The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia

by Peter Hopkirk

  However, if Moorcroft was written off by his superiors during his lifetime, only death saving him from the humiliation of official censure, then he was to be more than compensated for this afterwards. Today he is honoured by geographers for his immense contribution to the exploration of the region during his endless quest for horses, and regarded by many as the father of Himalayan discovery. No one cares about his failure to find those horses, or to open up Bokhara to British merchandise, even if these meant so much to Moorcroft himself. But it is in the realm of geopolitics that his real vindication, so far as we are concerned, lies. For it was not so long after his death that his repeated but unheeded warnings about Russian ambitions in Central Asia began to come true. These, together with his remarkable travels through Great Game country, were soon to make him the idol of the young British officers who were destined to follow in his footsteps.

  Perhaps Moorcroft’s final vindication lies in the location of his lonely grave, last seen in 1832 by Alexander Burnes, a fellow countryman and player of the game, who was also on his way northwards to Bokhara. With some difficulty he found it by moonlight, unmarked and half covered by a mud wall, outside the town of Balkh. For his wearied companions, as infidels, had not been allowed to bury him within its limits. Moorcroft thus lies not far from the spot where, more than a century and a half later, Soviet troops and armour poured southwards across the River Oxus into Afghanistan. He could have asked for no finer epitaph.

  ·9·

  The Barometer Falls

  The truce in the Caucasus between Russia and Persia, which had halted the Cossacks’ advance and turned St Petersburg’s covetous gaze towards Central Asia, was not to last long. Both Tsar and Shah had looked upon the Treaty of Gulistan, which the British had negotiated between them in 1813, as no more than a temporary expedient which would allow them to strengthen their forces prior to the next round. It was the Shah’s aim to win back his lost territories, ceded under the treaty to the Russian victors, while St Petersburg intended, when the moment was right, to extend and consolidate its southern frontier with Persia. Within a year of Moorcroft’s death the two neighbours were at war again, to the dismay of the British who had no wish to see Persia overrun by the Russians.

  The immediate cause of hostilities this time was a dispute over the wording of the treaty, which failed to make it clear to whom one particular region, lying between Erivan and Lake Sevan, belonged. Talks were held between General Yermolov, the Russian Governor-General of the Caucasus, and Abbas Mirza, the Persian Crown Prince, to try to resolve this. But these broke down, and in November 1825 Yermolov’s troops occupied the disputed territory. The Persians demanded their withdrawal, but Yermolov refused. The Shah was incensed, as were his subjects, and recruits for a holy war against the infidel Russians flocked to Abbas Mirza’s standard from all parts of the country.

  The Persians were aware that the Russians were not yet ready for a war. Not only was St Petersburg embroiled on the side of the Greeks in their struggle for independence against the Turks, but at home, especially within the army, it was facing serious disorders following the sudden death of Tsar Alexander in December 1825. Encouraged by his own recent success against the Turks, Abbas Mirza decided to strike the Russians while they were off their guard. Suddenly and without warning a 30,000-strong Persian force crossed the Russian frontier, carrying all before it. An entire Russian regiment was captured, as were a number of key towns once belonging to the Shah, while Persian irregulars carried out raids right up to the very gates of Tiflis, Yermolov’s Caucasian headquarters. The triumphant Persians also managed to recover the great fortress of Lenkoran, on the Caspian shore.

  For the first time in his long and brilliant career, Yermolov, known as the ‘Lion of the Caucasus’, had been taken by surprise. Mortified, St Petersburg accused London of inciting the Persians to attack, for it was no secret that there were British officers serving with Abbas Mirza’s force as advisers, and some even directing his artillery. The new Tsar, Nicholas I, immediately decided to relieve Yermolov of his command, and replace him with one of Russia’s most brilliant young generals, Count Paskievich. But if the ageing ‘Lion’ had lost the confidence of his superiors, he still retained the respect and affection of his troops, who blamed St Petersburg for the debacle. When he drove away from Tiflis, in a carriage he had to pay for himself, many of his men wept openly.

  With the help of reinforcements, Paskievich now turned the tide against the invaders. Before long Abbas Mirza suffered a succession of defeats, which culminated in the capture of Erivan, today capital of Soviet Armenia. To commemorate his victory, Nicholas appointed Paskievich ‘Count of Erivan’, a move calculated to enrage the Persians. In return, Paskievich presented Nicholas with a sword said to have been that of Tamerlane himself, which had been taken from a Persian general. The Shah now called urgently on his ally Britain for help under their recently signed defence pact. This caused considerable embarrassment in London. Militarily speaking, Britain was in no position to help, having no troops within reach of the Caucasus. Moreover, she was extremely unwilling to tangle with Russia, still officially her ally.

  The original purpose of the pact between London and Teheran had, so far as the British were concerned, been the protection of India from attack by an invader marching across Persia. Despite the warnings of Wilson and others, there seemed to be little immediate risk of this happening. Fortunately for the British, the pact contained an escape clause. Under this they were only obliged to go to the Shah’s assistance if he were attacked, and not if he were the aggressor. And legally speaking, despite much provocation and humiliation, he was the aggressor, for it was his troops which had crossed the Russian frontier, whose demarcation he had agreed to under the Treaty of Gulistan. Thus was Britain able to wriggle off the hook, for the second time in twenty-two years. But it was to do considerable harm to her reputation, not merely among the Persians, but throughout the East. For it was immediately assumed that the British were too frightened of the Russians to come to the help of their friends. Rather more worrying, the Russians were beginning to believe this too.

  Without the help they had expected from their British allies, the Persians had no choice but to sue once again for peace. Luckily for them, however, the Russians were at that moment at war with the Turks, or the surrender terms agreed in 1828 at Turkmanchi might have been harsher than they were. As it was, Tsar Nicholas added the rich provinces of Erivan and Nakitchevan permanently to his empire. The Persians, for their part, had learned a bitter lesson about great power politics, not to mention the deviousness of the British. For London, aware that the unfortunate Shah was desperate for funds, now persuaded him to waive any remaining liability on the part of Britain to come to his assistance if he was attacked, in exchange for a substantial sum of money. With that, British influence in Persia, hitherto paramount, evaporated, to be replaced by that of Russia. The Persians now found themselves a virtual protectorate of their giant northern neighbour, which had the right to station its consuls wherever it wished in the country, and whose merchants were entitled to special privileges.

  In the winter of 1828 the new Russian ambassador to the Shah’s court, Alexander Griboyedov, arrived in Teheran where he was received with much formal politeness and official ceremony, despite the hostility felt towards him and his government. A distinguished literary figure with strong liberal leanings, and one-time political secretary to Yermolov, it was Griboyedov who had negotiated the humiliating terms of the Persian surrender. Now it was his task to see that these were fully carried out, including the payment by Persia of a crippling war indemnity. To the more fanatical religious elements, his presence in their midst served as a red rag. It was unfortunate, moreover, that he arrived in Teheran in January 1829 during the holy month of Muharram, when feelings run high and the faithful slash themselves with swords and pour glowing cinders on their heads. Hatred of the infidel Russians was thus at flashpoint. It was Griboyedov himself who provided the spark.

 
Under the terms of the peace treaty it had been agreed that Armenians living in Persia might, if they so wished, return to their homeland now that it had become part of the Russian Empire, and was therefore under Christian rule. Among those who sought to take advantage of this was a eunuch employed in the Shah’s own harem, and two young girls from that of his son-in-law. All three fled to the Russian legation where they were given sanctuary by Griboyedov while arrangements were being made for their journey home. When the Shah learned of this, he immediately asked Griboyedov to return all three of them. The Russian refused, arguing that only Count Nesselrode, the Tsar’s Foreign Minister, could make exceptions to the terms of the treaty, and that the Shah’s request would have to be referred to him. It was a brave decision, for it would have been only too easy to return them for the sake of better relations, but Griboyedov knew very well the fate which would befall the three were he to hand them over.

  Word of this insult to their sovereign by the detested infidel spread quickly through the city’s population. The bazaars were closed on the orders of the mullahs and the people summoned to the mosques. There they were told to march on the Russian legation and seize the three being given asylum there. In no time a mob several thousand strong had gathered, encircling the building and screaming for Russian blood. The crowd was growing by the minute, and Griboyedov realised that the legation’s small Cossack guard could never hold it off. They were all in mortal danger, and reluctantly he decided to offer to return the Armenians. But it was too late. Moments later, urged on by the mullahs, the mob stormed the building.

  For more than an hour the Cossacks tried to hold the invaders back but, greatly outnumbered, they themselves were gradually driven back, first from the courtyard, then room by room. Among the crowd’s early victims was the eunuch, who was cornered and torn to pieces. What happened to the two girls is not known. The Russians’ last stand was made in Griboyedov’s study, where he and several Cossacks held out for some time. But the mob had by now got on to the roof where they tore off the tiles, burst through the ceiling and attacked the Russians below. Griboyedov, sword in hand to the last, was finally overwhelmed and brutally slaughtered, his body being tossed from the window into the street. There his head was hacked off by a kebab vendor, who exhibited it, to the delight of the crowd, spectacles and all, on his stall. Even more unspeakable things were done to the rest of his corpse which finally ended up on a refuse heap. It was later identified by a deformity of one of his little fingers, the result of a duel in his youth. All this time there had been no sign of any troops being sent to disperse the mob or rescue Griboyedov and his companions.

  The following June the poet Alexander Pushkin, a friend of Griboyedov’s, was travelling through the southern Caucasus when he came upon some men leading an ox-wagon. They were heading towards Tiflis. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked them. ‘Teheran,’ they replied. ‘What have you there?’ he enquired, pointing to the wagon. ‘Griboyedov,’ they told him. Today Griboyedov’s body lies in the little monastery of St David on a hillside above Tiflis, or Tbilisi as it has since been renamed. From Teheran meanwhile, fearing terrible retribution from the Russians, the Shah had hastily dispatched his grandson to St Petersburg to express his horror at what had happened, and to offer his profoundest apologies. On being received by Nicholas, the young prince is said to have held out his naked sword, the point towards himself, offering his own life in exchange for Griboyedov’s. But he was ordered to return the weapon to its scabbard, and told that it would be enough if those responsible for the murders were severely punished.

  In fact, being still at war with the Turks, Nicholas was anxious to avoid doing anything which might provoke the unpredictable and hot-tempered Persians into hasty action, least of all into joining forces with the Turks against him. As it was, some in St Petersburg suspected that agents of the hard-pressed Sultan were behind the attack on the legation, their aim being to revive the war between Russia and Persia, and so take some of the pressure off their own troops. For since the ceasefire, General Paskievich’s forces had managed to drive the Turks from their remaining positions in the southern Caucasus and had begun to advance into Turkey proper. Others in St Petersburg, on hearing of Griboyedov’s murder, at once suspected the British, still nominally their allies, of being behind it, a suspicion which still lingers among Soviet historians today.

  Just as Russia’s Caucasian adventures had caused concern in London, Paskievich’s westward advance into Turkey now began to give rise to alarm, lest Constantinople and the Turkish straits be Nicholas’s ultimate objective. By the summer of 1829 the great garrison town of Erzerum had fallen to Paskievich, leaving the road from the east all but undefended. At the same time, in the Sultan’s European territories, Russian troops were fighting their way southwards towards Constantinople through what are today Romania and Bulgaria. Two months after Erzerum’s surrender, Edirne, in European Turkey, fell to the advancing Russians. Only a few days later, Russian cavalry units were within forty miles of the capital. With the generals pressing St Petersburg to be allowed to go in for the kill, the end of the ancient Ottoman Empire seemed to be in sight at last. It was very much as Sir Robert Wilson had warned some twelve years earlier.

  Now that Constantinople was all but in his grasp, Nicholas must have been sorely tempted to let the advance go on. But wiser counsels, both in St Petersburg and among the other European powers, urged caution. If the Russians attacked the capital, foreign ambassadors there warned, a wholesale massacre might follow of the Christian minorities – the very people whose interests Nicholas professed to represent. The geopolitical consequences too were worrying. If the Ottoman Empire were to break up, with Russia occupying Constantinople and commanding the straits, a scramble would follow among the major European powers, including Britain, France and Austria, for what was left. Not only might a general European war result, but with British and French bases in the eastern Mediterranean, Russia’s southern flank would be permanently threatened. It would be altogether safer to let the Sultan keep his ramshackle empire intact, even if he were to be made to pay for the privilege.

  Therefore, to the disappointment of Paskievich and the other Russian commanders, the war was speedily brought to an end. A major confrontation between the powers was thus averted, for the British and French were already preparing to send their fleets to the straits to prevent this crucial waterway from falling into Russian hands. Within a matter of days the outline terms of the Turkish surrender had been settled, and on September 14, 1829, at Edirne, or Adrianople as it was then called, a peace treaty was signed. Under this the Russians were guaranteed free passage for their merchant ships through the straits – the next best thing to having a warm-water port on the Mediterranean – although nothing was said about warships. Russian merchants were also to have the freedom to trade in all parts of the Ottoman Empire. In addition the Sultan was obliged to concede any claims to Georgia and to his former possessions in the southern Caucasus, including two important ports on the Black Sea. The Russians, in return, handed back the garrison towns of Erzerum and Kars, together with most of the territory they had seized in European Turkey.

  Although the crisis was over, the British government, led by the Duke of Wellington, had had a fright. Not only had the Russians defeated two major Asiatic powers, Persia and Turkey, in swift succession, thereby greatly strengthening their hand in the Caucasus, but they had come perilously close to occupying Constantinople, the key to the domination of the Near East and the most direct routes to India. The Russian generals, as a result, were bursting with confidence, and the brilliant Paskievich was said to be speaking openly, if vaguely, of the coming war with Britain. The barometer of Anglo-Russian relations now began to plunge. Could it be, people asked, that the story of Peter the Great’s dying exhortation to his heirs to conquer the world might be true after all?

  One man who had long been convinced that it was true was Colonel George de Lacy Evans, a distinguished soldier who, like Sir Robert Wilson, had
turned polemicist and pamphleteer. Already he had published one controversial book, entitled On the Designs of Russia, in which he claimed that St Petersburg was planning, before very long, to attack India and other British possessions. That had appeared, however, in 1828, when there was less cause for such suspicions. But immediately after the Russian victory over the Turks, he followed this up with another, this time called On the Practicability of an Invasion of British India. Whereas his first book had attracted many hostile reviews, this one, because of its timing, was assured of a more sympathetic audience, especially in the higher realms of government.

  Quoting (often highly selectively) the evidence and opinions of both British and Russian travellers, including Pottinger, Kinneir, Muraviev and Moorcroft, Evans set out to prove the feasibility of a Russian thrust against India. St Petersburg’s immediate aim, he believed, would be not so much the conquest and occupation of India as an attempt to destabilise British rule there. If there was one thing the directors of the East India Company feared more than bankruptcy, it was trouble with the natives, who so vastly outnumbered the British in their midst. Evans next examined the possible approach routes. Although Persia was now all but in the Tsar’s pocket, he thought it unlikely that a Russian army would choose to come that way. Its flanks and lines of communication would be vulnerable to attack by British forces which could be landed at the head of the Gulf. More likely, he believed, it would follow the route envisaged by Kinneir eleven years earlier. Drawing on several Russian sources, he argued that St Petersburg could move a 30,000-strong force from the eastern shore of the Caspian to Khiva, whence it would sail up the Oxus to Balkh. From there it would march via Kabul to the Khyber Pass.