ABSTRACT
George Nathaniel Curzon was a curious mixture of political animal and learned traveller, and his natural curiosity as to the nature of the outside world had led him, in course of his relatively sort adult life to this point, to undertake a series of lengthy foreign adventures. The symbiotic nature of strategy and Indian defence played heavily upon Curzon's mind. His travels across Central Asia had forced him to think hard about the nature of Russia's expansionist policies and the dangers these might hold for India. The construction of a railway from Caspian Sea to Tashkent in Russian Turkestan certainly concerned him. Curzon's new approach tackled both military and administrative matters. The course of Anglo-tribal relationship between the turn of the century and the First World War was a curious mixture of co-operation and dissent. The problem of course was that it was almost impossible to distinguish government policy from environmental factors when trying to attribute reasons for tribal behaviour.
