Anglo-Russian rivalry sian armies marching south to conquer India caused the British great alarm Although Napoleon and Alexander I went to war in June 1812, making Britain and France allies again as they had been before the Treaty of Tilsit, it did not mean the end of the Great Game In fact, it was only the beginning CONSTANT COMBAT The collapse of the Golden Horde had left in its wake many independent khanates, such as those of Bokhara and Khiva While strong enough to wage bloody wars among themselves, they were no match for the armies of Britain or Russia, which had been in almost constant combat for over two decades With the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the wartime alliance against him between Russia and Britain was soon forgotten Instead, both great powers began to focus their imperial goals on Central Asia The Russians desired to conquer the khanates, and the British desired to keep them as buffer states between the Russian Empire and the British Empire in India Beginning in 1839 Russia began a systematic conquest of Central Asia that followed the methodical planning of Czar Nicholas I Concern over the Russian threat to India precipitated the First Afghan War in 1839 By this time, Persia had become an ally of Russia and was using Russian troops in an attack on the city of Herat in Afghanistan, a country Persia had had its own imperial designs on since at least the 18th century George Eden, Lord Auckland, the governor-general of India since 1835, suspected that Dost Mohammed of Afghanistan’s Durrani dynasty sided with the Russians Auckland invaded Afghanistan in 1839 In August, the British army entered Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, with the former ruler, Shah Shuja, who Auckland felt to be more pro-British Although the invasion went successfully, the occupation of Kabul ended in disaster Auckland’s emissary, Sir William Macnaghten, was killed, and only one man arrived in safety back in British territory in January 1842 A second British invasion as an expression of Britain’s power succeeded in reaching Kabul and evacuated successfully in December 1842 Although the Afghans were suitably awed by the British ability to recoup their losses so quickly, this war was an unnecessary loss of lives and treasure, since the Russians abandoned their attempts to bring Afghanistan into their orbit before Auckland began the war Meanwhile, the British were consolidating their control of India In 1843 the British under Sir Charles Napier conquered Sind During the Sikh Wars the British defeated the once independent realm of the Sikhs in the Punjab, firmly adding it to their growing Indian empire 31 Although the Sikh Wars were the most difficult the British ever fought in their conquest of India, the Sikhs ultimately became among the most redoubtable soldiers in England’s Indian army It could be argued persuasively that this sudden imperial push on the part of the British was to deny control of the Punjab to the Russians The British entry into the Crimean War was in part due to British alarm over the seemingly unstoppable Russian march into Central Asia Instead of being able to focus their energy on the khanates of Central Asia, the Russians had to face a British invasion of the Russian Crimea in 1854 The heavy Russian losses suffered in such battles as Inkerman, Balaklava, and the Alma River helped delay further Russian penetration of Central Asia by a decade IMPERIOUS NECESSITY Then, in December 1864, Czar Alexander II’s foreign minister, Prince A M Gorchakov, wrote what would become the definitive expression of Russian imperialism in Central Asia It contained an ominous note for the British Like all other expanding powers, Russia faced one great obstacle—“all have been irresistibly forced, less by ambition than by imperious necessity, into this onward [movement] where the greatest difficulty is to know where to stop.” Soon the British understood what Gorchakov’s memorandum meant Czar Alexander II began a massive campaign of conquest in Central Asia As with the Crimean War, tensions between England and Russia contributed to a war scare in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 Throughout the 19th century, Russian foreign policy vacillated between seeking empire in Central Asia and desiring to expand into the Balkans Thus in 1877 the Russians invaded the Ottoman territory in the Balkans, which would ultimately lead to the establishment of an independent, pro-Russian Slavic Bulgaria However, when it seemed that the armies of Alexander II would continue on until they conquered the Turkish capital of Constantinople, British prime minister William Gladstone threatened to intervene on the side of Turkey When events seemed to be leading to a general European war, the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck called all the parties to the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which ultimately provided a peaceful solution to the crisis The Russo-Turkish War had immediate repercussions in Central Asia A Russian mission arrived in Kabul under General Stolietov, supported by the czar and the czar’s governor-general for the Central Asian