Thus was a third stage reached in Russia’s advance. Her Siberian frontier extended from the north-eastern shore of the Caspian to the borders of China. It had been pushed forward to the edge of the plateau of Samarkand, then a province of Bokhara, and lay within striking distance of the three Central Asian states which still maintained their independence. A sense of common danger united the forces which had hitherto been hostile: Kokandis, Bokharans, and Khivans felt instinctively that the hour had come for a combined attempt to shake off the Russian incubus. A leader alone was required, and one was found in Sayyid Muzaffar ed-Din, Amir of Bokhara. He claimed a descent from Timur, and doubtless dreamed of repeating the conquests of his great predecessor on the throne of Samarkand. His ambition was fanned by the fierce breath of fanaticism, for the Amir was notoriously subject to priestly influence, and the mullas of Central Asia were among the bitterest foes of Russian designs. At his prompting the bazaars of the three Khanates swarmed with emissaries, who preached a Holy War, and exhorted true believers to drive back the invaders into the Siberian steppes. The Amir soon found himself at the head of a huge force drawn from his own subjects, while he obtained control over those of Kokand by assuming the guardianship of the minor Khan.546 Thus reinforced he occupied Khojend, a city on the north-east corner of Samarkand only a hundred miles from the new Russian capital, and summoned Chernaieff to release his conquests. At the same time he imprisoned four Russian envoys547 sent him by the general. This act of war met with a prompt response.

Chernaieff advanced from Tashkent with 14 companies of infantry, 6 squadrons of Cossacks, and 16 guns as far as Jizak, a fortress barely 60 miles from Samarkand. But the population was hostile, supplies failed, and he was obliged to retreat on his capital. Retrograde movements in the face of Asiatic forces are always pregnant with disaster. General Chernaieff’s was interpreted by the Bokharans as a confession of weakness. Crowds flocked to the Amir’s standard, and he moved on Tashkent with 40,000 men. In the meantime Chernaieff, who had not been forgiven for his breach of instructions in the occupation of Tashkent,548 was superseded by General Romanovski, who had received peremptory orders from the Tsar that hostilities with the Khanate must cease. Like his predecessor, he found himself compelled by force of circumstances to disobey orders.

The Bokharan host was within three marches of Tashkent. The city with its 70,000 inhabitants was seething with rebellion, and to maintain a defensive attitude was to court defeat. Romanovski adopted the only tactics which afforded a chance of success. He marched from Tashkent with a force of 14 infantry companies, 5 Cossack squadrons, 20 guns, and a rocket apparatus, and, following the left bank of the Sir Darya, encountered the enemy at Irjai, between Jizak and Khojend. The battle that followed on the 20th May 1866 recalls Plassey: 3600 Russians utterly routed a force of 5000 well-armed Bokharan regulars and 35,000 horsemen with 2 guns which had taken up an entrenched position on the road to Samarkand, on which the beaten host retreated in the utmost disorder. That hotbed of fanaticism lay open to the invader, but he deemed it safer to seize the fortress of Khojend, thus driving a wedge between Bokhara and the Kokand territories. On the 6th of June 1866 Khojend fell after a siege of eight days and a bombardment by 2 mortars and 18 field-pieces.549 The news of the rout of Irjai, and the capture of Khojend, created a profound dismay throughout Central Asia; but the proud Uzbegs were loth to acknowledge themselves beaten; and the mullas were still less inclined to forfeit the great position which they held under so pious a ruler as Muzaffar ed-Din. He was persuaded to disregard the ultimatum sent by Romanovski, and actively pursued preparations for a new campaign. The Russians therefore took the offensive with unabated vigour. During October they seized the Bokharan border strongholds of Ura-teppe and Jizak, thus obtaining a complete command of the valley of the Zarafshan. In the spring of 1867 Yani Kurgan was added to the list of Russian conquests, and was twice heroically defended by General Abramoff against a Bokharan force of 45,000 men bent on wresting it from the invader. Thus, in the middle of 1867, the Russians found themselves masters of the great sources of Bokharan prosperity—the basins of the Zarafshan and the Sir Darya. The vast extent of this newly conquered territory, and its distance from Orenburg, still the administrative capital of Russian Central Asia, led to a revision of the boundaries.

By a ukase550 dated 11th (23rd) July 1867 Turkestan was placed under a governor-general, with headquarters at Tashkent. His authority extended over the provinces of Sir Darya and Semirechensk, the latter including the vast territory lately acquired between the lakes of Balkash and Issik Kul. General Kauffman, a general who has written his name indelibly on Central Asian annals, was appointed to the important post. On taking the helm he found Kokand quiescent, but Bokhara still in a state of suppressed excitement, which found occasional vent in attacks on Russian outposts.

He began by making the Amir overtures of peace, on the basis of the statu quo as regards boundaries, the grant of equal rights to Russians and natives in the matter of trade, and the payment of a war indemnity of 125,000 tilas.551

No reply was returned by the Amir, but he obtained reinforcements from Khiva, and massed troops to attack the Russian outpost at Jizak. The general, in consonance with the policy pursued by all Asiatic conquerors, anticipated the onslaught by a forward movement. Samarkand was the objective, the holiest of Central Asian cities, with a fierce and crafty population and many remains of past splendour to remind its inhabitants that it had been once the seat of an empire which regarded Russia as an outlying province. On the 12th May 1868 Kauffman, at the head of 3600 troops, attacked the united Bokharan and Khivan host, 40,000 strong, massed on the heights on the left bank of the Zarafshan, fifteen miles from the capital. The Russians forded the shallow river and fell upon the foe with such impetuosity that an utter rout followed. Samarkand surrendered on the following day.552 The cowardly Sarts553 offered sumptuous banquets to the victors. But a note of warning was sounded by the Jews, whom ages of cruel oppression had rendered friendly to the Russian cause. They were disregarded by Kauffman, who had hurried on to capture the towns of Urgut and Katti Kurgan, on the direct road to Bokhara. Learning that the warlike population of Shahrisabz had joined the movement, and were encamped to the east of Samarkand, while the Bokharan forces menaced Katti Kurgan, he moved out to attack the foe. His wounded were left in the citadel, a fortress nearly surrounded by scarped ravines in the centre of Samarkand, under a guard of 762 men, commanded by Major Von Stempel, under whom Colonel Nazaroff, with a chivalry equal to Outram’s, consented to serve.

Hardly were the main body out of sight than a force of 20,000 men from Shahrisabz were surreptitiously introduced into the city by the treacherous inhabitants,554 and the citadel was closely beset. It was defended as heroically as the Residency of Lucknow had been by a handful of Britons. Every wounded Russian capable of pointing a rifle took his place on the ramparts; and though the enemy repeatedly penetrated the enceinte, never did they effect a lodgment thereon. And now provisions and ammunition ran short; 189 of the defenders were killed or wounded, and surrender seemed inevitable. But the terrible Kauffman heard of his brave followers’ distress from a messenger who had contrived to slip through the beleaguering lines. He had defeated the last remnant of Bokhara’s forces, and was free to retrace his steps. Like Gillespie’s vengeance on the Vellore mutineers was that taken by Kauffman on the foe. They were smitten hip and thigh, thousands of prisoners were massacred in cold blood, and the villainy of the Sart inhabitants was punished by the surrender of the town for three days to pillage by the infuriated army. The avenger was able to report to his master that tranquillity reigned in Samarkand. The Amir Muzaffar was at length convinced that the Great White Tsar’s arm was too long to be withstood or evaded. His proud spirit was crushed by repeated misfortunes, and he implored permission to abdicate and end his days at Mekka. But policy demanded that the ruler of Bokhara should be one who had learnt submission by bitter experience. Muzaffar ed-Din was confirmed as Amir, while his whilom province, Samarkand, was incorporated with Turkestan, and placed under Lieutenant-General Abramoff, who had given innumerable proofs of dauntless energy. The general soon had his hands full, for the mullas were by no means inclined to share their sovereign’s despondency. They worked upon the ambitions of Katti Tura, the heir-presumptive, a youth of seventeen, whose reckless cruelties would have made him a meet successor of his grandfather, the murderer of Stoddart and Conolly. This prince raised the standard of revolt, and declared his father to have forfeited the throne. He routed a detachment of Bokharan regulars sent against him, and took the stronghold of Karki,555 a fortress commanding the upper reaches of the Amu Darya. Abramoff had little difficulty in quelling the insurrection. He took Karshi, the cradle of the reigning dynasty, stormed Karki, and drove the prince into the mountains which occupy the centre of Bokhara. Here he found no hiding-place. He was driven to the western border of Samarkand, and finally captured through the treachery of a peasant. The young rebel was dragged into the presence of his outraged father, who ordered his head to be struck off and exposed at the palace gate.

General Abramoff completed the pacification of Bokhara by subduing Shahrisabz, the last refuge of highland independence. He then politely invited the Amir to assume the sovereignty of the pacified territory.

So effectually was Muzaffar ed-Din’s proud spirit crushed by adverse fortunes that he humbly received his province as a boon from his Russian suzerain. He saw the once hated and despised infidels in possession of Samarkand, the richest inheritance of his fathers, and masters of the Zarafshan, the source of Bokharan prosperity. He knew that it was in their power to divert its life-giving waters and render his capital a prey to the ever-advancing desert sands. Thus the remainder of his days was spent in vain repentance, in indulging “sorrow’s crown of sorrow”; and the Tsar had no more obedient vassal than the man who had aspired to sit on the throne of Timur. His later policy has been adopted by his son, the present Amir `Abd ul-Ahad. With the conquest of Bokhara and the annexation of Samarkand the fourth great stride in the Russian advance was completed. She was mistress of Central Asia, from the confines of China to the Amu Darya, that historic river which rises in the Pamirs to empty its waters into the Sea of Aral.

These immense accessions to an empire which already rivalled that of ancient Rome served but to open up a vista of future possibilities.

“Since the reign of Peter the Great,” wrote a contemporary Russian author,556 “we have advanced with diligence and at the price of immense sacrifices across the steppes which barred our passage. They are now left behind. Our dominion has reached the basin of two great rivers whose waters lave thickly peopled and fertile regions. We have a right to seek compensation for sacrifices and labours endured for more than a century. We have a right to attain a secure frontier by pushing our colonies up to the summit of the Himalayan range, the natural barrier between the Russian and English possessions. When this point has been reached, then only can we look calmly on the development of Great Britain’s empire.” The reduction of Khiva was a corollary of that of Bokhara. The Khanate stretched northwards as a wedge into the newly acquired territory and dominated the lower reaches of the Amu Darya. Its ruler and its entire population were bitterly hostile to Russian designs. A Khivan contingent had fought side by side with the hosts of Samarkand during the recent campaigns, the result of which did not intimidate them.

In the year which followed the conquest of Samarkand, Khivan bands penetrated the steppes of the Orenburg government and urged the Russian Kirghiz to revolt. Caravan trade between Western Siberia was paralysed; and in 1870 the Khan had the presumption to forbid the export of grain.557 General Kauffman, now in supreme command in Turkestan, was compelled by his imperial master’s explicit instructions to show a degree of forbearance which ill-suited his temper. He was content to demand the release of the Russians whom the Khan still held in slavery, and an explanation of the offensive tone adopted by his ministers in their despatches. As is invariably the case in dealing with Asiatics, the Russians found that moderation was mistaken for weakness. The Khan claimed the river Emba, on the north-eastern shore of the Caspian, as the boundary of his dominions, and endeavoured to collect taxes from the tribes of the Ust Urt Desert, which had long been regarded as within the Russian sphere of influence. The Kirghiz steppes became unsafe for caravans, and postal communication between Tashkent and Orenburg was subject to continual interruptions. It was well known that the mullas had incited the Khan to proclaim a religious war, and that his forces were swollen by refugees from Bokhara. The limits of forbearance had been reached, and the most timid adviser of the Tsar admitted that Khiva must be reduced to impotence. The story of the fall of the rebellious Khanate has been told often, and so graphically that it is needless to relate it in any detail.558 The Russians had by this time amassed great experience in the physical conditions to be encountered, and had profited by the lessons taught by former disasters. DepÔts for provisions were formed at each halting-place, and columns started severally from the eastern corner of the Caspian, Orenburg, Perovski on the Sir Darya, and Tashkent. So carefully had the minutest detail been worked out by the Russian staff that the several divisions, after marching for nearly 900 miles through waterless deserts, reached Khiva almost simultaneously. The Khan was unable to cope with a disciplined army 14,000 strong. His capital was taken by storm, and on the 24th of March 1873 he signed a treaty of peace, acknowledging himself to be the humble vassal of Russia, and agreeing to pay an indemnity of 2,500,000 roubles, and to surrender all Russian and Persian slaves. This pact has been loyally observed on both sides. The Khan still retains a nominal sovereignty with even less independence than had been accorded to Bokhara, and Khiva is de facto as much a part and parcel of Russia as the government of Moscow.

Kokand, the third Khanate of Central Asia, was doomed to lose all semblance of freedom. Its ruler had accepted the inevitable on the defeat of his powerful neighbours, had abolished slavery, and had striven to maintain friendly relations with Russia. But his territories were so placed that the annexation was essential to the safety of the eastern borders. They intervened between Turkestan and China, and were inhabited by a fanatical population with a strong leaven of untamed Kirghiz and Kipchak nomads. Had Kokand possessed a firm and politic ruler, its absorption might have been indefinitely postponed. The reverse was the case; for the Khan, Khuda Yar, was detested by his subjects, and rebellions frequently recurred which kept the whole of Central Asia in a ferment.559 A climax was reached in 1875, when, after three years of almost incessant civil war, the Russians found themselves compelled to intervene. Kokand was invaded by a strong expeditionary force under General Kauffman, among whose lieutenants was Skobeleff, destined to win imperishable glory in subsequent campaigns. Short work was made of the Kokandis, who had dethroned their Khan and marched under his son’s banner. They were routed with prodigious slaughter at Makhram, and the holy city of Marghilan was occupied without resistance. Defeats were afterwards administered to the native levies at Andijan and Namangan, and on 20th February the capital was seized by a force under Skobeleff. On the 20th March 1876 the Tsar, Alexander II., formally authorised the annexation of Kokand as a province of Turkestan under its ancient name, Farghana. Skobeleff, the ardent soldier who had so greatly contributed to the reduction of the Khanate, became its first governor. Farghana has a temperate climate, and has bred a hardy and warlike population. Owing to its remoteness from the centres served by the Transcaspian Railway, the Russian officials were not till lately subjected to the vigorous surveillance which is exercised over their colleagues in other provinces, and the reins of administration were slackly held. In the spring of 1898 the discontent inspired by alien rule, which had been sedulously fanned by the priesthood, burst into a flame. The ringleader of the movement was a Mohammedan monk named Ishan Mohammad `Ali Khalifa, who claimed the hereditary dignity of Imam, or descendant of the Prophet. He announced that on himself had devolved the task of fulfilling a prophecy widely received, that during the last decade of our century an Imam would proclaim a Holy War against the infidel. As had been the case on the eve of the Indian Mutiny, a general rising had been planned, and a simultaneous massacre of the Russian troops throughout the province. History repeated itself in the result of their deeply laid conspiracy. India was saved by the premature outbreak at Mirat; and Farghana by the impatience of the Ishan, who on 29th May attacked a Russian camp near Andijan before his sympathisers were ready for concerted action. The rising was quelled with much bloodshed on either side; 18 of the leaders were executed, and 350 were deported to North-Eastern Siberia. The recent opening of railway lines connecting the cities of Farghana with Tashkent and Samarkand will render a recrudescence of the spirit of revolt well-nigh impossible.