Historical Encyclopaedia of Afghanistan War

The more notorious events of the history of War in Afghanistan, which stand fully revealed in military dispatches and published blue-books, have not been elaborated with the care, and expanded into the amplitude, which their importance may seem to demand. Compelled to condense somewhere, the author has purposely abstained from enlarging upon those events, which have already found fitting chroniclers. The military memoir-writers, each one on his own limited field, have arrayed before us all the strategic operations of the Campaign from the assemblage of Fane’s army in 1838, to the return of Pollock’s at the close of 1842; but this work provides the only political history of the War.

Circumstances placed at the disposal of the author a number of very interesting and important letters and papers, illustrative of the History of the War in Afghanistan, which rare information forms the core of the text of this work. The author has throughout the making of this work been treading on dangerous ground. But it can be confidently stated that the author has asserted nothing which he has not proven, and therefore he declares his belief that, except upon what he had a right to consider as good and sufficient authority, he advanced absolutely nothing. It will be seen how careful he has been to quote his authorities.

It was not sufficient to refer to these letters and documents, for they were singly accessible only to a few, and collectively, perhaps, to no one but the author. They have, therefore, been left to speak for themselves. What the Work has lost by this mode of treatment in compactness and continuity, it has gained in trustworthiness and authenticity. If the narrative be less animated, the history is more genuine. The author had to deal with unpublished materials, and to treat of very strange events ; thus he has not thought it sufficient to fuse these materials into the text, and to leave the reader to fix or not to fix his faith upon the unsupported assertions.