Historical Afghan mountains occupied successive GovernorsGeneral. The first Afghan War was a rash and premature attempt to carry out this system. The disastrous result cooled for many years the ardour of the party who insisted on the paramount necessity of establishing, by friendly means if possible, otherwise by the display of armed superiority, our influence over the rough, recalcitrant, liberty-loving people of Afghanistan. Ten years later, when the English had crossed the Indus and the Russians were hovering about the Oxus, the prospect of a rapid approximation of the two rival empires grew much more distinct. But within India we had then much on our hands. Nor was it until the country had been finally pacified after the Sepoy Mutiny that the question of barring the further advance of Russia again took shape, and prominence. The policy of setting up barriers against a powerful neighbour is well known in Europe; it consists in establishing a preponderant diplomatic influence over intervening kingdoms, and in placing the weaker States or petty princes under a protectorate, or admitting them to an arrangement for the common defence. That this system is sound, and peculiarly applicable to Afghanistan and the minor chiefships beyond our north-western frontier, has never been seriously disputed; and the long controversy (which is at this moment in full vigour) has always turned entirely upon ways and means of pursuing objects that are generally admitted to be desirable. One party has declared confidently in favour of active overtures to the tribes and rulers beyond our borders; of pressing upon them friendly intercourse; of securing the contact of their external relations; of inducing them to receive missions, to enter into co-operative alliances, to acknowledge our Summary protection, and to admit British Residents, and British Historical Agents. No time is to be lost, and no efforts spared, in the resolute employment of all those devices whereby civilised powers have, since the days of the Romans, gradually imposed their supremacy upon barbarous neighbours. "The other party has never denied the expediency or possible necessity of these measures. But whereas on the one side there has been a constant demand for the speedy execution of the policy, for distinct steps forward to be taken without delay, for urgent overtures to Afghan Amirs, for operating by pressure where persuasion seemed to work too slowly, for intimating to suspicious chiefs that when friendly offers were rejected there might be force in reserve, on the other side these demands were opposed by politicians of the more cautious school as hasty and undeniably hazardous. "Your conciliatory advances," they argued, "must be expected to fail among jealous and intractable folk who only wish to be left alone, and who know as well as you do that protection means supremacy in disguise, and that intercourse with the English spells intervention. So that the rejection of your friendly overtures will most probably become merely the formalities preliminary to some masterful action which will damage your popularity, and will entangle you in new responsibilities, military and political, still further beyond your ever-moving frontiers. If we really desire so to gain the confidence of the Afghans that they may in an emergency stand by us and against our enemies, we must abstain from forcing our friendship upon them, though our relations with them ought to be civil and neighbourly. And the surest way of preventing any misunderstanding of our intentions is to keep within our own Summary Historical borders until we have just and necessary cause for a movement across them, or until the force of circumstances leads an Afghan ruler to seek or willingly accept our assistance."'1 The attitude last described has grown to be associated with the name of Lawrence. The opposite one has been represented with more or less difference by all those ranking themselves on the side of the Forward Policy. With the inauguration of this policy Lord Lytton's name must ever be associated, and despite the violent opposition it excited in his time, it is the policy which has since been almost continuously pursued by his successors. It is one of the purposes of this book to set forth Lord Lytton's own defence of this policy; the policy of masterly inactivity having in his judgment failed to achieve the objects at which it aimed. The following historical summary of the events which led to the situation in 1876 is given almost entirely in Lord Lytton's own words, taken from private notes written in the year 1880. All schools of frontier policy are alike agreed that Russian influence should be excluded from Afghanistan at any cost. Lord Lawrence never doubted this. In a memorandum dated November 25, 1868, he said: 'No one, of course, can deny that the advance of Russia in Central Asia is a matter which may gravely affect the interests of England in India. No person can doubt that the approach of Russia towards our North-West Frontier in India may involve us in great difficulties; and this being the case, it will be a wise and prudent policy to endeavour to maintain a thoroughly friendly power 1 Sir Alfred Lyall. Summary between India and the Russian possessions in Central Historical Asia. Nevertheless, it appears to me clear that it is quite out of our power to reckon with any degree of certainty on the attainment of this desirable end. And,' he added, 'I feel no shadow of a doubt that, if a formidable invasion of India from the west were imminent, the Afghans en masse, from the Amir of the day to the domestic slave of the household, would readily join in it.' These were the views expressed by Lord Lawrence in 1868, when the only danger apprehended was the establishment of Russian influence in Afghanistan by forcible means, and when the public presence of the Russian power at Kabul, not as the foe, but as the avowed friend and ally of the Amir, was a danger wholly unforeseen. Nor did Lord Lawrence counsel passive acquiescence in such a situation when it actually occurred. What he contended in 1878 was, that Russia rather than Sher Ali should have been called by us to account. And in this he was consistent; for what he had advised in 1868 was, that Russia should be plainly told that an advance towards India beyond a certain point would entail upon her war with England in every part of the world.' The relations between Russia and Afghanistan may be said to have commenced in the year 1870 with a complimentary letter from General Kaufmann to the Amir. It was entirely colourless; and it was answered by the Amir in terms suggested by the Viceroy of India, who found in it no ground for objection. But the letters of the Russian GovernorGeneral gradually assumed a tone more practical and more significant; and in the summer of 1872 he addressed to Sher Ali a communication about Historical the boundaries of Bokhara which caused considerable sensation in the Kabul Durbar. The Amir, who was much alarmed by it, immediately forwarded this letter to the Viceroy, with a confidential message, the terms of which were transmitted to the Government of India through our native agent. In this message the Amir drew attention to the wish of the Russian authorities to establish a 'a regular and frequent correspondence with the Kabul Government,' and to the fact that they now styled the Afghan State their neighbour,' oblivious of the fact that Bokhara and Khiva intervened'; and the message closed with an entreaty to the British Government to bestow more serious attention than they have hitherto done on the establishment and maintenance of the boundaries of Afghanistan.' 6 6 This appeal was made to the British Government in 1872; and in reply to it the Amir was advised to thank General Kaufmann for the friendly sentiments of a letter which had caused His Highness so much uneasiness. For the purpose of reassuring him the Viceroy expressed to the Amir his confident belief that the assurances given by Russia to England in regard to Afghanistan would be strictly and faithfully adhered to.1 Nevertheless, General Kaufmann continued his correspondence, and in the autumn of the same year the Russian officer acting for him at Tashkend informed the Afghan Governor of Balkh of the desire of the Russian Government that the relations between the Russians and Afghans should become more firm and consolidated daily.' This while while positive assurances' were being given by the Russian Govern 6 1 In 1869 the Russian Government had assured Lord Clarendon that they looked upon Afghanistan as completely outside the sphere of Russian influence. |