Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎83v] (170/312)

ground of their annexations ; tJaey camp upou
them, but do not colonise ; their attempts at
civilisation are few and perfunctory, hardly ex
ceeding a school here and there to teach the
Muscovite tongue to a tractable few among the
Khirgiz, and a desultory encouragement of silk-
growing and cotton-planting. The history of
Russian advance in Asia thus far does not pre
tend, indeed, to embrace triumphs of philan
thropy. It may be summed up in the lines from
" Wallenstein," " Our life was but a battle and
, a march, We swept across the Continent." The
" Circassian style " has been the mode pursued
with obstinate enemies, and the degree of liberty
prevailing in Russia itself will suggest how much
freedom can be allowed to subjugated Tartars
and Toorks. That they have brought a certain
degree of order where their flag was planted,
and that they have very usefully, as in Kuldja,
suppressed the barbarian form of slavery while
establishing their own, must be admitted. Where
1 the Muscovite banner is carried the only master,
of course, is the " White Czar," and that he is
better than the Usbeg and Urt Khans, and the
ferocious Princes of the Oxus, may also be readily
conceded. The conclusions which force them
selves upon us in studying the rapid flow of the
Russian arms through Central Asia are briefly
i that it is almost a wilderness which they have
conquered, and that it is a wilderness which does |
not and cannot pay them. In these facts lies j
the explanation at once of their facile progress,
and of the unabated passion with which their i
generals and politicians still push forward.
We have not dwelt upon these obvious con
siderations to censure Russia on account of bet
appetite for domination, or to complain that
she has not made more progress in civilising
the steppes. Our purpose is merely to remind
those who glibly talk of leaving Russia to do
her part of the beneficent work of regenerating
Asia, while we attend to our own, that such
language is nothing but amiable and empty
optimism. The work of Russia in Asia is not,
and scarcely affects to be, civilisation afc all.
Her perpetual inroads into the Continent down
ward from Orenburg and eastward from the
Caspian are in obedience to that law of nature
which has governed the migrations of Asiatic
barbarians for ages. Multiplying in tlie barren
and bitter but prolific North, wave after wave
of the sub-Arctic races have in like manner
struggled south towards the regions of warmth
and plenty ; and even if Russia were not con
scious of it an ethnologist could inform her
politicians that what she aims at is to reach the
sunny kingdoms beyond the Oxus^ and to water
her Cossack ponies in the rivers running into the
Arabian Sea. Once more we waste no words in
! blaming them for this; since it would be as rea
sonable to reproach the lemmings of Norway or
the white bears of the Polar Circle for migrating
whither instinct leads them. But a just consi
deration of the facts 'will dissipate the idle
notion that if we only regard this constant incur
sion with benevolent patience Russia will stop
short at the proper line, and evangelise Turco
mans and Yomud Tartars as a simple labour of
love. She will and can do nothing of the kind.
Step by step she must and will advance—if no
obstacle in Europe or in Asia hinders—until the
5 icicles melt from her winter tents on the slope
of the G-hor Mountains and in the pleasant val
leys of Persia and Merv. And if she comes as
far as that, the plains of India, which seem dis
tant now, will be then the natural—the neces-
sary—goal of her reinforced legions. Every
wandering conqueror from Alexander to Mah-
moud of Ghuzni has been drawn thither as the
magnetic mountain drew Sindbad's ships. Con-
! stantinople in Europe and Delhi in Asia are
j objects so imperatively attractive to Musco
vite ambition that even Fuad Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. confessed he
would have overturned civilisation to gain them
■1 T -I i ■■ il _ "KT Tl.
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sptfeq hy *ara 03 JdSavs^a « g'bav ureqd'eo oqjq *9i«9a
aaa^aoaas jo uaa^xis ^o^id aq^ uavou>[ p-uq 1 •«j[ooc[
jassoA 'aqi pauio C j : pps'a^suo
sq^ pj'eoq no Bia^o^s aqcj jo ano 'nao-raj aS.ioaf)
•^oaJM. aqi. jo saoi^oss ptre sirqd 'op^JJ, jo pjuog
iq!j jo 'X^aj nrBqdBo' raojj m papnBq saqanjj upi
•2[oop !jjai .iaqi ©rat^ aq; q^tM. ^on puis 'gf'L l 12 suiSaq
.1 sb qrfutns'Bai 'sSaipsaooad s^isp eq-j jo uoi^od b A^no
iniBiuoo Sot Mau "eq^ ^q -j raaas pinom. qi : loinf v
l
ytsq J gutq^nB ^no qo^ios jo 'j'eai b (jno i^a^ (jon
)Tp J 'Xi^ua aq'j qsing 0^ raooj ^on sbav oiaqj,—i 3[Ooq
kq pp eq^ ui snquai go eauaj 03 no i anibo avojj :
•X'bs fj.uBO x—i /.iqiua aq^ jo SatauiSaq aq; ^no-^ooj
iq? xto ipa^jj uqof „ spjoM aq? aay (-ssaa^m aq;
'lE) "^J^na eaujna aq? aAuq o? 1 : saqSnjj
('qStiBi y) 'ssai ano p[0 aq? a^n IIT^ 110 ^
ojd put? "ai aA'eq tioX euo eq? a^q ?.nop jf^uapiAa noj^
paonpojd aq 3 l 00c l 2o l PI 0 ai TiL : l I 2lnc l^W ' J W
•q? i£q ebm •aoma naas ?on OA'sq j '
.vbs j—^ jjooq goi pp aq? ui ?ud noA pip ?'bqa\. i
THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE
TOWARDS INDIA.
It has been said that there is room and to
spare in Asia for both England and Russia.
And knowing that Asia is nearly six times as
large as Europe, and that it takes all the
Chinese Empire with its three millions of
square miles to fill comfortably an accidental
bulge of the eastern coast line, the spaciousness
of the Asiatic Continent is certainly beyond
dispute. But, after all, " the sea" is far larger
than Asia, and there might be supposed to be
room on it for many ships without collisions
occurring. Yet ships do often get in each
other's way. Nor is this so extraordinary,
when it is considered that the greater part
of the sea is never used •at all ; and that it is
only in certain narrow strips and small patches
that seafarers care to go. All the South Seas
are not Worth the Dover Straits, and for one ship
that crosses the Pacific a hundred round
Gibraltar. It is the same with Asia. The vast
Siberian region in the north no one ever cared
to have ; and till the Czar of Russia bethought
him of freezing exiles the white foxes and
ptarmigan had five millions of square miles of
snow all to themselves. But south of Siberia
lies an extensive belt of land stretching from
Europe to China, in which to the end of
time the various nomad nations that inhabit
it might have grazed their flocks and fought
for pastures, had not Russia seen her way,
so we are told, to cheapening tea, and inter
fered with the routine of Central Asian life.
By pushing down her frontier south to the river
Syr Darya (Jaxartes), she obtained a more direct
trade route from Europe to China and the east
of Asia, and, to keep this route open, had to
establish comparative order among the nomad
tribes through whose grazing grounds the cara
vans passed. This may be called the first step in
aggressive advance. South of the Syr Darya, and
between that river and the Amu Darya (Oxus),
lies a third vast belt of territory, then in posses
sion of various chiefs or Khans, and, therefore,
called "the Khanates." Among themselves these
chiefs lived peaceably enough, but their lands
were supposed to be fertile, and their cities to
possess a rich trade, and Russia Seeing, 1 for so
she has explained the advance, that a still
quicker route for merchandise between Europe
and the far East lay through these Khanates,
pushed down her frontier southwards to the
Oxus. This may be called the second step.
South of the Oxus—of that part of it which
then became the frontier of Russia—and be
tween it and the kingdoms of Persia and Afgha
nistan and British India, lies another belt, the
belt of British Interests, occupied by formidable
tribes of Turkomans, sind by the kingdoms of
Bokhara and Kashgar. Russia is now pushing
her frontier down through this belt also, to the
frontiers of Persia, Afghanistan, and India.
And this may be called the third step. Roughly,
therefore, and for the purpose of a general pre
liminary view of Russian advance, Asia may be
divided into four belts, namely, the Siberian in
the extreme north, the Nomads' domains, the
Khanates, and the belt of British interests.
But though when viewed from a large geo
graphical standpoint the above divisions repre
sent accurately enough for our purpose the
direction and magnitude of Russia's strides
across Asia, it does not indicate the method
and policy of this advance. To make this clear
we must use the Caspian Sea as qur basis, and
draw thence the lines of Russian progress from
west to east. For, though the direction of
that progress has been to the south, it has
been made from the west. That is to say,
though the Russian frontier has been pushed
down from north to south, from Siberia towards
Indist, each new line of forts and outposts has
been run from west to east, from the Caspian
Sea towards China. The Caspian has its
northern shore in Russia and its southern
in Persia, and its eastern, therefore, faces full
towards Asia. At the north-eastern corner of
this sea Russia built a fort in 1834, and thence
ran a military line eastward, past the north of the
Aral Sea, to the frontier of the Chinese Empire,
where another fort, that of Vernoe, was built in
1847. 'This coincides with the first step of
aggressive advance indicated above, and brought
Russia south of the nomad tribes, and gave her
an armed frontier from west to east. But dis
turbances all along the line soon afforded justifi
cation for further annexation, and another line
was therefore drawn, starting in the west from
the centre of the Caspian Sea, and passing to
ground of their annexations ; they camp upou
them, but do not colonise ; their attempts at
civilisation are few and perfunctory, hardly ex
ceeding a school here and there to teach the
Muscovite tongue to a tractable few among the
Khirgiz, and a desultory encouragement of silk-
1 growing and cotton-plantiug. The history of
i Russian advance in Asia thus far does not pre
tend, indeed, to embrace triumphs of philan
thropy. It may be summed up in the lines from
" Wallenstein," " Our life was but a battle and
a march. We swept across the Continent." The
"Circassian style" has been the mode pursued
with obstinate enemies, and the degree of liberty
prevailing in Russia itself will suggest how much
freedom can be allowed to subjugated Tartars
and Toorks. That they have brought a certain
degree of order where their flag was planted,
and that they have very usefully, as in Kuldja,
suppressed the barbarian form of slavery while
establishing their own, must be admitted. "Where
j the Muscovite banner is carried the only master,
■ of course, is the " White Czar," and that he is
better than the Usbeg and Urt Khans, and the
ferocious Princes of the Oxus, may also be readily
conceded. The conclusions which force them
selves upon us in studying the rapid flow of the
Russian arms through Central Asia are briefly
that it is almost a wilderness which they have
i conquered, and that it is a wilderness which does i
j not and cannot pay them. In these facts lies
1 the explanation at once of their facile progress,
j and of the unabated passion with which their
' generals and politicians still push forward.
We have not dwelt upon these obvious con
siderations to censure Russia on account of her
appetite for domination, 'or to complain that
she has not made more progress in civilising
the steppes. Our purpose is merely to remind
those who glibly talk of leaving Russia to do
her part of the beneficent work of regenerating
Asia, while we attend to our own, that such
language is nothing but amiable and empty
optimism. The work of Russia in Asia is not,
and scarcely affects to be, civilisation at all.
Her perpetual inroads into the Continent down
ward from Orenburg and eastward from the
Caspian are in obedience to that law of nature
which has governed the migrations of Asiatic
barbarians for ages. Multiplying in the barren
and bitter but prolific North, wave after wave
of the sub-Arctic races have in like manner
| struggled south towards the regions of warmth
and plenty ; and even if Russia were not con
scious of it an ethnologist could inform her
! politicians that what she aims at is to reach the
I sunny kingdoms^ beyond the Oxus^ and to Water
her Cossack ponies in the rivers running into the
Arabian Sea. Once more we waste no words in
i blaming them for this; since it would be as rea
sonable to reproach the lemmings of Norway or
the white bears of the Polar Circle for migrating
whither instinct leads them. But a just consi
deration of the facts 'will dissipate the idle
notion that if we only regard this constant incur
sion with benevolent patience Russia will stop
short at the proper line, and evangelise Turco
mans and Yomud Tartars as a simple labour of
love. She will and can do nothing of the kind.
Step by step she must and will advance—if no
obstacle in Europe or in Asia hinders—until the
i icicles melt from her winter tents on the slope
I of the Ghor Mountains and in the pleasant val-
i leys of Persia and Merv. And if she comes as
far as that, the plains of India, which seem dis
tant now, will be then the natural—the neces-
Bar y_goal of her reinforced legions. Every
wandering conqueror from Alexander to Mah-
moud of Ghuzni has been drawn thither as the
magnetic mountain drew Sindbad's ships. Con- j
stantinople in Europe and Delhi in Asia are
objects so imperatively attractive to Musco
vite ambition that even Fuad Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. confessed he
would have overturned civilisation to gain them
had he been born on the Neva. It may be for
given to those so born if they think civilisation
of no great value as compared with the " manifest
destiny" of the Slav; but they will have no coun
tenance in educated minds, who know what loss
it was to mankind when the garnered culture of
Carthage, of Assyria, of Phoenicia, of Greece,
and of Rome was wrecked in a surge of untaught
brute force. These nations mostly perished by
waiting too long and too supinely, and by the
decay of that spirit which at Thermopyl® and
Marathon gave the world Pheidias andJEsCHY-
lus , and might have given it more. Let there
be an end, then, to the folly talked about this
Russian advance from the Caucasus to .Cabul.
It signifies but one thing, that sooner or later,
unless internal rebellion or ruined finances break
up the huge despotism of the Czars, we must do
battle with them for the tranquil development
of India, and for the hegemony of Asia; that
as matters stand we ought rather to ask what is
the best time and which the most suitable field
than whether the inevitable event must be faced.
If owning so noble an Empire and such vast re
sources, and possessing, moreover, such far
higher claims as a civilising Power, we have not
the courage or the foresight or the national
cohesion to make our policy as large as our
opportunity, then the world will nierely witness
the old phenomenon which has again and again
been repeated in history. Belisarius will prove
valiant in vain, and Rome in vain wealthy and
populous ; the propitious hour will pass, and the
Slav, instead of the Anglo-Saxon, will be at last
the Lord of Asia and the heir of the splendid
Aryan heritage.
THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE
TOWARDS INDIA.
It has been said that there is room and to
spare in Asia for both England and Russia.
And knowing that Asia is nearly six times as
large as Europe, and that it takes all the
Chinese Empire with its three millions of
square miles to fill comfortably an accidental
bulge of the eastern coast line, the spaciousness
of the Asiatic Continent is certainly beyond
dispute. But, after all, "the sea" is far larger
than Asia, and there might be supposed to be
room on it for many ships without collisions
occurring. Yet ships do often get in each
other's way. Nor is this so extraordinary,
when it is considered that the greater part
of the sea is never used at all ; and that it is
only in certain narrow strips and small patches
that seafarers care to go. All the South Seas
are not Worth the Dover Straits, and for one ship
that crosses the Pacific a hundred round
Gibraltar. It is the same with Asia. The vast
Siberian region in the north no one ever cared
to have ; and till the Czar of Russia bethought
him of freezing exiles the white foxes and
ptarmigan had five millions of square miles of
snow all to themselves. But south of Siberia
lies an extensive belt of land stretching from
Europe to China, in which to the end of
time the various nomad nations that inhabit
it might have grazed their flocks and fought
for pastures, had not Russia seen her way,
so we are told, to cheapening tea, and inter
fered with the routine of Central Asian life.
By pushing down her frontier south to the river
Syr Darya (Jaxartes), she obtained a more direct
trade route from Europe to China and the east
of Asia, and, to keep this route open, had to
establish comparative order among the nomad
tribes through whose grazing grounds the cara
vans passed. This may be called the first step in
aggressive advance. South of the Syr Darya, and
between that river and the Amu Darya (Oxus),
lies a third vast belt of territory, then in posses
sion of various chiefs or Khans, and, therefore,
called "the Khanates." Among themselves these
chiefs lived peaceably enough, but their lands
were supposed to be fertile, and their cities to
possess a rich trade, and Russia seeing,' for so
she has explained the advance, that a still
quicker route for merchandise between Europe
and the far East lay through these Khanates,
pushM down her frontier southwards to the
OxusT This may be called the second step.
South of the Oxus—of that part of it which
then became the frontier of Russia—and be
tween it and the kingdoms of Persia and Afgha
nistan and British India, lies another belt, the
belt of British Interests, occupied by formidable
tribes of Turkomans, £lnd by the kingdoms of
Bokhara and Kashgar. Russia is now pushing
her frontier down through this belt also, to the
frontiers of Persia, Afghanistan, and India.
And this may be called the third step. Roughly, ■
therefore, and for the purpose of a general pre
liminary view of Russian advance, Asia may be
divided into four belts, namely, tbe Siberian in
the extreme north, the Nomads' domains, the
Khanates, and the belt of British interests.
But though when viewed from a large geo
graphical standpoint the above divisions repre
sent accurately enough for our purpose the
direction and magnitude of Russia's strides
across Asia, it does not indicate the method
and policy of this advance. To make this clear
we must use the Caspian Sea as o.ur basis, and
draw thence the lines of Russian progress from
west to east. For, though the direction of
that progress has been to the south, it has
been made from the west. That is to say,
though the Russian frontier has been pushed
down from north to south, from Siberia towards
Indisi, each new line of forts and outposts has
been run from west to east, from the Caspian
Sea towards China. The Caspian has its
northern shore in Russia and its southern
in Persia, and its eastern, therefore, faces full '*
towards Asia. At the north-eastern corner of
this sea Russia built a fort in 1834, and thence
ran a military line eastward, past the north of the
Aral Sea, to the frontier of the Chinese Empire,
where another fort, that of Vernoe, was built in
1847. 'This coincides with the first step of
aggressive advance indicated above, and brought
Russia south o^ the nomad tribes, and gave her
an armed frontier from west to east. But dis
turbances all along the line soon afforded justifi
cation for further annexation, and another line
was therefore drawn, starting in the west from 1
the centre of the Caspian Sea, and passing to |