Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/52

Rh have ever been important outposts on the borders of Iran. In bye-gone epochs their banks have, under powerful rulers, been studded with populous and nourishing cities, which bore the name of &quot; Sovereign of the Universe &quot; (Merv Shah-i-jehan), and vied for fame with &quot; Balkh, the Mother of cities&quot;; of late times, with weakness or absence of govern ment, those same banks have become choked with fallen battlements and ruins, the home of the snake and the jackal. Merv has soared to prosperity or fallen to decay accord ing to her political status at the moment, and history, which repeats itself, may yet have to sing her praises in the future as it has done in the past. All that human life in the desert requires is there, water in abundance, and a soil unsurpassed for fertility. Good government is alone wanting to turn those natural gifts to full account. The present inhabitants of the district are Turcomans of the Tekke tribe, who, like the other tribes inhabiting Turcomania, enjoyed until the approach of the Russians virtual independence, and acknowledged allegiance to no one, a pastoral people who eked out a miserable existence by the trade of passing caravans, and in bad times pillaged the neighbouring and equally barbarous states, to whose reprisals they were in turn subjected. From the year 1869, the date of the establishment of the Russian military settlement at Krasnovodsk on the east shore of the Caspian, the wave of Russian conquest has gradually swept eastwards along the northern frontier of Persia until it has for the moment stopped at the outer most border of the Akhal Turcoman country, which was incorporated in 1881 by Russia as the result of the defeat of that tribe at Geok Tepe. Among the districts still farther east, to which the Russians give the name of Eastern Turcomania, is that of the Merv Tekke Turcomans, kinsmen of the Akhal Tekkes, the most recent of Russia s subjects. The district of the Merv Tekkes may be taken to be that included between the lower Murghab below Yulutan, where the river enters the plain, and the Persian frontier from Sarakhs to Gawars. A reference to the map will show the strategical import ance of this district, situated at the point of meeting of two lines, of which one is the strategic line of Russian advance on Herat from Krasnovodsk to Sarakhs, and the other the strategic line of advance on the same place from Tashkend through Bokhara. The capital of the district is, moreover, the crossing-point of the Herat-Khiva and Meshed-Bokhara trade routes. Consequently this district, a solitary oasis in a vast desert, guarantees to its possessor the command of an important avenue between north and south, and, in the event of its falling into Russian hands, will give that power in addition a valuable link in the chain of connexion between her recent acquisitions on the Persian frontier and those in Turkestan, the forging of which has been persistently advocated by Russian writers for years past. One of these, Colonel Veniukoff, frankly admits that it is the political results&quot; the consolidation of friendly relations with the Turcomans &quot; and not commercial interests merely, that are primarily looked to, and openly states that the forward movement in Central Asia &quot;cannot end otherwise than by the annexation to Russia of the whole of Turan.&quot; Whether by design or by the force of circumstances, the recommendations of those writers have been translated into facts, and Russia with her advanced post at Askabad is now within 400 miles of Herat, which Sir Henry Rawlinson designates as the key of India. The occupation of the Merv Tekke country would bring Russia to within 250 miles of Herat. From Askabad she is in connexion with the Caspian by a good line of communication, part of which from the sea to Kizil Arvat) is by rail ; and hence facilities are offered for bringing up not only the resources of the Caucasus but of the whole of European Russia. While Russian troops are within 400 miles of Herat, the British troops at Quetta are more than 500 miles from Herat. 1 These remarks serve to explain the very natural suspicion with which Great Britain has regarded the occupation one after another of important strategical points along that route by which alone Russia can strike at India, the same line by which Napoleon meditated a Russo-French invasion in the early part of this century. In the matter of Merv and the neighbouring Turcoman districts diplomacy has not been idle. As early as 1869, when an inter change of opinions was taking place between the Russian and British Governments with respect to the demarcation of a neutral zone between the two empires, Great Britain objected to the Russian proposal that this zone should be Afghanistan, &quot;because of the near approach to India that would be thereby afforded to Russian troops from the direction of the Kara-kum, the home of the Turcomans, of which Merv is the central point.&quot; In the following year a Russian diplomatist remarked to the British ambassador at St Petersburg, when discussing the Afghan frontier, that great care would be required in tracing a line from Khoja Saleh on the Oxns to the south, as Merv and the country of the Turcomans were be coming &quot;commercially important.&quot; About the same time Russia intimated that, if the amir of Afghanistan claimed to exercise sovereignty over the Tekkes, his pretensions could not be recognized. After the Russian campaign against Khiva in 1873, and the sub sequent operations against the Turcomans, the English foreign secretary early in 1874 called attention &quot; to the fears expressed by the amir of Afghanistan as to the complications in which he might become involved with Russia were the result of a Russian expe dition against Merv to be to drive the Turcomans to take refuge in the province of Badghees in Herat.&quot; In reply to this communi cation Prince Gortschakoff repeated the assurance that the imperial Government &quot; had no intention of sending any expedition against the Turcomans, or of occupying Merv.&quot; In 1875 the operations of General Lomakin on the northern frontier of Persia led to represen tations being made by the British ambassador at the court of St Petersburg. To these Russia replied that the czar had no inten tion of extending his frontiers on the side of Bokhara or on the side of Krasnovodsk. Notwithstanding the oft-repeated assurances to the contrary, large annexations have been since made in Turco mania by the Russians, and these proceedings, clearly indicating the persistent prosecution of a concerted plan, have naturally tended to disturb the harmonious relations which should subsist between the two great civilizing powers of the East. Settlements and Inhabited Centres. Of towns or even villages, fixed centres of habitation, there are none, ac cording to Mr O Donovan, the latest European traveller to Merv. The present political and military capital of Merv is Koushid Khan Kala, a fort which serves rather as a place of refuge against sudden attacks than as a habita tion. It is situated on the east bank of the most westerly branch of the Murghab, about 25 miles below the dam at Porsa Kala. In form it is oblong, measuring If miles long by f mile broad, is constructed entirely of earth, revetted on the exterior slope with sun-dried brick ; the ramparts are 40 feet high, and are 60 feet at the base. The fort is built in a loop of the river, which protects it on two sides ; between it and the river is an &quot; obah,&quot; or nomad village of huts and tents, some thousand in number, disposed in rows, but there is no town or settlement. Twenty-five miles east of Koushid Khan Kala lie the ruins of the Greek city of Antiochia Margiana, showing traces of a high civilization. According to Strabo (xi. 2) the Merv oasis at this period was surrounded with a wall measuring 1500 stadia (185 miles). Mr O Donovan found the trace of the fort of Iskander to have been quadrangular, with a length of side of 900 yards. This was probably the fort built by Alexander, about 328 B.C., on his return from 1 Concurrently with the consolidation of her position in Turcomania, Russia has of late been showing less military activity on the side of her Turkestan district. It is probable that her recent explorations at the sources of the Oxus have demonstrated the impracticability of directing any offensive movement against India from that side. Hence the line of strategical advance has been shifted from Tashkend to Tiflis.