Journal of the Royal United
Service Institution
VOL. XIX. 1875. No. LXXX.
LECTURE.
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passage from a remarkable
article by Mr. Henry Lushington, reprinted some 30 years
ago, with other papers, in a small octavo volume, under
the title of "A Great Country's Little Wars."
The author is treating of the relief of the British
captives on the re-occupation of Kabul: — " The
principal immediate agent in their recovery was,
appropriately, " the same English Officer whose name
was previously known as connected with a service to
humanity more free from alloy, more purely "
gratifying, than it can have often fallen to the lot of a
military man " to effect—the rescue and safe
conduct to St. Petersburg of the prisoners detained at
Khiva. Sir Richmond Shakespeare, to whose “lot two
such services have fallen, is indeed a man to be
envied." Sir Vincent Eyre also speaking of that
memorable month of September, 1842, says: '' On the 17th
we were reinforced by Sir R. Shakespeare, who had
“ridden out from Kabul with 600 Kizlbash horsemen,
to our assistance. His aid was most timely; for Sultan
Muhammad Khan, with 1,000 men, was hastening to intercept
us." General Perovsky's narrative, written many
years after these missions had been accomplished, while
ignoring aught but political objects in the whole
proceeding, confirms at least the arduous and adventurous
character of the duties undertaken : —
The English Agents," he
states, "who were in central Asia during '' the
years 1839 and 1840, were Abbott and Shakespeare. In May,
1840, Captain Abbott, of the East India Company's
service, reached Novo- Aleksandrovsk Fortress from Khiva,
and proceeded thence to Orenburg.
By the order of the Khan he was
robbed and wounded on his route to the Caspian by a gang
of Turkmen
(who had even been instructed by the Khivans to kill
him), and from; Orenburg he was sent in a suitable manner
to Petersburg, whilst the Afghans that had accompanied
him were sent back to their native country. Shakespeare,
the other English Officer, reached Orenburg, Novo
Alexandrovsk, with the Russian prisoners who had been
" released from Khiva; he was immediately sent on to
St. Petersburg." Oxus Route. — If we take
routes actually traversed, with deviations and detours,
the distance from Herat to Khiva, by the Oxus, may be
reckoned roughly at a maximum of 700 miles. Of this
route, the two termini and the intervening station of
Merv, about 430 miles from Khiva, are really the only
places which demand especial notice among centers of
population. As the crow flies, the whole distance is less
than 600, 1 or, according to one estimate,* little more
than 500 miles; and Merv is nearly midway. Indeed, some
modern geographers attribute the commercial importance of
Merv to the circumstance that it "lies almost"
in the centre of a region bounded by five large markets,
Khiva, " Urganj, Bukhara, Balkh, and Herat, being
180 to 280 miles distant " from each "
(Ritter). Mashhad, the capital of Russian Khorasan,
1 Abbott makes it less by his own
route.
2 Markham. History of Persia. Appendix D.
| JBOC Note: |
When Sir Richmond Shakespeare rode out with
600 Kizlbash horsemen these are a special elite
in Afghan Society. The Kizilbash are the
descendents of the Afshari bodyguards of Nader
Shah. That guard killed Nader Shah and looted his
treasure before hghtailing it to Afghanistan.
They are Shia Moslem. |
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