Thus was a third stage reached in Russia’s advance. Her Siberian frontier extended from the north-eastern shore of the Caspian to the borders of China. It had been pushed forward to the edge of the plateau of Samarkand, then a province of Bokhārā, and lay within striking distance of the three Central Asian states which still maintained their independence. A sense of common danger united the forces which had hitherto been hostile: Kokandis, Bokhārans, and Khivans felt instinctively that the hour had come for a combined attempt to shake off the Russian incubus. A leader alone was required, and one was found in Sayyid Muzaffar ed-Dīn, Amīr of Bokhārā. He claimed a descent from Tīmūr, and doubtless dreamed of repeating the conquests of his great predecessor on the throne of Samarkand. His ambition was fanned by the fierce breath of fanaticism, for the Amīr was notoriously subject to priestly influence, and the mullās of Central Asia were among the bitterest foes of Russian designs. At his prompting the bazaars of the three Khānates swarmed with emissaries, who preached a Holy War, and exhorted true believers to drive back the invaders into the Siberian steppes. The Amīr soon found himself at the head of a huge force drawn from his own subjects, while he obtained control over those of Kokand by assuming the guardianship of the minor Khān.[546] Thus reinforced he occupied Khojend, a city on the north-east corner of Samarkand only a hundred miles from the new Russian capital, and summoned Chernaieff to release his conquests. At the same time he imprisoned four Russian envoys[547] sent him by the general. This act of war met with a prompt response.

Chernaieff advanced from Tashkent with 14 companies of infantry, 6 squadrons of Cossacks, and 16 guns as far as Jizāk, a fortress barely 60 miles from Samarkand. But the population was hostile, supplies failed, and he was obliged to retreat on his capital. Retrograde movements in the face of Asiatic forces are always pregnant with disaster. General Chernaieff’s was interpreted by the Bokhārans as a confession of weakness. Crowds flocked to the Amīr’s standard, and he moved on Tashkent with 40,000 men. In the meantime Chernaieff, who had not been forgiven for his breach of instructions in the occupation of Tashkent,[548] was superseded by General Romanovski, who had received peremptory orders from the Tsar that hostilities with the Khānate must cease. Like his predecessor, he found himself compelled by force of circumstances to disobey orders.

The Bokhāran host was within three marches of Tashkent. The city with its 70,000 inhabitants was seething with rebellion, and to maintain a defensive attitude was to court defeat. Romanovski adopted the only tactics which afforded a chance of success. He marched from Tashkent with a force of 14 infantry companies, 5 Cossack squadrons, 20 guns, and a rocket apparatus, and, following the left bank of the Sir Daryā, encountered the enemy at Irjai, between Jizāk and Khojend. The battle that followed on the 20th May 1866 recalls Plassey: 3600 Russians utterly routed a force of 5000 well-armed Bokhāran regulars and 35,000 horsemen with 2 guns which had taken up an entrenched position on the road to Samarkand, on which the beaten host retreated in the utmost disorder. That hotbed of fanaticism lay open to the invader, but he deemed it safer to seize the fortress of Khojend, thus driving a wedge between Bokhārā and the Kokand territories. On the 6th of June 1866 Khojend fell after a siege of eight days and a bombardment by 2 mortars and 18 field-pieces.[549] The news of the rout of Irjai, and the capture of Khojend, created a profound dismay throughout Central Asia; but the proud Uzbegs were loth to acknowledge themselves beaten; and the mullās were still less inclined to forfeit the great position which they held under so pious a ruler as Muzaffar ed-Dīn. He was persuaded to disregard the ultimatum sent by Romanovski, and actively pursued preparations for a new campaign. The Russians therefore took the offensive with unabated vigour. During October they seized the Bokhāran border strongholds of Ura-teppe and Jizāk, thus obtaining a complete command of the valley of the Zarafshān. In the spring of 1867 Yani Kurgān was added to the list of Russian conquests, and was twice heroically defended by General Abramoff against a Bokhāran force of 45,000 men bent on wresting it from the invader. Thus, in the middle of 1867, the Russians found themselves masters of the great sources of Bokhāran prosperity—the basins of the Zarafshān and the Sir Daryā. The vast extent of this newly conquered territory, and its distance from Orenburg, still the administrative capital of Russian Central Asia, led to a revision of the boundaries.

By a ukase[550] dated 11th (23rd) July 1867 Turkestān was placed under a governor-general, with headquarters at Tashkent. His authority extended over the provinces of Sir Daryā and Semirechensk, the latter including the vast territory lately acquired between the lakes of Balkash and Issik Kul. General Kauffman, a general who has written his name indelibly on Central Asian annals, was appointed to the important post. On taking the helm he found Kokand quiescent, but Bokhārā still in a state of suppressed excitement, which found occasional vent in attacks on Russian outposts.

He began by making the Amīr overtures of peace, on the basis of the statu quo as regards boundaries, the grant of equal rights to Russians and natives in the matter of trade, and the payment of a war indemnity of 125,000 tilās.[551]

No reply was returned by the Amīr, but he obtained reinforcements from Khiva, and massed troops to attack the Russian outpost at Jizāk. The general, in consonance with the policy pursued by all Asiatic conquerors, anticipated the onslaught by a forward movement. Samarkand was the objective, the holiest of Central Asian cities, with a fierce and crafty population and many remains of past splendour to remind its inhabitants that it had been once the seat of an empire which regarded Russia as an outlying province. On the 12th May 1868 Kauffman, at the head of 3600 troops, attacked the united Bokhāran and Khivan host, 40,000 strong, massed on the heights on the left bank of the Zarafshān, fifteen miles from the capital. The Russians forded the shallow river and fell upon the foe with such impetuosity that an utter rout followed. Samarkand surrendered on the following day.[552] The cowardly Sarts[553] offered sumptuous banquets to the victors. But a note of warning was sounded by the Jews, whom ages of cruel oppression had rendered friendly to the Russian cause. They were disregarded by Kauffman, who had hurried on to capture the towns of Urgut and Katti Kurgān, on the direct road to Bokhārā. Learning that the warlike population of Shahrisabz had joined the movement, and were encamped to the east of Samarkand, while the Bokhāran forces menaced Katti Kurgān, he moved out to attack the foe. His wounded were left in the citadel, a fortress nearly surrounded by scarped ravines in the centre of Samarkand, under a guard of 762 men, commanded by Major Von Stempel, under whom Colonel Nazaroff, with a chivalry equal to Outram’s, consented to serve.

Hardly were the main body out of sight than a force of 20,000 men from Shahrisabz were surreptitiously introduced into the city by the treacherous inhabitants,[554] and the citadel was closely beset. It was defended as heroically as the Residency of Lucknow had been by a handful of Britons. Every wounded Russian capable of pointing a rifle took his place on the ramparts; and though the enemy repeatedly penetrated the enceinte, never did they effect a lodgment thereon. And now provisions and ammunition ran short; 189 of the defenders were killed or wounded, and surrender seemed inevitable. But the terrible Kauffman heard of his brave followers’ distress from a messenger who had contrived to slip through the beleaguering lines. He had defeated the last remnant of Bokhārā’s forces, and was free to retrace his steps. Like Gillespie’s vengeance on the Vellore mutineers was that taken by Kauffman on the foe. They were smitten hip and thigh, thousands of prisoners were massacred in cold blood, and the villainy of the Sart inhabitants was punished by the surrender of the town for three days to pillage by the infuriated army. The avenger was able to report to his master that tranquillity reigned in Samarkand. The Amīr Muzaffar was at length convinced that the Great White Tsar’s arm was too long to be withstood or evaded. His proud spirit was crushed by repeated misfortunes, and he implored permission to abdicate and end his days at Mekka. But policy demanded that the ruler of Bokhārā should be one who had learnt submission by bitter experience. Muzaffar ed-Dīn was confirmed as Amīr, while his whilom province, Samarkand, was incorporated with Turkestān, and placed under Lieutenant-General Abramoff, who had given innumerable proofs of dauntless energy. The general soon had his hands full, for the mullās were by no means inclined to share their sovereign’s despondency. They worked upon the ambitions of Katti Tūra, the heir-presumptive, a youth of seventeen, whose reckless cruelties would have made him a meet successor of his grandfather, the murderer of Stoddart and Conolly. This prince raised the standard of revolt, and declared his father to have forfeited the throne. He routed a detachment of Bokhāran regulars sent against him, and took the stronghold of Karki,[555] a fortress commanding the upper reaches of the Amū Daryā. Abramoff had little difficulty in quelling the insurrection. He took Karshī, the cradle of the reigning dynasty, stormed Karki, and drove the prince into the mountains which occupy the centre of Bokhārā. Here he found no hiding-place. He was driven to the western border of Samarkand, and finally captured through the treachery of a peasant. The young rebel was dragged into the presence of his outraged father, who ordered his head to be struck off and exposed at the palace gate.

General Abramoff completed the pacification of Bokhārā by subduing Shahrisabz, the last refuge of highland independence. He then politely invited the Amīr to assume the sovereignty of the pacified territory.

MAP SHOWING THE
ADVANCE OF RUSSIA
IN
CENTRAL ASIA.