The military benefits were those resulting from a long and arduous
field experience in a rough country. The interruption to these
actual "field manoeuvres," this "fire-drill," by the enemy, was
comparatively feeble,--as a rule, stimulating the Anglo-Indian force
to put its best foot foremost. Under this system, at the end of the
two years' campaign, all departments of the army had become moulded
into the efficient machines essential to success in any military
venture.
Politically, the campaign had been a failure. The fate of the
gallant Major Cavagnari and his mission, murdered at Kabul,
September 3, 1879, made a deeper impression on the Afghan mind than
the British occupation of Afghan cities or the Afghan losses in
battle.
In the same year the British Secretary for India, in London, wrote
to the Governor-General that: "It appears that as the result of two
successful campaigns, of the employment of an immense force, and of
the expenditure of large sums of money, all that has yet been
accomplished has been the disintegration of the State which it was
desired to see strong, friendly, and independent, the assumption of
fresh and unwelcome liabilities in regard to one of its provinces,
and a condition of anarchy throughout the remainder of the country.
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