'The Russians in Akhal' [‎37r] (25/68)

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1874.
Abstract, No. CX., August 1874.
Abstract, No. CIL, 1874.
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Sir E. Hertslet’s Foreign Office Memo
randum, 1877.
Abstract, No. CXI,, October 1874.
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the object of our Government is to inflict a punish
ment on the Turcomans who have been troubling
you m many ways from time immemorial. The
reason why we have taken possession of this sahra
(plain) is, that whilst we protect you against the
rauk of the Yomuds, we should proceed to the
Teke country and take vengeance on them for the
damages they have caused to your Government
when llashmat-ood-dowlah invaded YLerv, and at
the same time restore peace and tranquillity
tmoughout Hussian Turkistan, and achieve many
other objects, &c.”
It it was the fact that the Russian troops at
Chikishlar and at Krasnovodsk in the year 1874
numbered 21,000 men of ail arms, as was stated by
General Romakin, then indeed the Russians were
more formidable in the trans-Caspian region than
lias ever been supposed, and this would in a great
measure account for the great influence which the
Russians wielded among the Turcoman tribes.
In the month of July 1874, the Kavkas reported
upon the perfect tranquillity prevailing in the
region incorporated under the TJkaz oi the 9th
(21st) March of the same year, saying that “ dele-
“ gates from the various tribes presented themselves
dailv ith protestations of devotion and submis
sion that “ at a word from the chief of the
district, the tribes had liberated their male and
female slaves in the name of God, and because
“ they had heard that sucli was the desire of the
Great Izar, and that “ they had also signed an
" undertaking to submit without a murmur to all
the regulations affecting them during their
“ sojourn in -the trans-Caspian district.”
But at the same time the Kuvkaz dwelt ominously
on the misbehaviour of the Tekes, mixing up their
relations with the Kurds and with the Yomuds of
the Gurgan with alleged forays within the limits of
the Russian district, and with a reported attack on
a Russian caravan from or to Astrabad, and on the
leke “ envoys ” who had been to Krasnovodsk with
tenders of friendship and obedience.
The real cause of irritation on the part of the
Russian authorities expressed itself at the same
time in the following phrase :—
Those alone (of the Tekes) who occupy the ten
torts nearest to us are ready to submit to us.*'
Lomakin’s wns the period of “mild and per
suasive measures,” as compared with the period
ot “ stringent measures,” resorted to by Colonel
Markozof, and as will be found further it was a
period of military scouring expeditions “ carried out
m a most amicable spirit?'
The following notification was made in October
1874
three companies of infantry were to be sent
early in October (1874) to Chikishlar by sea. From
Chikishlar they were to have orders to proceed
up the Attrek to Hadji-Bayat-Olum, where they
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