An Afghan History
A History of Afghanistan. By Brig.-Gen. Sir Percy Sykes. (Macmillan. 2 VO1S. 505.)
WrrH the transformation of Kabul in less than a generation from a forbidden city into the capital of a modern State, a comprehen- sive History of Afghanistan has been obviously overdue. Sir Percy Sykes has now embodied it in two imposing volumes of a stately exterior befitting his theme.
The work is a monument of industry. Much of Afghan history is so confused that it would take a Gibbon to mould it into readable shape. But Sir Percy faces his task undismayed. Indeed, he seems to revel in making it more difficult than need be by harking back unnumbered years to prehistoric Egypt, to the Elamites and proto-Sumerians to Ur and Mohenjo-Daro. As he slowly draws nearer to his theme, he brings his classical learning effectively into play. It is typical of his thoroughness that he includes a paragraph on "The Assassination of Caesar," and supports it with a convenient footnote giving a translation of Veni, Vich, Vici.
When he at last gets to grips with Afghanistan itself, perhaps the most valuable chapters are those in which he has been able to work on first-hand material. He makes good use of Abdur Rahman's so-called Autobiography, that fascinating hotchpotch of reminiscences and statecraft which the greatest of the Amirs dictated to his secretary. He has been able to turn to Sir Louis Dane for sidelights on his Mission to Kabul, which culminated in a Treaty which Curzon (always unhappy in his dealings with Afghanistan) thought so bad, and which after- events proved so good. His account of Amir IIabibulla Khan's visit to India, which did much to cement the Treaty, is enlivened by touches from Sir Henry MacMahon, the man chiefly responsible for its success. Yet one could have wished for quotations from Sir Henry's diary itself: thirty years ago at any rate it made splendid reading. To another diary in the British Legation during the rebellion of 1928-1929 Sir Percy does not seem to have had access. A pity: written simplY and modestly, it is a story of great-hearted gallantry. But it is still too early perhaps to give these living documents compiled
to the world. Indeed, in dealing with the eventful history of the last few years Sir Percy has often to tread warily and to deny himself much material that might have brightened his pages. Butno harm would have been done had he found room for a very early and dramatic instance of leaflet warfare. Within a few hours of Amanulla Khan's attack on India one of our aero- planes surmounted the snow-capped passes—no small feat in those days—and dropped leaflets over Kabul, calling on brave and honest Afghan" to dissociate himself from his reck- less Amir. Sir Percy rightly scouts the idea that when the Amic sued for peace we should have forced our way onwards and dictated our terms in Kabul. As he shrewdly points out, it might have meant Afghanistan's disintegration. And the verdict of after-events is on Sir Percy's side. Good-neighbourliness with a strong, united, independent Afghanistan is not only a cardinal element in British policy, it is a guarantee for peace in Central Asia.
Sir Percy's list of authorities is so long—even Euripides and Omar Khayyam find a place in it, by the by—that one marvels that even so indefatigable a traveller should have had the stamina to trudge through them all. But there is one curious omission : Afghanistan, Leipzig, 1924, a mighty tome compiled by that intrepid swashbuckler Oskar von Niedermeyer, of whose daring trek to Kabul in the Great War Sir Percy has much to say. It is written in turgid German, but it gives a peep behind the scenes in Kabul which at the time we should have been very glad to share. Sir Percy's illustrations are well-chosen ; his maps first-class. A copious index makes his Soo-odd pages a useful
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