They still
abounded
in schools;
but the studies pursued in them were the mere repetition of past and
obsolete knowledge.
but the studies pursued in them were the mere repetition of past and
obsolete knowledge.
Cambridge History of India - v4 - Indian Empire
Three armies,
each with its own commander-in-chief, subject to its own local govern-
ment, and governed by its own code of regulations, but all commanded
by British officers, grew up in the same British possession as strangers
and objects of curiosity, each to the others. The "Qui-hi”, the “Mull",
and the “Duck”, I as the British officers of the three presidencies were
termed, might almost have been regarded as men of different nations.
It is told of a gallant veteran of the old Bengal Artillery, who was full of
“Presidential” prejudices, that, on hearing the Bombay Army commended by
a brother officer, he broke out in just wrath: “The Bombay Army! Don't talk
to me of the Bombay Army! They call a chilamchi a gindi—the bcasts! "?
Many other stories of this nature illustrate a sentiment which long
prevailed, but is now, probably, almost obsolete.
In 1891 the Staff Corps of the three presidencies were amalgamated,
and became the Indian Staff Corps, and in 1893 the offices of com-
mander-in-chief in Madras and Bombay were abolished, and the
1 Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson (2nd ed. ), s. vv.
• Idem, p. 196.
## p. 400 (#438) ############################################
400
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858–1918
control of the two armies was withdrawn from the local governments.
The pretence that service with a native regiment was service on the
staff, no longer necessary as a bait for candidates, could not now be
maintained, and in 1903 the Indian Staff Corps was renamed the
Indian Army.
Under the presidency system the Madras army, for reasons already
given, had been gradually reduced; the Bombay army had remained
stationary; but the Bengal army had so grown, with the expansion
of the territory which it garrisoned, as to become a force too unwieldy
for one command. In 1895, therefore, the three old presidency armies
were converted into four Army Commands; the Bengal army being
divided into the Panjab and Bengal Commands, and the other two
armies forming the Madras and Bombay Commands. Each Command
was placed under a lieutenant-general, to whom was delegated much
of the authority exercised until then by army headquarters. In 1904
almost the last vestiges of the old presidency system were swept away
by the renumbering of the regiments, which were incorporated in one
list, and numbered consecutively, the Bengal regiments coming first,
the Madras next, and the Bombay last. Some attempt was made to
retain an indication of the old numbering. Thus, the ist Madras
Lancers became the 21st Lancers, the ist Madras Infantry (Pioneers)
the 61st Pioneers, and the ist Bombay Infantry (Grenadiers) the
101st Grenadiers, the gaps in the consecutive numbering being filled,
as far as possible, by the incorporation in the regular army of irregular
and local corps. In 1903, for example, a new arrangement made with
the Nizam regarding the province of Berar, which had been assigned
to the Government of India in 1853 for the maintenance of the
Hyderabad contingent, made it possible to incorporate that force in
the regular army, and its regiments helped to fill gaps in the numbering
of the regiments of the presidency armies.
In 1907 the four Army Commands were changed into Army Corps
Commands, each corps containing two or more divisions. The Northern
Command comprised the ist (Peshawar), and (Rawulpindi) and
3rd (Lahore) Divisions; the Western Command the 4th (Quetta),
5th (Mhow) and 6th (Poona) Divisions; and the Eastern Command
the 7th (Meerut) and 8th (Lucknow) Divisions. Two divisions, the
gth (Secunderabad) Division and the Burma Division, remained
directly under the commander-in-chief.
In the second Afghan War the Panjab native states placed at the
disposal of the government contingents of troops which did good
service on the frontier, and in 1885, when war with Russia seemed
almost inevitable, the ruling princes, with that loyalty to the crown
which they have seldom failed to display on critical occasions, offered
their resources to the government. The offer was accepted, and in 1889
1 Proclamation by Lord Curzon, at the Coronation Durbar of King Edward VII, in
1903,
## p. 401 (#439) ############################################
SERVICES, 1914-1918
401
the contribution of military force to be made by each state was deter-
mined, and constituted the force known as the Imperial Service
Troops. These, in times of peace, are under the control of the princes
who furnish them, and are commanded by Indian officers appointed
by them, but they are trained and disciplined under the supervision
of British inspecting officers appointed by, and responsible to, the
Government of India.
The last war subjected the resources of India, no less than those of
all parts of the empire, to a severe strain. The narrow limits of a single
chapter preclude anything of the nature of a complete account of
India's contribution of men, material, and money to the war, or a
record of the services rendered by Indian troops of all classes, but in
1914 an Indian army corps was dispatched to France, and there,
during a winter so inclement as to try severely men born and bred in
Northern Europe, endured not only the onslaughts of the German
army, but the hardships and the horrors of trench life. Indian troops
fought not only in Flanders, but in East Africa and Turkey, on the
Egyptian frontier, in Palestine, and in Mesopotamia, and kept the
peace in Southern Persia; and during the war the Government of India
recruited, on a voluntary basis, over 680,000 combatants and 400,000
non-combatants, and more than 1,215,000 officers and men were sent
overseas on service, the Indian casualties amounting to 101,000. 1
The Imperial Service Troops, among whom that fine old soldier,
the late Maharaja Pratap Singh, was the most prominent figure, were
a valuable addition to the forces of the crown, and distinguished
themselves in many actions, but among the most interesting and satis-
factory conclusions reached by critics who studied the conduct of
various classes in the war was one which related to classes regarded
as respectable soldiers, but not in the first rank of fighting men. Of
Pathans, Gurkhas, Panjabi, Musalmans and Sikhs much was ex-
pected, nor did they disappoint their advocates, but the Jats and
Marathas displayed a fine fighting spirit.
Until the outbreak of this war Indian sepoy officers had held
the viceroy's commission, the highest ranks which they could reach
being those of risaldar major in cavalry and subadar major in
infantry regiments, but in 1917 they were made eligible for the king's
commission in the rank of lieutenant, and in all ranks to which a
lieutenant may rise. An endeavour is now being made to entrust
the charge of whole battalions, by degrees, to Indian officers, who
are being appointed to them as lieutenants, and will in the ordinary
course of promotion hold all the commissioned ranks in them, but it
cannot yet be judged how the experiment will succeed.
In 1922 the Indian Army was radically reorganised. ? The number
of cavalry regiments was reduced, by the amalgamation of existing
I O'Dwyer, India as I knew it, pp. 417–23;
* Gazette of India, Army Orders and official Army Lists.
26
CHI V1
## p. 402 (#440) ############################################
402
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858–1918
regiments, from thirty-nine to twenty-one; the number of mountain
batteries was fixed at nineteen, with an additional section for Chitral;
the engineers remained three distinct corps, the Bengal, Madras and
Bombay Sappers and Miners; and the infantry was organised in four
regiments of pioneers, nineteen regiments of the line, and ten regi-
ments of Gurkha Rifles. Three of the pioneer regiments and the
regiments of the infantry of the line consist of service battalions varying
in number from two to five, and a depôt battalion stationed per-
manently at the regimental centre, in the area from which the regi-
ment is recruited. The duty of the depôt battalion, which is always
numbered as the tenth, to admit of the consecutive numbering of
additional service battalions to be raised and formed when necessary,
is to keep the service battalions supplied with trained soldiers. One
of the pioneer regiments, the Hazara Pioneers, and the ten regiments
of Gurkha Rifles are recruited beyond the limits of British India, and
cannot, therefore, be organised on a territorial basis. The establish-
ment of each of these regiments is two battalions.
The old commissariat and transport corps, or departments, have
been reorganised as the Indian Army Service Corps; a proportion of
the infantry is trained as mounted infantry and a proportion as
machine gunners. The medical and all other departments of the army
have been reorganised in accordance with the lessons learned in the
late war.
An Auxiliary Force, raised from Europeans and British subjects of
mixed descent, and enrolled for local service only, consists of units of
all arms, with a total strength of about 36,000, and the Territorial
Force, composed wholly of Indians, consists of eighteen provincial
battalions affiliated to regular regiments, four battalions of urban
infantry in process of formation, eleven University training corps, and
a medical branch, with a total strength of about 19,000. The pro-
vincial battalions are liable to general service in India, or, in case of
emergency, beyond the Indian frontier, and the urban battalions to
service within the province in which each is situated, but the University
training corps are subject to no liability.
Of the combatant ranks of the regular army the Panjab alone
supplies nearly half, and the Panjab, the North-West Frontier
Province, Kashmir and the United Provinces together over 64 per
cent. , the independent state of Nepal 12 per cent. , the Bombay
Presidency and Rajputana each under 43 per cent. , and the Madras
Presidency rather more than 2} per cent. The great province of
Bengal, with a population of forty-eight millions, supplies not a single
soldier, nor does the neighbouring province of Assam, with a
population of eight millions. The contributions of other provinces,
with the exception of Burma, which contributes nearly 2 per cent. ,
are negligible. 1
1 Simon Report, 1, map facing p. 96; O'Dwyer, op. cit. pp. 417-23.
## p. 403 (#441) ############################################
CHAPTER XXIII
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858-1918
THROUGHOUT the second half of the nineteenth and the early
years of the twentieth century Central Asia continued to provide the
chief problem of Indian external policy. In some respects the problem
had been simplified by the course of events since the first Afghan War.
The conquest of Sind and the Panjab had placed the Government of
India in direct contact with the region concerned. But this tendency
was more than offset by other changes. Developing communications
were intensifying the reactions of regional interests. European necds
took an ever-increasing share in determining Indian policy. In 1857
Canning could write of “a fear at the India House that government
are going to do as Hobhouse boasted he had done, and dictate from
London what the Government of India shall do in Afghanistan”. 1
The fear became a reality. Half a century later Morley wrote from
the India Office: “The plain truth is. . . that this country [Great
Britain) cannot have two foreign policies”;? and from the Foreign
Office Sir Charles Hardinge observed of the negotiations for the
entente with Russia: "Recently we have left tł• Government of India
entirely out of our account”; In the old days, the Government of
India, as a member of it declared, “could, if we saw good, have
marched our army to Candahar or Herat, and trusted to the Court
[of Directors] approving”. 4 Foreign policy had been a matter in
which the governor-general had enjoyed a greater liberty of conduct
than in any other branch of his administration. The exigencies of
political action, the needs of a swiftly developing situation, had per-
mitted him, in the days before the Red Sea cable was laid in 1870,
to confront the home authorities with accomplished facts, with a
formal declaration of war or annexation of territory, in which they
could not but acquiesce, however reluctantly. But in the new period
telegraph and cable invested distant incidents with a growing in-
fluence upon European politics and at the same time permitted
European cabinets to control action which in the past had depended
on the wide discretion of local governors. Even, Curzon's vigour and
determination had been barely able to restore to the Government of
India the phantom of its old authority; and what he could not achieve
lesser men could not even attempt.
Nor was the growing predominance of European control the sole
1 Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, 1, 153.
• Recollections, 11, 179.
• Gooch and Temperley, Origins of the War, iv, 294.
• Martineau, Life of Frere, 1, 245.
4
26-2
## p. 404 (#442) ############################################
404
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
difficulty with which the Government of India had to contend.
Unluckily external policy was the one aspect of Indian political affairs
which was capable of exciting interest in Great Britain. Nourished
on the myth of Anglo-Indian aggressiveness, accepting without question
the extravagance of Burke and the far less justifiable falsehoods of
Macaulay's essay on Warren Hastings, Radical opinion perceived
aggression behind every measure of Indian defence; in their eyes the
frontier tribes were a race of wronged and noble savages, and the
Afghans a nation rightly struggling to free itself from the meshes of
intrigue cast around it by a malevolent Indian Government.
At the outset, in 1858, the governor-general still retained much of
his former influence and discretion. The situation, however, was
obscure. In 1844 the visit of the emperor Nicholas I to England had
resulted in an understanding formulated in a memorandum prepared
a
by Count Nesselrode. This document declared that Russia and Great
Britain would work together to preserve the internal peace of Persia,
and that the khanates of Central Asia-Bokhara, Khiva, and
Samarkand-should be left “as a neutral zone between the two em-
pires in order to preserve them from a dangerous contact". 1 For ten
years this understanding had been observed. But the Crimean War
had ended it without establishing any substitute in Central Asia.
Indeed from that time onwards British policy was constantly but
unsuccessfully directed towards restoring the situation as it had stood
from 1844 to 1854.
Meanwhile, for ten years after the restoration of Dost Muhammad
as the ruler of Kabul, British relations with Afghanistan had been
undefined but sullen. They were modified under the pressure of
Persian eagerness to expand eastwards and reconquer Herat and
Kandahar. The former city had been seized by the Persians in 1852
and only relinquished under threats of vigorous British action. In
1854 the place was again attacked. Herbert Edwardes, the com-
missioner at Peshawar, perceived in this a heaven-sent occasion to
re-establish a definite friendship with Dost Muhammad. The chief
commissioner of the Panjab, John Lawrence, thought little of the
proposal; but Dalhousie was convinced of its propriety, and with his
approval Edwardes spent some months coaxing the amir into making
overtures to the British Government. The result was a treaty signed
early in 1855, by which the Government of India bound itself not to
interfere with the amir's territories, while he in return agreed to be
“the friend of the friends and the enemy of the enemies of the
Honourable East India Company”. 4 In one respect the treaty fell
short of what Dost Muhammad had desired. He had sought to extract
1 Étude diplomatique sur la guerre de Crimée, 1, 11 599.
2 Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 236.
3 Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, I, 450, 452; Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes,
II, 239, 447
Aitchison, Treaties, xi, 340.
## p. 405 (#443) ############################################
DOST MUHAMMAD
405
a promise never to send an envoy to Kabul. This was deliberately
refused. The Afghan negotiator was to be assured (the instructions
said)
that the Government of India has no intention of sending and no wish to send a
representative to the court of Cabul; but it should be pointed out to him that this
government could not in prudence bind itself never to depute a representative to
the Ameer, for if Russia or other powers should be represented by envoys at Cabul,
the interests of the British government would plainly suffer injury if no envoy
were present on its behalf. 1
In 1856 Herat was again seized by the Persians, who boasted to
their Russian friends that they would occupy Kandahar and establish
themselves on the borders of the Panjab. This led to war not only
with the amir of Kabul but also with Great Britain. A force was
dispatched from Bombay, and the amir was assisted with money and
arms, the employment of the subsidy being placed under the in-
spection of British officers, who were to be withdrawn as soon as the
war was over. The Persians speedily came to terms by a treaty signed
at Paris on 4 March, 1857. The most interesting point of this agree-
ment was the care taken by the Russian Government to secure the
exclusion of English consuls from the Caspian ports, on the ground
that their appointment could have none but a political object. 5
For some years after this the Afghan question fell into a calm. Dost
Muhammad was busily consolidating his power. In 1862 he attacked
Herat. Though the governor-general, Elgin, admitted that in this he
was not the aggressor, the Government of India signified its disap-
proval by recalling the vakil—the Muslim agent—who had been
maintained at Kabul since 1857. 6 Ignoring this protest, Dost Muham-
mad persisted in his attack, took the place in 1863, and died shortly
after at the age of eighty. He had designated his son, Sher 'Ali, as his
successor. But in Afghanistan as in Moghul India, theoretical rights
of succession counted for little in comparison with force. A prolonged
period of fratricidal war ensued, now one, now another of Dost
Muhammad's sixteen sons gaining the upper hand. In 1864 Afzal
Khan and Azim Khan rebelled; in 1865 Azim Khan and his nephew
Abd-ur-rahman rose; in 1866 Sher 'Ali was driven from Kabul and
in 1867 from Kandahar; in 1868 he suddenly recovered them. ' An
incident of one of the actions of this period well illustrates the proud
ferocity with which the struggle was conducted. Amin Khan, Sher
'Ali's full brother, was killed fighting against him. His dead body was
brought in triumph to Sher ’Ali. "Throw the body of this dog away”,
he said, “and bid my son come and congratulate me on the victory. "
Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 242.
? Dispatch from Anitschkoff, 27 October (O. S. ), 1856 (Legation Archives, vii, e).
: Goldsmid, Life of Outram, 11, 130 s99.
• Aitchison, op. cit. XI, 342.
• Gortchakoff to Lagofsky, 26 February (O. S. ), 1857 (Legation Archives, loc. cil. ).
• Walrond, Elgin's Letters and Journals, pp. 417, 419.
? A detailed narrative will be found in Wylly, External Policy of India, pp. i sqq.
1
## p. 406 (#444) ############################################
406
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
His officers, not daring to tell him that his son also had fallen, brought
his body. “Who is this other dog? ” the amir demanded. But when
the corpse had been laid at his feet and he knew it for his son's, he
rent his garments and cast dust upon his head. 1
Throughout this period, under the influence of John Lawrence, the
Government of India pursued that policy of inactivity which some
have called “masterly”, 2 although in truth it consisted merely in
waiting upon events. Upon the generation that had witnessed the
Indian Mutiny, Lawrence's vigour of character and singleness of
purpose produced a remarkable effect. His opinions were accepted
as oracles, and men forgot or ignored the fallibility of his judgment.
Even Lord Salisbury, during his first tenure of the India Office as
Lord Cranborne in 1866–7, “whole-heartedly” approved Lawrence's
ideas of Afghan policy. 3 Lawrence had always disliked the idea of
alliance with the ruler of Afghanistan. Both before and after Dost
Muhammad's death he had done his utmost to prevent the govern-
ment from taking any part in Afghan politics, on the score that the
British could not make a true friend of the amir. But his views (as
Dalhousie observed with customary incisiveness) were based on the
fallacy that the Afghans were too foolish to recognise their own in-
terests. Accordingly as Sher 'Ali, and then Afzal Khan, and then
Azim Khan, and then Sher ’Ali once more, succeeded in establishing
themselves as successive rulers of Kabul, the Indian Government was
content with recognising each in turn. Thrice in 1866 Sher 'Ali asked
for English help. Afzal Khan did the same. Lawrence, then governor-
general, ignored the former's letters and bluntly told the latter that if
he could solidly establish his power he might hope to be received into
the English alliance. 6
This policy was the belated result of the old dogma of non-inter-
vention which in India had produced little but undesired and un-
expected war. Nor had it here even the excuse which it had had in
regard to the Indian states. From the time of Wellesley onwards the
Indian states had been dominated by the power of the Company, and
in them rival claimants could not turn from the great power which
refused assistance to any other great and neighbouring power. But
the Afghan rivals could and did. They applied to Russia and to Persia
for help,” as might have been foreseen. The policy of inactivity was
brought at once to a hasty end, and Lawrence advised that foreign
assistance should at once be countered by a supply of money and arms
to the side not leaning on Persian or Russian support. 8 When the
home government gave him a free hand in the matter, he did not
9
1 Abd-ur-rahman, Autobiography, 1, 63. 2 Cf. Wylly, op. cit. p. 115.
: Lady Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Lord Salisbury, 1, 206.
· Bosworth Smith, op. cit. I, 450.
6 Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 239.
& Wylly; op. cit. pp. 76, 45.
? Idem, pp. 103 399;
8 Dispatch, 3 September, 1867 (Parl. Papers, 1878-9, LVI, 392).
• Dispatch, 26 December, 1867 (idem, 398).
## p. 407 (#445) ############################################
RUSSIAN EXPANSION
407
even wait for the contingency to arise, but at once subsidised Sher 'Ali,
who with this help speedily made an end of the remaining resistance
to his authority.
But great harm had been done. Abd-ur-rahman, for instance, on
being driven out of Afghanistan by his uncle, Sher 'Ali, hesitated for
a moment whether to seek shelter with the Russians or the English;
but as he “had never seen the benefit of English friendship”, he
chose the Russians. Sher 'Ali himself declared that “the English look
to nothing but their own interests and bide their time”. 2 The force
of these views was strengthened by the contemporary contrast between
English and Russian policy. To the south-east of the Russian provinces
lay four khanates—Khokand, Bokhara, Khiva and Samarkand
with vague, undefined frontiers, separated from their northern neigh-
bour by considerable stretches of desert. At the time of the first
Afghan War, some Russian activity had developed in this area, but
the understanding of 1844 had brought it completely to an end. No
relations had been maintained with the khanates; and it is at least
highly probable that the sudden change which occurred in 1858 was
produced more by political motives than by the supposed necessity
of imposing order on barbarous neighbours. In that year a mission
of enquiry, accompanied by a large body of topographers, was
dispatched under Ignatieff, to collect information about military
conditions, roads, and means of transport. The khanates had fallen
away greatly from their old greatness.
They still abounded in schools;
but the studies pursued in them were the mere repetition of past and
obsolete knowledge. They were poorer, less populous, more fanatical.
The people of Samarkand believed that no infidel enemy could survive
polluting with his feet ground so hallowed by the dust of the blessed. "
But the withering of their rivers had dried up their wealth, weakened
their governments, and exhausted their man-power.
In these circumstances their absorption by the Russian Empire was
as nearly a natural process as anything political can be. In govern-
ment, in socialorganisation, in religion Russia was essentially Oriental.
In power and functions the emperor at St Petersburg was a cousin of
the Oriental monarchs. Apart from him and the functionaries who
répresented him there was only the active local life of the villages, and
the Orthodox Church was the one branch of Christianity which had
not been occidentalised. Russian predominance would involve no
violent change, and its establishment would be nothing more than a
new illustration of that everlasting ebb and flow of power which has
characterised the Eastern world. This expansion began shortly after
the Crimean War. In 1864 Russian authority touched the borders of
1 Abd-ur-rahman, op. cit. 1, 111.
2 Rawlinson, England and Russia, p. 303.
· Vambéry, Central Asia, p. 235.
Vambéry, Western Culture in Eastern Lands, p. 48.
o Cf. Vambéry, Central Asia, pp. 36–7, 231.
## p. 408 (#446) ############################################
408
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
Khokand, Bokhara, and Khiva. In the next year Tashkent was
occupied. In 1867 the new province of Russian Turkestan was con-
stituted, with Kaufmann as its first governor-general. In the same
year Bokhara was reduced, after sending a desperate appeal for help
to the governor-general of India, John Lawrence, and became a
subsidiary ally of the emperor. In 1873 Khiva submitted, placing in
the hands of Russia the management of all its external relations. The
administration established to manage these new possessions and
control these new dependencies was purely military, and all reports
went to the War Office at St Petersburg. 3
The motives of this expa:asion were complex. There were in the first
place the difficulties perpetually arising with semi-civilised, mis-
governed neighbours, who would think nothing of pillaging a caravan
and reducing the merchants to slavery. All the evidence agrees that
the Turkoman tribes were false, greedy, envious, ferocious. Russian
diplomatists were always ready with this explanation, hinting that
Russian expansion in Central Asia was in all respects similar to British
expansion in India—a parallel which liberal opinion in England was
ever ready to accept. Military organisation, too, made for expansion.
Military governors could not look for rewards and promotion by
a peaceful administration. In 1869 Kaufmann's appointment as
governor-general was defended by Prince Gortchakoff expressly on
the ground that he had already gained every honour that a Russian
general could hope for. 5 But this was not all. There was another yet
more powerful reason for expansion. It was designed in the political
interests of Russia. “Great historical lessons", ran the instructions of
the new ambassador, Baron de Staal, appointed to London in 1884,
have taught us that we cannot count on the friendship of England, and that she
can strike at us by means of continental alliances while we cannot reach her any-
where. No great nation can accept such a position. In order to escape from it the
emperor Alexander II, of everlasting memory, ordered our expansion in Central
Asia, leading us to occupy to-day in Turkestan and the Turkestan steppes a
military position strong enough to keep England in check by the threat of inter-
vention in India.
This position had been prepared, though not completed, while
Lawrence was still pursuing his policy of inaction, and demanding
that the Russian question should be solved by coming to an agreement
in Europe instead of by securing advanced positions in Asia. He
seems wholly to have ignored the point that unless England could
entrench herself so strongly in Central Asia as to convince Russia of
the futility of movements in that direction an agreement in Europe
could only be reached by subordinating English to Russian interests
on the continent.
1 Wylly, op. cit. p. 92; cf. Rawlinson, op. cit. p. 397.
2 Treaty, 12 August, 1873 (Parl. Papers, 1874, LXXVI, 171).
3 Boulger, Central Asian Questions, p. 14. • Cf. Curzon, Russia in Asia, p. 118.
6 Clarendon to Buchanan, 3 S:ptember, 1869 (Parl. Papers, 1873, LXXV, 727).
• Meyendorff, Correspondance diplomatique du Baron de Staal, 1, 26.
## p. 409 (#447) ############################################
DIPLOMATIC DISCUSSIONS
409
The Russian advance had led to diplomatic discussions, directed
on the British side towards re-establishing some such neutral zone
between the empires as had existed from the Afghan to the Crimean
wars. At this later period the most acute English students of the
Central Asian question urged that the Oxus should be taken as the
ultimate dividing line of the respective spheres of interest. " But this
was a position which Russia could not now be induced to accept. She
claimed exclusive and complete control down to the northern bank
of that river and was only ready to discuss the establishment of a
neutral zone provided it began appreciably beyond that point. When
therefore Clarendon initiated discussions with Gortchakoff in 1869,
the emperor declared the idea of a neutral zone to be highly pleasing,
but the dispatch announcing this pointed to Afghanistan as an appro-
priate neutral zone. After consulting the India Office, Clarendon
replied “that Afghanistan would not fulfil those conditions of a
neutral territory that it was the object of the two governments to
establish, as the frontiers were ill-defined". 3 This feeble answer,
which gave away a considerable part of the British case, led to a
discussion of the alignment of the northern Afghan frontier and an
agreement early in 1873 by which Russia virtually gained her point
at the trifling cost of admitting Badakshan and Wakhan to form part
of the Afghan kingdom. 4 The Russian policy now was to advance up
to the effective borders of Afghanistan, and to get rid altogether of
uncontrolled or unoccupied territory in that area. This plan was
supported both by political motives and by sound administrative
principle. As Brunnow pointed out to Clarendon, neutrality as under-
stood in Europe could not be applied to Asia. The chiefs and peoples
of Central Asia cared nothing for the international law of Europe,
and neutralisation would merely become un brevet d'impunité. Bokhara
and Khiva were mere robber-states, and could not hope for such
protection as in Europe covered states like Belgium and Switzerland. 5
All that was really obtained was an admission that Russia regarded
Afghanistan as beyond her sphere of interest.
Meanwhile various endeavours had been made to remove the
unfavourable impressions produced upon Sher 'Ali by Lawrence's
policy, which, even before Lawrence's retirement from the governor-
generalship in 1869, was already recognised by its author as inade-
quate. As has been seen, Lawrence at last decided to give Sher 'Ali
material help, and in 1868 offered to meet the amir and discuss with
him the political situation. This meeting never took place; but in
i Rawlinson, op. cit. p. 311.
? Gortchakoff to Brunnow, 7 March, 1869 (Parl. Papers, 1873, LXXV, 720).
3 Clarendon to Rumbold, 17 April, 1869 (idem, 722).
• Gortchakoff to Brunnow, 31 January, 1873 (idem, 709); cf. Granville to Gladstone,
30 September, 1873 (Fitzmaurice, op. cit. 11, 413).
"Brunnow to Gortchakoff, 17 April, 1869 (Legation Archives, xxın).
• Lawrence to Northcote, 10 October 1868 (Bosworth Smith, op. cit. II, 401).
## p. 410 (#448) ############################################
410
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
March, 1869, Lawrence's successor, Lord Mayo, met the amir at
Ambala. Many English writers have chosen to represent this con-
ference as a great success, 1 at which the savage chief was deeply
impressed by the disinterested generosity of the British Government.
But Sher 'Ali was seeking two advantages, for which he would have
conceded a good deal. He desired an alliance with the British to bind
them to support him against external attack, and he desired a promise
that the British would never acknowledge “any friend in the whole of
Afghanistan save the amir and his descendants". 2 Instead of any
such specific agreement, he could only extract a letter in which Mayo
said that the Governmentof India would“view with severe displeasure
any attempts on the part of your rivals to disturb your position", and
that it would “further endeavour. . . to strengthen the government of
Your Highness”. 3 These encouraging but non-committal statements
were too reminiscent of the government's attitude during the late wars
of succession to permit the amir to rely overmuch upon them.
A considerable impression was made upon him by Mayo's personal
charm, fine presence, and winning manners; the tone of the governor-
;
general was more friendly; but the policy of the government had not
yet changed in any material respect.
Though disappointed in 1869, Sher 'Ali was constrained by circum-
stances to make one more trial of the English Government. The
absorption of the khanates on the Oxus was full of warning. Early
in 1873 he told the English vakil at Kabul, that the advance of the
Russian boundary gave him great anxiety that weighed upon him day
and night and that therefore he proposed to send one of his agents
to wait upon the governor-general and ascertain his views. 4 This
proposal led to the conference held at Simla in the following July.
The envoy asked that a written assurance might be given to him to the effect
that if Russia, or any state of Turkestan or elsewhere under Russian influence,
should commit an aggression on the amir's territories, or should otherwise annoy
the amir, the British government would consider such aggressor an enemy, and
that they could promise to afford to the amir promptly such assistance in money
and arms as might be required until the danger should be past or invasion repelled.
Also that if the amir should be unable to cope single-handed with the invader,
that the British government should promptly despatch a force to his assistance by
whatever route the amir might require the same. 5
In view of this request and the general situation, the governor-general,
Lord Northbrook, proposed “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
invasion. We to be the judgcof the necessity”. This policy, if adopted,
1 E. g. Hunter, Life of Lord Mayo, 1, 262.
2 Mayo to Argyll, 1 July, 1869 (Parl. Papers, 1878-9, LVI, 466).
8 Mayo to Sher 'Ali, 31 March, 1869 (idem, 464).
* Agent, Kabul, to Commissioner, Peshawar, 14 April, 1873 (idem, 647).
6 Memorandum of conversation, 19 and 20 July, 1873 (idem, 675).
6 Telegram to the secretary of state, 24 July, 1873 (idem, 482).
6
## p. 411 (#449) ############################################
ARGYLL'S MISMANAGEMENT
411
a
might have proved decisive in the development of the Central Asian
question. Its rejection was as decisive as its adoption might have been.
The Duke of Argyll at the India Office, and a majority of the Council
of India, were convinced adherents of the Lawrence policy. Mr Glad-
stone's first cabinet, then in office, combined a detestation of Russian
government with a curious tolerance of its expansion. It was, therefore,
resolved to reject Northbrook's proposal, on the ground that the amir
had no real cause for alarm, and to limit the governor-general's
assurances to a declaration that “we shall maintain our settled policy
a
in Afghanistan". 1 This decision was well-meant. But its authors
lacked imagination to perceive that it could not appear reassuring to
Sher 'Ali. To him it could mean nothing but a continuation of the
Lawrence policy of helping those who no longer needed assistance.
This criticism which Cranbrook passed in 1878 on his predecessor's
management of the situation seems amply justified. 2
The ill-effects produced by the abortive Simla conference were
emphasised by two other occurrences. The Government of India had
undertaken the thankless task of arbitrating on the boundary claims
of the Persians and Afghans in Seistan. This was a most ill-advised
measure. It may have been desirable that a long-standing subject of
dispute between the two states should be removed. But the more
equitable the decision, the more certain would it be to irritate both
the shah and the amir, for each would feel that his interests had been
neglected. At a moment when the influence of Russia was visibly
waxing, the Government of India would have done well to avoid
needless causes of friction between itself and its Western neighbour.
But the arbitration was held; the decision went in some details against
Afghanistan; and both sides resented British impartiality as a sub-
stantial measure of injustice.
Worse still, Sher 'Ali installed one of his sons, Abdullah Jan, as heir
apparent, in supersession of an elder son, Yakub, who, according to
the Afghan custom, was rebelling against his father. When this
selection was communicated to the Government of India, the answer
was "designedly couched, as nearly as circumstances admit, in the
same language as that in which in 1858 the Punjab Government were
instructed to reply to the letter from Dost Mahomed Khan intimating
the selection of Shere Ali as heir apparent”. 5 Perhaps the government
was wise to desire not to commit itself to the support of a future
claimant who might prove to be incapable. But it blundered in
suggesting to Sher Ali that his favourite son could look for no greater
assistance than he himself had received before imprisonment, death
or exile had freed him from his own rivals.
1 Telegram to Nore: brook, 26 July, 1873 (Parl. Papers, 1878-9, LVI, 482). • Idem, 636.
• Cf. Sir F. J. Golasmid, Eastern Persia, 2 vols. 1876; Parl. Papers, 1868–9, XLVI, 483-6.
The original reports are in F. O. 60--392, 393.
• Cf. Encyclopaedia of Islam, s. v. Abdur-rahman.
5 Dispatch to Argyll, 23 January, 1874 (Parl. Papers, 1868–9, XLVI, 491).
## p. 412 (#450) ############################################
412
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
Disappointed alike by the complaisance with which the British
Government seemed to regard the Russian advance, by the lack of
special favour shown by the Seistan decision, and by the refusal to
recognise Abdullah Jan as the future amir, Sher 'Ali naturally, if
imprudently, concluded that he must make his own terms with
Russia; and circumstances conspired not only to assist him in doing
so but also to deprive him of Russian help as soon as he had committed
himself to Russia. The Russians met him more than half
way.
Afghanistan might lie outside the sphere of Russian interests; but it
had become a neighbour of the Russian Empire; and intercourse
could easily be explained away as a mere matter of frontier courtesy.
So at first it was. In 1870 Kaufmann, the governor-general of
Russian Turkestan, informed Sher 'Ali that, although his nephew
Abd-ur-rahman had taken refuge in Tashkent, he would receive no
assistance to wage war against his uncle. 3 This letter on its receipt
was forwarded by Sher 'Ali to the Government of India, which in
answer cited “the repeated assurances we have received from the
Russian Government” and suggested that Kaufmann's letters "will
doubtless be, when rightly viewed, a source of satisfaction and an
additional ground of confidence". 4 When Sher 'Ali announced the
nomination of Abdullah Jan, the Russian answered much more tact-
fully than the English governor-general, that "such nominations tend
to the comfort and tranquillity of the kingdom”. 5 From 1875 the
interchange of letters became more frequent. Such as transpired were
letters of compliment. But it was disquieting to watch the coming and
going of the bearers without any real knowledge of what was passing
behind the scenes. 6
Moreover from 1874 these political events were being watched with
greater jealousy and suspicion. In that year Gladstone's cabinet was
succeeded by Disraeli's, Salisbury displaced Argyll at the India Office,
and before long Lytton succeeded Northbrook as governor-general.
The change involved a sharp swing of foreign policy both in Europe
and in Asia. Disraeli was convinced that the late cabinet had lowered
the influence of Great Britain in the world, especially by acquiescing
easily and without due question in the explanations of its Central Asia
policy offered by the Russian Foreign Office. He feared that unless
precautions were taken Great Britain would suddenly find herself in
a position of great political and strategic disadvantage. These views
were fully shared by Salisbury and Lytton. Nor was this surprising.
Of recent years Russian conduct had been most ambiguous. In
January, 1873, for instance, Schuvaloff, who had been sent on a
1 Cf. Lady Betty Balfour, Lytton's Indian Administration, p. 10.
2 Cf. Yakub's statements to Roberts, Forty-one Years in India, il, 247.
3 Kaufmann to Sher 'Ali, 28 March, 1870 (Parl. Papers, 1881, XCVIII, 335).
• Dispatch to Argyll, 24 June, 1870 (Parl. Papers, 1878, LXXX, 633).
5 Parl, Papers, 1881, XCVII, 343.
• Cf. telegram to Salisbury, 16 September, 1876 (Parl. Papers, 1878, LXXX, 533).
## p. 413 (#451) ############################################
RUSSIAN ADVANCES
413
special mission to England, was assuring Granville that he might
safely assure parliament that the emperor had issued positive orders
against the occupation of Khiva. 1 Within a year Granville was com-
plaining that Khiva had become a Russian province under a most
thinly disguised protectorate. His remonstrances 3 produced a de-
claration in March, 1874, that no expeditions were contemplated
against the Tekke Turkomans, and that the emperor had peremptorily
forbidden such a measure. On 10 May following General Lomakin
was appointed military governor of a new southern province and
promptly issued a circular to all the Turkoman tribes in that area
claiming supreme authority over them. The imperial government
asserted that the circular had been misunderstood. 5 Just before
Lytton set out for India the Russian ambassador conveyed to him the
curious suggestion that Great Britain and Russia should unite to
disarm the Muslim states of Central Asia. A little earlier Kaufmann
had been lamenting the hostility of Muslim opinion against Russian
administration.
each with its own commander-in-chief, subject to its own local govern-
ment, and governed by its own code of regulations, but all commanded
by British officers, grew up in the same British possession as strangers
and objects of curiosity, each to the others. The "Qui-hi”, the “Mull",
and the “Duck”, I as the British officers of the three presidencies were
termed, might almost have been regarded as men of different nations.
It is told of a gallant veteran of the old Bengal Artillery, who was full of
“Presidential” prejudices, that, on hearing the Bombay Army commended by
a brother officer, he broke out in just wrath: “The Bombay Army! Don't talk
to me of the Bombay Army! They call a chilamchi a gindi—the bcasts! "?
Many other stories of this nature illustrate a sentiment which long
prevailed, but is now, probably, almost obsolete.
In 1891 the Staff Corps of the three presidencies were amalgamated,
and became the Indian Staff Corps, and in 1893 the offices of com-
mander-in-chief in Madras and Bombay were abolished, and the
1 Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson (2nd ed. ), s. vv.
• Idem, p. 196.
## p. 400 (#438) ############################################
400
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858–1918
control of the two armies was withdrawn from the local governments.
The pretence that service with a native regiment was service on the
staff, no longer necessary as a bait for candidates, could not now be
maintained, and in 1903 the Indian Staff Corps was renamed the
Indian Army.
Under the presidency system the Madras army, for reasons already
given, had been gradually reduced; the Bombay army had remained
stationary; but the Bengal army had so grown, with the expansion
of the territory which it garrisoned, as to become a force too unwieldy
for one command. In 1895, therefore, the three old presidency armies
were converted into four Army Commands; the Bengal army being
divided into the Panjab and Bengal Commands, and the other two
armies forming the Madras and Bombay Commands. Each Command
was placed under a lieutenant-general, to whom was delegated much
of the authority exercised until then by army headquarters. In 1904
almost the last vestiges of the old presidency system were swept away
by the renumbering of the regiments, which were incorporated in one
list, and numbered consecutively, the Bengal regiments coming first,
the Madras next, and the Bombay last. Some attempt was made to
retain an indication of the old numbering. Thus, the ist Madras
Lancers became the 21st Lancers, the ist Madras Infantry (Pioneers)
the 61st Pioneers, and the ist Bombay Infantry (Grenadiers) the
101st Grenadiers, the gaps in the consecutive numbering being filled,
as far as possible, by the incorporation in the regular army of irregular
and local corps. In 1903, for example, a new arrangement made with
the Nizam regarding the province of Berar, which had been assigned
to the Government of India in 1853 for the maintenance of the
Hyderabad contingent, made it possible to incorporate that force in
the regular army, and its regiments helped to fill gaps in the numbering
of the regiments of the presidency armies.
In 1907 the four Army Commands were changed into Army Corps
Commands, each corps containing two or more divisions. The Northern
Command comprised the ist (Peshawar), and (Rawulpindi) and
3rd (Lahore) Divisions; the Western Command the 4th (Quetta),
5th (Mhow) and 6th (Poona) Divisions; and the Eastern Command
the 7th (Meerut) and 8th (Lucknow) Divisions. Two divisions, the
gth (Secunderabad) Division and the Burma Division, remained
directly under the commander-in-chief.
In the second Afghan War the Panjab native states placed at the
disposal of the government contingents of troops which did good
service on the frontier, and in 1885, when war with Russia seemed
almost inevitable, the ruling princes, with that loyalty to the crown
which they have seldom failed to display on critical occasions, offered
their resources to the government. The offer was accepted, and in 1889
1 Proclamation by Lord Curzon, at the Coronation Durbar of King Edward VII, in
1903,
## p. 401 (#439) ############################################
SERVICES, 1914-1918
401
the contribution of military force to be made by each state was deter-
mined, and constituted the force known as the Imperial Service
Troops. These, in times of peace, are under the control of the princes
who furnish them, and are commanded by Indian officers appointed
by them, but they are trained and disciplined under the supervision
of British inspecting officers appointed by, and responsible to, the
Government of India.
The last war subjected the resources of India, no less than those of
all parts of the empire, to a severe strain. The narrow limits of a single
chapter preclude anything of the nature of a complete account of
India's contribution of men, material, and money to the war, or a
record of the services rendered by Indian troops of all classes, but in
1914 an Indian army corps was dispatched to France, and there,
during a winter so inclement as to try severely men born and bred in
Northern Europe, endured not only the onslaughts of the German
army, but the hardships and the horrors of trench life. Indian troops
fought not only in Flanders, but in East Africa and Turkey, on the
Egyptian frontier, in Palestine, and in Mesopotamia, and kept the
peace in Southern Persia; and during the war the Government of India
recruited, on a voluntary basis, over 680,000 combatants and 400,000
non-combatants, and more than 1,215,000 officers and men were sent
overseas on service, the Indian casualties amounting to 101,000. 1
The Imperial Service Troops, among whom that fine old soldier,
the late Maharaja Pratap Singh, was the most prominent figure, were
a valuable addition to the forces of the crown, and distinguished
themselves in many actions, but among the most interesting and satis-
factory conclusions reached by critics who studied the conduct of
various classes in the war was one which related to classes regarded
as respectable soldiers, but not in the first rank of fighting men. Of
Pathans, Gurkhas, Panjabi, Musalmans and Sikhs much was ex-
pected, nor did they disappoint their advocates, but the Jats and
Marathas displayed a fine fighting spirit.
Until the outbreak of this war Indian sepoy officers had held
the viceroy's commission, the highest ranks which they could reach
being those of risaldar major in cavalry and subadar major in
infantry regiments, but in 1917 they were made eligible for the king's
commission in the rank of lieutenant, and in all ranks to which a
lieutenant may rise. An endeavour is now being made to entrust
the charge of whole battalions, by degrees, to Indian officers, who
are being appointed to them as lieutenants, and will in the ordinary
course of promotion hold all the commissioned ranks in them, but it
cannot yet be judged how the experiment will succeed.
In 1922 the Indian Army was radically reorganised. ? The number
of cavalry regiments was reduced, by the amalgamation of existing
I O'Dwyer, India as I knew it, pp. 417–23;
* Gazette of India, Army Orders and official Army Lists.
26
CHI V1
## p. 402 (#440) ############################################
402
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858–1918
regiments, from thirty-nine to twenty-one; the number of mountain
batteries was fixed at nineteen, with an additional section for Chitral;
the engineers remained three distinct corps, the Bengal, Madras and
Bombay Sappers and Miners; and the infantry was organised in four
regiments of pioneers, nineteen regiments of the line, and ten regi-
ments of Gurkha Rifles. Three of the pioneer regiments and the
regiments of the infantry of the line consist of service battalions varying
in number from two to five, and a depôt battalion stationed per-
manently at the regimental centre, in the area from which the regi-
ment is recruited. The duty of the depôt battalion, which is always
numbered as the tenth, to admit of the consecutive numbering of
additional service battalions to be raised and formed when necessary,
is to keep the service battalions supplied with trained soldiers. One
of the pioneer regiments, the Hazara Pioneers, and the ten regiments
of Gurkha Rifles are recruited beyond the limits of British India, and
cannot, therefore, be organised on a territorial basis. The establish-
ment of each of these regiments is two battalions.
The old commissariat and transport corps, or departments, have
been reorganised as the Indian Army Service Corps; a proportion of
the infantry is trained as mounted infantry and a proportion as
machine gunners. The medical and all other departments of the army
have been reorganised in accordance with the lessons learned in the
late war.
An Auxiliary Force, raised from Europeans and British subjects of
mixed descent, and enrolled for local service only, consists of units of
all arms, with a total strength of about 36,000, and the Territorial
Force, composed wholly of Indians, consists of eighteen provincial
battalions affiliated to regular regiments, four battalions of urban
infantry in process of formation, eleven University training corps, and
a medical branch, with a total strength of about 19,000. The pro-
vincial battalions are liable to general service in India, or, in case of
emergency, beyond the Indian frontier, and the urban battalions to
service within the province in which each is situated, but the University
training corps are subject to no liability.
Of the combatant ranks of the regular army the Panjab alone
supplies nearly half, and the Panjab, the North-West Frontier
Province, Kashmir and the United Provinces together over 64 per
cent. , the independent state of Nepal 12 per cent. , the Bombay
Presidency and Rajputana each under 43 per cent. , and the Madras
Presidency rather more than 2} per cent. The great province of
Bengal, with a population of forty-eight millions, supplies not a single
soldier, nor does the neighbouring province of Assam, with a
population of eight millions. The contributions of other provinces,
with the exception of Burma, which contributes nearly 2 per cent. ,
are negligible. 1
1 Simon Report, 1, map facing p. 96; O'Dwyer, op. cit. pp. 417-23.
## p. 403 (#441) ############################################
CHAPTER XXIII
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858-1918
THROUGHOUT the second half of the nineteenth and the early
years of the twentieth century Central Asia continued to provide the
chief problem of Indian external policy. In some respects the problem
had been simplified by the course of events since the first Afghan War.
The conquest of Sind and the Panjab had placed the Government of
India in direct contact with the region concerned. But this tendency
was more than offset by other changes. Developing communications
were intensifying the reactions of regional interests. European necds
took an ever-increasing share in determining Indian policy. In 1857
Canning could write of “a fear at the India House that government
are going to do as Hobhouse boasted he had done, and dictate from
London what the Government of India shall do in Afghanistan”. 1
The fear became a reality. Half a century later Morley wrote from
the India Office: “The plain truth is. . . that this country [Great
Britain) cannot have two foreign policies”;? and from the Foreign
Office Sir Charles Hardinge observed of the negotiations for the
entente with Russia: "Recently we have left tł• Government of India
entirely out of our account”; In the old days, the Government of
India, as a member of it declared, “could, if we saw good, have
marched our army to Candahar or Herat, and trusted to the Court
[of Directors] approving”. 4 Foreign policy had been a matter in
which the governor-general had enjoyed a greater liberty of conduct
than in any other branch of his administration. The exigencies of
political action, the needs of a swiftly developing situation, had per-
mitted him, in the days before the Red Sea cable was laid in 1870,
to confront the home authorities with accomplished facts, with a
formal declaration of war or annexation of territory, in which they
could not but acquiesce, however reluctantly. But in the new period
telegraph and cable invested distant incidents with a growing in-
fluence upon European politics and at the same time permitted
European cabinets to control action which in the past had depended
on the wide discretion of local governors. Even, Curzon's vigour and
determination had been barely able to restore to the Government of
India the phantom of its old authority; and what he could not achieve
lesser men could not even attempt.
Nor was the growing predominance of European control the sole
1 Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, 1, 153.
• Recollections, 11, 179.
• Gooch and Temperley, Origins of the War, iv, 294.
• Martineau, Life of Frere, 1, 245.
4
26-2
## p. 404 (#442) ############################################
404
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
difficulty with which the Government of India had to contend.
Unluckily external policy was the one aspect of Indian political affairs
which was capable of exciting interest in Great Britain. Nourished
on the myth of Anglo-Indian aggressiveness, accepting without question
the extravagance of Burke and the far less justifiable falsehoods of
Macaulay's essay on Warren Hastings, Radical opinion perceived
aggression behind every measure of Indian defence; in their eyes the
frontier tribes were a race of wronged and noble savages, and the
Afghans a nation rightly struggling to free itself from the meshes of
intrigue cast around it by a malevolent Indian Government.
At the outset, in 1858, the governor-general still retained much of
his former influence and discretion. The situation, however, was
obscure. In 1844 the visit of the emperor Nicholas I to England had
resulted in an understanding formulated in a memorandum prepared
a
by Count Nesselrode. This document declared that Russia and Great
Britain would work together to preserve the internal peace of Persia,
and that the khanates of Central Asia-Bokhara, Khiva, and
Samarkand-should be left “as a neutral zone between the two em-
pires in order to preserve them from a dangerous contact". 1 For ten
years this understanding had been observed. But the Crimean War
had ended it without establishing any substitute in Central Asia.
Indeed from that time onwards British policy was constantly but
unsuccessfully directed towards restoring the situation as it had stood
from 1844 to 1854.
Meanwhile, for ten years after the restoration of Dost Muhammad
as the ruler of Kabul, British relations with Afghanistan had been
undefined but sullen. They were modified under the pressure of
Persian eagerness to expand eastwards and reconquer Herat and
Kandahar. The former city had been seized by the Persians in 1852
and only relinquished under threats of vigorous British action. In
1854 the place was again attacked. Herbert Edwardes, the com-
missioner at Peshawar, perceived in this a heaven-sent occasion to
re-establish a definite friendship with Dost Muhammad. The chief
commissioner of the Panjab, John Lawrence, thought little of the
proposal; but Dalhousie was convinced of its propriety, and with his
approval Edwardes spent some months coaxing the amir into making
overtures to the British Government. The result was a treaty signed
early in 1855, by which the Government of India bound itself not to
interfere with the amir's territories, while he in return agreed to be
“the friend of the friends and the enemy of the enemies of the
Honourable East India Company”. 4 In one respect the treaty fell
short of what Dost Muhammad had desired. He had sought to extract
1 Étude diplomatique sur la guerre de Crimée, 1, 11 599.
2 Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 236.
3 Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, I, 450, 452; Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes,
II, 239, 447
Aitchison, Treaties, xi, 340.
## p. 405 (#443) ############################################
DOST MUHAMMAD
405
a promise never to send an envoy to Kabul. This was deliberately
refused. The Afghan negotiator was to be assured (the instructions
said)
that the Government of India has no intention of sending and no wish to send a
representative to the court of Cabul; but it should be pointed out to him that this
government could not in prudence bind itself never to depute a representative to
the Ameer, for if Russia or other powers should be represented by envoys at Cabul,
the interests of the British government would plainly suffer injury if no envoy
were present on its behalf. 1
In 1856 Herat was again seized by the Persians, who boasted to
their Russian friends that they would occupy Kandahar and establish
themselves on the borders of the Panjab. This led to war not only
with the amir of Kabul but also with Great Britain. A force was
dispatched from Bombay, and the amir was assisted with money and
arms, the employment of the subsidy being placed under the in-
spection of British officers, who were to be withdrawn as soon as the
war was over. The Persians speedily came to terms by a treaty signed
at Paris on 4 March, 1857. The most interesting point of this agree-
ment was the care taken by the Russian Government to secure the
exclusion of English consuls from the Caspian ports, on the ground
that their appointment could have none but a political object. 5
For some years after this the Afghan question fell into a calm. Dost
Muhammad was busily consolidating his power. In 1862 he attacked
Herat. Though the governor-general, Elgin, admitted that in this he
was not the aggressor, the Government of India signified its disap-
proval by recalling the vakil—the Muslim agent—who had been
maintained at Kabul since 1857. 6 Ignoring this protest, Dost Muham-
mad persisted in his attack, took the place in 1863, and died shortly
after at the age of eighty. He had designated his son, Sher 'Ali, as his
successor. But in Afghanistan as in Moghul India, theoretical rights
of succession counted for little in comparison with force. A prolonged
period of fratricidal war ensued, now one, now another of Dost
Muhammad's sixteen sons gaining the upper hand. In 1864 Afzal
Khan and Azim Khan rebelled; in 1865 Azim Khan and his nephew
Abd-ur-rahman rose; in 1866 Sher 'Ali was driven from Kabul and
in 1867 from Kandahar; in 1868 he suddenly recovered them. ' An
incident of one of the actions of this period well illustrates the proud
ferocity with which the struggle was conducted. Amin Khan, Sher
'Ali's full brother, was killed fighting against him. His dead body was
brought in triumph to Sher ’Ali. "Throw the body of this dog away”,
he said, “and bid my son come and congratulate me on the victory. "
Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 242.
? Dispatch from Anitschkoff, 27 October (O. S. ), 1856 (Legation Archives, vii, e).
: Goldsmid, Life of Outram, 11, 130 s99.
• Aitchison, op. cit. XI, 342.
• Gortchakoff to Lagofsky, 26 February (O. S. ), 1857 (Legation Archives, loc. cil. ).
• Walrond, Elgin's Letters and Journals, pp. 417, 419.
? A detailed narrative will be found in Wylly, External Policy of India, pp. i sqq.
1
## p. 406 (#444) ############################################
406
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
His officers, not daring to tell him that his son also had fallen, brought
his body. “Who is this other dog? ” the amir demanded. But when
the corpse had been laid at his feet and he knew it for his son's, he
rent his garments and cast dust upon his head. 1
Throughout this period, under the influence of John Lawrence, the
Government of India pursued that policy of inactivity which some
have called “masterly”, 2 although in truth it consisted merely in
waiting upon events. Upon the generation that had witnessed the
Indian Mutiny, Lawrence's vigour of character and singleness of
purpose produced a remarkable effect. His opinions were accepted
as oracles, and men forgot or ignored the fallibility of his judgment.
Even Lord Salisbury, during his first tenure of the India Office as
Lord Cranborne in 1866–7, “whole-heartedly” approved Lawrence's
ideas of Afghan policy. 3 Lawrence had always disliked the idea of
alliance with the ruler of Afghanistan. Both before and after Dost
Muhammad's death he had done his utmost to prevent the govern-
ment from taking any part in Afghan politics, on the score that the
British could not make a true friend of the amir. But his views (as
Dalhousie observed with customary incisiveness) were based on the
fallacy that the Afghans were too foolish to recognise their own in-
terests. Accordingly as Sher 'Ali, and then Afzal Khan, and then
Azim Khan, and then Sher ’Ali once more, succeeded in establishing
themselves as successive rulers of Kabul, the Indian Government was
content with recognising each in turn. Thrice in 1866 Sher 'Ali asked
for English help. Afzal Khan did the same. Lawrence, then governor-
general, ignored the former's letters and bluntly told the latter that if
he could solidly establish his power he might hope to be received into
the English alliance. 6
This policy was the belated result of the old dogma of non-inter-
vention which in India had produced little but undesired and un-
expected war. Nor had it here even the excuse which it had had in
regard to the Indian states. From the time of Wellesley onwards the
Indian states had been dominated by the power of the Company, and
in them rival claimants could not turn from the great power which
refused assistance to any other great and neighbouring power. But
the Afghan rivals could and did. They applied to Russia and to Persia
for help,” as might have been foreseen. The policy of inactivity was
brought at once to a hasty end, and Lawrence advised that foreign
assistance should at once be countered by a supply of money and arms
to the side not leaning on Persian or Russian support. 8 When the
home government gave him a free hand in the matter, he did not
9
1 Abd-ur-rahman, Autobiography, 1, 63. 2 Cf. Wylly, op. cit. p. 115.
: Lady Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Lord Salisbury, 1, 206.
· Bosworth Smith, op. cit. I, 450.
6 Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 239.
& Wylly; op. cit. pp. 76, 45.
? Idem, pp. 103 399;
8 Dispatch, 3 September, 1867 (Parl. Papers, 1878-9, LVI, 392).
• Dispatch, 26 December, 1867 (idem, 398).
## p. 407 (#445) ############################################
RUSSIAN EXPANSION
407
even wait for the contingency to arise, but at once subsidised Sher 'Ali,
who with this help speedily made an end of the remaining resistance
to his authority.
But great harm had been done. Abd-ur-rahman, for instance, on
being driven out of Afghanistan by his uncle, Sher 'Ali, hesitated for
a moment whether to seek shelter with the Russians or the English;
but as he “had never seen the benefit of English friendship”, he
chose the Russians. Sher 'Ali himself declared that “the English look
to nothing but their own interests and bide their time”. 2 The force
of these views was strengthened by the contemporary contrast between
English and Russian policy. To the south-east of the Russian provinces
lay four khanates—Khokand, Bokhara, Khiva and Samarkand
with vague, undefined frontiers, separated from their northern neigh-
bour by considerable stretches of desert. At the time of the first
Afghan War, some Russian activity had developed in this area, but
the understanding of 1844 had brought it completely to an end. No
relations had been maintained with the khanates; and it is at least
highly probable that the sudden change which occurred in 1858 was
produced more by political motives than by the supposed necessity
of imposing order on barbarous neighbours. In that year a mission
of enquiry, accompanied by a large body of topographers, was
dispatched under Ignatieff, to collect information about military
conditions, roads, and means of transport. The khanates had fallen
away greatly from their old greatness.
They still abounded in schools;
but the studies pursued in them were the mere repetition of past and
obsolete knowledge. They were poorer, less populous, more fanatical.
The people of Samarkand believed that no infidel enemy could survive
polluting with his feet ground so hallowed by the dust of the blessed. "
But the withering of their rivers had dried up their wealth, weakened
their governments, and exhausted their man-power.
In these circumstances their absorption by the Russian Empire was
as nearly a natural process as anything political can be. In govern-
ment, in socialorganisation, in religion Russia was essentially Oriental.
In power and functions the emperor at St Petersburg was a cousin of
the Oriental monarchs. Apart from him and the functionaries who
répresented him there was only the active local life of the villages, and
the Orthodox Church was the one branch of Christianity which had
not been occidentalised. Russian predominance would involve no
violent change, and its establishment would be nothing more than a
new illustration of that everlasting ebb and flow of power which has
characterised the Eastern world. This expansion began shortly after
the Crimean War. In 1864 Russian authority touched the borders of
1 Abd-ur-rahman, op. cit. 1, 111.
2 Rawlinson, England and Russia, p. 303.
· Vambéry, Central Asia, p. 235.
Vambéry, Western Culture in Eastern Lands, p. 48.
o Cf. Vambéry, Central Asia, pp. 36–7, 231.
## p. 408 (#446) ############################################
408
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
Khokand, Bokhara, and Khiva. In the next year Tashkent was
occupied. In 1867 the new province of Russian Turkestan was con-
stituted, with Kaufmann as its first governor-general. In the same
year Bokhara was reduced, after sending a desperate appeal for help
to the governor-general of India, John Lawrence, and became a
subsidiary ally of the emperor. In 1873 Khiva submitted, placing in
the hands of Russia the management of all its external relations. The
administration established to manage these new possessions and
control these new dependencies was purely military, and all reports
went to the War Office at St Petersburg. 3
The motives of this expa:asion were complex. There were in the first
place the difficulties perpetually arising with semi-civilised, mis-
governed neighbours, who would think nothing of pillaging a caravan
and reducing the merchants to slavery. All the evidence agrees that
the Turkoman tribes were false, greedy, envious, ferocious. Russian
diplomatists were always ready with this explanation, hinting that
Russian expansion in Central Asia was in all respects similar to British
expansion in India—a parallel which liberal opinion in England was
ever ready to accept. Military organisation, too, made for expansion.
Military governors could not look for rewards and promotion by
a peaceful administration. In 1869 Kaufmann's appointment as
governor-general was defended by Prince Gortchakoff expressly on
the ground that he had already gained every honour that a Russian
general could hope for. 5 But this was not all. There was another yet
more powerful reason for expansion. It was designed in the political
interests of Russia. “Great historical lessons", ran the instructions of
the new ambassador, Baron de Staal, appointed to London in 1884,
have taught us that we cannot count on the friendship of England, and that she
can strike at us by means of continental alliances while we cannot reach her any-
where. No great nation can accept such a position. In order to escape from it the
emperor Alexander II, of everlasting memory, ordered our expansion in Central
Asia, leading us to occupy to-day in Turkestan and the Turkestan steppes a
military position strong enough to keep England in check by the threat of inter-
vention in India.
This position had been prepared, though not completed, while
Lawrence was still pursuing his policy of inaction, and demanding
that the Russian question should be solved by coming to an agreement
in Europe instead of by securing advanced positions in Asia. He
seems wholly to have ignored the point that unless England could
entrench herself so strongly in Central Asia as to convince Russia of
the futility of movements in that direction an agreement in Europe
could only be reached by subordinating English to Russian interests
on the continent.
1 Wylly, op. cit. p. 92; cf. Rawlinson, op. cit. p. 397.
2 Treaty, 12 August, 1873 (Parl. Papers, 1874, LXXVI, 171).
3 Boulger, Central Asian Questions, p. 14. • Cf. Curzon, Russia in Asia, p. 118.
6 Clarendon to Buchanan, 3 S:ptember, 1869 (Parl. Papers, 1873, LXXV, 727).
• Meyendorff, Correspondance diplomatique du Baron de Staal, 1, 26.
## p. 409 (#447) ############################################
DIPLOMATIC DISCUSSIONS
409
The Russian advance had led to diplomatic discussions, directed
on the British side towards re-establishing some such neutral zone
between the empires as had existed from the Afghan to the Crimean
wars. At this later period the most acute English students of the
Central Asian question urged that the Oxus should be taken as the
ultimate dividing line of the respective spheres of interest. " But this
was a position which Russia could not now be induced to accept. She
claimed exclusive and complete control down to the northern bank
of that river and was only ready to discuss the establishment of a
neutral zone provided it began appreciably beyond that point. When
therefore Clarendon initiated discussions with Gortchakoff in 1869,
the emperor declared the idea of a neutral zone to be highly pleasing,
but the dispatch announcing this pointed to Afghanistan as an appro-
priate neutral zone. After consulting the India Office, Clarendon
replied “that Afghanistan would not fulfil those conditions of a
neutral territory that it was the object of the two governments to
establish, as the frontiers were ill-defined". 3 This feeble answer,
which gave away a considerable part of the British case, led to a
discussion of the alignment of the northern Afghan frontier and an
agreement early in 1873 by which Russia virtually gained her point
at the trifling cost of admitting Badakshan and Wakhan to form part
of the Afghan kingdom. 4 The Russian policy now was to advance up
to the effective borders of Afghanistan, and to get rid altogether of
uncontrolled or unoccupied territory in that area. This plan was
supported both by political motives and by sound administrative
principle. As Brunnow pointed out to Clarendon, neutrality as under-
stood in Europe could not be applied to Asia. The chiefs and peoples
of Central Asia cared nothing for the international law of Europe,
and neutralisation would merely become un brevet d'impunité. Bokhara
and Khiva were mere robber-states, and could not hope for such
protection as in Europe covered states like Belgium and Switzerland. 5
All that was really obtained was an admission that Russia regarded
Afghanistan as beyond her sphere of interest.
Meanwhile various endeavours had been made to remove the
unfavourable impressions produced upon Sher 'Ali by Lawrence's
policy, which, even before Lawrence's retirement from the governor-
generalship in 1869, was already recognised by its author as inade-
quate. As has been seen, Lawrence at last decided to give Sher 'Ali
material help, and in 1868 offered to meet the amir and discuss with
him the political situation. This meeting never took place; but in
i Rawlinson, op. cit. p. 311.
? Gortchakoff to Brunnow, 7 March, 1869 (Parl. Papers, 1873, LXXV, 720).
3 Clarendon to Rumbold, 17 April, 1869 (idem, 722).
• Gortchakoff to Brunnow, 31 January, 1873 (idem, 709); cf. Granville to Gladstone,
30 September, 1873 (Fitzmaurice, op. cit. 11, 413).
"Brunnow to Gortchakoff, 17 April, 1869 (Legation Archives, xxın).
• Lawrence to Northcote, 10 October 1868 (Bosworth Smith, op. cit. II, 401).
## p. 410 (#448) ############################################
410
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
March, 1869, Lawrence's successor, Lord Mayo, met the amir at
Ambala. Many English writers have chosen to represent this con-
ference as a great success, 1 at which the savage chief was deeply
impressed by the disinterested generosity of the British Government.
But Sher 'Ali was seeking two advantages, for which he would have
conceded a good deal. He desired an alliance with the British to bind
them to support him against external attack, and he desired a promise
that the British would never acknowledge “any friend in the whole of
Afghanistan save the amir and his descendants". 2 Instead of any
such specific agreement, he could only extract a letter in which Mayo
said that the Governmentof India would“view with severe displeasure
any attempts on the part of your rivals to disturb your position", and
that it would “further endeavour. . . to strengthen the government of
Your Highness”. 3 These encouraging but non-committal statements
were too reminiscent of the government's attitude during the late wars
of succession to permit the amir to rely overmuch upon them.
A considerable impression was made upon him by Mayo's personal
charm, fine presence, and winning manners; the tone of the governor-
;
general was more friendly; but the policy of the government had not
yet changed in any material respect.
Though disappointed in 1869, Sher 'Ali was constrained by circum-
stances to make one more trial of the English Government. The
absorption of the khanates on the Oxus was full of warning. Early
in 1873 he told the English vakil at Kabul, that the advance of the
Russian boundary gave him great anxiety that weighed upon him day
and night and that therefore he proposed to send one of his agents
to wait upon the governor-general and ascertain his views. 4 This
proposal led to the conference held at Simla in the following July.
The envoy asked that a written assurance might be given to him to the effect
that if Russia, or any state of Turkestan or elsewhere under Russian influence,
should commit an aggression on the amir's territories, or should otherwise annoy
the amir, the British government would consider such aggressor an enemy, and
that they could promise to afford to the amir promptly such assistance in money
and arms as might be required until the danger should be past or invasion repelled.
Also that if the amir should be unable to cope single-handed with the invader,
that the British government should promptly despatch a force to his assistance by
whatever route the amir might require the same. 5
In view of this request and the general situation, the governor-general,
Lord Northbrook, proposed “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
invasion. We to be the judgcof the necessity”. This policy, if adopted,
1 E. g. Hunter, Life of Lord Mayo, 1, 262.
2 Mayo to Argyll, 1 July, 1869 (Parl. Papers, 1878-9, LVI, 466).
8 Mayo to Sher 'Ali, 31 March, 1869 (idem, 464).
* Agent, Kabul, to Commissioner, Peshawar, 14 April, 1873 (idem, 647).
6 Memorandum of conversation, 19 and 20 July, 1873 (idem, 675).
6 Telegram to the secretary of state, 24 July, 1873 (idem, 482).
6
## p. 411 (#449) ############################################
ARGYLL'S MISMANAGEMENT
411
a
might have proved decisive in the development of the Central Asian
question. Its rejection was as decisive as its adoption might have been.
The Duke of Argyll at the India Office, and a majority of the Council
of India, were convinced adherents of the Lawrence policy. Mr Glad-
stone's first cabinet, then in office, combined a detestation of Russian
government with a curious tolerance of its expansion. It was, therefore,
resolved to reject Northbrook's proposal, on the ground that the amir
had no real cause for alarm, and to limit the governor-general's
assurances to a declaration that “we shall maintain our settled policy
a
in Afghanistan". 1 This decision was well-meant. But its authors
lacked imagination to perceive that it could not appear reassuring to
Sher 'Ali. To him it could mean nothing but a continuation of the
Lawrence policy of helping those who no longer needed assistance.
This criticism which Cranbrook passed in 1878 on his predecessor's
management of the situation seems amply justified. 2
The ill-effects produced by the abortive Simla conference were
emphasised by two other occurrences. The Government of India had
undertaken the thankless task of arbitrating on the boundary claims
of the Persians and Afghans in Seistan. This was a most ill-advised
measure. It may have been desirable that a long-standing subject of
dispute between the two states should be removed. But the more
equitable the decision, the more certain would it be to irritate both
the shah and the amir, for each would feel that his interests had been
neglected. At a moment when the influence of Russia was visibly
waxing, the Government of India would have done well to avoid
needless causes of friction between itself and its Western neighbour.
But the arbitration was held; the decision went in some details against
Afghanistan; and both sides resented British impartiality as a sub-
stantial measure of injustice.
Worse still, Sher 'Ali installed one of his sons, Abdullah Jan, as heir
apparent, in supersession of an elder son, Yakub, who, according to
the Afghan custom, was rebelling against his father. When this
selection was communicated to the Government of India, the answer
was "designedly couched, as nearly as circumstances admit, in the
same language as that in which in 1858 the Punjab Government were
instructed to reply to the letter from Dost Mahomed Khan intimating
the selection of Shere Ali as heir apparent”. 5 Perhaps the government
was wise to desire not to commit itself to the support of a future
claimant who might prove to be incapable. But it blundered in
suggesting to Sher Ali that his favourite son could look for no greater
assistance than he himself had received before imprisonment, death
or exile had freed him from his own rivals.
1 Telegram to Nore: brook, 26 July, 1873 (Parl. Papers, 1878-9, LVI, 482). • Idem, 636.
• Cf. Sir F. J. Golasmid, Eastern Persia, 2 vols. 1876; Parl. Papers, 1868–9, XLVI, 483-6.
The original reports are in F. O. 60--392, 393.
• Cf. Encyclopaedia of Islam, s. v. Abdur-rahman.
5 Dispatch to Argyll, 23 January, 1874 (Parl. Papers, 1868–9, XLVI, 491).
## p. 412 (#450) ############################################
412
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
Disappointed alike by the complaisance with which the British
Government seemed to regard the Russian advance, by the lack of
special favour shown by the Seistan decision, and by the refusal to
recognise Abdullah Jan as the future amir, Sher 'Ali naturally, if
imprudently, concluded that he must make his own terms with
Russia; and circumstances conspired not only to assist him in doing
so but also to deprive him of Russian help as soon as he had committed
himself to Russia. The Russians met him more than half
way.
Afghanistan might lie outside the sphere of Russian interests; but it
had become a neighbour of the Russian Empire; and intercourse
could easily be explained away as a mere matter of frontier courtesy.
So at first it was. In 1870 Kaufmann, the governor-general of
Russian Turkestan, informed Sher 'Ali that, although his nephew
Abd-ur-rahman had taken refuge in Tashkent, he would receive no
assistance to wage war against his uncle. 3 This letter on its receipt
was forwarded by Sher 'Ali to the Government of India, which in
answer cited “the repeated assurances we have received from the
Russian Government” and suggested that Kaufmann's letters "will
doubtless be, when rightly viewed, a source of satisfaction and an
additional ground of confidence". 4 When Sher 'Ali announced the
nomination of Abdullah Jan, the Russian answered much more tact-
fully than the English governor-general, that "such nominations tend
to the comfort and tranquillity of the kingdom”. 5 From 1875 the
interchange of letters became more frequent. Such as transpired were
letters of compliment. But it was disquieting to watch the coming and
going of the bearers without any real knowledge of what was passing
behind the scenes. 6
Moreover from 1874 these political events were being watched with
greater jealousy and suspicion. In that year Gladstone's cabinet was
succeeded by Disraeli's, Salisbury displaced Argyll at the India Office,
and before long Lytton succeeded Northbrook as governor-general.
The change involved a sharp swing of foreign policy both in Europe
and in Asia. Disraeli was convinced that the late cabinet had lowered
the influence of Great Britain in the world, especially by acquiescing
easily and without due question in the explanations of its Central Asia
policy offered by the Russian Foreign Office. He feared that unless
precautions were taken Great Britain would suddenly find herself in
a position of great political and strategic disadvantage. These views
were fully shared by Salisbury and Lytton. Nor was this surprising.
Of recent years Russian conduct had been most ambiguous. In
January, 1873, for instance, Schuvaloff, who had been sent on a
1 Cf. Lady Betty Balfour, Lytton's Indian Administration, p. 10.
2 Cf. Yakub's statements to Roberts, Forty-one Years in India, il, 247.
3 Kaufmann to Sher 'Ali, 28 March, 1870 (Parl. Papers, 1881, XCVIII, 335).
• Dispatch to Argyll, 24 June, 1870 (Parl. Papers, 1878, LXXX, 633).
5 Parl, Papers, 1881, XCVII, 343.
• Cf. telegram to Salisbury, 16 September, 1876 (Parl. Papers, 1878, LXXX, 533).
## p. 413 (#451) ############################################
RUSSIAN ADVANCES
413
special mission to England, was assuring Granville that he might
safely assure parliament that the emperor had issued positive orders
against the occupation of Khiva. 1 Within a year Granville was com-
plaining that Khiva had become a Russian province under a most
thinly disguised protectorate. His remonstrances 3 produced a de-
claration in March, 1874, that no expeditions were contemplated
against the Tekke Turkomans, and that the emperor had peremptorily
forbidden such a measure. On 10 May following General Lomakin
was appointed military governor of a new southern province and
promptly issued a circular to all the Turkoman tribes in that area
claiming supreme authority over them. The imperial government
asserted that the circular had been misunderstood. 5 Just before
Lytton set out for India the Russian ambassador conveyed to him the
curious suggestion that Great Britain and Russia should unite to
disarm the Muslim states of Central Asia. A little earlier Kaufmann
had been lamenting the hostility of Muslim opinion against Russian
administration.
