Kaufmann to Prince Gortchacow, November 29, 1872

General Kaufmann to Prince Gortchacow.

C.

I have the honor to submit to your highness herewith a memorandum on the question of the northern frontier of Afghanistan. This memorandum has been compiled on the basis of such data and materials as I have succeeded in collecting in the course of the last two years on the subject of the state of affairs on the frontier of Afghanistan and Bokhara and the independent states on the upper course of the Amou Daria.

I confess that these data are far from being complete.

Personal investigation and observation, exercised on the very spot, are, in Central Asia, the only means of obtaining enlightenment on any question whatever, political or geographical. I have not, as yet, had recourse to these means. To have sent a Russian official into these countries, even on the pretext of a scientific mission, might have created a panic in Afghanistan, and would have awakened suspicions and apprehensions on the part of the government of India. It was my duty to avoid anything that might in any way have disturbed the satisfactory state of our relations as established by the friendly and sincere exchange of ideas which has taken place between the imperial government and that of Her Britannic Majesty.

I have already had the honor of communicating to your highness my opinion as to one of the causes of the excited state of public feeling existing in the khanates of Central Asia bordering on Russia. That is, that all our neighbors, and particularly the Afghans, are filled with the conviction that there exists between Russia and England an enmity which, sooner or later, will lead us into a conflict with the English in Asia.

In conformity with the intentions and views of the minister for foreign affairs, I have applied myself to dispel this bugbear of an impending conflict between the two great powers. In my relations with Khokand or Bokhara, an 1, above all, in my letters to Shere Ali Khan, I have always spoken of the similarity of views and of the friendship existing between ourselves and England; and I have applied myself to the task of demonstrating that these two powers, Russia as well as England, are equally solicitous for the tranquillity of the countries and peoples Which lie within the radius of their influence and protection.

It is this reason which, up to the present time, has determined me not to send officers into those parts with the object of obtaining information respecting the question put to me by the imperial government.

This state of things is quite as advantageous for us as for England; But it is liable to change should once the possessions of Shere Ali Khan be guaranteed to him within the boundaries proposed at the present moment by Lord Granville in his dispatch to Lord A. Loftus of the 17th of October last. Such a guarantee would give him a considerable prestige, and he would immediately attempt to seize, de facto, the territories conceded to him. First of all he would turn his attention toward Badakshan and Wakhan as the easiest and most attainable booty. By the acquisition of these two territories he would prolong his line of contact with Bokhara, and would find himself side by side with Karatequina, whence Khokand is within easy reach. Finally, his northwestern boundary would touch the possessions of Yakoub Bek. Here is a road which would lead him straight into collision with Russia.

If the English government is really animated by the same wish as ourselves to maintain internal peace and tranquillity in the khanates which separate us from the British possessions in India; if England will give credit to our sincere protestations that we are not dreaming of any hostile enterprise whatever against her Indian possessions common sense ought to suggest to her the necessity of recognizing the independence of Badakshan and Wakhan equally in the interests of the Ameer of Cabul and of Bokhara.

I have, &c.,