The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (26 page)

When news did finally reach them, in the shape of a cutting from
The Times,
it was profoundly disappointing. The British government, it was clear, was unwilling to make a major issue of the vessel’s seizure, let alone risk going to war with Russia over it. To the fury of the Russophobes, Palmerston decided that while Circassia did not belong to the Russians, the port of Sudjuk Kale, where the arrest had taken place, did. By this time Urquhart had been ordered back to London and sacked for his role in the confrontation between the two powers, officially allies. None of Urquhart’s friends was powerful enough to intercede on his behalf, for a month before his return William IV had been taken ill and died. Instead, Urquhart launched a vituperative campaign against Palmerston, claiming that he had been bought with Russian gold. He even sought to have the Foreign Secretary impeached for treason, though nothing finally came of this.

The news that Britain had backed down came as a grave embarrassment to Longworth and Bell, for they had repeatedly assured their hosts that they would soon enjoy the support of the most powerful nation on earth, apparently firmly convinced of this themselves. Palmerston’s decision was an even worse blow for Bell, who could now bid farewell to any hopes of recovering his vessel from the triumphant Russians. The two men decided that there was little further to be gained by staying on, although they promised their Circassian friends that they would continue the fight from England. Indeed, both were to publish detailed accounts of their adventures and experiences with the
mujahedin.
Meanwhile, though foiled by Palmerston in his attempt to bring Russia and Britain into collision, Urquhart had returned with fresh vigour to the Russophobe cause, and, among other things, was organising the smuggling of arms to the Circassians. John Baddeley, in his classic study
The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus,
published in 1908, attributes the successes of the Circassians in large part ‘to these efforts’. However, he accuses Urquhart and his collaborators of thus prolonging a war which the Circassians could never win, and of feeding them with false hopes of receiving British support.

Urquhart eventually entered Parliament where he continued to pursue his campaign against Palmerston and his efforts to have him impeached for treason, as well as his Russian-baiting activities. But gradually he found himself caught up in other causes, and finally ill-health drove him to retire to the Swiss Alps. As the arch-Russophobe of the day, however, he had done much to turn British public opinion against St Petersburg, and to deepen the growing rift between the two powers. Indeed, modern Soviet historians lay some of the blame for today’s problems in the Caucasus on British interference in the region, even claiming that Shamyl was a British agent. Certainly the resistance the Russians encountered there was to keep them stretched militarily, and to act for some years as a restraint on their ambitions elsewhere in Asia. The Caucasus, thanks to Urquhart and his friends, had thus become part of the Great Game battlefield.

Despite Urquhart’s claims to the contrary, Palmerston was anything but in St Petersburg’s pocket. He shared Urquhart’s suspicion of Russia’s intentions, but was far from persuaded that they yet posed a threat to Britain’s interests. His main source of reassurance on this was Lord Durham, then British ambassador in St Petersburg. Durham was convinced that Russia’s apparent military might was of defensive value only, and that Tsar Nicholas was not in a position to indulge in any expansionist dreams which he might harbour. Foreign adventures required huge resources that Durham knew, from his secret contacts in St Petersburg, Russia simply did not possess. ‘The power of Russia has been greatly exaggerated,’ wrote Durham in March 1836, in what Palmerston described as one of the most brilliant dispatches ever received at the Foreign Office. ‘There is not one element of strength which is not directly counterbalanced by a corresponding . . . weakness,’ he went on. ‘In fact her power is solely of the defensive kind. Leaning on and covered by the impregnable fortress with which nature has endowed her – her climate and her deserts – she is invincible, as Napoleon discovered to his cost.’

But not everyone at the Foreign Office was as confident as Durham about Russia’s powerlessness to act aggressively. Among those who shared Urquhart’s fears, even if they did not approve of his methods, were Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador to Constantinople, and Sir John McNeill, the newly appointed Minister to Teheran, who had travelled as far as the Ottoman capital with Urquhart when they were taking up their respective posts. McNeill, an old Persia hand, had served for some years in Teheran under Sir John Kinneir, and had watched Russian influence grow there at the expense of Britain. He was strongly suspected by the Russians of having had a hand in the death of the unfortunate Griboyedov when their embassy had been attacked by a mob eight years earlier, although there was not a shred of evidence to support this. A man of considerable ability, not to say ambition, McNeill had originally come to Teheran as a doctor to the legation, but had quickly shown himself to possess great political acumen.

While waiting to take up his appointment as Minister, McNeill had written a book detailing Russia’s territorial gains, in both Europe and Asia, from the time of Peter the Great. Published anonymously, at Palmerston’s insistence, it appeared in 1836 under the title
The Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East,
and was the most carefully reasoned piece of Great Game literature so far. The book contained a large folding map which showed the alarming extent of Russia’s expansion during the previous century and a half. Appended to the map was a table demonstrating Russia’s population gains resulting from these annexations and other acquisitions. In all, since the time of Peter’s accession, the number of the Tsar’s subjects had increased nearly fourfold, from 15 million to 58 million. At the same time Russia’s frontiers had advanced 500 miles towards Constantinople, and 1,000 miles towards Teheran. In Europe, Russia’s acquisitions from Sweden were greater than what was now left of this once-powerful kingdom, while those from Poland were almost equal in area to the entire Austrian Empire. This was all in stark contrast to the picture of a purely defensive Russia painted by Lord Durham in St Petersburg.

‘Every portion of these vast acquisitions’, McNeill wrote, ‘has been obtained in opposition to the views, the wishes and the interests of England. The dismemberment of Sweden, the partition of Poland, the conquest of the Turkish provinces and those severed from Persia, have all been injurious to British interests.’ The Russians, he added, had achieved all this by stealth, gaining their objectives by means of ‘successive encroachments, no one of which has been of sufficient importance to interrupt friendly relations with the great powers of Europe.’ It was an apt description of a process which would be repeated again and again by St Petersburg in Central Asia during the coming years.

Russia’s next two targets, McNeill forecast, would be those ailing twins the Ottoman and Persian empires, neither of which was in any position to withstand a determined attack by the Tsar’s armies. If Turkey were to fall into St Petersburg’s hands, it would gravely threaten Britain’s interests in Europe and the Mediterranean, while Russia’s occupation of Persia would very likely seal the fate of India. His prognosis was a gloomy one, but it was one with which many leading strategists, and all Russophobe commentators and newspapers, were in agreement. It was only a question of time, they were convinced, before the Russians made their next move, and a toss-up whether it would be against Turkey or Persia.

On arriving at his new post, McNeill discovered that Russia’s influence at the Shah’s court was even stronger than it had been before his departure for London. In Count Simonich, a general in the Russian army and now St Petersburg’s man in Teheran, he found himself facing a formidable and none too scrupulous adversary. But McNeill, no novice himself when it came to political intrigue, was determined to do everything in his power to spoil Tsar Nicholas’s game. Sure enough, within a very short time of his arrival in Persia, the Russians began to make shadowy moves towards Herat and Kabul, the two principal gateways leading to British India. The Great Game was about to enter a new and more dangerous phase.

·13·
The Mysterious Vitkevich

In the autumn of 1837, while travelling through the remote borderlands of eastern Persia, a young British subaltern was startled to see, far ahead of him across the plain, a party of uniformed Cossacks riding towards the Afghan frontier. It was evident that they had hoped to enter the country unobserved, for when he approached them as they breakfasted beside a stream he found them evasive and reluctant to discuss the reason for their being in this wild spot. It was quite clear to Lieutenant Henry Rawlinson, a political officer on Sir John McNeill’s staff in Teheran, that they were up to no good, though precisely what he could not be sure.

‘Their officer’, he reported, ‘was a young man of light make, very fair complexion, with bright eyes and a look of great animation.’ As the Englishman rode up, saluting politely, the Russian rose to his feet and bowed. He said nothing, however, obviously waiting for his visitor to speak. Rawlinson addressed him first in French – the language most commonly used between Europeans in the East – but the Russian merely shook his head. Speaking no Russian, Rawlinson next tried English, followed by Persian, but without success. Finally the Russian spoke, using Turcoman, of which Rawlinson had only a smattering. ‘I knew just sufficient’, he wrote later, ‘to carry on a simple conversation, but not to be inquisitive. This was evidently what my friend wanted.’

The Russian told Rawlinson that he was carrying gifts from Tsar Nicholas to the newly enthroned Shah of Persia, who had just succeeded his deceased father following a family power struggle. This was reasonably plausible, for at that very moment the Shah was less than a day’s march away, at the head of an army, on his way to lay siege to Herat. In fact Rawlinson himself was heading for the Shah’s camp bearing messages from McNeill. However, he was far from convinced by the Russian officer’s story, suspecting that he and his party were very likely making for Kabul. If this was so, Rawlinson knew, it would cause considerable alarm in London and Calcutta, where Afghanistan was seen as lying strictly within Britain’s sphere of influence. As it was, Count Simonich had already begun to meddle in the country’s affairs, using the Shah as his cat’s-paw. For it was no secret in Teheran that it was he who had urged the Shah to march on Herat, which Persia had long claimed, and wrest it from Kamran, while assuring McNeill that he was doing everything in his power to restrain him.

After smoking a pipe or two with the Cossacks and their officer, Rawlinson bade them farewell and hastened on his way, determined to discover what their game really was. On reaching the Shah’s camp that evening, Rawlinson at once sought an interview with him. Ushered into the royal tent, he reported his encounter with the Russians, who were supposedly bringing gifts from the Tsar. ‘Bringing presents for me!’ the Shah exclaimed with astonishment. Why, he assured Rawlinson, these had nothing to do with him, but were intended for Dost Mohammed at Kabul. Indeed, he had agreed with Count Simonich to allow the Cossacks safe passage through his domains. So much then for the Russian officer’s tale. Rawlinson now knew that he possessed news of the utmost importance, and he prepared to hasten back to Teheran with it.

It was at that moment that the Russian party rode into the Persian camp, unaware that Rawlinson had discovered the truth about them. Addressing Rawlinson in perfect French, their officer introduced himself as Captain Yan Vitkevich from the Orenburg garrison. Apologising for his earlier coolness and evasiveness, he explained that he had thought it unwise to be too friendly or familiar with strangers in the desert. He now endeavoured to make up for this by being especially cordial towards the Englishman. This chance encounter, in the heart of Great Game country, was the first such meeting between players of either side. For the most part it was a shadowy conflict in which the contestants rarely if ever met. This particular meeting, however, was to have unforeseen and far-reaching consequences, for it would help to precipitate one of the worst catastrophes ever to befall a British army.