Indian Frontier Policy | Page 2

India early in the century was
planned at Tilsit, and is thus described by Kaye:[Footnote: _History of

the War in Afghanistan_] 'Whilst the followers of Alexander and
Napoleon were abandoning themselves to convivial pleasures, those
monarchs were spending quiet evenings together discussing their future
plans, and projecting joint schemes of conquest. It was then that they
meditated the invasion of Hindostan by a confederate army uniting on
the plains of Persia; and no secret was made of the intention of the two
great European potentates to commence in the following spring a
hostile demonstration--Contre les possessions de la compagnie des
Indes.'
The peril, however, was averted by a treaty at Teheran in March 1809,
in which the Shah of Persia covenanted not to permit any European
force whatever to pass through Persia towards India, or towards the
ports of that country. And so the visionary danger passed away.
The old southern boundary of Russia in Central Asia extended from the
north of the Caspian by Orenburg and Orsk, across to the old
Mongolian city of Semipalatinsk, and was guarded by a cordon of forts
and Cossack outposts. It was about 2,000 miles in length, and [Footnote:
Quarterly Review, Oct. 1865.] 'abutted on the great Kirghis Steppe, and
to a certain extent controlled the tribes pasturing in the vicinity, but by
no means established the hold of Russia on that pathless, and for the
most part lifeless, waste.'
During all the earlier years of the century, while we were establishing
our power in India, constant intrigues and wars occurred in Persia,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia; and rumours were occasionally heard of
threats against ourselves, which formed the subject of diplomatic
treatment from time to time; but in reality the scene was so distant that
our interests were not seriously affected, and it was not until 1836 that
they began to exercise a powerful influence as regards our policy on the
North-West frontier.
In that year Lord Auckland was Governor-General, and Captain
Alexander Burnes was sent on a commercial mission up the Indus, and
through the Kyber Pass, to Cabul, where he was received in a friendly
manner by the Ameer Dost Mahomed. It must be borne in mind that
neither Scinde nor the Punjaub was then under our rule, so that our

frontiers were still far distant from Afghanistan. It was supposed at the
time that Russia was advancing southward towards India in league with
Persia, and the mission of Burnes was in reality political, its object
being to induce the Ameer to enter into a friendly alliance.
Dost Mahomed was quite willing to meet our views, and offered to
give up altogether any connection with the two Powers named. It,
however, soon became apparent that our interests were by no means
identical; his great object, as we found, being to recover the Peshawur
district, which had been taken a few years previously by Runjeet Singh,
while we, on the other hand, courted his friendship chiefly in order that
his country might prove a barrier against the advance of Russia and
Persia.
These respective views were evidently divergent and the issues
doubtful; when suddenly a Russian Envoy (Vicovitch), also on a
so-called commercial mission, arrived at Cabul, offering the Ameer
money and assistance against the Sikhs. This altered the aspect of
affairs. Burnes wrote to the Governor-General that the Russians were
evidently trying to outbid us. Still some hope remained, until definite
instructions arrived from Lord Auckland declining to mediate with or
to act against Runjeet Singh, the ruler of the Punjaub. The Ameer felt
that we made great demands on him but gave him nothing in return. It
then became evident that the mission of Burnes was a failure, and in
April 1838 he returned to India. It was our first direct effort to provide
against a distant and unsubstantial danger, and it failed; but
unfortunately we did not take the lesson to heart.
In the meantime the Shah of Persia, instigated by Russia, besieged
Herat, but after months of fruitless effort, and in consequence of our
sending troops to the Persian Gulf, the Shah at length withdrew his
army.
It was not only the hostile efforts of the Shah on Herat in 1838 which
were a cause of anxiety to the Indian Government; but, as Kaye
writes,[Footnote: Kaye's _War in Afghanistan._] 'far out in the distance
beyond the mountains of the Hindoo Koosh there was the shadow of a
great Northern army, tremendous in its indistinctness, sweeping across

the wilds and deserts of Central Asia towards the frontiers of
Hindostan.' That great Northern army, as we know now, but did not
know then, was the column of Perofski, which had left Orenburg for
the attempted conquest of Khiva, but which subsequently perished from
hardships and pestilence in the snowy wastes of the