ABSTRACT
Although the attack on Sherpur had been driven off with little loss, it showed, in combination with the continued harassment of the Army’s lines of communication, the strength of the Afghans’ determination to resist the British occupation. As it has often been put, the British commanded the country only so far as the range of their guns, and they had never even seen most of it, let alone brought it under their control. No means of remedying this situation was in sight. Some 15,000 men were having to be deployed merely to secure the route from Kabul to the Khyber, while plans to mount operations in other parts of the country had had to be abandoned for lack of transport. The occupation was also proving to be a serious, and potentially crippling, burden on the Indian exchequer, and there was much concern for the morale of the ‘native’ troops as a result of their long campaigning away from India.
