WHEN the "previous Blue-book closed we saw the Russian Government stiffly adhering to their own proposals for the settlement of the Afghan frontier, and Lord Granville pointing out that Her Majesty's Government could not continue the discussion upon a footing" which practically denied to them a position of equality and independence. At this point a serious diversion was effected by the attack of General Komaroff upon the Afghan position at Pul-i-Khisti. The present volume opens with Sir Peter Lumsden's despatches describing the Russian advance to the immediate vicinity of the Afghan lines, the provocative tactics resorted to by the Russian commander, and finally his deliberate attack. "Very scanty praise has been given to General Lumsden for his gallant attempt in most trying circumstances to maintain the honour and interests of his country, and we cannot but regret to find among these new documents a despatch from Lord Granville requesting him to discriminate between what he knew for certain, what he had reason to believe, and what was only hearsay. The substantial accuracy of his statements even in detail is fully borne out by the reports of General Komaroff himself, and on points where a difference exists as to facts he certainly has a right to that confidence which the Russian Government so freely repose in their servants. The attack on Penjdeh introduces a certain complication into the correspondence, which henceforth runs in a double channel. Generally speaking, the Russian Government show impatience of the prolonged discussion of a "military incident" which they persist in regarding as adequately explained by reports from General Komaroff that in reality form the best statement of the necessity for explanation. They repeatedly urge the British Cabinet to be satisfied with the information it possesses, and to drop the "incidental discussion " in order to return to the negotiations on the main question. Her Majesty's Government, on the other hand, lay the greatest stress upon the importance of inquiry into the Penjdeh incident, and apparently contrive to forget that the main negotiation had assumed an impossible form before that incident occurred. For when at last the Russian Government agree to refer to an arbitrator the solution of the difficulties which may be found to exist on that point, and the task of deciding, to use Lord Granville's remarkable words, "how the incident can be closed in a manner consistent with the honour of Great Britain and Russia," the demands so admirably put forth at an earlier stage concerning the propriety of a Russian withdrawal from the debatable ground seem in some mysterious way to have lapsed altogether. When the negotiations still going on come to be published we may possibly learn by what process Lord Granville transformed his original pretensions into a practical acceptance of the boundary proposed by M. Lessar; but at present it is impossible not to be struck with the total and unexplained disappearance, amid the dust of controversy about the "military incident," of almost all the substantial claims which at one time were so bravely formulated.
Times, June 2, 1885
Central Asia 1885
Central Asia 1885
Table of Contents
Miracles of healing - Christian Miracles or Healing
History of Russia: Christian Versus Barbarian
History of Japan: Early Christian Martyrs
The Jesus of History
The Assyrian Origin of Devil Worshippers
The Christ Of Dogma
The early history of Constantinople
