The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (50 page)

Cherniaev now set about trying to win the goodwill of the people, particularly the religious authorities, by reconciliation and generosity in victory. He called on Tashkent’s principal Muslim leader at his home, bowing respectfully as he entered, and pledged himself to allow the elders to run the city’s affairs as before, and not to interfere in their religious life. Aware of the deep resentment felt over the crippling taxes which the Khan of Khokand had imposed, he absolved everyone from paying any taxes for a year – an immensely popular, if costly, move. He rode alone through the streets and bazaars, talking to ordinary people, and even accepting a bowl of tea from a total stranger. It was an early hearts-and-minds operation by Cherniaev and his troops, and their magnanimity was to win over many of those who had previously regarded the Russians as ogres. It was an admirable policy, but not one that subsequent Russian commanders in Central Asia always adopted.

Having appointed himself Military Governor of Tashkent, Cherniaev sat back to await word from St Petersburg of his own fate. There his report on the city’s capture, and the pacification of its inhabitants, was being perused by his startled superiors, including Tsar Alexander. In it Cherniaev extolled the valour of his troops, singling out a number of officers and men for special praise. Among them was Father Malov, the crucifix-bearing chaplain, who had been in the thick of all the fighting, and who was to remain in Tashkent as a priest for the rest of his life. Cherniaev reasoned that once the imperial flag had been raised over Tashkent the Tsar would be loath to see it hauled down. He therefore recommended that the city should once again become an independent khanate, but from now on under Russian protection.

Cherniaev did not have to wait long to learn that his reckless gamble had paid off. ‘A glorious affair,’ the Tsar called it. Disobedience, it appeared, was acceptable – provided it was successful. For Cherniaev had achieved, with the minimum of fuss and casualties, what Alexander really wanted, but feared could not be achieved without the deployment of a far larger force. The Tsar immediately awarded Cherniaev the Cross of St Anne, while other officers who had distinguished themselves were fittingly rewarded. Other ranks received a bonus of two roubles each. Meanwhile, St Petersburg braced itself for the British protests which, in view of Prince Gorchakov’s recent assurances, seemed inevitable. In a bid to pre-empt these, the official announcement of Cherniaev’s victory published in the St Petersburg newspapers declared the occupation of Tashkent to be no more than temporary, insisting that it had been done strictly to protect Tashkent from Bokharan annexation. Once the danger was over, it would be restored to independence under a khan of its own.

The British government, as expected, duly protested. It pointed out that Tashkent lay far beyond the frontier which Prince Gorchakov had spelt out in his famous memorandum on Russia’s southern limits. Moreover, the seizure of Tashkent, London added, was ‘scarcely consistent with the professed intention of the Russian government to respect the independence of the states of Central Asia.’ But by now no one seriously expected St Petersburg to keep its undertaking to withdraw from Tashkent, any more than it had kept its earlier promise. Nor did it. After waiting for things to calm down, it announced the permanent establishment of a new Governorate-General, that of Turkestan. Tashkent was to be its military and administrative headquarters, as well as the official place of residence of the Governor-General. Beyond declaring that this move had been forced upon it by ‘military expediency’, St Petersburg did not go out of its way to justify it. As Count Milyutin wrote: ‘It is unnecessary for us to beg the forgiveness of ministers of the English Crown for each advance we make. They do not hasten to confer with us when they conquer whole kingdoms and occupy foreign cities and islands. Nor do we ask them to justify what they do.’

Having served his purpose, General Cherniaev, whose impulsiveness and ambition were viewed in St Petersburg as a liability, was recalled, and General Konstantin Kaufman, a veteran of the Caucasus war and a personal friend of Milyutin’s, was appointed the first Governor-General of Turkestan. A soldier of exceptional ability and vision, he was given extraordinary powers by Tsar Alexander. Eventually he was destined to become the uncrowned king of Central Asia, and principal architect of Russia’s empire there. To the dismay of the hawks in London and Calcutta, the British government’s reaction to all this, beyond its initial protest, was surprisingly muted. So, too, was that of most of the press and public. ‘To those who remember the Russophobia of 1838–39,’ wrote Sir Henry Rawlinson, that veteran of the earlier phase of the Great Game, ‘the indifference of the English public to the events now passing in Central Asia must appear one of the strangest instances in modern history.’ The truth was that the Russophobes had cried wolf too often to expect much support this time. The spectre of the Cossacks pouring down through the passes into British India, raised on and off for nearly half a century, had so far not materialised. And yet, as Rawlinson pointed out in a long, anonymous article in the
Quarterly Review
of July 1865, the relative positions of Britain and Russia in Asia had changed considerably since the days of Wilson, Kinneir, de Lacy Evans and McNeill.

‘We have, in the first place, greatly advanced our own frontier,’ he wrote, referring to the annexation of Sind and the Punjab. British India had also extended its political influence northwards into Kashmir. At the same time the Russians had consolidated their position in the Caucasus, after crushing Imam Shamyl, thereby freeing large numbers of troops for deployment elsewhere, and had also begun to make forward moves in Turkestan. In addition to this, Rawlinson observed, the Russians had much improved their communications with Central Asia. A railway now ran all the way from St Petersburg to Nijni-Novogorod (present-day Gorky) on the Volga, while plying the latter, all the way down to the Caspian Sea, were 300 steamships. In time of war these, plus a further 50 vessels on the Caspian itself, could be used to transport men and supplies eastwards towards Afghanistan and India.

Rawlinson, who had retired from Indian government service to enter Parliament as a Conservative MP, next considered the reasons for the public’s apathy. One, obviously, was the memory of the Afghan disaster, and a determination not to let such a thing happen again. Another was a widespread conviction that nothing could prevent the Russian advance and their eventual annexation of Khiva, Bokhara and Khokand. Any attempt by Britain to stop this would merely make them move faster, it was argued. Some doves reasoned that it would be better to have the Russians as neighbours than wild tribesmen, upon whom no reliance could be placed. A settled Central Asia ruled by St Petersburg would bring prosperity to the region, and open up new markets there for British goods. Rawlinson, needless to say, shared none of these views.

Ranged against him and his fellow hawks was the new Whig Cabinet, under Lord Russell, vigorously supported by the Viceroy, Sir John Lawrence, himself an old frontier hand of considerable distinction, and a former Governor of the Punjab. Lawrence was convinced that if the Russians tried to attack India through Afghanistan their troops would suffer the same fate at the hands of the fanatical tribes as the British had in the dreadful winter of 1842. He dismissed as highly improbable the fear that St Petersburg might persuade the Afghans to allow Russian troops to march across their country, or even to join forces with them, in order to attack India. The best way to restrain Russia, he argued, was by means of tough diplomacy from London. The Russian Achilles’ heel, if it came to it, lay within easier reach of London than of Calcutta. Were Tsar Alexander ever to show signs of launching an attack on India through Central Asia or Persia then the immediate dispatch of a British battle fleet to the Baltic would force him to think again. Even so, it was not long before those responsible for India’s defence, including Lawrence himself, began to feel distinctly uneasy.

Looking back now, it is obvious that from the moment General Kaufman took up his new post as Governor-General of Turkestan the days of the independent khanates of Central Asia were numbered. Despite all Gorchakov’s assurances it is clear that their absorption, in one form or another, into the Russian Empire was his principal aim. As we have already seen, there were three main reasons for this. Foremost was the fear of the British getting there first and monopolising the region’s trade. Russian merchants and manufacturers had long had their eyes on the untapped markets and resources of Central Asia, especially its raw cotton. Then there was the question of imperial pride. Blocked in Europe and the Near East, the Russians sought to work off their frustration by demonstrating their military prowess through colonial conquest in Asia. After all, it was no more than the other European powers were doing, or had already done, almost everywhere else in the world. Finally there was the strategic factor. Just as the Baltic was Russia’s Achilles’ heel in the event of trouble with Britain, it had long been obvious that the latter’s most vulnerable point was India. Therefore to have bases in Central Asia from which its frontiers could be threatened greatly increased Russia’s bargaining power.

This is not to say that from now on every Russian move in Central Asia was part of a grand design carefully thought out in St Petersburg, as Khalfin, the Soviet historian, rather suggests. Indeed, there had been considerable disagreement earlier among the Tsar’s ministers and advisers over the wisdom of retaining Tashkent. Those on the spot, notably General Kaufman, had no such doubts, however. For they could see that possession of Tashkent was the key to the conquest of Central Asia. Its occupation by Russian troops effectively drove a wedge between the two territories of Bokhara and Khokand, enabling them to be dealt with in turn. Following his loss of Tashkent to Cherniaev, and the failure of the British to come to his assistance, the Khan of Khokand had concluded a treaty with the Russians which secured Kaufman’s rear and enabled him to concentrate on Bokhara. Nor did he have to wait very long for an excuse to move against the Emir. For in April 1868 word reached Tashkent that Bokharan forces were massing at Samarkand, then lying within the Emir’s domains, with the aim of driving the Russians out of Turkestan.

Kaufman immediately set out for Samarkand with a force of only 3,500 men, all that could be spared. He met with little resistance, however, for the Bokharan troops, whose commanders were divided among themselves, fell back at his approach. The following morning a deputation from the city came to Kaufman saying that the troops had all left and that they wished to surrender. Thus, on May 2, 1868, Samarkand was absorbed into the Russian Empire, at a cost of two lives and thirty-one wounded. To the Russians its fall had a special significance. For it was from here, nearly 500 years earlier, that the great Mongol commander Tamerlane had launched his fateful attack on Muscovy. The capture of this legendary city, with its dazzling architectural splendours, including the tomb of Tamerlane himself, was seen as the settling of an ancient score. Nor was the significance of its surrender lost on the people of Central Asia, on whom it was to have a crushing psychological effect, adding to the growing Russian reputation for invincibility.

Leaving behind him a small garrison to occupy Samarkand, Kaufman now set off in pursuit of the main Bokharan force, catching up with it at a spot 100 miles short of the Emir’s capital. Despite the great disparity in numbers, Kaufman’s superior tactics and seasoned troops won the day, putting the Bokharans to flight. But he was unable to pursue them further, for a second Bokharan force, which had managed to escape his notice, had attacked the Russian troops left to hold Samarkand. At the same time many of the townspeople joined the attackers, having surrendered merely to save their city from destruction. The plight of the Russians, who had withdrawn to the citadel, was becoming more desperate by the hour. Finally, rather than surrender, they decided to blow up the magazines – and themselves. But prompt action by Kaufman saved them. Racing back to Samarkand, he drove the attackers off, but not before 50 of the defenders had been killed and nearly 200 wounded.

Thrice defeated, and fearing for his capital, the Emir had little choice but to accept Kaufman’s harsh surrender terms. These reduced him to a mere vassal of the Tsar’s, and made his once-powerful kingdom a Russian protectorate. In addition Russian merchants were guaranteed free passage through his domains, and allowed to appoint local agents there. Russian goods, moreover, would be taxed at a favourable rate, thereby giving them an advantage over imports from India. Force had achieved what, ten years earlier, Ignatiev had tried and failed to obtain through negotiation – though the intelligence he returned with was now proving invaluable to Kaufman. Finally, in addition to paying a large indemnity, the Emir was obliged to surrender to the Russians the crucial Zarafshan valley, which controlled Bokhara’s water supply, thereby giving them a permanent stranglehold on the capital. In return, so long as he abided by the terms of the treaty, the Emir was allowed to retain his throne. The Russians also gave vague assurances that once stability had been restored to the region they would return Samarkand to the Emir. But this, like their earlier undertaking over Tashkent, they never did, and the respective situations of the two cities were to remain unchanged until the Bolsheviks came to power, when Bokhara was ‘liberated’ and fully incorporated into the USSR.