nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47the same time, British and Indian surveyors conducted the most extensive
exploration to date of western and northwestern Afghanistan. 24 Since the
frontier was poorly defined, both Russia and Afghanistan tried to claim as
much territory as possible. In early 1885 Russia occupied the Zu’l-fiqar Pass,
the gateway to Herat in the north, and when the Amir sent reinforcements
to the area there was a very undiplomatic exchange of insults between the
Afghan commander and his Russian counterpart. Britain responded by
informing St Petersburg that if Russia attempted to occupy Herat or the
Panjdeh Oasis, downstream from Maruchak, Britain would go to war. Yet
despite this threat, on 30 March 1885 a Russian force overran the Afghan
frontier post of Pul-i Kheshti and claimed Panjdeh in the name of the Tsar.
The Panjdeh Crisis brought Britain and Russia to the brink of war once
more but London eventually backed down, as it was not prepared to start a
European war over a small and insignificant Central Asian oasis. Instead,
Britain made it clear that any further Russian incursions into Afghan
territory that threatened Herat would be regarded as a declaration of war.
Ironically, ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, who was on a state visit to India
at the time, showed little interest in the fate of Panjdeh and was far more
concerned about possible Russian annexation of the fertile plains around
Balkh and Mazar-i Sharif. The Amir even delayed granting permission to
the British boundary commissioners to enter Herat in order to prepare its
defences against a possible attack, much to the frustration of the Indian
government. It was not until some eight months after the occupation of
Panjdeh that they were granted access. In an attempt to make the city
more defensible, the Amir ordered several of the city’s most important
Timurid buildings to be levelled, including the great musalla complex
built by Queen Gauhar Shad, which consisted of a vast Friday mosque
and madrasa and royal tombs.
One of the findings of the Afghan Boundary Commission that caused
much alarm was the level of discontent with Afghan rule they encoun-
tered from the Murghab to Maimana. Indeed, many local people openly
told the commissioners they would prefer to be ruled by Russia than the
Muhammadzais. The intensity of this discontent raised serious concerns
about the defensibility of a frontier that was anyway an arbitrary line that
bore little relationship to traditional grazing and irrigation rights.
Afghanization and the colonization of the northern provincesIn an attempt to address this problem, Colonel C. E. Yate, one of the
commissioners, proposed that the indigenous population of the region