This war, concluded by a treaty of peace signed in Paris March 4, 1857, marks an important epoch in our history with Afghanistan. It denoted the resumption of relations which had been in abeyance since 1842, preparing the way for that treaty of alliance which was signed at Peshawar with Dost Mahommed on January 27, 1857. By this engagement the assistance of the Afghans, in return for a monthly subsidy during the continuation of the war of 1856, was secured against the Persians. As events proved no such help was required. Although hostilities ceased within six weeks of the date of the agreement the monthly subsidy, beginning in the autumn of 1856, was continued until September 30, 1858, the accidence of the Indian mutiny dictating the prudence of preserving friendly relations with Kabul until the very disquieting influences, which were then at work, had been allayed. Relations with Afghanistan continued until 1863 to follow a course more or less overshadowed by the growing importance of Russian intrigue in Central Asia. While our activities in Persia and Afghanistan demonstrated merely political expansion, a change of quite another order was beginning to define the position of Russia in Central Asia. From this it became evident that a severe test would be imposed upon our trans-border policy. By successive stages, Russian aggrandisement had subjugated the several States which were lying between her territories and the frontiers of Afghanistan when the principles of our policy in regard to that country were announced in 1838. One by one the Turcoman tribes were conquered until, by the capture of Samarkand in 1868 and the submission of the Amir of Bokhara, Russia gained direct approach to the waters of the Oxus, with the right to furnish its bank with armed posts. The moment was rapidly arriving against which all the energies of Indo-Afghan policy in the past should have been directed. In the interval, before the Russian domination of Central Asia was complete, the aim of British policy to bring about a strong Afghanistan had seemed upon the point of realisation when, in 1863, Dost Mahommed died.