| Summary/Abstract |
Liberal victory in the 1880 general election in Britain resulted in the decision to withdraw British and Indian troops from Kandahar following the messy conclusion of the Second Afghan War. An acrimonious public debate resulted on the future of a British presence in Afghanistan. It was not just a question of the assessment of any external Russian threat to British India, and the relationship with a seemingly unstable Afghan neighbour, but also of the security of the North West Frontier against tribal incursions, and the general sense that events beyond the Indus would have an impact on the potentially fragile acquiescence of ordinary Indians in continuing British rule of the sub-continent. In the process, the highly divisive issue of Kandahar also raised fundamental questions about imperial defence, strategic choices, the costs of exercising military options, and the difficulties of disengaging from a conflict that had a lasting impact on the balance of policy calculation in Victorian Britain.
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