“An examination of historical records reveals that the assumptions that were being made in both London and St. Petersburg about the intentions of the other side were frequently wrong, sometimes with tragic consequences.”

By Riaz Dean

“THE GREAT GAME” was a contest of high stakes and espionage played out during the 19th century between two of the most powerful empires of the day: Great Britain and Imperial Russia.

In the United Kingdom, the term came to describe the strategic rivalry for territory across much of Central Asia, and both powers’ attempts to redraw the lines on this vulnerable region’s map.

Tsarist Russia had its own name for the competition, referring to it as a “Tournament of Shadows.” Both phrases, though euphemistic and somewhat cynical, proved to be not far off the mark.

As the game played out, there was a desperate need for the competing powers to explore and map these regions, both for offensive and defensive purposes. Indeed, the first need of an army in a strange land is a reliable map. A later viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, would sum up the crucial role the lines on a map play: “Frontiers are the razor’s edge on which hang suspended the issue of war or peace and the life of nations.”

Although the two powers never came to blows directly – despite edging dangerously close on a few occasions – there was plenty of real and imagined posturing on both sides.

Yet, an examination of historical records reveals that the assumptions that were being made in both London and St. Petersburg about the intentions of the other side were frequently wrong, sometimes with tragic consequences.

Here are some things the players in the Great Game miscalculated about the contest.

Britain feared Russia might invade India

The steady expansion of territory by Russia, as it swallowed up large portions of Central Asia, was deeply disturbing and threatening to Britain.

In fact, London believed that the Tsar’s ultimate intention was to eventually take control of India—the “jewel” in Britain’s crown. With hindsight, though, many historians believe the British falsely inflated the threat. In fact, military posturing to check Russia was self-defeating, as it likely only antagonized the Britain’s adversary further. As is often the case, suspicion only begat suspicion.

The First Afghan War of 1842 had been an absolute disaster for the British army. Almost its entire contingent occupying Kabul was massacred—more than 16,000, including women and children and Indian camp followers.

During the lead-up to the Second Afghan War of 1878, Britain had forced its way back into Kabul to prevent Russian influence over this buffer state. The viceroy of India at the time, Lord Lytton, had been itching for a decisive confrontation with the Russians in Central Asia, writing home to London:

“The prospect of war with Russia immensely excites, but so far as India is concerned, does not at all alarm me. If it is to be—better now than later. We are twice as strong as Russia in this part of the world and have much better bases for attack and defence.”

The Secretary of State for India cautioned him when he continued in this aggressive manner, saying: “I think you listen too much to soldiers…if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.”

This sentiment was echoed by historian Gerald Morgan, who ended his study of the Great Game with two of our four myth-busting findings:

“The first of them is that Russia never had either the will or the ability to invade India. Whatever the hot-headed soldiers on both sides might threaten or expect, it was always the statesmen who prevented a war.”

Russia feared British expansion into Central Asia

Morgan’s second conclusion is also compelling: “That contrary to Russian fears, India never had the military capacity to move into Central Asia. What she did hope and failed to get was commercial influence.”

Britain would have sought to expand commerce using the Honourable East India Company, through which Britain had first gained a trading foothold in India. This had come to pass on the last day of the year 1600, when 200 merchants of London were given a royal charter by Elizabeth I to trade in the East Indies: those exotic lands east of the Indus River. From this humble beginning, “the Company,” as it was commonly called, would grow dramatically, and is still regarded by many today as the greatest commercial enterprise in history.

To defend its interests in India, the Company raised an army of sepoys, which were recruited from the local population. Ironically, Britain would ultimately conquer India using Indian soldiers.

An old saying from Kashmir reflected the power of British mercantile interests: “The world is Allah’s, the land belongs to the Pashas, but it is the Company that rules.” And rule it did—during its heyday, it presided over nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, employing its own armed forces and civil service, and minting its own money. But, as Morgan concludes: “Trade not war was the Company’s role.”

Britain feared Russian aggression across the Northern Frontier

The mountainous zone to India’s extreme north contains many high passes, some of which were known only to local hillmen and raiders. As the Great Game played out, fear mounted within British India that an invader could use these defiles in a multi-pronged incursion of the subcontinent.

Yet for many experienced explorers and military personnel, the possibility of any serious invasion attempt through these passes was remote, even ridiculous.

For one thing, this thinly populated region was incapable of feeding and supporting a large number of troops.

In concluding his detailed study of the region, historian Garry Alder commented: “The belief in the feasibility of invasion by the northern frontier was directly proportional to the geographic ignorance of it.”

Tibet was becoming a Russian vassal

When Lord Curzon, an avowed Russophobe, had become the viceroy of India in 1899, he was determined not to give in further to any territorial grab by the Tsar, who had already annexed much of Central Asia.

Curzon would earlier write:

“As a student of Russian aspirations and methods for fifteen years, I assert with confidence—what I do not think her own statesmen would deny—that her ultimate ambition is the dominion of Asia . . . Each morsel but whets her appetite for more, and inflames the passion for pan-Asiatic domination.”

Although the advice from his military staff indicated a Russian invasion through Tibet was near impossible, the Viceroy still believed that if the Dalai Lama were to become aligned with the Tsar, it would have grave implications for India’s defence.

By late 1902, Curzon’s misgivings around St Petersburg’s growing role in Lhasa had become a conviction: “I am myself a firm believer in the existence of a secret understanding, if not a secret treaty between Russia and China about Tibet: and as I have before said, I regard it as a duty to frustrate this little game while there is yet time.”

This “duty” would led to the British invasion of Tibet in 1904 and an infamous confrontation with poorly-armed local troops in the small village of Guru. Within minutes of the battle, 628 Tibetans lay dead, another 222 wounded; that, compared to only a dozen of the British injured.

As the commander of the mission, Francis Younghusband, penned to his father the next day, it was “a pure massacre,” and would long be remembered as a black day for Britain.

Yet, contrary to expectations, the expeditionary force found few signs of Russian activity in Lhasa, or any real evidence of the suspected treaty between Tsar Nicholas II and the Dalai Lama.

As author Charles Allen concluded after a careful study of this sorry episode: “The official reasons for this invasion were almost entirely bogus …”

Riaz Dean is the author of Mapping the Great Game: Explorers, Spies and Maps in 19th-Century Asia. He collects old books and maps, and has also written of the ancient Silk Road and its mapping. He lives in New Zealand.