Defeat in the Field, Victory through Diplomacy: The Russian Khiva Campaign of 1839–1840

Abstract

This article re-examines the Russian Khiva campaign of 1839–1840 not merely as a failed military expedition but as a product of geopolitical urgency, imperial justification strategies, and institutional limitations shaped by the Great Game. While existing scholarship often explains the campaign through climatic determinism or romanticized Anglo-Russian rivalry, this study argues that the failure cannot be reduced to environmental factors alone. Drawing on Russian military reports, diaries, Khivan chronicles, British diplomatic correspondence, and Ottoman archival materials, it demonstrates how logistical miscalculations, fragile supply systems, and weak oversight structures critically undermined the expedition. The article further shows that humanitarian narratives—especially the liberation of Russian slaves and the protection of trade—functioned as justificatory rhetoric masking broader strategic concerns. Finally, it argues that military failure was later transformed into a tool of diplomatic pressure. By linking decision-making, logistics, and imperial discourse, the study offers a more integrated interpretation of the campaign within nineteenth-century imperial politics.