'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎83] (114/714)

TRANSCASPIA
83
evidence could be given of the successful disintegration of old
tribal ties, customs, and traditions among the conquered Turkomans,
who, little more than ten years ago, were fighting like fiends
against those whom they now humbly follow and serve.
More significant even than the new form given to the Govern
ment of Transcaspia is the character and personality of the new
Governor. In place of a quiet and unwarlike professor,
Kuro-' who was happier when labelling his insects than when
patkm reviewing his men, we have the right-hand man and
alter ego of Skobeleff, and the first soldier and strategist in Central
Asia. Born in 1848, Kuropatkin entered the Turkestan army at
the age of eighteen, and, among other operations, was present at the
siege and subsequent capture of Samarkand. Having passed out
first from the Staff College in 1874, he spent a year in Algeria,
where he joined the French expedition to the Great Sahara, and
wrote his first work upon the campaign. He then returned to
Central Asia, and was on Skobeleff's staff during the war with
Khokand, in which he was wounded and received the Cross of St.
George. In 1876 he was sent on a special mission to negotiate a
treaty with Yakub Beg of Kashgar (as a counterblast to the
British Mission of Forsyth), and made this the subject of his second
work. In the Russo-Turkish war he was Chief of the Staff to
Skobeleff, and at its close was appointed head of the Asiatic section
of the General Staff; while occupying which post he wrote a third
work on the recent war. In 1879 he again returned to Central
Asia, in command of the Turkestan Rifle Battalion, and in the
following year executed a brilliant march at the head of a column
across the Turkoman desert in order to join Skobeleff at Geok Tepe,
arriving in time to lead one of the three divisions to the assault.
Since then he has been the chief adviser of the War Office in St.
Petersburg on all questions of Central Asian administration or
strategy, and now returns in the prime of life to , the highest
command in a country of which he knows more than am living
Russian general. His strategical abilities and reputation foi
courage render his appointment one of extreme significance. ISot
can it be forgotten that he is the author of the famous seciet
memorandum upon the invasion of India by Russian ti oop>,
which is generally accepted in Russian military ciicles as embody
ing the most orthodox and feasible scheme of advance, and to
which I shall have occasion to refer in later chapters. Geneial