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Twin Imperial Disasters. The invasions of Khiva and Afghanistan in the Russian and British official mind, 1839–1842*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2013

ALEXANDER MORRISON
ALEXANDER MORRISON*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Liverpool, UK Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines two linked cases of abortive Imperial expansion. The British invasion of Afghanistan and the Russian winter expedition to Khiva both took place in 1839, and both ended in disaster. These events were linked, not merely by coincidence, but by mutual reactions to intelligence received in Orenburg, St Petersburg, Calcutta, London, and Tehran. British and Russian officials shared similar fears about each other's ambitions in Central Asia, similar patterns of prejudice, arrogance and ignorance, and a similar sense of entitlement as the self-conscious agents of two ‘Great Powers’. By examining the decision-making process which preceded these twin cases of expansion, and the British and Russian attitudes to Central Asian rulers and informants, the paper provides not only a deeper understanding of what provoked these particular disasters, but also of the wider process of European imperial expansion in the early nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 253 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

The research for this paper was funded by the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, and by the British Academy. I would like to thank the Slavic Research Centre of Hokkaido University, where I wrote the initial version of this paper while on a Visiting Fellowship, and in particular Professor Uyama Tomohiko for his comments. I would also like to thank William Dalrymple, Michael Hopkins, Michael Hughes, Richard Huzzey, Clare Jackson, Beatrice Penati, Berny Sèbe, Shioya Akifumi, Rory Stewart, Kim Wagner, Tom Welsford, and the anonymous reviewers for Modern Asian Studies for their suggestions, which have enormously improved it.

References

1 ‘Here we must act as the English do, all the more so because it is against the English that we are acting’: Perovsky to Bulgakov, 4 February 1840, ‘Pis’ma grafa V.A. Perovskago k A. Ya Bulgakovu’, Russkii Arkhiv [RA], (1878) No. 7 Letter 9 p. 309.

2 Frankel, Joseph, ‘Towards a Decision-Making Model in Foreign Policy’, Political Studies Vol. 7 No. 1 (1959) p. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reynolds, David, Britannia Overruled. British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century (London: Longman, 1991) p. 38Google Scholar; Steiner, Zara S., The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969) p. 2Google Scholar; Darwin, John, ‘Imperialism and the Victorians. The Dynamics of Territorial Expansion’, English Historical Review Vol. CXII No. 447 (1997) pp. 624–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The popularization of the term ‘Die Grossen Mächte’ is usually attributed to Leopold von Ranke: see Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988)Google Scholar pp. xxiv–xxv; Ranke, Leopold, ‘Die Grossen Mächte’, Historisch-Politische Zeitschrift Vol. II (1833) pp. 1–51Google Scholar, although it seems to have been used by statesmen and diplomats well before it was adopted by historians. By the 1830s, together with its concomitant ‘lesser powers’, it was already current in Anglophone historiography: see Sir Alison, Archibald, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in M.DCC.LXXXIX to the Restoration of the Bourbons in M.DCCC.XV (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1835Google Scholar–1842) Vol. I, p. 157; Vol. II, pp. 254–56, 288–95, 599–600; Vol. V, pp. 305–07; Vol. X, pp. 57, 196, 201, 382, 521, 769, 979.

4 ‘Si depuis la chute de Napoléon l’Europe a une oppression à craindre, c’est uniquement de la part de l’Angleterre’ (‘If since the fall of Napoleon, Europe has an oppression to fear, it is solely on the part of England’): ‘Dokladnaya Zapiska A.I. Chernysheva Imperatoru Aleksandru I’ n.d. (April 1814), Sbornik Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obshchestva (St Petersburg: Imperial Russian Historical Society, 1906) Vol. 121, pp. 280–81

5 Alison, History of Europe, Vol. X, pp. 1016–17; Kennedy, Rise and Fall, pp. 138–39; Bayly, C.A., The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914 (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004) pp. 99Google Scholar, 112–13, 125–29. The Dutch, by contrast, were reluctant to think of themselves as imperialists because that was, by definition, an attribute of the ‘Great Powers’: Wesselling, H.L. ‘The Giant that was a Dwarf, or the Strange History of Dutch Imperialism’ in Porter, Andrew and Holland, Robert (eds) Theory and Practice in the History of European Expansion Overseas. Essays in Honour of R.E. Robinson (London: Frank Cass, 1988) pp. 58–70Google Scholar.

6 See, most obviously, Said, Edward, Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978)Google Scholar; see also Bayly, C.A., Empire and Information. Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 143–49Google Scholar, 171–79, 315–17, 365–76.

7 Apart from the accounts by Dal’, Ivanin, and Peslyak described below, see Anonymous, ‘Voennoe Predpriyatie Protiv Khivu’, Chteniya v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete (January–March 1860) Kn. 1 pp. 147–66; S. Zykov, ‘Khivinskiya Dela s 1839—1842’, Russkoe Slovo (March 1862) pp. 1–58; E.M. Kosyrev, ‘Pokhod v Khivu v 1839 godu (Iz zapisok uchastnika)’ IV No. 8 (1898) pp. 538–45.

8 This was first published by Captain D. Golosov, who found the manuscript in the Orenburg archive and, not realising that the author was still alive and intended to publish it himself, sent it to the specialist military journal Voennyi Sbornik as his own work, although he had only added notes and a historical introduction: see M. Ivanin/D. Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu v 1839 godu otryada russkikh voisk, pod nachal'stvom General-Ad’yutanta Perovskago’, Voennyi Sbornik [VS] No. 1 (1863) pp. 3–72; No. 2, pp. 309–58 and No. 3, pp. 3–71. On the article's publication, Ivanin alerted the editors of the journal, who published an explanation: ‘Neobkhodimoe ob”yasnenie’, VS No. 3 (1863) pp. 73–75. This account was then translated into English: Anonymous [Golosov/Ivanin], A Narrative of the Russian Military Expedition to Khiva under General Perofski, in 1839. Translated from the Russian for the Foreign Department of the Government of India (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1867). Ivanin published his own, revised version of the text a few years later: Ivanin, M., Opisanie Zimnego Pokhoda v Khivu v 1839–40g (St Petersburg: Tip. Tov. ‘Obshchestvennaya pol’za’, 1874)Google Scholar.

9 The canonical versions are: Zakhar’in, I.N., Khiva. Zimnii pokhod v Khivu Perovskago v 1839 godu,—i ‘Pervoe posol'stvo v Khivu’ v 1842 godu (St Petersburg: Tip P.P. Soikina, 1898)Google Scholar, Zakhar’in, I.N., Graf V.A. Perovskii i ego zimnii pokhod v Khivu (St Petersburg: Tip. P. P. Soikina, 1901)Google Scholar, which are not based on archival sources, but on oral accounts collected by the author from veterans in Orenburg in the 1890s, and Terent’ev, M.A., Istoriya Zavoevaniya Srednei Azii (St Petersburg: Tip. V.V. Komarova, 1906)Google Scholar Vol. I, pp. 92–172, the official history.

10 Serebrennikov, A.G., Sbornik Materialov dlya istorii zavoevaniya Turkestanskogo Kraya Vol. I: 1839g (Tashkent: Tip. Shtaba Turkestanskogo Voennogo Okruga, 1908)Google Scholar and Vol. II: 1840g (Tashkent: Tip. Shtaba Turkestanskogo Voennogo Okruga, 1912).

11 Khalfin, N.A., Rossiya i Khanstva Srednei Azii (pervaya polovina XIXv) (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1974) pp. 280–87Google Scholar. See Abbott, James, Narrative of a Journey from Heraut to Khiva, Moscow and St Petersburgh During the Late Russian Invasion of Khiva, with Some Account of the Court of Khiva and the Kingdom of Khaurism (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1843)Google Scholar 2 vols; and Shakespear, Richmond, ‘A Personal Narrative of a Journey from Heraut to Ourenbourg, on the Caspian [sic] in 1840’, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 51 (June 1842) pp. 691–720Google Scholar.

12 The memoir literature associated with the First Afghan War is too voluminous to be listed here, but the originals of many of the most celebrated accounts have long been lost: William Trousdale, ‘Dr. Brydon's Report of the Kabul Disaster and the Documentation of History’, Military Affairs Vol. 47 No. 1 (February 1983) pp. 26–30. The omissions in the supposedly ‘garbled’ Blue Books of correspondence relating to Afghanistan published in 1839 were relatively innocent, although Kaye's re-edition of 1859 is more complete: Alder, G.J., ‘The “Garbled” Blue Books of 1839—Myth or Reality?’, The Historical Journal Vol. 25 No. 2 (1972) pp. 229–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The historiography begins with Sir Kaye, John, History of the War in Afghanistan (London: W.H. Allen & Co, 1851Google Scholar; revised editions 1857 and 1874) 2 (3) vols. The most notable later contributions are: Norris, J.A., The First Afghan War 1838–1842 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Yapp, M.E., Strategies of British India. Britain, Iran and Afghanistan, 1798–1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Noelle, Christine, State and Tribe in Nineteenth-century Afghanistan. The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan 1826–1823 (London: Curzon Press, 1997) pp. 38–53Google Scholar; Hopkins, B.D., The Making of Modern Afghanistan (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hanifi, Shah Mahmoud, Connecting Histories in Afghanistan. Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar Chapter 3; and Dalrymple, William, The Return of a King. The Battle for Afghanistan (London: Bloomsbury, 2013)Google Scholar.

13 Thomas R. Metcalf, ‘Review of J.A. Norris The First Afghan War 1838–42’, The American Historical Review Vol. 74 No. 2 (December 1968) p. 614.

14 Lieven, D., ‘Introduction’ in Lieven, D. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar Vol. II, p. 3.

15 The exceptions are two valuable, if somewhat dated, articles: Mosely, Philip, ‘Russian Policy in Asia (1838–9)’, Slavonic and East European Review Vol. 14 No. 42 (April 1936) pp. 670–681Google Scholar; and Volodarsky, Mikhail, ‘The Russians in Afghanistan in the 1830s’, Central Asian Survey Vol. 3 No. 1 (1984) pp. 63–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Yapp made as much use as he could of such Russian archival material as had been published or preserved in British diplomatic correspondence in his magisterial Strategies, but he made some errors of interpretation. Richardson, James L., ‘The Eastern Crisis 1839–1841’ in Richardson, J.L., Crisis Diplomacy. The Great Powers since the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp. 37–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ignores Afghanistan and Khiva altogether.

16 Robinson, R. and Gallagher, J. with Denny, A., Africa and the Victorians. The Official Mind of Imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1961) pp. 19–26Google Scholar.

17 Otte, T.G., ‘Introduction: Personalities and Impersonal Forces in History’ in Otte, T.G. and Pagedas, Constantine A. (eds) Personalities, War and Diplomacy. Essays in International History (London: Frank Cass, 1997) pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

18 Steiner, The Foreign Office, p. x.

19 Stokes, Eric, ‘Bureaucracy and Ideology: Britain and India in the Nineteenth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vol. 30 (1980) pp. 133–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Cain, P.J. and Hopkins, A.G., British Imperialism. Innovation and Expansion 1688–1914 (London: Longman, 1993) pp. 42–52Google Scholar; Dumett, Raymond, ‘Introduction’ in Dumett, Raymond E. (ed.) Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism. The New Debate on Empire (London: Longman, 1999) pp. 10–11Google Scholar, raised a similar query.

21 Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, p. 57; Darwin, ‘Imperialism and the Victorians’, pp. 622, 640–42.

22 Geyer, Dietrich, Russian Imperialism. The Interaction of Domestic and Foreign Policy, 1860–1914 (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1987) pp. 86–100Google Scholar. Local factors, of which Geyer was unaware, were also important, but these are beyond the scope of this paper.

23 Burnes, Alexander, ‘On the Commerce of Shikarpur and Upper Scinde’, Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society Vol. II (1836–38) (Bombay: American Mission Press, 1844)Google Scholar pp. 315–19; see further Stokes, Eric, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959) pp. 52–53Google Scholar, 81–93; Hopkins, Modern Afghanistan, pp. 38–39.

24 See, for instance, Figes, Orlando, Natasha's Dance. A Cultural History of Russia (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2002) pp. 358–429Google Scholar; Mark Bassin, ‘Geographies of Imperial Identity’ in Lieven (ed.) Cambridge History of Russia Vol. 2, pp. 60–63.

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26 van der Oye, David Schimmelpenninck, Russian Orientalism. Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration (Newhaven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2010) p. 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Khalid, Adeeb, Knight, Nathaniel and Todorova, Maria, ‘Ex Tempore—Orientalism’, Kritika Vol. 1 No. 4 (Fall 2000) pp. 691–727CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bobrovnikov, Vladimir, ‘Pochemu my marginaly? Zametki na poliakh russkogo perevoda “Orientalizma” Edwarda Saida’, Ab Imperio No. 2 (2008) pp. 325–44Google Scholar; Morrison, Alexander, ‘“Applied Orientalism” in British India and Tsarist Turkestan’, Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 51 No. 3 (July 2009) pp. 619–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Schumpeter, Joseph, ‘Imperialism and Capitalism’ in Sweezy, Paul (ed.) and Heinz Norden (trans.) Imperialism and Social Classes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951) pp. 83–85Google Scholar; Stokes, ‘Bureaucracy and Ideology’, pp. 146–56; Bayly, C.A.Imperial Meridian. The British Empire and the World 1780–1830 (London: Longman, 1989) pp. 106–07Google Scholar, 194–95, 248–56.

29 Kelly, Laurence, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran. Alexander Griboyedov and Imperial Russia's Mission to the Shah of Persia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002)Google Scholar.

30 Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, pp. 10–14.

31 Atkin, M., Russia and Iran, 1780–1828 (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1980) pp. 162–66Google Scholar.

32 Nesselrode to Simonich, 7 June 1832, Akty, sobrannye Kavkazskoi Arkheograficheskoi Kommissii [AKAK] Vol. 8 No. 795 (Tiflis: Tip. Glavnogo Upravleniya Namestnika Kavkazskogo, 1881) p. 906; Volodarsky, ‘The Russians in Afghanistan’, p. 65.

33 The idea of Herat as the ‘key to India’ originated with Arthur Conolly, later to come to a sticky end at Bukhara. Alder, G.J., ‘The Key to India?: Britain and the Herat problem 1830–1863’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 10 No. 2 (1974) pp. 188–89Google Scholar.

34 Anon [McNeill, J.], The Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East (London: John Murray, 1836)Google Scholar; see Norris, First Afghan War, pp. 84–85, for an account of its impact.

35 Volodarsky, ‘The Russians in Afghanistan’, pp. 79–81; Yapp, Strategies, pp. 140–48.

36 Hopkins, Modern Afghanistan, p. 63, erroneously suggests that Simonich ‘advocated’ the undertaking.

37 Simonich to Nesselrode, 16 March 1833, Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii [AVPRI], Fond [F.] 133 ‘Kantselyariya Ministra Inostrannykh Del’ Opis’ [Op.] 469 1833g. Delo [D.] 208, ‘Téhéran (Dépêches du Comte Simonitch)’ ll. (ff.) 25ob-6.

38 Simonich to Nesselrode, 7 April 1833; Rodofinikin to Simonich, 14 February 1833, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1833g. D.208 ll.36 209ob; ‘Abbas Mirza was hostile to the British, but both powers saw his smooth succession as the key to political stability in Persia.

39 Simonich to Rozen, 11 November 1833, AKAK Vol. 8 No. 811, p. 915.

40 Yapp, Strategies, pp. 144–46.

41 Simonich to Nesselrode, 10 January 1836, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1836g. D.204, ‘Dépêches recues de Téhéran en 1836 (Cte. Simonich)’ ll.8–10ob.

42 Simonich to Rozen, 15 January 1836; Simonich to Rodofinikin n.d. (December 1837), AKAK Vol. 8 No. 861 and No. 900, pp. 937, 957–58.

43 Simonich to Nesselrode, 3 April 1836, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1836g. D.204 l.79ob.

44 Simonich to Rodofinikin, 20 April 1836, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1836g. D.204 ll.153-4.

45 I.O. Simonich, ‘Précis historique de l’Avénement de Mahomed-Schah au Trone de Perse par le Comte Simonich, ex-Ministre plénipotentiaire de Russie à la cour de Téhéran. Varsovie, l’année 1841’, pp. 359–61, Sankt Peterburgskii Filial Institut Vostokovedenie RAN, Arkhiv Vostokovedov [AV], 1-i Razryad [R.] Op.6 D.1 l.24.

46 Simonich to Nesselrode, 13 October 1836, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1836g. D.204 l.258ob.

47 Simonich, ‘Précis historique’, pp. 359–61, AV, 1-i R. Op.6 D.1 l.190.

48 Simonich to Nesselrode, 14 June 1836, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1836g. D.204 l.139; Blaramberg, I.F., Vospominaniya (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1978) p. 97Google Scholar.

49 Mosely, ‘Russian Policy in Asia’, p. 670.

50 Duhamel to Nesselrode, 1 September 1838; Duhamel to Nesselrode, 23 December 1838 (Draft), AVPRI, F.194 ‘Missiya v Persii’ Op. 528/1 D.182 ‘za 1838g.’ ll.3ob, 58ob, 59ob. Characteristically, Duhamel disguised this in his memoirs, claiming that on his arrival he had immediately taken steps to repudiate Simonich's actions and establish better relations with Britain: ‘Avtobiografiya A.O. Diugamelya’, RA, Vol. 5 Kn.2 (1885) pp. 104–05.

51 Nesselrode to Nicholas I, ‘Rapports a l’Empereur, 1839’ in Mosely, ‘Russian Policy in Asia’, pp. 675–77; Ingle, Harold N., Nesselrode and the Russian Rapprochement with Britain, 1836–1844 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1976) pp. 72–95Google Scholar.

52 Duhamel to Nesselrode, 22 November 1841, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1841g. D.213, ‘Téhéran (Affaires de l’Asie)’ ll.451ob-2. Duhamel would later claim that Simonich was dismissed for insubordination, and he did his best to discredit him, writing that he was a ‘Bonapartist’ (Simonich was of Dalmatian origin and had been captured while serving with Napoleon in 1812, entering Russian service on his release) and that he got on so badly with McNeill that, had he remained in post a year longer, it would have led to open war with Britain. ‘Avtobiografiya A.O. Diugamelya’, pp. 84– 91; Blaramberg, Vospominaniya, p. 97.

53 ‘le sort des Indes était en nos mains’: Simonich, ‘Précis historique’, pp. 360–61, AV, 1-i R. Op.6 D.1 ll.193-4.

54 Ingram, Edward, In Defence of British India: Great Britain in the Middle East, 1775–1842 (London: Frank Cass, 1984) pp. 130–217Google Scholar.

55 Hopkins, Afghanistan, pp. 34–47.

56 Hopkins, Afghanistan, p. 67.

57 On the complex dynastic and tribal politics of Afghanistan before Dost Muhammad's accession in 1826, see Noelle, State and Tribe, pp. 1–14. By far the most vivid portrait of Shah Shuja in English is to be found in Dalrymple, Return of a King, pp. 1–73. See also Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, ‘Shah Shuja's “Hidden History” and its Implications for the Historiography of Afghanistan’, South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 14 May 2012: <http://samaj.revues.org/3384>, [accessed 17 May 2013].

58 Burnes, Alexander, Travels into Bokhara, Being the Account of a Journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia (London: John Murray, 1834)Google Scholar 3 vols; Lal, Mohan, Travels in the Punjab, Afghanistan, & Turkistan, to Balk, Bokhara and Herat (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1846)Google Scholar.

59 Masson never achieved the same celebrity as Burnes, and his policy influence was negligible, but he was acknowledged as a pioneering archaeologist and numismatist who carried out some of the earliest research on Afghanistan's pre-Islamic past: see Wilson, H.H., Ariana Antiqua. A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan. With a Memoir of the Buildings called Topes, by C. Masson (London: Published under the authority of the Honourable the Court of Directors of the East India Company, 1841Google Scholar) pp. v–xii; Hopkins, Afghanistan, pp. 16–17, 44–45.

60 Burnes to Jacob, 29 October 1837, National Archives of India [NAI]/Foreign/S.C./28 September 1842/Nos. 33–42 Sir Alexander Burnes’ correspondence regarding the disaster at Cabul, pp. 7–8.

61 For a detailed description, see Yapp, Strategies, pp. 224–40, and Hopkins, Afghanistan, pp. 64–65.

62 Burnes to Holland, 9 January 1838. Buist, G., ‘Memoir of Sir Alexander Burnes, C.B.’ in Burnes, James, Notes on his Name and Family(Edinburgh: Printed for private circulation, 1851) pp. 56–57Google Scholar. Burnes barely mentions Vitkevich in his posthumous memoir Cabool: a Personal Narrative of a Journey to and Residence in That City (London: John Murray, 1842) pp. 143, 261–62, but the Russian agent figures prominently in his official and unofficial correspondence.

63 Burnes to Auckland, 23 December 1837, ‘East India (Cabul and Affghanistan). Copies of the Correspondence of Sir Alexander Burnes with the Governor General of India, during his Mission to Cabul in the Years 1837 and 1838, or such part thereof as has not already been published’, Parliamentary Papers [PP] Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) p. 90.

64 Burnes to Macnaghten, 22 December 1837, Enclosures 2 and 4, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) pp. 85–86.

65 Burnes to Macnaghten, 22 January 1838, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) p. 91.

66 ‘O poslannikakh iz Afganistana i Indii’, 27 May 1835, AVPRI, F.161 (St Petersburg Gl. Arkh.) I-1 Op.781 D.75 ll.32-33ob.

67 Amir Dost Muhammad Khan Ghazi to Emperor Nicholas I and to Count V.A. Perovsky, translated from the Persian (late October 1835, no original), AVPRI, F.161 ‘Sankt-Peterburgskii Glavnyi Arkhiv’ I-5 Op.5 D.2. Although Volodarsky cites much other valuable material from AVPRI, he does not appear to have consulted this file: ‘O priezde v S-Peterburge Kabulskogo Poslannika Gussein Ali, tut zhe ob otpravlenii Poruchika Vitkevicha v Kabul dlya vstupleniya v blizhaishiya snosheniya s Avganistanom’ ll.10-ob, 12–13. A version of the same letter reached Burnes from a newswriter in Bukhara and was sent on in translation to Calcutta: PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) p. 85.

68 ‘Graf Vasilii Alekseevich Perovskii’, RA, No. 3 (1878) pp. 373–74.

69 Perovsky to Nesselrode, 5 May 1836, AVPRI, F.161 I-5 Op.5 D.2 ll.7–8.

70 Simonich to Nesselrode, 31 May 1835, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1834-5g. D.237 l.191ob; Simonich to Nesselrode, 30 January 1835; Simonich to Rodofinikin, 12 July 1835, AVPRI, F.194 Op.528a D.158 ll.4-5, 47-ob.

71 This was in 1831, when Shahzada Farrukh arrived in Orenburg from Khiva requesting permission to travel on to St Petersburg, and was politely turned away with a present of money by Governor Sukhtelen. Shahzada Farrukh to Sukhtelen, 16 August 1831; Sukhtelen to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 19 August 1831, AVPRI, F.161 I-7 Op.6 D.1 ll.11-12ob, 15-18ob in Bekmakhanova, N.E. (ed.) Prisoedinenie Kazakhstana i Srednei Azii k Rossii (XVIII–XIX veka). Dokumenty (Moscow: RAN, 2008)Google Scholar Documents 31 and 32, pp. 118–22.

72 Rodofinikin to Perovsky, 13 July 1836, AVPRI, F.161 I-5 Op.5 D.2 ll.36-9; Simonich was told by an informant from Herat that Hussain ‘Ali had actually entered Russian service in Orenburg for a time. Simonich to Rodofinikin, 5 September 1836, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1836g. D.204 l.165ob.

73 Perovsky to Rodofinikin, 4 August 1836; Rodofinikin to Vitkevich (n.d.), AVPRI, F.161 I-5 Op.5 D.2 ll.46-7, 63.

74 Aloizii Peslyak, ‘Zapiski Peslyaka’, IV No. 9 (1883) pp. 577–78; Blaramberg writes that Vitkevich was 17 when he was exiled from the Warsaw gymnasium, but he only met Vitkevich as an adult and presumably heard these stories second-hand: Blaramberg, Vospominaniya, p. 85.

75 Peslyak, ‘Zapiski’, pp. 584–85; Blaramberg, Vospominaniya, pp. 85–86; Vitkevich's account of this mission was eventually published as ‘Zapiska, sostavlennaya po rasskazam Orenburgskogo Lineinoga Batal’ona No. 10 Praporshchika Vitkevicha otnositel’no puti ego v Bukharu i obratno’ in Khalfin, N.A. (ed.) Zapiski o Bukharskom Khanstve (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1983)Google Scholar.

76 Perovsky to Nesselrode, 5 May 1836, AVPRI, F.161 I-5 Op.5 D.2 l.8ob. Strangely Peslyak does not refer to Vitkevich's embassy to Afghanistan, writing that he remained in Tehran for three years: Peslyak, ‘Zapiski’, p. 585.

77 Rozen to Nesselrode, 10 November 1837, AKAK Vol. 8 No. 891 p. 953.

78 Rodofinikin to Vitkevich, Nesselrode to Simonich, 14 May 1837, AVPRI, F.161 I-5 Op.5 D.2 ll.71-4; Blaramberg, Vospominaniya, pp. 87–96.

79 ‘Instruktsiya Poruchik Vitkevichu, ot 14-ogo Maya 1837 goda No. 1218’, AKAK Vol. 8 No. 874 pp. 944–45.

80 Simonich, ‘Précis historique’, pp. 342, 347, AV 1-i R. Op.6 D.1 ll.174ob, 187ob; Volodarsky, ‘The Russians in Afghanistan’, pp. 75–76.

81 Vitkevich to Simonich, 9 October 1837, AVPRI, F.194 Op. 528a D.131 ‘O Vitkeviche v delakh Afganskikh’ l.5.

82 Blaramberg, Vospominaniya, p. 131; he notes that Vitkevich had become indistinguishable from his Afghan companions.

83 N.A. Khalfin, ‘Drama v nomerakh “Parizh”’, Voprosy Istorii No. 10 (1966) pp. 216–20.

84 L.G. Senyavin to V.A. Perovsky, 21 May 1839, Rossiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voenno-Istoricheskii Arkhiv [RGVIA], Fond 67 ‘Danzas, A.L.’ Op.1 D.103 ‘Zapiski, sostavlennaya po rasskazam Praporshchika Vitkevicha, po povodu ego puteshestviya v Bukharu’ l.1ob. Part of this is reprinted in Ivanin/Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu’, VS No. 1 (1863) pp. 68–70, and in a partial and inaccurate English translation in Anonymous, A Narrative, p. 77.

85 V.I. Dal’, ‘Pis’ma k druzyam iz Khivinskoi Ekspeditsii’, RA, Nos. 3 and 4 (1867) pp. 402–31, 606–39; Dal’ was the compiler of the standard Russian dictionary: Tol’kovyi Slovar’ Velikorusskogo Yazyka (St Petersburg: Tip. M.O. Vol’fa, 1881) 4 vols, and the author of numerous articles about Orenburg and the Steppe; see Prokof’ev, A.G.et al. (ed.) Dal’, Vladimir Ivanovich. Orenburgskii krai v ocherkakh i nauchnykh trudakh pisatelya (Orenburg: Orenburgskoe knizhnoe izd., 2002)Google Scholar for a selection. He had earlier taken dictation of Vitkevich's report on Bukhara, and was supposed to do the same for his Afghan journey.

86 Dal’ to Vitkevich, Ural'sk, 3 August 1837; Dal’ to Vitkevich, Orenburg, 27 September 1837; Dal’ to Vitkevich, Orenburg, 2 September 1837 (all received in Kabul on 19 April 1838), AVPRI, F.161 I-5 Op.5 D.2 ll.98–9, 103-4, 108-9.

87 Vitkevich to Dal’, 2 August 1837, 31 August 1837, 29 September 1837, ‘Ya udovletvoriu sovershenno moiu strast’ k prikliucheniyam. . .Pis’ma I.V. Vitkevicha k. V.I. Daliu’, Gostinyi Dvor No. 16 (2005) pp. 304–11.

88 ‘Svedeniya o Persii i Afganistane, sobrannye Poruchikom Vitkevichem v 1837, 1838 i 1839 godakh’, Appendix to Blaramberg, I.F. (ed.) ‘Statisticheskoe Obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I.F. Blarambergom v 1841 godu’, Zapiski Imperatorskago Russkago Geograficheskago Obshchestva Knizhka VII (1853) p. 335Google Scholar. In his memoirs Blaramberg also notes that Vitkevich narrated many details of his Afghan travels to him, some of which he also incorporated into this text: Vospominaniya, p. 156.

89 ‘Translation [by Alexander Burnes] of a letter from Nazir Khan Oollah, at Bokhara to the address of the British Envoy and Minister at Cabool dated 15th Rajab 24th Sept. 1839’, NAI/Foreign/S.C./18 December 1839/No. 6 Russian Agent reported to have arrived at Bokhara, p. 3.

90 Hopkins, Modern Afghanistan, p. 65.

91 The original farman of investiture is on his file: AVPRI, F.161 I-5 Op.5 D.2 ll.123-5.

92 Senyavin to Perovsky, 21 May 1839, RGVIA, F.67 Op.1 D.103 l.1-1ob.

93 ‘Tri chasa utra podlinnuyu podpisal Vitkevich’, 8 May 1839 (Copy of a copy), RGVIA, F.67 Op.1 D.103 l.4.

94 Kaye, J.W., History of the War in Afghanistan, 3rd edition (London: W.H. Allen, 1874Google Scholar) Vol. I, p. 209.

95 ‘With that pistol, one day I shall blow my brains out.’ He also blamed Vitkevich's ‘sickly self-esteem’ (iz-za boleznennogo samoliubiya): see Blaramberg, Vospominaniya, pp. 163, 222.

96 Peslyak, ‘Zapiski’, p. 581. Dalrymple, Return of a King, pp. 200–03, also suggests this as the most likely explanation, adducing further a melodramatic account of a confrontation between Vitkevich and a childhood friend from Poland.

97 Morrissey, Susan, ‘In the Name of Freedom: Suicide, Serfdom and Autocracy in Russia’, Slavonic and East European Review Vol. 82 No. 2 (April 2004) pp. 271–78Google Scholar, 290–91.

98 This was partly because they had so little accurate information about him. See, for instance, Stoddart to Burnes, 9 February 1838, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) p. 169, where he refuses to believe that Vitkevich could be a Pole, because he was in a Cossack regiment.

99 Yapp, Strategies, pp. 234–35; Mosely, ‘Russian Policy in Asia’, p. 671. Blaramberg's later assertion that Vitkevich's mission was not ‘political’ was almost certainly disingenuous: Vospominaniya, pp. 129–30.

100 Volodarsky, ‘The Russians in Afghanistan’, p. 73.

101 Auckland to the Secret Committee, 13 March 1839, ‘East India (Cabul and Affghanistan). Correspondence of the Governor General of India with the President of the Board of Control and with the Secret Committee of the East India Company [. . .] relative to the expedition to Affghanistan, or such part thereof as has not already been published’, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) p. 303; Hopkins is thus wrong to suggest that ‘the Russians’ (sic) were still besieging Herat once Shah Shuja had been installed: Afghanistan, p. 66.

102 Burnes to Auckland, 23 December 1837, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) p. 92; this phrase, so redolent of British prejudices about Russia, was not published in the original, ‘garbled’ papers of 1839.

103 Burnes to Macnaghten, 30 April 1838, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1(8 June 1859) p. 229. Here too the final phrase was not published in 1839.

104 Macnaghten to Burnes, 20 January 1838, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8th June 1859) pp. 111–15. See Norris, First Afghan War, pp. 120–54, for a detailed account of how Burnes misinterpreted and exceeded his instructions.

105 Auckland to the Secret Committee, 8 February 1838, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1 (8 June 1859) p. 279.

106 Burnes to Jacob, 8 August 1838, NAI/Foreign/S.C./28 September 1842/Nos.33–42 pp. 11–12.

107 Yapp, Strategies, pp. 240–52, 270–303.

108 Minute by the Governor-General, 7 June 1840, India Office Records, British Library [IOR]/L/PS/20/G10/3 Letters from the Governor-General of India in Council to the Secret Committee No. 8 p. 12.

109 Letolle, René, ‘Les Expeditions de Bekovitch—Tcherkassky (1714–1717) en Turkestan, et le debut de l’infiltration Russe en Asie Centrale’, Cahiers d’Asie Centrale No. 5 (1998), pp. 259–85Google Scholar.

110 Palat, Madhavan K., ‘Tsarist Russian Imperialism’, Studies in History Vol. 4 Nos. 1 & 2 (1988) pp. 163–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Torrens to Macnaghten, 25 May 1840, IOR/L/PS/G10/3 No. 6 p. 8; see Huzzey, Richard, Freedom Burning. Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2012) pp. 51–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 206–10.

112 Khodarkovsky, Michael, Russia's Steppe Frontier. The Making of a Colonial Empire 1500–1800 (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2002) pp. 225–26Google Scholar. On the profound impact that victory in the Napoleonic Wars had on the ideologies and self-perception of the empire's governing elite, see Lieven, D.C.B., ‘Russia and the Defeat of Napoleon (1812–14)’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History Vol. 7 No. 2 (Spring 2006) pp. 283–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 Murav’ev, N.N., Puteshestvie v Turkmeniyu i Khivu v 1819 i 1820 godakh (Moscow: Tip. Augusta Semena, 1822)Google Scholar.

114 Sevast’yanov, S.N., ‘Sobytiya v Orenburgskom krae podgotovivshiya ekspeditsiyu v Khivu 1839–1840gg.’, Trudy Orenburgskoi Uchenoi Arkhivnoi Komissii Vyp. XVI (1906) pp. 108–14Google Scholar, 125–26, 131–32, 140–42.

115 Zakhar’in, Khiva, pp. 20–22.

116 Twenty of these were women, and 57 had Muslim names. Perovsky to the Orenburg Frontier Commission [O.P.K.] 30 April 1834; O.P.K. to Perovsky, 2 June 1834, Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Respubliki Kazakhstan [TsGARKaz] F.4 ‘Oblastnoe Pravlenie Orenburgskimi Kirgizami’ Op.1 D.1567 ‘Spisok Russikh plennykh nakhoodyashchikhsya v sredneaziatskikh khanstvakh’ ll.1, 3-25ob.

117 ‘Zapiska o snosheniyakh Rossii s Khivinskim khanstvom i o protivnykh narodnym pravam postupkakh khanov Khivinskikh protiv Rossii’, Perovsky to Chernyshev, January 1835, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. I Doc. 6 p. 28

118 Chernyshev to Perovsky, 14 January 1835, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. I Doc. 6 pp. 28–29.

119 Perovsky to the Orenburg Frontier Customs, 14 August 1836, Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Orenburgskoi Oblasti [GAOrO] F.153 ‘Orenburgskaya Pogranichnaya Tamozhnya’ Op.1 D.153 ‘Perepiska s Orenburgskim Voennym Gubernatorom i Orenburgskim tamozhnym okrugom o zaderzhanii khivintsev’ ll.1, 5-12ob. Vitkevich referred to these arrangements approvingly in a letter to Dal’, 6 September 1837: ‘Ya udovletvoriu’ p. 305.

120 Abbott, Narrative, Vol. I, pp. 108–10.

121 Ivanin/Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu’, VS No. 1 (1863) pp. 70–71; Anonymous, A Narrative, pp. 52–69.

122 Perovsky Memorandum, 18 September 1836, GAOrO F.167 ‘Chernov, I. V.’ Op.1 D.27 ‘O vzaimotnosheniyakh Khivy i Bukhary s Rossiei’ ll.1-4.

123 Gub. Sek. Aitov to the O.P.K., 10 August 1838; Zhurnal O.P.K., 15 August 1838, TsGARKaz F.4, Op.1 D.333 ‘O pribyvshikh iz Khivy dvukh poslantsev’ ll.14, 35-46, 52-ob.

124 ‘Zhurnal Komiteta, razsmotrivavshago predpolozheniya Orenburgskogo voennogo gubernatora o poiske na Khivu’, 11 March 1839, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. I Doc. 12 p. 33.

125 Nesselrode to Perovsky, 5 April 1840, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc. 64 pp. 104–06.

126 ‘Zhurnal Komiteta, razsmotrivavshago predpolozheniya Orenburgskogo voennogo gubernatora o poiske na Khivu’, 11 March 1839, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. I Doc. 12 p. 35.

127 Perovsky to Nesselrode, 30 September 1839, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. I Doc. 93 pp. 148–50.

128 Beisembiev, T.K., Annotated Indices to the Kokand Chronicles (Tokyo: ILCAAS, 2008) p. 727Google Scholar. The Uzbek Qungrat dynasty of Khiva had been established by Muhammad Amin Inaq in 1770–71 when he recaptured the khanate from the Yomut Turkmen, although the fiction of Chingissid rule would be preserved until 1804: see Bregel, Yuri (ed. and trans) Firdaws al-Iqbal. History of Khorezm (Leiden: Brill, 1999) pp. 95–122Google Scholar.

129 Shakespear, ‘Narrative’, p. 702.

130 ‘Zhurnal komiteta, razsmatrivavshavo predpolozhenie Orenburgskogo voen. Gubernatora o poiske v Khivu’, 10 October 1839, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. I Doc. 101 pp. 158–63.

131 Koritskii, Ivan, Khiva, ili geograficheskoe i statisticheskoe opisanie Khivinskago Khanstva, sostoyashchago teper’ v voine s Rossiei (Moscow: Universitetskaya Tip., 1840)Google Scholar

132 ‘Prikaz po otryadu voisk Khivinskoi ekspeditsii’, 1 February 1840, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc. 22 p. 42; an English translation of this document can be found in Anonymous, A Narrative, pp. 165–66.

133 Abbott, Narrative, p. 110.

134 Gens to Sultan Bai Muhammad Aichuvakov, 27 August 1838; Sultan Bai Muhammad Aichuvakov to Gens, 12 September 1838, TsGARKaz F.4, Op.1 D.2167 ‘Materialy ob otpravke v Khivu voennogo otryada dlya osvobozhdeniya russkikh plennykh’ ll.1, 3ob-4ob.

135 M. Ivanin, ‘Zametki po povodu napechatannoi vo 2 i 3 numerakh “Voennago Sbornika” nyneshnago goda stat’i “pokhod v Khivu 1839g.”’ VS No. 4 (1863) p. 490; Ivanin/Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu’, VS No. 2 (1863) p. 352; Anonymous, A Narrative, p. 119.

136 Biis of the Nazarov division to Gens, 25 May 1839; Gens to the Biis of the Nazarov division, 26 May 1839, TsGARKaz F.4 Op.1 D.2167 ll.33ob-36.

137 ‘Translation [by Alexander Burnes] of a letter from Nazir Khan Oollah, at Bokhara to the address of the British Envoy and Minister at Cabool dated 15th Rajab 24th Sept. 1839’, NAI/Foreign/S.C./18 December 1839/No. 6 Russian Agent reported to have arrived at Bokhara, p. 3. Yapp was puzzled as to how rumours of Russian troop movements could have reached the British at Kabul months before the Khivan expedition actually set out in November 1839 (see Strategies, pp. 391–92), but given how far ahead the preparations were initiated, the explanation is quite simple.

138 Abbott, Narrative, Vol. I, p. 97.

139 Lt. Col Likhamerstov to Perovsky, 24 May 1840, TsGARKaz F.4 Op.1 D.2182 ‘O vystuplenii voennykh otryadov protiv Khivy’ l.15.

140 Ivanin/Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu’, VS No. 3 (1863) p. 34; Anonymous, A Narrative, p. 39.

141 Thompson, E.P., The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz, 1963) p. 12Google Scholar.

142 Alder, ‘The “Garbled” Blue Books’, pp. 237–39, 253.

143 Burnes to Jacob, 10 December 1838, NAI/Foreign/S.C./28 September 1842/Nos. 33–42 pp. 19–21.

144 This is most obviously true of Hopkirk's, PeterThe Great Game. On Secret Service in High Asia (London: John Murray, 1990)Google Scholar but it also affects Yapp's work and, most recently, Sergeev, E. YuBol'shaya Igra, 1856–1907: mify i realii rossiisko-britanskikh otnoshenii v Tsentral’noi i Vostochnoi Azii(Moscow: Tovarichestvo nauchnykh izdanii KMK, 2012)Google Scholar. See Hopkins, Afghanistan, pp. 34–37, for an effective critique of this tendency.

145 Khwarazmshah to Perovsky (Russian translation), 11/1836 GAOrO F.167, Op.1 D.35 ‘Pis’mo Khorezmskogo Shakha o narushenie russkimi druzhestvennykh otnoshenie s Khorezmom’ ll.1-2ob.

146 Ivanin/Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu’, VS No. 1 (1863) pp. 70–71; Anonymous, A Narrative, pp. 52–69.

147 ‘Firman addressed by the Khan Huzrut of Khiva to the British Envoy at Herat’, received 10 December 1839, IOR/L/PS/20/G10/3 No. 14 pp. 9–10.

148 Abbott, Narrative, Vol. I, p. 100.

149 Burnes to Macnaghten, 5 March 1838, PP Vol. XXV.7 No. 1(8 June 1859) p. 162.

150 See Norris, First Afghan War, pp. 337–60, Yapp, Strategies, pp. 307–50; Yapp, M.E., ‘Disturbances in Eastern Afghanistan, 1839–42’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 25 No. 3 (1962) pp. 519–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

151 Wagner, Kim, Thuggee. Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) pp. 217–26Google Scholar.

152 Hopkins, Afghanistan, pp. 13–18, 41–45.

153 Burnes to Jacob, 25 April 1841, NAI/Foreign/S.C./28 September 1842/Nos.33–42 p. 29.

154 Kaye, History (1874), Vol. II, pp. 164–5, 408–9.

155 Major General Pollock to T.H. Maddock, 10 July 1842, NAI/Foreign/S.C./28 December 1842/Nos.480–2 Mohun Lall's memorandum on the Disaster at Cabul p. 9750.

156 Lal to Pollock, 29 June 1842, NAI/Foreign/S.C./28 December 1842/Nos.480–2 p. 9801.

157 Lal to Pollock, 29 June 1842, NAI/Foreign/S.C./28 December 1842/Nos.480–2 pp. 9769–71, 9782–83, 9804–09.

158 Yapp, M.E., ‘The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 27 No. 2 (1964) pp. 333–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

159 Lal to Pollock, 29 June 1842, NAI/Foreign/S.C./28 December 1842/Nos.480–2 pp. 9782–83.

160 Lal, Mohan, Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul (London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1846)Google Scholar Vol. II, pp. 401–29.

161 ‘Mohan Lal in Afghanistan’, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 60 (November 1846) p. 542.

162 ‘Life of the Amir, Dost Mahommed Khan of Kabul’, The Calcutta Review Vol. VII (January–June 1847) pp. 2–4.

163 Bayly, Empire and Information, pp. 128–40; Hopkins, Afghanistan, pp. 78–81.

164 Ivanin/Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu’ VS No. 2 (1863) pp. 324–25; Anonymous, A Narrative, p. 97.

165 Perovsky to Chernyshev, 6 January 1840, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc. 4 p. 3.

166 ‘Pis’ma grafa V. A. Perovskago k A. Ya. Bulgakovu’, RA No. 7 (1878) p. 314.

167 Ivanin/Golosov, ‘Pokhod v Khivu’, VS No. 3 (1863) p. 32–33; Anonymous, A Narrative, p. 149; Ivanin, Opisanie, pp. 125–26.

168 Peslyak, ‘Zapiski’, p. 586.

169 Dal’, ‘Pis’ma k druzyam’, 27 December 1839, RA Vyp.3 (1867) pp. 430–31.

170 ‘Prikaz po otryadu voisk Khivinskoi ekspeditsii’, 1 February 1840, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc 22 p. 42; an English translation of this document can be found in Anonymous, A Narrative, pp. 165–66.

171 Yapp, Strategies, pp. 413–18, 460.

172 Indeed, the Company's credit with Indian bankers, which had been crucial to funding the occupation, was well-nigh exhausted by 1842, when many refused to accept hundis (or notes of hand) signed by its officers. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, ‘Impoverishing a Colonial Frontier: Cash, Credit, and Debt in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan’, Iranian Studies Vol. 37 No. 2 (June 2004) pp. 199–218.

173 Siegel, Jennifer, Endgame. Britain, Russia, and the Final Struggle for Central Asia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002) pp. 48–50Google Scholar, 145, 197–201.

174 ‘Dopolnenie k zapiske Gen-m Verigina, predstavlennoi im v 1826 godu’, 13 January 1840, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc. 5 p. 15.

175 Perovsky to Nesselrode, 6 May 1841, AVPRI, F.161 I-9 D.5 ll.483–487 in Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniya v XVIII–XIX vekakh (1771–1867 gody) (Alma-ata, 1964) pp. 293–94.

176 Duhamel to Nesselrode, 5 February 1841, AVPRI, F.133 Op.469 1841g. D.213 ‘Téhéran (Affaires de l’Asie)’ ll.54ob-56

177 Perovsky to Nesselrode, 28 May 1840, Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc. 92 pp. 146–47

178 Nesselrode to Perovsky, 5 April 1840; Perovsky to Nesselrode, 8 July 1840 Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Docs.106 and 108 pp. 180–85.

179 Perovsky to Chernyshev, 26 November 1840 Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc. 133 p. 217.

180 ‘Zapiska knyazya Menshikova o predpolozhenii osnovat’ na r. Syr-Dar’e sil’noe ukreplenie s poseleniem’, 4 March 1840 Serebrennikov Sbornik Vol. II Doc. 43 pp. 72–73.

181 Ivanin, ‘Zametki’, p. 484.

182 Frankel, ‘Towards a Decision-making Model’, p. 5.

183 Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, pp. 464–65; Darwin, ‘Imperialism and the Victorians’, pp. 625–31.

184 Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, pp. 304–06, 339–78.

185 Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, pp. 466–67.

186 Bayly, Empire and Information, pp. 165–77, 315–18.