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enn sree tartare ttnnicin aah Sie oi Roma dnb a agmae ahea e
28 : THE RUSSIANS AT THE GATES OF HERAT.
into Russia’s possession. One thing, however, she would do well
to realize in time—if she does not value Herat, Russia docs; and
Russia values it so much that, by hook or by crook, she means to
have it. -
To a reporter of the Press Association, Lessar said, March 15th:
“We have no intentions on Herat, which is altogether out of the
sphere of our action.”
The same Lessar wrote to the Noroe Vremya in November, 1883,
when the Russian troops were already massing on the Tejend and
in Khiva for Alikhanoff’s dash upon Merv: ‘The longer ‘Merv re-
mains independent, the better for Russia: its occupation would not
be difficult, while possession would be extremely unprofitable.”
On February 29th, 1882, M. de Giers said to Sir Edward Thornton,
using the very words employed by Lessar: ‘* Russia has no inten-
tions whatever of occupying Merv and Sarakhs.” Within two years
from this period of ‘no intentions ” Merv was a Russian possession.
So that it will not do to rely upon Russia’s disinterestedness ag a
safeguard to Herat. The question, therefore, to consider is — Is
Herat worth safeguarding, and can we safely allow. Russia to re-
main in possession of its gates?
The city of Herat has found an eloquent historian in the person
of Colonel Malleson, whose ‘* Herat, the Granary and Garden of
the East,” ought to be read by everybody at this juncture. It is
one of the oldest cities in the East, and was once one of the rich-
est. To use the words of a Persian geographer, “the city has been
fifty times taken, fifty times destroyed, and fifty times has it risen
from its ashes.” Six hundred and sixty years ago it contained, ac-
cording to the records of the period, 12,000 retail shops, 6000 public
baths, caravansaries, and water mills, 850 schools and monastic in-
stitutions, and 144,000 occupied houses, and was yearly visited by
caravans from all parts of Asia. When Chingiz Khan passed across
the East, devastating the region, Herat is said to have suffered by.
the two stormings it experienced at his hands a loss of a million
and a half of men. In subsequent ages its splendor revived, and it
was a great and flourishing city dowa to comparatively modern
times. :
Summing up in his masterly manner the carcer of Herat, Colonel
Malleson says: ‘A glance at the record of the past will show that
from time immemorial the city was regarded as an outlying bul-
wark, the possession of which was necessary prior to attempting the
conquest of India; the holding of which by India or by quasi-vassal
powers dependent on India would render impossible an invasion of
that country. It was so considered by Alexander, by Mahmud and
his successors, by Chingiz Khan, by Taimur, by Nadir Shah, by
Ahmad Shah, and by Muhammad Shah, the Persian Prince who at-
tacked it in 1837. In the cases of all but the last the possession of
Herat led to the conquest of India; in the case of the last the suc-
cessful defence of that city rendered invasion impossible.
“ The hasty reader may object—what can the possession of one city
signify? A question of this nature touches the real point of the argu-
ment. Herat is called the gate of India, because through it,and through
it alone, the valleys can be entered which lead to the only vulnerable
part of India. Those valleys, running nearly north and south, are
protected to the cast by inaccessible ranges, to the west by imprac-
ticable deserts. No invading army could dare to attempt to traverse
the great salt desert, and the desert immediately south of it, the
Dasht-i-Naubad, while a British army held Herat. As long as that
army should hold Herat, so long would an invasion of India be im-
ossible. In his masterly lecture at the Royal United Institution, in
Yovember, 1878, General Hamley laid down the broad principle that
if England were to hold the western line of communication with
India, that by Herat and Candahar, she need not trouble herself much
about the eastern, or the Cabul, line. On the same occasion, Sir
Henry Rawlinson declared, in reply to a question put to him by Lord
Elcho, that rather than allow the occupation of Herat b Russia, he
would venture the whole might of British India. That high author-
ity saw clearly what I have feebly endeavored to demonstrate in
these pages—that the possession of Herat by Russia means the pos-
session of that one line by which India can be invaded; that the posses-
sion of Herat by England means the annihilation of all the Russian
hopes of an invasion of India. - Let the reader imagine that Canda-
har is the frontier British station; that between Herat and Candahar
is a long lane, so protected on both sides that the man who may wish
to traverse any part of it to Candahar must enter by Herat. Is it
not obvious that the power which shall hold Herat will com Ietely
dominate the lane? It is this which makes the possession of Herat
by England a matter of vital consequence.
‘ Another fact illustrates the enormous value of Herat. Place an
army there, and nothing need be brought to it from Europe. Within
the limits of the Heratee territory all the great roads leading on India
converge. The mines of the Heratee district supply lead, iron, and
sulphur; the surface of many parts of the country is laden with salt-
petre; the willow and the poplar, which make the best charcoal,
abound; the fields produce in abundance corn and wine and oil.
From the population, attracted to its new rulers by good govern-
ment, splendid soldiers might be obtained.
‘Such are the military advantages presented by Herat to the
power that shall occupy it. Should that power be an enemy, Herat
would be to him an eye to see and an arm to strike—an eye to pry
into every native court of Hindustan, to watch the discontents and
the broodings of the rulers, the heart-burnings of their subordinates,
From watching and noting to fermenting and stirring up there is
but one short step. Every court, every bazaar, in India, would note
the presence on the frontier, in a position not only unassailable, but
becoming every day more and more capable of assailing, of a first-
class power, the secret enemy of England, and professing the most
unselfish anxiety to relieve them in their distress. An arm to strike,
because a few years of intelligent rule would render the valley of
the Hari Rud capable of supporting and equipping an army strong
enough even to invade India.
“In a third sense, likewise, the possession of Herat by an enemy
would not be less dangerous to England. The roads converging on
it, already alluded to, are traversed by caravans to which no other
route is available. We.may be sure that the city which success-
fully resisted the rivalry of Meshed, when Meshed was backed by
all the influence of the Shahs of Persia, will take a still higher posi-
tion when supported by the might either of England or of Russia.
The European power whose intiuence shall be paramount in Herat
will rule the markets of Central Asia. More even than that. The
possession of Herat by Russia means the exclusion of England from
the markets of Central Asia.”
The city stands on the right bank of the Hari Rud, from which
water is brought by several channels. It is built in the form of a
rectangle, the north and south faces being about 1500, and the east
and west faces 1600 yards in length. Enclosing the city is an im-
mense earthwork about 50 feet high, surmounted by a wall ranging
from 25 to 30 feet, with a deep moat, which can be easily flooded
from the Hari Rud. The citadel is situated in the cenire of the
city, and is also surrounded by a moat. There are five gates, of
which one, however, is closed ‘up, and each is flanked by two bas-
tions. The city is bridged at each of the four gates by a wooden
drawbridge, which is raised and lowered by mechanical appliances
worked from inside the walls. Each face of the four walls is fur-
nished with from 25 to 30 bastions. On the exterior slope of the
embankment, supporting the walls, are two lines of shelter trenches,
one above the other, carricd all around the city, except where the
gates are. A correspondent with Lumsden’s mission describes the
mounted armament as some “twenty guns of varied calibres, besides
numberless others lying dismounted on the ramparts.” Twenty
guns to defend 3} miles of wall! The garrison consists of 4000 or
9000 troops, exclusive of irregulars. .
It may be mentioned that the Russians have complete plans of the
fortifications, obtained by General Grodekoff in 1878.
he estimates of the ‘population show considerable divergence.
The first during the present century was Christie’s, who visited the
place in 1809, and reckoned the population at 100,000, Burnes and
Shakespeare called at Herat on their way north. Conolly was there
in 1828-380, and gives 65,000 as the figure; while Pottinger, in 1837-8,
states the number at about 40,000; and Ferrier, in 1845, estimated
it as low as 22,000. Whether any of the numbers, or all of them,
Were correct, is impossible to say; but since Herat is a rendezvous
for the country people when threatened by the enemy, each estimate
may be quite correct for the year stated. Later, in 1865, Pollock
again gave 100,000; and in 1878 General Grodekoff thought the ap-
proximate number was close on 50,000. The latter figure is now
generally accepted by geographers. Candahar has also 50,000 or
60,000 inhabitants. ‘These are the only two towns lying between
the Russians and India.
To most Englishmen Herat is associated with the brilliant defence
of the city which Eldred Pottinger maintained in 1837 against a
Persian army of 40,000 men and 60 guns, commanded by Muhamad
Shah. A large number of Russian officers participated in the siege,
and an entire Russian regiment. Pottinger, a young Bombay mili-
tary officer, happened to be exploring in the neighborhood when they
arrived, and persuading the Afghans to allow him to control the de-
fence, maintained a desperate resistance of ten months, when the
Persians retired. It may be noted that the Persians marched from
the Caspian cia Askabad and Meshed to Herat, by a road 550 miles
long, running parallel with the one cia Krasnovodsk and Askabad.
This road was supposed to be the best highway of invasion to India,
but Lessar’s discovery of the easy section from Sarakhs to Herat
proved the one now held by the Russians to be superior. As the
Russians are almost certain before many years are past to absorb
Khorassan, the second Transcaspian road ‘will also come.into their
possession.
_ In 1881, when English people were still incredulous as to the prac-
ticability of a Russian invasion of India, I put forward this argu-
ment: that Persia, having in 1837 marched 35,000 troops and 50 guns
(composed of 18 and 24 pounders) from the Caspian to Herat, and
in 1880, Ayoub Khan 20,000 troops and 30 guns from Herat to Can-
dahar, to which point various English armies had adyanced from
the Indus with guns, therefore there was absolutely no physical ob-
stacle to the marching of a powerful Russian force with heavy artil-
lery all the way from the Caspian to India. The terrific mountain
barrier many English politicians still believe in I asserted to be sheer
moonshine. | Since then this practical line of invasion has been sup-
lemented by the second that the Russians now hold, and of which
have said it is so flat and easy that one could drive a four-in-hand
all the way to the outposts of Quetta, In the event of war, both
routes would be used by Russia.
Since 1856, when Persia advanced a second time and took Herat,
for which we went to war with her and made her retire, the Shah’s