The Unveiling of Lhasa

by Edmund Candler

The Gurkhas had accomplished a most difficult mountaineering feat under a heavy fire; they had turned the enemy out of their sangars, and after four hours' climbing they had scaled the heights everyone thought inaccessible. But their further progress was barred by a sheer cliff; they had reached a cul-de-sac. Looking up from the valley, it appeared that the spot where they stood commanded the enemy's position, but we had not reckoned on the traverses. This amazing advance in the enemy's defensive tactics had rendered their position unassailable from the left, and made the Gurkhas' flanking movement a splendid failure.

It was now two o'clock, and, except for the capture of the enemy's right sangars, we had done nothing to weaken their opposition. The frontal and flanking attacks had failed. Bethune was killed, and seventeen men. Our guns had made no impression on their wall. Looking down from the spur which overlooked the Tibetan camp and the valley beyond, the Gurkhas could see a large reinforcement of at least 500 men coming up to join the enemy. The situation was critical. In four hours we had done nothing, and we knew that if we could not take the place by dusk we would have to abandon the attack or attempt to rush the camp at night. That would have been a desperate undertaking—400 men against 3,000, a rush at close quarters with the bayonet, in which the superiority of our modern rifles would be greatly discounted.

Matters were at this crisis, when we saw the Tibetans running out of their extreme left sangars. At twelve o'clock, when the front attack had failed and the left attack was apparently making no progress, fifteen men of the 32nd who were held in reserve were sent up the hill on the right. They had reached a point above the enemy's left forward sangar, and were firing into it with great effect. Twice the Tibetans rushed out, and, coming under a heavy Maxim fire, bolted back again. The third time they fled in a mass, and the Maxims mowed down about thirty. The capture of the sangars was a signal for a general stampede. From the position they had won the Sikhs could enfilade the main wall itself. The Tibetans only waited a few shots; then they turned and fled in three huge bodies down the valley. Thus the fifteen Sikhs on the right saved the situation. The tension had been great. In no other action during the campaign, if we except Palla, did the success of our arms stand so long in doubt. Had we failed to take the wall by daylight, Colonel Brander's column would have been in a most precarious position. We could not afford to retire, and a night attack could only have been pushed home with heavy loss.

Directly the flight began, the 1st Mounted Infantry—forty-two men, under Captain Ottley—rode up to the wall. They were ten minutes making a breach. Then they poured into the valley and harassed the flying masses, riding on their flanks and pursuing them for ten miles to within sight of the Yamdok Tso. It showed extraordinary courage on the part of this little band of Masbis and Gurkhas that they did not hesitate to hurl themselves on the flanks of this enormous body of men, like terriers on the heels of a flock of cattle, though they had had experience of their stubborn resistance the whole day long, and rode through the bodies of their fallen comrades. Not a man drew rein. The Tibetans were caught in a trap. The hills that sloped down to the valley afforded them little cover. Their fate was only a question of time and ammunition. The mounted infantry returned at night with only three casualties, having killed over 300 men.

The sortie to the Karo la was one of the most brilliant episodes of the campaign. We risked more then than on any other occasion. But the safety of the mission and many isolated posts on the line was imperilled by this large force at the cross-roads, which might have increased until it had doubled or trebled if we had not gone out to disperse it. A weak commander might have faltered and weighed the odds, but Colonel Brander saw that it was a moment to strike, and struck home. His action was criticised at the time as too adventurous. But the sortie is one of the many instances that our interests are best cared for by men who are beyond the telegraph-poles, and can act on their own initiative without reference to Government offices in Simla.

As the column advanced to the Karo la, a message was received that the mission camp at Gyantse had been attacked in the early morning of the 5th, and that Major Murray's men—150 odd rifles—had not only beaten the enemy off, but had made three sorties from different points and killed 200.

With the action at the Karo la and the attack on the mission at Gyantse began the second phase of the operations, during which we were practically besieged in our own camp, and for nine weeks compelled to act on the defensive. The courage of the Tibetans was now proved beyond a doubt. The new levies from Kham and Shigatze were composed of very different men from those we herded like sheep at Guru. They were also better armed than our previous assailants, and many of them knew how to shoot. At the same time they were better led. The primitive ideas of strategy hitherto displayed by the Tibetans gave place to more advanced tactics. The usual story got wind that the Tibetans were being led by trained Russian Buriats. But there was no truth in it. The altered conditions of the campaign, as we may call it, after it became necessary to begin active operations, were due to the force of circumstances—the arrival of stouter levies from the east, the great numerical superiority of the enemy, and their strongly fortified positions.

The operations at Gyantse are fully dealt with in another chapter, and I will conclude this account of the opposition to our advance with a description of the attack on the Kangma post, the only attempt on the part of the enemy to cut off our line of communications. Its complete failure seems to have deterred the Tibetans from subsequent ventures of the kind.