From the British point of view, there was real concern about Russia’s intentions and capabilities and about the threat that its expansion in Central Asia posed to the defences of India. Talk in London turned to military confrontation with Russia, with Disraeli advising the Queen to be ready to authorise British troops to be sent ‘to the Persian Gulf, and [that] the Empress of India should order her armies to clear Central Asia of the Muscovites and drive them into the Caspian.’12 So nervy were the authorities that the viceroy, Lord Lytton, ordered not one but two invasions of Afghanistan in 1878–80, installing a puppet ruler on the throne in Kabul. Persia was assiduously courted and persuaded to sign the Herat Convention in which it committed to protect Central Asia against Russian advance. This was no easy task, as Persia had its own interests in this region and was nursing bruises following the recent and unhelpful British intervention that had favoured Afghanistan at its expense.12 In the meantime, steps were taken to build up contacts beyond Kandahar in order to have better early-warning systems for any Russian initiative, military or otherwise.13
Considerable energy was expended by senior officers in assessing how to deal with a possible Russian invasion of the Raj. From the late 1870s, a series of reports were prepared that looked at the question from a broad strategic perspective: it was recognised that disagreements and tensions with Russia in other theatres could and probably would have an impact in the east. One memorandum looked at ‘the measures which should be adopted in India in the event of England joining Turkey in the War against Russia’ – following the Russian invasion of the Balkans in 1877. Another, written in 1883, asked, ‘Is an invasion of India by Russia Possible?’, and another not long after that, ‘What are Russia’s Vulnerable Points and How have Recent Events Affected our Frontier Policy in India?’ A sign of how seriously these were taken is clear from the appointment of their author, the hawkish General Sir Frederick (later Lord) Roberts, as commander-in-chief of India in 1885.14
Not everyone shared this bleak view of the situation in Asia, even after a set of invasion plans prepared by General Alexei Kuropatkin had been acquired by the British in 1886.15 Henry Brackenbury, director of military intelligence, felt that the Russian threat was being exaggerated, in terms of Russia’s willingness to attack and in terms of the readiness of the Tsar’s army to do so.16 George Curzon, then a promising young MP and prize fellow of All Souls, but within a decade viceroy of India, was even more dismissive. He saw no master plan or grand strategy behind Russia’s interests in the east. Far from being ‘consistent or remorseless or profound’, he wrote in 1889, ‘I believe it to be a hand-to-mouth policy, a policy of waiting upon events, of profiting by the blunders of others, and as often of committing such herself.’17
It was certainly true that there was much bluster and wishful thinking in Russian attitudes to the big picture in Central Asia, and regarding India in particular. There were hotheads within the military who talked of grandiose schemes of replacing Britain as the dominant power in the subcontinent, while steps were also taken which seemed to suggest that Russia’s interest was far from passive: for example, officers were sent on courses to teach them Hindi, in preparation for imminent intervention in India. There was encouragement too, such as from Maharajah Duleep Singh of Punjab, who wrote to Tsar Alexander III promising to ‘deliver some 250,000,000 of my countrymen from the cruel yoke of the British rule’, and claiming to speak for ‘most of the powerful princes of India’ – seemingly an open invitation for Russia to expand its frontiers further south.18
In practice, however, things were not quite so simple. For one thing, Russia was already struggling with the thorny issue of how to incorporate the vast new regions that had recently been brought within the imperial orbit. Officials sent to Turkestan grappled with land registries that were complex and often contradictory, and their attempts to streamline local taxes and laws met with inevitable opposition.19 Then there were the gloomy realities engendered by public opinion, which gave rise to what the Council of Ministers in St Petersburg called the ‘fanatical mood on our eastern borderlands’ resulting from the influence of Islam in almost every aspect of the day-to-day life of the ‘new Russians’ who were now part of the Tsar’s empire.20 The worry about insurrection and rebellion in these freshly added territories was so great that mandatory military service was waived in these regions, and financial demands were kept deliberately low. Russian peasants, as one leading intellectual noted acidly, did not enjoy such generous treatment.21
Complications also arose from views about the local populations. Russian critics drew attention to Britain’s deeply prejudiced attitudes, observing that British soldiers treated traders in the bazaars in Tashkent ‘as something nearer animals than men’; on one occasion, the wife of a British captain apparently refused to let the Maharajah of Kashmir escort her into dinner, claiming he was a ‘dirty Hindu’. For all their criticisms, however, Russian attitudes were no more enlightened: tsarist officers may have complained to each other about how the British treated the locals, but there was little evidence to show that they truly saw things differently. ‘All Hindus without exception’, wrote one nineteenth-century Russian visitor to India, ‘devote all their skill and all their soul to the most horrible usury. Woe betide the unhappy native who is seduced by their deceitful promises!’22
Nevertheless there was a frisson of excitement about the new worlds Russia was coming into contact with, as the Minister of the Interior, Pyotr Valuev, articulated in his diary in 1865. ‘Tashkent has been taken by General Cherniaev,’ he wrote. ‘Nobody knows why or for what purpose . . . [but] there is something erotic in all that we are doing on the far frontiers of our empire.’ The extension of the borders was marvellous, he wrote. First Russia reached the River Amur, then the Ussuri. And now Tashkent.23
And yet, despite the teething problems, Russia’s influence and involvement in the east continued to expand at accelerating speed as it developed its own Silk Roads. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the connection with the Chinese Eastern Railway, led to an immediate boom in trade, with volumes nearly trebling between 1895 and 1914.24 This was supported by new entities like the Russo-Chinese Bank, set up to finance economic expansion in the Far East.25 As the Russian Prime Minister, Pyotr Stolypin, told the Duma, the Russian parliament, in 1908, Russia’s east was a region pregnant with prospects and resources. ‘Our distant and inhospitable frontier territory is rich in gold, wood, furs and immense spaces suitable for agriculture.’ Although sparsely populated now, he warned, these spaces would not remain empty for long. Russia needed to seize the opportunities currently open to it.26
This was hardly reassuring from Britain’s point of view, given how jealously its position in the Far East had been guarded. Opening up markets in China in particular had proved difficult. In 1793, for example, the first British mission had been dealt with loftily by the Qianlong court after asking for the right to establish a trading community. China’s connections penetrated deep into ‘every country under Heaven’. As such, the British request was hardly unexpected, noted a letter from the Emperor that was brought back to King George III. ‘As your Ambassador can see for himself,’ the author went on dismissively, ‘we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures.’27
In fact, this was bluster – for in due course terms were agreed. The aggressive response was rather based on the acute awareness that Britain’s tentacles were extending ever further, and that attack was the best form of defence.28 As it happened, initial Chinese suspicions were not far off the mark, for once trading privileges were given, Britain had little hesitation in using force to preserve and extend its position. Central to the commercial expansion was the sale of opium, despite fierce protests by the Chinese, whose outrage at the devastating effects of drug addiction was shrugged off by the British authorities.29 The opium trade had expanded in a major way following the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, which opened up acces
s to ports where the trade had been restricted previously, while also ceding Hong Kong to the British; further concessions were granted after British and French forces marched on Beijing in 1860, looting and burning the Old Summer Palace.30
Some saw this as a seminal moment that marked yet another chapter in the triumph of the west. ‘Thus it has been the destiny of England’, ran one report in the British press, ‘to break down a government fabric which has so long mystified the European world, and to uncover to its own subjects its hollowness and its evils.’ Another commentator was equally blunt. The ‘mysterious and exclusive barbarism’ of the Chinese Empire, he wrote, had been dismantled by ‘the force of active and intrusive Western Civilisation’.31
As Britain sought to counter the continuing emergence of Russia in the Far East, the decision was taken in 1885 to occupy the islands of Komondo off the southern coast of the Korean peninsula – ‘as a base’, the Cabinet was told, ‘for the blockade of the Russian force in the Pacific’ and also ‘as an advanced station to support operations against Vladivostock’.32 This was a move aimed at protecting Britain’s strategic position, and above all its trade with China – if necessary with a pre-emptive strike. In 1894, before the railways had opened up new possibilities, more than 80 per cent of all customs revenue collected in China was paid by Britain and by British companies – whose ships also carried more than four-fifths of China’s total trade. It was obvious that Russia’s rise, and that of the new land routes that would bring produce to Europe, would come at Britain’s expense.
* * *
It was in this context of increasing rivalry and tension that it became known at the end of the 1890s that Russia had begun to take steps to woo Persia. This raised the prospect of an alliance that might pose a threat to the north-western approach to India. In London, it had previously been conceded, albeit after much deliberation, that pressure on the subcontinent from Russia via Afghanistan through the Hindu Kush was likely to be limited. For strategists armed with pencils and maps, plotting a route from Central Asia through this geographically challenging region looked easy; but it was recognised that, while a surprise small-scale assault could not be discounted, the reality was that the terrain minimised a major military effort through mountain passes that were well known for being treacherous and extremely difficult to penetrate.
The approach through Persia was another matter. Russia had become increasingly active on its southern flank, occupying Merv in 1884 in a move that caught British officials and agents by surprise – they first learnt about it from newspaper reports – and wooing the leadership in Teheran. With Russia’s frontier now less than 200 miles from Herat, the road to Kandahar and therefore India was wide open. More worrying still was that the expansion had been followed up with infrastructure projects to connect new regions to the Russian heartlands. In 1880, construction started on the Trans-Caspian Railway, with a line soon connecting through to Samarkand and Tashkent, and by 1899 a spur connected Merv to Kushk, within striking distance of Herat.33 These railway lines were not just symbolic: they were arteries that would allow provisions, weapons and soldiers to be delivered to the British Empire’s back door. As Field Marshal Lord Roberts emphasised to the officers of the Eastern Command not long afterwards, it was regrettable that the railways had been extended so far. Now, however, a line had been established ‘over which Russia could not be allowed to cross’. If it did, he stated, it would be ‘considered a casus belli’ – that is, grounds for war.34
The railway lines also represented an economic threat. In 1900, the British embassy in St Petersburg forwarded to London a summary of a pamphlet that had been written by a Russian officer advocating the extension of track into Persia and Afghanistan. It was likely, the officer admitted, that the British would not react well to the new transport system, but this was no surprise: after all, a railway connection that spanned Asia would ‘place the whole trade of India and Eastern Asia with Russia, and Europe in [Russian] hands’.35 This was something of an exaggeration, as one senior diplomat observed in reply to this report. ‘The strategical considerations put forward by the author are of no great value,’ wrote Charles Hardinge, because it would be madness for Russia to make a move on this region given Britain’s control of the Persian Gulf.36
Nevertheless, at a time when British anxieties were already heightened, such murmurs about Russia’s commercial reach extending in this direction provided yet another cause for concern. As it was, phantoms and plots were being seen at every corner, and dutifully recorded by anxious British diplomats. Awkward questions were asked about why the presence of a certain Dr Paschooski in Bushihr had not been spotted more quickly, together with updates on whether his claims to be treating plague victims were really true; the visit of a Russian nobleman, identified as ‘Prince Dabija’, was likewise viewed with extreme suspicion, and the fact that he seemed to be ‘very reticent about his movements and intentions’ duly noted and passed on.37 In London, Russia moved to the top of the agenda of Cabinet meetings, drew the attention of the Prime Minister himself and became one of the Foreign Office’s top priorities.
In the short term, Persia was the arena where competition was most intense. The rulers of Persia had grown fat on generous soft loans provided by those seeking to build good relations with a nation that was blessed with an enviable strategic location as the fulcrum between east and west. Britain had carefully satisfied the prodigal whims and financial appetites of Persia’s rulers in the late nineteenth century until, in 1898, the extravagantly moustachioed Shah, Moẓaffar od-Dīn, dropped a bombshell, rejecting a proposed new loan of £2 million. A high-ranking official was immediately dispatched to find out more, but was stonewalled. Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, followed the situation personally, issuing instructions to the Treasury to soften the conditions and increase the quantum of the proposed facility. Rumours about what was going on behind the scenes began to circulate: finally, it emerged that Russia was offering to lend a much higher amount than Britain was willing to lend, and on much better terms.38
This was smart manoeuvring by St Petersburg. Tax revenues in Russia were rising sharply while foreign investment was also beginning to flood in from outside. Slowly but surely, a middle class was starting to emerge – men like Lopakhin in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, who a generation earlier would have been tied to the land, were taking advantage of social change, new domestic markets and new export opportunities to make fortunes for themselves. Economic historians like to highlight growth by noting sharp rises in urbanisation, in pig-iron production and in the amount of new railway track being laid down. But one need look only as far as the literature, art, dance and music of this period, the blossoming of Tolstoy, Kandinskii, Diaghilev, Tchaikovskii and many many others, to get a sense of what was happening: culturally and economically, Russia was booming.
Increasingly buoyant, it was inevitable that Russia would make overtures to Persia by feeding its insatiable hunger for cash, which stemmed in part from the structural inefficiencies of the administration and in part from the expensive tastes of its ruling classes. After Sir Mortimer Durand, the British minister in Teheran, had reported back with information gathered from Austrian sources in Constantinople in early 1900 that revealed that the Tsar’s government was willing to lend money and effectively outbid Britain, all hell broke loose in London.39 Committees were set up to look at extending the railway from Quetta to Sistan and to build a network of telegraph lines – ‘to save southern Persia’, as Lord Curzon wrote, ‘from falling into [Russia’s] grasp’.40
Radical proposals were suggested to counter Russia’s perceived advance, including undertaking major irrigation works in the Sistan region as a way of cultivating the land and building ties locally. There was even talk of the British seeking a lease of land in Helmand province, so that routes through to India could be protected effectively.41 By now it was thought to be a question of when, and not if, Russia would attack. As Lord Curzon put it in 1901, ‘we wanted buffer states be
tween ourselves and Russia’. One by one, each of these had been ‘crushed out of existence’. China, Turkestan, Afghanistan and now Persia had been lifted off the board. The buffer, he added, has been ‘reduced to the thinness of a wafer’.42
Lord Salisbury was desperate, urging his Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, to find a way to lend money to Persia. ‘The situation seems . . . hopeless,’ the Prime Minister wrote in October 1901. The Treasury was reluctant to improve its offer, alarmed by how quickly the Shah and his entourage worked their way through substantial sums. Options were running out. ‘If the money is not found,’ the Prime Minister wrote, ‘Russia will establish a practical protectorate [in Persia] and we can only by force save the Gulf Ports from falling into it.’43
Fear of just that happening had surfaced the previous year when it was reported that Russia was preparing to take control of the port of Bandar Abbas, a strategically vital location controlling the Straits of Hormuz – the narrowest point in the Persian Gulf. As one alarmed peer told the House of Lords, ‘the presence of a naval arsenal in the Persian Gulf in the hands of a great Power would be a menace not only to our trade with India and China, but also to that of Australasia’.44 As British warships were ordered to take counter-measures in the event of any move by the Russians, Lord Lansdowne was adamant: ‘We should regard the establishment of a naval base, or of a fortified port, in the Persian Gulf by any other Power as a very grave menace to British interests.’ The consequences, he said, would be serious. He meant war.45
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