Having served his purpose, General Cherniaev, whose impulsiveness and ambition were viewed in St Petersburg as a liability, was recalled, and General Konstantin Kaufman, a veteran of the Caucasus war and a personal friend of Milyutin’s, was appointed the first Governor-General of Turkestan. A soldier of exceptional ability and vision, he was given extraordinary powers by Tsar Alexander. Eventually he was destined to become the uncrowned king of Central Asia, and principal architect of Russia’s empire there. To the dismay of the hawks in London and Calcutta, the British government’s reaction to all this, beyond its initial protest, was surprisingly muted. So, too, was that of most of the press and public. ‘To those who remember the Russophobia of 1838–39,’ wrote Sir Henry Rawlinson, that veteran of the earlier phase of the Great Game, ‘the indifference of the English public to the events now passing in Central Asia must appear one of the strangest instances in modern history.’ The truth was that the Russophobes had cried wolf too often to expect much support this time. The spectre of the Cossacks pouring down through the passes into British India, raised on and off for nearly half a century, had so far not materialised. And yet, as Rawlinson pointed out in a long, anonymous article in the Quarterly Review of July 1865, the relative positions of Britain and Russia in Asia had changed considerably since the days of Wilson, Kinneir, de Lacy Evans and McNeill.
‘We have, in the first place, greatly advanced our own frontier,’ he wrote, referring to the annexation of Sind and the Punjab. British India had also extended its political influence northwards into Kashmir. At the same time the Russians had consolidated their position in the Caucasus, after crushing Imam Shamyl, thereby freeing large numbers of troops for deployment elsewhere, and had also begun to make forward moves in Turkestan. In addition to this, Rawlinson observed, the Russians had much improved their communications with Central Asia. A railway now ran all the way from St Petersburg to Nijni-Novogorod (present-day Gorky) on the Volga, while plying the latter, all the way down to the Caspian Sea, were 300 steamships. In time of war these, plus a further 50 vessels on the Caspian itself, could be used to transport men and supplies eastwards towards Afghanistan and India.
Rawlinson, who had retired from Indian government service to enter Parliament as a Conservative MP, next considered the reasons for the public’s apathy. One, obviously, was the memory of the Afghan disaster, and a determination not to let such a thing happen again. Another was a widespread conviction that nothing could prevent the Russian advance and their eventual annexation of Khiva, Bokhara and Khokand. Any attempt by Britain to stop this would merely make them move faster, it was argued. Some doves reasoned that it would be better to have the Russians as neighbours than wild tribesmen, upon whom no reliance could be placed. A settled Central Asia ruled by St Petersburg would bring prosperity to the region, and open up new markets there for British goods. Rawlinson, needless to say, shared none of these views.
Ranged against him and his fellow hawks was the new Whig Cabinet, under Lord Russell, vigorously supported by the Viceroy, Sir John Lawrence, himself an old frontier hand of considerable distinction, and a former Governor of the Punjab. Lawrence was convinced that if the Russians tried to attack India through Afghanistan their troops would suffer the same fate at the hands of the fanatical tribes as the British had in the dreadful winter of 1842. He dismissed as highly improbable the fear that St Petersburg might persuade the Afghans to allow Russian troops to march across their country, or even to join forces with them, in order to attack India. The best way to restrain Russia, he argued, was by means of tough diplomacy from London. The Russian Achilles’ heel, if it came to it, lay within easier reach of London than of Calcutta. Were Tsar Alexander ever to show signs of launching an attack on India through Central Asia or Persia then the immediate dispatch of a British battle fleet to the Baltic would force him to think again. Even so, it was not long before those responsible for India’s defence, including Lawrence himself, began to feel distinctly uneasy.
Looking back now, it is obvious that from the moment General Kaufman took up his new post as Governor-General of Turkestan the days of the independent khanates of Central Asia were numbered. Despite all Gorchakov’s assurances it is clear that their absorption, in one form or another, into the Russian Empire was his principal aim. As we have already seen, there were three main reasons for this. Foremost was the fear of the British getting there first and monopolising the region’s trade. Russian merchants and manufacturers had long had their eyes on the untapped markets and resources of Central Asia, especially its raw cotton. Then there was the question of imperial pride. Blocked in Europe and the Near East, the Russians sought to work off their frustration by demonstrating their military prowess through colonial conquest in Asia. After all, it was no more than the other European powers were doing, or had already done, almost everywhere else in the world. Finally there was the strategic factor. Just as the Baltic was Russia’s Achilles’ heel in the event of trouble with Britain, it had long been obvious that the latter’s most vulnerable point was India. Therefore to have bases in Central Asia from which its frontiers could be threatened greatly increased Russia’s bargaining power.
This is not to say that from now on every Russian move in Central Asia was part of a grand design carefully thought out in St Petersburg, as Khalfin, the Soviet historian, rather suggests. Indeed, there had been considerable disagreement earlier among the Tsar’s ministers and advisers over the wisdom of retaining Tashkent. Those on the spot, notably General Kaufman, had no such doubts, however. For they could see that possession of Tashkent was the key to the conquest of Central Asia. Its occupation by Russian troops effectively drove a wedge between the two territories of Bokhara and Khokand, enabling them to be dealt with in turn. Following his loss of Tashkent to Cherniaev, and the failure of the British to come to his assistance, the Khan of Khokand had concluded a treaty with the Russians which secured Kaufman’s rear and enabled him to concentrate on Bokhara. Nor did he have to wait very long for an excuse to move against the Emir. For in April 1868 word reached Tashkent that Bokharan forces were massing at Samarkand, then lying within the Emir’s domains, with the aim of driving the Russians out of Turkestan.
Kaufman immediately set out for Samarkand with a force of only 3,500 men, all that could be spared. He met with little resistance, however, for the Bokharan troops, whose commanders were divided among themselves, fell back at his approach. The following morning a deputation from the city came to Kaufman saying that the troops had all left and that they wished to surrender. Thus, on May 2, 1868, Samarkand was absorbed into the Russian Empire, at a cost of two lives and thirty-one wounded. To the Russians its fall had a special significance. For it was from here, nearly 500 years earlier, that the great Mongol commander Tamerlane had launched his fateful attack on Muscovy. The capture of this legendary city, with its dazzling architectural splendours, including the tomb of Tamerlane himself, was seen as the settling of an ancient score. Nor was the significance of its surrender lost on the people of Central Asia, on whom it was to have a crushing psychological effect, adding to the growing Russian reputation for invincibility.
Leaving behind him a small garrison to occupy Samarkand, Kaufman now set off in pursuit of the main Bokharan force, catching up with it at a spot 100 miles short of the Emir’s capital. Despite the great disparity in numbers, Kaufman’s superior tactics and seasoned troops won the day, putting the Bokharans to flight. But he was unable to pursue them further, for a second Bokharan force, which had managed to escape his notice, had attacked the Russian troops left to hold Samarkand. At the same time many of the townspeople joined the attackers, having surrendered merely to save their city from destruction. The plight of the Russians, who had withdrawn to the citadel, was becoming more desperate by the hour. Finally, rather than surrender, they decided to blow up the magazines – and themselves. But prompt action by Kaufman saved them. Racing back to Samarkand, he drove the attackers off, but not before 50 of the defenders had been killed and n
early 200 wounded.
Thrice defeated, and fearing for his capital, the Emir had little choice but to accept Kaufman’s harsh surrender terms. These reduced him to a mere vassal of the Tsar’s, and made his once-powerful kingdom a Russian protectorate. In addition Russian merchants were guaranteed free passage through his domains, and allowed to appoint local agents there. Russian goods, moreover, would be taxed at a favourable rate, thereby giving them an advantage over imports from India. Force had achieved what, ten years earlier, Ignatiev had tried and failed to obtain through negotiation – though the intelligence he returned with was now proving invaluable to Kaufman. Finally, in addition to paying a large indemnity, the Emir was obliged to surrender to the Russians the crucial Zarafshan valley, which controlled Bokhara’s water supply, thereby giving them a permanent stranglehold on the capital. In return, so long as he abided by the terms of the treaty, the Emir was allowed to retain his throne. The Russians also gave vague assurances that once stability had been restored to the region they would return Samarkand to the Emir. But this, like their earlier undertaking over Tashkent, they never did, and the respective situations of the two cities were to remain unchanged until the Bolsheviks came to power, when Bokhara was ‘liberated’ and fully incorporated into the USSR.
Only the Khan of Khiva, in his remote desert fastness, continued to defy the might of the Tsar. Kaufman in Tashkent, and Ignatiev in St Petersburg, realised that if they were to absorb Khiva into Russia’s new Central Asian empire they must greatly improve their lines of communication in the region. Troops could only reach Turkestan after a long and arduous march from Orenburg, while Khiva, as previous expeditions had shown, was even more difficult of access. What was needed was a direct route from European Russia, along which troops and supplies could be moved, as well as better communications within Turkestan to tighten Russia’s grip on it. The most obvious way to link Central Asia to European Russia was by building a port on the eastern shore of the Caspian. Men and supplies could then be shipped down the Volga and across the Caspian to this point. They could also be ferried there from the Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. Eventually, when Khiva had been conquered and the troublesome Turcomans pacified, a railway could be constructed across the desert to Bokhara, Samarkand, Tashkent and Khokand.
So it was that, in the winter of 1869, just eighteen months after the submission of Bokhara, a small Russian force set sail from Petrovsk, on the Caucasian side of the Caspian, and a few days later landed in a desolate bay on its eastern shore. The spot was known as Krasnovodsk, and it was here that the Oxus was said to have once flowed into the Caspian. The whole operation was highly secret, for the Russians’ task was to construct a permanent fortress there, and St Petersburg did not wish the British to learn of the move until it was complete. For this reason the officer in command had strict instructions to avoid clashing with the Turcomans, lest the British come to hear of this through the native spies they were known to have among the tribes of the region. Despite this, it was not long before news of what was going on at Krasnovodsk reached British ears. It was to cause considerable alarm in both London and Calcutta.
Until now, still pursuing its policy of masterly inactivity, the British government had done no more than protest to St Petersburg over its recent forward moves in Central Asia, pointing out that they ran contrary to its own official pronouncements. London was uneasily aware, moreover, that what the Russians had done in Central Asia differed little from what Britain had already done when adding Sind and the Punjab to its Indian possessions, and had tried but failed to do in Afghanistan when it placed Shah Shujah on the throne. To protest too vociferously would be to invite charges of hypocrisy. However, the construction of a Russian fortress on the eastern shore of the Caspian, and the garrisoning of troops there, was altogether more disturbing, for it was seen as posing a threat to Afghanistan. Not only would it enable the Russians to launch an expedition against Khiva, thereby adding it to their domains and dependencies in Central Asia, but it would also bring them within striking distance of Herat, strategic key to India.
For some time the forward school, with Sir Henry Rawlinson as its principal spokesman, had been urging the British government to abandon its policy of masterly inactivity. Rawlinson had even proposed that Afghanistan should be made a ‘quasi-protectorate’ of Britain’s so as to keep it out of Russia’s grasp. Some of those who had previously supported the government’s passive policies now began to question their realism. Even the Viceroy, Sir John Lawrence, began to have second thoughts. The Russians, he advised, should be warned not to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan or any other state sharing a frontier with India. It should be made clear to St Petersburg, moreover, that ‘an advance towards India, beyond a certain point, would entail her in war, in all parts of the world, with England’. Lawrence proposed that Central Asia should be divided into British and Russian spheres of influence, the details of which should be worked out between the two governments.
The opportunity for some plain talking with the Russians arose shortly afterwards when Lord Clarendon, the British Foreign Secretary, met his opposite number, Prince Gorchakov, at Heidelberg. Clarendon enquired bluntly, of Gorchakov whether Russia’s recent Asiatic conquests, which went so far beyond what he himself had spelt out in his celebrated memorandum, had been ordered by Tsar Alexander, or were the result of commanders on the spot exceeding their instructions. It was an embarrassing question, and it required an answer. Gorchakov chose to blame the soldiers, explaining that they thereby hoped to win distinction for themselves. Even now, though, the British were probably no nearer the truth than before, or than scholars are to this day. At the same time Gorchakov assured Clarendon that his government had no intention of advancing any further into Central Asia, and certainly harboured no designs on India.
The British had by now become used to such assurances and promises, and to seeing them broken. Pursuing Lawrence’s expedient of trying to put a fixed limit on further Russian advances, Clarendon therefore proposed to Gorchakov that their two governments should establish, not so much spheres of influence in Asia, but a permanent neutral zone between their two expanding empires there. The Russian immediately suggested that Afghanistan would serve this purpose, his own government having no interest of any kind in it. The latter, if it could be believed, was welcome news to the British, and Clarendon assured Gorchakov that his government had no territorial ambitions there either. For a time the prospects for such an agreement looked quite promising, and discussions and correspondence continued between London and St Petersburg. In the end, however, they were to grind to a halt over the question of where precisely Afghanistan’s remote and unmapped northern frontier ran, especially in the almost totally unexplored Pamir region. For it was here that the most advanced Russian military posts lay closest to British India.
Hitherto, British strategists had always worked on the assumption that the Khyber and Bolan passes were the most likely entry points for a Russian invasion of India. But now they were awakening to the uncomfortable realisation that further to the north, in a region that they knew virtually nothing about, there were other passes through which the Cossacks might one day pour down into India. For this unwelcome piece of intelligence they had to thank two British explorers who, lucky to be alive still, had just returned from Chinese Turkestan after a highly adventurous journey. And if that were not enough, they also brought back with them alarming tales of Russian intrigues there. The diplomatic process might have reached an impasse, but the Great Game certainly had not.
·25·
Spies Along the Silk Road
At the time that these events took place, Chinese Turkestan was shown on both British and Russian maps as a vast white blank, with the locations of oasis towns like Kashgar and Yarkand only approximately indicated. Cut off from the rest of Central Asia by towering mountain ranges, and from China by the huge expanse of the Taklamakan desert, it was one of the least known areas on earth. Centuries earlier the flourishing Silk
Road, which linked imperial China to distant Rome, had passed through it, bringing great prosperity to its oases. But this traffic had long ago ceased, and most of the oases had been swallowed up by the desert. The region had then sunk back into virtual oblivion.
The Taklamakan desert, which dominates the region, had always enjoyed an ill reputation among travellers, and over the years a sad procession of men – merchants, soldiers and Buddhist pilgrims – had left their bones there after losing their way between the widely scattered oases. Sometimes entire caravans had been known to vanish into it without trace. It is no surprise to learn that Taklamakan, in the local Uighur tongue, means ‘Go in – and you won’t come out’. As a result very few Europeans had ever been to this remote region, for there was little to attract them to it.
Chinese Turkestan, or Sinkiang as it is today called, had long been part of the Chinese Empire. However, the central authorities’ hold over it had always been tenuous, for the Muslim population had nothing in common with their Manchu rulers and everything in common with their ethnic cousins in Bokhara, Khokand and Khiva, lying on the far side of the Pamirs. As a result, in the early 1860s, a violent revolt had broken out among the Muslims against their overlords. Chinese cities were burned to the ground and their inhabitants massacred. The insurrection, which had begun in the east, spread quickly westwards until the whole of Turkestan was up in arms. It was at that moment that a remarkable Muslim adventurer named Yakub Beg, claiming direct descent from Tamerlane, arrived on the scene. Veteran of a number of engagements against the Russians, in which he had acquitted himself with courage and distinction (having five bullet wounds to show for it), he was now in the service of Kashgar’s former Muslim ruler, then living in exile in Khokand. It was the latter’s hope to drive out the infidel Chinese and reclaim his throne.
The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia Page 35