A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

198 A history of Inner Asia
about Russia’s dominance in the bulk of Kazakh territory, but it still left
out its southern fringe.There were two reasons for that: logistical, for
that area – primarily the middle and lower course of the Syr Darya –
was rather remote and in parts separated from northern and central
Kazakhstan by semi-arid stretches; and political, because it had by then
come under the sway of the khanate of Khoqand.A conflict with
Khoqand might have caused complications with Britain and China,
which St.Petersburg wanted to avoid.Its acquisition thus required a
different psychological, diplomatic, and military strategy.Nevertheless,
by 1853 the Russians wrested Akmeshit from the Khoqandis.A year
later they founded Vernyi – the eventual Kazakh capital Almaty – and
pushed on to Bishkek, today the capital of Kyrgyzstan but then a
Khoqandi frontier post.The strategy of these operations illustrates the
vast resources at Russia’s disposal: her giant pincers began to squeeze the
remnant of Kazakhstan from west and east, the latter approach being
realized from her Siberian frontier.The brief halt that followed was
caused by external circumstances: the Crimean War, and the uprising
led by Shaykh Shamil in the Caucasus.These hindrances disappeared
with the advent of the 1860s, and the stage was set for the final assault:
it began in 1864 with the fall of Chimkent and Aulie Ata (now Jambul),
and culminated with the storming of Tashkent in June 1865.
Tashkent is of course the capital of Uzbekistan, and as such we associate
it with that republic rather than with Kazakhstan.In 1865,
however, the event was perceived more as the final step in the conquest
of Kazakhstan.For the time being, accommodation with Khoqand,
Bukhara, and Khiva, rather than their conquest, was viewed by the principal
policy planners in St.Petersburg as preferable to any further push
southward that might provoke Britain to action from India’s northwest
frontier.The clashes with Khoqandi forces did not yet mean war, and
Tashkent was stormed almost against the wishes of the Russian government
by the brash General Chernyaev.
Yet a mere three years later, in 1868, the Russians were at war with
the emir of Bukhara, routing his forces in several battles, annexing a substantial
part of the emirate’s territory (including Samarkand), and allowing
the rest to exist as a de facto Russian protectorate; five years later, in
1873, they defeated in a similar manner the khan of Khiva, annexing
much of his territory, and leaving the rest as a protectorate; and by 1876
they did away with the khanate of Khoqand altogether, annexing all of
its remaining area.Only the territory roughly corresponding to modern
Turkmenistan remained untouched, but its turn came five years later