The Great Game

Russia and England in Central Asia

by Michael Daumen

"Now I shall go far and far into the north, playing the Great Game"
 
-Rudyard Kipling, 1901
 
It is the height of the Pax Britannica. While Europe's continental empires scramble to check the British Empire in Africa and the Pacific, England's greatest fears are becoming reality in one of the most desolate spots on the globe. Russia has expanded swiftly across the eastern steppes, and if she finds a way across the roof of the world, the shining jewel of India lays before her.