Afghanistan : The Graveyard of Empires | Jiqyasa Quiz Club

 

You all must have been bored from hearing about Afganistan So I am not going to give you a blog in which you will have to read the same things, This blog is different, We will talk about only one topic in this blog, That why it has been so difficult to conquer Afghanistan? It has been, historically. US, Russia, and Britain tried it but, all of them invade but are sent from there after some time.So to understand this we will have to see which fights happened there in history. 

Britain used to go to different places and make their colonies there, And tried to make some of his puppets as the kings there, And when sent off from there, then he used to draw such a line there so that the fights must go on there, Britain did this with Afghanistan, Britain used to have its colonies in India and Russia during the 1800s and Afghanistan was in between, Which was very important for both the countries, The first Anglo-Afghan war happened in 1838, which went on till 1843 Hence Britain defeated Afghanistan's then king dos Muhammad khan With the help of shah suja, and tried to make him the king, Eventually, Dos killed shah, and hence Britain was defeated, This war ended in 1843 and Anglo Sikh war started in 1848 Britain was defeated in both these wars, But after that too, Britain was trying to control Afghanistan. 

On the other hand, Russia was also there, Britain signed the Peshawar treaty in 1854, And presented their own map, And you can also tell this after seeing the 1866 map that Russia was also making its advances, And due to all this, a second war named The 2nd Anglo-Afghan war happened, Britain called sher Ali and asked him to look after his convoys, But he declined and said that he will meet Russia only, And after that Britain again tried to capture Afghanistan with 40000 troops, So, sher ali ran away, and was eventually killed, And Britain made yakur khan, one of their puppets there, But the locals started a revolt against them, But because Britain had so big army, they tried to capture Afghanistan at that time, Eventually, it was said that they will manage their foreign affairs, So that Russia could not show its control, Russia used to say that they will not come in between, But they made panjde oasis of Afghanistan to their side, Afghanis revolted but not succeed in that, That's why this bear and lion poster was made to show how Afghanistan is stuck between both of them, It was called the great game. 

So in 1893, it was said that there must be a line, During that time, the line named Durand line was drawn between India and Afghanistan, Abdul Rehman Khan was the ruler of Afghanistan at that time, and Durand was an officer there, If you remember then, when India was partitioned, the line that was drawn at that time, That was drawn by a man named Redcliff, Who did not know anything about this Land, That's why that line is very illogical, Similarly, this Durand line is very illogical, This line is currently between Afghanistan and Pakistan, And Pashtoon population lives where this line goes on from, Half of that is in Pakistan and half in Afghanistan, And The Pashtoon still criticize this line, and this is so controversial, Britishers had only this job back then that, run away after drawing such lines that, Fights will go on for it always. This thing was of 1893, Now I am going to tell you about a trivia which you must now have seen to be mentioned anywhere, The battle of saragarhi was fought in 1897, You must have seen it in the movie 'Kesari' Afghanis were the attackers on the saraghari fort, And that fort was of Britishers So these battles were still fought, And after that 3rd Anglo-Afghan war happened, After which the afghans finally controlled the whole area, And defeated the Britishers eventually, After that, the afghanis signed treaties with both the Britishers and Russians, And started to maintain their foreign relations properly, The 3rd Anglo-Afghan war was fought in 1919, And the whole Britain's Invasion chapter closed for Afghanistan. 

After that, a new chapter opens in 1922, Russia has become Soviet union by then, And US and Soviet union fought many times, firstly it was between Britain and Russia, and now between the US and USSR, USSR planned to invade Afghanistan in 1979, And they used to support their Government, And then the US started supporting the Rebels, USSR tried very hard for the next 10 years but they cannot sustain this fight, They decide to pull out their troops from there in 1989, And when USSR fell down in 1991, then all their troops were gone from here till 1992, After that Taliban rose up, They rose so much in the 1990s and did so many riots in Afghanistan, And when the US was attacked in 2001 on 9/11 Then the US comes into the picture, They invaded Afghanistan and said that they want Al-Qaeda's head, You can watch that by clicking on the I button, The US also did invest so much in Afghanistan, for 20 years, But eventually, the US also had to run from there, So we saw that in previous 200 years, Britain, Russia, US Everybody invade Afghanistan, but they all had to run away, What are the reasons behind this? Now, I will tell you some reasons and you can also write some in the comments below. 

The first and most important reason is the geography of Afghanistan, Look at Afghanistan closely, You will see so many mountains, These mountains cover up to 70-75% of the area of Afghanistan, And in any mountain area, which has so many rallies and uneven paths, Then it is very difficult for any outside force to come and capture it, Locals know about the paths and strategically important locations, Now when you take so big vehicles from such small uneven ways, Then if somebody throws a big stone, then your whole convoy is wasted there, 2nd point is differences inside the nation, Many Vallies are created in the mountainous areas, When such a big whole nation is wholly mountainous, then people start to run their own governments in small valleys Afghanistan may have a government in their nation, But even they don't have control in the whole region, Different governments go on in different valleys, And even the Afghanistan government agrees with it, so when even the Afghanistan government lives in such arrangements, So if any outside invader comes then they will also have to face this issue, And because he is an invader, nobody will support him, These people are the biggest force against any outside invader.

That's why people think that it is easier to invade Afghanistan, But it is very difficult to keep it captured. It is like taking burning coal in hand, You will take it up easily, But if you will try to keep it in hand, then it will burn your whole hand, 3rd thing is the network of roads, Now, because the geographical area is so difficult here, There is no good network of roads here, US and Russia have the habit of moving big vehicles on big roads, But where will they go, How will you transport something if there is no network of roads, Locals are accustomed to this, People tried to solve this road problem too, They kept a vision of making a circular network of roads in Afghanistan, But the locals never made that happen, and because of this, any outsider find it so difficult to communicate with each other, That they don't find in any other country, The fourth reason is, Local insurgency groups, Because Afghanistan always has been so diverse and varied, Many such groups have been created there, Taliban is one of them, But there are many such small groups operating in different valleys of Afghanistan, Direct fight with them is so difficult, Because then they come together and fight you, And settling them separately is also so difficult as Different groups have different demands, If you fulfill one's then the other will be unhappy, And no invader has been successful in tackling this till now.