Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India by Lawrence James

Author:Lawrence James [JAMES, LAWRENCE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2010-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

4

Not Worth the Candle:

Wars, Real and

Imaginary,

1854 – 1914

I

There is a Russian chess manoeuvre known as a ‘Maskirovka’ which can be adapted for war and diplomacy. It involves a sequence of moves contrived to convince an opponent that certain of his vital pieces are at risk. He reacts by preparing for an offensive which never materialises; instead, his adversary strikes elsewhere, as he had first intended.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, successive Russian statesmen and soldiers employed the Maskirovka strategem against Britain. Through a mixture of diplomatic intrigue, disinformation, railway building and parading armies on frontiers, they persuaded their British counterparts that one day Russia would invade India, either through Persia or Afghanistan, or both. A reservoir of anxiety was created which the Russians tapped whenever it suited them, for it was the only way in which they could harm or exert pressure on a nation which consistently frustrated what they considered to be their rightful ambitions: possession of Constantinople and a free hand in the Balkans. If India was even remotely menaced, Britain had no choice but to strain every nerve and muscle to defend it because, as the Russians knew, it was a vital source of political and economic power. Britain had invested pride, energy and cash in India. Its possession underpinned Britain’s status as a world power and, by the end of the century, British investments there totalled £270 million. In a more and more fiercely competitive world market, India was a valuable customer, taking a fifth of all British exports. Popular and press responses to the Indian Mutiny were proof that British public opinion sensed that the loss of India would be a national catastrophe which had to be prevented whatever the cost.

All this was appreciated in St Petersburg which was why, whenever Anglo-Russian relations took a turn for the worse, there were unofficial hints to the effect that British rule in India was precarious and unlikely to survive a hard knock from outside. This was the message of Colonel Terentiev, whose Russia and England in the Struggle for the Markets of Central Asia was translated and published in Calcutta in 1875. It was designed to make the flesh creep, with the prophecy that if Russia ever mounted a serious military challenge to the Raj, the Indian army would turn on its masters and the masses would follow suit.1 General K. P. von Kaufman, the Russian commander in Turkmenistan, struck a raw nerve when, in 1876, he made the ‘impudent prediction’ that the British would soon plead for his troops to protect them from their Indian subjects.2 This rankled at a time when reports were filtering through to Calcutta which indicated that many Indians, including some princes, believed that Britain was frightened of the Russians and lacked the will to fight them. In the Madras residency, disgruntled peasants told tax officials: ‘Well, the Russians will be here before long and then we shall see!’3 This theme of the deep-rooted Indian discontent was revived during the

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