The Snow Lion and the British Lion continues...

This then became the background to the December 1903- September 1904 Younghusband expedition to Lhasa, intended to open up Tibet for trade, by force of arms, a product of Lord Curzon’s forward policy. Col. Francis Younghusband was deputed, with a mixed British and Indian force of approximately 5,000 troops, including artillery, and Maxim machine-guns, commanded by Brig.Gen J.R. MacDonald. The force departed from Nathang in Sikkim on December 11, 1903, having assembled forward from Siliguri via Kalimpong. The fighting troops were just over 3,000 and included two Indian infantry battalions, 1/8 Gorkha Rifles and the 40th Pathans, and a British infantry battalion, the Royal Fusiliers. Among the other Indian troops were the 23rd and 32nd Sikh Pioneers.

The entire contingent included some 7,000 porters and labourers collected from Sikkim and Nepal, and thousands of pack ponies and mules. The force pushed its way into Tibet, easily overcoming the ill-equipped Tibetan troops sent to oppose them, in one instance causing great slaughter when the Maxim guns mowed down even those Tibetans running away.

There were approximately 600 Tibetans killed in all the engagements of the advance to Lhasa. The route followed was Siliguri-Kalimpong-Jelep La-Yatung-Chumbi-PhariGuru-Kangma-Gyantse-Karo La-Nagartse Dzong-along the shore of
Yumdruk Yamtso (Turquoise Lake)-Khamba La-across the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra River) by a ferry near Chaksam-along the alignment of the Kyi Chu river-Nethang-Lhasa.

A treaty was thus obtained at gun-point, but it was Tibet’s first treaty signed as an independent power after a very long time indeed, in some respects an achievement in its own right.

The Tibetans recognized the Tibet-Sikkim boundary as defined in the 1890 treaty with China, and British overlordship over Sikkim was recognized.

To be continued....