Nothing daunted, the intrepid adventurer set out in 1717 for Garieff, on the river Ural, at the head of a force of 4000 men, with engineers and marine officers. After struggling across the wind-swept desert of Ust Urt, he reached a lake known as Bara Kilmas, about 200 miles north-west of Khiva. Here he rested his travel-worn troops, and built a fort with a solidity which has resisted the elements for 180 years. The suspicions of the Khān that Russia contemplated the annexation of his country were confirmed by the strength of Bekovitch’s expedition, and the measures adopted by him. But, feeling that his ill-disciplined forces were no match for those of comparative civilisation, he had recourse to treachery. Bekovitch was lulled into security by promises of aid and alliance, and was persuaded to divide his little army into weak detachments, on the plea that it would be easier to furnish them with provisions. Then the Khān fell upon the isolated Russian posts and crushed them in detail. Not a man escaped to give news of the failure of this first plunge into Central Asian politics. To this day the expression “Lost as Bekovitch” is synonymous in Russia for hopeless ruin. So disgusted was the great Tsar with this unexpected failure that when, in 1720, the Khān of Khiva sent an envoy to solicit pardon and a renewal of friendship, he was thrown into prison at St. Petersburg, and died there.[536]
Russia’s next step in advance was the outcome of the mischievous activity of the Kirghiz, a race of Mongolian origin which roams over the steppes between the Volga and the Irtish, and north of the Turkoman desert and the Ala Tau Mountains.[537] Peaceful colonisation was impossible while these restless neighbours retained their independence. Omsk and the middle course of the Irtish became Russian in 1716–1719; and for 1500 miles the Siberian frontier marched with that of tracts claimed as their own by these untamed nomads. In the reign of the Empress Anne disputes arose between the Kirghiz of the Middle and Little Hordes, who ranged over the western steppes, and their brethren of the Far East; and in 1732 the former offered submission to the empress in return for protection against their foes. Thus the Russians obtained a footing in immense tracts which were claimed by the Khānates of Khiva and Bokhārā, and a collision with their forces was rendered inevitable. The foundation of Orenburg marks a second stage in the Russian advance. It became a rendezvous for caravans between Russia and Central Asian cities, and a basis for the expeditions which followed. In 1803 the Tsar had received the allegiance of the tribes of the Mangishlāk peninsula, on the eastern shore of the Caspian. Ten years later Turkoman envoys asked help against Persia. It was refused, for Russia had her hands full with the Napoleonic wars, and a profound irritation was aroused among the savages.[538] In 1822 an ordinance was issued bringing the Little Horde within the government of Orenburg, while the western Kirghiz were made subject to that of West Siberia. These attempts to annex territories with southern boundaries so ill-defined aroused intense suspicion throughout the Khānates, and it found a vent in raids on Russian caravans. One despatched to Bokhārā was robbed in 1829 of property to the value of 500,000 roubles by Kirghiz and Khivans. The Turkoman bands, still more to be dreaded, pillaged the Bokhāran traders.