AMĪR NASRULLAH, A BOKHĀRAN NERO
In writing of the monkish Haydar’s successor, Vambéry appositely quotes
an old Uïghūr proverb, “The princes of an age are its mirrors.”[485]
Nasrullah Khān epitomised the vices which flourished unchecked
in Bokhārā. The passion for low intrigue, the lust and cruelty,
the self-righteousness and hypocrisy so often associated with the
Mohammedan character, were found in him in their highest development.
As the third son of Haydar, he had small chance of succeeding to the
throne; but he kept that goal constantly in view during his father’s
lifetime, and paved the way thither by pandering to the greed of the
military caste. No opportunity was lost of gaining adherents among
the Amīr’s courtiers. Hākim Bi, the Kushbegi, or vezīr, and his
father-in-law Ayāz Topchi-bāshi,[486] who held an important military
command, were devoted to his interests.[487]
On Haydar’s death, his eldest son, Husayn Khān, took possession of
the citadel of Bokhārā and was proclaimed Amīr. He received fervent
assurances of loyalty from Nasrullah, who was the while actively
plotting to subvert his authority, and who held a council of war at
Karshī, at which Mū´min Beg Dādkhāh, one of Husayn’s chief lieutenants,
assisted.
At this crisis he learnt that his brother had died suddenly after
a reign of barely three months, and took immediate steps to assert
his claims.[488] He obtained a legal decision in his favour from the
chief-justice of Karshī, who also invited the clergy of Samarkand to
espouse his cause. In the meantime another brother named `Omar Khān
seized the reins of power at Bokhārā, and sent orders to the governor
of Samarkand on no account to surrender his charge. But on Nasrullah’s
arrival the gates were flung open to him by the influence of the
mullās, and he was enthroned on the famous Blue Stone, or Kok-tāsh,
whereon nearly every Amīr since Tīmūr’s reign had received investiture.
Then began a triumphant progress throughout the realm. Katti-Kurgān,
Kerminé, and other cities surrendered to the pretender, who replaced
their governors by creatures of his own, and bade the former swell
his train. Thus attended, he arrived before Bokhārā and closely
invested the city. Starvation soon decimated its swarming population.
A pound of meat sold for seven _tangas_,[489] flour was introduced
through Nasrullah’s trenches in coffins, and the stench of stagnant
water in the irrigation canals grew intolerable. The Kushbegi and his
father-in-law Ayāz took advantage of the people’s agony to proffer
their submission, and undertook to give the signal of capitulation by
blowing up an ancient cannon, said to have weighed nearly thirteen
tons.[490] On hearing the muffled roar of the explosion, Nasrullah
immediately attacked the city from two quarters, and entered it in
triumph on the 22nd March 1826. `Omar saved his life by instant flight,
but three of his brothers, with many of their adherents, were butchered
in cold blood.[491]
[Illustration: COURT-YARD OF A HOUSE IN SAMARKAND]
The policy with which Nasrullah inaugurated his reign partook of the
ingrained cunning which was his chief characteristic. He seemed to
prefer amusements to affairs of state, and thus induced the Kushbegi to
believe that his own lease of power would be indefinitely prolonged.
Meantime no occasion was lost of strengthening his hold on the lower
classes by acts of apparent generosity and justice. The motto on his
seal was that adopted by the noble-hearted Tīmūr, whom he affected to
regard as his prototype. It was “Truth and Equity”![492] When he felt
himself strong enough to throw off the mask, he banished his benefactor
to Karshī, and afterwards to Samarkand. Ayāz Topchi-bāshi’s suspicions
were lulled by ardent asseverations of friendship, lest he should make
away with the vast possessions which Nasrullah had long marked as his
own. He summoned the old man to his presence, gave him a beautiful
horse, and aided him to vault into the saddle with his own royal
hands.[493] The victim set out for Samarkand, of which he had been
appointed governor, in the assurance that he had not participated in
his son-in-law’s disgrace; but he was soon ordered back to Bokhārā, and
thrown into prison with the Kushbegi. To Nasrullah’s eternal disgrace,
he put both of these early friends to death in the spring of 1840.
Then he turned his attention to the military class, which had attained
preponderance in an empire won and kept together by the sword. They
were butchered in large numbers without any form of trial, or banished
to a distance from the capital. The clergy had been permitted by
his bigoted predecessor to meddle in the affairs of state, and even
the warrior-prince Ma´sūm had not ventured to thwart them. Nasrullah
overturned their authority, and substituted his royal commands for the
hitherto sacred injunctions of law and custom.[494]
His evil passions gained a complete mastery as he grew older. He gave
full rein to the foulest lust, and neither rank nor sex were sacred in
his eyes. His temper became utterly ungovernable. “When angry,” writes
one who knew him well,[495] “the blood comes into his face and creates
a convulsive action of his muscles; and in such fits he gives the most
outrageous orders, reckless of consequences.” These spells of madness
alternated with periods when he became a prey to the wildest suspicion.
To gratify it, an army of spies was maintained, who were paid to report
the most trivial words of those whom he believed to be disaffected.[496]
Our readers may well wonder why a tyrant of his mould was allowed to
reign for more than a generation and to die in his bed. The key to the
mystery is to be found in his attitude towards the populace, by whom he
was idolised as their protector against the violence of the military
class.[497] Juvenal, in lamenting the atrocities of a monster of the
like nature, remarks that he did not perish until he came to be feared
by the dregs of the people.[498]
His foreign policy was as perfidious as his domestic. He attacked
Shahrisabz, a little state enclosed in his dominions, which had, like
Holland, preserved its independence by the bravery of its people and
their ability to lay the environs of their capital under water at an
invader’s approach.[499] He was baffled, and Shahrisabz continued
to be a thorn in his side during his long reign,--albeit that he
endeavoured to gain a footing there by espousing the ruler’s sister.
With Kokand he was more successful. That state was governed by Khān
Mohammad `Alī, a prince descended in the female line from the great
Baber, emperor of Hindustān, who had won glory by successes against
the Chinese on his western frontier.[500] Thus he incurred Nasrullah’s
jealousy, and his ruin was determined on. It was compassed by the aid
of a Persian soldier of fortune named `Abd us-Samad Khān, who had
fled his country after attempting to assassinate his master.[501] He
knew how to cast and work cannon--engines of war which exercise an
overwhelming influence on the Oriental mind; and commended himself to
Nasrullah by military knowledge and an eagerness to pander to his worst
vices. He became his _âme damnée_, even as the infamous “Azimulla”
prompted every atrocity committed by Nana Sahib during the Indian
Mutiny. The excuse for aggression was afforded by the frontier fortress
of Pishagar, which Nasrullah declared had been erected by the Kokandis
on his territory. Its destruction was peremptorily demanded; and, on
Mohammad `Alī’s refusal to comply, it was attacked by a strong force,
accompanied by a breaching battery under `Abd us-Samad’s command.[502]
The mud walls of Pishagar were unable to resist the iron shower, and
its surrender was followed in the succeeding year by that of Ura Teppe
and of Khojend. The Khān of Kokand, seeing that the capital was in
peril, sued for peace, and, by the treaty of Kohna Bādām, ceded Khojend
and recognised the Bokhāran Amīr as his suzerain.
With the cunning which in the East passes for the highest manifestation
of diplomacy, Nasrullah placed the newly conquered territory under the
governorship of Sultan Mahmūd, a brother of the Khān of Kokand and a
pretender to his throne. But hardly were these arrangements completed
ere Mahmūd and his brother came to terms, and both Khojend and Ura
Teppe were temporarily lost to Bokhārā. The wrath of the Amīr was
unbounded. In April 1842 he took the field against Kokand with a host
of 30,000 horsemen and regulars,[503] and 10,000 Turkoman mercenaries.
He reached Khojend by forced marches, and captured that city without
firing a shot, though it was defended by a garrison 15,000 strong.[504]
Thence he moved rapidly on the capital and drove Mohammad `Alī to
seek refuge in Marghilān. Here he was taken prisoner, dragged back to
Kokand, and slaughtered with the greater part of his relatives.[505]
Nasrullah’s relations with Khiva were bitterly hostile throughout his
reign; and he played into the hands of the common enemy, Russia, by
harrying the Khān’s territory at a time when all his force was needed
to oppose an expedition under General Perovski.
The petty states of Balkh, Andakhūy, and Maymana on the southern
frontier were the objects of his constant aggression, and the mutual
jealousy of Persia and Afghanistān allowed him to assume suzerainty
over them. Thus the weakness of his neighbours turned to his advantage.
He was hailed by his obsequious courtiers as king of kings, and firmly
believed himself destined to repeat the conquests of his model, Tīmūr.
This was the man at whose gates knocked the two greatest of European
Powers. England had watched the constant advance of Russia towards her
Indian frontier with ill-concealed alarm, and in 1832 Alexander Burnes
was despatched on an unofficial mission to Bokhārā. He accomplished
nothing, and was fortunate indeed to escape from the bloodthirsty
tyrant’s clutches.[506]
The next attempt made by England to establish friendly relations with
the leading Central Asian Powers was less fortunate. Her agent was
Colonel Stoddart of the Indian Army, a man utterly unfitted by training
and temperament for a diplomatic mission.[507] His rude and overbearing
manners gave the deepest offence to a despot accustomed to see all
around him tremble at his slightest movement.[508] He was thrown into
a loathsome dungeon, and languished there, with brief intervals of
comparative liberty, till death put an end to his sufferings. In 1840
he received a companion in affliction in the person of Captain Arthur
Conolly, whose gentle disposition and high culture rendered him equally
unfit to cope with a truculent monster such as Nasrullah. He had been
charged with the duty of uniting the Central Asian Khānates in an
informal alliance against Russia--a task which their common jealousies
rendered absolutely impossible. Thus his overtures were politely
rejected by Khiva and Kokand in succession. Enticed by Nasrullah into
his camp, he was seized, robbed of all his possessions, and sent to
join poor Stoddart in captivity. In the meantime the Russians had
begun to compete for Nasrullah’s favour.[509] Major Batanieff was
despatched to Bokhārā in 1840 by the Tsar Nicholas, with orders to
conclude a treaty of commerce and amity with the Amīr. He was received
with ostentatious courtesy, and his presents found especial favour in
Nasrullah’s eyes. But every attempt to arrive at a _modus vivendi_
was baffled by those excuses and procrastinations in which Oriental
monarchs are past masters. He left in 1841, after vainly interceding
for his rivals, who languished in daily expectation of death. Their
fate was sealed by his departure and by the news of our disasters in
Kābul.[510]
On the 17th June 1842 the unfortunate men were brought out to die.
Stoddart, who had been forced to embrace Mohammedanism, was the first
to suffer. When his head had been severed from his body the executioner
paused, and Conolly had an offer made of life as the price of his
apostasy. He scorned the bargain, and stretched out his neck to receive
the fatal blow. This atrocious crime was never avenged by the country
which had sent her sons forth to perish,[511] but for many years
Bokhārā was a word full of evil associations in the English mind. It
was undoubtedly prompted by the fiendish `Abd us-Samad, who lost no
opportunity of gratifying his hatred of Europeans. Nor were Stoddart
and Conolly Nasrullah’s only victims. A lust for blood seized him, and
all who professed Christianity were proscribed. The missionary Wolff,
who visited Bokhārā in 1844 in order to learn the two young officers’
fate, and if possible to procure their release, gives a list of seven
Englishmen who were slaughtered at `Abd us-Samad’s instigation.[512]
Nasrullah’s closing years were embittered by conspiracies amongst his
nobles; and his successor Mozaffar ud-Dīn was strongly suspected of
having incited one of those movements, which was put down with much
bloodshed.[513] He was maddened, too, by the repeated failure of his
attempts to reduce Shahrisabz. On his deathbed, in 1860, he learnt
that that last stronghold of independence had fallen to his conquering
arm. His last act was to order the execution of its chief, who was his
brother-in-law, and all his children, and his own wife, whose only
crime was her relationship to the rebel, beheaded in his presence.[514]
Sayyid Mozaffar ud-Dīn Khān, who succeeded this monster of iniquity,
had attained the mature age of thirty-eight on his death. He was the
son of a Persian slave-girl, and at the age of fourteen was appointed
governor of Karshī, the Dauphinée of modern Bokhārā.[515] That he lived
to reign in his turn was due to his extreme circumspection, for he
was swayed by the same vices as his father had been. His first care
was to regain the confidence of the priestly caste, which had been
alienated by the insane excesses of Nasrullah. Then, inspired by those
dreams of universal conquest which had been the curse of his dynasty,
he turned his attention to Shahrisabz, which continued in a state of
revolt. Undeterred by his failure to reduce the stubborn mountaineers
to subjection, he next attacked Kokand. That Khānate had fallen into
the hands of Khudā Yār, a grandson of the murdered Mohammad `Alī, who
had been brought up under Nasrullah’s eye in that gilded sty, the
Bokhāran Court. He attained power at a period pregnant with danger
to his country. The lower reaches of the Sir Darya were enclosed in
the coil of the Russian advance. In 1853 the fortress of Ak-Mechet
had fallen, and eleven years later the Eagle waved over Turkestān and
Chimkent.[516] The onward movement was checked in 1864 by the failure
of an assault on Tashkent; but Khudā Yār was foiled in his turn in a
like attempt on Turkestān, and retreated to his capital only to find
that the warlike Kipchāks,[517] a tribe who, then as now, were the
backbone of the population, had set up a younger brother named Mollā
Khān in his stead. Khudā Yār fled to Bokhārā and implored the Amīr to
aid him to regain the throne. Mozaffar ud-Dīn saw in these events an
excuse for extending his own authority up to the frontier of China. As
a preliminary measure, he had Mollā Khān assassinated, and, marching
on Kokand, reinstated Khudā Yār. The Kipchāks, however, were far from
approving his choice. They rose in rebellion, and, after a protracted
struggle with the Bokhāran forces, they succeeded in wresting the
eastern half of the Khānate from Mozaffar ud-Dīn’s protégé.[518] But
their strength was sapped by the war raging on the northern frontier,
and their trusted leader was slain by the Russians at Tashkent. Thus
when in 1865 the Bokhāran Amīr invaded Kokand, in order to repress
their insolence, he found the task an easy one. Khudā Yār was replaced
on his tottering throne, and, had Mozaffar ud-Dīn possessed a trace of
political foresight, he might have united the forces of Central Asia
against the common danger. But his lust for conquest was increased by
his cheaply won successes in Kokand, and, spurred to his ruin by a
fanatical priesthood, he flung the gauntlet of defiance in the teeth of
Russia. Though General Chernaieff had made himself master of Tashkent,
and had Kokand at his mercy, he received a haughty summons to evacuate
his conquests, accompanied by a threat of a Holy War.[519] His reply
was couched in language equally peremptory, and a struggle began which
closed in the deep humiliation of the proud Amīr.
It remains for us to trace the origin of a Power which was destined to
play a part of the first importance in the history of Central Asia, and
to repeat the conquests of Chingiz and Tīmūr.
PART II
RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA
CHAPTER I
THE MAKING OF RUSSIA
During the long dark centuries whose annals we have endeavoured to
reconstruct, the tide of conquest ran westwards. It was checked at
times by the might of civilisation or fanaticism, but its flow was
tolerably steady and quite beyond control. Had it not been for the
evolution of a still greater force on her eastern borders, the whole of
Europe would have been enveloped in the coils of a Mongolian invasion.
The world was saved from this calamity by the unconscious agency of
Russia. It remains to trace succinctly the history of her rise, and
to show how she combated the Yellow Terror, and, by a reflex action,
carried the banner of European civilisation eastwards.
Long ages before the Christian era the vast plains of Eastern Europe
were invaded by an Aryan race called the Veneti by Ptolemy.[520] In the
fourth century we find them struggling for existence with the Goths
on the plains watered by the Vistula.[521] They afterwards split into
three branches--the Veneti proper, afterwards known as the Wends, the
Antes, and Slavi. The first-named pitched their tents in north-eastern
Europe, and have left indelible traces in the Baltic provinces of
Prussia.[522] The second spread over the plain between the Dnieper and
Dniester; while the Slavs[523] occupied the land between the latter
river and the Vistula. Their progress was impeded for a while by
contests with the Huns, but the overthrow of their fierce foes which
followed the death of Attila gave full scope to their expansion. They
crossed the Danube and occupied the rich country between the Adriatic
and the Black Sea; then, spreading northwards, they took possession of
the lake region of Pskov and Novogorod. These movements ceased in the
seventh century, the close of which saw the Slavs firmly established
in European Russia, Illyria, and Bulgaria. They were employed in
agriculture and stock-raising, and their characteristics appear to have
been much the same as those observed at the present day in the rural
populations of Eastern Europe. Ancient writers agree in depicting them
as being hospitable and cheerful, firmly attached to ancient customs,
courageous, and fighting only in self-defence. In point of culture the
Slavs of a thousand years ago failed to reach the low standard attained
by their contemporaries of the West; for they were sparsely scattered
over vast areas and plunged in continual warfare with aggressive
neighbours. Society was organised on a patriarchal basis. The soil was
held in common by the tribe or “land,” whose affairs were discussed and
whose chiefs were elected at a general gathering of the members. The
religion of the Slavs betrayed its Eastern origin. The supreme deity
was called Bog, his wife Siwa; but there were good spirits (_belbog_)
to be worshipped and evil ones (_chernebog_) to be propitiated, and
every village had its patron divinity.[524]
It is possible to carry too far the theory on which Mr. Buckle insisted
so strongly--that the destinies of a race are moulded by their physical
environment; but its general truth is demonstrated by the history of
Russia. The European dominions of the Tsar are an unbroken plain.
They contain no mountain fastnesses serving as a refuge for inferior
races, and were thus fit arenas for a struggle for existence in which
the most vigorous stem of the human family was sure to survive and to
expand. And then, Russia lay on the highway of commerce between the
East and West. The silks, spices, and sugar of China traversed her
plains on their passage to mediæval cities, and the growth of local
trade was fostered by the 35,000 miles of navigable river which the
empire possesses. To this cause is due the accretion of great urban
centres, which played as great a part in Muscovite history as they
did in that of Western Europe. These cities were fortified to serve
as rendezvous for the surrounding population in time of stress. Their
government was strictly democratic; affairs being directed by a general
assembly of the citizens, which elected a mayor, a commander of their
trained bands, and, later, a bishop. Traders and merchants, who were
the backbone of the urban population, were divided into self-governing
guilds; and the city, not the individual, sent out its fleets and
caravans and colonised distant regions. Each town became a nucleus of
a territory whose peasant-inhabitants rendered the City Fathers the
allegiance formerly paid to the tribe.
With the decay of the tribal conception came radical modifications in
the tenure of land. Individualism slowly triumphed over socialism; a
class of agriculturists sprang up, who long remained free yeomen. But
prisoners of war were reduced to slavery, and freemen who continued
in service for more than a year encountered a similar fate. Hence
the origin of a great body of serfs, tied down to the soil and
acknowledging the mastership of their wealthier brethren. Such was the
Russian township in its earlier stages of growth. It was the nidus
of a self-governing republic, impelled to expand and conquer by the
growth of population which follows increased material prosperity,
but powerless to defend itself against foreign aggression. The
consciousness of this defect led the citizens to invite soldiers of
fortune to lead their militia and give organised means of repelling
attack. These adventurers were styled princes (_kniaz_). They were
called on to engage to rule according to custom and law. They were
bound to keep a body of armed retainers, who were paid by a stipulated
tribute.
The prince was not only the head of the executive, but the right arm of
the general assembly (_vetche_), which still arrogated to itself the
right of deciding on peace and war. He exercised judicial functions,
pronouncing sentence on the findings arrived at by the jurors[525] who
decided civil and criminal suits, and levying the fine adjudged, which
he appropriated to the maintenance of his dignity. The Russian princes
of the tenth century held a position analogous to that occupied by the
podestà of the Italian republic; and, indeed, the political evolution
of the two countries for many years proceeded on parallel lines. It
was reserved for Christianity, which had played so vast a part in the
disintegration of the Roman Empire, to modify profoundly the relations
between prince and city. The form in which this highly militant creed
reached the cities of Russia was that which had ruled supreme in
Byzantium. It was first preached in northern countries in the ninth
century by two monks named Cyrillus and Methodus, who are still
venerated as the “Apostles of the Slavs.” They are also regarded as the
founders of the national literature, for they reduced the melodious
accents of the Slavonic tongue to writing, and translated into it the
Holy Writings and the Byzantine ritual. The seed thus sown fell upon
fruitful soil; for the impulsive, dreamy character of the Slavs, a
heritage from their remote Indian ancestors, was powerfully attracted
by the gorgeous and rather sensual rites whose glory is still faintly
shadowed in the desecrated splendours of St. Sophia. Russia soon
swarmed with missionaries preaching a creed which appeals with greater
force than any other to the idiosyncrasies of Aryans. The princes
themselves were carried away by the movement, and paused in their
career of tyranny and bloodshed to bow before the emblems of peace and
goodwill to men.
In 987 Vladimir of Novogorod was baptized at Kieff[526] with his
warrior band. He married a Greek princess named Anna, who was a
powerful ally of the priests in maintaining her half-savage husband in
the path which he had adopted. The influence of these churchmen was by
no means an unmixed blessing for Russia; for they brought with them
conceptions of government which were wholly alien to Slav traditions.
In the great Eastern Empire, which had inherited no small share of the
power and glory of Rome, the chief of the state was much more than a
first magistrate. He was the head of the Church, Pontifex Maximus as
well as Autocrat, and exacted implicit allegiance and submission. His
sovereignty was transmissible to his heirs; and a wide gulf separated
the imperial family from the noblest subject. The law in Byzantium was
mainly that of Rome, which regarded offences as injuries to the state
and as calling for sanguinary punishments rather than compensation to
the private individual aggrieved. Women there occupied a position of
inferiority. They were jealously guarded, and were forbidden to show
their faces in public or in the church. The Russian priests sought in
a monarch of the European type a secular arm for the defence of their
privileges. Their teachings were eagerly assimilated by Vladimir,
who, at his death in 1015, parcelled out his domains amongst twelve
sons. The new theory of kingship received a wider extension at the
hands of Yaroslav the Wise, a politic sovereign whose chief care
it was to elevate the status of his caste. Henceforward Kieff was
regarded as the mother city, and the seat of the eldest of his kin.
The other centres--Novogorod, Pskov, Smolensk, and Polotsk--were free
to select their own princes, with the proviso that the chosen one must
be descended from Yaroslav. But the narrow tyranny of the Church and
the growth of a royal caste were not the only cankers eating into the
heart of the Russian commonwealths. The eleventh and twelfth centuries
saw the rise of the Bolars, or Boyars, a class of great proprietors
descended from successful warriors, or citizens enriched by commerce,
who engrossed huge tracts of soil and reduced the free cultivators to
a status of bondage. Their power as councillors of the prince soon
ousted that of the popular assemblies, and its expansion was furthered
by the importation from Germany of the worst features of feudalism,
unillumined by the tender light of chivalry. The revolution received a
vast impetus by the transfer of the seat of power from Kieff to Suzdal
and Rostov, peopled by the colonisation of the territories watered by
the Oka and Upper Volga. The inhabitants of the Great Russia which thus
took its origin were without traditions of independence, and offered
their necks willingly to the feudal yoke. In the twelfth century the
prince of Suzdal built the town of Vladimir and subdued Kieff, making
his own metropolis the centre of Russian politics. Then, pushing their
boundaries ever in advance, his people founded Nijni Novogorod at the
confluence of the Oka and Volga, which soon eclipsed the glories of
its namesake. Thus, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Russia
was studded with republics governed by oligarchies, and resembling in
most essentials those which were in process of formation in Italy.
The popular liberties were already undermined by the encroachments
of prince and noble, fostered, for selfish ends, by the Church; but
material civilisation was on the increase, and, had it been permitted
to grow on Slavonic lines, the arts which adorn and sweeten life would
have found a home in Russia. This nascent culture was destroyed by an
eruption of foes more ruthless than those who had completed the ruin of
imperial Rome, and the clock of moral and industrial advance was put
back by several centuries.
Human progress is stimulated by the tendency exhibited by population to
outstrip the means of subsistence. No sooner has a community attained a
certain degree of physical well-being than this great natural law comes
into play. The numbers begin to press too heavily on the land, and the
younger and more vigorous are driven to seek new spheres for their
energies. They colonise distant lands, subdue their weaker neighbours,
and the mother state becomes a centre of dominion, of luxury and its
attendant arts. It is the process which gave the world the priceless
boon of Greek civilisation, and made Rome a storehouse whence we
moderns have drawn our principles of law and government. In the earlier
centuries of our era the regions lying between the Gobi Desert and Lake
Baikal were the habitat of a congeries of Mongolian tribes belonging to
the Ural-Altaic family.[527] They were a pastoral race, living in tents
of felt and skins which they moved when the surrounding pastures had
been exhausted by their flocks and herds.
The nomad instinct thus became with them a second nature, and as they
were tireless horsemen and inured to hardships, it led them to carry
bloodshed and rapine over neighbouring territories. In their case the
tendency to spread over the face of the earth was keener far than in
that of communities engaged in settled avocations. But much of their
strength was expended in inter-tribal war, until a man of genius arose
who knew how to reconcile discordant interests and to forge a weapon
of aggression which no living force could withstand. This Napoleon of
Asia was known to his contemporaries as Temuchin, and to posterity
as Chingiz Khān. He was born in 1162, the son of a chieftain whose
authority was supreme in the tract between the Amur and the Great
Wall of China. His youth was spent in struggles for supremacy with
rival chieftains, but he at length welded together the whole Mongolian
race by sheer personal ascendency, and dangling before his followers
the bait of plunder. Then began a career of conquest which finds no
parallel save in that of his greater successor Tamerlane. He entered
Khwārazm[528] in 1218 at the head of three hordes,[529] overran
Khojend, Samarkand, Bokhārā, and devastated Northern Persia. Merv,
Nīshāpūr, Herāt, and other great and wealthy cities were overwhelmed
in the avalanche. After penetrating far into India he returned to his
darling steppes in 1225, gorged with booty. The impetus thus given to
the teeming forces of disorder continued. Two lieutenants of Chingiz
Khān skirted the southern shore of the Caspian and carried ruin through
Georgia and the Crimea, returning by way of Bulgaria, while a third
subdued nearly the whole of China. The death of Chingiz in 1227 brought
no cessation to the movement. The greed of his followers was inflamed
by rumours of the wealth and luxury of the Russian republics; and in
1238 his grandson, Bātū Khān, headed an invading host which ravaged
the central and eastern plains, and ruined Riazan, Rostov, Yaroslav,
and Tver. In the following year the cities of South-Western Russia
shared their fate; and then the Khān retired to his camp at Serai on
the Lower Volga, where he rested awhile from rapine and slaughter. His
headquarters became a centre for intrigue among the Russian princes,
who were permitted to retain a certain degree of authority by their
conquerors.
The Mongols, indeed, interfered but little with the internal affairs
of the country. The Church was not molested, taxes were farmed out to
merchants, and after a while commerce began to rear its drooping head.
With it came a recrudescence of the civil struggles which had made
Russia an easy prey to the invaders. The princes sought the countenance
of Tartar Khāns, and employed their warrior bands against neighbouring
states. But the influence of the Mongols was not restricted to the
arena of public affairs. It penetrated the social life of the Slav,
and produced a strain which is still conspicuous in the physiognomy of
every class of the population.[530] It leavened the national character,
implanting in Russian breasts that nomad instinct which is destined
to sweep away the effete political organisations of the Asiatic
continent. Intercourse with the West was not without its effects on the
conquerors. Dissensions arose among them. The Golden Horde gathered
round Bātū Khān, and the White Horde separated from the main body.
Unity of interests gave place to mutual jealousy and distrust. Bātū’s
brother Barak embraced Mohammedanism, and with it obtained the thin
veneer of Arab civilisation. The Mongolian tent was exchanged for the
walled town, and commerce grew apace. But the nomads’ strength lay in
their barbarism, and the growth of luxury among them encouraged the
Russians to shake off lethargy and dream of political redemption.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE SHĀH ZINDA, SAMARKAND]
At the commencement of the fourteenth century Russia was parcelled out
into the principalities of Suzdal, Nijni Novogorod, Riazan, and Tver.
This age witnessed the rise of a fifth which was destined to subdue
them all, and to become the nucleus of a world-shadowing empire. The
village of Moscow had been fortified by a Dolgoroucki in the middle of
the twelfth century; and its situation, at the point of intersection of
many caravan routes, led to the rapid development of its wealth and
population. The Church, ever alive to the advantage of recognising the
imperial principle, set up its standard in a centre which promised
to give full scope to its own influence. The Metropolitan migrated
hither from Vladimir in 1325, taking with him a holy image of widely
acknowledged efficacy, and the princes were encouraged by the wily
priests to persist in a policy of weakening the adjacent states. In
1380 Prince Dmitri, finding his Mongol oppressors distracted with
internecine feuds, was emboldened to refuse tribute; and, gathering a
huge army, he met the enemy at Kulikovo on the Don. The conflict was
indecisive; but the Russians asserted that victory had been bestowed
on their arms at the intercession of the _eikon_ which had accompanied
their hosts. The claim was acquiesced in by the Russian people, and
from this epoch dates the rise of Moscow. But the Mongolian incubus
still weighed upon them. A great chieftain named Tokhtamish Khān
arose who united the rival hordes, and in 1381 their forces obtained
possession of Moscow and massacred 24,000 of its citizens. But the
citadel already known as the Kremlin defied his attacks, and became the
rallying-point for a state more powerful than that which had undergone
a baptism of blood. And now a greater warrior appeared on the scene and
became an unconscious ally of the cause of Russian independence.
Tīmūr Leng, or Lame Tīmūr, possessed a genius for civil administration
as well as for conquest. He seized the throne of Samarkand and became
undisputed master of Central Asia. Then he overran Persia and Georgia
in 1369, and came to blows with the redoubtable Tokhtamish Khān. Fierce
and prolonged was the struggle for supremacy, but in 1395 it ended
disastrously for the western chief. After effectually breaking his
rival’s power, Tīmūr destroyed that of the Turkish Sultan Bāyazīd in
Angora, and was on his way to subdue China when death overtook him at
Otrār on the Sir Daryā, or Jaxartes. With the defeat of Tokhtamish and
the disappearance of Tīmūr the Mongolian power steadily declined. In
1408 the Khān Edighei attempted to chastise rebellious Moscow, but was
baffled by the ramparts of the Kremlin. The development of the vigorous
capital continued under Vassili I., who purchased from the Mongolian
Khān the right to reign supreme at Kieff, and afterwards subdued
Rostov. He assumed the style of Great Prince, and levied tribute in
return for his protection from all the cities of Muscovy. But the real
founder of the Russian autocracy was Vassili III., rightly styled the
Great. His ambition was fired by the promptings of the priesthood and
of his Greek wife Sophia, who was a daughter of the Byzantine emperor,
Constantine Paleologus. He persistently undermined the autonomy of
other states; and, after adding all but Novogorod to his empire, he
finally, with Mongolian aid, crushed that last stronghold of Russian
independence. To Vassili the Great, Russia owes its claim to succeed
the mighty emperors of the East and the grandiloquent style and title
assumed by its Tsars, for he adopted the arms of Byzantium and was
proclaimed Ruler of All the Russias. In 1480 he found himself strong
enough to throw off the Mongolian yoke, and, when the Khān marched
against Moscow with 150,000 men, he was confronted by a Russian army
and was fain to abandon his enterprise. Vassili’s grandson Ivan IV.,
surnamed the Terrible, was crowned Tsar at Moscow in 1547. After a
prolonged struggle with the haughty Boyars he shook off their influence
and became, in deed as well as in name, an autocrat. Then his restless
energies found vent in aggression.
He conquered Kazan and Astrakhan in 1554; but, falling a prey to
insanity, he was guilty of excesses which weakened his authority and
emboldened the Mongols to make a fresh bid for supremacy. The Khān
Dawlat Girāy appeared before Moscow in 1571 with 120,000 followers and
burnt the suburbs.[531] But the Kremlin again held out, and the nomads
retreated to the Volga, never to return. Thus was Russia delivered from
an influence which had paralysed her energies, and was free to work out
her destinies. We shall see how profoundly they were affected by the
action of the Mongolian restlessness on the dreamy, sluggish nature of
the Slav.
CHAPTER II
CROSSING THE THRESHOLD OF ASIA
The Ural range had hitherto been the eastern boundary of Russia. Beyond
lay a region of steppes and rivers, peopled towards the polar seas by
tribes of Tartar and Esquimaux origin, employed in hunting; and on the
southern frontier, by Kirghiz and Kalmak nomads. Under Vassili III.
(1505–1533) the Western Urals were annexed to the nascent empire, and
peopled by Yaik Cossacks, a race addicted to raiding and pillage.[532]
These freebooters recognised no natural barriers. Crossing the
mountain-chain, they attacked the Ostiaks, Samoyeds, and Kirghiz who
had hitherto roamed unchallenged over the wind-swept plains. The
collision was disastrous for the invaders, and the frontier became a
prey to anarchy. Meantime the Tsar, Ivan the Terrible, had bestowed
a huge tract of land in the Urals on his favourite, Strogonoff, who
at once began to exploit its rich deposits of gold. His schemes were
rendered abortive by the incursions of tribesmen from the west, and
Strogonoff, in despair, summoned a Cossack named Iermak to his aid.
The new ally was promised a free pardon for his numerous outrages,
and his followers were supplied with firearms from Russian arsenals.
Thus equipped Iermak made short work of the invaders, and in 1587
captured Sibir, the capital of Kushan Khān, chief of the Kirghiz. In
1604 Tobolsk was built and fortified on a site twelve miles from the
town which gave its name to the entire country. The victorious Cossacks
plunged deeper into the hitherto unknown regions, and came to blows
with the Kirghiz, who ranged the steppes between Lake Balkash and the
Urals on the northern shore of the Aral Sea. Hearing vague rumours
of the wealth of Khiva or Khwārazm, a Khānate embracing the fertile
embouchure of the Amū Daryā, a band of Cossacks swooped down on Urgenj,
its capital, at a time when the Khān and his warriors were absent on a
distant expedition.
The city fell an easy prey, and they bent their steps homewards,
dragging with them a vast amount of booty, and a thousand of the
most beautiful inmates of Khivan harems. Their cupidity was their
ruin, for they were overtaken by the incensed husbands, and cut to
pieces. A still worse fate was encountered during a later raid; for
the Cossacks who undertook it lost their way, and were overtaken by
winter on the wind-swept shores of the Aral. To such straits were they
reduced that they had recourse to cannibalism.[533] But the stream of
Russian immigration continued steadily eastwards. Irkutsk was founded
in 1661, and before the end of the century the northern limits were
pushed forward to the polar ice. The southern boundary, however, was
conterminous with steppes occupied with Mongolian nomads, and was open
to their incursions. No part of his immense empire escaped the notice
of Peter the Great. In the brief leisure left him by his self-imposed
task of reform he did not neglect his Siberian possessions.[534] He
perceived the necessity of giving them a defensible frontier, and of
securing commercial relations with the Khānates of Khiva and Bokhārā,
in order to pave the way for an intercourse with China and the Indies.
With this aim in view he took counsel of an adventurer named Khwāja
Nefes, who had studied in Samarkand and Bokhāran colleges, and was well
acquainted with the politics of the Khānates. Under his promptings,
Peter sent congratulations to the Khān of Khiva on his accession. His
overtures were welcomed by that sovereign, who was hard pressed by
the legions of Bokhārā. He sent an embassy to Peter,[535] offering to
accept his suzerainty in return for protection against his powerful
neighbours. The great reformer had too many cares nearer home to permit
of his taking immediate action on this tempting offer, and it was not
till 1714 that he was reminded of his distant vassal’s existence by
another embassy, the object of which was to induce the Tsar to build
a chain of forts on the east of the Caspian as a protection against
Turkoman raids. Peter was now convinced that the time had come for
effective interference in Central Asian affairs. He cast about him
for an instrument, and found one in a young Circassian chieftain who
had changed his name from Dawlat Girāy to Bekovitch Cherkaski on his
conversion and baptism, and had been given a commission in the famous
Preobajinski regiment, with the title of prince. The Tsar appointed him
to the command of an exploring expedition, the objects of which were
enumerated in a decree of the 29th May 1714. Bekovitch was enjoined to
congratulate the Khān of Khiva on his accession, and to confirm him
in his acknowledgment of Russian suzerainty. He was to explore the
lower reaches of the Sir Daryā for gold, and ascertain whether it was
practicable to reopen the old course of that river into the Caspian on
the south of the Balkan range. Bekovitch’s voyage of discovery began
in 1715. He sailed along the east coast of the Caspian, landing at the
extremity of the Mangishlāk peninsula, and erected a fort to serve as a
base for his advance into the desert. The former bed of the Amū Daryā
was examined, and a report was submitted to the Tsar. Peter instructed
his lieutenant to build a strong place on the banks of the old channel,
and to induce the Khān of Khiva to join in thoroughly investigating
its course, in view of a possible diversion of the great water-way.
Mercantile expeditions were also to be sent to Bokhārā and India. While
preparations were in progress for a second expedition, the friendly
Khān died, and his successor was reported to be ill-disposed towards
Russia.
Nothing daunted, the intrepid adventurer set out in 1717 for Garieff,
on the river Ural, at the head of a force of 4000 men, with engineers
and marine officers. After struggling across the wind-swept desert
of Ust Urt, he reached a lake known as Bara Kilmas, about 200 miles
north-west of Khiva. Here he rested his travel-worn troops, and built
a fort with a solidity which has resisted the elements for 180 years.
The suspicions of the Khān that Russia contemplated the annexation of
his country were confirmed by the strength of Bekovitch’s expedition,
and the measures adopted by him. But, feeling that his ill-disciplined
forces were no match for those of comparative civilisation, he had
recourse to treachery. Bekovitch was lulled into security by promises
of aid and alliance, and was persuaded to divide his little army into
weak detachments, on the plea that it would be easier to furnish them
with provisions. Then the Khān fell upon the isolated Russian posts
and crushed them in detail. Not a man escaped to give news of the
failure of this first plunge into Central Asian politics. To this day
the expression “Lost as Bekovitch” is synonymous in Russia for hopeless
ruin. So disgusted was the great Tsar with this unexpected failure that
when, in 1720, the Khān of Khiva sent an envoy to solicit pardon and a
renewal of friendship, he was thrown into prison at St. Petersburg, and
died there.[536]
Russia’s next step in advance was the outcome of the mischievous
activity of the Kirghiz, a race of Mongolian origin which roams over
the steppes between the Volga and the Irtish, and north of the Turkoman
desert and the Ala Tau Mountains.[537] Peaceful colonisation was
impossible while these restless neighbours retained their independence.
Omsk and the middle course of the Irtish became Russian in 1716–1719;
and for 1500 miles the Siberian frontier marched with that of tracts
claimed as their own by these untamed nomads. In the reign of the
Empress Anne disputes arose between the Kirghiz of the Middle and
Little Hordes, who ranged over the western steppes, and their brethren
of the Far East; and in 1732 the former offered submission to the
empress in return for protection against their foes. Thus the Russians
obtained a footing in immense tracts which were claimed by the Khānates
of Khiva and Bokhārā, and a collision with their forces was rendered
inevitable. The foundation of Orenburg marks a second stage in the
Russian advance. It became a rendezvous for caravans between Russia
and Central Asian cities, and a basis for the expeditions which
followed. In 1803 the Tsar had received the allegiance of the tribes
of the Mangishlāk peninsula, on the eastern shore of the Caspian.
Ten years later Turkoman envoys asked help against Persia. It was
refused, for Russia had her hands full with the Napoleonic wars, and
a profound irritation was aroused among the savages.[538] In 1822 an
ordinance was issued bringing the Little Horde within the government of
Orenburg, while the western Kirghiz were made subject to that of West
Siberia. These attempts to annex territories with southern boundaries
so ill-defined aroused intense suspicion throughout the Khānates,
and it found a vent in raids on Russian caravans. One despatched to
Bokhārā was robbed in 1829 of property to the value of 500,000 roubles
by Kirghiz and Khivans. The Turkoman bands, still more to be dreaded,
pillaged the Bokhāran traders.
Friction followed between the Kirghiz of the west and Cossack settlers,
who, in common with old-established policy, had been pushed forward
to occupy strips of fertile soil on the southern frontier, and the
unrest was increased by the levy of a tax on the nomads, which was
fiercely resented by those who rendered a nominal allegiance to Khiva.
Count Perofski, who governed Orenburg, endeavoured to cope with the
disturbance by constructing a chain of forts on his southern boundary,
beginning with one named Alexandrovsk, on the Mangishlāk peninsula.
But the Kirghiz carried their incursions far into Russian Orenburg,
and plundered caravans close to Alexandrovsk. In 1839 it became clear
that neither forts nor flying expeditions of Cossacks could effect
the pacification of so chaotic a frontier. In Khiva the nomads found
support in their attacks on Russian caravans, and a market for the
sale of their prisoners and booty. There, too, hundreds of Russian
subjects were held in a state of abject slavery.[539] The prestige as
well as the peace of the empire was at stake. The Tsar Nicholas was
not a man to brook any infringement of either, and he decided that
prompt and heavy punishment should be meted out for Khivan treachery.
Perofski, the governor of Orenburg, was an agent fitted by nature and
training for the accomplishment of the Tsar’s designs. He equipped
an army of 3½ battalions of picked infantry, 2 regiments of Ural and
5 squadrons of Orenburg Cossacks, and 22 guns with a rocket train.
Transport was effected by nearly 2000 horses and 10,000 camels, tended
by 2000 Kirghiz, and the utmost care was lavished on every detail of
the equipment.[540] Perofski calculated on reaching his objective, a
distance of 900 miles, in 50 marches, and never doubted of a triumph
over the ill-trained forces of Khiva.
He had reckoned without a force which had again and again won the
battle for Russia,[541] and committed the fatal mistake of starting
from his base at Orenburg in November, a month which brought his army
to the centre of the Ust Urt at the most inclement season of the year.
The sufferings of men and beasts in the ice-storms which swept over
the desert in the winter of 1839 are paralleled only by those endured
by Napoleon’s legions during the retreat from Moscow. The expedition
struggled on as far as Ak Bulak, about half-way to the Khivan frontier,
and was there fain to retreat, leaving the bones of 1000 men and 8000
camels whitening the pitiless sands. Nothing daunted by his failure,
Perofski set about the organisation of a second attempt on a far more
elaborate scale, but it was rendered unnecessary by the submission of
the Khivans. The ruler, `Alā Kulī Khān, was cowed by the persistence
and the might of Russia, and in 1840 he despatched an embassy to
Orenburg, accompanied by more than 400 released Slavs. Perofski
accepted the olive-branch, and in 1842 a treaty of peace and alliance
was concluded with the new ruler. The failure of the expedition of 1840
had shown the incurable defects of Orenburg as a base for operations
in Central Asia. If the trackless steppes, the oases teeming with
robber-tribes, were to be dominated by Russian influence, some route
must be chosen which possessed the advantage of water transport. The
vast lake known as the Sea of Aral is connected with the heart of
Asia by the Sir and the Amū Daryā, and is easier far to traverse than
the steppes on either side. Batakoff explored it thoroughly in 1844,
employing vessels brought in sections from Orenburg. Four years later
a fort named Kazalinsk was erected at the mouth of the Sir Daryā, and,
ere many months had elapsed, Russia was in possession of a chain of
strongholds completely commanding the lower reaches of the great river.
These precautionary measures raised an intense irritation in the breast
of the Khān of Kokand, who claimed the whole course of the Sir Daryā
as his own. His subjects were encouraged to invade Russian territory,
compelling costly reprisals. In order to put a period to these
aggressions, Perofski attacked the fortress of Ak Mechet, 280 miles
from the embouchure of the Sir Daryā, and after an abortive attempt
took it by storm in 1853. Thus the second great highway of Central Asia
fell under Russian control, and it was soon afterwards navigated by a
steamer constructed in Sweden, and brought in sections with incredible
labour by way of Nijni Novogorod. The amazement excited in the nomads
by the spectacle soon died away, and Perofski was besieged by the
Kokandis in vain. The grip of Russia tightened. In 1854 an expedition
penetrated the valley of the Ili, and a fort was built at Verni,
between the lakes of Balkash and Issik Kul. But between this stronghold
and Perofski there was a gap of more than 500 miles, which included the
desert of Ak Kum, and through it the Kirghiz and Turkoman bands carried
devastation far into Siberia. The Kokandis, too, were determined to
break the net in the meshes of which they were struggling. Frequent
attacks were made on Russian outposts, and the whole Siberian border
was kept in a ferment.[542] Russia resolved to strike a decisive
blow at the recalcitrant Khānate, and to obtain possession of the
northern portion, which gave a more defensible boundary, and was
desirable by reason of its fertility. With this object in view, Staff
Colonel Chernaieff marched southwards from the basin of the Ili on the
fortress of `Alī Ata, commanding the Kara Tau range, while Colonel
Verefkin, starting from a base on the Sir Daryā, moved eastwards
and captured Hazrat, another strong place which, under the name of
Turkestān, stands sponsor to the whole province. The two columns then
joined hands and stormed the citadel of Chimkent, nearly 300 miles
south-east of the old frontier post at Perofski. This steady advance
aroused the susceptibilities of the British public, which saw in the
Russian invasion of the Mohammedan states on the Siberian frontier a
foreshadowing of similar designs on India. In order to allay suspicion
and enlighten the communities of the West as to the motives of the
recent encroachments, Prince Gortschakoff issued a circular addressed
to the Great Powers.[543] It is a remarkable state paper, which
enunciates the principles governing the Russian advance in a manner as
convincing as it is accurate and logical. The prince pointed out the
dilemma in which civilised states in contact with wandering tribes are
placed. They find it impossible to live in unity with such neighbours,
and must establish a system of control or see their frontier a prey
to chronic disorder. But the tribes brought under the strong arm of
law and order become, in their turn, victims of similar aggression on
the part of more distant ones. Thus the process of subjugation must be
repeated until the paramount Power comes into direct contact with one
which affords reasonable guarantees that it can maintain order within
its own territory. Prince Gortschakoff fondly hoped that this boundary,
safeguarded by a long chain of strong places stretching over a fertile
and well-watered country between the Sir Daryā and Lake Balkash, would
secure two desiderata--supplies for Russian garrisons, and the vicinity
of a state strong enough to be mistress at home and willing to unite
in fostering that true civiliser, commerce. He had omitted, however,
the consideration of factors which are at the root of all conquests,
the fierce passions evoked by warfare, and the lust for fame and
booty. Such are the motives that inspire successful generals to fresh
exploits, and they burned in the breast of Staff Colonel Chernaieff,
a man who, under happier auspices, might have been the Clive of
Central Asia. Learning that a host of Kokandis was massed at Tashkent,
the second city of the Khānate, eighty miles south of Chimkent, he
determined to anticipate attack by adopting the only safe policy in
dealing with Orientals. He advanced with every available man, and, on
the 2nd October 1864, attacked Tashkent. The want of a breaching-train
and scaling-ladders was an insuperable obstacle to success, and
the Russians were fain to retire, baffled by the lofty ramparts
of Tashkent. The effect of this disaster on the excitable Asiatic
character was marked and instantaneous. A Kokandi force of 10,000 men,
under the Khān in person, burned Chimkent, and attacked Turkestān far
in its rear. They surprised a squadron of Cossacks during a halt near
the fortress, but met with a reception which should have convinced them
of the superiority of the Russian arms.[544] The Khān was compelled to
raise the siege of Turkestān and retreat on Tashkent. But this incident
rendered it clear that no peace could be expected on the frontier while
a town of 72,000 inhabitants, inspired by the fiercest fanaticism,
remained unsubdued in the proximity of the outposts. General Chernaieff
resolved to plant his country’s flag on the fortifications of Tashkent;
but his master, Tsar Alexander II., was a monarch who loved peace from
a personal knowledge of war’s horrors, and on learning of the failure
of Chernaieff’s first attempt he positively forbade a repetition. The
general, however, postponed taking cognisance of His Majesty’s orders
till he had made a second onslaught on Tashkent. It was delivered by
a column of 951 men with 10 pieces of artillery, and in spite of the
vast disproportion in numbers the city was stormed with a loss of
125 men only. Then only did the daring commander peruse his master’s
despatches, and his reply was a characteristic one. “Sire,” he wrote,
“your Majesty’s order forbidding me to take Tashkent has reached me
only in the city itself, which I have taken and place at your Majesty’s
feet.”[545] The Tsar was furious at the breach of discipline, but he
did not refuse the fruits of his lieutenant’s too daring enterprise. In
1865 Turkestān was constituted a frontier district, with Tashkent as
its capital.
CHAPTER III
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE KHĀNATES
Thus was a third stage reached in Russia’s advance. Her Siberian
frontier extended from the north-eastern shore of the Caspian to the
borders of China. It had been pushed forward to the edge of the plateau
of Samarkand, then a province of Bokhārā, and lay within striking
distance of the three Central Asian states which still maintained
their independence. A sense of common danger united the forces which
had hitherto been hostile: Kokandis, Bokhārans, and Khivans felt
instinctively that the hour had come for a combined attempt to shake
off the Russian incubus. A leader alone was required, and one was found
in Sayyid Muzaffar ed-Dīn, Amīr of Bokhārā. He claimed a descent from
Tīmūr, and doubtless dreamed of repeating the conquests of his great
predecessor on the throne of Samarkand. His ambition was fanned by
the fierce breath of fanaticism, for the Amīr was notoriously subject
to priestly influence, and the mullās of Central Asia were among the
bitterest foes of Russian designs. At his prompting the bazaars of the
three Khānates swarmed with emissaries, who preached a Holy War, and
exhorted true believers to drive back the invaders into the Siberian
steppes. The Amīr soon found himself at the head of a huge force drawn
from his own subjects, while he obtained control over those of Kokand
by assuming the guardianship of the minor Khān.[546] Thus reinforced
he occupied Khojend, a city on the north-east corner of Samarkand only
a hundred miles from the new Russian capital, and summoned Chernaieff
to release his conquests. At the same time he imprisoned four Russian
envoys[547] sent him by the general. This act of war met with a prompt
response.
Chernaieff advanced from Tashkent with 14 companies of infantry, 6
squadrons of Cossacks, and 16 guns as far as Jizāk, a fortress barely
60 miles from Samarkand. But the population was hostile, supplies
failed, and he was obliged to retreat on his capital. Retrograde
movements in the face of Asiatic forces are always pregnant with
disaster. General Chernaieff’s was interpreted by the Bokhārans as a
confession of weakness. Crowds flocked to the Amīr’s standard, and he
moved on Tashkent with 40,000 men. In the meantime Chernaieff, who had
not been forgiven for his breach of instructions in the occupation of
Tashkent,[548] was superseded by General Romanovski, who had received
peremptory orders from the Tsar that hostilities with the Khānate must
cease. Like his predecessor, he found himself compelled by force of
circumstances to disobey orders.
The Bokhāran host was within three marches of Tashkent. The city with
its 70,000 inhabitants was seething with rebellion, and to maintain a
defensive attitude was to court defeat. Romanovski adopted the only
tactics which afforded a chance of success. He marched from Tashkent
with a force of 14 infantry companies, 5 Cossack squadrons, 20 guns,
and a rocket apparatus, and, following the left bank of the Sir Daryā,
encountered the enemy at Irjai, between Jizāk and Khojend. The battle
that followed on the 20th May 1866 recalls Plassey: 3600 Russians
utterly routed a force of 5000 well-armed Bokhāran regulars and 35,000
horsemen with 2 guns which had taken up an entrenched position on the
road to Samarkand, on which the beaten host retreated in the utmost
disorder. That hotbed of fanaticism lay open to the invader, but he
deemed it safer to seize the fortress of Khojend, thus driving a
wedge between Bokhārā and the Kokand territories. On the 6th of June
1866 Khojend fell after a siege of eight days and a bombardment by 2
mortars and 18 field-pieces.[549] The news of the rout of Irjai, and
the capture of Khojend, created a profound dismay throughout Central
Asia; but the proud Uzbegs were loth to acknowledge themselves beaten;
and the mullās were still less inclined to forfeit the great position
which they held under so pious a ruler as Muzaffar ed-Dīn. He was
persuaded to disregard the ultimatum sent by Romanovski, and actively
pursued preparations for a new campaign. The Russians therefore took
the offensive with unabated vigour. During October they seized the
Bokhāran border strongholds of Ura-teppe and Jizāk, thus obtaining a
complete command of the valley of the Zarafshān. In the spring of 1867
Yani Kurgān was added to the list of Russian conquests, and was twice
heroically defended by General Abramoff against a Bokhāran force of
45,000 men bent on wresting it from the invader. Thus, in the middle
of 1867, the Russians found themselves masters of the great sources of
Bokhāran prosperity--the basins of the Zarafshān and the Sir Daryā. The
vast extent of this newly conquered territory, and its distance from
Orenburg, still the administrative capital of Russian Central Asia, led
to a revision of the boundaries.
By a ukase[550] dated 11th (23rd) July 1867 Turkestān was placed under
a governor-general, with headquarters at Tashkent. His authority
extended over the provinces of Sir Daryā and Semirechensk, the latter
including the vast territory lately acquired between the lakes of
Balkash and Issik Kul. General Kauffman, a general who has written his
name indelibly on Central Asian annals, was appointed to the important
post. On taking the helm he found Kokand quiescent, but Bokhārā still
in a state of suppressed excitement, which found occasional vent in
attacks on Russian outposts.
He began by making the Amīr overtures of peace, on the basis of the
_statu quo_ as regards boundaries, the grant of equal rights to
Russians and natives in the matter of trade, and the payment of a war
indemnity of 125,000 tilās.[551]
No reply was returned by the Amīr, but he obtained reinforcements
from Khiva, and massed troops to attack the Russian outpost at Jizāk.
The general, in consonance with the policy pursued by all Asiatic
conquerors, anticipated the onslaught by a forward movement. Samarkand
was the objective, the holiest of Central Asian cities, with a fierce
and crafty population and many remains of past splendour to remind
its inhabitants that it had been once the seat of an empire which
regarded Russia as an outlying province. On the 12th May 1868 Kauffman,
at the head of 3600 troops, attacked the united Bokhāran and Khivan
host, 40,000 strong, massed on the heights on the left bank of the
Zarafshān, fifteen miles from the capital. The Russians forded the
shallow river and fell upon the foe with such impetuosity that an utter
rout followed. Samarkand surrendered on the following day.[552] The
cowardly Sarts[553] offered sumptuous banquets to the victors. But a
note of warning was sounded by the Jews, whom ages of cruel oppression
had rendered friendly to the Russian cause. They were disregarded by
Kauffman, who had hurried on to capture the towns of Urgut and Katti
Kurgān, on the direct road to Bokhārā. Learning that the warlike
population of Shahrisabz had joined the movement, and were encamped
to the east of Samarkand, while the Bokhāran forces menaced Katti
Kurgān, he moved out to attack the foe. His wounded were left in the
citadel, a fortress nearly surrounded by scarped ravines in the centre
of Samarkand, under a guard of 762 men, commanded by Major Von Stempel,
under whom Colonel Nazaroff, with a chivalry equal to Outram’s,
consented to serve.
Hardly were the main body out of sight than a force of 20,000 men
from Shahrisabz were surreptitiously introduced into the city by the
treacherous inhabitants,[554] and the citadel was closely beset. It
was defended as heroically as the Residency of Lucknow had been by
a handful of Britons. Every wounded Russian capable of pointing a
rifle took his place on the ramparts; and though the enemy repeatedly
penetrated the enceinte, never did they effect a lodgment thereon. And
now provisions and ammunition ran short; 189 of the defenders were
killed or wounded, and surrender seemed inevitable. But the terrible
Kauffman heard of his brave followers’ distress from a messenger
who had contrived to slip through the beleaguering lines. He had
defeated the last remnant of Bokhārā’s forces, and was free to retrace
his steps. Like Gillespie’s vengeance on the Vellore mutineers was
that taken by Kauffman on the foe. They were smitten hip and thigh,
thousands of prisoners were massacred in cold blood, and the villainy
of the Sart inhabitants was punished by the surrender of the town for
three days to pillage by the infuriated army. The avenger was able
to report to his master that tranquillity reigned in Samarkand. The
Amīr Muzaffar was at length convinced that the Great White Tsar’s arm
was too long to be withstood or evaded. His proud spirit was crushed
by repeated misfortunes, and he implored permission to abdicate and
end his days at Mekka. But policy demanded that the ruler of Bokhārā
should be one who had learnt submission by bitter experience. Muzaffar
ed-Dīn was confirmed as Amīr, while his whilom province, Samarkand,
was incorporated with Turkestān, and placed under Lieutenant-General
Abramoff, who had given innumerable proofs of dauntless energy. The
general soon had his hands full, for the mullās were by no means
inclined to share their sovereign’s despondency. They worked upon the
ambitions of Katti Tūra, the heir-presumptive, a youth of seventeen,
whose reckless cruelties would have made him a meet successor of his
grandfather, the murderer of Stoddart and Conolly. This prince raised
the standard of revolt, and declared his father to have forfeited the
throne. He routed a detachment of Bokhāran regulars sent against him,
and took the stronghold of Karki,[555] a fortress commanding the upper
reaches of the Amū Daryā. Abramoff had little difficulty in quelling
the insurrection. He took Karshī, the cradle of the reigning dynasty,
stormed Karki, and drove the prince into the mountains which occupy the
centre of Bokhārā. Here he found no hiding-place. He was driven to the
western border of Samarkand, and finally captured through the treachery
of a peasant. The young rebel was dragged into the presence of his
outraged father, who ordered his head to be struck off and exposed at
the palace gate.
General Abramoff completed the pacification of Bokhārā by subduing
Shahrisabz, the last refuge of highland independence. He then politely
invited the Amīr to assume the sovereignty of the pacified territory.
[Illustration: CENTRAL ASIA]
So effectually was Muzaffar ed-Dīn’s proud spirit crushed by adverse
fortunes that he humbly received his province as a boon from his
Russian suzerain. He saw the once hated and despised infidels in
possession of Samarkand, the richest inheritance of his fathers,
and masters of the Zarafshān, the source of Bokhāran prosperity. He
knew that it was in their power to divert its life-giving waters and
render his capital a prey to the ever-advancing desert sands. Thus
the remainder of his days was spent in vain repentance, in indulging
“sorrow’s crown of sorrow”; and the Tsar had no more obedient vassal
than the man who had aspired to sit on the throne of Tīmūr. His later
policy has been adopted by his son, the present Amīr `Abd ul-Ahad. With
the conquest of Bokhārā and the annexation of Samarkand the fourth
great stride in the Russian advance was completed. She was mistress
of Central Asia, from the confines of China to the Amū Daryā, that
historic river which rises in the Pamirs to empty its waters into the
Sea of Aral.
These immense accessions to an empire which already rivalled that of
ancient Rome served but to open up a vista of future possibilities.
“Since the reign of Peter the Great,” wrote a contemporary Russian
author,[556] “we have advanced with diligence and at the price of
immense sacrifices across the steppes which barred our passage. They
are now left behind. Our dominion has reached the basin of two great
rivers whose waters lave thickly peopled and fertile regions. We have a
right to seek compensation for sacrifices and labours endured for more
than a century. We have a right to attain a secure frontier by pushing
our colonies up to the summit of the Himalayan range, the natural
barrier between the Russian and English possessions. When this point
has been reached, then only can we look calmly on the development of
Great Britain’s empire.” The reduction of Khiva was a corollary of that
of Bokhārā. The Khānate stretched northwards as a wedge into the newly
acquired territory and dominated the lower reaches of the Amū Daryā.
Its ruler and its entire population were bitterly hostile to Russian
designs. A Khivan contingent had fought side by side with the hosts
of Samarkand during the recent campaigns, the result of which did not
intimidate them.
In the year which followed the conquest of Samarkand, Khivan bands
penetrated the steppes of the Orenburg government and urged the
Russian Kirghiz to revolt. Caravan trade between Western Siberia was
paralysed; and in 1870 the Khān had the presumption to forbid the
export of grain.[557] General Kauffman, now in supreme command in
Turkestān, was compelled by his imperial master’s explicit instructions
to show a degree of forbearance which ill-suited his temper. He was
content to demand the release of the Russians whom the Khān still held
in slavery, and an explanation of the offensive tone adopted by his
ministers in their despatches. As is invariably the case in dealing
with Asiatics, the Russians found that moderation was mistaken for
weakness. The Khān claimed the river Emba, on the north-eastern shore
of the Caspian, as the boundary of his dominions, and endeavoured to
collect taxes from the tribes of the Ust Urt Desert, which had long
been regarded as within the Russian sphere of influence. The Kirghiz
steppes became unsafe for caravans, and postal communication between
Tashkent and Orenburg was subject to continual interruptions. It was
well known that the mullās had incited the Khān to proclaim a religious
war, and that his forces were swollen by refugees from Bokhārā. The
limits of forbearance had been reached, and the most timid adviser of
the Tsar admitted that Khiva must be reduced to impotence. The story
of the fall of the rebellious Khānate has been told often, and so
graphically that it is needless to relate it in any detail.[558] The
Russians had by this time amassed great experience in the physical
conditions to be encountered, and had profited by the lessons taught
by former disasters. Depôts for provisions were formed at each
halting-place, and columns started severally from the eastern corner
of the Caspian, Orenburg, Perovski on the Sir Daryā, and Tashkent. So
carefully had the minutest detail been worked out by the Russian staff
that the several divisions, after marching for nearly 900 miles through
waterless deserts, reached Khiva almost simultaneously. The Khān was
unable to cope with a disciplined army 14,000 strong. His capital was
taken by storm, and on the 24th of March 1873 he signed a treaty of
peace, acknowledging himself to be the humble vassal of Russia, and
agreeing to pay an indemnity of 2,500,000 roubles, and to surrender
all Russian and Persian slaves. This pact has been loyally observed on
both sides. The Khān still retains a nominal sovereignty with even less
independence than had been accorded to Bokhārā, and Khiva is _de facto_
as much a part and parcel of Russia as the government of Moscow.
Kokand, the third Khānate of Central Asia, was doomed to lose all
semblance of freedom. Its ruler had accepted the inevitable on the
defeat of his powerful neighbours, had abolished slavery, and had
striven to maintain friendly relations with Russia. But his territories
were so placed that the annexation was essential to the safety of the
eastern borders. They intervened between Turkestān and China, and were
inhabited by a fanatical population with a strong leaven of untamed
Kirghiz and Kipchāk nomads. Had Kokand possessed a firm and politic
ruler, its absorption might have been indefinitely postponed. The
reverse was the case; for the Khān, Khudā Yār, was detested by his
subjects, and rebellions frequently recurred which kept the whole of
Central Asia in a ferment.[559] A climax was reached in 1875, when,
after three years of almost incessant civil war, the Russians found
themselves compelled to intervene. Kokand was invaded by a strong
expeditionary force under General Kauffman, among whose lieutenants was
Skobeleff, destined to win imperishable glory in subsequent campaigns.
Short work was made of the Kokandis, who had dethroned their Khān
and marched under his son’s banner. They were routed with prodigious
slaughter at Makhram, and the holy city of Marghilān was occupied
without resistance. Defeats were afterwards administered to the native
levies at Andijān and Nāmangān, and on 20th February the capital was
seized by a force under Skobeleff. On the 20th March 1876 the Tsar,
Alexander II., formally authorised the annexation of Kokand as a
province of Turkestān under its ancient name, Farghāna. Skobeleff, the
ardent soldier who had so greatly contributed to the reduction of the
Khānate, became its first governor. Farghāna has a temperate climate,
and has bred a hardy and warlike population. Owing to its remoteness
from the centres served by the Transcaspian Railway, the Russian
officials were not till lately subjected to the vigorous surveillance
which is exercised over their colleagues in other provinces, and the
reins of administration were slackly held. In the spring of 1898 the
discontent inspired by alien rule, which had been sedulously fanned by
the priesthood, burst into a flame. The ringleader of the movement was
a Mohammedan monk named Ishān Mohammad `Alī Khalīfa, who claimed the
hereditary dignity of Imām, or descendant of the Prophet. He announced
that on himself had devolved the task of fulfilling a prophecy widely
received, that during the last decade of our century an Imām would
proclaim a Holy War against the infidel. As had been the case on the
eve of the Indian Mutiny, a general rising had been planned, and a
simultaneous massacre of the Russian troops throughout the province.
History repeated itself in the result of their deeply laid conspiracy.
India was saved by the premature outbreak at Mirat; and Farghāna by
the impatience of the Ishān, who on 29th May attacked a Russian camp
near Andijān before his sympathisers were ready for concerted action.
The rising was quelled with much bloodshed on either side; 18 of the
leaders were executed, and 350 were deported to North-Eastern Siberia.
The recent opening of railway lines connecting the cities of Farghāna
with Tashkent and Samarkand will render a recrudescence of the spirit
of revolt well-nigh impossible.
CHAPTER IV
TURKOMANIA AND THE TURKOMANS
The reduction of Khiva marks a new era in the history of the Russian
advance. The last semblance of organised opposition to the movement
had disappeared, and the Tsar saw himself the unquestioned suzerain of
the great Khānates. Westwards, his base was planted securely on the
Caspian, where the port of Krasnovodsk, founded in 1869 by General
Stolietoff,[560] was connected with the Russian colonies in the
Mangishlāk peninsula by a chain of strong places. The Amū Daryā, that
ancient boundary of nations, marked the limits of the new empire in the
west. But the vast tract between sea and river was still unsubdued, and
Russia’s boundary marched with that of no organised state. Here lay
the habitat of the Turkomans, a race with whom no peace or truce was
possible, and the story of their subjection forms the final chapter in
the history of the heart of Asia. The haunt of these untamed tribes
may be described as a triangle, with Khiva as its apex; its sides the
Caspian and the Amū Daryā; and its base formed by a line drawn from
the city of Balkh in Afghanistān to the south-eastern corner of the
Caspian Sea. The area thus enclosed is not far short of 240,000 square
miles, more than twice as great as that of the United Kingdom. The
north portion is a trackless waste; but it is by no means a desert
of the Sahara type, made familiar to us by so many records of
African travel. Variety is its most salient characteristic. In some
parts so firm is the surface that a horse’s hoof rings on it as on
a macadamised road. In others, again, the loose sand forms ridges
like petrified waves.[561] After the spring rains the expanse of dull
white is carpeted, as if by miracle, with gorgeous lilies, tulips, and
other bulbous plants, long grass and tufts of reed. Water is, indeed,
required to clothe the arid sand with perennial verdure, and render
it a breeding-ground for countless flocks and herds. It is found at
depths rarely exceeding thirty feet below the surface, and wells are
of frequent recurrence.[562] The only rivers of importance are the
Murghāb and the Tajand, which rise in the mountains of Afghanistān and
lose themselves in the sand; but streams innumerable descend their
flanks. In times beyond the range of history the western portion of the
Turkoman Desert was watered by the Amū Daryā, which discharged itself
into the Caspian at the head of the Bay of Michaelovsk. Owing to some
convulsion of nature, or to interference with its course by an attempt
to employ it for irrigation, the bed of the mighty stream shifted and
now discharges into the Sea of Aral. Vegetation is scanty, except
during the brief spring-time. The soil is covered, in some parts,
with the camel’s thorn, a forbidding plant which can be masticated
only by the “ship of the desert.” The perennial flora are completed
by the stunted tamarisk, a root like the stem of a rose called takh,
and a shrub termed saxaul (_haloxylon ammodendron_). The latter is
full of knots, and has a grain most difficult to cut or split, but
it is precious as fuel, and still more valuable as a means of binding
the billowy sands. These steppes contain few traces of animal life.
Herds of beautiful wild asses are sometimes seen in the distance, and
a species of antelope is oftener met with.[563] Wells are beset with a
variety of birds, which fly down to their depths in search of water.
But the stillness of the waste is intense, and the boundless horizon is
seen through the clear pure air shimmering with the heat or broken only
by a mirage. The climate of the Turkoman Desert is one of extremes.
In December and January the cold is intense. Moser, who traversed the
Kārakūm in the depth of winter, encountered a temperature of 15 degrees
below freezing-point, with squalls, snow, and glacial cold.[564] In
the summer months the heat is equally trying, and it is sometimes
accompanied by sand-storms which render respiration almost impossible.
But the Turkomans are not confined to regions so inhospitable. They
have long been established in the south-east of the Caspian, a tract
watered by the rivers Gargan and Atrak, which is swampy towards the
embouchure, but farther inland is broken by valleys as rich and full of
charm as any on the flanks of the Pyrenees.[565] The streams descending
from the Kopet Dāgh, a mountain range which separates Persia from the
Turkoman Desert, has produced a fertile belt of fifteen to twenty-five
miles wide, extending from Kizil Arvat to Giaour, a distance of 187
miles. This is the Akkal oasis. Where the Murghāb enters the desert
it forms the great Merv oasis, a land which, even in its decadence,
is one of the most fertile in the world. This ancient seat of empire,
which fell into Turkoman hands after its invasion in 1784 by the
forces of the Amīr Murād of Bokhārā, has other advantages precious to
a predatory race. It is within striking distance of Northern Persia,
and is separated from Herāt by a low range of rolling hills which offer
no obstacle to an invading horde.[566] Such is the land which, from
time immemorial, has been the haunt of one of the most interesting
races in the world. Like the Red Indians, with whom they have many
characteristics in common, they have succumbed to the ruthless force
of Western civilisation; and a study of their traditions and usages
possesses the greater interest because both will soon disappear under
the process of Russification to which Central Asia is being subjected.
In the opinion of a well-known living authority,[567] the Turkomans
belong to a branch of the Turkish race inhabiting the Altaī Mountains
and the upper regions of the Yenesei and Irtish in Mid-Siberia. Long
before the Christian era the pressure of population led them to
migrate southwards and eastwards, and, following in all probability
the old course of the Oxus, their hordes spread over the great steppes
extending from the Caspian to the Hindu Kush. The appellation by which
the race has for centuries been known is considered by Vambéry to be
derived from “Turk,” a proper name which the nomads always employ when
speaking of themselves, and “men,” a suffix equivalent to the English
“ship” or “dom.” That the Turkomans were identical with the Parthians,
who were so long a thorn in the side of the Roman Empire, admits of
little doubt, and the supposition derived from identity of racial
character finds corroboration in the fact that the Dahæ,[568] a famous
Parthian tribe, dwelt in ancient days in the region between the Balkans
and the river Atrak, which is still called Dehistān. But the strangers
from the icy north were not long contented to roam over steppes which
were well-nigh as hospitable as those of Siberia. They smelt booty in
the richly watered slopes of the Kopet Dāgh and the populous cities of
Northern Persia. The era of the Sāmānides (A.D. 218–639) was one of
constant struggles between these unwelcome immigrants and the settled
Iranians of Northern Persia, and history repeated itself in the ruin
and desolation which befell the latter. Towards the end of the Middle
Ages the northern portion of the old empire of Darius was given up
to Turkoman tribes bent on war and pillage. At this date we find
them divided into many tribes. The most famous were the Salors, who
possessed some at least of the traits of the noble savage of fiction.
They dwelt at the edge of the hills on the oasis formed by the Murghāb
and Tajand. In the twelfth century the Sultan Sanjar, the greatest
of the Seljūkides, was defeated by the Kara and Alieli Turkomans at
Andakhūy and Maymena, where both are still to be found. The Balkan
Mountains in the sixteenth century looked down on Ersari encampments,
and at an earlier date the peninsula of Mangishlāk was roamed over by
various tribes. For centuries unnumbered the Turkomans were free from
foreign influence, and maintained the primitive ferocity and power for
aggression unleavened by intercourse with civilisation. They found
their master in rare exceptions to the long succession of debauchees
who filled the throne of Persia. In the seventeenth century Shāh `Abbās
the Great (1585–1626) drove them from the rich valleys of the Kopet
Dāgh and planted colonies of 15,000 Kurds along the crest, in the not
altogether vain hope that these scourges of Asia Minor would hold their
neighbours in check. Nādir Shāh, infamous for the bloodshed attending
his capture of Delhi, was himself a Turkoman, and proved more than a
match for his kinsmen. In 1796 Āghā Mohammad, the first sovereign of
the reigning dynasty, who was also of Turkoman origin, took effectual
measures to protect his frontier, and, had his brief career not been
brought to a close by the assassin’s dagger, he would doubtless
have tamed these fierce children of the desert. His successor, Fath
`Alī Shāh, attempted the process, and in 1813 the Turkoman tribes
appealed to the Tsar of Russia for assistance against him. Alexander
I., however, was then engaged in rolling back the tide of Napoleon’s
invasion, and was powerless to help them, thus exciting an intense
irritation. We obtain a glimpse of the position occupied by the
Turkoman tribes in 1831 in the pages of Burnes.[569] At that date the
Tekkes were second to no tribe in numbers, though they had not reached
the commanding position which they attained at the eve of the Russian
conquest. This section of the Turkoman race is found at the dawn of
their history occupying the Isthmus of Mangishlāk, on the north-eastern
coast of the Caspian. Driven thence in 1718 by the Kalmaks, they
dislodged the Yamuds from Kizil Arvat, and the Kurds and Alielis from
the strip of fertile land at the basis of the Kopet Dāgh, known as the
Akkal oasis. Their name, which in our tongue signifies “Mountain Goat,”
is said to be derived from the agility with which they urged their
horses over the ravines on the mountain side. The Tekkes proclaimed
their allegiance to the Khān of Khiva, and each village paid a tribute
of a camel, but they were forced to recognise the supremacy of Nādir
Shāh. Until the commencement of the present century they were confined
to the limits of the oasis; but population began to press too heavily
on the means of subsistence, which, in Central Asia, is synonymous
with water. The cultivation spread to such an extent that the _arīks_,
or small irrigation canals, proved unequal to its necessities. Hence,
about 1830, 10,000 families migrated eastwards and established
themselves on the banks of the Tajand. Here they built a fort, called
after their chief, Oraz Khān Kal`a. The total number of Tekke tents or
kibitkas[570] is put by Burnes at 40,000.
[Illustration: THE SEA OF SAND IN THE KARA-KUM DESERT]
[Illustration: THE SEA OF SAND IN THE KARA-KUM DESERT]
At that epoch the Ersaris roamed over the Upper Oxus, and were equally
numerous with the Tekkes. The Merv oasis was inhabited by the Sāriks,
numbering 20,000 tents, who were engaged in a struggle with the
Khivans, then temporary masters of Merv. The Yamuds, about as numerous
as the Sāriks, wandered between Khiva and Astrabad in Khorāsān, while
the territory watered by the Atrak and Gurgān was inhabited by the
Gokhlans, who acknowledged the sway of Persia. Finally the Salors,
who made up by courage for the paucity of their numbers, held the
upper reaches of the Tajand near Sarakhs. In 1832 their constant
ravages led to reprisals on the Persian side. They were attacked by
an overwhelming force under `Abbās Mīrzā, son of Shāh Fath `Alī, and
after a desperate resistance their stronghold, Sarakhs, was captured.
The survivors fled northwards and occupied the Yoletan oasis, south
of Merv. Meantime the Tekkes, who had settled in the upper reaches of
the Tajand, had been desolating the northern possessions of Persia,
and the cry of the harassed inhabitants reached the capital. Vigorous
measures were ordered by the Shāh, and in 1845 Āsaf ud-Dawlé, the
governor of Khorāsān, fell on their settlements and utterly destroyed
them. The Tekkes, ousted from their coign of vantage, sought refuge in
the Akkal oasis, but it was already over-peopled, and their brethren
there were constrained to refuse them ingress. They finally obtained
Āsaf ud-Dawlé’s leave to settle in Sarakhs, which had been depopulated
thirteen years earlier by the expulsion of the Salors. At first they
respected the Persian territory, for the energetic governor of Khorāsān
had shown that he knew how to deal with them. Their relations with
Khiva were very different, for that Khānate was surrounded by nomad
tribes, and had no outlet for the prowess of their cavalry save in
conflict with them. Mohammad Amīn Khān, then sovereign of Khiva,
stormed Sarakhs and left a viceroy with a garrison there. Hardly was
his back turned when the Tekkes rose at the intruders and put them to
the sword. This outrage brought the Khān again into the field. He laid
siege to Sarakhs, but, while directing the operations upon a mound on
the right bank of the Harī Rūd, was surprised by a body of Turkomans
and decapitated. His head was sent to the Shāh and his body to Khiva
for burial. The Tekkes were encouraged by this brilliant success to
resume their raids into Persia, and again the governor of Khorāsān was
provoked to retaliate. He burnt Sarakhs and drove the Tekkes northwards
as far as Merv, which had, with one brief interval, been held by the
Sāriks since its devastation by the Amīr of Bokhārā in 1784. The
inhabitants resisted the Tekkes’ invasion with the fierce jealousy
which reigned between all Turkoman tribes. They implored help of the
Persians, and the governor of Khorāsān forthwith marched on Merv with
18 battalions and 7000 cavalry. The Tekkes, finding themselves between
two fires, offered submission to Persia, and rendered it acceptable by
costly gifts. Then they turned on the churlish Sāriks, and drove them
from Merv to the oases of Yoletan and Panjdih in the upper reaches
of the Murghāb, dispossessing in their turn the Salors, who, with
the permission of the Persian authorities, settled at Zarābād on the
left bank of the Harī Rūd.[571] Thus the pressure of population in
the Akkal oasis led to a dispersal of the Tekkes who inhabited it. In
little more than a quarter of a century we find them masters of the
wondrously fertile lands irrigated by the Murghāb, after dislodging
the former occupants and destroying a force sent against them by the
greatest of Khivan rulers. On taking possession of their conquest the
Tekkes began to develop its resources according to their lights. They
made a rude dam twenty-five miles above Merv, and excavated twenty-four
small canals which irrigated lands sufficient to support 48,000
families.[572] But they were as far from being peaceful cultivators as
ever. They overran the whole of Khorāsān, and carried their raids 450
miles south of its capital, Meshed. Stung to madness by the desolation
thus wrought, the Persians planned a systematic vengeance.
In 1860 they built a fort as a basis of their operations, which they
called New Sarakhs, opposite the old citadel of that name. Then, in
the following year, the commander-in-chief advanced against Merv with
a force of 12,000 infantry, 10,000 horsemen, and 33 guns. The Tekkes,
in great alarm, offered submission and a substantial tribute. But
the Persian general, confident in his numbers and armament, would
hear of no compromise. The tribesmen, compelled to fight for life and
freedom, acquitted themselves with a gallantry which inspired terror
in the invaders. The Persian artillerymen and infantry were slain or
captured to a man, and the guns served twenty years after to arm a
citadel which the Tekkes built as a defence against an anticipated
Russian attack.[573] The cavalry alone, including the cowardly
commander-in-chief, found safety in flight, and so great was the glut
of prisoners that the price of a Persian slave in Khivan and Bokhāran
markets fell to a sum equal to a pound sterling.[574] This was the last
organised attempt from the Persian side to subvert Tekke independence,
and the tribe, settled firmly in the great oases of Akkal and Merv,
were free to pursue their lawless impulses at the expense of their
neighbours. For Persia was not alone in serving as a quarry. The fierce
children of the steppes carried rapine and murder within a few miles of
the citadel of Herāt,[575] and spread far and wide a terror as abject
as that inspired by the Danish pirates in the coast towns of Saxon
England. Such is the history of the rise of the Tekke division of the
Turkoman race to a position which rendered it the chief obstacle to
the Russian advance. It is a modern reproduction, in miniature, of the
great Mongol movement which, starting seven centuries ago, has not yet
spent its force. Like the other Turkoman tribes, the Tekkes were ranged
in divisions and clans--the Tokhtamish inhabiting the eastern portion
of the Merv oasis, while the Otamish occupied the western. In the
extreme east lived the Beks.[576] These great divisions were split up
into minor ones, and the latter again ramified into clans.
The organisation applied to Tekkes of the Akkal and Merv oases alike,
for members of the various sections were scattered over the entire
territory in their occupation.[577] Government among the Tekkes of
every tribe was a pure democracy.[578] Affairs of state were discussed
by an assembly consisting of the entire population. These gatherings
elected a Khān to represent the executive by acclamation, and withdrew
the dignity when the chosen one ceased to please. The office was
not an object of ambition, for the Khān’s authority was little more
than a matter of form. He had forty jigits, or attendants, to enforce
order; but he had not the power of the purse. For special purposes
a tribal representative, termed Ikhtiyār, was chosen by the popular
assembly. Thus, in 1881, O’Donovan found one at Merv who had been
sent to treat with the Shāh of Persia at Teheran.[579] In latter days
the tribe exhibited a tendency to follow the ordinary evolution of a
state, which is from a democracy to a hereditary monarchy acquired by
the sword. The new departure began with a famous chieftain named Nūr
Verdi Khān, who had led the Tekkes in the victories over the Khivans,
the Persians, and the Sāriks. He was intrepid, just, and hospitable,
moulded in the stamp of those who carve for themselves empire, and his
influence was so great that he was permitted to hand over the chiefship
of the Akkal Tekkes to his son Makhdūm Kulī Khān,[580] when he assumed
that of the Merv oasis. The growth of the hereditary principle was
doubtless fostered by the sense of impending danger from the Russian
avalanche. In earlier times an attempt to introduce it would have been
fiercely resisted by the untamed nomads. Old age and experience alone
commanded weight, and the yoke of Mohammedanism, elsewhere so heavy
in the East, pressed but lightly on these popular assemblies. Though
nominally Sunnis or orthodox followers of the Prophet, the Turkomans
practised few of the interminable observances prescribed by the Koran;
and the mullās, mostly steeped in ignorance, possessed no influence
over them.[581] But the Tekkes felt instinctively the impossibility of
maintaining democratic methods in times of stress. Military operations
were confided to the tribesmen of known valour and intelligence,
termed Sardārs,[582] who had a minute knowledge of the country to be
traversed, and were intrusted with the direction of the raids, which
were the main object of the Turkoman’s existence. Thus did these
banditti acquire prisoners who could be held to ransom, and slaves who
found a ready market in the neighbouring Khānates. The things needed
were a good horse, arms,[583] and a contempt for death. “He who puts
his hand to his sword-hilt,” runs a Turkoman proverb, “hath no need to
ask for a good reason.” “On horseback,” says another, “a Tekke knows
neither father nor mother.” When one of these natural leaders of men
determined on a foray, he planted his lance, surmounted by a flag, in
the ground in front of his kibitka, and invited all good Musulmans, in
the name of the Prophet, to range themselves under his banner.
The call to arms was rarely disregarded; and the Sardār soon found
his tent besieged by several hundreds, or even thousands, of warriors
prepared to yield him a blind obedience. He fixed the date and place
of gathering, but the object was not disclosed. On the day prescribed
his followers assembled, each on a well-trained stallion, and leading
spare horses with provisions. If the object of attack lay in the plains
of Khorāsān, the Kopet Dāgh Mountains were scaled by one of the three
passes practicable to Tekke horsemen. On reaching the southern slopes,
the provisions were left in some sure retreat, known only to the
Sardār, under the charge of a few horsemen, while the day was spent in
preparing for the raid.[584] Far in the valley below lay the village
destined to destruction. The smoke curled upwards from its white
cottages embowered in forest trees. The old men gossiped in the evening
sun; the maidens were bringing home the cattle from the pastures.
This was the moment chosen for the onslaught. In a few moments the
village street was thronged with fierce Turkomans bending low over the
saddle-bow and hacking and stabbing right and left. Then the survivors,
with the cattle and valuables, were gathered together and hurried off
to the robbers’ lair. When pursuit was feared, 100 or even 130 miles
were traversed ere rein was drawn. The girls and child captives, being
more valuable than adults, were carried at some warrior’s saddle-bow,
but all able to run were dragged in chains behind the captors. When
they sank from fatigue their sufferings were ended by a thrust from
the long Turkoman dagger. If the quarry were a Kurd village, greater
precautions were needed, for every settlement had its tower into which
the population fled on an alarm being given. These fortresses were
sometimes stormed while the defenders slept, and the garrison stabbed
with fiendish ferocity. In dealing with caravans, the Turkomans lay in
wait for their prey in the vicinity of wells,[585] and swooped down
on the travellers during their halt. At other times they hung on the
outskirts of the procession of camels and cut off stragglers. Success
depended on the suddenness of attack; and if it failed it was seldom
repeated, for bravery was not a characteristic of the Turkoman, except
when the safety and honour of his family were at stake. Then, as the
Russians found to their cost, they fought like lions.
For the slaves a ready market was found in the Khānates of Khiva
and Bokhārā, whence dealers visited Tekke settlements at frequent
intervals. The traffic was of ancient date, and, until the advent
of the Russians, was recognised by law and custom. Florio Beneveni,
an Italian who passed some time at Bokhārā in the early part of the
eighteenth century, informed Peter the Great that 3000 Russians were
held captive there, and, at the commencement of our own, Mouravieff
reported that a similar number languished in bondage in Khiva.[586]
Wolff, writing in 1843, estimated the number of Persian slaves in
Bokhārā at 200,000, and those detained at Khiva about the same period
were stated by Major Abbott to exceed 700,000. The price paid varied
with the age of the prisoner, children and young girls being twice as
valuable as adults.
But the Tekke considered his steed as even more indispensable than a
trusted leader to success in pursuing his inherited instinct. The fame
of the Turkoman horse is as old as Alexander’s days. Tīmūr improved
the breed by distributing 5000 Arab stallions among the tribesmen,
and in our own day Shāh Nāsir ud-Dīn, of Persia, unwisely sent 600
to his ancient foes.[587] But the Turkoman’s innocent ally in his
marauding expeditions showed hardly any traces of Arab ancestry. He
was big, leggy, and narrow-chested, with a high crupper, large head,
and sloping quarters.[588] The neck and tail showed none of the proud
curves which characterise the courser of Yemen. At short distances he
was no match for the English thoroughbred; but with careful training
and special diet he was able to amble for 60 or 70 miles a day for
an almost unlimited period.[589] When hard pressed, a Tekke has been
known to travel with two steeds at the rate of 160 miles a day, and
even more. The endurance of the horseman was even more remarkable,
for he could keep his saddle for twenty hours out of the twenty-four
during eight consecutive days.[590] The Tekke stallions--mares were
rarely ridden--were not indulged in stabling, but picketed outside
their owner’s tent, and preserved against cold by layers of felt,[591]
the number of which increased with his age. They were never removed
without the greatest precaution, and served to maintain the coat in
a lustrous sheen, though a knife and a piece of felt were the only
substitutes for the currycomb, brush, and clippers of Western stables.
On these coverings was placed the wooden saddle with a high peak, which
was covered with a piece of coloured silk tied across the chest. The
Turkoman’s warmest affections were lavished on his steed, with whom he
would share the last drop of water, the last handful of barley meal.
The whip was carried merely for show, and spurs were unknown. His
attachment was repaid by his dumb friend, whose fiercest encounter with
another stallion could be stayed by his master’s well-known accents.
The daily life of the Turkoman varied with the category to which
he belonged. Those who adopted a nomad existence were styled
_Chomry_,[592] and dwellers in fixed habitations _Charva_; but they
passed from one stage to the other at their own inclination, wealth
being the prevailing factor.[593] The nomads wandered on the banks of
the rivers and the limits of the desert where the mountain streams
had not been absorbed by the thirsty sands. Their herds were their
only wealth, and they rarely pitched their felt abodes for more than
three days at any spot. The Chomry, or sedentary Turkomans, dwelt
for a portion of the year in fastnesses termed _kal`a_, open spaces
crowded with their tents, and fortified with clay walls flanked by
towers. Around them spread the fields and gardens of the _aul_, in
which barley, juwārī (_holcus sorghum_), rice, and finely flavoured
melons were produced in abundance, thanks to the water distributed by
the _arīks_, or irrigation canals. In times of stress the fortresses,
which had but a single gate, formed places of refuge. At the eve of
the Russian conquest[594] the whole Akkal oasis was covered with these
strongholds. They stretched in a single line, afterwards in two or
more lines, from Kizil Arvat to Askabad. The great stronghold of Geok
Teppe, destined to give the Russians so much trouble, was situated
in the broadest part of the oasis; Askabad, now the headquarters of
Transcaspia, was a congeries of eight of these fortified villages.
The physiognomy of the Turkoman betrays the indelible Mongolian
type. He is above the middle height, of a dark olive complexion, with
prominent cheek-bones, and small almond eyes, shifty, and glittering
with intelligence.[595] His nose is generally broad and uplifted
at the extremity, his lips thick, and moustaches scanty. The ears
are very large, and stand up from the head. The senses of smell and
hearing are as strongly developed as those of the Red Indian.[596]
In the female the Mongolian strain is even more visible. Their hair
is short, but very thick and coarse. In youth they are tall and well
formed, with every movement full of grace.[597] Their rosy cheeks give
a charm to features destined in early middle-life to become a network
of wrinkles. No characteristic of savage life is so marked as the
rapid decay of beauty. The Turkoman dress has changed but little since
he met the Roman legionaries in battle grip. It consists of a long
crimson tunic of coarse Bokhāran silk, with slender black and yellow
combined stripes.[598] Over this is worn a loose dressing-gown, termed
_jabba_, descending below the knee, of black or dark brown material,
which in summer is of cotton and in winter of camel’s hair or wool. The
wealthier adopt the Uzbeg costume of several jabbas of coarse Bokhārā
silk, confined by waistbands of silk over a shirt and pantaloons of
the same material. The legs are covered with thick socks of a checked
pattern, and the feet with high metal-heeled slippers just large
enough to admit the insertion of the toe. They are slow and ungraceful
walkers, and show to more advantage when on horseback. Then the jabba
is tucked into wide leather boots of a Hessian pattern, giving a
most ungainly appearance to the equestrian. But the distinguishing
mark of the Turkoman is his large cylindrical head-covering of black
sheep-skin, termed kalpak. It is worn over a skull-cap fitting tightly
to the half-shaved head, and is far less heavy than its appearance
would imply. The women’s dress consists in long floating skirts of
red or blue silk.[599] The bosom is covered with a sort of cuirass
of silver plaques, coins and amulets, the trophies of her husband’s
prowess in war or raids. The wealthier add bracelets of thick silver,
and collars with plates suspended therefrom, like that worn by Jewish
high priests. Married women confine their stubborn locks in a small,
round, embroidered bonnet, while those of young girls cover their
shoulders. On occasions of ceremony a casque of open silver-work is
worn over a red cloth cap, giving a Minerva-like appearance.[600] The
face is partly covered by the end of a silk mantila or _burunjak_.
The character of the Turkomans before the process of Russification
began was a compound of the virtues and the vices to be found in
half-tamed races of the higher type. He has been branded as an
irreclaimable savage because he wrought untold misery on the helpless
populations within striking distance of his own den.
But no greater mistake can be made by the student of ethics than to
judge men of other nationalities by the standard of right and wrong
maintaining in our own.[601] It would be as unjust to blame the
Turkomans for the bluntness of their moral sense in the matter of
raids as to condemn George Washington because he did not think fit to
emancipate his slaves. By dint of inherited instinct the inhabitant of
Merv and Akkal had come to regard depredations as a necessary incident
of his daily life. His barbarous insensibility while engaged in an
_alaman_ was not inconsistent with the exercise of solid virtues. He
was hospitable to a fault, and is so at the present day, though the
advent of Russians has sorely curtailed his means. A stranger was made
welcome to the Tekke’s smoky kibitka, and was safe beneath its shelter.
He was invited to share the family meal, were it thick cakes of
unleavened bread pilaw,[602] compressed curds, or rice boiled with sour
milk. For his delectation the tea-pot, the Persian watet-pipe,[603]
the chess-board, and the clarionet[604] were produced, and he was
forced to listen till dawn to tales of ancient prowess, to legends of
Iskandar and Tīmūr, those twin heroes of Central Asian romance. And
there was a strain of inbred nobility in the nomad characters. They
were robbers on occasion; but they scorned to pilfer. Espionage was
unknown amongst them. Rarely, indeed, was the foul abuse so common in
Mohammedan countries heard from Tekke lips. His most scathing epithet
was “coward.” His faults were those of other races which have not come
into contact with civilisation. He was greedy, self-indulgent,[605]
and prone to take every advantage possible of a wealthy stranger. His
childish curiosity and utter disregard of that which is conventionally
termed good manners were equally conspicuous. In one essential, indeed,
which is rightly considered to indicate an advanced culture, he shone
by contrast with the people of every other country governed by the
Koran. His women-folk were free from those restraints which dwarf
the intelligence and degrade the moral sense. They went unveiled,
and associated freely with the tribesmen and even with sojourners in
their tents. And yet the standard of chastity was comparatively high;
while in times of stress the Tekke girls fought desperately by their
husbands’ side. It must be admitted that misdeeds were punished with
a dagger-thrust, and that, in a Tekke’s affections, a wife ranks far
below a horse. She rose early to bake her husband’s bread, cooked and
fetched water for him, and presumed not to eat till he had finished
his meal. Her industry was extraordinary.[606] Her embroidery was
once a marvel of good taste, and she still weaves carpets which are
unrivalled in Asia for beauty and durability. The superintendent of the
state domains at Bahrām `Alī, near Merv, has specimens which are more
than three centuries old and are yet as brilliant as if they had just
left the loom.[607] The method of manufacture can be watched in every
Turkoman village.
[Illustration: TURKOMAN MUSICIANS]
The warp is merely a piece of canvas pegged out on the ground, with
the transverse threads removed. The weaver, who crouches over her
handiwork, takes a pinch of coloured wool and, with a deft twist of
her fingers, attaches it to one of the horizontal threads, pressing
it afterwards into position with a heavy wooden comb. It is a curious
fact that the intricate patterns are never committed to paper, and have
been handed down from mother to daughter from generations unnumbered.
The marriage customs of the Turkomans are unique. Polygamy is permitted
by the Mohammedan law, but rarely can a Tekke afford the separate
kibitka and establishment which any wife is entitled to demand. Wedded
life begins early--at fourteen or fifteen for males, and in the case
of girls before the age of puberty. As married women wear no veils,
a youth has little difficulty in selecting his future bride. When a
damsel has found favour in his eyes he waits on her father and offers
a given price for her--slaves, horses, or cattle to the value of £40
to £80. This essential once agreed upon, the father-in-law presents
the young couple with a new kibitka, _āk ev_, untarnished by smoke, in
which the relatives assemble. Then a mullā recites a few verses from
the Koran--and the wedded pair are left to themselves.[608] Should the
price agreed on be not paid, at once the bride returns to her parents
after a brief honeymoon. In old times her absence stimulated the
youthful husband to prowess in distant raids, which afforded the only
opportunity of gaining the needful wealth.
CHAPTER V
THE LAST STEP IN ADVANCE
The ignominious campaign of 1861 was the last organised effort
put forward by Persia to protect her northern provinces. Secure
in a splendid strategic position,[609] the Tekkes extended their
devastations far and wide. When, in 1871, a fearful famine[610] more
than decimated the population of Khorāsān, bands of Tekke horsemen
took advantage of their neighbours’ weakness to sweep the entire
province with their marauding parties. It would have been an easy
task to check the aggression which depopulated the richest province
of Persia and caused incredible misery to the people. But so utterly
corrupt was the administration of the Shāh that the governing class
found its account in encouraging the perpetrators. Troops were
paid for by Government which existed only on paper, and the local
authorities shared in the Tekkes’ booty. The first effectual blow
struck at this gigantic machinery for plunder and oppression was the
direct result of the Khivan campaign of 1873. General Kauffman had
encountered some opposition from the Yomud Turkomans who ranged the
desert of Khiva, and he was not a man to tolerate half-measures. He
waged a war of extermination against this once powerful tribe, and
the ruthless cruelty that attended it struck terror throughout the
southern steppes. The Gokhlan Turkomans, inhabiting the estuary of the
Atrak and the rich valleys behind it, had been brought to heel by an
energetic governor of the Persian province of Bajnard in 1869,[611]
and their piracies on the Caspian had been put down with a strong
hand by the Russian naval authorities.[612] With the pacification of
Khiva, too, came the formation, in 1874, of a Transcaspian military
district, subordinate to the Caucasus,[613] which was placed under
the governorship of Major-General Lomakin. On the north-west the
Tekkes saw an iron wall arise which checked their aggressions and was
a standing menace to their independence. Nor were the prospects in
the west of their habitat more encouraging. The Russian treaties with
Khiva and Bokhārā forbade slavery, and closed the principal markets
for the captives of their bow and spear. In 1877 the Tekkes turned to
Persia, and made her an offer of their allegiance in return for support
against the white man’s encroachments. This contingency was not to be
regarded with equanimity by the Russians, for they rightly considered
the Turkomans as within the sphere of influence of the Transcaspian
district.[614] Nor were commercial considerations wanting. Russia was
by this time the virtual mistress of the Khānates, and was directly
interested in the development of their trade; but caravans were unable
to cross the Turkoman Desert while the nomads remained untamed, and
were driven to take circuitous routes in order to reach the commercial
centre of Orenburg.[615] And the authorities in St. Petersburg were
still dominated by the schemes first promulgated by Peter the Great
for diverting the course of the Oxus into the Caspian, and regarded
the Turkoman Desert as a potential breeding-ground for cattle which
would supply the home markets with hides. The Tsar Alexander II. was
thus led, much against his wish, to permit his lieutenants to adopt
a forward policy against the one obstacle to the Russification of
Central Asia. In the spring of 1877 General Lomakin received orders
to occupy the Tekke fortress of Kizil Arvat,[616] 200 miles east of
Krasnovodsk. He set out on the 12th of April with 9 companies of
infantry, 2 squadrons of Cossacks, and 8 guns, and soon came to blows
with the Tekkes. His artillery and arms of precision struck terror
into their hearts. They dispersed and afterwards sent delegates from
every village of the Akkal oasis to offer submission; but Lomakin did
not wait to receive it. Seized with a sudden panic, he retreated on
the 9th of June. Then came the Russo-Turkish War, and the Tsar had
more than enough to occupy his attention nearer home. The Turkomans
were left unmolested for a while,[617] but hardly had peace been
restored ere measures were concerted against the tribesmen. In April
of that year General Lazareff advanced with an expeditionary force
from Chikisliar, near the mouth of the Atrak, and on his death, which
took place at Chat, higher up that river, command was assumed by
General Lomakin. The Kopet Dāgh Mountains were crossed by the Bendesen
Pass; and on 9th September an attack was delivered on the Turkomans’
entrenched camp at Dangil Teppe,[618] which contained 15,000 Tekke
warriors, with 5000 women and children. The kibitkas, crowded within
its clay ramparts, were raked by artillery fire, and the fugitives
were driven back into this hell on earth by Russian cavalry. On 9th
September an attempt was made to storm the stronghold, but, maddened
by their losses, and inspired by their women to resist, the Tekkes
fought like demons. Lomakin was defeated with a loss of 450 killed and
wounded, and retreated on Chikisliar with the remains of his shattered
force. The news of his reverse was carried at lightning speed through
the length and breadth of Central Asia. Turkoman bands made their
appearance on the Amū Daryā, proclaiming the victory with all the
hyperbole which is a special gift of Asiatics. They even presented
the Khān of Khiva with Russian rifles and revolvers abandoned during
the abortive siege of Dangil Teppe, alleging that the spoils of war
were so abundant that they had no use for them.[619] Their raids were
carried on with greater activity than ever. At the commencement of
1880 a horde 3000 strong swept the banks of the Amū Daryā in Bokhāran
territory and plundered some villages close to the fortress of Charjūy.
The shock to Russian prestige can be compared only to that suffered
by ourselves when the news of the Mirat rising in 1857 was flashed by
telegraph over India. Even the dauntless Skobeleff began to despair
of the destinies of his country. “If we consider our position during
the last six years,” he wrote to St. Petersburg, “we cannot avoid
regarding the abyss which opens before us with terror, for it may
well disorganise the economic and political condition of the empire.
The English[620] have succeeded in convincing Asiatics that they
have forced us to stop before Constantinople and abandon the Balkan
peninsula. Thanks to their agents’ zeal, a version of the Treaty of
Berlin, very disadvantageous to ourselves, has been spread throughout
Asia. Great God, what sacrifices of blood and honour will this peace,
so painful to Russian hearts, entail!” To this illustrious soldier the
Tsar turned in his perplexity. A better choice could not have been
made. Michael Dmitriavitch Skobeleff was, at this epoch, in the prime
of life,[621] and at the zenith of his preternatural activity. His
military career had begun at the age of twenty, and, two years later,
he won his spurs during the Polish Rebellion. Between 1871–1875 he
was in the thick of Central Asian affairs, one of the leaders against
Khiva, and the conqueror of Kokand. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878
found employment for him nearer home. He commanded the left wing at
the storming of Plevna, and afterwards took Adrianople; but experience
and military genius are of small avail without that magnetic personal
attraction which is inborn only in the greatest leaders. Skobeleff
possessed this heaven-sent gift. “He was the God of War personified,”
said his trusted lieutenant, General Kurapatkine; and his troops loved
him with a passionate ardour which no general has inspired since the
days of Napoleon. A conference took place in January 1880 between the
Tsar Alexander II. and his brilliant subject, followed by others at
the Ministry of War presided over by General Miliutine. The ways and
means were fully discussed. It became clear that the failure of 1879
was due to defective transport. The camels on which General Lomakin
relied perished by thousands in the desert, and he found himself, at
a critical moment, without the means of continuing the siege of Geok
Teppe.[622] By one of those happy inspirations which flash on the brain
of men of genius, Skobeleff was led to invoke the aid of steam. He knew
that the desert was a dead level, without rivers to bridge, and that a
scarcity of water was the only difficulty before his engineers. Nay,
his eagle eye ranged far beyond the needs of the moment, and clearly
foresaw the advantages which would flow from a railway connecting
the Caspian and the Amū Daryā.[623] A special railway battalion was
formed, and materials for a portable line on the Decauville system were
brought to Uzun Ada, the base on the Gulf of Michaelovsk. Before the
close of 1880 the section between that post and Mullā Kārī, a distance
of thirteen miles, was completed. The control of the expedition was
vested in the commander-in-chief of the Caucasus, but a free hand was
practically given to Skobeleff, who was named “Temporary Commander of
Troops operating in Transcaspia.” He obtained full powers to prepare
and execute military operations, to negotiate with the neighbouring
native states, and to organise the administration of conquered
territories. Skobeleff knew that Orientals attach an exaggerated
importance to artillery. “To conquer,” he said, “is to astonish.”
Nothing has so marked an effect in Asia as the thunder of great guns
and the havoc wrought by shell-fire. He stipulated for ten pieces of
artillery for every 10,000 of numerical strength. Lomakin’s abortive
attack on Dangil Teppe had demonstrated the power possessed by dense
masses of felt-covered kibitkas to resist artillery fire. Skobeleff
asked for and obtained a large supply of shells charged with petroleum,
which masters the least inflammable materials. Lastly, a plentiful
supply of water is essential in a tract where the heavens are clear
for many consecutive months. A complete distillery was established
at Krasnovodsk, and it supplied no less than 750,000 gallons daily
to the troops. But the personal equation overrides the most complete
material equipment. “In war,” said Napoleon, “men are nothing; a man
is everything.” The general bethought him of one who had been the
chief of his staff in the recent struggle with Turkey, and had shown
in the darkest days of Plevna the noblest form of courage--that which
stands undismayed in the presence of disaster. This was Colonel Alexis
Kurapatkine, who is now Minister of War at St. Petersburg. He was
resting at Samarkand from the fatigues of a recent campaign in Kulja,
on the Chinese frontier, but he hastened to obey his loved master’s
call. Starting from Samarkand in November 1880, with a detachment 500
strong, he hurried through Bokhārā to Charjūy, barely three days’
ride from the Tekke lair at Merv; then, fetching a long détour by way
of Khiva to avoid the Tekke bands with which the desert swarmed, he
joined headquarters on 24th December. Well might Skobeleff say of
him, “Kurapatkine is the only man capable of performing so dangerous
a mission.” The general’s staff was strengthened by other great
authorities in Central Asian warfare--Petrusevitch, unrivalled for his
knowledge of the Turkomans; Grodekoff, and Leokovitch, professor at
the War Academy. Meantime Skobeleff had reached Chikisliar in May, and
after a general survey of the situation had pushed forward to Bami, a
Turkoman post at the entrance of the Akkal oasis, which commands the
route by way of Chikisliar and Krasnovodsk, and is only seventy miles
from the capital, Geok Teppe. He occupied this stronghold on the 10th
of June, and on the 13th of the following month advanced at the head of
1000 men to reconnoitre the enemy’s central settlement. Arriving on the
fourth day at Egman Batir, a Tekke village six miles from Geok Teppe,
he formed an entrenched camp there and sallied forth to inspect the
Tekkes’ position. He found them crowded into three camps, surrounded
by clay ramparts. The fort at the base of the hills was known as Yangi
Kal`a; the second, or central position, Dangil Teppe, from a mound at
the north-western corner; the third was an insignificant collection of
huts, called Geok Teppe, which, by a process akin to that which has
produced the nomenclature of Arbela and Waterloo, has given its name to
the scene of the last great battle of Central Asia. Having ascertained
that the hornets’ nest could be taken only after a regular siege,
Skobeleff’s little band returned to Bami, which had been christened
Fort Samursk. He was harassed during retirement by clouds of Turkomans,
whose activity in checking the arrival of supplies extended far into
the rear of the Russian advanced base at Kizil Arvat. The ensuing
months were occupied in active preparation for the siege. A force
of 12,000 men and 100 guns had been summoned from the Caucasus, and
the Russians were engaged in completing the railway and providing the
vast mass of stores needed for a march through 300 miles of desert. In
the beginning of December 1880 all preparations were completed, and
Skobeleff advanced in force, occupying all the Tekke settlements in
succession between Bami and Egman Batir, or Samursk. He arrived at this
point of vantage on the 16th December. A reconnaissance made on the
following day showed the majority of the foe massed in Dangil Teppe,
the central encampment, an irregular parallelogram with an area of a
square mile. It was surrounded by a mud wall with a profile 18 feet
thick, and 10 feet high on the interior side, the exterior varying
with the soil, but averaging, perhaps, 15 feet; a ditch which could
not have been more than 4 feet deep. At the north-west corner was the
mound from which the fortress derived its name, on which was planted
the only piece of artillery possessed by the Turkomans--an antiquated
smooth-bore captured from the Persians. The 30,000 Tekkes massed within
these rude entrenchments obtained water from a stream which flowed
through the place. This the Russians intentionally refrained from
diverting, lest the quarry should desert its lair under cover of the
night. No forward movement was made for more than a week. The interval
was probably spent in forming depôts for supplies; but it is, perhaps,
more than a coincidence that the next movement took place on the 24th
December--the day of Kurapatkine’s arrival from Samarkand. It was a
reconnaissance in force, which encountered a huge mob of Turkomans, and
was hard pressed until the arrival of reinforcements. A further delay
of eight days followed, and then, on 1st January 1881, a fierce attack
was delivered on Yangi Kal`a, the encampment at the foot of the
cliffs, by 8000 troops in three columns, with 52 pieces of cannon and
11 Hotchkiss machine guns. The southern column, commanded by General
Kurapatkine, forced the entrenchment in the rear, and compelled the
Tekkes to evacuate Yangi Kal`a under a terrific artillery fire and join
the main body at Dangil Teppe. Twice did the garrison sally forth to
their countrymen’s help, and when night fell they made a determined
attempt to recapture Yangi Kal`a, but on each occasion they were
driven back by the Russian artillery. On the 3rd January the Russians
removed their camp from Samursk to that abandoned by the foe at Yangi
Kal`a, and the following day saw the first parallel laid against
Dangil Teppe, at a distance of 800 yards south of the fortress. This
movement provoked a sortie of the garrison, who had been reinforced by
5000 warriors from Merv. They fell with fury on the besiegers, and,
seizing their rifles with one hand, hacked them with their razor-like
blades, covering the soil in places with heads and limbs. Nothing can
be conceived more terrible than their death-struggle at close quarters,
from which arose the clash of steel, shrieks, oaths, and shouts of
“Allah,” or “Hurrah.”[624]
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE INTERIOR OF THE FORT OF GEOK TEPPE]
On the Russian left flank more than 300 dead bodies remained as
witnesses of the Tekkes’ heroic but useless courage. This encounter
cost the besiegers one of their best and most valiant officers, Colonel
Petrusevitch, to whom we are indebted for most of our knowledge of
Turkomania at the eve of its conquest. The second parallel was laid
on the 4th January, and five days later another determined sortie was
made by the beleaguered Tekkes. At dusk they poured into the second
parallel, which was held by 2600 men, and took possession of the
outworks and trenches, destroying the artillerymen and capturing four
mountain guns and three regimental standards. But the reserves were
hurried up from the camp at Yangi Kal`a, and after a fearful struggle
the trenches were reoccupied, and all but one of the lost guns were
regained. On the 10th of January the Tekke outposts were seized after
severe fighting; but at half-past eight the besieged made a third
sortie. They stormed a redoubt on the left flank, cut to pieces the
artillerymen and a company of Transcaspian rifles who defended it, and
dragged the two cannon which it contained towards the trenches. The
Russian reserves again deprived them of the fruit of victory; for one
mountain gun only, rendered useless by the removal of the breech-piece,
was carried off by the Tekkes.[625] The time chosen by the besieged
for these very effective operations was always the dark hour between
sunset and the rise of the young moon. They inspired such terror that
it was difficult to induce the young soldiers to await the Tekkes’
onslaught. The night of the 16th January was marked by the last of
these mighty encounters, but experience had taught the Russians many a
bitter lesson, and their tactics rendered the heroic bravery of their
opponents useless.[626] On the 16th the sap had been pushed within
twenty-four yards of the east side of the entrenchments. Breaching
began on the 20th; and while a heavy fire was concentrated on a spot
near the south-eastern angle, a perfect hail of petroleum shells was
thrown on the dense mass of kibitkas packed into the Tekke enclosure.
Fearful must have been the sufferings of the 7000 women and children
who had sought refuge there. Every part of the works was searched by
the fragments of shell and streams of unextinguishable flame. The
traveller who visits the scene of this battle of the giants is filled
with wonder that an undisciplined mob should have held out for three
weeks with defences so paltry. Their stubbornness inspired respect
in Skobeleff himself, who was as ready as all really brave men are
to render justice to a gallant foe. In a proclamation addressed to
his troops on the eve of the final assault, he told them that they
were face to face with a people “full of courage and honour.”[627]
But the end was drawing near. Not only was the breach reported to be
practicable on the 23rd, but a mine had been driven under the eastern
face about one hundred yards from the angle, which was charged with
dynamite by a party of volunteers after nightfall. At seven on the
morning of the 24th of January 1881 four columns formed for the
assault, commanded respectively by General Skobeleff in person, and by
Colonels Kozelkoff, Kurapatkine, and Gaidaroff. The signal was given
by a vast column of smoke attended by a dull roar which rose from
the eastern front. It proclaimed the explosion of the mine, which
levelled 300 feet of the rampart, and overwhelmed several hundreds of
the defenders. Instantly the force under Gaidaroff sprang forward and
escaladed the parapet on the south-western angle. This was intended
to be a feigned attack, but it soon developed into a serious one.
Pushing northwards, Gaidaroff captured the mound which commanded the
camp, and thus convinced the defenders of the impossibility of further
resistance. In the meantime the other columns had swarmed through
the breaches caused by the mine and the artillery fire, and climbed
the parapet on the southern side between the two. The hand-to-hand
encounter was brief, for the position was clearly untenable. O’Donovan,
who watched the attack from a spur of the Kopet Dāgh twelve miles
off, saw a cloud of horsemen issuing in disorder from the northern
side, followed by a confused mass of fugitives.[628] The Russian flag
waved on the mound which gave Dangil Teppe its name. It was planted
at a cost to the assailants of 1200 men[629] killed and wounded,
out of a total engaged of 8000. That undergone by the garrison will
never be accurately known. Four thousand bodies were found in the
enclosure, and Skobeleff admitted that a flying column pursued and
hacked the fugitives for ten miles.[630] General Kurapatkine estimates
that the enemy lost 9000 out of a total of 30,000. He strenuously
denies the oft-repeated allegation that Tekke women and children
were intentionally slaughtered. The Russians, he states, did not
wilfully kill a single non-combatant, though, of course, many must
have perished from the hail of petroleum shells which were poured
for three weeks into the doomed enclosure. So anxious, he affirms,
were his countrymen to avoid shedding innocent blood, that on the
eve of the assault the garrison were formally summoned to send their
families to a distance. The Turkomans’ reply was characteristic: “If
you want our wives and children,” they said, “you must step over
our corpses to seize them.” Fireside theorists are apt to reprobate
the bloodshed of Geok Teppe and the slaughter of the wounded foe at
Omdurman as unworthy of civilisation. A superficial acquaintance with
the Asiatic character would convince them that an extreme application
of the Virgilian _debellare superbos_ is the least cruel policy which
can be adopted in dealing with the forces of savagery and fanaticism.
Geok Teppe was the last stronghold of Central Asian independence, and
its capture must rank among the decisive battles of the world. While
civilisation gained by the Russian victory, it is impossible to refuse
sympathy to those who were crushed by its giant forces. With the
conquest of Turkomania a national entity disappeared for ever which
had been preserved intact during ages of change and retained many
noble qualities. The world is the poorer by the disappearance of such
types, and by the gradual reduction of all mankind to a dead level
devoid of colour and charm. The news was received with dismay by the
population of the Khānates, who still cherished hopes of regaining
independence. Geok Teppe inspired the most bigoted of Russia’s foes
with a conviction of the hopelessness of battling against the decree of
fate; and to the lesson thus learnt is due the unbroken tranquillity
which reigned for eighteen years in Central Asia. The Shāh of Persia
hailed the extirpation of the hornets’ nest with joy. He saw his
northern provinces delivered from a terrible scourge, and peace
restored to a rich territory which the corruption and incapacity of
his own government was unable to protect. Thus he at once acceded to
a suggestion made by the Russian ambassador, M. Zinovieff, that the
left bank of the Atrak, which had been virtually annexed, should be
ceded to Persia in return for the abandonment of her rather shadowy
rights as suzerain over the Merv oasis, and for authority to push
the Transcaspian Railway through territory which was still nominally
subject to her sway.[631] The absorption by Russia of the whole area
inhabited by the conquered race was but a matter of time. The Akkal
oasis was hers by right of conquest, and it remained to add that of
Merv to the long list of her conquests. The way was paved for this
measure by diplomacy, the agent being an astute Mohammedan named
Alikhanoff.[632] He was a native of Dāghistan in the Caucasus, and had
won the rank of colonel by gallantry in the field. Alikhanoff found a
potent ally in the person of the once beautiful Gul Jamāl, widow of the
last great chieftain, Nūr Verdi Khān, who enjoyed universal respect,
due alike to her own force of character and the memory of her husband’s
exploits. Her persuasion was seconded by a military demonstration which
took place on December 1883, under Colonel Masloff; and, on the 31st
January 1884, 124 delegates from the various settlements of the Merv
oasis, headed by the four tribal chiefs, met at Askabad, which had
been recently created the headquarters of the Transcaspian military
district. Here they solemnly swore fidelity to the Tsar in the presence
of the governor-general, Komaroff. A recrudescence of the old lawless
spirit followed, which was prompted by an Afghan adventurer, but it
was stifled on the 3rd of March by military force. In the following
May, Prince Dondukoff-Korsakoff, governor-general of the Caucasus,
paid a formal visit to the latest and not the least valuable trophy of
Russian diplomacy, and was able to report to his imperial master that
the inhabitants of the oasis had willingly acknowledged his sway. Soon
afterwards the Sārik tribe, numbering 65,000, who inhabited the Yolatan
oasis thirty-six miles south of Merv, tendered their submission, and
that of the tribes between Giaour and Sarakhs followed.
The tract over which Russia had gained mastery was a parallelogram
lying between the Oxus and the Harī Rūd, which washes the walls of
Herāt, and in Turkomania is known as the Tajand. The western boundary
marched with that of Persia, and at its northern extremity was defined
by Old Sarakhs, a Turkoman village perched on an elevation which
commanded a once thickly peopled country extending northwards to Merv.
Old Sarakhs was easily accessible by wheeled traffic from Puli Khatan,
a village on the left bank of the Harī Rūd, thirty-three miles from
the Zū-l-Fikār Pass, through which the Tekke hordes had often poured
into Khorāsān. To the east of this defile lay the Paropamisus range, a
double spur of the Kūh-i-Bābā Mountains, which consists of low rolling
hills covered with asafœtida and thistles.[633] The northern flank
of the Paropamisus gives rise to the Murghāb, which fertilises Merv,
and its confluent the river Kushk. The country between these streams
and the Harī Rūd was known as the Bādghīs,[634] and is described by
Lessar as presenting the appearance of a stormy sea suddenly reduced
to solidity. In 1884 it had been ruined by Tekke incursions. A few
thousand Jamshīdīs still clung to the rich valley of the Kushk, where
they had been planted by Nādir Shāh in the eighteenth century as a
bulwark against Turkoman aggression, and are described as a peaceable
nomad race famed for their breed of horses.[635] On the north-west of
this forlorn tract stood Bālā Murghāb, an Afghan fortress commanding
the road to Maymena; and thirty-five miles farther north the village
of Panjdih towered above an oasis with an area of 170 square miles,
peopled by the Sārik Turkomans. Afghanistan lay to the south of the
debatable land. Its natural boundary was defined by the Paropamisus,
and only eighty miles beyond them lay Herāt. This city had played a
great part in history. It was regarded as the key to Afghanistān;
the only serious obstacle to a successful invasion of India from the
north-west; and its citadel had been fortified in 1838 under the
supervision of British officers. Nor was the importance of Herāt
confined to its strategic position. It was the emporium of Central
Asian trade, and the centre of a well-watered and fertile country.
Thus the value to Russia of her latest acquisition was immense. In
Merv she possessed a region which had been once the most fertile on
the world’s surface, and needed but settled government to resume its
ancient importance. The ill-defined area which she claimed to the
south of the Merv oasis commanded the richest province of Persia
and the north of Afghanistān. It was inevitable that the news of
its impending appropriation should excite a storm of indignation in
England, where every step of the Russian advance was watched with the
keenest suspicion. An attempt to propitiate public feeling had been
made as far back as 1882, when Russia proposed a joint commission to
demarcate the northern boundary of Afghanistān, and at that time she
would doubtless have accepted a line drawn from Khwāja Sālih on the
Oxus to Sarakhs. But the Government then in power was not inclined to
raise so delicate a question, and it was not until June 1884, when the
situation had been radically modified by the conquest of Turkomania,
that the proposal found acceptance. A joint commission was appointed in
July, charged with the duty of laying down the disputed boundary. It
was headed on the British side by General Sir Peter Lumsden, who had
won distinction in India; while General Zelenoi was directed to watch
over the interests of Russia. Sir Peter traversed Afghanistān, with
the Amīr `Abd er-Rahmān’s permission, escorted by a little army of 500
strong with twice as many camp followers. This demonstration, for such
it was, excited the suspicion of Lieutenant-General Komaroff,[636] the
military governor of Transcaspia, and General Zelenoi was directed to
return to Tiflis. In the meantime the explorations of Lessar in the
valleys of the Murghāb and Kushk had led Russia to modify her claims.
It was contended at the conference which followed that she should be
allotted an ethnological frontier, based on the submission rendered by
the Sāriks inhabiting the Panjdih oasis. The British representative, on
the other hand, declined to recognise any other boundary than one based
on natural conditions which excluded from Russian sway all territory
south of an imaginary line drawn from Old Sarakhs to Khwāja Sālih on
the Oxus. The Gordian knot was cut by the Afghans, who, encouraged
by the presence on the Murghāb of the small British force attending
Sir Peter Lumsden, moved northwards and occupied Bālā Murghāb and the
disputed oasis of Panjdih. This aggression elicited warm protests
from Russia; and, according to her wont, she brought material force
to the aid of diplomacy. General Komaroff occupied Pul-i-Khatun,
the Zū-l-Fikār Pass, and Ak Rabāt; and, on February 1885, he took
possession of Pul-i-Kishti, at the edge of the Panjdih oasis. The alarm
excited in England was intense. Engineers were despatched to place the
fortifications of Herāt in a state of defence; arms and ammunition
were poured into Afghan arsenals, and troops were massed under General
(afterwards Lord) Roberts on the north-western boundary of India. The
match was laid to the train by Lieutenant-General Komaroff. On the 30th
of March 1885 his little force of 1200 men all told[637] attacked and
routed an Afghan mob 46,000 strong with six guns, which latter fell
into Komaroff’s hands.[638] The discomfited Afghans at once retired to
Merūchak, at the eastern extremity of the oasis. The skirmish, for such
it was, aroused a storm in England, and war was considered inevitable.
Parliament voted unanimously a credit of £11,000,000 sterling for
military preparations; while Russia called into existence a Volunteer
Fleet, with the object of preying upon our commerce. Happily for the
tranquillity of Asia, the two greatest Powers were led to pause ere
they appealed to the awful arbitration of arms. General Lumsden and
his ablest coadjutor, Captain Yates, used their influence with the
Afghans to prevent a recurrence of the untoward accident of the 30th of
May; while the tact of the latter prompted him to open overtures which
were completely successful. Diplomacy, thus assisted, won a peaceful
triumph, and a basis for the demarcation of the frontier was agreed
upon. The process was completed at the close of 1886, and in the April
of the following year the British and Russian representatives met at
St. Petersburg. The outcome of their deliberation was, on the whole,
favourable to Russia. She obtained the right bank of the Harī Rūd as
far as the Zū-l-Fikār Pass, and the valleys of the Bādghīs south of and
including the Panjdih oasis.
The southern boundary of her Asiatic possessions has advanced to
a point within fifty-three miles of Herāt as the crow flies, and
separated by no natural obstacle of importance from that great
commercial and strategic centre. On the other hand, the Amīr of Bokhārā
surrendered to the Afghans the rich pastures on the left bank of the
Amū Daryā south of Khwāja Sālih. Russia has loyally accepted the work
performed by the Boundary Commission, and has concentrated her energies
during the eleven years which have intervened in developing the
commerce and improving the administration of the rich possessions thus
added to her empire.