with equal preparations on our own part. The Reserves were under orders to turn out; and all that money and labour could do to repair the neglect of years in our military position, was being done with a rapidity that savoured of eagerness to assert our rights, if, indeed, it did not partake of the nature of a panic. But on the morning of the 9th April, the day on which Parliament was to reassemble, the news of an encounter between General Komaroff and the Afghans at Dash Kepri gave a new twist to the situation. We do not intend to follow the controversy which this action has excited, and which seems to us to have been allowed to assume an importance detrimental to the main question at stake. The attack need have caused no astonishment – something of the kind, indeed, was expected from the time that we knew the Afghans and Russians to be within grappling distance of each other, and the Government had received warning of its probability as early as 13th March. Nor does it matter much whether Komaroff led an unprovoked assault upon an Afghan force, which had no other end in view than the observation of his manœuvres, and to cover the position at Penjdeh; or whether the threatening attitude of the Afghans was such as to compel a moderate general, however peacefully disposed, to drive them off. This is not really the point in which we are interested. What we wish to know is, – Had General Komaroff any right to be in a position where there was a possibility of a collision between him and the Afghans? His various accounts of the situation may be all very true, so far as they can be reconciled to each other, in spite of the suspicion which attempts at "doctoring" them have naturally aroused. He may be as veracious as he is undoubtedly zealous: in short, we can afford to accept him at the Russian estimate – "mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?"
The Komaroff incident was of incalculable service to the Russian negotiations. It served as a red herring trailed across the scent which Mr Gladstone and his colleagues were reluctantly pursuing, and at once drew them off on another track. We had to endure the usual spectacle of Russia washing her hands in innocency, and compelling the British Cabinet to clear her character for good faith in the eyes of Europe. By this course she gained time to complete her military preparations, in case the British should not prove so pliant as she had calculated on; and by dragging Sir Peter Lumsden's name into a controversy with which he had nothing to do, she secured – what she was, above all, anxious for – his departure from the frontier, – whither, if we understand that gallant officer's character aright, he is not likely to return, – and consequently a chance of breaking up the odious Commission.
When all the papers are forthcoming, it will, we imagine, be found that the negotiations themselves were on our side of a very feeble and restricted character, compared with the bustle and display of determination which both nations were making out of doors. The Czar, it was given out, had a special train waiting in readiness to carry him to Moscow, where he might publish a declaration of war with all due formality. Mr Gladstone, on the other hand, demanded a vote of war credit for eleven millions sterling. And then, when each party had thus shown how terribly in earnest it was, to work
