ABSTRACT
The Anglo-Russian agreement of 1873, whereby the British and Russian spheres of influence in Central Asia and Afghanistan were mutually agreed upon, instead of ushering in a new era of cordial relations between the two rival powers added new dimensions to the ‘Great Game’. Whereas this agreement in effect gave the two sides freedom and a sort of legitimacy to their advance within their respective zones,1 at the same time it brought to the surface the new problem of the actual delimitation of Afghan, Chinese and Russian frontiers in the upper Oxus region of the Pamirs. British attention was drawn to the complexity of this question by British officers like Gordon, Trotter and Biddulph who in 1874 explored the Wakhan and Pamirs area. They discovered that the Afghan territory in the eastern extremity lay on both sides of the river Oxus, which under the 1873 agreement was declared to be the dividing line between Afghanistan and Russia. This discovery disputed the very foundation of this accord. On examination of the Hindu Kush passes, the British explorers found them easy to cross, thus making India vulnerable to attack from across the Hindu Kush. Both these discoveries were important from the strategic point of view and the British modified their frontier policy accordingly. The deputation of Biddulph in 1876 to survey the Hindu Kush passes, which was followed by the establishment of a British agency in Gilgit under the same officer in 1877, reflected the new British strategy to meet the challenge posed by the Russian approach to the Pamirs.
