Part 29 (1/2)
He was succeeded by a man of marked personality, Lord Lytton. The only son of the celebrated novelist, he inherited decided literary gifts, especially an unusual facility of expression both in speech and writing, in prose and verse. Any tendency to redundance in speech is generally counted unfavourable to advancement in diplomatic circles, where Talleyrand's _mot_ as to language being a means of _concealing_ thought still finds favour. Owing, however, to the influence of his uncle, then British Amba.s.sador at Was.h.i.+ngton, but far more to his own talents, Lytton rose rapidly in the diplomatic service, holding office in the chief emba.s.sies, until Disraeli discerned in the brilliant speaker and writer the gifts that would grace the new imperial policy in the East.
In ordinary times the new Viceroy would probably have crowned the new programme with success. His charm and vivacity of manner appealed to orientals all the more by contrast with the cold and repellent behaviour that too often characterises Anglo-Indian officials in their dealings with natives. Lytton's mind was tinged with the eastern glow that lit up alike the stories, the speeches, and the policy of his chief. It is true, the imperialist programme was as grandiosely vague as the meaning of _Tancred_ itself; but in a land where forms and words count for much the lack of backbone in the new policy was less observed and commented on than by the matter-of-fact islanders whom it was designed to glorify.
The apotheosis of the new policy was the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India (July 1, 1877), an event which was signalised by a splendid Durbar at Delhi on January 1, 1878. The new t.i.tle warned the world that, however far Russia advanced in Central Asia, England nailed the flag of India to her masthead. It was also a useful reminder to the small but not uninfluential Positivist school in England that their ”disapproval” of the existence of a British Empire in India was wholly Platonic. Seeing also that the name ”Queen” in Hindu (_Malika_) was one of merely respectable mediocrity in that land of splendour, the new t.i.tle, ”Kaisar-i-Hind,” helped to emphasise the supremacy of the British Raj over the Nizam and Gaekwar. In fact, it is difficult now to take seriously the impa.s.sioned protests with which a number of insulars greeted the proposal.
Nevertheless, in one sense the change of t.i.tle came about most inopportunely. Fate willed that over against the Durbar at Delhi there stood forth the spectral form of Famine, bestriding the dusty plains of the Carnatic. By the glint of her eyes the splendours of Delhi shone pale, and the viceregal eloquence was hushed in the distant hum of her mult.i.tudinous wailing. The contrast shocked all beholders, and unfitted them for a proper appreciation of the new foreign policy.
That policy may also be arraigned on less sentimental grounds. The year 1876 witnessed the re-opening of the Eastern Question in a most threatening manner, the Disraeli Ministry taking up what may be termed the Palmerstonian view that the maintenance of Turkey was essential to the stability of the Indian Empire. As happened in and after 1854, Russia, when thwarted in Europe, sought for her revenge in the lands bordering on India. No district was so favourable to Muscovite schemes as the Afghan frontier, then, as now, the weakest point in Great Britain's imperial armour. Thenceforth the Afghan Question became a pendant of the Eastern Question.
Russia found ready to hand the means of impressing the Ameer with a sense of her irresistible power. The Czar's officials had little difficulty in picking a quarrel with the Khanate of Khokand. Under the pretext of suppressing a revolt (which Vambery and others consider to have been prepared through Muscovite agencies) they sent troops, ostensibly with the view of favouring the Khan. The expedition gained a complete success, alike over the rebels and the Khan himself, who thenceforth sank to the level of pensioner of his liberators (1876). It is significant that General Kaufmann at once sent to the Ameer at Cabul a glowing account of the Russian success[298]; and the news of this communication increased the desire of the British Government to come to a clear understanding with the Ameer.
[Footnote 298: Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 12-14; Shere Ali's letters to him (some of them suspicious) and the replies are also printed.]
Unfortunately our authorities set to work in a way that increased his irritation. Lord Salisbury on February 28, 1876, instructed Lord Lytton to offer slightly larger concessions to Shere Ali; but he refused to go further than to allow ”a frank recognition (not a guarantee) of a _de facto_ order in the succession” to the throne of Afghanistan, and undertook to defend his dominions against external attack ”only in some clear case of unprovoked aggression.” On the other hand, the British Government stated that ”they must have, for their own agents, undisputed access to [the] frontier positions [of Afghanistan][299].” Thus, while granting very little more than before, the new Ministry claimed for British agents and officers a right of entry which wounded the pride of a suspicious ruler and a fanatical people.
[Footnote 299: Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 156-159.]
To sum up, we gave Shere Ali no help while he was struggling for power with his rivals; and after he had won the day, we pinned him to the terms of a one-sided alliance. In the matter of the Seistan frontier dispute with Persia, British arbitration was insolently defied by the latter Power, yet we urged the Ameer to accept the Shah's terms.
According to Lord Napier of Magdala, he felt the loss of the once Afghan district of Seistan more keenly than anything else, and thenceforth regarded us as weak and untrustworthy[300].
[Footnote 300: _Ibid_. pp. 225-226.]
The Ameer's irritation increased at the close of the year when the Viceroy concluded an important treaty with the Khan of Khelat in Baluchistan. It would take us too far from our main path to turn aside into the jungle of Baluchee politics. Suffice it to say that the long series of civil strifes in that land had come to an end largely owing to the influence of Major (afterwards Sir Robert) Sandeman. His fine presence, masterful personality, frank, straightforward, and kindly demeanour early impressed the Khan and his turbulent Sirdars. In two Missions which he undertook to Khelat in the years 1875 and 1876, he succeeded in stilling their internal feuds and in clearing away the misunderstandings which had arisen with the Indian Government. But he saw still further ahead. Detecting signs of foreign intrigue in that land, he urged that British mediation should, if possible, become permanent. His arguments before long convinced the new Viceroy, Lord Lytton, who had at first doubted the advisability of the second Mission; and in the course of a tour along the north-west frontier, he held at Jacobabad a grand Durbar, which was attended by the Khan of Khelat and his once rebellious Sirdars. There on December 8, 1876, he signed a treaty with the Khan, whereby the British Government became the final arbiter in all disputes between him and his Sirdars, obtained the right of stationing British troops in certain parts of Baluchistan, and of constructing railways and telegraphs. Three lakhs of rupees were given to the Khan, and his yearly subsidy of Rs. 50,000 was doubled[301].
[Footnote 301: _Sir Robert Sandeman_, by T.H. Thornton, chaps, ix.-x.; Parl. Papers relating to the Treaty . . . of 8th Dec. 1876; _The Forward Policy and its Results_, by R.I. Bruce; _Lord Lytton's Indian Administration,_ by Lady Betty Balfour, chap. iii.
The Indian rupee is worth sixteen pence.]
The Treaty of Jacobabad is one of the most satisfactory diplomatic triumphs of the present age. It came, not as the sequel to a sanguinary war, but as a sign of the confidence inspired in turbulent and sometimes treacherous chiefs by the sterling qualities of those able frontier statesmen, the Napiers, the Lawrences, General Jacob, and Major Sandeman. It spread the _pax Britannica_ over a land as large as Great Britain, and quietly brought a warlike people within the sphere of influence of India. It may be compared with Bonaparte's Act of Mediation in Switzerland (1803), as marking the triumph of a strong organising intelligence over factious groups, to which it imparted peace and order under the shelter of a generally beneficent suzerainty. Before long a strong garrison was posted at Quetta, and we gained the right to enlist Baluchee troops of excellent fighting powers. The Quetta position is a mountain bastion which strengthens the outer defences of India, just as the Alps and Juras, when under Napoleon's control, menaced any invaders of France.
This great advantage was weighted by one considerable drawback. The victory of British influence in Baluchistan aroused the utmost resentment of Shere Ali, who now saw his southern frontier outflanked by Britain. Efforts were made in January-February 1877 to come to an understanding; but, as Lord Lytton insisted on the admission of British Residents to Afghanistan, a long succession of interviews at Peshawur, between the Ameer's chief adviser and Sir Lewis Pelly, led to no other result than an increase of suspicion on both sides. The Viceroy thereupon warned the Ameer that all supplies and subsidies would be stopped until he became amenable to advice and ceased to maltreat subjects known to be favourable to the British alliance. As a retort the Ameer sought to call the border tribes to a _Jehad_, or holy war, against the British, but with little success. He had no hold over the tribes between Chitral and the Khyber Pa.s.s; and the incident served only to strengthen the Viceroy's aim of subjecting them to Britain. In the case of the Jowakis we succeeded, though only after a campaign which proved to be costly in men and money.
In fact, Lord Lytton was now convinced of the need of a radical change of frontier policy. He summed up his contentions in the following phrases in his despatches of the early summer of 1877:--”Shere Ali has irrevocably slipped out of our hands; . . . I conceive that it is rather the disintegration and weakening, than the consolidation and establishment, of the Afghan power at which we must now begin to aim.”
As for the mountain barrier, in which men of the Lawrence school had been wont to trust, he termed it ”a military mouse-trap,” and he stated that Napoleon I. had once for all shown the futility of relying on a mountain range that had several pa.s.ses[302]. These a.s.sertions show what perhaps were the weak points of Lord Lytton in practical politics--an eager and impetuous disposition, too p.r.o.ne to be dazzled by the very brilliance of the phrases which he coined.
[Footnote 302: Lady B. Balfour, _op. cit._ pp.166-185, 247-148.]
At the close of his despatch of April 8, 1878, to Lord Cranbrook (Lord Salisbury's successor at the India Office) he sketched out, as ”the best arrangement,” a scheme for breaking up the Cabul power and bringing about ”the creation of a West Afghan Khanate, including Merv, Maimena, Balkh, Candahar, and Herat, under some prince of our own selection, who would be dependent on our support. With Western Afghanistan thus disposed of, and a small station our own, close to our frontier in the Kurram valley, the destinies of Cabul itself would be to us a matter of no importance[303].”
[Footnote 303: _Ibid_. pp. 246-247.]
This, then, was the new policy in its widest scope. Naturally it met with sharp opposition from Lord Lawrence and others in the India Council at Whitehall. Besides involving a complete change of front, it would naturally lead to war with the Ameer, and (if the intentions about Merv were persisted in) with Russia as well. And for what purpose? In order that we might gain an advanced frontier and break in pieces the one important State which remained as a buffer between India and Russian Asia. In the eyes of all but the military men this policy stood self-condemned. Its opponents pointed out that doubtless Russian intrigues were going on at Cabul; but they were the result of the marked hostility between England and Russia in Europe, and a natural retort to the sending of Indian troops to Malta. Besides, was it true that British influence at Cabul was permanently lost? Might it not be restored by money and diplomacy? Or if these means failed, could not affairs be so worked at Cabul as to bring about the deposition of the Ameer in favour of some claimant who would support England? In any case, the extension of our responsibilities to centres so remote as Balkh and Herat would overstrain the already burdened finances of India, and impair her power of defence at vital points.
These objections seem to have had some weight at Whitehall, for by the month of August the Viceroy somewhat lowered his tone; he gave up all hope of influencing Merv, and consented to make another effort to win back the Ameer, or to seek to replace him by a more tractable prince.
But, failing this, he advised, though with reluctance on political grounds, the conquest and occupation of so much of Afghan territory as would ”be absolutely requisite for the permanent maintenance of our North-West frontier[304].”
[Footnote 304: Lady B. Balfour, _op. cit._ p. 255. For a defence of this on military grounds see Lord Roberts' _Forty-One Years in India_, vol.
ii, p. 187; and Thorburn's _Asiatic Neighbours_, chap. xiv.]