LIBRARY UNJVLRSin Of CALIFORNIA mimoi THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. MAP SHOWISTG THE RUSSIAJT ADVANCE TOWARDS INDIA. ■^ ^ ^IJ!^"^, ^ W ' ' J^ \ /■'"'r is^. "ssi'; i Saat 50 from Orei 3^ .».aun ~TX^\A'~^^^'^^^^ THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR ITOIA BEING AN ACCOUNT OP THE ENCROACHMENTS OF RUSSIA TN CENTRAL AST A, AND OF THE DIFFICULTIES SURE TO ARISE THEREFROM TO ENGLAND. AEMmiUS VAMBERY. CAS8ELL & COMPANY, Limited LONDON, PARIS, NE]y YORK d: MELBOURNE ISS.'). [all nifiuis uisFRVF.n.] \/A3 RUSSELL SHAW, Esq. BuDA Pesth University, JhIij 2, 18S5. My Dear Mr. Shaw, You are a Liberal in your political views; T found yt u liberal in the hospitality you have bestowed on me ; and I hope you will bo liberal in judging these pages, which I dedicate to 3'ou. In other countries an author would have hardly ventured to dedicate to his friend of Liberal persuasion a book con- taining a strong criticism upon the i)olicy of the Liberal l^arty. But in England fair play is fully admitted in political opinions, even if they come from a foreigner. This is a fact, of which I have had ample opportunity to convince mys»df during my late lecturing tour in your country ; and it is the substance of the various addresses which I then delivered, that I offer now to the public in the ])resent book form. Believe me, Dear Mr. Shaw, Yours sinceroh', A. VAMBEKY. ^005038 CON T E N T S. CIIArXER L p^^^ The Way to Tasiikend ....... 1 CIIArXER II. The CoNciUEST of the Three Khanates ... 11 CILVrTER III. The Material and Moral Victory at Geok Tepe . 26 CHAPTER IV. From Ashkabad to Merv 39 CHAPTER V. England's Policy in the Face of Russian Conquests 56 CHAPTER VI. Russia's Designs upon Herat 73 CHAPTER VII. Importance of Herat 100 CHAPTER VII r. Russia's Chances of Conquering Herat . . . 118 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE English Means of Defence 124 CHAPTER X. The Only Reasonable Line of Defence . . . 147 CHAPTER XI. Comparison between the English and Russian Civi- lisations IN the East 165 CHAPTER XII. Why ought England to Retain India? . . . 190 CHAPTER XIII. Myself and my Present Book 200 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. CHAPTER I. THE WAY TO TASHKEND. Great events are casting their sluulovvs before them; the unmistakable signs of historic revolutions silently progressing are thickening around us ; and if, nevertlie- less, we refuse to give credence to facts irrevocably accomplished and full of significance, it must be ascribed not to the dulness of our senses, but to tlie prevailing rigidly conservative character of the great majority of politicians. The rivalry between Russia and England must have become evident from the very moment when Spain, Portugal, Holland, and France, gradually disappeared from the field of conquests in Asia, and when that old mother-country was left open to the ambition of the first mentioned two great natitms. England, entering into the arena of conquest irom B 2 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. the south, had slowly but constantly worked her way through India, until out of the small trading Company had grown a mighty empire ; an empire founded upon the heroism, patriotism, and lust of adventure of those islanders, who, feeling themselves somewhat cramped in their narrow insular home, had started to the distant East in order to satisfy their curiosity, to couple their names with some glorious deed in the cause of humanity, and to reflect honour upon their own mother-country. At the outset nobody knew the ultimate border of the new acquisition. Conquests necessitated fresh and new conquests, and when the State supplanted the simple trading Company, the Indian acquisition was as extensive as any of the former Mogul or Hindoo Eajahs had ever been able to unite under his sceptre. The conquest of India was and is un- doubtedly the glory of our western civilisation; it is the best mark of the superiority' of our indomitable Euroj)ean spirit, and of the strength of young Europe compared with old and crumbling Asia. As to Eussia, the causes and the course of her conquests were of quite a different nature. The whole structure of the Russian empire rests exclusively upon conquests and annexation ; for it must be borne in mind that Eussia is not an ethnical but a political nation. The Eussians were at the beginning only a THE WAY TO TA8IIKEND. 3 small number of Slavs, grafted upon Ugrlan, Turko- Tartar, and Finnic elements, but which in the course of time gradually enlarged, and would have had already a pre-eminent part in the historical events of the Middle Ages, if temporary revolutions and wars, produced by Asiatic conquerors, had not interfered, and delayed the growth of the national body. Among these drawbacks we reckon the irruption of the Mon- gols under Djenghis Khan, and the great war under Timur, both of them historical events which crippled and maimed the Grand-Duchy of Muscovy ; but in the end Eussian society, imbued with the spirit of Christian civilisation, nevertheless triumphed over the rude and barbarian representatives of Asia. The Golden Horde crumbled to pieces, the empire of Timur was scattered to the winds; and victorious Eussia, by annexing one portion after another, not only found herself succeeding to the heritage of her Asiatic pre- decessors, but also possessing the best means of continuing in the path of ulterior conquests, and of consolidating her new acquisitions in a way quite superior to the means and modes at the disposal of Asiatic despots. After having subdued the middle and lower Volga, Eussia turned her attention partly to the East, partly to the West. In both directions she earned unexpected success. In the East she appeared as the B 2 4 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. representative of Europe two centuries ago, and, armed with tlie superior arms of that time, she managed to conquer vast multitudes with a comparatively small number of men. Siberia was conquered in the sixteenth century, and when Kutchum Khan, after having been defeated by the daring troopers under the lead of Yermak, armed with firearms, and losing his crown and empire, was asked to surrender, the old blind man, discovered in the midst of the woods, said : "I am blind, deaf, poor and deserted, but I do not complain about the loss of my treasures, I only grieve that the Eussians have taken captive my dear child, my son Asmanak. If I had him with me I should willingly renounce my crown, my riches, all my other wives and remaining children. Now I shall send m}^ family to Bokhara, and I myself shall go to the Nogais. I did not go to the Czar in my more prosperous days, when I was rich and mighty ; shall I go now in order to meet with a shameful death." From the eastern Tartars in Siberia, Eussia turned to the western Tartars in the Crimea, to those very Nogais with whom Kutchum Khan expected to find a shelter. Here the sway of the Sultan of Turkey had become loosened at that time, and the Empress Catherine plucked fresh laurels for her crown after a hard struggle, which sealed the fate of the Khans of BagLche-Sarai for ever. From the Isker in Siberia THE WAY TO TASHKEND. 5 to the banks of the Pruth, all became Eussian. The various populations had to undergo the process of Itussifi cation, and the newly annexed elements had liardly been incorporated into the body of Muscovitism, wlien the progress towards the south already began, and the subjugation of the Kirghis steppes was already initiated. That is the real outset of the Eussian conquests in Central Asia. It was a hard nut Eussia had to crack here, a task arduous beyond measure; for besides the struggle to be fought witli men, she met with a serious obstacle in nature, through the endless barren steppes, varying witli hard clay, sand many feet deep, and wide waterless tracts of country. Any other Govern- ment would have been afraid to engage in that under- taking ; but despotic Eussia, unchecked in the waste of men and mone}^ entered upon it with the deter- mination of overcoming all obstacles. The steppi^s were attacked from two different sides, from the east and the west. As to the eastern route, Siberia formed Ihe basis, and down glided the Eussian Cossacks fro.n the Altai, along the western border of Cliina to the lake of Issyk Kul, as smoothly and quietly as the Eussian outposts succeeded in skirting the western frontier of the Kirghis country from the Lesser Horde to the Aral lak(^ and to the Yaxartes. It was the 6 TEE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA, work of two centuries, accomplislied in a wonderful way, with that characteristic Muscovite tenacity, cunning, and recklessness, which have wrought so many wonders and surprises to the western world. The Kirghises, numbering beyond three millions of souls, and representing the protot^^pe of Turkish nomadic society, offered from the beginning that special mode of resistance we encounter in the case of the nomads of Asia and America. At first a few influential chieftains were enticed by bribes, presents, and imaginary distinctions, assisted as usual by the generously offered flask of vodki. Of course, the allesriance thus obtained was of no avail and no dura- tion, for no sooner had the Russian tcldnomiik dis- appeared from the scene of his action, than the Kirghis chief forgot his oath of fidelity, as well as the rich presents he had received from the White Padishah of the Neva. Eussia had to resort to other means. She built on various points small forts, originally intended to harbour the merchants on their way to the steppe ; for the Czar is a benignant ruler, who is anxious that his subjects should be provided with all the necessaries of life, and he even went so far as to build mosques and Mohammedan colleges for the pious Kirghises, an act which has been very frequently rebuked as impolitic and unwise. This paternal care, however, did not bear the expected fruit ; the so-called THE WAY TO TASHKEND. 7 halting places for Eussian traders were soon turned into small forts, garrisoned by soldiers; from the walls of which loopholes for cannon looked far into the desert, and overavved the restless nomads more than any imperial ukase, written with gold ink, and all tlie sacred oaths of the chieftains sworn upon the Koran had done. By extending this line of fortifications into the country of the Kirghises, Russia succeeded in thrusting a formidable wedge into the body of her adversary. Disunion amongst the Kirghises did the rest, and in spite of temporary risings, Russia could safely assert soon after the Crimean war that she had become the undisputed master of the whole Kirghis country as far as the right bank of the Yaxartes, including the Aral Sea, where her operations by land were supported by a small flotilla. While these large operations were going on, Europe, always happy to engage Russia in Asia and to keep her off from European politics, cared but very little for the doings of the northera colossus in this outlying part of the eastern world. But little oozed out concerning these new con- quests, and that little generally came through the channel of European travellers, savanfs, delighted at the warm reception they got from Russian officials, and full of praises of the humanitarian work Russia was doing in those outlying barbarous countries, where 8 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. every step was accompanied by tlie civilisation of tlie AVest, and where every flasli of cannon was said to be a new rising sun of our European culture. Happ}^ delusion for our careless diplomatists ! But still ha})pier means for aggressive Bussia, and but for these treacherous lights beginning to throw a rather dubious redex be^'ond the Suleiman range, our blissful Europe would still send fervent prayers to heaven for the civilising columns of holy Eussia, as the imbecility of our diplomatists continues to do to this very day. England, justly disquieted by the Eussian move towards Khiva, had found it advisable to try whether any diplomatic transactions with the three khanates of Turkestan could not produce such an effect as to stop the Eussian progress. Lord Auckland imagined, that by calling the attention of the rulers of the three khanates to the impending danger, a union might be effected which would prove a barrier against Eussia. This was the origin of the mission of the late Sir Alexander Burnes, an accomplished young Scolcliman, who was well received at the Court of Nasrullah Khan, the father of the present Emir of Bokhara. His transactions secured to England a treaty of commerce ; they produced also relations of amity between Bokhara and India; but neither Khokand nor Khiva could this clever diplomatist THE WAY TO TASIIKEND. ^ visit, and no sooner had he returned to Europe than, with the death of the chief minister at Xasrulhih, the effect of the happyjourney vanished, and Bokliara remained as before, utterly heedless of coming ev^ents, and continuing, as before, to weaken the neigli- bouring States instead of giving them strength and support against the approaching danger. Itussia, at the same time, was not slow to counteract this stroke of policy by a similar ap- proach to England's nearest neighbour, namely, Afuhanistan. Eirst of all, she becran to meddle with Herat through the intermediary of the King of Persia, whom she made her involuntary ally after the treaty of Turkman-chai. The King of all Kings of Iran, a sickly man, had, together with his half-crazy minister, for a long time back cherished the idea of re-conquering the large do- minions of Shah Abbas the Great. The Keyanian Cap, representing the Crown of Persia, looking shabby and worn out, was sadly wanting in new jewels. Wooden guns inlaid with brass were soon got ready ; and Count Simonitch, the Russian ambassador, had only to stir the fire to bring the Persian army, a crowd of besrsrars clad in rao^s, before the walls of Herat. Fortunately England, aware of the imminent danger, selected the proper man to frustrate the machinations of her rival — Eldred Pottinger, an English othcer of 10 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. rare talents. One man alone was sufficient to anni- hilate all the grandiloquent schemes of Persia. The fire of the wooden guns had no effect ; the balls hewn of marble, invented by the iDgenious Persian prime minister, were smashed to pieces on the walls erected under the lead of the clever and brave Englishman. The Shah got the dysentery instead of laurels, and the half-emaciated and decimated army of the King of all Kings, together with their Eussian advisers, returned to Teheran. Herat was made secure once more against the immediate attack of Eussia. Whilst this was going on, a young Eussian officer of Polish extraction, named Vitkovitch, had to per- form at Kabul, at Dost Mohammed Khan's, the same part which Sir Alexander Burnes had so cleverly played at Bokhara. In the " Memoirs of the late General Blaramberg," a German officer in the Eussian service, we read, among other interesting details regarding the Eussian doings in Herat and Kabul, how Alexander von Humboldt had met with a young Polish gentleman exiled to Siberia, and how this 3^oung man, of high education and refined manners, succeeded in gaining the sympathies of the great German scholar to such an extent that he interceded in his favour with the Emperor Nicholas the First, and obtained his pardon from the Czar on the con- dition of the gifted young Pole's entering the TEE WAY TO TASEKEND, 11 Russian service and devoting his abilities to Eussian interests. This young Polish gentleman was the afterwards famous Russian secret agent, M. Vitkovitch, at Kabul. A great linguist, fully versed in the way of dealing with Asiatics, and therefore a competent rival of Sir Alexander Burnes, he had to gain over the sympathies of Dost Mohammed Khan for the Court of St. Petersburg. As the last named Afghan prince failed in his endeavour to secure British assistance for the re- occupation of Peshawur, then in the hands of Peudjit Singh, he very naturally lent an eager ear to overtures coming from the rival of Grreat Britain. Vitkovitch was listened to with particular attention ; but owing to the gre^t distance Russian outposts then stood from Afghanistan, all that the Envoy could afford to give at that time consisted in empty pro- mises, totally inadequate to satisfy the astute grey- wolf of Afghanistan. The transaction, therefore, turned out an empty bubble. Vitkovitch returned to St. Petersburg re male gesta, and being disavowed b}' his Government, the unfortunate young man com- mitted suicide in the very blossom of liis life. Thus are things in Russia. Successful generals and diplo- matists, publicly declared to have acted against the will of the Czar, are not only acknowledged, but rewarded ; whilst those who remain unsuccessful are 1^ TKE COMING STRUGGLE FOU INDIA. rebuked, and liave to pay the penalty of death for Russian disgrace. As to Afghanistan, the sulky attitude of Dost Mohammed Khan towards England very soon be- came the cause of the first Afghan war, in which England spent many thousands of lives and over £20,000,1)00 of money. Kabul and Kandahar were taken, but had to be evacuated ; and the disas- trous failure, owing not so much to the want of military valour of the British soldiers, but rather to the utter want of knowledge how to deal with Asiatics, imparted the first stain of shame to the English military character in Asia. It is exceedingly interesting to notice how all the personal valour and courage, all the heroic self-imn%olation, rare circum- spection, and ability of single individuals, are rendered of no avail by the short-sightedness of leading poli- ticians, of wavering statesmen, and of an irresolute Grovernment. The news of the English defeat in Afghnni>tan spread all over Central Asia, and was the first deadly blow to the jj rest (^e of Grreat Britain in the East. The Khans, Emirs, and Begs exulted with joy over the victory of their co-religionists, the Afo-hans. Mohammedan barbarism thousfht itself again safe against the threatening attacks of our western culture, and in delusive blissfulness quite overlooked the black clouds gathering in the north THE WAY TO TASIIKEND. 13 — clouds which cast their gloomy shadows, even at that time, as far as the banks of the Yaxartes, and were fraught with those unmistakable signs that prognosticated the devastating tempest sweeping over Central Asia two decades hiter. CHAPTER II. THE CONQUEST OF THE THREE KHANATES. EussiA, after having subdued tlie Kirghises ; and reached, on the left bank of the Yaxartes, the out- lying northern districts of Khokand, had in the mean- time fully prepared all the ways and means of an attack upon the three khanates. Durmg my stay in Bokhara in 1863, I heard vague rumours only of the Eussian approach towards Tashkend. "The formerly sweet waters of the Yaxartes river," said a pious Mohammedan to me, *' have been utterly spoiled and rendered undrinkable, for the Eussians have watered their horses and dipped their abominable idols into it ; but a,s to the country of Khokand, they will never be able to conquer it, for the glorious spirit of the holy Khodja Alnned Yessevi at Hazreti-Turkestan is on the watch, and will never allow the infidels to pass into the region of Islam." Unhappy dreamer ! He and his countrymen had quite forgotten that the poor Khodja Ahmed Yessevi was but a doubtful champion against the adventurous Greneral TchernayefF, who, with but two thousand men, not only trampled upon THE CONQUEST OF TILE THUEI'J KHANATES. 15 the grave of the said saint, but succeeded also in capturing Tashkend, the great commercial centre of the north of the khanates in IS 64, and defeatini^ an enemy at least twenty times as numerous as his daring companions in arms. It was during the very year I arrived in London that the news of the caj^ture of Tashkend had reached Europe. A few weeks before that I happened to meet Lord Palmerston, and I consider it no small distinction to have been listened to with attention by this greatest English statesman of modern times. After having given to him the outlines of my stirring adventures, and related all that I had heard of the apj)roach of Eussia, adding, at the same time, remarks upon the comparative ease with which the Muscovite would advance towards the Oxus, the noble lord said amongst other things, that we Hungarians, like the Poles, had a hot brain, and that many generations must pass before Russia would be able to pull down the Tartar barrier and approach the country inter- vening between India and Bokhara. I very much doubt whether the great English statesman seriously meant what he stated to me, for his careful inquiries into sundry details belied his seeming indifference. At all events he did not continue with that Olympian calmness with which he had tried to impress me at first, and shared by no means in the indifference 16 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. exhibited by English statesmen I occasionally met after the publication of the Eussian circular of Prince Gortschakoff in 18G4. It must be borne in mind that Eussia, fully conscious of the importance of the step she had taken, condescended to give explanations ev^en without being asked. The aforesaid circular, intended to appease any eventual anxiety, related in a cleverly written memorandum how the Grovernment of the Czar had been compelled, against his own will and without any hope of material benefit, to annex tlie country of the Kirghises ; and how these Kirghises, unruly fellows, could be only governed and ruled from a point where the cultivable region might secure a firm footing for the invader, and afford the best opportunity to check disorder and lawlessness. In that famous circular it was said that the following reasons had mainly precipitated the con- quest of Tashkend : — "1. It has been deemed indispensable that the two fortified lines of our frontiers, one starting from China and extending as far as the Issyk Kul lake, the other from the Aral Sea along the Syr-Darya, should be united by fortified points, in such a manner that all our posts would be in a condition to eventually sustain each other, and not to allow any interval to remain open through which the nomadic tribes might effect with impunity their invasions and depredations. THE CONQUEST OF THE THREE KHANATES. 17 " 2. It was essential that the line of our ad'.anced forts laid down in this manner should be situated in a country not only sufficiently fertile to secure their provisions, but also to facilitate regular colonisation, for this alone can secure to an occupied country a future of stability and prosperity in winnin<^ the neighbouring populations for civilised life. " 3. Lastly, it was urgent to fix that line in a definite manner, in order to escape from fhe dfingi-rous and almost inevitable inducements to (jo on from re- pression to reprisals^ luhlch might result in an endless extension r " With this object the basis of a system had to be laid down, which should be founded not only upon reason, which is elastic, but upon (jeo(jraphieal and political conditions which are of a fixed and permanent nature.'' In reading these passages we really are at a loss to decide whether grim humour or unprecedented hypocrisy and impudence have dictated them. Tiie ink was scarcely dry with which the lines had been written, when Eussia, anxious to avoid " endless ex- tension," plunged again into fresh conquests. Khu- dayar Khan, the ruler of Khokand, a noted coward evxn in Central Asia, had soon lost his spirits, and implored Muzaffiir-ed-din-Khan for assistance. Bok- hara, reputed at that time the very stronghold of c 18 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. moral and material strengtli in Central Asia, was soon at hand with an army outnumbering the Bussian adventurers ten or fifteen times ; an army in name only, but consisting chiefly of a rabble, ill-armed, and devoid of any military qualities. By dint of pre- ponderating numbers, the Bokhariots succeeded so far as to inflict a loss upon the daring Bussian general at Irdjar, who, constrained to retreat upon Tashkend, was at once deposed by his superiors in St. Beters- burg, and instead of praises being bestowed upon him for the capture of Tashkend, he had to feel the weight of Bussian ingratitude. His successor, General Bomanovsky, played the part of a consolidator and a preparer, and as soon as this duty was fulfilled he likewise was superseded by General Kauff mann, a German from the Baltic Bussian provinces, uniting the qualities of his predecessors in one person, and doing accordingly the work entrusted to him with pluck and luck in a comparatively short time. In 1868 the whole Yaxartes valley, together with Samar- kand, the former capital of Timur, fell into the hands of Bussia, and General Kauflmann would have pro- ceeded to Bokhara, and even farther, if Muzafiar-ed- din-Khan, terrified by the heavy blows which he had received, and afraid of a revolutionary rising in his own country headed by his own son, had not volun- tarily submitted and begged for peace. THE CONQUEST OF THE TIIIiEE KHANATES, 19 At the treaty of Serpul, the Emir was granted the free possession of the country which was left to him, beginning beyond Kermineh, as far as Tchardjui in the south ; and not only was he promised vigorous support in all his possessions beyond the Oxus, but lUissian friendship even went so far as to suppress for him a rebellion which had broken out at Shehri Sebz, and amity seemed to spring up between these two formerly implacable enemies. Of course the Emir had to pledge himself to be a true and faithful ally of Eussia. He had to pay the heavy war indemnity, including all the robberies and embezzlements of Eussian officers ; he had to place his sons under the tutorship of the Czar in order to be brought up at St. Petersburg, in the very centre of the blackest infidelity ; and ulti- mately he had to cede three points on his southern frontier — namely, Djam, Kerki, and Tchardjui, in order to secure a starting point for Eussia towards the south in case of necessity. All these were certainly most oppressive burdens ; but what on earth would not the Emir have given to save the shadow of his sovereignty? Of course Eussia was very wise to leave him in the delusive dream of his independence ; for besides the heavy costs involved by immediate annexation, the administration of the country by Eussian officials would have proved a useless expense to the exchequer. This abstemious policy had borne c 2 20 THE COMING STBUGGLE FOB INDIA. its fruits — for Eussia not only gained the considera- tion of the foe vanquished by her, but was also looked upon by the adjacent khanates in a far better light than had been hitherto the case, since, accord- ing to Tartar notions, conquest was identical with murder, plunder and extirpation. Ceutral Asia was really surprised to find mercy at the hands of the Christian victor. Scarcely five years had elapsed when Eussia, anxious to avoid " endless extension," cast her eyes beyond the Oxus upon the Khan of Khiva, applying almost literally the meaning of the fable of ^sopus in accusinsr the Khiva lamb on the lower course of the Oxus of troubling her waters in the upper course.. A plea for a casus belli was soon unearthed. The young Khan of Khiva, the son of the very man upon whom I pronounced a blessing whilst sojourning in his capital, had vainly endeavoured to apologise and to give every possible redress. The Eussian pre- parations of war had been ready for a long time, pro- visions were previously secured on different points, and Greneral Kauffmann, notoriously fond of theatrical pageantries, marched through the most perilous route across bottomless sands from, the banks of tiio Yaxartes to the Oxus. Strange to say, he chose the \ ery route upon which I trudged years ago, tormented and nearly killed by thirst. At the station, Adam THE CONQUEST OF THE THREE KHAXATES. 21 KirU(jan (the place were men perish) he must have remembered the dervish, for I am told on good authority that he travelled with my book in his hands ; and the ominous name of the station would have proved really disastrous to the Russian army if the Uzbegs had had the slightest military foresight, or had been aware of the very rudimentary principles of warfare. The Russians, who marched from three different points upon the khanate, had a very easy task before them. Without fiorhtinor a sint^le battle, the w^hole country on the Lower Oxus was conquered. Russia again showed herself magnani- mous by replacing the young Khan upon the paternal throne, after having taken away from him the whole country on the right bank of the Oxus, and imposed upon his neck the burden of a war indemnity which will weigh him down as long as he lives, and cripple even his successors, if any such are to come after him. Three more years passed, when Russia, anxious to avoid " endless extension," again began to extend the limits of her possessions in the Yaxartes Valley to- wards the East. In July, IS 70, one of the famous Russian embassies of amity was casually (?) ])resent at the Court of Khudayar Khan at Khokand, when suddenly a rebellion broke out, endangering not only the liv^es of the Russian embassy but also of the allied ruler. No wonder, therefore, that Russia had 22 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA to take care of the friend in distress. An army was despatched to Khokand, the rebellion was quelled, and, as a natural consequence, the whole khanate incorporated into the dominions of the Czar. The Khokandians, especially one portion of them called the Kiptchaks, did not surrender so easily as their brethren in Bokhara and Khiva. The struop-le between the conqueror and the native people was a bloody and protracted one ; and the butchery at Namangan, an engagement in which the afterwards famous General Skobeleff w^on his spurs, surpasses all the accounts hitherto given of Eussian cruelty. Similar scenes occurred in Endidjan and other places, until the power of the Kiptchaks, noted for their bravery all over Central Asia, was broken, and " peace," a penda?it to the famous tableau of Yeresht- chagin, " peace at Shipka," prevailed throughout the valleys of Ferghana, enabling the Russian eagle to spread his wings undisturbedly over the whole of Central Asia, beginning from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Issyk Kul in the east, and from Siberia to the Turkoman sands in the south. The conquest of Central Asia was thus literally accom- plished, and we shall only dwell on the main reason which has facilitated the success, and enabled Eussia to penetrate into the very nest of the hitherto inac- cessible Mohammedan fanaticism. THE CONQUEST OF THE THREE KHANATES. 23 By us in Europe the new feats of Russian arms were certainly looked upon with great surprise. Nations vain-glorious of military deeds partly envied and partly admired the modern successor of Djenghis and Timur, but it is only ignorance of facts and gross exaggeration which has led them astray. Thej^ had been accustomed from immemorial times to couple the names of Tartar, Kalmuk, Kirghis, etc., with all rudeness, strength, power, and all possibly imaginable qualities of savage warriors. I had the same opinion on the subject; bat how different was my experience gathered on the spot, when I discovered in the roughest-looking Tartar a coward without example, and found that despite my lame leg I could, armed with a stick, put to flight live or six men. Of such a character was the predominant majority of the enemies Eussia had to fig-ht. The whistle of a sinsrle ball was enough to scare away dozens of warlike- looking Sarts, Tadjiks, and Uzbegs. In reality how could it be otherwise, considering the difference exist- ing between the arms of the Russian conqueror and those of the native defenders ? Take the gun, for instance. The Russian is armed with a good modern rifle, and his gunpowder is of the best, whilst the poor Tartar has nothing but an old and rusty gun which rests on a kind of wooden fork. Before at- tempting to shoot, he is looking out for a level spot 24 TBb] COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA, wliere to put down liis wooden fork. He has to place the coarse gunpowder in the 'pan, then strike fire with the flint to ignite the tinder, and proceeds to tap upon the powder for at least five minutes. The rusty gun bursts, the fork tumbles down, and where the ball has gone to God only knows. Besides this dissimilarity in arm.s, we have to consider the utter want of union, which disabled the natives of Central Asia from a vigorous defence of an invading power. Bokhara ma}^ well be taken for the leading state in Central Asia; but her influence over the neighbouring khanates was never of such an extent as to rally the Khivans, the Khokandians, and Tur- komans aroand her flag, nor was the Emir himself sufficiently penetrated by the necessity of such assistance. He was proud, haughty, and over self- confident. His conceitedness vied with his stupidity, and when I met him in Samarkand he asked me, amongst other things, whether the Sultan of Turkey could boast of an army as formidable as his own, an army w^ith which he might have conquered China if he were disposed to do so. As to his subjects, I noticed that they had not even the slightest forebod- ing of the approaching Eussian danger, and when alluding to such an eventuality I generally got for an answ^er: "Hadji, do not speak about it; the soil of Samarkand and Bokhara is so full of the remains of THE CONQUEST OP THE THREE KHAXATES. 25 departed saints and pious Mohammedans that infidels will die as soon as they set foot upon it.'' Ludicrous, childish remarks, which certainly were forgotten when the armies of Bokhara, Khokand, and Khiva were defeated; and, strange to say, these very boasting, overweeninof men were the first to submit to Itussian rule, and to look upon the new state of things as a matter long ago decreed by the will of Almighty God. To sum up briefly, Bokhara, Khiva, and Khokand fell one after the other. Eussia reached the left bank of the Oxus ; she obtained what she had been long coveting. She now could have rounded off her pos- sessions from Siberia to the very heart of Asia ; for in reaching the Oxus, this old natural frontier between Iranians and Turanians, she then might have been satisfied with having brought nearly the whole of the Tartar race under her sway ; the great work of civilisation which she wrote upon her banners could have been quietly begun. But the politicians at St. Petersburg had objects quite different in view. Humanitarian purposes are only the clever bait invented to catch the credulous statesmen of Europe. Eussia cherished other far-reaching schemes, in the furtherance of which slie crossed frontiers many a thousand years old, and, disregarding any eventual complications, merrily rushed into her adventures on the left bank of the Oxus. CHAPTEE III. THK MATERIAL AND MORAL VICTORY AT GEOK-TEPE. The Eussian move on the left bank of the Oxus might have been viewed from the very beginning as the unmistakable sign of her ulterior designs against India. In conquering the three khanates of Tur- kestan, we are disposed to conclude that Eussian politicians made a failure of it, and that they only subsequently found out that the route leading from Orenburg towards the Oxus was a very difficult highway for an army intending to march from the interior of the mother country towards the Suleiman range. Judging from the attempt to build a rail- way from Orenburg to Tashkend, which afterwards failed, in spite of the exertions of M. Lesseps, who promised the world to run a train from Calais to Calcutta, 7,500 miles long, in nine days, we may assume that the Eussians had really over-rated the possession of the khanates, and found out that Central Asia, which has ever since charged the exchequer with a deficit varying of from eight to MATERIAL AND MORAL VICTORY AT GEOK-TEFE. 27 ten millions of roubles annually, will never pay, and will always remain a barren acquisition to the State. Well, as far as this burden is concerned, we will not deny the fact that the expenses of a European administration, be it even a Russian one, will never be defrayed by the income. It will always prove an expensive colony — a luxurious acquisition ; but Eussia had nevertheless to submit to this sacri- fice in the interests of her ulterior schemes. She was compelled to secure in her rear a safe position, whilst she had the intention of moving on the main line from the south-west towards the south-east — I mean from southern Eussia across the Caucasus, the Caspian, and along the northern border of Persia to the goal of her desire. This was the route originally conceived for the Eussian march against India ; and the endur- ance, astuteness, and cleverness with which this line of communication was begun and continued, are really unrivalled in the history of conquering nations. Our space is too limited to dwell here at length upon the details of this plan, carried on for nearly two cen- turies. We shall speak rather of that portion which relates to the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, and state that Eussian aggression dates as far back as 1825, when the afterwards famous Muravieff started on his mission to Khiva from Krasnovodsk, in order to explore the desert and to bring home information 28 TH:EJ coming struggle fob INDIA. about this little or scarcely known tract of countiy. Immediately after him followed in 1S35 Karelin, who investigated the shore from the Gurgan river as far as Krasnovodsk, and since that time scarcely a year has elapsed without some Eussian officers, under the guise of the famous Eussian scientific expeditions, visiting this shore to continue the explorations. The result of it was that whilst the rest of Europe remained in utter ignorance about the people and the country on the eastern shore of the Caspian, Eussia was pretty well informed as to the geographical position of that country, as well as to the mutual relations of the Turkoman inhabitants. The picture drawn by Galkin may well be defective, but it is the first reliable report, and I do not exaggerate when I state that since the occupa- tion of Ashurada Eussians were by no means strangers amongst the Yomuts and Goklans. Having duly reconnoitered the country, the proper move against the Turkomans began only after the subjuga- tion of the three khanates, and particularly after the horrible massacre of the Turkomans subject to Khiva in 1873. The bloody affair of Kizil-Takir, in which nearly 10,000 Turkoman Yomuts lost their lives, chilled the blood of their brethren on the south of the Balkans. The Eussian position at Tchekishlar was easily secured, and in fact no serious fight took place during the whole time that the Eussians had MATERIAL AND MORAL VICTORY AT GEOK-TEPE. 29 entered the country of the Yomuts, until the period when they came into contact with tlie next Turkoman trihes, namel}^ the Tekkes, who inhabit the country eastward of the Yomuts, and who were at all times noted for their strength, wealth, and courage. At the hands of the Tekke-Turkpmans, particularly of the Akhal section of them, the Russian army expe- rienced more than one disagreeable surprise for imagining they had before them opponents like the Uzbegs, Sarts, and Tadjiks of the three khanates, or Turkomans of the caste of Yomuts. They awoke to the consciousness of having to deal with a hardy race, ready to fight and to defend their homes, in spite of the inferiority of their arms. The history of the defeats of Lomakin, of the un- successful attack of Lazareff", and of the heavy cost in blood and money incurred by the various Russian ex- peditions, is too fresh in memory to be recalled here again. Thanks to the useful and well-known jnibli- cations of Charles Marvin, we may forego enumerating the details of the siege and capture of Geok-Tepe by Skobeleff in 1880. Suffice it to say, that courageous and heroic as was the defence of the besieged Turko- mans, who fought under the lead of Makhdum-Kuli and Tekme Serdar, their two chieftains, the hardsliips and privations the Russians had to endure, and the extraordinary cool blood and doggedness they exhibited 30 THE COMING STlilfOGLE FOB INUIA. at that time, was in keeping with it. Out of 40,000 Turkomans, huddled up in the fortress of Greok-Tepe, 6,500 bodies were found inside the fortress, 8,000 fugitives were slaughtered, many hundreds of women and children were killed, so that nearly half of the garrison perished. " During the actual assault and in the subsequent pursuit, the infantry engaged fired 273 804 rounds, the cavalry 12,500, and the artil- lery 5,864 rounds ; 224 military rockets were also expended" (Marvin). With this successful stroke against the Akhal-Tekke Turkomans, Eussia had almost entirely broken the strength and power of the hitherto mostly dreaded nomads of Central Asia. Thanks to the effect of modern arms and to her drilled army, she accomplished a feat neither Djenghis Khan nor Timur, or any of the Asiatic conquerors could boast of. The Turkomans, numbering about a million of sonls, justly enjoyed in antiquity, and do still at pre- sent, the fame of being the best horsemen and the most valiant warriors all over Asia. Having lived amongst them in the very height of their indepen- dence, and having had opportunity to witness their daily life and to study their character, I am bound to fully subscribe to the above quoted estimate of their reputation. " Allah first, then our horse and arms, and then in the third place our family and relations,'' MATEIilAL AND MOUAL VICTORY AT GEOK-TEPE. 31 is a common saying amongst them, and the care the Turkoman bestows upon his horse and upon his arms is far superior to the tenderness he is in the habit of showing to his wife and children. A proverb amongst them says, " If you see a party attacking the house of your father and mother, join them in the plunder and robbery ; '' and indeed, so utterly boundless is their desire for forays, battles, and daring adventures, that for want of a better opportunity they fall upon each other, even for the sake of a very trifling matter. The fatigue and hardship which these fellows can endure is most wonderful ; not less their pluck and contempt of death, and albeit they say that, "Try twice, and if you do not succeed turn back the third time ; " it very rarely occurs that the double attack of a Turkoman should fail to obtain the object in view. As to the dread they used to spread among the neighbouring nations, I will only quote one instance, of which I myself was an eye-witness. Having been asked one day to bestow my blessing upon a party ready for a foray, I took the rather curious fancy to join the fellows, and to be present at one of their engagements. Crossing the Gurgan, we entered the Persian terri- tory ; I found myself side by side with the Serdar — i.e. J leading man. He spied with his eagle eyes into the environs around him, and his appearance alone was sufficient to put a travelling company of Persians, 32 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. consisting of about forty men, to a disgraceful flight. No wonder that these fellows became the dread and terror, not only of all Persia, into which they pene- trated in small bands from a hundred to a hundred and Mty miles into the interior, but also to the rest of Central Asia, particularly to Bokhara, Khiva, and to the ver}^ w^alls of Maimene. "May you fall into the hands of the Turkoman," was the most bitter curse; and the saying, " Khouf-i-Turkmen" — i.e., fear of the Turkoman, was able to chill the blood even of the bravest of Asiatics, with the exception of the Afghans, who frequently had proved an unequal match for them. Such was the people vanquished by Skobeleff at Geok-Tepe, such the enemy which Russia crushed in the north of Persia; and the reader may easily imagine how these feats of arms had raised the con- sideration of Itussia in the eyes of all the Asiatics. First of all came admiration of the military strength and valour of the White Padishah on the banks of the Neva, who had surpassed in glory and greatness even the names of Djenghis, Timur, and Nadir. No less deep was the impression of gratitude wrought in the feelings of the Persians by the Eussian success in the steppes of the Turkomans. Exposed for centuries to the irruptions of these reckless nomads, the peaceful and industrious inhabitants of Iran had vainly looked MATERIAL AND MORAL VICTORY AT GEOK-TEPE. 33 for assistance to their king and government ; the round tower of shelter erected on their fiekls could afibrd but- a temporary refuge, and the final redemp- tion from the inveterate enemy and terrible i)higue came only from the hand of a Christian ruler, from Russia, which now was called the real redeemer uf half of Persia. It will remain an ever deplorable fact, that England, by whose civilising work so very many Asiatics have been benefited hitherto, did not try to anticipate her rival in this great work, considering that she could have done it more easily and much better. As to Persia, rotten to the very core, the ministers of the Shah, when asked about their feelings for the services rendered by the Eussians, impu- dently remarked, " We did not invite the Muscovites to deliver us from the Turkomans, nor do we feel particularly grateful to them for having done so." The feeling of the people, however, was widely different. Along the whole route through Khorassan, beginning from Shahrud, to Meshed and Sarakhs, but more particularly in the districts adjoining the newly acquired Ivussian territory, namely in Kabushan, Budjnurd,and Deregoz, people are now most anxious to exhibit their sympathies with the northern conqueror. Russian dresses are becoming the fashion of the day, Russian drinks get more and more into favour, every man of note strives to learn the Russian lanu-uatre, D 31 THE COmXG STRUGGLE FOli INDIA. and there is no exaggeration in saying that Russia has already morally conquered tlie northern slopes of the Kul)])et Mountains to sucli an extent, that the ])h3'sieal eonquest is only a question of time. The next benefit llussia will derive from the sub- jugation of the Akhal-Tckke Turkomans, will be found in the strategical as well as. commercial position she gained through her standing on the southern slopes of the Kubbet Mountains, known in antiquity as the country of tlie Parthians. Excepting the embouchures of the Gurgan, tlie eastern shore of the Caspian Sea is, as far as Kizil-Arvat, nothing but a dreary desert, a sterile and an arid country. Cultivation, owing to irrigation carried from the mountain, begins only at the last-named place. But the more we advance east- ward the riciier becomes the soil, the more plentiful is the water in the irrigating canals, and the more varied and luxuriant are the products. In fact, up to the beginning of the thirteenth century, this country was noted for its fertility and for its centres of culture. In antiquity, the great commercial road leading: from the interior of Asia to the west, has passed tlie southern slopes of the Kubbet ^fountain to the Ciispian, and in spite of having been laid waste ])y the irruption of the Mongols, the places of Kahka and ^lehne, A^biverd, and some others, enjoyed a fair amount of reputation up to the end of the seventeenth MATERIAL AXD MORAL VICTORY AT GEOKTFA'E. :55 century. Nothing, therefore, is easier to surmise than that Russia, btuiig in the undisputed possession of that rich country, will do all in her power to revive the bygone period of culture. The c(Aintry could be much more cpiickly colonised and peopled than any of her more recent acrpiisitions in Turkestan. Russia is prompted to hasten the process of colonisation here, in order to get a" firm footing on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, on the very spot which is calculated to become the second link of connection in her great chain of communication, running from the interior of Russia over the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Cas- pian, to the outskirts of the Paropamisus. It was in full recognition of this important fact that the Caucasus was bridged over by rail from Batoum to Baku, at the cost of £9,000,000 ; and considering the extraordinary increase of private and governmental ships on tlie Caspian during the last twenty years, it was but natural that the Russian government did not shun the expense, but began, simultaneously with the con- quest of Turkomania, the construction of the Trans- caspian railway, which until quite recently, starting from Alikhailofsk on the ixilkan Bay, stretched over 111- miles to Kizil-Arvat, involving a cost of £G4S,(){)(). The heavy blow inflicted, Russia's first care was to pacify the country, and to show to the Turkomans 36 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. that the Czar was not only able to strike hard, but that he also possessed the power to heal the wounds, to show mercy, and to become a kind-hearted father of his subjects. SkobelefF, the originator of the mas- sac le, and the dreaded exterminator of the Turko- mans, was recalled from the scene of his bloody action and replaced by General Eohrberg, a Germano- Eussian officer noted for his administrative faculties, and evidently the best man to represent the benignant rays of the sun after the frightful storm which had swept over the Aklial country. He began by alluring the large masses of fugitives which were dispersed in every direction of the less accessible sands in the north of the Karakum, invited them to re-occupy their former places, petted and encouraged them to go on with their usual work, promising, and giving too, all kinds of assistance; they were only asked to give up the arms they had concealed, and to keep quiet under the new order of things which awaited them The returning Akhal-Tekke Turko- mans presented the most pitiful aspect of dreary desolation and bewilderment ; the greater portion of their property was lost and scattered ; more than half of their cattle had perishedin the desert. The hag- gard-looking and terror-stricken nomads, happy to save the last resources cf exist'^^nce, wore certainly the best material cut of which the hrst nucleus ot MATERIAL AND MORAL VICTORY AT GEOK-TEVE. 37 Eussian peaceful subjects in the desert could be formed. The Government did all in its power to attract tlie sympathies of these poor wretches, but the Muscovite soldierv coukl not be restrained from pillaiiim^ to the last these half-naked inhabitants of the formerly flourishing Akhal country. Carpets, rugs, trinkets, jewellery, particularly arms inlaid with gold and silvTr, rich harnesses and saddles, went in loads beyond the Caspian and the Caucasus to Eussia; and so great was the boot}^ carried away from the desert, and sold in the various Eussian towns, that ])art of it even reached Hungary, and the writer of these lines had an opportunity of buying in Buda-Pesth carpets, em- broideries, and jewellery, the former property of Turko- man women. The merchant who offered these wares for sale, a Caucasian, who took part in the war, an eye-witness of the Eussian depredations, remarked boastfully— '' Sir, we have paid back to those rascals the many hundred years' cruelties and robberies; a part of them we have sent to hell; and the remaining part we have left lukht-i-pukht (naked and wretched), giving them lull time and opportunity to ruminate over the greatness of the white Czar, wdio is of quite a different cast from the cowardly Kadjar in Teheran." And indeed the Jitkhi-i-puklif Turkomans submitted in the full sense of the word, and had to begin a life 38 THE COMING STBUGGLE FOB INDIA. to which certainly they had not been accustomed hitherto. The evil most sensibly felt was the ex- ceedingly thinned ranks of the male popiilatioD, and I hear from quite recent travellers that polygamy-, hitherto scarcely known amongst Turkomans, has become an imperative necessity, and that, in order to provide for widows and girls matrimonially inclined, one Turkoman has to take frequently from six to eight Avives, a burden exceediug his means of sub- sistence ; povert}^ being the natural consequence of this anomaly. CHAPTER IV. FROM ASIIKABAD TO MERV. As to the Eussians, they chose Aslikahad, a word literally meaning the ahode of locc, for the new centre of administration. It became the gatherhig place of the leading officers as well as of the mercantile world, following in the track of the invading army. The merchants, mostly Caucasians, Mohammedans and Christian Armenians, able to converse with tlie Turko- mans — for the Turkish spoken by the 'J'urkomans differs but slightly from the dialect spoken in tlie Caucasus — were decidedly the best means of communi- cation between the natives and the foreign con- queror. They could penetrate unmolested even to the far outlying parts of the Akhal country, for the Turkoman, once vanquished and sincerely submitting, would not touch any of the solitary travellers. These merchants enlarged upon the greatness and might of the Russians, spoke of the charit}^ of the Czar, and bridged over smoothly and quietl}' the wide gulf existino- but a short time au"o between the dreaded 40 TRE COMIXG STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. Euss and the Turkoman. As to commercial affairs, they were in tlie beginning unimportant, and most of tlie customers came from the ranks of the Russian army ; but gradually the Turkomans, too, began to purchase sundry articles, and in particular took very quickly to the shops of the spirit-vendors, whose trade soon became most flourishing. In the course of two years six different whisky distilleries were opened in Ash- kabad and the adjacent countrj^ ; and so rapid was the spread of European civilisation a la Jufssr, that even playing-cards, known formerly under the name of " the koran of the Muscovites," had found their way to the tent of the simple Turkoman. Of other jDhases of the new era of civilisation I will not speak : suffice to mention that the Turko- mans very soon delighted in wearing big brass medals on their breasts and adorning their shoulders with epaulettes, and only the female population and the older people were anxious to retain their ancient national character, and avoid any closer intercourse with the foreign conqueror. Kismet, i.e., fate, or properly speaking, an absolute reliance upon the decrees of the Almighty, proved anew its efficacy ; and all the more natural was this effect with the Turkomans, whose national bard, called Makhdum- Kuli, predicted nearly a hundred j'^ears ago the events which had ju,-,t now come into fulhlmeut. FROM AHllKAliAD TO yUCUV. 41 Tn a poem entitled " The Eud of the AVorld/' the 'rurkoman poet relates, in his plain but impressive language, how the towns and countries (of course within the sphere of his geograpliical information) will perish, how the various nations will disappear otl* the face of the earth, and at tlie end of liis poem he says : " It is the Russ who will engulf the Moslem world. Whilst the Russ will be swallowed by the Anti-Christ." But let US return to Aslikabad. This place, made the centre of the Russian administration, as well as of the new cultural and commercial move- ment, very soon attracted not only those Turkomans who were already under the sway of the liussians, but also sucli members of that community as still enjoyed their independence — I mean to say Turko- mans from Merv, from the Tedjend oasis, nay, even from the Salor and Sarik tribes, who, prompted partly by curiosity, partly by trading purposes, re- sorted to this place in order to see the new master of the country. I can iull}^ imagine the surprise of these Turkomans upon finding themselves safe in the very midst of the dreaded conquerors ; for according to their own notions t)f the mutual rela- tions between belligerents, the only chance that could have awaited a foreigner would have been death or 42 THE COMING STllVUGLE FOR IXDIA. slavery. I say the surprise must have been extraor- dinary ; it discarded all fear, nay, turned to a certain extent into sympathy for the new cause. It was Alerv, in particular, that sent a large contingent of trading and sight-seeing guests to Ash- kabad ! Merv, the head- quarters of the yet indepen- dent and larger portion of the Tekke Turkomans ; for it must be borne in mind that whilst the number of the Aklial-Tekke ^J'urkoinans is computed to be about 150,000 souls, that of the Merv-Tekkes is estimated at 250,000. T spoke about sight-seers from Merv, but I must add at the same time, that the Russians were no less anxious to get a peep at Merv, and to see the " Queen of the World," this being the pompous title given to the miserable heap of ruins by Oriental writers. In antiquity, or pro- perly speaking during the pre-Mongolian era, Merv really was a great centre of culture and trade in this outlying part of Persia; and old Arab geographers speak of hundreds of gates, of hundreds of mosques, of thousands of palaces, baths, of miles of bazaars^ of spacious caravansaries, etc., for which Merv was famous. Abstracting the poetical flavour of Oriental geographers, we may assume that Merv had really been a large town in bygone times ; for, situated on the banks of the Murghab river, and richly watered, it was the best halting place for caravans trading FllOM ASHKABAD TO MEllV. 43 between Bokluira and Persia. But its splendour, as I said before, lias long since passed away ; the army of Djengbis turned it into a heap of ruins ; and all later efforts to rebuild it have proved hopeless and futile. Yet Russia, always alive to her interests, very well knew what ^lerv was worth. Soon after having* settled at Ashkabad, she coveted it, for it was in her line of policy, and only to avoid the charge of greediness she thought it advisable to ad(^pt quiet measures and to feign moderation. In the beginning the rumour was propagated that Merv, having been in olden times an integral part of the khanate of Khiva, which had been really the case, this last stronghold of the Turkomans would be handed over to the Khan of Khiva ; and it was even added that the Turkomans themselves were longing after their former state of suzerainty to tlie khanate on the lower course of the Oxus. I read this news in a Per- sian paper, and was highly amused at the ingenious idea the Russians entertained, of using the Khan of Khiva as a cats|)aw in the troublesome affair of ^lerv. Soon afterwards this rumour turned out to be untrue. Rohrberg was removed on grounds wliich have re- mained unknown to ns, and (jcneral Komaroff took his place; the latter a genuine Russian of unadul- terated Muscovite extraction, a man certainly titter 44 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. for the task of throwing out the line and hook in the dark waters of Turkoman affairs than the aforesaid German officer, who, in spite of his long services to the Czar, must have retained too much of European honesty to work successfully in the Asiatic gangway of plots and intrigues. To us, the lookers on from a di>tance, the rela- tions between Ashkabad and Merv were utterly un- known, and we were prepared for a solid resistance on the part of the Mervians. The Russian authorities at Ashkabad, however, had a blotter insight into that matter. They saw the continually increasing number of Mervians coming to Ashkabad for shopping, and the idea naturally occurred to them to persuade these people that, if they liked, the Russian merchants themselves would come to Merv, and bring with them the goods they had a hankering after. Whether the Turkomans of Merv agreed to that act of politeness we do not decidedly know ; but it is a fact that a caravan was soon got read}^ and started in February, 1882, for Merv, not, however, before Fazil Beg, an Uzbeg of Khiva, Russianised in consequence of his repeated journeys to Russia, had been sent to explore the place, and to secure protection for the caravan. Alikhanoff, known by his family name Avarski, which means an Avar, a tribe of the Daghestan, was at the head of this caravan. He belonged to that FliOM ASHKADAD TO MERV. 4o class of Russian officers who, without forsakintf tlieir religion, become thoroughly Eussianised, partl}^ through the education they get and partly throug'i long intercourse with their fellow-officers. By placing an " ofr," which corresponds with the Engli>h "son," at the end of their names, they adopt the Russian nationality officially ; and combining, as th(y do. a smattering of European education with Asiatic as- tuteness, they generally turn out very clever men, and have often rendered essential services to the Rus- sian State. Such Russianised Tartars were, amongst others, Yelikhanoff, the famous traveller in Kashgar, the Nazirofls, Tahiroffs, Muratoffs, etc., and such is the Russianised Kalmuldan Dondukoff Korsakoff, who, in spite of parading his French eloquence, had a Kalmukian grandfather, ])onduk Korsak. As to the biography of Alikhanolf, whose fame has recently spread all over the western world, I would refer the reader to Charles ^Marvin's "The Russians at the Gates of Herat," a cleverly written book, full of information gathered from Russian sources. Sutiice it to say that Alikhanoff went in the disguise ol' a trader, and, acting as the interpreter and clerk to tlie Russian merchant Kosikli, he succeeded in entering- Alerv^ and was, together with his Russian colleagues, pretty well received by Makhdiim-Kuli Khan, the very Turkoman chieftain who led the defence of 46 THE COMIXG STRUGGLE FOR IXDLi. (jreok-Tepe, and escaping, together with Tekme Serdar, has since, b}^ dint of Eussian gifts, entirely changed liis mind by becoming a secret friend of his former deadly enemy. As to the wares the so-called Rus- sian traders brought with them, they must have been disposed of in a wa}- not dissimilar to that used nearly forty years ago by Conolly on his journey across the country of the Yomuts ; with this only dif- ference, that whilst the British officer tried to buy his way through plundering nomads, the Russian traders in disguise aimed at, and succeeded, in pur- chasing a place of strategical and commercial import- ance, with the sole object of hoodwinking Europe and more particularly England. After having remained a fortnight in Merv, the pseudo -merchants returned safely to Ashkabad, taking with them the conviction that Merv would not have to be bought with torrents of blood like Geok-Tepe, and that it wanted only some time and patience to make the half-ri[.se apple drop into the lap of the Russian Emperor. Among the acquisitions made by Alikhanoff, belongs the promise of Makhdum-Kuli Khan to be pi-esent at the coronation of the Emperor Alexander II. at Moscow, where his presence greatly raised the splendour of Oriental pageantry, affording besides ample opportunity to the wild nomad to relate wonders on his return among his countrymen Fi:OM ASUKMiM) TO MEIiV. 47 of the pomp and the greatness of the Wliite Padishah on the Xeva. The splendonr of the festivities he saw dazzle])ie of ^Terv were summoned to sulxnit to the rule of Pnssia. On his alluding to his being able to emphasise his summons with the Cossacks at the Tedjend oasis, the principal Aksakals, or "Grey- beards,'' instantaneously set their seal to that ominous 48 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. document. AlikhanoiF turned to Asbkabad, bring- ing witb liini four cbiefs and twenty-four notables, who took the oath of allegiance on the 6th of February, 1884, in General KomarofF's drawing- room. M. Henri Moser, a Swiss traveller, who happened to be present at that time at Ashkabad, gave me some interesting details about the hurry and secrecy with which this act was accomplished. The Turkoman elders, in order to please their new masters, had brought amongst sundry presents a few Persian slaves of both sexes, presents in exchange for which they got sums of money, robes of honour, and arms of European construction. As to these elders, the comedy of voluntary submission was at an end ; but not as to those other Turkomans remaining at Merv, whose allegiance had not jQt been bought over, and who would have shown strong resist- ance to the so-called " voluntary submission " if they had been forewarned and in time prepared for an effective resistance. As things stood, the sufficiently numerous anti-Eussian party was taken as it were by surprise; they succeeded only in firing a few shots in the form of a protest, and, although several thou- sands of them attacked the Eussians under the lead of Kadjar Khan, they were at once repulsed and routed. Kadjar Khan took refuge in Afghan territory ; hi:s adherents tacitly submitted ; and the Eussian army FROM ASITKABAD TO MERV. 40 occupied, on the IGth of March, the Kalai-Klmrsliid Klian, erroneously called in Europe Kosluit Kiian, in one corner of which the Russians have since erected a fort called Nikolayeffsk. Thus fell Merv, the ''Queen of the World "—in a European prosaic translation, a heap of ruins — into the hands of Eussia. Alikhanoft' was raised to the rank of a major; Makhduni-Kuli Kluin was re- warded hy being appointed as the head of the Ted- jend oasis ; KomarofF got the order of the White Eagle, and was made Governor-General of Trans- caspia. Other participators were likewise distin- guished, aud in order to cap the climax, Dondukoff Korsakoff, the Governor-General of the Caucasus, the man who denounced the Treaty of Berlin as a piece of music a la OJf'c/tbfirh, very soon afterwards ap[)eared in Merv to proclaim to the " voluntarily submitting " Turkomans the great joy and satisfaction the White Padishah at the Neva had evinced at this spon- taneous act of his beloved Turkoman children. Evidently knowing the gluttonous and greedy cha- racter of these new members of the large Russian family, the ex-Kalmuk Dondukoff was ulso the bean r of a large quantity of brandy, of robes of honour, etc., which were distributed amongst the leading Turko- mans. The Court of 8t. Petersburg even took an active part in the so-called "voluntary submission" E 50 THE COMING STIiVGGLE FOR IXUIA. of the ]\Iervians, for we read in the correspoiKlence of a Russian officer, published in the Turkesian Gdzclle of May, 1885, that the Empress sent a richly em- broidered dress, said to be her own needlework, to the widow of the late Xurverdi Khan, named Gul- Djemal, i.e., "Beauty of the Eose," a lady of o-reat intlaence amongst the Mervians, who had no little share in that " voluntary submission." Summing up what w^e said in reference to t1ie Russian acquisition of Merv, we may w^ell conclude with the remark that it was a clever stroke on the part of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg to secure this outlying post of the Turkoman country, and that for the foUoAving reasons ; — 1. By the annexation of Merv, and b}^ subduing the whole Tekke tribe, Russia has made nearly the whole Turkoman nation her subjects. The Turko- man possessions could now be rounded oif into one compact body, and no further apprehension had to be entertained concerning the enmity of the people. 2, The situation of Merv, midway between T3t)k- luira and Persia, offered the best means of communi- cation between tlie newly laid down railway on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, and the trading roufe between the Zerefshan and eastern Persia, The news which has reached us lately referring to FROM ASIIKAJJAD TO MEllV. 51 the connection of a railroad fn^ni Bukhara to Merv, and to Sarakhs, must be looked upon as a natural consequence of this central position. It had been from immemorial times a highway between the khanates and Persia; and llussia having* done away with the Turkoman nuisance, is almost sure to drain off the whole of the Central Asian trade to this newly-planned channel. 3. By rendering innocuous any future hostik^ movements of the Tekke- Turkomans in Merv^ Russia has removed any obstacle possibly arising on her Hanks at a time when she might intend to move on her main line of communication from Sarakhs to- wards Herat; and by doing so, she has successfully imitated all the Asiatic conquerors who burst forth from Central Asia with the open intention to attack and conquer India. Just as Alexander the Great secured the old Marghiana (]\[erv) before entering the Afghanistan of to-da3% in the same way we find the army of Djenghis occupying and destroying jNFerv before it entered Herat. The same thing was done by Timur, the Uzbeg Sheibani Khan, and Nadir Shah. It was therefore quite in accordance with the principles of strategy, that Alexander III. possessed himself of Merv to further his ulterior plans upon India. Similar to these views of miue are the opinions of mau}^ other contenq:)orary English E 2 52 THE COMING STBUGGLE FOR INDIA. writers on tliiit subject, and for the sake of endorse- ment I shall quote the follovviug authorities : — General Sir Edward Haniley, undoubtedly one of" the greatest living authorities on military topics, said amongst other things, " The one advantage of the possession (of Merv) is that the caravan route passing Bokhara to Meshed and the interior, and that from India by Herat to Central Asia, lie tlirouofh Merv. But that it was once a centre of great prosperity, is proved by the fact that the re- mains of four great cities exist there, the inhabit- ants of the last of which were driven out by the semi-barbarians about a century ago. Under Eus- sian rule that prosperity will revive, the lands will once more teem w^ith the crops to Avliich nothing is wanting but good husbandry, and, w^hen once again become populous and fertile, it will form a secondary base against the Afghan frontier. In the meantime it closes the gap aforesaid, and as soon as Eussia lays down her frontier line, the whole of that vast empire, from the Baltic to the Danube, thence alons: the Black Sea, across tlie Caucasus to the Caspian, along the Persian frontier to Merv and Turkestan, and so on to Siberia, will lie in a ring fence. This is the power which is now separated from a frontier which, presumably, we cannot allow her to overstep, by a border land which is a barriei FliOM ASHKABAD TO Ml-UV. 53 in no sense, and which I will endeavour briefl}^ to describe." Colonel Valentine Baker wrote on his return from the Perso-Turkoman frontier in 1873 : *' Merv% with its water communication nearly complete, lies only 240 miles from Herat, to which place it is the key. There can be no doubt that Merv is the natural outwork of Herat, with the advantage of water supply all the way between the two cities. Strategically, the Eussian occupation of Merv would be, so to say, the formation of a lodgment on the glacis of Herat. It would place Herat completely at her mercy." Sir Charles Macgregor wrote in 1875 : " There is no doubt in my mind that the real danger lies iu our permitting the Kussians to concentrate unopposed at Merv, which is quite within coup de wain distance of Herat ; and it is in this fact that the value of Merv to the Itussians lies. Once place Herat beyond the possibility of a coap de main, and I cannot imagine the astute statesmen of Russia persisting in the occu- pation of an isolated spot in the desert, the mainten- ance of which must cost a great deal." Finally, we may quote the words of Charles Marvin, written in Februar}^ 1884: "The conquest of ^lerv is something more than the annexation of a sand-desert oasis. It means the complete junction of 64 THE COMING SHWGGLE FOR INDIA. the military forces of the Caucasus and Turkestan. It means, with the annexation of Akhal, the absorp- tion of 100,000 of the best irregular cavalry in the AvorM, at a week's march froui the city of Herat. It means the meeting, for the first time, of the Cossack and the Afghan. It means the complete enclosure of Khiva within the Russian Empire, and the reduction of Bokhara from the independent position of a border state to the dependence of an incorporated province. It means the enclosure of more than 200,000 square miles of territory, and the addition to the Russian Empire of a region as large as France. It means the completion of the conquest of the Central Asian deserts, and the commencemeiit of the annexat'on of the great fertile mountain region of Persia aiid Af- ghanistan. It means the deliberate occupation of a strategical point, fraught with political entangle- ments of such a widespread nature that, whether Russia desire it or not, she will be inevitably led, unless forestalled or checked by England, to Meshed, to Herat, to Ealkh, and to Kabul. And she will not remain there. She will continue her swift advance until she triumphantly lays down her Cossack border alongside the Sepoy line of India." I could easil}^ add other statements by English and f()r(ii;n auth(jrities on that subject, but I ^upposc I have succeeded in proving that Merv, although FROM ASHKABAD TO MERV. 55 actually a heap of ruins, luiuiited by reckless robbers and lawless l^ands, is by no means that worthless piece of sand described by optimistic piditicians ; for if the sand be removed there may be found a jjrecious jewel of military and commercial importance beneath tlie arid crust. CHAPTER Y. England's policy in the face of Russian conquests. We have followed hitherto the history of Russian conquests from Tashkend to Merv. We have given a succinct account of the varied events, without inter- rupting our relation by a side glance upon the atti- tude which the partly mediate, partly immediate, neighbours have maintained during the whole course of Russian encroachment. We shall now turn to this question, and begin by showing the views ex- hibited in Enghmd in the face of these emergencies. In England, where the liveliest interest ought to have prevailed, nevertheless, we are sorry to re- mark that criminal indifference, coupled with utter want of courage and lack of due appreciation of the question, have marked the whole long process of her diplomatic relations with Russia, as well as of the defensive steps taken in that direction. In the beginning, when the black cloud loomed up in the north, there was a sufficient amount of ENGLAND'S FOLICY. 57 anxiety; nay, even too much of it was shown con- cerning the approaching danger of Russian aggres- sion. But, as is usually the case with a danger uf long standing, the fire gradually slackened until it came quite recently to a final extinction, wrapping the vital interests of Great Britain in that ominous darkness in which she is now actually groping. When, in the heginning of the present century, Napoleon I. united with Russia, and the plan of crippling England through an attack on India first appeared, the Anglo-Indian statesmen of that day had shown sufficient vigour in grasping the import- ance of the situation. The huildinu: of the Eno-lish rule in India rested on a ricketty hase, and the danger was serious, considering the intentions of the Emperor, Paul I., made afterwards public through his auto- graph letters directed to Prince Orloff, the chief of the Cossacks (January 1:2, 1801) : "The English are preparing to make an attack with their fleet and army against me and my allies, the Swedes and Danes. We must attack them ourselves, and that at a spot where the blow should be felt most and be least expected. From Orenburg to India there is but three months' (?) marching, and from us to Orenburg one month — total, four months. I place this expedi- tion in your hands and those of your troops. This enterprise may procure glory for all of you, n.av 58 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. obtain wealth for us, and open a new outlet for the disposal of our merchandise, thus striking at the enemy's heart." And farther on : — " We must libe- rate the natives (subject to England) ; as to the soil it must be placed in the same dependence upon Eussia in which it now is as to England, we must take the entire commerce into our hands." In the letter of January 13, 1801, we read : — " I send you a new map of India, which enters quite into details. On your march make sure of Bokhara for Russia, in order that the Chinese may not get hold of it." (W. Danewsky, " La Eussie et L'Angleterre dans L'Asie Centrale." London, 1881 ; p. 25). To this kind of schemes, boldly conceived but premature for execution, the mission entrusted to Sir John Malcolm was a due and appropriate an- swer. This highly talented English statesman easily succeeded in frustrating the effect of the French mis- sions under Gardanne and Joubert, for the appearance of Malcolm, furnished with rich means by the Indian Government, was quite sufficient to baffle the efforts of French and Eussian diplomacy. What Malcolm began was valiantly continued by Sir Gore Ouseley, and other subsequent British ministers at the Court of Teheran. Persia took nicely to the lesson of European civilisation; the Crown Prince of Persia had a parti- cular fancy for the English language, and t*he British ENGLAND'S POLICY. 59 officers employed to drill the IVrsian army in the European style had answered beyond all expectati(jn. For a time the tide of Persian sympathies for Eng- land ran very hi<4'h, and naturally became the envy ot Russia. A quarrel was soon pltclied uj)<>n, whieli re- sulted in the Perso-Eussian war, the disastrous end of which was the treaty of Turkman-chai, by which the Caspian Sea was turned into a Russian lake, and Persia was tauij^ht the lesson that Enjj^lish assurances in times of anxiety were of no great value in times of distress. No wonder, therefore, that the Sliah's sympathies turned at once towards Russia, and Eng- lish influence from that time began rapidiy to go downwards. As men in their proper phices are apt to work wonders, we must not be astonished that Sir Henry Rawlinson succeeded during the time of his mission to Persia in restoring the lost prextifjc of England in Teheran to its former place. Joeing, however, insufficientl}^ supported by tlie ^Ministry on the Thames, his ability came to nought, and he very soon returned to Europe. Since that time England's position in Persia has always been a secondary one, compared with the almighty and ubiquitous intluence of Russia. There was no lack of gifted and zealous English ambas- sadors; but what use is there in the official zeal of single individuals, if the leading statesmen of the 60 THE COMIXG STRUGGLE FOB IXDIA. home Government are unable or unwilling to second the aspirations of tlieir representatives abroad. Persia was said to have become once and for ever unworthy of the care bestowed on her, and, by giving up every hope of winning her over to Western civilisation, she was left alone, i.e., in the fatal embraces of her northern ^^()()er. Eussia, fiuding her way unchecked in this part of the Asiatic world, very soon set to work to utilise the favourable opportunity offered to her, by med- dlino^ with Afi'-lianistan through Persia, as we had occasion to allude to in our previous pages. She thus became the real cause of the first Anglo-Afghan war ; for, whatever may have been the reasons of the dis- pute between Dost Mohammed Khan and Lord Auckland, the former certainly would not have ven- tured to enter publicly upon hostilities with Great Britain, whose power and greatness he knew so well, if Eussia, by lier secret and public missions, had not fomented his hatred and encouraged the otherwise cautious ruler of Afghanistan to measure swords with England. During this first Anglo- Afghan war the English policy of vigilance against Eussia had reached its climax. As I previously remarked, it went even beyond the proper limits ; for the Eussian uutposts stood at that time very, very far from any point that might have been styled the gate of India. ENGLAND'S POLICY. 61 But, alas ! it is with States as it is with individuals in the ordinary concerns of life. Hxtraordinarily vigorous actions are almost inevitably followed by re- action ; the excessive English vigilance inaugurated by the somewhat rash pohcy of Lord Auckland gradually turned into carelessness and indifference, from the time following the conclusion of the disastrous first Afghan campaign. The bleaching bones of the Eng- lish soldiers left beyond the Kheiber Pass, the unex- ampled treachery, cruelty, and savageness of the Afghan opponent, seem to have left an indelible impression on the minds of the English. Add to this the accounts of the horrible murder of Stoddart and Conolly in Bokhara, and you will understand pretty well the detestation and scorn the English manifested of all matters connected with Afghan and Central Asia in general. Oh yes ! we can under- stand, but not justify this aversion; for anv otlier European power better qualified to deal with the Asiatics than the English are, would certainly have avoided the catastrophes connected with this cam- paign, and even if visited by misfortune, would not allow herself to be scared away altogether. Look at Kussia. In spite of defeats by the score, she did not relax in her arduous work in the Caucasus until the most inaccessible gorges of rocks were cleared, and her victorious banner was made to float over all the 62 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOll INDIA. Caucasus. Similar proofs of her perseverance she gave in her fights against the Turkomans, when, three times repulsed with severe wounds she again drew the sword, and did not give in until the enemy was crushed and the Akhal-Tekkes were lying at her feet. Of the reasons of this yielding spirit of the English we shall speak hereafter : suffice to say here, that the epoch of English indifference concerning Russia's dealings in Central Asia dates from this period. Such is the official tone that prevailed, with slight interruptions since that time, in Downing Street as well as on the Hoogly ; and if the individual views of certain ministers and leading statesmen occasionally proved an exception to this rule, the exception and the isolated facts proceeding from it are not sufficient in themselves to alter the whole line of premeditated policy. Thus, many persons will find it rather surprising that Lord Palmerston could have feigned indifference to the Russian conquest of Tashkend, considering his views expressed as follows in a letter written to Lord Clarendon, July 81, 1851: — "The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it was met with decided ENGLAND'S POLICY. 63 resistance, and then to wait for the next favourable opportunity to make another spring- on its intended victim. In furtherance of this polic}', the iJassian policy has always had two strings to its bow — moderate language and disinterested professions at St. Petersburg and at London ; active aggression by its agents on the scene of operaticms. If the aggres- sions succeed locally, the St. Petersburg Government adopts them as a faif accowpli which it did not intend, but cannot in honour recede from. If the local agents fail, they are disavowed and recalled, and the language previously held is appealed to as a proof that the agents have overstepped their instructions. This was exemplified in the treaty of Unkiar-lSkelessi, and in the exploits of Simonitch and Vitkovitch in Persia. Orloff succeeded in extorting the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi from the Turks, and it was repre- sented as a sudden thought, suggested by the circum- stances of the time and place, and not the result ot any previous instructions ; but, having been done, it could not be undone. On the other hand, Simon- itch and Vitkovitch failed in getting possession of Herat, in conse(|uence of our vigorous measures of resistance ; and as they had failed they were dis- avowed and rodly optimibtic politicians expected to disarm RUSSIA'S DESIGNS WON II Eli AT. 83 Russia at once, and to make liostilities disappear for ever. Of course the opportunity was hurriedly grasped by the English, the Frontier Delimitating Commission was appointed, and Sir Peter Lumsden. a member of the India Council, and an officer of thirty-seven years' standing, was put at the head of it. Sir Peter Lumsden, who took part in the engagements of the English in China, in various parts of India and the adjacent countries, and who had acted besides as a member of the special Military Commission to Afghanistan in 1S57 — 58, was decidedly the proper man in the right place, fully qualified for his task by multifarious experiences in border affixirs, by sound, judgment, and by his straightforward and honest British character. A second commissioner was appointed in the person of Colonel Patrick Stewart, equally capable and honest, and particularly conspicuous for his pluck and patriotic zeal. This w^as the man who, in the disguise of an Armenian horse-dealer, entered in 1880 the Turkoman fron- tier, and kept up his incognito so cleverly that Mr. O'Donovan, the correspondent of the Dai/^ Ncirs, and the famous explorer of Merv, who met the colonel on the frontier of Persia, could not discover in him his countryman, although living with him in the same place fur three weeks. Colonel Stewart having been G % 84 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. employed after his journe}^ as a political agent in Kliaf, a Persian town in the west of Herat, and possessing the best information on the debatable country, was, therefore a good acquisition for the said Commission. Another officer w^as Lieut. - Colonel J. West Eidgway, Foreign Under Secretary to the Government of India. He was entrusted with the lead of the Indian section of the Delimitating Commission, and his march from Xushkhi, across the desert, to the Hilmend, proves him a sagacious and circumspect officer. I must mention, besides. Major Napier, an officer famous for his instructive report on the northern frontiers of Persia, and Mr. Condie Stephen, second secretary to the legation at Teheran, whom I had occasion personally to meet, and whose versatility in the Eussian and Persian languages, really surprised me. I ought to say, too, a few words about the native Indian and Afghan mem- bers of the commission, but we cannot dwell on such details at any length. Suffice it that the whole commission, having to be protected against unex- pected attacks on the Turkoman frontier, was fur- nished with an escort composed of 200 cavalry of the 11th Bengal Lancers, but known as Probyn's Horse, and of 250 infantry, the entire commission making altogether 35 Europeans, and 1,300 natives. Starting from different points, the Indian section, RUSSIA'S DESIGNS UPON HERAT. 85 under Rids^way, reached Herat on the 17th of No- vember, after having tra\'ersed over 767 miles from Quettah to Kulisan ; whilst the smaller portion, consisting of Sir Peter Lumsden and the leading officers of his stafP, arrived on the 19th of November, after a journey of 1,000 miles from Resht, on the Caspian, through Khorassan, and met their country- men at Kuhsan. The English Delimitating Commission, on arriving on the spot, was no little surprised at finding no trace of their Russian colleagues — namely, of General Zclenoy, the Russian Commissioner-in-Chief, to whom were subordinated Major AliklianofF, M. Lessar, and other Russian officers familiar with the frontier. Instead of their colleagues, they found, however, at Pul-i-Khatun, forty miles south of Sarakhs, a Russian picket of Cossacks gazing at the English comers, as if to ask of them, '* What have you got to look for in Russian territory?" Now we can readily imagine that this first rebuff was sufficient to convince Sir Peter Lumsden of the utter futility of the task before him, and that the English gentlemen had rather a bad foretaste of the work entrusted to them. It must be borne in mind that it was upon the Sarakhs Khodja- Salili line that the frontier rectification was to take place. For we read in the Blue Book (" Central Asia, No. 1," 1SS4), that M. de Giers, with a view to 86 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. preventing disturbances on the borders of Afghanistan, considered it to be of great importance that the boun- dary of that country from Khodja-Salih to the Persian frontier, in the neighbourliood of Sarakhs, should be formally and definitely laid down, and that he had instructed Prince Lobanoff to endeavour to induce her Majesty's Government to agree to the adoption of measures for that purpose. If such were Russian measures in 18S2, we may well ask what were the reasons of that sudden change, and why was the frontier line pushed down southwards forty miles to Pul-i-Kliatun, and subsequently another forty miles southward to the ZulfikarPass on the Heri-Eud ? The answer will be very easily found if we consider that, during the last two years, the English having entered upon the venturesome undertaking in Egypt, and having become thoroughly immersed in troubles in the Soudan, were deemed by the politicians on the Neva as really incapable of resistance, and easily to be tampered with according to Eussia's heart's desire. It is certainly one of the worst tricks that has ever been plaj^ed by diplomacy, when we consider that Eussia, availing herself of the embarrassments of the Liberal Government on the Thames, was unconscion- able enough to pitch into that very Mr. Gladstone who was the author and upholder of Eussian sym- pathies in England, who swore by the sincerity of the RUSSIA'S DESIGNS UPON HERAT. 87 Czar, and who was fitted now to bitterly expiate his llussian proclivities. Of course seiitimentalit}', unknown in politics, had never a home in St. Peters- burg, and Eussia, disregarding all previous promises relating to the frontier points, thought proper to anne:: as much as she could, and by using the device of Prince Bismarck, namely, " Beati possidentesj' to fix a line wherever favourable circumstances afforded the best opportunity. Apart from this move to the south, on the banks of the Heri-Eud, Eussia had begun simultaneously to push on towards that portion of the Murghab river which was the indisputable possession of the Afghans, namely, to Penjdeh, in order to secure a firm footing in the cultivable regions of the Paropamisus out- skirts, after having crossed the desert from Merv to the last-named place. The plan as to this portion of Afghanistan had already become ripe in 1SS4, for, after the successful termination of the comedy of voluntary submission at Merv, vague rumours were spread about concerning an equally voluntar}^ submis- sion of the Sarik Turkomans living in and around Penjdeh, and, in fact, certain elders of the said tribes presented themselves at Ashkabad, and, after having obtained presents from General Komaroif, deposited their oaths of fidelity to the Czar, without the slightest right, however, of representing their own nation, as 88 TRE COMING STRUGGLE FOR WDIA. we afterwards learned. To Eussia this farce was suf- ficient to make her come forward with claims upon PenjJeh. Major AlikhanofF, entrusted with the occupation of Penjdeh, tried several times to get possession of the place, and having found there in June, 1884, a strong Afghan garrison, and seeing that the Sarik had not the slightest notion of the so-called voluntary submission to the Czar, for they were ready to attack the Cossacks in company with the Afghans, he saw himself compelled to retire upon Merv, with- out giving up, however, the hope of a future success- ful annexation. Sir Peter Lumsden, together with the members of the Delimitating Commission, on seeing how totally different the state of things on the spot was from what he had reason to expect in London, and finding how difiicult it was to carry out the instructions given to him by the Liberal ministry, at once entered upon a lively exchange of despatches with his superiors, and jDointed out that there must be something wrong about the whole question of frontier rectification. We, the distant lookers-on, felt from the beginning a distrust of the whole concern. The writer of these lines was one of the first who ridiculed the whole affair of future delimitation, in a paper published in i\\e Nafional Eevieio oi November, 1S84. He styled the whole thing one of the most ridiculous farces TIUSSIA\S DESIGNS UrOX HERAT. 89 ever j)layecl in politics, and concluded tlie aljoN'c- mentioned paper by saying : " For whilst public opinion in England is lulled by these palliatives into the tor23or of security, Russia has the finest oppor- tunity, backed by this illusory frontier-line, to prepare herself in silence for that leap which Avill deal lier death-blow to Great Britain, great and powerful as she still is at this moment." A few weeks later, the same writer, feeling his patience exhausted at the designedly dilatory steps of Russia, drew the attention of the British public, in a letter addressed to the editor of T/ie Times, to the ignominious forbearance shown by the British Cabinet in permitting the Commission to be kept waiting for months, camped beneath the inclement sky of the Paropamisan winter, and explained that he discovered an intentional insult in the fact of the British Lion being made to ante- chamber at the Russian Bear's. This letter had the desired effect upon the English public. The great majority of the English press joined in reproaching the Government for its unjustiti- able and undignified forbearance. Questions were repeatedly put in the House of Commons, the diplo- matic correspondence between London and St. Peters- berg grew quicker and more excited, assuming a tone of asperity, and it was then only that the question began to show itself in its true and genuine shape, yO THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. betraying, at the same time, the serious imporfcarce of the claims put forward by Russia. First of all we got to hear that the cabinet of St. Petersburg had made up its mind to form a strictly ethnical, and not a geographical frontier, being the very cabinet which, eleven years before, had said in the himous circular of Prince Grortschakoff in 18G4, that slie had a strong belief in '' les conditions giograpUiques et politiques qui 807it fixes et permanentes." This was, at all events, a very strange obliviousness in the matter of principles ; an obliviousness quite suited, however, to the actual purposes in view ; for, whilst on the banks of the Yaxartes the frontier line betw^een Tashkend fully justified the adoption of a geographical method, the circumstances on the Murghab were of quite a different nature, and necessitated the adoption of the ethnical method instead, for the simple reason that Eussia, anxious to get at the cultivable region of Afghanistan, had to put forward her claim upon the Sarik popu- lation. It was announced in the usual high-sounding phrases, that in order to tranquillise the whole Turko- man country, it had become unavoidably necessary that not a single member of that family should be left out, for should the Sarik in the east, and the Salor in the south, remain independent, or under Afghan rule, their predatory habits would cause dis- turbance, and highly aggravate, nay, render impossible RUSSIA'S DESIGNS VPON HERAT. 91 a settled rule in Merv, and in the Tedjend oasis. What very strange logicians these Ilussians are ! Ten years ago, when reducing the Yomut tribe, they did not entertain the slightest scruple at leaving a large portion of that people under the Persian sway, and, satisfied with the geographical frontier of the Gurgan, the idea of an ethnical frontier did not so much as enter their minds. But, good gracious ! times and circumstances change. Now, the ethnical frontier had come to the fore, and seemed to them the only sound basis for an arrangement. At all events a ludicrous idea, for whilst the geographical frontier is steady and im- movable, the ethnical one, based upon the roving habits of nomadic and plundering Turkomans, is of a pre-eminently shifting character, but exactly suit- ing Russia, who was also bent upon shifting the limits of her possessions towards Afghanistan, and endeavouring to get as near as possible to the roads which would bring her the more quickly to the Grate of India. Nearly four months now elapsed, spent in con- tinual discussion, carried on partly between the two Cabinets, partly between the press of the countries. What the contents of these despatches may have been, we, uninitiated mortals, have no right to inquire into ; but with reference to the enunciations of the press, we liave seen that the question mainly turned on tlie 92 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. legal aspect of tlie Russian or Afglian claim to the debatable country, the former being very naturally backed by Russian papers, and the latter, with the exception of one Eussianised paper, by the press of Great Britain. We really wonder at English statesmen and English journalists, that in spite of their ample experience of Russian mendacity and unexampled arrogance, they took the trouble to discuss the legal view of the question, knowing very well that, in the ultimate end, the Russian principle of " might is right," was sure to carry the point. The arguments advanced by Russia in reference to Penjdeh, rested mainly upon the assumption that the Afglians had but quite recently taken possession of Penjdeh, inhabited by the Sarik Turkomans, and that this place had always been looked upon as an integral part of the Turkoman country. Now this is, to use the mildest expression, the most insolent lie ever invented, for not only does the geographical position of Penjdeh speak against such an assumption, but also all the available historical records laid down in tlie works of Oriental writers. In the Tarikhi Djihan Kusha, composed by Djuveini, in the second half of the thirteenth century, we read of the Badghis as belonging to Herat, and handed over, afterwards, to the Chihar Aimaks. Later on we meet with state- ments to the same effect made by the historian of RUSSIA'S DESIGNS WON UELIAT. 03 Timur, as well as in the reports of tlie historiographers of the last Timurides. Last and not least, we may mention that the name of Penjdeh is strictly Persian, meaning five villages ; the name is the last Persian nomenclature in this direction, for farther to the north, the topography in the desert is entii'ely and exclusively of Turkish origin. As to the Afghan claim, justified by the historical record of the recent past, we may quote a passage of a letter published in the Times of India, June 2, by the special corres- pondent of that paper with the Boundary Com- mission, in the contents of which we shall only correct the orthography of the proper names, not easily manageable by a non-orientalist authority : " It is probably through some subtle quibbling over the Herat and Kabul kingdoms, and cunning argument as to the period and extent of Afghan domi- nation in Herat, that the Russians have come to con- vince themselves, and persuade many others, that Penjdeh is not, and has not been, in possession of the Afghans and a portion of Afghan territory. We have a map of the Afghan, or rather, Herat kingdom in the time of Yar Mohammed, prepared by Todd. This map both shows Penjdeh and Pul-i-Khatun to have been in possession of Herat at that period. The Russian officials on this side of Turkestan must have seen the watch-towers up to Pul-i-Khatun. These 94 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. raid observatories were built by Wazeer Ameer Kildy Khan in the time of Shah Zeman— say, some sixty years ago. Since the death of Nadir Shah, the district of Penjdeh and Badghis has unquestionably belonged to the Afghans, whether power gravitated towards Herat, or Kabul, or Kandahar. About sixty years ago Penjdeh was inhabited by Djemshidis and Huzaras. When these sections of the Aimak family left, the Ersari Turkoman came and paid tribute to the Afghan Government. After the Ersari a few Salor Turkomans arrived and settled. At this period a Naib of the Afghan Government always resided in Penjdeh. On the departure of the Djemshidis and Huzaras from Penjdeh, the Afghan Government appear to have recovered the revenue of the district through the Huzara chief of Kila Nau. The modern history of the district is embodied in the relations between the Sariks and Afghans. Some eight and twenty years ago the Sarik moved down from Merv, and pressed out the weaker elements attracted around Penjdeh. The Sarik having moved down to Penj- deh, and seized the fertile banks of the Khuslik and Murghab, near their united waters, the Ersari departed to the Oxus eastwards, where they prospered, and are still prospering, and only a few hundred families of the Salor remained at Pul-i-Khishti and Kila Nau. The Ersari in physique are considered by many to be iiussnrs designs upon her at. 95 superior to either Tekke or Sarik ; they are fairer and taller men than the other Turkomans we liave seen. A very clear record of the revenue relations between the settlers at Penjdeh and the Afghan Government exists. The obligation of acknowledging their fealty in the pa} ment of revenue, appears never to have been avoided. Ziilait in cattle and corn has always been paid. The amount of revenue from Penjdeh must have fluctuated with the influence and stability of the Government at Kabul or Herat; but at all times zuJcut appears to have been acknowledged. The succession of Afghan Governors at Penjdeh estab- lishes the chain of connection : it is scarcely necessary to refer to those Governors, whose period of office w^as not memorable for any remarkable works, nor con- nected with any memorable events. As long a time ago as sixty j^ears a Djemshidi represented the Af- ghan Government at Penjdeh — Dervish Khan was then Governor." To ]Merv Peujdeh never did belong, it always formed the last station of the district of Herat, and the llussian claim is, therefore, from every point of view unfounded and unjust. As to the Itussian claims to the country south of Sarakhs, they are the easier refuted, and proved a wanton encroachment, if we consider that the Heri- Kud was, from immemorial times, the very frontier- line between Persia and Herat, and that even at such 96 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. periods, when the kings of Iran possessed themselves of the last-named town, the Heri-Rud was looked upon as the border of the Herat district, whilst the left bank was accounted to belong to the district of Meshed. And what should we say of the ethnical rights of Eussia, considering that the Sarik Turko- mans belonged, in the fifteenth century alread}^. to Herat, and are called even by the Tartar historian, Abulgbazi Khan, Herat Turhneni, in contra- distinc- tion to the Merv Turkmen!. And why should not we point to the utter want of consistency shown by Russia in asking the Sariks and their country as an integral portion of the Turkoman world, whereas she did not claim the Yomuts, on the left bank of the Gurofan. and the Salors livinor in Zorabad, on Persian territory ? Indeed, it would be wasting time if we were to dilate any longer upon the shallow and insolent pretensions of Russia, and we must repeatedly express our astonishment that English statesmen took the trouble to seriously combat the claims put forward in St. Petersburg. Russia being perfectly clear, in her own mind, upon what she was bent, did not spare an}^ pains to impress upon the Liberal cabinet the justness of her assertions, and in order to achieve this, she despatched M. Lessar to London, as an assistant to M. de Staal ; the same M. Lessar who had explored the country RUSSIA'S DESIGNS UPON HERAT. 97 around Herat, and had been the chief coadjutor in planning the mischievous policy against England. Now against M. de Staal, in company with M. Lessar, poor Lord Kimberley and Lord Granville were certainly an unequal match ; but, nevertheless, the consultations went on, and in order to ensure the result of these consultations, an arrangement or an agreement was entered into, that the Eussians and Afghans should maintain their positions in the debatable country during that time, or at least so long as the deliberations in London had not come to an end. Eussia pledged her word, on the conditi(m that no untoward event should occur ; and, as the occur- rence of such untoward events rested in her own hands, she was clever and mischievous enough to bring on the famous catastrophe of the 30th of March, in which, as is pretty well-known, nearly 700 Afghans were slaughtered in cold blood on the banks of the Khushk. This incident, which forms even now, as I am writing, the subject of discussion between the two Governments, was, as Sn Peter Lumsden is reported to have said to T/ie Times corres- pondent at Vienna, an unprovoked and utterly unjus- tifiable aggression on the part of General Komaroff, an act premeditated a long time ago, and committed in direct violation of all international law ; an asser- tion which is tolerably justitied by the fact that the 98 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. result of this untoward event was reaped by Russia, inasmuch as she took possession of the much coveted Penjdeh and holds it even now. We need not be astonished at the extraordinary sensation, mixed with bitter feelings of animosity against Russia, the bloody affair on the Kbushk has produced in England. Not only Conservative, but also Liberal politicians, unanimous in their condemnation of Russian treachery, were loudly crying for w^ar. All England was ablaze ; only the Liberal Ministry kept cool, and, in their indefatigable zeal to discover the real cause of that mischief, they happily found out that the Muscovite lambs were again innocent, that they were pressed upon to fight against the Afghans ; nay, they w^ent even farther, and, immolating the good name of their own country- man, they were not ashamed to come forward with the assertion that it was the harshness of Sir Peter Lumsden and his party which had hastened the ill- fated event. This escape, the greatest blot which has ever stained the character of British statesmen, having been found, the negotiations went on again un- interruptedly, and are going on even now as I write these lines, for no definite information is extant about the frontier regulations between Russia and Afghan- istan, and all that has oozed out hitherto consists of RUSSIA'S DESIGNS UPON HERAT. 99 the fact that Russia is to remain in possession of Penjdeli, in spite of all tlie geographical, historical, and etlmical arguments speaking against her, and that only her position on the Heri-Eud still remains open to discussion. Eeferring to this part of the question, we hear that the Czar has been kind enougli to give up the Zulfikar Pass, that he is ready to fix the most southerly point of his frontier in the north of the last-named place, and that this frontier line is now to run from the Heri-Eud, skirting the Elbirin- Kir in the south, and including the Er-Oilan salt lakes; it will cross the Murghab south of Penjdeh, and thence to tlie Ox us. The details of this de- limitation, being hitherto unknown, and requiring a good deal of time until they will be finally settled, we may now well consider the results which Eussia has obtained in this protracted contest, by stating at once f/iai ihe unheard of short-sif/lifcchw-'ss of British statesmen has handed over to her ihe very ke//^ with which she can now open, at her leisure, the (/ate of India ^ for she is in full possession of all the ways which can hrin'lish, supposing the railway sanctioned by the Groverument as far as rishin to be finished in two years, are still 470 miles distant from Herat. We may add as well, that the one hundred miles separating Eussia from Herat lie in a fertile, level and well watered country, whilst the 470 miles an English army would have to make, pass through a frequently arid tract, and haunted by a population, the friendly feelings and assistance of which cannot always be relied upon. In summing up briefly what we said before, we can state that Eussia will be able to inarch to Herat from lier railway ter- minus in eight or ten days, whilst England, consider- ing the great distance, would require forty-seven days ; to say the least an extraordinary difference in time and in the facilities of locomotion, if we con- sider the important part railways are playing in modern warfare. Eeflecting, therefore, upon this great drawback England has to contend with in any future complica- tions with Eussia, which through her position in Penjdeh has become an imminent threat, it would be the most ])erilous self-delusion to adhere in future to the principle of Afghan neutralit}', or of Afghan friendship ; a principle laid down by such states- men only as, eager to shirk liabilities and fond of 128 TnE COMING STBUGGLE FOR INDIA. ]jatcli\vork, were either short -sighterl enough to ig- nore unmistakable facts, or betra^Tcl utter want of patriotism in trj'ing to put on the shoulders of their successors burdens such as they themselves did not feel equal to sustaining. I have always ridiculed the idea of making a buffer of the country of the Afghans, being full}^ convinced of the want of elas- ticit}^ of the material employed for tliat purpose. I never was a believer in Afghan friendship, and even now I believe that such sympathies will come for- ward only if far greater dangers threatening from the north compel the unruly fanatic mountaineers be3^ond the Suleiman range to look to the British lion for shelter. In the meantime I should not wait until the whole nation gets convinced of the necessity of such a step. But the idea of a whole Afghan nation being a preposterous one, considering that these unmanageable elements can be hardly ever roused into unity, it suggests itself to now make use of tliat portion of the national element which stands nearest to the possibility of a voluntary movement of that character ; that portion which is headed now b}' a prince aware of the gravity of the situation, and who, owing to his thorough knowledge of the cha- racter of greedy, faithless, and despotic Eussia, will give preference to English offers of amity, and who, utterly convinced of the necessity of yielding, will ENGLISH 3IUANS OF DEFENCE, 129 and must prefer to lose one portion of his dominions ratlier tlian to risk the whole, and to stake his crown and the independence of his nation. I am fully aware of the great aversion felt in England, particularly by a certain party in the country, to any policy which would involve fresh hos- tilities against Afghanistan, i.e., a third Afghan \\i\\\ Well: if there is any possibility of a reasonable reliance upon the good faith of Emir Abdurrah- man, of course it would be better to avoid any coercive measure causing war, and to convince that ruler that it is his own interest to have the railway extended from the Indus up to Kandahar, with a telegraph line as far as Herat. For the sake of not giving umbrage to the suspicious Afghans, I would agree with the military correspondent of The Times (May 26) to have the terminus of the railway outside Kandahar held eventually by a small picked garrison of 200 or 300 native troops. But, as to Herat, I believe that there cannot be any consideration for Afgl an susceptibilities ; as the fortifications of that place must be put in a proper state of defence at British cost and superintended by officers of the Itoyal Enmneers. The escort of the resident should consist of a regiment of sepoys, of a company of pioneers, of a squadron of native cavalry, and of a battery of native artillery ; and provisioned for six months, as the above- J 130 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB. INDIA. quoted military correspondent suggests it could be if lodged in the citadel, this would be the best safeguard against a Eussian coiijj de main, which has become recently, since the occupation of Penjdeh, such an inuninent danger. Now, to such propositions people will naturally object by saying : We won't jeopardise the lives of our officers at the distant outposts, we will have no renewal of catastrophes like those of Burnes and Cavagnari in Kabul, and we abhor any transaction based upon the amity of the Afghans. My answer to such objections is simply this, that if the Emir is unwilling or incapable to afford sufficient protection to those who labour for the safety of his crown and national independence, then he is either not the de facto ruler of his country, or he harbours hostile feelings against England; and in either case, England must resort to force, and carry out the measures of defence of her own frontiers with every means at her disposal. This would, of course, mean a third Af- ghan war, a shocking eventuality for many English politicians : but since Eussia cannot and ought not to be permitted to occupy at random this important place, w^hich would make her, practically, master of all Afghanistan, and ruin for ever British p'esU(/e in Asia, I believe that of the two evils, namely, a war with Eussia or Afghanistan, the lesser one must ENGLISH MEANS OF DEFENCE. 131 be chosen, for there can be no mistake about it that the immediate neighbourhood of Russia to India is far more dangerous, and may prove far more costly than any forcible seizure of Kandahar, or garrisoning of Herat. If the Liberals had not pursued the suicidal policy of evacuating Kandahar in 1880, a blun- der which they themselves now regretfully acknow- ledge, as I myself had occasion to hear during my last stay in England from the lips of eminent Liberal statesmen, the eventuaUty of a third Afghan war would be entirely beyond the range of any possibility. But this national calamity cannot be now repaired, and if Emir Abdurrahman, who was invited, a poor beggar, to sit on the throne of his cousin, and would have been ready to concede at that time any con- dition offered, be likely now to oppose, and even to fight against the execution of these schemes, salutary to himself and to the interest of Great Britain, I beg leave to remark that even in that case England ought not to retreat from carrying out the unavoid- able measures for the defence of her frontier. As matters stand to-day, the Emir will certainly consider twice of it before he enters into hostilities with England, and I am not in the least afraid of his making common cause with Eussia and in casting his lot with the conqueror of the north. The disastrous fate which has befallen his uncle, Shir Ali Khan, J 2 132 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. rises up before his vision like a dread spectre. A twelve years' intimate connection with Eussian officers has fully imj^arted to him the knowledge of the faitlilessness and unreliahleness of the ]\1 uscovites ; and really, if such had not been the case, he would have long ago been caught in the net of Russian in- trigues, and beguiled by promises profusely sent from Tashkend, would not have come to Rawul Pindi, and would not have fought Alikhanoff on the Khushk. As to the people of Kandahar, there is not the slightest apprehension of their resistance, as we formerly stated. The west of Afghanistan is quite different from the east and north of that country. Here the Afghan element is not so com- j^act, for it reaches only to the Hilmend, or, at the utmost, beyond Girishk, nor is it conspicuous for those military qualities generally applied to the whole nation. Sir Eichard Temple, who speaks of the Afghans as a fightiDg race, and who gives full credit to their martial virtues, says, among other things : " This description is applicable fully to the country around Kabul, and to northern Afghanistan, but in a much less degree to the country round Kandahar, and to southern Afghanistan ; indeed, many believe that the city and district of Kandahar could, if necessary, be permaneutly held. There is a considerable difference ENGLISH MEANS OF EEFENGE. 13b between the character of the northern tribes and that of the southern." In summing up, therefore, all the means of de- fence available to England, we must come to the conclusion that the line of policy hitherto followed, with reirard to Afofhanistan, must underoro an entire and radical change. The time for experimenting is irrevocably gone; the idea of convincing the Emir of British friendship, and getting in exchange for it Afghan sympathies, must be dropped for ever, for should he prove obstinately blind to his own interests, then he cannot be used as an all}^ in the defence of India. To dall}' with the sympathies of Asiatics, and particu- larly of Mohammedan Asiatics, is a pastime which only Itussia may permit herself, as she is quite superior to England in duly appreciating the doubtful value of such Eastern articles. She, above all, takes care to fetter tightly her Asiatic neighbours or allies ; she even goes so far as to cripple them ; and if these allies or neighbours, after having been rendered totally innocuous and powerless, will come forward with their S3'mpathies, she then only allows them to make declarations of love, and only permits herself, occasionally, the luxury of responding with a fond simper. England, on the contrary, unable to under- stand the real value of Asiatic professions of amity has been too frequently misled in her dealings with 134. TEE COMING STRUGGLE FOB iNDtA, Mohammedan powers in Central Asia. Slie has opened her purse liberally, giving rich subsidies in money and in arms, forgetting entirely the lesson experience might have taught her, that this money and these arms will be employed by her good friends to fight her. What use is there in the £120,000 annually given to Emir Abdurrahman, refusing as he does, even now, to receive an English officer as an envoy and repre- sentative of the Viceroy ? Whenever the attention of the Grovernment has been called to this anomaly, we generally got to hear that the Emir could not guarantee the safety of the English representative against his fanatical and ill-disposed subjects. Is Sir Bartle Frere not quite right, when he remarks on this subject — " I have never believed in the vaUdity of this objection, and I should consider it quite chimerical, unless it were formally stated by the Euler himself. In that case, I should point out to him the absurdity of his calling himself the Euler of a country where he could not ensure the safety of an honoured guest. I should decline to communicate with him except through a representative accredited to him like our envoys at other Asiatic courts, and I should state clearly the impossibility of our talking of friendly relations with a nation where our represen- tative would not be welcomed." ("Afghanistan and South Africa," 5th edition, London, 1881, p. 30.) ENGLISH MEANS OF DEFENCE. 135 So much for the main line of future Eusslan aggression through Afghanistan. As far as regards the lateral movements across the Oxus to Balkh, and over the Hindoo Koosh to Kabul, such movements are scarcely worth noticing, and the Russians were the first who, convinced of the impossibility of carrying out such a scheme, had years ago bestowed the ijreatest care upon the main road leading from the Caspian across the Turkoman country, through Herat. We have still further to allude to the way of commu- nication, hitherto only secretly discussed, through the Pamir Plateau, which, starting from one of the passes of the Alai Mountains in Khokand, is said to convey a Russian column in a very short time to Yassin and Ghilghit, enabling the daring adventurers to drop down like a Dens ex machind, and to attack the Eng- lish from a vulnerable and least expected side. As there is no historical record of such a feat In march- ing, we should rather turn our attention to a ques- tion which has in these latter days been the subject of so many and varied discussions — namely, to the military strength of the two rival Powers, and the skill and preparation necessitated by the future struggle. But this being the province of a strictly military pen, and being, therefore, utterly beyond the range of my literary powers, I beg to refer my reader to a chapter in Col. Malleson's lately published 136 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. excellent little book, " The Husso-Afglian Question and the Invasion of India/' headed " The Annies on both sides/' an elaborate and exhaustive paper which affords us an insight into the military strength of both Powers available in a contest for India. In connection with these statements I would only remark that, being accustomed to judge Eussia, not from the extension she shows on the geographical maps, but from the strength she w^as able to display on the battlefields of Europe and Asia, I must say that I do not share the opinions of those who attri- bute to that gigantic empire such a formidable and extraordinary power of action. An army which ran a great risk of being thrown into the Danube, the Emperor and general staff included, by the ill-fed, half-naked, and emaciated Turkish soldiers, if the regiments of little Eoumania had not hastened to her assistance — such an army I cannot call a formidable one. Still less does it inspire me with fear, if brought face to face with the hardy, plucky, and intrepid British soldiers of India, who, led by such generals as Donald Stewart, Eoberts, Charles Macgregor, and others like them, would certainly keep up their old reputation, and do their duty for the welfare of the country. Why should we overlook the enormous difference existing between military material recruited from a free country, and led by highly-educated UNGLtSn MEANS OF DEFENCE 137 patriotic officers on tlie one hand, and between the poor slave forcibly enlisted by despotic power, and commanded by officers who, brought up in gamblini^, debauchery, and the indulgence in dissipations of every kind, can hardly be animated by the noble spirit of free men. Indeed, it is a bitter irony of fate to have to draw comparisons between the abilities of a nation standing at the top of our civilisation, the prototype of liberal institutions for the whole world, the luminous fountain of science and of many glorious achievements of mankind, and of a society noted for its abominable vices, where truth-speaking is an unheard-of occurrence, and where an emperor said " that he was only safe with his palace built of granite, which could not be stolen by his dear sub- jects or his surroundings." In continuing to speak of the means of defence against Eussian aggression upon India, we must at the same time remark that England should return to the position she occupied up to the last six years in the Mohammedan world at large, a position which she has forfeited through what can only be called the stupidity of a certain class of her statesmen, who, actuated by gross ignorance and mischievous party spirit, were foolish enough to sneer at those very conditions which cave streno^th to the Eno-lish rule in India, and to English influence all over Moslem Asia. The readei- 138 TEE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. iniist know tliat, up to recent times, tlie Moliammedan Asiatic conceived under the notion of Europe of two main agencies. One was the continually destructive, encroaching, and extirpating power — namely, llussia — whom he identified with Dedjal (the anti-Christ), with the implacable enemy of Islam, who can nev^er be appeased, and with whom it is hopeless to make any terms whatever. As the second agency, and quite in contrast to the former, he knew England, whom he identified with the idea of Conservatism, of peaceful and friendly neighbourhood, and in wdiom he liked to discover a non-Mohammedan Avho could not be styled a totally black unbeliever. The English Church has no images to worship, it does not admit fanatic hatred of foreign religions, whilst the main features of English character, such as coolness, com- posure, steadiness, etc., are quite in keeping with what a Turk, an Arab, and the rest of the Moham- medans, save the Persians, imagine under the name of a gentleman. During my long and intimate con- nection with Mohammedans in Asia, I always heard them extolling the virtues of the English ; English manufactures being the most solid, and the English rule the most beneficent ; so that Central Asian pilgrims, on starting from their distant homes, through India to Mecca, were not half so afraid of perils and hardships in store from them as those of ENGLISH MEANS OF DEFENCE, 139 tlieir colleagues whose way led them through Eussia, and who brought back with them the most frightful accounts of the vexatious rapaciousness and cruelti(>s they had been subjected to b}" the official and non- official world. In acquiring such experiences, I began to understand the secret of British supremacy in India, and I said to myself, what on earth could the English not achieve with this moral standing and reputation ? The reader may imagine my astonish- ment, when I afterwards saw English statesmen prid- ing themselves upon and glorying in the destruction of this eminent advantage, and, ridiculing what is called prcslige, beginning to emulate Eussia in her reckless and unjustifiable enmity against the Moham- medan world. I allude, of course, to the attitude assumed by the Liberal ^Ministry against Turkey, to the disgraceful comedy at Dulcigno, to the inglorious policy in Egypt, and to many, many other incidents aiming at the entire destruction of Turkey, of that only power in the world which can be of great service to England's standing in Asia, and cordial relations with which offin- the best safeguard to English power in Mohammedan India. Of course, there have been, and there are, even now, contradictory opinions as to the link existing between the Mohammedans of India and those of Turkey. I have read, quite recently, in a paper 140 THE COMIKG STRUGGLE FOU INDIA. written by an evidently staunch Liberal, and pub- lished in the Nineteenth Century (April, 1885), the following remark : — " Judging from my own ex- perience in India, I am of opinion that the vast majority of Mussulmans there, like the vast majority of Christians in Euro23e, are occupied chiefly with things of this world, taking thought for the morrow, how they may eat and drink, and wherewithal they may be clothed, and troubling their heads very little about the Caliph of Islam, his triumphs and defeats.'' Considering that this opinion is shared by many other influential statesmen of the same school, I beg leave to remark that " my own opinions," based upon a long and intimate connection with the Mohammedan world of Asia, have impressed me with the fact that there is a strong tie of unity between the true believers on the Indus and their co-religionaries on the Bosphorus ; a unity which has manifested itself during the late Eusso- Turkish war, through the large sums voluntarilj^ contributed by Indian rice-mer- chants, landowners and Moulwis to the exchequer of Constantinople, and which can be easily fostered by the influential native press, and made a source of great discomfort to the English, should they persevere in their enmity towards the Caliph, the legally ac- knowledged head of the whole Mohammedan world. If the gentlemen in Downing Street are not aware ENGLISH MEANS OF DEFENCE. 141 of tlie fact that Hindoo Eajahs of Moslem faith, in returning from England, where they finished their studies, are most anxious to pay their respects to the Sultan at Stambul, I would gently whisper into their ear that there always are certain mollas, dervishes and sheiks, in the close proximity of the Sultan, who regularly undertake errands to Bombay, Calcutta, and Lahore, and who, returning from the distant East to the so-called HincI Tel'c-n (Indian Convent) in Con- stantinople, are generally the bearers of such mes- sages and interchange of ideas, as fully testify to the common cause of the two extreme links of Moslem society. The Sultan, although politically a sick and half- dead man, still represents, from a religious point of view, a great moral j)ower ; and as 1 remember well the words addressed by the late Eeshid Pasha to a Hindoo Mohammedan of note in 1^57, during the Sepoy mutiny — words which left a deej) impression upon that fanatic man from the banks of the Indus, I may be well • entitled to assume that words pro- nounced by the Sultan in a contrary meaning would not miss their effect. To Eussia, Germany, Italy, etc., the Turk may be "unspeakable," and may be driven out " bag and baggage " f r()m Europe ; but to England's standing in Asia he may still be of great use, and an alliance with the Ottoman Empire 142 TEE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. recommends itself best to ward off Eussian encroach- ments in Asia. Turkey, possessing even now 400,000 men of the Lest iigliting material, is by no means a contemptible ally, and will fill up the gap left through the inefficiency of English military prepara- tion. With a comparatively small assistance of money, England, without being compelled to ,use the dubious blustering of the Germans, expressed in the words : *' Unser Volk in AVaffen " (Our people in arms), ma}^ soon get an army able to work wonders in the interior of Asia, an army which will certainly better answer expectations than the famous united force of Europe sent against Russia during the Crimean Avar, which force, directed by the in- trigues of ]^apoleon III., made itself immortally ridiculous by its achievements. Persia, in every respect inferior to Turkey, and unable therefore to offer similar advantages, can be nevertheless of use to England, if the Sbah can close Khorassan against an invading Russian army ; if he prohibits the carrying out of provisions beyond the north-eastern frontier, and facilitates, at the same time, the carrying into effect of English plans. As to those Mohammedans who now are under Russian rule being brought into a connection with an eventual at- tempt to revolutionise the Bokharians, Khokandians, and Khivans, I cannot agree with those English ENGLTSn MEANS OF DP] FENCE. 113 politicians who put any faith in this ultimate mea- sure. The flame of rebelUon might be easily kindled by the adversary too, and in such a case England would fare worst, for Tadjiks, Sarts, and Uzbegs are cowards, and there is no power to rouse them against Eussia, considering that the shadow of a Cossack suffices to strike terror into the breasts of hundreds of the settled inhabitants of the three khanates, who ought never to be compared with the Indian Mohammedan, the heir of the military virtues of his conquering ancestors. It is only as to the Turkomans that I would make an exception, knowing them, as I do, from an intimate intercourse. These adventurous and un- principled children of the desert, famous for their boundless greed, have been partly subdued by force of arras, and partly now adhere to Eussia owing to the fact of the so-called " wandering rouble." But the rouble is a very poor champion if compared with the sovereign ; its convincing power is certainly wanting in superiority, and English outbidding, properly applied, can easily bring Sariks, Salors, and Mervians, and, particularly, the Turkomans around Andkhoi, under the standard of England. For a transaction of this kind, England wants agents like Alikhanoff, Tahiroff, and Naziroff, who may be easily found in the ranks of the auxiliary Ottoman army, Osmanlis, IM THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. whose language is understood by the Turkoman, and who, known as brothers, are able to turn the whole Turkoman nation into the cauip of the English, if sufficiently assisted. As to the frequently- discussed diversion against the Caucasus, the English may, by such a move, interrupt the despatch of militarj^ succour, but I do not believe in the possibility of revolutionising that country against Eussia. The Georgian and Armenian nationalists, of whom we used to read in the English press, are in a minority hardly worth considering, and the only revolutionary element which might have created trouble, I mean the Mohammedan Circassians, have been long since driven out of the country by the sagacious and cautious Russians. Two- thirds of these warlike mountaineers, thus expatriated, have perished in Turkey. In concluding this chapter, treating of the means of defence left to England, I cannot leave unmen- tioned one point, to which, though seemingly out of place from a foreigner, I nevertheless must allude as to the /0//6' et origo mali. I mean, party politics in England, which have, of late, so essentially injured the Imperial interests of that countrj^, and which really have done so much harm to England's position in Asia, that the most strenuous efibrts of very many yeairs to come may scarcely be able to heal the ENGLISH MEANS OF DEFENCE. 145 wounds and restore the respect and consideration for England, so wantonly destroyed by the selfishness of one party in its struggle against the other. The frivolity and short-sightedness exhibited by a certain political party, of late years, culminating in the famous Egyptian ophthalmy, was really of such a nature as to make people despair of the results of constitutional life. In a superficial judgment one might have taken the statesmen, who have been deliberately deceived by Russia step by step in Asia, who have made all Europe an enemy to England, and who have shown cold indifference whilst the prestige of Grreat Britain was going to pieces all over the world, either as miscreants, or as men escaped from the lunatic asylum. Foreigners, indeed, enter- tain such an opinion ; but my experience has taught me that English statesmen, no matter to what party they belonged, were honest and patriotic in their intentions, and that it is only the great misfortune of the country that their political views are biassed by party spirit, emj)loyed even in cases where the actual merits of the respective measures are very question- able, and when it becomes patent that it is not the welfare of the country, but that of the party, which is aimed at. In order to put an end, once for all, to the occur- rence of such injurious eventualities, it seems to me K 146 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR INDIA. unavoidably necessary that, besides tbe two leading parties of the country, a third one, namely, a national and imperial party, should come forward — a party whose exclusive care should be be- stowed upon the foreign relations of Great Britain, and who, alive to the importance of a great national policy befitting the vast dominions of the Queen Emj^ress, should not allow the honour of the country to drift at random through party strifes and rivalries. But, where one party undoes the work achieved by its predecessors in power, the progress, nay, even the maintenance of imperial strength and po\Ver will become utterly impossible ; and the worst of all is that, according to the Latin saying, " inter duos litigantes tertius est gaudens,^' the tertius, namely, Eussia, has really made the best out of these petty squabbles, and, whilst the English were quarrelling about the Why and How of the measures under consideration, the insidious bear was quietly trotting towards India. CHAPTER X. THE ONLY REASONABLE LINE OF DEFENCE. It is just tlie consideration of the above-quoted vacil- lation of the politicians of Great Britain, which re- minds us of the extraordinary fact, that in default of a constantly and uniformly ruling spirit, England has been unable to decide to this day the question whether the possession of India ought to be defended by the seemingly natural barrier in the mountains of the north-west, involving the immediate neighbourhood of Eussia on the Indus ; or whether it would be more judicious to erect outworks, to have a glacis of defence, and consequently not to allow the Cossack to approach either the Kheiber or the Bolan Passes. And strange to say, this highly serious and important question is even now left open for discussion in this country, called pre-eminently practical! Hannibal ante port as, and my English friends are continually quarrelling whether the Indus, the Hilmend, or the Ileri-Eud ought to be made the line of defence! Certainly it is a most afflicting sight to see a man K 2 148 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. who is attacked by a crafty enemy, pondering on tlie clioice of arms at a moment when the hostile sword is at his throat. It is not my intention to dwell here at any length on the views expressed by me with reference to this question, ten, fifteen, nay twenty years ago ; for I suppose it is pretty well-known to the English reader, in general, that I always stood wp in my writings for the erection of a bulwark for the defence of India which should be in due proportion to the object to be defended. I mean to say, I found it alwa^^s evident — and I am glad to see myself sustained by the highest military authorities — that England absolutely needs outworks for a valid defence of her north-western frontier ; that the idea of having Eussia in the immediate neighbourhood of Hindostan must be definitely dropped, and nobod}^ must dream au}' more of accepting the j)hrase an English states- man used to me twelve years ago : — " Just as I prefer having a well-dressed, educated and polite neighbour, instead of a dirty -looking savage barbarian, so we prefer having Russia close at our frontier, instead of the unruly, unmanageable, and wild Afghans." Nowadays everybody is convinced that India, under the present circumstances, is still to be compared to a powder-mill, into the vicinity of which no man of sound mind would admit an enemy, with burning THE ONLY REASONABLE LINE OF DEFENCE. 149 tinder in liis hand, ready to throw the incendiary spark into the powder of his neighbour, and anxious to turn to his advantage the ensuing explosion. Itussia, indeed, has ah'eady tried, in 1878, to make such a stroke with her army collected on the Oxus, and she really planned what Skobeleff called : — '' The means of a hard blow, struck in the front simultaneously with a mutiny fomented at the rear of the Indus." At that time the Congress of Berlin restrained the Russian arm ; nevertheless, it never ceased to be a favourite idea with her, carrying out the will of Skobeleff, who thus summed up this policy : — " It will be in the end our duty to organise masses of Asiatic cavalry, and to hurl them into India, under tlie banner of blood and pillage, as a vanguard, as it were, thus reviving the times of Tamerlane." In considering: the chance of Russian success in an attempt to foment a mutiny, and to cause a general or a partial rising, we must look solely to England's present situation in India, and, steadily keeping before our eyes the results of her policy so far, ask ourselves the pregnant question whether, during her rule of nearly a century, attended by the never-ceasing work of civilisation, she has so far succeeded in securing the sympathies of the 250,000,000 of foreign sub- jects under her sway, as to be justified in expecting that, at a critical moment, these subjects will not 150 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA, countenance a change of masters, and that they would look upon England's enemy as the enemy of India, and make common cause with her against any external attack. The answer to this question is the pivot-point upon which the chances of the great contest between the two rival European colossi in Asia are turn- ing ; for Enghmd, even under most auspicious cir- cumstances, strategically, would be hardly equal to the task of defending her gigantic empire against external attacks, if its inhabitants, averse to her sceptre, were to entertain at the same time, in hopes of bettering their fortunes, a secret longing for a new master. This question has been inquired into and discussed numberless times, in every imaginable aspect, within the last twenty years, nay, during the whole of this century; and if, in spite of the con- siderable literature which has sprung up in connec- tion with it, I venture to say a word or two on the subject, I do so for the sole reason that, owing to the neutral stand-point I occupy, and to my experience, both practical and theoretical, amongst Asiatics, ex- tending over a score of years, I consider myself qualified to treat it with the fullest objectivity. I repeat, with some emphasis, " amongst Asiatics," for it is in India that we find the richest fountain of Asiatic views of life, and hence have emanated all those THE ONLY REASONABLE LINE OF DEFENCE. 151 peculiarities, prejudices, and superstitions, with which we constantly meet, in the shape of the most irrecon- cilable contrast with our own views of life, among the Turks, Arabs, Persians, Tartars, Afghans, etc., and which have occasioned such great difficulties in all efforts to diffuse the light of modern culture in the East. In India, where these contrasts make them- selves oftener conspicuous, the work of transforma- tion and modernisation has involved the greatest imaginable struggle ; and we have only to thank the tenacity of Englishmen, and the degree of high culture incident to British civilisation, that any breaches have been effected in these ancient ramparts of Asiatic effeteness, and, where the extreme points of the two civilisations so diametrically opposed to each other have come in contact, that there, in some places, the ideas of the nineteenth century have aheady begun to force their way. Upon a closer examination of the gigantic work of the British civilisers, we find that of the two chief elements in India, the Brahminic and the Moslem, the former offers less resistance and proves much more amenable to civilising influence than the Mohammedan. In spite of the merciless rigour of the system of castes and the ritualistic laws, according to which no Yishnu-worshipper is per- mitted to come into direct contact with a Christian, 152 THE COMING STRUGGLE FOB INDIA. or even to allow tlie shadow of one to fall upon liim, the number of Hindostanees of Brahminic faith educated in English schools and employed in the British service by far exceeds the number of Moslem Hindoos similarly educated and employed. It would be unjust to ascribe this ratio to the preponderating majority of the Brahminic population, for the same ratio is maintained in these districts even where the Vishnu-worshippers happen to be in a minority. The non-Mohammedan Hindoo represents, no doubt, the primeval type of the Asiatic cast of mind, but the op- pression he has been subjected to for over a thousand years has rendered him more manageable and docile ; he submits with better grace to the dictates of the foreign ruler than his Mohammedan countryman; and if the latter has been lately complaining that he is excluded from his share in the State offices, and is less favoured by the English than his Hindoo neigh- bour, he may attribute the cause of this to himself. For it was his Moslem fanaticism, coupled with the recollection of the part he had once played as one of the ruling class, which has always impeded, and, to some extent, still renders impossible the work of assimilation. An attempt on the part of the English to cloak over, or to ignore, this marked sullenness exhibited by the Moslem element would be criminal, and would THE ONLY REASONABLE LINE OF DEFENCE. 153 terribly revenge itself in time. Let us own it frankly. Islam has manifested this feature in its struggle with occidental culture, in all the continent alike, throughout the whole length and breadth of its extent. Material decline may have made it suscep- tible to temporary impressions, but these impressions very soon glided off its body. It is, and remains, the old and incorrigible representative of Asiatic fanati- cism, which will enter into no compromises with the modern march of the w^orld, and. will rather hasten towards sure and irretrievable ruin than yield to those ideas which the world of the unbelieviug, the enemies of the Prophet, are proclaiming and propagating. I am by no means exaggerating when I assert, that, in the coalition of his fanatic brethren in iaith, the Mohammedan in India stands foremost, and that the most stubborn opposition to the teachings of our civilisation will come from him. In doing so T am not guided quite by the views contained in a work of Mr. W. W. Hunter's, entitled Our Indian M//i