Panjdeh incident
The Panjdeh Incident , Incident or Crisis (also known as the Battle of Kushka or similar) is a skirmish between troops of the Russian Tsarist Empire and the emirate of Afghanistan that took place on March 30, 1885, around the Panjdeh oasis .
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The battle formed part of the decades-long confrontation between Russian and British interests in Central Asia, the so-called " Great Game ". The skirmish at Kushka (today's Serhetabat ) sparked a diplomatic crisis and brought Russia and Britain to the brink of war. As a result of the conquest of the oasis, the Russian border moved south. At the same time, the Russian victory at Kuschka represents the southernmost advance of the Russian Empire.
prehistory
After the battle of Goek Tepe , Russia annexed the oasis around Merw . Following a proposal by General Alexander Komarov , Commander in Chief of the Trans Caspi region, a delegation from the population of the Merw oasis in Ashgabat arrived on February 6, 1884 and submitted a petition to Komarow to the Russian Tsar to place Merv under Russian sovereignty and the to assume Russian citizenship for the population.
With the annexation of Mervs, Russia controlled almost all of today's Turkmenistan and now bordered the emirate of Afghanistan in the south , which was a British protectorate after the Second Anglo-Afghan War . The northern Afghan border had never been established in this sparsely populated region. Settlement points were only found on the Murgab and its tributary Kuschka , which flow from Afghanistan to Merw.
The annexation of Mervs made it necessary to define the borders between the new Russian province and Afghanistan. Russia and Great Britain agreed to form a joint border commission. At the same time, both colonial powers tried to create a militarily accomplished fact. England sent its demarcation commission and a military department under General Sir Peter Lumsden to protect it. From the Russian side, a commission with a military department was also sent under the command of General Komarov. In correspondence regarding the appointment of the Anglo-Russian border commission, Russia challenged Afghanistan's claim to Panjdeh oasis and insisted on Russian claim to the oasis on the grounds that it belonged to the annexed Merv area. Panjdeh Oasis occupied strategic heights in the mountains en route to Herat Province, Afghanistan. The valley of the Kushka River was the most convenient route for the transfer of troops and military supplies to Afghanistan. The British were concerned that they saw the Merw-Herat-Kandahar-Quetta line as a natural route of invasion to India.
The Governor General and Viceroy of India Lord Dafferin feared the preparations for a Russian invasion. He demanded that the Afghan emir Abdur Rahman Khan offer armed resistance against the Russians advancing south. Afghanistan sent troops to Panjdeh to reinforce the protection of the oasis. When General Komarov found out about this, he furiously ordered the Afghan units to withdraw. The Afghan commander refused. Komarov immediately appealed to the British special envoy to Afghanistan, General Sir Peter Stark Lumsden , demanding that the Afghan units be ordered to withdraw. Peter Lumsden refused to do this.
The battle
The Russian troops under the command of General Alexander Komarov concentrated on the east bank of the Kushka River. Opposite them on the west bank stood the Afghan troops, commanded by British instructors: 2,600 cavalrymen and 1,900 infantrymen with eight guns. In addition, around 5000 horsemen from various tribal militias were ready to support them. General Komarov's Russian troops were clearly outnumbered. A total of 1660 men were available: four rifle companies of the Trans Caspian regiment, a battalion of the Turkestan regiment, a Caucasian Cossack regiment, a division of the provisional militia from Merw and a battery of four mountain guns.
On March 24, 1885, they were less than a mile from the Afghan defenders. Komarov now gave the commander of the Afghan armed forces an ultimatum: Either he withdrew the troops in five days or the Russians themselves would drive them out. On March 25, 1885, the Russian government, under pressure from Great Britain, vowed to guarantee that the Russian troops would not attack Panjdeh if the Afghans refrained from military action. Despite repeated promises by the Russian government, Komarov's troops gradually surrounded the Panjdeh oasis to provoke an escalation.
On March 30, 1885, when the deadline for General Komarov's ultimatum expired and the Afghans showed no signs of retreat, he ordered his units to go on the offensive, but without opening fire first. As a result, the Afghans were the first to open fire and the battle began .
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After the Russian rifle ranks repulsed the Afghan cavalry attacks, the Caucasian Cossack regiment under the Avar Lieutenant Colonel Maksud Alichanov started a counterattack. The cavalry attack dispersed the Afghan troops, who retreated wildly to Herat .
On the Afghan side, there are said to have been 600 deaths, while Russian troops lost 40 men.
consequences
The conquest of Kushka almost sparked an armed confrontation between the two colonial powers. A war was prevented by diplomatic intervention. Russia and England agreed on the joint definition of the Russian-Afghan border by a Russian-English border commission in 1887. Representatives of the Afghan emir were not involved in the work on defining the northern Afghan border. The concessions of the tsarist representatives were minimal, Russia retained the territory conquered by Komarov around the Panjdeh oasis, where the Kushka fortress was built in 1890. This made Kushka the southernmost settlement of both the Russian Empire and, later, the USSR. In 1901 the strategically important place was connected to the Russian railway network. The construction of the railway to Kuschka worried the English press because of its strategic dimensions and its proximity to the city of Herat.
Today the place is in Turkmenistan and is called Serhetabat .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nikolai Grischenko: Бой на Кушке: как Россия и Британия оказались на грани войны. In: https://rg.ru/2020/03/30/boj-na-kushke-kak-rossiia-i-britaniia-okazalis-na-grani-vojny.html . March 30, 2020, accessed April 8, 2020 (Russian).
- ↑ Nikolai Grischenko: Бой на Кушке: как Россия и Британия оказались на грани войны. In: https://rg.ru/2020/03/30/boj-na-kushke-kak-rossiia-i-britaniia-okazalis-na-grani-vojny.html . March 30, 2020, accessed April 8, 2020 (Russian).
- ^ Herbert Kremp: The Great Game. In: https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article523893/The-Great-Game.html . July 19, 2000, accessed April 8, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Russia's secret railroad. Retrieved April 8, 2020 .