laststandonzombieisland

War trophies are funny. Whenever a soldier bested another on the field of battle they took his weapons, part of his uniform, or some other souvenir. In the great halls of old Europe the walls are adorned with weapons and armor taken from vanquished knights. In Moscow to this day is an artillery park with hundreds of cannons captured by every Russian war lord from Ivan the Terrible to Stalin. There are stories of western settlers coming in contact with Native Americans on the Great Plains in the 19th century who proudly displayed Spanish Marion armor captured hundreds of years before. Most people have a grandfather or great uncle from prior generations who proudly brought back home with him a Luger or samurai sword.

Today British soldiers are coming back from Afghanistan with weapons that have already been trophies. Foolish enough to think the sun never in fact set on the British Empire, the colonial British Army pushed into Afghanistan from India several times in the 19th and 20th centuries with mixed success and often failure. One of these failures was at the Battle of Maiwand in 1880. In this battle nearly a thousand British and Indian soldiers were killed, routed by an Afghan army. These included almost 300 men of the 66th Regiment of Foot, who were armed with the excellent Martini-Henry rifles. These rifles fell into the hands of victorious Afghan warriors. With the Afghan warrior culture full of respect for firearms, these were passed down from generation to generation of men, no doubt seeing service many times in local blood feuds, and during later British and then Soviet occupations. Many of these weapons are being confiscated by British soldiers, once again in Afghanistan- this time in support of the GWOT, and coming back home.