Case Study: Central Asia
Central Asia was the site of a bloody revolt launched by Central Asian Turkic Muslims in what became known as the Basmachi Revolt. The failed Bolshevik takeover of Russia has not only resulted in more White Russian troops participating in the Turkish War of Independence against Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s Turkish resistance movement, but in Central Asia a White Russian corps was formed to battle against the Basmachis. Anatoly Rogozhin was chosen to lead a “White Russian Expeditionary Army in Russian Turkestan” due to his Cossack background and his experience in Persia came into handy when he had to deal with the Central Asian Turkic Muslims. Because of the growing anti-Muslim sentiment shared by Rogozhin’s White Russian Expeditionary Army in Russian Turkestan, the Basmachis were able to acquire help from British agents stationed in Afghanistan. Between 1916 and its conclusion of hostilities in 1921, the White Russian government spent most of its time suppressing these groups, mainly by pillaging rural villages often frequented by Basmachi fighters. However, this tactic only served to radicalize the disfranchised Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Turkmen peoples who provided most of the Basmachi movement’s recruits. Irgash Bay emerged as the main leader of the first Basmachi movement by 1920 and his charisma allowed him to amass an army of only 15,000 men. He was able to play on the Muslim population’s fears of Russian anti-Muslim sentiment shared by Rogozhin’s army, as well as the White Russian intervention against Ataturk’s movement in Anatolia to his advantage though, and he also carved out an autonomous state centered on Tashkent. His real goal though, was to conquer Samarqand in order to build a series of decentralized Islamic communities within an autonomous Turkestani state and to force the White Russian government to negotiate with the Basmachis. Repeated negotiations between the Basmachis and the White Russian government constantly collapsed due to unbridled opposition from both sides. Thus, the Basmachis launched the first strike with British intelligence based in the Indian Raj giving covert aid to these separatist groups.
Battle of Fergana (1919):
The Bolsheviks were originally poised to help their counterparts in Central Asia when news of Trotsky’s capture and execution by the White Army reached the Tashkent Soviet authorities. Immediately, the Basmachis set their sights on regaining Tashkent before launching an offensive into Samarqand. British weapons were shipped into the Basmachis through Afghanistan (albeit the Afghan authorities were reluctant to allow British weapons to go through their territory) while British advisors helped train the other Basmachi recruits in irregular warfare. Between August 16th and August 21st, the Basmachis managed to overrun the Tashkent Soviet and brutally executed all of its officials, declaring Tashkent liberated from Bolshevik control. Irgash also set his sights on gaining control of the Fergana Valley as a suitable training ground for future Basmachi warriors. Rogozhin knew too well that Fergana was a very important military asset and its control by the Basmachis can result in a potential Muslim revolt spreading throughout Central Asia, even into the Muslim populated regions of the Caucasus and Chinese Turkestan. For this purpose, the White Russian government began to forge close contacts with the Kuomintang and it is also why Chiang Kai Shek and some of the students from the Whampoa academy were invited to study military science in White Russian staffed academies throughout Russia. The Kuomintang government in Nanjing became aware of the Basmachi revolt’s influence on the Uighur population, which was aiming to create an independent East Turkestani state. Unfortunately, it will take three years before the Kuomintang and its Hui Chinese Muslim allies will enter the war against the Basmachis. Taking advantage of the lack of allies Rogozhin had, Irgash launched an expedition into Fergana Valley and started his operation. Turkic civilians were encouraged to set up traps for the approaching White Russian forces, while Alexander Kutepov was tasked with capturing Fergana from the Basmachis. The White Russian troops fortified the mountain ranges that encircled the Fergana region with machine guns and artillery pieces while reinforcements from Siberia that weren’t under Kolchak’s control arrived in the mountain bases by October of 1919. The Basmachi advance towards the Fergana Valley was slow and bloody, and Russian artillery pieces did their job in destroying the advancing Basmachi infantry divisions attempting to gain a foothold of the lower Fergana. Yet at the same time, the White Russian leadership became aware that as long as the Basmachis are getting aid from British agents stationed in Afghanistan, they would be bled dry and the Basmachi revolt could even affect the Muslims living in the Volga-Ural region. This fear will also lead to the formation of the Mladoslovenist policy of resettling loyal groups from other parts of Europe into their territory that have a military heritage. It was in the battlefields of the Fergana Valley where 7,000 Serbian volunteers who took part in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War were relocated through the Trans-Caspian Railway to fight the Basmachis. Among the volunteers was a young colonel called Milan Nedic who distinguished himself as a reckless fighter who inspired his troops through deeds, though he suffered a gunshot wound in the shoulder before being medically discharged by the Serbian Army. Unfortunately, both sides opted to launch a war of attrition in order to outlast each other, resembling the static war of attrition that has dominated the Western Front during the Great War. It was not until 1920 that Enver Pasha eventually joined the Basmachi movement when he received news that Mehmed VI issued an order for his arrest due to charges of subversion, profiteering and committing mass murder against Ottoman Christians. Upon arriving in Central Asia, Enver quickly took charge of the Basmachi forces and retrained them. In contrast to Irgash Bay who was able to acquire weapons from British agents in Afghanistan, Enver Pasha could not even receive a single crate of modern weapons in due part because the Allied occupation forces in Constantinople also issued an order for his arrest in his connection to the Armenian Genocide.
Enver Pasha's Pan-Turkic ambition led him to join the Basmachi movement, but only after he learned from a trusted friend within the CUP movement that Mehmed VI wanted him arrested for subversion, mass murder of Christians and war profiteering. His ambitions would also result in his collision with Mohammed Alim Khan, the Emir of Bukhara and Amanullah Khan, the Emir of Afghanistan.
Irgash Bay and the two Emirs of Bukhara and Afghanistan reacted to Enver’s import of experienced Pan-Turkish minded officers with mixed feelings. In times of desperation when the Basmachi offensive into Fergana was going nowhere, Enver’s expertise in forming a Basmachi general staff eventually transformed into the core of the future Turkestani General Staff has earned him the undying loyalty of the Basmachi rank and file soldiers, many of whom began to see Enver as the new leader of a unified Turkestan, though its size is unsure. Unfortunately, tensions between Enver’s Pan-Turkish faction and Irgash’s faction boiled over into a small conflict that Enver was determined to win over his rival. Through his trusted Turkish allies, Enver made plans to get rid of his rivals and he did it during an important Islamic festival in what became known as the Eid al-Adha Massacre. On August 4, 1921, Enver invited his guest to the great dinner in Kokand to celebrate the ongoing conflict against the White Russian forces (by this time, the White Russians retreated from Fergana Valley and into the town of Karavan that Rogozhin ordered to be turned into a frontier fort. While the guests of honor awaited their meal, Enver’s hired henchmen arrived at the table as waiters and immediately shot Irgash Bay dead, but the Emirs of Bukhara and Afghanistan barely escaped into Tajikistan where the Tajik authorities quickly escorted them back to Kabul, and Mohammed Alim Khan went back to Bukhara to hatch a plan to arrest the usurpers who hijacked the Basmachi movement. As it turns out, Amanullah Khan gradually asserted himself as the man who unwittingly became Enver Pasha’s biggest rival and enemy, not because he narrowly survived the Turkish general’s plot to kill him, but he survived long enough to announce to the entire world of Irgash Bay’s murder at the hands of Enver Pasha. Even worse for Enver Pasha (depending on his view) was that he finally learned of his old rival Mustafa Kemal’s capture at the hands of the British in Ankara and the eventual collapse of the Grand National Assembly. Furious at the world’s response to his actions, Enver escalated his efforts to indoctrinate the Basmachis he selected based on their loyalty to him in the Pan-Turkic ideology. He now has the Emirs of Afghanistan and Bukhara fighting against him, and the White Russian government was more than willing to seize the Central Asian borderlands on the Chinese border, which they accomplished by October of 1921. With the Basmachis facing internal disintegration, Rogozhin was instructed to see Amanullah Khan to formalize diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. At this time, Kerensky has already been shot dead and Lavr Kornilov was ruling Russia as a de facto military dictator. Unbeknownst to the other White Russian movement, Kornilov was secretly placing his politicized subordinates into positions of power and even made a special plan for his own "downfall" and his replacement by the Mladosloveni Party in 1926. For now, Kornilov also issued a letter that Rogozhin carried to Amanullah Khan, offering all of the Tajik-populated lands to Afghanistan, including a proposal for a joint attack on Samarqand in three years and an offer to modernize Afghanistan's military. Amanullah Khan accepted the offer only on one condition: Russia should not station their troops in Afghanistan or to walk through Afghan territory for military operations against Great Britain. Desperate to avoid being labeled as a Russian puppet, Amanullah Khan set his sights on establishing relations with Persia, whose Shah was on the verge of being overthrown by yet another ambitious military leader. The said military leader's name was Reza Khan and the man he targeted for his overthrow was Ahmad Shah Qajar (1).
Mohammed Alim Khan, the Emir of Bukhara and erstwhile Russian vassal, was one of Enver Pasha's rivals in Central Asia and a potential contender to depose the Ottoman general as leader of the Basmachis. Of the Manghud dynasty, he was rumored to have been Genghis Khan's last direct descendant.
Amanullah Khan was the second rival that faced off against Enver Pasha in Central Asia. Unlike Mohammed Alim Khan, the Emir of Afghanistan was eager to establish relations with the regional Central Asian powers of Russia and Persia against Britain and at the same time he sought to keep Afghan national sovereignty intact.
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(1) The OTL coup by Reza Khan against Ahmad Shah Qajar occurred on February 21st, 1921 (unofficial) but his "official" downfall was on October 31, 1925. ITTL, Reza Khan would not only seize power but decide on whether or not he would become Shah or to form a coalition with the Islamic clergy.
BTW what happened to Beria?
