AUTHOR’S NOTE
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AUTHOR’S NOTEThe descriptions of the Viceroy’s Palace in Calcutta, the Government Houses in Lucknow and Naini Tal and the ceremonial protocol are all accurate.
The true story of The Great Game has yet to be told in detail. It unexpectedly ended in 1903 when it seemed that there was no way short of another mobilisation of the North-West Frontier to keep Russian arms out of Kabul and just conceivably Peshawar.
Then, without warning, the crisis began to ebb as Russia suffered defeats by the Japanese Army and Navy, coupled with Anglo-Japanese Treaties in 1902 and 1905 which shifted the Asiatic balance of power heavily in Great Britain’s favour.
At long last in an agreement sighed in St. Petersburg in 1907 Russia recognised Afghanistan as a British sphere of influence.
But why? The answer lay in Germany’s swift rise on Russia’s Western border to a world power.
It was in fact the fear of German military might that ended The Great Game.
In 1903 Colonel Francis Younghusband headed a Military mission into Tibet and reached Lhasa.
- Writer
