Was General Klüge-von-Klugenau Shamil's Desmichels ?

摘要

Moshe Gammer, Was General Kluge-von-Klugenau Shamil's Desmichels? After his accession to power, the Russians left Shamil in peace for more than a year and a half, which enabled the imam to consolidate his position in Daghestan. Already at the time, there was suspicion that the local Russian commander Franz Kluge-von-Klugenau had concluded an agreement with Shamil. Although categorically denied by Klugenau, this suspicion found its way to one Russian pre-revolutionary author. (For obvious reasons Russian as well as Soviet historiography disregarded the issue completely.) This article presents the available evidence which is, one must emphasize, circumstantial only to the existence of such an agreement and to its stipulations. Analyzing the benefits of such an agreement to either party, it discusses Klugenau's motives for such an initiative contradicting the official policy. The article then notes the resemblances between this affair, and the agreement signed by Desmichels with 'Abd al Qâdir. Like in all resemblances in history, however, the differences between the two affairs are much more significant than the resemblances.