The Great Game was born out of British fears of a Russian incursion into India, which, according to historians, was misplaced. Is it plausible that instead of keeping Afghanistan around as a vassal state to protect India from Russia, the British and Russians would've agreed to partition Afghanistan between themselves? What would've been the impact of such a decision?
WI/PC: Afghanistan partition to end the Great Game?
- Thread starter A Piece of History
- Start date
Not happening. Afghanistan provided a buffer that neither Britain or Russia wanted lost.
Also it wasn't just the British fear of Russia invasion through Afghanistan. The Russians themselves had a fear of a British invasion of Central Asia where the Russian logistics and infrastructure was abysmal.
Perhaps dividing the country into Spheres of Influence like Persia would be a better solution.
Also it wasn't just the British fear of Russia invasion through Afghanistan. The Russians themselves had a fear of a British invasion of Central Asia where the Russian logistics and infrastructure was abysmal.
Perhaps dividing the country into Spheres of Influence like Persia would be a better solution.
Afghanistan's modern day boundaries are due to British and Russian rivalries and mistrust in Central Asia as well as Iran, with Afghanistan being the main point of contention
There is a possibility that Afghanistan can be divided amoung Russia and Britain, but it is every unlikely as they would share a border, which they did not want to
One possible outcome could be British being more successful in Anglo Afghan Wars, annexing many parts of Afghanistan along the border, prompting Russia to do the same along its border, leaving a much smaller Afghanistan than OTL
There is a possibility that Afghanistan can be divided amoung Russia and Britain, but it is every unlikely as they would share a border, which they did not want to
One possible outcome could be British being more successful in Anglo Afghan Wars, annexing many parts of Afghanistan along the border, prompting Russia to do the same along its border, leaving a much smaller Afghanistan than OTL
Neither side really wanted to annex Afghanistan and to deal with all related problems. The problem was to define what is Afghanistan with a resulting crisis of 1885. The Russian considered Panjdeh oasis as a part of Merv (which submitted earlier) and argued that it was populated by the Turkmens while the Brits had been pushing Amir of Afghanistan to declare it a part of his territory. Population of the oasis seemingly preferred Amir or at least paid tribute to the rulers of Herat. While the diplomatic discussions had been going, the Russians managed to trick the Afghans into firing first (so that promises would not be violated) and kicked them out of the Ak Tepe fort with a loss of either 40 to 600 (their data) or 11 to 900 (British data) in their favor. The Brits reacted with the expected hysteria, Gladstone asked for the credits (bigger than those for Sudan), Amir declared the whole incident a simple border skirmish of no consequences, AIII reacted with “if they want a war, there would be a war”, after which everybody agreed to continue work of the border commission. Russia got Pandjeh and evacuated another oasis to the West of it. Everybody lived happily ever after because both Russia and Britain wanted a buffer zone in the CA (final treaty was signed in 1887) and nobody wanted Afghanistan.
The one thing an Afghan partition would've done would be to NOT end the Great Game. Conversely, it would've just led to more trouble between the UK and the RE further down the road...
True. But, anyway, it takes (at least) two to do a partitioning and AIII was not into it. 😂
Agreed. For all of his flaws, one thing that can be said in AIII's favor was that he managed (for the most part) to keep the peace and to avoid foreign entanglements if possible... a rare trait in a Tsar
