Empire: World History - 77. The Great Game Begins

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

It will all begin on the banks of the River Niemen. Tsar Alexander forms a pact with Napoleon; the Russian Empire, along with the French, will try to take control of British India. The British increasingly become nervous about losing their prized possession and hostile towards Russia. What will follow has come to be known as the Great Game in Britain and the Tournament of Shadows in Russia. It is the ultimate imperial rivalry; Britain and Russia, the two greatest powers of the day, vying for control of the centre of the world. Listen as William and Anita tell the story of the origins of this battle for power. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William, Durembergle. We're sort of bag on on current events, aren't we, William, with this series. It does not happen. We're not really lost in distant mists of the bar.

But we are, absolutely. And the whole progosion plane crashing out of the sky, all the conspiracy theories, some elements in Russia blaming the Brits, this all seems very familiar. Well, this is very, very interesting. So this was last week, for those of you who might have missed it. But it's a former pro-Russian MP who has been saying on the talk show circuit in Russia, which is, you know, famously free of any interference from the central state. I'll quote what he said.

He said, I'm in no doubt that this has the signature of the British on it. And this is Ihor Markov saying this. This always happens. This is kind of a Hollywood kind of scene, is what he's saying, that it was all set up. And why it's important and why it's relevant is that there has been this age-old face-off between Britain and Russia and never more keenly felt than Afghanistan, which has been this arena for gladiatorial battle, which is just a challenge. just miserable because there is a place called Afghanistan with Afghans living in it who've had to endure centuries of this nonsense. But Britain and Russia facing off is nothing, nothing new. And William, this series, we're doing sort of a slight dog leg in the Russia series. Not really

because it is all very relevant to why Russia thinks the way it does and why Britain thinks the way it does. But we're talking about the great game. Absolutely. Yeah. This series has always been Russia and the Great Game. And the idea is this is two empires clashing. In the first four episodes with the magnificent sea bag, we saw Russia grow from a chaotic medieval state to a power which initially reached the Baltic and then continued to move south, taking, first of all, a foothold on the Crimean Sea, and then turning the Crimea into a Russian lake and building the cities, which are now on the front line of the conflict between Ukrainian-Russia, places Lethearson, Odessa, and so on. And this whole area, which is now the absolute front line of

the battleground, is taken by Russia under Catherine the Great and Potemkin at exactly the same time as the East India Company is moving out of Bengal and beginning to move westwards and northwards. And what you see, if you're looking at a map, whether it's in a gentleman's club in Palmaal, or it's an officer's mess in St. Petersburg, is that the space. between these two 19th century imperial empires is diminishing decade by decade. As the Russians move south to the Orenberg line, about to gobble up the great carnates, and this is something we'll do later in the series of Bacara, Kiva, Samakhan, these legendary names of these medieval sultanates and kingdoms. And at the same time, the Brits are edging up to the Punjab, on the banks of the

Soutledge, looking over the top of Ranjit Singh's Punjab. And what? worrying about the Russians coming down the Khyber Pass and charging down. Yeah, and the space that's getting smaller and smaller, the space on a map has Afghanistan in it. Exactly. And the strategic importance of Afghanistan cannot be overestimated because for both, whoever controls Afghanistan controls the hand that gets into the purse that is India in everyone's mind. India is the money bag and that is what they are after. Can we just also address?

I mean, I think we may have touched on this before, but it bears talking. about again, even the phrase, great game, is completely offensive to some people, because it kind of suggests this kind of led little, you know, people sort of playing checkers or playing chess against each other. Exactly that. And I think there's a very strong revulsion at that, particularly if you're an Afghan historian or a historian that comes from somewhere like Samakand or Bukara, because the impression is often given this is a, you know, a wonderful Kiplingist jaunt where lots of young officers, whether they're Zaris or fresh out of the East India Company academies, are having a jolly time pretending to go shooting while mapping the empty

step and conquering these savage mountains. It actually out these people's homes and as we'll hear in the episodes which we're about to come to, this leads to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the subjections of whole peoples. Yeah, families, men, women and children who are just trying to live their lives, you know, not really bothering anyone. But trouble is that when you're an historian writing this, and I have to plead guilty on this, however aware you are of this and the fact that you're dealing with all these tragic events and massacres and so on, it is also true that this is the most thrilling spy story. And you do have these characters dressed up in disguise or sending sort of other people dressed as monks with measuring sticks and so on.

And there is this extraordinary story of espionage, which has a historian. on one hand, you're thrilled to be uncovering this, you know, James Bond in the 19th century story or flashman, this sort of wonderful stuff, while being aware that this is actually, you know, bleeding into the lives of hundreds and thousands of people. Right. So I want us to go back to where the first dice was rolled of the great game or the first move was made in the great game. And that is a place called Tilsit. Absolutely. And we should just say that there is sometimes in some academic papers that I read when I was writing this book, return of a king, you sometimes get the impression given that the rivalry between Britain and Russia is an entirely a figment of, of sort of Kipling's imagination and the followers of Kipling and the historians who write about it today. But as we'll see in this episode today, there actually was a real plan formed at this meeting, which we're about to discuss,

to have a joint pincer movement with Napoleon and the Russians invading India. Why did you give away the ending before we just... I don't give away. The ending is still to come. I mean, really? It is honestly, I think, a condition. Are there any medical professionals out there who could diagnose what it is he's suffering with? I mean, it was a perfectly open question.

Let's talk about Tilsip. He's like, well, let me tell you the conclusion of Tilsen. No, that's not how storytelling works, okay? I need to add and I bow to your sense of storytelling. All right. So, previously on this conversation, and it all started. Tilsit. Tell us where Tilsit is and why it's important. It's a very, very nice place to begin. And in fact, it's a place where Tolstoy begins. And today we read War and Peace as one volume. And we're not aware that, of course, it was originally published as three books. And the first volume of War and Peace is called Before Tilset. Tilsit being the place that we're going to home in now. Tilsit is in northeast Prussia. Well, Prussia doesn't exist, so you're going to have to tell us where that is.

Germany. Okay. Okay. You've got to, you know, genuinely, because I think these things, I think when you live in, you paddle in history, paddling pools, you assume that everybody knows what these things are. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. This is the age of Napoleon. Napoleon has taken power in France.

He has dazzled Europe with his armies. And there is a crucial battle on the 14th of June 1807 when the Russians are catastrophically defeated. at the Battle of Friedland. And Napoleon's astonishing artillery, which is the cutting edge of his armies, have left 25,000 Russian dead on the battlefield. It's a major, major loss for the Russian army. And the two armies are facing each other

across the meandering oxbows of the Neiman River. And no one knows initially whether they're going to go to war or whether they're going to make peace. So you've got, so that, I mean, that is drawing. That does sound like a chess set, actually. You've got these two great forces facing off with a river between them. And there is a bloodbath that has happened, and there is a bloodbath that may happen. But this stalemate is broken.

Yes, we should say that new divisions appear for the Russians'an. Because I think Napoleon thinks he's just sort of, you know, wiped the slate clean. And then suddenly, over the distance, these reinforcements turn up on the banks river, not just some reinforcements, but no less than 200,000. 200,000. That's crazy. put that in context, the entire British Army at exactly the state was 100,000. So a force double the size of the entire British Army turns up on the backs of the river.

So giving Napoleon pause for thought. It's not looking good. And so then, you know, this word goes round that actually, look, Napoleon wants not just peace. He doesn't want to just walk away from this absolute carnage that may be about to unfold. But he's thinking about an alliance. Now, tell us about these two pivotal characters then. You've got Alexander the first of Russia and you have Napoleon. So Napoleon, as we know, is from Corsica.

He's risen to the top of the army during the troubles that have followed the revolution in 1789. And he has already made an expedition to Egypt where he's defeated by Nelson, who destroys his fleet at the Battle of the Nile. So already Napoleon has sort of dazzled by thinking completely out of course. the box. And he's already made one attempt to rest from the British what he has already identified. This is very important in the whole discussion of empire. Napoleon in 1800 identifies India as the source of British wealth. And he thinks, if I'm going to defeat the British, I have first to remove the source of their gold. So he goes to Egypt with a view to linking up with Tibu Sultan

in southern India and destroying British control of India. And that is frustrated by the fact that Nelson finds his fleet because he's slipped out and managed to elude the British. But the spies are such in the Mediterranean that the British soon discover where his fleet is. Nelson finds the beached boats in Abakir Bay and he destroys their way of getting home and their means of resupply. And so that whole episode is over. And Napoleon is now in the process of taking Europe with this sort of extraordinary, to use the 20th century term, a Blitzkrie. He's marching very successfully. And he's faced on the opposite side by Alexander I. Now, he is the grandson of Catherine the Great, who are discussing in the last episode. So he's sickly Paul son, Paul who Catherine hates. It's Paul's awful Paul,

as I think we can talk, his son, right? Exactly that, exactly that. And he is rather amazing, Alexander I first. And he begins as a liberal and initiates some small social reforms. But as time goes on, he becomes increasingly sort of arbitrary, reactionary, fearful of plots. We know this pattern. And as a result, he ends many of the reforms that he's made earlier, purges schools for teachers, for example, education becomes more religiously driven, more politically conservative, and censorship increased. And he is at the helm at the time of the catastrophic Battle of Friedens. So that brings us back again to Tilsit, these two armies eyeing each other over the River Neiman with the victorious French, ready to.

to cross, but they suddenly see no less than 200,000 Russian reinforcements. There's a sense of the vast scale of Russia with such larger populations than anything in Europe. And so there's this extraordinary meeting. And on the 7th of July, 1807, there is what is called the Peace of Tilsit. And this takes place on a raft. There's wonderful pictures of it that has a sort of little classical pavilion of the sort you might see in somewhere like Chiswick House built out of, built out of But in this case, it's built out of wood, white with a large monogrammed N, as Napoleon was always fond of having on all his things, from Napoleon. And the two emperors meet in person in the middle of the river.

It's a wonderful idea. And they negotiated treaties, it's later known as the Peace of Tilsit. And a lot of this concerns issue of war and peace, as the book. As a book later picks up on. But this treaty, this treaty, this treaty. they sign. I mean, I've always been fascinated by this because treaties are meant to be quite straightforward. You do this. I won't do this. I won't do this. And if you do this, and I'll give you this. But there are such things as secret clauses in this. Now, tell us about the secret clauses. Who puts those

in? What are they? So a lot of this, the discussion is released publicly afterwards. And the whole question, for example, about what happens to Prussia. The king of Prussia is sitting on the bank by this point, wondering whether he's got a kingdom after this. And of course, he has very little by the time that Tilsit is over. So it's not good news for him. But the alliance between Russia and France is announced, which again is as a sort of parallel to the moment that the Russians ally. The Stalin throws in with Hitler. Exactly. And so very, very bad news for Britain, who is now left the last big unconquered army in Europe. And even worse, though, is the secret clauses of the peace of Tilsit. And these exactly are concerned with the idea of resting British India from the British and liberating it,

or certainly liberating it under French sovereignty. Liberating it from the British, yes. What happens to it next is uncertain. But that's what they're going to do. They're going to pince the British out, work together and take it. Exactly. As we said, already he's had this idea once. He's got as far as Egypt. He wrote a letter to Tipu, which is worth quoting. He says, you have already been informed of my arrival at the borders of the Red Sea with an invincible army full of the desire from releasing you from the iron yoke of England. May the almighty increase your power and destroy your enemies. Did Tipu believe him? Did Tipu have faith in him?

And completely, and said, right, we'll do this because I need you. Tipu absolutely did believe him and sent ambassadors who arrive in Paris. But by then it's too late because Wellesley has moved in for the kill, because the British have got hold of this letter. And this, in a sense, seals the fate of Tupu Sultan. So that was a dry run for Napoleon. It didn't work. So now they have a second attempt at the idea of taking India from the British. And they decide this time to go overland. Yes, the overland, I'm interested in the different strategy.

So they're thinking now, okay, Persia and Afghanistan are the answer. We will go up and over the mountains and no one will see us coming and that's the way we can do it. We can fight this way. Well, even more brilliantly, because Napoleon had this completely out-of-the-box strategic thinking. He was way ahead of any of his rivals anywhere else, which is why we're used to the sense to people hating their enemy. The British all the way through their battles with Napoleon always admired him as a master strategist. And I had a great grandfather actually fought at Waterloo. and he kept on his desk a miniature of Napoleon all his life.

Really? That's interesting. I now have it on my desk in Delhi. Really? With his little inscription saying that I was 15 when I fought at Waterloo or 16. I can't remember. He was a boy, presumably loading cannon or something. Gosh. And he said, I cannot express my admiration for this man.

So it was this sort of out-of-the-box strategic thinking. And Napoleon comes up with this brilliant two-pronged strategy to take India from the British and the East India Company. And the first prong is that the Russians are going to march an army southwards through the stands, through Afghanistan, and come down the Khyber Pass. At the same time, the Persians are going to let the French cross Persia without a battle. And this is not just sort of pie in the sky. There are actually letters which survive in the archives. Can I read one bit of it? Please do.

This is amazing. So, yes, the ambassador, Persian ambassador, writes, should it be the intention of His Majesty, the emperor of the French descendant army by land to attack the English possessions in India, HM, the emperor of Persia, as his good and faithful ally, will grant him passage. So everything seems to be, you know,

the wind is blowing Napoleon's way, it seems. And even more so, there is a general called General Gardein, who is dispatched to Persia, to liaise with the Shah to start mapping out the ports to identify those that can provide anchorage, water supplies for 20,000 men. And he begins to draw up maps. Somehow the British get hold of this

and copies are sent to India, where they remain now in the Indian National Archives. So this is not, you know, sometimes post-colonial critics who understandably get irritated by the concept of the great game and this tendency, particularly by British historians,

to regard it as a great sort of, you know, boy's own daring-do adventure story, often are slightly snotty about the Great Game. And there are essays out there if you go on the internet called The Myth of the Great Game and so on. But this is the origin of the paranoia and it's very real. Have you seen it? Have you seen the letter? I haven't seen the letter. No, I haven't. I know where it is and I've seen it in the index in the Indian National Archives, but I never actually ordered it up. I did get as far as looking it up and getting the accession number. But no, I haven't. And so this is evidence that,

along with the communication with Tipu, that this was a real thing, that everyone knew that the Indians didn't love the British, that they would welcome an opportunity to overthrow them if aid was granted. And this was something that the British never forgotten. For the next century and a half, long after the real threat has actually disappeared, the British remain terrified that their main source of wealth is going to go if India is wrested from them or if there's enough of a chance of reinforcements that Indian rulers themselves will rise up and throw the British out. Well, I mean, the Persian wing is just one wing, but he does also need, you know, Russia to do its bit and march to Afghanistan and take the stands as well. So this Tilsett agreement that nobody

knows about it, until everybody knows about it, how soon after the signing do those wheels start turning? Well, this is the nicest bit of the whole story, because, and this is where, you know, you can why so many people get seduced by this idea of the Great Game and why it's so exciting, because at least according to legend, and I don't know whether it's true, and I have read accounts quibbling this, but allegedly, the British have a spy under the raft. Under the rough, clean, yes, I love this. It's kind of like a 007, sort of, you know, underneath listening. You can just see that kind of, you know, pre-title sequence with this year. And in this case, it's a disaffected Russian nobleman. Right. He's hiding under the raft,

listening through the cracks in the floor. Literally holding on with his bottom in the water. With his legs in the water. That's okay. Just looking at the picture, right? It's July, so he's not going to get his legs frozen off. Right, okay. And this lovely image may or may not be true,

but it's certainly true that the Brits get the secret clauses within about a week. Gosh. And they have the full wording and everything in Whitehall, and they're busy studying it. And they are terrified. And also, you know, Napoleon is a wonderful, little line that Napoleon writes. He says his ambassador to St. Petersburg is given full instructions to take the idea forward. And this is what Napoleon writes. He says, the more fanciful it sounds,

the more the attempt to do it, and what can France and Russia not do? The more the attempt to do it would frighten the English, striking terror into the English in India, spreading confusion in London. And to be sure, 40,000 Frenchmen to whom Persia will have granted passage by way of Constantinople, joining 40,000 Russians who arrive by the way of the Caucasus would be enough to terrify Asia and make its conquest. I love this stuff. I mean, yeah. I can tell you.

So what's the British reaction? Because at the time, the Governor General of India is a man called Minto, Lord Minto is in charge. So he obviously, you know, the man dangling under the raft, the word gets out, it gets back to him. Does he start making contingency plans? Or is he, as Napoleon hopes, running around in terror? Well, it takes, I think it's six weeks before the exact wording of the clauses at Tilsit get to Whitehall, and immediately word is sent to India.

And at this point, I think I'm right in saying the telegraph has got as far as Suez. So news can now, it hasn't got all the way to India, the undersea cables, which you get by the late 19th century, I think you get undersea cables taking the telegraph all the way to India. But at this point, they can send a telegram to Suez. quite a short hop from Suez's. No, it doesn't take long. I mean, that's why the Suez Canal is so very important in history. Exactly. So news is sent to Lord Minto, the governor general, that this is what Napoleon and the Russians are planning. And you can just imagine the kind of sinking hearts. They've just got rid of Tippoo. They think that this... They can have a little break. They have a break, put their legs up a bit. And they now know that there's, you know,

Cossacks are going to be streaming down the Khyber Pass and joining up with the Grand Army who are going to be marching without any opposition through Persia. So what they do is that they send off four embassies in order to head this off. One expedition is sent to your great hero, Ranjit Singh, the land of the Punjab. Yep. Do you want to just refresh us on who he is? So the one-eyed king. So this man has distinguished himself in the north of India, the land of the five rivers,

because he has defeated the Afghans. So, you know, the Afghans until, and this we're talking about the late 1700s and 1800s, have been using the north of India as a piggy bank, just coming over, taking whatever they want and leaving. And, you know, the stories of horse riders with skulls of defeated foe hanging, dangling around their necks. I mean, it's all sort of, you know, they are terrifying. And Ranjit Singh is the first person to unite all these disparate parts of the north and push them back. So one embassy, a guy called Charles Metcalf is sent off to the Sikh court. And he ends up staying there. And liking it so much, he takes one of Rajit Singh's dancing girls back with him to Delhi, to Shalema.

You can go and see anyone that's in Delhi listening to this. You can go and see in the Shalemar Gardens to the north of Delhi, which did exist. Not many people go visit it, the house that Metcalf built on his return from Lahore, a house for his Sikh girlfriend. Anyway, that's one embassy. The second embassy is to the Amirs of Sindh, who are this group of rulers who rule the bottom of the Indus, the area that's now around Karachi. A third embassy is sent to Persia under another Scotsman called John Malcolm. And John Malcolm goes to the Khad Shah of Persia, who's been fighting the Russians up to this point. and he is told that the French are perfidious

and that he should never trust them and that he only wants to take their kingdom. So all this propaganda has been... Yes, I was wondering. So, I mean, if you were Minto, you really need people to sign on on your side, right? So you can either do that through threats or bribery, or as you say, propaganda, you know, saying,

look, they're lying to you, they're just going to come and cut your throats in the night. So what is the favoured approach from Minto at this point? Or different things to different people? Minto is sending lavish presence to all these people, and it's definitely charm that is the main driver, and there are astonishing presence sent in every direction. Perhaps the most astonishing, though, is for the fourth embassy, which is sent to a guy you and I have written about in our Koenor book, who is Shah Shudja Sadazai, Hamid Khazai's direct descendant, the chief of the Popalzai tribe. And he is very briefly the ruler of Afghanistan. And The East Indic company, I don't think are aware of quite how tenuous Sharsuja's holding power is, because they come with a whopping great presence. They even bring an organ.

Well, an organ. By which you mean musical instrument. Okay. Yes. Because we do talk about severed parts on this programme. I just want to clarify. Which kind of organ? Which organ are you talking about?

An organ you can play on. A church organ type thing. Okay, but we should also explain that, you know, he looks the part. The reason they think he's strong is because he is the image of what they assume this. kind of eastern potentate looks like. He's a good-looking guy at this point, isn't he? He is. And more of the point, he dressed up to the occasion. The leader of the embassy to Shashuja is a guy called Mount Stuart Elfinston, after whom Indian listeners will know Elvenson Crescent and various chunks of India. Schools, colleges. I mean, there are things that have his name.

Yeah. So this guy, who was this young, who was very bright young man, when he's posted to Puna, He brings one elephant entirely as a library elephant, which is something we should all have on this programme, the amount of books we have to read. And in it is Thucydides, Herodotus. He brings a perfect Enlightenment library, ranging from the classics through to the works of the great French intellectuals of the day.

The same Catherine the Great was reading Montesquieu and Didoro and Voltaire, and even some of the works of the American revolutionaries, and who are beginning to write their works in America. So he brings that, that's his gift, right? And he is expecting a rough barbarian of the mountains. But what does he get? Because we're talking about a 30-year-old, good-looking Sharshajouja, who is dressed in.

I just want you to describe what he's wearing when Elphinstone first claps eyes on him and just says, hang on a minute, that's not what I was expecting. So he's a handsome young man, about 30 years old. he's got what Fraser describes as an olive complexion and a thick black beard. And he speaks with authority. He's incredibly well-dressed. They think initially from a distance, because they are brought in in stages. And this interview takes place in Peshawar and the successive courts. So they see him standing on a dais from a distance. And from a distance, they think that he's wearing armour adorned with jewels. But in fact, it's a green tunic with large flowers made of gold and precious stones, with a large breastplate of diamonds, which are the diamonds that his grandfather, Amid Shah,

took from the camp of Nadir Shah, who took it from the Treasury of the Mughals in general. And so there's this astonishing wash of incredibly large diamonds. Everything that the Mughals looted from the whole of the rest of India over 150 years finds its way at this period to Persia and Afghanistan. So Shah Shoshuja is one of the main recipients of this largesseous. is just sort of, you know, heavy with... Well, he's glittering. He's a glittering beautiful youth.

He's not exactly like, you know, Conan the Barbarian, which is what Elfonstone thought he was going to deal with. Elphinsden, who's this sort of brilliant classicist of this brilliant mind, has been reading Tacitus's account of Roman invasions of Gaul and Britain on his journey to Peshawa. And so in his head, he's imagining exactly that, Conan the Barbarian, sort of wild, shaggy, shaggy Afghans with longbears. And what he finds instead is this last sort of remnant of the glory of the mughals and the glory of the timurids. And this magnificent man with, and he says he has perfect manners,

he has perfect decorum, excellent, speaks as perfect Persian, quotes poets. And when they, they're invited to relax in his pavilion. And the pavilion is covered with couplets from Hafez and Ferdowsy. Who are poets, we should say, if you don't know, Hafiz and Ferdazi, the most celebrated greatest Persian poets. And they lie down in the heat of the day and read these, I love this bit, sorry, it's another rabbit hole, but it's so nice.

They lie down in the heat of the day and they read these couplets in Persian talking about the fickleness of fate, which is very appropriate because Shashidri is overthr shortly after. No, no, no, no, do do that. Okay, I've done it.

I saw it. I saw it. I saw it over the Tilset River coming at me. On a large raft. Anyway, what I was going to say is while they're playing fritzy and reading poetry and braiding each other's hair, and they come to this agreement. Elkenstone's feeling sort of quite chaffed. You know, I have a like-minded man,

and I've got this in the bag, Britain. I've got it. It's all sorted. But there is something on the horizon that he doesn't know. Can I just read a lovely quote before we go into the break? Only if you're not going to blow the suspense more than you have with a barrel full of TNT. Would I ever do that, Eita, all the years you've known me. Yeah, go on.

This is from a wonderful account of the time by one of my favorite Afghan chroniclers called Mirza Atta-Mohamed. And this was one of the chronicles that I found in Kabul, never translated into English before. And it gives a wonderful independent voice from a person who was attached to one of the British officials, but hugely critical of this whole enterprise. And he writes this, he's full of gems, but just to give you a little taster of Mirzaata. The Afghurasan have an age-old reputation, he writes, that whenever the lamp of power burns brightly, there like moths they swarm. And wherever the tablecloth of plenty is spread, there like flies they gather. But the reverse is also true. And Elfenston realizes this. And he says, victory among the Afghans is usually decided by some chief going over to the enemy on which the greater part of the army follows the example or else takes flight. This is, of course, exactly what happened last year or two years ago with the fall of Khazai and Ashrafgani's government to the Taliban. And this is what we're about to see with Shashuja. So having...

No, that is a break point. That's it. You don't say that is what we are about to see. And then see, join us after the break. Because you're not going to be able to get what's going to happen. I mean, not that it's going to be much of a surprise at this point, but do anyway, you might as well, come back after the break. So welcome back. Just before the break, William was doing William. Absolutely no idea of suspense, building drama.

Right. So, Elfenstone and Shahujah have made this deal. But little does he know, dun, dun, da, that Shoshuja's... Well, this is going to come as a huge surprise. They all listening to that. It will not at all. I mean, Sharshushuja's position is untenable. And tell us why it is so untenable.

So everyone has basically ganged up against him in the way that happens in Afghan politics when you're seen to be a loser. And there's a whole succession of battles. with rival clans, which Shoshuja loses. And even before the British embassy has crossed the Indus, as they arrive at Attic, which is the crossing point, which is where, incidentally, Imran Khan was being locked up. The ex-Pram Minister of Pakistan was being put in the prison in Attic two weeks ago, whether he'll still be in or out of prison. It's two weeks ago when we're recording, so it may, yeah. So anyway, so when they reach the great fortress of Attic and are crossing the river,

They've just arrived on the southern bank when they see a party of Afghans arrive at the crossing point on the northern bank. And that is Sharshujah's elder brother Shazaman, who's been blinded in an earlier round of rebellion. And Wafa Begum, who is the incredibly powerful and brilliant. Yeah, she's great. Sharsha's very, very bullsey wife. And they are leading the harem of Shasha. and many of the treasures to exile in what they hope will be Ranjit Singh's Lahore. Sanctuary in Lahore, yeah, yeah.

And so he's overthrown even before. It didn't last long, did it? They've been giving him all these presents and made all this effort. I know, and Elfinston going, yes, that's jobs are good, and doesn't even have time to dust off his tunic. Less than a week later, he's forward. Okay, and it's during this period of time, you know, the Ruffer, For those of you who are interested, it's a really good story.

It's how she then entreaties with Ranjit Singh, please save my husband, to save my husband. And there is this whole thing of, well, what will you give me? Go back to the Coenor Diamond episodes. They are full of this story. And before that, to our Coenor books, this was the story that first brought Anita and I together for better or worse all those years ago.

This is our story. Oh, it should be a Simon Bates, our tune. They came together over the blood-soaked history of a diamond. Anyway, to cut a long story, pretty short. Do you tell this? So Shashuja is arrested. Vafa Begham, then with her entourage of women from the harem, goes to seek sanctuary with Ranjit Singh.

He says, please save my husband. Please, I'll give you anything. And he says, like what? What have you got? It doesn't seem like you got very much at the moment. And she says, well, I have this diamond, this Coenol Diamond, the Mountain of Light. And, you know, if you throw it up high in the air and you throw a stone to the left and to the right and you fill that entire space with gold, that's how much it is worth. The Coenol Diamond, the most valuable thing in the world.

She knew how to sell it. And he said, well, that sounds quite nice. All right, I'll do it. And so, you know, Shoshuja, who has been imprisoned by his kinsman, Ranjit Singh goes in prison. So if you want to hear, let's just skip over this bit because we have talked about this a lot. Go back to our Coenor Diamond episodes and the whole story is there. But the sum total of this is that Elphinston and the British have lost their sure thing by losing Shoshuja. And the other important point is that Shashuja, who's initially arrested by Ranjit Singh and kept in imprisonment,

after he's given over the Coenor, either escapes or is allowed to escape, depending on whose verse. you listen to. He gets out of Lahore Fort through a tunnel, he goes under the Ravi, and eventually manages to make his way over the Sutledge, which is at that point, the boundary between Ranjit Singh's Punjab and East India Company, India. And there he's given sanctuary by a key player in our story, who's a man called Sir Claude Wade. And Sir Claude Wade is the smiley of the British Secret Service of the day. He is the man sitting in Ludiana, at the furthest northwest point of British India,

running spy networks into not only the Punjab and Afghanistan, but even into Kiva, Bukhara, Tashkent, all the different areas. And he recruits carpet sellers, people with plausible stories, saddos, holy men, Buddhist monks to map out this territory, to bring gossip. And sitting in this old Haveli, this courtyard house in the centre of Ludiana, Claude Wade is using it as a listening post, rather like, you know, the British would have these characters in Berlin or Vienna during the Cold War, running agents. Yeah, sitting in cafes and pubs listening to conversations.

All that sounds. Yes, exactly. And so for Claude Wade, Sharsuchja is his key man. He anticipates. that there will be an opportunity in future if he gives shelter to Sharshudha and Waffa Begham, that he can then use them as his pawns to project British power into Afghanistan in the future. So he welcomed Sharshudja and Wafa Begum, gives them a very magnificent setup in Ludiana. And by this point, Pearl Sharsha-Sha-Sha-Souja is obviously slightly on the back foot. He's lost half his goods. He's lost his kingdom. Well, he's dependent on the goodwill of others, even if it is a spider and a web.

Exactly. He must realise it's a spider in a web. And he's well aware of this. And he takes it out on his household. And apparently he had a great fondness for lopping off body parts, which brings us back to one of our favourite, one of our favourites. Obsessions in this podcast. Shar-Sha-Jouja, you've changed. You've changed.

This is exactly what William Fraser, who was on the embassy, says when he sees him. And he says that his, its remaining court is an assemblage of deaf, mutes, people without noses, people with one ear and this sort of thing. He's all been punished for disloyalty or whatever. So it's a very fallen court, but it's under Claude Wade. And there are two rival Spymaster at this point, which is an important and rather exciting bit of the story. There is Claude sitting in Ludiana, who's part of the sort of Calcutta network. And then there's another man called Pottinger who's sitting in Boug, in Gugge, in Gugge. at with a rival spy network, which he's running, and he's part of the Bombay presidency. So it's

like MI5 and MI6 competing. Oh, that's interesting. And, you know, yes, not quite working together, but working on the same side, supposedly. On the same side, but definitely rivals. And this is all important for what happens next, because Claude wants to use Shasujia. He wants to use Shashuja, but just park that for a second, because we're going to come back to that. Meanwhile, in Europe, a lot is going on. I mean, it is not that there is nothing happening. and this is happening in a vacuum, because Alexander defeats Napoleon. So this great Tilsit agreement is basically gone to crap. Why does it go to crap?

Well, because there's a dispute. Napoleon launches an invasion in 1812 of Russia. It's catastrophic for France. The army is decimated during the Russian winter. This is the famous retreat from Moscow. It's looking very good in the trailer for this Napoleon movie. There's this wonderful scene on the ice where the... Wacking Phoenix.

The French, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that very, very. I think we may have to have a French season and Napoleon's season before long to encourage us all to go and see the movie. Anyway. Yeah, anyway. So Napoleon's Grand Army reaches Moscow.

The Russians, you know, the scorched earth strategy, which becomes such a thing again during Stalin's reign, prevents the invaders from living off the country. The winter kills off hundreds, if not thousands of French. And so this is not good. Napoleon's forces are forced to retreat, and Russian troops pursue them into central and western Europe right onto the gates of Paris. And I always find that really quite startling,

that they really don't stop. You know, they are on their tails. So this is, you know, Europe again is in turmoil. This is, you know, everything is changing, everything is up for grabs. Alexander actually rides into Paris, doesn't he? Yeah, does he? Yes, I think that's right.

And isn't this something that Star-Larling, Quotes. Yes, he says Tsar, you're right, Zah, he does say it, doesn't he? Zah Alexander made it all the way to Paris. So, after Russia and its allies defeat Napoleon, Alexander becomes known as the savior of Europe. Because Napoleon is the one who's harrying

all these other countries and, you know, although they admire him and they might keep little pictures of him on their tables, they do want him running the show. And this is, again, a direct parallel to the Second World War, because just as the British are very happy that Stalin defeats the Nazis,

they then find that Stalin is now the most powerful player in the room and that with his victorious armies which have conquered half of Europe and he's now sitting on the Berlin Wall. So once the Napoleonic threat is over, by the 1820s, it's Russia that's keeping the East India Company Hawks anxious. So they've, having been worrying about France for the previous 30 years or even actually frankly 100 years, some people call it the second 100 year war between the war of the Austrian succession and the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo. But instantly, the British Hawks move their paranoia. So there's literally no honeymoon period at all. None at all. Actually, this guy chased off our, you know, our enemies, enemies,

our friend. There's no friendship. They just think, right, we've got a new guy to undermine. This is reflected in the maps after 1812 because the Russians move their frontier south and eastwards as fast as well as he's moving his frontier northwards and westwards. And the person who's noting all this is this character who's very important for our story called Lord Ellenbra. And he's the new president of the company's board of control. This is the government minister with responsibility for making sure that the East India Company is not running amok and doing its own corporate thing in India, that in fact it's following British interest because as we know from our earlier podcast, East India Company is entirely a rogue operator and is only driven

by profit. And there's an attempt at this point in history to try and rein it in and make it obey British interests. And Ellenborough is, well, first of all, he's a wonderful story in himself. He's the son of Warren Hastings' defence lawyer. How perfect. I did, you know what? That is, yeah, the man who got Hastings off the hook at the impeachment. And he's a brilliant but difficult and deeply unappealing man. Unappealing how? Are we talking looks? Yeah, looks.

Even George Vorth, his horrified body called his horrid grey locks, a sight so distasteful that George of fourth allegedly claimed that the very sight of Edinburgh made him sick. I'm just looking up now. Poor old Ellenborough's hairstyle. He doesn't look so bad. He looks.

He looks too bad. What's the much with him? And he didn't have a happy love life, probably as a result of this. He suffered a crushing humiliation when his first wife, the beautiful but wayward Jane Digby, left him and took a very colourful selection of lovers. First, the Austrian prince Swatzenberg, with whom Ellenborough fought a duel, then in quick succession, the kings of both Bavaria and Greece and an Albanian general,

and this is the best bit before ending up happily married to a Bedouin shake in Boundhira. I now officially love her. Let's talk about Ellenborough for a second because I've just looked him up. He looks like John Pertwee playing Doctor Who. That's certainly greasy grey locks for you. Well, they're not even, I mean, they seem perfectly except when this photograph. That's a reference that will only get people of a certain generation. The British people of a certain generation.

There is a pertwee about him. But yes, okay, so he's distasteful to look at and the king is throwing up. But this guy is the first guy really to, he's the first big Russifobie. been in British history because the British have been sufficiently worried by Russia at this point because they haven't threatened British interests. Well, they haven't been a, they haven't been a thing. I mean, they've not been, yeah, they've not been together. I mean, they've been a thing if you're, if you're in the Caucasus, or you're in Persia, or indeed if you're in Sweden. The British have been pretty relaxed up to now about Russian expansion, but now it's looking as if their interests

are directly contrary to each other. And Alimbra comes out with this line. Our policy in Asia must follow one course only to limit the power of Russia. And so is he treated with deferential respect and everyone starts moving or do they treat him like a Cassandra jumping up and down and screaming the odds that no one listens to? So rather like the Cold War, you end up with two camps and you get the hawks and you get the doves. And there are those who say we can work with Russia, there are allies, they've seen off Napoleon. And of course they're not going to do anything to us in India. But this is increasingly discredited by the fact that the Russians in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic wars do show themselves extremely aggressive conquerors in their

dealings with Turkey and Qadjar Persia. This is the period that Russia starts really threatening Constantinople and Russian armies move into Armenia and Georgia, and next great sways of both and Azerbaijan, and their great cover is that they're liberating the Eastern Christians in inverted common. Because they've now, yeah, they've taken over from the Byzantines, and that's what they say, is that we are now the protectors of the faith. Exactly. And this, and this sounds great if you're in Russia, but it worries Ellenborough and his sort of fellow clubmen sitting in their clubs, looking at the maps of Russia moving ever further southwards. And particularly this idea that they will capture Constantinople or Istanbul and get rid of the Ottomans and move in

and take that incredibly valuable waterway, the Bosphorus, and control the crossroads of Europe. So this is now a matter of extreme paranoia for the British. And we have this new cast of characters who build their entire career over Russophobia and the fear of the Russians. As the Zaris armies move into Chechnya and Dagestan, expeditions during which they sack villages, killing women and children, cutting down forests and destroying crops. You have other Russian moves in Jerusalem, where the Russians are sending troops often disguised as monks, or at least in the Russophobic British newspapers, that's how it's reported. The Russians sent, is it 2,000 troops to Mount Athos disguised as monks? There's a host. You go there. There's a barracks.

in Mount Athos, which is built for allegedly for the Russian troops disguised as monks who are going to take the Holy Land. So there is this terrible fear suddenly that having defeated Napoleon, they've unleashed an even more frightening enemy. If Russia can move thousands of miles south and take Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and knock the whole of Persia, northern Persia off, then there's nothing going to be stopping them going down through Syria and taking Palestine and Egypt. So all this is now very much. the stuff of newspapers, of pamphlets, and this is the period when both Pottinger and Wade are beginning to send explorers off for the first time into the Himalayas to map the passes

and prepare contingency plans in case the Russians really do put that plan into action. And just to remind people, because you can't just go to a foreign country and say, I'm going to map your country. So it's all under the aegis of this is a fellow likes climbing. mountains or this is a fellow who is really interested in geology. And what they're doing often is they're creating maps and routes and monitoring where bridges are and sometimes putting them in bottles and floating them down rivers for people to pick up and put together a convincing cartography of a place that might one day be invaded. I think the parallel for our own time

is that sort of Islamophobia that followed 9-11 when suddenly all the right-wing news papers were publishing articles about Islam being this and Islam being that. Bernard Lewis was wheeled out to give lectures in the White House and talk about how this rage in the Islamic world. And this atmosphere was built up, which created an enemy, which was only half there before that, that you can create the monster. But are you saying that Ellenborough whipped it up and otherwise Russia would have had no interest?

But I mean, they certainly seem to be taking territory, though. What I'm saying is that there's a potential threat which becomes an actual threat, thanks to an overreactions. So just as after 9-11, you have the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which go completely pear-shaped. So at this period, it's fear of Russia that leads the East India Company to begin to make plans, which will lead to their most fatal ever miscalculation and their greatest disaster. Join us on the next episode of Empire when we tell you what this fatal miscalculation will be. Till then, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William Duremple.