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Historical person
Mohammad Ayub Khan was an Afghan prince and military commander, the son of Emir Sher Ali Khan. During the Second Anglo-Afghan War he led the Afghan army that defeated a British-led force at the Battle of Maiwand in 1880 and then besieged Kandahar. General Frederick Roberts defeated him outside the city, and Ayub later spent much of his life in exile.
Historical novels about Maiwand and the march to Kandahar often portray Ayub through British officers, soldiers and survivors, leaving his political aims in the background. A fuller treatment places him within the Afghan succession struggle and resistance to British control of foreign policy. His victory at Maiwand also allows fiction to examine how imperial armies remembered defeat and constructed heroic narratives around recovery.
Series
Blackwood of the Empire follows the fictional Welsh officer William Blackwood through two major campaigns of the late Victorian army. The first three novels place him in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, from the disordered opening invasion through Hlobane, Kambula and the final advance on Ulundi. The later…
All books in this series
