Chapter XIII: The Central Asian Question (1)

"The Germans have reached their day, the English their
mid-day, the French their afternoon, the Italians their
evening, the Spanish their night; but the Slavs stand on the
threshold of the morning."--MADAME NOVIKOFF ("O.K.")--_The
Friends and Foes of Russia_.

The years 1879-85 which witnessed the conclusion of the various questions opened up by the Treaty of Berlin and the formation of the Triple Alliance mark the end of a momentous period in European history. The quarter of a century which followed the Franco-Austrian War of 1859 in Northern Italy will always stand out as one of the most momentous epochs in State-building that the world has ever seen. Italy, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Turkey, assumed their present form. The Christians of the Balkan Peninsula made greater strides towards liberty than they had taken in the previous century. Finally, the new diplomatic grouping of the Powers helped to endow these changes with a permanence which was altogether wanting to the fitful efforts of the period 1815-59. That earlier period was one of feverish impulse and picturesque failure; the two later decades were characterised by stern organisation and prosaic success.

It generally happens to nations as to individuals that a period devoted to recovery from internal disorders is followed by a time of great productive and expansive power. The introspective epoch gives place to one of practical achievement. Faust gives up his barren speculations and feels his way from thought to action. From "In the beginning was the Word" he wins his way onward through "the Thought" and "the Might," until he rewrites the dictum "In the beginning was the Deed." That is the change which came over Germany and Europe in the years 1850-80. The age of the theorisers of the _Vor-Parlament_ at Frankfurt gave place to the age of Bismarck. The ideals of Mazzini paled in the garish noonday of the monarchical triumph at Rome.

Alas! too, the age of great achievement, that of the years 1859-85, makes way for a period characterised by satiety, torpor, and an indefinable _malaise_. Europe rests from the generous struggles of the past, and settles down uneasily into a time of veiled hostility and armed peace. Having framed their State systems and covering alliances, the nations no longer give heed to constitutions, rights of man, or duties of man; they plunge into commercialism, and search for new markets. Their attitude now is that of Ancient Pistol when he exclaims

"The world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open."

In Europe itself there is little to chronicle in the years 1885-1900, which are singularly dull in regard to political achievement. No popular movement (not even those of the distressed Cretans and Armenians) has aroused enough sympathy to bring it to the goal. The reason for this fact seems to be that the human race, like the individual, is subject to certain alternating moods which may be termed the enthusiastic and the practical; and that, during the latter phase, the material needs of life are so far exalted at the expense of the higher impulses that small struggling communities receive not a tithe of the sympathy which they would have aroused in more generous times.

The fact need not beget despair. On the contrary, it should inspire the belief that, when the fit passes away, the healthier, nobler mood will once more come; and then the world will pulsate with new life, making wholesome use of the wealth previously stored up but not assimilated. It is significant that Gervinus, writing in 1853, spoke of that epoch as showing signs of disenchantment and exhaustion in the political sphere. In reality he was but six years removed from the beginning of an age of constructive activity the like of which has never been seen.

Further, we may point out that the ebb in the tide of human affairs which set in about the year 1885 was due to specific causes operating with varied force on different peoples. First in point of time, at the close of the year 1879, came the decision of Bismarck and of the German Reichstag to abandon the cause of Free Trade in favour of a narrow commercial nationalism. Next came the murder of the Czar Alexander II. (March 1881), and the grinding down of the reformers and of all alien elements by his stern successor. Thus, the national impulse, which had helped on that of democracy in the previous generation, now lent its strength to the cause of economic, religious, and political reaction in the two greatest of European States.

In other lands that vital force frittered itself away in the frothy rhetoric of Déroulède and the futile prancings of Boulanger, in the gibberings of _Italia Irredenta_, or in the noisy obstruction of Czechs and Parnellites in the Parliaments of Vienna and London. Everything proclaimed that the national principle had spent its force and could now merely turn and wobble until it came to rest.

A curious series of events also served to discredit the party of progress in the constitutional States. Italian politics during the ascendancy of Depretis, Mancini, and Crispi became on the one side a mere scramble for power, on the other a nervous edging away from the gulf of bankruptcy ever yawning in front. France, too, was slow to habituate herself to parliamentary institutions, and her history in the years 1887 to 1893 is largely that of a succession of political scandals and screechy recriminations, from the time of the Grévy-Wilson affair to the loathsome end of the Panama Company. In the United Kingdom the wheels of progress lurched along heavily after the year 1886, when Gladstone made his sudden strategic turn towards the following of Parnell. Thus it came about that the parties of progress found themselves almost helpless or even discredited; and the young giant of Democracy suddenly stooped and shrivelled as if with premature decay.

The causes of this seeming paralysis were not merely political and dynamic: they were also ethical. The fervour of religious faith was waning under the breath of a remorseless criticism and dogmatic materialism. Already, under their influence, the teachers of the earlier age, Carlyle, Tennyson, and Browning, had lost their joyousness and spontaneity; and the characteristic thinkers of the new age were chiefly remarkable for the arid formalism with which they preached the gospel of salvation for the strong and damnation to the weak. The results of the new creed were not long in showing themselves in the political sphere. If the survival of the fittest were the last word of philosophy, where was the need to struggle on behalf of the weak and oppressed? In that case, it might be better to leave them to the following clutch of the new scientific devil; while those who had charged through to the head of the rout enjoyed themselves with utmost abandon. Such was, and is, the deduction from the new gospel (crude enough, doubtless, in many respects), which has finally petrified in the lordly egotism of Nietzche and in the unlovely outlines of one or two up-to-date Utopias.

These fashions will have their day. Meanwhile it is the duty of the historian to note that self-sacrifice and heroism have a hard struggle for life in an age which for a time exalted Herbert Spencer to the highest pinnacle of greatness, which still riots in the calculating selfishness of Nietzsche and raves about Omar Khayyám.

Seeing, then, that the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe were almost barren of great formative movements such as had ennobled the previous decades, we may well leave that over-governed, over-drilled continent weltering in its riches and discontent, its militarism and moral weakness, in order to survey events further afield which carried on the State-building process to lands as yet chaotic or ill-organised. There, at least, we may chronicle some advance, hampered though it has been by the moral languor or laxity that has warped the action of Europeans in their new spheres.

The transference of human interest from European history to that of Asia and Africa is certainly one of the distinguishing features of the years in question. The scene of great events shifts from the Rhine and the Danube to the Oxus and the Nile. The affairs of Rome, Alsace, and Bulgaria being settled for the present, the passions of great nations centre on Herat and Candahar, Alexandria and Khartum, the Cameroons, Zanzibar, and Johannesburg, Port Arthur and Korea. The United States, after recovering from the Civil War and completing their work of internal development, enter the lists as a colonising Power, and drive forth Spain from two of her historic possessions. Strife becomes keen over the islands of the Pacific. Australia seeks to lay hands on New Guinea, and the European Powers enter into hot discussions over Madagascar, the Carolines, Samoa, and many other isles.

In short, these years saw a repetition of the colonial strifes that marked the latter half of the eighteenth century. Just as Europe, after solving the questions arising out of the religious wars, betook itself to marketing in the waste lands over the seas, so too, when the impulses arising from the incoming of the principles of democracy and nationality had worn themselves out, the commercial and colonial motive again came uppermost. And, as in the eighteenth century, so too after 1880 there was at hand an economic incentive spurring on the Powers to annexation of new lands. France had recurred to protective tariffs in 1870. Germany, under Bismarck, followed suit ten years later; and all the continental Powers in turn, oppressed by armaments and girt around with hostile tariffs, turned instinctively to the unclaimed territories oversea as life-saving annexes for their own overstocked industrial centres.

* * * * *

It will be convenient to begin the recital of extra-European events by considering the expansion of Russia and Great Britain in Central Asia. There, it is true, the commercial motive is less prominent than that of political rivalry; and the foregoing remarks apply rather to the recent history of Africa than to that of Central Asia. But, as the plan of this work is to some extent chronological, it seems better to deal first with events which had their beginning further back than those which relate to the partition of Africa.

The two great colonising and conquering movements of recent times are those which have proceeded from London and Moscow as starting-points. In comparison with them the story of the enterprise of the Portuguese and Dutch has little more than the interest that clings around an almost vanished past. The halo of romance that hovers over the exploits of Spaniards in the New World has all but faded away. Even the more solid achievements of the gallant sons of France in a later age are of small account when compared with the five mighty commonwealths that bear witness to the strength of the English stock and the adaptability of its institutions, or with the portentous growth of the Russian Empire in Asia.

The methods of expansion of these two great colonial Empires are curiously different; and students of Ancient History will recall a similar contrast in the story of the expansion of the Greek and Latin races. The colonial Empire of England has been sown broadcast over the seas by adventurous sailors, the freshness and spontaneity of whose actions recall corresponding traits in the maritime life of Athens. Nursed by the sea, and filled with the love of enterprise and freedom which that element inspires, both peoples sought wider spheres for their commerce, and homes more spacious and wealthy than their narrow cradles offered; but, above all, they longed to found a microcosm of Athens or England, with as little control from the mother-land as might be.

The Russian Empire, on the other hand, somewhat resembles that of Rome in its steady, persistent extension of land boundaries by military and governmental methods. The Czars, like the Consuls and Emperors of Rome, set to work with a definite purpose, and brought to bear on the shifting, restless tribes beyond their borders the pressure of an unchanging policy and of a well-organised administration. Both States relied on discipline and civilisation to overcome animal strength and barbarism; and what they won by the sword, they kept by means of a good system of roads and by military colonies. In brief, while Ancient Greece and Modern England worked through sailors and traders, Rome and Russia worked through soldiers, road-makers, and proconsuls. The Sea Powers trusted mainly to individual initiative and civic freedom; the Land Powers founded their empires on organisation and order. The dominion of the former was sporadic and easily dissolvable; that of the latter was solid, and liable to be destroyed only by some mighty cataclysm. The contrast between them is as old and ineffaceable as that which subsists between the restless sea and the unchanging plain.

While the comparison between England and Athens is incomplete, and at some points fallacious, that between the Czars and the Cæsars is in many ways curiously close and suggestive. As soon as the Roman eagles soared beyond the mighty ring of the Alps and perched securely on the slopes of Gaul and Rhætia, the great Republic had the military advantage of holding the central position as against the mutually hostile tribes of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. Thanks to that advantage, to her organisation, and to her military colonies, she pushed forward an ever-widening girdle of empire, finally conferring the blessings of the _pax Romana_ on districts as far remote as the Tyne, the Lower Rhine and Danube, the Caucasus, and the Pillars of Hercules.

Russia also has used to the full the advantages conferred by a central position, an inflexible policy, and a military-agrarian system well adapted to the needs of the nomadic peoples on her borders. In the fifteenth century, her polity emerged victorious from the long struggle with the Golden Horde of Tartars [I keep the usual spelling, though "Tatars" is the correct form]; and, as the barbarous Mongolians lost their hold on the districts of the middle Volga, the power of the Czars began its forward march, pressing back Asiatics on the East and Poles on the West. In 1556, Ivan the Terrible seized Astrakan at the mouth of the Volga, and victoriously held Russia's natural frontiers on the East, the Ural Mountains, and the northern shore of the Caspian Sea. We shall deal in a later chapter with her conquest of Siberia, and need only note here that Muscovite pioneers reached the shores of the Northern Pacific as early as the year 1636.

Russia's conquests at the expense of Turks, Circassians, and Persians is a subject alien to this narrative; and the tragic story of the overthrow of Poland at the hand of the three partitioning Powers, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, does not concern us here.

It is, however, needful to observe the means by which she was able to survive the dire perils of her early youth and to develop the colonising and conquering agencies of her maturer years. They may be summed up in the single word, "Cossacks."

The Cossacks are often spoken of as though they were a race. They are not; they are bands or communities, partly military, partly nomadic or agricultural, as the case may be. They can be traced back to bands of outlaws who in the time of Russia's weakness roamed about on the verge of her settlements, plundering indifferently their Slavonic kinsmen, or the Tartars and Turks farther south. They were the "men of the plain," who had fled from the villages of the Slavs, or (in fewer cases) from the caravans of the Tartars, owing to private feuds, or from love of a freer and more lucrative life than that of the village or the encampment. In this debatable land their numbers increased until, Slavs though they mainly were, they became a menace to the growing power of the Czars. Ivan the Terrible sent expeditions against them, transplanted many of their number, and compelled those who remained in the space between the rivers Don and Ural to submit to his authority, and to give military service in time of war in return for rights of pasturage and tillage in the districts thenceforth recognised as their own. Some of them transferred their energies to Asia; and it was a Cossack outlaw, Jermak, who conquered a great part of Siberia. The Russian pioneers, who early penetrated into Siberia or Turkestan, found it possible at a later time to use these children of the plain as a kind of protective belt against the warlike natives. The same use was made of them in the South against Turks. Catharine II. broke the power of the "Zaporoghians" (Cossacks of the Dnieper), and settled large numbers of them on the River Kuban to fight the Circassians.

In short, out of the driftwood and wreckage of their primitive social system the Russians framed a bulwark against the swirling currents of the nomad world outside. In some respects the Cossacks resemble the roving bands of Saxons and Franks who pushed forward roughly but ceaselessly the boundaries of the Teutonic race[276]. But, whereas those offshoots soon came to have a life of their own, apart from the parent stems, Russia, on the other hand, has known how to keep a hold on her boisterous youth, turning their predatory instincts against her worst neighbours, and using them as hardy irregulars in her wars.

[Footnote 276: See Cæsar, _Gallic War_, bk. vi., for an account of the formation, at the tribal meeting, of a roving band.]

Considering the number of times that the Russian Government crushed the Cossack revolts, broke up their self-made organisation, and transplanted unruly bands to distant parts, their almost invariable loyalty to the central authority is very remarkable. It may be ascribed either to the veneration which they felt for the Czar, to the racial sentiment which dwells within the breast of nearly every Slav, or to their proximity to alien peoples whom they hated as Mohammedans or despised as godless pagans. In any case, the Russian autocracy gained untold advantages from the Cossack fringe on the confines of the Empire.

Some faint conception of the magnitude of that gain may be formed, if, by way of contrast, we try to picture the Teutonic peoples always acting together, even through their distant offshoots; or, again, if by a flight of fancy we can imagine the British Government making a wise use of its old soldiers and the flotsam and jetsam of our cities for the formation of semi-military colonies on the most exposed frontiers of the Empire. That which our senators have done only in the case of the Grahamstown experiment of 1819, Russia has done persistently and successfully with materials far less promising--a triumph of organisation for which she has received scant credit.

The roving Cossacks have become practically a mounted militia, highly mobile in peace and in war. Free from taxes, and enjoying certain agrarian or pastoral rights in the district which they protect, their position in the State is fully assured. At times the ordinary Russian settlers are turned into Cossacks. Either by that means, or by migration from Russia, or by a process of accretion from among the conquered nomads, their ranks are easily recruited; and the readiness with which Tartars and Turkomans are absorbed into this cheap and effective militia has helped to strengthen Russia alike in peace and war. The source of strength open to her on this side of her social system did not escape the notice of Napoleon--witness his famous remark that within fifty years Europe would be either Republican or Cossack[277].

[Footnote 277: For the Cossacks, see D.M. Wallace's _Russia_, vol. ii. pp. 80-95; and Vladimir's _Russia on the Pacific_, pp. 46-49. The former points out that their once democratic organisation has vanished under the autocracy; and that their officers, appointed by the Czar, own most of the land, formerly held in common.]

The firm organisation which Central Europe gained under the French Emperor's hammer-like blows served to falsify the prophecy; and the stream of Russian conquest, dammed up on the west by the newly-consolidated strength of Prussia and Austria, set strongly towards Asia. Pride at her overthrow of the great conqueror in 1812 had quickened the national consciousness of Russia; and besides this praiseworthy motive there was another perhaps equally potent, namely, the covetousness of her ruling class. The Memoirs written by her bureaucrats and generals reveal the extravagance, dissipation, and luxury of the Court circles. Fashionable society had as its main characteristic a barbaric and ostentatious extravagance, alike in gambling and feasting, in the festivals of the Court or in the scarcely veiled debauchery of its devotees. Baron Löwenstern, who moved in its higher ranks, tells of cases of a license almost incredible to those who have not pried among the garbage of the Court of Catharine II. This recklessness, resulting from the tendency of the Muscovite nature, as of the Muscovite climate, to indulge in extremes, begot an imperious need of large supplies of money; and, ground down as were the serfs on the broad domains of the nobles, the resulting revenues were all too scanty to fill up the financial void created by the urgent needs of St. Petersburg, Gatchina, or Monte Carlo. Larger domains had to be won in order to outvie rivals or stave off bankruptcy; and these new domains could most easily come by foreign conquest.

For an analogous reason, the State itself suffered from land hunger. Its public service was no less corrupt than inefficient. Large sums frequently vanished, no one knew whither; but one infallible cure for bankruptcy was always at hand, namely, conquests over Poles, Turks, Circassians, or Tartars. To this Catharine II. had looked when she instituted the vicious practice of paying the nobles for their services at Court; and during her long career of conquest she greatly developed the old Muscovite system of meeting the costs of war out of the domains of the vanquished, besides richly dowering the Crown, and her generals and favoured courtiers. One of the Russian Ministers, referring to the notorious fact that his Government made war for the sake of booty as well as glory, said to a Frenchman, "We have remained somewhat Asiatic in that respect[278]." It is not always that a Minister reveals so frankly the motives that help to mould the policy of a great State.

[Footnote 278: Quoted by Vandal, _Napoléon I. et Alexandre,_ vol. i. p. 136.]

The predatory instinct, once acquired, does not readily pass away. Alexander I. gratified it by forays in Circassia, even at the time when he was face to face with the might of the great Napoleon; and after the fall of the latter, Russia pushed on her confines in Georgia until they touched those of Persia. Under Nicholas I. little territory was added except the Kuban coast on the Black Sea, Erivan to the south of Georgia, and part of the Kirghiz lands in Turkestan.

The reason for this quiescence was that almost up to the verge of the Crimean War Nicholas hoped to come to an understanding with England respecting an eventual partition of the Turkish Empire, Austria also gaining a share of the spoils. With the aim of baiting these proposals, he offered, during his visit to London in 1844, to refrain from any movement against the Khanates of Central Asia, concerning which British susceptibilities were becoming keen. His Chancellor, Count Nesselrode, embodied these proposals in an important Memorandum, containing a promise that Russia would leave the Khanates of Turkestan as a neutral zone in order to keep the Russian and British possessions in Asia "from dangerous contact[279]."

[Footnote 279: Quoted on p. 14 of _A Diplomatic Study on the Crimean War,_ issued by the Russian Foreign Office, and attributed to Baron Jomini (Russian edition, 1879; English edition, 1882).]

For reasons which we need not detail, British Ministers rejected these overtures, and by degrees England entered upon the task of defending the Sultan's dominions, largely on the assumption that they formed a necessary bulwark of her Indian Empire. It is not our purpose to criticise British policy at that time. We merely call attention to the fact that there seemed to be a prospect of a friendly understanding with Russia respecting Turkey, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Central Asia; and that the British Government decided to maintain the integrity of Turkey by attacking the Power which seemed about to impugn it. As a result, Turkey secured a new lease of life by the Crimean War, while Alexander II. deemed himself entirely free to press on Asiatic conquests from which his father had refrained. Thus, the two great expanding Powers entered anew on that course of rivalry in Asia which has never ceased, and which forms to-day the sole barrier to a good understanding between them.

After the Crimean War circumstances favoured the advance of the Russian arms. England, busied with the Sepoy Mutiny in India, cared little what became of the rival Khans of Turkestan; and Lord Lawrence, Governor-General of India in 1863-69, enunciated the soothing doctrine that "Russia might prove a safer neighbour than the wild tribes of Central Asia." The Czar's emissaries therefore had easy work in fomenting the strifes that constantly arose in Bokhara, Khiva, and Tashkend, with the result that in 1864 the last-named was easily acquired by Russia. We may add here that Tashkend is now an important railway centre in the Russian Central Asian line, and that large stores of food and material are there accumulated, which may be utilised in case Russia makes a move against Afghanistan or Northern India.

In 1868 an outbreak of Mohammedan fanaticism in Bokhara brought the Ameer of that town into collision with the Russians, who thereupon succeeded in taking Samarcand. The capital of the empire of Tamerlane, "the scourge of Asia," now sank to the level of an outpost of Russian power, and ultimately to that of a mart for cotton. The Khan of Bokhara fell into a position of complete subservience, and ceded to the conquerors the whole of his province of Samarcand[280].

[Footnote 280: For an account of Samarcand and Bokhara, see _Russia in Central Asia,_ by Hon. G. (Lord) Curzon (1889); A. Vambéry's _Travels in Central Asia_ (1867-68); Rev. H. Lansdell, _Russian Central Asia,_ 2 vols. (1885); E. Schuyler, _Journey in Russian Turkestan,_ etc., 2 vols. (1876); E. O'Donovan, _The Merv Oasis,_ 2 vols. (1883).]

It is believed that the annexation of Samarcand was contrary to the intentions of the Czar. Alexander II. was a friend of peace; and he had no desire to push forward his frontiers to the verge of Afghanistan, where friction would probably ensue with the British Government. Already he had sought to allay the irritation prevalent in Russophobe circles in England. In November 1864, his Chancellor, Prince Gortchakoff, issued a circular setting forth the causes that impelled the Russians on their forward march. It was impossible, he said, to keep peace with uncivilised and predatory tribes on their frontiers. Russia must press on until she came into touch with a State whose authority would guarantee order on the boundaries. The argument was a strong one; and it may readily be granted that good government, civilisation, and commerce have benefited by the extension of the _pax Russica_ over the slave-hunting Turkomans and the inert tribes of Siberia.

Nevertheless, as Gortchakoff's circular expressed the intention of refraining from conquest for the sake of conquest, the irritation in England became very great when the conquest of Tashkend, and thereafter of Samarcand, was ascribed, apparently on good grounds, to the ambition of the Russian commanders, Tchernaieff and Kaufmann respectively. On the news of the capture of Samarcand reaching London, the Russian ambassador hastened to assure the British Cabinet that his master did not intend to retain his conquest. Nevertheless, it was retained. The doctrine of political necessity proved to be as expansive as Russia's boundaries; and, after the rapid growth of the Indian Empire under Lord Dalhousie, the British Government could not deny the force of the plea.

This mighty stride forward brought Russia to the northern bounds of Afghanistan, a land which was thenceforth to be the central knot of diplomatic problems of vast magnitude. It will therefore be well, in beginning our survey of a question which was to test the efficacy of autocracy and democracy in international affairs, to gain some notion of the physical and political conditions of the life of that people.

As generally happens in a mountainous region in the midst of a great continent, their country exhibits various strata of conquest and settlement. The northern district, sloping towards Turkestan, is inhabited mainly by Turkomans who have not yet given up their roving habits. The rugged hill country bordering on the Punjab is held by Pathans and Ghilzais, who are said by some to be of the same stock as the Afghans. On the other hand, a well-marked local legend identifies the Afghans proper with the lost ten tribes of Israel; and those who love to speculate on that elusive and delusive subject may long use their ingenuity in speculating whether the oft-quoted text as to the chosen people possessing the gates of their enemies is more applicable to the sea-faring and sea-holding Anglo-Saxons or to the pass-holding Afghans.

That elevated plateau, ridged with lofty mountains and furrowed with long clefts, has seen Turkomans, Persians, and many other races sweep over it; and the mixture of these and other races, perhaps including errant Hebrews, has there acquired the sturdiness, tenacity, and clannishness that mark the fragments of three nations clustering together in the Alpine valleys; while it retains the turbulence and fierceness of a full-blooded Asiatic stock. The Afghan problem is complicated by these local differences and rivalries; the north cohering with the Turkomans, Herat and the west having many affinities and interests in common with Persia, Candahar being influenced by Baluchistan, while the hill tribes of the north-east bristle with local peculiarities and aboriginal savagery. These districts can be welded together only by the will of a great ruler or in the white heat of religious fanaticism; and while Moslem fury sometimes unites all the Afghan clans, the Moslem marriage customs result fully as often in a superfluity of royal heirs, which gives rein to all the forces that make for disruption. Afghanistan is a hornet's nest; and yet, as we shall see presently, owing to geographical and strategical reasons, it cannot be left severely alone. The people are to the last degree clannish; and nothing but the grinding pressure of two mighty Empires has endowed them with political solidarity.

It is not surprising that British statesmen long sought to avoid all responsibility for the internal affairs of such a land. As we have seen, the theory which found favour with Lord Lawrence was that of intervening as little as possible in the affairs of States bordering on India, a policy which was termed "masterly inactivity" by the late Mr. J.W.S. Wyllie. It was the outcome of the experience gained in the years 1839-42, when, after alienating Dost Mohammed, the Ameer of Afghanistan, by its coolness, the Indian Government rushed to the other extreme and invaded the country in order to tear him from the arms of the more effusive Russians.

The results are well known. Overweening confidence and military incapacity finally led to the worst disaster that befell a British army during the nineteenth century, only one officer escaping from among the 4500 troops and 12,000 camp followers who sought to cut their way back through the Khyber Pass[281]. A policy of non-intervention in the affairs of so fickle and savage a people naturally ensued, and was stoutly maintained by Lords Canning, Elgin, and Lawrence, who held sway during and after the great storm of the Indian Mutiny. The worth of that theory of conduct came to be tested in 1863, on the occasion of the death of Dost Mohammed, who had latterly recovered Herat from Persia, and brought nearly the whole of the Afghan clans under his sway. He had been our friend during the Mutiny, when his hostility might readily have turned the wavering scales of war; and he looked for some tangible return for his loyal behaviour in preventing the attempt of some of his restless tribesmen to recover the once Afghan city of Peshawur.

[Footnote 281: Sir J.W. Kaye, _History of the War in Afghanistan_, 5 vols. (1851-78).]

To his surprise and disgust he met with no return whatever, even in a matter which most nearly concerned his dynasty and the future of Afghanistan. As generally happens with Moslem rulers, the aged Ameer occupied his declining days with seeking to provide against the troubles that naturally resulted from the oriental profusion of his marriages. Dost Mohammed's quiver was blessed with the patriarchal equipment of sixteen sons--most of them stalwart, warlike, and ambitious. Eleven of them limited their desires to parts of Afghanistan, but five of them aspired to rule over all the tribes that go to make up that seething medley. Of these, Shere Ali was the third in age but the first in capacity, if not in prowess. Moreover, he was the favourite son of Dost Mohammed; but where rival mothers and rival tribes were concerned, none could foresee the issue of the pending conflict[282].

[Footnote 282: G.B. Malleson, _History of Afghanistan_, p. 421.]

Dost Mohammed sought to avert it by gaining the effective support of the Indian Government for his Benjamin. He pleaded in vain. Lord Canning, Governor-General of India at the time of the Mutiny, recognised Shere Ali as heir-apparent, but declined to give any promise of support either in arms or money. Even after the Mutiny was crushed, Lord Canning and his successor, Lord Elgin, adhered to the former decision, refusing even a grant of money and rifles for which father and son pleaded.

As we have said, Dost Mohammed died in 1863; but even when Shere Ali was face to face with formidable family schisms and a widespread revolt, Lord Lawrence clung to the policy of recognising only "_de facto_ Powers," that is, Powers which actually existed and could assert their authority. All that he offered was to receive Shere Ali in conference, and give him good advice; but he would only recognise him as Ameer of Afghanistan if he could prevail over his brothers and their tribesmen. He summed it up in this official letter of April 17, 1866, sent to the Governor of the Punjab:--

It should be our policy to show clearly that we will not interfere in the struggle, that we will not aid either party, that we will leave the Afghans to settle their own quarrels, and that we are willing to be on terms of amity and good-will with the nation and with their rulers _de facto_. Suitable opportunities can be taken to declare that these are the principles which will guide our policy; and it is the belief of the Governor-General that such a policy will in the end be appreciated[283].

[Footnote 283: Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), p. 10. For a defence of this policy of "masterly inactivity," see Mr. Bosworth Smith's _Life of Lord Lawrence_, vol. ii. pp. 570-590; also Mr. J.W.S. Wyllie's _Essays on the External Policy of India_.]

The Afghans did not appreciate it. Shere All protested that it placed a premium on revolt; he also complained that the Viceroy not only gave him no help, but even recognised his rival, Ufzul, when the latter captured Cabul. After the death of Ufzul and the assumption of authority at Cabul by a third brother, Azam, Shere Ali by a sudden and desperate attempt drove his rival from Cabul (September 8, 1868) and practically ended the schisms and strifes which for five years had rent Afghanistan in twain. Then, but then only, did Lord Lawrence consent to recognise him as Ameer of the whole land, and furnish him with £60,000 and a supply of arms. An act which, five years before, would probably have ensured the speedy triumph of Shere Ali and his lasting gratitude to Great Britain, now laid him under no sense of obligation[284]. He might have replied to Lord Lawrence with the ironical question with which Dr. Johnson declined Lord Chesterfield's belated offer of patronage: "Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?"

[Footnote 284: The late Duke of Argyll in his _Eastern Question_ (vol. ii. p. 42) cited the fact of this offer of money and arms as a proof that Lord Lawrence was not wedded to the theory of "masterly inactivity," and stated that the gift helped Shere Ali to complete his success. It is clear, however, that Lord Lawrence waited to see whether that success was well assured before the offer was made.

The Duke of Argyll proves one thing, that the action of Lord Lawrence in September 1868 was not due to Sir Henry Rawlinson's despatch from London (dated July 20, 1868) in favour of more vigorous action. It was due to Lawrence's perception of the change brought about by Russian action in the Khanate of Bokhara, near the Afghan border.]

Moreover, there is every reason to think that Shere Ali, with the proneness of orientals to refer all actions to the most elemental motives, attributed the change of front at Calcutta solely to fear. That was the time when the Russian capture of Samarcand cowed the Khan of Bokhara and sent a thrill through Central Asia. In the political psychology of the Afghans, the tardy arrival at Cabul of presents from India argued little friendship for Shere Ali, but great dread of the conquering Muscovites.

Such, then, was the policy of "masterly inactivity" in 1863-68, cheap for India, but excessively costly for Afghanistan. Lord Lawrence rendered incalculable services to India before and during the course of the Mutiny, but his conduct towards Shere Ali is certainly open to criticism. The late Duke of Argyll, Secretary of State for India in the Gladstone Ministry (1868-74), supported it in his work, _The Eastern Question,_ on the ground that the Anglo-Afghan treaty of 1855 pledged the British not to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan[285]. But uncalled for interference is one thing; to refuse even a slight measure of help to an ally, who begs it as a return for most valuable services, is quite another thing.

[Footnote 285: The Duke of Argyll, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 226 (London, 1879). For the treaty, see Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), p. 1.]

Moreover, the Viceroy himself was brought by the stern logic of events implicitly to give up his policy. In one of his last official despatches, written on January 4, 1869, he recognised the gain to Russia that must accrue from our adherence to a merely passive policy in Central Asian affairs. He suggested that we should come to a "clear understanding with the Court of St. Petersburg as to its projects and designs in Central Asia, and that it might be given to understand in firm but courteous language, that it cannot be permitted to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan, or in those of any State which lies contiguous to our frontier."

This sentence tacitly implied a change of front; for any prohibition to Russia to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan virtually involved Britain's claim to exercise some degree of suzerainty in that land. The way therefore seemed open for a new departure, especially as the new Governor-General, Lord Mayo, was thought to favour the more vigorous ideas latterly prevalent at Westminster. But when Shere Ali met the new Viceroy in a splendid Durbar at Umballa (March 1869) and formulated his requests for effective British support, in case of need, they were, in the main, refused[286].

[Footnote 286: Sir W.W. Hunter, _The Earl of Mayo_, p. 125 (Oxford, 1891); the Duke of Argyll, _op. cit._ vol. ii, p. 252.]

We may here use the words in which the late Duke of Argyll summed up the wishes of the Ameer and the replies of Lord Mayo:--

He (the Ameer) wanted to have an unconditional treaty, offensive and defensive. He wanted to have a fixed subsidy. He wanted to have a dynastic guarantee. He would have liked sometimes to get the loan of English officers to drill his troops, or to construct his forts--provided they retired the moment they had done this work for him. On the other hand, officers "resident" in his country as political agents of the British Government were his abhorrence.

Lord Mayo's replies, or pledges, were virtually as follows:--

The first pledge (says the Duke of Argyll) was that of non-interference in his (the Ameer's) affairs. The second pledge was that "we would support his independence." The third pledge was "that we would not force European officers, or residents, upon him against his wish[287]."

[Footnote 287: Argyll, _op. cit._ vol. i. Preface, pp. xxiii.-xxvi.]

There seems to have been no hopeless contrariety between the views of the Ameer and the Viceroy save in one matter that will be noted presently. It is also of interest to learn from the Duke's narrative, which claims to be official in substance, however partisan it may be in form, that there was no difference of opinion on this important subject between Lord Mayo and the Gladstone Ministry, which came to power shortly after his departure for India. The new Viceroy summed up his views in the following sentence, written to the Duke of Argyll: "The safe course lies in watchfulness, and friendly intercourse with neighbouring tribes."

Apparently, then, there was a fair chance of arriving at an agreement with the Ameer. But the understanding broke down on the question of the amount of support to be accorded to Shere Ali's dynasty. That ruler wished for an important modification of the Anglo-Afghan treaty of 1855, which had bound his father to close friendship with the old Company without binding the Company to intervene in his favour. That, said Shere Ali, was a "dry friendship." He wanted a friendship more fruitful than that of the years 1863-67, and a direct support to his dynasty whenever he claimed it. The utmost concession that Lord Mayo would grant was that the British Government would "view with severe displeasure any attempt to disturb your position as Ruler of Cabul, and rekindle civil war[288]."

[Footnote 288: Argyll, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 263.]

It seems that Shere Ali thought lightly of Britain's "displeasure," for he departed ill at ease. Not even the occasional presents of money and weapons that found their way from Calcutta to Cabul could thenceforth keep his thoughts from turning northwards towards Russia. At Umballa he had said little about that Power; and the Viceroy had very wisely repressed any feelings of anxiety that he may have had on that score. Possibly the strength and cheeriness of Lord Mayo's personality would have helped to assuage the Ameer's wounded feelings; but that genial Irishman fell under the dagger of a fanatic during a tour in the Andaman Islands (February 1872). His death was a serious event. Shere Ali cherished towards him feelings which he did not extend to his successor, Lord Northbrook (1872-76).

Yet, during that vice-royalty, the diplomatic action of Great Britain secured for the Ameer the recognition of his claims over the northern part of Afghanistan, as far as the banks of the Upper Oxus. In the years 1870-72 Russia stoutly contested those claims, but finally withdrew them, the Emperor declaring at the close of the latter year "that such a question should not be a cause of difference between the two countries, and he was determined it should not be so." It is further noteworthy that Russian official communications more than once referred to the Ameer of Afghanistan as being "under the protection of the Indian Government[289]".

[Footnote 289: Argyll, _op. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 289, 292. For the Czar's assurance that "extension of territory" was "extension of weakness," see Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), p. 101.]

These signal services of British diplomacy counted for little at Cabul in comparison with the question of the dynastic guarantee which we persistently withheld. In the spring of 1873, when matters relating to the Afghan-Persian frontier had to be adjusted, the Ameer sent his Prime Minister to Simla with the intention of using every diplomatic means for the extortion of that long-delayed boon.

The time seemed to favour his design. Apart from the Persian boundary questions (which were settled in a manner displeasing to the Ameer), trouble loomed ahead in Central Asia. The Russians were advancing on Khiva; and the Afghan statesman, during his stay at Simla, sought to intimidate Lord Northbrook by parading this fact. He pointed out that Russia would easily conquer Khiva and then would capture Merv, near the western frontier of Afghanistan, "either in the current year or the next." Equally obvious was his aim in insisting that "the interests of the Afghan and English Governments are identical," and that "the border of Afghanistan is in truth the border of India." These were ingenious ways of working his intrenchments up to the hitherto inaccessible citadel of Indian border policy. The news of the Russian advance on Khiva lent strength to his argument.

Yet, when he came to the question of the guarantee of Shere Ali's dynasty, he again met with a rebuff. In truth, Lord Northbrook and his advisers saw that the Ameer was seeking to frighten them about Russia in order to improve his own family prospects in Afghanistan; and, paying too much attention, perhaps, to the oriental artfulness of the method of request, and too little to the importance of the questions then at stake, he decided to meet the Ameer in regard to non-essentials, though he failed to satisfy him on the one thing held to be needful at the palace of Cabul.

Anxious, however, to consult the Home Government on a matter of such importance, now that the Russians were known to be at Khiva, Lord Northbrook telegraphed to the Duke of Argyll on July 24, 1873:--

Ameer of Cabul alarmed at Russian progress, dissatisfied with general assurance, and anxious to know how far he may rely on our help if invaded. I propose assuring him that if he unreservedly accepts and acts on our advice in all external relations, we will help him with money, arms, and troops, if necessary, to expel unprovoked aggression. We to be the judge of the necessity. Answer by telegraph quickly.

The Gladstone Ministry was here at the parting of the ways. The Ameer asked them to form an alliance on equal terms. They refused, believing, as it seems, that they could keep to the old one-sided arrangement of 1855, whereby the Ameer promised effective help to the Indian Government, if need be, and gained only friendly assurance in return. The Duke of Argyll telegraphed in reply on July 26:--

Cabinet thinks you should inform Ameer 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 by our advice in external affairs[290].

[Footnote 290: Argyll, _op. cit._ vol. ii. 331. The Gladstone Cabinet clearly weakened Lord Northbrook's original proposal, and must therefore bear a large share of responsibility for the alienation of the Ameer which soon ensued. The Duke succeeded in showing up many inaccuracies in the versions of these events afterwards given by Lord Lytton and Lord Cranbrook; but he was seemingly quite unconscious of the consequences resulting from adherence to an outworn theory.]

This answer, together with a present of £100,000 and 20,000 rifles, was all that the Ameer gained; his own shrewd sense had shown him long before that Britain must in any case defend Afghanistan against Russia. What he wanted was an official recognition of his own personal position as ruler, while he acted, so to speak, as the "Count of the Marches" of India. The Gladstone Government held out no hopes of assuring the future of their _Mark-graf_ or of his children after him. The remembrance of the disaster in the Khyber Pass in 1841 haunted them, as it had done their predecessors, like a ghost, and scared them from the course of action which might probably have led to the conclusion of a close offensive and defensive alliance between India and Afghanistan.

Such a consummation was devoutly to be hoped for in view of events which had transpired in Central Asia. Khiva had been captured by the Russians. This Khanate intervened between Bokhara and the Caspian Sea, which the Russians used as their base of operations on the west. The plea of necessity was again put forward, and it might have been urged as forcibly on geographical and strategic grounds as on the causes that were alleged for the rupture. They consisted mainly of the frontier incidents that are wont to occur with restless, uncivilised neighbours. The Czar's Government also accused the Khivans of holding some Russian subjects in captivity, and of breaking their treaty of 1842 with Russia by helping the Khirgiz Horde in a recent revolt against their new masters.

Russia soon had ready three columns, which were to converge on Khiva: one was stationed on the River Ural, a second at the rising port of Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea, and a third, under General Kaufmann, at Tashkend. So well were their operations timed that, though the distances to be traversed varied from 480 to 840 miles, in parts over a waterless desert, yet the three chief forces arrived almost simultaneously at Khiva and met with the merest show of resistance (June 1873). Setting the young Khan on the throne of his father, they took from him his ancestral lands of the right bank of the Amu Daria (Oxus) and imposed on him a crushing war indemnity of 2,200,000 roubles, which assured his entire dependence on his new creditors. They further secured their hold on these diminished territories by erecting two forts on the river[291]. The Czar's Government was content with assuring its hold upon Khiva, without annexing the Khanate outright, seeing that it had disclaimed any such intention[292]. All the same, Russia was now mistress of nearly the whole of Central Asia; and the advance of roads and railways portended further conquests at the expense of Persia and the few remaining Turkoman tribes.

[Footnote 291: J. Popowski, _The Rival Powers in Central Asia_, p. 47 (Eng. edit).; A. Vambéry, _The Coming Struggle for India_, p. 21; A.R. Colquhoun, _Russia against India_, pp. 24-26; Lavisse and Rambaud, _Histoire Générale_, vol. xii. pp. 793-794.]

[Footnote 292: Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), p. 101.]

In order to estimate the importance of these facts, it must be remembered that the teachings of Geography and History concur in showing the practicability of an invasion of India from Central Asia. Touching first the geographical facts, we may point out that India and Afghanistan stand in somewhat the same relation to the Asiatic continent that Italy and Switzerland hold to that of Europe. The rich lands and soft climate of both Peninsulas have always been an irresistible attraction to the dwellers among the more barren mountains and plains of the North; and the lie of the land on the borders of both of these seeming Eldorados favours the advance of more virile peoples in their search for more genial conditions of life. Nature, which enervates the defenders in their sultry plains, by her rigorous training imparts a touch of the wolf to the mountaineers or plain-dwellers of the North; and her guides (rivers and streams) conduct the hardy seekers for the sun by easy routes up to the final mountain barriers. Finally, those barriers, the Alps and the Hindu Koosh, are notched by passes that are practicable for large armies, as has been seen now and again from the times of Alexander the Great and Hannibal to those of Nadir Shah and Napoleon.

In these conditions, physical and climatic, is to be found the reason for the success that has so often attended the invasions of Italy and India. Only when the Romans organised all the forces of their Peninsula and the fresh young life beyond, were the defensive powers of Italy equal to her fatally attractive powers. Only when Britain undertook the defence of India, could her peoples feel sure of holding the North-West against the restless Pathans and Afghans; and the situation was wholly changed when a great military Empire pushed its power to the river-gates of Afghanistan.

The friendship of the Ameer was now a matter of vital concern; and yet, as we have seen, Lord Northbrook alienated him, firstly by giving an unfavourable verdict in regard to the Persian boundary in the district of Seistan, and still more so by refusing to grant the long-wished-for guarantee of his dynasty.

The year 1873 marks a fatal turning-point in Anglo-Afghan relations. Yakub Khan told Lord Roberts at Cabul in 1879 that his father, Shere Ali, had been thoroughly disgusted with Lord Northbrook in 1873, "and at once made overtures to the Russians, with whom constant intercourse had since been kept up[293]."

[Footnote 293: Lord Roberts, _Forty-one Years in India_, vol. ii. p. 247; also _Life of Abdur Rahman_, by Mohammed Khan, 2 vols. (1900), vol. i. p. 149.]