| The British Military Expedition to Tibet | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
British and Tibetan officers negotiating. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| United Kingdom |
Tibet | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Brigadier-General James R. L. Macdonald CB Major Francis Younghusband |
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| Strength | |||||||
| 3,000 Combat soldiers 7,000 support troops |
Unknown, several thousands of peasant conscripts | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 202 KIA 411 Other deaths |
Unknown, several thousands | ||||||
The British expedition to Tibet during 1903 and 1904 was an invasion of Tibet by British Indian forces, whose mission was to establish diplomatic relations and trade between the British Raj and Tibet. In the nineteenth century, the British conquered Burma, Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal, occupying the whole southern flank of Tibet, which remained the only Himalayan kingdom free of British influence. During most of the nineteenth century, the British government dealt with Tibet through the Chinese government which possessed sovereignty over Tibet. Near the end of the century, however, the British government attempted to deal with Tibet directly; however, repeated efforts to establish relations and trade with Tibet failed, prior to the British military expedition against the Himalayan kingdom, ordered in 1903 by Lord Curzon, the head of the British India government.
A secondary reason for the expedition was to quell the possible Russian influence in Tibet. In April 1903, the British received clear assurance from the Russian government that it had no interest in Tibet. “In spite, however, of the Russian assurances, Lord Curzon continued to press for the dispatch of a mission to Tibet,” a high level British political officer noted.[1] From Kampa Dzong the expedition fought its way to Gyantse and eventually captured Lhasa, the heart of Tibet. The Dalai Lama fled to safety, first in Mongolia and later in China; but thousands of Tibetans armed with antiquated muzzle-loaders and swords were mown down by modern rifles and Maxim machine guns. The expedition forced remaining low-level Tibetan officials to sign the Great Britain and Tibet Convention (1904).[2] The mission was recognized as a military expedition by the British Indian government, “who issued a war medal for it.”[3]
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The causes of the war are obscure, and it seems to have been provoked primarily by rumours circulating amongst the Calcutta-based British administration (Delhi not being the capital until 1911) that the Chinese government, (who nominally ruled Tibet), were planning to give it to the Russians, thus providing Russia with a direct route to British India and breaking the chain of semi-independent, mountainous buffer-states which separated India from the Russian Empire to the north. These rumours were confirmed seemingly by the facts of Russian exploration of Tibet. Russian explorer Gombojab Tsybikov was the first photographer of Lhasa, residing in it during 1900—1901 with the aid of the thirteenth Dalai Lama's Russian courtier Agvan Dorjiyev.
In view of the rumors, the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, during 1903 sent a request to the governments of China and Tibet for negotiations to be held at Khampa Dzong, a tiny Tibetan village north of Sikkim to establish trade agreements. The Chinese were willing, and ordered the thirteenth Dalai Lama to attend. However, the Dalai Lama refused, and also refused to provide transport to enable the amban (the Chinese official based in Lhasa), You Tai, to attend. Curzon concluded that China did not have any power or authority to compel the Tibetan government, and gained approval from London to send a military expedition, commanded by Colonel Francis Younghusband, to Khampa Dzong.
On 19 July 1903, Younghusband arrived at Gangtok, the capital city of the Indian state of Sikkim, to prepare for his mission. A letter from the under-secretary to the government of India to Younghusband on 26 July 1903 stated that "In the event of your meeting the Dalai Lama, the government of India authorizes you to give him the assurance which you suggest in your letter." The British took a few months to prepare for the expedition which pressed into Tibetan territories in early December 1903. The entire British force numbered over 3,000 fighting men and was accompanied by 7,000 sherpas, porters and camp followers. The British authorities had also thought of the difficulty of mountain fighting, and so dispatched a force with many Gurkha and Pathan troops, who were from mountainous regions. Permission for the operation was received from London, but it is not known whether the Balfour government was completely aware of the difficulty of the operation, or of the Tibetan intention to resist it.
The Tibetans were aware of the expedition. To avoid bloodshed the Tibetan general at Yetung pledged that if the British made no attack upon the Tibetans, he would not attack the British. Colonel Younghusband replied, on 6 December 1903, that "we are not at war with Tibet and that, unless we are ourselves attacked, we shall not attack the Tibetans".
When no Tibetan or Chinese officials met the British at Khapma Dzong, Younghusband advanced, with some 1,150 soldiers, 10,000 porters and labourers, and thousands of pack animals, to Tuna, fifty miles beyond the border. After waiting more months there, hoping in vain to be met by negotiators, the expedition received orders (during 1904) to continue toward Lhasa.[4]
Tibet's government, guided by the Dalai Lama was alarmed by the presence of a large acquisitive foreign power dispatching a military mission to its capital, and began marshalling its armed forces.
The British army which departed Gnatong in Sikkim on 11 December 1903 was well prepared for the coming conflict due to its lengthy experience of service in Indian border wars. The commander, Brigadier-General James Ronald Leslie Macdonald, wintered in the border country, using the time to train his troops near regular supplies of food and shelter before advancing properly in March, and making over 50 miles before his first major obstacle was presented on 31 March at the pass of Guru, near Lake Bhan Tso.
Facing the vanguard of Macdonald's army and blocking the road was a Tibetan force of 3,000 armed with primitive matchlock muskets and crouching behind a 5-foot-high (1.5 m) rock wall, ready to shoot at encroaching British forces. On the slope above they had placed seven or eight "sangars" (stony emplacements).[5] Their general rode to meet Younghusband and Macdonald, but displayed his inexperience by not fortifying the western side of the pass, leaving his soldiers there exposed in plain view of his opponents. He hoped to prevent bloodshed, as the conflict was not yet a shooting war, and perhaps as a gesture of goodwill appears to have ordered his men to extinguish the fuses of their muskets, the relighting of which is a lengthy and difficult operation. Macdonald refused to accept the warnings of the Tibetan general and dispatched Sikh and Gurkha soldiers to disarm the Tibetan forces, who were unable to resist the advance due to their extinguished fuses, but still refused to surrender their arms, resulting in a brawl amidst the sangars which while violent, was not yet deadly.
It was at this stage that war was declared irreparably, although the cause of it has never been established and probably never will be. British accounts insist that the Tibetan general became angry at the sight of the brawl developing and shot a Sikh soldier in the face rather than surrender his modern pistol, prompting a violent response from the soldier's comrades which rapidly escalated the situation. The Tibetan accounts differ by claiming that the British tricked the general into extinguishing his troops' fuses and that once this was done the British began shooting first anyway, the fatal shot from the general's pistol only occurring once battle had been joined.
Whatever the truth of the battle, the actual fighting did not last long. Once disarmed, the Tibetan forces attempted to retreat, but became entangled with each other and the steep landscape, opening them to disciplined rifle volleys from the Sikh and Gurkha regiments as well as attack by the deadly British Maxim Guns. Despite this withering attack, the Tibetan forces fell back in good order, refusing to turn their backs or run, and holding off cavalry pursuit at bayonet point. Half a mile from the battlefield the Tibetan forces reached shelter and were allowed to withdraw by Brigadier-General Macdonald. Behind them they left between 600 and 700 fatalities and 168 wounded, 148 of whom survived in British field hospitals as prisoners. Amongst the dead was the general whose impetuous and inexperienced decision to extinguish his men's muskets had helped cause disaster. British losses were twelve casualties.[6]
The British soldiers mowed down the Tibetans with machine guns as they fled. "I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, though the general’s order was to make as big a bag as possible," wrote Lieutenant Arthur Hadow, commander of the Maxim guns detachment. "I hope I shall never again have to shoot down men walking away."[7]
During this battle and some to follow, the Tibetans wore amulets which their lamas had promised would protect them magically from any harm. After one battle, surviving Tibetans showed profound confusion over the ineffectiveness of these amulets.[6]
In a telegraph to his superior in India, the day after the massacre, Younghusband stated: "I trust the tremendous punishment they have received will prevent further fighting, and induce them to at last to negotiate."
Past the first barrier and with increasing momentum, Macdonald's force crossed abandoned defences at Kangma a week later, and on 9 April attempted to pass through Red Idol Gorge, which had been fortified to prevent passage. Macdonald ordered his Gurkha troops to scale the steep hillsides of the gorge and drive out the Tibetan forces ensconced high on their cliffs. This they began, but soon were lost in a furious blizzard, which stopped all communications with the Gurkha force. Some hours later, exploratory probes down the pass encountered shooting and a desultory exchange continued till the storm ended around noon, which showed that the Gurkhas had by chance found their way to a position above the Tibetan troops. Thus faced with shooting from both sides as Sikh soldiers pushed up the hill, the Tibetans moved back, again coming under severe shooting from British artillery and retreated in good order, leaving behind 200 dead. British losses were again negligible.
It was clear that the mission was going to have to contest almost every pass and village it crossed, a problem Macdonald attempted to solve by splitting his forces, packets of several hundred being dispatched to various points on his route to drive in smaller Tibetan defences to speed the passage of the main force. Two minor actions occurred around this time, one on 5 May at a fortified farm named Chang Lo involved an assault by an estimated 800 Tibetans on the British garrison of the fort, who were alerted by the cries of the Tibetan war whoops in time to form ranks and drive back the assailants with 160 dead. The other skirmish on 9 May was possibly the highest action ever fought, when a Tibetan position at the Garo Pass (19,000 feet above sea level) was assaulted by Gurkha troops who climbed a vertical cliff under fire to outflank the Tibetans who were driven back by a charge of Gurkha, Sikh and British soldiers. For once, casualties were more evenly distributed, although the Tibetans still suffered greatly.
During the following two months, Macdonald collected his forces near Chang Lo and cleared minor obstacles with the intention of assaulting the main Tibetan stronghold at Gyantse Dzong. Once this obstacle was cleared, the road to Lhasa would be opened, due to the removal of the small Tibetan forces occupying it by the dispersal of the British force. Gyantse Dzong was however too strong for a small raiding force to capture and it overlooked British supply routes, making it the primary target of Macdonald's army. On 28 June the final obstacle to the assault was cleared when a fortified monastery which covered the approach was taken in house to house fighting by Pathan soldiers.
Tibetan responses to the invasion so far had relied totally on static defences and sniping from the mountains at the passing column neither of which had proved effective, and apart from the failed assault on Chang Lo two months previously that had not made any sallies against British positions or any aggressive movements against the besieging army. This attitude was a mix of justifiable fear of the Maxim Guns, and partly faith in the solid rock of their defences, but in every battle they were disappointed primarily by their poor weaponry and inexperienced officers.
The Gyantse Dzong was a massively well protected fortress, which possessed the best Tibetan troops and the country's only artillery, and commanded a forbidding position high over the valley below. The British did not have time for a lengthy formal siege and so Macdonald proposed that feints would draw Tibetan soldiers away from the walls over several days before an artillery bombardment with mountain guns would create a breach, which would be stormed immediately by his main force. This plan was implemented on 4 July, when Gurkha troops captured several batteries in the vicinity of the fortress by climbing vertical cliffs under fire, a feat they achieved with impressive frequency.
The eventual assault on 6 July did not happen as planned, as the Tibetan walls were stronger than believed previously. It took eleven hours to break through. The breach was not completed until 4:00 pm, by which time the assault had little time to succeed before nightfall. As Gurkhas and Royal Fusiliers charged the broken wall, they came under heavy shooting and suffered some casualties. After several failed attempts to gain the walls, two soldiers broke through a bottleneck under fire and stormed the walls, despite both being wounded. They gained a foothold which the following troops exploited, enabling the walls to be taken. Knowing by now the power of British weaponry upon a defeated force, the Tibetans retreated in good order from the fort, allowing the British control of the road to Lhasa, but denying Macdonald a rout and thus remaining a constant threat (although never a serious problem) in the British rear for the remainder of the war.
The two soldiers who broke the wall at Gyanse Dzong were both well rewarded. Lieutenant John Duncan Grant was given the only Victoria Cross awarded during the expedition, whilst Havildar Pun received the Indian Order of Merit first class (equivalent to the VC as Indian soldiers were not eligible for VCs until the First World War).
Younghusband now assumed command of the mission, as the road had been cleared successfully. He took on his procession to Lhasa nearly 2,000 soldiers, all those not required to protect the road back to Sikkim. Crossing several obviously fortified ambush points without incident and recrossing the Garo Pass, the force arrived in Lhasa on 3 August 1904 to discover that the thirteenth Dalai Lama had fled to Urga, the capital of Outer Mongolia. For this, the Chinese government stripped him of his titles and had their amban post notices around Lhasa that the Dalai Lama had been deposed, and that the amban was now in charge. However, Tibetans tore down the notices, and Tibetan officials ignored the amban. The amban escorted the British into the city with his personal guard, but informed them that he did not have any authority to negotiate with them. The Tibetans told them that only the absent Dalai Lama had authority to sign any accord. But Younghusband intimidated the regent, Ganden Tri Rinpoche, and any other local officials he could gather together as an ad hoc government, to sign a treaty drafted unilaterally by himself, known subsequently as the Anglo-Tibetan Agreement of 1904. It allowed the British to trade in Yadong, Gyantse, and Gartok; called for Tibet to pay a large indemnity (500,000 pounds; subsequently this sum was reduced), ceding the Chumbi Valley to Britain until it was paid; formally recognized the Sikkim-Tibet border; and declared that Tibet would not have any relations with any other foreign powers (converting Tibet into a British protectorate).[8] The regent commented that "When one has known the scorpion (meaning China) the frog (meaning Britain) is divine".
The amban publicly repudiated the treaty, and Britain later announced that it still accepted Chinese claims of authority over Tibet. Acting Viceroy Lord Ampthill reduced the indemnity by two thirds and considerably eased the terms in other ways as well. The provisions of this 1904 treaty were revised in the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906 signed between Britain and China.[9] The British, for a fee from the Qing court, also agreed "not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in the administration of Tibet", while China engaged "not to permit any other foreign state to interfere with the territory or internal administration of Tibet".[10][11][12]
The British mission departed during late September 1904, after a ceremonial presentation of gifts. In the event, neither side could be too unhappy with the outcome of the war. Britain had "won" and had received the agreements it desired, but without actually receiving any tangible results. The Tibetans had lost the war but had seen China humbled in its failure to defend their client state from foreign incursion, and had pacified the invader by signing an unenforceable and largely irrelevant treaty. Captured Tibetan troops were all released without condition upon the war's conclusion, many after receiving medical treatment.
It was in fact the reaction in London which was fiercest in condemnation of the war. By the Edwardian period, colonial wars had become increasingly unpopular, and public and political opinion were unhappy with the waging of a war for such slight reasons as those provided by Curzon, and with the beginning battle, which was described in Britain as something of a deliberate massacre of unarmed men. It was only the support given to them by King Edward VII that provided Younghusband, Macdonald, Grant and others with the recognition they did eventually receive for what was quite a remarkable feat of arms in taking an army in such a remote, high-altitude location, driving through courageous defenders during freezing weather in difficult positions and achieving all their objectives in just six months, losing just 202 men to enemy action and 411 to other causes. Tibetan casualties have never been calculated.
The composition of the opposing armies explains a lot about the outcome of the ensuing conflict. The Tibetan soldiers were almost all rapidly impressed peasants, who lacked organisation, discipline, training and motivation. Only a handful of their most devoted units, composed of monks armed usually with swords and jingals proved to be effective, and they were in such small numbers as to be unable to reverse the tide of battle. This problem was exacerbated by the generals who commanded the Tibetan forces, who seemed in awe of the British and refused to make any aggressive moves against the small and often dispersed convoy. They also failed conspicuously to properly defend their natural barriers to the British progress, frequently offering battle in relatively open ground instead, where Maxim Guns and rifle volleys caused great numbers of casualties.
By contrast, the British and Indian troops were experienced veterans of mountainous border warfare on the North-West Frontier, as was their commanding officer. Amongst the units at his disposal in his 3,000 strong force were elements of the 8th Gurkhas, 40th Pathans, 23rd and 32nd Sikh Pioneers, 19th Punjab Infantry and the Royal Fusiliers, as well as mountain artillery, engineers, Maxim gun detachments from four regiments and thousands of porters recruited from Nepal and Sikkim. With their combination of experienced officers, well-maintained modern equipment and strong morale, they were able to defeat the Tibetan armies at every encounter.
The Tibetans were in fact not just unwilling to fulfil the treaty; they were also unable to perform many of its stipulations. Tibet did not have any substantial international trade commodities and already accepted the borders of its neighbours. Nevertheless, the provisions of the 1904 treaty were confirmed by a 1906 treaty Anglo-Chinese Convention signed between Britain and China. The British, for a fee from the Qing court, also agreed "not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in the administration of Tibet", while China engaged "not to permit any other foreign state to interfere with the territory or internal administration of Tibet".[10][11] During early 1910, Qing China sent a military expedition of its own to Tibet for direct rule. However, the Qing dynasty was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution, which began during October 1911. Although the Chinese forces departed once more in 1913, the First World War isolated Tibet and reduced Western influence and interest there with the communist takeover in Russia. During 1950, neither the British nor the Indians were able or willing to become involved against the return of Chinese forces.
The position of British Trade Agent at Gyangzê was occupied from 1904 until 1944. It was not until 1937, with the creation of the position of "Head of British Mission Lhasa", that a British officer had a permanent posting in Lhasa itself.[13]
Chinese historians write of Tibetans opposing the British heroically out of loyalty not to Tibet, but to China. They assert that the British troops looted and burned, that the British interest in trade relations was a pretext for annexing Tibet, a step toward the ultimate goal of annexing all of China; but that the Tibetans destroyed the British forces, and that Younghusband escaped only with a small retinue.[14] The Chinese government has turned Gyantze Dzong into a "Resistance Against the British Museum" promoting these views, as well as other themes such as the brutal life endured by Tibetan serfs who fiercely loved their Chinese mother country.[15] China also treats the invasion as part of the its "century of humiliation" at the hands of Western and Japanese powers and the defence as a Chinese resistance, while many Tibetans look back to it as an exercise of Tibetan self-defence and an act of independence from the Qing dynasty as the dynasty was falling apart.[16]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.