The apotheosis of the new policy was the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India (July 1, 1877), an event which was signalised by a splendid Durbar at Delhi on January 1, 1878.  The new title warned the world that, however far Russia advanced in Central Asia, England nailed the flag of India to her masthead.  It was also a useful reminder to the small but not uninfluential Positivist school in England that their “disapproval” of the existence of a British Empire in India was wholly Platonic.  Seeing also that the name “Queen” in Hindu (Malika) was one of merely respectable mediocrity in that land of splendour, the new title, “Kaisar-i-Hind,” helped to emphasise the supremacy of the British Raj over the Nizam and Gaekwar.  In fact, it is difficult now to take seriously the impassioned protests with which a number of insulars greeted the proposal.

Nevertheless, in one sense the change of title came about most inopportunely.  Fate willed that over against the Durbar at Delhi there stood forth the spectral form of Famine, bestriding the dusty plains of the Carnatic.  By the glint of her eyes the splendours of Delhi shone pale, and the viceregal eloquence was hushed in the distant hum of her multitudinous wailing.  The contrast shocked all beholders, and unfitted them for a proper appreciation of the new foreign policy.

That policy may also be arraigned on less sentimental grounds.  The year 1876 witnessed the re-opening of the Eastern Question in a most threatening manner, the Disraeli Ministry taking up what may be termed the Palmerstonian view that the maintenance of Turkey was essential to the stability of the Indian Empire.  As happened in and after 1854, Russia, when thwarted in Europe, sought for her revenge in the lands bordering on India.  No district was so favourable to Muscovite schemes as the Afghan frontier, then, as now, the weakest point in Great Britain’s imperial armour.  Thenceforth the Afghan Question became a pendant of the Eastern Question.

Russia found ready to hand the means of impressing the Ameer with a sense of her irresistible power.  The Czar’s officials had little difficulty in picking a quarrel with the Khanate of Khokand.  Under the pretext of suppressing a revolt (which Vambery and others consider to have been prepared through Muscovite agencies) they sent troops, ostensibly with the view of favouring the Khan.  The expedition gained a complete success, alike over the rebels and the Khan himself, who thenceforth sank to the level of pensioner of his liberators (1876).  It is significant that General Kaufmann at once sent to the Ameer at Cabul a glowing account of the Russian success[298]; and the news of this communication increased the desire of the British Government to come to a clear understanding with the Ameer.

[Footnote 298:  Parl.  Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 12-14; Shere Ali’s letters to him (some of them suspicious) and the replies are also printed.]