The Great Game or Tournament of Shadows in Russia were terms for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. A second, less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Great Game ended as the United Kingdom entered the post-WW2 post-colonial period. The term "The Great Game" is usually attributed to Arthur Conolly , an intelligence officer of the... British East India Company's Sixth Bengal Light Cavalry. It was introduced into mainstream consciousness by British novelist Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim . From the British perspective, the Russian Empire's expansion into Central Asia threatened to destroy the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire, India. The British feared that Afghanistan would become a staging post for a Russian invasion of India, after the Tsar's troops would subdue the Central Asian khanates one after another.
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