Great Game
The Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British and Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet. The two colonial empires used military interventions and diplomatic negotiations to acquire and redefine territories in Central and South Asia. Russia conquered Turkestan, and Britain expanded and set the borders of British colonial India. By the early 20th century, a line of independent states, tribes, and monarchies from the shore of the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Himalayas were made into protectorates and territories of the two empires.
For other uses, see The Great Game (disambiguation).
Though the Great Game was marked by distrust, diplomatic intrigue, and regional wars, it never erupted into a full-scale war directly between Russian and British colonial forces.[1] However, the two nations battled in the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856, which affected the Great Game.[2][3] The Russian and British Empires also cooperated numerous times during the Great Game, including many treaties and the Afghan Boundary Commission.
Britain feared Russia's southward expansion would threaten India, while Russia feared the expansion of British interests into Central Asia. As a result, Britain made it a high priority to protect all approaches to India, while Russia continued its military conquest of Central Asia.[1][3] Aware of the importance of India to the British, Russian efforts in the region often had the aim of extorting concessions from them in Europe,[2][4][5] but after 1801, they had no serious intention of directly attacking India.[6][2] Russian war plans for India that were proposed but never materialised included the Duhamel and Khrulev plans of the Crimean War (1853–1856).[7]
Russia and Britain's 19th-century rivalry in Asia began with the planned Indian March of Paul and Russian invasions of Iran in 1804–1813 and 1826–1828, shuffling Persia into a competition between colonial powers.[8] According to one major view, the Great Game started on 12 January 1830, when Lord Ellenborough, the president of the Board of Control for India, tasked Lord Bentinck, the governor-general, with establishing a trade route to the Emirate of Bukhara. Britain aimed to create a protectorate in Afghanistan, and support the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Khiva, and Bukhara as buffer states against Russian expansion. This would protect India and key British sea trade routes by blocking Russia from gaining a port on the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean. As Russian and British spheres of influence expanded and competed, Russia proposed Afghanistan as the neutral zone.[9]
Traditionally, the Great Game came to a close between 1895 and 1907. In September 1895, London and Saint Petersburg signed the Pamir Boundary Commission protocols, when the border between Afghanistan and the Russian Empire was defined using diplomatic methods.[10] In August 1907, the Anglo-Russian Convention created an alliance between Britain and Russia, and formally delineated control in Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet.[11][12][13]
Further expansion[edit]
Under the British Crown[edit]
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the East India Company's remaining powers were transferred to the British Crown[61] in the person of Queen Victoria (who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India). As a state, the British Raj functioned as the guardian of a system of connected markets maintained by military power, business legislation and monetary management.[62] The Government of India Act 1858 saw the India Office of the British government assume the administration of British India through a Viceroy appointed by the Crown.
In 1863 Sultan Ahmad Khan of Herat, who was placed into power by Persia and issued coinage on behalf of the Shah, attacked the disputed town of Farrah. Farrah had been under Dost Mohammad Khan's control since 1856, and he responded by sending his army to defeat Herat and reunited it with Afghanistan.[63][64]
Diplomacy[edit]
Agreement Between Great Britain and Russia 1873[edit]
On 21 January 1873, Great Britain and Russia signed an agreement that stipulated that the eastern Badakhshan area as well as the Wakhan Corridor to Lake Sariqol were Afghan territory, the northern Afghan boundary was the Amu Darya (Oxus River) as far west as Khwaja Salar (near Khamyab), and a joint Russian-British commission would define the boundary from the Amu Darya to the Persian border on the Hari (Harirud) River. However, no boundary west of the Amu Darya was defined until 1885.[87] The agreement was regarded as having defined the British and Russian spheres of influence in Afghanistan and Central Asia, gave the two sides the legitimacy to advance within their designated zones, created cordial relations between the two rival European powers, and raised the new problem of defining what were the frontiers of Afghanistan, Russia and China in the upper Oxus region in the Pamir mountains.[88] The agreement was negotiated by Russian diplomat Prince Alexander Gorchakov, the lands of Badakhshan and Wakhan were accepted by Russia as part of Afghanistan,[89] Russia accepted all of Britain's proposals on Afghanistan's northern borders and expected that Britain would keep Afghanistan from committing any aggression.[90] However, this set in motion Russia's annexation of the Khanate of Khiva in the same year.[89][35] Badakhshan would later be divided between Afghanistan and Russian-controlled Bukhara by the Pamir Boundary Commission in 1895.
Treaty of Gandamak, 1879[edit]
After the British Siege of Kabul, warfare was settled diplomatically by the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879. The British sent an envoy and mission to Kabul, but on 3 September this mission was massacred and the conflict was reignited. The second phase ended in September 1880 when the British defeated Ayub Khan outside Kandahar. A new Emir, Abdul Rahman Khan who was known to be a Russian ally and an opponent of the British, ratified and confirmed the Gandamak treaty once more. When the British and Indian soldiers had withdrawn, the Afghans agreed to let the British attain most of their geopolitical objectives, as well as create a buffer between the British Raj and the Russian Empire. The British were aware that Amir Abdur Rahman Khan had the support of the Afghans to continue fighting and he did not allow a British resident to stay in Kabul which was a British objective that caused the start of the conflict. In return, he accepted British control of Afghanistan's foreign policies while maintaining internal sovereignty and to cede to the British a number of its southern frontier areas, including the districts of Pishin, Sibi, Harnai, and Thal Chotiali.[91]
In 1881, Russian forces however took Geok Tepe and in 1884 they occupied Merv.[35] As the Russian forces were close to Herat, the British and Russian governments formed a joint Anglo-Russian diplomatic Afghan Boundary Commission in the same year to define the borders between the Russian Empire and northern Afghanistan.[92][93]
In 1885, a Russian force annexed the Panjdeh district north of Herat province and its fort in what has been called the Panjdeh incident.[94] The Afghans claimed that the people of the district had always paid tribute to Afghanistan, and the Russians argued that this district was part of the Khanates of Khiva and Merv which they had annexed earlier. The Afghan Boundary Commission was supposed to have settled the dispute, however the battle occurred before its arrival. The Afghan force of 500 was overwhelmed by superior Russian numbers. Britain did not aid Afghanistan as was required by the Treaty of Gandamak, leading the Amir to conclude that he could not rely on the British in the face of Russian aggression.[95]
German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck saw how important the Great Game had become for Russia and Britain. Germany had no direct stakes, however its dominance of Europe was enhanced when Russian troops were based as far away from Germany as possible. Over two decades, 1871–1890, he maneuvered to help the British, hoping to force the Russians to commit more soldiers to Asia.[96] However, Bismarck through the Three Emperors' League also aided Russia, by pressuring the Ottoman Empire to block the Bosporus from British naval access, compelling an Anglo-Russian negotiation regarding Afghanistan.[97]
Historiographical interpretations of the Great Game[edit]
Allegation that "Britain had lost the Great Game by 1842"[edit]
Edward Ingram[127] proposes that Britain lost the Great Game. "The Great Game was an aspect of British history rather than international relations: the phrase describes what the British were doing, not the actions of Russians and Chinese." The Great Game was an attempt made in the 1830s by the British to impose their view on the world. If Khiva and Bukhara were to become buffer states, then trade routes to Afghanistan, as a protectorate, along the Indus and Sutlej rivers would be necessary and therefore access through the Sind and Punjab regions would be required. The Great Game began between 1832 and 1834 as an attempt to negotiate trade deals with Ranjit Singh and the Amirs of Sind, and the "first interruption of this magnificent British daydream was caused by the determination of the Amirs of Sind to be left alone." Its failure occurred at the end of the First Anglo-Afghanistan war in 1842 with the British withdrawal from Afghanistan. The failure to turn Afghanistan into a client state meant that The Great Game could not be won.[28][117]
Nonetheless, Britain would win a decisive victory in the Second Anglo-Afghan War which occurred between 1878 and 1880.[128][129] The victory also strengthened Britain's influence in Afghanistan, which had become a British protectorate.[130]
In 1889, Lord Curzon, who later became Viceroy of India (1899-1905), wrote a book on the strategic balance between the Russian and British Empires, as well as his travels on the Trans-Caspian railway.[131]
In that book, Russia in Central Asia in 1889 & the Anglo-Russian Question, he commented:
Effect of the Great Game on contemporary political boundaries[edit]
On India[edit]
Narendra Singh Sarila, aide-de-camp to Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of British India, in 1948 describes in his book The Shadow of the Great Game that based on his research in The Oriental and India Collection of British Library that the partition of India was partially connected to the Great Game between Britain and the USSR. He stated the following in his book:
Lawyer and mediator in Supreme Court of India, Aman M. Hingorani in his book Unravelling the Kashmir Knot that Winston Churchill directed War Cabinet to assess 'the long-term policy required to safeguard the strategic interests of the British Empire in India and the Indian Ocean', the report in respect of which was submitted on 19 May 1945. He states in the book:
The Great Game as a legend[edit]
Mythologized aspects of the Great Game[edit]
A. Vescovi argued that Kipling's use of the term was entirely fictional, "...because the Great Game as it is described in the novel never existed; it is almost entirely Kipling's invention. At the time when the story is set (i.e. in the late Eighties), Britain did not have an intelligence service, nor an Ethnographical Department; there was only a governmental task force called 'Survey of India' that was entrusted with the task of charting all India in response to a typically English anxiety of control."[153]
According to military history scholar Matt Salyer, the "Great Game" as a British strategy was a fiction, but the "Great Game" as a vague descriptor of various actions of multiple empires, "as far back as the Seven Years' War" is accurate. He writes that "the 'legend of the Great Game' emerged as a distinct historiographical lens after the Second World War." However, he says, "That does not mean that historians who describe trajectories of British Imperial statecraft in terms of 'the Great Game' are wrong."[154]
Two authors, Gerald Morgan and Malcolm Yapp, have proposed that The Great Game was a legend and that the British Raj did not have the capacity to conduct such an undertaking. An examination of the archives of the various departments of the Raj showed no evidence of a British intelligence network in Central Asia. At best, efforts to obtain information on Russian moves in Central Asia were rare, ad hoc adventures and at worst intrigues resembling the adventures in Kim were baseless rumours, and that such rumours "were always common currency in Central Asia and they applied as much to Russia as to Britain".[19][51] After two British representatives were executed in Bukhara in 1842, Britain actively discouraged officers from traveling in Turkestan.[51]
Gerald Morgan also proposed that Russia never had the will nor ability to move on India, nor India the capability to move on Central Asia. Russia did not want Afghanistan, considering their initial failure to take Khiva and the British debacle in the First Anglo-Afghan War. To invade Afghanistan they would first require a forward base in Khorasan, Persia. St. Petersburg had decided by then that a forward policy in the region had failed but one of non-intervention appeared to work.[155]
Sneh Manajan wrote that the Russian military advances in Central Asia were advocated and executed only by irresponsible Russians or enthusiastic governors of the frontier provinces.[156] Robert Middleton suggested that The Great Game was all a figment of the over-excited imaginations of a few jingoist politicians, military officers and journalists on both sides.[98] The use of the term The Great Game to describe Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia became common only after the Second World War. It was rarely used before that period.[157] Malcolm Yapp proposed that some Britons had used the term "The Great Game" in the late 19th century to describe several different things in relation to its interests in Asia, but the primary concern of British authorities in India was the control of the indigenous population and not preventing a Russian invasion.[158]
Robert Irwin argues the Great Game was certainly perceived by both British and Russian adventurers at the time, but was played up by more expansionist factions for power politics in Europe. Irwin states that "Prince Ukhtomsky might rail against the corrupting effects of British rule over India and declare that there could be no frontiers for the Russians in Asia, but Russian policy was usually decided by saner heads. Canny statesmen such as Witte sanctioned the despatch of diplomatic missions, explorers and spies into Afghanistan and Tibet, but they did so to extort concessions from the British in Europe. Whitehall, on the other hand, was reluctant to have its foreign policy in Europe dictated to by the Raj."[4]
According to historian Patrikeeff, the concept of the Great Game was also applied, possibly inaccurately, to Northeast Asia to describe Russia and Japan's contest over Manchuria – which took the form of the Russian invasion of Manchuria, Russo-Japanese War, and part of the Russian Civil War – and perhaps had similar ideological underpinnings to start with. However, unlike the British-Russian Great Game in South and West Asia, where clear-cut spheres of influence were established, Patrikeeff says that this supposed Great Game in Northeast Asia ignored that economic dominance did not follow political (with Japan's victory in Manchuria not fully ousting the Russian concessions such as the CER) and that centuries-old distinct traditions such as the Qing legacy there led to key differences.[159] Nonetheless, ancient and even mythic appeals to legitimacy were used by exiled supporters of empire, such as Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg's attempt at reviving a 'new Mongolian khanate'.[159][160] Whereas the Great Game between Russia and Britain was codifying imperial spheres of influence at their frontiers, the supposed Great Game between Russia and Japan did not end up in a similarly defined frontier, with warlord states and Honghuzi emerging through the period.[159]
Other uses of the term "Great Game"[edit]
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan invited comparisons to the Great Game in the 1980s.[169][15] Concerns of resource scarcity emerged once again in the 1990s, and with it the hope that the newly independent states of Central Asia and the Caucasus would provide a resource boom – the new "Persian Gulf" – and with it competition for oil and gas in a 21st-century version of the Great Game. These expectations were not supported by the facts, and came with an exaggeration of the region's commercial and geopolitical value.[170][171] Since that time, some journalists have used the expression The New Great Game to describe what they proposed was a renewed geopolitical interest in Central Asia because of the mineral wealth of the region, which was at that time becoming more available to foreign investment after the end of the Soviet Union.[172] One journalist linked the term to an interest in the region's minerals[173] and another to its minerals and energy.[174] The interest in oil and gas includes pipelines that transmit energy to China's east coast. One view of the New Great Game is a shift to geoeconomic compared to geopolitical competition. Xiangming Chen believes that "China and Russia are the two dominant power players vs. the weaker independent Central Asian states".[175]
Other authors have criticized the reuse of the term "Great Game". It may imply that Central Asian states are entirely the pawns of larger states, when this ignores the potentially counterbalancing factors.[176][177] According to strategic analyst Ajay Patnaik, the "New Great Game" is a misnomer, because rather than two empires focused on the region as in the past, there are now many global and regional powers active with the rise of China and India as major economic powers. Central Asian states have diversified their political, economic, and security relationships.[178] David Gosset of CEIBS Shanghai states "the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) established in 2001 is showing that Central Asia's actors have gained some real degree of independence. But fundamentally, the China factor introduces a level of predictability."[179] In the 2015 international relations book Globalizing Central Asia, the authors state that Central Asian states have pursued a multivectored approach in balancing out the political and economic interests of larger powers, but it has had mixed success due to strategic reversals of administrations regarding the West, China, and Russia. They suppose that China could balance out Russia.[180] However, Russia and China have a strategic partnership since 2001. According to Ajay Patnaik, "China has advanced carefully in the region, using the SCO as the main regional mechanism, but never challenging Russian interests in Central Asia."[178] In the Carnegie Endowment, Paul Stronski and Nicole Ng wrote in 2018 that China has not fundamentally challenged any Russian interests in Central Asia. They suggested that China, Russia, and the West could have mutual interests in regional stability in Central Asia.[181]
The Great Game has been described as a cliché-metaphor,[182] and there are authors who have now written on the topics of "the Great Game" in Antarctica,[183] the world's far north,[184] and in outer space.[185]