One hundred years ago
A NUMBER of rumours have been transmitted to London this week from St Petersburg. According to them, the Ameer of Afghanistan is on the frontier with 30,000 men; he demands the sur- render of Ishak Khan, now in Samar- cand, and he has written to the Ameer of Bokhara to help him against the Russians, and drive them out of Central Asia. General Komaroff is accordingly, it is stated, collecting an army on the Russian frontier; and the nominally independent journals of St Petersburg boast that the frontiers of Afghanistan will soon be marked out in a manner more convenient to Russia. There appears to be no foundation for these stories — which are intrinsically as probable as rumours that Belgium has declared war on Germany — beyond the fact that Abdurrahman Khan is in Afghan Turkestan, and is executing his enemies there in the true Asiatic style. It is quite possible that he is executing among them a good many Russian agents; that General Komaroff is in- censed at the disappearance of his sources of intelligence; and that he has remonstrated with the Ameer, or even menaced him. There is no evidence, however, beyond military gossip, that even this much is true, the only thing certain being that Abdurrahman is among his enemies, and is thinning their number rapidly. As a Sovereign and a Mahommedan, he thinks himself within his right; and as his subjects agree with him, no one can interfere.
The Spectator, 16 February 1889
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