Editing Great Game (section)

==Beginnings==
===Britain's perspective===
[[File:Indus_river.svg|thumb|324x324px|Map of the [[Indus River]] basin today. Britain's intended strategy was to use its steam power and the river as a trade route into Central Asia.]]
The Great Game is said to have begun on 12 January 1830 when [[Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough|Lord Ellenborough]], the [[president of the Board of Control]] for India tasked [[Lord William Bentinck]], the [[Governor-General of India]], to establish a new trade route to Bukhara.<ref name="ingram1980" /><ref name="secret1830" />

Following the [[Treaty of Turkmenchay|Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828)]] and the [[Treaty of Adrianople (1829)]], Britain expected that [[Persia]] and the [[Ottoman Empire]] ([[Turkey]]) would be forced to become protectorates of Russia. This would change Britain's perception of the world, and its response was The Great Game. Britain had no intention of getting involved in the Middle East, but it did envision a series of buffer states between the British and Russian Empires that included Turkey, Persia, plus the [[Khanate of Khiva]] and the [[Khanate of Bukhara]] that would grow from future trade. Behind these buffer states would be their protected states stretching from the Persian Gulf to India and up into the [[Emirate of Afghanistan]], with British sea-power protecting trade sea-lanes. Access to Afghanistan was to be through developing trade routes along the Indus and [[Sutlej]] rivers using steam-powered boats, and therefore access through the [[Sindh|Sind]] and [[Punjab (region)|Punjab]] regions would be required. Persia would have to give up its claim on [[Herat]] in Afghanistan. Afghanistan would need to be transformed from a group of warring principalities into one state ruled by an ally whose foreign relations would be conducted on his behalf by the Governor-General and the Foreign Office. The Great Game meant closer ties between Britain and the states along her northwest frontier.

[[File:Charles Thomas Marvin (1854-1890), Constructing the Transcaspian Railway across the dessert (See 'The Russians at Merv and Herat.').jpg|thumb|Russians constructing the [[Trans-Caspian railway|Trans-Caspian Railway]], from the [[Black Sea]] across [[Merv]] to [[Herat (1793–1863)|Herat]] and India,<ref name=":2">{{cite book |last1=Marvin |first1=Charles |title=The Russians at Merv and Herat, and their power of invading India |date=1883 |publisher=W.H. Allan & Co |location=London |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015021124576&view=1up&seq=13 |access-date=15 December 2022 |archive-date=15 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221215115354/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015021124576&view=1up&seq=13 |url-status=live }}</ref> drawing by [[Charles Thomas Marvin]] (1854-1890), |300x300px]]
[[File:Général Mikhaïl Annenkov Nadar 1891.jpg|thumb|General [[Mikhail Annenkov|Mikhaïl Annenkov]] in Paris, 1891, supervisor of Russo-Indian railway operation.]]
Britain believed that it was the world's first free society and the most industrially advanced country, and therefore that it had a duty to use its iron, steam power, and cotton goods to take over Central Asia and develop it. British goods were to be followed by British values and the respect for private property. With pay for work and security in place, nomads would settle and become tribal herdsman surrounding oasis cities. These were to develop into modern states with agreed borders, as in the European model. Therefore, lines needed to be agreed and drawn on maps. Morgan says that two proud and expanding empires approached each other, without any agreed frontier, from opposite directions over a "backward, uncivilized and undeveloped region."{{sfn|Morgan|1981|p=231}}<blockquote>Here we are, just as we were, snarling at each other, hating each other, but neither wishing for war. – [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Lord Palmerston]] (1835){{sfn|Morgan|1981|p=37}}</blockquote>American historian [[David Fromkin]] argues that by the mid-19th century the British had developed at least nine reasons to expect a major war with Russia unless Russian expansion in Asia could be stopped:

# Expansion would upset the balance of power by making Russia too powerful.
# Sooner or later Russia will invade India.
# Russian success would encourage anti-colonial elements in India to revolt.
# It would undermine the old Islamic regimes of central Asia leading to a frantic war among the powers for shares of the spoils.
# It would add power and prestige to the Russian regime that was the great enemy of political freedom.
# The British people hated and feared Russia and demanded a pushing back.
# It could disrupt the established British trade with Asia.
# It would strengthen protectionism and thereby undermine the free trading ideal that Britain was committed to.
# When Russia reached the Indian Ocean it could threaten the naval communications that held the British Empire together.
# By the late 19th century London added the argument that Russian success against the Ottoman Empire would seriously embarrass Britain's reputation for diplomatic prowess.
# And finally petroleum deposits in central Asia were discovered in the early 20th century. This oil was essential to the modernization of the Royal Navy, and to build Britain's economy.<ref>David Fromkin, "The great game in Asia," ''Foreign Affairs'' 58#4 (1980), p. 39.</ref>

In the early 1880s Russia failed to float a nine 9 million loan on the European markets for its strategic geopolitical enterprises, driving severe budget cuts by the Minister of Finance. For the construction of the [[Trans-Caspian railway|Russo-Indian railway]] however, an operation supervised by renowned engineer General [[Mikhail Annenkov]], funding had been freely furnished.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Dobson |first=George |url=https://archive.org/details/russiasrailwayad00dobs/page/n4/mode/1up |title=Russia's Railway Advance into Central Asia |publisher=W.H. Allan & Co |year=1890 |location=London |language=en}}</ref>

The Tsar also entered into agreements about delivery of munition for its fortresses at an estimated value of one million sterling, with German steel magnate Alfred [[Krupp]], being the arms manufacturer for the [[German Empire]].<ref name=":2" />

===Russia's perspective===
{{further|Kazakh Khanate}}
[[File:Growth of Russia 1547-1725.png|thumb|Russian expansion 1547–1725]]
[[File:Siberian_Cossack_190x.jpg|thumb|[[Siberian Cossack]] c. 1890s]]
In 1557, [[Bokhara]] and [[Khiva]] sent ambassadors to [[Ivan the Terrible|Ivan IV]] seeking permission to trade in Russia. Russia had an interest in establishing a trade route from Moscow to India. From then until the mid-19th century, Russian ambassadors to the region spent much of their time trying to free Russians who had been taken as slaves by the khanates.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=9}} Russia would later [[Russian conquest of Siberia|expand across Siberia]] to the Far East, where it reached the Pacific port that would become known as Vladivostok by 1859. This eastward expansion was of no concern to the British Foreign Office because this area did not lie across any British trade routes or destinations, and therefore was of no interest to Britain.{{sfn|Mahajan|2001|p=13}}

Beginning in the 1820s, Russian troops would begin to advance southward from Siberia in search of secure boundaries and reliable neighbors. This advance would not cease until Russia's frontiers and her sphere of influence were firm in the Central Asia, and this would include Bokhara and Khiva.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=xvi}} Between 1824 and 1854, Russia occupied the entire [[Kazakh Khanate]] (modern-day Kazakhstan). This raised Russo-Khivan tensions in addition to Khiva's legal discrimination of Russian merchants who were just beginning to penetrate Central Asia, and the ongoing issue of Russian slaves. Russia launched an attack in 1839–1840 but it failed to reach Khiva because of the tough terrain and weather. However, the khan of Khiva feared a further Russian assault and released a number of Russian slaves.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=10}}

During the 1840s and 1850s, Russia's aims in Central Asia were for Bukhara and Khiva to refrain from hostile actions against Russia, cease possession of Russian slaves and the granting of asylum to Kazakhs fleeing from Russian justice. Khiva must cease her attacks on caravans along the [[Syr Darya]]. Russian merchants must be allowed to trade on the same terms as native merchants in Bukhara and Khiva. The khanates must guarantee the safety of the persons and property of Russian merchants, levy no excessive duties, permit unhampered transit of goods and caravans across Central Asia into neighboring states and allow Russian commercial agents to reside in Bukhara and Khiva, and free navigation on the [[Amu Darya]] river for Russian ships. None of these aims was realised.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=10}} Russia's borders remained insecure and in addition there was growing British influence in the region.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=12}}

In 1869, when British diplomat [[George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon|Clarendon]] proposed the Amu Darya river as the basis for a neutral zone between British and Russian spheres of influence, [[Alexander Gorchakov]] proposed Afghanistan as the neutral zone.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=47}} Russia feared the influence that a Muslim power with British support might have on the other khanates in the region.{{sfn|Ewans|2002|p=66}}

The Russian Empire sought to expand its access to strategic coastlines such as the Black Sea, Persian Gulf, and the Pacific. Russian war plans against British India were developed during the [[Crimean War]], presented to the Tsar in 1854 and 1855.<ref name=":22"/> These were the [[Duhamel plan]] and [[Khrulev plan]].<ref name=":32"/> According to historian Evgeny Sergeev, the Great Game represented a great power competition that did not initiate only with Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in 1856, but was already well underway and was only intensified thereafter. Expansion into Central Asia was closely connected with ambitions in India.<ref name=":22" /> Historian Alexandre Andreyev argued that the rapid advance of the Russian Empire in Central Asia, while mainly serving to extend the southern frontier, was aimed to keep British eyes off of the [[January Uprising|January uprising]] in Poland.<ref name=":42">{{Cite book |last=Andreev |first=A. I. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51330174 |title=Soviet Russia and Tibet : the debacle of secret diplomacy, 1918-1930s |date=2003 |publisher=Brill |isbn=90-04-12952-9 |location=Leiden |pages=13–15, 18–20 |oclc=51330174 |access-date=1 September 2021 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202650/https://www.worldcat.org/title/51330174 |url-status=live }}</ref> Andreyev states that, as late as 1909, strategists of the Russian Empire sought to use Afghanistan to "threaten India... to exert influence on Britain", quoting [[Andrei Snesarev]].<ref name=":42" /> According to diplomatic historian [[Barbara Jelavich]], it was logistically not possible for the Russian Empire to invade India and was not seriously considered, however the Tsars understood that making invasion plans threatening the "jewel" of Britain's empire was a way to extract more favorable outcomes in Europe.<ref name=":042">{{Cite book |last=Jelavich |first=Barbara |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796911 |title=St. Petersburg and Moscow : Tsarist and Soviet foreign policy, 1814–1974 |date=1974 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0-253-35050-6 |location=Bloomington |pages=200–201 |oclc=796911 |access-date=4 September 2021 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202702/https://www.worldcat.org/title/796911 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Similarly to the British Empire, the Russian Empire saw themselves as a "civilizing power" expanding a purely humanitarian mission among the Turcomans into what they perceived a "semi-barbarous" region, reflecting the ideology of the time.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":22" />