History of Diplomacy

This book offers an institutional history of the British Legation in Kabul, which was established in response to the independence of Afghanistan in 1919. It contextualises this diplomatic mission in the wider remit of Anglo-Afghan relations and diplomacy from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, examining the networks of family and profession that established the institution’s colonial foundations and its connections across South Asia and the Indian Ocean.

It could be argued that if two armies are forced to meet in battle then several small disasters must already have occurred, namely the failure of reason or diplomacy to prevent the inevitable death and destruction that accompanies any clash of arms. However, a battle can always be turned into an ever-bloodier debacle by inadequate planning and incompetent leadership, and both certainly had a major impact on the course of the engagements that we are about to explore. From the slaughter of 50,000 Romans at Cannae to Napoleon’s ill-fated march on Moscow, the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign and the failure of Operation Market Garden, the list of tragedies that can be levelled at arrogance and poor intelligence is as long as it is gruesome. Prepare to pick your way through some of the most infamous battlefields in history.