‘A scrimmage in a Border Station –
A canter down some dark defile –
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail –
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!’
Rudyard Kipling
On January 14, 1831, a bearded and dishevelled figure in native dress arrived out of the desert at the remote village of Tibbee, on India’s north-west frontier. The village has long since vanished from the map, but at that time it served as a border post between British India and the group of small independent states lying to the west, then collectively known as Sind. It was with relief that the stranger had reached the safety of Company territory, and the reassuring sight of the Indian Army sepoys manning the frontier. He had been travelling for more than a year, often exposed to great danger, and at times doubting whether he would return alive. For beneath his darkened complexion, burned almost black by months in the sun, his features were clearly those of a European.
He was in fact a British officer in disguise – Lieutenant Arthur Conolly of the 6th Bengal Native Light Cavalry – and the first of Lord Ellenborough’s young bloods to be sent into the field to reconnoitre the military and political no-man’s-land between the Caucasus and the Khyber, through which a Russian army might march. Daring, resourceful and ambitious, Conolly was the archetypal Great Game player, and it was he, fittingly enough, who first coined this memorable phrase in a letter to a friend. He had an astonishing tale to tell, as well as a wealth of advice for those who were to follow him into the wild and lawless regions of Central Asia. It was on all these matters that Lieutenant Conolly, not yet 24, now reported to his superiors. Despite his junior rank and tender years, his views were to carry much weight and to have a considerable influence on his chiefs in those early years of Anglo-Russian rivalry in Asia.
Orphaned at the age of 12, when both his parents died within a few days of each other, Conolly was one of six brothers, three of whom, himself included, were to suffer violent deaths in the service of the East India Company. After schooling at Rugby, he sailed for India where in 1823, aged 16, he joined his regiment as a cornet. Although often described as being shy and sensitive, his subsequent career shows him to have been an officer of exceptional toughness and determination, not to mention courage, while his portrait depicts him as a powerfully built, formidable-looking man. But Conolly possessed one further quality which was to have a bearing on his career. Like many other officers of that time, he had a strongly religious nature. In his case, however, this had been heightened during the long sea voyage out to India by contact with the charismatic Reginald Heber, the celebrated hymn-writer and newly appointed Bishop of Calcutta.
Conolly, in common with most of his generation, believed in the civilising mission of Christianity, and in the duty of its adherents to bring its message of salvation to others less fortunate. British rule, being based on Christian principles, was the ultimate benefit which could be bestowed upon barbaric peoples. Even Russian rule, provided it kept well away from the frontiers of India, was preferable to that of Muslim tyrants, for at least the Russians were Christians of a sort. He was also sympathetic to St Petersburg’s desire to free its Christian subjects, and those of other faiths, from slavery in the khanates of Central Asia. It was these convictions, together with a thirst for adventure, which drove him to risk his life among the (to him) heathen tribes of the interior.
Officially returning overland to India at the end of his leave, Conolly had left Moscow for the Caucasus in the autumn of 1829. Britain and Russia were still officially allies, and although relations were becoming increasingly strained, he was warmly received by Russian officers in Tiflis and even provided with a Cossack escort for the most hazardous stages of his journey through the Caucasus to the Persian frontier. ‘The Russians’, he explained, ‘do not yet command free passage through the Caucasus, for they are obliged to be very vigilant against surprise by the Circassian sons of the mist who still cherish the bitterest hatred against them.’ But he badly underestimated the Circassians when he predicted that Russian troops would have little difficulty in subjugating ‘these ferocious mountaineers’ now that their Turkish allies had been driven from the Caucasus. Neither he nor his Russian hosts were able to foresee the violent holy war which was soon to convulse this mountainous corner of the Tsar’s dominions.
As Conolly rode southwards he observed all he could of the Russian army, appraising officers and men, and their equipment, training and morale, with a keen professional eye. These, after all, were the troops which, if it ever came to it, would march on India. By the time he crossed into northern Persia he was much impressed by what he had seen. He had been astonished at the stoicism and hardiness of the troops who slept out in the snow in mid-winter without tents and made light of every obstacle and difficulty. As a cavalry officer himself he was stirred by the feat of one regiment of dragoons he visited which had captured an enemy fort by galloping into it before the defenders could close the gates.
So far, while under the protection of the Russians, Conolly had not had to worry about concealing his identity or adopting a disguise. But what he proposed to do next was a very different matter, and unthinkable for a British officer to attempt. It was his intention to try to reach Khiva by crossing the great Karakum desert, and discover, among many other things, what the Russians were up to there. No longer accompanied by his Cossack escort, and about to enter some of the most dangerous country on earth, disguise now became imperative. It was a subject to which Conolly was to devote considerable thought. However well a European spoke the native tongue, he wrote later, it was extremely difficult when travelling among Asiatics to escape detection. ‘His mode of delivery, his manner of sitting, walking or riding . . . is different from that of the Asiatic.’ The more self-conscious he became in trying to imitate the latter, the more likely he was to attract unwelcome attention. Discovery would almost certainly spell death, for an Englishman (or a Russian for that matter) caught travelling in disguise in these regions would automatically be assumed to be a spy preparing the way for an invading army.
An excellent disguise for an Englishman, Conolly suggested, was not as a native at all, but as a doctor, preferably French or Italian. ‘These itinerant gentry are sometimes met with,’ he reported, ‘and they are not viewed with distrust.’ For a doctor, even an infidel one, was ever welcome among a people constantly at the mercy of sickness. ‘Few’, he added, ‘will question you.’ This alone was reason enough for using such a disguise, for it spared one the ordeal and nuisance of constant interrogation about the motive for travelling in these sensitive parts. Among such people, moreover, one needed only a basic knowledge of medicine to acquire a reputation as a great hakeem, or doctor, Conolly pointed out. He himself had treated a number of patients. ‘The simplest medicines’, he added, ‘will cure most of their ailments, and you may tell those who are beyond your skill that it is not their nusseeb, or fortune, to be cured.’
However, if one did decide to travel disguised as a native, Conolly advised, then it should be as a poor one. Robbery and extortion, as he was to learn to his cost, were perpetual threats in these lawless regions. Not having the medicines or implements to pass himself off as a European doctor, he decided for his attempt to reach Khiva to adopt the guise of a merchant, purchasing silk scarves, shawls, furs, pepper and other spices for sale in the bazaars there. After hiring a guide, servants and camels, he set off for Khiva, 500 miles across the desert to the north-east, from the town of Astrabad, at the southern end of the Caspian Sea. As he left, after arranging to rendezvous with a large Khiva-bound caravan further along the route, a Persian friend observed: ‘I don’t like those dogs you’re amongst.’ But Conolly did not take the warning seriously, assuming perhaps that he was a match for any native treachery.
At first all went well as they hastened to catch up the main caravan, for this would afford them protection during the Karakum crossing. The caravan and pilgrim trails, they knew, were regularly raided by Turcoman slavers. ‘It is generally in the grey of the morning that the Toorkmuns wait for the pilgrims,’ Conolly reported. This was when the travellers, half asleep after a long night’s march, were at prayer. The aged and those who resisted were immediately killed, while the strong and the beautiful were carried off to be sold in the slave-markets of the khanates. Conolly was well aware of the enormous risk he was taking, but the lure of Khiva outweighed this.
He and his party had been riding hard for several days, and believed themselves to be very close to the Khiva-bound caravan, when trouble suddenly struck. Early one morning, as they were about to break camp, four villainous-looking horsemen galloped towards them, causing Conolly to reach for his concealed weapons. But ignoring him, their leader began to address the Englishman’s native guide. He spoke, Conolly noted, ‘with much earnestness, in a low tone’, and every now and again looked towards him in a manner clearly not friendly. Finally he addressed Conolly in Persian, saying that they had been sent to protect him from others who were on their way to murder him. It was fairly evident to Conolly that this was a fabrication, though their intentions were far from clear. But against these four well-armed men he knew he would stand little chance, and it was only too clear that he was their prisoner. The prospect of his joining the main caravan now looked extremely remote.
Conolly soon discovered that the four men had been sent by a neighbouring chief to arrest him after a confused tale had begun to circulate that he was a Russian agent employed by the Shah of Persia to spy out the Turcoman lands prior to their annexation. He was said to be carrying large quantities of gold with which to buy the allegiance of dissident tribal leaders and others. Conolly had told his captors that the story was nonsense, insisting that he was a merchant from India on his way to Khiva to sell his merchandise, and suggested that they search his baggage to satisfy themselves that he was not carrying any gold. After rummaging through his belongings and finding nothing besides a brass astrolabe (which they seemed to think might be made of solid gold), his captors appeared uncertain what to do next, keeping him moving aimlessly from place to place.
At first Conolly thought that they might be awaiting further orders. Only later did he discover the truth. The men could not agree among themselves about what to do with him. The choice lay between robbing and murdering him, or selling him into slavery. But aware that he had wealthy and influential friends across the frontier in Persia, the men hesitated to dispose of him there and then. Instead, in order to test reaction, they sent back word that he had been murdered. If no retribution followed, then they would know that they could safely proceed with their plan. Fortunately for Conolly, word of his capture had already reached his friends and a search party had been sent into the desert to look for him. In the end, minus many of his possessions and most of his money, and disappointed not to have reached Khiva, he got safely back to Astrabad, none the worse for his experience, but grateful to be alive.
Although Conolly had failed to get to Khiva, he nevertheless managed to acquire much valuable information about the Karakum-Caspian region, of which almost nothing was known in London or Calcutta, and across which ran one of the principal routes likely to be taken by an invader. He also learned, despite fears to the contrary, that the Russians were not yet in possession of the eastern shore of the Caspian, let alone Khiva. Fully recovered from his ordeal, Conolly now decided to press on towards Meshed, 300 miles to the east, and close to Persia’s frontier with Afghanistan. From there he hoped to enter Afghanistan and reach the strategically important city of Herat, which no British officer had seen since Christie’s clandestine visit twenty years earlier, and which many saw as the ideal staging point for an invading army because of its capacity to provide food and other essentials.
Conolly reached Herat in September 1830, and passed through the city gates with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. For Herat was then governed by the greatly feared Kamran Shah, one of the most ruthless and brutal rulers in Central Asia. The Englishman was to remain there for three weeks, this time posing as a hakeem, secretly observing and noting down everything of significance. He was especially interested in anything to do with the city’s defences and its ability to provision an army from the produce of the great fertile valley in which it stood. How Conolly was able to do this without attracting the attention of Kamran’s secret police, he does not disclose. The next stage of his reconnaissance, the hazardous, 300-mile journey to Kandahar, took him through bandit-infested country where, he was warned, the slave-raiders removed their captives’ ears to make them ashamed to return home, and thus less likely to escape. Conolly was lucky, however, to be able to attach himself to a party of Muslim holy men. Such respected companions, from whom he learned much that was of interest to him, offered at least some protection from robbery, enslavement or murder.
Although he reached Kandahar safely, despite some anxious moments, Conolly had the misfortune to be struck down with illness shortly after his arrival. He became so weak that at one time he feared that he was going to die, but he was nursed back to health by one of the kindly holy men. Just as he was recovering, however, a dangerous rumour began to circulate that he was really an Englishman in disguise and spying for Kamran, who was then at war with Kandahar. This forced Conolly to drag himself from his sick-bed and leave town hurriedly after only nine days there. On November 22, this time in the company of some horse-dealers, he arrived at Quetta, at the head of the great Bolan Pass, the Khyber’s southern twin, and an entry point to India for an invader. Two weeks later, after riding down the eighty-mile-long pass, Conolly reached the banks of the River Indus. The following morning he was rowed across by ferrymen. It took precisely eight minutes, he noted. His odyssey, which had brought him more than 4,000 miles from Moscow to India, was all but over.
Just to have come through alive was achievement enough. Others would be less fortunate. But Conolly had done a great deal more than that. By travelling the very routes along which a hostile Russian army was likely to advance, he was able to address many of the questions to which Lord Ellenborough and those responsible for India’s defence needed answers. His more sensitive military and political observations were obviously kept for his superiors’ eyes only. But he also wrote a book telling the full story of his adventures and misadventures. Entitled Journey to the North of India, Overland from England, Through Russia, Persia and Affghaunistan, it was published three years later, in 1834. It included a lengthy appendix in which he examined in detail the possibilities open to a Russian general planning an invasion of India, and the likelihood of success.
Conolly argued that there were only two possible routes which a Russian army, large enough to stand any chance of success, could take. Put simply, the first involved seizing Khiva, followed by Balkh, and then crossing the Hindu Kush, as Alexander the Great had done, to Kabul. From there the army would march via Jalalabad and the Khyber Pass to Peshawar, and finally cross the Indus at Attock. The initial seizure of Khiva, he reasoned, might best be undertaken from Orenburg rather than from the eastern shore of the Caspian. This route, although longer, was better watered than the Karakum, and the tribes along its line of advance could be more easily subdued than the dangerous Turcomans. On reaching the northern shore of the Aral Sea, moreover, the Russian troops could be conveyed by boat or raft to the mouth of the Oxus, and continue up it to Khiva. The capture of Khiva, and subsequent advance on India, was a highly ambitious undertaking and might involve several successive campaigns, and take two or three years to carry out.
The second feasible route open to the Russian generals involved seizing Herat, and using it as a staging point where troops could be massed. From there they would march via Kandahar and Quetta to the Bolan Pass, the way he himself had entered India. Herat could be reached either overland through a compliant Persia, or by crossing the Caspian to Astrabad. Once Herat was in Russian hands, or had been annexed by a friendly Persia, then an army ‘might be garrisoned there for years, with every necessity immediately within its reach’. Its very presence there might be sufficient to unsettle the native population of India, thus smoothing the way for an invasion when the British found themselves under attack from within.
A determined invader might even use both these routes simultaneously, Conolly pointed out. But whichever was chosen, one major obstacle remained which might rule out any hopes of success. By either route an invader would have to pass through Afghanistan. ‘The Afghans’, Conolly wrote, ‘have little to gain, and much to fear, from letting the Russians enter their country.’ Moreover they were fanatically hostile towards those on whom the Russians would most depend, the Persians. ‘If the Afghans, as a nation, were determined to resist the invaders,’ he declared, ‘the difficulties of the march would be rendered well nigh insurmountable.’ They would fight to the last drop of blood, harassing the Russian columns incessantly from their mountain strongholds, destroying food supplies and cutting off the invader’s lines of communication and retreat.
If, however, the Afghans were to remain divided, as they then were, the Russians would be able to play one faction off against another with promises or other inducements. ‘Singly,’ Conolly wrote, ‘the chief of a small state could not offer effectual opposition to a European invader, and it would be easy to gain him by encouraging his ambitions against his rivals at home, or doubly to profit by it, by directing it on India.’ It was very much in Britain’s interest therefore that Afghanistan be reunited under one strong and central ruler in Kabul. ‘It would require great inducements to tempt a reigning prince from a sure and profitable alliance with us,’ Conolly declared, ‘and to engage him in an undertaking which, at best doubtful, would entail ruin upon him if he failed.’ And if the Russians did succeed in holding out expectations ‘sufficiently dazzling to seduce a prince’, then either the stakes could be upped, or his overthrow could be arranged.
The Afghan chief whose claim to the throne should be supported, Conolly urged his superiors, was Kamran Shah of Herat. While his unsavoury character might be regretted, he and Britain shared one vital interest – that Herat, ‘the Granary of Central Asia’, should not fall into the hands of either the Persians, who had a long-standing claim to it, or the Russians. In Herat, moreover, it was no secret that Kamran was most anxious to ally himself to the British. If he were left to fend for himself against the Persians, Conolly warned, then it would only be a matter of time before Herat fell to their superior forces, ‘and the road to India would be open to the Russians.’
During the year that Conolly was away, in London and Calcutta mistrust of Russian intentions continued to mount, particularly among the hawks in Wellington’s Cabinet, who deplored the passive policies of the previous Tory administration. Particularly they feared the prospect of Turkey and Persia, already crushed and shackled to St Petersburg by treaty, becoming Russian protectorates. Lord Ellenborough, who had been given a virtually free hand with regard to India by his friend Wellington, was becoming increasingly convinced of Russia’s expansionist aims. It was his belief that the Tsar would use stealth to get his armies within striking distance of India. As Persia gradually became weaker, the Russians would extend their influence and military presence throughout the country, while elsewhere Russian troops would follow in their merchants’ footsteps, protection being the pretext. Thus, merely by mapping the progress of their trading posts, the line of advance towards India could be monitored. But two could play at that game, Ellenborough believed, and the superiority of British goods should be used to halt the advance of the Russian merchants. This was the very strategy which Moor-croft had vainly urged on his superiors. Now, five years later, it was official British policy.
It had been one of Moorcroft’s dreams to see the River Indus used to transport British goods northwards to the frontiers of Central Asia, whence they could be carried across the mountains by caravan to the bazaars of the old Silk Road. His impassioned arguments, however, had as usual fallen on deaf ears. Now that Ellenborough himself had taken up the idea, the Company’s directors embraced it enthusiastically. Since very little was known about this great waterway, it must first be surveyed to ensure that it was navigable. This was much easier said than done, for the Indus flowed through vast tracts of territory which did not belong to the Company, notably Sind in the south and the Punjab in the north, whose rulers would almost certainly object. Then Lord Ellenborough hit on a brilliant, if somewhat devious, solution.
Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab, had recently presented to the King of England some magnificent Kashmiri shawls, and the question now arose of what the British sovereign, William IV, could send him in return. Women, who were known to be the ageing maharajah’s favourite pastime, were clearly ruled out. Next on the list of his hobbies came horses, and this gave Ellenborough an idea. Ranjit Singh would be presented with five horses. But these would be no ordinary mounts. They would be the largest horses ever seen in Asia – massive English dray horses, four mares and a stallion. It was thought that they would make a suitably impressive and spectacular gift for this Asiatic potentate who had recently sent an envoy to St Petersburg. At the same time Sir John Malcolm, the Governor of Bombay, gave orders for the construction of a gilded state coach in which Ranjit Singh, drawn by his huge horses, could tour his kingdom in regal splendour and comfort.
However, there was more to it than just that. Because of their size, and the unsuitability of both the climate and the terrain, it was reasoned that the horses and the state coach could not possibly travel the 700 miles to Lahore, Ranjit’s capital, overland if they were to survive. Instead, they would have to go by boat up the Indus. This would make it possible to conduct a discreet survey of the river, and ascertain whether it was navigable as far as Lahore. The officer chosen to lead this curious espionage mission was a young subaltern named Alexander Burnes, who, because of his unusual talents, had recently been transferred from his regiment, the 1st Bombay Light Infantry, to the elite Indian political service. At the age of 25, he had already shown himself to be one of the Company’s most promising young officers. Intelligent, resourceful and fearless, he was also an excellent linguist, being fluent in Persian, Arabic and Hindustani, as well as in some of the lesser-known Indian tongues. Although of slight stature and mild appearance, he was a man of extraordinary determination and self-confidence. He also possessed remarkable charm, which he exercised to great effect on Asiatics and Europeans alike.
Ellenborough’s scheme for the clandestine survey of the Indus did not, however, meet with universal approval in India. One of its severest critics was Sir Charles Metcalfe, a member of the all-powerful Supreme Council, and former Secretary of the Secret and Political Department. ‘The scheme of surveying the Indus, under the pretence of sending a present to Rajah Runjeet Singh, is a trick . . . unworthy of our Government,’ he complained. It was just the sort of deviousness, he added, which the British were often unjustly accused of, and would very likely be detected, thus confirming the suspicions of the native rulers. He and Sir John Malcolm, both powerful figures in India, represented the two extremes of strategic thinking then prevalent. Metcalfe, destined to become Governor-General of Canada, believed in the consolidation of the Company’s existing territories and frontiers, while Malcolm, like Ellenborough in London, was convinced of the need for a forward policy.
It was at this moment that Wellington’s government fell, taking Ellenborough with it, and the Whigs came to power. Fearing – needlessly, as it turned out – that the Indus project might now be cancelled, Malcolm urged Lieutenant Burnes to set out as soon as possible. The latter, eager for adventure, needed no second bidding. Wasting no time, he sailed from Kutch on January 21, 1831, accompanied by a surveyor, a small escort and the coach and five horses for Ranjit Singh.