Siege of Samarkand

1868 CE.

Shown on the map at 39.654°, 66.960°.

The siege of Samarkand, or siege of the Samarkand Citadel, was a military engagement fought in the city of Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan) in June 1868. In the engagement, a small garrison of Russian Imperial soldiers was besieged by a combined army of Bukharan soldiers and their allies - including the Kokand Khanate and tributary Turkmen-Uzbek tribes. The siege played an important role in the 1868 campaign of Russian conquest of Bukhara. The Russian army commanded by Konstantin Kaufmann took Samarkand on May 2, 1868, after a brief battle on the heights of Chupan-Ata - a height on the outskirts of the city. The city itself surrendered without a fight. The Russian army made the city's citadel as their headquarters while the campaign against the Emir of Bukhara was ongoing. In late May, as Kaufmann left the city to fight against the Emir, he left a small garrison consisting of infantry and sappers to repair the citadel and to guard the city. While the main Russian army was away from the city, the small garrison would be unexpectedly besieged by a large army of combined tribes.

Text from the Wikipedia article Siege of Samarkand (1868), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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