Paul's great game: Russia's plan to invade British India
David Schimmelpenninck
Central Asian Survey 33(2) · May 2014
Abstract
This article examines the ill-fated Russian expedition to conquer British India in 1801 with a Cossack host via Central Asia. Undertaken by Emperor Paul I during his brief diplomatic dalliance with Napoleon, the enterprise proved highly unrealistic and was abandoned less than a month after it began. I pay special attention to the knowledge that officials in Saint Petersburg had about the regions to be traversed. I conclude that, despite British fears of a tsarist overland invasion of their South Asian possessions during much of the nineteenth century, this poorly planned mission was the only Russian attempt ever made.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02634937.2014.909672