"Yes, Your Highness."
Talleyrand bowed in acknowledgment, then hesitated. "Your Highness, but what if the British mishandle the situation, and the Russian army truly enters the Khyber Pass...?"
His concern was hardly surprising.
According to the strategy the Crown Prince had just outlined, France would strongly support Russia's expansion into the Middle East.
At present, after King Timur of Afghanistan died without clearly naming an heir, his more than twenty sons had descended into a melee of civil war, leaving the nation exceedingly weak.
As long as Russia controlled the lands east of the Caspian Sea, then subdued Persia, it could easily occupy Afghanistan and thus gain access to the Khyber Pass.
The Khyber Pass was the only overland route from the Middle East into the Indian Peninsula.
With the fighting strength of the Indian Princely States, there was no way they could withstand the Russian army flooding in like a tide.
Once Russia obtained the rich colonies of South Asia, it would swiftly grow into a terrifying beast, plunging the entire European Continent into turmoil.
Joseph smiled and shook his head. "You need not worry. The Russians will never be able to control Afghanistan."
Talleyrand assumed that the Crown Prince meant France would intervene in the Middle East if the United Kingdom failed to stop the Russians in Afghanistan.
So he said no more, bowed, and withdrew.
Watching his retreating figure, Joseph muttered to himself, "The 'Graveyard of Empires' did not earn that name for nothing."
There might be names given wrongly, but never nicknames bestowed wrongly. Afghanistan was called the "Graveyard of Empires" because it had proved itself time and again through hard, bloody record.
Never mind Tsarist Russia of the present—even the Red Empire at the height of its power in the twentieth century, carpeting Afghanistan's barren