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On 30 October an armistice was signed, which permitted the Allies to occupy the forts on the Dardanelles and Bosporus and make free use of the Straits. Marshall entered Mosul, and presently British ships commanded the Black Sea and British troops were holding a line across Caucasia to the Caspian and connecting with the chain of forces established between Krasnovodsk and India.
About noon the land is reported to the eastward, a low, yellowish land, with no rocky margin, but a few sandhills in the neighborhood of Krasnovodsk. In an hour we are in sight of Uzun Ada, and twenty-seven minutes afterward we set foot in Asia.
At the same time another route far shorter than that which would be necessary by following the sea route lies over Germany, Russia, and the ideal flying-land along the Caspian Sea, Krasnovodsk, Askabad, Herat, Kandahar, and Multan. As with Asia Minor and Asia so with Africa, the British at once made plans for aerial routes.
Still steaming north, our little craft ploughs her way toward Krasnovodsk, an important military station on the eastern coast. At night the surface of the sea becomes smooth and glassy, the sun sets, rotund and red, in a haze suggestive of Indian summer in the West. The cabins are small and stuffy, so I sleep up on the hurricane-deck, wrapping a Persian sheepskin overcoat about me.
Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out, May waste the memory of the former days. In the autumn of 1878 General Lomakin had waged an unsuccessful campaign against the Tekke Turkomans, and finally fell back with heavy losses on Krasnovodsk, his base of operations on the Caspian Sea.
Referring to the small outline map of the trans-Caspian region, herewith, it will be seen that troops could embark from Odessa in the fleet of merchant steamers available, and, if not molested en route by hostile cruisers, would reach Batum in from 2 to 3 days, thence by rail to Baku in 24 hours, another 24 hours through the Caspian Sea to Krasnovodsk, a transfer in lighters to the landing at Michaelovsk, and the final rail transportation to the present terminus of the track beyond Kizil Arvat; this, it is said, will soon reach Askabad, 310 miles from Herat.
In 1869 a military post and seaport was planted at Krasnovodsk, on that point of the east shore of the Caspian, which presents the greatest facilities for shipping, and as a base of operations against the Turcomans, who were at that time very troublesome.
Russia soon had ready three columns, which were to converge on Khiva: one was stationed on the River Ural, a second at the rising port of Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea, and a third, under General Kaufmann, at Tashkend.
Formerly the natural line of advance for Russia was from Orenburg to Tashkend and the upper Oxus; and even now that railway would enable her to make a powerful diversion against Northern Afghanistan . But the route from Krasnovodsk on the Caspian to Merv and Kushk presents a shorter and far easier route, leading, moreover, to the open side of Afghanistan, Herat, and Candahar.
Quite a number of army officers, with their wives, come aboard at Krasnovodsk. They seem good fellows, nearly all, and inclined to cultivate our acquaintance. Individually, the better-class Russian and the Englishman have many attributes in common that make them like each other. Except for imperial matters, Russian and English officers would be the best of friends, I think.
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