The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk Page B

coveted Order of St George, roughly the equivalent of the Victoria Cross. It was the second time he had won it, an unprecedented feat at so young an age. Years later, when he knew he was dying, Kotliarevsky summoned his family together and unlocked a small casket, the only key to which he always kept on his person. ‘This’, he told them with emotion, ‘is why I was unable to serve my Tsar and fight for him and my country to the grave.’ Opening the casket, he removed from it, one by one, no fewer than forty pieces of bone which Russian army surgeons had extracted from his shattered skull so many years before.
    Following their two devastating defeats at Kotliarevsky’s hands, the Persians had by now lost all stomach for the fight, and when the British, who were anxious to halt the Russian advance by diplomatic means if possible, offered to mediate a ceasefire, the Shah was only too glad to accept. The Russians, too, were grateful for a breather and the chance to rebuild their strength. And as the victors they were able to dictate the terms, and retain most of the territory they had won from the Persians. Thus, in 1813, under the Treaty of Gulistan, the Shah was obliged to surrender almost all his domains north of the River Aras, including his claims to Georgia and Baku, as well as renouncing all naval rights on the Caspian Sea. The latter effectively turned the Caspian into a Russian lake, bringing the Tsar’s armed might another 250 miles closer to India’s northern frontiers. The alternative would have been to allow his troops to continue their remorseless advance further and further into Persia. All that the Shah got in return, apart from an end to hostilities, was an undertaking from the Tsar that he would support the claim of Abbas Mirza, his son and heir apparent, to the Persian throne if this were ever disputed.
    For his part, however, the Shah had no intention of honouring this treaty which had been forced upon him by his aggressive neighbours, regarding it as no more than a short-term expedient to halt their immediate advance. With Britain’s continued help he hoped to rebuild his army, momentarily vanquished, along the latest modern lines, and at the opportune moment to seize back all his lost territories. After all, the Persians had once been a great conquering power, while their initial victories over the Russians in the recent war had shown what they were still capable of doing. But the Shah appeared not to appreciate that Britain and Russia, faced by a common foe in far-off Europe, were now officially allies, and that London, having successfully checked the Russian advance by peaceful means, had no wish to quarrel with St Petersburg over someone else’s tribulations. For Russia’s military buildup in the Caucasus was not yet widely viewed in Britain as posing a serious threat to India, at least not in government circles, where Sir Robert Wilson and his like were regarded as scaremongers.
    With the Napoleonic menace towards India now over, and to the grave disappointment of the Shah, the British military mission to Persia was considerably reduced, while strict orders were issued that never again were British officers to lead Persian troops into battle against the Russians. The Christie affair had been overshadowed by the stirring events in Europe, and no protests had ensued from St Petersburg, but no one in London or Calcutta wished to risk a repetition. The Shah was in no position to argue, for any defensive treaty with Britain, then still the world’s leading power, was better than none. Even a request that Persian officers might be sent to India for training was turned down, it being feared – according to a confidential note by the Governor-General – that their ‘arrogance, licentiousness and depravity’ might undermine the discipline and morals of the Company’s native troops. However, if Wilson and his fellow Russophobes had failed to win much support in official circles for their fears of a