Talk:1842 retreat from Kabul

message: I'm writing a story based on the Northwest Frontier during the Great Game, and I thought that some details from this expedition could provide some useful background material. However, I've found that the number of troops listed is rather inconsistent. In this article and in the Great Game and William Brydon article I've found four different accounts:
1.) 12,000 Sepoys, 4,500 British troops, unknown number of support personnel
2.) 12,000 troops (total), 4,500 camp followers
3.) 12,000 British civilians left behind, 4,500 troops (690 of which were British, the rest Sepoys)
4.) 4,500 men with 10,000 camp followers
The recurring numbers 4,500 and 12,000 lead me to think that the numbers are correct, but I have no clue what they're the actual numbers of. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!  Phædrus (talk) 00:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Troops 

message: I wonder why the box on the left mentions 690 Europeans in brackets - after civilian and military casualty figures.  I can understand that European lives were more important to British historians of the Raj - but does it really matter in this day and age on wikipedia? And if one really wants to put an ethnic/racial differentiator in the box shouldnt it be 3810 Indians killed? Since they were fighting for a colonial empire?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.64.166.49 (talk) 22:36, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Europeans 

message: I'm no expert on Afghanistan (I study British imperialism in Palestine and Egypt) but it may be important to note that the Ghilzais, the Pashtun tribesmen who massacred the retreating British, had over the previous several decades been bitter rivals of the Durrani Pashtuns of Kabul and were not really under Akbar Khan's political control.  I will refrain from editing that in since I don't actually know whether that had an impact on the outcome of the event - I'll leave that to someone more knowledgeable, or until I could get a citation.  Also, large sections of this page go uncited - that's not to say the statements are illegitimate, just that I'd be more comfortable if there were clear citations for all facts given.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.209.194 (talk) 07:48, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ghilzais 

message: Until recently the above linked list article was named simply: "List of Massacres", as such the massacre of Elphinstone's army certainly belonged on the list.  However, due to constant edit warring over whether certain events were or were not "massacres", and a recent decision at AfD, this list article has renamed, and a new set of inclusion criteria have been created.  Now, the list focuses on whether multiple reliable sources use the word "Massacre" as part of an accepted NAME for the event.  I did a quick google search, and am unsure if this event meets the new inclusion criteria or not.  A lot of sources discribe the event as being a massacre, but it is unclear if they use "Massacre of Elphinstone's Army" or something similar as a NAME for the event.  What would be ideal for us is to have a few sources that say something along the lines of "The battle became widely known as the 'Massacre of Elphinstone's Army'."
Since the editors to this article are more likely to know the best sources for this event, perhaps someone could pop over to the list and add a few sources that establish the use of term as part of the event's name.  And if there are alternative names, please let us know that as well.  Thanks Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assistance needed at [[List of events named massacres]] 

message: Article reassessed and graded as start class.  Referencing and appropriate inline citation guidelines not met.   With appropriate citations and references, this article would easily qualify as B class if not higher.   --dashiellx (talk) 12:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008 

message: The lead of this article says "victory", but the title of the article is correct: massacre. To massacre a defeated army, who has already surrendered and has been promised free passage home, is of course not a "victory", but a honorless massacre. The lead of this article needs to be rewritten. Greswik (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a shame that the Brits didn't depopulate that country afterwards.   They'd have done humanity a lot of good.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.67.104.4 (talk) 18:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect use of the word "Victory" 

message: The massacre is briefly described as backstory in Daniel Myrick's The Objective.  Details are fudged to suggest a supernatural cause for the deaths, but the character speaking is not an entirely reliable narrator, telling a campfire story.  Asat (talk) 07:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cinematic references 

message: Just wondering whether we should do another RM on this. 
Google   gives me over 4,000 ghits on 1842 retreat from Kabul and more than 40 times that when I leave off the date (your results may vary), and most important, leaving off the date doesn't seem to add any extraneous hits about other actions.    
(Similar results   without the -Wikipedia, but wow, we have some clout don't we!)
In terms of precision there seems no justification at all for having the date in the title. Andrewa (talk) 22:28, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Article title

message: Does anyone know if this picture depicts Afghans attacking British soldiers during the 1842 retreat or British soldiers during a different retreat? If it's the former then it would make a good addition to the retreat section which looks a bit heavy on text with only one picture. Tomh903 (talk) 17:20, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Suitable picture addition?