way at arm's length, he never wavered at heart.

[Footnote 332: Lord Lytton's speech in the House of Lords, Jan. 1881.]

* * * * *

For in the meantime Russia had resumed her southward march, setting to
work with the doggedness that she usually displays in the task of
avenging slights and overbearing opposition. The penury of the
exchequer, the plots of the Nihilists, and the discontent of the whole
people after the inglorious struggle with Turkey, would have imposed on
any other Government a policy of rest and economy. To the stiff
bureaucracy of St. Petersburg these were so many motives for adopting a
forward policy in Asia. Conquests of Turkoman territory would bring
wealth, at least to the bureaucrats and generals; and military triumphs
might be counted on to raise the spirit of the troops, silence the talk
about official peculations during the Turkish campaign, and act in the
manner so sagaciously pointed out by Henry IV. to Prince Hal:--

Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.

In the autumn of 1878 General Lomakin had waged an unsuccessful campaign
against the Tekke Turkomans, and finally fell back with heavy losses on
Krasnovodsk, his base of operations on the Caspian Sea. In the summer of
1879 another expedition set out from that port to avenge the defeat.
Owing to the death of the chief, Lomakin again rose to the command. His
bad dispositions at the climax of the campaign led him to a more serious
disaster. On coming up to the fortress of Denghil Tepe, near the town of
Geok Tepe, he led only 1400 men, or less than half of his force, to
bombard and storm a stronghold held by some 15,000 Turkomans, and
fortified on the plan suggested by a British officer, Lieutenant
Butler[333]. Preluding his attack by a murderous cannonade, he sent
round his cavalry to check the flight of the faint-hearted among the
garrison; and, before his guns had fully done their work, he ordered the
whole line to advance and carry the walls by storm. At once the Turkoman
fire redoubled in strength, tore away the front of every attacking
party, and finally drove back the assailants everywhere with heavy loss
(Sept. 9, 1879). On the morrow the invaders fell back on the River Atrek
and thence made their way back to the Caspian in sore straits[334].

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