When England was
mobilising her forces after the treaty of San Stefano, and ordering into
the Mediterranean a division of sepoys drawn from the three presidencies
of her Indian Empire, Russia for her part was concerting an important
diversion in the direction of the north-western frontier of that great
possession. But for the opportune conclusion of the treaty of Berlin, the
question as to the ability of sepoy troops stiffened by British regiments
to cope with the mixed levies of the Tzar might have been tried out on
stricken fields between the Oxus and the Indus. When Gortschakoff
returned from Berlin to St Petersburg with his version of 'Peace with
Honour'--Bessarabia and Batoum thrown in--Kaufmann had to countermand the
concentration of troops that had been in progress on the northern
frontier of Afghanistan. But the Indian division was still much in
evidence in the Mediterranean, its tents now gleaming on the brown slopes
of Malta, now crowning the upland of Larnaca and nestling among the
foliage of Kyrenea. Kaufmann astutely retorted on this demonstration by
despatching, not indeed an expedition, but an embassy to Cabul; and when
Stolietoff, the gallant defender of the Schipka Pass, rode into the Balla
Hissar on August 11th, 1878, Shere Ali received him with every token of
cordiality and regard.
No other course was now open to Her Majesty's Government than to insist
on the reception at Cabul of a British mission.
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