"Your Majesty, an urgent telegram has arrived from the Persian Military District Headquarters.
On Christmas Eve, the Afghan government forces took the opportunity to launch a surprise attack on the British military supervision force's garrison.
This battle caused at least five thousand British casualties. More than three thousand men, including General Winston, the British commander-in-chief, were captured.
The following day, the Afghan National Army launched a full-scale counteroffensive. With the command system paralyzed and no supervision force left to drive them on, the Indian colonial divisions quickly collapsed. The British Afghan Expeditionary Force was almost completely wiped out!" Chief of the General Staff Christoph said gravely.
Ferdinand had never doubted that the British would suffer defeat on the Afghan battlefield. The graveyard of empires was not a place that could be pacified by a mere twenty Indian divisions—otherwise, would that not make the Soviet Union and the United States of later generations seem utterly useless?
But to lose so cleanly and decisively did leave Ferdinand rather astonished. Had the British not held the upper hand before? How could they have been defeated in a single stroke?
Victory and defeat were common occurrences in war. A defeat was merely a defeat; the British Empire had a vast family fortune and could afford the loss. After all, there was no shortage of anything in India except people. Even raising another twenty infantry divisions would be effortless.
For the London government, the consequences of an entire Indian colonial army being annihilated probably would not be as much of a headache as the casualties among those few thousand supervision troops.
"Is the intelligence accurate? The British were ambushed that easily?" Ferdinand asked incredulously.
"Your Majesty, the British let down their guard on Christmas. They believed Afghanistan was like continental Europe and would not launch