"مجلد I مذكرات بخصوص بلاد فارس والمنطقة الحدودية الشمالية الغربية. ١٩٠٥." [و‎‎٥‎٨] (٣١٠/١٢٠)

Memorandum of information received during
the month of January 1905, regarding
affairs on and beyond the North-ff^est
Frontier of India.
[Foci.—This memorandum is based upon reports, the aoouraoy of
which it ia not always possible to guarantee J
TRANS-CASPIA AND RUSSIAN
TURKESTAN.
According to Mr. Hamilton, an English
traveller, who recently arrived in Kashgar
from Russian territory, the garrison in the
Batoum district has been doubled during the
past year: in Central Asia there has been
some increase in infantry strength; four
battalions were sent from Merv to Murghab
in November last, and were replaced by three
battalions from the Orenburg district. In addi
tion, there had been a concentration of troops
from the Osh, Samarkand, and Bokhara garri
sons at the Merv base, where there was
accommodation for 15,000 men. At Osh
ample cavalry quarters have been built with a
view to its use as a base for an advance in
the direction of the Pamirs, notwithstanding
the disadvantage that the snow often cuts off
garrisons on the Pamirs from Osh for months
at a stretch. Heavy stocks of grain and grass
have been purchased in Turkestan, and a
Remount Commission has been buying horses
there. The feeling in military circles in Trans-
Caspia and Russian Turkestan was strongly in
favour of a war with England, and Mr.
Hamilton gathered that the Russian military
strength in Central Asia was unaffected by
the war in the Ear East, and that preparations
for concentrating a quarter of a million men on
the Afghan frontier had long been complete.
In a conversation with Colonel Napier
at St Petersburgh, General Tselebrovski
estimated the Eussian garrison in Central
Asia at 30,000 men. He added that, if
England declares war, Russia would have to
move troops from her western frontier, and it
would take a month to bring them to the
According to the “Trans-Caspian Review ,
the Governor-General of Trans-Caspia has
issued a circular notice applying to Turkestan
tfre Russian Code Regulations about passports.
The effect of this is to make it obligatory for
British Indian and other native subjects of the