Further Advance of Russia--Merv Occupied--Sir West Ridgeway's Frontier
Commission of 1885--The Durand Agreement with Abdul Rahman--The Chitral
Expedition of 1895: its Results--Sudden Outbreak of Frontier Tribes,
1897.


The reaction after the war naturally inclined the authorities in both
countries to leave frontier policy alone, at all events for the time.
Our professed object for years had been to make Afghanistan strong,
friendly, and independent. The first had certainly not been
accomplished, and the other two were doubtful. Still, by patience,
conciliation, and subsidies, we might hope in the course of time that
the wounds we had inflicted would gradually be healed, and a more stable
condition ensue. For a short period it was so; but then the old bugbear
of Russian advance over the dreary wastes of Central Asia again
supervened, and exercised its malign influence on our policy.

In 1881 and the following years, Russia, whilst completing her
conquests, and improving her communications in the south-western part of
Central Asia, became involved in somewhat prolonged hostilities with the
Tekke-Turcomans, ending in their subjugation, and in the occupation of
the long, desolate strip of country extending eastwards from the
Caspian, which had hitherto been independent. A railway was gradually
constructed from the vicinity of Kras-novodsk, on the Caspian, towards
Samarcand. Merv, formerly a city of importance, but of late a mere
village in the desert, was also occupied. These acquisitions of Russia,
accomplished in districts far removed from India, would not appear to
involve any special consideration on our part; but as the southern
frontiers of Russia thus became conterminous for a long distance with