1. Francis Younghusband Mounts the Invasion of Tibet : How race to Lhasa Came to an End
2. The British were increasingly vary of the Russians in Central Asia. By the beginning of 1903 they were almost convinced that the Dalai Lama and the Russian Tsar had a secret deal and thus Tibet would also soon be gobbled up by the Russian Empire.
3. Lord Curzon along with his friend, the already famous Great Game player Francis Younghusband was planning an invasion of Tibet.
4. It was in principle just a friendly visit to ensure that the Russians were not already in Tibet, but on ground it amounted to nothing less than an invasion.
5. In 1903, the British had tried to negotiate with the Tibetans at Khamba Jong just three miles inside the Tibetan border, but the Tibetans did not agree.
6. As a result another British force was sent into Tibet forcefully in the December of 1903. It was two thousand soldiers strong with modern weapons.
7. But the contingent was more than 12,000 strong as around ten thousand coolies were needed to carry the armaments on the high Jelap Pass.
8. The soldiers were the Sikh and Gurkha regiments. Maxim machine guns were also carried, which would be a game changer in the engagement.
Tibetans on the other hands were armed with nothing but matchlocks and swords.
Tibetans on the other hands were armed with nothing but matchlocks and swords.
9. But the British army passed over the Jelap Pass and then the walls of Yatun and finally over the great fortress of Phari too without any confrontation. The Tibetans kept protesting but did not put a fight.
10. Just short of the village of Guru, the first bloody battle between the British and the Tibetans happened. This was the first engagement of the Tibetans with a European led army. The conclusion was foregone.
11. More than seven hundred Tibetans were massacred in a matter of minutes in the grim March of 1904:
12. “In four terrible minutes nearly seven hundred ragged and ill-armed Tibetans lay dead or dying on the plain. The Lhasa general was among the first to be killed.
13. As volley after volley of rifle and machine-gun fire tore into their ransk from either flank and from across the wall, the survivors truned to flee. But instead of running, the Tibetans walked slowly off the battlefield with head best.
14. It was a horrifying but moving sight, a medieval army disintegrating before the merciless fire-power of tweintiety-century weapons. Even while his wounds were being dressed, Candler watched the rout.
15. ‘They were bewildered’, he wrote, ‘The impossible had happened. Prayers and charms and mantras, and the holiest of their holy men, had failed them… They walked with bowed heads, as if they had been disillusioned in their gods.’”
16. This was indeed unfortunate but it was a sign that armies had to be modernized and that modern geo-politics had to be understood in its global context otherwise on or the other foreign power would come to rule.
17. This is a lesson which modern Indian leaders seemed to forget after independence and started believing in the hogwash of non-alignment and universal peace.
18. There were many engagements between the British and the Tibetans later. In the run up to Gyantse the great fortress town of Tibet, two hundred Tibetans once again died with no casualty on the British side.
19. It was once again a rout. At Karo Pass, approaching
the great forbidden city of Lhasa, the British once again met a Tibetan force commanding great heights.
the great forbidden city of Lhasa, the British once again met a Tibetan force commanding great heights.
20. A great and courageous battle was fought in which the British too left five men but the Tibetans lost more than four hundred.
21. This Battle of the Karo Pass would become immortal in military history as it was fought at a greater altitude than any other in the history of warfare. By now the British goal was to march to Lhasa itself and not just Gyantse.
22. The Tibetans were resisting and so it was thought to teach them a lesson by stepping foot inside the sacred city. It was a belief in Tibet that if even one great fortress of theirs is occupied by a foreign force then it brings bad luck and then all would be lost.
23. The Tibetans were losing heart in the battle. Very soon the British led Indian army commanded by Francis Younghusband entered Lhasa, the city which no foreigner had yet visited without getting discovered.
24. Its golden roofs and domes were a sight which enthralled the British and the Indians.
The race to Lhasa was over.
The race to Lhasa was over.
25. References
a. Dalai Lama. My Land and my People. Timeless Books, 2016.
b. Hopkirk, Peter. Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa. John Murray, 2006.
a. Dalai Lama. My Land and my People. Timeless Books, 2016.
b. Hopkirk, Peter. Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa. John Murray, 2006.
26. c. Rijnhart, Susie. With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple. Forgotten Books, 2018.
d. Younghusband, Francis. India and Tibet. Dover Publications, 2014.
d. Younghusband, Francis. India and Tibet. Dover Publications, 2014.
Loading suggestions...