28 Facts About Great Game

Great Game was a political and diplomatic confrontation that existed for most of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century between the British Empire and the Russian Empire over Afghanistan and neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia, and having direct consequences in Persia, British India, and Tibet.

Some historians consider the end of the Great Game to be the 10 September 1895 signing of the Pamir Boundary Commission protocols, when the border between Afghanistan and the Russian Empire was defined.

The term Great Game was coined by British diplomat Arthur Conolly in 1840, but the 1901 novel Kim by Rudyard Kipling made the term popular, and increased its association with great power rivalry.

Term "the Great Game" was used well before the 19th century and was associated with games of risk, such as cards and dice.

The use of the term "The Great Game" to describe Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia became common only after the Second World War.

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Great Game is said to have begun on 12 January 1830 when Lord Ellenborough, the president of the Board of Control for India tasked Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of India, to establish a new trade route to Bukhara.

The Great Game meant closer ties between Britain and the states along her northwest frontier.

Great Game had an interest in expanding trade in Central Asia, where he thought the Russian traders were already active.

Great Game was imprisoned and on 17 June 1842 both men were beheaded.

Great Game's intention was to take Herat then move on to Kandahar.

Great Game did agree with the Khivan ruler, Allah Quli Khan, to establishing a British agent to Khiva and to mediate between Khiva and Russia.

Great Game's caravan was attacked by Khazakhs and he was wounded in the hand and taken hostage, however he and his party were released because they feared retribution.

Great Game reached Saint Petersburg but the attempt at mediation failed.

Great Game's bravery was recognized through promotion to full Captain.

However, until 1907 the Great Game rivalry was so pronounced that mutual British and Russian demands to the Shah to exclude the other, blocked all railroad construction at the end of the 19th century.

Great Game intended to improve the road from Kashmir through the princely states of Hunza and Nagar and up to the frontier with Russia.

The Great Game is proposed to have ended on 10 September 1895 with the signing of the Pamir Boundary Commission protocols, when the border between Afghanistan and the Russian empire was defined.

Konstantin Penzev believes that the Great Game commenced with Russia's victory in the Russo-Persian War and the signing of the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 or the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828.

Sergeev believes that the Great Game started in the aftermath of the Caucasus War and intensified with the Crimean War.

Edward Ingram proposes that The Great Game was over at the end of the First Anglo-Afghanistan war in 1842 with the British withdrawal from Afghanistan.

British fears ended in 1907 and the Great Game came to a close in 1907 when Britain and Russia became military allies.

Two authors, Gerald Morgan and Malcolm Yapp, have proposed that The Great Game was a legend and that the British Raj did not have the capacity to conduct such an undertaking.

Robert Middleton suggested that The Great Game was all a figment of the over-excited imaginations of a few jingoist politicians, military officers and journalists on both sides.

The use of the term The Great Game to describe Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia became common only after the Second World War.

Robert Irwin argues the Great Game was certainly perceived by both British and Russian adventurers at the time, but was played up by more expansionist factions for power politics in Europe.

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Since that time, some journalists have used the expression The New Great Game to describe what they proposed was a renewed geopolitical interest in Central Asia because of the mineral wealth of the region, which was at that time becoming more available to foreign investment after the end of the Soviet Union.

One view of the New Great Game is a shift to geoeconomic compared to geopolitical competition.

Great Game has been described as a cliche-metaphor, and there are authors who have now written on the topics of "The Great Game" in Antarctica, the world's far north, and in outer space.