulars. Nasty stuff—which the British readers of “English Jack” were all too aware of.
26/32

British readers knew about this because of British newspaper reporters on the scene or who spoke to veterans in India and because of the many soldiers’ diaries and memoirs that were published during and after the war.
27/32

This was 1878, not 2021; getting information about a subject was considerably more difficult than it is today. But there were so many publications on the 1839 War, and it was so widely taught, that nearly everyone knew the details of the War—and the March from Kabul.
28/32

So, for readers, “English Jack” was an unpleasant reminder of something they’d rather not be reminded of. The serial keeps hinting that the 1878 Afghan War was likely to be fought as savagely as the 1839 Afghan War. This was unheard-of for a story paper serial to do.
29/32

The troops realize they can’t reach the English families who are besieged, but they are unable to retreat, as a new Afghan mob is attacking their rear. Snipers begin firing on the British troops from the windows and rooftops.
30/32

This scene is actually quite well-written, which is to say that it’s unpleasant reading. There’s no glory in it for anyone, the author is comparatively graphic about the realities of hand-to-hand combat, and everyone is described as dying badly.
31/32

For a story paper serial, it’s gripping stuff, and unlike anything that one of BOYS OF ENGLAND’s competitors was ever likely to publish. I’m somewhat surprised it made it past the censors.
Tomorrow: more fighting!
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