Indian Frontier Policy | Page 6

deserves careful consideration;
and if the lessons taught by it are taken to heart, they will materially
assist in determining the principles which, should guide our policy on
the North-West frontier of India.

CHAPTER II
EVENTS PRIOR, AND LEADING UP, TO SECOND AFGHAN
WAR
Conquest of Khiva, Bokhara, and Kokand by Russia--British Conquest
of Scinde and the Punjaub--Our Policy with the Frontier Tribes--Treaty
of 1857 with Dost Mahomed--Shere Ali succeeds as Ameer, 1868--War
of 1878-- Abdul Rahman becomes Ameer--Withdrawal of British
Army from Afghanistan, 1881.

For a few years subsequent to the war, our frontier policy happily
remained free from complications, and it will be desirable now to refer
shortly to the progress of Russia in Central Asia, and of her conquests
of the decaying Principalities of Khiva, Bokhara and Kokand.
Previous to 1847 the old boundary line of Russia south of Orenburg
abutted on the great Kirghis Steppe, a zone [Footnote: Parliamentary
Papers: Afghanistan, 1878.] (as the late Sir H. Rawlinson told us) of
almost uninhabited desert, stretching 2,000 miles from west to east, and
nearly 1,000 from north to south, which had hitherto acted as a buffer
between Russia and the Mahomedan Principalities below the Aral.
[Footnote: Extract from Quarterly Review, October 1865.]'It was in
1847, contemporaneously with our final conquest of the Punjaub, that
the curtain rose on the aggressive Russian drama in Central Asia which
is not yet played out. Russia had enjoyed the nominal dependency of
the Kirghis-Kozzacks of the little horde who inhabited the western
division of the great Steppe since 1730; but, except in the immediate
vicinity of the Orenburg line, she had little real control over the tribes.
In 1847 -48, however, she erected three important fortresses in the very
heart of the Steppe. These important works--the only permanent
constructions which had hitherto been attempted south of the
line--enabled Russia, for the first time, to dominate the western portion
of the Steppe and to command the great routes of communication with
Central Asia. But the Steppe forts were after all a mere means to an end;
they formed the connecting link between the old frontiers of the empire
and the long -coveted line of the Jaxartes, and simultaneously with their
erection arose Fort Aralsk, near the embouchure of the river.'
The Russians having thus crossed the great desert tract and established
themselves on the Jaxartes (Sir Daria), from that time came
permanently into contact with the three Khanates of Central Asia, and
their progress since that date has been comparatively easy and rapid.
The Principalities had no military organisation which would enable
them to withstand a great Power; their troops and those of Russia were
frequently in conflict of late years; but the battles were in a military
sense trivial; and the broad result is, that Russia has been for some

years predominant throughout the whole region; and her frontiers are
now continuous with the northern provinces of both Afghanistan and
Persia. It is this latter point which is the important one, so far as we are
concerned, but before entering into its details, it will be well to consider
the nature of the great country over which Russia now rules.
Until within the last few years our information as to its general
character was very limited; but the accounts of numerous recent
travellers all concur in describing it as consisting for the most part of
sterile deserts, deficient in food, forage, fuel and water. There are a
certain number of decayed ancient cities here and there, and there are
occasional oases of limited fertility, but the general conditions are as
just described. With the exception of the one railway from the Caspian
to Samarcand, the means of transport are chiefly pack animals.
Speaking roughly, the dominions of Russia in Central Asia, south of
Orenburg, may be taken as almost equal in geographical extent to those
of our Indian Empire; but there is this striking difference between the
two, that whilst the population of India is computed at 250 millions,
that of Central Asia, even at the highest computation, is only reckoned
at four or five millions, of whom nearly half are nomadic--that is, they
wander about, not from choice, but in search of food and pasturage.
The extreme scantiness of the population is of itself a rough measure of
the general desolation.
The military position of Russia in Central Asia, therefore, is that of a
great but distant Power, which during the last fifty years has overrun
and taken possession of extended territories belonging to fanatical
Mahomedan tribes. The people themselves are, many of them, warlike
and hostile; but they are badly armed, have no discipline, training, or
leaders, and are not therefore in a position to withstand the advance of
regular troops. Consequently Russia is enabled to hold the country with