How Russia Launched Invasion of India in 1801 to Fight British & EIC

"...The Franco-Russian rapprochement resulted in an extraordinary planned joint invasion of India overland. This hare-brained scheme, seemingly proposed by Paul in January 1801, although sometimes attributed to Napoleon, was for 70,000 Russian and French troops to land at Astrabad on the Caspian Sea and march towards India via Khiva, Herat and Kandahar.

To this end the Russian emperor ordered 20,000 Don Cossacks to march to Orenburg, then Bukhara, through the Khyber Pass and on to the Ganges. Here they would destroy British factories and perhaps stir up discontent against the British. The thinking behind the expedition was that, though Russia could not oppose British naval supremacy in Europe, Britain could not at the same time defend India...

...Diplomatic relations were resumed in May 1801, the plan to invade India abandoned and Lord St Helens appointed British ambassador...."

(The First Cold War: Anglo-Russian Relations in the 19th Century by Barbara Emerson)

See my post dated December 29 2023: "गणेश कोल्हटकर, झार आणि ब्रिटिशांना वाटणारी भीती...Ganesh Kohatkar, the Khyber Pass Railway and Prince Nicholas II of Russia"

Ganesh Kolhatkar was father of Chintamanrao Kolhatkar.  

Cartoon, published in Punch, 30 November 1878, commenting on the predicament of Sher Ali, Emir of Afghanistan, who was wooed by Britain and Russia and then sacrificed.