Camels and Colonial Armies: The Logistics of Warfare in Central Asia in the Early 19th Century
äºJournal of the Economic and Social History of the OrientSearch for other papers by Alexander Morrison in
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This article explores the use of camels for baggage transport by European colonial armies in the nineteenth century. It focuses in particular on two episodes: the Russian winter expedition to Khiva, and the march of the Army of the Indus into Afghanistan, both of which took place in 1839. However sophisticated their weapons and other technology, until at least the 1880s European colonial armies were forced to rely exclusively on baggage animals if they wanted to move around: railways arrived very late in the history of European expansion. In Central Asia this meant rounding up, loading, managing and feeding tens of thousands of camels, which could only be furnished by the pastoral groups who inhabited the region, who in some cases were also the objects of conquest. Camel transport placed certain structural constraints on European conquest in Central Asia: firstly it meant that the forces involved were almost always very small; secondly it prevented the launching of spontaneous or unauthorised campaigns by âmen on the spot,â as every advance had to be preceded by the rounding up of the necessary baggage animals, and the creation of a budget to pay for then. Finally, the constraints imposed by camel transport ensured that British and Russian armies would never meet in Central Asia, and that a Russian invasion of India was a chimera.
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Anon [Golosov/Ivanin] A Narrative of the Russian Military Expedition to Khiva under General Perofski, in 1839. Translated from the Russian for the Foreign Department of the Government of India 1867 Calcutta Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing
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Anon Khivinskaia Ekspeditsiia 1839 goda Russkaia Starina 1873 7 2 236 252
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Anon Pisâma grafa V. A. Perovskago k A. Ya. Bulgakovu Russkii Arkhiv 1878 7 301 328
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Atkinson James The Expedition into Afghanistan. Notes and Sketches Descriptive of the Country 1842 London W. H. Allen & Co.
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Bulliet Richard W. The Camel and the Wheel 1975 Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
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Congreve W. A Treatise on the General Principles, Powers, and Facility of Application of the Congreve Rocket System, as Compared with Artillery: Showing the Various Applications of this Weapon both for Sea and Land Service, and its Different Uses in the Field and in Sieges 1827 London Longman, Reese, Orme, Brown, and Green
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Cooper Randolf G. S. The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns and the Contest for India. The Struggle for Control of the South Asian Military Economy 2003 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
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Cross H. E. The Camel and its Diseases. Being Notes for Veterinary Surgeons and Commandants of Camel Corps 1917 London Baillière, Tindall, and Cox
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Dalâ V. I. Pisâma k druziam iz Khivinskoi Ekspeditsii Russkii Arkhiv 1867 3 4 402 431 606 639
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Davis Jefferson Report of the Secretary of War, Communicating, in Compliance with a Resolution of the Senate of February 2, 1857, Information Respecting the Purchase of Camels for the Purposes of Military Transportation 1857 Washington A. O. P. Nicholson
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Gommans Jos Mughal Warfare. Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire, 1500-1700 2002 London Routledge
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Hanifi Shah Mahmoud Connecting Histories in Afghanistan. Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier 2011 Stanford Stanford University Press
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Haughton John Colpoys Char-ee-kar and service there with the 4th Goorkha Regiment (Shah Shoojaâs force) in 1841. An episode of the first Afghan War 1879 London Provost & Co.
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Heston Alan , Hasnain H. , Hussain S. Z. & Khan R. N. The Economics of Camel Transport in Pakistan Economic Development and Cultural Change 1985 34 1 121 141
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Hevia James The Imperial Security State. British Colonial Knowledge and Empire-Building in Asia 2012 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
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Ivanin M. & Golosov D. Pokhod v Khivu v 1839 godu otriada russkikh voisk, pod nachalâstvom General-Adâiutanta Perovskago Voennyi Sbornik 1863 1 3 72 2: 309-358; 3: 3-71.
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Ivanin M. Opisanie zimnego pokhoda v Khivu v 1839-40g 1874 St Petersburg Tip. Tov. âObshchestvennaya polâzaâ
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Köhler-Rollefson I. Harris D. The One-Humped Camel in Asia: Origin, Utilization and Methods of Dispersal The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia 1996 London UCL Press 282 294
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Kosyrev E. M. Pokhod v Khivu v 1839 godu (Iz zapisok uchastnika) Istoricheskii Vestnik 1898 8 539 540
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Kuropatkin Zavoevanie Turkmenii (Pokhod v Akhal-Teke v 1880-1881 godu) 1899 St Petersburg V. Berezovskii
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Leese A. S. A Treatise on the One-Humped Camel, in Health and in Disease 1927 Stamford Haynes & Son
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Leonard Arthur Glyn The Camel. Its Uses and Management 1894 London Longmans, Green & Co.
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Levi Scott India, Russia, and the Transformation of the Central Asian Caravan Trade Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1999 42 4 519 548
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Levi Scott Oonk Gijsbert Multanis and Shikarpuris. Indian Diasporas in Historical Perspective Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory 2007 Amsterdam Amsterdam University Press 31 63
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Low Charles Rathbone The Afghan War 1838-42. From the Journal and Correspondence of the late Major-General Augustus Abbott 1879 London Richard Bentley
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MacKenzie David Expansion in Central Asia: St. Petersburg vs. the Turkestan Generals (1863-1866) Canadian Slavic Studies 1969 3 2 286 311
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Marvin Charles The Russian Advance towards India. Conversations with Skobeleff, Ignatieff, and other distinguished Russian Generals and Statesmen, on the Central Asian Question 1882 London W. H. Allen & Co.
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Mayeur-Jaouen Catherine Faroqhi Suraiya Badawi and his Camel: an Animal as the Attribute of a Muslim Saint Animals and People in the Ottoman Empire 2010 Istanbul Eren 113 128
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McChesney R. D. & Khorrami M. M. History of Afghanistan 2013 Brill Online
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McNeill William H. The Eccentricity of Wheels, or Eurasian Transportation in Historical Perspective The American Historical Review 1987 92 5 1111 1126
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Morrison Alexander Twin Imperial Disasters. The Invasions of Khiva and Afghanistan in the Russian and British Official Mind, 1839-1842 Modern Asian Studies 2014 48 1 253 300
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Morrison Alexander âNechto Eroticheskoe?â âCourir après lâombre?â Logistical Imperatives and the Fall of Tashkent, 1859-1865 Central Asian Survey 2014b 33 2 153 169
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Mukasa-Mugerwa E. The Camel (Camelus dromedarius): a bibliographical review 1981 Addis Ababa ILCA
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Parker Geoffrey The Military Revolution, 1500-1800: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1988 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
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Perdue Peter C. China Marches West. The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia 2005 Cambridge, MA Belknap Press
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Rennell James On the Rate of Travelling, as performed by Camels: And its Application, as a Scale, to the Purposes of Geography Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 1791 81 129 145
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Roy Kaushik Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare, and Indian Society Journal of Military History 2005 69 3 651 690 c. 1740-1849
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Serebrennikov A. G. Turkestanskii Krai. Sbornik materialov dlia istorii ego zavoevaniia 1914 vol. XVII Tashkent Tip. Turk. Voennago okruga 1864 g. Ch. I.
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Shakespear Richmond A Personal Narrative of a Journey from Heraut to Ourenbourg, on the Caspian [sic] in 1840 Blackwoodâs Edinburgh Magazine 1842 51 691 720
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Steensgaard Niels The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade 1973 Chicago Chicago University Press
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Steevens G. W. With Kitchener to Khartoum 1898 Edinburgh Wm Blackwood & Sons
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Suri Lala Sohan Lal Suri V. S. An outstanding original source of Punjab History, Umdat-ut-Tawarikh. Daftar III, Parts i-v. Chronicle of the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh 1831-1839 A. D. 1961 Delhi S. Chand & Co.
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Tuchscherer Michel Faroqhi Suraiya Some Reflections on the Place of the Camel in Ottoman Egypt Animals and People in the Ottoman Empire 2010 Istanbul Eren 177 181
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Wagner Kim A. Thuggee. Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India 2007 Basingstoke Palgrave Macmillan
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Yapp M. E. Disturbances in Western Afghanistan Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 1963 26 2 288 313 1839-41
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Yapp M. E. Strategies of British India. Britain, Iran and Afghanistan, 1798-1850 1980 Oxford Clarendon Press
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Yousef M. K. , Webster M. E. D & Yousef O. M. Energy Costs of Walking in Camels Camelus Dromedarius. Physiological Zoology 1989 62 5 1080 1088
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Zhanaev B. T. Istoriia Kazakhstana v russkikh istochnikakh XVI-XX vekov O pochetneishikh i vliiatelâneishikh ordyntsakh 2006 vol. VIII ch. 2 Almaty Daik-Press
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2
G. W. Steevens, With Kitchener to Khartoum (Edinburgh: Wm Blackwood & Sons, 1898): 284-287.
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3
A. N. Kuropatkin, Zavoevanie Turkmenii (Pokhod v Akhal-Teke v 1880-1881 godu) (St Pb.: V. Berezovskii, 1899): 211.
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4
H. B. and B. T. B [Hilaire Belloc], The Modern Traveller (London: Edward Arnold, 1898): 41.
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5
Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution, 1500-1800: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 122, 128-136.
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6
Randolf G. S. Cooper, The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns and the Contest for India. The Struggle for Control of the South Asian Military Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003): 284-312; Parker admitted that the Marathas had acquired European artillery by the late 18th century, but considered this to be âanother case of routine mimesis . . . too little and too lateâ, The Military Revolution: 136.
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7
Kaushik Roy, âMilitary Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare, and Indian Society, c. 1740-1849.â Journal of Military History 69/3 (2005): 651-690.
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8
Dirk H. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy. The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990): 8-10, 187-192; Kim A. Wagner, Thuggee. Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 1-12, 217-226.
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10
Major-Gen. W. Congreve, A Treatise on the General Principles, Powers, and Facility of Application of the Congreve Rocket System, as Compared with Artillery: Showing the Various Applications of this Weapon both for Sea and Land Service, and its Different Uses in the Field and in Sieges. (London: Longman, Reese, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1827): 33, 45-47.
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11
Anon., âKhivinskaya Ekspeditsiya 1839 goda.â Russkaia Starina 1873 7/2: 245.
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13
Despite its title Niels Steensgaard, The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1973) reveals the surprising resilience of much caravan transport in the face of maritime competition; see further Scott Levi, âIndia, Russia, and the Transformation of the Central Asian Caravan Trade.â Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 42/4 (1999): 524-526. The economic importance of the camel for transport over shorter distances in rural Pakistan was still significant in the 1980s: Alan Heston, H. Hasnain, S. Z. Hussain & R. N. Khan, âThe Economics of Camel Transport in Pakistan.â Economic Development and Cultural Change 34/1 (Oct. 1985): 121-141.
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17
William H. McNeill, âThe Eccentricity of Wheels, or Eurasian Transportation in Historical Perspective.â The American Historical Review 92/5 (Dec. 1987): 1111-1126. The classic exploration of the revolutionary effect of the development of camel transport (which led to the disappearance of the wheel in the Middle East for a millennium) is Richard W. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1975).
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19
M. E. Yapp, Strategies of British India. Britain, Iran and Afghanistan, 1798-1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980): 391.
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21
M. Ivanin/D. Golosov, âPokhod v Khivu v 1839 godu otriada russkikh voisk, pod nachalâstvom General-Adâiutanta Perovskago.â Voennyi Sbornik [vs] (1863) no. 2: 322-323; Anon. [Golosov/Ivanin], A Narrative of the Russian Military Expedition to Khiva under General Perofski, in 1839. Translated from the Russian for the Foreign Department of the Government of India (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing 1867): 95.
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82
Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare. Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire, 1500-1700 (London: Routledge, 2002): 126; R. K. Saxena, The Army of the Rajputs (Udaipur: Saroj Prakashan, 1989): 319.
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95
Anon., The House of Bikaner (Bikaner: Government Press, 1933): 173.
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107
James Atkinson, The Expedition into Afghanistan. Notes and Sketches Descriptive of the Country (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1842): 78.
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115
Richmond Shakespear, âA Personal Narrative of a Journey from Heraut to Ourenbourg, on the Caspian [sic] in 1840.â Blackwoodâs Edinburgh Magazine 51 (June 1842): 704.
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127
M. E. Yapp, âDisturbances in Western Afghanistan, 1839-41.â Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 26/2 (1963): 292.
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134
Leonard, The Camel: 16; Leese, A Treatise on the One-Humped Camel: 46.
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135
A. N. Kuropatkin, Alzhiriya (St Pb.: Tip. V. A. Poletiki, 1877): 285-309; The Russians were also interested in the experiments made by the American army in Texas in the 1850s: A. A. Katenin, âO pokhodnykh dvizhenii pekhota po stepi,â 06/12/1858, Russian State Military Historical Archive (henceforth, rgvia), f. 483, op. 1, d. 49 ll. 23-23ob, referring to Jefferson Davis, Report of the Secretary of War, communicating, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate of February 2, 1857, information respecting the purchase of camels for the purposes of military transportation (Washington: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1857), which described experiments undertaken by Major Wayne and Lt Porter with camels imported from Asia Minor and North Africa to Texas.
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141
H. E. Cross, The Camel and its Diseases. Being notes for Veterinary Surgeons and Commandants of Camel Corps (London: Baillière, Tindall, and Cox, 1917): 42-43.
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143
Alexander Morrison, â âNechto Eroticheskoe?â âCourir après lâombre?â Logistical Imperatives and the Fall of Tashkent, 1859-1865.â Central Asian Survey 33/2 (June 2014): 153-169.
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144
Charles Marvin, The Russian Advance Towards India. Conversations with Skobeleff, Ignatieff, and other distinguished Russian Generals and Statesmen, on the Central Asian Question (London: W. H. Allen & Co, 1882): 103-104.
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146
James Hevia, The Imperial Security State. British Colonial Knowledge and Empire-Building in Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012): 164-172.
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147
David MacKenzie, âExpansion in Central Asia: St. Petersburg vs. the Turkestan Generals (1863-1866).â Canadian Slavic Studies 3/2 (1969): 286-311.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 1998 | 181 | 13 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 328 | 5 | 0 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 233 | 11 | 0 |
Camels and Colonial Armies: The Logistics of Warfare in Central Asia in the Early 19th Century
äºJournal of the Economic and Social History of the OrientSearch for other papers by Alexander Morrison in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
This article explores the use of camels for baggage transport by European colonial armies in the nineteenth century. It focuses in particular on two episodes: the Russian winter expedition to Khiva, and the march of the Army of the Indus into Afghanistan, both of which took place in 1839. However sophisticated their weapons and other technology, until at least the 1880s European colonial armies were forced to rely exclusively on baggage animals if they wanted to move around: railways arrived very late in the history of European expansion. In Central Asia this meant rounding up, loading, managing and feeding tens of thousands of camels, which could only be furnished by the pastoral groups who inhabited the region, who in some cases were also the objects of conquest. Camel transport placed certain structural constraints on European conquest in Central Asia: firstly it meant that the forces involved were almost always very small; secondly it prevented the launching of spontaneous or unauthorised campaigns by âmen on the spot,â as every advance had to be preceded by the rounding up of the necessary baggage animals, and the creation of a budget to pay for then. Finally, the constraints imposed by camel transport ensured that British and Russian armies would never meet in Central Asia, and that a Russian invasion of India was a chimera.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 1998 | 181 | 13 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 328 | 5 | 0 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 233 | 11 | 0 |
