Afghanistan and ‘the great killing’

THE last part of MM Kaye’s epic love story of Ashton and Anjuli — “The Far Pavilions” — takes place in Afghanistan and culminates with the massacre of the British envoy and his party in Kabul in 1879. The novel, first published in 1978, dramatizes some events of “The Great Game” played by the Russian and British empires in the 19th century as both were expanding their spheres of dominance. Afghanistan found itself as the “corn between the upper and the lower millstones.” The country’s ruler, the Amir, tried to impress on both Russia and Britain that “his people would certainly object to foreign soldiers marching into their country, whatever the pretext, as they had never at any time been kindly disposed toward interlopers.”

Likewise, Ashton warned his friend, Lt. Walter Hamilton, that the Afghans would not take kindly to any foreign presence in their country and that “no Amir of Afghanistan could possibly guarantee the safety of such foreigners even in his own capital.”