England And Russia In Central Asia

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-95) was a British scholar and diplomat, best known for his contributions to the field of Assyriology. In 1827 he entered the service of the East India Company, where he held a variety of posts. He was involved in the reorganization of the Persian army in 1833-39 and in 1843 was appointed political agent of the East India Company in Turkish Arabia. He later served as consul general in Baghdad, where, in addition to his official duties, he took part in archeological expeditions and worked at deciphering Akkadian cuneiform tablets. He returned to England in 1856 and in 1858 was elected to Parliament as a member of the Conservative Party. He served briefly as British minister to Persia, where he was known for his uncompromising attitude towards Russia, which he regarded as a growing threat to the security of British India and to British interests in the region. England and Russia in the East, published in 1875, is a collection of five essays by Rawlinson about Persian, Afghan, and Central Asian affairs, three of which are reprints of articles that appeared in the Calcutta Review and the Quarterly Review, and two of which were written for this volume. Rawlinson focuses on the perceived Russian threat and argues that "in the event of Russia's approach to Herát, it will be indispensable to the safety of India that we should resume our military occupation of Western Afghanistán...." Chapter four of the work, "Central Asia," is the most scholarly and least polemical part of the book. It offers a comprehensive overview of the geography of the entire region, which Rawlinson defines as located "between the Russian empire to the North and the British-Indian empire to the south, including, perhaps, a portion of the Persian province of Khorassán to the west, and Chinese Turkestán to the east." Rawlinson provides a wealth of detail about the region, drawn from all of the leading British, Russian, German, and French authorities as well as knowledge derived from his own travels and observations. Regional treaties dating from 1853 to 1874 are included in the appendix in whole or in extract.

The Rival Powers in Central Asia is an English translation of a work originally published in Vienna in 1890 under the title Antagonismus der Englischen und Russischen Interessen in Asien: Eine Militär-Politische Studie (The antagonism between English and Russian interests in Asia: A military-political study). The study analyzes what the author sees as the threat to British India posed by an aggressive Russia. The author characterizes the Russian Empire as a "reckless, expansive force," which, having reached its natural limits on the seas to the east and the north, was now concentrating "all its energies on the South, and chiefly in the direction of Constantinople and Central Asia." While the Russian thrust into Central Asia is portrayed as a threat mainly to British interests, Russian ambitions toward Constantinople are seen as most threatening to the continental European powers, "Austria in particular," which "cannot at any cost permit Russia to take possession of Constantinople." On this basis, the author argues that it is in Great Britain's interest to join a "Central European Coalition" with Austria-Hungary and imperial Germany. Chapter four, the longest in the book, entitled "Strategical Relations of the Two States," assesses the relative strengths of Russia and Great Britain in a contest for control of Central Asia and ultimately India, with sections on land forces, naval forces, and the transport and logistical routes likely to be used by each power. The concluding chapter discusses the benefits that Great Britain would gain by allying with the Central European powers against Russia, stresses the value to those powers of a British alliance, and argues that only through such an alliance would Britain be able to retain its hold on India. Ultimately, of course, the envisioned alliance did not come about, as some two decades later Great Britain allied with Russia (and France) and against Germany and Austria-Hungary in the great European conflict that came to be known as World War I.

second spans the period between that conflict and the Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1878-80, while the third terminates with the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which effectively marked the end of the confrontation.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.