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V. Afghanistan in Anglo-Russian Diplomacy, 1869–1873

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

A. P. Thornton
A. P. Thornton
Affiliation:
Lecturer in British Imperial History, University of Aberdeen
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Extract

The strides made by the Russians into Central Asia between 1864 and 1869 were greater than any they took thereafter in that area. In 1865 they captured Tashkend. In 1866 they occupied Khojend and broke the power of the Khanate of Khokand. In 1867 they invaded the Khanate of Bokhara, and established fortified posts far to the south of the Jaxartes River; they also established the new Province of Turkestan, erecting it into a separate Viceroyalty with its capital at Tashkend. In 1868 they captured the city of Samarkand, capital of Bokhara, and made it clear that the Amir of Bokhara lived henceforth as a subservient client.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , 1954 , pp. 204 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1954

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References

1 Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1810–95; Bombay service, 1827; instructor, Persian army, 1833–9; Political Assistant, Kabul, 1839–40; Political Agent, Turkish Arabia, 1843; Consul-General, Baghdad, 1844; exploring Babylonia, 1846–55; Director, East India Company; M.P. for Reigate, 1858; Member of the India Council, 1858–9 and 1868–95. The Quarterly article must have been written during or just after the abortive efforts of Earl Russell, Foreign Secretary, to exchange Notes with the Russian Government concerning Russian aims in Central Asia; efforts which, as a member of the India Council, Rawlinson certainly knew about. (For this interchange cf. Public Record Office, F[oreign] [Office] 65/868, no. 23 ff.) This presence of Conservatives in the India Office, statutorily bound to advise Liberal Cabinet Ministers (and vice versa) will repay examination.

2 Both Rawlinson's Quarterly article and his ‘Memorandum on the Central Asia Question’ are reprinted in his book, England and Russia in the East (2nd and best edition, London, 1875).

3 Cf. the opinions quoted in Smith, R. Bosworth, Life of Lord Lawrence (London, 1885), ii, pp. 440–1.Google Scholar

4 Particularly in his Circular issued to Russian Legations abroad, 21 November 1864; printed in Fraser-Tytler, W. K., Afghanistan (Oxford, 1950), pp. 305–9.Google Scholar

5 Lytton to John Morley, 9 September 1876, Balfour, Lady Betty, Personal and Literary Letters of Robert First Earl of Lytton (London, 1906), ii, pp. 28–9Google Scholar.

6 Cf. Shand, A. I., General John Jacob (London, 1900), chs. 18, 19Google Scholar. John Jacob, 1812–58: served 1st Afghan War; commander, Sind Irregular Horse, 1841; Political Superintendent, Upper Sind, 1847; Jacobabad named after him, 1851; Commissioner in Sind, 1856; served in Persian War, 1856–7.

7 Justin Sheil, 1803–71: went to Persia 1–833; Secretary to Legation, 1836–44; Envoy in Teheran, 1844–54.

8 Bartle Frere, 1815–84; Chief Commissioner, Sind, 1850–9; Viceroy's Council, 1859–62; Governor of Bombay, 1862–7; Secretary of State's Council, 1867–77; cf. Shand, op. cit. p. 290.

9 Wyllie, J. W. R., ‘Masterly Inactivity’, Fortnightly Review, July–December 1869, xii, p. 596.Google Scholar

10 Bosworth-Smith, op. cit. II, p. 442. It is noteworthy that during the Mutiny only the combined pressure of Herbert Edwardes and John Nicholson had prevented Lawrence from evacuating Peshawar itself.

11 The phrase first appeared in Wyllie's anonymous article, ’The Foreign Policy of Sir John Lawrence’, in the Edinburgh Review for July 1867, and itself was the title of his article in the Fortnightly Review, December 1869.

12 Cf. Rawlinson, England and Russia in the East, p. 303 n.

13 Gortchakoff to Brunnow (Ambassador, London), 26 February/7 March 1869, A[ccounts] and P[apers], lxxv, 1873, C. 704.

14 Lawrence to Sher Ali, 2 October 1868, A. and P. lvi, 1878, C. 2190, no. 13, enc. 2, P. 43.

15 Mayo to Lawrence, 4 April 1869; Bosworth Smith, op. cit. p. 478.

16 Hunter, W. W., Life of the Earl of Mayo (London, 1876), i, p. 265Google Scholar; A. and P. lvi, 1878, C. 2190, no. 17, enc. 3, 90; Duke, of Argyll, , The Eastern Question (London, 1879), ii, p. 263.Google Scholar

17 The Russians backed the Bokharan assertion that the provinces of Badakshan and wakhan were dependencies of Bokhara.

18 Mayo to Rawlinson, 10 June 1869; Rawlinson, op. cit. p. 309.

19 Mayo was assassinated in the Andaman Islands in February 1872.

20 Cf. Argyll, op. cit. II (London, 1879), pp. 239–40.

21 Bosworth Smith, op. cit. p. 442.

22 Cf. Mayo to Argyll, 10 March 1869: ‘I am opposed to Treaties and subsidies…’; Argyll, op. cit. II, p. 257.

23 Autobiography of Sir Douglas Forsyth, ed. Forsyth, E. (London, 1887), pp. 46–53.Google Scholar

24 But cf. the comment of St John Brodrick, Secretary of State in 1903, that Curzon regarded him as the Viceroy's representative at the Court of St James’; Midleton, Lord, Records and Reactions (London, 1939), p. 200.Google Scholar

25 Cf. Earl of Clarendon to Lady Salisbury, 7 September 1869; SirMaxwell, H., Life and Letters of 4th Earl of Clarendon (London, 1913), ii, p. 361.Google Scholar

26 Brunnow to Nesselrode, 18/30 September 1845; F. Martens, Recueil des Tradés et Conventions conclus par la Russie avec les Puissances étrangères (St Petersburg), XII, p. 241.

27 Martens, op. cit. p. 76.

28 Gortchakoff to Brunnow, 26 February/7 March 1869, A. and P. lxxv, 1873, C. 704.

29 The Tsar repeated this assurance personally to Buchanan; Buchanan to Clarendon, 10 March 1869, F.O. 65/870, no. 80.

30 Clarendon to Buchanan, 27 March 1869, F.O. 65/870, no. 88.

31 Clarendon to Rumbold (chargé St Petersburg), 17 April 1869, ibid. no. 95.

32 Rawlinson, op. cit. pp. 309–10; Mayo to Argyll, Government of India Foreign Department, no. 177, Simla, 3 June 1869, forwarded by Argyll to Earl Granville (Foreign Secretary) on 15 August 1872, F.O. 65/874, unnumbered.

33 Cf. Argyll, op. cit. n, pp. 283–5.

34 Clarendon to Rumbold, 17 April 1869,–F.O. 65/870, no. 95.

35 Rumbold to Clarendon, 2 June 1869, F.O. 65/870, no. 68.

36 Buchanan to Clarendon, 26 July 1869, F.O. 65/870, no. 112.

37 Parliamentary Debates, iii, cxcvii, 9 July 1869, pp. 1581–2.

38 Ibid. p. 1578.

39 The relevant portion of what was a protracted discussion of the entire range of Anglo-Russian relations is printed in A. and P. lxxv, 1873, C. 704, dated 4 September 1869.

40 Forsyth, op. cit. pp. 45–63.

41 Mayo to Argyll, Government of India, no. 41 of 1869, 7 December 1869, F.O. 65/871.

42 Buchanan to Clarendon, 24 January 1870, F.O. 65/871, no. 26.

43 Mayo to Argyll, Simla, 20 May 1870; printed in Loftus, Lord Augustus, Diplomatic Reminiscences, ii, ii (London, 1884)Google Scholar, Appendix, pp. 277–81.

44 Buchanan to Clarendon, 29 December 1869, F.O. 65/871, no. 295; A. and P. lvi, 1878, C. 2190, nos. 21 and 25, pp. 19, 22.

45 Buchanan to Granville, 4 October 1871, F.O. 65/873, no. 234. Granville succeeded Clarendon as Foreign Secretary in June 1870.

46 Buchanan to Granville, 24 October 1871, ibid. no. 254.

47 Gortchakoff to Brunnow, 1/13 November 1871, A. and P. lxxv, 1873, C. 704, no. 79.

48 Buchanan to Granville, 14 November 1871, F.O. 65/873, no. 276.

49 On this topic, cf. in particular Buchanan to Granville, 18 September 1871, ibid. no. 220.

50 Loftus to Granville, 16 April 1872, A. and P. lxxv, 1873, C. 704, no. 83.

51 Draft, dated 10 September 1872, in F.O. 65/874, Foreign Office to India Office. Dispatch, 17 October, in Loftus, op. cit. pp. 284–6.

52 Loftus to Granville, 16 October 1872, F.O. 65/874, no. 295.

53 Granville to Gladstone, 20 October 1872, printed in Ramm, A., The Political Correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville 1868–76 (London, 1952), ii, pp. 352–3.Google Scholar

54 Loftus to Granville, telegram, 26 December 1872, F.O. 65/875.

55 Loftus to Granville, 19 December 1872, ibid. no. 358.

56 Granville to Loftus, 1 January 1873, ibid. no. 6. Cf. on this theme his previous dispatch of 20 November 1872, F.O. 65/874, no. 212: ’ [Brunnow] asserted that he had supplied Count Schouvalov, whom he described as l'homme de l'Empereur, with the following arguments… there is no use quarrelling with your bread and butter. Russia is in want of England. The Emperor cannot get the yachts he wants for next summer, without the Grand Duke Constantine being obliged to send immediate orders to England for the necessary boilers. Private individuals cannot get their mines worked without English engineers and English materials. Neither Government nor individuals can get their money excepting from the Rothschilds in London.

‘The inference I [Granville] drew from this conversation was that Russia finds it a financial necessity to give up expensive expeditions in the East, and to get on good terms, at all events for a time, with this country.’

57 Granville to Loftus, 8 January 1873, Loftus, Reminiscences, ii, II, pp. 293–5.

58 Loftus to Granville, 23 January 1873, F.O. 65/875, no. 26.

59 Answering a dispatch of Gortchakoff's of 7/19 December 1872, i.e. a few days after the Imperial Council decided on the Khiva expedition. Granville to Loftus, 24 January 1873, Habberton, W., Anglo-Russian Relations concerning Afghanistan, 1837–1907 (Urbana, Illinois, 1937). PP. 87–9.Google Scholar

60 Gortchakoff to Brunnow, 19/31 January 1873, ibid.

61 So Granville assured Gladstone on 30 September 1873; Fitzmaurice, Lord E., Life of the Second Earl Granville (London, 1905), i, pp. 413–14Google Scholar. But Rosebery revived it during the Pamirs dispute of 1893–5, and it was one day to appear on the map of Central Asia after all: when in 1907 Great Britain and Russia ‘partitioned’ Persia into a southern and a northern zone of influence, they left a ‘neutral zone’ between.

62 Quoted in Loftus to Granville, 19 March 1873, F.O. 65/876, no. 113.

63 Ramm, op. cit. 11, p. 376.

64 The Liberals were never able to accept this view, in public. Granville remarked to Loftus, however, in answer to the latter's dispatches that stressed this Russian interpretation, that nothing in the Agreement prevented either party to it from acting ‘as they might deem fit’; Loftus to Granville, 5 March 1873, F.O. 65/876, no. 92; Granville to Loftus, 7 May 1873, F.O. 65/877, no. 108. Cf. in particular Stremoukhoff's view of’ the spirit of the understanding which we had come to: Russia had frankly stated that she considered Afghanistan as beyond her political sphere of action, whilst England was equally to consider the countries north of the Oxus as not coming within the range of her political influence.’

The Russians never changed this view; cf. Sir Robert Morier (Ambassador, St Petersburg), to the Marquess of Salisbury (Foreign Secretary), 3 February 1892, F.O. 65/1435, no. 36: ‘Every man, woman, and child in Russia… firmly believes that in the Arrangement of 1872–3 Russia had had assigned to her an exclusive sphere of influence over the whole of the territory lying between the Russian frontier in the North and the Hindu Kush…’

65 Loftus to Granville, 27 March 1873, F.O. 65/877, no. 116, quoting Moscow Gazette: ‘England might as well remonstrate with Germany for increasing her Naval Power and thereby threatening her own naval supremacy.’

66 On this difficult point, Gortchakoff arrived (after much cogitation) at the following formula:’ His Highness could not admit that these communications of Count Schouvaloff bore the character of an engagement on the part of Russia to England…. The Imperial Government had merely conveyed their intentions to your Lordship’; Loftus to Granville, 27 May 1873, F.O. 65/878, no. 205. Argyll in his brilliant book accepts this: ‘The intimation of an intention is not necessarily a promise’, op. cit. II, p. 301—but he wrote this not in 1873 but in 1879.

67 The ‘Central Asian Question’ as it affected Persia is discussed in the writer's ‘British Policy in Persia, 1858–1890’, which will appear in two forthcoming issues of the English Historical Review.