Proceedings of the
Royal Geographical Society (Great Britain)
Norton Shaw, Francis Galton, Clements Robert Markham,
William Spottiswoode, Henry Walter Bates, John Scott
Keltie
Published by, 1879
The Road
to Merv. By Major-General Sir H. C. RAWLINSON, K.O.B.
(Read at
the Evening Meeting, January 27th, 1879.)
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is pretty certain, therefore, that
at a more favorable season of the year a Russian column
skillfully led would be equally successful. To try to
force the passage of the Murghab, however, after crossing
the desert, against 40,000 Teke (Tekke)s entrenched
behind formidable earthworks, and defended on each flank
by extensive inundations, would be a more difficult
operation, the probable result of which I need not at
present discuss. It will be sufficient to recapitulate
the leading features of the geographical argument I have
hero submitted. The distance from the Caspian to Merv by
the Akhal country and
Serakhs is about 700 miles, and to keep up communications
by a line of posts along this interval would be a very
serious operation indeed. From the western end
of the Deregez Atock, moreover, to Serakhs, a
distance of 200 miles, the line would pass through
Persian, or quasi-Persian territory, and Russia therefore
could not of course undertake such a movement without an
understanding with the Government of the Shah. In the
matter of supplies, also, food could not be possibly
obtained in the districts traversed by the Russian
columns. Either provision caravans must follow the troops
from the Caspian, which along a line of 700 miles would
entail enormous expense and risk, or grain must be
supplied from Khorasan. The surplus
grain available from Bujnoord and Ghoochan has been
estimated at 700 tons, equal to about 5000 camel loads, and
if this were placed at the disposal of the Russian
commissariat the passage of the troops would be most
essentially facilitated. Altogether, having considered
the question from these several points of view, I have
come to the conclusion that with the cordial co-operation
of Persia the occupation of Merv by Russian troops from
the Caspian, starting from Chikishlar and Krasnovodsk,
and supported by an auxiliary column from the Oxus, would
be comparatively easy ; that if Persia were merely
neutral, not supplying food or carriage, but, on the
other hand, not raising territorial difficulties, the
operation would be difficult, but might possibly succeed
; but that if Persia were decidedly opposed to the
Russian movement, and refused to permit any infringement
of her territorial rights, the march from Akhal to Merv
would be impossible.* *
I do not propose to give any account
at present of the ancient or modern history of Merv. It
is probably one of the oldest capitals of Central Asia,
and would require a special monograph for its adequate
illustration. It is not, however, by any means the
unknown place that it is generally supposed to be, a
number of travelers having passed through Merv, in the
course of the last fifty years, on their passage either
from Herat to Khiva, or from Meshed to Bokhara, and
having, most of them, published their observations on the
town and district. Among these travelers I may cite
Barnes, Abbott, Shakespeare, Taylour Thomson, Dr. Wolff
and Monsieur Blocqueville, the last-mentioned being a
French gentleman, who accompanied the Persian army in the
expedition against Merv of 1860, and, being taken
prisoner by the Tekes (Tekke), was kept in captivity for
fourteen months. He published an account of his
adventures amongst the Turkmen
in the ' Tour du Monde,' 1866.
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