Military Worldwide Research Articles

Frustrated Great Gamesmanship: Sir Garnet Wolseley's Plans for War against Russia, 1873–1880

Sir Garnet Wolseley, Viscount Wolseley of Tel el-Kebir and the very model of the modern major-general, is remembered for his reform of the army and for his successes in Ashanti and Egypt. Less is known of his views on how to fight a war against Russia and how to defend India from a Russian attack. His ideas on these subjects were first explained in any detail between 1873 an(^ 1880, as the result of the Great Eastern Crisis. This was the most serious and protracted crisis the British had to manage between the Crimean War and the First World War. It compelled them, in a way in which the Penjdeh Crisis, for example, did not, to work out their worldwide military and naval potential in a war against a major European military power. From 1873 onwards, Russia gained undisputed control over the routes to India across Central Asia and Britain gained equally undisputed control over the sea routes by way of the Mediterranean corridor. As a result, the Eastern Question, which had formerly to take account of the diplomacy, trade, and religions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, was increasingly simplified by the British. It turned into a prolonged discussion of the best strategy for defending India and merged into the Great Game in Asia.