THE GREAT GAME

 "The Great Game" was a term used to describe the competition between the empires of Britain and Russia in the 19th century, which was often focused on military and diplomatic manoeuvres in Afghanistan.The term was popularised by Rudyard Kipling in the novel Kim, which first appeared in serial form in 1900.The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. A less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In the post-Second World War post-colonial period, the term has continued in use to describe the geopolitical machinations of the Great Powers and regional powers as they vie for geopolitical power and influence in the area.Soviet attack on Afghanistan during the 'cold war' is often seen as reciprocal to the 19th century one.'The New Great Game' has since evolved after the fall of Soviet Union.It is the competition between various Western powers, Russia, and China for political influence and access to raw materials in Central Eurasia—"influence, power, hegemony and profits in Central Asia and the Transcaucasia" The ongoing Ukraine crisis is example.

http://www.theindianrepublic.com/world/russian-game-ukraine-gas-lines-stupid-100028929.html

With the Russians continuing to make overtures to Afghanistan,George Eden, first earl of Auckland (1784-1849), arrived from England with orders to install a pro-British regime to keep the Russians at bay. He dispatched an army that marched through Sind on the way Afghanistan, ignoring a treaty with the Mirs, as the Talpur chieftains of Sind were known. The 1832 treaty forbade passage of British forces or military stores along the Indus River or across Sind. Lord Auckland's army joined another British force in Baluchistan. Once in Kabul the British installed their puppet, Shuja Shah, on the throne, but in 1841,while the British were on their way back to Jalalabad, near the Khyber Pass, a rebellion broke out. The retreating British forces were attacked, and most were slaughtered. Lord Auckland was recalled to England,After the Crimean War 1854-56, which nearly ruined Russia as a great power, and India's first war of Independence, which thoroughly alarmed the British, both powers felt acutely vulnerable.  In their redoubled efforts to defend their interests, they employed an armoury of policies: competition for political influence at the courts of the Sultan of Turkey, the Shah of Persia and the Amir of Afghanistan; trade and investment for political ends; strategic railways, military expeditions; and perhaps most important of all, allies in Europe.In the second half of the 19th ‘Century, Britain could usually count on Austria-Hungary, and sometimes on France and Germany, to help frustrate Russia in the Straights and Mediterranean.  In the end the fate of both Russian and British Empires had to be resolved in Europe, where the players of the Great Game sat.
Britain believed that Russia had plans to move southward and seize Britain's prize possession, India, which was known as 'The Raj'.The British invaded Afghanistan twice in the 1800s to prevent Russian encroachment in Afghanistan and any threat to British dominance in the region. the Russian Empire's expansion into Central Asia threatened to destroy the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire, India. The British feared that the Tsar's troops would subdue the Central Asian khanates (Khiva, Bokhara, Khokand) one after another. The Emirate of Afghanistan might then become a staging post for a Russian invasion of India.With these intentions the British sought to establish a puppet rule in Afghanistan by declaring the first Anglo-Afghan war, that turned out to be disastrous with only one surviving British soldier.By 1850, the gap between the British and Russian Empires had narrowed to not much over 1000 miles, whereas it had been 4,000 miles in the early 18th Century. This resulted in British viewing Afghanistan as a buffer state.After Russia annexed Samarkhand, its control extended as far as the northern bank of the Amu Darya river In a letter to Queen Victoria, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli proposed "to clear Central Asia of Muscovites and drive them into the Caspian".He proceeded to introduce the Royal Titles Act 1876, which added to Victoria's titles that of Empress of India, putting her at the same level as the Russian Emperor.Before and after achieving independence in 1947, what is now Pakistan was and is a prize and participant in the Great Game of global power politics writes James Wnbrandt in A Brief History of Pakistan.
The ruler of Afghanistan, Sher Ali Kahn, continued his weak hold on power. Despite Lord Mayo's visit in 1869, the British still refused to support him militarily or financially, and Sher Ali resisted British efforts to post an envoy in Kabul. Russia, meanwhile, made overtures of assistance to Sher Ali, although he had also refused Russia's request to post an envoy. Concerned about his developing relationship with Russia, Lytton dispatched a British officer to meet with the Afghan ruler, but Sher Ali refused to grant the emissary an audience and threatened to turn back any British diplomatic mission. In response, Lytton declared war on Afghanistan. Three forces consisting of 35,000 troops and camp followers under the command of Major General Frederick Roberts, General Samuel Browne and General Donald Martin Stewart advanced on Afghanistan.

Traversing what is now Pakistan, the British army made a show of force that implicitly demonstrated their control over the area. Sher Ali fled to Turkestan, from where he dispatched a letter agreeing to allow a British envoy in Kabul. Despite his acquiescence, the British occupied Kandahar and Jalalabad. On his way back to Afghanistan, Sher Ali died. The British struck a treaty with his son, Yaqub Khan at Gandamak, a village in southeast Afghanistan, in 1879.Under the terms of the Treaty of Gandamak, the British were allowed to place a British resident in Kabul and British agents in Herat and Kandahar. In return, Yaqub Khan received a subsidy of six lakhs rupees a year. Parts of Afghanistan and the whole of the Khyber Pass were ceded to Britain. Yaqub Khan also agreed to accept British counsel in conducting his foreign policy. But many Afghans wanted no British presence in their capital, and in 1879 mutinous troops stormed the house of the British Resident, Sir Pierre Louis Cavagnari and killed him and his staff. Lord Lytton dispatched an army under the command of generals Roberts and Stewart. Another of Sher Ali's sons, Ayub Khan , engaged the British army at the Battle of Maiwand in southern Afghanistan in July 1880. The largest battle of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, it ended in a British defeat, though the Afghan forces also lost many soldiers. Ayub remaining forces next laid siege to Kandahar, where a British resident was stationed. General Roberts hurried to relieve Kandahar, marching his forces more than 300 miles from Kabul. The British defeated the Afghans at the Battle of Kandahar in September 1880, the last major conflict of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. During the conflict, without the draft animals the British appropriated for the campaign, agriculture in the Punjab region suffered, costing the government a fortune in lost revenue. Lord Lytton resigned.
Following the Second Anglo-Afghan War, Lord Lytton was succeeded by George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first marquis of Ripon a more enlightened viceroy. In the same year British Liberal Party leader William Gladstone was beginning the second of his four terms as prime minister of Britain. He moderated the "forward policy," pursuing a less confrontational strategy toward Afghanistan. Instead of large settlements and forces, the British sought to counter Russian influence by the posting of small forces and extensions of existing fortifications. They agreed to recognize as emir of Afghanistan Abdur Rahman Khan, grandson of Dost Mohammad, who had long battled Sher Ali, Abdur Rahman's uncle, for the throne. The new emir brought stability to the region and retained good relations with the British throughout his reign, which lasted until 1901.

In the Middle East there was a direct conflict of interest.  The British were determined to check Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean Turkey and Persia since their commercial and military communications ran through those areas.  They were especially keen to control the Sultan of Turkey since, as Suzerain of Egypt, he ruled the territory through which ran the Suez Canal, Britain’s lifeline to India.  The Russians for their part were equally determined to control the Sultan, since he was also the guardian of the Straights of Constantinople, “the key to Russia’s house”, as Tzar Nicholas put it to Lord Salisbury the British Prime Minister in 1896.Russia went to war with Turkey in 1877, and by early 1878 seemed on the point of seizing the “keys to her house” from the Sultan.But Britain managed to secure the support of Austria-Hungary, alarmed by Russia’s military advance into the Balkans, and they called Russia to order at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
After the repulse of Sir Neville Chamberlain, General “Bobs” Roberts pulled an amazing victory in the second Anglo-Afghan war.This was sufficient to retire Sher Ali, The Emir.His son Yakub Khan made overtures to the British, fearing their might and expelled the Russian envoy, which was the cause of the whole dispute.This of course enraged the hardliners in Afghanistan, who attacked British envoy and merchants all over the country and declared a holy war against Britain.After the whole episode,top British officials realised that the less  the British were seen in Afghanistan the better they would be liked; and that if Russia should try to seize Afghanistan or march through it to India, Britain would be more likely to attract the Afghan support if she had refrained form interfering in her affairs.In 1884, Russian expansionism brought about another crisis – the Panjdeh Incident – when they seized the oasis of Merv. The Russians claimed all of the former ruler's territory and fought with Afghan troops over the oasis of Panjdeh. On the brink of war between the two great powers, the British decided to accept the Russian possession of territory north of the Amu Darya as a fait accompli in the joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission,without any Afghan hare say.The Russians accepted that the politics of Afghanistan were solely under British control as long as the British guaranteed not to change the regime. Russia agreed to conduct all political relations with Afghanistan through the British. The British agreed that they would maintain the current borders and actively discourage any attempt by Afghanistan to encroach on Russian territory. Persia was divided into three zones: a British zone in the south, a Russian zone in the north, and a narrow neutral zone serving as buffer.The Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919 was precipitated by the assassination of the then ruler Habibullah Khan. His son and successor Amanullah declared full independence and attacked the northern frontier of British India.The Soviets provided Amanullah with aid in the form of cash, technology and military equipment. British influence in Afghanistan waned, but relations between Afghanistan and the Russians remained equivocal, with many Afghans desiring to regain control of Merv and Panjdeh.
In the early 1890s the chesslike manoeuvring the British and Russians engaged in as each attempted to gain power and influence in the Pamir Mountains, which extend from the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan, took centre stage in their contest. The Great Game came to an end with the Pamir Boundary Agreement of March 1895, signed by Russia and Great Britain. It established the Wakhan Corridor, a narrow sliver of Afghanistan in the Pamir Mountains, as a buffer between Russia (now Tajikistan) and British-held India in what is today Pakistan. The corridor, about 300 miles (480 km) long and less than 10(16 km) miles wide in some places, borders China on the east.
The border between Afghanistan and British India had never been fixed. That boundary was delineated by the Durand Line, created during Lord Lansdowne's time as viceroy. Sir Henry Mortimer Durand was an officer in the corps when he requested permission from Abdur Rahman, the emir of Afghanistan, to determine a line of demarcation between Afghanistan and the British Empire.Abdur Rahman could not well refuse, as the British controlled trade routes in and out of Afghanistan and paid the emir subsidies. When completed in 1893, the Durand Line moved the border of the British territory from the foothills west to the crests of the highest peaks and ridges in the mountains dividing the territories. This brought several tribes, including the Afridis, the Mahsuds, the Wazirs, and the Swat, under nominal British rule if not control. The British launched several military campaigns to subdue the tribes and demonstrate their regional dominance.
In 1901,Curzon heard rumours that seemed to justify his fears about Russian intervention on the north-east frontier of India with Tibet.The Russian government was supposedly sending agents and arms to the mysterious country in the mountains.There was nothing apparently to be done about this.Tibet lay nominally under the suzerainty of China, a power so decrepit that it was unable to enforce its rights. When the British protested to China they were apt to be told that the Tibetans were out of control and on approaching the Tibetans one was told to deal with China.The British cabinet were reluctant to do anything that would estrange Britain further from Russia since  both empires were alarmed by the unified German Empire's increasing activity in the Middle East.Nonetheless both powers agreed to maintain territorial integrity of this buffer state and "to deal with Lhasa only through China, the suzerain power".China now held the mainstage in this game.The shooting in Lhasa and subsequent Younghusband mission is a prime example of the way in which a mere hint of Russian action could lead the British into international embarrassment.  There is no evidence that Russia ever made any serious attempt to control Tibet; she had no claim and little opportunity to intervene.But Britain was prepared to pay a considerable price to keep her out.The Younghusband mission  was the last throw of the dice in the Great Game!In the following years the Russians capitalised on Britain’s evident anxiety to keep their goodwill in Europe, by behaving much as they pleased in Persia.On one occasion the commander of the Cossacks in Teheran threatened to bombard the British legation.Indeed by 1914 Russia had virtually annexed the northern part of Persia in which most of the principal cities lay.There was nothing the British could do short of renewing the Great Game.
In July 1914, on the eve of the First World War, the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg urged support for Russia in order to gain her friendly co-operation in Asia.This argument certainly counted for something in London.  Britain and Russia fought together in the War - a state of affairs that would have seemed incredible a few years before - because each saw Germany as an immediate menace.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/33619/david-fromkin/the-great-game-in-asia

http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/haifa-peerzada/china-and-great-game