Had one been crossing the desert to the east of Isfahan, in central Persia, on the morning of October 1, 1880, one might have chanced upon a curious sight. At a lonely spot beside a disused well, a European of obvious military appearance and bearing was divesting himself of his clothes and struggling into those of an Armenian horse-trader. As he donned a long quilted coat and black lambskin hat, the two men with him watched in silence. They were similarly dressed, the only difference being that they were genuine Armenians while he was a British officer. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Stewart of the 5th Punjab Infantry was preparing to set out, thus disguised, for a remote part of Persia’s north-eastern frontier. From there he hoped to monitor Russian troop movements in the empty Turcoman lands to the north, where lay the great oasis of Merv, known since ancient times as ‘the Queen of the World’.
For some months, intelligence had been reaching India that pointed to the likelihood of a major military initiative by the Russians in the region to the east of the Caspian – Transcaspia, as the geographers called it. For it was no secret that a powerful force was being prepared at Krasnovodsk under the formidable command of General Mikhail Skobelev, one of the Tsar’s most outstanding and colourful soldiers, who had risen to prominence during the recent war with Turkey. Nicknamed ‘the White General’ by his troops because he invariably rode into battle in a dazzling white uniform and on a white charger, he also had a reputation for ruthlessness and cruelty which had earned him the name of ‘old Bloody Eyes’ among the Turcomans. A leader of great daring, he had made a number of clandestine reconnaissances behind Turkish lines during the war, even secretly visiting Constantinople.
Skobelev’s presence in this strategically sensitive region was a matter of considerable concern to those responsible for India’s defence, for it was he who had prepared the master plan for its invasion during the Anglo-Russian crisis of 1878. Like every other soldier in the Russian army, he had been bitterly disappointed when it was called off, and still dreamed of driving the British out of India. Now, with the full blessing of the Tsar, he was proposing to march eastwards. Where, the British defence chiefs asked themselves, would he halt? To make things more difficult for them, Skobelev’s likely line of advance lay across some of the most inaccessible and least populated regions on earth. It might take days, if not weeks, for news of a Russian advance to reach the nearest British outpost. Indeed, as had happened before, very likely the first that would be known of it would be from the St Petersburg newspapers. The obvious solution would be to send British officers to sit it out on the spot, for Captain Napier had found the Turcomans to be friendly towards their hoped-for ally against the Russians. However, London had decreed otherwise following the abandonment of forward policies, fearing that any British activity in the region might provide the Russians with the pretext they needed to seize Merv. Provocation was to be avoided at all costs.
Such prohibitions on travel in sensitive regions by British officers and politicals were nothing new in the Great Game, and were rarely allowed to inhibit individual enterprise, as Moorcroft, Hayward, Shaw, Burnaby and others had demonstrated. Apart from knowing that they might incur official displeasure, or even be ordered out like Burnaby, there was nothing really to stop those on leave from going where they liked. Indeed, so long as they could be officially disowned if need be, the intelligence they brought back from ‘shooting leave’ or other such thinly disguised ventures was often extremely welcome to the military. Whether a nod and a wink had been given to Colonel Stewart’s enterprise, or perhaps even more, is uncertain, for there is no evidence either way in the archives of the time in the India Office Library. But what Stewart himself does admit is that part of the purpose of his disguise was to protect him from discovery by British diplomats in Teheran, who would have done everything in their power to stop him from proceeding. For there was a perpetual war between the Foreign Office, which was traditionally opposed to forward policies, and the military over anything which might conceivably upset St Petersburg. A somewhat similar conflict existed between the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Tsar’s generals, particularly the hawks in Tashkent and Tiflis.
Stewart reached the remote frontier town of Mahomadabad, which was to be his listening-post, on November 25. He told the Persian governor that he was an Armenian from Calcutta who had come to purchase the famed Turcoman horses of the region. In keeping with this pretence he began to inspect and acquire a number of horses from the governor’s own stud. At the same time he was making friends and contacts in the bazaar, for there, without arousing anyone’s suspicions, he was able to learn what was going on across the frontier from traders and other native travellers who came and went almost daily. But Colonel Stewart was not the only person intent on watching General Skobelev’s movements in southern Transcaspia. When he had been in Mahomadabad for several weeks, he learned to his astonishment that another Englishman had arrived in town. This turned out to be Edmund O’Donovan, special correspondent of the Daily News, hell-bent on witnessing the coming campaign against the Turcomans. His original intention had been to accompany Skobelev’s troops, but this had been blocked personally by the general. His aim now was to reach the Turcoman stronghold of Geok-Tepe before the Russians launched their attack on it, a move which appeared imminent. For after months of preparation, Skobelev’s great advance had begun. O’Donovan, delayed by Persian obstructiveness and by illness, was engaged in negotiations with Turcoman contacts at Mahomadabad for a safe passage to Geok-Tepe.
Although Stewart saw O’Donovan almost daily for the next three weeks, he decided not to reveal his true identity. His disguise must have been extremely convincing, for he was even congratulated by O’Donovan, a man more astute than most, on his mastery of English. To this Stewart replied quite truthfully: ‘Calcutta Armenians receive a very fair education’. In the end, before they parted, he confessed the truth to his friend, who refused to believe him until shown his passport. In O’Donovan’s subsequent account of his adventures, The Merv Oasis: Travels and Adventures East of the Caspian, he admits to being totally taken in by Stewart’s disguise. Finally, in January 1881, O’Donovan received word that he was welcome to visit Geok-Tepe. The Turcoman chiefs, who had little idea of what a newspaper correspondent’s functions really were, had got the idea that he had been sent by the British government to help them. O’Donovan at once set out across the frontier, hoping to reach Geok-Tepe before Skobelev. But the invitation had come too late, for he soon learned that the Russians had surrounded the fortress and begun to bombard it. He arrived just in time, however, to witness through binoculars from a nearby hilltop the flight of the defeated and panic-stricken Turcomans, and to hear survivors’ accounts of the pitiless and vengeful massacre which Skobelev had ordered. For the Russian troops had not forgotten the humiliation of their earlier defeat by Geok-Tepe’s defenders.
All this gave O’Donovan a wealth of material for a long and graphic dispatch on the fall of the desert fortress, which was to cause uproar in Europe. There had been 10,000 Turcoman troops inside its massive walls, most of them cavalry, as well as nearly 40,000 civilians. Skobelev himself had 7,000 infantry and cavalry, and 60 guns and rocket batteries. Resistance at first had been fierce and determined, and the Russians found themselves under heavy fire from the ramparts. The defences had been greatly strengthened, moreover, since the Russians’ earlier attempt to storm them, the work having been directed by a Turcoman who had studied Russian fortifications in the Caspian region. Although Skobelev’s artillery and rockets were wreaking devastation inside the fortress, they failed to make much impression on the walls. Fearing the arrival of Turcoman reinforcements if the siege was allowed to drag on, Skobelev realised that something drastic was called for. He ordered his engineers to tunnel to a point beneath the wall where a mine could be exploded, thereby breaching the defences. To hasten their progress, the general seated himself each day at the entrance to the tunnel and timed the teams as they worked. If they dug quickly, the officer in charge would be rewarded with vodka and champagne, and warmly embraced. If they dug too slowly, he would be violently abused in front of his men.
By January 17, as fierce fighting continued overhead, the sappers had got to within twenty-five yards of the wall without detection. Progress now began to slow, due to the difficulty of getting air to the diggers, but finally the tunnel was ready. Two tons of explosives were carried along it by volunteers to a position directly beneath the wall. Shortly before noon on January 24, as the storming parties waited in readiness, the mine was ignited. Simultaneously the full fury of Skobelev’s artillery and rocket batteries was turned against the same part of the wall. The result was an enormous explosion, which sent a huge column of earth and rubble skywards. Together with the artillery fire it blew a gap nearly fifty yards wide in the wall, instantly killing several hundred of the defenders. The Russian storming party now poured into the fortress, while at other points, using scaling ladders brought up under cover of darkness the previous night, Skobelev’s troops swarmed over the walls. Ferocious hand-to-hand fighting followed for possession of the fortress. Unprepared for the sudden appearance of the Russians in their midst, and still stunned by the violence of the explosion, the Turcomans soon began to give ground. Before long this had turned into a headlong flight as the defenders took to their horses and made off across the desert followed by thousands of terrified civilians and hotly pursued by Skobelev’s cavalry.
It was then that the real slaughter began, as the victors avenged their earlier defeat at the hands of the Turcomans. No one was spared, not even young children or the elderly. All were mercilessly cut down by Russian sabres. In all, 8,000 of the fugitives are said to have perished, while a further 6,500 bodies were counted inside the fortress itself. ‘The whole country was covered with corpses,’ an Armenian interpreter with the force later confided to a British friend. ‘I myself saw babies bayoneted or slashed to pieces. Many women were ravished before being killed.’ For three days, he said, Skobelev had allowed his troops, many of whom were drunk, to rape, plunder and slaughter. In justification for this afterwards, the general declared: ‘I hold it as a principle that the duration of peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict upon the enemy. The harder you hit them, the longer they remain quiet.’ It was, he claimed, a far more effective way of pacifying troublesome neighbours than the British method, employed by Roberts at Kabul, of publicly hanging the ringleaders, since that merely engendered hatred and not fear. Certainly the Turcomans, who for nearly two centuries had plundered Russian caravans, attacked their frontier posts and carried off the Tsar’s subjects into slavery, were never to give trouble again. Skobelev’s own losses he put at 268 killed and 669 wounded. The dead included a general, two colonels, a major and ten junior officers, while the wounded numbered forty other officers. Unofficial sources put Skobelev’s casualty figures higher, claiming that the Russians always understated their own losses and exaggerated the enemy’s.
As for the mysterious Colonel Stewart, he had hastily departed from Mahomadabad, his listening-post on the frontier, the moment word reached him of the fall of Geok-Tepe. Having gone to such lengths to be the first to hear the news, it seems almost certain that he passed it immediately to the British Mission in Teheran. If his visit to the frontier was unauthorised, he would now feel free to admit to it, since it was too late for the Foreign Office to do much about it, as he was already making his way home. Indeed, in Teheran, he visited the British Mission, reporting to the Minister, whom he had previously taken such pains to avoid. In his own account of the exploit, entitled Through Persia in Disguise and published many years later, Stewart is extremely circumspect about what he was really up to in this sensitive area disguised as an Armenian horse-trader. The Mission archives, today in the India Office Library in London, throw no further light on this. Certainly his clandestine and unauthorised (if indeed they were that) activities were to do his career no harm. For within a few months he was back on the Persian frontier, this time as a member of the Mission staff, on what was euphemistically termed ‘special duty’.
General Skobelev, the flamboyant victor of Geok-Tepe, was less fortunate. Following the outcry in Europe over the massacre of the Turcoman innocents, the Tsar was to relieve him of his command, moving him to Minsk, a backwater so far as any fighting soldier was concerned. Officially this was to appease European public opinion. However, according to some, the real reason was quite different. Skobelev, it was feared in St Petersburg, was suffering from delusions of grandeur and showing signs of political ambition. He even offered to meet Bismarck, the German Chancellor, whom he denounced as Russia’s greatest foe, in mortal combat before their two armies. Skobelev, who had outlived his usefulness, clearly had to be cut down to size. Not yet 40, and deprived of the chance of further glory, which was all that he lived for, Skobelev began to have nightmares about dying in his bed, and not on the battlefield. Within a year of his victory at Geok-Tepe those fears were to be realised, for he was found dead from a heart attack, sustained, it was whispered, during a visit to a Moscow brothel.
The seizure of Geok-Tepe did not, in itself, cause undue alarm in London or Calcutta (except among the Russophobes), for this mud-walled stronghold in the middle of nowhere was of little strategic significance. Its annexation, moreover, had not been entirely unexpected. There was even a feeling that the ‘man-stealing Turcomans’, who had been responsible for so much human misery themselves, had got no more than they deserved, although the subsequent massacre of their women and children was universally condemned as abhorrent and unnecessary. What really disturbed the British, though, was whether the Russians would now press on eastwards towards Merv, from where they would quite easily be able to march into Afghanistan and occupy Herat. St Petersburg, which was not yet ready to move again, was aware of these British fears, and was concerned lest London decide on a pre-emptive strike, seizing Herat and – as some hawks were urging – perhaps even Merv. To calm such British fears, St Petersburg issued a succession of assurances that it had no further ambitions in Transcaspia, and certainly no intention of occupying Merv. ‘Not only do we not want to go there,’ Nikolai Giers, the Tsar’s Deputy Foreign Minister, declared, ‘but happily there is nothing which can require us to go there.’ To this, in a personal message to Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador, Tsar Alexander himself had added his own solemn assurance that he had ordered a permanent halt. What the British could not have known was that very shortly Alexander would be dead – killed by an assassin’s bomb as he rode back to the Winter Palace after reviewing his troops.
Hopes that the Russians might at last have abandoned their forward policies in Central Asia, as the British had done, were encouraged by two apparently conciliatory moves which they made at this time. One was their peaceful settlement of a large part of their previously undemarcated frontier with Persia, extending from the Caspian Sea to a point well to the east of Geok-Tepe, although further east still the frontier remained wide open. Here lay Merv, nominally belonging to Persia, but now in Turcoman hands. The other Russian move, admittedly carried out with great reluctance, was their withdrawal from Kuldja, to the north-east of Kashgar, and its return to Chinese rule. Apart from their sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7 million (after St Petersburg had decided it was neither easily defended nor economic), the Russians had never been known to haul down their flag anywhere. The town and neighbourhood of Kuldja, it may be recalled, had been annexed by Russia ten years earlier to prevent it (or so St Petersburg claimed at the time) from falling into the hands of Yakub Beg. There had been some justification for this, for Kuldja, or Hi as the Chinese called it, commanded important strategic routes leading northwards into Russia. But despite earlier assurances that it would be returned to China once Peking had regained control of Sinkiang from Yakub Beg, St Petersburg had failed to honour this pledge, and a long and bitter diplomatic quarrel had followed.
Finally, in the spring of 1880, the Chinese had threatened to take Kuldja back by force, and began assembling an army for that purpose. The Russians were neither willing nor able to go to war with China at that moment, so in line with their age-old policy of maximum acquisition at minimum risk they gave way, accusing the British of being behind Peking’s unexpected bellicosity. Under the Treaty of St Petersburg, signed the following year, the Russians agreed to return Kuldja, while retaining control of a small parcel of territory to the west, and receiving heavy ‘occupation costs’ from the Chinese for safeguarding it for them. For the Russians to back down in face of threats by an Asiatic power was unprecedented. ‘China’, declared Lord Dufferin, ‘has compelled Russia to do what she has never done before – disgorge territory that she has once absorbed.’
But if all this was viewed by Gladstone and the Cabinet as an earnest of St Petersburg’s future good intentions in Central Asia, then disillusionment was soon to follow. For despite the solemn pledges made with regard to Merv, plans were soon being laid, amid the greatest secrecy, for its annexation. Among those invited to the coronation of Alexander III, following his father’s assassination, were a number of Turcoman chiefs from Merv. The purpose of this was to remind them of Russia’s military might, and convince them that any further resistance would be futile. It worked. Awed by the pageantry and splendour of the occasion, and by the sight of vast bodies of armed troops and artillery everywhere, the chiefs returned home to Merv, the last of their strongholds, convinced that it would be insane to oppose the Tsar’s armies. At the same time native agents were busy spreading the story in the surrounding towns and villages that the British had left Afghanistan because the Tsar had ordered them out. No one on earth, they declared, not even Queen Victoria, dared to defy the will of the Tsar. Any hopes that the Turcomans might entertain of the British marching to their assistance were in vain.
Having thus sown the seeds of doubt among the Turcomans, the Russians next decided to send a spy to Merv to try to gauge the mood there. It was hoped that, with the memory of Geok-Tepe still fresh in their minds, the Turcomans would no longer have the heart to fight, and that they would submit without further resistance when faced by Russian military might. But in case they did decide to make a stand, a thorough study of Merv’s defences would also have to be made. It would be a hazardous enterprise, in classic Great Game mould, and one calling for exceptional courage and resource. However, the ideal man was at hand in the person of Lieutenant Alikhanov.
In February 1882, a Turcoman caravan laden with goods could be seen approaching Merv from the west. Its leader was a prominent native trader, secretly friendly with the Russians. Half a dozen armed horsemen, all Turcomans, accompanied him. There were two other men in the party, both apparently native merchants. In fact, they were Russian officers. The senior of the two was Alikhanov, while his companion was a young Cossack ensign who had volunteered to accompany him. Alikhanov was a Muslim from an aristocratic Caucasian family. After distinguishing himself on numerous battlefields, he had been promoted to the rank of major and made aide-de-camp to Grand Duke Mikhail, Viceroy of the Caucasus. Like many Caucasians, however, he was quick-tempered, and following a duel with a senior officer he had been court-martialled and reduced to the ranks. Gradually he had redeemed himself by his gallantry and ability, and was once more a lieutenant. If he succeeded in this mission, he knew that almost certainly he would be given back his original rank.
The caravan entered Merv at night so that he and his companion would not be too closely scrutinised. There were in the city a number of Turcoman elders who had already been won over to the Russian cause, and who favoured submission to the Tsar. They had been secretly alerted to Alikhanov’s coming. After welcoming him and his Cossack companion, they decided to announce the following morning that two Russian merchants had arrived in Merv hoping to establish regular caravan traffic between Ashkhabad, the nearest Russian settlement, and the Turcoman traders in the bazaars. It was obviously a risky move, but one, Alikhanov agreed, which had to be taken. When word of their presence in the town got round, it caused a sensation, and an urgent meeting of all Turcoman elders and notables was immediately summoned. Alikhanov and his companion were ordered to appear before them in the great council tent. It was here that Alikhanov’s affinity with his fellow Muslims was to prove invaluable. Already he had paved the way by seeing to it that the most senior among the Turcoman chiefs had received lavish Russian-made gifts which had been brought especially for that purpose. And now he addressed the tense assembly, explaining why they had come, and asking leave to unpack their goods and offer them for sale to the city’s merchants.
When one of the elders proposed that first talks should be conducted between the two governments, Alikhanov dismissed the idea. ‘Do you want us to return home?’ he asked scornfully. ‘We don’t need your business that badly, and are not prepared to waste time travelling backwards and forwards. If we go back this time, you won’t ever see our faces again.’ It was a bold, if perilous, strategy, but Alikhanov could see from the elders’ expressions that it was beginning to work. He had forced them on to the defensive. Maintaining the pressure, he asked: ‘Do you call a meeting every time a caravan arrives, or do you do this only to the Russians?’ There was a long silence. Then one of the chiefs spoke. The desert between Merv and the nearest Russian settlements was in the grip of lawless brigands whom they could not control, he said. ‘We don’t want anything to happen to you, the merchants of the great Russian Tsar.’ Alikhanov replied that the armed escorts accompanying the caravans would be able to deal with any raiders unwise enough to attack them. All that St Petersburg would ask was for their safety to be guaranteed once they reached Merv.
The Turcomans had now run out of arguments. Seeing that they were sharply divided among themselves, Alikhanov decided to press home his advantage. If they still wished to prevent him and his companions from trading, he declared, then they would immediately pack their bags and depart. He could not say for sure how the new Tsar, who was currently well disposed towards the Turcomans, would react to news of this rebuff, but he imagined that he would be greatly angered. This was all too much for the elders, who remembered painfully their defeat at Geok-Tepe. A heated discussion followed, at the end of which Alikhanov was told that he was welcome to sell his goods, and that if he so wished he could remain in Merv permanently. ‘God forbid,’ laughed Alikhanov, anxious not to appear grateful. ‘Two or three days will be long enough for us to judge what business is like.’ In fact, he and his party were to remain in Merv for a fortnight – long enough for Alikhanov and his Cossack companion to conduct a discreet survey of the city’s defences by taking a stroll early each morning while most of the Turcomans were still asleep. Finally, when the caravan left for home, it took a different route to that by which it had come so that this too could be mapped.
Alikhanov was now entrusted with making preparations for the annexation, preferably peacefully, of Merv. He was aware that many of the Turcoman chiefs were still extremely hostile towards Russia, and were totally opposed to submitting to Tsarist rule. To agree to let him sell Russian goods was one thing; surrender was quite another. Making skilful use of agents and contacts he had set up while in Merv, Alikhanov continued to intrigue against the anti-Russian faction among the Turcoman elders. Gradually this undermined their influence. At last, in February 1884, he reported that everything was ready. As luck would have it, the British government was then facing grave difficulties in the Sudan where it had a holy war on its hands. The last thing that Gladstone wanted, as St Petersburg was quick to realise, was a fight with Russia in Central Asia.
The Russians’ first move was to occupy the oasis of Tejend, eighty miles west of Merv. This they had done once before, withdrawing soon afterwards, so the Turcomans were not too worried when they learned of it. After all, there was no reason why they should fear trouble from the Russians, having been careful, ever since the fall of Geok-Tepe, not to attack their caravans or give them any other excuse for making war. The first they knew that anything was amiss was when Alikhanov, whom they had believed to be a Russian merchant, arrived at the city gates with a detachment of Cossacks, and wearing the uniform of the Imperial Russian Army. He was accompanied by a number of Turcoman chiefs and notables who had already submitted and taken an oath of allegiance to the Tsar. Summoning the city’s elders together, he advised them to surrender at once, explaining that the force currently occupying Tejend, from where he had just come, was merely the advance guard of a large Russian army, equipped with heavy artillery, which was already on its way. If they agreed to accept the sovereignty of the Tsar, he assured them, there would be no question of a Russian garrison being stationed in Merv. At most there would be a governor, a few assistants and an escort. Otherwise things could carry on much as before. Although some of the Turcomans wanted to resist, the majority had by now lost their stomach for the fight. Elsewhere the tribes had already submitted, so they could expect no help from them, while the British had shown no interest in their plight, and anyway were said to go in fear of the Russians themselves. After an agonised debate, the once-proud Turcomans, for so long the lords of Transcaspia, agreed to surrender their capital and submit to the rule of St Petersburg.
Telegraphing the news to Tsar Alexander III, the Governor of Transcaspia declared: ‘I have the honour to inform Your Majesty that the khans of the four tribes of the Merv Turcomans, each representing 2,000 tents, have this day formally taken the oath of allegiance to Your Majesty.’ They had done so, he added, ‘being conscious of their inability to govern themselves, and convinced that Your Majesty’s powerful authority alone can establish order and prosperity in Merv.’ Shortly afterwards, a column of troops from Tejend entered Merv and took possession of the great fortress. Thanks to the audacious, if none too scrupulous diplomacy of Alikhanov, the Russian victory had been entirely bloodless, and had cost almost nothing. On the personal orders of the Tsar, Alikhanov was immediately restored to the rank of major, and his medals, stripped from him at his court martial, were pinned back on his tunic. Not long afterwards he was promoted to colonel, and fittingly made governor of the city which, virtually single-handed, he had annexed for his Tsar and country.
News of Merv’s fall was broken, almost casually, to the British ambassador by Nikolai Giers, now Foreign Minister, on February 15, the day after Alexander had been told. It was painfully clear to the British that St Petersburg, with its repeated reassurances, had been hoodwinking them all along. Once again the Russians were gambling on Gladstone’s Liberals not going beyond their customary remonstrances on finding themselves confronted by a fait accompli. The announcement, however, did not take the British government entirely by surprise, even if it was in no position, with a major crisis on its hands in the Sudan, to do much about it. Early the previous year, Lord Granville, the Foreign Secretary, had advised Queen Victoria that the Russians were ‘moving and feeling their way towards the border of Afghanistan’, while only a month before Merv’s surrender a senior Foreign Office official had warned that the uprising in the Sudan served as ‘an encouragement to the Russians, as it is to every enemy of this country’.
The capitulation of Merv was almost as much a triumph for the Russophobes as it was for the Russians, for it was precisely as they had forecast. General Roberts, shortly to become Commander-in-Chief, India, described the move as ‘by far the most important step ever made by Russia on her march towards India’. It would not be long now, warned the hawks, before the Cossacks were watering their horses on the banks of the Indus. Even the government had to recognise that Russia’s seizure of Merv posed a greater menace to India than its earlier annexation of Bokhara, Khiva and Khokand. For whereas vast mountain ranges and deserts lay between the conquered khanates and India’s frontiers, no such obstacles blocked the line of march from Merv, via Herat and Kandahar, to the Indus. Moreover, now that the tribes of Transcaspia had been crushed, there was nothing to stop the Tsar’s armies in the Caucasus and in Turkestan from acting together, under a joint command, against India. To add to British worries, the Russians had begun to build a railway eastwards across Transcaspia towards Merv, which clearly, when completed, could be used to bring troops up to the Afghan frontier region, and eventually to link the garrison towns and oases of Central Asia.
Its patience and credulity finally at an end, the British government once again protested to St Petersburg about the broken promises and false assurances which had led to the seizure of Merv. In a long memorandum, the Foreign Office accused the Russians of acting with cynical disregard for the solemn and frequently repeated pledges of both the Tsar and his ministers. Ignoring the question of the broken promises, the Russians replied that their annexation of Merv had not been premeditated, insisting that it had been at the request of the Turcomans themselves, who wished to end their state of anarchy and enjoy the benefits of civilisation. Having got what it wanted, however, St Petersburg now showed itself anxious to let the matter cool. It therefore proposed that to prevent any such problem from happening in the future, the two governments should get together amicably and work out a permanent frontier between northern Afghanistan and Russia’s Central Asian territories. Disregarding warnings that the Russians were not to be trusted, the Cabinet decided that any settlement with St Petersburg was better than none at all and welcomed the proposal. Once a line had been formally agreed, then any Russian move across it would amount to a hostile act against Afghanistan. Because, under her treaty with Abdur Rahman, Britain was responsible for Afghanistan’s foreign policy, such a step would be tantamount to a hostile act against her too. The Russians, or so the Cabinet was convinced, would consequently think twice before making any further move towards Herat.
After lengthy official correspondence, and much quibbling, it was finally agreed that representatives of both powers – together known as the Joint Afghan Boundary Commission – would rendezvous on October 13, 1884, at the oasis of Sarakhs. This lay in the remote and desolate region, to the southwest of Merv, where Afghanistan, Persia and Transcaspia met. Their task was to delineate the frontier scientifically and permanently, thereby replacing the old 1873 line which had merely been drawn from maps, and extremely vague ones at that. The Russians appeared to be in no hurry to begin work, however, and a series of delays occurred, including the illness, almost certainly tactical, of their chief commissioner, General Zelenoy. Finally the grim Central Asian winter began to close in, making it impossible – or so the Russians insisted – for the general and his staff to reach the spot before the spring. Nonetheless, the chief British commissioner, General Sir Peter Lumsden, managed to get to the rendezvous on time, only to find considerable Russian military activity going on. It immediately became clear what they were up to. Whatever St Petersburg might have decided, the Russian military were determined to extend their southern frontier with Afghanistan as close as possible to Herat before the Commission began its work. They were gambling on the belief that with the Liberals in power, and with the British already heavily committed in the Sudan, London would be unwilling to go to war over a worthless stretch of desert in Asia’s back-of-beyond. But for once, the Russians soon discovered, they had misjudged their adversary.