The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-05-16
Tnc marcn co Khiva ana the Real
Central Asian Question.

theatre OF the Central Asian war Win new IN
tersst The dreary and Sahara-like wastes in
which the Cars military expedition ia now
maneuvring, ostensibly for the possession of
Khiva. but really with an Interior object were
trodden. 329 b. O.. by the veterans Of Alex
ander, and, in modern times, by the fierce
troops of Tamerlane. Although surpassed in
historic celebrity and political Importance the
Valley Of the Oxus is to-day less known than
many portions of the Arctic and Antarctic
lands. glance at the physical and political
geography of the Eastern Aral and Caspian
basins will greatly assist in uncovoring the
Muscovite designs in now forcing their warlike
columns against the contemplate and insig
nificant mud walls which form tho only forti-
fications of the village of Khiva The great
interior Slopes which converge in the Caspian
and Aral basins are among the most forbid
ding and desolate regions of Asia. and pre-
sent in themselves not q single object to
tempt the conqueror. Out off from the
geographical advantages Of nearness to the
sea, these arid and sandy deserts sustain only
q small growth of brushwood and tho thorny
herb and the climate is one of fiercest ex-
tremes. The temperature in Summer, where
ever observations have been taken, is fearfully
high, ranging from l0S degrees to IA de-
grees, while in Winter with a dry atmosphere,
it falls to twenty-five degrees below zero. The
army of Tamerlane in its Winter campaign
WAS destroyed by intense cold on the banks of
the Oxus but their terrible fate was repeated
by the Russian army in 1889, in its snow
bound march against Khiva So utterly
worthless is the Caspian watershed in itself
that in 1899 the Empress Anne ordered the
evacuation of the province of Ghilan, won
by the arms of Peter the Great, and it
was abandoned on account Of the I'M
healthiness of the climate So far as the
rescue of Russian captives is concerned
which is ostensibly the plea of Russia in
defence of her present formidable movement
| against Khiva-it is well known that the Rus
slams at Khiva are mostly deserters, convicts
and those who have fed from political
persecution in their native country, and who
would be the last to favor the appearance
Of the Russian flag in the country of
their adoption. But it is said by
those best acquainted with the stu
alton that since the Khans treaty
with the Gear in 1854, by which it was agreed
he should never purchase or hold Russian
prisoners taken by the Teke Turcomen, only
a single Russian captive has remained in
Khiva and he in the voluntary employment Of
the Khan as his gardener.
The design of the present campaign in the
lower Valley of the Oxus cannot be disguised,
and has, perhaps, more than one object. The
lofty and snow-clad mountains of the Kuen-
lun, the Bolor Tagh and the Karakorum,
together with the great Pamir tableland,
which Humboldt regarded as q north and south
link between the Than Shan and Himalaya,
look down on the great valleys, which alone
afford transasiatic communication. These
Valleys through which the swift current Of the
Oxus and the turbid volume of the Indus are
supplied with water contain the trans-conti-
mental highways of history and the immemo-
rial tracks of merchants passing across Asia
between the Western world and China. There
are two principal caravan routes across Gen.
trail ASIA one leading by Bokhara and Samar-
cand, the old capital of Tamerlane, over the
Terek Pass to Cashgar, while the other passes
up the Oxus Valley by Balkh and then
along gorge of the Pamir plateau to
the eastward. The former was seized
by Russia in 1866 and the latter is
now an object of her strong desire. It was
mainly by this latter route, through the Pamir
gorge, that from the most ancient times, COM
muncations were maintained between China
md tha Waofar WAr1 h.,k h--
fare which was traversed by the celebrated
Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, and
also by the great explorer Benedec Goez, in
1908, as also by the latest travellers who have
made the transit Of Central Asia. The posses
sion Of be II these caravan highways, the only
available ones for transasiatic commerce.
would give Russia direct communication and
an immensely profitable monopoly of trade,
and enable her to exclude English manufac-
tured goods from Turkistan, on both routes of
entrance, as is now done on the route over
which the Russians have control
1t may be that the design of Russia in this
campaign is to secure the great commercial
advantages to accrue from the possession of
the great roads from the Caspian Sea to the
Chinese frontier. But when it is remembered
that for many years the conflicting interests of
English East Indian policy and Russian ex-
panson in the Oxus Valley have been growing
more serious and threatening it is natural for
the world to suspect that the overspreading
power of Russia in Asia means still further
encroachment if possible. 1t has been held
by military writers for nearly the last half
century that Herat dying southeast of the
Caspian), near the Afghanistan border is the
'key to India" and it has been strongly
argued of late that the occupation of the
region Immediately contiguous to this 'key''
involves the real Central Asian nnnstinr Onco