On the Afghan battlefield, Lieutenant General Patrick had finally received the long-awaited reinforcements. Yet before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he received earth-shattering news—the Russians were coming.
On September 11, 1889, the Russian Army captured the Mare Region. The nearest Russian-held territory was now less than a hundred kilometers from Afghanistan.
The three Central Asian Khanates, upon which Britain had placed such high hopes, had suffered a complete collapse under the Russian Army's assault. At this moment, all three governments had fled into Afghanistan.
After nearly a year of bitter fighting, Lieutenant General Patrick had no choice but to admit that the Indian colonial army simply was not made for war.
With equal troop strength, regular troops had actually failed to defeat guerrillas. It was the kind of thing that would make people laugh if they heard it, yet it had truly happened.
Patrick had become commander of the expeditionary force, so naturally his political instincts were not poor. He knew perfectly well just how tense Anglo-Russian relations had become.
Thinking of the imminent war between Britain and Russia, then looking at the reinforcements sent from home, Patrick felt the urge to weep.
Thus far, the British Army had assembled thirty infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, and eight artillery regiments in Afghanistan. It could truly be called a powerful and well-mounted force.
However, every one of those units came with a prefix, and that changed everything in an instant.
Of the thirty infantry divisions, only two had been sent from Britain itself. The rest were Indian colonial troops. The cavalry divisions and artillery regiments were all elite home units; these were technical branches, work the Indians could not handle.
Still, sending so much cavalry into Afghanistan was enough to make one drunk just thinking about it. If not