1. Russian Conquests in Central Asia during the last three years.
First of all we will recount the historical facts of the Russian war of conquest during the last three years. Instead of going into those details about the campaigns of Perovski, Tchernaieff, and Romanovski, which were recorded partly in Mitchell's book, "The Russians in Central Asia," partly in several solid treatises in the Quarterly and the Edinburgh Review, or into the slender notices which have trickled out into publicity from the Russian State-Cabinets, or those yet scantier notices which were revealed by highly-paid English spies in Central Asia, we would cast only a hurried glance at events, in order to acquaint the reader with the latest posture of Russian arms in Central Asia.
So successfully had the Russian operations been started in Central Asia, that after a brilliant overthrow of the Kirghis, they entered first on the conquest of Khokand, in order to gain firm foothold in the three Khanats. In those eastern parts of the three oasis-countries of Turkestan the social order has always been relatively least, the religious culture weakest, and the antipathy to warlike enterprises most strong. These were accompanied by internal disorders, for while the Khodjas through their inroads into Chinese territory on the east of the Khanat were always encountering the risk of a collision with China, which in bygone centuries did sometimes ensue, the greedy Ameers of Bokhara from the west have continually laid the country waste with their wanton lust of conquest. Before the capture of Ak-Meshdjid the nearing columns of the mighty Russ on the north had but little place in the bazaar-talk of Namengan and Khokand. At the time of the miscarriage of Perovski's expedition Mehemed Ali Khan was seated on the throne. He was beloved and honoured, and the dazzled masses were much too wanting in ideas of conquest, to think seriously of self-defence against the threatening foe on the north, or of Conolly's projected alliance with Khiva. Not till after the death of Mehemed Ali ensued the fall of Ak-Meshdjid, the first serious wound in the Khanat's existence; and the Russian success was all the easier, because at that time their fighting powers were crippled, on one side by the fierce conflict between Kirghis and Kiptchaks in the interior of the Khanat, and by the first attempt of Veli-Khan-Töre against Kashgar on the other. The storming columns of the Russians against the Khokandian fastnesses on either shore of the Yaxartes leave no cause to complain of cowardice, although the thousands of Khokandian warriors mentioned in the Russian accounts seem to rest on an over-keen eyesight.
After the capture of the last-named place, or, to speak more correctly, after a systematic restoration of the chain of fortresses along the Yaxartes, on whose waters the steamers of the Aral flotilla could now move freely about, the Russian power advanced with strides as gigantic as those with which Khokand, through the continuous working of the causes above-mentioned, continually fell away. The line of forts offered not only security against Turkestan, but was also a powerful bulwark against the Kirghis, who, being at length surrounded on all sides, could not so easily raise into the saddle an Ished,[60] as the last anti-Russian chief styled himself during the Crimean War. Thenceforth the work of occupation was pursued by the court of St. Petersburg with its wonted energy; and not till both the army corps, which were operating from the Chinese frontier to the Issik-köl, from the Sea of Aral along the Yaxartes, had drawn together southwards from the north-east and the north-west at Aulia Ata, (Holy Father, an ancient place of pilgrimage,) did Russian diplomacy deem it necessary to announce, in a despatch signed by Prince Gortshakoff on the 21st November, 1864, that the government of the Tzar had at length obtained its long-cherished desire to remove the boundary line of its possessions from the ill-defined region of the Sandy Desert to the inhabited portion of Turkestan; that the policy of aggression was now at an end, and that its one single aim in the future would be to demonstrate to the neighbouring Tartar states, with regard to their independence, that Russia was far from being their foe, or indulging in ideas of conquest, &c. &c.
That no Cabinet save the English placed any more faith in such assurances than the Russian Minister himself, it is easy enough to imagine. The tale of ever-recurring conquests from vanquished states has long been notorious. We have instances thereof in every page of the world's history, in every age in which some power has set about enlarging itself. Just as the English are vainly apologising for Lord Dalhousie's thirst for annexation, or absorption in India, so are all Russian notes composed in a strain of overflowing politeness. It is only the natural course of things; and the court of St. Petersburg was right, could not indeed do otherwise, after setting up a government in Turkestan, than follow the southern course of the Yaxartes; and as the waste steppe formed at the first no defensible frontier, neither could the thinly-peopled neighbourhood of Tchemkend and Hazret furnish a better one. There was need of a well-inhabited region, to provide against being dependent merely on the means of communication from Orenburg and Semipalatinsk. Therefore was Tashkend, rich and fertile Tashkend, doomed to incorporation in Russian territory.
It would be a profitless waste of time to quote as the main cause of the Russian occupation of the last-named town, on the 25th June, 1865, the moving history of the petition of the Tashkend merchants, of the numerous deputation that came beseechingly to the Russian camp, to obtain the shelter of the two-headed Eagle, whom the Central Asiatics call the ajder-kite, a bird not greatly beloved of yore. Tashkend, which from time immemorial, lived at feud with the masters of Khokand, was latterly very much enraged, because its darling Khudayar was twice driven from his throne. To endamage the dominant influence of the Khirgis by means of Russian supremacy, was for it a welcome idea; but it is not at all likely that the supremacy itself should have been generally desired.
Russia has absorbed Tashkend, because she deemed it indispensable as a firm base for further operations; not, however, with a view to erecting therewith a bulwark against possessions already secured. Still it was through Tashkend that the court of St. Petersburg had embroiled itself in hostilities with the Khanat of Bokhara. The Ameer, as we know, had earned for himself, through his campaign of 1863, the nominal right of suzerainty over the western part of Turkestan; and though after his departure everything fell back into the old rut of Kiptchak lawlessness and party warfare, he still thought to make good his right over all Khokand. He therefore wrote the commandant of the newly-conquered town a threatening letter, in which he summoned him to vacate the fortress. This, however, gave small concern to the Russian general; and, hearing that Colonel Struve, the famous astronomer, whom he had sent to Bokhara for a friendly settlement of the affair, had been forthwith taken prisoner, he burst forth on the 30th January, crossed the Yaxartes at Tashkend with fourteen companies of foot, six squadrons of Cossacks, and sixteen guns, with the purpose of going straight into Bokhara and punishing the Ameer for the violation of his envoy.
This design, however, miscarried. The Russians had to retire, but did so in perfect order; and though countless hosts of Bokharians swarmed round them on every side, yet their loss was too insignificant to accord with the bombastic tales of triumph which the Bokharians thereon trumpeted through all Islam, and which even found their way to us through the Levantine press. General Tchernaieff had excused himself on the plea that his hasty advance was intended merely to baffle the movements of secret English emissaries, who were striving with all possible zeal after an Anglo-Bokharian alliance, and were also the main cause of his envoy, Colonel Struve's imprisonment. In Petersburg, however, they could not pardon his military failure: he was displaced from his high command, and General Romanofski went out in his stead. The latter moved forward with slow but all the more cautious steps. On the 12th April a flock of fifteen thousand sheep, escorted by four thousand Bokharian horsemen, was made prize of; and a month afterwards there ensued, in the neighbourhood of Tchinaz, a fierce fight, called the battle of Irdshar, in which the Tartars were utterly beaten. On the 25th May fell the small fort of Nau; and afterwards Khodshend, the third town in the Khanat of Khokand, was taken by storm; but not without a hard fight, in which the Russians left on the field a hundred and thirty-three killed and wounded, the Tartars certainly ten times that number. The battle, however, was well worth the cost, for the fortifications of this place were better than those of Tashkend or of any other town in the Khanat. This was the second resting-point for the Russian arms on their march southward; and though the "Russian Invalid," in an official report concerning further projects, affirms that the conquest of that part of Bokhara which is severed from the rest of their possessions by the steppes could never become the goal of Russian operations, while for the present it would be entirely profitless, yet progress has already been made over Oratepe, through the small districts of Djam and Yamin, as far as Djissag; whilst everywhere important garrisons have been left behind.
What has happened in the Khanat of Khokand itself during this triumphal march of the Russians, is a point no less worthy of our attention. The inhabitants, consisting of nomads,—Œzbeg, and Tadjik or Sart,—were as much divided in their Russian likings and dislikes, as they were different from each other in race, condition, and pursuits. The warlike, powerful, and widely-courted Kiptchaks, being ancient foes of the oft-encroaching Bokharians, who wanted to force upon them the hated Khudayar Khan, immediately sided with the Russians. Their friendship was for these latter an important acquisition; and the friendly movement must have already begun, when the north-eastern army-corps came in contact with them in its forward struggle from Issikköl; for if this had not been the case, the Russian advance on that line would certainly have been purchased at heavier cost.
The Œzbegs, as being de jure the dominant race, had defended themselves as well as they could; yet with their well-known lack of courage, firmness, and endurance, they had but small success; and when they began to reflect that Russian rule would probably be no worse a misfortune than the incessant war with Bokhara, or their internal disorders, they prepared to accommodate themselves to inevitable fate. Only a few angry Ishans and Mollahs maintained an unfounded dread of Bokhara; the descendants, for example, of Khodja Ahmed Yesevi in Hazreti-Turkestan, who, however, in all likelihood will soon go back to the bones of their sacred forefathers, as the Russians assuredly will not hinder them from collecting pious alms among their pilgrims. Moreover, to the wealthier merchants of Tashkend, to the Sarts and Tadjiks, and a small number of Persian slaves, the Russian occupation seemed welcome and advantageous; for whilst the former expected considerable profit from the admission of their native town into the Russian customs-circle, the latter hope to be rescued from their oppressed condition through the downfall of Œzbeg ascendancy. As we may see from the correspondence addressed by General Krishanofski to a Moscow journal, it was these very Sarts who gave the Russians most help. Their Aksakals, not those of the Œzbegs, were the first to accept office under the Russians. In public places they always appear by the side of the Russian officers, harangue the people, and while Russian churches were getting built, spread about a report that His Majesty, having been converted by a vision in the night to Islam, was on the point of making a pilgrimage to Hazreti-Turkestan. From the length of their commercial intercourse with Russia, many of the Tadjiks, especially the Tashkenders, are skilled in writing and speaking Russian; they serve as interpreters and middle-men, and as many of them reach the highest places in the mehkeme (courts of justice) and other posts, the main motive of their adherence is easy to apprehend.
So far has it fared with the main line of operations in the Khanat of Khokand. On adjacent points likewise, both eastern and western, has the work of transformation stealthily begun. From Chinese Tartary we learn, that ever since 1864 the Chinese garrisons have been expelled, and replaced by a national government. First came disorders among the Tunganis, presently followed by the deliverance of Khoten, Yarkand, Aksoo, and Kashgar; and although these disorders may have been caused at bottom by the traditional delight of the Khokandie Khodjas in free plundering, still many of us are positively assured that the court of St. Petersburg countenanced all those revolutionary movements; aye, and that the Kiptchaks, who are now masters of Kashgar, were helped to win it by Russian arms. Such is the usual prelude to Russian interference. For a time these independent towns are permitted to carry on feuds and warfare against each other; but it is easy to foresee that their enmity will come to appear dangerous to the peace of the yet distant Russian frontier; and if haply the court of Pekin be in no hurry to restore order, the Russians are very certain to forestal it on that point ere long. The English press comforts itself with remarking, that the insuperable barrier of the Kuen-Lun mountains renders further progress towards Kashmir impossible; and that this Russian diversion is only for the good of Central-Asiatic trade. For the moment, however, we will put aside the discussion of this question, preferring to glance at that part of Central Asia which inclines westward from Khokand. Albeit engaged in war with Bokhara, Russia has hitherto made no attack on the real territory of that State, for Djissag is the lawful boundary between the former and Khokand. About this well-known seat of the struggle with Bokhara, there is only a diplomatic skirmish, which still goes on, under whose cover the revolution of Shehr-i-Sebz holds its ground. For, even if the Russian press denies for the thousandth time all interference, yet the appearance of the Aksakal of Shehr-i-Sebz in Tashkend cannot be regarded as unimportant. It is, at any rate, noticeable with reference to the Russian plans in Khiva. The settled portion of the Khanat proper has not yet been touched by Russian influence, and only in the north, since the destruction of the fortress of Khodja-Niyaz, on the Yaxartes, have some Cossack and Karakalpak hordes, skirting the eastern shore of the Sea of Aral, been converted into Russian subjects.