[PDF] The Khyber Pass eBook

Author : Paddy Docherty
Publisher : Union Square Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 19,36 MB
Release : 2008
Category : History
ISBN : 1402756968

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Thirty miles long, and in places no more than sixteen meters wide, the Pass is the principal route through the great mountain borderlands between India and Central Asia -- and the path of invasion for generations of conquerors. In this ground-breaking book, Paddy Docherty charts its remarkable story -- one which involves so many of the world's great leaders and civilizations, from the influential Persian kings to Alexander the Great, from the White Huns to Genghis Khan, not to mention the Ancient Greeks and countless tribes of nomads and barbarians. He paints an illuminating picture of mountain warriors and religious visionaries, artists, poets and scientists as well as describing how around the Pass emerged three of the great world religions -- Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam. He also depicts the Pass' more modern significance as a lawless region of gunsmiths, drug markets and as a terrorist hideout. Just a few years after the Soviet Union was defeated by the Afghan Mujahideen, many thousands of soldiers from the United States, Britain and other nations are struggling to control Afghanistan. Through his own travels in this true frontier region Paddy Docherty brings this epic history into the twenty-first century.

Author : Sir Robert Warburton
Publisher : London, J. Murray
Page : 422 pages
File Size : 19,39 MB
Release : 1900
Category : India
ISBN :

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Sir Robert Warburton (1842-99) was a British army officer who served for 18 years as the political officer, or warden, of the Khyber Pass, the most important of the mountain passes connecting Afghanistan and present-day Pakistan. He was born in Afghanistan, the son of a British officer and his wife, a noble Afghan woman who was the niece of Amir Dost Mohammad Khan. Warburton was educated in England, commissioned an officer, and served at posts in British India and in Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) before being appointed, in 1879, to his post in the Khyber. Home to the fiercely independent Pushtun Afridi people who resisted external control, the pass frequently had been blocked by the Afridis or by fighting among the hill tribes. Warburton is credited with keeping the frontier peaceful and the pass open, mainly though diplomacy rather than force. He drew upon his Afghan background and his fluent Persian and Pushto to gradually win the trust of tribesmen whose traditions made them deeply suspicious of outsiders. In August 1897, one month after Warburton's retirement, unrest broke out among the Afridis, who seized the pass and held it for several months. Warburton was called back into service and participated in the Tirah expedition of 1897-98, in which Anglo-Indian forces reopened the pass. Warburton was especially proud of the role played in the expedition by the Khyber Rifles, a paramilitary force recruited from Afridi tribesmen that he had raised and commanded. Eighteen Years in the Khyber, 1879-1898 is Warburton's account of his education and career. It touches upon virtually every individual and event that played a role in relations between Afghanistan and British India during the last quarter of the 19th century. Long in poor health, Warburton returned to England and died before the book was completed. Posthumously published, it is illustrated with a number of striking photographs and includes a detailed fold-out map of the Khyber.

Author : L. R. Trevelyan
Publisher : Forgotten Books
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 33,75 MB
Release : 2018-04-23
Category :
ISBN : 9780331867329

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Excerpt from A Year in Peshawur, and a Lady's Ride Into the Khyber Pass This story is written by one who has lived in the country in which the scene is laid, and is intended to give some idea of the life led by officcrs and their families in a station like Peshawur. To enliven the scenes, it has been necessary to people them; but it has been the writer's studious care that her fictitious characters shall be typical, and in no case to risk offence by drawing from life. During the interval between the composition and the publication of this work, many changes have taken place in Afghanistan, but they do not in any way affect A year IN peshawur. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Author : John H. Waller
Publisher : Random House (NY)
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 43,47 MB
Release : 1990
Category : History
ISBN :

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Chronicles the wars of the 19th century in India and Afghanistan resulting in the siege of Kabul and the deaths of 16,000 British soldiers and their families.