A line of US Black Hawk helicopters parked at Kandahar Air Base, south of Kabul. In the 19th century, the importance of Afghanistan was its geographical location: a strategic buffer zone between Russia and India. In “Shooting Leave,” John Ure details the stories of young British officers who were sent to the region to explore and spy out the unknown lands in Central Asia during the Great Game.
I remember as a child the first time I heard the name Afghanistan was seeing pictures on the evening television news of Russian tanks rolling across mountain passes. I scarcely understood the issues of nationhood, and couldn’t quite grasp why tanks in Central Asia meant that countries boycotted the Olympic Games.
Most in the West don’t know which language the locals speak in Afghanistan, but we do know the language spoken by news reporters, soldiers and diplomats: “safe corridors,” “collateral damage,” “civilian casualties” and “IEDs” -- improvised explosive devices. The words “Taliban” and “jirga” are also high up on the list of Google search results.
Along with the terrible incidents of car bombings, military and civilian casualties, Afghanistan hits the headlines in a clash of cultures. Last weekend we heard the news of 10 foreign medical aid workers shot and killed as they were returning to their base through the remote Badakhshan area of the country. They had been working as part of an eye health project that helped over a quarter of a million Afghans each year. Then mid-week, CNN and other news channels led with the story that the Taliban has called on Pakistan to reject any Western aid offered to it in response to the tragic flooding in the northern village areas.
How people can be hostile and aggressive to those who come in the name of peace, offering aid and assistance to those in desperate need is beyond the comprehension of most ordinary citizens. Part of the answer comes from fear and hatred brought about by ignorance and indoctrination. But part of the answer to this question also has to come from the complex history of Afghanistan, and in particular, the legacy of the Great Game.
This area of the world has been described as the last vestige “where boys behave as men and men accept you on their own terms, not yours.” It is a region full of tales of daring and heroism, of macho tribesmen, of the power of the gun and of danger and adventure. Some of the highest mountain passes on earth are controlled by some of the least understood warlords. And, of course, it is a place where opium poppies grow, upping the stakes for financial gain, rewards for power and, therefore, violence to protect this power.
But in the 19th century, the importance of Afghanistan was its geographical location: a strategic buffer zone between the ever-expanding empire of Mother Russia and the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire, India. The Great Game was the nickname given to the centuries-old confrontation between the two super powers of the time in this part of the world.
A jewel attracts predators and must be protected. So the British Empire expected an imminent attack on it from Russia through Iran, Turkmenistan, Baluchistan or Afghanistan. To be ready for an attack they needed to pinpoint from where it could come; much of the border lands were uncharted. Adventurers were needed to cover the ground northwards, to see where its natural defenses and protections were strong, and see where emirs and towns were weak and could fall to a Russian advance. Of course, Russian adventurers travelling southwards had similar missions.
At the same time there was an attacking thrust of British policy: Expand before you are expanded into! Clive of India famously remarked, “To stop is dangerous, to recede is ruin,” so he pressed northwards towards the frontier.
Young officers in the British army spied out the unknown lands such as the deserts of Baluchistan in south Persia, the steppes of Kazakhstan, the emirates of Central Asia and the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush, Pamirs and Karakorams. These expeditions began to be known as “shooting leave” -- overtly time off from duties to shoot bear, boar and birds in the countryside, covertly a spying expedition with a political and military aim.
Of course things could, and frequently did, go horribly wrong.
John Ure’s exciting book “Shooting Leave” details the stories of these young officers. The blurb describes them as “a boy’s own annual of thrills.” Each of these adventurers ended up embroiled in narrow squeaks, with suspicion following their every move. Some came face to face with scimitars and daggers, others demands for taxes. Many encountered bandits, or had falls and tumbles in the snow. All of them faced situations that seemed to be traps. Fast-running rivers blocked their paths, so did packs of wolves, or shadowy figures and the threat of murder in the air.
But each was a very different individual. Some volunteered for their missions out of a sense of adventure and boredom with military life playing polo in the foothills of northern India. Others had an evangelical zeal to spread the British way of doing things. Others were devastatingly ambitious, and pinned their careers on a daring mission, in the hope of fast promotion. Some were real gentlemen, who used diplomatic charm to gain the respect of local emirs. Others were arrogant bullies who blustered and swaggered to get themselves out of tight corners. Some were fluent in local languages and were able to blend in by cunning disguise; others relied on fear of European fire power to make their way forward.
Ure tells us the tale of Henry Pottinger, who in 1810 was only able to protect himself from bandits by pretending to be a mullah on pilgrimage to Mashhad. Arrogantly patriotic James Abbott, however, left Herat in 1839 to return two years later minus two fingers, which he lost in a scimitar battle. Alexander Burnes was a legend in his own time. His murder was the starting point for the fateful retreat from Kabul in the First Afghan War.
Reluctant, quiet and mild-mannered John Wood explored the passes of the Pamirs, pursuing knowledge for its own sake, rather than any political agenda. He contrasts starkly with defiant Charles Masson who bucked authority at every turn. His disguise was not to protect him from the locals, but to hide the fact he’d deserted from the British Army. He often heard inhabitants of villages debating over whether or not it was lawful to kill him.
Charles MacGregor was convinced that the government of India was asleep to the likelihood of a Russian invasion from the north, and thought it was his personal job to wake them up. Perhaps the most famous Great Gamer of all was the gentle giant Fred Burnaby. Rich and handsome, dashing and daring, he epitomizes the spirit of the age. His servant is reputed to have warned him, “Do not close your eyes, Sir, or you will never open them again.”
Ure also introduces us to Russian protagonists. Nikolai Przhevalsky was a Polish-Russian Cossack. This bully hurtled on Russian troika sledges down the frozen rivers of Central Asia in the winter and had five separate memorable adventures, undermining British influence wherever he could. Also to Nikolai Gradehoff, who undertook a one-man reconnaissance of the route that he hoped to take one day with a Russian army from Samarkand, through Herat and into India.
These exciting tales lose some of their adrenalin and tension when told in condensed form, but it is hard not to remain breathless when reading stories like that of the bounder Percy Sykes who with his friends evaded imprisonment by persuading police that far from being Russian terrorists disguised as Englishmen, they were in fact eccentric Englishmen travelling as Russians.
Reading “Shooting Leave” will almost make you agree with what the most famous of English authors, Rudyard Kipling, is quoted as saying in the introduction, “For Allah created the English mad -- the maddest of all mankind.”
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“Shooting Leave: Spying out Central Asia in the Great Game” by John Ure, published by Constable (May 2010), 8.99 pounds in paperback, ISBN: 978-184901469-4
15 August 2010, Sunday
MARION JAMES İSTANBUL
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-219044-spying-out-afghanistan-and-baluchistan-in-the-great-game.html
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