The two-month break in Kandahar had been brought to a close after worrying intelligence had arrived from both Herat in the west and Ghazni to the east. In Herat, the Wazir Yar Mohammad Alikozai was not showing the gratitude that the British had expected him to demonstrate for their part in ending the terrible Persian assault on his city. Instead, within weeks of the Persian retreat, he had quarrelled with the British envoy, Eldred Pottinger, who had just spent £30,000 in charitable disbursements in the city, cut the hand off one of Pottinger’s servants and attempted to have the envoy himself
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