"August Niemann - Coming Conquest of England" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niemann August)

meeting with English opposition or English intrigues. To-day our frontiers march with the frontier of British
East India, and impinge upon the frontier of Persia and Afghanistan. We have opened up friendly
relations with both these states, entertain close commercial intercourse with their peoples, support their
industrial undertakings, and shun no sacrifice to make them amenable to the blessings of civilisation. Yet,
step by step, England endeavours to hamper our activity. British gold and British intrigues have
succeeded in making Afghanistan adopt a hostile attitude towards us. We must at last ask ourselves this
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question: How long do we intend to look on quietly at these undertakings? Russia must push her way
down to the sea. Millions of strong arms till the soil of our country. We have at our own command
inexhaustible treasures of corn, wood, and all products of agriculture; yet we are unable to reach the
markets of the world with even an insignificant fraction of these fruits of the earth that Providence has
bestowed, because we are hemmed in, and hampered on every side, so long as our way to the sea is
blocked. Our mid-Asiatic possessions are suffocated from want of sea air. England knows this but too
well, and therefore she devotes all her energies towards cutting us off from the sea. With an insolence, for
which there is no justification, she declares the Persian Gulf to be her own domain, and would like to
claim the whole of the Indian Ocean, as she already claims India itself, as her own exclusive property.
This aggression must at last be met with a firm 'Hands off,' unless our dear country is to run the risk of
suffering incalculable damage. It is not we who seek war; war is being forced upon us. As to the means
at our disposal for waging it, supposing England will not spontaneously agree to our just demands, His
Excellency the Minister of War will be best able to give us particulars."

He bowed once more to the Grand Dukes and resumed his seat. The tall, stately figure of the War
Minister, Kuropatkin, next rose, at a sign from the President, and said--

"For twenty years I served in Central Asia and I am able to judge, from my own experience, of our
position on the south frontier. In case of a war with England, Afghanistan is the battle-ground of primary
importance. Three strategic passes lead from Afghanistan into India: the Khyber Pass, the Bolan Pass,
and the Kuram Valley. When, in 1878, the English marched into Afghanistan they proceeded in three
columns from Peshawar, Kohat, and Quetta to Cabul, Ghazni, and Kandahar respectively. These three
roads have also been laid down as our lines of march. Public opinion considers them the only possible
routes. It would carry me too far into detail were I to propound in this place my views as to the 'pros and
cons' of this accepted view. In short, we SHALL find our way into India. Hahibullah Khan would join us
with his army, 60,000 strong, as soon as we enter his territory. Of course, he is an ally of doubtful
integrity, for he would probably quite as readily join the English, were they to anticipate us and make their
appearance in his country with a sufficiently imposing force. But nothing prevents our being first. Our
railway goes as far as Merv, seventy-five miles from Herat, and from this central station to the Afghan
frontier. With our trans-Caspian railway we can bring the Caucasian army corps and the troops of
Turkestan to the Afghan frontier. I would undertake, within four weeks of the outbreak of war, to mass a
sufficient field army in Afghanistan round Herat. Our first army can then be followed by a ceaseless
stream of regiments and batteries. The reserves of the Russian army are inexhaustible, and we could
place, if needs be, four million soldiers and more than half a million of horses in the field. However, I am
more than doubtful whether England would meet us in Afghanistan. The English generals would not, in
any case, be well advised to leave India. Were they defeated in Afghanistan only small fragments of their
army at most would escape back to India. The Afghans would show no mercy to a fleeing English army
and would destroy it, as has happened on a previous occasion. If, on the other hand, which God forbid!
the fortune of war should turn against us, we should always find a line of retreat to Turkestan open and