Afghan Wars: And the North-West Frontier 1839-1947

by Michael Barthorp

From the 1830s to Indian independence in 1947, British soldiers fought constant wars with the most implacable guerrilla-fighters in history. The Afghan mountain tribes were fiercely independent. For generations they had plundered the north Indian plain…until the British took charge and alternated between paying them subsidies (bribes to cease their raiding) and launching punitive military expeditions to teach them manners. It was a strange war fought to its own rules. Neither side took prisoners. Yet a grudging respect for the enemy and a concern to stick by unwritten codes of conduct governed this hundred-year war. Immortalized by Kipling, the British Army in India fought along the frontier until the withdrawal from the sub-continent in 1947.

Genres: India

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Michael John Barthorp was a British historian and writer, specializing in military history and military uniforms. He lived in Jersey, Channel Islands.

Barthorp attended Wellington College until the end of the Second World War. In September 1945, he joined the Rifle Brigade under universal conscription and was demobilised in 1958. After some time with the Royal Hampshire Territorials, he exchanged for a regular commission in the Northamptonshire Regiment in which his family had served for three generations.

Major Barthorp retired from service in 1968, to become a military historian and writer. He was a member of the Victorian Military Society and contributed to their magazine "Soldiers of the Queen".