[Forty-one years in India by Frederick Sleigh Roberts]@TWC D-Link bookForty-one years in India CHAPTER LXIV 2/7
But all this was changed by Skobeloff's victories over the Tekke Turkomans, which gave Merv and Sarakhs to Russia, and enabled her to transfer her base from Orenburg to the Caspian--by far the most important step ever made by Russia in her advance towards India.
I had some years before pointed out to the Government of India how immeasurably Russia would gain, if by the conquest of Merv--a conquest which I then looked upon as certain to be accomplished in the near future--she should be able to make this transfer.
My words were unheeded or ridiculed at the time, and I, like others who thought as I did, was supposed to be suffering from a disease diagnosed by a distinguished politician as 'Mervousness.' But a little later those words were verified.
Merv had become a Russian possession, and Turkestan was in direct communication by rail and steamer with St. Petersburg.
And can it be denied that this fact, which would have enabled the army in the Caucasus to be rapidly transported to the scene of operations, made it possible for General Komaroff practically to dictate terms to the Boundary Commission which was sent to define the northern limits of Afghanistan, and to forcibly eject an Afghan garrison from Panjdeh under the eyes of British officers? Lord Dufferin took up the reins of the Government of India at a time when things had come to such a pass that a personal conference with the Amir was considered necessary to arrange for the defence and demarcation of His Highness's frontier, the strengthening of Herat, the extension of the Sakkur-Sibi railway to Quetta, and the discussion of the general situation.
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