1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Panjdeh

PANJDEH, or Penjdeh, a village of Russian Turkestan, rendered famous by “the Panjdeh scare” of 1885. It is situated on the east side of the Kushk river near its junction with the Murghab at Pul-i-Khishti. In March 1885 when the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission should have been engaged in settling the boundary-line, this portion of it was in dispute between the Afghans and the Russians. A part of the Afghan force was encamped on the west bank of the Kushk, and on the 29th of March General Komarov sent an ultimatum demanding their withdrawal. On their refusal the Russians attacked them at 3 a.m. on the 30th of March and drove them across the Pul-i-Khishti Bridge with a loss of some 600 men. The incident nearly give rise to war between England and Russia; but the amir Abdur-Rahman, who was present at the Rawalpindi conference with Lord Dufferin at the time, affected to regard the matter as a mere frontier scuffle. The border-line subsequently laid down gives to Russia the corner between the Kushk and Murghab rivers as far as Maruchak on the Murghab, and the Kushk post has now become the frontier post of the Russian army of occupation.