Today, we wrap up the Great Game of tensions between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia.
Today, we wrap up the Great Game of tensions between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia.
Episode 302 - The Great Game - Part 3
Last time, we covered the early stages of the Great Game, especially the First Anglo-Afghan War. Today, we finish up the series that ends in 1907.
Before we move on to the period after the British retreat from Afghanistan, I’d like to touch upon a Russian captain who is considered the first Russian “player” in the Great Game, Nikolay Muraviev. His mission to meet with the Khan of Khiva was deemed to be suicidal, according to author Peter Hopkirk in his book The Great Game. The 800-mile journey from Tiflis, Georgia, was fraught with danger from murderous tribes as well as needing to cross the “treacherous Karakum desert.”
Muraviev disguised himself as a Turcoman native, which he was pretty good at as he was quite fluent in the native Tartar language. This served him quite well in the first part of his journey, but when he got near the Khan's capital of Khiva, he was forced to stay in a fort until the Khan was convinced that it would be a good idea to meet with the Russian emissary.
Muraviev was told to observe as much as he could of the khanate's defenses while on his trip in case a Russian force needed to enter the region. One of the main reasons was the large number of Russians who lived in the area as slaves. Khiva was a famous hub of the slave trade for centuries. The descendants of the Mongol Horde would raid Russian territory, capturing as many people as possible to sell at the slave markets.
When he was finally allowed to enter Khiva, he was stunned by the number of Russians there. There were estimates that over 3,000 were slaves who lived under horrific conditions. When Muraviev returned to Baku and then to Derbent to meet with his superior officer, General Yermolov, he begged him to send an army to free the enslaved Russians. This would come to the attention of an official of the East India Company, William Moorcroft. He knew that the enslaved people would provide a strong impetus for Russian intervention.
Moorcroft would bring this situation to the attention of his superiors, but they would brush his concerns aside. As Hopkirk writes, “Not only, he repeatedly warned them, would the Russians seize the whole of Turkestan and Afghanistan, with their vast untapped markets, but very likely British India too. But whereas Muraviev, the first Russian player in the Great Game, was to be rewarded by his country, ending his career as Commander-in-Chief in the Caucasus, Moorcroft would be disowned by his chiefs, and finish up in a lonely, unmarked grave beside the Oxus.”
Before we move into the late 1840’s and 50’s, there were two treaties, one ending the Russo-Persian War known as the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, and the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829. The latter ended the Russo-Turkish War, giving Russia access to the mouths of the Danube and new territory on the Black Sea. This greatly concerned the British as they felt that Russia would place a net of protection over Persia and the weakening Ottoman Empire. This would make British India much more vulnerable.
This would be the beginning of the leadup to the Crimean War of 1854-1856. The years between the two treaties and the Crimean War were one of growing animosity between Russia and Great Britain. It was so strong that the French, a long-time enemy of England, began to make peace overtures in response to the growing concern over Russia and its expansionism.
During the summer of 1844, Tsar Nicholas would visit Great Britain and meet with Queen Victoria, Sir Robert Peel, and the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen. He wanted to assure them that Russia had no additional ambitions in Central Asia and that his main concern was what he called the “Sick Man of Europe,” the Ottoman Empire. Nicholas believed that his visit successfully convinced the British that if anything should happen regarding the ailing Turkish nation, they would side with the Russians. That opinion was naïve. As Hopkirk puts it, “It was a misunderstanding which, in due course, would prove extremely costly to both sides.”
In Trevor Royle’s book Crimea: The Great Crimean War 1854-1856, he writes about the Tsar and Russia as a country in 1851. “Its autocratic ruler, Tsar Nicholas I, used a highly efficient secret police, the dreaded Third Section, to maintain order, serfdom still existed and industrial development was negligible.” He further states, “In short, Russia was a country with a primitive economic and financial system, yet it was still feared on account of its imperial ambitions and its military potential, both of which lay at the heart of tsarist power.”
Royce adds, "Small wonder that Russia was viewed with such distaste by most forward-looking people in the west. Here was an obscurantist, slave-owning autocracy which was ruled by the dint of secret policemen, Cossack troopers, the oppressor of the Poles and the enemy of all the hope engendered by the year of revolution.” Within Russia, anyone who opposed the will of the Tsar was considered mad, with many being declared insane.
While Russia was backward, it thought that the way to increase its influence was to expand eastward through the Caucasus. They also believed they had the God-given right to take control of the second Rome, Constantinople. This right came from their assertion that Moscow was the third Rome.
Feodor Tyutchev’s poem ‘Russian Geography' best shows this expansionist fervor.
Seven inland seas and seven mighty rivers
From the Nile to the Neva
From Elba to China
From the Volga to the Euphrates
From the Ganges to the Danube
Such is our Empire to be.
Since we have covered the Crimean War quite extensively in the past, I will pass it over. Still, it was one of the most critical confrontations in the Great Game. It also uncovered the rot within Russia and its backward nature, which the Tsars were unwilling and unable to fix. Only someone with the will of Peter the Great would have had the capability of accomplishing that or an iron-fisted cruel man like Joseph Stalin. None of the Romanov Tsars had that kind of gravitas, especially men like Nicholas I and those who followed. This would be a weakness that the British would capitalize on for the remainder of the Great Game.
For the Russians, one of the main reasons for their wanting to expand into Central Asia was to stop the capturing of their people to be sold into slavery. This had been happening for centuries, and frankly, they were fed up. While the British did help free some Russian slaves through negotiations with some of the Khans in the region, it wasn't nearly enough.
The Russians, by now, after their humiliating defeat in the Crimean War, furious with the Treaty of Paris they signed, were forced to sign, denying them access to the Black Sea. They would renounce those provisions in 1870. This greatly disturbed the British, but there was little they could do short of declaring war on Russia. This was something that no one in the government was willing to approve. This would open the way for the Russians to expand to an area known as Ili. This Muslim-controlled region controlled a series of strategic passes to the southern Siberian border. The Mongol Invasion of Russia occurred in the 13th century through these passes.
While this was historically significant, the Ili Valley was very rich in mineral resources and a great place to grow grain. The Russian General Konstantin Kaufman decided to invade the land as it had just thrown out Chinese occupiers during an insurrection. Kaufman defeated an army twice his size, and by June 25, 1871, they had captured the capital city of Kuldja. The ambassador to Russia from China was told of this in St. Petersburg under the excuse that they were only holding on to the territory under the guise of being a temporary occupation until the time that the Chinese could regain control. This was a ruse, and everyone knew it.
The Russians continued to deny that they were on a mission of conquest, but by 1873, they admitted that they were indeed moving forward towards Khiva. As they approached, a now nervous Khan offered an unconditional surrender through his emissary, his cousin. Kaufman responded that he would accept the surrender inside the walled city, not outside. On May 29, 1873, the Russians entered the city once the Khan fled.
The capture of Khiva sent ripples through the British High Command. The warnings of General Sir Robert Wilson, the father of British Russophobia, had come to pass as the Russians were now only 500 miles away from the city of Herat, Afghanistan. This was the gateway to British India.
In addition, despite assuring the British that they were not expanding their holdings, the Russians continued to Khokand in 1875 to squash an anti-Russian rebellion. This expansion was the equivalent to half the size of the United States, and it was accomplished in one decade. They were now only 200 miles away from the strategic oasis town of Kashgar.
For years, the British and most military scholars believed the mountain passes from Afghanistan into India were impassible. In 1874, they determined that the modern armies of the late 19th century could make it over. This caused great concern in London, so much so that it was one of the causes of the massive political losses suffered by the Gladstone-led Liberal party. The new Prime Minister was the conservative Benjamin Disraeli, head of the Tories. He believed that the show of weakness by the previous administration led to the gains Russia made in Central Asia, which threatened British India through Afghanistan. One of Disraeli's first moves was proclaiming Queen Victoria the Empress of India.
This made it clear to the Russians that Great Britain took its control of India quite seriously. This was strengthened by their purchase of 40 percent of the shares of the newly opened Suez Canal in 1869. This made the trip between India and Britain 4,500 miles shorter. This significant investment also meant that they would protect the waterways like those in Constantinople and the Turkish straits.
Afghanistan was again to be a focus of both Russia and Great Britain. Both sides would use the press to demonize each other. A book called England and Rusia in the East by Sir Henry Rawlinson warned that Russia was a "dangerous enemy." Colonel Terentiev's book Russia and England in the Struggle for the Markets of Central Asia accused the British of supplying weapons to Turcoman tribes in rebellion against the Russians.
These machinations between the two countries led the British to invade Afghanistan and begin the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Hostilities began in November 1878, with the British sending in troops from India. They would send 35,000 troops from three different places, with their goal being to take the Khyber Pass, Jalalabad, and Kandahar.
The Emir at the time asked for support from the Russians, having been promised 30,000 troops if invaded. General Kaufman refused the request as it was mid-winter, and there was no way they would risk sending in their army in those conditions. The Emir then decided to go to St. Petersburg in person, and when that was rejected when he got to the Russian border, the Emir Sher Ali felt totally abandoned. According to Hopkirk, "His spirit and health broken, and refusing all food and medicine, he died at Balkh in February 1879.” His son, Yakub Khan, replaced him, which gave the British the idea that they now had an ally, as Yakub opposed his father’s relationship with the Russians. There was only one problem, few, if any, of the tribal chiefs supported him.
Still, the British made Yakub Khan an offer of peace with extremely harsh terms. They would be allowed to leave a permanent mission at Kabul, ceding areas near the Indian border such as the Khyber Pass, and, worst of all, giving foreign policy decisions to the British. All this in return for protection against the Russians and Persians. They added an annual subsidy of 60,000 pounds as well. This would be known as the Treaty of Gandamak. In an absolutely arrogant act, Yakub Khan and his commander-in-chief signed the treaty wearing full Russian uniforms. It can also be said that the majority of Afghan citizens were furious with the treaty.
The first emissary sent to Kabul was Sir Louis Cavagnari. Along with his entourage, Cavagnari sent a message back to Calcutta on September 2, 1879, that he was in Kabul and "All Was Well." It would be the last message they would receive from Cavagnari. Due to the massacre of almost all of the British officers sent to Kabul, a punitive force was assembled.
Under the Treaty of Gandamak, the cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar were abandoned by the British, but in the wake of the murders in Kabul, they were seized yet again. Kabul was captured with Yakub Khan abdicating his position of power. He would be sent into exile in India with his family. Hundreds of people would be hanged for their roles in the massacre, with many innocents being killed as well. It would bring international condemnation and would enrage the local people into a deep-seated hatred of the British.
The Afghans had mustered an estimated 60,000 troops to face the 6,500 British soldiers. Even with the vast superiority in numbers, the British held a massive superiority in weaponry. On December 23, 1879, the Afghani forces attacked. By the next afternoon, they would suffer 3,000 deaths to only five for the British. While this seemed like a decisive win for the British, they had a problem; Afghanistan had no ruler.
In a strange twist within the Great Game, a Russian-supported grandson of Dost Mohammed, who happened to be a nephew of Sher Ali, Abdur Rahman, appeared. Having spent the past twelve years in exile in Samarkand under the protection of General Kaufman, he was the closest thing to a pro-Russian leader in Afghanistan. In 1880, he returned to his country armed with Russian rifles. While the British were initially alarmed, they began to understand that Rahman was neither pro-Russian nor anti-British; he was, as Hopkirk puts it, "pro-Afghan."
Negotiations between the British and Rahman began, and on July 22, 1880, he was publicly proclaimed Emir of Afghanistan. Rahman had to walk a tightrope if he were to remain in power. He couldn't be seen as too friendly to the British, who were seen as an occupying force. Leaning towards the Russians would probably mean that the British would be forced to stay.
As Rahman would write years after the war, “I was unable to show my friendship publicly, because my people were ignorant and fanatical. If I showed any inclination towards the English, my people would call me an infidel for joining hands with infidels.” The British would hand Kabul to Rahman for two reasons. The first was because they felt comfortable with the new Emir as a counterbalance to the Russians and because the Tories under Disraeli were defeated in the election by the Liberals under Gladstone. Gladstone, for his part, thought that the Russian threat was way overblown.
Then, a shock hit Kabul. Ayub Khan, Rahman's cousin, made armed plans to wrest the Emirship away. Ayub's army won a decisive victory over a small British garrison and headed off to take Kandahar. Things looked bleak for the English until word came that General Sir Fredrick Roberts was on his way with 10,000 men. Ayub panicked and tried to flee, but Roberts was able to engage and defeat his forces.
Things were finally starting to look like the Russians were abandoning their extensive expansion plans. They sold Alaska to the Americans, settled their border with Persia, and the Russian Tsar Alexander II personally assured them that their moves in Central Asia would be halted permanently. This promise would not last long, as Alexander was assassinated on March 13, 1881.
There seemed to be a lull in relations between Russia and Great Britain after the shock of the Tsar's murder. Alexander III would take control, and things would get really heated. An incident in a little-known town, an oasis known as Pandjeh, would ignite things.
Known to history as the Pandjeh Incident, it is known in Russia as the Battle of Kushka. It occurred on March 30, 1885, in what is now known as Turkmenistan. The Russians were in the midst of building the Trans-Caspian Railway, which greatly concerned the British as it would allow their enemy to transport troops quickly to the Afghanistan border and then threaten British India.
The Russians captured Ak Tepe on March 30, a fortification protecting Pandjeh by Afghan forces. There was a reported loss of 900 Afghans and 11 Russians in the battle. The British, hearing of this on April 7, prepared for war. Alexander III of Russia, fearing a conflict that he could not win, suggested arbitration and negotiations, which the British accepted. The world had expected hostilities to break out, but thankfully, for all sides, this was averted. The Afghan Emir was most relieved as he certainly did not want these two powers fighting inside his country.
Several other flashpoints would happen over the years, but nothing serious would happen. After Alexander III’s death on November 1, 1894, his son Nicholas II would halt any further expansion towards Afghanistan or India. In September 1895, Russia and Great Britain signed the Pamir Boundary Commission protocols, which defined the border between Afghanistan and the Russian Empire. In August 1907, the Anglo-Russian Convention created an alliance between Britain and Russia, further defining borders in the Central Asian region. Thus ended the Great Game.
Well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Join me next time when we look at what made Vladimir Lenin the person he was to become.
So, until next time, Dasvidania eh Spasiba za Vinyamineya.