‘The strategic importance of the Euphrates valley railway’ [‎39] (50/204)

39
which we are absolutely ignorant of; and at the very time
that our attention was attracted to the sources of the Oxus,
and to the discussion of whether Wakhan and Badakshan
belonged to Afghanistan or Bokhara, the Russians were
o O
steadily advancing from another direction, viz., from the
Caspian towards Merve. However, it is idle crying over spilt
milk. We have done it, and we must now set to work to
face the difficulties of the position like Britons.
The great strength to Russia in future wars, as compared
to former contests, will be her network of railways, and
the facility she will possess of concentrating all the means of
her vast empire on a distant theatre of war. It is our first
duty to look to this. We cannot have too many strings to
our bow, or too many lines of communication with our
Indian Empire. There is one line which still remains lor
our energy to complete, and the sooner we set about it the
better. I mean the Euphrates Railway. There is no time to
be lost. Russia may not be formidable now, but it is im
possible to say what may be done in the next six or seven
years. Chemkent, on the Syr Daria, was her most advanced
post in 1864, and Prince Gortchakoff's Circular of 1864 told
us all that the limit of Russian advance had been reached ; at
the commencement of 1865, her frontier post on the Syr
Daria was not yet at Taschkent. But, in 1866, she had
already taken Khojhend and Khokan, and by 1868 had
advanced to Samarcand and Bokhara. In 1869 she occupied
Krasnovodsk, on the east coast of the Caspian, and built a
fort there. In 1870 she advanced 103 miles south to Tash-
Arvat Kala, and later in the same year pushed on to Kizil
Arvat, a Turcoman fort. The extreme point east of the
Caspian to which they have advanced, is about 133 miles.
The next probable point is a Turcoman fort called Karys,
33 miles further, and forming part of a chain of forts
which extends to Sarakhs, 65 miles from Merve, and
133 from Herat. Nominally, some of these khanates are
only tributary to her. We know what that means. She is
not yet quite prepared to take the trouble to rule them, and
allows the native rulers still to wield the semblance of
power ; but now shortly the one remaining link in their