Struggle for Turkistan

Struggle for Turkistan
Part of Kazakh–Oirat War (1723—1730)
Date Summer 1724 — Spring 1725 Location Turkistan, Syrdarya Region Result Dzungar victory Territorial changes Dzungar annexation of the Syrdarya Region
Belligerents
Kazakh Khanate	Dzungar Khanate
Commanders and leaders
Abul Khair Khan	Lausanne-Schonau
Strength
50,000 (Spring 1725)
Casualties and losses
c. 10,000 Kazakh kibitkas

Struggle for Turkistan, or the Struggle for the Kazakh Capital^[1] — a series of battles for the capital of the Kazakh Khanate — Turkistan, between the Kazakhs and the Dzungar Khanate.

In February and March 1723, a 30,000-strong Dzungar army under the leadership of Shono-Lausanne invaded the southern nomadic camps of the Kazakhs. As a result of the Dzungar campaign, the Kazakhs lost control over the Syrdarya region, including Turkistan.

In an effort to prevent a military alliance between the Dzungars and the Volga Kalmyks, Abulkhair carried out a series of attacks on the Volga Kalmyk nomad camps during the summer of 1723—spring of 1724, removing the threat of attacks from the North (West).

Eliminating, during the campaigns against the Kalmyk Khanate, the potential threat of a rear attack on the Kazakh clans of the Junior Jüz, Abulkhair, in late summer 1724, redeployed Kazakh combat detachments southwards. He rapidly broke through the dense cordon of advanced Dzungar fortifications in the middle reaches of the Syr Darya, fought his way to Turkistan, and in the autumn of that same year captured it in a powerful assault, forcing the Dzungar commander Shono-Lausanne to retreat to the Karatau Mountains.^[1]

Regarding this military operation, the Russian envoy to Bukhara, Florio Beneveni, reported to the College of Foreign Affairs in Moscow on January 15, 1725:

Shono-Lausanne, through war with Abulkhair Khan, had taken the city of Turkistan and 32 uluses, but then he, Abulkhair Khan, joining with the Kazakhs, again came to Turkistan through war and still holds it in his possession to this day.

For more than six months, the Kazakh khan held Turkistan, Tashkent, and the surrounding settlements under his control, but, due to the Dzungars’ superiority in military strength, he was forced, after a series of major battles with Oirat troops, to leave the Syrdarya region in the spring of 1725 and temporarily withdraw with a group of batyrs to the territory of the Bukhara Khanate, then to Khiva, and from there to the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, into the Aral steppes.^[2]

Some time later, the Turkmen Osman, who had arrived in Astrakhan from Khiva, reported on June 30, 1725, to Governor A. P. Volynsky, citing the words of the Kalmyk envoy Sukhur-Mengi:

the Karakalpak and Kazakh Abulkhair Khan, having gathered fifty thousand of his troops, fought with the Khuntaiji; and the Khuntaiji destroyed ten thousand of their yurts, and the remaining forty thousand are now marching here to attack the Kalmyk forces, and at present they are on the Emba River.

Following this withdrawal of Abulkhair, the Syrdarya cities were again seized by Dzungar forces in the spring of 1725. The Kazakhs were completely cut off from the urban markets and craft centers of Central Asia.

The direct result of this campaign was that a new wave of Kazakh refugees poured into the north-western and northern regions of Kazakhstan.^[3]

After the large-scale Kazakh counteroffensive of 1727–1730, the Dzungars abandoned the previously seized Syrdarya region.^[4]

In a letter from Abulkhair Khan to Ufa dated 1730, it was stated that the city of Turkistan was under the control of Sameke Khan.^[5]

• Ерофеева И.В. (2007). Хан Абулхаир: полководец, правитель, политик (Изд. 3-е ed.). Алматы. ISBN 978-9965-798-64-1. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)