Certainly this quality carried Ministers very far on the path of concession.  When negotiations were resumed, the British Government belied its former promises of firmness in a matter that closely concerned our ally, and surrendered Panjdeh to Russia, but on the understanding that the Zulfikar Pass should be retained by the Afghans.  It should be stated, however, that Abdur Rahman had already assured Lord Dufferin, during interviews which they had at Rawal Pindi early in April, of his readiness to give up Panjdeh if he could retain that pass and its approaches.  The Russian Government conceded this point; but their negotiators then set to work to secure possession of heights dominating the pass.  It seemed that Lord Granville was open to conviction even on this point.

Such was the state of affairs when, on June 9, 1885, Mr. Gladstone’s Ministry resigned owing to a defeat on a budget question.  The accession of Lord Salisbury to power after a brief interval helped to clear up these disputes.  The crisis in Bulgaria of September 1885 (see Chapter X.) also served to distract the Russian Government, the Czar’s chief pre-occupation now being to have his revenge on Prince Alexander of Battenberg.  Consequently the two Powers came to a compromise about the Zulfikar Pass[343].  There still remained several questions outstanding, and only after long and arduous surveys, not unmixed with disputes, was the present boundary agreed on in a Protocol signed on July 22, 1887.  We may here refer to a prophecy made by one of Bismarck’s confidantes, Bucher, at the close of May 1885:  “I believe the [Afghan] matter will come up again in about five years, when the [Russian] railways are finished[344].”

[Footnote 343:  Parl.  Papers, Central Asia, No. 4 (1885), pp. 41-72.]

[Footnote 344:  Bismarck:  Some Secret Pages, etc., vol. iii. p. 135.]

* * * * *

Thus it was that Russia secured her hold on districts dangerously near to Herat.  Her methods at Panjdeh can only be described as a deliberate outrage on international law.  It is clear that Alexander III. and his officials cared nothing for the public opinion of Europe, and that they pushed on their claims by means which appealed with overpowering force to the dominant motive of orientals—­fear.  But their action was based on another consideration.  Relying on Mr. Gladstone’s well-known love of peace, they sought to degrade the British Government in the eyes of the Asiatic peoples.  In some measure they succeeded.  The prestige of Britain thenceforth paled before that of the Czar; and the ease and decisiveness of the Russian conquests, contrasting with the fitful advances and speedy withdrawals of British troops, spread the feeling in Central Asia that the future belonged to Russia.