[615] In 1875 a caravan, fitted out by the energetic Colonel Glukhovsky, was destroyed between Krasnovodsk and Khiva. In 1877 the Turkomans looted one proceeding northwards from the Atrak; and a little later they cut up, near Krasnovodsk, some of their brethren who had accepted Russian rule, and intercepted many postal couriers (Petrusevitch, quoted by Marvin, Merv, p. 331).
[616] Ney, p. 226. It is now the site of a great railway workshop.
[617] In 1878, when Russia was within an ace of going to war with England on the Eastern question, it was arranged that columns from Turkestān and the Caspian should meet at Merv and subdue that almost unknown region; but the Congress of Berlin rendered the measure unnecessary (Ney, p. 227).
[618] Geok Teppe, which will for ever be associated with the final struggle for independence, is the name of a district; Dangil Teppe, that of the famous entrenched camp. It was originally that of a mound at the north-western angle.
[619] Ney, p. 240.
[620] Skobeleff was in politics an Anglophobe, though his relations with our countrymen individually were cordial. There is not an iota of truth in his belief that Lomakin’s failure was due to British intrigue. It is fully accounted for by his incapacity. The result was only what might have been expected. Russian authority in Central Asia was ill cemented, and it needed but the news of a crushing reverse to produce the wildest hopes in the Khānates.
[621] He was born in 1841.
[622] General Lomakin started from his base with 12,000 camels, and had lost the whole of them by the twentieth day of his march (Ney, p. 315).
[623] He wrote from Krasnovodsk in June: “If we wish to recoup our immense expenditure in Asia we must popularise the desert journey between the Caspian and the basin of the Amū Daryā; and, after rendering the steppes safe for transit, we must make a railway to Askabad and on to the Amū Daryā” (Ney, p. 286).
[624] Moser, p. 315.