With respect to a successful invasion of India, it must be confessed that
the English mind has always been keenly susceptible of alarm. The wide
plains of Hisdustan, which offer so ready an access to aggressive armies,
the absence of fortified places, and the frequency with which India has
been won and lost in a single pitched battle, all tend to encourage the
belief that some day or other British domination will be in danger from
some incursion of this sort. It may be observed that for nearly a century
past the English nation has been subjected to periodic fits of Indian
panic. Sir John Kaye, in his "History of the Afghan War," states that in
1797 the whole of India was kept "in a chronic state of unrest" from the
fears of an Afghan descent upon the plains of Hindustan. In 1800 the
Emperor Paul of Russia and Napoleon conceived "a mad and impracticable
scheme of invasion," which greatly increased local alarm. In 1809 these
fears assumed even larger proportions when an alliance between Napoleon
and Persia was on foot with a view to the proposed invasion; and the
mission to Persia under Sir John Malcolm was inaugurated. In 1838 Russia
took the place which Zeman Shah, Persia, and Napoleon had previously
occupied, and the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan was commenced by Lord
Auckland from his mountain retreat at Simla.
Since that period the suspicions of the nation have been continually
directed against Russia by a small but able party, who, from their chiefly
belonging to the Presidency of Bombay, have been termed the Bombay school.
The late General John Jacob was the originator of the anti-Russian policy
inculcated by them. He was a man of great ability and original views, and,
if he had moved in a wider sphere, he might have left a name equal to that
of the most illustrious of his countrymen in India. But he passed the
greater part of his life on the barren wastes of Sind, and rarely came in
contact with superior minds. In 1856 General Jacob addressed a singularly
able paper to Lord Canning, then Governor-General, and which Sir Lewis
Pelly afterwards published to the world.[8] This was just at the close of
the Crimean War, when England was about to undertake an expedition against
Persia to repel her aggression on Herat. It was Jacob's firm conviction
that, unless India interposed, Russia, having Persia completely under her
control, could, whenever she pleased, take possession not only of Herat,
but of Candahar, and thus find an entrance to the plains of India, on
which our dominion was to disappear. To thwart this contingency, and
render the approach of a European army towards our frontier impossible, he
would, as an ultimate measure, garrison Herat with twenty thousand troops,
but in the first instance would occupy Quetta. These proposals were
carefully considered by Lord Canning's Government, but were rejected.
The same arguments were brought forward eleven years later by Sir Bartle
Frere, whilst Governor of Bombay, and were laid before the Government of
India. That Government was then remarkably strong, consisting of Lord
Lawrence, Sir William Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst), Sir Henry Maine, Mr.
Massey, and Major-General Sir Henry Durand; but the proposals to improve
our frontier by extending our dominions westward, and by the annexation of
independent foreign territory, were unanimously disapproved of.
About the same time that Sir Bartle Frere was endeavouring to stimulate
the Government of India to occupy Quetta, my distinguished colleague and
friend, Sir Henry Rawlinson, published two articles in the "Quarterly
Review,"[9] in which he called the attention of the public to the rapidly
increasing extension of the Russian dominions in the direction of our
Indian frontier, and to the necessity of maintaining outworks such as
Herat and Candahar for the protection of our Eastern Empire. But he raised
the question in a more solemn form in the confidential memorandum which he
transmitted to the Government of India in 1868, and which he afterwards
published in 1875,[10] with additional matter, forming a complete
conspectus of the aggressive policy to be adopted to guard against a
Russian invasion. The views of the Government of India on these papers
have not, I believe, been given to the world, but it is well known in
Indian circles that the masterly activity therein advocated did not find
acceptance.
At the present moment Russophobia is raging to a greater extent than at
any previous period; but this is ground on which for the present I am
precluded from entering. It is gratifying to observe, however, that in the
great conflict of opinion which, as it will be seen, has thus been raging
for the last forty years, as to the best method of protecting our
north-western frontier from an invading foe, both schools have ultimately
agreed on one conclusion, namely, that a successful invasion of India by
Russia is in nowise probable. The one side would avert any possibility of
an attack by the occupation of Afghanistan, the Suleiman mountains, and
probably the Hindu Kush; the other would husband the resources of India,
and not waste blood and treasure in anticipation of a conflict that may
possibly never occur, and that certainly never will occur without years of
warning to the nation.
I cannot pursue this interesting question further at a moment when the
whole question of our policy on the Indian frontier is ripening for
discussion, and when the materials on which a sound conclusion can be
drawn are not yet laid before the public. It is sufficient for my present
purpose to repeat that the probability of British dominion in the East
being terminated by a Russian invasion is rejected on all sides.