Independent pamphlets and thundering newspaper articles alternated on the field of this question with the expositions above-named. The warning voice of a small minority could not succeed in making head against the Optimists, against those apostles of the new political doctrine. Sir Henry Rawlinson, whose perfect conversance with the circumstances of that region no one can dispute, a man whose practical experience is at one with his theoretic insight, has here and there in the Quarterly Review pointed out the errors of such speculations in solidly written essays; and though, as doubting any ultimate design of Russia upon India, he protested against all actual interference, merely blaming the indifference above-mentioned; still his words passed unheeded of the multitude. I might well say to myself that where such an authority carries no weight, my present words could but travel a very short way. I was therefore slow to speak; and yet, as I had studied this momentous question in all its aspects, and examined it from many sides with impartial eyes, I deemed it possible to show, not only to the statesmen of England, but to those of all Europe, how fatally the Cabinet of St. James errs in its way of looking at the matter; and how this cherished indifference is not only hurtful to English interests, but becomes a deadly weapon wherewith Great Britain commits a suicide unheard of in history.
How it happens that I, who by race am neither English nor Russian, have taken so warm an interest in this matter, is mainly accounted for by the fact of my regarding the collision of these two Colossi in Asia less from the stand-point of their mutual rivalry, than from that of the interests of Europe at large. Whether England or Russia get the advantage, which of the two will become chief arbiter of the old world's destinies, can never be to us an indifferent matter; for widely as these two powers differ from each other in their character as channels of Western civilisation, not less widely do they diverge from one another in any future reckoning up of the issues of their struggle. A passing glance, on the one hand, at the Tartars, who have lived for two hundred years under Russian rule; on the other, at the millions of British subjects in India, might teach us a useful lesson from the past on this point. This, however, may be reserved for later investigation. For the present we will only affirm that the question of a rivalry between these two North European powers in Central Asia concerns not only Englishmen and Russians, but every European as well; nay, more, it deserves to be studied with interest by every thoughtful person of our century.[59]
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.