WILL RUSSIA CONQUER INDIA ?

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1985, 28 March 1885, Page 4

WILL RUSSIA CONQUER INDIA ?

Wk are indebted to a contemporary for the following rmime of an article under She above heading f i om the pen of Mr Vambery, winch appeared in the Nineteenth Centtiry :— In the opening portion there occurs tho following ominous senItence :— " Neither all the distance that I separates the Eiuopean world fiom the scene of action, nor the great gravity of the burning questions of the day which eng.ige our attention at home, and the indifference with which we are in the habit of viewing occurrences far oft', will do away with the fact that Russia is steadily advancing, not indeed with one mighty leap, for the stealthy gait of the bear is a rolling one, but with slow and sure steps towards the Butiah lion in Asia ; that he has already driven him to the wall ; and that the lion in an inconceivably short period of time— it can be only a question of a few decades— is threatened with a struggle of a r.ither doubtful issue " This suiliciently indicates Mr Vainbery's sense of the gravity of tho situation. He is of opinion that, however hungrily tho eyes of Peter the Great or the Empress Catharine may have been turned to India, the Russian plans did not begin to mature more than two decades ago, commencing with the captuie of Tashkend in 1804, when General Tchcrnayefl wrote to a friend of his tho following remarkable words :— "The mysteuous veil which has hitherto covered the conquest of India, a conquest looked upon till now as fabulous, is beginning to lift itself befoie my eyes." Then ho traces the history of Russia's progress across Central Asia, which was entered upon at first under the impression that the conquered provinces would prove an El Dorado, but on this proving to be a mistaken impression, "some new mode had to be discovered by which the recent conquests should be turned to good account in another field. This new field was the field of political and strategic scheming, and hancefoith all energies were bent upon teaching the frontiers of India, and no efforts or sacrifices were deemed too gieat to attaiu tins object." Railways weie pushed on, even through the bottomless sand steppes of Cential Asia, and "on a territory where formerly even the wing-footed Turkoman steed would hardly have dared to tread, there now rushes on the snorting and pulling steam lioise." Theie has been no standstill in the Russian State fiom its infancy to this day. * * * The steadiest and most sanguinely disposed thinker would be embartassed to maik out, in a State possessing such eminent powers of absorption and such an insatiable greed for new lands, the exact bound.ny line •where the activity of the absorbing power is to cease. * * * * Russia is bent upon reaching India, and then, as a necessary consequence, setting about the task of conquering her." Having thus in several pages, which wo heve been compelled to skim, established the fact of Russia's desire to conquer India, Mr Vambery then proceeds to take up the question of her power to do so. In dealing with this, he gives first place to the advantage which he conceives Russia to possess in the character of her influence on Asiatic populations. "England only colonises and civilises, and succeeds in essentially transforming tho national element of the natives, whilst Russia, on the contrary, transforms and civilises only in the Russian sense of the word, in order to be able to rnssianise the natives more easily and rapidly." The second advantage is her despotic form of} Government, which gives her absolute power in disposing of the State Treasury and the lhos on the subjects, " In England the fierce struggle of parties is such that one administtation will often pull down that which another administration has laboriously built up," * * * " the work of conquest is progie&sing more slowly than wheie, at the woul of command of the prince, ' I will it so, I command it,' the masses were bowing down in tho du>t, and suppoiting with their la&t pennies tho ambition of their despotic nnster." The third advantage po^csbod by Russia consists in lit r laige army which enables her to tlnow a contingent into India, against which England could in no case array an army conespouding in numbers. Li addition ,to her regular army there must be considered, Afr VambOry thinks, "the Asiatic auxiliary troops, who, incited by hopes of pillage aud plunder, and luengc, woutd, under the Russian standard, join the expedition ; and Russia might expect aid fiom the Cential Asiatics, whilst England would be menaced by, aDd \n danger of her Hindustan allies and nath c army.' The nomadic element has always provided the largest contingents for the armies invading India fiom the north, and Russia has already set to work in the direction of drilling and turning them to account. "At present the:e aie only a few squadious of Tiukoman cavalry in the Russian service, but they aie diilled in the European manner and they astonish as much by then skill aud precision in cavalry practice as they sui prise their Russian teachers by their strictly soldieily spu it. In a short time these squadrons will grow into a few regiments, and the success that Hying columns consisting of Turkoman material will render to an invading army cannot be overrated. The Turkoman is undoubtedly the best soldier in the world ; his hor3e is the swiftest and toughest in all Asia; his hardened nature defies all fatigues and privations, and once in the saddle he must know neither father nor brother, according to a saying current with them, which still adds: "If robbers attack thy father's tent, rush into it and pillage with them ' If the co-operation of such tender-soulod fieebooting knights in an eventual Russian march towards India, on the one hand, cannot be made light of, neither cm, on the other hand, bo underrated the feelings which have their origin in the conquest of the Punjab, and in the two Anglo- A Afghan wars, and which have taken deep root in the wild and passionate Affghans. The Artghnn, like the Tinkoman, is a freebcotur by trade, differing only in kind ; he, too, deems it more praiseworthy to get hold of the propei ty of others by murder and pillage than by industry and labour ; and the tinimpli of ecstacy of this pleasant company may be easily imagined in case it should enter the mind of the white Padishah on the Neva to undertake an expedition to India and to invite them to take part in it. I therefore repeat that Russia, considering the Asiatic militia at her disposal, can, with a comparatively small army, boldly nsk the venture; and General Bkobeloff was perfectly right in saying at one time in his famous plan of Indian invasion :— "lt will be in the end our duty to organise masses of Asiatic cavalry, aud to hurl them into India uiidei tho banner of blood and pillage, as a vanguard as it were, thus leviving the time- of a Tamerlane.' Yes, the man has spokpn no empty words; it would not Ikivo been tlic first time that Russu would havr aetrd inuu Asiafieo in Asia, And wf miv ti'*l< the assertion that Rn«»i.i, a* fit »s the military question is concerned, is fully prepared for an invasion of India. The nest, and by no means the least important, ],ovii mentioned in the article bttoio us is " the advantage Russia has q lined nitlnn the last two years, through the greatly mci cased rapidity of comniinm ,ition ( hetwoen the Mother Country .xiul tlio Asiatic frontier regions lying hntlresjyjfl) \Vitbonlj going into details wo " tfftT 'rnWely qnote Mr Yam bi'iy's bumming up of the facilities lttiiiia possesses for massing her fonea on the frontier :—" Taking the westernmost starting point, namely OdfN'i, an army can be thrown in six rtay* frdnt the south of Russia into the interior of Asia without any great exertion, of without any interruption." Such has been the progress made and now making in railway construction that the entire distance between tlje eaatern ahore

of the Caspian Sea and Herat, the so called key of India, can br made in foity eight hours at the most. As the fifth and last advantage of Russia in her designs on India is mentioned the 1 expect and prestige which she enjoys in the e>i3 ot the Asiatics, a prestige which lias continued ununpaiied for centimes, and has always spicad fear and leiror. The piinces of Centtal Asi.i li.uo always trembled befoie their neighbour in the Noith, even befoie lie had crossed the barrier of the belt of the steppe, and a Turksman bard predicted to his countrymen in the last century that the world would in the end succumb to the overwhelming power of Kiibsia. This legend of her immense power has continued to be couect to this day, not only amongst the nations of Central Asia, but .vmongst those of China, India, Peisii and Tin key. "In our days this prestige has gone on increasing, owing to the o\ei throw ot the Turkoman power and the subjection of the Khanates of Bok har.i ; it has entered the ba/iars of the remotest towns of India, and is every - w here emblazoned as the symbol of in vincible might and grandeur. Such a fame h in itself worth .several armies, ana will woik wonders in the future as it has dono in the past."