16 



AFGHANISTAN. 



visions wore forwarded to Turkistan. The 

 enormous force, in the neighborhood of 100,000 

 uivn, already stationed in the Caucasus, was 

 increased. Redoubts were made at Batoum. 

 At CVonstndt orders were received about the 

 middle of April to have 40 war-ships and 20 

 t..rpedo-boats made ready for immediate serv- 

 ice. Troops and stores were sent out to 

 Yhuiivostock. Before the middle of April the 

 CoftMu-k reserves were called out, which is the 

 fit>t step toward placing the Army of the Cau- 

 casus on a war footing. 



The army in Turkistan numbered nearly 

 70,000 men, including the Cossacks colonized 

 in Zerafshan and on the Narym. The main 

 forces were collected in the Ferghana district, 

 with headquarters at Marghilan, and in the 

 Zerafshan district with Samarcand for its cen- 

 UT. In the first there were 12,000 men, and 

 in the other from 12,000 to 15,000. The Amu 

 l)arya district was garrisoned by from 4,000 to 

 5,000 men. These forces, which would operate 

 in the region of the Oxus, and possibly descend 

 into India near Jassin by a new route across 

 the Pamir, could be recruited from Tashkend 

 and the line of the Syr Darya, and ultimately 

 from Orenburg and western Siberia. The 

 Turkistan army was under the command of 

 Gvn. Rosen bach. Gen. KomarofFs army num- 

 bered about 6,000 men, including the newly en- 

 listed Turkomans, and had to depend upon the 

 Caucasus for re-enforcements. 



At the beginning of the year the terminus of 



j the Transcaspian Railway was still at Kizil Ar- 



vat, 146 miles from Michaelovsk, the starting- 



C' it. The road was graded nearly to Aska- 

 by the middle of May, and the track was 

 laid AH far as Bami, 35 miles east of Kizil Arvat. 

 For the rest of the line the rails were still at 

 t. Petersburg. The rolling-stock was very 

 deficient, but an additional supply was being 

 made at Dantzic. The road was completed to 

 Askabad by about the 1st of October. 



TV Boundary Negotiations. The Russian Gov- 

 ernment insisted from the beginning that the 

 bam* of the delimitation should be settled by 

 direct negotiations between the two cabinets. 

 The English Government, on the other hand, 

 not having at command the necessary topo- 

 graphical information, sought to invest the 

 Frontier Commission with the fullest possible 

 ditroity and power. The Russian Cabinet was 

 determined to make good its claims to the lands 

 s Turkomans, while the Anglo-Indian au- 

 thorities were disposed to contest those claims, 

 as waa shown by the Afghan occupation of 

 ' the Russians had sent an osten- 

 tation* commission, attended by a small army, 

 ich a* the Indian and military authorities had 

 the British Government to send as 

 ' ritor Lnmsden's escort, a wrangle over dis- 

 ited points between the commissioners might 

 lead to a collision between British and Russian 

 troops and precipitate a war. Therefore the 

 nan Government, protesting that an unos- 

 tentatious technical commission was intended, 



did not send Gen. Zelenoy to meet Sir Peter 

 Lumsden, but laid their territorial claims be- 

 fore the London Government, while the Cos- 

 sacks quietly occupied the country claimed. 

 M. Lessar, an engineer of French birth, who 

 had explored the frontier region with reference 

 to railroad routes, was sent to London in the 

 beginning of February, to assist in the negotia- 

 tions between Earl Granville and Baron de 

 Staal. The main point of the Russian conten- 

 tion was that the frontier line should be an 

 ethnographical one, and that it should assign 

 to Russia the Turkoman tribes that had recent- 

 ly acknowledged Russian sovereignty, and all 

 the lands possessed by them. The line along 

 the crest of the Barkhut and Paropamisus 

 mountains, from the Heri Rud to the head-wa- 

 ters of the Kushk, was proposed as a suitable 

 one from the ethnical point of view, and also 

 in a geographical and in a strategical sense. 

 The country to the north of it had been re- 

 claimed from predatory violence and rendered 

 available for peaceful colonization by Russian 

 arms. The argument that a part of it once be- 

 longed to Herat was balanced by historical 

 claims based on the ancient extension of the 

 dominion of Merv. The alarm and hostility 

 created in England by the Russian advance, 

 and the angry demand that the Russian out- 

 posts should retire from the debated zone, led 

 M. de Giers to offer as a concession, in the be- 

 ginning of March, that the line should not fol- 

 low the physical frontier of the Borkhut mount- 

 ains, but should be drawn farther north in 

 such a way as to include in the Russian domin- 

 ion the pasture-lands of the Salors, the salt 

 lakes of Ni Maksar, which furnish the Turko- 

 mans with their salt-supply and their only ex- 

 port article, and the oasis of Penjdeh. This 

 line, propounded by M. Lessar, coincided with 

 the line of Cossack posts, which had been ad- 

 vanced to guard the Salor pasturages and the 

 salt lakes, except at Penjdeh, then held by Af- 

 ghan troops. Since the arrival of Sir Peter 

 Lumsden the Afghans also had advanced into 

 the debatable zone. They confronted the Rus- 

 sians at Zulfikar, occupied the northern en- 

 trances of the Borkhut passes, and had crossed 

 the Kushk at Penjdeh. The expulsion of the 

 Afghans from Penjdeh gave the Russians mili- 

 tary possession of every district claimed. The 

 attitude of the Ameer Abdurrahman and the 

 feeling of the powers of Europe forced Eng- 

 land to give up every thought of declaring war. 

 On the 13th of April Lord Granville pro- 

 posed that, in order to avoid the repetition of 

 regrettable occurrences such as that of the 30th 

 of March, the Russian troops should withdraw 

 from the disputed territory, the English Gov- 

 ernment undertaking on their part to prevent 

 the return of any Afghan force to the debata- 

 ble land, and that the Russian commissioners 

 should proceed to the spot and the joint com- 

 mission begin operations at once; that the 

 commission should be guided by the political 

 relations of the tribes occupying the country, 



