Anglo russian rivalry in central asia and the reasons for its escalation

MAIN PART
1) The escalation of the conflict between Britain and Russia over Central Asia in the 19th century
1.1 Expeditions and ambassadors sent by Russia to Central Asia
The first contacts of the Russian state with the Central Asian states date back to the 16th century: in 1589, the Bukhara Khan sought friendship with Moscow, who wanted to establish trade relations with it. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Russia was busy developing the expanses of Siberia and was only just looking at its Asian borders, carrying out exclusively defensive activities in the direction of the Kyrgyz steppes - with the exception of the campaigns of two detachments that died in the steppes: the Yaik Cossacks of Khan Nechay, who went to Khiva in 1602 , and Ataman Shamai 1605
After the death of the first envoy of the British crown in Russia, Captain Richard Chancellor, in the fall of 1556, Queen Mary Tudor sent Jenkinson as an official ambassador to Moscow. And in the next 1557, it was Jenkinson who, aboard his ship Primrose, brought Osip Grigorievich Nepeya, the first Moscow envoy to the British Isles, to Russia. Jenkinson represented the English crown under Ivan the Terrible (it was through Jenkinson that correspondence was carried out between Tsar Ivan IV and Queen Elizabeth I). Jenkinson also represented the English Moscow Company, founded in 1555 in London, whose leadership was entrusted to the navigator Cabot. This company had a monopoly on trade in the Muscovite state. Jenkinson traveled to Bukhara, but having met countless obstacles and the most dangers from the wild inhabitants of the steppe, he returned unsuccessfully. The British were not stopped by this failure and subsequently repeatedly tried to establish trade on the western and southern shores of the Caspian Sea: Cossack riots, sea robberies and other accidents constantly destroyed their intentions. (Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Tsar Peter, informed about the fabulous wealth of Khiva, was desperately in need of gold to proceed with the Great Northern War. On 14 February 1716 a contingent of 7,000 troops was placed under the command of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky as a Muslim by birth and an expert in the art of warfare.
From the time of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the Russians began to send ambassadors to Central Asia in order to open markets for their merchants; so, in 1620 Ivan Danil Khokhlov was sent to Bukhara; in 1669 in Khiva - Fedotov and in Bukhara - two brothers Pazukhins; in 1675 to Bukhara - Vasily Daudov. These embassies did not have real political results, but contributed to the expansion of information about Central Asia, which was included in the "Book of the Big Drawing". In 1700, an ambassador from the Khiva Shakhniyaz Khan came to Peter the Great, asking him to be accepted into Russian citizenship. In 1713-1714, two expeditions took place: to Lesser Bukharia by Buchholz and to Khiva by Bekovich-Cherkassky.
In 1718, Peter I sent Florio Benevini to Bukhara, who returned in 1725 and brought a lot of information about Central Asia. The attempts of Peter the Great to establish himself in this country were unsuccessful. Nevertheless, if the campaign of Bekovich Cherkassky to Khiva to find a dry route to India and start trading with settled peoples was a complete failure (only a few dozen Yaik Cossacks returned from a 4,000-strong detachment, the rest were killed or captured), then as a result expeditions of Buchholz to explore and build strongholds, the Irtysh and Altai were in the possession of Russia, Omsk was founded and the Siberian border line was laid
By the time the Chinese Empire defeated the Dzungar Khanate in 1755-1758 with the almost complete extermination of its population, Russia already had the Irtysh, Tobol-Ishim and Kolyvan-Kuznetsk military lines, which prevented Chinese expansion. In the Cis-Urals, to protect against nomadic raids, a border line was also created with outposts along the Yaik River from Uralsk to Guryev with a center in Orenburg, the fortress of which for a long time will be the main operating base of Russian troops throughout the region. To protect their own citizens and new “loyal subjects”, as well as to punish those who betrayed Russian patronage and subsequently treacherously opposed Russia, detachments were regularly sent to the steppe, new settlements were erected, border strongholds, redans, ramparts, etc. P. With the help of such rolling lines of fortifications, in pursuit of calm and peace on its borders, Russia advanced deep into the steppe. Nevertheless, for a whole century, raids and robberies by the Kirghiz and Turkmen did not stop. Up to two hundred Russian residents of the border regions were taken captive and sold in the markets of Khiva, Bukhara, Kokand per year, and even the military were sold into slavery along with civilians, an example of which was the story of the abduction in 1774 and the subsequent rescue and return to their homeland in 1782 year of Sergeant Philip Efremov.
In 1819, Nikolai Muravyov was sent to Khiva, who wrote Journey to Turkmenistan and Khiva (M., 1822), which was the only result of his embassy. In the 19th century, Central Asia became one of the arenas of geopolitical rivalry between the British and Russian empires, which went down in history as the Great Game. To protect their southern borders and create a foothold of political influence in the Middle East and Central Asia, Russian linear (border) battalions were sent to Turkestan. In 1841, after the outposts of the British, who fought with Afghanistan, approached the left bank of the Amu Darya, from Russia, at the invitation of the Emir of Bukhara, a political and scientific mission was sent to Bukhara, consisting of Major of the Corps of Mining Engineers K. F. Butenev (head), orientalist Khanykov, naturalist A. Leman and others. This mission, known as the Bukhara expedition of 1841, politically did not achieve any results, however, its participants published many valuable natural-historical and geographical works about Bukhara, among which N. Khanykov's "Description of the Bukhara Khanate" stood out. In 1859 Colonel Count Nikolai Ignatiev was in Bukharaⁱⁱ