Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 | Page 2

that time were private ventures by
roving Cossacks and other inhabitants of Southern Russia. Authorized
government expeditions commenced with Peter the Great, who in
1716-17 sent two exploring parties into the Central Asian deserts--

Bekovitch to Khiva, and Likhareff to the Black Irtish. These
expeditions were undertaken in search of gold, supposed to exist in
those regions, but failed in their object; the detachment under
Bekovitch being entirely destroyed after reaching Khiva. Peter next
turned his attention to the country bordering upon the southern shores
of the Caspian Sea; taking advantage of Persian embarrassments, with
the consent of the Shah and of the Sultan he acquired, in 1722-3, the
provinces of Gilan, Mazanderan, and Asterabad; but the great expense
of maintaining a large garrison so remote from Russia, and the
unhealthiness of the locality, induced the Russian Government, in 1732,
to restore the districts to Persia. In the same year Abul-Khair, the Khan
of the Little Kirghiz Horde, voluntarily submitted to Russia. Twenty
years later a small strip of the kingdom of Djungaria, on the Irtish, was
absorbed, and toward the commencement of the reign of Catharine II,
Russian authority was asserted and maintained over the broad tract
from the Altai to the Caspian. This occupation was limited to a line of
outposts along the Ural, the Irtish, and in the intervening district.
During Catharine's reign the frontier nomads became reduced in
numbers, by the departure from the steppe between the Ural and Volga
of the Calmucks, who fled into Djungaria, and were nearly destroyed
on the road, by the Kirghiz.
The connection between Russia and Central Asia at this time assumed
another character, that of complete tranquillity, in consequence of the
development of trade through Orenburg and to some extent through
Troitsk and Petropaulovsk. The lines along the Ural and Irtish
gradually acquired strength; the robber-raids into European Russia and
Western Siberia almost entirely ceasing. The allegiance of the Kirghiz
of the Little and Central Hordes was expressed in the fact that their
Khans were always selected under Russian influence and from time to
time appeared at St. Petersburg to render homage. With the Central
Asian khanates there was no connection except that of trade, but as
regarded the Turcomans, who, it is said, had frequently asked for
Russian protection, intercourse was discouraged, as they could not be
trusted "within the lines," being simply bandits.
The Emperor Paul imagined that the steppes offered a good road to
Southern Asia, and desiring to expel the English from India, in the year
1800 he despatched a large number of Don Cossacks, under Orloff,

through the districts of the Little Horde. At the time a treaty was
concluded with Napoleon, then First Consul, by virtue of which a
combined Russo-French army was to disembark at Asterabad and
march from thence into India by way of Khorassan and Afghanistan.
The death of the Emperor of Russia put an end to this plan.
During the reign of Alexander I, Central Asia was suffered to rest, and
even the Chinese made raids into Russian territory without interruption.
In the third decade of the present century, however, several advanced
military settlements of Cossacks were founded. "Thus," says M.
Veniukoff, "was inaugurated the policy which afterward guided us in
the steppe, the foundation of advanced settlements and towns (at first
forts, afterwards stanitsas [Footnote: Cossack settlements.]) until the
most advanced of them touches some natural barrier."
About 1840, it was discovered that the system of military colonization
was more effectual in preserving order in the Orenburg district than by
flying detachments sent, as occasion required, from Southern Russia;
and in 1845-6 the Orenburg and Ural (or Targai and Irgiz) forts were
established. In 1846 the Great Kirghiz Horde acknowledged its
subjection to Russia on the farther side of the Balkash, while at the
same time a fort was constructed on the lower Yaxartes.
In 1847 the encroachments of Russia in Central Asia had brought her
upon the borders of the important khanates of Khiva and Khokand, and,
like some huge boa-constrictor, she prepared to swallow them. In 1852
the inevitable military expedition was followed by the customary
permanent post. Another row of forts was planted on the Lower
Yaxartes, and in 1854 far to the eastward, in the midst of the Great
Horde, was built Fort Vernoye--the foundation of a new line, more or
less contiguous to natural boundaries (mountains and rivers), but not a
close line. Between Perovsky and Vernoye there were upwards of four
hundred and fifty miles of desert open to the incursions of brigands,
and between the Aral and Caspian seas there was a gap, two hundred
miles in width, favorable for raids into the Orenburg Steppe from the
side of Khiva. Finally, under the pretext of closing this gap, a general
convergent movement of