Return of a King by William Dalrymple – review --- William Dalrymple's colourful history of the first British campaign in Afghanistan draws effective parallels with recent events -- Kenneth Williams, with his nasal, camp-cockney inflections, made a very good Khasi of Kalabar in Carry On Up the Khyber. The film, shot in 1968 in north Wales, satirised British imperial ambitions in Afghanistan and the Kingdom of Kabul (now Pakistan). Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond and his posh cor blimey cohorts find themselves out of their depth amid tribal bloodletting and jihadi mayhem. Qur'anic ideals of mercy are not shown the 3rd Foot and Mouth Regiment as they move up the Khyber. -- William Dalrymple's history of Britain's ill-fated 1839-42 occupation of Afghanistan has elements of Carry On. British army deserters, spies and drunken archaeologists rub shoulders with "hookah-smoking, pyjama-wearing" East India traders and their "dashing Rajput" warlord associates. For all the Boy's Own tone, however, Return of the King is a serious work of history. -- According to Dalrymple, the Afghans regarded their deliverance from the British in 1842 as "their Trafalgar, Waterloo and Battle of Britain rolled into one". The invasion, intended to thwart perceived Russian tsarist designs on the region, was achieved without difficulty; the problem, as with subsequent invasions of Afghanistan, was getting out. The occupying British troops encountered hostility as they went about publicly drinking and whoring. The king of the book's title – Shah Shuja – was a British appointment and gratifyingly pliable. However, his ties with the infidel British make him unpopular; violence erupts in Kabul as anti-Shuja protesters take up arms. -- Throughout, Dalrymple draws "clear and relevant parallels" (as he calls them) with Afghanistan today. In American eyes, all of Afghanistan was a target after the twin towers assault: there could be no innocent people in a "guilty" nation. The US forces had intended to liberate Kabul from the Taliban, but Pentagon intransigence was no defence against Muslim fanaticism. In neighbouring Pakistan, the Taliban created a climate of fear (an important weapon in their fanatic armoury) and tempted young men into a useless martyr's death. -- In swift-paced prose, Dalrymple chronicles Britain's first Afghan war (as it came to be known) through British, Afghan and Russian eyes. Tsar Nicolas I, it turns out, had no designs at all on Afghanistan. The British takeover, based on "doctored intelligence about a virtually non-existent threat", was begun for no wise purpose, but left a trail of carnage and muddled strategy in its wake. "Fakir, off!" as a character says in the Carry On movie. - More, Ian Thomson - The Observer, at: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/02/return-king-william-dalrymple-review