Correspondence and Papers on Persia [‎10r] (24/107)

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that country; he does not ignore the difficulties which would
have to he encountered, but he is sanguine that if the Amir’s
sanction could be gained for the line it could be laid and kept
up successfully. As we recently pointed out, the Russians have
carried their telegraph lines to Sarakhs and Merv, and the
Persian Government are about to extend their Teheran-Mash-
had line to the Russian office on the Tejend. Our relations
with Russia have been severely strained during the current
year by reason of their advance into Afghanistan,'and we have
not yet settled our dispute amicably; but, unless the anti-
English party in St. Petersburg are bent upon forcing a war,
it is probable that by the end of the year a solution, temporary
perhaps, may have been found of the intricate questions
involved. By that time the telegraph lines at Merv and
Sarakhs will have undoubtedly been pushed forward to Panjdeh
on the one hand, and to whatever post Russia may establish in
the direction of Zolfikar; while the line linking Merv with
Chaharjui on the Oxus will also have been laid. The Russians
will then be in the advantageous position of having all their
strategical points on the Afghan frontier linked by telegraph
to their base on the Caspian and their alternative base on the
Oxus, while the armies of the Trans-Caspian Province and
Turkistan will be in direct communication. If, therefore, they
should hereafter contemplate an invasion in force of Northern
Afghanistan they can so concert their movements upon Herat,
Maimana, and Balkh as to secure a simultaneous advance upon
these three points, an advance so timed that the Afghans would
be taken at a serious disadvantage. Now, so long as our
officers are in the neighbourhood of Herat, we can learn with a
fair amount of rapidity what movements are taking place in the
Russian advanced lines, messages being sent by couriers to
Mashhad, whence they are telegraphed to Teheran, and thence
to England and India. But our Commission will not always
be on the spot, and once its work is done we shall have no
trustworthy sources of information to draw upon. The Russian
outposts are only a few days’ march from Herat even now,
and in case of a coup de guerre being hereafter attempted by
Komaroff or any other enterprising General, it would be of the
first importance to have early news of the movement. The
advance of a Russian force up the valley of the Hari Rud
would sever Plerat from communication with Mashhad, and
we should have to trust to news reaching us by couriers travel
ling from Herat to Chaman, a distance of at least 400 miles.
True, our agents on the Khorasan frontier might send warning,
but the Mashhad-Teheran line is constantly interrupted, and
at best it works very unsatisfactorily. But were Herat linked
with Chaman by way of Farah and Kandahar we should hear