Thread by @jessnevins

More on "English Jack":

When last we left our heroes they had just outwitted Afghans from inside a hollow statue of a false god.
Jack etc. rejoin the British troops. Elphinstone decides that the situation in Kabul is hopeless & that it’s time to leave the city.
1/30

https://twitter.com/jessnevins/status/1448347387123179521

Elphinstone orders all his troops to lead the retreat over the mountains to the nearest safe city, Jalalabad (93 miles away). All the civilians in Kabul are to accompany them.
His officers try to persuade Elphinstone not to do this, but he is insistent.
2/30

Problems with his idea:
-4,500 troops to guard 12,000+ civilians (plus Afghan & Indian camp followers) is bad military math.
-4,500 troops staging a fighting retreat against 30,000+ Indigenous troops is bad military math.
-It’s early January. The weather is the enemy.
3/30

More problems:
-Maintaining order and military readiness during a fighting retreat is *hard*.
-The rugged landscape is the friend of the Afghans and the enemy of the British.
-So many civilians will slow down the marching speed of the troops—exactly what you *don’t* want.
4/30

Lastly, Elphinstone is relying on the word of Akbar Khan (remember him? The “evil rebel chief”? He’s pretended to be Elphinstone’s friend & Britain’s ally, and Elphinstone has fallen for it) that an armed Afghan escort would accompany the Brits to Jalalabad.
5/30

Despite all this, and despite his officers’ objections, Elphinstone pushes forward with the plan to retreat to Jalalabad, and the troops & civilians & camp followers leave Kabul. The moment they leave, Shah Shujah’s troops seize the British garrison and set fire to it.
6/30

Shah Shujah’s troops begin firing on the retreating English. They kill the wounded and sick troops the British had left behind—Shah Shujah had personally promised their safety, and Elphinstone had believed him, but, oops, he lied.
7/30

Retreat Day One: Elphinstone & his officers discover that no help from Akbar Khan is coming. No armed escort, no food, no fuel for fires. One of Elphinstone’s officers pleads with him to turn back and sit in the Kabul fortress until help arrives. Elphinstone refuses.
8/30

Sniping from the surrounding hills begins, as do small assaults on the column. The terrified civilians slow the troops down. The Afghans ride down from the hills and seize the British artillery, leaving the troops with only one small gun & two heavier cannon.
9/30

Retreat Day Two: The death toll begins to mount. Akbar Khan arrives and parleys with Elphinstone. Khan says, “Treachery? What treachery? I see no treachery here!” and Elphinstone believes him. Khan says, “Wait here—I’ll get help!” Elphinstone believes him.
10/30

Khan says, “I’ll need three European hostages for, uh, Reasons!” Elphinstone agrees—“for Reasons” is pretty persuasive an argument—and hands three Europeans to Khan.
Elphinstone’s troops + civilians are moving at about 6 miles a day.
11/30

Retreat Day Three: The retreating force has to enter a four-mile-long, very narrow mountain pass. The Afghans pour down fire into the pass from both sides, killing & wounding many. Once the main body is through, the Afghans swoop down on stragglers & wounded, killing them.
12/30

3,000+ died on Day Three, either from Afghan fire (most of them) or from freezing to death or from their wounds or from suicide.
At this point the author of “English Jack” has hit their stride and is crafting a gripping, horrible tale. All taken from real life.
13/30

Retreat Day Four: the attacks continue. A few hundred Indian troops desert and try return to Kabul. The Afghans kill or enslave them all. British & Indian & camp follower deaths continue to rise strongly.
14/30

A British woman, Lady Florentia Sale (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florentia…), persuades the British & Indian officers’ wives & children & servants to accept Akbar Khan’s offer of protection. (Sale is well described by the author; she’s formidable, as in real life).
15/30

Once the Afghans take Sale et al. into custody, the Afghans slaughter the Indian women and children and servants and take Sale and the other white woman as hostages. Elphinstone sort of haplessly waves his hands at this but doesn’t order a rescue mission.
16/30

Retreat Day Six: the British & Indian troops number no more than 200 and are only halfway to Jalalabad. Surviving civilians number ~1000. A Brigadier-General finally ignores Elphinstone and takes command. Everyone shelters in a mud-walled enclosure in Jagdaluk.
17/30

Akbar Khan’s envoys arrive at the enclosure and tell Elphinstone “If we’re going to negotiate an ending to this unfortunate encounter we’ll need to have you and your second-in-command come with us to do the negotiating.” Elphinstone: “Sure, why not?”
18/30

Elphinstone & Shelton, his second, are taken hostage. Elphinstone dies in Afghan hands, Shelton survives.
The ~1,200 men, women, and children left make a nighttime run for Jalalabad. They come under fire (of course) and the men gallop ahead to raise the alarm.
19/30

More slaughter. An Assistant Surgeon survives to make it into Jalalabad. He’s asked, “Where’s the Army?” His response: “I am the Army.” A few sepoys, who’d hidden in the mountains during the Afghan attacks, trickle into Jalalabad over the next couple of weeks.
20/30

Everyone else either dead or was taken hostage—the entire 16,500+. Worst British military defeat before the loss of Singapore during WW2. A complete shock to everyone. The Governor General of India had a stroke upon hearing the news.
21/30

All that real life stuff is put into “English Jack.” What happens to Jack, Bobby, Evan, and Rose?
They are all knocked out during the final massacre of the troops and are mistaken for dead by the Afghans. Which is a narrative cheat—they should have died!
22/30

But realistically you can’t expect protagonist death in a story serial.
The rest of “English Jack” goes as follows: Jack et al. slip into India and have picaresque adventures there. They battle with Thugs. They return to Afghanistan.
23/30

Rose carries out a private mission by sneaking through an Afghani army while she is disguised as an Afghani warrior. The group take part in the relief of the besieged garrison at Jalalabad. The group survives an attack of mountain apes.
24/30

Bobby narrowly avoids being whipped as a deserter by several evil British officers. In the end the British win the war, Jack marries Rose, and Bobby and Evan grow up to be captains in the British Army.
25/30

The initial time in Afghanistan is the first third of “English Jack;” the obligatory adventures in India, return to Afghanistan, etc. are the remaining two-thirds, and are well-written but not gripping in the way the first third of “English Jack” was.
26/30

The 1878 Afghan War that “English Jack” was written to cast doubt upon started with a 35,000-strong British army invading Afghanistan and devolved into a grueling war of attrition. The British eventually “won” in September, 1880.
27/30

The 1878 War was no more merciful or less savage than the 1839 War, but there was no similar March From Kabul and no significant defeats for the British, so the 1878 War got cast in the penny press as the “revenge war,” a.k.a. “the good Afghan War.”
28/30

The realities of the “good Afghan War” weren’t covered in the British press, who knew an empty military campaign and useless victory to line up behind when they saw one. But “English Jack” was right about what the war would be like.
29/30

Tomorrow: some notes and thoughts on the Afghanistan section of “English Jack.”
30/30