Sykes' History of Persia Vol 2 (pdf) - Heritage Institute

LXXIX ENVELOPMENT OF PERSIA 461
voted her energies to making good against Khokand
the positions
she had gained.
In 1860 the Khan of Khokand attacked the Russian
position in Semirechia, which province had been occupied
six years before. The Russians replied by proceeding
against Tashkent, which was captured in 1864. In the
following year the territory between the Aral Sea and
the Issik Kul lake was formed into the frontier province
of Turkestan. This_marked the^ompjetion of the first
s tagejn the great advance .
Russian Relations with Bokhara, 1842-1868. In 1842
the Amir of Bokhara, alarmed at the occupation of Kabul
by Great Britain, had appealed to Russia. That Power
despatched a mission under Colonel Butenef, which was
at first received with the highest honours. But the Kabul
catastrophe reacted on the situation at Bokhara, where
Stoddart and later Conolly, who had joined him, were
imprisoned ; and the Russian envoy, who had done his
best to save Stoddart, was dismissed with studied discourtesy
by the Amir, who no longer feared the English.
the Amir of
More than twenty years later, in 1865,
Bokhara took the offensive against the great northern
Power by occupying Khojent, and imprisoned four
Russian envoys who were found in the city. In the
following year the Russians, after a decisive victory over
the Bokharans at Irgai, reoccupied Khojent. In 1868
the Bokharan army was again defeated and Samarcand
was occupied. Shortly afterwards peace was made with
the Amir, who ceded Samarcand and paid a war indemnity.
The annexation, in 1876, of the entire Khanate of
Khokand rounded off the conquests of Russia in the
eastern sphere of operations, and by establishing her at
Charjui on the Oxus made her a neighbour of Persia and
increased her influence at Teheran. These campaigns
may be looked upon as constituting the second^ stage of
the advance.
The Conquest of Khiva, 1873. The third stage was
the conquest
of Khiva. In 1869 the Russians established
themselves at Krasnovodsk, to-day the starting-point of
the Central Asian Railway, and shortly afterwards at