Lessons not learnt

Sir, I read with interest Ed Butler’s report to the Defence Select Committee on the British military operation in Afghanistan (report, June 10).

My wife’s ancestor, Major General Sir John Hills, privately published a similarly damning report on the operations of the Bombay Field Force in the Afghan campaign of 1880-81 and summed up by saying “. . . to the four members of the Government and only to them must be attributed the checks and disasters, as also the excessive expenditure, in lives and money, which occurred in this campaign. Their want of foresight of the opposition likely to be encountered, and of the appreciation of the numerical strength of the armed men in the country — their ignorance of the characteristics of the people, of their intolerance of any semblance of subjection, of their turbulent and fanatical character — their incapacity to grasp antecedent events and to determine the requisite number of troops to be employed in order to arrive at a certain and successful result to their operations — their disregard of the advice of General Phayre, an old-experienced soldier, their rejection of the strong recommendations of the Governor of Bombay of strengthening the force of Kandahar by the addition of another Brigade — and their contemptuous ideas of the numbers and of the fighting qualities of the Afghans — were one and all most conspicuously exposed throughout the campaign.”