PART III.

ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA.

The points which seem to require special attention in the Parliamentary Papers on Central Asia are the following:

1. The understanding arrived at between England and Russia as to their respective spheres of influence in Asia.

2. The communications which passed between General von Kaufmann and Shere Ali, and the light in which those communications were regarded by the British Government.

3. Date and cause of the interruption of the friendly understanding between England and Russia.

4. The present situation.

Let us take these points in order.

1 Central Asia, No. 2, 1878, p. 72.

CHAPTER I.

THE UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.

Ir was in the year 1864 that the Government of the present Czar took the first formal step towards enlightening Europe as to its policy in Central Asia. This it did in the following circular despatch, addressed by the Russian Chancellor to the representatives of Russia abroad :

(Circular.)

St. Petersburg: November 21, 1864.

The Russian newspapers have given an account of the last military operations executed by a detachment of our troops in the regions of Central Asia with remarkable success and important results. It was to be foreseen that these events would the more attract the attention of the foreign public that their scene was laid in scarcely known countries.

Our august Master has commanded me to state to you briefly, but with clearness and precision, the position in which we find ourselves in Central Asia, the interests which inspire us in those countries, and the end which we have in view.

The position of Russia in Central Asia is that of all civilised States which are brought into contact with half-savage nomad populations, possessing no fixed social organisation.

In such cases it always happens that the more civilised State is found, in the interest of the security of its frontier and its commercial relations, to exercise a certain ascendency over those whom their turbulent and unsettled character make most undesirable neighbours. First, there are raids and acts of pillage to be put down. To put a stop to them, the tribes on the frontier have to be reduced to a state of more or less perfect submission. This result once attained, these tribes

take to more peaceful habits, but are in their turn exposed to the attacks of the more distant tribes.

The State is bound to defend them against these depredations, and to punish those who commit them. Hence the necessity of distant, costly, and periodically recurring expeditions against an enemy whom his social organisation makes it impossible to seize. If, the robbers once punished, the expedition is withdrawn, the lesson is soon forgotten; its withdrawal is put down to weakness. It is a peculiarity of Asiatics to respect nothing but visible and palpable force; the moral force of reason and of the interests of civilisation has as yet no hold upon them. The work has then always to be done over again

from the beginning.

In order to put a stop to this state of permanent disorder, fortified posts are established in the midst of these hostile tribes, and an influence is brought to bear upon them which reduces them by degrees to a state of more or less forced submission. But soon beyond this second line other still more distant tribes come in their turn to threaten the same dangers and necessitate the same measures of repression. The State thus finds itself forced to choose one of two alternatives, either to give up this endless labour and to abandon its frontier to perpetual disturbance, rendering all prosperity, all security, all civilisation an impossibility, or, on the other hand, to plunge deeper and deeper into barbarous countries, where the difficulties and expenses increase with every step in advance.

Such has been the fate of every country which has found itself in a similar position. The United States in America, France in Algeria, Holland in her Colonies, England in India -all have been irresistibly forced, less by ambition than by imperious necessity, into this onward march, where the greatest difficulty is to know when to stop.

Such, too, have been the reasons which have led the Imperial Government to take up at first a position resting on one side on the Syr-Daria, on the other on the Lake IssykKaul, and to strengthen these two lines by advanced forts, which, little by little, have crept on into the heart of those distant regions, without however succeeding in establishing on the other side of our frontiers that tranquillity which is indispensable for their security.

The explanation of this unsettled state of things is to be found, first, in the fact that, between the extreme points of this double line, there is an immense unoccupied space, where

all attempts at colonisation or caravan trade are paralysed by the inroads of the robber tribes; and, in the second place, in the perpetual fluctuations of the political condition of those countries, where Turkistan and Khokand, sometimes united, sometimes at variance, always at war, either with one another or with Bokhara, presented no chance of settled relations or of any regular transactions whatever.

The Imperial Government thus found itself, in spite of all its efforts, in the dilemma we have above alluded to, that is to say, compelled either to permit the continuance of a state of permanent disorder, paralysing to all security and progress, or to condemn itself to costly and distant expeditions, leading to no practical result, and with the work always to be done anew; or, lastly, to enter upon the undefined path of conquest and annexation which has given to England the Empire of India, by attempting the subjugation by armed forced, one after another, of the small independent States whose habits of pillage and turbulence and whose perpetual revolts leave their neighbours neither peace nor repose.

Neither of these alternative courses was in accordance with the object of our august Master's policy, which consists, not in extending beyond all reasonable bounds the regions under his sceptre, but in giving a solid basis to his rule, in guaranteeing their security, and in developing their social organisation, their commerce, their well-being, and their civilisation.

Our task was, therefore, to discover a system adapted to the attainment of this three-fold object.

The following principles have, in consequence, been laid down:

1. It has been judged to be indispensable that our two fortified frontier lines-one extending from China to the Lake IssykKaul, the other from the Sea of Aral along the Syr-Dariashould be united by fortified points, so that all our posts should be in a position of mutual support, leaving no gap through which the nomad tribes might make with impunity their inroads and depredations.

2. It was essential that the line of our advanced forts thus completed should be situated in a country fertile enough, not only to insure their supplies, but also to facilitate the regular colonisation, which alone can prepare a future of stability and prosperity for the occupied country, by gaining over the neighbouring populations to civilised life."

3, And, lastly, it was urgent to lay down this line defini