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THE 
 
 RUSSO-AFGHAN QUESTION 
 
 AND THE 
 
 INVASION OF INDIA 
 
 BY 
 
 COLONEL G. B. MALLESON, C.S.I. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " HERAT, THE GRANARY AND GARDEN OF CENTRAL ASIA,' 
 " HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN," ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 
 
 NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE 
 
 1885 
 
HENRY MORSE STEPHENS 
 
cue. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 RUSSIA has at last spoken ! After years patiently spent in 
 absorbing the desert, she reached in 1884 the borders of the 
 promised land. Her first act on arriving there was to object to 
 the frontier which Lord Granville had proposed in October, 
 1872, which she, by the despatches of her Chancellor, dated 
 respectively in December, 1872, and January, 1873, had accepted, 
 and which in Russian and English maps alike has, ever since, 
 been marked as the frontier. Yielding, in a weak moment, to 
 an objection posed solely for the purpose of deriving some 
 practical advantage from the re-opening of a settled question, 
 Lord Granville arranged with Russia that Commissioners 
 should be sent from both countries to the spot, to fix there the 
 exact line of demarcation which was to be the limit of Russia's 
 advance towards India. In consequence of this agreement an 
 English Commissioner, of distinguished service in India, pro- 
 ceeded without delay to the point agreed upon. He found 
 there the valleys, the rivers, the mountains, the people, but no 
 Russian Commissioner ! The Russian Commissioner was, 
 indeed, conspicuous by his absence, but, to counterbalance that 
 absence, parties of Russian soldiers crossed the line which 
 since 1872-73 had been accepted as the boundary of the coun- 
 try, and seized positions, useless for commercial, most impor- 
 tant for strategical, purposes positions which, since the year 
 1863, and even before that year, had paid tribute to Herat the 
 north-western province of the dominions of England's ally, the 
 Amir of Afghanistan ! 
 
 To show the necessity, if we wish still to hold India, of the 
 retention, by an ally of England, of the positions Russia has 
 seized ; to demonstrate the absolute right of the Amir to those 
 positions, and the lawlessness of the act of Russia in seizing 
 them ; to set clearly before the public the cherished ultimate 
 
 514409 
 
6 Preface. 
 
 aim which prompted Russia to the conquest of the desert ; and 
 to point out how the display of an iron resolution alone can 
 avert from Herat and India the threatened danger, I have 
 written the pages that follow. I have written them, not as a 
 party man, but as an Englishman. Not as a party man, first, 
 because, believing that the two great parties in the State have 
 alike blundered, I have pointed out with impartiality the mis- 
 takes of both. Not as a party man, secondly and specially, 
 because in a matter affecting the maintenance of an Empire 
 the voice of patriotism should silence the selfish contentions of 
 party. For, in very deed, it is an Empire which is now at 
 stake, and it is by patriotic efforts alone that the splendid crea- 
 tion of our fathers and our fathers' fathers can be maintained. 
 
 The form in which this little book is published will make it 
 accessible to all classes. It will tell those classes the truth, 
 and, telling them the truth, will impose upon them a sacred 
 duty. That duty is, above all things, to insist that the Minis- 
 ters of England shall maintain, with respect to our Indian 
 Empire, the old historical policy of England ; that the Ministers 
 of England shall compel Russia to withdraw her unjust pre- 
 tensions, to retire behind the frontier which she has violated. 
 If the people of Great Britain fail to perform this duty, they 
 will become partners in a policy, born of infirmity of purpose 
 and cowardice, which will lose for us our Indian Empire ! 
 
 In my outspoken criticisms I may have struck at cherished 
 prejudices and wounded personal vanities. In dealing with a 
 crisis which is partly the consequence of mistakes in the past, 
 it was impossible absolutely to avoid doing this. But to those 
 who may be affected by my criticisms, and to all, I would 
 thus appeal, using the words of the greatest of English writers : 
 " Who is here so base that would be a bondsman ? If any, 
 speak ; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that 
 would not be a Briton? If any, speak; for him have I 
 offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country ? 
 If any, speak ; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply." 
 
 G. B. MALLESON. 
 27, WEST CROMWELL ROAD, 
 28 March, 1885. 
 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL . . 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HERAT, OR THE FRONTIER OF AFGHANISTAN COVERING THE 
 APPROACH TO BRITISH INDIA . . . . . .15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE FIRST CONNECTION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HERAT . 20 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE PROGRESS OF RUSSIA TOWARDS INDIA . . . .30 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE INFATUATION OF GREAT BRITAIN ..... 64 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RUSSIA'S LAST MOVE AND ENGLAND'S REPLY . . .98 
 
Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE OUTLYING REDOUBT OF INDIA 122 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE ROUTES ON THE FRONTIER 131 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE ARMIES ON BOTH SIDES '53 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 RUSSIA'S ATTACK ON PANJ-DEH, AND ITS MOTIVE , ,182 
 
THE 
 
 RUSSO-AFGHAN QUESTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL. 
 
 AFGHANISTAN, the land of the Afghans, is the borderland, 
 the frontier bulwark, of the empire of the Mogols, as that 
 empire was constituted when the earlier princes of that 
 race ruled India. It is bordered on the east by the Panjab, 
 on the south by Baliichista'n, on the west by Persian 
 Khora'sa'n and the desert of Baksu, on the north and 
 north-west by a line drawn from Sarakhs, just above Robat- 
 Abdullah Khan and Andkhoi, to Khoja Saleh on the Oxus, 
 and from the latter to a point on its tributary the Koktcha, 
 beyond Faizabad. Speaking roughly, the territory may be 
 divided into five distinct parts ; to the north-east, is 
 Kabulistan or Afghanistan proper, the country of which 
 Kabul is the capital, between the Hindu Kush to its north 
 and Ghazni and the Safe'd Koh to its south, and from the 
 Khaibar Pass to the Koh-i-Baba; to the north of that 
 again, sloping to the Oxus and its tributary, is Badakshan, 
 with its dependent district of Vakhan, from the Sarikul 
 on the east to the junction of the Koktcha river with the 
 Oxus, the latter forming the northern boundary of this 
 
io The Rns so- Afghan Question. 
 
 _ f , . . i i. 
 
 Afghan province through its entire extent; to the west of 
 Badak,shan, Afjhan IMrfdsJan. comprising the districts of 
 Kunduz, ithumi, and Bal'kh ; further westward still, the 
 districts of Aksha, Seripul, Maimene*, Shibberjan, and And- 
 khoi, the latter of which is the extreme Afghan frontier 
 possession to the north-west ; to the west and south-west, 
 Khora'sa'n or Zabulistan, comprising Herdt, the land of the 
 upper Murghdb, Gurdistdn, the Hazdreh mountain lands, 
 the lands watered by the Helmund and the desert of 
 Seistdn. The natural boundary to the north is the magni- 
 ficent range of the Hindu Kush, sloping northwards 
 towards the Oxus, which, in a military sense, forms its 
 ditch. Separated from the Hindu Kush by the famous 
 Bamidn Pass, but continuing its course westward, rises the 
 ever snow-bearing Koh-i-Baba, spouting from its southern 
 slopes the water which forms the Helmund, which runs a 
 course of about four hundred miles to the south-west. To 
 this lofty range are linked on likewise, to the westward, 
 two parallel ranges, the Safed Koh and the Siah-Koh, 
 which embrace the valley of the Heri-nid. The first of 
 these is equally well known as the Paropamisan range. 
 Between Herat and Kabul, running southwards as far as 
 the Arganddb, a tributary of the Helmund, the lofty peaks 
 and chains of the Siah-Koh, separated from each other by 
 streams issuing from its southern slopes, form the unex- 
 plored country of the Hazdreh. To the east, running 
 almost directly north and south, is the great Sulaimdn range, 
 almost at right angles with the Safdd Koh, which strikes 
 off from it westward at a point below Kabul. /This 
 Sulaimdn range, which reaches as far as Baluchistan, forms 
 a natural boundary between India and Persia. The stony, 
 barren nature of the country as the mountain slopes to the 
 latter, affords a striking contrast to the richness and 
 fertility of the valleys on the Peshawar side. It is through 
 
Geographical and Statistical. 1 1 
 
 this range that the Kdbul river, forcing its way, has formed 
 the famous Khaibar Pass, the pass which forms the road 
 of communication between Kdbul and the Indian frontier. 
 It offers likewise a mode of communication between 
 Eastern Afghanistan and Sindh by means of the Gomal 
 Pass. Between these two great ranges, the Sulaiman and 
 the Paropamisan range, which almost inclose in a right 
 angle the high lands of Afghanistan proper, there run in a 
 diagonal direction, from the north-east to the south-west, 
 several distinct mountain ranges, amongst which those 
 which rise to the east of Kandahar are the most con- 
 siderable^> To these natural uprisings to the north-east, 
 the depressions to the south-west form a complete con- 
 trast. Here, at a height of about 1,350 feet above the sea, 
 is to be found the Hamun or Seistan lake, from ten to 
 thirty miles broad, and more than eighty miles long, 
 surrounded by deserts, but showing many traces of former 
 wealth and cultivation. Of the rivers, it may briefly be 
 said that the largest, the Helmund, after running, as I have 
 stated, a course of 400 miles, empties itself into the Seistan 
 lake, which receives also the waters of the Adraskan from 
 the north, and of the Farrah-rud from the east. The princi- 
 pal contributaries of the Helmund are, the Argandab, which 
 rises in one of the ranges between Kabul and Kandahar, 
 and flows in a south-westerly direction, and the Dori. The 
 Kdbul river pierces the mountains between Jellalabad and 
 Peshawar to increase the waters of the Indus. 
 
 The climate partakes the character of the country. The 
 extreme cold of the high ranges runs parallel with the ex- 
 treme heat of the valleys. There prevails in many parts 
 likewise a medium climate, extremely pleasant, and very 
 much resembling that of the highlands of South Africa. 
 The country is rich in natural products. Iron and lead 
 abound in all the mountain ranges, especially in the slopes 
 
12 The Rus$o-Afghan Question. 
 
 which enclose the valley of the Heri-rud : there, too, are 
 to be found in abundance the willow, the poplar, the 
 olive, maize, rice, saltpetre, and every variety of fruit. 
 The fertility of that valley has caused the city which is 
 its emporium to be styled the granary and garden of 
 Central Asia. " We ascended," wrote Arthur Conolly 
 from Herat, in 1831, " by one hundred and forty steps to 
 the top of the highest minaret, and thence looked down 
 upon the city, and the rich gardens and vineyards round 
 and beyond it a scene so varied and beautiful that I can 
 imagine nothing like it, except, perhaps, in Italy." But, 
 though the valley of the Heri-rud is the most fertile, it is 
 not the only spot in Afghanistan favoured by nature. 
 Vegetable products abound everywhere. Apples, apricots, 
 figs, plums, and grapes are plentiful all over the country. 
 The tobacco of Kandahar is famous. In the slopes in its 
 vicinity coal, and more recently gold, have been dis- 
 covered. Hemp, cotton, rhubarb, the castor-oil plant, 
 orange trees, citrons, maize, roses, tulips, are likewise 
 abundant. 
 
 To this brief outline of the country and its productions 
 I must add a few lines regarding its people. The Afghans, 
 in this respect resembling the children of Israel, from whom 
 they claim, though it is considered without sufficient 
 reason, direct descent, are an aggregation of many distinct 
 tribes, each of which possesses its own chief. Western 
 Afghdnistdn is the headquarters of the Duranis to which 
 the family of the reigning Amir belongs and the Ghilzais, 
 the most numerous of all the tribes. To the east are the 
 Berduranis, counting amongst them the Yussufzais, who 
 have come mostly in contact with the British. Between 
 these two principal divisions are smaller tribes, each with 
 its own laws and its own characteristics. It is calculated 
 that whilst the population of Kabulistan or Eastern 
 
Geographical and Statistical. 13 
 
 Afghanistan numbers 900,000; that of Seistan 280,000; 
 of Kimduz 400,00 ; of Khiilm 300,000 ; of Balkh and 
 the city which has supplanted it, Takhtapiil, 64,000; of 
 Andkhoi and Shibberjan 60,000; of Aksha 10,000; of 
 Maimene 100,000; of Badakshan and Vakhan 300,000; 
 that of the valley of the Heri-rud amounts to 1,170,000. 
 It is worthy to be noted that the vast majority of these last 
 are either pure Tadschicks (aboriginal inhabitants) or men of 
 mixed Persian and Turki blood. But there are, likewise, 
 the men of Hazareh, numbering nearly 200,000, who are 
 distinctly of Turanian origin ; and the Kazilba"shis, pure 
 Persians by descent, who number some 60,000. These 
 constitute the Muhammadan population, and if we add to 
 them 600,000 Hindus and Jats from India, who consti- 
 stute the main industrial portion of the community, and a 
 sprinkling of Armenians who belong to the same category, 
 we shall obtain a very fair estimate of the actual number of 
 the inhabitants. 
 
 The estimates regarding their character do not always 
 agree. Mountstuart Elphinstone, whose insight into 
 Asiatic character was remarkable, was probably right when 
 he pronounced the Afghan to be a lover of liberty, brave, 
 devoted to his family, true to his friends, but envious, 
 avaricious, obstinate, and merciless. The best of all the 
 tribes are the Duranis and Ghilzais. Originally shepherds, 
 pasturing vast flocks in their native hills and valleys, these 
 have preserved to a great extent their patriarchal customs. 
 But however calm and stolid they may be ordinarily, it is a 
 fact that they too, when roused, display to the full the 
 worst qualities of the national character. 
 
 Of all the provinces acknowledging the rule of the 
 Amir of Kabul Herat is the richest and most fertile. Im- 
 portant as is the part which it has already played in 
 Central-Asian history, the future which is before it is more 
 
14 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 important still. In this year, or in the years immediately 
 following this year, the city of Herat will be constituted 
 either the strong barrier which will stop the approach of 
 Russia towards India ; or it will become the gate through 
 which the Russian army, preceded by hordes of Turkoman 
 cavalry, will attempt to follow in the steps of Alexander the 
 Great, of Chengiz Khan, of Taimur, of Nadir Shah, and 
 of Ahmad Shah. To Herat, then, I propose to devote a 
 separate chapter. 
 
CHAPTER IT. 
 
 HERAT, OR THE FRONTIER OF AFGHANISTAN COVERING 
 THE APPROACH TO BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 THE Khanate of which the city of Herdt is the capital, 
 formed from west to east like a wedge, stretches from the 
 slopes of the Paropamisan range to the marshy lake of 
 Seistan ; on the west it is bounded by Persian Khorasan; on 
 the east and south-east by the province of Kandahar and 
 the Siah-koh. Between the spurs of that mountain and of 
 the Paropamisus, and even more to the north, the Heri-rud, 
 which flows first westward and takes afterwards a northerly 
 direction, waters a tableland which, fertile beyond fertility 
 even as it is known in the East, constitutes an oasis sur- 
 rounded by stony ridges, sandy wastes and by steppes. 
 This favoured district covers an area of 120,000 square 
 miles, and supports nearly a million and a half of inhabi- 
 tants. In the northern portion dwell the Kazilbashis, 
 Shiahs in religion and Persian in origin ; the Aimaks, 
 Sunis in faith and the descendants of the Iranian Tad- 
 schicks ; and the Hazarehs, a Turanian race, speaking the 
 Turki language and Shiahs by religion. More to the south 
 the people are almost all Tadshicks, with a sprinkling of 
 Afghans, of Turkomans, and of Hindus. 
 
 The city which gives it's name to this fertile region lies 
 
1 6 The Rosso-Afghan Question. 
 
 four miles north of a point of the Heri-rud, where that river 
 is spanned by a bridge with twenty-six arches. It is about 
 420 miles to the west of the Afghan capital, Kabul, about 
 200 south-east of Meshed, and 202 miles south-east by 
 south of Sarakhs. It forms a kind of irregular parallelo- 
 gram surrounded by a thick mud wall from twelve to 
 eighteen feet high, backed by a brick wall ten feet 
 high and provided with thirty towers and five well- 
 fortified gates. Herat has greatly fallen from the high 
 position it held when it was described as the Pearl of the 
 World.* The ruins in its vicinity testify to its former 
 greatness. From that position it fell, partly perhaps in 
 consequence of the rivalry of Meshed, supported by the 
 wealth and influence of Persia, but mainly because of the 
 constant wars and the long-continued oppression which in 
 the course of a hundred and fifty years have caused the 
 decrease of the population from a hundred thousand to a 
 little more than one third of that number. Herat, how- 
 ever, the capital of the fertile oasis which covers the 
 approaches to India, the centre point for the caravan routes 
 of Central Asia, must ere long resume her lost position. 
 Again will she become, whether under English auspices or 
 under the auspices of Russia, the granary and garden of 
 Central Asia. The crucial moment has now arrived to 
 decide whether her splendid resources will be used for the 
 invasion of India by Russia, or for the defence of India 
 against that aggressive power. 
 
 A glance at the past history of Herat with be sufficient 
 to prove the vital importance of this question. The Mogol 
 rulers who preceded the British in the occupation of India 
 always recognised the necessity of guarding in their own 
 
 * "Khorasan is the oyster-shell of the world, and Herat is its 
 Pearl. "Eastern Proverb. 
 
Herat the Approach to British India, 17 
 
 hands the key of that portal. When in the decay of their 
 empire they lost that key, two invasions from the north 
 speedily followed. The invaders destroyed and retired, 
 but the destruction they effected so weakened the Mogol 
 dynasty that it fell an easy prey to the first invader from 
 beyond the seas. 
 
 But it was not the Mogols alone who recognized the 
 importance of Herdt as the outlying bulwark of India. 
 With one solitary exception, that of Baber to be presently 
 noticed every invader from the north has deemed the 
 conquest of Herat as the first necessary preliminary to an 
 attack upon India. So thought Alexander the Great 
 (327 B.C.) ; so thought Chengiz Khan (1219-22 A.D.) ;{so 
 thought Taimur (1381 A.D.). In the time of Baber indeed 
 Herdt was the shuttlecock between the Persians and the 
 Uzbeks, and Baber, who possessed Kabul, solved the ques- 
 tion whilst they were fighting by cutting into the Herat line 
 at Kandahar (1525-26 A.D.). At a later period, 1731, the 
 conqueror of Persia, the Khorasdni Nadir Shall, did not 
 dare to dream even of the conquest of India until he had 
 conquered both Herdt and Kandahar. He did not grudge 
 the four months which he found necessary to take the first, 
 nor the thirteen required to subdue the opposition of the 
 second. His successor in the career of conquest, Ahmad 
 Shah, a Durani Afghan, followed the same lines (1747-61); 
 and, by his success, crushed the vitality out of the ruling 
 dynasty of India. An Afghan, cherishing the snow-clad 
 hills of his native country, he conquered, plundered, and 
 retired. Under similiar circumstances, a European invader, 
 who to gain a similar result should have traversed sandy 
 deserts and crossed rocky steppes, would conquer and 
 remain ! 
 
 The conquest of Delhi by Ahmad Shah, May 1757 ; his 
 
 c 
 
i8 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 second occupation of the Imperial city the year following 
 and the crowning victory of Pdnipat (January 1761) dealt 
 the reigning dynasty of India a blow under which it reeled 
 and from which it never recovered. The very same year 
 which saw the first conquest of Dihli witnessed likewise, 
 on the plain of Plassey, a victory which planted the British 
 firmly in Bengal. Whilst Ahmad Shah retired, satiated 
 with slaughter and with plunder, the British remained and 
 pushed forward. The edifice of Mogol dominion was 
 rotten to the core. It fell, less from the efforts of the 
 British than from the decay which had sapped its founda- 
 tions. Until 1857-8 India had never, in the true sense of 
 the term, been conquered by the British. The natives of 
 India who preferred the rule of law to the rule of anarchy 
 and spoliation, had fought under the British banner for the 
 principles which secured to them the possession of their 
 own lands, the safety of their wives and children. Fighting 
 on these lines, the fight almost invariably forced upon 
 them the British advanced steadily till they reached the 
 frontier line of the Sutlej. The country beyond that frontier 
 line, the country of the Five Rivers, the Panjdb, was ruled 
 at the time by one of the most astute sovereigns who has 
 ever sat upon an eastern throne. But in 1836-7 Ranjit 
 Singh was growing old. In the mountainous country 
 beyond his northern frontier Dost Muhammad, a young 
 ruler of the Baruckzye clan of the Durani tribe, was rising 
 into notice in the eastern world. Herat, which had not 
 been heard of since Ahmad Shah had sacked it, on the 
 death of Nadir Shah, in 1749, but which during the long 
 period had been declining under the misrule and oppres- 
 sion of its foreign masters, came once more to be talked 
 about. <* A Persian army, it was rumoured throughout the 
 bazaars of India and Central Asia, was marching against 
 
Herat the Approach to British India. 19 
 
 the capital of the fertile country watered by the Heri-rud, 
 and with that army, controlling its movements and instruct- 
 ing its soldiers, marched likewise many Russian officers and 
 some hundreds of Russian soldiers. The rumour spread- 
 ing onwards reached the Governor-General of India in 
 Calcutta : it was passed on to the Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs in London. That minister recognized at a glance 
 all its significance, all its importance. The name of that 
 minister was Lord Palmerston ! 
 
26 The Russo-Afghan QttestioH. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FIRST CONNECTION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HERAT. 
 
 THE keen vision of Lord Palmerston had detected, I 
 have said, at a glance, all the significance, all the 
 importance of the news that a Persian army, guided and 
 controlled by Russian officers, was marching on Hera"t / he 
 had recognized that, should that march be successful, Herat 
 would become a Persian Hera*t controlled by Russia. The 
 armed intrigue must be met and baffled at all hazards. ^ 
 
 The issues which were so quickly discerned by Lord 
 Palmerston in London were not, unfortunately, so clear 
 to the vision of the Governor-General of India and his 
 Council. ^ : The most obvious method to accomplish the 
 desired end would have been to lend efficient support to 
 the ruler of Afghanistan. It was certain that Dost 
 Muhammad desired as little as Lord Palmerston the 
 occupation of the second city of his dominions by a Russo- 
 Persian army. 
 
 That there existed difficulties in the way of a course so 
 pointed is true, r The greatest of these difficulties lay in 
 the fact that whilst Dost Muhammad exercised supreme 
 authority in Kabulistdn, or easterm Afghanistan, his influence 
 in Kandahar and Herat was little more than nominal. In 
 the former his brothers held sway, and his brothers, jealous 
 of his authority, were very much disposed to accept the 
 Shah of Persia as their suzerain ; they had even made 
 advances to Russia. 
 
First Connection between England and Herat. 2 1 
 
 In Herat the position was still less favourable. There 
 ruled Prince Kdmran, son of the ex-Shah of Afghanistan, 
 Mahmud Shah, a monster of wickedness and debauchery, 
 virtually as an independent prince. He, too, disliked the 
 idea of being conquered by Persia ; but he hated still more 
 the prospect of being relieved by Dost Muhammad, for he 
 had murdered the eldest brother of that chief, and efficient 
 aid from such a source would mean death to himself. 
 
 Such, then, was the position, as it presented itself in 
 1837, to the Governor-General of India, Lord Auckland, 
 and his advisers. It must be admitted that is was beset 
 with difficulties ; for efficient aid to the ruler of Kdbul, an 
 aid sufficient to enable him to march to the relief of Herat, 
 would throw at once that city into the hands of Persia. 
 For it was clear that Prince Kdmran would make terms 
 with the Persians rather than submit to Dost Muhammad. 
 ^ Lord Auckland despatched at that time an embassy to 
 Dost Muhammad, on, what was termed, a commercial 
 mission. The chief member of this embassy was 
 Captain Alexander Burnes, an officer of the Bombay army, 
 possessing rare ability, a colloquial knowledge of the 
 languages of Central Asia, and a thorough acquaintance, 
 acquired by travelling alone dressed as a native in the 
 countries beyond the Oxus, with the habits and modes of 
 thought of the children of the soil. Burnes reached Kabul 
 the 2oth of September, 1837, and was extremely well 
 received by the Amir. He found him, however, more 
 intent upon the recovery of Peshawar, which had been 
 niched from him some years before by Ranjit Singh, than 
 on the recovery of Herdt. Burnes, whilst holding out to 
 him no hope that his views would be regarded with favour, 
 forwarded reports of his interviews with the Amir to the 
 Governor-General. Before he could receive a reply another 
 agent appeared upon the field, 
 
22 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 This new agent was a young Russian officer named 
 Viktevich. Viktevich was a Lithuanian, who, exiled for his 
 share in a Polish Conspiracy, had spent his time in travel 
 in Central Asia, had gained the pardon of his Government, 
 and who was now employed to undertake a secret mission 
 to Kabul. The object of his mission was to counteract 
 and render nugatory the influence of Burnes. 
 
 At the first it appeared as though the young Lithuanian 
 would fail. Dost Muhammad, still hopeful of a favourable 
 reply from India, scarcely noticed him. But when, on the 
 2ist February, a reply came from the Governor-General 
 intimating courteously but plainly, that whilst he was ready 
 to treat with the Amir on matters affecting the Persian ex- 
 pedition, he would not aid him to recover Peshawar, he 
 changed his tone. Turning to the Russian agent, the Amir 
 obtained from him all the promises he desired. In return 
 Viktevich obtained his sanction to conclude an alliance 
 between the Kandahar brothers of the Amir and Persia. 
 
 On the 26th April, Burnes, utterly hopeless of success, 
 turned his back on Kabul. The failure of his endeavour 
 to make a friend and ally of the then de facto ruler of 
 Afghanistan made Lord Palmerston resolve to supplant 
 him by a sovereign who should be nothing else in his 
 foreign policy than a tool and agent of the British. Under 
 his instructions, then, Lord Auckland brought a royal 
 member of the family of Sha*h Ahmad, the ex-king Shall 
 Shuja, from his enforced exile at Ludiana, and directed the 
 assembly of a considerable army to replace him on the 
 throne of Kabul. 
 
 But before the army could be fully assembled, the object 
 which Lord Palmerston had most at heart had been 
 accomplished in an unforeseen and unexpected manner. 
 A young Englishman, Eldred Pottinger, had entered 
 the Bombay Artillery in the year 1827. Active, indus- 
 
First Connection between England and Herat. 23 
 
 trious, eager to gain knowledge and quick in acquiring 
 it, young Pottinger had early obtained a political staff 
 appointment in Sindh under his uncle, Colonel, afterwards 
 Sir Henry, Pottinger. Anxious to explore the countries 
 and to make himself acquainted with the habits and 
 manners of the people between the Indus and the Oxus and 
 beyond the latter river, Eldred obtained, in 1837, his uncle's 
 permission to visit those lands as an independent traveller. 
 Disguising himself as a horsedealer from Kachh, young 
 Pottinger crossed the Indus and, travelling in a manner 
 the least likely to attract attention, took the road to Kdbul. 
 From that capital he resolved to proceed to Herat, but, 
 aware that in the disguise of a saintly character his nation- 
 ality would be still less likely to be discovered, he threw off 
 the garb of a horsedealer and assumed that of a Saiad or 
 Holy man. After many adventures, including a dangerous 
 detention by a Hazareh chief which promised at one time 
 to put a forcible end to his wanderings, Pottinger reached 
 Herat in safety. This was on the i8th August. He was 
 still there when, a month later, information reached the 
 city that a Persian army was marching against it. On the 
 arrival of this news the ruler, Prince Kamran, was at his 
 wits' end. His prime minister and factotum, Yar Muham- 
 mad, showed, however, a resolution worthy of the occasion. 
 Not only did he announce his determination to defend the 
 city to the last, but he took all the means of which he 
 was master to strengthen its defences and to increase the 
 garrison. 
 
 Never was a danger more real. The Russian minister 
 at Teheran, Count Simonitch, had not only advanced fifty 
 thousand tomaunns to the Shah, but had promised that 
 potentate that if he would take Herat the balance of the 
 debt due by Persia to Russia should be remitted. He 
 went even further. He gave him, to aid in the attack, a 
 
24 The Rttsso-Afghan Question. 
 
 Russian general, General Barofski ; encouraged him to 
 employ General Samson, a Russian in the Persian service ; 
 and, with that general, two thousand Russian soldiers who, 
 to save appearances, were officially described as deserters 
 from the Russian army ! 
 
 Upon Eldred Pottinger the information that a Persian 
 army so commanded and so assisted was advancing against 
 Hera"t produced an electric effect. A British officer, pos- 
 sessing skill, energy, daring, and that self-reliant character 
 the display of which by the sons of Great Britain has made 
 the British empire, he felt that the time for disguise had 
 passed, that he must avow himself and take his part in the 
 defence of the threatened city. He did avow himself to 
 the minister, was well received, was presented to Prince 
 Kamran, and was authorized by both to assist in the 
 defence. 
 
 <~ The siege began the 22nd November following. It 
 lasted more than nine months till the 8th of September, 
 1838. Of that siege Eldred Pottinger, the only English- 
 man within the walls of the city, was the hero. True 
 it was that the earthwork defences were crumbling and 
 in disrepair : true, that the parapets were so rotten that 
 they fell like timber before the fire of the light guns of 
 the besiegers : true, that the Russian allies of the Persians, 
 furnished with the modern appliances of Europe, inspired 
 the garrison with the fear that they were mining under the 
 walls. 'This was all true, but the indomitable Englishman 
 was present ever to repair breaches, to lead a rallying 
 party, to meet mine with countermine. During the siege 
 he, at the request of Prince Kamran, visited the Persian 
 camp with proposals for accommodation. These, how- 
 ever, were refused, and the attack recommenced more 
 furiously than before. But the steadfast purpose of the 
 garrison was not to be shaken : they repaired every breach 
 
First Connection betiveen England and Herat. 25 
 
 and repulsed every assault. On the ipth April, Major 
 D'Arcy Todd, an officer of the Bengal Artillery, who had 
 been for many years employed in the Persian army and 
 had won the respect of all with whom he had come in 
 contact, entered the city, under a flag of truce, with a 
 message from the Shah. He was the first Englishman 
 who had ever appeared in Herat wearing a British 
 uniform, and his tight-fitting clothes, contrasting with the 
 loose garments of the Asiatics, roused the most vivid 
 curiosity. Major Todd came to announce that the Shah 
 was ready to accept British mediation. He returned with 
 the message that Prince Kdmran was equally agreeable 
 to such a course. Not for a moment, however, did hos- 
 tilities cease in consequence of that agreement. The 
 siege was conducted as vigorously as before. Shortly after- 
 wards, however, the Shah withdrew from his offer to accept 
 the arbitration of the British. 
 
 C Month followed month, and the Russo-Persian army 
 still plied the city with shot and shell. Every day, how- 
 ever, brought fresh misery to the besieged. Food became 
 very scarce ; the stench caused by the want of sewers or 
 any means of drainage almost unendurable ; in the month 
 of May famine and pestilence stalked hand in hand through 
 the streets. Under the influence of these dread twin- 
 sisters the defence began to flag, and the breaches re- 
 mained unrepaired. Everything presaged an early and 
 fatal termination of the siege. 
 
 It is under such circumstances that a great man is 
 really divine. It is not too much to say that at this con- 
 juncture Eldred Pottinger became, in the eyes of the 
 Heratis, the object of their trust, their veneration, their 
 every hope. He was to them what Gordon was in 1884 to 
 the people of Khartoum. These feelings were specially mani- 
 fested on the 24th June. On that day the besiegers made a 
 
26 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 well-planned and very determined attack on four parts of 
 the city. At three of these they were repulsedX But at 
 the fourth, they had almost carried the breach when the 
 Vizier, Yar Muhammed, accompanied by Pottinger reached 
 the spot. Yar Muhammed was a brave man, but he was 
 cowed by the sight which met his gaze the sight of the 
 garrison giving way before their advancing foe. He 
 urged them to rally, but he was too overcome himself to 
 give them the example. Then was Pottinger's oppor- 
 tunity. He made a despairing appeal to the Vizier, 
 inspired him with a portion of his own resolution ; then, 
 with his aid, he re-formed the now encouraged defenders 
 and forced back the foe. 
 
 The month of July passed without any renewal of 
 activity on the part of the besiegers. On the nth of the 
 following month the Shah received in his camp an English 
 officer, Colonel Stoddart, deputed to inform him that the 
 continuance of the siege meant war with England. Little 
 less than one month later the Persian army retired behind 
 its own frontier ! 
 
 The conclusion that, because the Persians after a siege 
 of ten months' duration were in the end repelled, Herat 
 was therefore impregnable, would be entirely fallacious. -? 
 Eldred Pottinger deliberately declared that Muhammed 
 Shah might have taken the city by assault within twenty- 
 four hours after his appearance before its walls if his 
 troops had been efficiently commanded. We may go 
 further and add to use the language of the historian of 
 the events of that period the late Sir John Kaye that 
 but for the heroism of the young Bombay Artilleryman, 
 Herat would under the actual circumstances have fallen ! 
 "With the raising of the siege of Herat the necessity for 
 English intervention in the affairs of Afghanistan had dis- 
 appeared. The object originally contemplated by Lord 
 
First Connection between England and Herat. 27 
 
 Palmerston had been accomplished. Russia had received 
 a check in her endeavour to use Persia as a cat's paw to 
 filch away the most important of all the positions covering 
 India. If England, on the retirement of the Persian 
 army, had entered into an arrangement with Dost 
 Muhammad, an arrangement for which he was then eager, 
 the relations between India and the mountainous country 
 which is naturally its frontier redoubt, would have been 
 settled on a firm basis. But, unfortunately, before the 
 raising of the siege of Herat had become known, Lord 
 Auckland had pledged himself to Shah Shuja, and it was 
 determined to carry out the policy of substituting for a 
 ruler of doubtful fidelity a prince who in all his foreign 
 relations would be the tool of England. 
 
 It is not necessary here to do more than record the failure 
 of that unfortunate policy. After nearly four years of des- 
 perate venture, it resulted in the restoration to supreme 
 sway in Kabul of the prince whom we had expelled. 
 
 Embittered as he naturally was against the 'people who 
 had [expelled him, Dost Muhammad returned to Kabul 
 with a far higher idea of the resources of the British nation 
 than he had held before his enforced exile. He had visited 
 Calcutta and seen their ships, their arsenals, their fortresses, 
 and, though many years elapsed before he .entered into 
 friendly relations with his old enemies, he was resolved 
 from the first moment of his return to do nothing to tempt 
 them to renew their attack upon himself. It is true that in 
 the death-throes of the struggle for the Panja"b, he allowed 
 one of his sons to lead a cavalry brigade to assist the Sikhs 
 in the battle which consummated their overthrow ; but after 
 the British frontier had been permanently advanced beyond 
 the Indiis, he remained for a time quiescent/ The renewed 
 intrigues of Persia for the recovery of Herat forced him at 
 last to renew friendly relations with his old enemy. 
 
28 The Rus so- Afghan Question. 
 
 In that year, 1854, his son Ghulam Haidar visited 
 Peshawar for that purpose. He was met there by the late 
 Lord Lawrence, at the time plain John Lawrence, Chief 
 Commissioner of the Panjab. On that occasion the 
 famous agreement was signed in which the Amir of 
 Afghanistan covenanted " to be the friend of the friends, 
 and the enemy of the enemies of the Hon ble . East India 
 Company." 
 
 If we reflect for a moment upon this most important 
 agreement, we shall arrive at the inevitable conclusion that 
 it accomplished little more than the carrying of political 
 relations back to the point at which they were when Burnes 
 visited Kabul in 1837-8. It blotted out the intervening 
 events. The first Afghan war had, in a word, lost for us 
 eighteen years which might have well been employed in 
 cementing relations necessary for the safety of the British 
 empire in India. 
 
 Doubtless the political aspect which prompted the Amir 
 to send his son to Peshawar, had many points of similarity 
 with the political aspect of 1837. On both occasions Herat 
 was threatened by the same Asiatic power, stirred up by the 
 same European power. But if the English had grown 
 wiser, so likewise had Dost Muhammad. He no longer 
 talked of recovering Peshawar. He saw the full signifi- 
 cance of the movement about Herat, and he wanted the 
 suppoit of the English to baffle it. 
 
 In 1854 England was at war with Russia; that power 
 therefore, only exercised a legitimate right when, the 
 barriers of an independent Caucasus still existing, she 
 incited Persia to renew her attempts upon the fortified city 
 which had repulsed her in 1838. > 
 
 The incitations of Russia produced corresponding action 
 on the part of Persia. She sent an army in the autumn of 
 1856 against Herat, and that city, no longer defended by 
 
First Connection between England and He fat. 29 
 
 an Eldred Pottinger, surrendered to her in the month of 
 October of the same year. 
 
 But Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister of England ; 
 and Lord Palmerston was firmly resolved that Persia should 
 not hold the city, and with the city the province which 
 would constitute a new base for an army hostile to British 
 India. Herat had, I have said, fallen in October 1856. 
 On the ist November, Lord Palmerston declared war 
 against Persia, and despatched an army to attack her on 
 her most vulnerable side, in the Persian gulf. 
 
 Never has an expedition been better planned or better 
 executed. Never certainly has energetic action obtained 
 more promptly the desired result. War was declared, I 
 have said, the ist November, 1856. Peace was signed the 
 4th March, 1857. In the interval, Persia had been defeated 
 in two battles. By the terms of the peace she agreed to 
 restore Herat to the Afghans ! 
 
 Before the signature of the Peace, the British acting by 
 the mouth of Mr. John Lawrence, had signed another 
 agreement with the Amfr promising him a monthly allow- 
 of ;i 0,000 and arranging for the permanent residence of 
 a British agent a native of India at Kdbul. In the 
 course of the years immediately following, Dost Muham- 
 mad brought Western Afghanistan, including Herdt, more 
 completely under his own personal sway. 
 
 On his death, in 1863, a civil war ensued for the succes- 
 sion. That war lasted, with varying fortunes, for five years. 
 It was only in January 1869, that the most capable of the 
 sons of Dost Muhammad, Sher Ali, obtained over his last 
 remaining rival, the present Amir Abdul Rahman, a victory 
 so crushing that from that moment all opposition ceased, 
 and Afghanistan with its borders as they are described in 
 the first two pages of the first chapter became united under 
 one head. 
 
3O The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF RUSSIA TOWARDS INDIA. 
 
 IN 1854 Nicholas, Czar of all the Russias, struck his long 
 meditated blow for the possession of Constantinople. He 
 failed, and he died. His successor, Alexander II., made 
 peace with the two great western powers who had baffled 
 his father, and announced ostentatiously that it was his 
 intention to devote himself to domestic reforms. As an 
 earnest of his sincerity he abolished serfdom. 
 
 But whilst hoodwinked Europe was praising the sagacity, 
 the prudence, and the moderation of the young Czar, that 
 astute prince was straining his empire to break down the 
 mountain barrier which barred his free access to the steppes 
 of Central Asia. The very year that witnessed the signa- 
 ture of the Peace of Paris (April 1856) saw him hurl an 
 army of 150,000 men against the passes of the Caucasus. 
 Fiercely did the heroic mountaineers resist. But numbers 
 prevailed. At the end of three years the strongholds of 
 the Caucasus had been stormed ; the hero who had led 
 the resistance, the illustrious Schamyl, was a prisoner 
 (6 September 1859), an d the mountaineers, who had for 
 so many years successfully defied Russia, had abandoned 
 their native fastnesses to seek refuge within the dominions 
 of the Sultan. 
 
 The Caucasus conquered, Russia, who for some years 
 had been working her way across the low undulating plains 
 which lie between the Alatan range and the Jaxartes, made 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 3 1 
 
 her spring across that river. The Khanate of Khokand, 
 having a population of three millions, was the first object 
 of her attack. For the moment she spared it ta effect the 
 capture of the city of Tchemkend. This capture brought 
 her into collision with the troops of Bokhara a collision 
 which resulted in the defeat of the Amir of that place and 
 the occupation of the town of Turkistan, two hundred and 
 twenty miles from Khokand. 
 
 To allay the apprehensions of England the Russian 
 Prime Minister, Prince Gortschakoff, proceeded (November, 
 1864) to issue a kind of manifesto. In this remarkable 
 document the Prince justified the permanent occupation of 
 the two towns I have mentioned, on the plea that hostilities 
 against them had been rendered necessary by the predatory 
 instincts of the populations bordering the Russian frontier. 
 He proceeded, then, to imply, though he was careful not 
 to state absolutely, that the final point of Russian advance 
 had been reached. " Russia," he declared, " was now in 
 the presence of a more solid and compact, less unsettled 
 and better organized social state ; fixing for us with 
 geographical precision the limit up to which we must 
 advance, and at which we must halt." 
 
 The ink with which this manifesto was penned was 
 barely dry, when Russia deliberately departed from the 
 pacific programme which it sketched out. Under the pre- 
 tence that some of her officers whom she had dispatched 
 to Bokhara to negotiate, had been unduly detained in that 
 city, she renewed her hostilities with the Amir. - Tashkend, 
 an important town in the valley of the Chirchik, with a 
 population of 80,000 souls, the great emporium of Central 
 Asia for cotton and rice, some ninety miles from Khokand, 
 fell before her troops (June 1865). But no sooner was 
 she assured of this conquest than she again appeared 
 before Europe with protestations and excuses. Again did 
 
32 The Russo-Afghatt Question. 
 
 she declare (September 1865) by the voice and despatches 
 of the Prime Minister, that the Czar " had no desire to 
 add further to his dominions." Scarcely, again, was the 
 ink of the despatch dry, when (1866) the troops of the 
 Czar made a spring upon and captured the walled town of 
 Khojend, the key of the Jaxartes, seventy miles from 
 Khokand, like Tashkend, a great manufactory of cotton 
 goods, and possessing a population of 20,000. /Before 
 Europe could learn even of this new conquest Russian 
 troops had overrun the province of Khokand, known also 
 as Ferghana. By a ukase dated July 1867 the Czar 
 formally annexed one half of this rich and fertile province 
 with an area of more than 28,000 square miles to the 
 Russian empire. The remaining half he conferred for the 
 moment, and only for the moment, upon a native chieftain, 
 to be held under the suzerainty of the Russian crown. 
 
 The time had now arrived when Russia conceived it 
 necessary to make a still more important step. Bok- 
 hdra had been snubbed and humiliated, but in the minds 
 of the populations of Central Asia the influence of the 
 powerful Amfr of that independent state was still pre- 
 ponderant. It was necessary to cause that influence 
 visibly to diminish. It is always easy to pick a quarrel. 
 General Kaufman, the new military commander in Central 
 Asia, proceeded then to establish a fortified post in danger- 
 ous contiguity to the famous city of Samarkhand, a hun- 
 dred and thirty miles to the east of the capital. The 
 insult was resented and war ensued. To a war between 
 forces so unequally matched there could be but one result. 
 Russia occupied and annexed Samarkhand. It was the 
 most important conquest she had till then achieved. Its 
 immediate result was to force the most venerated chief of 
 Central Asia, the Amir of Bokhara, to become a tributary 
 of the Czar ! 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 33 
 
 These events happened in 1868. I was in India at the 
 time, and I can well recollect the profound impression 
 which the capture and annexation of the famous city of 
 Samarkhand produced in the bazaars of that country. 
 The fame of Samarkhand had spread over all Asia. In 
 the imaginations of it's several populations it was the 
 second city of the world, scarcely inferior, if at all inferior, 
 to the Rum the Constantinople of the Caliph of the 
 Muhamrnadan faith. And now Samarkhand had fallen ! 
 WTiat wonder if the mind of the untravelled Oriental could 
 scarcely grasp the greatness of the people who had cap- 
 tured it ! 
 
 The reader will do well to bear in mind that the annexa- 
 tion of Samarkhand was almost synchronous with the ter- 
 mination of the five years' civil war in Afghanistan. 
 During that civil war the relations between India and its 
 mountainous borderland had not improved. For whilst 
 the Viceroy of India, Sir John Lawrence, had endeavoured 
 to maintain a rigid impartiality between the contending 
 rivals, the victor, Sher Ali, loudly complained of the little 
 friendliness which had been displayed towards himself. 
 Whilst then the year which witnessed Sher Ali sole ruler of 
 Afghanistan found the relations between that country and 
 British India extremely strained, it saw Russia planted on 
 the eastern Oxus and its tributaries, within striking distance 
 of the north-eastern portion of the dominions of the ruler 
 of Kabul. 
 
 It would appear that this near approach of Russia 
 attracted the attention of the British Government. * For- 
 getting that Russia is really an Asiatic power, and that 
 those who deal with her in diplomacy should always bear 
 in mind ' '-that deception, or excellence in the art of deceiv- 
 ing, is regarded as the chiefest virtue in an Asiatic politi- 
 cian, Lord Clarendon, early in 1869, suggested to Prince 
 
34 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 Gortschakoff the desirability of constituting Afghanistan a 
 neutral zone. The astute Chancellor of the Russian 
 empire caught the idea with enthusiasm. He hastened to 
 declare that his master the Czar, " looks upon Afghdnistdn 
 as completely outside the sphere within which Russia may be 
 called upon to exercise her influence" Meanwhile, however, 
 the Government of India had objected, and very properly 
 objected, to Lord Clarendon's proposal. Afghanistan, said 
 the Governor-General in so many words, can never be a 
 neutral zone for India": it is bound to India geographi- 
 cally and politically, and must continue so to be bound. 
 And in that light it is necessary that Afghanistan should be 
 regarded by Russia ! 
 
 Upon this question the negociations with Russia were 
 prolonged for two years, the Russian Government continu- 
 ing to protest throughout that period that " Russia had no 
 further intention of going south " and that " extension of 
 territory was extension of weakness." - Ultimately it was 
 decided by the two Powers that the boundary of Afghanis- 
 tan should be fixed, and it was agreed that all the countries 
 in the effective possession of Sher Ali, and those which 
 had previously acknowledged the rule of Dost Muhammad, 
 should be comprised within that boundary. ' It was further 
 arranged that the memoranda and papers on this subject 
 should be submitted to General Kaufman, as the person 
 nearest the spot capable of judging the question, in order 
 that he might report to the Russian Government what 
 were the actual boundaries. The matter drifted on. 
 General Kaufman sent no report. Finally, on October, 17, 
 1872, Lord Granville wrote a dispatch to Lord Augustus 
 Loftus, for communication to the Russian Government, in 
 which he stated that the British Government, not having 
 received any information from Russia, had been obliged 
 to define the frontier in the mode they considered most 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 35 
 
 just. Lord Granville then marked out the several lines of 
 demarcation as I have stated them in the first chapter. 
 This frontier was accepted by Russia, and the acceptance 
 notified by Prince Gortschakoff in dispatches dated the 
 7th (i9th) December, 1872, and the i9th (3ist) January, 
 1873. Meanwhile Russia had been pertinaceously 
 maturing the plans which she had long nursed with respect 
 to Khiva. To enable the reader to understand this subject 
 thoroughly I must digress for a moment from the contin- 
 uous course of the story. 
 
 Even so far back as the time of Peter the Great, Khiva 
 hadJ^njyijDbje^ The disastrous fate 
 
 however, which attended an expedition, despatched in 1716 
 by that famous monarch had for long acted as a deterrent. 
 Three attempts to explore were subsequently made, prior 
 to the ascension of the Emperor Paul ; the first by a simple 
 agent in 1731 ; the second by a surveyor ten years later; 
 and the third by an oculist favoured by the Empress 
 Catherine, named Blankenagal, in 1793. Blankenagal on his 
 return wrote a narrative of his travels, in which he painted 
 in terms so glowing the wealth of Khiva and its importance 
 as a commercial centre that it inflamed the Emperor Paul, 
 who though murdered because his murderers called him 
 mad, had ever a method in his madness to re-open the 
 idea so long held in abeyance. He actually despatched 
 Count Orloff at the head of a considerable force in 1801 
 to carry out his views. Orloff had reached Irgiz, now 
 known as Fort Uralsk, when he heard of the assassination 
 of his master. He returned, and during the vast European 
 complications which followed the accession of Alexander 
 I., the subject was laid on the shelf. It was taken up 
 again in 1819, when Captain Mouravieff was despatched 
 from the army of the Caucasus to reconnoitre the eastern 
 shores of the Caspian, to select there a spot for the erec- 
 
 D 2 
 
36 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 tion of a fort, and to proceed thence to Khiva. Escorted 
 by a few friendly Turkomans Mouravieff reached Khiva in 
 safety. There, however, he was seized by order of the 
 Khan, imprisoned, and detained for nearly seven weeks 
 before he was allowed to return. It would seem that his 
 presence in Khiva excited the strong suspicions of the 
 Khan and his advisers, for, subsequently to his return, the 
 Turkomans of the desert inaugurated a system of pillage 
 with respect to the Russian caravans such as they had never 
 dreamt of before. Possibly their action was stimulated by 
 the unwonted appearance of Russian soldiers at various 
 points in the steppe, avowedly with the purpose of affording 
 protection to their trading countrymen. There is little 
 reason to doubt that even these nomads suspected that 
 armed parties who occupied military forts on the steppe, 
 nominally to protect Russian caravans, might gradually 
 take root there, and even advance further. 
 v The system of plunder inaugurated by the Khivans 
 became at last so unbearable that, in 1839, General 
 Perovski was despatched from Orenburg, with 5,235 men 
 and twenty two guns, to punish the Khan. The intense 
 cold of the winter, the difficulties and inhospitalities of 
 the steppe, fought hard, however, for Khiva. 'After losing 
 one third of his force before accomplishing half the dis- 
 tance between Orenburg and the threatened city, Perovski 
 vas compelled to retrace his steps. The sufferings of his 
 force during the retreat were extreme. 
 
 With the exception of the despatch of two minor 
 missions in 1841 and 1842, both abortive in their results, 
 no further serious move with respect to Khiva was made 
 by Russia for nineteen years. In the meanwhile however 
 two English officers, one Captain (now General) James 
 Abbott, who has written a most interesting account of his 
 mission ; the ether, the late Sir Richmond Shakespeare, 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 37 
 
 had penetrated to Khiva from Herat, and had persuaded 
 the Khan to release the Russian prisoners still languishing 
 in captivity. After that there followed the lull of nineteen 
 years.^But, in 1858,^ the very time, be it remembered, 
 when, after the Crimean war, the barrier of Caucasus was 
 being assailed, ^General Ignatieff, subsequently the well- 
 known ambassador at Constantinople,, was despatched on a 
 special mission to Khiva and Bokhara. The mission of 
 Ignatieff was outwardly one merely of compliment, and it 
 led to no result. It may in fact be pronounced a failure, 
 for, notwithstanding his great persuasive powers, the astute 
 Russian neither succeeded in persuading the Khdn of 
 Khiva to sign the treaty which he had Iprepared and 
 brought with him, nor in inducing him to put a stop to the 
 raid on the Russian caravans. 
 
 Russia determined at length to put a final stop to these 
 outrages. In 1869 she completed a strong fort and naval 
 station at Krasnovodsk on the Caspian. She supplemented 
 these the year following by erecting another fort and 
 another naval station at Tchikislar, the point where the 
 Atrek flows into the sea. Able now to despatch expedi- 
 tions from a new base resting on the Caspian, she prepared 
 in 1871 and 1872 to take decisive action. 
 
 The rumour of these preparations reached the Khdn of 
 Khiva and frightened him not a little. As he still refused, 
 however, to accept the terms offered by Russia, or to 
 receive a Russian envoy in his capital, dreading them et dona 
 fere ntes, Russia resolved to strike the blow she had been pre- 
 paring. In July 1872, then, she fitted out and despatched an 
 expedition under the command of General Markazoff. That 
 officer, setting out from Tchikislar, easily reached Igly, on 
 the old bed of the Oxus, and just within the borders of 
 the Kara Kiim desert. At this point began the natural 
 difficulties of his route. ^ The Turkomans came to augment 
 
38 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 them. These daring horsemen surrounded Markazoff, cut 
 off his baggage camels, and finally forced him (September 
 1872) to an ignominious retreat. > 
 
 S- Russia could not allow such a defeat to pass unavenged. 
 She organised a new and more powerful expedition, and 
 placed at the head of it the general whose conquest of 
 Samarkhand had made him the best known European in 
 Central Asia the famous General Kaufman. At the same 
 time, to still the apprehensions of England, already roused 
 by the magnitude of the preparations, the Czar instructed 
 his ambassador at the Court of St. James's to declare that 
 though an expedition would be despatched, it would be " a 
 very little one " ; that it would consist of but four and a 
 half battalions ; and that its purpose was simply and solely 
 to punish acts of brigandage. " Far from it being the inten- 
 tion of the Czar" added the ambassador, " to take possession 
 of Khiva, post five orders had been issued to prevent if" ~ 
 
 I pause here for a moment to call attention to this prin- 
 ciple of Russian policy, now renewed on the borders of 
 Afghanistan the principle of protesting moderation at St. 
 Petersburg whilst the agents on the spot are spurred on to 
 action which shall be decisive. How that action works is 
 well described in the following letter written by Lord 
 Palmerston' to Lord Clarendon, and which has recently 
 been republished in the Times, March 23 : 
 
 " 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 resistance, and then to 
 wait for the next favourable opportunity to make another 
 spring on its intended victim. In furtherance of this 
 policy, the Russian Government has always had two strings 
 to its bow moderate language and disinterested professions 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 39 
 
 at St. Petersburg and at London ; active aggression by its 
 agents on the scene of operations. If the aggressions 
 succeed locally, the St. Petersburg Government adopts 
 them as &fait accompli 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-Skelessi, and in the exploits of Simonivitch and 
 Viktevitch in Persia. Orloff succeeded in extorting the 
 Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi from the Turks, and it was re- 
 presented as a sudden thought, suggested by the circum- 
 stances of the time and place, and not the result of any 
 previous instructions ; but having been done, it could not 
 be undone. On the other hand, Simonivitch and Vikte- 
 vitch failed in getting possession of Herat, in consequence 
 of our vigorous measures of resistance ; and as they failed, 
 and when they had failed, they were disavowed and re- 
 called, and the language previously held at Petersburg 
 was appealed to as a proof of the sincerity of the disavowal, 
 although no human being with two ideas in his head could 
 for a moment doubt that they had acted under specific 
 instructions. July 31, 1853." ( Vide Lord Palmerston's 
 Life, Vol. II., 273, i2mo. ed.) 
 
 I now return to the date whence I digressed to deal with 
 the earlier dealings of Russia with Khiva to the close of 
 the period of the two years which followed Lord Claren- 
 don's unfortunate proposition that Afghanistan should be 
 regarded as a neutral zone, and the reception of the reply 
 of Russia that she looked upon Afghanistan as completely 
 outside the sphere within which Russia might be called to 
 exercise her influence. That lull of two years had been 
 spent by Russia in preparing an expedition which should 
 deal finally, " once and for ever." with Khiva. Reports 
 
40 The Rus3o- Afghan Question. 
 
 from their agents at Persia and elsewhere that such an 
 expedition was preparing had, during that period, reached 
 the British Government, and that Government had in- 
 structed its ambassador at St. Petersburg to ascertain the 
 exact state of the case. The Russian Chancellor always 
 denied that any expedition was in preparation, and his 
 words on this point were so forcible, so explicit, and so 
 absolute that the British Ambassador could not but accept 
 them. The scales, at last, fell from his eyes.. Towards 
 the close of 1872, Lord A. Loftus informed his Govern- 
 ment that he had gained the conviction that such an ex- 
 pedition had been decided upon, and would take place as 
 soon as weather and circumstances would permit. Still 
 the Government of the Czar and the Russian Ambassador 
 in London continued to evade and to deny. Forced at 
 last to admit that there was to be an expedition, they 
 pleaded pathetically that it was to be on a very small scale, 
 that it would consist of but four and a half battalions, 
 and that it was designed merely to punish acts of brigand- 
 age. Then followed the memorable declaration which I 
 cited in a preceding paragraph, and which I here 
 repeat a declaration typical of the value which it is 
 always necessary to place on the words of Russian Czars, 
 Russian Chancellors, and Russian ambassadors; "Far 
 fro til it being the intention of the Czar to take possession of 
 Khiva, positive orders have been issued to prevent it." 
 
 What followed ? The echo of the words I have italicised 
 had scarce died away, when not a mere " four and a half 
 battalions," but five columns, numbering upwards of 
 12,000 men in all, started under the command in chief of 
 General Kaufman, severally from Orenburg, from Tchi- 
 kishlar, from Alexandrovsky, from Kazala, and from 
 Jazakh, to converge on, and assault, Khiva. Yet, so great 
 still were the natural difficulties of the route that the bulk 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 41 
 
 of this army was saved from destruction by the merest 
 accident. The Tchikishlar column had to fall back from 
 Igly the extreme point reached by Markazoff in the pre- 
 vious expedition ; two of the other columns, with one of 
 which was Kaufman himself, united, only to find them- 
 selves, a few days later, in the heart of a sandy desert, 
 without supplies, without transport, without water. _;In this 
 extremity they were saved from annihilation by a son of 
 the desert, a ragged Kirghiz who disclosed the vicinity of 
 wells containing abundant supplies of the precious fluid. 
 The difficulties of the two remaining columns were more 
 easily surmountable. /Directed by the senior officer, 
 General Verevkin, they reached Khiva, and took the city 
 by assault. The natural result followed. Russia imposed 
 her suzerainty upon the Kha"n, and annexed the whole of 
 the Khivan territory on the right bank of the Oxus ! ^> 
 
 The capture and practical annexation of Khiva secured 
 to Russia possession of the central point in the curved line 
 which threatened the frontier of India. The left of that 
 line was covered on its front by the Oxus and its confluents, 
 and was flanked by Samarkhand ; its centre was at Khiva, 
 communicating with the left by the Oxus, and threatening 
 alike Merv and Sarakhs ; the right, based on the Caspian, 
 would naturally creep along the northern frontier of Persia, 
 subdue the Turkomans of the desert, then halt at a place 
 within striking distance of Merv and Sarakhs ; until, hav- 
 ing neutralized or made a vassal of Persia, she should 
 pounce upon those salient places, and prepare for the final 
 spring which should land her in Herat* 
 
 * These are not prophecies after the event. In his work on Herat, 
 published in January, 1880; in his speeches after his visit to India in 
 1880-1 ; and in two articles entitled "Russian Conquests in the East," 
 published in the Army and Navy Magazine in 1882, the author did his 
 utmost to warn his countrymen of the inevitable issue. 
 
42 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 Bur, not even the capture of Khiva, effected in spite of 
 the denials and solemn assurances of the Czar and his 
 ministers, could either rouse the British Government to a 
 sense of the actual danger of the position, or weaken its 
 faith in the promises of Russian diplomacy. The Secretary 
 of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Granville, not only 
 declined to examine " too minutely how far these arrange- 
 ments " the annexation of Khiva " were in strict accord- 
 ance with the assurances given in January by Count 
 Schouvaloff," but, hopeful still, 'he again addressed the 
 Russian Chancellor on the subject of the two Governments 
 arriving at a clear and frank understanding regarding their 
 respective positions in Central Asia, v There is a sublime 
 irony in the tone of the reply of Prince Gortschakoff to 
 this confiding overture. Having obtained, first, by hood- 
 winking the British Government all that he required, or 
 rather, all that for the moment he was able to obtain, in 
 Central Asia ; and having in the second place obtained the 
 forgiveness of the British Government for the violation of 
 his plighted faith a forgiveness accompanied by the ex- 
 pression of a hope that no such violation would occur in 
 the future Prince Gortschakoff expressed, in reply, his 
 "entire satisfaction" with the "just view Lord Granville 
 had taken ! " 
 
 ^The conquest of Khiva left Russia face to face with the 
 Turkomans. These hardy sons of the desert, kinsmen of 
 the Osmanli who all but conquered Europe-T^for it was the 
 grandfather of Osman who, in the reign of Chengiz Khan, 
 emigrated with his tribe of Turkomans to Asia Minor from 
 Northern Khora'sa'n lived a wild and predatory life on the 
 desert bordering the northern frontier of Khora'san. 
 Herdsmen, they were likewise slave-dealers, nor should the 
 fact be attributed to them as a crime. To capture and sell 
 slaves had been the custom of the desert from time im- 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 43 
 
 memorial, and the wild, uninstructed Turkoman was in that 
 respect not one whit behind his more cultivated rival the 
 Khora'sa'ni of Persian Khordsan. The Turkomans had the 
 reputation of being the most skilful, the boldest, the most 
 dashing horsemen of Central Asia. Nor was their martial 
 record at all a blank. The fathers' fathers of the Turko- 
 mans of the present day had responded to the call of 
 Nadir Shall and had led the way for Ahmad Shall Durdnf 
 to India. They had been foremost alike on the field of 
 Panipat and in the sack of Dihli. Sons of freedom, 
 impatient of restraint, they had taken no root in the land 
 which they had helped to conquer, but had ever returned 
 to the illimitable spaces of that sandy desert, the soil of 
 which few but they ever cared to tread ! 
 
 /With men such as these, Russia, after her conquest of 
 Khiva (June 1872) had to deal. Her policy, as usual, was 
 direct. No notions of sentiment or of mercy would allow 
 it to deviate a single hair's breath from its absolutely straight 
 course. That policy may be summed up in six words. / It 
 was simply " to conquer, that she might use." Realizing 
 the enormous advantage which might accrue to her in the 
 years that were to come by the employment as her vanguard 
 of a whole nation of " the finest horsemen in Central 
 Asia " she yet felt the necessity of first dominating their 
 spirits, of curbing their fierce love of independence, of, in 
 a certain sense, breaking their spirits by the display of 
 remorseless cruelty ; that accomplished, the desert warriors 
 would obey the power which would thus have subdued 
 them, as implicity as their fathers' fathers had obeyed the 
 orders of Nadir Shall ! 
 
 Moralists may talk of the civilizing mission of Russia, of 
 the advantage which must accrue to the world from the 
 extension of her sway in Central Asia. They forget the 
 great truth which every English politician ought to repeat to 
 
44 The Russo-AfgJian Question. 
 
 himself every day and all day, the truth that Russia herself 
 is in all essentials an Asiatic power, and should be treated 
 diplomatically as one is accustomed to treat diplomatically 
 every avowed Asiatic power. 
 
 I must ask now the moralist and the diplomat to 
 accompany me into the great desert after the absolute sub 
 mission of Khiva had been secured. There was a tribe of 
 Turkomans, called the Yomud Turkomans, inhabiting the 
 Hazavat district. The Yomuds were a Nomad people, 
 whose sole wealth consisted in their flocks and herds ; 
 they had no ready cash. It was impossible for them to raise 
 money by the sale of their cattle or their corn, or even 
 of the jewels and ornaments of their wives and daughters, 
 for in the desert there were no purchasers. Now General 
 Kaufman had been engaged during the campaign in no 
 actual battle. Without a fight he could not obtain the 
 coveted Cross of St. George. He looked, then, to the 
 desert for victims, and fixed his eye upon the Yomuds. 
 Having ascertained all particulars regarding them, he im- 
 posed upon them the payment within ten days of a fine in 
 money which he knew they could not pay. Vainly did 
 they offer their jewels, their flocks, and their herds. The 
 money was wanted, and they had it not, nor could they 
 obtain it. Then, to punish their default, Kaufman inundated 
 their country with his troops, ordered his generals to destroy 
 their settlement, and to confiscate their herds and their 
 property. His orders were obeyed with a refinement of 
 mercilessness such as has never been surpassed in the 
 records of crime.* The reign of terror was inaugurated ! 
 
 From that time the warfare of Russia with the desert 
 tribes was intermittent. It was not, however, till 1879 that 
 
 No one will suspect Schuyler of aught but sympathy with Russia : 
 yet it is from his pages, and from the confirmatory letters of MacGahan, 
 that I have drawn these facts. 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 45 
 
 the colossal Power of the North judged that the time had 
 arrived to make an attempt to establish a permanent settle- 
 ment in Turkoman territory. The point they selected for 
 this purpose was Kizil Arvat, a place above, but slightly to 
 the east of the highest point of the frontier of Persia, and 
 not far south of the borders of the Kara-Kiim The intention, 
 plainly manifested, of thus establishing themselves perma- 
 nently on their highway was not at all relished by the desert- 
 born warriors. The chief of the tribe of Akal Tekkes, Nur 
 Verdi Khan, who till that time had been disposed to re- 
 ciprocate the friendly overtures of the Russians, at once 
 took the alarm. No sooner did the leader of the Russian 
 force, General Lomakin, attempted to arrange for a per- 
 manent occupation, than Nur Verdi assailed him at the head 
 of all the warrior horsemen of his tribe. No details of this, the 
 first struggle for the possession of the desert, ever reached 
 the Europe which is outside of Russia. But this, at least, 
 transpired : Lomakin was eventually besieged in his camp, 
 and was so pressed there that he was forced to abandon 
 his guns and retreat in disorder, pursued by crowds of 
 horsemen to Krasnovodsk. He was even besieged there for 
 several weeks ! 
 
 Again could not Russia afford to allow this check to 
 remain unavenged. In August 1878, she despatched a 
 larger force from Tchikishlar under the orders of the same 
 general. This time Lpmakin reached Khoja Kala, a few 
 miles to the south of Kizil Arvat, in safety. But there he 
 was assailed by the same enemies led by the same daring 
 warrior. He and his Russians were driven out of Khoja 
 Kala and were literally chased back to Tchikishlar, from 
 under the very guns of which place the pursuers carried off 
 hundreds of his camels ! 
 
 A third expedition then became necessary in 1879. 
 General Lazareff, who had greatly distinguished himself in 
 
46 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 the campaign in Armenia against Mukhtar Pasha in the 
 previous year, was selected to command it. With Lomakin 
 as his second in command, Lazareff set out at the head of 
 his force a force greatly in excess of that which had started 
 in 1877 from Tchikishlar on the i8th June. His plan was 
 to inflict a severe defeat on, and to dominate the spirit of 
 the Turkomans before attempting to make a settlement. 
 But at Tchcit-i-Atrak, about midway to Kizil Arvat along the 
 Persian frontier, Lazareff sickened and died. Lomakin, who 
 succeeded him, and who shared his views, pushed on then 
 to Kizil Arvat, and thence beyond Bami, to a point within 
 six miles of Dengli Tepe*, a square built fort occupied by the 
 Turkomans with their whole available force. On the 9th of 
 September Lomakin marched against that not very formid- 
 able place. After a desperate battle, which lasted all day, 
 and in which up to 5 P.M. they had all the advantage, the 
 Russians were repulsed, and fell back, beaten, baffled, and 
 humiliated, to the Caspian ! They were unable even to 
 reach that base before December had well set in ! 
 * But beaten, baffled, and humilitated though she had 
 thrice been on this line, Russia adhered to her purpose with 
 a steadfastness and pertinacity characteristic of her whole 
 policy. Russia never surrenders a firmly-rooted idea. In 
 1880 she made preparations, on a still larger scale than 
 before, to renew the attack on the line between Akhal 
 and Askabad. To command the ne,w expedition she sum- 
 moned the man who enjoyed the highest reputation in 
 her army, a man who possessed a European reputation for 
 dash and daring, the leader of her war party, the famous 
 Skobeleff. 
 
 Skobeleff possessed advantages which had been denied 
 to Lomakin. In the spring then of 1880, the Turkoman 
 chief who had led his countrymen to victory after victory, 
 who in the course cf his brilliant career had defeated three. 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 47 
 
 nations, the Khivans, the Persians, and the Russians, the 
 illustrious Nur Verdi Kha"n, had died. He had left no 
 successor at all equal to himself. Whilst therefore, in 
 1880, the Russians, alike more numerous and more 
 experienced in the warfare of the desert than in 1879, 
 were led by the best general of whom their country could 
 boast, the Turkomans had no leader who inspired them 
 with the confidence which, in 1879, had gone far to enable 
 them to repulse their foes. 
 
 The plan devised by SkobelefT proved that he had com- 
 pletely mastered all the intricacies of the task which had 
 been committed to his hands. Joined by a small body of 
 men who marched from Khiva to the western border of the 
 Tekke oasis, he marched with a select division, of which 
 those men formed a part, from the Attrek to the Akhal 
 oasis at Bami, about 180 miles from the Caspian and about 
 80 from the spot where the Turkomans had congregated, 
 a fort called Geok Tepe, somewhat to the north of the scene 
 of the disaster of the previous year. He then proceeded to 
 fortify this post, covering it with intrenchments, with the 
 idea of making it the base for a further advance. He made 
 of it in fact what Wellington made of the lines of Torres 
 Vedras. Within the lines thus formed Skobeleff pro- 
 ceeded to store provisions and supplies, turning a deaf ear 
 to the solicitations of those who pressed him to avenge 
 without further delay the defeat of his predecessor. These 
 supplies came from the Volga, from the Caucasus, and from 
 Persia, and were conveyed by camel trains from Krasnovodsk. 
 Several months were employed by Skobeleff in these 
 necessary preliminaries. At length, in January 1881, he 
 advanced, attacked the children of the desert in their 
 intrenchments at Geok Tepe', stormed their position, 
 slaughtered thousands of the defenders, and pursued the 
 remainder beyond Askabad. This time the rule of terror 
 
48 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 did its work. It cowed the survivors into absolute and 
 complete submission. 
 
 The usual political consequences followed. In the month 
 of May of the same year the Czar issued an ukase by 
 which he declared that the Transcaspian territory, the 
 abode of the Akhal Tekkes, was annexed to Russia. ^ 
 
 Nor was Russia worse served by her administrators than 
 by her generals. In an incredibly short space of time, 
 lines of rails, intended during the Russo-Turkish war for 
 the use of the army of the Danube, and which had since 
 been lying idle in Southern Russia, were transported to 
 the eastern shore of the Caspian and were at once utilized 
 in the newly acquired territories. So thoroughly in earnest 
 were the officials, that before the conclusion of 1881 the 
 line had been completed as far as Kizil Arvat, 144 miles 
 from the Caspian. It is a remarkable fact, worthy of 
 appreciation, that at that very moment the British Indian 
 Government were selling the rails which had been brought 
 at considerable expense to Quetta for the purpose of con- 
 necting Sibi with that important frontier fort, and that fort 
 with Kandahar ! 
 
 In a lecture of remarkable clearness and ability delivered 
 at the Royal United Service Institution on the i6th May, 
 1884, Sir Edward Hamley, after describing the progress of 
 Russia in the Transcaspian regions up to the period of 
 SkobelefFs success at Geok Tepe in 1881, proceeded to 
 point out how the Russians, never losing sight of the 
 definite aim of their policy, had, whilst passing on the 
 railway from the eastern shores of the Caspian to Kizil 
 Arvat and beyond Kizil Arvat, been at the same time 
 careful to unite to the empire by the same iron band the 
 Caucasian shores of the same. After pointing out the 
 advantages of Baku on the Caucasian shore, as producing an 
 inexhaustible quantity of fuel for railway consumption, and 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 49 
 
 f , . , ,. ... 
 
 informing his audience that at the end of 1882 the railway of 
 the Caucasus was continued from Tiflis to Baku, with a 
 branch to Batoum, a more convenient and healthy port than 
 Poti, Sir Edward thus drew the following conclusions as 
 to the advantages to be derived from the new route thus 
 constituted : " From Odessa," he continued, " troops can 
 be conveyed across the Black Sea to Batoum in two days, 
 from thence by rail to Baku in twenty-four hours, another 
 twenty-four hours would see them landed at Krasnovodsk, 
 transferred in lighters to the shallow water to Michaelovsk, 
 and the entrainment of them begun, when the journey to 
 Kizil Arvat, the present but by no means the final terminus 
 of the Transcaspian line, occupies twelve hours. 
 
 " The communication with Odessa, of course, admits of 
 the reinforcement of the Caucasian army to any extent. 
 But the Caucasus itself forms an effectively independent 
 territory for beginning a campaign. It is no wild, barbarous 
 region, but a country rich, well- watered, and now thoroughly 
 Russian, and its capital, Tiflis, in the advantages of its site 
 and climate, its public and private buildings, and its 
 establishment as the head-quarters of an army, miy stand 
 comparison with nearly any city in the Czar's dominions. 
 The war strength of the army of the Caucasus is 160,000 
 men. 
 
 " The efficacy of the other channel of communication 
 between Russia and the Caspian has also been largely 
 increased of late years. Besides four lines of railway to 
 points on the Volga, complete communication between the 
 Neva and that river is afforded by the canal system of the 
 country. And to obviate the interruption occurring in the 
 winter months, a line of railway is projected from a point 
 where many lines from Russia converge, in Cis-Caucasia, 
 to Petrovsk on the Caspian, and thence along its shore to 
 Baku. You will therefore probably agree that there is not 
 
 E 
 
50 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 at present much difficulty, and that such as there is will 
 shortly disappear, either in bringing reserves and stores, to 
 any extent, on the lines from Northern Russia, and also 
 from Southern Russia, to the Caspian, or in conveying the 
 army of the Caucasus with its stores from that sea to the 
 Transcaspian railway, and along that line to Kizil Arvat. 
 That terminus is 135 miles from Askabad, to which place 
 the railway will doubtless be carried. Askabad is 186 
 miles from Sarakhs and Sarakhs is 202 from Herdt, only 
 a few miles more than the distance from York to London." 
 
 I make no apology for this quotation, for the words of 
 which it is composed present in the fairest and clearest 
 light to the reader the immense advantages which 
 Skobeleffs victory at Geok Tepe, and the consequent 
 annexation of the Transcaspian territory, has procured for 
 Russia. That territory is united now by the speediest of 
 all modern modes of communication with St. Petersburg, 
 with Moscow, and with all the great arsenals of Russia. 
 That conquest brought not an isolated and outlying portion 
 of Russia but the whole Russian empire bound into one 
 solid mass by the iron road, as near to Herat, within a few 
 miles as the most advanced outposts of British India!* 
 As we go on we shall see that the evil did not stop there ! 
 
 Nor was the power to concentrate an irresistible force 
 upon the furthest point of its Transcaspian territory the 
 only advantage gained for his country by Skobeleff at Geok 
 Tepe. Leaving absolutely out of consideration the pres- 
 tige, the moral influence though that is a factor which 
 must enter largely into the calculation of a statesman when 
 he has to deal with Eastern peoples there remain two dis- 
 tinct material advantages, both of which will affect very 
 powerfully any struggle which may occur in Afghanistan or 
 
 * Kizil Arvat is 523 miles from Herat ; the British outposts are 514. 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 51 
 
 on the existing British frontier, between Russia and Great 
 Britain. These are (i), the enormous influence gained by 
 the former over Persia ; (2) the employment as the van- 
 guard of her armies of the conquered Turkomans. 
 
 With respect to the first I shall again quote from the 
 same competent authority, to whose warnings in May of 
 last year the country turned a deaf ear. " Next to her 
 resources for a campaign," said Sir Edward Hamley on 
 that occasion, " Russia's relations with Persia are of prime 
 importance." Describing then the various phases of the 
 attitude of Persia towards Russia between 1876 and 1880, 
 Sir Edward thus continued : "But, in the following year, 
 after Skobeleff had established himself at Bami, a remark- 
 able change occurred in the attitude of Persia. Ostensible 
 orders to the contrary notwithstanding, he was allowed to 
 procure vast supplies of provisions from Khordsan ; and 
 when, after the capture of Geok Tepe, he marched beyond 
 Askabad in pursuit, he was allowed to violate Persian 
 territory without remonstrance, and the Turkomans who 
 escaped into what they supposed to be the neutral territory 
 of Persia were handed over as prisoners to the Russians. 
 In fact how can Persia, without the strongest support, re- 
 sist such a neighbour ? The Russian border is co-terminous 
 with hers from Mount Ararat to beyond Askabad. The 
 fleet on the Caspian and the new railway give Russia the 
 means of invading at a hundred points the bordering 
 territory, furnishing a hundred good reasons why Persia 
 could no more oppose the will of Russia than the mere 
 human being of her own tales could oppose the tremen- 
 dous spirit who rose in clouds from the sea, or descended 
 on over-shadowing wings from the sky." Information 
 which has been received since the lecture from which this 
 passage is quoted was delivered, and since the Russian 
 advances to Merv and Sarakhs, therein foreshadowed, have 
 
 E 2 
 
52 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 become accomplished facts, goes to prove that at the 
 present moment Persia is an inert mass to be moulded at. 
 will by her powerful neighbour. 
 
 The second advantage I have referred to the incorpora- 
 tion of the Turkoman cavalry in the Russian army has 
 been also already accomplished. The rule of terror, always 
 an initial factor with Russia when dealing with Oriental 
 races, did its work, as I have already said, at Geok Tepe. 
 That crushing defeat and the unsparing manner with which 
 it was followed, broke the free spirit of the desert-born 
 warriors. Recognizing in their subduers their masters, they 
 accepted their fate, and they are now ready to forage, to 
 fight, and to plunder for the successors to the empire of 
 Nadir Shall ! 
 
 I return from this digression a digression necessary to 
 display the great results obtained by Russia from Skobeleff's 
 triumph at Geok Tepd to describe the further progress 
 made in the Transcaspian line of conquest. I left the 
 Russian army pursuing the Turkomans as far as Askabad, 
 only 388 miles from Hera't. I propose now to describe 
 their further progress since that date. 
 
 The victory of Geok Tepe had subdued for ever, a very 
 important tribe of the Turkomans, the Akhal Tekkes. 
 But there were other tribes scarcely less formidable. 
 These were the Sarik Turkomans, numbering 65,000 souls, 
 lying along the Murghab river between Merv and Herat ; 
 the Tejend Turkomans, occupying the country watered by 
 the river of that name to within thirty miles of Sarakhs ; 
 and the Merv Tekkes or the tribe which pastured its herds 
 round about Merv. All these tribes were to be absorbed. 
 
 The turn of the Tejend Turkomans came first. Terrified 
 by the defeat of their brethren at Geok Tepe and its con- 
 sequences, they offered, almost on the morrow of the victory, 
 their submission to the conquerors. That submission 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 53 
 
 brought into the possession of Russia the Tejend oasis, a 
 territory, to use the words of Lieutenant, now, I believe, 
 Colonel, Alikhanoff, who surveyed it, " almost larger than 
 that of Merv," and brought her within striking distance 30 
 miles of Sarakhs, and within 232 of Herit. The Tejend 
 river which waters that oasis is, in very deed, the Heri-rud 
 which waters Herat, for, flowing northwards as it approaches 
 the Persian frontier near Kuhsan, it takes, just beyond Pul-i- 
 Khatun, the name of the swamp in which it finally dis- 
 appears. It forms then, if not a water road to Herat, yet 
 a road which supplies troops marching along its banks 
 with one of the two primary necessities for an army. 
 
 For a time after that submission Russia remained appar- 
 ently quiescent. She was only biding her time. Whilst 
 the attention of the politicians of England was fixed upon 
 the events passing in Egypt and in the Soudan, they read 
 one morning <jn January, 1884, that Merv had been 
 occupied. Some years before, even statesmen who believed 
 in the promises of Russia, had declared that her troops 
 could never be allowed to occupy Merv. Yet in 1884, 
 that occupation was allowed to pass with but a feeble pro- 
 test ! *r 
 
 The full significance of that important acquisition is not 
 even yet properly appreciated by the governing classes and 
 the people of these islands. In vain did two Englishmen 
 and one foreigner attempt to rouse them to a sense of the 
 danger it involved. One of these, Mr. Charles Marvin, 
 whose services in respect of the Russo-Afghan question 
 have been invaluable, and who, speaking and writing with 
 absolute knowledge personally acquired, can understand 
 better than any living man the feelings of the Cassandra 
 of the Homeric legend, published at once a pamphlet* in 
 
 * "The Russian Annexation of Merv." W. H. Allen & Co, 
 
54 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 which he dwelt emphatically upon the opportunities which 
 such a movement gave to Russia. " The conquest of 
 Merv." wrote Mr. Marvin, in February, 1884, "is some- 
 thing more than the annexation of a mid-desert oasis. It 
 means the complete junction of the military forces of the 
 Caucasus and Turkestan. It means, with the annexation 
 of Akhal, the absorption of 100,000 of the best Irregular 
 cavalry in the world, at a week's inarch from 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 terri- 
 tory, and the addition to the Russian empire of a region 
 as large as France. It means the completion of the con- 
 quest of the Central Asian deserts, and the commencement 
 of the annexation of the great fertile mountain region of 
 Persia and Afghanistan. It means the deliberate occupa- 
 tion of a strategical point, fraught with political entangle- 
 ments of such a wide-spread nature, that, whether Russia 
 desire it or not, she will be inevitably led, unless forestalled 
 or checked by England, to Meshed, to Herat, to Balkh, 
 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." 
 It may be objected by some that these are the opinions 
 of Mr. Marvin, and that they do not care to listen to Mr. 
 Marvin, because, when the Conservatives were in office he 
 was charged with divulging information which compro- 
 mised the Government. I may remark, in passing, that 
 that charge in no way affects the credibility of a man who 
 has heard with his own ears the opinions expressed on the 
 subject by Russian generals and Russian diplomatists, and 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 55 
 
 who, for the love of England, has spent his own money to 
 warn England's people. But let us turn from Mr. Marvin, 
 from this past-master of the history of Transcaspian 
 aggression, and read what the greatest strategist of England 
 has to say upon the subject. 
 
 " Commercially viewed," said Sir Edward Hamley in the 
 lecture from which I have already quoted, delivered in 
 May of last year, " Russia has gained in Merv for the pre- 
 sent merely a fresh burthen. The Turkomans, debarred 
 from brigandage, and unfit for any sustained commercial 
 or agricultural enterprises, will be but an impoverished 
 community. They possess no towns nor institutions, nor 
 territories which exhibit any mark either of prosperity or of 
 the faculty of becoming prosperous. The one advantage 
 of the possession is that the caravan route passing Bokhara 
 to Meshed and the interior, and that from India by Hera't 
 to Central Asia, lie through Merv. But that it was once a 
 centre of great prosperity is proved by the fact that the 
 remains of four great cities exist there, the inhabitants of 
 the last of which were driven out by the present semi- 
 barbarians about a century ago. Under Russian rule that 
 prosperity will revive the land will once more teem with 
 the crops to which nothing is wanting but good husbandry. 
 And, when once again become populous and fertile, it will 
 afford a secondary base against the Afghan frontier. In 
 the meanwhile it closes the gap aforesaid, and as soon as 
 Russia lays down her frontier line, the whole of that vast 
 empire from the Baltic to the Danube, thence along the 
 Black Sea, across the Caucasus to the Caspian, along the 
 Persian frontier to Merv and Turkistan, 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 borderland which is a barrier in 
 no sense, and which I will endeavour briefly to describe." 
 
56 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 On the same subject, Sir Charles Macgregor wrote in 
 1875: "There is no doubt in my mind that the real 
 danger lies in our permitting the Russians to concentrate 
 unopposed at Merv, which is quite within coup de main 
 distance of Herat ; and it is in this fact, and in this alone, 
 that the value of Merv to the Russians lies. Once place 
 Herat beyond the possibility of a coup de main, and I can- 
 not imagine the astute statesmen of Russia persisting in 
 the occupation of an isolated spot in the desert, the main- 
 tenance of which must cost a great deal." The forecast 
 has been already proved true ! 
 
 It will be observed that Sir Edward Hamley speaks of 
 the new frontier as one " which, presumably, we cannot 
 allow her (Russia) to overstep." But six months had not 
 elapsed since the delivery of the lecture when Russia did 
 take another step forward a step, in my opinion, the most 
 important of all subsequent to the victory of Geok 
 Tep. In the autumn of last year Russia advanced 
 her outposts along the Persian frontier from Askabad to 
 Sarakhs ! 
 
 Russia would not have been Russia had she not accom- 
 panied this most important move onward by the usual 
 attempt to deceive the gullible British public, and their 
 worse than gullible representatives in the House of Com- 
 mons. I shall show more clearly further on why the plea 
 was that there was an old Sarakhs and a new Sarakhs, was 
 of all pleas the most disingenuous. Russia gained the 
 position on the bank of the Tejend most convenient to 
 her for an operation against Herat, and the value of that 
 position was, as I shall show, in no way affected by the fact 
 that she did not occupy the fort as well ! Yet the excuse, 
 lame as it was, went down : it was accepted ; and Russia 
 was allowed to remain at old _Sarakhs without even a re- 
 monstrance ! 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 57 
 
 The enormous importance of this step has never been 
 sufficiently appreciated. With all humility and with all 
 earnestness I would beg my countrymen to turn for a 
 moment from the selfish strife of parties, and devote a few 
 minutes' consideration to a subject which affects, and vitally 
 affects, the future position of the British Empire. The 
 position occupied by old Sarakhs ought never to have been 
 allowed to fall into the hands of Russia. That she was 
 allowed to take it is a proof of the state of vassalage to 
 which Persia has been reduced, for new and old Sarakhs 
 constituted a frontier post of that country. Let us, for a 
 moment, examine their position. 
 
 Fortunately, we are able, on this subject, to write "from 
 the book." In 1875, one of the ablest and most accom- 
 plished officers who wear the British uniform, the present 
 Quartermaster-General of Her Majesty's army in India, 
 Major-General Sir Charles MacGregor, visited Sarakhs. 
 There is no uncertainty in the opinion he gave regarding 
 its value. " A glance at the map will show," he wrote, 
 " that in the complication which must arise ere the Russo- 
 Indian question can be deemed settled, its future 'the 
 future of Sarakhs ' is likely to be a stirring one. Placed 
 at the junction of roads from Herat and Meshed, by the 
 Heri-rud and Ab-i-Meshed valleys respectively, and at the 
 best entrance to the province of Khorasan from the north, 
 it cannot fail to exercise a very serious influence on the 
 momentous issue of the above question. This must 
 happen, whether it fall into the hands of the friends of 
 England or into those of her foes. Whether Russia use 
 Sarakhs as a base for offensive measures against Herat, or 
 England use her as a defensive outpost to defeat any such 
 operations, that position will be heard of again. And if 
 my feeble voice can effect a warning, ere it is too late let it 
 
5 8 The Rus so- Afghan Question. 
 
 here be raised in these words : If England does not use 
 Sarakhs for defence Russia will use it for offence"* 
 
 I am no alarmist. The words I have quoted are the 
 words of a very able man who has spent his life on the 
 Indian frontier, who can speak the language of the 
 Afghans and the Khorasanis, a man who has ever kept his 
 eyes and his ears well open. The journal of his travels 
 teems with evidence that even in those days Persia was 
 being Russianized. There is not a soldier living who 
 knows MacGregor who would not accept as an absolute 
 truth his warning words about Sarakhs. And yet, the 
 English Government allowed Russia to take quietly and 
 without remonstrance the plains commanding that most 
 important place a place which is an eye to see and an 
 arm to strike. When a faint voice was raised in Parlia- 
 ment upon the question it was silenced by the disingenuous 
 plea, already referred to, that there were two such places 
 known as Sarakhs, and that the Sarakhs occupied was not 
 the fortiess but the old town ! 
 
 Is there an old town of Sarakhs? There was indeed 
 in earlier days an old Sarakhs, but there is but one forti- 
 fied town now. Let the reader follow the description 
 of Sir Charles MacGregor : " The scene that met my 
 eye " he writes, describing his survey of the country from 
 the north tower of the only existing Sarakhs, "is easily 
 described. To the north stretched one vast plain, which, 
 except for a few mounds and a ruined mosque marking the 
 site of one of the former towns of Sarakhs, was unbroken 
 by tree, bush, mound, or undulations as far as the eye. 
 could reach. The Tejend, it is true, winds round to the 
 
 * The italics are Sir Charles MacGregor's. Vide "Narrative of a 
 Journey through the Province of Khorassan and the N.W. Frontier of 
 Afghanistan in 1875." London : W. H. Allen & Co., 1879. 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. f 59 
 
 north-west, but its bed is low, below the level of the plain, 
 and so nothing can be seen of it. It was a strange feeling 
 to look out on this wild interminable expanse, and think 
 that for an arc of 80, there was not for 300 miles perhaps 
 one single drop of water, or one human being. To the 
 north-east lay the road to Merv stretched out beyond the 
 dark tamarisk foliage in the bed of the Tejend. To the 
 east all was clear : to the south-east were undulating 
 rounded ridges (covered with little black dots which they 
 told me were "pista" bushes)* extending towards the 
 Murghab. To the south was the Miizduran ridge we had 
 come through, and a little way north of west was a con- 
 fused mass of rugged ridges, among which I was informed 
 lay the famed stronghold of the great Nadir." 
 
 This plain on the Tejend, then, is really the position 
 of Sarakhs ? That position Russia has taken and Russia 
 holds. It is idle to argue that the position is valueless 
 because she does not hold also the fort of Sarakhs. The 
 fort of Sarakhs "has a garrison" (I quote again from 
 MacGregor) "of one battalion of infantry, numbering 
 some seven hundred men, eleven guns, good, bad, and 
 indifferent, and a few horsemen ; but the dimensions of the 
 fort are such that it would take ten times this number to 
 man the walls, even in the most inefficient manner." In a 
 word, the Russians can walk into it whenever they may 
 choose to do so ! 
 
 MacGregor gives us, likewise, a plan and description of 
 the fortress. He then adds : " Were the Turkoman ques- 
 tion for ever at rest " Russia has settled it since he penned 
 those words " I see no reason why Sarakhs should not 
 become a place of considerable importance as a large 
 
 * The Pistachio nut. 
 
60 . TJie Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 population could easily be supported by agriculture alone, 
 and its convenient position with reference to Meshed and 
 Herat on the south, and Khiva and Bokhara on the north, 
 marks it out a future probable entrepot of commerce." 
 Further on, he adds : " Commercially, it is admirably situ- 
 ated for drawing to it all the trade between Turkistan on 
 the north and Khorasan on the south ; and it has every 
 advantage of soil and water and climate that would be 
 necessary for these purposes." 
 
 On the same subject the position of Sarakhs let us 
 study the description of the position as given by the 
 correspondent of the Illustrated London Neu>s, in the issue 
 of that paper of the i4th March : 
 
 " Sarakhs, which the Russians were permitted to occupy 
 soon after their conquest of Merv, and from which the 
 understood line of Afghan boundary was to have been 
 drawn eastward to the Oxus by the Joint Commission, con- 
 sists of old and new Sarakhs, three miles and a half 
 apart, situated on opposite sides of the Heri-rud, the bed 
 of which, at that particular place, was dry at the season 
 when the British Commission arrived there. This place 
 belonged to Persia, but old Sarakhs, on the eastern side, 
 was handed over to the Russians by the Persian Governor. 
 When our Special Artist visited old Sarakhs, the Russian 
 Governor- General of the Transcaspian Provinces, General 
 Komaroff, was there, but only a few Russian troops, who 
 were Akhal Turkomans recently enlisted in the Russian 
 army. The sketch now given shows the remains of the 
 old city, which is entirely deserted ; to the east and north 
 there are a number of reed huts with a few people living in 
 them. Old Sarakhs, as the sketch will show, is merely a 
 square mound, rising high above the present level of the 
 desert, and this mound is no doubt an accumulation of 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 61 
 
 rubbish formed by the destruction of houses and the re- 
 building of them during a long course of time. The 
 ruined walls of one building are all that stands of the old 
 town ; the rest of the space is a mass of bricks and weeds, 
 The walls are of burned brick, but are in a very crumbling 
 state. The town itself evidently has not had an inhabitant 
 for many years. On the north and east are the remains of 
 crumbling mud walls, which may have been inhabited since 
 the old city was left to decay. The old tomb seen to the 
 right of this view is called Baba Ogle ; but there is a 
 tradition that it is the tomb of Abel, the tomb of Cain 
 being at new Sarakhs, 
 
 " New Sarakhs, which is still occupied by the Persians, is 
 on the western bank of the Heri-rud, 300 yards from the 
 river bed. It is of late date, and is possessed of the usual 
 mud walls, with towers. The wall encloses a space of 700 
 yards diameter. The governor, AH Mardan Khan, who has 
 to deal with the whole of the frontier of this part of Persia, 
 lives in the town, and has four or five hundred troops. 
 Although the walls cover a good amount of ground, there 
 are very few people in the place. In the sketch, the 
 mound of old Sarakhs is just visible in the distance ; in the 
 foreground is one of the usual towers of refuge. Mr. 
 Simpson made a separate sketch of the Meshed Gate of 
 new Sarakhs, which shows the character of the crenelated 
 walls and the towers. There are only two gates to the 
 town this gate, and another towards the north, called the 
 Bokhara gate. Inside of the Meshed gate is the Arg, or 
 citadel, where the governor lives, and the garrison have 
 their quarters. A wall separates this from the other part ot 
 the town. There is a ditch perhaps 10 feet or 12 feet deep, 
 and nearly 20 feet wide, round the walls, with a covered way, 
 or chemin de ronde^ between the wall and the ditch. There 
 
62 The Rnsso-Afghan Question. 
 
 are six small brass guns placed at various points, but the 
 mud walls could offer no defence to a regular attack. 
 
 " A curious feature of the river above Sarakhs is the dam, 
 or ' bund,' as it would be termed in India, at Kizil Koi, 
 by which the water is diverted into streams for artificial 
 irrigation. Kizil-Koi is eight miles higher up the river, 
 between Sarakhs and Pul-i-Khdtun. This dam, which is a 
 very primitive affair, being made of wattles and earth, fills 
 a water-course, which supplies old Sarakhs; and new 
 Sarakhs receives its supply of water on the other side of 
 the Heri-Rud from a point not far distant. All cultivation 
 in this region is done by means of irrigation derived from 
 rivers and Streams ; and the protection of " water supply " 
 is an important part of the frontier question. On the ordin- 
 ary maps it will be seen that the Heriserai is on the Persian 
 side of the bridge, standing on the right bank of the Ker- 
 shef-Rud. The date of its erection is given as in Timour's 
 time. The view taken by me is looking south, and the 
 high hills forming the background are all on the Persian 
 side. The Kershef-Rud is a small stream which enters the 
 Heri-Rud on its left bank only a few yards below the 
 bridge." 
 
 Let the reader realize the commercial and military 
 advantages of this position ; further, that the fortress resting 
 on that position belongs to a prince who is virtually a vassal 
 of Russia ; further still, that the position, capable of a large 
 development, lies by the valley of the Heri-rud, 202 miles, 
 by the alternative route along the Murghab valley, a 
 somewhat shorter distance, from Herat : that it is about 
 60 miles from Merv, and that the routes from the two places 
 to Herat, by the Murghab valley, converge at Panjdeh ; 
 let him realise all this, and then ask with surprise under 
 what blind infatuation has the British Government per- 
 
Progress of Russia towards India. 63 
 
 mitted the occupation of these two threatening positions, 
 Merv and Sarakhs, by a colossal power which is advancing 
 towards India, without making a corresponding forward 
 movement from the Indus ? 
 
 The consideration of this infatuation will form the sub- 
 ject of the next chapter. 
 
64 The Rosso-Afghan Question. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE INFATUATION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 THE Ministers of the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland 
 are, or are supposed to be, the executors of the will of the 
 people of these islands. However culpably ignorant and 
 culpably inefficient a ministry may be, it is unfair then abso- 
 lutely to condemn them if the people whom they represent 
 absolve them. If the people of these islands are mis- 
 governed, if they sanction a policy which tends to the loss 
 of India, they have mainly themselves to blame. In de- 
 scribing " the infatuation of Great Britain " I shall describe 
 a course of conduct which, though initiated by the minister, 
 has been sanctioned by the people. It is to the people that 
 I appeal. I tell them that that policy which they have 
 sanctioned is risking the loss of their greatest dependency. 
 I implore them not to be blinded by oratorical platitudes, 
 bnVtnJnnlr farts sternly jp \%\? f**<* T mnV^ thig app^nl not 
 as a party-man, for it will be seen I blame both parties, but 
 as ar^ Tynfflishman who loves his country and who feels that 
 the empire which has been created by the valour, by the 
 energy, by the skill, and by the devotion of our forefathers 
 can only be maintained by the display of the same 
 qualities by their descendants ! 
 
 At the close of the third chapter I brought the action 
 of the British Government up to the year 1869, the year in 
 which, Samarkhand having been annexed and Bokhara con- 
 trolled by Russia, Lord Clarendon made his famous pro- 
 position for constituting Afghanistan as a neutral zone, and 
 
TJie Infatuation of Great Britain. 65 
 
 received in reply Prince Gortschakoffs assurance, that his 
 master, the Czar, "looks upon Afghanistan as completely with- 
 out the sphere in which Russia may be called upon to exer- 
 cise her influence/' I added, that on the Government of 
 India objecting to an arrangement which would remove 
 Afghanistan completely from the sphere of British influence, 
 the negotiations with Russia were prolonged for two years, 
 the Russian Government continuing to protest, by the mouth 
 of its Chancellor, that " Russia had no intention of going 
 further south," and that " extension of territory was exten- 
 sion of weakness." I shewed further that with these honied 
 terms upon her lips Russia was, during those two years, 
 preparing for the spring upon Khiva which she made in 
 1873. I now propose to resume the history of the recent 
 negotiations of the Governments of Great Britain and 
 India from the period, January 1869, when Sher AH, having 
 overcome all his rivals, became unquestioned ruler of 
 Afghanistan. 
 
 In the autumn immediately preceding his decisive vic- 
 tory in January 1869 over his relative, Abdul Rahman, the 
 victorious Amir, Sher All, believing his authority to be per 
 manently established, requested the Lieutenant-Governor of 
 the Punjab, Sir Donald Macleod, to inform the Viceroy 
 the late Lord Lawrence that, in order to concert a good 
 understanding between the two Governments it would be a 
 satisfaction to himself if the Viceroy would meet him at 
 Peshawur or some other place on the frontier. The Vice- 
 roy was willing to grant the interview, and would have 
 arranged it, but, before preliminaries could be settled, there 
 occurred that invasion by Abdul Rahman, the repelling 
 of which demanded all the energies of Sher Ali. 
 
 Two months after the decisive battle which confirmed 
 Sher AH on his throne Lord Lawrence left India. His suc- 
 cessor, the Earl of Mayo, possessed the rare and difficult 
 
66 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 gift of a thorough knowledge of his fellow-men. He 
 was quick, beyond all men whom I have met, in reading 
 character. This gift, joined to great decision and energy, 
 would have made him under any circumstances a strong 
 man. But, added to it, and gilding, as it were, all hirs 
 actions, there was a singular charm of manner, which im- 
 pressed everyone with whom he came in contact, and 
 which was sure to exercise, and which did exercise, a 
 remarkable influence over an Oriental people. 
 
 One of the first acts of the new Viceroy was to examine 
 the relations existing between India, and the ruler of the 
 mountainous region on its north-western border. Realis- 
 ing at once the importance of the interview which Sher 
 Ali had solicited from his predecessor, Lord Mayo at once 
 forwarded to him an invitation to meet him at Ambala, 
 The invitation was accepted. 
 
 Sher Ali came to Ambdla in the spring of 1869. Had 
 the hands of Lord Mayo been free, it is quite possible that 
 an arrangement might have been arrived at which would 
 have prevented the second Afghan war and have rendered 
 impossible Russian aggression. But Lord Mayo's hands 
 were tied very tightly indeed. Shortly after his acceptance 
 of the office of Viceroy, the Minister who had recommended 
 him for that office had been displaced ; and there had come 
 into power a Ministry upon whom a phrase invented by 
 Lord Lawrence, the phrase " masterly inactivity," exercised 
 a fascination which its very victims would find it now diffi- 
 cult to explain. The real meaning of this phrase, as in- 
 terpreted by the action of those who adopted it, was that 
 Russia might do as she pleased in Central Asia, provided 
 she did not touch Afghanistan ; whilst British India 
 should remain inactive, not encumbering herself with an 
 offensive alliance with a power beyond its actual frontier, 
 least of all with Afghanistan, and taking care to give no. 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 67 
 
 pledge to support the dynasty of the actual ruler of that 
 country. 
 
 If we bear in mind this fettered position of Lord Mayo, 
 we shall easily recognize the greatness of the disappoint- 
 ment likely to accrue to the Amir Sher AH. For Sher Ali 
 had come to Ambdla full of hope of obtaining the support 
 which a dependent ruler has a right to expect from his 
 suzerain. Sher AH had come to Ambala hopeful of se- 
 curing an offensive and defensive alliance with the Govern- 
 ment of India. He desired a full assurance of protection 
 against Russian aggression, the prospects of which, ever 
 since the fall of Samarkhand, had filled him with apprehen- 
 sion. He wished to be assured, in a distinct and absolute 
 manner, that the British would recognize as his successor, 
 in his own lifetime, the son whom he was prepared to 
 nominate. These were the cardinal aims which had 
 prompted him to solicit an interview from Lord Law- 
 rence, and which influenced him to accept the invita- 
 tion of Lord Mayo. He had come to Ambala in the full 
 hope that his wishes with respect to all of them would be 
 gratified. Even we, who are behind the scenes, and who 
 know how completely the hands of Lord Mayo were tied, 
 cannot realize the full measure of the disappointment in 
 store for him. 
 
 The charm of Lord Mayo's manner won indeed the 
 heart of the man, but the spirit of his replies wounded to 
 the quick the soul of the Amir. With respect to Sher All's 
 demand for a specific promise of full protection against 
 Russian aggression, Lord Mayo could reply only with 
 the vague promise that " he would be strengthened from 
 time to time as circumstances might seem to re- 
 quire ; " that his applications for assistance would 
 always be received "with .consideration and respect." 
 Nor, on the domestic question, was the answer he 
 
 F 2 
 
68 The Rus so -Afghan Question. 
 
 received one whit more satisfactory to the Amir. He 
 was not even solaced with a promise that he would be 
 supported against any attempt which his rivals might make 
 to unseat him. The utmost he could obtain was an 
 assurance that any attempt on their part would be regarded 
 by the British Government with "severe displeasure;" 
 whilst as to the recognition of his favourite son as his 
 successor, although, with respect to that, he made to use 
 Lord Mayo's expression "the most urgent and prominent 
 demands ; " stated his earnest wish that the Government of 
 India " should acknowledge not only himself, but his lineal 
 descendants or successors in blood ; " and added that, if 
 this were accorded " there was nothing he would not do 
 to evince his gratitude," he was met, as far as Lord Mayo 
 was concerned, by a reluctant " non possumus I " 
 
 Sher Ali returned to Kabul a sincere admirer and per- 
 sonal friend of Lord Mayo, but utterly disappointed with 
 the political results of his journey. To all intents and 
 purposes he was in a position, with respect to British 
 support, but little better than that which he had occupied 
 when he accepted the invitation. He vented his feelings in 
 the bitter remark: "The English care only for themselves !" 
 Yet and it is a remarkable result of the glamour exer- 
 cised by those fatal words " masterly inactivity "even the 
 vague assurances of Lord Mayo had excited the alarm of 
 the Ministry in England. The phrase used by the Viceroy 
 that any application for assistance on the part of the Amir, 
 would be received " with consideration and respect " was 
 objected to by the Minister for India, on the ground that 
 those words " may some day be construed by the Amir or 
 by his successors as meaning more than, with those ex- 
 planations" i.e., the verbal explanations given by Lord 
 Mayo to the Amir " they were intended to convey." 
 The same Minister even wrote a despatch to the Viceroy, 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 69 
 
 in which, amongst other matters, he objected to the term 
 " rightful rule " as applied to the rule of Sher Ali over 
 Afghanistan ! 
 
 Time went on. The Russian Government, after amusing 
 for more than two years the British Ministry with vague 
 and specious promises, struck at and captured Khiva, in 
 1873. The news of this capture reached Kabul in June of 
 the same year. It filled the mind of the Amir with terror. 
 The catastrophe which he had seen looming in the future 
 at Ambala had come upon him. Khiva had followed 
 Samarkhand. The turn of Afghanistan would follow Full 
 of these apprehensions he stretched out his hands to the 
 Viceroy, telling him that the vague assurances of Ambala 
 were insufficient for the present emergency, and desiring to 
 know how far he might rely upon British help if he should 
 be invaded. 
 
 It was, surely, a natural request, this solicitation from the 
 commander of the outer bulwark of Hindustan to the ruler 
 of the country which that bulwark covered. It was a 
 request which should have received a sympathizing and re- 
 assuring reply. 
 
 The Viceroy of India was no longer Lord Mayo. That 
 nobleman had been assassinated in the Andamans by a 
 convict sentenced to penal servitude for murder, and had, 
 been succeeded by Lord Northbrook, a man whose cold 
 unsympathizing manners and hard unimaginative nature 
 were not calculated to conciliate. 
 
 Lord Northbrook did not feel empowered to reply to the 
 message of the Amir, but referred it by telegram to the 
 Ministry at home, the same Ministry which had adopted with 
 respect to India the fatal principle summed up in the 
 Lawrentian motto. The reply he received is worth record- 
 ing as a specimen of the " masterly imbecility " which 
 pervaded British councils in July 1873. ^ 
 
70 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 " Cabinet thinks," so ran the telegram, " you should 
 inform Amir that we do not at all share his alarm, and 
 consider there is no cause for it ; but you may assure 
 him we shall maintain our settled policy in favour 
 of Afghanistan if he abides your advice in external 
 affairs." 
 
 The Khanate of Khiva annexed, and no cause for 
 alarm ! Surely that was cold comfort for a ruler who, on 
 the spot, possessed the best means for judging! "We 
 do not share his alarm." We Who have been duped by 
 this very act of Russia ; who were told that the expedition 
 was a very little one, that far from its being the intention 
 of the Czar to take Khiva, positive orders had been sent 
 to prevent it ; we, who, after the event, do not care to 
 examine " too minutely how far these arrangements were in 
 strict accordance with the assurances given in January ; " 
 we, who have been duped at every turn and who have 
 been wrong in every forecast we " do not at all share his 
 alarm, and consider there is no cause for it ! " Cold com- 
 fort that, I repeat, coming from such a quarter, for an 
 anxious and alarmed ruler ! 
 
 Cold comfort indeed Sher Ali found it. Such a message 
 was calculated to confirm rather than to remove his fears, 
 But he did not even then despair. He would place before 
 the Governor-General, and, through him, before the British 
 Government, facts which should speak, and he would make 
 a final appeal to their justice and to their interests. In this 
 intent, Sher Ali transmitted fresh instructions to an agent 
 whom he had previously despatched to Simla, the summer 
 residence of the Viceroy, a nobleman who enjoyed all his 
 confidence, Saiad Nur Muhammad Shah, urging him to 
 press for certain definite concessions on the two matters 
 which he himself had so strongly urged at Ambala, viz., 
 the absolute assurance- of suppor against Russia when he 
 
77/6* Infatuation of Great Britain. ?L 
 
 should demand it, and the recognition of his favourite son 
 as his successor. 
 
 Nur Muhammad Shah carried out these instructions to 
 the letter. He had had one interview with Lord North- 
 brook on the 1 2th July : a second was accorded to him on 
 the 3oth. So far as related to the calming of the apprehen- 
 sions or satisfying the demands of the Amir these interviews 
 were absolutely unproductive. Their result may be sum med 
 up in a letter addressed by order of the Viceroy to the 
 Amir. In that letter the Amir was informed that whilst 
 the Viceroy did not entertain any apprehension of danger 
 to his Highness's dominions from without, yet that " the 
 the British Government will endeavour from time to time, 
 by such means as circumstances may require, to strengthen 
 the Government of your Highness, to enable you to 
 exercise with equity and justice your rightful rule, and to 
 transmit to your descendants all the dignities and honours 
 of which you are the lawful possessor." In the same letter 
 the Amir was reminded of the assurances given by Russia as 
 to his country being quite beyond the sphere within which she 
 was called upon to exercise her influence. Basing his 
 decision on that assurance, Lord Northbrook " postponed 
 to a more convenient opportunity " the discussion of the 
 measures to be taken in the event of an attack upon 
 Afghanistan ! 
 
 In the mind of Sher Ali this letter was a deathblow to all 
 his expectations. Let us for a moment realize his position. 
 He ruled the middle region between two colossal power?, 
 England and Russia. Every reason, geographical position, 
 personal feeling, his knowledge of the practical justice of 
 her rule in India, prompted him to link his lot with the 
 former. But Russia was advancing with giant strides. 
 She was within striking distance of his eastern border at 
 Samarkhand ; the capture of Khiva had ensured to her a 
 
72 The Rus so -Afghan Question. 
 
 position which must sooner or later bring her on to his west- 
 ern frontier; her agents weie busy throughout Central Asia 
 dwelling upon her power and boasting of her intentions ; 
 he wished to be in a position to be able to defy alike her 
 promises and her threats. In reply to his demand to be 
 placed in such a position, he received only general assur- 
 ances that he had no ground for his alarm. 
 
 That the Amir was right in construing as evasive the 
 reply of Lord Noithbrook is proved by the letter from that 
 nobleman to the Secretary of State for India explaining its 
 meaning. In that letter the Viceroy stated that the envoy 
 of the Amir had been informed that " if, in the -event of 
 any aggression from without, British influence were invoked, 
 and failed by negotiation to effect a satisfactory settlement, IT 
 WAS PROBABLE that the British Government .would 
 afford the Amir material assistance in repelling a?i invader ; 
 but that such assistance would be conditional on the Amir 
 following the advice of the British Government, and having 
 himself abstained from aggression." 
 
 Observe : the above is the Viceroy's own interpretation 
 of his own reply to the Amir ! Was it a reply calculated 
 to reassure? Was it a reply worthy cf the occasion, 
 worthy of a statesman ? Here was the commander of the 
 outlying bulwark telling the Governor of the rich city 
 which it covered that he dreaded the sudden attack of a 
 subtle enemy, and begging for a definite assurance that he 
 would be protected. In reply the Governor refuses to 
 promise him protection : tells him only that if he were 
 attacked negotiation would first be tried ; that then, if 
 negotiation were to fail, there was not a certainty let it be 
 noted but a probability that he would be protected: and 
 that only if he were to comply with certain conditions ! 
 
 Mark these conditions. The first : that he should follow 
 the advice of the British Government : truly a hard con- 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 73 
 
 dition, for the British Government might have advised him 
 to yield a Pul-i-Khatun or a Panjdeh in order to retain the 
 remainder of his dominions. The second condition was 
 harder still. " That he should himself have abstained from 
 aggression." Nothing easier in words, nothing more 
 difficult, in the presence of Russia, in practice. The stray- 
 ing of a few herdsmen across the border might be termed 
 aggression. The history of Russia, and her connection with 
 the states she has swallowed up, is a constant repetition of 
 the story of the wolf and the lamb ! 
 
 Looking back at that unhappy episode, I cannot believe 
 that the most prominent British actors in it would care 
 to defend it. The reply of the Viceroy was ungenerous, 
 unstatesmanlike, and unworthy. It produced the only- 
 possible result which a clear-headed man could have 
 anticipated from it. It alienated the Amir from England, 
 and disposed him to receive with favour the advances 
 of Russia. His sense of the unworthy tone of Lord 
 Northbrook's letter, with its assurances of probable assist- 
 ance in case he should be attacked, found vent in the 
 sarcastic reply which he transmitted : " The friendly 
 declaration of your Excellency," he wrote in November of 
 the same year, " to the effect that you will maintain towards 
 me the same policy which was followed by Lord Lawrence 
 and by Lord Mayo, has been the cause of much gratification 
 tome. My friend ! Under these circumstances of the case 
 it was not necessary to hold all those conversations with 
 Saiad Nur Muhammad Shah ! The understanding arrived 
 at at Ambala is quite sufficient " ! From that moment his 
 confidential correspondence with the Viceroy ceased. " I 
 am determined," he said, " to receive no more favours from 
 the British Government !" 
 
 Russia meanwhile was continuing her mole-like work 
 in Central Asia. The fruit of this work was next seen in 
 
74 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 February 1876, when she absorbed the remaining moiety 
 of Khokand, permitting only the principality of Karatighin 
 to retain a condition of semi-independence. 
 
 In the spring of that year Lord Lytton succeeded Lord 
 Northbrook as Viceroy of India. The new Viceroy came 
 out empowered by his Government to repair, if it were 
 possible, the mischief which had been accomplished, by 
 offering to the Amir the active support and protection, 
 including the formal recognition of his dynasty, which he 
 had previously vainly demanded at the hands of the British 
 Government. But before Lord Lytton had been able to 
 open communications with the Amir, certain events had 
 happened which had confirmed that potentate in the hostile 
 attitude which he had assumed after the mission of Saiad 
 Nur Muhammad Shah in 1873. 
 
 There had been a dispute of long standing between 
 Afghanistan and Persia regarding certain lands in Seistan, 
 the south-western province of the former state. In the 
 end both powers had agreed to refer the matter to the 
 arbitration of England. Shortly before Lord Lytton landed 
 in India, the arbitrators had given a decision very much in 
 favour of Persia. This result of a difference in which he 
 believed that all the right was on his side so embittered the 
 Amir that, coming as it did after the Simla conferences, he 
 attributed it to a settled design on the part of England to 
 humiliate, to weaken, and to insult him. 
 
 The action of the Government of India in another 
 matter on which he was extremely sensitive still further 
 embittered the Amir against the British. 
 
 The son who had accompanied Sher Ali to Ambala 
 in 1870, and on. whose behalf he had pleaded to Lord 
 Mayo, was his youngest boy, Abdula Jan, born to him by 
 his favourite wife. Popular sympathy had however been 
 excited in Afghanistan and in India in favour of an elder son, 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 75 
 
 Yakiib Kha"n, at the time governor of Herat, and who was 
 believed to be endowed with more than ordinary ability. 
 This general impression as to the capacity of Yakrib Khan 
 tended, in the belief of the Amir, to the disparagement of 
 his favourite in public estimation. His first act, therefore, 
 on his return from the Ambala conference, had been to 
 entice Yahiib Khan to Kabul, and to throw him into a 
 dungeon. This act was so far resented by the Govern- 
 ment of India that it never failed to press upon the Amir 
 it's opinion of the injustice and impolicy of his action, and 
 to urge the release of the prisoner. This constant remon- 
 strance, coming after all the Amir's requests had been 
 denied, had engendered feelings which the decision re- 
 garding Seistdn increased to positive hatred. 
 
 The Amir was under the influence of this passion when 
 Lord Lytton arrived in India. One of the first political 
 acts of the new Viceroy was to despatch a native Aide-de- 
 camp to Kabul with a message of reconciliation. But 
 the evil had been done. Sher Ali had already taken his 
 part. There were at the time Russian agents in Kdbul, 
 agents who readily promised what the English had refused, 
 and who had therefore entire possession of his mind. Sher 
 Ali declined then, ostentatiously, to receive the messenger 
 of the Viceroy, and though the conciliatory language of 
 Lord Lytton rendered it impossible for him to refuse the 
 proposal that a conference between two duly-empowered 
 envoys from the two courts should take place at Peshawar, 
 he took care to furnish his envoy with instructions which 
 should renderthe negotiations fruitless. 
 
 "Trie interview between the two negotiators took place at 
 Peshdwar in the early part of 1877. England was repre- 
 sented on that occasion by Sir Lewis Pelly, a very dis- 
 tinguished officer, who, hacTsome years before, made the 
 journey, alone, wearing all the time the British uniform, 
 
76 The Rus so Afghan Question. 
 
 from Teheran to the British frontier, crossing a danger- 
 ous corner of Afghanistan, and who was thoroughly 
 acquainted with the habits, language, and modes of thought 
 of the people. To that able officer it soon became 
 apparent that, since 1873, the roles of the negociators had 
 been inverted. In that year it had been the British Vice- 
 roy who had declined all the propositions of the Amir : 
 in 1877, it was the representative of Kabul who refused 
 his assent to the terms of accommodation and reconcilia- 
 tion set forth by the representative of the British Govern- 
 ment. To such an extent did this proceed, so unaccom- 
 modating even hostile did the language of the Kabul 
 envoy at last become, that the Viceroy wisely took advantage 
 of the death of that nobleman to declare the conference 
 at an end. 
 
 From that moment the Government of India, acting 
 upon instructions from England, resolved " to maintain an 
 attitude of vigilant reserve until such time as the Amir 
 might better realize his own position and interests." This 
 policy was persevered in for twenty months. During that 
 period the aggressive action of Russia continued to de- 
 velop itself. There cannot be a doubt but that, had the 
 negotiations between England and Russia in 1878 termi- 
 nated in a rupture between the two powers, Russia was 
 prepared to follow in the footsteps of Nadir Shah to 
 threaten from the base of a friendly Afghanistan the 
 empire of Hindustan. Under these circumstances, it 
 was not possible that the British Government should 
 remain quiescent, when a breach between Russia and 
 England seeming to be a question not of days but of 
 hours the Amir received with remarkable ostentation an 
 embassy despatched to him by the Czar ! 
 
 Yet though it was impossible that the British Govern- 
 ment should allow to pass without notice an act which 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 77 
 
 constituted a breach of the engagement existing between 
 itself and the Amir the engagement made between Dost 
 Muhammed and Mr. John Lawrence in 1854, accepted by 
 Sher Ali on his accession, confirmed by him at Ambala 
 in 1870, and never subsequently abrogated the engage- 
 ment that he would be " the friend of the friends and 
 the enemy of the enemies " of the British Government 
 the notice which the Viceroy did take of it was remark- 
 able for its moderation. Lord Lytton simply required 
 that the Amir, having welcomed an embassy from the 
 Czar, should receive in his capital an embassy from the 
 Viceroy of British India. He informed the Amir at the 
 same time that his refusal would be construed as an un- 
 friendly, even as a hostile, act. 
 
 The conduct of Sher Ali on receiving the friendly 
 letter containing this proposal from the Viceroy was more 
 than discourteous. Not only did he vouchsafe to it no 
 reply, but he directed the officer commanding the advanced 
 posts in the direction of the British frontier to refuse 
 admission to the British envoy and his retinue, and, if 
 necessary, to repel him by force ! 
 
 The Viceroy, meanwhile, had directed the distinguished 
 officer whom he had nominated to be envoy General Sir 
 Neville Chamberlain to proceed on his mission. But 
 when Chamberlain attempted to enter the Khaibar pass 
 he found its heights occupied by the army of the Amir. 
 He was, in fact, refused admittance ! 
 
 The position had now become very strained. Lord 
 Lytton had to consider that the mountainous region 
 covering the north-western frontier of the empire of which 
 he was Viceroy, a region upon the maintenance of which 
 the predecessors of the English, the Mogols, had always 
 insisted, which covers all the passes through which in- 
 vaders of India have passed and must pass, and the pos- 
 
78 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 session of which by Russia would leave India at the 
 mercy of Russia, was now held by an Amir who, spurn- 
 ing his offers, had consented to be the vassal of Russia. 
 He had to consider that every move of the Amir, his 
 hostile attitude, his refusal to receive his envoy, had been 
 dictated by the Russian guests whom he was entertaining 
 at his capital, and that these might at any moment suggest 
 action which would for ever paralyze British interests. 
 There was a strong Russian force at Samarkhand, and 
 there were detachments between that city and Kabul. If 
 these were to be called up, the situation would become 
 extremely perilous. 
 
 Reluctant, however, to proceed to extremities, Lord 
 Lytton resolved to afford the Amir one more opportunity 
 to return to a better mind. He wrote to him, then, to the 
 effect that a marked insult had been offered to the envoy 
 whom he had ordered to proceed on a complimentary 
 visit to his capital ; that he trusted the Amir would, upon 
 reflection, realize that such action was not in accordance 
 with friendly relations between two neighbouring nations : 
 that, if deliberately intended, it was a hostile act ; but 
 that in the hope that it was not deliberately intended 
 the Viceroy was glad to give the Amir the opportunity 
 of disavowing it, or, if it had been done by his express 
 orders, of now expressing his regret for the same. Lord 
 Lytton added, that unless a satisfactory reply were re- 
 ceived before the 2oth November he should be forced to 
 regard the insult as deliberate and intentional, and that 
 he should treat the Amir as an enemy. 
 
 The date, the 2oth November, fixed for the receipt of 
 
 J.he reply, allowed the Amir six clear days to consider his 
 
 -position. On the iQth he penned a reply a reply as 
 
 evasive and unsatisfactory as the communication he had 
 
 received in 1873 from Lord Northbrook. This reply did 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 79 
 
 not however reach the Viceroy till many days after the 
 date he had mentioned. On that date hostilities had com- 
 menced. 
 
 Such was the origin of the second Afghan war. A hard 
 and unelastic principle of policy, the principle thoroughly 
 expressed in the words " masterly inactivity " applied to it 
 by its authors, designed in its origin to deal with an 
 Afghanistan bounded on the north and north-west by wild 
 and independent tribes, had been rigorously applied to an 
 Afghanistan watching with beating heart the steady absorp- 
 tion of those independent tribes by the great Northern 
 Power which since 1859 had been no longer held back 
 by the barriers of the Caucasus. In her fear and her 
 agony Afghanistan had appealed to the Power of which 
 she herself constituted the outer bulwark she had appealed 
 to the British rulers of Hindustan. In her appeal to those 
 rulers she pointed to the fact that one kingdom on her 
 north-eastern border had been virtually swallowed up ; 
 that but one month had elapsed since another kingdom, 
 beyond her north-western frontier, had been suddenly and 
 without warning annexed ; that she was now threatened ; 
 and she asked alike for sympathy and assistance. Both 
 were refused. An empire might be lost, but the principle 
 of a hallowed phrase was not to be infringed. The rulers 
 of England, but just awakening to the conviction that, in 
 the matter of Khiva, they had been deliberately tricked 
 and deceived by Russia, professed their willingness to be 
 deceived once again, to believe pledges made only to be 
 broken, to trust in promises which were violated before the 
 paper had absorbed the ink with which they were written. 
 They answered then the entreaties of Afghanistan with a 
 complacent assurance that they did not share her alarm ; 
 that, if she were attacked by Russia, and if, then, the 
 negotiators of England failed to induce that power to 
 
80 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 desist, il was " probable " that they would assist Afghan- 
 istan with troops, provided always it were made clear to 
 them that her ruler would follow their advice and that 
 Afghanistan " had abstained from aggression " ! Well 
 might the Amir remark " the goat attacks not the panther ; " 
 well might he declare his determination to receive no more 
 favours from the English ! Can we wonder that, baffled in 
 his hopes, as he knew himself to be, fooled, as he believed 
 himself to be, he should take an early opportunity to defy 
 his former protector, and throw himself into the arms of 
 England's enemy ? Between two colossal powers, one of 
 whom was profuse of promises, the other cold and un- 
 sympathetic, it was surely natural that he should prefer the 
 former ! 
 
 The second Afghan war, then, was the natural outcome 
 of the repellant policy of 1873. It devolved upon Lord 
 Lytton to carry it out. He had a great opportunity. In 
 the Indian army he possessed, in 1878, an unsurpassed 
 material, and he was gifted with the power of taking accu- 
 rate stock of the men with whom he was brought into 
 contact. It was the perception of Lord Lytton that gave 
 to Sir Frederick Roberts the opportunity which brought 
 him speedily to the very foremost rank. Side by side with 
 Roberts were such men as Charles MacGregor, Donald 
 Stewart, James Hills, not to speak for the list is a long 
 one of very many others. The Sikh and Gurkah regi- 
 ments were well-drilled and disciplined and eager for a 
 forward movement. The cavalry, the artillery, the com- 
 missariat, were thoroughly organized and ready for the 
 campaign. Whilst Lord Lytton, then, had a splendid oppor- 
 tunity, he possessed ample means for using that oppor- 
 tunity, for settling for ever the Russo-Afghan question. 
 That he did not settle it is clear. How was it then that 
 he failed ? 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 81 
 
 The fault was not the fault of Lord Lytton. In the 
 part which devolved upon him he had done all that was 
 possible. He 'had chosen the right men and supplied 
 them with the best materials. A civilian, even though he 
 were Viceroy, could do no more. The results justified his 
 anticipations. The second Afghan war had begun the 20th 
 of November, 1878. In May of the year following Yakiib 
 Khan, son and successor of Amir Sher Ali, who had died, 
 entered the British camp a supplicant for peace ! 
 
 That event gave the British Government the long-desired 
 opportunity. In a speech made at the Lord Mayor's 
 banquet in November 1878, Lord Beaconsfield had de- 
 clared that the main object of the armed intervention in 
 Afghanistan was to obtain " a scientific frontier." Like all 
 the phrases used by that distinguished statesman when he 
 wished to emphasise a particular line of action, the phrase 
 caught the public ear and was repeated all over the country. 
 Not every one, however, asked himself or cared to ask 
 others what it really meant. The phrase was so sonorous 
 and expressive that the general public was content to accept 
 it without inquiry. 
 
 There were, however, some who examined more closely 
 its real meaning. Amongst these was the gallant soldier 
 and distinguished strategist from whose lecture in 1884 I 
 have quoted in a previous chapter, Lieutenant-General 
 Sir Edward Hamley. 
 
 To Sir Edward Hamley the phrase could have but one 
 significance. To him a scientific frontier meant a strategical 
 frontier a frontier, which, making India safe against every 
 chance of invasion, should allow the races behind it's line 
 to live undisturbed by continual scares. Was such a 
 frontier possible for India ? To give an answer to that 
 question Hamley applied to the study of the subject a 
 mind singularly clear and well-stored. When he had 
 
82 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 thoroughly mastered it, he, in response to a request riiade 
 to him by the Council of the Royal United Service Insti- 
 tution, delivered his views on the i3th of December, 1878, 
 to a large and distinguished audience assembled in its 
 theatre. 
 
 Never did Sir E. Hamley more completely vindicate his 
 title to the character of strategist than on this memorable 
 occasion. He depicted, with a master's hand, the condi- 
 tions of the Indian frontier showed that the line of the 
 Indus was no real barrier against invasion ; that, if proper 
 precautions were taken on the Peshawar plain, we need 
 not be apprehensive regarding an invasion through the 
 Khaibar pass; that neither the Khuram Pass, nor the 
 Gomal, need inspire us with serious alarm ; but that 
 between Kandahar and the Indus were plains of remark- 
 able fertility which could subsist an enemy's army until its 
 . general should choose the opportune moment and the 
 easiest point when and where to cross the Indus. He 
 came to the definite conclusion, then, that we should occupy 
 the salient angle which covered that country and all the 
 passes leading into India behind it. That salient angle 
 was represented by Kandahar. " I have endeavoured," 
 said Sir Edward, in concluding a lecture which will prove 
 to after ages that there was at least one English soldier 
 who thoroughly understood the position, "to sketch a 
 definite plan upon which to concentrate our resources, and 
 by which to secure a scientific frontier, and a permanent 
 settlement of this large question. Looking at the northern 
 half of this part of our territory, I think we should be 
 thankful for possessing a frontier so easily rendered im- 
 pregnable. Looking at the southern half, we have no less 
 reason to be thankful for having acquired, in Quetta, such 
 means of vigorous and effective action, and such an oppor- 
 tunity of securing new advantages of the most important 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 83 
 
 and decisive kind. With a garrison strongly posted in its 
 lines at Kandahar, with all the .routes and stages by which 
 our forces might be assembled on that point, all sources of 
 supply, and all arrangements for transport, laid down, as 
 our trained staff officers are certainly capable of laying 
 them down, we might view calmly any possible complica- 
 tions before us, whether arising from the augmented mili- 
 tary power of Russia in the East, from the success of her 
 intrigues, or from her open hostility. The grounds of our 
 assurance would be manifest and easily understood, our 
 native subjects would soon learn to appreciate them, and 
 what would be security for us would be tranquillity for 
 India) 1 
 
 Speaking on the same subject, two years later, at the 
 Royal Geographical Society, an officer of Engineers, distin- 
 guished for his attainments and who had visited the 
 country, thus supported Sir E. Hamley's view : 
 
 "From a commercial, political, or military point of 
 view," said Captain Holdich, " Kandahar is the most im- 
 portant point in Afghanistan ; geographically it may be 
 s.aid to indicate the weak point of the Afghan frontier. 
 There is no Hindu Kush between Kandahar and the 
 north-west, nor is the distribution of the hill country round 
 Kandahar of such a nature, or such an extent, as that 
 which enabled the tribes of the north to make so formid- 
 able an opposition to us last winter. 
 
 " The broad open plains which surround Kandahar are 
 not well suited to Afghan tactics. Whatever difficulty we 
 may have in dealing with a foe whose strength lies chiefly 
 in his power of scattering, or concentrating, as the case 
 may be, by making use of mountain tracts and unknown 
 hill paths, vanishes when the country becomes flat and 
 open, To hold Kabul would mean to hold an extensive 
 line of hills round Kabul. To hold Kandahar means very 
 
 G 2 
 
84 T/:c Russo-AfgJian Question. 
 
 little more than retaining command of the walls and 
 citadel. The chief wealth of Afghanistan too is certainly 
 concentrated in Kandahs.r and Herat. Compared to 
 Kandahar, Kabul is but an arsenal, and a convenient 
 strategical point from which to govern the turbulent 
 northern tribes. It is not a centre of trade in any sense, 
 nor has it the command of such grand trade routes as 
 Kandahar possesses. But Kandahar lies just as easily 
 open to approach from one side as from another." 
 
 This, then, was the real scientific frontier the extension 
 of the British frontier to Kandahar, the annexation of the 
 undulating Chatiali plateau behind Tal, and of the Pishin 
 valley. The fortifications of Kandahar to be strengthened 
 and that place united by rail with Girishk, Farah, and 
 Herat, which last place should be placed virtually under 
 British protection. 
 
 I have said " to Kandahar;" but the occupation of that 
 town should include the occupation of the country as far as 
 the Helmund. " When we speak," said Sir E. Hamley, 
 on a subsequent occasion 
 
 " Of occupying Kandahar, it is not merely the city 
 that is meant. To hold a city against a besieger bring- 
 ing modern artillery to bear on it, is to doom it 
 to ruin, its inhabitants to destruction. Positions must 
 be held at a distance in this case up to the line of the 
 Helmund. These positions, in order to draw from them 
 their full advantage against such forces as the Russians 
 could bring on us, should be carefully fortified with earth- 
 works, and aimed with artillery more powerful than could 
 follow the march of an invader. Sir Michael Biddulph, in 
 a valuable report made from personal observation during 
 the last Afghan war, says, ' The position of Girishk is with 
 the most modest precaution unassailable all the passages 
 of the Helmund can be defended by suitable works at 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 85 
 
 short notice. 3 This being the first line, he describes a 
 second strong line behind it and a third, if necessary, is 
 to be found, he says, on an arc extending from the edge of 
 the desert. * Inside this arc,' he goes on, ' lies all the pro- 
 ductive country, while without it the country is sterile and 
 an open glacis/ ' It seems to me,' he adds, ' that even 
 though invasion may be remote, the possession of this 
 point has an importance which cannot be rated too highly.' 
 It is upon the Helmund, then, that we must direct our 
 march, if we occupy Kandahar. And if we do not occupy 
 it, we can never be certain that Russia will not anticipate 
 us on the Helmund." 
 
 Now, when in May, 1879, Yakiib Khan entered the 
 British camp at Gandamak to accept any terms which the 
 British Government might offer, the obtaining of the 
 strategical frontier described by Sir Edward Hamley was 
 easy. We had but to ask for it to get it. That \ve did 
 not obtain it was more the fault of the Ministry in Down- 
 ing Street than of Lord Lyttoii. 
 
 If Lord Lytton had proposed such a frontier the Cabinet . 
 doubtless would have supported him. Lord Lytton did 
 not propose it, because, being a civilian, he had to depend 
 for his strategical plans on the military advisers at his 
 elbow, and amongst those advisers there was not one who 
 was possessed of practical strategic knowledge. 
 
 I do not refer to men like Roberts, MacGregor, Stewart, 
 or Hills. They were with the army in the field. But, at 
 Simla, Lord Lytton was surrounded by theorists, each of 
 whom had his favourite plan plans built not, as was Hamley's, 
 upon knowledge and argument, but upon reasons which the 
 supporter would have found it difficult to maintain before a 
 critical assembly of experts. To put the matter tersely 
 and clearly, it was Lord Lytton's painful task to have to 
 select from a number of plans, all of them incongruous 
 
86 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 and defective, the plan which he deemed the least 
 harmful. 
 
 It is possible I do not know but it is possible he may 
 have been hampered by the Home Government. Certainly 
 it was in the power of the Home Government either to 
 force a plan upon him or reject and alter any which he 
 might propose. Whether they did so or not I cannot say. 
 At any rate they must bear the responsibility. 
 
 Now that the Cabinet which ruled the British empire 
 between 1874 and 1880 had clear minds regarding the 
 " scientific frontier " which its brilliant chief desired to 
 secure it is impossible to assert. It is most painful to me 
 to be obliged to admit that, not only had its members no 
 clear views, but they had no definite ideas whatever on the 
 subject. This was patent up to the last moment of their 
 remaining in power. They adopted a right principle and 
 an intelligent policy only from the moment when they 
 were relegated to the cold shade of opposition. 
 
 Regarding " the scientific frontier," the Cabinet of 1879 
 had ideas, I have said, neither clear nor definite ; and they 
 had, moreover, no competent military adviser to inspire 
 them. Not indeed, because there were not military advisers 
 at their elbow. The lecture of Sir Edward Hainley had 
 been delivered to a very distinguished and a very critical 
 audience, had been spoken of on the very evening of its 
 delivery in the House of Commons, had been noticed in 
 the leading articles of our daily newspapers, and had 
 attracted an extraordinary amount of attention. Wisdom 
 had cried aloud in the streets, but the members of the 
 Cabinet had shut their ears ! 
 
 The fact is, that in all matters relating to the Afghan 
 question the Cabinet of 1874-80 floundered from first to 
 last. Succeeding a Cabinet which had adopted and per- 
 sistently acted upon the fatal principle expressed by the 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 87 
 
 words "masterly inactivity/' the Cabinet of 1874 
 resembled, in its Indian policy, a man who knew 
 that if he were to stand still he would die, but who 
 was afraid to move forward lest he should stumble into 
 a bog. And that expresses exactly what this Cabinet did 
 do. Although Sir Edward Hamley held up a lantern to 
 shew them the solid path along which they might tread 
 with security, their fears whispered that the light of his 
 lantern was the light of a will-o'-the-wisp : they took then 
 a step in an opposite direction, and suffered the catastrophe 
 I have mentioned. 
 
 For the " scientific frontier " obtained by the Treaty of 
 Gandamak was, in very deed, the work of unscientific men. 
 It was a delusion and a snare. It gave India a frontier 
 a thousand times more unreliable than the frontier which 
 it had abandoned to obtain it. It gave us the Khaibar 
 Pass, when we were far better off in the valley of the Indus 
 ready to receive an enemy emerging from that pass ; it 
 gave us the Khurm valley, the occupation of which would 
 have isolated a portion of our army : it's one solitary 
 merit was the acquisition of the valley of Pishin. 
 
 It did not last long. We acquired it absolutely, that is, 
 the treaty which gave it to us was ratified, the 3oth May ; 
 the gallant Cavagnari was murdered on the 4th Sep- 
 tember. Three months of existence were ample for so 
 grotesque an abortion ! It's early death, followed though 
 it was by a renewal of the war, was a blessing for which 
 the authors of its existence ought to be for ever thankful ! 
 
 Two days after the murder of Cavagnari, Roberts, the 
 most brilliant, the most daring, the most accomplished of 
 generals, commenced the war. Of such a man, of such 
 men as Hamley, as Charles MacGregor, and as Hills, it is 
 inspiring to write. But that task is now denied me. I 
 have to deal only with the results of the campaign. It is 
 
88 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 however, at least satisfactory to know that such men still 
 survive for the service of Great Britain. 
 
 The war thus re-commenced continued till the close 
 of 1880. Eastern Afghanistan, or Kabulistdn, had been 
 evacuated the nth August, and the rule over that portion 
 of the country conferred upon Abdul Rahman, the relative 
 whom Sher AH had defeated and driven into exile in 
 January, 1869, and who had since that time been living in 
 Bokhara, a pensioner of Russia. But in what is generally 
 called western Afghanistan, that is, in the country about 
 Kandahar and from Kandahar northwards the war con- 
 tinued some time longer. Holding, as I do, with General 
 Hamley, that there was no necessity whatever to interfere 
 in eastern Afghanistan ; that the true interests of England 
 were bound up in the line from Quetta to Kandahar and 
 from Kandahar to Herat ; that that is the line which, to 
 bar Russian invasion, we have to occupy and secure, I 
 shall confine my comments to the action of the British 
 Government on that line. 
 
 The renewal of the war had given the Conservative 
 Cabinet another chance. After the collapse of the Treaty 
 of Gandamak, some dim light of the truth of Sir Edward 
 Hamley's arguments would seem to have removed a portion 
 of the fog which had obscured their reason. The appre- 
 hension stole upon them that the Kandahar line might, after 
 all, be the true line. If we were to judge only from their 
 after conduct when in opposition we might even believe 
 that the apprehension grew into conviction. If that were 
 so, they were more worthy of condemnation than if their 
 vision had remained clouded. For this at least is certain, 
 they never rose to the height of the situation. They showed 
 themselves painfully wanting in accurate knowledge, in 
 decision, in that quality which will cover a multitude of 
 minor sins, in pluck. Having Kandahar in their possession, 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 89 
 
 convinced as we must suppose they were convinced, of its 
 enormous importance for, subsequently, they all voted 
 for Lord Lytton's motion for its retention, in the House 
 of Lords, and for Mr. Stanhope's motion in the House of 
 Commons (March, 1881) they had not the courage to 
 put their foot down and say " possessing this important 
 place, this place so necessary to the safety of India, we 
 will keep it." No they adopted one of those half- 
 measures which are the bane of true statesmanship such 
 a half-measure as the elder Pitt would have spurned and* 
 Palmerston would have derided they placed there in 
 supreme authority a cousin of the late Amir, a man like- 
 wise named Sher Ali, who under the name of " Wall " or 
 more properly, " Vali," was to conduct the civil administra- 
 tion of the districts dependent upon the city. For all the 
 good that this appointment caused, the Government might 
 as well have stuck up a lay figure. The people in the 
 country covered by Kandahar were longing for the British 
 rule : they came in crowds to the political officer in charge 
 of the Chatiali district to implore it. A bold announce- 
 ment that England had advanced her frontier as far as 
 Kandahar would have had an immense influence for good. 
 The appointment of the " Vali " shewed to the populations 
 that there was still a chance of their being relegated to 
 the hated rule of Kabul. Nor, whilst thus productive of 
 evil, was the measure accompanied by any corresponding 
 advantage. From first to last the " Vali " remained what I 
 have said he might as well have been a lay figure. On 
 the first important disturbance, T4th July, 1880, his troops 
 deserted and he collapsed, though he did not actually 
 disappear till the following December ! 
 
 The collapse of the " Vali " was a result second only, in 
 the beneficial chances which it offered to Great Britain, 
 to the disappearance of the treaty of Gandamak. Like 
 
go The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 that fortunate collapse, it gave England another chance to 
 retrieve her political errors to secure a really scientific 
 frontier. 
 
 But, before that chance offered, a change had occurred 
 in the guidance of the political destinies of Great Britain. 
 The Ministry which had desired " a scientific frontier " had 
 gone out, and the advocates of " masterly inactivity " had 
 come in. The men who had composed the retiring Cabinet 
 recovered their senses and their courage only with the first 
 inhaling of the opposition breeze. It was, indeed, high 
 time that they should recover both. If it be true, as was 
 stated in January, 1880, and has been repeated without 
 contradiction over and over again since that date, that in 
 that month they were treating with Persia for the transfer 
 to that power of the important city and district of Herat, 
 they must have been absolutely on the verge of im- 
 becility. Why, it was to prevent the consummation of 
 such an event that Lord Palmerston planned the first 
 Afghan war, and that he made war on Persia in 1856 ! 
 And, in spite of that, a Conservative Ministry actually 
 debated whether, to relieve themselves of responsibility, 
 it were not advisable to do that which the greatest 
 foreign minister I might almost say, the only foreign 
 minister of this century had waged two wars to prevent ! 
 Did they ask themselves for a moment what such a transfer 
 woul'd mean; that the handing over of Herat to Persia 
 would signify the handing over of Herat to Russia? If, 
 in their forgetfulness or neglect of history, they had 
 doubted then, can they doubt now ? Does not the fate cf 
 old Sarakhs read a lesson ? Has the occupation of Pul-i- 
 Kishti and of the Zulfagar Pass, and the threat to occupy 
 Panjdeh places far beyond the frontier accepted by Russia 
 in 1872 and never till now repudiated not opened their 
 eyes? Or, is it a fact, that if Russia were to occupy 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 91 
 
 to-morrow the hill which is said to command Herat, a 
 terrified English Ministry, and an ignorant and gullible 
 British public would readily swallow the excuse that there 
 was a new Herat as well as an old Herat, and that Russia 
 had only taken the latter ? 
 
 If the Conservative Cabinet had transferred Herat to 
 Persia, they would have deserved impeachment. But the 
 conduct of its members since they have been in opposition 
 has been so much more bold and decided on all matters 
 affecting the frontier policy of India that I am willing to 
 hope, even to believe, that the idea, if seriously discussed 
 at all, was discussed only to be dismissed. But, before I 
 advert more fully to the true conception of the national 
 interests which has guided them in opposition I must notice 
 the action of their successors which caused it. 
 
 The Afghan war was still unfinished when the " masterly 
 inactivity " party returned to power. To them it had been, 
 and was, gall and wormwood. But the defeat at Maiwand 
 and the subsequent leaguer of Kandahar by Ayub Khan 
 had placed them in the, to them, extremely painful position 
 of being forced to continue the war. From this painful 
 position they were rescued by Sir Frederick Roberts, whose 
 brilliantmarc h and subsequent decisive victory will ever 
 remain one of the most cherished records in the military 
 history of Great Britain. This victory concluded the war. 
 
 Still Kandahar was in our hands, and we might easily 
 have made it a condition with the new Amir whom we 
 had placed in authority, that we should hold it. The 
 reader must bear in mind that the question came up for 
 the last time in the year 1 880-1. at the time that Skobeleff 
 was preparing the expedition which subdued the Akhal 
 Turkomans. The idea then occurred to me that if those 
 splendid warriors were subdued, and we should, in the 
 very same year, evacuate the frontier fortress which covered 
 
92 TJie Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 all the western passes into Hindustan, the easily impressed 
 peoples of India would not fail to imbibe the idea, not 
 only that England was retiring before Russia, but that, 
 from fear of Russia, she had left open the one gap in 
 her frontier line, through which the invaders of India 
 from the north had always advanced. To test the correct- 
 ness of these ideas I visited India, and spent nearly three 
 winter months there, from November to the third week of 
 January, 1880- 1. Thirty-five years of previous residence 
 in all parts of the country had made me acquainted with 
 most of its representative men, and_I had little difficulty 
 in inducing them to speak frankly with me on the subject. 
 I found, amongst all classes, among Muhammadans as 
 well as among Hindus, a remarkable agreement of opinion. 
 They all condemned the abandonment of Kandahar as 
 likely to cause the people of India to lose confidence in 
 the stability of British rule. " Nadir Shah came by that 
 route " they said, " and though Kandahar stopped him for 
 a year, nothing stopped him after he had taken that place. 
 Russia will of course conquer the Turkomans. And then 
 Russia will be in the place of Nadir Shah. If you leave 
 Kandahar, you will leave open a gap by which Russia will 
 easily enter. The native princes, men like Scindiah and 
 Holkar, know that as well as you do. They bear your rule 
 because if you were not here they would fight amongst 
 themselves, and they know you can defend them and 
 maintain order. But if they once think that a greater than 
 you is coming, and they will think so if you deliberately 
 leave the gate open for him to come, the hope of gaining 
 something out of a general scrimmage will pervade their 
 minds, and when you send your army to meet Russia on 
 the Indus, they will strike for independence in your rear." 
 
 Such was the general opinion expressed to me by the 
 Natives of India, who, in my judgment, were best capa- 
 
TJie Infatuation of Great Britain. 93 
 
 ble of gauging the views of their countrymen. Shortly 
 after my return to England I embodied, at the request 
 of the members of the Constitutional Union, my experi- 
 ences in the form of a lecture, which I delivered in 
 February or March of 1881 to a large audience in St. 
 James's Hall. I am bound to add that the Conservative 
 party had long before become alive to the necessity, in the 
 interests of the Empire, of retaining Kandahar as the new 
 frontier. Lord Lytton had in the meanwhile returned 
 home, and, I cannot doubt, had expressed very freely his 
 views on the subject. This, at least, is certain, that the 
 idea of the retention of Kandahar was adopted by the 
 Conservative opposition, and was made the main theme 
 of their platform speeches during the autumn of 1880, 
 and the first ten weeks of 1881. 
 
 It soon transpired, however, that the Ministry of 
 " masterly inactivity " had no idea of retaining the place. 
 It is curious, looking back from the status of accomplished 
 facts, writing in the third week of this month of March, 
 1885, when Russia possesses Sarakhs and Merv, and 
 has advanced to Pul-i-Khatun and Zulfagar, within the 
 Herat territory and within striking distance of the city 
 of that name it is curious, I say, to notice the reasons 
 given by the authorities whom they quoted, upon which 
 the Ministry relied to justify their retrograde movement. 
 The most valued of these authorities, General Sir Henry 
 Norman, arguing, in a memorandum dated 2oth Septem- 
 ber, 1880, against the retention of Kandahar, thus expressed 
 himself: "The probability of our having to struggle for 
 Herat, or to defend India from Kandahar, is so remote 
 that its possibility is hardly worth considering." Wonder- 
 ful forecast ! The time so remote as to be hardly worth 
 considering has narrowed itself to a term of less than five 
 years ! Sir Evelyn Baring, another expert of the masterly 
 
94 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 inactivity school, was equally sceptical. Then there was 
 the new Viceroy, Lord Ripon, whose experience of rather 
 less than one year was so valuable : and, last not least, 
 there was that eminent Russomane the Prime Minister. 
 " I have no fear myself," had said that high authority, on 
 November 27, 1879, " f the territorial extensions of 
 Russia, no fear of them whatever. I think such fears are 
 only old women's fears." Possibly some of the constituents 
 and many of the friends, perhaps even some of the col- 
 leagues of Mr. Gladstone, regard now that remark as 
 a libel upon old women ! 
 
 The question was debated in the House of Lords, on 
 the motion of Lord Lytton, on the 5th March, iSSi. 
 There the motion for the retention of Kandahar was 
 carried by a majority of 89 (165 against 76). In the 
 House of Commons, after a debate of two nights, a similar 
 motion was defeated (26th March) by a majority of 120 
 (336 against 216). Of the motives which influenced some 
 at least of the members of that majority I have a word or 
 two to say. 
 
 On the evening on which the division was to take place, the 
 26th March,! happened to be dining at a Club of which I am 
 not a member. Before I sat down, my host informed me 
 that a friend of his, a Liberal Member of Parliament, was 
 very anxious to speak to me on the subject which was then 
 engrossing the attention of the House, and that he would 
 come over, if I did not mind, at 10 o'clock, for that pur- 
 pose. I at once cordially assented. At 10 o'clock the 
 member came over, was introduced to me, and began 
 questioning me about Kandahar. After I had answered 
 all his questions the Member thus addressed me : 
 " Colonel Malleson, I had previously read all you had 
 written ; I have now heard all you have to say on the 
 subject of the abandonment of Kandahar : I have no 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 95 
 
 hesitation in telling you that I agree with you to the fullest 
 extent, absolutely and entirely : I am satisfied that if we 
 abandon Kandahar we shall have to fight Russia on the 
 frontier for our Indian empire, and it is quite upon the 
 cards that we may be at the same time struggling with the 
 native princes within its borders. Holding as I do these 
 opinions, you will be surprised to hear that it is my inten- 
 tion to-night to vote for the abandonment of Kandahar ! " 
 Completely taken aback by this conclusion, so opposed to 
 the preamble of the Member's speech, I could only 
 exclaim : " Good God, Sir, have you got a conscience ? " 
 The Member, in no way abashed by an exclamation which 
 he probably expected, replied at once with a jaunty air : 
 " Conscience ! Yes I have a conscience, and I'll tell you 
 how it moves me to-night. Shortly after I had taken my 
 seat for the first time in the House of Commons, a 
 friend, who had been many years a member, came up 
 to me, and congratulating me on being there, expressed 
 a hope that I would keep my seat as many years as 
 he had kept his : he added that I would keep it, too, if I 
 would only adopt the plan which he had marked out for 
 himself, and invariably followed. I asked my friend to tell 
 me his plan. ' Why ' he replied ' it is simply this. Never 
 make a speech, never give a vote, in this House, without 
 first asking yourself, on your conscience,' mind you, he 
 used the word conscience ' whether that speech or that 
 vote will imperil your return at the next election.' Now," 
 added the Member, " I have a very shrewd idea that if I 
 were to vote in favour of the retention of Kandahar I 
 should imperil my seat at the next election : therefore I am 
 going down to vote against it. And I can tell you," he 
 added, " there are at least fifty, probably seventy or eighty, 
 members of our party who agree with me as to the 
 necessity of retaining Kandahar, but who, actuated by the 
 
96 The Rnsso-Afghan Question. 
 
 motives which actuate me, will vote for its abandon- 
 ment." 
 
 Comment on this story is unnecessary. It is one of the 
 saddest signs of the times that on questions affecting the 
 welfare of Great Britain conscience is often dead ! 
 
 Kandahar was abandoned. The very rails which the 
 energy of Sir Richard Temple had collected near Sibi lo 
 continue the railway from Nari just beyond Sibi to 
 Quetta and thence to Kandahar were sold as old iron at a 
 loss, according to the Blue Books, of more than half a 
 million sterling ! 
 
 But Time is rightly called the avenger. The news of the 
 progress made by Russia along the northern frontier of 
 Persian Khorasan induced even the representatives of the 
 masterly inactivity party to repair some of the evil which 
 had been effected. Quietly and uuostentatiously new rails 
 were sent to Sibi, and large gangs were set to labour at the 
 earth- way. It was resolved in fact to carry out the 
 original plan of continuing the railway to Quetta, and, it 
 is to be hoped, to Kandahar. Efforts were made similarly to 
 induce the Amir, Abdul Rahman, to believe that the British 
 were really his friends. He was assured, in terms far more 
 positive and direct than those which were employed to- 
 wards Sher Ali in 1873, that should Russia venture to 
 invade his dominions he would receive strong and efficient 
 support : that England recognized it as a duty devolving 
 upon her to insist upon Russia adhering to her famous 
 declaration in 1869, that "Afghanistan was completely 
 without the sphere in which that power was called upon to 
 exercise her influence." If England had at the same time 
 put her foot down if she had responded to the move of 
 Russia upon Sarakhs by declaring that the crossing by 
 that Power of the frontier line from that place by Robat- 
 Abdullah Khan and above Andkhoi to Koja Saleh would 
 
The Infatuation of Great Britain. 97 
 
 ~" 
 
 mean war, we might have had no such disturbance as that 
 which now exists. But once again was the Cabinet too 
 soft. In reply to the plea of Russia that no proper frontier 
 of the country comprised under the geographical term 
 Afghanistan, existed, she agreed last year to despatch a 
 Commission to mark out with precision, in conjunction 
 with a Commission sent from Russia, the line which should 
 thenceforward be recognized as the frontier across which 
 Russia was not to advance. The line so marked was to 
 be the dividing line between Trans-Caspian Russia and an 
 Afghanistan subsidised by England. 
 
 H 
 
98 The Russo-AfgJian Question. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RUSSIA'S LAST MOVE AND ENGLAND'S REPLY. 
 
 IN justice, there should have been no question regard- 
 ing the frontier of Afghanistan. I have already related 
 that, when in 1869 Prince Gortschakoff informed Lord 
 Granville that his master, the Czar, regarded Afghanistan 
 as entirely without the sphere in which Russia would 
 be called upon to exercise her influence, it was further 
 agreed that all the countries in the effective possession 
 of the Amir Sher Ali, and which had formerly recog- 
 nized the sovereignty of Dost Muhammad, should be 
 embraced under that name. Finally, after waiting for 
 a report on the subject from General Kaufman which 
 never came, Lord Granville wrote a despatch to Lord 
 Augustus Loftus, in October, 1872, for communication to 
 the Russian Government, in which he stated that not 
 having received any letter on the subject from that Govern- 
 ment, the Cabinet had decided to consider the undermen- 
 tioned provinces as constituting the frontier provinces of 
 Afghanistan : (i) Badakhshan, with its dependent district 
 of Vakhan, from the Sarikul (Wood's Lake) on the east, to 
 the junction of the Kotcha river with the Oxus (or Peiya) 
 forming the northern boundary of this Afghan province 
 through its entire extent. (2) Afghan Turkistan, comprising 
 the districts of Kunduz, Khulm, and Balkh, the northern 
 boundary of which would be the line of the Oxus from the 
 junction of the Kotcha river to the port of Khoja Saleh in- 
 clusive, on the high road from Bokhara to Balkh ; nothing 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 99 
 
 to be claimed by the Amir on the left bank of the Oxus below 
 Khoja Saleh. (3) The internal districts of Aksha, Seripul, 
 Main-iend, Shibberjan and Andkhoi, the latter of which 
 would be the extreme Afghan frontier possession to the 
 north-west, the desert beyond belonging to independent 
 tribes of Turkomans. (4) The western Afghan frontier, a 
 straight line from Khoja Saleh on the Oxus to Sarakhs on 
 the Persian frontier. This line passed above Andkhoi and 
 Gulu Bulu to Robat-Abdullah Khan on the Murghab, 
 thence by Imam Baksh to the Tejend, close to the town, on 
 the other side of that river, of Sarakhs. Russia accepted 
 that frontier in despatches dated respectively in December 
 of that, and in January of the following, year. From that 
 date to 1884, that frontier has never been questioned by 
 that country. It has appeared on all the Russian maps. 
 Even Schuyler speaks of it as well known and not needing 
 further definition. 
 
 No questions, I repeat, were raised by Russia regarding 
 this frontier till 1884. It was only when, in that year, the 
 acquisition of Merv and Sarakhs brought her upon it that, 
 in order to have a pretext for overleaping it, she suggested 
 the proposal referred to in the last chapter. Russia would 
 not have been true to her immemorial policy if, on approach- 
 ing a new border, she had not at once raised doubts as to 
 its validity. To solve those doubts, both countries engaged 
 to send commissioners to the debated ground. 
 
 Though Russia agreed to this arrangement there are many 
 reasons for believing that she did it solely to gain time, 
 and with a determination not to act upon it. If she had 
 any designs upon British India, the delineation of a frontier 
 which she must respect would interfere very much with the 
 use of those insidious means which had ever marked her 
 stealthy progress. The sending troops across a frontier 
 recognized by herself and guaranteed by England to the 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 Amir, would mean war with England as well as war with the 
 Amir. She would be effectually prevented from justifying 
 a forward spring by the use of such quibbles as she had 
 employed regarding Sarakhs. At the same time she was 
 not quite ready for war. Her Transcaspian railway, pushed 
 on though it had been with the zeal of a Power which feels 
 that it has a mission to fulfil, had not yet reached the 
 required point. Other preparations were likewise not so 
 forward as they might have been. Still she could not refuse 
 to promise to co-operate in a plan so fair. We may fairly 
 conclude from her subsequent conduct that she made that 
 promise with a secret resolve to break it. 
 
 For, whilst Great Britain, true to her word, despatched, 
 in the autumn of 1884, an English Commission, headed by 
 an officer who had filled high positions in India ; while that 
 officer and his suite proceeded by way of Persia to the 
 appointed place of rendezvous, Russia sent no one. For 
 once, too, she had no excuses but the poorest to offer. Such 
 as she did make reminded the British public of the taunting 
 apologies suggested by the Prophet Elijah to the prophets 
 of Baal for the absence of any manifestation on the part of 
 their divinity. "Where is General Zelenoy?" asked the 
 British public. " We do not quite know," answered Russia ; 
 "either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a 
 journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be 
 awakened." At all events he did not come to time. 
 
 Whilst the British Commissioner, Sir Peter Lumsden, 
 and his escort, were waiting for his Russian colleague, 
 General Zelenoy, the Russian commanders at Sarakhs and 
 Merv determined to solve the question of the boundary 
 by despatching small bodies of troops into the territory 
 claimed and occupied by the Afghans. If the reader will 
 glance at any good map of the country immediately to 
 the north-west of the Paroparm'san range he will see marked, 
 
Russia s Last Move and England's* 'Reply. iOi 
 
 on the river Heri-riid, at a point whc'-c ih'e Jveslief itfci joins 
 that river, the name of Pul-i-Khatun.* The Heri-nid, 
 whether under its own name or as the Tejend, constitutes 
 to the south and to the north-west as far as Sarakhs the 
 boundary of the province of Herat. The principal of the 
 posts on its banks as it flows northward are Kuhsan, 
 the Zulfagar pass, and Pul-i-Khdtun. These posts have 
 long been recognized as belonging to Herat. Yet, in a 
 time of profound peace, whilst the British Commissioner 
 appointed to mark out the boundary was waiting for his 
 Russian colleague, Russian troops crossed the line then 
 recognized as the boundary and seized a post, thirty-two 
 miles to the south of it ! Not content even with that they 
 proceeded likewise to occupy the pass of Zulfagar, some 
 twenty-eight miles still nearer to Herat ! 
 
 There was no excuse for these acts : Pul-i-Khatun is 
 merely a good place for a new departure ; it is not even a 
 village ; it never belonged to, and has nothing in common 
 with, the Turkomans, whether Sarik or other ; it is simply 
 an open ground covered to the east by high mountains. 
 Of the ground immediately to the west of it Sir Charles 
 MacGregor, who made the journey from Meshed to Sarakhs 
 m I ^75 J gives the following account. I should premise 
 that the road follows the Keshef-i Rud as far as Shor-jah, 
 just beyond Ak-i-Durbend, and branches at a right angle 
 northwards, just before reaching Pul-i-Khatun :t " On 
 
 * Literally "The Lady's Bridge." 
 
 t To the number of \^& Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 
 for September, 1881, is attached an excellent map of this part of the 
 country, of Northern Khorasan and the Kara-Kum Desert, compiled 
 from Colonel C. E. Stewart's survey of that country, from maps by 
 Major the Hon. G. E. Napier, from the Surveyor-General of India's 
 maps, and from the Russian Typographical Department of 1881. It 
 is noteworthy that, in all these maps, the Afghan frontier extends from 
 Sarakhs, by way of Imam-Bakhsh and Robat- Abdullah Khan, in a 
 straight line to a point above Andkhoi. 
 
ic j 2' ///- Rnsso- Afghan Question. 
 
 Saturday 'the -24th of July, we marched 16 miles to Ak 
 Durbend. The road leads down the valley almost the 
 whole way, only occasionally leaving it to go over spurs to 
 the left, which here and there impinge on the river. It is 
 quite practicable everywhere for field artillery. At the 
 eighth mile we passed a newly built fort called Bughbughoo, 
 occupied by thirty wretched creatures, who looked at us 
 passing with the longing of prisoners afforded a glimpse of 
 the outer world. 
 
 " At the fourteenth mile we descended to the bed of the 
 river and crossed to the right bank by a very nasty, be- 
 cause very muddy, ford. Thence the road went over an 
 open plain for one mile, when it ascended over a spur by a 
 steep, but otherwise easy pass, to another little opening, 
 which was again divided from Ak Durbend by another 
 similar pass. 
 
 " The river here is confined between hills, so that the 
 valley is not more than 300 yards across, and beyond this 
 it gradually gets narrower and narrower, till it becomes a 
 regular defile, and continues thus till it emerges from the 
 hills at Pul-i-Khatun where the ground becomes much 
 more open. All access from the east is closed by towers 
 placed on commanding positions overhanging the defile, so 
 that the position of Ak Durbend becomes one of very 
 considerable importance in considering the defence of this 
 border, as by it is the only practical road between Muz- 
 duran and the southern side of the ridges which bound 
 the Ab-i-Meshed on the south." 
 
 Four miles beyond Ak Durbend is Shorjah, where, as 
 stated, the road branches northwards to Sarakhs. Pul-i- 
 Khatun is about eight miles to the east by south from 
 Shorjah. In his book (Journey through Khorasan in 1875) 
 MacGregor gives sketches of Ak Durbend and of the 
 gorge of the Ab-i-Meshed above Pul-i-Khatun. 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 103 
 
 On the subject of the sudden sweep of Russia upon 
 that post, Professor Vambery thus writes (March 1885)* : 
 " To this fact I reckon/' that is, to the fact that Russia has 
 a settled design to annex Herat, " before all, that lawless 
 and unjust aggression of Russia on the north-eastern fron- 
 tiers of Persia, an appropriation of a large tract of country 
 to the occupation of which the Government of the Shah 
 has not given its consent, and the annexation of which has 
 been only made with the obvious purpose to approach the 
 district of Herat and to swoop down upon this important 
 place in. order to seize the Key of India, and so become 
 the undisputable master of the country lying between the 
 Paropamisus and the Oxus. I fully admit, as I stated in 
 my previous paper on the Russo- Afghan Boundary Com- 
 mission, that the country extending between the middle 
 course of the Heri-rud and the Murghab, respectively, the 
 Kushk (rectius Khushk = dry) river has formed, in the 
 course of the present century, a debatable ground between 
 Afghanistan and Persia, but since the last-named country 
 was unable to clear this highway of the Turkoman Atamans 
 (forays) on their inroads into the eastern part of Khorasan 
 and Seistan, the de facto possession must be, and can be, 
 only accorded to the Afghans, as to the Power able to put 
 a check on the devastating incourse of the reckless free- 
 booters of the north. If Russia had the sincere intention 
 not to meddle with Herat, as her statesmen assert, the 
 encroachment upon Sarakhs, whether the new or the old 
 one, which is almost the same, would have been quite 
 superfluous, and she could have easily avoided to rouse the 
 just suspicion of England. But we see that quite the con- 
 trary has happened. Encouraged by the vague threats 
 coming from the unofficial quarters of London and Cal- 
 
 * Army and Navy Magazine, April, 1885. 
 
IO4 The Rnsso-AfgJian Question. 
 
 cutta, Russia hurriedly fell down still further to the south, 
 and laid hand upon Pul-i-Khatun (the Lady's Bridge), at 
 the very moment when the English Boundary Commission, 
 headed by Sir Peter Lumsden, arrived at the spot. The 
 object in view was to prove to the English that the place 
 where the Keshef-rud joins the Heri-rud is Russian terri- 
 tory, and cannot be made the object of further discussion. 
 But we beg leave to ask what are the reasons which have 
 necessitated this step ? There are no Turkomans subject 
 to Russia in this outlying district, there is no interest to 
 defend, and the whole movement is nothing else but a 
 badly-concealed attempt against Herat." 
 
 The Zulfagar Pass is even stronger for aggressive pur 
 poses : I shall speak at greater length of this further on. 
 
 Writing on the subject from Bala Murghab, forty-six 
 miles below Panjdeh, the correspondent of the Times 
 (March 12, 1885) writes as follows: "You will see from 
 the map that both the roads to Herat run through Badghis," 
 the districts to the north and north-west of the city of Herat, 
 " which comprises the valleys of the Heri-rud, Kushk, and 
 Murghab. That is why it is so valuable to us and to 
 Russia. If Russia had no designs on Herat she would 
 not care whether her frontier were at Sarakhs or Pul-i- 
 Khatun, or at Yolutan or Panjdeh. But of course she 
 cares. Russia has statesmen, and each naturally aspires to 
 be the Joshua who will terminate these weary wanderings 
 and lead her armies into the Promised Land. Once there, 
 their troubles are at an end. Everything is there to be 
 found, for the valley of Herat flows with milk and honey." 
 The writer closes a very interesting letter with the following 
 pregnant sentence : " The two thousand miles we have 
 marched between the Caspian and the Indus have certainly 
 convinced us that India is the garden of Asia, and that only 
 in India Herat and Badghis are but oases are water and 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 105 
 
 shade the rule and not tJie exception. Now ive can under- 
 stand why there have been so many invasions of Hindustan." 
 
 On the same point a well-informed writer in the same 
 paper thus recently expressed himself : 
 
 " At the time of the Russian war with Khiva, Sher Ali 
 represented to the Viceroy his apprehension of the con- 
 sequences that would ensue if the Turkomans of Merv 
 were driven by Russian invasion into his province of 
 Badghis. The fact that no European traveller passed 
 through this region after Vambery in the early days of 
 Sher Ali's authority to tell us what the exact condition of 
 Panjdeh was, is not an argument invalidating the Afghan 
 claims over the place, especially as those claims are sup- 
 ported by the receipts of tribute from the surrounding 
 tribes contained in the registers of the Herat Administra- 
 tion. If the presence of the Amir's troops and officials 
 were to be made the only test of his right to rule there are 
 many other places besides those which Russia has seized 
 that Abdurrahman would have to surrender. It is, of 
 course, intelligible that Russia should seek to make the 
 Amir's burden in governing his state as heavy as possible, 
 but it is difficult to understand how this argument can be 
 indorsed by any impartial witness. The Amir holds 
 Panjdeh, partly because it has always been dependent on 
 Herat, and partly because he found it marked on the map 
 well within the frontier drawn by the English Intelligence 
 Department. But his chief reason of all is that the pos- 
 session of Panjdeh is necessary to the preservation of his 
 hold on the road running northwards from Herat through 
 the province of Afghan Turkistan to Maimene' and Balkh. 
 Prussia would give him that road and no more. It is 
 absolutely essential to its security that the Ameer should 
 retain the control of the region on its western flank, which 
 includes Panjdeh and the Kushk valley. On the question 
 
106 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 of Panjdeh, as on that of Zulfagar and the Robat Pass, 
 there is no room for discussion or difference of opinion. 
 Those places form an integral part of the Amir's 
 dominions, and apart from their own inherent value they 
 are most important as constituting the natural out-works of 
 Herat. The Russian troops have not yet assailed either 
 Panjdeh or Khombou, but they are encamped close to the 
 former place and at Zulfagar. We have frequently pointed 
 out the risk thus created of a hostile collision, and we can 
 only repeat, that an attack on either of these places could 
 only be regarded as an act of unprovoked aggression upon 
 the Amir which we should be bound to promptly resent 
 by force of arms. 
 
 " Those persons who extenuate the latest phase of 
 Russian aggression ignore all the circumstances which in- 
 duced the English Government to join with Russia in an 
 attempt to delimit the Afghan frontier. They purposely 
 overlook the fact that the delimitation of the Amir's 
 boundary on the north west was taken up because Russia, 
 only twelve months ago, seized Merv in supreme indiffer- 
 ence to her repeated declarations to us that she had not 
 the least intention of appropriating the Tekke stronghold. 
 We have no wish to embitter the present controversy by 
 dwelling upon past breaches of faith, but the sudden and 
 secret occupation of Merv was an act that showed how 
 illusory Russian pledges are. Yet now that Russia, far 
 from standing still, has within the last year pushed her out- 
 posts 150 miles south of Merv, and to places within 
 Afghanistan, we are again asked to confide to her honour 
 when she repudiates all intention of treating Herat as she 
 has treated the other places on the Murghab and Heri- 
 rud. When Russian troops entered Merv it was at once 
 pointed out in these columns that the time had come for a 
 definite and decisive policy with regard to the Russian 
 
Russia s Last Move and England** Reply. 107 
 
 advance towards India. We only acquiesced in the seizure 
 of Merv on the express understanding that the frontier of 
 Afghanistan should be clearly marked out, and that the 
 least infraction of this line would be regarded by England 
 as a casus belli. That course was adopted by our Govern- 
 ment, and to all appearance that of the Czar also coincided 
 in its justice and agreed to participate in giving it validity. 
 To the policy of maintaining the integrity of Afghanistan 
 this country was committed, not only by a sense of its own 
 interests, but also by the definite assurances given to the 
 Amir from time to time, and particularly in 1883. It is 
 one from which the Government have as yet shown no 
 sign of departing, and, indeed, the least symptom of waver- 
 ing would be attended with fatal results to their own exist- 
 ence. They have from every point of view a position 
 which is practically unassailable, so far as the matter is one 
 of negotiation. The exchange of opinions which took 
 place in 1872-3 between the two Governments on the sub- 
 ject of the Afghan frontier has been described as no longer 
 binding on Russia ; but the Russian Ambassador at the 
 Court of St. James's was instructed in the spring of 1882 
 to state that the St. Petersburg Foreign Office still re- 
 cognized the validity of the arrangement then concluded. 
 This statement acquired more explicit value from being 
 followed up by the declaration of Russia's readiness to 
 dejimit the Afghan frontier from the Oxus to Sarakhs. 
 How, it may be asked, can Russia carry out her own pro- 
 position by throwing a loose line round the Salar and Sarik 
 districts, and incorporating all the region up to the Paro- 
 pamisus ? The Russian acts now are in flat contradiction 
 of everything stated .by M. de Giers up to the period of 
 the Merv occupation, and there is every reason to say that 
 those expressions were repeated still more emphatically 
 after that event had taken place. 
 
loS TJie Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 " While the English Government are tied down to a 
 policy of maintaining the integrity of Afghanistan by their 
 formal representations to Russia and by their solemn 
 pledges to the Ameer, the Russian Government equally 
 bound themselves to co-operate in the task of delimiting 
 ' the Afghan frontier from Khojah Saleh to Sarakhs.' In 
 measuring the extent of the unfriendly action to which 
 Russia has resorted within the last two or three months it 
 is necessary to remember that the Frontier Commission 
 was devised as a means of showing Russia's good faith, and 
 of proving that the Czar's conquest of Merv did not con- 
 stitute a menace to England, as many persons represented 
 that it would. Nor can we lose sight of the fact that long 
 before General Lumsden left London the scope of his 
 labours had been defined by the highest Russian as well as 
 English authorities. He was to complete what had been 
 left unfinished in 1873, and to give the Ameer's territory, 
 which was admitted to be ' outside the sphere of Russia's 
 influence,' a recognized boundary from the Oxus to Sarakhs. 
 It is as impossible to reconcile Russia's recent action with 
 the original understanding regarding the labours of this 
 Commission, as it is to discover in the occupation of 
 Zulfagar and Pul-i-Khisti the evidence that the Russian 
 Government has no sinister designs upon Herat and other 
 places nearer India. Instead of cordially co-operating 
 with us, as originally arranged, the Russian Government 
 have delayed their Commission until their troops had 
 occupied the most important positions within the debatable 
 ground, and then they have brought forward the ethno- 
 graphical principle, which should have been ventilated at a 
 much earlier stage of the question if it was to be employed 
 at all. Although they went so far as to nominate a chief 
 Commissioner in the person of General Zelenoy last Sep- 
 tember, they have allowed him to remain ever since on his 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 109 
 
 private estate near Tiflis ; and when the season approached 
 for beginning work on the spot, instead of hastening the 
 movements of their representatives they sent an agent, M. 
 Lessar, to London to make demands which are simply pre- 
 posterous and to which no Government could venture to 
 yield. In short, they have striven throughout to hoodwink 
 our Ministers and to mislead English opinion ; but they have 
 already imposed more than enough on our credulity. Not 
 only have they committed a flagrant breach of diplomatic 
 etiquette, but they have really invaded Afghanistan. Un- 
 less they retire from the positions, which they should never 
 have entered, there is little chance of averting a hostile 
 collision, for the English Government can never concur in 
 the violent seizure of districts to which Russia has not the 
 shadow of a claim, and some of which are vitally neces- 
 sary to the preservation of the Amir's authority in his 
 kingdom." 
 
 Deferring to another chapter the consideration of the 
 several routes from the important centre of Herat to the 
 places on its frontier for the districts in dispute must be 
 regarded as outlying districts of the Herat province I pro- 
 pose to treat now of those districts only, to seize which, 
 Russia, in a time of profound tranquillity, and at the 
 moment she had herself selected for amicable delineation, 
 has violated the rights of nations and threatened the peace 
 of the world. 
 
 The outlying districts comprise the territory compre- 
 hended between the line already marked from Sarakhs to 
 Khoja Saleh, and an imaginary line -below it, stretching 
 from a point below the Zulfagar pass, sixty miles below 
 Sarakhs, on the one side, between Panjdeh and Meruchak 
 on the Murghab, to a point just above Andkhoi, and 
 thence by the existing line to Khoja Saleh. This line 
 would bring Russia within easy striking distance of Herat ! 
 
no The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 If the reader will consult Colonel Stewart's map he will 
 
 see that the first line, from Sarakhs to Khoja Saleh, cuts off 
 
 the edge of the Kara- Kum. desert some distance above Gul- 
 
 Bulu and a small portion of the same desert in the vicinity 
 
 of Sarakhs. With these exceptions the district consists of 
 
 valley, plain, and mountain, capable of being developed 
 
 into an extraordinary state of fertility. To the west, from 
 
 Sarakhs down to Kuhsan, up the.Heri-nid or Tejend, the 
 
 country has never been occupied by the Turkomans, but 
 
 that migratory tribes of that race have settled for a time 
 
 in other parts has been a consequence of the generally 
 
 disturbed state of the country. Turkomans were encamped 
 
 for instance, at Panjdeh, when Captain Abbott visited 
 
 that place in 1840. But the Turkomans who have occupied 
 
 parts of those districts have been ever ready to submit to 
 
 the prince ruling at Herat whenever he might show any 
 
 disposition to enforce his power. They submitted to Sher 
 
 Ali, and, as the reader will see from a letter quoted in the 
 
 next chapter, no one has made a greater impression on 
 
 the several tribes within his territories than the present 
 
 Afghan ruler. If, then, the Russians should base their 
 
 clnims to the positions they demand on the Heri-riid 
 
 (Tejend) and the Murghab, and the country above the 
 
 imaginary line I have referred to, on the ground that, 
 
 having occupied Sarakhs and conquered Merv they are 
 
 the inheritors of the territories occupied by the Sarik 
 
 Turkomans, those claims fall at once to the ground, for, 
 
 whilst the positions on the Heri-rud (Tejend) never were 
 
 occupied by the Turkomans ; whilst at the several points 
 
 below Sarakhs villages were not built because of the dread of 
 
 the Turkomans felt by the people ; the tribes of that race 
 
 who pitched their tents in the valley of the Murghab, at Robat- 
 
 Abdullah Khan, and below it, have, since 1863, and even 
 
Russia's Last Move and England 's Reply. 1 1 1 
 
 previously, paid tribute to the representative of the Amir 
 who was ruling at Herat ! 
 
 But Russia wants that broad strip of land, first, because, 
 situate for the most part below the desert, it partakes the 
 general fertility of the Herat province, and may therefore 
 be occupied as a base for operations against the valleys of 
 Kushkh and Kala-i-nau. What those valleys are, what 
 the country knows under the generic term " Herat " is, will 
 be explained in the next chapter. Russia wants that strip, 
 secondly, because the possession of it will bring her within 
 easy striking distance of the city of Herat ; she wants it, 
 thirdly, because, by taking it, she will absolutely neutralize 
 Persia, by thrusting a wedge between the Persian town, 
 Meshed, and her frontier. 
 
 Now, if we allow Russia to occupy these districts, or any 
 portion of them, we virtually make her a present of Herat ; 
 and I raise again my warning voice to declare, that if 
 Russia once be allowed to occupy Herat, !Ke conquest of 
 India by her will be a mere question of time. Even at 
 Sarakhs, she was within 202 miles of the city of that name, 
 whilst the English outposts are 514 miles distant from it, and 
 145 miles even from Kandahar. Since, then, she has illegally, 
 against the law of nations, pushed her troops across the 
 line, which, since 1872-3, has been recognized as the frontier 
 line of western Afghanistan, and has occupied the pass of 
 Zulfagar on the Heri-rud, and the posts of Nikalshemi, 
 Ak Robat, and Pul-i-Khisti, it is the duty of the Govern- 
 ment of England to insist that she withdraw without delay. 
 The insistance might be made now with effect, for the 
 Transcaspian line of railway is not yet ready, and Russia is 
 not, therefore, prepared for a mortal struggle. 
 
 Of the Russian claim to Panjdeh, a foreigner well com- 
 petent to judge, Professor Vambery, of the University of 
 Buda-Pesth, writes as follows. Continuing the remarks 
 
112 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 which I have already extracted, about Pul-i-Khatun, he 
 adds : 
 
 " Of a similar nature is the aggression planned, but 
 hitherto frustrated, against Panjdeh (five villages), on the 
 right bank of the Murghab, there where the dreary sands of 
 the Kara-Kum steppe ends and the cultivable country of 
 the outskirts of the Paropamisus begins. In former times 
 Panjdeh was a most flourishing place in the district of Herat, 
 and under the reign of Sultan Husein Mirza Baikara, when 
 the capital on the Heri-nid was the cultural centre of the 
 Eastern Mohammedan world, the environs of Panjdeh and 
 Maruchak (Little Merv) were the favourite summer abode 
 of the rich and luxurious world of Herat. In the subse- 
 quent periods we only occasionally meet with the name of 
 Panjdeh in the historical works referring to this part of 
 Khorasan, but we can safely assume that the ultimate 
 destruction and desolation of the place dates only from the 
 time when the Sarik Turkomans, vanquished by the Tekke 
 Turkomans, had to retire towards the mountains, particu- 
 larly to the region of Upper Murghab, which was reckoned 
 from immemorial times as belonging to Herat, and, since 
 this place was taken by the Afghans, as an integral part of 
 Afghanistan. 
 
 " The Russian claim on this place is, therefore, from every 
 point of view, unfounded and unjust. By their assertion 
 that the Sariks have voluntarily acknowledged the supremacy 
 of the Czar, they might claim the country on both banks 
 of the Murghab from Yolatan (rectius Yul-o-tin= passage) 
 to Sari Yar and Ak Tepe, but not the country near and 
 around Panjdeh, the Afghan property of which had been 
 ascertained by the Russian traveller, Dr. Regel, in July 
 1884, who found there an Afghan garrison of a very un- 
 friendly behaviour, in consequence of which he was obliged 
 to change his route and to return, via Merv, to the Oxus, 
 
Russia** Last Move and England* s Reply. 113 
 
 Panjdeh, which the Russian traveller erroneously ca\\sPandt, 
 is, therefore, in the unquestionable possession of Afghanis- 
 tan, and the recent attempt of General Alikhanoff to over- 
 run this place and lay hold on it in the name of the 
 Emperor of Russia cannot be otherwise styled than an 
 irruption into a foreign country, nay, into the dominions of a 
 prince subsidized by England, consequently into the terri- 
 tory of a friend and ally of Great Britain."* 
 
 Subsequently, the i5th March, the same high authority 
 wrote a letter to the Times (21 st March), which virtually 
 disposes of the assertion made by Russian partisans that 
 Panjdeh had never previously been occupied by the 
 Afghans, and was only recently taken possession of on the 
 instigation of Sir Peter Lumsden. The letter runs as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " In your article entitled ' The question at issue between 
 England and Russia/ published in the Times of the i3th 
 instant, I read that the assertion of several leading German 
 papers concerning the quite recent Afghan occupation of 
 Panjdeh can be easily refuted by the fact that Abdurrah- 
 man had already ordered his troops to take possession of 
 Panjdeh twelve months ago. In order to prove this fact 
 your contributor proceeds to quote the events of 1883, 
 when the ruler of Kabul got an English map showing the 
 frontiers of his country towards the north-west, and it was 
 in consequence of this cartographic communication that he 
 found it practicable to put a garrison in the above-men- 
 tioned place on the Murghab. 
 
 " As Continental critics may be rather sceptical as to 
 English maps and English official communications, I beg 
 leave to call your attention to a German scientific paper 
 written by a Russian officer, in which it is clearly stated 
 
 * Army and Navy Magazine, April, 1885, 
 
 I 
 
H4 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 that Panjdeh was already in the possession of the Afghans 
 in June, 1884, and that it was not at all the instigation of 
 the English, under Sir Peter Lumsden, which prompted the 
 Afghans to occupy Panjdeh and to provoke the quarrel 
 between England and Russia in Central Asia, as Russian, 
 German, and also French papers choose to imagine and to 
 represent. 
 
 " The paper named isnothing'else than the highly respect- 
 able geographical periodical known as 'Dr. A. Peter- 
 mann's Mittheilungen,' volume 31, 1885, No. I., in which 
 there is a notice by Dr. Regel, the explorer of Darwaz, 
 Roshau, &c., concerning his journey from Tchihardjui 
 across Merv to Pandi (Panjdeh) and back, executed in 
 June, 1884, and where we read, p. 24 ' Als wir am 
 vierten Tage (i.e., the 9th of June, 1884) auf Pandi 
 (Pandjeh) losgehen wollten, brachten die Leute aus 
 Yulitan (Yoloten) die Nachricht erstere Ortschaft (viz., 
 Panjdeh) sei eben erst von 4,000 bis 5,000 Afghanen 
 besetztworden.'* There are other similar statements con- 
 cerning the presence of the Afghans in Panjdeh in the 
 month of June, 1884, and as this German-Russian officer 
 will not be suspected of prevalent English sympathies, and 
 as he had written his paper long before the outbreak-of 
 the present quarrel, I venture to say the question of English 
 instigation may be easily dismissed, as the testimony of the 
 traveller named will suffice to refute any contrary state- 
 ment." 
 
 It is clear, then, that against right, in the face of right, in 
 defiance of her repeated protestations, Russia has crossed 
 the border line which she agreed to in 1872-3, which is 
 
 * "When on the fourth day (June 9, 1884) we were about to pro- 
 ceed to Pandi (Panjdeh), the people from Yulitan (Yoloten) brought 
 us the news that that place (viz. Panjdeh) had been but just occupied 
 by from four to five thousand Afghans." 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 115 
 
 recognized as the border line in all the Russian maps of 
 any authority. She has committed this infraction of public 
 law at the very time she had herself selected for a new 
 and peaceful demarcation of the frontier line, when she 
 knew that a large English army and a contingent of Indian 
 troops were in the Soudan, that the minds of the English 
 ministers were occupied by grave European complications, 
 and that England was less prepared for a great war than 
 she had been for thirty years. She committed this infrac- 
 tion of public law, moreover, at a period when the counsels 
 of England were guided by a ministry whom she had often 
 deceived, and had found no difficulty in deceiving again : 
 a ministry which she had seen yielding to bold deeds in 
 the Transvaal, to pressure from France, to something very 
 like menace from Germany : a ministry which had shown 
 a strong inclination to undergo any humiliation rather than 
 engage the country in war, even in rightful war. Feeling, 
 then, as she had a right to feel, that the game of bluster 
 and swagger was a safe game to play under the circum- 
 stances, she had played it boldly and unscrupulously. 
 Pursuing the policy so aptly described by Lord Palmerston 
 in his letter to Lord Clarendon, quoted in a previous page, 
 she spoke in honied phrases at St. Petersburg, whilst, 
 ready to disavow them if they should fail or to reward them 
 if they should succeed, she instructed her agents on the 
 frontier to strike the blow which might secure for her a new 
 and very real base against India. 
 
 How have the Ministers of England replied to this 
 audacious attempt? We all know how Mr. Pitt would 
 have ^answered it, how Mr. Canning would have answered 
 it, how Lord Palmerston would have answered it. We 
 know how America, how Germany, how even France, 
 would have met such an insult. Within four-and-twenty 
 hours orders would have been transmitted from St. Peters- 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 burg to the frontier for the withdrawal of the Russian troops 
 across the border. If the outrage had been met with 
 firmness and resolution, prompt atonement would have 
 been made. But, up to the present moment, our Ministers 
 have displayed neither firmness nor resolution. Far from 
 grasping the real significance of Russia's forward move, 
 they have begun by making a concession which is a virtual 
 yielding of Russia's demands. Russia had no case where- 
 with to support her impudent advance. Our Ministers have 
 provided her with one. Let us imagine, if we can, a French 
 army crossing the German frontier, which was finally settled 
 about the same time as the Afghan frontier, and seizing 
 Metz ! Is it possible to imagine the German Chancellor 
 allowing the invading army to remain in that fortress until 
 it should be decided by negotiation to whom the line of 
 the Rhine properly belonged : then to listen to Prince 
 Bismark, when interrogated in Parliament, as he made a 
 statement like the following ? 
 
 " Upon that communication " a demand by Prince 
 Bismark for the withdrawal of the French troops "a 
 correspondence ensued, and the French declined to with- 
 draw their troops. They gave certain explanations about 
 them ; and they founded their answer upon the belief they 
 entertained that the territory is theirs, that they claim it as 
 a matter of right. Well, sir, that being the state 'of the 
 case we of course had addressed a requisition to them in 
 the belief that it was German territory as the French 
 made a serious claim to be the rightful possessors of the 
 territory, we could do nothing in the matter consistently, 
 I think, either with prudence or with any honourable regard 
 to the interests of peace, except to prosecute measures for 
 bringing about a proper investigation and decision of the 
 claim that had been preferred. That being so, undoubtedly, 
 I will not say actually, there has been a withdrawal of the 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 117 
 
 requisition, but substantially it comes to the same thing. 
 The application that was made has lapsed from the circum- 
 stances of the case." 
 
 And yet, mutatis nominibus, this was the precise explana- 
 tion, these were the ipsissima verba, which the Prime 
 Minister of England made when interrogated by Mr. 
 Edward Stanhope as to the action he had taken with 
 respect to the invasion of a frontier, which is, to all intents 
 and purposes, the frontier of British India ! 
 
 It is to a certain extent a satisfactory sign of the 
 times that this reply of Mr. Gladstone has awakened the 
 scorn and contempt of the men of all parties. The Times 
 of the following morning expressed the general opinion 
 when it lamented that the Prime Minister should have 
 shown " so little of the spirit of a man who means to 
 vindicate the rights of this country." . . . "To avoid war 
 by simple abandonment of claims which have not been 
 investigated by competent authority, and to permit Russia 
 to retain positions which she has seized in defiance of her 
 own admission of their doubtful ownership, is to proclaim 
 ourselves impotent in presence of audacious aggression, 
 and to deprive ourselves of the confidence which alone can 
 lead to firm and fruitful alliance with Afghanistan." 
 
 It is in vain, I fear, notwithstanding this expression, and 
 similar expressions, of opinion from all parts of the country, 
 to hope that the Ministry will be inspired with the moral 
 courage which can nip an evil in the bud. Too often have 
 they turned their cheeks to the smiter. I would, however, 
 ask them to remember that in this instance it is not a ques- 
 tion of minor importance it is an Empire which is at stake ! 
 
 The rulers of England are the trustees for the people of 
 P^ngland. I beseech, I implore them, not to neglect this 
 opportunity of shutting the door to the invader. Let them 
 " be just and fear not." If mistakes have been made by 
 
n8 The Rtisso-Afgkan Question. 
 
 both parties in the past, let both unite in the sacred duty 
 of firmly securing the noblest dependency of England. 
 For it is that dependency, it is India, which is endangered 
 by this advance. If my feeble voice cannot penetrate within 
 the portals of Downing Street, if they refuse to hear me, 
 let them listen to the voice of one to whom for many years 
 they entrusted the Government of India, and to whose 
 advice they are bound to pay attention. " My own view," 
 wrote the Duke of Argyll, in a letter dated the i8th 
 March of the current year, to the Sf. James's Gazette : 
 " My own view has always been that the conquest by 
 Russia of the Tekke Turkomans and of all the khanates of 
 Central Asia has been inevitable. I have held, further, 
 that no civilization and no commerce could be established 
 in those regions until that conquest had been accomplished; 
 and that on this ground, as well as on several other grounds, 
 it was at once useless and undignified on our part to be 
 perpetually remonstrating against ' advances ' which we 
 could not prevent and which, in the interests of humanity, 
 we ought not to regret. 
 
 " But none of these considerations apply to any advances 
 by Russia across the borders of Afghanistan. We must 
 insist on the independence and integrity of that country 
 being respected; and in so far as the Afghan kingdom 
 must of necessity be under any predominant influence, we 
 must insist that this predominance shall be ours. I trust 
 all parties are agreed in this doctrine and in this policy, 
 and in desiring that our Government shall carry it into 
 effect with firmness." 
 
 Finally, I would invite their attention to the remarks, 
 published in the Times of the same date, iQth March, 
 written by the great soldier whose warnings regarding the 
 occurrence of certain events in Central Asia unless we 
 should take certain precautions, have, unfortunately, always 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 119 
 
 been neglected and always justified. " A very real danger 
 has come," wrote Sir Edward Hamley, " without our seek- 
 ing, to meet us on the Afghan frontier. It is impossible to 
 conceal from ourselves the design with which Russia is 
 pushing on. Our manner of meeting her is among the 
 marvels of the most unaccountable period of our history. 
 We treat her as one of two established coterminous Powers 
 whose respective limits require definition. The facts are 
 dropped out of sight that a few years ago she was a thousand 
 miles from the Afghan frontier, that she grounds her brand 
 new title to contest its territory with us on her conquest of 
 certain predatory tribes on whose outskirts other predatory 
 tribes wander, and that on the strength of this extraordi- 
 nary claim she suddenly puts forth the impudent formula, 
 { Whatever territory you cannot satisfactorily prove your 
 right to is mine/ which thenceforth becomes the basis of 
 negotiation. What can such a pretension put in action 
 mean but to defy us to war, with the alternative of ruinous 
 submission ? And, in fact, for weeks past, the daily 
 question has been, ' Is there to be war with Russia ? ' an 
 event only staved off thus far by the humiliating alterna- 
 tive. Like the terrified prey of brigands we have cast 
 ourselves venire d terre. But even submission the most 
 abject cannot avail. The attitude we have chosen is not 
 exactly the best for keeping the throat from the knife. And 
 what effect will it have on our would-be allies, the Afghans, 
 the poverty of whose dialect does not perhaps enable 
 them to discriminate nicely between an agreement and an 
 arrangement ! What effect, too, in India ? If I do not 
 speak of the effect in this country it is because we are, for 
 the time, wrapt in an opium dream, in which facts count 
 for nothing, delusions for much. 
 
 " By common consent, the reason for the Russian 
 
I2O The Russo-Afgkan Question. 
 
 advance is to be found in our embarrassments in Egypt. 
 That being the case, what could Russia desire better if 
 she herself had the ordering of our policy, than that we 
 should cast fresh armies and new heaps of treasure into the 
 Soudan ? Can she be supposed to look on with other feel- 
 ings than delight while British ships are landing railway 
 plant by the hundred mile at Suakim? Had the same 
 energy been displayed on the Indus we should now have 
 had a railway to Quetta, perhaps to Kandahar, with ten 
 thousand British troops at the end of it. 
 
 "What a sound judgment would seem to counsel, then, 
 is an immediate reconsideration of our position. Nobody 
 will maintain that we can carry on two wars, either of which 
 would sufficiently tax our resources. We must choose 
 between the will-o'-the-wisp and the mortal emergency. 
 Happily, troops and material at Souakim are already so far 
 on the direct way to Kurrachee. And for the force onthe 
 Nile, if it can continue its retreat to Lower Egypt (and the 
 doubt speaks much for the perverse ingenuity which created 
 it), let it abandon its delightful and salubrious summer 
 quarters and descend the river ; thus, so many men will be 
 saved towards the saving of the Empire. And let us 
 simultaneously take all needful steps for placing an 
 effective army in the field and putting this kingdom in a 
 condition of defence. If, at the same time, that lost art, 
 diplomacy, should chance to revive among us, it will find 
 ample occupation in endeavouring to persuade the Afghans 
 to invite us to a military occupation of their country, in 
 procuring friends among the European Powers, and in 
 persuading the unspeakable Turk to form with us that 
 agreement (or arrangement) necessary to enable us to 
 operate effectively in the Black Sea." 
 
 These are pregnant words. Of this, at least, Englishmen 
 
Russia's Last Move and England's Reply. 121 
 
 may be sure, that it is only by concentrating all the energies 
 of Great Britain on the maintenance of the existing frontier 
 of Afghanistan that Herdt can be saved. If we allow 
 Herat to fall, India is doomed. That the reader may 
 understand this clearly I proceed to answer the query 
 which I can imagine forming in his mind, " What are 
 those places which thus seem to constitute the outlying 
 redoubt of India ? " 
 
122 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE OUTLYING REDOUBT OF INDIA. 
 
 THE city of Herat stands in the fertile valley of the 
 Heri-nid 2,650 feet above the level of the sea. The 
 Heri-nid rises in the mountains of Hazareh, not far from 
 the village of Robat Tarwan. Under the name of Jangal-ab 
 it flows in a south-westerly direction to a point below 
 Daolatzar, a village on the direct road between Herat and 
 Bamian. At this point it is joined by another branch, the 
 Sir Tingilab, which rises likewise in the Hazareh range, 
 though at a point somewhat more to the south-east than 
 the Jangal-ab. From the point of junction the united 
 streams take the name of Heri-nid and follow an almost 
 direct westerly course south of the Paropamisan range. 
 Some fifty miles beyond Herat, which lies near its northern 
 bank, the Heri-rud takes a turn to the north-west and then 
 to the north receiving many streams in its course and 
 passes Rozanak, Kuhsan, Kasan, Pul-i-Khatun and Sarakhs. 
 Between the two last named places it loses the name of 
 Heri-rud and takes that of Tejend. Under this name it 
 flows north-westward till it is lost in the sand and swamps 
 of the great Turkoman desert. 
 
 At the point already indicated where the combined 
 waters of the Sir Tingilab and the Jangal-ab form the 
 Heri-riid, the river traverses a broad valley which it adorns 
 and fertilises. All along this channels from the river 
 spread over its broad surface, converting deserts into corn- 
 fields, and waste lands into gardens of fruit. The supply 
 
The Outlying Redoubt of India. 123 
 
 from its swiftly running waters never fails. It was equal to 
 the demand even in the days when Herat was the most 
 famous city of Central Asia, possessing the most influential 
 court and constituting the most splendid commercial mart 
 in the Eastern world. Though the channels have been in 
 many instances destroyed the supply is more than equal to 
 the demand even now. 
 
 In this valley the city of Herat is the principal city. 
 According to the graphic account of Conolly, who visited 
 it in 1830, it is situated " at four miles distant from hills 
 on the north, and twelve miles from those which run south 
 of it. The space between the hills is one beautiful extent 
 of little fortified villages, gardens, vineyards and cornfields, 
 and this rich scene is brightened by many small streams of 
 shining water, which cut the plain in all directions. A 
 dam is thrown across the Heri-rud, and its waters, being 
 turned into many canals, are so conducted over the vale 
 of Herat that every part of it is watered. Varieties of the 
 most delicious fruit are grown in the valley, and they are 
 sold cheaper even than at Meshed ; the necessaries of life 
 are plentiful and cheap, and the bread and water of Herat 
 are proverbial for their excellence. I really never, in 
 England even, tasted more delicious water than that of 
 the Heri-rud : it is ' as clear as tears,' and the natives say, 
 only equalled by the waters of Kashmir, which make those 
 who drink them beautiful." 
 
 The origin of the city can be traced far into antiquity. 
 
 To the ancients the province of which it was and is 
 the capital was known as Aria and Ariana. The city is 
 mentioned by the earliest writers. Arrian writes of it as 
 Artakoana or Artakana, the royal city of the inhabitants of 
 Aria. It often served as the residence of the greatest 
 conquerors of the East. Tradition brings to it Nebuchad- 
 nezzar and Semiramis. The Persian historians assert, with 
 
124 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 remarkable unanimity that Alexander the Great gave it the 
 name under which Arrian writes of it. There can be no 
 doubt but that the city was the gate through which the son 
 of Philip of Macedon passed to the conquest of India. 
 
 It was towards the close of the tenth century that the 
 valley of the Heri-nid obtained the importance which it 
 exercised during many centuries which followed. An 
 oasis between the Turkoman deserts and the rocks and 
 mountains of Afghanistan, the centre where converged 
 the roads from Bokhara, from Persia, and from India, it 
 became, at that period a commercial centre which even the 
 contests between the Iranian and the Turanian did not 
 disturb. In the year 1219 the city of Herat possessed 
 12,000 retail shops ; 6,000 public baths, caravansaries, and 
 water-mills; 350 schools and monastic institutions; 144,000 
 occupied houses ; and the city was visited yearly by caravans 
 from all parts of Asia. 
 
 The invasions of Chengiz Khan, 1219-22, and of Taimiir 
 in 1381, inflicted upon Herat enormous damage. It was 
 through her gates that the latter marche d to the conquest 
 of India. But the rebound was magical. Under the rule 
 of Shah Rokh, fourth son of Taimur, Herat soon vindicated 
 her claim to the title of Queen of the cities of the East. 
 The country beyond the Oxus boasted of many famous 
 cities. There was Bokhara, and there was a city then more 
 influential still, the famous Samarkhand. But Shah-Rokh 
 recognized in the province of Herat a military position 
 whence he could hold fast the countries beyond the Oxus, 
 whilst keeping in a firm grip the countries to the east, to 
 the west, and to the south. Under his rule Herat became 
 the capital of the whole of Central Asia. 
 
 The renewed prosperity of the city and province, 
 beginning with the rule of the son of Taimur, 1396-7, 
 lasted with but little interruption, to the period of its con- 
 
The Outlying Redoubt of India. 125 
 
 quest by Persia in 1510. With that conquest the glory of 
 the city departed. The monarchs of Persia neglected 
 Herat to patronize a city of their own, the holy city of 
 Meshed. 
 
 From the date of its capture by Persia, the province of 
 Herat became the battle field between the Uzbeks and the 
 Iranians. The city suffered many sieges. Finally it fell 
 to the latter, and thence to the year 1715 it shared the 
 fortunes of the Persian monarchy, neglected and all but 
 forsaken, from that moment, until the death of Nadir Shah. 
 
 It fell then into the hands of the Afghans, and in their 
 hands it has since remained. 
 
 The limits of the province of Herat have varied with the 
 times. But regarding that province as constituting western 
 Afghanistan it may be said to be bordered on the north 
 by the line from Sarakhs to Khoja Saleh, on the west by the 
 Heri-rud, to the south-west by the Persian desert as far as 
 Seistan, to the south by the Heri-rud ; to the east by 
 the mountainous ranges separating it from Andkhoi, 
 Maimene* and Shibbergan. 
 
 It's value to India rests on two facts : the one patent to 
 the eye, that as long as the province of Herat is held by 
 an ally or dependant of the ruler of India, India is unassail- 
 able : the other that Herat constitutes a new and perfect 
 base for a hostile army. 
 
 On the first point I would remark that Herdt is called 
 the gate of India because through it, and through it alone, 
 can the valleys be entered which lead to the most valuable 
 of all the divisions of Asia. Those valleys, running nearly 
 north and south, are protected to the east by ranges practi- 
 cally inaccessible, to the west by sterile deserts. No invading 
 army would attempt to traverse the great salt desert, and the 
 desert immediately to the south of it, the Dasht-i-Naobad, 
 whilst a British army should hold Herat In the eloquent 
 
126 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 lecture, already alluded to, on the subject of the frontier of 
 India, delivered by Sir E. Hamley in 1878, that master 
 of the strategic art laid down the broad principle that if 
 England were to hold the western line of communication 
 with India, that by Herat and Kandahar, she need not 
 trouble herself very much about the eastern or Kabul line. 
 On the same occasion, the eminent soldier-politician who 
 has made the question of the frontier policy of India the 
 study of his life, declared, in reply to a question put to 
 him, that rather than allow the occupation of Herat by 
 Russia, he would venture the whole might of British India. 
 Sir Henry Rawlinson saw clearly that the possession of 
 Herat by Russia meant the possession not only of a 
 strategic base whence Russia could invade India, but the 
 possession of a country where she could remain quiescent 
 until the opportune moment for making the fatal spring 
 should arrive. 
 
 The mention of this consideration leads me to the 
 second point of my argument to the assertion that the 
 province of Herat would form a secure and perfect base 
 for an army of invasion. I have spoken of the wonderful 
 fertility of the valley of the Heri-nid. Ancient remains 
 prove that the valley of the Murghab has been and can be 
 rendered again not less productive. The valleys 01 
 Khiishk and Kala-i-Nau, the country about Panjdeh, 
 belong to the same category. Abbott, Conolly, Vambe'ry, 
 found everywhere traces of large occupation. The pro- 
 vince produces in abundance the willow and the poplar, 
 trees which make the best charcoal. It possesses mines of 
 lead, of iron, and of sulphur. The surface of many parts 
 of the country is laden with saltpetre. Its fields produce 
 in abundance corn and wine and oil. Place an army in the 
 province which, called by its inhabitants Badghis, may be 
 comprehended under the generic term Herat, and nothing 
 
The Outlying Redoubt of India. 127 
 
 need be brought to it from Europe. The valley which 
 was the granary and the province which was the garden of 
 Central Asia, can equip it, provide it with its materiel, ay, 
 even with men and horses. On the city which gives its 
 name to the valley, moreover, converge all the great roads, 
 but one, leading on India. Occupied by Russia, it would 
 become " an eye to see and an arm to strike." 
 
 These are not my words alone, they are not my thoughts 
 alone. They are the words and the thoughts of every 
 Englishman of ordinary intelligence who has studied the 
 subject. They were the words and thoughts of the ever- 
 to-be-lamented Bartle Frere : they are the words and 
 thoughts of Hamley, of Rawlinson, of Napier of Magdala, 
 of Roberts, of MacGregor. What says the latter, a most 
 accomplished and instructed officer, on the subject? I 
 cannot quote from the able memorandum which I 
 received in confidence, but, fortunately, there is an 
 appendix to his book on Khorasan which contains his 
 views, written so far back as 1875, on the subject I am 
 now discussing. 
 
 " It is not, however, sufficient," wrote Colonel Mac- 
 Gregor, "to show the importance of Merv. I will go 
 further, and try and show why Herat is important, because 
 of course if Herat were not important, and there was 
 nothing beyond Merv but desert down to the sea, I need 
 not have troubled myself to pen these remarks. Merv has 
 almost no more value, apart from Herat, than the head of 
 a sap has apart from a fortress selected for attack. I there- 
 fore wish particular attention to be given to the next step 
 by which I hope to prove my case. 
 
 " Herat has been termed the Key of India, not lightly as 
 a mere figure of speech, but by every officer who has had 
 an opportunity of seeing its valley. It is so, because it is 
 the nearest and best point at which an invader could con- 
 
128 The Russo- Afghan Question, 
 
 centrate and prepare for the invasion of that country; 
 advantages which it gains from its beautiful valley, the 
 fertility of which is unrivalled in Asia ; from its strategical 
 position, which gives it the command of all the important 
 roads to India ; from the great strength of its fortress, it 
 being, in fact, the strongest place from the Caspian to the 
 Indus ; from its admirable climate, and from the prestige 
 it enjoys throughout Asia. 
 
 " The fertility of its valley, and its capability of maintain- 
 ing large forces, is proved by the fact that it has been 
 besieged oftener than any city in Asia, and has always 
 afforded supplies for the armies of both besiegers and 
 besieged. And it must be remembered the first have 
 sometimes reached as many as 80,000 men, and have 
 seldom fallen below 30,000, while both have always been 
 composed of undisciplined men who destroyed nearly as 
 much as they consumed. Moreover, I have seen it with 
 my own eyes, and I have no hesitation in saying that it is 
 capable of maintaining a very large army. 
 
 " It will not be necessary to describe the defences of 
 Herat, but only to remark that Sir H. Rawlinson's descrip- 
 tion is in no way exaggerated when he says, ' It is sur- 
 rounded by works of the most colossal character, which, 
 with the adaptations and improvements of modern science, 
 might be rendered almost impregnable.' 
 
 " A glance at the map will convince any soldier of its 
 importance strategically. No less than five distinct routes 
 lead to Herat from the west, viz : i. from Ashruff by 
 Shahrood, Toorshez, Khaf ; 2. from Guz by Bostam, 
 Subzwar, Toorbut, Haiduree, and Shuhr-i-Now; 3. from 
 Astrabad by Findurisk, Jahjurm, Jowen, Nishapoor, 
 Furreeman, Shuhr-i-Now ; 4. by the Goorgaun, Rabat 
 Ishk, Boojnoord, Koochaun, to Mushudd, and Jam ; 5. 
 from the mouth of the Attruk, by that river through the 
 
The Outlying Redoubt of India. 129 
 
 same points. From the north two routes lead direct on to 
 it from Merv, and a third arrives from Kirki by Maimene'. 
 Herat commands all these routes, as well as the routes to 
 the south from Persia, viz. from Tun by Khaf, from 
 Ghain, Subzwar, from Bisjund to Furrah, Herat and 
 Lash. Moreover the routes leading out of Herat, or over 
 which an army stationed here may be said to have the 
 command are, i. the route to Kabul by Bamian ; 2. the 
 route to the same piece by Behsood ; 3. the same from 
 Merv by Bala Murghab ; 4. the route by Balkh to Kabul ; 
 5 and 6. two routes to Kandahar ; 7. the route to Ghuz- 
 ni through the Hazarah country ; 8. the routes from 
 Persia which lead through Subzwar, Fnrrah, Lash or 
 Seistan, and which all converge on Kandahar. 
 
 " Besides all these positive and patent advantages which 
 this place possesses, Russia in Herat would have an un- 
 assailable position, from which to threaten us in India, so 
 as to force us to keep large forces always ready to meet 
 the menace, while she would be able to cast abroad 
 throughout India, that 'seething, festering mass of dis- 
 affection,' the seeds of a rebellion that would still further 
 cripple us, she would altogether alienate from us the whole 
 of the Afghans, and the Persian Khorasanis, and would 
 practically control for her own purposes nearly all their 
 military resources." 
 
 In these remarks the whole case is contained. The 
 conclusions, unfortunately, are irrefutable. 
 
 The principles which apply to the whole province apply 
 equally to that northern portion of which is contained 
 between the line of 1872 and the new line which the 
 Russians are trying to enforce. The concession of that 
 line would bring the Russian outposts to within a very 
 short distance of Herat not much greater than the distance 
 between Dover and London. She would lie securely on 
 
 K 
 
130 The Riisso- Afghan Question. 
 
 two rivers, each possessing a full stream and an unsurpassed 
 power of fertilizing each, as I shall show in the next 
 chapter, opening out a route easy to be traversed. In 
 desiring to acquire these districts Russia can have but 
 one object, and that object the one which has been 
 the end and aim of her Transcaspian struggles. To 
 allow her to retain the Zulfagar Pass, Pul-i-Khatun and 
 Pul-i-Kishti, with the country to the north of these places, 
 would be as criminal and as fatal to the nation allowing 
 it, as if the commander of a fortress were to permit a 
 hostile army to encamp on the glacis. The conquest of 
 Merv and the occupation of Sarakhs brought Russia near 
 enough to Herat but little longer than the distance which 
 separates the British outposts from Kandahar. If we would 
 preserve Herat from her clutches, if we would maintain 
 India, we are bound to insist that the border line from 
 Sarakhs to Khoja Saleh shall be scrupulously respected. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE ROUTES ON THE FRONTIER. 
 
 I PROPOSE now to describe the routes, and with the routes 
 the nature of the country, from Herat along the Heri-rud 
 to Sarakhs ; from the same place by the Khushk river to its 
 junction with the Murghab ; and from Herat, also, by the 
 Kala-i-nau valley to the Murghab. In carrying out this plan 
 I shall make free extracts from the journals of older 
 travellers, men such as James Abbott, Vambe'ry, Marsh 
 and MacGregor, and contrast their experiences with those 
 of the companions of Sir Peter Lumsden who have written 
 on the subject to the London papers. 
 
 I take first the route from Herat to Sarakhs along the 
 Heri-rud valley, based upon the experiences of Captain 
 Marsh, who traversed the country in 1872, and of Sir C. 
 MacGregor who visited it the following year : 
 
 Riding westward the first stage lands the traveller at 
 Shakhwan a large group of three villages and a fort. The 
 distance by the direct road is twenty-four miles, but to 
 avoid the wet cultivation near the river it is often necessary 
 to make a detour of eight miles, crossing the Julgha or 
 plain of Herat " a sandy loam which bears good crops by 
 irrigation." 
 
 The second journey is thirty-two miles to Sabash "a 
 little, mean, dirty fort, barely habitable." The first part 
 of the road takes the traveller along a network of canals 
 as far as a ruined caravansarai ; thence, along high grounds 
 
 K 2 
 
132 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 at some distance from the river to the fort of Rozanak, 
 about four miles from the town of Ghorian to the south of 
 it, and from Rozanak across a vast gravel plain with dis- 
 tant hills on both sides to Sabash. 
 
 From Sabash to Kuhsan the distance is but twelve miles 
 across the same gravel plain. Kuhsan is now in ruins, 
 but in Sir Charles Macgregor's opinion it could easily be 
 improved "so as to make it worthy of the frontier fort of a 
 warlike nation." The same authority speaks with enthusiasm 
 of the fertility of its soil. " Conducted," he writes, " into a 
 most delightful garden, I bivouacked under the shade of 
 some fine plane trees, by a tank of delicious clear water. 
 After a good bath in the latter, it was a great luxury to lie 
 back in one's bed, and devour, for nothing, bunch after 
 bunch of glorious grapes, that at home would have ruined 
 me." He makes special mention of the splendid gardens 
 and vineyards in the vicinity of the town, as well as of its 
 windmills, which likewise are to be found in great abund- 
 ance about Rozanak. Regarding its position MacGregor 
 writes : " The position of Kuhsan is one of considerable 
 importance as being the first village in the valley of the 
 Heri-riid which would be reached by forces coming from 
 the west, and the point on which the roads from Tarbut, 
 Meshed, and Sarakhs join. It is therefore a place where 
 there should be a fort of considerable strength, because an 
 invader could not venture to pass it without taking it, and if 
 it were able to offer a respectable resistance, it would necessi- 
 tate his being detained long enough among the barren tracts 
 to the west." 
 
 The fourth day's journey is to Chasma-Saoz, a distance 
 of twenty-four miles. The road, which is good, traverses 
 a plain on the left bank of the Heri-nid. Supplies of all 
 sorts are here abundant. This journey terminates in a 
 pass, which, judging from the equal distance, sixty miles 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 1 3 3 
 
 from Sarakhs, can be no other than the Zulfagar Pass, 
 recently seized by the Russians. 
 
 The fifth day takes the traveller to Pul-i Khatun, twenty- 
 eight miles. The road crosses the Kotal Ista-Khanchil 
 pass, and then traverses hills, crossing to the right bank not 
 for from Pul-i-Khatun. Though not good, it is practicable 
 for guns. Not far from these hills, the most northern branch 
 of the Heri-rud takes the name of the Tejend. There is 
 no village at Pul-i-Khatun, but forage is abundant. The 
 bridge which gives its name to the locality is an old bridge 
 of stone. 
 
 From Pul-i-Khatun to Sarakhs, the distance is thirty-two 
 miles, the road level all the way, over a plain on the left 
 bank of the river. At sixteen miles the fort of Kala 
 Daolatabad is passed ; eight miles beyond, that of Naoza- 
 bad. 
 
 Contrasting with this account is the graphic description 
 of the same road, taken the reverse way, from Sarakhs 
 down the valley, as recounted by Mr. Simpson, the special 
 artist to the Illustrated London News, published by that 
 paper, in its issue of the 2ist March of the current year : 
 
 " The march from Pul-i-Khatun to Kojeh Saham-ed-din, 
 and thence to Goolar, on our way to Kuhsan, was a very 
 interesting one. The interest of it lies in its strategic 
 features in relation to a force moving from Sarakhs on the 
 line of the Heri-rud towards Herat. From Sarakhs to Pul-i- 
 Khatun the ground is open ; on the left or Persian side it 
 may be called a plain the whole way ; but on the right bank 
 a gentle rise begins at Kazil Koi, about eight miles south 
 of Sarakhs. This rise assumes the character of a plateau 
 or of undulating downs, all the way south to Pul-i-Khatun. 
 Nowhere in that space is there any strong position of 
 defence. At Pul-i-Khatun the whole character of the 
 ground changes, the bed of the river becomes rocky, and 
 
134 The Rus so- Afghan Question. 
 
 perhaps about a quarter of a mile distant a gorge presents 
 itself. Here the strata stand nearly perpendicular, and the 
 road leaves the river to pass over the spurs of the higher 
 hills on the south. This gorge, with one or two small 
 heights, and the spurs just mentioned, could be easily made 
 very formidable, if not impregnable ; even as they are, a 
 very small force could stop a very large one. Such is the 
 position at Pul-i-Khatun itself; and it forms the key of the 
 whole strategic problem. It is the Elburz Range which 
 bends eastward, or south-eastward, to be more correct, at 
 one of its ridges, the ridge dips down to the Heri-riid, 
 disappears, and crops up again on the east side of the 
 bridge, from which it slowly rises towards the Zulfagar Pass. 
 It is a common feature of the hills in this region to be 
 steep and rocky, almost precipitous, on the south and 
 south-west ; while on the north the slope is easy. The 
 ridge extending south-east from Pul-i-Khatun is of this 
 character. For a few miles it is no great height, and there 
 are one or two places where it might be passed by troops. 
 The best place would be what is known as the Germab 
 Pass, about nine miles from Pul-i-Khatun ; this line takes 
 the ' chord ' of the curve which the river makes westward 
 to Pul-i-Khatun. When the river is low, this pass is taken 
 by travellers from its being the shortest line to Sarakhs. 
 A force coming south could turn the position at Pul-i- 
 Khatun by this pass, but if the defending force was large 
 enough to extend along the whole ground to the Germab 
 Pass, it would have a strong position. The Germab Pass, 
 it will be understood, must form part of the whole position 
 to be included as belonging to Pul-i-Khatun. South-east 
 of the Germab Pass, the ridge becomes so elevated and 
 steep in parts that no force would try to surmount them. 
 The next pass is that known as the Zulfagar ; its southern 
 entrance must be about thirty miles from Pul-i-Khatun, and 
 
The Routes on tJie Frontier. 135 
 
 the distance from leaving the river to the point where it is 
 again touched by anyone coming through must be still 
 greater ; and I understand that no water is found in the 
 pass itself. This will indicate one difficulty in marching 
 troops by this line, on account of the want of water ; and 
 if there were a force defending the south end of the pass, 
 the difficulty might be increased. The Zulfagar Pass is a 
 very striking one, from the parallel ridges of level strata in 
 the hills on each side, which rise to a great height. 
 
 " Kojeh Saham-ed-din is a saint's tomb, but our camp 
 was at a spring of water about a mile from it. Our next 
 march, to Goolar, was a very short one, being only eight 
 miles. The deserted character of this part, since leaving 
 Pul-i-Khatun, is even greater than anything w r e have yet 
 passed. The ground has been cultivated at some former 
 date ; and we have seen spots on which towns have stood : 
 now there is. not an inhabited house all the way to Kuhsan. 
 At Goolar we were in a piece of open country, with plains 
 and heights, but of a small elevation, in comparison with 
 the hills around. 
 
 " Our march from Goolar was at first for about seven or 
 eight miles south, still on the west side of the Heri-nid, 
 which we had not seen since the march from Pul-i-Khatun 
 on that march we crossed it and re-crossed it again. Right 
 across our line on leaving Goolar was the Kuh-i-Jam range ; 
 and our line south, over the lower ground, brought us to 
 this range, which we began to ascend in a valley. On our 
 left were four marked hills known as the Chakar Dowli 
 ' Chakar ' meaning four. Between two of these the Heri- 
 rud passes out from the Kuh-i-Jam into the open country 
 between that and the high ranges at Zulfagar. The gorges 
 of the river where it passes the Kuh-i-Jam are impassable 
 for travellers ; hence the necessity for going over the hills. 
 Our route lay up the valley in a south-westerly direction. 
 
136 'The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 Troops could march by this road, but nothing on wheels 
 could pass. We stopped for the night at an open bit of 
 ground, where there was a stream of good water, with trees. 
 On the top of a hill are some bits of the walls of a fort, 
 called Stoi, but the Persians call it Istoi, and this gives the 
 name to the Pass. We were said to be about 4,000 feet above 
 the sea at this place, and it was very cold. There were 
 clouds and a few drops of rain or sleet." 
 
 The party had four days' marches yet to perform to reach 
 Kuhsan. 
 
 The distance from Herat to Sarakhs by this road is only 
 two hundred and two miles. If the British Government 
 and the British people are insane enough to allow Russia 
 to shorten that distance by sixty miles and that is the 
 distance between Sarakhs and the Zulfagar pass to occupy 
 a place which is valuable only for its position, for it does 
 not even possess a hut we ought not to be surprised if we 
 are soon called upon to yield Herat likewise ! 
 
 I turn now to Panjdeh or group of five villages a 
 long way within the Afghan frontier proper. A glance at 
 the following itinerary between Herat and Merv along the 
 valley of the Murghab, on which Panjdeh lies on the 
 direct line, will show more clearly than any special descrip- 
 tion the enormous importance of the position. I quote 
 mainly from Captain Abbott's journal. 
 
 From Herat, due north, to Parwana, is eleven miles. The 
 road lies between close hills, of no considerable height, and 
 ascends the entire way. Around this village are hills and 
 plateaux producing wormwood, which is browsed by the wild 
 antelope. There are many wells and a little cultivation. 
 
 From Parwana the road leads across the mountain ridge 
 of Kaitu, north-eastward by north to Khiishk, a two days' 
 journey. Captain James Abbott, who made it in the year 
 1840, turned the difficult passes of the highest ridge and 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 137 
 
 slept in a hollow where was a little water. From this he 
 proceeded the next day "by a very distressing cross- 
 country path, over steep hills covered with grass, to the 
 rivulet Khiishk, whence we ascended to the capital of that 
 name. The valley here is picturesque and interesting." 
 The place, styled somewhat magniloquently as " the 
 capital," is a small fort round which are mud houses and 
 mud kibitkas or cabins. The valley of 'Khiishk is the 
 dwelling-place of the Jamshidis, a tribe of Turkish 
 origin, ' distinguished for their loyalty and their gallantry. 
 The present condition of the place and the people is thus 
 described by the Times correspondent in Bala Murghab, 
 from whom I have already quoted : 
 
 " On December 2nd we entered by narrow defiles the 
 valley in which the Jamshidi or Jemshid settlement of 
 Khiishk is situated. It is about fourteen miles long and of 
 .an average width of three-fourths of a mile; the hills are 
 of low, rounded clay, bare of trees, their sides dotted with 
 villages of domed mud cabins. The irrigation from the 
 river is profuse, and there is much cultivation on the top 
 and sides of the hills, where rain crops are grown. The 
 grain raised is only sufficient for the wants of the people, 
 and except in opium there is no export trade. Every 
 Jamshidi family has its own home-bred horses, small wiry 
 animals fit for any amount of work. The Jamshidis them- 
 selves are a quiet, tractable people, extremely friendly and 
 well disposed to us. They were the first nomad tribe we 
 saw at home, for though they have their mud cabins they 
 only live in them during the winter, and at other seasons 
 they prefer their kibitkas, which they are always prepared to 
 take up and walk. Perhaps I ought to explain what a 
 kibitka the home of the nomad, and a very comfortable 
 home, too is like. Kibitka is the Russian and Ev the 
 Turkoman name. It is a dome-shaped framework of 
 
138 The Rnsso-Afghan Question. 
 
 lattice-work covered with layers of felt, the number of layers 
 being in proportion to the severity of the weather. The 
 walls for about 6ft. of their height are vertical and then 
 the dome rises, its highest point being from i2ft. to i5ft. 
 A felt cap fits on a hole in the centre of the roof which 
 lets in the light for the kibitka has no windows when it 
 is fine, and lets out the smoke when you light a fire on the 
 ground underneath. The floor is generally spread with 
 carpets of choice pattern, rich colours, and velvet softness, 
 worked by the fair (?) fingers of the daughters of the 
 kibitka ; on the walls, too, hang camel bags, about 6ft. by 
 4ft., of the same rich carpet work. The great advantage 
 of a kibitka is that in a few hours you can strike, pack up 
 and load it on a camel and be off. Let Paterfamilias 
 imagine the convenience of being able to put his comfort- 
 able house in the train and take it off to the seaside, and 
 then he will understand that nomad life has its advan- 
 tages. However, if on reading this description he wishes 
 to send for a kibitka from Turkistan, he must not order a 
 kibitka of such and such a size, but a kibitka which is a load 
 for one, two, or more camels, as the case may be." 
 
 After dwelling upon the past recent history of this 
 interesting tribe, and stating that, in the struggle between 
 Ayiib Khan and Abdul Rahman the Jamshidis, having 
 transferred their allegiance to the latter, had quitted Khiishk 
 to take refuge in a less accessible valley, and had only 
 returned when the cause of Ayiib Khan was irretrievably 
 ruined, the writer thus continues : 
 
 "However, the present Amir has moved 1,000 families 
 back to Bala Murghab, an important strategic position 
 which he wisely desired to colonize. Indeed, it was time 
 that something of the sort were done, for, owing to over- 
 population and over-irrigation the Khiishk valley had 
 become very unhealthy, and the people were dying off fast 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 139 
 
 from a sort of enteric fever which has been rife there the 
 last few years. Aminulla Khan is the Governor of Bald 
 Murghab and Panjdeh. There are still about 4,000 
 families in Khiishk every four families are supposed to 
 furnish one horseman in ordinary times and I was much 
 struck by the painful contrast between their physique and 
 that of Jamshidis living elsewhere. The Jamshidis claim 
 to be descended from a Kaianian Chief, who obtained 
 from Shah Abbas the command of a military colony com- 
 posed of horsemen belonging to different tribes of Herat, 
 and to this colony he gave the name Jamshidi, from Jam- 
 shid, the apocryphal progenitor of the Paishdadian and 
 therefore Kaianian family. Shah Abbas gave a district in 
 Badghis to the Colony, and round the Persian stem thus 
 planted there gradually clustered all the waifs and strays of 
 Herat, till the Jamshidis mustered some 60,000 families. 
 During Nadir Shah's reign, however, they were reduced to 
 12,000, and they now number only about 6,000 families 
 namely, 4,000 in Khiishk, 1,000 in Bala Murghab, and 
 1,000 in Kurukh at the foot of the Kaitii mountains, four 
 miles from Herat. The Jamshidis resemble the Turko- 
 mans in dress and manners, but they are apparently a 
 quiet, peaceable people. An English officer might safely 
 live among them without any guard, and if they have only 
 respite from raids and war they will doubtless spread over and 
 multiply in the more healthy but deserted lands of Badghis. 
 They are hardy, clever horsemen, and every household 
 breeds its own horses. When we were in Khushk the 
 weekly fair was held ; it was attended by many Turko- 
 mans from Panjdeh and by some Firuzkuhis, but by very 
 few Hazarehs, with whom the Jamshidis are not on very 
 friendly terms. The Turkomans brought salt, rice, soap, 
 carpets, horses, sheep, and found for sale in the bazaar 
 ploughshares (of cast iron) and hatchets from Maimene ; 
 
140 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 Russian and French loaf sugar, Austrian matches, also 
 Bryant and May's, Meshed and Bokhara silk and cotton 
 goods. The greater part of the latter was Russian, not 
 English let Manchester draw its own conclusion." 
 
 From this valley the traveller bent on reaching Merv can 
 either follow the rivulet of Khiishk by Khushak Sian, Chahill 
 Docktar, Kala Tapa, Chaman-i-Baid, Kila-i-Maur, Pal-i- 
 Kishti to Panjdeh ; or he can proceed by the more direct 
 road to Kala-i-Nau, thence to Pul-i-Taban on the Murghab, 
 and follow that river also to Panjdeh. Captain Abbott 
 followed the first route, which he thus describes : "We 
 passed down the valley of the Khiishk rivulet averaging 
 about half a mile in width, and bounded on either side by 
 sloping, grassy downs, sprinkled with flocks of sheep and 
 goats. Under the low, sunny cliffs and hills the Jamshidis 
 had pitched their black tents in considerable numbers; and 
 in the fields of the valley hundreds of mares and colts 
 were grazing. The scene was extremely pleasing. The 
 valley is highly susceptible of culture, and has once been 
 well tilled." Captain Abbot encamped that evening at a 
 point on the river between Piishat Siah and Kala Tapa. 
 The next day he marched along a similar country to the 
 latter place; beyond that, the day following, to within two 
 miles of Chaman-i-Baid. Beyond Kala Tapa he met large 
 flucks of sheep. "The shepherds," he writes "come even 
 from Merv to this pleasant valley bringing water and all 
 other necessaries on asses." The day after, as he marched 
 to Kala-i-Maur, scenes almost similar met his gaze. 
 " Large flocks of white sheep still sprinkled the hills on 
 either side, but those hills were growing more arid and 
 sandy as we advanced." Again, " We met not less than 
 six or seven caravans of grain from Merv." 
 
 A few miles beyond Kala-i-Maur is Piil-i-Kishti* a spot 
 * Marked in Colonel Stewart's map simply by the word " Bridge." 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 141 
 
 which Russia has actually seized. It is only eight miles 
 from Panjdeh. Here Abbott halted, and of it he wrote as 
 follows : " Here the valley is about three-quarters of a mile 
 in breadth. On the east bank are sloping sand hills, about 
 600 feet higher than the valley. On the west is the desert, 
 a high sandy plain over-run with low bushes and camel 
 thorn and extending to the mountain barrier of Persia." 
 At Panjdeh to which he then proceeded, Abbott received the 
 hospitality of the Turkomans who were then its occupants. 
 He speaks of the desert as having been once populous and 
 cultivated. 
 
 Not less interesting to us at the present moment is the 
 alternative route by Kala-Nau and Moghor, to Pul-i-Taban 
 on the Murghab, and thence by way of Bala Murghab and 
 Maruchak to Panjdeh. Fortunately we are able, owing to 
 the excellent correspondents of the London papers to see 
 the country as it is at the present moment. 
 
 Kala-Nau is a valley which constitutes, so to speak, the 
 capital of the Herat Hazarehs. It bears a strong re- 
 semblance to the Kushk valley already described, except 
 that it is smaller, more healthy, and more fertile. u The 
 people," writes the Times correspondent, "are a branch of 
 the Shiah Hazarehs of Hazareh Jat, between Herat and 
 Kabul, but, having become Sunis they have now no con- 
 nexion with them." They are a very fine set of men, with 
 pleasant frank faces, and with little trace of their Mongol 
 origin. The influence of the present Amir over them is 
 all-paramount : " Every year," to quote from the same 
 interesting source, " an increasing number of the Hazarehs 
 still remaining in Persia join their brethren in the 
 Kala-i-Nau valley, where there is plenty of room for them 
 and many others The Hazarehs were at one time very 
 troublesome to their neighbours, but they are now well in 
 hand, and to quote the words of a native writer, ' Before 
 
142 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 Abdurrahman Khan became Amir the Hazareh Chief could 
 murder his political opponents, but now he cannot.' I 
 .must say that I would not like to be in Mahomed Khan's 
 way, had he a chance of removing me. He is a shrewd, 
 self-contained, determined little man, with a quick eye, 
 which is always intensely fixed on his own interests. The 
 Hazarehs are very prosperous, not to say rich ; their land 
 is exceedingly fertile, they have not much more to 
 do than to sprinkle seed on the hill tops and wait for the 
 friendly rain ; and then, as they say, reap a hundredfold. 
 Their chief wealth, however, is in cattle ; of sheep they 
 have enormous flocks. The Hazarehs of Kala-Nau afford 
 another proof that the Amir's authority is absolute and 
 unquestioned." 
 
 I don't think I can do better than allow the writer to 
 continue the journey to Bala Murghab and to give his 
 account of that place in his own graphic style : 
 
 " From Kala-i-Nau we might have taken the same road as 
 Grodekoff and Vambe'ry, who travelled from Bala Murghab 
 by Talkguzar and the Darband pass, but it was not 
 adapted to camel carriage, and accordingly we turned the 
 mountains by following a stream which ran in a north- 
 westerly direction through a succession of uncultivated 
 valleys of great fertility, but at present only used by the 
 nomad Ghilzais and Turkomans as grazing ground for 
 their flocks. It was a long time since we had been in 
 contact with Afghans, and the discourteous manner I 
 daresay they could not help it of these Ghilzais contrasted 
 very unfavourably with the genial friendly attitude of the 
 Char Aimaks and Hazarehs. About 30 miles from Ab-i- 
 Kamri, the stream we were following was turned in a 
 northerly direction to the Khiishk river by a high hill which 
 stood in our direct path, while we wheeled to the south-west 
 into the Torshek valley. Five miles brought us to our camp- 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 143 
 
 ing-ground by the side of a stream of very indifferent water. 
 Close at band too, was a hot sulpher spring, which in ancient 
 days was apparently conducted into a huge bath, canopied 
 by a brick dome said to have been erected by Shah Rokh. 
 On the 1 2th of December we reached Bala Murghab, and 
 as we neared the place from the south-east, the guns of 
 the fort fired a salute of seventeen guns in honour Sir Peter 
 Lumsden, who simultaneously entered the valley from the 
 opposite side. The river was about 60 yards broad at the 
 ford by which we crossed it, and not less than 3 feet deep. 
 The current was very rapid, and though the ford had been 
 skilfully staked, the laden camels had considerable difficulty 
 in crossing it, and some would assuredly have been 
 lost had it not been for the ready help given by the 
 Jamshidi horsemen, who when a camel slipped or drifted 
 down the current, swarmed round him like flies, whipped 
 off his load and dragged him into safety. 
 
 "We are greatly pleased by our winter quarters, and 
 everybody is well and in good spirits. Our camp is sur- 
 rounded on three sides by the river in a valley about seven 
 miles long and one or two miles broad, which runs from 
 south-west to north-east, and^is enclosed between two ranges 
 of rounded clay hills. At the southern extremity there is 
 a deeply indented gorge in the grand mountains of the 
 Tirbund-i-Turkistan (which runs west to east) through which 
 the Murghab tears its way. At the northern end of the 
 valley the hills gradually contract into a narrow defile for a 
 few miles, when they again open out into the valley 
 of Karaolkhana. Twice again do the hills thus contract 
 and expand into the valleys of Meruchak and Panjdeh 
 respectively. Panjdeh, I should add, is about forty-six 
 miles from here. I have already explained that the Amir 
 has colonized Bala Murghab from among the Jamshidis, 
 Firuzkuhis and Hazaras. This was a wise step, for Bala 
 
144 Th e Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 Murghab is a very important position strategically, situated 
 as it is on the high road from the capital of Afghan 
 Turkistan, and, perhaps, when the Russian flotilla of 
 steamers is ready to navigate the Oxus, . from Kerki to 
 Herat. But it is not the sort of place that a timid English 
 spinster lady would select as a residence, surrounded as it 
 is, or to speak more accurately, as it was, by marauding 
 Turkomans, unruly Aimaks, and the turbulant Uzbegs of 
 Maimene'. But now the Turkomans are tamed, the Char 
 Aimaks peaceful, and Maimene' has been subdued. Bala 
 Murghab is consequently a safe habitation. The colonies 
 established there seem contented and prosperous. On the 
 left or opposite bank to us there are the Firuzkuhi and 
 Hazareh colonies, and on this bank the Jamshidi colony. 
 The happy family is awed into harmony by the fort with 
 an Afghan garrison, and every day when we attempt to go 
 out for a ride the flooded fields and numerous water-cuts 
 remind us that the work of reclamation is being rapidly 
 pushed on. I cannot say there is pretty scenery, though, 
 no doubt, it is grand scenery, but there is the same want 
 of trees which has characterized nearly every district we 
 have marched through." 
 
 The route referred to by the correspondent as having 
 been followed, by Grodekoff and Vambe'ry, and which is 
 the shortest and most direct route, is thus described by 
 the latter : " It is* reckoned a four days journey for horses 
 from Bala Murghab to Herat. Camels require double the 
 time, for the country is mountainous. . . . Two high 
 mountainous peaks visible to the south of Bala Murghab, 
 were pointed out to us, and we were told that it would take us 
 two days to reach them. They both bear the name 
 Durbend (pass), and are far loftier, narrower, and easier of 
 defence than the pass on the right bank of the Murghab, 
 leading to Maimene. In proportion as one advances 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 145 
 
 nature assumes a wilder and more romantic appearance. 
 The elevated masses of rock which form the first Derbend, 
 are crowned with the ruins of an ancient fort, the subject 
 of the most varying fables. Further on, at the second 
 Derbend, on the bank of the Murghab, there are the re- 
 mains of an old castle. It was the summer residence of 
 the renowned Sultan HuseVi Mirza, by whose order a stone 
 bridge Pul-i-Taban was constructed, of which traces 
 are still distinguishable. In the time of this, the most 
 civilized sovereign of Central Asia, the whole of the neigh- 
 bourhood was in a flourishing state, and many pleasure- 
 houses are said to have existed along the course of the 
 Murghab. 
 
 " Beyond the second pass we quitted the Murghab. 
 The route turned to the right, in a westerly direction, 
 towards a plateau closely adjoining a part of the desert 
 peopled by the Salor. Here begins the lofty mountain, 
 Telkhguzar, which it takes three hours to pass over. 
 
 " Towards midnight we halted at a place called Moghor, 
 whence, next morning, we reached the ruins of the former 
 town and fortress, Kala-Nau, now surrounded by a few 
 tents of the Hazareh." 
 
 Of Bala Murghab Vambery thus wrote ; " this part of the 
 valley of the Murghab bears the name of Bala Murghab ; " 
 (from the fortress of that name) "it extends from the 
 frontiers of the lofty mountainous chain of the Hazarehs 
 as far as Maruchak, where dwell the Salor Turkomans : it is 
 said of old to have been a possession of the Jamshidis, and 
 that they were for a time dispossessed and afterwards re- 
 turned. To the south-west of the fortress the valley be- 
 comes so narrow that it merits rather the name of a defile. 
 Through the midst the Murghab rolls foaming away with 
 the noise of thunder, it is not until it has passed Panjdeh, 
 where the river becomes deeper and more sedate that the 
 
 L 
 
146 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 valley spreads itself out and acquires a breadth of one or 
 two miles." 
 
 Bald Murghab is 46 miles south-east of Panjdeh, 
 Maruchak, also on the Murghab, being about halfway 
 between the two. 
 
 The following notes, by Captain Arthur F. Barrow, 
 Aide-de-Camp on the staff of Sir Peter Lumsden, as to the 
 military value of Pul-i-Khatun, were published in the Illus- 
 trated London News of the i4th March last : 
 
 " From Sarakhs as far as Pul-i-Khatun, movement on 
 either bank presents no difficulties. To Daulatabad, 
 twelve miles south of Sarakhs, both banks are level ; from 
 that to Pul-i-Khatun, the right bank dominates, and all 
 movements on the right bank are under cover, and fully 
 concealed from observation from the left bank ; while, on 
 the other hand, no military movement whatever could 
 possibly be carried on upon the left bank, within, at least, 
 six miles of the river, without full cognizance of the right 
 bank. The river itself, by reason of its depth and width, 
 is nowhere a military obstacle. At Pul-i-Khatun, the road 
 passes through a narrow gorge ; it is a mere track with 
 steep gradients, and thence, as far as Goolar, would present 
 great difficulties to the advance of even- a small flying 
 column with the lightest guns. Without weeks of labour, 
 it could not be relied upon as a main line of communica- 
 tion practicable for heavy artillery with its ammunition 
 column, with the ambulance and the heavy-weeled trans- 
 port and impedimenta of a large army. The river is, on 
 the east side, shut out from Badghis by a steppe, which 
 drops precipitously into it, the cliffs averaging from i5oft. 
 to 2ooft. in height. In this curtain there are two gaps, by 
 which access to the river is obtained, called respectively 
 the Germab and Zulfagar Passes. From Goolar, our route 
 lay to the west of the river, which passes, it is said, through 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 147 
 
 an impracticable gorge ; several other routes are, however, 
 available one by way of Zorabad, where water is found ; 
 and there is said to be very little natural obstacle to an 
 advance beyond Goolar by those routes. Enough has been 
 said here to show that the possession of Pul-i-Khatun, by 
 any Power which anticipates advancing on Herat in the 
 future, is a desideratum of considerable value ; for access 
 to the Pass would naturally result in the immediate con- 
 struction of a good road, along a stream of excellent 
 water. At the same time, it must not be overlooked that 
 the impenetrable nature of the cliffs on the east bank 
 of the river, render the use of this route, as a main line ot 
 advance, open to the very serious military objection that 
 no lateral communication could exist with parallel lines of 
 advance on that side; and that, in any combined move- 
 ment, the force using this road might be met and defeated, 
 at its exit, by a superior force of the enemy, while the 
 other columns were being detained by inferior forces, occu- 
 pying strong defensive positions. The occupation of Pul-i- 
 Khatun by a weak Power, opposed to the advance of an 
 army on Herat, and .by one to which, owing to distance 
 from its base, paucity of troops, or want of money, the con- 
 version of Pul-i-Khatun into a defensive position is an 
 impossibility, would at any rate result in the road remain- 
 ing in its present condition ; and would thereby deny its 
 use to an enemy, at least for some considerable time after 
 the declaration of hostilities." 
 
 The city of Kuhsan is thus described in the same paper, 
 of the same date : 
 
 " Kuhsan, sixty-eight miles from the city of Herat, on the 
 frontier of the Persian Territory of Khorasan, stands on 
 the Heri-rud where that river bends from a westerly to 
 a northerly direction. The Heri-rud, a beautiful river 
 fertilising and enriching the valleys of north-western 
 
 L 2 
 
148 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 Afghanistan, rises in the highlands of Hazareh, and flows 
 from east to west between the broad mountain range 
 which the Greeks named the Paropamisus, now called the 
 Safed Koh or " White Mountain," and the Siah Koh, to the 
 city of Herdt, and thence to Ghorian, where it turns 
 north-west to Kuhsan. This district, copiously irrigated 
 by artificial canals, was once populous and wealthy ; it is 
 one of the most ancient seats of civilization. In the 
 Middle Ages, during at least four centuries, Herat was one 
 of the finest cities, and its province one of the most pro- 
 ductive, in Central Asia. From Kuhsan to Sarakhs, by 
 the road following the course of the Heri-rud, the dis- 
 tance is eighty-four miles. This is the road on which the 
 Russians have recently advanced more than half way, 
 seizing Pul-i-Khatun, nearly forty miles from Sarakhs, and 
 recently the Zulfagar Pass, thirty miles higher up the 
 river, where an opening through the wall of cliffs on the 
 eastern bank gives access to the interior of Badghis, and 
 through Ak Robat to the Khiishk valley and the Murghab." 
 
 Panjdeh, and the road thence to Maruchak the place 
 above Bala Murghab are thus described by Mr. Simpson, 
 special artist to the same paper. If the reader will recol- 
 lect, the Russians claim to draw the new frontier line just 
 above Maruchak (Little Merv) : 
 
 "We stopped a day at Ak Tapa, and then moved on to 
 Panjdeh. About six miles to the south nearly the whole 
 distance is covered with Sarok villages, formed of kibitkas. 
 The Sarok Turkomans have come south from the Merv 
 district, and have become Afghan subjects. The Murghab, 
 as well as the Khiishk valley, was without inhabitants, and 
 its fields were lying waste. Some years ago the Saroks 
 arrived, and they have restored the place to life again. 
 Some of their chiefs came along the Khiishk valley, and 
 met Sir Peter Lumsden on the third march from Ak Tapa ; 
 crowds of the Sariks turned out to see our arrival, and the 
 
The Routes on the Frontier. 149 
 
 outskirts of the camp were generally fringed with them, eager 
 to look at the Feringhis, and watch what they weie doing. 
 There was a good deal of trade going on in the purchase 
 of carpets, and other articles, by our people. A consider- 
 able quantity of Indian rupees and Persian crans was left 
 among them, so we may suppose that they will retain a 
 pleasant recollection of us. At Panjdeh we remained two 
 days ; one of these days was principally occupied by a 
 visit from the Governor of Herat, who had followed us up ; 
 and Sir Peter Lumsden paid a visit to Yalintiish Khan, 
 the chief of the Jamshidis. 
 
 " There are the ruins, little more than mounds, of an old 
 fort, and the evident remains of a town around it ; these 
 also are nothing more than mounds, on the west side of 
 the river. A man called it " Kona Pendie," by which he 
 meant old Panjdeh. If there is a new Panjdeh, we did not 
 see it, unless it be the kibitka villages of the Sariks, and they 
 extend for over twenty miles along both banks of the 
 Murghab. We were scarcely prepared for such a large 
 sized river as we found here. It is as wide as Regent 
 Street, of considerable depth, with a large volume of 
 bluish-grey water flowing steadily past. When towns of 
 importance, equal to those we have traced the remains of, 
 come into existence again on k its banks, " penny boats " 
 will be shooting along from pier to pier. Fords are very 
 few, and the one we crossed at Maruchak had at least four 
 feet of water in its deepest part. I heard some one esti- 
 mate the breath of the valley at Panjdeh as about four or 
 five miles ; whether this is exact or not, there is a large 
 width of ground, which had been cultivated when the 
 valley was prosperous and full of inhabitants. The mounds 
 were the remains of large towns, and they are a sure 
 evidence of the population that once exisited and found 
 subsistence on the banks fertilized by the waters of the 
 Murghab. 
 
150 T/ie Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 " The march to Bund-i-Nadri was along the western side 
 of the valley ; about half way, the sandy hills on this side 
 project considerably into the plain, narrowing it very much. 
 Our road ascended the heights, but about a mile or so to 
 the south we descended again, and found the valley nearly 
 as wide as at Panjdeh. Our camp was pitched on a piece 
 of level ground close to the hills. The Bund-i-Nadri was 
 not far from us, but it turned out to be the old bund, 
 which had been made on a bed of the river, which the 
 water of the Murghab had forsaken, and a new bund, or 
 dam, higher up, was mentioned as having been made. 
 The Bund-i-Nadri canal, a large watercourse for irrigation, 
 flowed past close to us ; it was filled with a beautiful clear 
 stream. This is the canal whose water had been led, at 
 some former period, across the Pul-i-Khisti. 
 
 " Our next march was also on the western side of the 
 valley, along the base of the hills ; and again we left the 
 level soil, to pass through a hollow among them, which ex- 
 tended for some miles. On coming out again on the 
 valley, we passed a Turkoman village, which I understood 
 was the last of them towards the south. We struck across 
 the valley to the river, where there are the piers only of a 
 brick bridge standing. At this place there is a ford, which 
 we crossed. Sir Peter Lumsden placed a number of Turko- 
 mans across the river, along the whole line of the ford, 
 thus carrying out the military rule, which was very neces- 
 sary, as the ford was far from being a straight line, and the 
 current was strong. By this means all got over in perfect 
 safety ; even mild Hindus, on very small baggage-animals, 
 who smoke and sleep instead of looking out where they 
 are going, crossed scatheless. Our camp was formed close 
 to the ford, and for the first time on the right bank of the 
 Murghab. 
 
 " Maruchak is on the same side ; it is some distance from 
 the river, and little over a mile from the ford. We were 
 
The Rotites on the Frontier. 151 
 
 rather surprised at the extent of its walls, which would 
 imply that the place had been inhabited at a later period 
 than the other ruined towns we had seen. Our party found 
 pheasants very plentiful at Maruchak, and there was some 
 good shooting there. From Maruchak to Karaul Khaneh, 
 which was the ground of our next march, has not yet been 
 repeopled, and the whole space is at present in the condi- 
 tion of a vast game preserve. The birds flew up in great 
 numbers, and when the sportsmen came in, covering the 
 ground with long rows of dead pheasants, the only com- 
 plaint heard referred to the deficiency of cartridges. 
 
 " After passing Maruchak, the hills change in their form ; 
 below that place they are undulating and rounded, but the 
 curves have a" very long radius. Above Maruchak they 
 form small rounded knobs, with steep sides, all the way up 
 to Bala Murghab, to the south of which the geology 
 entirely changes. The march from Maruchak to Karaoul 
 Khaneh was on the right bank of the river. Towards the 
 end of the march, we struck to the left, through a gorge 
 formed by the steep sides of these mamelon hills, and came 
 out again about a mile farther on. Karaoul Khaneh is the 
 site of an old town ; judging by the mounds, it had not 
 been of great size. Here a valley comes in from the left, 
 and, had the first idea of winter quarters beyond the Mur- 
 ghab been carried out, we were to have moved in that 
 direction. But a change had been made, and Bala Mur- 
 ghab had been determined upon, so from Karaul Khaneh 
 we marched, still on the right bank of the river, and came 
 on here, arriving on Dec. 12." 
 
 The above extracts, made from many independent sources, 
 will not fail, I believe, to convey to the reader a tolerable 
 idea of the nature of the country of Herat, and of the 
 immense importance to England of the continued posses- 
 sion by Afghanistan of the border line conceded to it in 
 1872 the straight line between Sarakhs and Khoja Saleh. 
 
IS 2 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ARMIES ON BOTH SIDES. 
 
 As I write, this morning of the 25th of March, the air is 
 full of rumours regarding a Russian advance on Herat. If 
 they should prove true, it will devolve upon Peter Lumsden 
 to play in 1885 the part which Eldred Pottinger played in 
 1838; to aid in the defence of the Pearl of Khorasan, 
 until a British army can reach that city from the Pishin 
 valley. In this view of the possibilities it is incumbent to 
 glance, not only at the respective forces of the two nations, 
 but at the distances which each must traverse before the 
 battle ground can be reached. 
 
 On the subject of the armaments of Russia the Daily 
 News appears to be singularly well-informed. In the issue 
 of that paper of the iQth March appeared a statement of 
 the numbers, composition, and distribution of the Russian 
 forces in Central Asia, so important as to draw to it the 
 attention of every politician and every soldier. Inquiries I 
 made in other quarters likely to be well-informed, have 
 satisfied me that the statement is in all essential points 
 correct. It is as follows : 
 
 The army of the Caucasus has not recently executed any 
 movement indicative of dismemberment, and is still in that 
 part of the country with the following exceptions : 
 
 i. Battalions of light infantry formed in 1880, and since 
 that time quartered in the Trans-Caspian provinces : 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 153 
 
 No. i, at Krassnovodsk. 
 No. 2, at Geok Tepd 
 Nos. 3> 5, 6, at Askabad, 
 No. 4, at Tschikisjlar. 
 
 2. Cossacks. 
 
 Two regiments and two squadrons of Kou- 
 bane Cossacks. 
 
 3. First Battalion of Railway Reserve. 
 
 ARMY OF TURKISTAN. 
 INFANTRY. FIRST BRIGADE. 
 
 ist Batt. \ Transferred to Taschkend, their habitual 
 loth quarters, in the circumscription of Sir 
 
 1 2th j Daria. 
 
 SECOND BRIGADE. 
 
 { Transferred from Samarkhand to Saravschan. 
 6th ,, J 
 
 8th ...Transferred from Kattibourgan to Saravschan 
 
 9th ) 
 
 nth > Transferred from Samarkhand to Saravschan 
 i 9th ) 
 
 THIRD BRIGADE. 
 
 7th ,. *\ / Osch \ 
 
 4th ,, / Transferred J Namangan f to 
 
 1 6th f from \ Andischan ( Ferghana, 
 
 1 8th J (Kokand ) 
 
 FOURTH BRIGADE. 
 2nd ^ 
 
 " > Transferred from Marghellane to Ferghana. 
 
 J 5 tri 55 \ 
 
 20th ) 
 
 The 5th, i3th, and iyth Battalions do not form part of 
 the above-named brigades. The 5th has been transferred 
 
154 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 from Petro Alexandrovski to the Amou Daria ; the i3th 
 from Marghellane to Ferghana. The lyth remains at 
 Merv. 
 
 Four battalions of light infantry are in garrison at 
 Taschkend. 
 
 FIELD ARTILLERY. 
 
 ist Battery at Samarkhand 8 heavy pieces. 
 2nd at Taschkend 8 nine-pounders. 
 3rd at Andiskhan 8 light pieces. 
 4th at Samarkhand 8 light pieces. 
 5th at Taschkend 8 four-pounders. 
 
 6th androvki" 8 mountain g uns > 3-pounders. 
 
 7th at Samarkhand 8 mountain guns, 2\. 
 
 Besides these, there is a battery mounted with six moun- 
 tain guns (three pounders) in garrison at Marghellane. 
 
 FORTRESS ARTILLERY. 
 3 Companies at Perovski, Taschkend, and Samarkhand. 
 
 ENGINEERS. 
 
 Half a Battalion of Sappers ") , ^ , , A 
 i Detachment of Artisans j at Taschkend - 
 
 * 
 
 IRREGULAR TROOPS. 
 
 REGIMENTS OF ORENBURGH COSSACKS. 
 
 No. 4. Squadrons i, 2, and 4, at Alexandrovski ; 3, at 
 
 Koungrad. 
 No. 5. Squadrons i, 2, and 3, at Taschkend ; 4, in Fort 
 
 No. i. 
 
 No. 6. Squadrons i, 2, 3, and 4, at Marghellane. 
 One battery of Mounted Cossacks is at Taschkend. 
 
 REGIMENTS OF OURAL COSSACKS. 
 No. 2. Squadrons i, 2, 3, and 4, at Samarkhand. 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 155 
 
 TROOPS FROM THE CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF OMSK. 
 
 Infantry. Brigade of the Line of Western Siberia. 
 
 3rd Batt, transferred from Djarkent \ 
 
 5th Kaurakol 
 
 6th Kopal ^To Sdmeretschinsk. 
 
 yth Verni 
 
 8th Verni ' 
 
 ist ,, ,, Omsk to Akmollinsk. 
 
 2nd Garrison to Se'mipalatinsk. 
 
 4th Fort Saisanski to Semipalatinsk. 
 
 At Tobolsk, Tomsk, Omsk, and Semipalatinsk there are 
 also four battalions of reserve with the cadres for five 
 companies each. 
 
 Besides these there are at Omsk another separate detach- 
 ment and a military prison company. In several other 
 towns and forts of Western Siberia there are altogether 44 
 separate detachments. 
 
 FIELD ARTILLERY. 
 
 ist Battery at Verni ... 8 light pieces. 
 2nd Djarkend 8 light pieces. 
 
 3rd Kaurakol 8 mountain guns (3-pounders). 
 
 4th Saisanski 8 pieces of small calibre and 2 
 
 mountain guns (3-pounders). 
 
 FORTRESS ARTILLERY. 
 One company at Verni. 
 
 ENGINEERS. 
 One company of Sappers at Omsk. 
 
 IRREGULAR TROOPS. 
 REGIMENTS OF SIBERIAN COSSACKS. 
 
 No. i. Squadron 2 at Ochonitchi, 3 at Kuldja, 5 at Kold- 
 schat, i, 4. and 6 in Fort No. 4. 
 
156 The Ritsso- Afghan Question. 
 
 No. 2. Squadrons 2, 3, and 6 at Lepsinsk, i at Bachti, 4 
 near the river Chorgos, 5 at Djarkent. 
 
 No. 3. Squadrons i and 3 at Saisanski, 2 and 5 at Koton- 
 Karagai, 4 at Kokpekti, 6 at Tschagan-Obinski. 
 
 REGIMENT OF SEMERETSCHINSK COSSACKS. 
 Squadrons 2 and 4 at Verni, i at Djarkend, 3 at Narishu. 
 
 As to the composition and means of transport of their 
 army, we are not without accurate information. Two days 
 after the statement I have extracted from the Daily News, 
 was published, there appeared in the Times a very inte- 
 resting paper " On the Army of the Caucasus." Interest- 
 ing as this paper is and the reader is now again afforded 
 the opportunity of re-perusing it there are some points in 
 it which seem to invite special remark. 
 
 " The operations of the Russian forces in Turkomania, 
 of which the latest feature has been the seizure of places 
 within the accepted boundary of Afghanistan, have attracted 
 greater attention to the army of the Caucasus, which sup- 
 plies the garrison of the Czar's recently-acquired posses- 
 sions east of the Caspian. A great deal has been said 
 about the formidable power of this portion of the Russian 
 forces, and some military authorities have gone so far as to 
 assume that half its strength would be available for a 
 campaign against Herat, and that, without considering the 
 armies of Turkistan and Orenburg at all, Russia could 
 despatch from the Caspian, within a reasonable period of 
 time, an army of nearly 100,000 men. The best way to 
 ascertain how far these opinions may be deemed reason- 
 able is to consider the actual composition and organization 
 of the army which has its base and head-quarters at Tiflis. 
 
 " The army of the Caucasus has been roughly computed 
 at 200,000 men, but in order to arrive at that total, all its 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 157 
 
 details must be included, reserve, irregulars, and Cossacks. 
 The regular army of the Caucasus numbers 70,000 men, 
 but its reserve of another 50,000 would raise it to 120,000 
 strong. Besides this force of the line there are 30,000 
 Georgian and Imeritian irregulars of horse and foot. The 
 Cossacks established in the settlements north of the Cau- 
 casian range, represent another section of the armed forces 
 of the Tiflis Governorship, and they are expected to supply 
 a quota of 50,000 men. These separate totals make up 
 the grand result of 200,000 men, and this force may be 
 properly compared and contrasted with the Anglo-Indian 
 army of about the same nominal strength. It resembles 
 that force in another respect which is too often obscured. 
 A very large proportion of the army of the Caucasus is 
 non-Russian. The Cossacks, Circassians, Georgians, and 
 others form the majority of the troops whom Prince Don- 
 doukoff-Korsakoff could array in time of war. The 
 70,000 men who are permanently engaged in garrison duty 
 south of the Caucasus are distributed between Batoum, 
 Tiflis, Kars, and other fortified places on the Turkish and 
 Persian frontiers. They have also to furnish the troops 
 employed in the Askabad district, and these number about 
 15,000 men, of whom 9,000 are in positions east of Bami. 
 It is quite certain that any extra work thrown upon this 
 portion of the Russian army would immediately necessitate 
 the calling out of the reserves, who are really nothing more 
 or less than military colonists who receive a grant of land 
 and are allowed to marry after serving five years with the 
 colours. The calling out of the reserves, and the increase 
 of the Cossack regiments by the corps drawn from the 
 steppe, would be the preliminaries to placing the army 
 of the Caucasus on a war footing ; but even then there 
 would be plenty of work on its hands. It is within the 
 range of possibility that the Russians could increase 
 
158 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 General Komaroffs army to 50,000 men if they were 
 left undisturbed in Armenia and on the Black Sea. 
 But that task could only be executed at the cost of a great 
 effort, and after the preparation of many months. In 1881, 
 when Russia threw herself into the work of repairing the 
 defeat of Geok Tepe and crushing the Turkomans, she 
 succeeded in placing 25,000 troops on the eastern shores 
 of the Caspian, but the preparations took nearly twelve 
 months. Her permanent garrison in the Askabad province 
 is now, as already stated, 15,000 men, and she has a rail- 
 way from near Krasnovodsk to Bami. There is nothing 
 incredible in the supposition that under these improved 
 conditions she could in the course of the summer place 
 50,000 men on the northern borders of Persia. 
 
 " The composition of even the regular regiments of the 
 army of the Caucasus is heterogeneous. Russians form a 
 majority, but there are numerous Armenians, Poles, Jews, 
 Tartars, and Russo-Germans. Circassians are also largely 
 to be met with, particularly in the cavalry. But even the 
 regular troops are subjected to a very light discipline, and 
 if there is anything in our and German ideas as to military 
 efficiency they can be little better than militia. A recent 
 military traveller, who knows the Caucasus and Armenia 
 well, and who does not conceal his identity under the 
 pseudonym of " Wanderer," has given in his interesting 
 " Notes on the Caucasus " the following description of the 
 military routine of the regular army : 
 
 " They have very few parades and absolutely no pipe- 
 clay ; a company or two is paraded daily during the 
 summer months for rifle practice under the adjutant and 
 musketry instructor, and the corps is assembled once a 
 month for muster. The rest of the time the men do much 
 as they choose, and usually either work at trades, selling 
 the product of their industry at a sort of market which is 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 159 
 
 held every Sunday in the bazaar of the town, or hire them- 
 selves out at so much per diem to private individuals as 
 porters, labourers, &c." 
 
 "This sort of life is very different from the sustained 
 military exercise to which our troops in India are accus- 
 tomed, and, although the conclusion may be unsound, it 
 will be generally considered that these soldiers would stand 
 but a poor chance against our highly-trained European and 
 Indian regiments. The Cossacks are excellent for all the 
 purposes of irregular warfare, but they never have been 
 trusted by any Russian General against a disciplined army 
 in the open field, and of the 50,000 men whom Russia 
 mght place east of the Caspian one-half would be Cossacks, 
 as they are the most easy to mobilize and send on foreign 
 service. The Cossack cavalry have attached to them a 
 certain number of six-gun batteries" of horse artillery, and 
 these move about with them in the field. The regular 
 artillery of the Caucasus numbers forty-three batteries of 
 eight guns each, or 344 guns in all, and whereas the horse 
 artillery consists of six-pounders the field artillery is com- 
 posed of Krupp's nine-pounder steel breech-loading guns. 
 The artillery is unquestionably the most efficient part of 
 the army, The officers are well trained, and the men are 
 specially picked for the service. The guns are admirably 
 horsed and equipped. There are also a few batteries for 
 mountain operations. With regard to the Georgian and 
 other irregulars, it is declared that they are not inferior 
 to the Russian regulars ; but it is highly improbable that 
 they would be employed outside the Caucasus. It is, of 
 course, impossible to gauge with any degree of accuracy 
 the comparative efficiency of two armies which are organ- 
 ized on two different systems and which have never met 
 in war ; but while admitting the merit of the Russian 
 soldier, who is stated, without any excessive exaggeration, 
 
160 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 to be " capable of going anywhere on black bread and 
 water," it does seem as if the superiority in military 
 efficiency and military resources rested with the Anglo- 
 Indian army rather than with that of the Caucasus. 
 
 " We have some practical experience of what the army 
 of the Caucasus can do in actual warfare. In 1877, on 
 the outbreak of the Turkish war, it could only place 
 50,000 men on the frontier, although preparations for war 
 were begun in 1876. This force proved inadequate to 
 cope with the Turks under Mukhtar Pasha, and the 
 Russians were, as a matter of fact, repulsed all along the 
 line in their first attempt to invade Armenia. At one 
 period of the campaign, had the Turks pushed their 
 advantage with greater vigour, or perhaps it would be 
 more correct to say had they been better provided with the 
 sinews of war, they could hardly have failed to achieve a 
 decided success ; but they allowed the opportunity to slip 
 by, and when the winter of 1877 began the Russians had 
 succeeded in arra>ing 100,000 men between Erivan and 
 Poti. It must be remembered that this was only accom- 
 plished under compulsion and by a great effort. Yet the 
 concentration of troops was on the nearest frontier of the 
 Russian dominions, and the blow to be struck was against 
 an enemy within 150 miles of Tiflis. Any campaign 
 against Herat for if war ensues Russia's objective will, of 
 of course, be the town on the Heri-nid would be of an 
 entirely different character. Herat is 1,200 miles from 
 Tiflis, and nearly 400 from Askabad; and although an 
 army might be sustained once Herat is reached, most of 
 the supplies for this force en route would have to be carried 
 with it, after making the most liberal allowance for what 
 might be drawn from Meshed and Northern Persia. The 
 Russians, it is true, have 4,000 men on the Murghab and 
 nearly 5,000 between Askabad and Zulfagar, and those two 
 
The Annies on both Sides. 161 
 
 corps, increased by a large Turkoman gathering from 
 Merv, would undoubtedly suffice at this moment to over- 
 come all opposition outside the walls of Herat. But in 
 the event of Russia committing herself to the irrevocable 
 step of an act of hostility against the Amir, it is clear 
 that, although an initial success might be scored, it would 
 be a matter of extreme difficulty, if not an utter impossi- 
 bility, to raise the advanced army to anything like the 
 large numbers that would be necessary in face of the 
 joint opposition of the Afghan and Indian armies. We 
 exclude from our calculations the effect that would be pro- 
 duced by an Anglo-Turkish alliance and the appearance 
 of 20,000 English troops in Armenia. There is nothing 
 chimerical in either proposition, and the army of the 
 Caucasus is so far isolated that its communications with 
 the rest of Russia are exceedingly difficult and subject to 
 interruption. The army of the Caucasus will some day be 
 more formidable than it is now, and when the railway 
 system on the Western side of the Caspian as well as on 
 the eastern is complete, it may be possible for Russia 
 to throw the whole of her military resources into the effort 
 to place 100,000 men on the Afghan borders. At present 
 she could do nothing of the kind even with twelve months' 
 preparation. The conviction that these facts are patent 
 at Tiflis must strengthen the belief in a pacific settlement 
 of the present difficulty, at the same time that they show 
 that Russia has not the available power to maintain the 
 aggressive position she has taken up on the rivers Murghab 
 and Heri-nid, and that we have only to be firm in our 
 declarations and to stand stanchly by the Ameer, to insure 
 the speedy evacuation of those places south of Sarakhs 
 and Yulatan which General Komaroff and Colonel 
 Alikhanoff have within the last four months appropriated 
 by force." 
 
 M 
 
1 62 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 The sentences in this paper which appear to me to invite 
 special attention, are those which speak of the difficulties 
 which Russia would encounter in the event of her precipi- 
 tating hostilities with the Amir. These difficulties miy 
 thus be classified : 
 
 1. The raising of the advanced army to anything like 
 
 the large numbers that would be necessary in 
 face of the joint opposition of the Afghan and 
 Indian armies. 
 
 2. The danger that the Russian army might be iso- 
 
 lated. 
 
 3. The difficulty of furnishing it with supplies. 
 
 I propose to consider these three points in detail. 
 
 Leaving for consideration further on the question of the 
 entire force disposable in India, I would ask the reader to 
 accept with me for a moment the statements which have 
 reached us from that country by telegram, that there is at 
 this moment a force of 30,000 men in the Pishin valley 
 ready to advance by way of Kandahar as soon as they 
 shall receive the order from Head Quarters. Accepting 
 this statement, we must ask these two questions : what is 
 the distance to be traversed ; and how long will it take to 
 traverse it. 
 
 The distance from the present advanced posts of the 
 Anglo-Indian army to Kandahar is about 145 miles ; from 
 Kandahar to Herat is 369 miles. It is not easy marching, 
 even when there is no enemy to be looked for. In the 
 second Afghan war Stewart found the march even to 
 Kandahar a very trying one. Unfortunately the interven- 
 ing time has not been employed in the manner to which 
 it might have been so usefully devoted the making of a 
 railway. Our armies will have to march as they did in 
 1839 and 1879-80. The difficulties, especially in the way 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 163 
 
 of collecting carriage for such a force, will be as great now 
 as they were then. Those who recollect how in 1881 
 Phayre's force was detained in inaction, at a critical 
 moment, for the want of carriage, will appreciate the great 
 extent of those difficulties. 
 
 The road to Kandahar is well known to our generals and 
 our soldiers. I think that, having regard to the initial 
 difficulties of starting, the best of these would admit that if 
 he were to receive the order to advance to-morrow, he 
 would think a fortnight not a day too long to enable him to 
 reach Kandahar with 30,000 men. Sir John Keane, in 1839, 
 marching as rapidly as he couid march, took nineteen days 
 to accomplish the distance from Quetta. Thence to Herat 
 the road is less known, but it is certainly infinitely more 
 difficult. I propose, in a few words, to describe it. 
 
 There are three important posts on the principal road 
 between Kandahar and Herat Girishk, Farrah, and 
 Sabzwar. The distance by this road is 369 miles. 
 
 From Kandahar to Girishk the distance barely exceeds 
 75 miles. 
 
 The first march is to Kokaran 7 miles. The first 
 3 miles of road pass through the enclosed gardens and 
 suburbs of the city. The road crosses the several canals 
 drawn from the Argandab for irrigating the Kandahar 
 valley. At Kokaran water is abundant, the encamping- 
 ground is well adapted for a large force, and forage can be 
 supplied in sufficient quantities. 
 
 To Sanjari 5 miles. The bed of the Argandab is 
 crossed. The river, in the month of June, averages about 
 two-and-a-quarter feet in depth, and the passage of it is 
 easy. There is a ford about three-quarters of a mile lower 
 down by which it would be advisible to cross heavy guns. 
 Beyond the river one or two artificial watercourses have 
 to be crossed. The road is stony in some places, but 
 
 M 
 
164 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 generally good. There is excellent encamping-ground at 
 Sanjari ; water is plentiful, and forage is sufficient. 
 
 To Hauz-i-Maddad Khan 14 miles. An excellent road 
 across a broad, hard, level plain. A canal runs parallel to 
 the road the whole of the march. The ground for encamp- 
 ment is good ; water is plentiful near the camp ; forage for 
 camels is abundant; grass is scarce near the camp, but 
 plentiful a few miles to the south of it. There are several 
 villages in the neighbourhood ; as well as flocks of sheep 
 and goats. 
 
 Khushk-i-Nakhdd 15^ miles. A hard, level, gravel 
 road without obstacle or difficulty. At Khushk-i-Nakhiid 
 water is plentiful, from two artificial water-courses ; the 
 encamping-ground is good ; fodder for camels is plentiful ; 
 but grass, in the immediate vicinity of the camp, is scarce. 
 
 To Khak-i-Chapan 9^ miles. The road generally good 
 and level, though here and there the sand lies deep. The 
 encamping-ground, though somewhat irregular, could easily 
 be occupied by a large force. There is a sufficient, though 
 not over-abundant, supply of water. Forage of all sorts is 
 less plentiful. There are, however, villages and cultivation 
 two or three miles south of the encamping-ground, as well 
 as large flocks of sheep. 
 
 To Girishk not quite 24 miles. The road to the 
 left bank of the Helmund, about twenty-two miles 
 and a half, is generally good and hard, the first part 
 slightly undulating, with one or two sandy patches. There 
 is a well about midway, but the water procurable from it 
 is insufficient for more than a few travellers. On the left 
 bank of the river is an excellent encamping-ground, with 
 abundance of water and an ample supply of forage of all 
 sorts. The Helmund is a difficult river to cross. In June 
 its depth is about three feet nine inches ; its width in the 
 widest branch is seventy yards. The current runs at the rate 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 165 
 
 of three miles an hour. There is a ferry which it is some- 
 times necessary to use. At Girishk the encamping-ground is 
 sufficient, though here and there broken. Water and sup- 
 plies of all sorts are abundant. I would add that, so far, 
 the country is well known to our generals ; it comprehends 
 the districts which, as I have stated in a preceding page, 
 would devolve upon us in the event of a permanent occu- 
 pation of Kandahar by the British. 
 
 What Girishk once was may be gathered from the tradi- 
 tions of the time of Zaman Shah. Even then people 
 used to say that " the Helmund flowed through a garden." 
 Now, though arable land abounds, there is but little cul- 
 tivation. In fact, with the exception of the land imme- 
 diately on the bank of the river, there is none. With peace 
 and security for life the cultivation, however, would speedily 
 revive ! 
 
 The fort, though much dilapidated, commands a good 
 view of the surrounding country. It is not, at present, 
 capable of defence against artillery, but it might be made 
 so with a comparatively small expenditure. 
 
 From Girishk to Farrah the distance, by the route 
 adopted by Ferrier and Marsh, is 120 miles. There 
 is a route by Shorab and Hasan Gilan, shorter by 
 20 miles, but of this I have been unable to find any ac- 
 curate record. 
 
 Girishk to Zirak 20 miles. The first six miles stony 
 and undulating, the beds of several torrents crossing 
 the line. The road then becomes level and easy till 
 the fort of Saadat, 18 miles from Girishk, is reached. 
 Saadat, once a rather strong, but, when Captain Marsh saw 
 it in 1873, a deserted and ruined hill fort, has a plenti- 
 ful supply of water. The road then becomes again undu- 
 lating and continues so until close to Zirak. Zirak is a 
 small village situated at the foot of the mountains on the 
 
1 66 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 right of the road to Herat and opposite Mahmudabad, 
 described by Captain Marsh as a small village in a hol- 
 low watered by an artificial watercourse. At Zirak water 
 is good and abundant, and forage for camels and horses is 
 plentiful. 
 
 To Diishakh 12^ miles. The road hard and level. 
 Water at the village of Siir, about half-way. The encamp- 
 ing-ground at Diishakh is good, and forage for camels and 
 horses is abundant. 
 
 To Biabanak three miles and a half. Road level, 
 across a tolerably hard plain. There is an artificial canal 
 at Biabanak providing plenty of water. Grass and fodder 
 are abundant. 
 
 To Washir 24 miles. About four miles from Bia- 
 banak the road enters a range of hills with a gradual 
 ascent to 900 feet, presenting no great difficulties. From 
 this point to Washir the road winds among declivi- 
 ties, and follows the bed of watercourses, passing over 
 much difficult ground. For the last 9 miles the road 
 runs down a valley, with a gentle- slope. It is hard and 
 good till within 2 miles of Washir, when it becomes 
 undulating and stoney. Many villages and gardens, 
 watered by artificial canals are passed in this descent. 
 Ferrier made the journey by halting during the heat of the 
 day at Biabanak and then pushing on across the range, 
 20 miles, to Painak, but with no advantage over the 
 route here laid down. At Washir supplies of all sorts, 
 including water, are abundant. 
 
 To the Kashrud river 14 miles. The road stoney 
 and uneven, the last 4 miles being along a dry water- 
 course. The descent into the bed of the Kashrud 
 steep and bad. It is, however, practicable for artillery. 
 The river supplies excellent water. Forage for camels 
 abounds, but grass is less plentiful. 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 167 
 
 To Hajf Ibrahimi' 14 miles. The fording of the 
 Kashnid is at certain seasons impossible, in consequence 
 of the impetuosity of the torrent. In the hot season, 
 however, the depth of the water does not exceed 18 
 inches. After crossing the river the road pursues a 
 tortuous course among hills for about 3 miles ; it then 
 crosses a dreary steppe till it reaches Haji Ibrahimi. 
 Ferrier states that between Haji Ibrahimi and Kashnid 
 there is not a drop water. Water and forage are both pro- 
 curable at the former place. 
 
 Hajf Ibrahimi to Siah-ab Ferrier calls this place 
 Shiaguz distance 10 miles. Siah-ab is the point whence 
 a direct road, avoiding alike Farrah and Sabzwar, runs 
 via Giraneh to Herat. It is an encamping-ground where 
 water and forage are alike available. 
 
 Siah-db to Kharmalik 22 miles. The first and last 
 part of this stage leads the traveller through plains, fields, 
 and marshes. The intermediate part is intersected by 
 stony mountains, steeply scarped at the sides. " Khar- 
 malik," writes Captain Marsh, "is situated in a small grassy 
 hollow. A few date-palms and cattle, in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of a few mean huts and wall-surrounded 
 tower, are all it possesses." Water and forage are pro- 
 curable here. 
 
 Kharmalik to Farrah 20 miles. The road leads 
 across a desolate plain ; then, over a low pass, enters a 
 stony valley. Numerous ruins near the road indicate that 
 the district was once well populated. The plain is totally 
 devoid of drinking water. 
 
 " The appearance of Farrah a short way off," writes 
 Captain Marsh, " is imposing. Its high embattled and 
 bastioned walls, its broad, well-kept ditch, and fine large 
 gate and drawbridge give it the air of wealth and ease. 
 But what a delusion is this ! On entering the city I was 
 
1 68 The Pusso- Afghan Question. 
 
 surprised to see its fallen state. The size of the interior 
 is, perhaps, the third of Herat ; but it does possess twenty 
 huts, and those all in ruins. Where is the city of Farrah ? 
 Nowhere." 
 
 Farrah owes its destruction to the Persians and the 
 Afghans. In 1837 the Persians besieged and laid it waste 
 because it belonged to Afghanistan. In 1852 theBarakzye 
 Afghans completed its destruction because it was depen- 
 dent upon the Saduzye Afghan rulers of Herat. What 
 Farrah was before the first of these events Conolly bore 
 testimony in 1832. After speaking of it as a town possess 
 ing two thousand houses, he adds : " The land is fertile 
 and much grain is cultivated, as the shepherds for many 
 miles are supplied with it from hence. . . . The Furrah- 
 riid " (river of Furrah) " is in spring a wide and deep river, 
 and there is always sufficient water for much cultivation." 
 Ten years previously Mr. Fraser had described it as " a 
 city as large as Nishapur, situated in a valley among hills 
 with about twenty villages and many gardens." Again, I 
 repeat, with peace and security for life and property its 
 revival would be assured. 
 
 I have stated that from Siah-db runs the direct road to 
 Herat w'd Giraneh, avoiding Farrah and Sabzwar. It is 
 worthy of consideration whether this route might not be 
 ultimately made the main line of communication. It is 
 shorter ; and a force stationed at Giraneh would command 
 alike Farrah and Sabzwar. Ferrier, after alluding to the 
 strength of the fort as it was five-and-thirty years ago, thus 
 writes regarding the position. " The position is important. 
 It commands the passage of the river and the denies in 
 the mountains of the south. A small force quartered there 
 might maintain its authority in the districts of Sabzwar, 
 Farrah, Laush, Bakwa, Gulistan, Gour, and Sakkar, 
 Giraneh beinp; the central point round which converge 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 169 
 
 these localities information," he emphatically adds, " for 
 the English and the Russians ! " God grant that our 
 countrymen may profit by the hint ! 
 
 I may add that the road from Giraneh to Herat runs by 
 Ab-i-Kurmah and Shah Jahan, and joins the Sabzwar road 
 at Kash Jabran, a few miles above Sabzwar itself. The 
 distances may be thus computed from Ferrier's journal. 
 From Kash Jabran to Shah Jahan about nine hours caia- 
 van Journey, or about 20 miles ; from Shah Jaran to 
 Giraneh 56 miles. The country during the greater 
 part of the way is described by Ferrier as well wooded and 
 abounding in game, notwithstanding an almost entire de- 
 ficiency of water. 
 
 I return now to the route by Farrah and Sabzwar. The 
 distance between those two places is eighty miles. " There 
 are," writes Captain Marsh, " no villages a vast jumble 
 of valleys and hills, with small plains, inhabited only by a 
 nomadic people. Each place has its name, but if the 
 traveller finds tents at the same place twice he is lucky." 
 Captain Marsh accomplished the journey in three days, by 
 Khiish, Kilamusha, and Darwazai. At each of these 
 places he found water. Indeed, after the first 25 miles, 
 the traveller follows, with a few deviations, the valley of 
 the Rud-i-Adrashkan. Regarding this river Ferrier ob- 
 serves that an army marching from Herat in the summer 
 months should follow its course, as the commander would 
 then be free from anxiety regarding the supply of water for 
 his men and cattle. The hint should not be forgotten by 
 an army which should march to Herat. 
 
 Sabzwar is eighty miles from Herat. It lies at the ex- 
 tremity of a large oblong plain, ten or twelve miles in 
 circumference. The fort, prettily situated, is not formid- 
 able. The country around it is well cultivated, and 
 abounds in flocks and herds. Water and supplies are 
 
170 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 abundant. A Hindu, who visited it in 1823, compared it, 
 for fertility, with the best parts of Hindustan. 
 
 The road between Sabzwar and Herat needs no special 
 description. It is good and level and passable for wheeled 
 carriages of all descriptions. Supplies of all kinds are 
 abundant. 
 
 The following are the stages easily, if considered ad- 
 visable, to be divided : 
 
 Sabzwar to Kash Jabran 21 miles. Midway is a water 
 reservoir, now in ruins. At Kash Jabran the direct road to 
 Kandahar branches off, taking the route by Giraneh. 
 
 To Adrashkan u miles, about a mile on the Sabzwar 
 side of the river of the same name. 
 
 To Shah Beg or Bad 23 miles. Five miles after 
 crossing the Rud-i-Adrashkan the traveller reaches the 
 Rud-i-Gaz, a rapid stream, fifteen or twenty yards broad, 
 whose waters flow into the Adrashkan a little to the 
 west of the village of that name. Six miles further the 
 ruined caravansarai of Mir Allah is reached. It is sur- 
 rounded by cultivation, and a fine stream of water runs 
 under its walls. Six and a half miles further, again, the 
 traveller passes a spring of sweet water on the left of the 
 road. The dwarf reed, which provides sufficient fodder for 
 horses, is here abundant ; but the food of man has to be 
 carried. Water is plentiful at Shah Beg. 
 
 To Mir Daud 12 miles. The traveller descends from 
 Shah Beg. The descent is regular and gradual. The 
 country is now uninhabited and uncultivated. Red and 
 grey partridges abound. There is an artificial arrangement 
 for the supply of water at Mir Daud, but under Afghan 
 rule it has been but little cared for. 
 
 To Herat 18 miles. A good view of the city is 
 obtainable from the last-named station. The traveller 
 proceeds by a good road, 10 miles, to Rozeh Bagh, a royal 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 171 
 
 garden in olden days planted with Scotch firs of great 
 size and beauty. Little more than 4 miles further on, 
 the Herinid is reached. The breadth of the river at this 
 point is about a hundred and fifty yards. Its bed is here 
 hollowed out, and its waters run in fifteen separate chan- 
 nels, twelve feet wide and very deep, enclosed between two 
 embankments formed of the earth taken out for the exca- 
 vations. To the south of the river is a fine piece of 
 pasture-land formerly thickly studded with gardens and 
 villages. 
 
 I think that, considering the difficulties of the ground 
 and the necessity for carrying all his supplies with him, our 
 general would be well satisfied if he could accomplish this 
 distance in four weeks. 
 
 Granting, then, for the sake of argument, that the com- 
 mander of the British expeditionary force were to set forth 
 to relieve Herat, threatened by the Russians, on the loth 
 April next, he could not hope to reach that place before 
 the 22nd May. And be it remembered, he would march 
 at a time of year when the heat is the most terrific, and 
 the water is most scarce. 
 
 What are the chances of Herat being able to hold out 
 against a Russian army for three months ? 
 
 Herat, it may be said, has held out against a Persian 
 army aided by Russians, for ten months. That which has 
 been accomplished once may be accomplished again. 
 
 I shall show, on the evidence of the man most capable 
 to give an opinion, on the evidence of Eldred Pottinger 
 himself, that such a contention, however pleasant it may 
 be, cannot be sustained. 
 
 In the first place Russians with their modern arms 
 of improvement are infinitely superior to the Persian 
 army of 1838-9, with its flints and its popguns: in the 
 second, Eldred Pottinger declared that the siege of 1838-9 
 
172 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 failed solely because the place was not scientifically 
 attacked. 
 
 It may be taken for granted that the defences of Herat 
 are certainly not better than they were in 1838-9. They 
 have been occasionally battered since, but they have never 
 been repaired. We may have, then, an absolute conviction 
 that the account given by Kaye* of the state of the forti- 
 fications of Herat in 1838 is not underpainted in its appli- 
 cation to the present day. 
 
 " The city of Herat, it has been said, stood within solid 
 earthen walls, surrounded by a wet ditch. The four sides 
 were of nearly equal length, a little less than a mile in 
 extent, facing towards the four points of the compass. The 
 most elevated quarter of the city was the north-east, from 
 which it gradually sloped down to the south-west corner, 
 where it attained its lowest descent. The real defences of 
 the place were two covered ways, or fausse-braies, on the 
 exterior slope of the embankments, one within and the 
 other without the ditch. The lower one was on the level 
 of the surrounding country, its parapet partly covered by a 
 mound of earth on the counterscarp, the accumulation of 
 rubbish from the cleansings of the ditch. On the northern 
 side, surrounded by a wet ditch, the citadel, once known as 
 the Kilah-i-Aktyar-Aldin, but now as the Ark, overlooked 
 the city. Built entirely of good brick masonry, with lofty 
 ramparts and numerous towers, it was a place of consider- 
 able strength ; but now its defences, long neglected, were in 
 a wretched state of repair. Indeed, when, in 1837, tidings 
 of the advance of the Persian army reached Herat, the 
 zuhole extent of the fortifications was crumbling into decay" 
 
 The italics are mine. 
 
 Such was, such is, Herat. Yet, being so, it successfully 
 resisted a Persian army, aided by Russian officers, for ten 
 
 * " History of the War in Afghanistan," By Sir J. W. Kaye. 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 173 
 
 months. Upon that subject let us hear the opinion of the 
 one Englishman within its walls, of the man of whom 
 Kaye wrote : " The indomitable courage of Eldred Pot- 
 tinger saved the beleaguered city." 
 
 " It is my firm belief," wrote that gallant Englishman 
 in his journal, " that Mahomed Shah " (the Shah of Persia) 
 " might have carried the city by assault the very first day 
 that he reached Herat, and that even when the garrison 
 gained confidence, and were flushed with the success of 
 their sorties, he might have, by a proper use of the means 
 at his disposal, taken the place in twenty-four hours." 
 
 That opinion, the opinion of a competent artillery officer, 
 who successfully defended the crumbling ramparts, appears 
 to me to be decisive of the question. It is clear that 
 under ordinary circumstances Herat could not, if attacked 
 now, resist a Russian force till the end of May. The only 
 chance of her being able to do so would be the presence 
 behind her ramparts of Lumsden and his companions. 
 Lumsden is an experienced officer, and he has a very 
 gallant following ; but it seems to me, that if the Russians 
 are provided with guns of the modern type, even the skill 
 and courage of Lumsden and his companions could effect 
 little, if it be true, as has been asserted, that the city can 
 be commanded by a hill in its vicinity. 
 
 The reply, then, the reluctant reply, to the first query 
 that Herat, if attacked now, could not hold out till the 
 end of May, disposes, it seems to me, of the three 
 questions raised by the Times. For, if the existing 
 Russian force in the Transcaspian regions can take Herat 
 before an English force could arrive before that city, and 
 if, whilst the English force was advancing Russian rein- 
 forcements were likewise being pushed forward, it seems 
 clear that the Power which has possession of the point 
 cTappui must occupy the position of vantage. For whilst 
 
174 The Ru$ so- Afghan Question. 
 
 the English have to traverse 514 miles, over a barren 
 country, all hard-marching, carrying their supplies, the 
 Russians have to march along an easy road from Kizil 
 Arvat, only 523 miles to Herat, drawing their supplies all 
 the way, from the northern frontier of Persia. That 
 northern part of Persia is, by the testimony of Napier and 
 other eye-witnesses, already a Russian province, possessing 
 agents in every village. The march, then, of the Russian 
 reinforcements from Kizil Arvat to Herat, though nine 
 miles longer, is a far easier march to accomplish than the 
 march of the British force from the Pishin Valley to the 
 same place. Under ordinary circumstances, then, the 
 Russian advance force, far from being isolated, will be 
 supported by a main body as strong as the advancing 
 English army, before that army could reach Herat ! 
 
 Nor is the argument regarding supplies more tenable. 
 The base of Russia for supplies will be the northern 
 frontier of Persia, between two and three hundred miles 
 from Herat ; the English base for the same purpose would 
 be the country beyond the Indus, six hundred miles 
 distant. 
 
 In connection with this subject, and as showing how 
 much better prepared Russia is for her great spring than 
 the outer world has any idea of, I annex here a letter 
 written by Sir Edward Hamley in reply to one of the 
 arguments used by. the Times, upon which I have com- 
 mented : 
 
 " Seeing how inexpedient it is," wrote General Hamley 
 on the 22nd March, " to underrate an enemy, perhaps you 
 will allow me a few words of comment on your contributor's 
 account of the Army of the Caucasus last Friday ; by which 
 I shall also hope to justify my view of the necessity of 
 concentrating our resources on a war with Russia, if such 
 is to be. Accepting your contributor's description of that 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 175 
 
 army, and his estimate of the number of men which it 
 brought against the Turks in Armenia in 1877, still that 
 forms no measure of the forces which Russia could now 
 assemble on the Caspian. For in 1877 the vast home 
 army of Russia was entirely occupied in operating against 
 the Turks on the Danube. It is now disposable for the 
 reinforcement of the Army of the Caucasus. Troops 
 embarked at Odessa would reach Batoum in two days, 
 the Caspian in three, and the present end of the Trans- 
 caspian Railway at Bami within the week. Nor would the 
 severance of the communication across the Black Sea 
 prevent the transit, for many railways cross Russia to 
 debouch on the Volga, which forms a vast highway to the 
 Caspian. Thus, the trial of strength would be not between 
 the Army of the Caucasus and the Army of India, but 
 between the forces which the two Empires could bring to 
 bear in the theatre of war. 
 
 "Further, during the war of 1877, Persia, as a neutral, 
 assembled an army of 40,000 men for the protection of 
 her own soil. If that army were directed against us, in 
 alliance with Russia, it would march by excellent roads 
 within the Persian frontier to Meshed and the Heri Rud. 
 If there is anything in the task that would thus be set us to 
 authorize the belief that, besides dealing with it, we could 
 also maintain a British force of the present strength in 
 Egypt, I shall rejoice to hear of it, but I have failed to 
 discover it." 
 
 The argument of this letter is unanswerable. It goes to 
 confirm my conviction that unless an English force can 
 reach Herat before Russia, take possession of that city, the 
 entire province, which has been for ages the bulwark of 
 India, will be for ever lost. 
 
 What, meanwhile, is our position in India? We can 
 dispose, in that country, of a regular force, inclusive of the 
 
176 -The Rus$o- Afghan Question. 
 
 troops which have been lent to England for the Soudan, 
 of 61,736 European, and 125,695 native troops, count- 
 ing officers. The following table shows their component 
 parts : 
 
 NATIVE ARMY, INCLUDING OFFICERS. 
 
 Artillery . . . . . 
 
 Cavalry 
 
 Infantry 
 
 Sappers and Miners . . 
 
 Total 125,695 
 BRITISH ARMY, INCLUDING OFFICERS. 
 
 Bengal. Madras. Bombay. Total. 
 
 Artillery 6,209 2,491 2,786 = 11,486 
 
 Cavalry 2,868 956 478 = 4,302 
 
 Engineers 201 43 48 = 292 
 
 Infantry 29,222 8,217 8,217 = 45*656 
 
 38,500 11,707 11,529 = 61,736 
 
 This is the peace establishment, a total of 187,431, to 
 guard India, and, we will hope, to maintain Herdt. Of 
 course it may be greatly increased. It is satisfactory to 
 learn that Lord Dufferin has already issued orders that two 
 hundred men shall be added to each regiment, and equally 
 so that enlisting has again become popular in India. It 
 is an additional satisfaction to feel that the destinies of 
 India are in the hands of a man who possesses the absolute 
 confidence of the English people. 
 
 The exact mode in which the army available for field 
 service may be employed must depend on circumstances, 
 England knows that her generals on the spot, if left un- 
 fettered, will conquer even the impossible. But they may 
 
The Armies on both Sides. 177 
 
 read, as every one may study, with advantage, the words 
 uttered last May on the subject by our most accomplished 
 strategist : 
 
 " I will suppose Russia," said Sir Edward Hamley, " to 
 have made her next step a step which need surprise no- 
 body ; many Indians look on it as already virtually accom- 
 plished and occupied Herat. We know when she will 
 do this in a moment of perplexity to England. As to 
 the how, perhaps by first occupying it with a Persian 
 garrison (not to alarm us too much), and afterwards, by 
 some subsequently announced Treaty, replacing that garri- 
 son with Russian troops. This may easily be done before 
 we are aware, especially if we follow the plan of respecting 
 Russian susceptibilities so far as not even to keep ourselves 
 informed of what she may be doing. And it was a feature 
 of Skobeleff's plan of invasion, now become absolutely 
 feasible, * to organize masses of Asiatic cavalry, and hurling 
 them on India as our vanguard, under the banner of blood 
 and rapine, thus bring back the times of Tamerlane.' We 
 may therefore wake up to find this programme in execu- 
 tion, with Russian troops to any extent massed along the 
 line of the Transcaspian railway, ready to support those in 
 front. Now, on our side, we have of late increased the 
 force at Quetta, and planned a system of local defence for 
 Beloochistan ; but our comparatively insignificant field 
 force is 220 miles from the Helmund. That is one case. 
 The other is that we had a strong British Governor in 
 Kandahar, and a strong British force on the Helmund and 
 on the road to Kabul the railway completed to Kandahar 
 in case of a movement from Turkistan against Kabul, a 
 force on our side on its way to occupy that city, if not 
 already there, and new recruiting grounds open to us amid 
 warlike populations. Surely there can be no question as 
 to which of these two sets of circumstances would give us 
 
 N 
 
178 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 most influence in Afghanistan, most power to oppose Russia, 
 and to maintain confidence in India. And we must 
 remember that four years ago we could have done this and 
 more than this. The whole country was going to pieces 
 for want of strong rule. We were actually hunting for 
 rulers. We set up one at Kabul, and another at Kandahar, 
 who was soon afterwards removed, and the whole country 
 placed under the present Amir. Before and since that 
 event the unwavering theory of successive Governments of 
 India has been that the Amir is to be kept from Russian 
 influence, and to be maintained and supported in alliance 
 with England. But when we ask what steps have been 
 taken for carrying this theory into practice, I fear we shall 
 not find much that is satisfactory. Perhaps the utmost we 
 could in present circumstances promise ourselves, in meet- 
 ing a Russian advance, would be that after heavy fighting 
 and vast expenditure we should succeed in gaining those 
 positions- which are now open to our grasp, and our 
 presence in which might obviate the risk of war.* . 
 
 " I have said nothing about a British occupation of 
 Herat. Yet that too was open to us four years ago, and 
 not only open to us, but contemplated, in certain contin- 
 gencies, by the Government of India. If I refrain from 
 speaking of it it is because I fear at the outset to excite 
 the opposition, and possible refusal to consider any forward 
 movement, of those who are already hampered 'by the 
 opinions they formerly expressed. I am aware, too, of the 
 strong reasons that exist against straining our resources by 
 embracing points so distant in -our first operations. But I 
 will confess that as an abstract military plan for the defence 
 
 * "And here I may mention that, since this paper was printed, I 
 have seen evidence that most of the views here set forth are shared by 
 an Indian Officer whose name would be at once admitted as of almost 
 decisive influence in the question." 
 
The Armies ou both Sides. 179 
 
 of India under present conditions, and supposing sufficient 
 additional troops to be forthcoming, that which most 
 strongly recommends itself to my mind is a strong British 
 Government at Kandahar, wielding an army whose ad- 
 vanced troops should be at Kabul and Herat, based on 
 Kurrachee, with railway communication at least thence to 
 Kandahar. I believe it is considered that great part of 
 such an army could be supplied from our present Indian 
 forces. However, I will not enlarge on this plan, though 
 I imagine it is what a strong Power, thinking more of 
 security than expense, might be expected to adopt. But, 
 assuming that we wish to keep our hold on this rampart of 
 India, it is urgently necessary to take steps while the 
 Russian preparations are still undeveloped. We must at 
 once obtain such a settlement of its boundary as I have 
 endeavoured to sketch. And military reports on the whole 
 country, from this frontier to positions securing or com- 
 manding Herat, and thence to the Helmund, should be 
 framed forthwith. Our ignorance of all this is, considering 
 its importance, astonishing. While Russian officials have 
 explored up to and beyond Herat, and elsewhere along the 
 Afghan and Indian frontier, our own officers have been 
 discouraged, indeed prohibited, from obtaining personal 
 knowledge of those regions, so that the scanty information 
 I have been able to give about them is from those who 
 acquired it almost by stealth. An extreme care not to 
 wound, by showing suspicion, the innocent candour of 
 those guileless beings, Russian statesmen, appears to have 
 been our ruling motive, and is probably dignified by the 
 name of diplomacy. The frontier is most important to us, 
 yet no one can say where the frontier is. In a few years 
 we may be fighting on the Helmund, or the Heri-riid, yet 
 we know nothing of the military features of the region." 
 One word in conclusion as to the composition of the 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 Anglo-Indian army. Of the British troops I need say 
 nothing ; but with respect to the Indians I am glad to be 
 able to express my absolute conviction that a Sikh regiment, 
 led by British officers, is quite the equal of a Russian 
 regiment ; that a Gurkha regiment, similarly led, is like- 
 wise, at least the equal of a Russian regiment ; that the 
 Giirkahs of Nepal, led by British officers, are equally 
 as able to meet the shock ; that the Indian Irregular 
 Cavalry can successfully dare the Cossack , to any en- 
 counter. The material, then, of the force which may have 
 to meet Russia on the frontier of India is all that can 
 be desired. The only fault is that it is so small. I 
 repeat, then, the advice which has recently been so strongly 
 urged upon the Government by the one strategist who his 
 never been at fault : I would urge them to abandon the 
 position in the Soudan, where to use the words of 
 Louis XV. at the battle of Laffeldt in 1 747 " England fights 
 for all and pays for all," to the advantage of the " all," 
 and to transport the army employed there to the spot in 
 India where the dearest interests of our country are 
 threatened. It would be necessary to stipulate, if this 
 policy were carried out, that the General-in-Chief should be 
 left behind. Lord Wolseley might replace the heroic 
 Gordon in a new Khartoum. We have yet, in India, in 
 Roberts, in Charles MacGregor, in Donald Stewart, in 
 Macpherson, and in others also on the spot, men who have 
 proved, on the hardest and most trying of fields, that 
 "whilst no military qualification is wanting, the fount of 
 honour is full and fresh within them." In England, too, in 
 the able and cultivated commander who stormed Tel-el- 
 Kebir, who has studied the question of the Indian frontier, 
 in a way such as no man but Charles Macgregor has studied 
 it in Sir Edward Hamley we possess a leader the com- 
 peer even of.sucrfmen as these ! 
 
iSi 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RUSSIA'S ATTACK ON PANJDEH AND ITS MOTIVE. 
 
 No cause was ever advanced by exaggeration. The cause t 
 I am pleading in this chapter is the cause of the English I 
 people. Before I conclude it I shall show how their pros- \ 
 perity is bound up in the maintenance of our Indian \ 
 empire ; how the loss of that magnificent dependency j 
 would affect the position of every man, every woman, and / 
 every child in these islands from the highest to the lowest. / 
 Convinced as I am that the occupation by Russia of Herat, 
 the outlying fortress which covers India, would be the pre- 
 lude to an invasion of India, I shall indicate the purpose 
 which has prompted the Russian general on the spot to 
 make that sudden attack on the Afghans of Panjdeh which 
 roused all England to indignation on the morning of 
 Thursday, the 9th April. And, that I may not be accused 
 of exaggeration I shall, in describing that attack, quote the 
 words used in the House of Commons on Thursday 
 evening by one who has lost no opportunity of declaring his 
 faith in Russia : who, addressing his present constituents in 
 1879, declared that he had "no fear of the territorial 
 extensions of Russia, no fear of them whatever ; " that he 
 thought " such fears old women's fears " I shall quote 
 the words used by the Prime Minister of England. 
 
 In a previous chapter I showed that when the British 
 Commissioner, Sir Peter Lumsden, arrived, in accord- 
 ance with an arrangement agreed to by the Govern- 
 ment of the Czar, at Panjdeh, he was not met there by 
 the Russian Commissioner, but that, shortly after his 
 
182 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 arrival, Russian troops seized the posts, important, because 
 valuable for aggressive purposes, of Pul-i-Khatun, Zul- 
 fagar, and Pul-i-Kishti ; that the British Government had 
 addressed serious remonstrances to St. Petersburg on the 
 subject ; and that, after a very slight discussion it had been 
 arranged between the two Governments that Russia should 
 retain the positions her troops had occupied, pending the 
 definition of the frontier by the Commissioners of the two 
 nations. The arrangement was generally regarded as a 
 very unsatisfactory arrangement for England, but it had 
 been made by the British Government, and the British 
 people, with a great deal of smouldering disgust, and with 
 a strong conviction that they were being duped, were 
 obliged to await the result. 
 
 The Ministers of Great Britain duly co:nmunicated this 
 agreement to Sir Peter Lumsden. It may be presumed 
 that the Ministers of Russia likewise duly communicated 
 the agreement to their general on the spot the -general 
 commanding at Pul-i-Kishti, General Komaroff; although 
 that general informed Captain Yate that he had not received 
 it. Whether he received it or not, is a matter between 
 himself and his Government. It is clear that the Ministers 
 of Russia are responsible to the Ministers of England for 
 the due observance of the arrangement made between the 
 two nations. From those Ministers must the British 
 Government demand reparation. 
 
 On the morning of Thursday, the 9th April, the public 
 were startled by an announcement made in the Standard 
 newspaper that the agreement between the two countries 
 had been violated, and violated by Russia ; that Russian 
 troops had made a premeditated attack upon the Afghans. 
 Second editions of the other morning papers confirmed 
 the news which the Standard had been the first to 
 announce. 
 
Russia's Attack on Panjdeh and its Motive. 183 
 
 That same evening the Prime Minister of Great Britain 
 explained the matter in the House of Commons. After 
 some introductory remarks, he said : 
 
 In the first place there are two things admitted namely, that an i> 
 attack was made on the Afghans by the Russians and that the ft^ 
 Afghans were defeated. On those two points there is no doubt 
 defeated, as we 'are informed, after a gallant fight. The 
 Russian allegations are mainly these. I will not attempt to give 
 them in strict form, but the House may depend upon the substance 
 of ray recital. The Russians attacked the Afghans, as they state, 
 after being provoked by acts of hostility so termed the nature of 
 which we are not distinctly informed of- on thepart of the Afghans. 
 When the fighting was over the Russians retired. They retired, 
 according to a phrase used in one document, to their previous 
 positions, according to the other document, to the left bank of the 
 Khushk. These two phrases may be exactly equivalent. I am not 
 prepared to say they are not, but I mention them both because they 
 are used in the two accounts which have reached us. It is next 
 alleged that English officers directed the Afghans without taking part 
 in the actual engagement, and finally it is stated that the Russian com- 
 mander sent an escort to protect the English officers after the Afghans 
 were defeated, but that the English officers had themselves left the 
 ground when the escort arrived, so that there was no occasion for it to 
 act. These are the principal allegations that have reached us as the 
 allegations of the Russian Government. 
 
 The date of the engagement is the 3Oth of March, and perhaps I 
 may say that the earliest intelligence of the most material of the facts 
 I am about to recite only reached Lord Granville and myself this 
 morning. Well, now I come to the allegations made by Sir Peter ^' mP 
 Lumsden and our own officers, to which I need scarcely say that, as a ^.*f 
 matter of course, we give credit, and which undoubtedly call for very 
 grave attention. In the first place it is stated that no forward move- 
 ment of any kind was made by the Afghans before or since the lyth of 
 March the ijth of March being the date of the telegram I shall now 
 recite. On the 2Qth of March we were informed and when I say 
 " we " I speak of Sir Peter Lumsden's telegram sent to us we were 
 informed that, notwithstanding the Russian assurances of the lyth of 
 March this is the substance of the telegram which the House will no 
 doubt recognize, because it was the substance of the statement made 
 by me in this House and sent to St. Petersburg and recognized there, 
 and returned thence with a certain addition stated in this House at the 
 
184 The Riisso- Afghan Question. 
 
 time on the 29^ of jyiarrh we were informed by Sir Peter Lumsden 
 that, " notwithstanding the Russian assurances of the I7th of March 
 that the Russian forces would not advance from the position they then 
 occupied provided the Afghans should not advance nor attack them, 
 or unless some extraordinary circumstance should happen, such. as a 
 disturbance in Panjdeh, the Russians were drawn up in force almost 
 within range of the Afghan position, though the Afghans had neither 
 attacked nor advanced, and Panjdeh wa. c , perfectly quiet ; " that every 
 endeavour was being made by the Russians this is in the nature of a 
 general statement to induce the Afghans to begin the fight ; and that 
 the Russian forces had attempted to forcibly pass through the Afghan 
 pickets. The next point is that on the failure of those attempts 
 Captain Yate met the chief of the Russian staff by appointment, and 
 was informed that no such arrangement as that referred to in the 
 telegram of the I7th March as to the non-advance of the Russians 
 had been received. (" Oh.") This has been made the subject of 
 proper communication. Next, that the chief of the staff, whose name 
 I do not recollect, would not give an assurance to Captain Yate that 
 the Afghans would not be attacked without previous notice, and he 
 claimed the right to turn out the Afghan posts whenever they might 
 inconvenience the Russians, without reference to any third party. 
 That, of course, must be taken in connection with the statement imme- 
 diately preceding that he had not received from St. Petersburg In- 
 structions corresponding with the telegram of the I7th March. Next 
 we learnt that on the 29th of March Sir Peter Lumsden desired Captain 
 Yate again to see the Russian commander and effect an amicable 
 arrangement if possible. We learnt, on the yth of April, that down to 
 the 30th of March the Afjrhari$ _foid m^de no forward movement bsiiuje 
 or since that telegram of the 1 7th of March. On the yth of April we 
 also learnt that Captain Yate had, on the 1st of April, sent a note from 
 a point which he had reached with all the British officers and escort 
 safely on the previous day at 8 P.M. on the way to Gulran. It stated 
 that the Russians had attacked and defeated the Afghans, and had 
 occupied Pan id eh on the 3Oth. The Afghans were said to have fought 
 gallantly and to have lost heavily, two companies being killed to a 
 man in their entrenchments. The survivors retreated along the 
 Maruchak road. The British officers were neutral in the engagement. 
 The House will not be surprised when I say, speaking with measured 
 words in circumstances of great gravity, that to us, upon the statements 
 I have recited, this attack bears the appearance of an unprovoked 
 aggression. (Cheers.) We have asked for explanations from the 
 Russian Government. There has not yet been time to receive such 
 explanations. We shall endeavour to arrive at a just conclusion on the 
 
Russia's Attack on Panjdch and its Motive. 185 
 
 facts. But before receiving our communications yesterday, and when 
 we had not the important communications of this morning, but some- 
 thing preliminary in the same direction, the British Ambassador at St. 
 Petersburg reported to us last night at forty minutes past five in these 
 words : " The Minister for Foreign Affairs expresses his earnest hope 
 and that of the Emperor that this unhappy incident may not prevent 
 the continuance ot the negotiations " (laughter) ; and he also reported 
 a statement of M. de Giers that the Russians retired to their previous 
 positions and did not occupy Panjdeh. I may say that I have laid 
 these statements before the House as being the incomplete and partial 
 statements which the very short time that has elapsed since the receipt 
 of the news alone enables me to offer, and they are as much as our 
 public duty will permit us to make ; and I think I may say that they 
 comprise the whole of the material statements of fact which have 
 reached us upon this important, and for the moment I may say very 
 painful, matter. 
 
 Later on, during the same evening, the Prime Minister 
 supplemented the above statement with another. He 
 said : 
 
 " I had intended, either on the motion to report progress or on the 
 actual report of the resolutions with the Speaker in the chair, to men- 
 tion that since I spoke at the commencement of the evening a tele- 
 gram has been received from Sir Peter Lumsden, which conveys what 
 I may call a qualification of one of the statements which he had made. 
 The statement I made on the authority of Sir Peter Lumsden was, as 
 will be remembered by the House, because I repeated it twice, that 
 the Afghans had not made any advance either before or after the *" 
 arrival of the telegram of the iyth of March. But Sir Peter Lumsden 
 states to us in a later telegram that when the "Russians immediate!)] 
 threatened an attack on the Afghan position by advancing in force ta 
 Ak Tapa, the Afghans threw out vedettes to their front and extended* 
 their pickets to Pul-i-Khisti, on the left bank of the Khushk, and! 
 gradually strengthened it until on the 3oth, the bulk of their force had \ 
 been transferred across the river. That is the qualification which he> 
 conveys. He goes on to say that, in his opinion, that does not pro- 
 perly constitute an advance, but was the occupation of a more advan- 
 tageous position. But I presume he evidently considers that the 
 question might be raised as to what did or did not constitute an ad- 
 vance, and he is desirous that the British Government should be 
 placed in the possession of all the facts. I give the qualification to the 
 House precisely as Sir Peter Lumsden has given it." 
 
1 86 The Russo-AfgJian Question. 
 
 To this statement by Mr. Gladstone I may add the more 
 recently received explanation of General Komaroff: 
 
 " On the 25th March our detachment approach Dash Kepri. On 
 our side of the river Khushk, close to the bridge. I found an intrench- 
 ment occupied by the Afghans." 
 
 It is not necessary to continue. If Komaroff did not 
 want a conflict why did he approach an intrenchment 
 " occupied by the Afghans " ? The term, " our side of the 
 river," proves that Komaroff had prejudged the question. 
 The river runs through territory which has been tributary to 
 Herat since 1863, and even earlier ! 
 
 Now, what is this story, summarized in a few plain words ? 
 It is simply, that the Russians at Ak Tapa threatened to 
 attack the Afghans at Panjdeh ; that, on seeing the Prussians 
 advance, the Afghans, not caring either to run away or to 
 remain in a defenceless position to have their throats cut, 
 took up a new alignment; that the' Russians then attacked 
 defeated them, and took Panjdeh ; that the Afghans then 
 retired to Maruchak. The Russians, by their action, gained 
 perfect command of the route leading by the Khushk 
 valley to Herat, the route traversed by Captain Abbot in 
 1840, and described in pages 136-40 of this book; and 
 they now face Maruchak, about midway between Panjdeh 
 and Bala Murghab, covering another road to Herat, the 
 road traversed by Vambery and Grodekoff, described in 
 pages 144-6. 
 
 N^^us^ia_js_a^great Power, and Afghanistan is the 
 subsidised ally of England/ The AnilF of Afghanistan is 
 in fact paid by England to guard the outlying redoubt 
 which covers the approaches to India. That outlying re- 
 doubt is the country known under the generic name of 
 Herat. It comprises the city of that name, the valleys of 
 the Heri-rud, the Khushk, and the Murghab, as far as 
 Sarakhs on the one side and Robat Abdullah Khan on 
 
Russia's Attack on Panjdeh and its Motive. 187 
 
 the other. This territory has been violated in a time of 
 profound peace by a Power which, only fifteen months ago, 
 was far removed from the extremest border claimed by the 
 Afghans, and which has since insidiously crept up to that 
 border. 
 
 If such a thing had happened in Europe ; if, for in- 
 stance, France, in 1867-8, had suddenly pounced upon the 
 Duchy of Luxemburg, which had been given to her by the 
 King of Holland, would Germany have allowed it for a 
 moment ? The march of a single regiment across the border 
 of that Duchy would have been accepted as a declaration 
 of war. Why, the very claim to Luxemburg made by Napo- 
 leon III. very nearly brought about such a result ! Is 
 there, then, to be a law of nations in Europe, and no law 
 of nations in Asia ? Are we to be swift to repel on the 
 one continent, and to turn our face to the smiter on the 
 other? I ask this question because we are, at this moment, 
 turning our face to the smiter on the banks of the Mur- 
 ghab, and unless we suddenly recoil, and put down both feet, 
 and, pointing- to the frontier of 1872-3, say to the smiter, 
 "thus far shalt thou come but no further," we run the 
 greatest risk of losing India. 
 
 These are not empty words : they are words of truth 
 and solemn warning. Any one who chooses to read 
 between the lines can detect easily enough the reason for 
 the action of General Komaroff. To those who cannot I 
 will explain it. 
 
 First, let me recall to the recollection of the reader the 
 general principle of the policy of Russia as described by 
 the statesman of this century who knew her thoroughly, by 
 the lamented Lord Palmerston. The words are quoted at 
 pages 38-9 of this volume. Let the reader apply them to 
 the action of General Komaroff and the excuses made by 
 M. de Giers, as that action and those excuses have been 
 
1 88 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 stated by Mr. Gladstone. " The policy of the Russian Gov- 
 ernment," wrote Lord Palmerston, " 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." 
 " In furtherance of this policy the Russian Government has 
 always two strings to its bow moderate language and dis- 
 interested professions at St. Petersburg and at London ; 
 active aggression by its agents on the scene of operations. 
 If the aggressions succeed locally the St. Petersburg Govern- 
 ment adopts them as a fait accompli which it did not in- 
 tend, 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." Is it possible 
 to describe more exactly, with more absolute precision, the 
 courses which Russia is now pursuing at London, at St. 
 Petersburg, and on the Murghab? She has adopted the 
 agg.essions made by Komaroff as/aits accomplis ; she has, if 
 we may believe the St. Petersburg correspondent of the Times 
 ( 1 1 April), conferred decorations and rewards, by telegraph) 
 upon those engaged ; while she has been assuring us at St. 
 Pttersburg that such aggressions were made in spite of her 
 instructions. She adopted those aggressions because our 
 Ministers had not the " pluck ; ' there is no other word for 
 it, and it is a right good English word to tell her that 
 unless she retired there would be war ! 
 
 For, let us consider, why is Russia making this spring 
 just at this particular moment ? She wants the city of Herat. 
 To gain that city is the end and aim of all her movements. 
 Herat is comparatively weak now ; her fortifications are in 
 disrepair ; there is no English force within five hundred 
 miles of it. If Russia can only get possession of Herat now, 
 no power on earth vvill ever take it from her. The plains 
 and the valleys follow the city. If she can only gain Herat 
 
Russia's Attack on Panjdeh and its Motive. 189 
 
 now she gains a new base where she can rest and wait for 
 the opportunity to pounce upon India. 
 
 Yes ; that is the cause of these aggressions which in 
 spite of their being disavowed are invariably accepted ; 
 this is the meaning of the smooth words which serve to 
 gain more and more time for Komaroff and Alikhanoff ! 
 Whilst Russia is protesting in London, her generals are 
 advancing down the Khushk, the Murghab, and the Heri- 
 nid. Her secret purpose is to seize Herat before India is 
 ready, before British troops can be sent to the scene of 
 action from the Soudan to seize it, to fortify it, and to 
 use it as a menace to India ! 
 
 What the effect upon India of the acquisition of Herat 
 by Russia would be, I described in language to which I 
 can add little, in a paper I wrote for the Patriotic Asso- 
 ciation in 1879. What, I asked then, will mean the occu- 
 pation of Russia by Herat ? I added : 
 
 It will mean simply this : that the gateway leading into our Indian 
 Empire has been occupied by our enemy. It will mean that hence, 
 forth there will be no peace for the people of India, no security for 
 trade, no money for improvements. The English in India will live 
 under a continual threat not at first of invasion, but of the intrigue 
 which corrupts their native soldiers, which wins over their native 
 allies, which makes every man doubtful of the morrow. In a word, 
 they will live in a fortress which is being mined, and which they will 
 know is being mined India would resemble a tenanted man- 
 sion, the keys of the doors of which were held by robbers daily en- 
 gaged in attempting to corrupt the servants on the basement. What 
 would become of her revenues then ? Industry, the cause of the 
 wealth of nations, would be paralyzed, and a few years would witness 
 a national bankruptcy. 
 
 In a word, the occupation of Herat by Russia would be 
 a permanent menace to India. 
 
 Another attempt is now being made by Russia to hood- 
 wink our ministers, and again have our ministers been 
 hoodwinked. They have accepted the assurances from 
 
190 The Russo- Afghan Question. 
 
 St. Petersburg that no reply can be received from General 
 Komaroff for seven or eight days. Now, on this point, I 
 have received a communication from a gentleman well 
 acquainted with the Trans-caspian regions, which he has 
 permitted me to use. He writes : " The Daily Telegraph 
 is right in stating that the Russian telegraph line extends 
 to within 120 miles of the Russian posts near Panjdeh. 
 As the Russian couriers are compelled to travel at the rate 
 of ten miles an hour it is clear that it would require but 
 twelve hours to receive despatches from St. Petersburg." 
 The cause of this deceit is obvious : it is to gain time to 
 carry out the nefarious design against Herat ! 
 
 In a hostile criticism on the first edition of this book, 
 the writer, a Blue-ribbonite, remarked that there was a 
 large and growing number of Englishmen who were in- 
 clined to regard India as a dead weight on the people of 
 these islands. It is scarcely necessary to reply to the 
 ignorant folly displayed in such a remark, but as there are 
 many who are not aware of the manner in which these 
 islands benefit by the connection, I think a useful purpose 
 will be served if I conclude this [chapter with an extract 
 from a lecture delivered on the subject in the theatre of 
 the Society of Arts on the 4th March, 1881, by one of the 
 most accomplished and instructed of men, Mr. J. M. 
 Maclean. " It is hardly necessary," said Mr. Maclean in 
 the body of his admirable address, " to insist upon the 
 obvious material gains which accrue to r England from the 
 possession of an Eastern Empire. A simple enumeration 
 of them will suffice. In the first place it is no slight ad- 
 vantage to us that the Government of India disburses in 
 this country 16 millions sterling a year, out of the revenues 
 collected from Indian taxpayers. The English nation, it 
 is true, does not take this money from the people of India 
 without giving them something in exchange for it." After 
 
Rtissias Attack on Panjdeh and its Motive. 191 
 
 stating the nature of the exchange Mr. Maclean thus con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "The indirect gains of private enterprise in India are also very con- 
 siderable. British India ranks now with France, Germany, and the 
 United States among our best customers. The United Kingdom sup- 
 plies her with three-fifths of her whole import of merchandise 
 
 Nor do Englishmen make profits only on the import trade into India. 
 The greater portion of the export trade is controlled by English houses, 
 settled in Presidency towns ; and four-fifths of the shipping engaged 
 in the following commerce of India belongs to English owners. If 
 you trace the sale of a bale of Indian cotton exposed for sale in the 
 Liverpool market, you will probably find that in all its successive 
 stages, after being grown and picked by the native cultivator, it has 
 been made ready and brought to the market by English capital and 
 labour. An English agent has selected it in the producing district ; it 
 has been carried clown to the sea-coast by a railway company working 
 with English capital; an English mercantile, firm in Bombay has 
 pressed it, and sold the bill of exchange against it through an 
 English broker to an English bank ; and it has been transported 
 from Bombay to Liverpool on board an English steamer. So, 
 again, with regard to the piece goods trade from this country, 
 it is entirely financed and managed by Englishmen till the bales 
 pass into the hands of the native dealers in the bazaar of Bombay. 
 You will readily calculate how many different profits this vast trade 
 which may be valued at a hundred millions sterling, yields to all these 
 classes of English manufacturers, merchants, bankers, middlemen, 
 shippers, engineers, and other mechanical experts. And when you) 
 add to such mercantile gains the private remittances sent home by 
 English tradesmen and professional men settled in India, and by the 
 civil and military servants of the Crown, you can realize how immense, 
 in the aggregate, must be the contributions which our great dependency 
 annually makes to the wealth of England. There is not a town, it 
 may be said without exaggeration that there is not even a hamlet, in 
 this country in which the fructifying influence of the capital thus ac- 
 quired is not felt, although it may not be always recognised ; and I do 
 not know any industry in the United Kingdom, small or great, which 
 would not suffer loss, if the connection with India were broken off." 
 
 These are some of the benefits resulting to England 
 from her connection with India. How the connection is 
 appreciated by the native princes and people of India, 
 
192 The Russo-Afghan Question. 
 
 even by those who, like Nepa"!, do not acknowledge the 
 sovereignty of the Empress, has been made abundantly 
 clear by the spontaneous offers of assistance which the 
 mere threat of Russian invasion has evoked. Nothing is 
 more manifest than that connection will be endangered if 
 Russia be allowed to take Herat. We must not disguise 
 from ourselves the fact that a loyalty which is fixed as long 
 as we are victorious is not always proof against a long 
 course of adversity. In his eloquent account of the fall 
 of James II., Macaulay has described how the Prince who 
 glibly uttered his ^ est-ce possible] as he learned the defection 
 of one great noble after another, took an opportunity 
 shortly afterwards of decamping himself. There remains, 
 then, the great question the question the most important 
 of all how to preserve Herat for Afghanistan. Before 
 this all other questions sink into insignificance. In the 
 presence of an enemy so unscrupulous it is a question 
 beset with difficulties. The very act of repairing the 
 crumbling walls of the town might, on the principle 
 adopted by the wolf towards the lamb, be denounced by 
 Russia as an act of hostility. Yet, at all hazards and with 
 all speed it should be attempted ; meanwhile, we must 
 concentrate all our available troops in the Pishin valley, 
 ready for a prompt advance. 
 
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