THE CENTRAL ASIAN QUESTION
"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.
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].
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.
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]."
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].
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.
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].
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].
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?"
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.
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].
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]."
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]."
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]".
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.
[Illustration: AFGHANISTAN]
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
Map of Afghanistan.
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].
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.
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]."
In fact, all who are familiar with the events preceding the first Afghan War (1839-42) can now see that events were fast drifting into a position dangerously like that which led Dost Mohammed to throw himself into the arms of Russia. At that time also the Afghan ruler had sought to gain the best possible terms for himself and his dynasty from the two rivals; and, finding that the Russian promises were far more alluring than those emanating from Calcutta, he went over to the Muscovites. At bottom that had been the determining cause of the first Afghan War; and affairs were once more beginning to revolve in the same vicious circle. Looking back on the events leading up to the second Afghan War, we can now see that a frank compliance with the demands of Shere Ali would have been far less costly than the non-committal policy which in 1873 alienated him. Outwardly he posed as the aggrieved but still faithful friend. In reality he was looking northwards for the personal guarantee which never came from Calcutta.
It should, however, be stated that up to the time of the fall of the Gladstone Ministry (February 1874), Russia seemed to have no desire to meddle in Afghan affairs. The Russian Note of January 21, 1874, stated that the Imperial Government "continued to consider Afghanistan as entirely beyond its sphere of action[294]." Nevertheless, that declaration inspired little confidence. The Russophobes, headed by Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir Bartle Frere, could reply that they distrusted Russian disclaimers concerning Afghanistan, when the plea of necessity had so frequently and so speedily relegated to oblivion the earlier "assurances of intention."
Such was the state of affairs when, in February 1874, Disraeli came to power at Westminster with Lord Salisbury as Secretary of State for India. The new Ministry soon showed the desire to adopt a more spirited foreign policy than their predecessors, who had fretted public opinion by their numerous acts of complaisance or surrender. Russia soon gave cause for complaint. In June 1874 the Governor of the trans-Caspian province issued a circular, warning the nomad Turkomans of the Persian border-lands against raiding; it applied to tribes inhabiting districts within what were considered to be the northern boundaries of Persia. This seemed to contravene the assurances previously given by Russia that she would not extend her possessions in the southern part of Central Asia[295]. It also foreshadowed another stride forward at the expense of the Turkoman districts both of Persia and Afghanistan.
As no sufficient disclaimer appeared, the London partisans of the Indian "forward policy" sought to induce Lord Derby and Lord Salisbury to take precautionary measures. Their advice was summed up in the Note of January 11, 1875, written by that charming man and able administrator, Sir Bartle Frere. Its chief practical recommendation was, firstly, the despatch of British officers to act as political agents at Cabul, Candahar, and Herat; and, secondly, the occupation of the commanding position of Quetta, in Baluchistan, as an outpost commanding the chief line of advance from Central Asia into India[296].
This Note soon gained the ear of the Cabinet; and on January 22, 1875, Lord Salisbury urged Lord Northbrook to take measures to procure the assent of the Ameer to the establishment of British officers at Candahar and Herat (not at Cabul)[297]. The request placed Lord Northbrook in an embarrassing position, seeing that he knew full well the great reluctance of the Ameer at all times to receive any British Mission. On examining the evidence as to the Ameer's objection to receive British Residents, the viceroy found it to be very strong, while there is ground for thinking that Ministers and officials in London either ignored it or sought to minimise its importance. The pressure which they brought to bear on Lord Northbrook was one of the causes that led to his resignation (February 1876). He believed that he was in honour bound by the promise, given to the Ameer at the Umballa Conference, not to impose a British Resident on him against his will.
He was succeeded by a man of marked personality, Lord Lytton. The only son of the celebrated novelist, he inherited decided literary gifts, especially an unusual facility of expression both in speech and writing, in prose and verse. Any tendency to redundance in speech is generally counted unfavourable to advancement in diplomatic circles, where Talleyrand's mot as to language being a means of concealing thought still finds favour. Owing, however, to the influence of his uncle, then British Ambassador at Washington, but far more to his own talents, Lytton rose rapidly in the diplomatic service, holding office in the chief embassies, until Disraeli discerned in the brilliant speaker and writer the gifts that would grace the new imperial policy in the East.
In ordinary times the new Viceroy would probably have crowned the new programme with success. His charm and vivacity of manner appealed to orientals all the more by contrast with the cold and repellent behaviour that too often characterises Anglo-Indian officials in their dealings with natives. Lytton's mind was tinged with the eastern glow that lit up alike the stories, the speeches, and the policy of his chief. It is true, the imperialist programme was as grandiosely vague as the meaning of Tancred itself; but in a land where forms and words count for much the lack of backbone in the new policy was less observed and commented on than by the matter-of-fact islanders whom it was designed to glorify.
The apotheosis of the new policy was the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India (July 1, 1877), an event which was signalised by a splendid Durbar at Delhi on January 1, 1878. The new title warned the world that, however far Russia advanced in Central Asia, England nailed the flag of India to her masthead. It was also a useful reminder to the small but not uninfluential Positivist school in England that their "disapproval" of the existence of a British Empire in India was wholly Platonic. Seeing also that the name "Queen" in Hindu (Malika) was one of merely respectable mediocrity in that land of splendour, the new title, "Kaisar-i-Hind," helped to emphasise the supremacy of the British Raj over the Nizam and Gaekwar. In fact, it is difficult now to take seriously the impassioned protests with which a number of insulars greeted the proposal.
Nevertheless, in one sense the change of title came about most inopportunely. Fate willed that over against the Durbar at Delhi there stood forth the spectral form of Famine, bestriding the dusty plains of the Carnatic. By the glint of her eyes the splendours of Delhi shone pale, and the viceregal eloquence was hushed in the distant hum of her multitudinous wailing. The contrast shocked all beholders, and unfitted them for a proper appreciation of the new foreign policy.
That policy may also be arraigned on less sentimental grounds. The year 1876 witnessed the re-opening of the Eastern Question in a most threatening manner, the Disraeli Ministry taking up what may be termed the Palmerstonian view that the maintenance of Turkey was essential to the stability of the Indian Empire. As happened in and after 1854, Russia, when thwarted in Europe, sought for her revenge in the lands bordering on India. No district was so favourable to Muscovite schemes as the Afghan frontier, then, as now, the weakest point in Great Britain's imperial armour. Thenceforth the Afghan Question became a pendant of the Eastern Question.
Russia found ready to hand the means of impressing the Ameer with a sense of her irresistible power. The Czar's officials had little difficulty in picking a quarrel with the Khanate of Khokand. Under the pretext of suppressing a revolt (which Vambéry and others consider to have been prepared through Muscovite agencies) they sent troops, ostensibly with the view of favouring the Khan. The expedition gained a complete success, alike over the rebels and the Khan himself, who thenceforth sank to the level of pensioner of his liberators (1876). It is significant that General Kaufmann at once sent to the Ameer at Cabul a glowing account of the Russian success[298]; and the news of this communication increased the desire of the British Government to come to a clear understanding with the Ameer.
Unfortunately our authorities set to work in a way that increased his irritation. Lord Salisbury on February 28, 1876, instructed Lord Lytton to offer slightly larger concessions to Shere Ali; but he refused to go further than to allow "a frank recognition (not a guarantee) of a de facto order in the succession" to the throne of Afghanistan, and undertook to defend his dominions against external attack "only in some clear case of unprovoked aggression." On the other hand, the British Government stated that "they must have, for their own agents, undisputed access to [the] frontier positions [of Afghanistan][299]." Thus, while granting very little more than before, the new Ministry claimed for British agents and officers a right of entry which wounded the pride of a suspicious ruler and a fanatical people.
To sum up, we gave Shere Ali no help while he was struggling for power with his rivals; and after he had won the day, we pinned him to the terms of a one-sided alliance. In the matter of the Seistan frontier dispute with Persia, British arbitration was insolently defied by the latter Power, yet we urged the Ameer to accept the Shah's terms. According to Lord Napier of Magdala, he felt the loss of the once Afghan district of Seistan more keenly than anything else, and thenceforth regarded us as weak and untrustworthy[300].
The Ameer's irritation increased at the close of the year when the Viceroy concluded an important treaty with the Khan of Khelat in Baluchistan. It would take us too far from our main path to turn aside into the jungle of Baluchee politics. Suffice it to say that the long series of civil strifes in that land had come to an end largely owing to the influence of Major (afterwards Sir Robert) Sandeman. His fine presence, masterful personality, frank, straightforward, and kindly demeanour early impressed the Khan and his turbulent Sirdars. In two Missions which he undertook to Khelat in the years 1875 and 1876, he succeeded in stilling their internal feuds and in clearing away the misunderstandings which had arisen with the Indian Government. But he saw still further ahead. Detecting signs of foreign intrigue in that land, he urged that British mediation should, if possible, become permanent. His arguments before long convinced the new Viceroy, Lord Lytton, who had at first doubted the advisability of the second Mission; and in the course of a tour along the north-west frontier, he held at Jacobabad a grand Durbar, which was attended by the Khan of Khelat and his once rebellious Sirdars. There on December 8, 1876, he signed a treaty with the Khan, whereby the British Government became the final arbiter in all disputes between him and his Sirdars, obtained the right of stationing British troops in certain parts of Baluchistan, and of constructing railways and telegraphs. Three lakhs of rupees were given to the Khan, and his yearly subsidy of Rs. 50,000 was doubled[301].
The Treaty of Jacobabad is one of the most satisfactory diplomatic triumphs of the present age. It came, not as the sequel to a sanguinary war, but as a sign of the confidence inspired in turbulent and sometimes treacherous chiefs by the sterling qualities of those able frontier statesmen, the Napiers, the Lawrences, General Jacob, and Major Sandeman. It spread the pax Britannica over a land as large as Great Britain, and quietly brought a warlike people within the sphere of influence of India. It may be compared with Bonaparte's Act of Mediation in Switzerland (1803), as marking the triumph of a strong organising intelligence over factious groups, to which it imparted peace and order under the shelter of a generally beneficent suzerainty. Before long a strong garrison was posted at Quetta, and we gained the right to enlist Baluchee troops of excellent fighting powers. The Quetta position is a mountain bastion which strengthens the outer defences of India, just as the Alps and Juras, when under Napoleon's control, menaced any invaders of France.
This great advantage was weighted by one considerable drawback. The victory of British influence in Baluchistan aroused the utmost resentment of Shere Ali, who now saw his southern frontier outflanked by Britain. Efforts were made in January-February 1877 to come to an understanding; but, as Lord Lytton insisted on the admission of British Residents to Afghanistan, a long succession of interviews at Peshawur, between the Ameer's chief adviser and Sir Lewis Pelly, led to no other result than an increase of suspicion on both sides. The Viceroy thereupon warned the Ameer that all supplies and subsidies would be stopped until he became amenable to advice and ceased to maltreat subjects known to be favourable to the British alliance. As a retort the Ameer sought to call the border tribes to a Jehad, or holy war, against the British, but with little success. He had no hold over the tribes between Chitral and the Khyber Pass; and the incident served only to strengthen the Viceroy's aim of subjecting them to Britain. In the case of the Jowakis we succeeded, though only after a campaign which proved to be costly in men and money.
In fact, Lord Lytton was now convinced of the need of a radical change of frontier policy. He summed up his contentions in the following phrases in his despatches of the early summer of 1877:--"Shere Ali has irrevocably slipped out of our hands; . . . I conceive that it is rather the disintegration and weakening, than the consolidation and establishment, of the Afghan power at which we must now begin to aim." As for the mountain barrier, in which men of the Lawrence school had been wont to trust, he termed it "a military mouse-trap," and he stated that Napoleon I. had once for all shown the futility of relying on a mountain range that had several passes[302]. These assertions show what perhaps were the weak points of Lord Lytton in practical politics--an eager and impetuous disposition, too prone to be dazzled by the very brilliance of the phrases which he coined.
At the close of his despatch of April 8, 1878, to Lord Cranbrook (Lord Salisbury's successor at the India Office) he sketched out, as "the best arrangement," a scheme for breaking up the Cabul power and bringing about "the creation of a West Afghan Khanate, including Merv, Maimena, Balkh, Candahar, and Herat, under some prince of our own selection, who would be dependent on our support. With Western Afghanistan thus disposed of, and a small station our own, close to our frontier in the Kurram valley, the destinies of Cabul itself would be to us a matter of no importance[303]."
This, then, was the new policy in its widest scope. Naturally it met with sharp opposition from Lord Lawrence and others in the India Council at Whitehall. Besides involving a complete change of front, it would naturally lead to war with the Ameer, and (if the intentions about Merv were persisted in) with Russia as well. And for what purpose? In order that we might gain an advanced frontier and break in pieces the one important State which remained as a buffer between India and Russian Asia. In the eyes of all but the military men this policy stood self-condemned. Its opponents pointed out that doubtless Russian intrigues were going on at Cabul; but they were the result of the marked hostility between England and Russia in Europe, and a natural retort to the sending of Indian troops to Malta. Besides, was it true that British influence at Cabul was permanently lost? Might it not be restored by money and diplomacy? Or if these means failed, could not affairs be so worked at Cabul as to bring about the deposition of the Ameer in favour of some claimant who would support England? In any case, the extension of our responsibilities to centres so remote as Balkh and Herat would overstrain the already burdened finances of India, and impair her power of defence at vital points.
These objections seem to have had some weight at Whitehall, for by the month of August the Viceroy somewhat lowered his tone; he gave up all hope of influencing Merv, and consented to make another effort to win back the Ameer, or to seek to replace him by a more tractable prince. But, failing this, he advised, though with reluctance on political grounds, the conquest and occupation of so much of Afghan territory as would "be absolutely requisite for the permanent maintenance of our North-West frontier[304]."
But by this time all hope of peace had become precarious. On June 13, the day of opening of the Congress of Berlin, a Russian Mission, under General Stolieteff, left Samarcand for Cabul. The Ameer is said to have heard this news with deep concern, and to have sought to prevent it crossing the frontier. The Russians, however, refused to turn back, and entered Cabul on July 22[305]. As will be seen by reference to Skobeleff's "Plan for the Invasion of India" (Appendix II.), the Mission was to be backed up by columns of troops; and, with the aim of redoubling the pressure of Russian diplomacy in Europe, the Minister for War at St. Petersburg had issued orders on April 25, 1878, for the despatch of three columns of troops which were to make a demonstration against India. The chief force, 12,000 strong, with 44 guns and a rocket battery, was to march from Samarcand and Tashkend on Cabul; the second, consisting of only 1700 men, was to stir up the mountain tribes of the Chitral district to raid the north of the Punjab; while the third, of the same strength, moved from the middle part of the Amu Daria (Oxus) towards Merv and Herat. The main force set out from Tashkend on June 13, and after a most trying march reached the Russo-Bokharan border, only to find that its toils were fruitless owing to the signature of the Treaty of Berlin (July 13). The same disappointing news dispelled the dreams of conquest which had nerved the other columns in their burning march.
Thus ended the scheme of invasion of India to which Skobeleff had lately given shape and body. In January 1877, while in his Central Asian command, he had drawn up a detailed plan, the important parts of which will be found in the Appendices of this volume. During the early spring of 1878, when the Russian army lay at San Stefano, near Constantinople, he drew up another plan of the same tenour. It seems certain that the general outline of these projects haunted the minds of officers and men in the expeditions just referred to; for the columns withdrew northwards most slowly and reluctantly[306].
A perusal of Skobeleff's plan will show that he relied also on a diplomatic Mission to Cabul and on the despatch of the Afghan pretender, Abdur Rahman, from Samarcand to the Afghan frontier. Both of these expedients were adopted in turn; the former achieved a startling but temporary success.
As has been stated above, General Stolieteff's Mission entered Cabul on July 22. The chief himself returned on August 24; but other members of his Mission remained several weeks longer. There seem to be good grounds for believing that the Ameer, Shere Ali, signed a treaty with Stolieteff; but as to its purport we have no other clue than the draft which purports to be written out from memory by a secret agent of the Indian Government. Other Russian documents, some of which Lord Granville afterwards described as containing "some very disagreeable passages . . . written subsequently to the Treaty of Berlin," were found by Lord Roberts; and the Russian Government found it difficult to give a satisfactory explanation of them[307].
In any case the Government of India could not stand by and witness the intrusion of Muscovite influence into Afghanistan. Action, however, was very difficult owing to the alienation of the Ameer. His resentment had now settled into lasting hatred. As a test question Lord Lytton sought to impose on him the reception of a British Mission. On August 8 he received telegraphic permission from London to make this demand. The Ameer, however, refused to allow a single British officer to enter the country; and the death of his son and heir on August 17 enabled him to decline to attend to affairs of State for a whole month.
His conduct in this matter was condoned by the champions of "masterly inactivity" in this country, who proceeded to accuse the Viceroy of haste in sending forward the British Mission to the frontier before the full time of mourning was over[308]. We now know, however, that this sympathy was misplaced. Shere Ali's grief did not prevent him seeing officers of the Russian Mission after his bereavement, and (as it seems) signing an alliance with the emissaries of the Czar. Lord Lytton was better informed as to the state of things at Cabul than were his very numerous critics, one of whom, under the shield of anonymity, confidently stated that the Russian Mission to Cabul was either an affair of etiquette or a means of warding off a prospective attack from India on Russian Turkestan; that the Ameer signed no treaty with the Mission, and was deeply embarrassed by its presence; while Lord Lytton's treatment of the Ameer was discourteous[309].
In the light of facts as now known, these charges are seen to be the outcome of a vivid imagination or of partisan malice. There can be no doubt that Shere Ali had played us false. Apart from his intrigues with Russia, he had condoned the murder of a British officer by keeping the murderer in office, and had sought to push on the frontier tribes into a holy war. Finally, he sent orders to stop the British Mission at Ali Musjid, the fort commanding the entrance to the Khyber Pass. This action, which occurred on September 22, must be pronounced a deliberate insult, seeing that the progress of that Mission had been so timed as that it should reach Cabul after the days of mourning were over. In the Viceroy's view, the proper retort would have been a declaration of war; but again the Home Government imposed caution, urging the despatch of an ultimatum so as to give time for repentance at Cabul. It was sent on November 2, with the intimation that if no answer reached the frontier by November 20, hostilities would begin. No answer came until a later date, and then it proved to be of an evasive character.
Such, in brief outline, were the causes of the second Afghan War. In the fuller light of to-day it is difficult to account for the passion which the discussion of them aroused at the time. But the critics of the Government held strong ground at two points. They could show, first, that the war resulted in the main from Lord Beaconsfield's persistent opposition to Russia in the Eastern Question, also that the Muscovite intrigues at Cabul were a natural and very effective retort to the showy and ineffective expedient of bringing Indian troops to Malta; in short, that the Afghan War was due largely to Russia's desire for revenge.
Secondly, they fastened on what was undoubtedly a weak point in the Ministerial case, namely, that Lord Beaconsfield's speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, on November 9, 1878, laid stress almost solely on the need for acquiring a scientific frontier on the north-west of India. In the parliamentary debate of December 9 he sought to rectify this mistake by stating that he had never asserted that a new frontier was the object of the war, but rather a possible consequence. His critics refused to accept the correction. They pinned him to his first words. If this were so, they said, what need of recounting our complaints against Shere Ali? These were merely the pretexts, not the causes, of a war which was to be waged solely in the cold-blooded quest for a scientific frontier. Perish India, they cried, if her fancied interests required the sacrifice of thousands of lives of brave hillmen on the altar of the new Imperialism.
These accusations were logically justifiable against Ministers who dwelt largely on that frigid abstraction, the "scientific frontier," and laid less stress on the danger of leaving an ally of Russia on the throne of Afghanistan. The strong point of Lord Lytton's case lay in the fact that the policy of the Gladstone Ministry had led Shere Ali to side with Russia; but this fact was inadequately explained, or, at least, not in such a way as to influence public opinion. The popular fancy caught at the phrase "scientific frontier"; and for once Lord Beaconsfield's cleverness in phrase-making conspired to bring about his overthrow.
But the logic of words does not correspond to the logic of facts. Words are for the most part simple, downright, and absolute. The facts of history are very rarely so. Their importance is very often relative, and is conditioned by changing circumstances. It was so with the events that led up to the second Afghan War. They were very complex, and could not be summed up, or disposed of, by reference to a single formula. Undoubtedly the question of the frontier was important; but it did not become of supreme importance until, firstly, Shere Ali became our enemy, and, secondly, showed unmistakable signs of having a close understanding with Russia. Thenceforth it became a matter of vital import for India to have a frontier readibly defensible against so strong a combination as that of Russia and Afghanistan.
It would be interesting to know what Mr. Gladstone and his supporters would have done if they had come into power in the summer of 1878. That they blamed their opponents on many points of detail does not prove that they would not have taken drastic means to get rid of Shere Ali. In the unfortunate state into which affairs had drifted in 1878, how was that to be effected without war? The situation then existing may perhaps best be summed up in the words which General Roberts penned at Cabul on November 22, 1879, after a long and illuminating conversation with the new Ameer concerning his father's leanings towards Russia: "Our recent rupture with Shere Ali has, in fact, been the means of unmasking and checking a very serious conspiracy against the peace and security of our Indian Empire[310]."
Given the situation actually existing in 1878, the action of the British Government is justifiable as regards details. The weak point of the Beaconsfield policy was this: that the situation need not have existed. As far as can be judged from the evidence hitherto published (if we except some wild talk on the part of Muscovite Chauvinists), Russia would not have interfered in Afghanistan except in order to paralyse England's action in Turkish affairs. As has been pointed out above, the Afghan trouble was a natural sequel to the opposition offered by Disraeli to Russia from the time of the re-opening of the Balkan problem in 1875-76; and the consideration of the events to be described in the following chapter will add one more to the many proofs already existing as to the fatefulness of the blunder committed by him when he wrecked the Berlin Memorandum, dissolved the Concert of the Powers, and rendered hopeless a peaceful solution of the Eastern Question.
FOOTNOTES:
[276] See Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. vi., for an account of the formation, at the tribal meeting, of a roving band.
[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.
[278] Quoted by Vandal, Napoléon I. et Alexandre, vol. i. p. 136.
[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).
[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).
[281] Sir J.W. Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan, 5 vols. (1851-78).
[282] G.B. Malleson, History of Afghanistan, p. 421.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[286] Sir W.W. Hunter, The Earl of Mayo, p. 125 (Oxford, 1891); the Duke of Argyll, op. cit. vol. ii, p. 252.
[287] Argyll, op. cit. vol. i. Preface, pp. xxiii.-xxvi.
[288] Argyll, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 263.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[292] Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), p. 101.
[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.
[294] Argyll, Eastern Question, vol. ii. p. 347. See, however, the letters that passed between General Kaufmann, Governor of Turkestan, and Cabul in 1870-74, in Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 2-10.
[295] Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), p. 107.
[296] General Jacob had long before advocated the occupation of this strong flanking position. It was supported by Sir C. Dilke in his Greater Britain (1867).
[297] Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), pp. 128-129.
[298] Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 12-14; Shere Ali's letters to him (some of them suspicious) and the replies are also printed.
[299] Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 156-159.
[300] Ibid. pp. 225-226.
[301] Sir Robert Sandeman, by T.H. Thornton, chaps, ix.-x.; Parl. Papers relating to the Treaty . . . of 8th Dec. 1876; The Forward Policy and its Results, by R.I. Bruce; Lord Lytton's Indian Administration, by Lady Betty Balfour, chap. iii.
The Indian rupee is worth sixteen pence.
[302] Lady B. Balfour, op. cit. pp.166-185, 247-148.
[303] Ibid. pp. 246-247.
[304] Lady B. Balfour, op. cit. p. 255. For a defence of this on military grounds see Lord Roberts' Forty-One Years in India, vol. ii, p. 187; and Thorburn's Asiatic Neighbours, chap. xiv.
[305] Parl Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), pp.242-243; ibid. Central Asia, No. 1, pp.165 et seq.
[306] For details see Russia's Advance towards India, by "an Indian Officer," vol. ii. pp.109 et seq.
[307] The alleged treaty is printed, along with the other documents, in Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 17-30. See also Lord Roberts' Forty-one Years in India, vol. ii. p.477.
[308] Duke of Argyll, The Eastern Question, vol. ii. pp. 504-507.
[309] The Causes of the Afghan War, pp. 305 et seq.
[310] Parl. Papers, Afghanistan, No. 1 (1880), p. 171.