The political officer selected for this task was Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, the son of an Italian aristocrat who had served for several years in the British colonial administration, in particular as District Commissioner of Peshawar.

General Sir Neville Chamberlain said of him that he was:...more the man for facing an emergency than one to entrust with a position requiring delicacy and very calm judgement...If he were left at Cabul as our agent I should fear his not keeping us out of difficulties.

[2] The envoy arrived in Kabul on July 24, 1879, with his assistant, a surgeon, and an escort of 75 soldiers of the elite Queen's Own Corps of Guides led by Lieutenant Walter Hamilton VC.

In August, the situation began to deteriorate with the arrival of six Afghan army regiments from Herat, who marched into the Bala Hissar demanding two months of arrears in back-pay.

They mocked their colleagues of the Kabul regiments who had been beaten by the British, and demanded to be led against the residency, but the Amir's officers managed to pacify them with the payment of some of the arrears.

Cavagnari was the first casualty of the attack, being hit in the head by a musket ball, but he was still able to lead a bayonet charge and drive the Afghans out of the compound, after which he withdrew inside the buildings and died of his wounds.

Hamilton led his remaining men in a charge that captured one gun, but they were driven back by Afghan fire that killed the surgeon, Kelly, and six sepoys.

A British military commission formed to investigate the events expressed the opinion that "the annals of no army and no regiment can show a brighter record of bravery than has been achieved by this small band of Guides.

Lytton himself observed that his policy had been "shattered to fragments", and instead advocated that Afghanistan should be split into three different states, centered on the cities of Herat, Kandahar and Kabul.

Caught between the threat of British retribution, and a xenophobic population, Yakub Khan surrendered to Roberts and later abdicated, declaring that he would rather be a grass-cutter in the English camp than the king of Afghanistan.

This policy proved controversial, both in Britain and India, and embarrassed Lytton and the Disraeli government, which fell during the 1880 general election, in part over the Afghanistan issue.

The novel was adapted into a 1984 mini-series, with Sir John Gielgud as Cavagnari, Benedict Taylor as Hamilton, Adam Bareham as Jenkins and Clive Francis as Kelly.