Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/448

396 measures necessary for the security of the northwestern frontier were now occupying the minds of India's rulers; and the discussion was beginning that has never ended since.

ON THE NORTHERN INDIAN BORDER.

Beyond the Panjab, on the farther side of the Afghan mountains, there were movements that were reviving the ever sensitive apprehensions of insecurity in India. The march of Russia across Asia, suspended by the Napoleonic wars, had latterly been resumed; her pressure was felt throughout all the central regions from the Caspian Sea to the Oxus; and by the treaty of Turkmantchai in 1828 she had established a preponderant influence over Persia. From that time forward our whole policy and all our strategic dispositions upon the northwest frontier have been directed toward anticipating or counteracting the movements or supposed intentions of Russia. To the English diplomatists of that day it seemed as if our original line of confederate defence had been drawn too widely, because Persia's discomfiture had proved that we had no means of upholding her integrity against Russian attack. So we negotiated in 1828 a release from our treaty obligations to aid Persia in resisting aggression, and we fell