Battle for Kandahar

Following the British defeat at Maiwand, Blackwood marches south from Kabul with Frederick Roberts’s relief force. The journey to Kandahar covers roughly three hundred miles through heat, dust and disease, with water and transport as important as ammunition. Men fall out from exhaustion while the army races to reach the threatened city before Ayub Khan can consolidate his victory.

The final battle pits Roberts’s exhausted but concentrated force against Ayub Khan outside Kandahar. Battle for Kandahar closes the Afghan arc by joining a famous forced march to a decisive engagement, while keeping Blackwood’s attention on the soldiers who pay for strategic decisions. Endurance, logistics and command are shown as inseparable from battlefield courage.