Many years ago, when a subaltern of 19, I read Fitzroy Maclean’s classic work of Central Asian travel, Eastern Approaches. This heady tale of high adventure and politics, set in the Caucasus and Turkestan during the darkest years of Stalinist rule, had a powerful effect on me, and no doubt on many others. From that moment onwards I devoured everything I could lay hands on dealing with Central Asia, and as soon as it was opened to foreigners I began to travel there. Thus, if only indirectly, Sir Fitzroy is partly responsible – some might say to blame – for the six books, including this latest one, which I have myself written on Central Asia. I therefore owe him a considerable debt of gratitude for first setting my footsteps in the direction of Tbilisi and Tashkent, Kashgar and Khotan. No finer book than Eastern Approaches has yet been written about Central Asia, and even today I cannot pick it up without a frisson of excitement.
But in piecing together this narrative, my overriding debt must be to those remarkable individuals who took part in the Great Game and who left accounts of their adventures and misadventures among the deserts and mountains. These provide most of the drama of this tale, and without them it could never have been told in this form. There exist biographies of a number of individual players, and these too have proved valuable. For the political and diplomatic background to the struggle I have made full use of the latest scholarship by specialist historians of the period, to whom I am greatly indebted. I must also thank the staff of the India Office Library and Records for making available to me numerous records and other material from that vast repository of British imperial history.
The individual to whom I perhaps owe most is my wife Kath, whose thoroughness in all things has contributed so much to the writing and researching of this, and my earlier books, at all stages, and on whom I tried out the narrative as it unfolded. In addition to preparing drafts for the six maps, she also compiled the index. Finally, I was most fortunate in having Gail Pirkis as my editor. Her eagle-eyed professionalism, calm good humour and unfailing tact proved to be an immense support during the long months of seeing this book through to publication. It is worth adding that Gail, when with Oxford University Press in Hong Kong, was responsible for rescuing from virtual oblivion a number of important works on Central Asia, at least two of them by Great Game heroes, and having them reprinted in attractive new editions.
Note on Spellings
Many of the names of peoples and places occurring in this narrative have been spelt or romanised in a variety of ways over the years. Thus Tartar/Tatar; Erzerum/Erzurum; Turcoman/Turkmen; Kashgar/Kashi; Tiflis/Tbilisi. For the sake of consistency and simplicity I have mostly settled for the spelling which would have been familiar to those who took part in these events.
