n rapidly over Mr. Baddeley's
narrative of the long and laborious operations by which the Russians
gradually made good their footing in the Caucasus, and at last
consolidated their dominion. We have necessarily omitted many curious
incidents and exploits characteristic of a deadly struggle between
antagonists representing the collision of archaic with modern
societies, the clash of two religions eternally irreconcilable, the
deadly wrestle of assailants and defenders unlike in everything but
their tenacious intrepidity. The story, until Mr. Baddeley wrote it,
has hitherto been little known in England. Yet Englishmen should be
interested in this singular and striking example of the obstinate
resistance that can be opposed by free and warlike tribes to the
organised military forces of a first-class European Government; for
they are not without similar experiences of their own. And moreover
the long contest for possession of the tracts lying between the Black
Sea and the Caspian, on the borderland between Europe and Asia, had
its effect in the wider sphere of Asiatic politics. If the Russians,
in their wars with Turkey and Persia, had not been constantly
distracted by the raids and revolts of the Caucasian highlanders, the
consequences to these two Eastern kingdoms might have been much more
serious. It will be remembered that at this period (1826-8) we were
actively concerned in preserving Persia's independence insomuch that
the Russians had accused us of fomenting hostilities against them. At
a later time also Sir Henry Rawlinson, writing in 1849, when Shamil
was still formidable and undefeated, observes that it would have been
impossible for Russia, with her communications at the mercy of such an
enemy, to carry her arms farther eastward into Asia, or to contemplate
territorial extension in that direction. And in a subsequent Note, of
1873, he points out that not until after Shamil's surrender in 1859
did Russia begin to push her way continuously along the upper course
of the Jaxartes river toward Tashkend and the Asiatic midlands. So
long, indeed, as the mountains between the two seas were unsubdued,
they formed an effectual barrier to the expansion of Russia into
Central Asia; but when that frontier fortress of Islam had been
captured, and when the Circassians had emigrated into Turkish
territory, the onward march of Russia went on securely and speedily.
Tashkend was taken and Kokand annexed in 1866; and soon afterward