Central Asia 1850

Central Asia 1780 to 1850: The beginning of the Great Game (or in Russian, the Bol'sháya Igrá)

While Napoleon was storming Europe, the British East India Company was storming India. At the crucial Battle of Assaye on the 23rd of September 1803 the Company army under General Wellesley shattered the retreating Maratha armies. In just under a decade the British conquered India from Delhi to Madras and Bombay to Calcutta.

At the same time, the Russians undertook numerous campaigns against the Turks and Persians in the Caucasus. But Napoleon could not be stopped in Europe and the Russians were forced to peace with the Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807.

During the treaty Napoleon and the Tzar of Russia met and discussed the possibility of dividing the world between them. As Peter Hopkirk writes in his book The Great Game, “France was to have the West, and Russia the East, including India. But when Alexander demanded Constantinople, the meeting point of East and West, for himself, Napoleon had shaken his head. ‘Never!’ he said, ‘For that would make you Emperor of the world.’” For the Tzar, ownership of Constantinople would greatly solidify his dynastic claim as the true heir of the Byzantine Empire; Moscow would be the 3rd Rome. In a more strategic sense, control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles would give the Russian Black Sea fleet an outlet into the Mediterranean, significantly increasing Russian naval capabilities. And when we consider that the Balkans was and is mostly Christian Orthodox in terms of culture and religious outlook, the Russians might easily have dominated that region far better than the French. In order to advance their plans for the conquest of India, the two Emperors agreed to share Constantinople. Once in the field, a Franco-Russian Army would then be able to march across allied Persia all the way to Afghanistan, the door to India.

In order to prevent this potential threat the British poured diplomats and money into Persia, offering military subsidies, an annul subsidy, and one of the world’s largest diamonds in order to persuade the Shah that the British government is Persia’s truest ally. Simultaneous to this Napoleon had begun his damaging strategy of trying to economically bankrupt Britain through blockade. These policies lead to the breakup of the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1812, the French invasion of Russia and Napoleon’s eventual downfall.

Though the treat of Napoleon in India was now gone, the British were still nervous. They admitted that they had been totally unprepared to defend India from a landward attack. In order to defend India, they now needed to map the lay of the land north of India. They also needed to ascertain the defenses of the Central Asian khanates and consider the possibilities of helping them to defend against future Russian encroachment. To this end, Company agents began to venture north, far beyond British borders.

In 1837 the Russians encouraged their new Persian allies to attack Herat and wrest it from Afghan control. The Persians lead by their Shah had in their ranks a number of Russian military advisors as well as artillerymen trained by the Russian Army. But by chance one British soldier named Eldred Pottinger had arrived disguised in Herat just before the Persians besieged it on November 23. By utilizing his knowledge of siege craft in the service of the Afghan ruler, the Afghan troops held together. The British were greatly disturbed by this turn of events; should the Persians annex Herat, the Russian Army could march through Persian territory into Afghanistan and attack India. By June of 1838 the British organized a task force to the Persian Gulf to ‘persuade’ the Persian Shah to end his siege of Herat. The British Army landed on the Persian coast in good order and swiftly advanced toward Tehran. Fearing for his throne, the Shah withdrew his army from the walls of Herat. Pottinger was promptly hailed by the Afghans and the world as the Hero of Heart. British India was safe, for now.

The Russians themselves were up to their necks in the Caucasus. In 1834 a military leader by the name of Shamil was elected Imam of Dagestan. He headed the Dagestani rebellion against the Russians which had been ongoing since 1813. His army held out for years in the highlands of the Caucasus. By 1838 however the Russians had captured Ahuglo, his capital in Dagestan. But they failed to capture him and the war continued.

Motivated by rumors that the British were sending agents like Pottinger to Khiva, the Russian commander of Orenburg led an army south toward Khiva, starting in November 1839. Upon repots of the Russian offensive, the British sent an agent to go to Khiva and persuade the Khan to free the Russian slaves there in order to remove the pretext for conquest. Not long after he left another British agent, Lieutenant Richmond Shakespear, arrived. Thought the Khan knew that the Russian advance had turned back in February, he decided that it was time to free the slaves, because eventually the Russians would return. On August 15th 1840 Shakespear arrived in Fort Alexandrovodsk with 416 freed Russians.

The British however weren’t the only nation sending out agents in the Central Asia. Russian agents operating in Afghanistan lead to a British ultimatum in October 1838 for their immediate expulsion. The Afghan Shah Dost Muhammad refused, leading to a declaration of war. The British invaded Afghanistan in December 1838 with 21,000 men. By March of 1839 they reached Quetta, door to the Bolan Pass and the southern route to Kabul. On April 25, 1839 the British entered Kandahar the enemy having fled. Not long after, the British captured the fortress of Ghazni and marched for Kabul. As at Kandahar, they entered an empty city. Afghanistan seemed conquered.

The British left 8,000 troops in Kandahar, Kabul and Jalalabad for occupation. The British were persuaded to vacate the main fort in Kabul and instead quarter in a much less defensible cantonment. By October 1841 news came that the former Shah’s son Muhammad Akbar Khan had begun assembling a mob in the north of the country for the purpose of driving the British out. Then in November, events spiraled out of control when an angry Kabul mob attacked and killed the British military advisor Captain Alexander Burns. The mob soon besieged the cantonment. Believing that all was lost, the British commander made a deal for a ceasefire and British withdrawal their garrison at Jalalabad. The British Army made its way through the Gandamak Pass on January 6th 1842. The British marched not only with 4,500 troops but also 12,000 civilians. Cut down by relentless jezail musket fire and cavalry attacks, the British columns were ambushed and annihilated in the passes. Only one man, Doctor William Brydon reached Jalalabad alive.

In the spring of 1841 the British garrisons continued to fend off Afghan attacks until relief forces arrived from India. The British then launched reprisal attacks against the civilian populace of the Gandamak Pass for the massacre of the British column. After being ordered to withdraw from the county in 1842, the British commander took the liberty of marching into Kabul, executing those believed to be responsible for the murder of Alexander Burns in a mass hanging, and leveling the Kabul market. Then in 1843 the British seized the region of the Sind in Pakistan, ‘like a bully who has been kicked in the street and goes home to beat his wife in revenge.’ Following the death of the Sikh leader Ranjit Singh the British annexed his realm as well by 1849. Kashmir was henceforth reorganized as a British raj.

Around the same time in 1848 the Russians build Fort Aralsk, edging their border ever closer to India.


Central Asia series

1780 [link]
1850
1914 [link]

2/19/12 EDIT:
map base source [link]
map base created by Pmx [link]