Sold – A letter from George IV to Tsar Alexander I at the Dawn of “The Great Game”

Tsar Peter the Great – on his death bed – purportedly challenged his successors to capture India and challenge England in south and central Asia.  The concerted push of Russian territorial expansion southward began under Alexander I, who followed Peter by 75 years. 

At the start of the 19th century there were some 2000 miles separating British India and Tsarist Russia but that gap quickly began to shrink. As Imperial Russian expansion threatened to collide with the increasing British dominance of the Indian sub-continent, the two great empires played out a subtle game of exploration, espionage and imperialistic diplomacy throughout Central Asia, using the major hubs of Moscow and Constantinople as the staging points for both.  This is The Great Game, a term first coined by a British spy in the 1840s to encapsulate this rivalry. 

As the Tsar’s troops began to subdue one region on their southern border after another, the British feared that a Russian-dominated Afghanistan would become a staging post for a Russian invasion to conquer the so-called "jewel in the crown" of British India (and likely cause unrest elsewhere).  Following the Congress of Vienna, machinations to avoid this formed the heart of British foreign policy for some sixty years. 

Russia also sought to poach on the Ottoman Turks. In 1821, the Tsar broke relations with Turkey, sparking fears of war in Anatolia.  That same year, George Canning was appointed the new British foreign secretary, charged by King George IV with  the effort to keep Russia out of European affairs and north of Central Asia. Canning saw the Russian conflict with the Turks as a potential diplomatic opportunity to engage the Russian court of Alexander I westward and not southward, and to do so peaceably. Canning hoped to restore positive diplomatic relations between the Russian and Turkish courts, open a healthier line of communication with Alexander, and take Russia’s eyes away from India (thus freeing Britain to focus its attention elsewhere. Thus the crisis in Turkey and Russia’s continued southward expansion were overlapping forces in the 1820’s and a cause of great concern to the British. 

Viscount Sidney Smythe Strangford (Lord Percy) (1780-1855) was a senior British diplomat at the dawn of the 19th century.  He was romanticized by poet Lord Byron in his “English Bards” as “Hibernian Strangford, with thine eyes of blue and boasted locks of red or auburn hue.” He began his diplomatic career as Ambassador to Portugal in 1808, following the Portuguese court into exile in Brazil.  Strangford was British ambassador to the Turkish government in the early 1820’s, understood its operations, and had built positive connections at Istanbul. In a twist of real significance in Great Game diplomacy, he was Canning’s choice as ambassador to Moscow when the post opened in 1825.  Canning, a principal architect of Great Game strategy, sought to use Strangford’s credentials and experience in Turkey, and his diplomatic skill, to draw Russia westward in a non-confrontational fashion.

King George IV, along with Canning, sent Strangford’s credentials as ambassador to Alexander, in a letter rich in irony. 

Letter Signed, Court at Windsor Castle, 2 pages, October 10, 1825, to Tsar Alexander I. After addressing the Tsar by his many, many titles, the letter continues, “We have directed Viscount Strangford to repair with all possible diligence to your Imperial residence, and to give you the strongest assurances of our unabated desire to strengthen and improve the harmony and good understanding so happily subsisting between us and your Imperial Majesty.  He has also our positive instructions to promote by every means in his power, a confidential communication during the whole time of his residence at your Court…”

Alexander died within weeks of Strangford’s arrival and was replaced by the autocratic and unconciliatory Nicholas I.  Strangford’s mission was frustrated, and he himself left Moscow in 1827, replaced by the Duke of Wellington, who did not agree with Canning’s somewhat conciliatory approach.  Tensions did not decrease. The Crimean War would be fought as a consequence, along with two Anglo-Afgan wars.  The Soviet Union’s incorporation of the Central Asian countries and their invasion of Afghanistan during the Cold War can be seen as addendums to this Great Game strategy of historic southward expansion.