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

1.2 Expeditions and ambassadors sent by England to Central Asia
MOORCROFT, WILLIAM (1765?–1825), veterinary surgeon and traveller in Central Asia, a native of Lancashire, was educated at Liverpool for the medical profession. He asked the Indian government for a letter to the king of Bokhara, which was refused. He nevertheless made his way from Cabul to Bokhara, and 'met with as much kindness from the king as could be expected from a selfish, narrow-minded bigot.' He got rid of all his merchandise, and bought some valuable horns to take back to India. The route from Cabul to Bokhara was then new to Europeans. Moorcroft wrote: 'Before I leave Turkestan I mean to penetrate into that tract that contains perhaps the finest horses in the world, but with which all intercourse has been suspended during the last five years. The expedition is full of hazard, but "le jeu vaut bienlachandelle."' He started from Bokhara on his return on 4-5 Aug. 1825. With a few servants he separated from his party to visit Maimama. But he was taken by robbers, and he died, by some accounts of fever, by others of poison, at Andekhui, after a few days' illness. His body was brought on a camel to Balkh, and was buried outside the walls. George Trebeck, a young Englishman who had accompanied Moorcroft from Calcutta, was too ill when Moorcroft's body arrived at Balkh to investigate the case. Trebeck died of fever shortly afterwards at Mazar.
Colonel Charles Stoddart (23 July 1806 in Ipswich – June 1842 in Bukhara) was a British officer and diplomat. He was a famous British agent in Central Asia during the period of the Great Game. Stoddart, the son of Major Stephen Stoddart (1763–1812), was educated at Norwich School and later commissioned into the Royal Staff Corps from Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1823. Dispatched on a mission to persuade the Emir of Bukhara to free Russian slaves and sign a treaty of friendship with Britain, he was first arrested by the Emir Nasrullah Khan in 1838. In November 1841 Captain Arthur Conolly arrived in Bukhara with part of his remit to attempt to secure Stoddart's release. He was unsuccessful. Both men were executed on charges of spying for the British Empire on 24 June 1842. In 1845, the Rev Joseph Wolff, who had undertaken an expedition to discover the two officers' fate and who barely escaped with his life, published an extensive account of his travels in Central Asia which made Conolly and Stoddart household names in Britain for years to come.
Arthur Conolly (2 July 1807, London – 17 June 1842, Bukhara) (sometimes misspelled Connolly) was a British intelligence officer, explorer and writer. He was a captain of the 6th Bengal Light Cavalry in the service of the British East India Company.[1] He participated in many reconnaissance missions into Central Asia and coined the term The Great Game to describe the struggle between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for domination over Central Asia. In 1841, in an attempt to counter the growing penetration of Russia into Central Asia, Conolly unsuccessfully tried to persuade the various khanates to put aside their differences. In November 1841, he was captured on a rescue mission to free fellow British officer Lieutenant Colonel Charles Stoddart held in Bukhara.The two were executed by the Emir of Bukhara, Nasrullah Khan, on 24 June 1842 on charges of spying for the British Empire. They were both beheaded in the square in front of the Ark of Bukhara.His brother Lieutenant Henry Valentine Conolly, administrator of Malabar, was murdered shortly after in present-day Kerala, South India. In 1845, Rev Joseph Wolff, who had undertaken an expedition to discover the two officers' fate and barely escaped with his life, published an extensive account of his travels in Central Asia, which made Conolly and Stoddart household names in Britain for years to come.

Conolly's portrait by James Atkinson is in the British National Portrait Gallery. His 1840–1842 diaries as well as his letters and reports to Sir John Hobhouse and William Cabell are in the British Library; his 1839 letters to Viscount Ponsonby are in the Durham University Library.

Burns Alexander (1805-1841, Kabul) was a political spokesman for the East India Company. By special order of the British government and the Governor-General of India, he was sent from India to Afghanistan, Central Asia and Iran (1831-33). Byrne's "voyage" was aimed at bringing Afghanistan, especially Turkestan, under British economic and political influence, gathering information on areas in northern India, and establishing trade and diplomatic ties with the authorities in Kabul and Bukhara. While in Bukhara, Burns was taken to Turkestan from abroad, where he collected information on imported goods, trade centers, and caravan routes.
Burns is proposing to open a trade fair in Daragozikhan, in the middle reaches of the Indus River, to squeeze Russian trade out of Turkestan and attract Turkestan traders to trade from Nizhny Novgorod to India. Then clean up the uprising in Kabul. B. wrote two works ("Journey to Bukhara" and "Kabul") about his travels to Afghanistan and Bukhara.