Battle on the kushka 1885. Mikhail Gorny - Campaign against the Afghans and the battle on the Kushka (1885)
Gorny Mikhail
Campaign on Afghans and the Battle of Kushka (1885)
Gorny Mikhail
Campaign against the Afghans and the Battle of Kushka (1885)
Reminiscence of former private Andrey Bolandlin
From the text: The bridge was covered with the corpses of boglets. Our soldiers tried not even to look at them. Silently, with serious faces, keeping an equal footing, they walked, clasping their Berdans with their hands that had blackened from gunpowder, in their loose overcoats. “One, two, three, four ... one, two, three, four! ..” - considered most of them, stepping over the corpses of Afghans, pshikh and horse, trampled, tormented by horse hooves, artillery shells and boots of the Photin people.
Hoaxer: The armed conflict of 1885 was the only clash of its kind that occurred during the reign (1881-1894) of Alexander III the Peacemaker. In some reference books (for example, V. Pokhlebkin's "Foreign policy of Russia, Russia and the USSR for 1000 years", Moscow, 1995), this conflict is called a "Russian-British armed conflict" (due to the presence of hundreds of British advisers ), in other works it is called the Russian-Afghan armed conflict (which, in my opinion, is correct, in contrast to the previous name). But the fact that the British were and were beaten among the Afghans is beyond doubt. This is reflected in the song quoted in the text of this book: "The enemy will always remember, / The British and Afghans will never forget ...".
Notes (edit)
Hike to Afghans and battle to Kushk
"And we passed the steppe like the sea,
Through the sandy hurricane ...
So he walks into the open,
Rush from the mound to the mound ...
The bird flies there,
There the sand flies like a column ...
(Cossack song).
One of the sharp January days of 1885 in the Samarkand barracks of the 3rd linear Turkestan battalion were busy with "literature". At the white wooden tables sat a man of thirty students, students already mustached and bearded, however, who had just begun to write on slate boards. The teacher of these strange schoolchildren was a young dark-haired ensign Degtyarev, who was standing near two black boards with large cardboard letters.
Well, brothers, what letter is that? - he asks, raising the letter b up.
Would! would! .. - shouts a chorus of the most diverse voices.
What is this? - the ensign raises another letter.
A! A! shout the soldiers.
What syllable, brothers, will it be if we take these letters together? says the teacher again.
Bah! - disciples will answer.
The students, however, are not particularly attentive: some will hesitate, others give each other clicks, and still others push one another. But there are also attentive ones, trying to understand the whole abyss of wisdom. The jokers say to them:
What to study for? If they haven't taught the little ones, it's all the same: they won't be hammered into the head with a big one!
Nt, not that, guys! - they say: better late than never. A diploma will come in handy - at least a letter, perhaps, write home or something else ...
After the mental exercises, physical exercises began, and the whole third half of the company, young and old, had already been gathered.
The red soldier Chernousov deftly pulled himself up on the rings. Then the turn came up to the clumsy Vyatka fat soldier Volkov, who always pulled himself up badly.
Well, you, Vyatka, - mutilated Degtyarev: do not spoil your Vyatka!
Yes, I, mister ensign, did not learn from a young age, but now ... soon to go home ...
Home, not home, but all the same, the old soldier is so ashamed to do it. You should serve as a primar for others, but it turns out that young soldiers do better than you.
The soldiers grinned.
The time was approaching at 12 o'clock. Suddenly the horn began to play: - Gather!
The recruits, not knowing whether they were playing obd or “gathering,” suggested the first, grabbed a cup of tea and rushed to the kitchen, because, according to the order established almost in all the troops, recruits were walking around the house. The old ones swore.
Where are you fucking devils?
Behind the house!
What are you obd! Hear that gathering is played, not obd! Roll overcoats, take bags and brooms.
Soldiers zaposhirosya, grabbed guns and other ammunition and march into the yard. And other companies were already being built in the yard. At the first company, in the cab, harnessed by a pair of blacks, sat the colonel himself, Mikhail Petrovich Ka in, a gallant man, in glasses, with a black beard, who had just arrived here. The officers also got lost, each with his own unit. Finally, the howl lined up. The company commanders also came. Then the colonel briskly jumped out of the carriage, said something to them, and then turned to all the soldiers, impatiently wishing to find out why their superiors had gathered them, and said:
Congratulations on your trip, brothers! I received a telegram from the commander of the troops: we are going to the city of Merv.
We are glad to try, your high nobility! .. - the battalion barked loudly.
Yy. company commanders, company schoolchildren and the training team to dissolve in companies, stop employment and get ready for the campaign! ..
The soldier was dismissed.
Eh, brothers, let's go on a campaign ... - said some.
In Merv, so, navarno, to the parking lot, they drove others away.
Well, hardly to the parking lot ... - the first disagreed. The 3rd battalion in other Samarkand troops (1) had quite a few fellow countrymen.
Let's go on a hike, brothers! - the soldiers of the 3rd battalion announced them.
Well, lie! Ka - va always hikes, drives every year.
In the very dal, the smart colonel annually gave practice, and for twenty miles, for thirty he went on a full march with his battalion, with all the wagons and provisions.
On the same day, the colonel received a second telegram, in which the soldiers were too busy to take things with them. The delighted Turkestanis, assuming that they were going to the parking lot, were already thinking of taking beds, boxes, and another box with them, when a new telegram dispelled their dreams: it ordered every soldier to have his own things no more.
The married ones were also ordered to first take on the campaign, but after that an order came out to leave the married ones and replace them with people from other parts.
They will kill you, brothers, - at first the bachelors cringed over the married ones, - and your wives will remain.
Are we going to war? - snapped t.
And then to the parking lot? Apparently, to the war ...
The women, hearing that they were taking their husbands to war, raised, it was, howl. When they left the married ones, the soldiers were not satisfied with this either ...
And, indeed: the soldiers will serve their term, go home, and their wives will hide, and they will remain in Turkestan. However, the husbands who were transferred from their comrades to other units were also unhappy, and almost cried.
Battle on the Kushka- a military clash that took place on March 18, 1885 after the Russian army captured Afghan territory south of the Amu Darya River and the Merv oasis, near the village of Penjde. The confrontation between Russian and British interests in Central Asia lasted for years, in fact, in the form of the Cold War, known as the Great Game, and the battle for Kushka brought this confrontation to the brink of a full-scale armed conflict.
Background
General Komarov, being the head of the entire Trans-Caspian region (present-day Turkmenistan), drew attention to Merv as "a nest of robbery and destruction that hindered the development of almost all of Central Asia." At the end of 1883, he sent a captain-captain Alikhanov and a Teke, Major Mahmut-Kuli-Khan, there with a proposal to the Mervites to accept Russian citizenship. On January 25, 1884, a deputation from Merv arrived in Askhabad and presented to Komarov a petition addressed to the emperor to accept Merv into Russian citizenship and took the oath.
After the annexation of Merv, it became necessary to determine the boundaries between the new Russian province and. Great Britain, defending its imperial interests, sent its demarcation commission with a military detachment to guard it. Russia also sent its commission and also with a military detachment under the command of General Komarov. In correspondence over the appointment of the Anglo-Russian Border Commission, Russia challenged Afghanistan's claim to the Panjsheh oasis, insisting that the oasis belongs to Russia on the grounds that it owns Merv.
Since Afghanistan was under the protectorate of the British Empire, the Viceroy of India (Lord Dufferin) made a big fuss, fearing the preparation of a Russian invasion of India. He demanded that the Afghan emir put up armed resistance to the advance of the Russians. Afghanistan sent troops to Panjsheh to strengthen its defenses. When Komarov found out about this, he flew into a rage. Komarov said the oasis belonged to Russia and ordered the Afghan troops to withdraw immediately. The Afghan commander refused. Komarov immediately turned to the British special envoy in Afghanistan, General Lamsden, demanding that he tell the Afghan troops to get out. Lamsden refused to do so.
Collision
Determined not to let Panjsheh slip out of his hands, Komarov decided to change tactics. On March 13, 1885, under pressure from Britain, the Russian government gave an oath guarantee that Russian troops would not attack Panjsheh if the Afghans refrained from military action. Three days later, Foreign Minister Nikolai Girs repeated this and added that such a commitment was given with the full approval of the tsar.
Afghan troops concentrated on the western bank of the Kushka River, and Russian troops on the east. Despite repeated promises from the Russian government, Komarov's troops gradually surrounded Panjsheh. By March 12, 1885, they were less than a mile from his defenders. Komarov has now presented the commander of the Afghan troops with an ultimatum: either in five days he will withdraw the troops, or the Russians will expel them themselves.
On March 18, 1885, when General Komarov's ultimatum expired and the Afghans showed no signs of withdrawal, he ordered his units to go on the offensive, but not to open fire first. As a result, the Afghans were the first to open fire, wounding the horse of one of the Cossacks. After that, the Russian troops were ordered to open fire on the Afghan cavalry, which was concentrated within sight. The cavalry could not stand the deadly fire and fled in disarray. But the Afghan infantry fought bravely. By morning, the enemy was pushed back behind the Pul-i-Khishti bridge, having suffered about 600 casualties. The losses of Komarov's troops were only 40 people killed and wounded.
Effects
This international incident was actively discussed in the European press and, as it was thought at the time, put Russia on the brink of war with Great Britain. Emir Abdur-Rahman, who at the time was at a meeting with Lord Dufferin in Rawalpindi, tried to hush up the incident as a minor border misunderstanding. Lord Ripon, an influential member of Gladstone's cabinet, insisted that any concession from the British would encourage open Russian intervention in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the war was averted by the efforts of diplomats, who received assurances from the king's representatives of their intentions to respect the territorial integrity of Afghanistan in the future.
To resolve the incident, a Russian-British border commission was established, which determined the modern northern border of Afghanistan. The emir's representatives did not participate in its work. The concessions of the tsarist representatives were minimal. Russia retained a piece of land conquered by Komarov, on which the city of Kushka was later founded. It was the southernmost settlement of both the Russian Empire and the USSR. The historical significance of the battle at Kushka was that it drew a line under the expansion of tsarist Russia south of Turkmenistan.
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WikipediaGeneral Alexander Vissarionovich Komarov Alexander Vissarionovich Komarov (1823 1904) Russian general, participant in the Caucasian War and the Turkestan campaigns Born in 1823, descended from the nobility of the Vitebsk province, the son of Vissarion Sav. Komarov, ... ... Wikipedia
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a military clash that took place on March 18, 1885 after the Russian army captured Afghan territory south of the Amu Darya River and the Merv oasis, near the village of Penjde. The confrontation between Russian and British interests in Central Asia lasted for years, in fact, in the form of the Cold War, known as the Great Game, and the battle for Kushka brought this confrontation to the brink of a full-scale armed conflict.
General Komarov, being the head of the entire Trans-Caspian region, drew attention to Merv as "a nest of robbery and destruction, which hindered the development of almost all of Central Asia." At the end of 1883, he sent a captain-captain Alikhanov and a Teke, Major Mahmut-Kuli-Khan, there with a proposal to the Mervites to accept Russian citizenship. On January 25, 1884, a deputation from Merv arrived in Askhabad and presented to Komarov a petition addressed to the emperor to accept Merv into Russian citizenship and took the oath.
After the annexation of Merv, it became necessary to define the boundaries between the new Russian province and Afghanistan. Great Britain, defending its imperial interests, sent its demarcation commission, with a military detachment to guard it. Russia also sent its commission and also with a military detachment, under the command of General Komarov. In correspondence over the appointment of the Anglo-Russian Border Commission, Russia challenged Afghanistan's claim to the Panjsheh oasis, insisting that the oasis belongs to Russia on the grounds that it owns Merv.
Since Afghanistan was under the protectorate of the British Empire, the Viceroy of India raised a big fuss, fearing the preparation of a Russian invasion of India. He demanded that the Afghan emir put up armed resistance to the advance of the Russians. Afghanistan sent troops to Panjsheh to strengthen its defenses. When Komarov found out about this, he flew into a rage. Komarov said the oasis belonged to Russia and ordered the Afghan troops to withdraw immediately. The Afghan commander refused. Komarov immediately turned to the British special envoy in Afghanistan, General Lamsden, demanding that he tell the Afghan troops to get out. Lamsden refused to do so.
Determined not to let Panjsheh slip out of his hands, Komarov decided to change tactics. On March 13, 1885, under pressure from Britain, the Russian government gave an oath guarantee that Russian troops would not attack Panjsheh if the Afghans refrained from military action. Three days later, Foreign Minister Nikolai Girs repeated this and added that such a commitment was given with the full approval of the tsar.
Afghan troops concentrated on the western bank of the Kushka River, and Russian troops on the east. Despite repeated promises from the Russian government, Komarov's troops gradually surrounded Panjsheh. By March 12, 1885, they were less than a mile from his defenders. Komarov has now presented the commander of the Afghan troops with an ultimatum: either in five days he will withdraw the troops, or the Russians will expel them themselves.
On March 18, 1885, when General Komarov's ultimatum expired and the Afghans showed no signs of withdrawal, he ordered his units to go on the offensive, but not to open fire first. As a result, the Afghans were the first to open fire, wounding the horse of one of the Cossacks. After that, the Russian troops were ordered to open fire on the Afghan cavalry, which was concentrated within sight. The cavalry could not stand the deadly fire and fled in disarray. But the Afghan infantry fought bravely. By morning, the enemy was pushed back behind the Pul-i-Khishti bridge, having suffered about 600 casualties. The losses of Komarov's troops were only 40 people killed and wounded.
This international incident was actively discussed in the European press and, as it was thought at the time, put Russia on the brink of war with Great Britain. Emir Abdur-Rahman, who at the time was at a meeting with Lord Dufferin in Rawalpindi, tried to hush up the incident as a minor border misunderstanding. Lord Ripon, an influential member of Gladstone's cabinet, insisted that any concession from the British would encourage open Russian intervention in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the war was averted by the efforts of diplomats, who received assurances from the king's representatives of their intentions to respect the territorial integrity of Afghanistan in the future.
To resolve the incident, a Russian-British border commission was established, which determined the modern northern border of Afghanistan. The emir's representatives did not participate in its work. The concessions of the tsarist representatives were minimal. Russia retained a piece of land conquered by Komarov, on which the city of Kushka was later founded. It was the southernmost settlement of both the Russian Empire and the USSR. The historical significance of the battle at Kushka was that it drew a line under the expansion of tsarist Russia south of Turkmenistan.
| Afghan khanates |
Battle of Kushka, also known in Western historiography as Penjde incident(eng. Panjdeh incident) - a military clash that took place on March 18 (30), 1885 after the Russian army, according to Western historiography, occupied Afghan territory south of the Amu Darya River and the Merv oasis, near the village of Penjde. The confrontation between Russian and British interests in Central Asia, known as the "Great Game", lasted for decades, and the battle for Kushka brought this confrontation to the brink of a full-scale armed conflict.
Background
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Excerpt from the Battle of the Kushka
I would say that all rivers are navigable for everyone, that the sea is common, that permanent, large armies are reduced solely to the guards of sovereigns, etc.Returning to France, to my homeland, great, strong, magnificent, calm, glorious, I would proclaim its boundaries unchanged; any future defensive war; any new spread is antinational; I would add my son to the rule of the empire; my dictatorship would end, in the beginning of his constitutional rule ...
Paris would be the capital of the world and the French are the envy of all nations! ..
Then my leisure time and the last days would have been devoted, with the help of the Empress and during the royal education of my son, to little by little visit, like a real village couple, on their own horses, all corners of the state, accepting complaints, eliminating injustices, scattering all sides and everywhere buildings and benefits.]
He, destined by providence for the sad, unfree role of the executioner of peoples, assured himself that the purpose of his actions was the good of the peoples and that he could direct the destinies of millions and through the power to do good deeds!
“Des 400,000 hommes qui passerent la Vistule,” he wrote further about the Russian war, “la moitie etait Autrichiens, Prussiens, Saxons, Polonais, Bavarois, Wurtembergeois, Mecklembourgeois, Espagnols, Italiens, Napolitains. L "armee imperiale, proprement dite, etait pour un tiers composee de Hollandais, Belges, habitants des bords du Rhin, Piemontais, Suisses, Genevois, Toscans, Romains, habitants de la 32 e division militaire, Breme, Hambourg, etc .; elle comptait a peine 140000 hommes parlant francais. L "expedition do Russie couta moins de 50000 hommes a la France actuelle; l "armee russe dans la retraite de Wilna a Moscou, dans les differentes batailles, a perdu quatre fois plus que l" armee francaise; l "incendie de Moscou a coute la vie a 100,000 Russes, morts de froid et de misere dans les bois; enfin dans sa marche de Moscou a l" Oder, l "armee russe fut aussi atteinte par, l" intemperie de la saison; elle ne comptait a son arrivee a Wilna que 50,000 hommes, et a Kalisch moins de 18,000. "
[Of the 400,000 people who crossed the Vistula, half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Virttembergians, Mecklenburgians, Spaniards, Italians, and Neapolitans. The imperial army, in fact, was one third made up of the Dutch, Belgians, residents of the banks of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Geneva, Tuscans, Romans, residents of the 32nd military division, Bremen, Hamburg, etc .; it had hardly 140,000 French speakers. The Russian expedition cost France proper less than 50,000 people; the Russian army in the retreat from Vilna to Moscow in various battles lost four times more than the French army; the fire of Moscow cost the lives of 100,000 Russians who died of cold and poverty in the forests; finally, during its transition from Moscow to Oder, the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; upon arrival in Vilna it consisted of only 50,000 people, and in Kalisz less than 18,000.]
He imagined that, according to his will, a war with Russia had taken place, and the horror of what had happened did not strike his soul. He boldly assumed full responsibility for the event, and his darkened mind saw an excuse that, among the hundreds of thousands of people killed, there were fewer French than Hessians and Bavarians.
Several tens of thousands of people lay dead in different positions and uniforms in the fields and meadows that belonged to the Davydovs and state-owned peasants, in those fields and meadows where for hundreds of years the peasants of the villages of Borodin, Gorki, Shevardin and Semenovsky had simultaneously harvested and grazed their livestock. At the dressing stations for the tithe of the place, the grass and earth were soaked in blood. Crowds of wounded and non-wounded different teams of people, with frightened faces, wandered back to Mozhaisk on one side, and back to Valuev on the other. Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, led by their leaders, marched forward. Still others stood still and continued to shoot.
Above the whole field, once so gaily beautiful, with its glittering bayonets and smoke in the morning sun, there was now a haze of dampness and smoke, and it smelled of a strange acid of saltpeter and blood. Clouds gathered, and began to drizzle on the dead, on the wounded, on the frightened, and on the exhausted and doubting people. It was as if he were saying, “Enough, enough, people. Stop ... Come to your senses. What are you doing?"
Exhausted, without food and without rest, people of both sides began to equally doubt whether they should still exterminate each other, and there was a noticeable hesitation on all faces, and in every soul the question was raised equally: “Why, for whom should I kill and be killed? Kill whoever you want, do what you want, but I don't want more! " By the evening this thought had matured equally in the soul of everyone. At any moment all these people could be horrified at what they were doing, drop everything and run anywhere.
But although by the end of the battle people felt all the horror of their act, although they would be glad to stop, some incomprehensible, mysterious force still continued to guide them, and, sweating, covered in gunpowder and blood, remaining one by three, the artillerymen, although and stumbling and panting with fatigue, they brought charges, charged, directed, applied wicks; and the nuclei just as quickly and cruelly flew over from both sides and flattened the human body, and the terrible deed continued, which is not done at the will of people, but at the will of the one who leads people and worlds.
Anyone who looked at the frustrated backsides of the Russian army would say that the French have to make one more small effort, and the Russian army will disappear; and whoever looked at the backs of the French would say that the Russians had to make one more little effort and the French would perish. But neither the French nor the Russians made this effort, and the flames of the battle were slowly dying out.
The Russians did not make this effort because they were not the ones who attacked the French. At the beginning of the battle, they only stood on the road to Moscow, blocking it, and in the same way they continued to stand at the end of the battle, as they stood at the beginning of it. But if even the goal of the Russians was to bring down the French, they could not make this last effort, because all the Russian troops were defeated, there was not a single part of the troops that did not suffer in the battle, and the Russians, remaining in their places , lost half of their troops.
It was easy for the French, with the memory of all the previous fifteen years of victories, with confidence in Napoleon's invincibility, with the knowledge that they had taken possession of a part of the battlefield, that they had lost only one quarter of the people and that they still have a twenty-thousandth untouched guard, it was easy to make this effort. The French, who attacked the Russian army in order to knock it out of position, had to make this effort, because as long as the Russians, just as before the battle, blocked the road to Moscow, the French goal was not achieved and all their efforts and the losses were wasted. But the French did not make this effort. Some historians say that Napoleon should have given his pristine old guard in order for the battle to be won. To talk about what would have happened if Napoleon had given his guard is like talking about what would have happened if spring had come in the fall. It couldn't be. Napoleon did not give his guard, because he did not want it, but it could not be done. All the generals, officers, soldiers of the French army knew that this could not be done, because the fallen spirit of the army did not allow it.
