But it was not only the Chinese Government who were now beginning to protest against our action. The Russian Government also began to move in the matter. Lord Lansdowne had on November 7, the day on which the forward move was sanctioned by Government, informed the Russian Ambassador[[25]] that, owing to the outrageous conduct of the Tibetans, it had been decided to send our Mission, with a suitable escort, farther into the Tibetan territory, but that this step should not be taken “as indicating any intention of annexing, or even of permanently occupying, Tibetan territory.” And on November 17 Count Benckendorff called on Lord Lansdowne,[[26]] and spoke in the most earnest tones of the effect which had been created in Russia by the announcement that we were about to advance into Tibet. He was instructed to remind Lord Lansdowne of the former statement he (Count Benckendorff) had made to him as to the manner in which the Russian Government regarded the Tibetan question. They could not help feeling that the invasion of Tibetan territory by a British force was calculated to involve a grave disturbance of the Central Asian situation, and it was most unfortunate that at that moment, when the Russian Government were disposed to enter into an amicable discussion of our relations at the various points where British and Russian interests were in contact—an allusion to the preliminary negotiations for the Anglo-Russian Agreement and entente cordiale—an event of this kind, so calculated to create mistrust on the part of Russia, should have occurred.
Lord Lansdowne expressed his great surprise at the excitement which the announcement of the advance seemed to have enacted. He had, he said, already pointed out to the Ambassador that Tibet was, on the one hand, in close geographical connection with India, and, on the other, far remote from any of Russia’s Asiatic possessions. Our interest in Tibetan affairs was therefore wholly different from any which Russia could have in them. He reminded Count Benckendorff that he had already explained to him that we had received the greatest provocation at the hands of the Tibetans, who had not only failed to fulfil their treaty obligations, but had virtually refused to negotiate with us. We had always been reluctant to entangle ourselves in quarrels with the Tibetans, but our forbearance had led them to believe that we could be ill-treated with impunity. Lord Lansdowne said he was firmly convinced that the Russian Government would not have shown as much patience as we had, and that they would have been at Lhasa by that time. He felt bound to add that it seemed to him beyond measure strange that these protests should be made by the Government of a Power which had, all over the world, never hesitated to encroach upon its neighbours when the circumstances seemed to require it. If the Russians had a right to complain of us for taking steps to obtain reparation from the Tibetans by advancing into Tibetan territory, what kind of language should we not be entitled to use in regard to Russian encroachments in Manchuria, Turkestan, and Persia.
Count Benckendorff asked him whether he had any objection to his saying that Government had approved of the advance into Tibetan territory with reluctance, and only because circumstances had made it inevitable, and that our sole object was to obtain satisfaction for the affronts we had received from the Tibetans; and Lord Lansdowne said that he had no objection to his making such a statement.
Despite Russian and Chinese protests, the advance to Gyantse was now irrevocably decided on, and once again we have now to ask, Was the Mission justified in advancing into Tibet? I have given all the reasons for thinking that the despatch of the Mission to Khamba Jong was justified. Was this further advance into the Chumbi Valley and to Gyantse equally necessary? Perhaps, if we had shown yet more patience and yet more forbearance, we might have effected our object without advancing by force into the country. Was this so?
What eventually occurred showed that there were no possible grounds for such a belief. Even when the Chinese Central Government were aroused, and had ordered the Resident to proceed to the frontier to settle matters, he was unable to get there. The Tibetans refused him transport, and when we reached Lhasa, in August of the following year, we found him to be practically a prisoner, and almost without enough to eat, as the Tibetans had prevented supplies of money from reaching him, and he had actually to borrow money from us. But it was with the Tibetans that we really wished to negotiate. Perhaps they would have come to terms with us if we had been a little less impatient and remained on the frontier? Perhaps they would have sent a Councillor, as we had asked, and negotiated a treaty? On this point, too, our later experience showed that we could not have relied. When we at length reached Lhasa I had to negotiate, not with one Councillor only, but with the whole Council; and not with the Council, but the Regent himself, to whom the Dalai Lama had entrusted his own seal and whom he had appointed in his place; and not with the Council and the Regent only, but with the National Assembly and three great monasteries in addition; and with all in the presence of the Chinese Resident himself. No one man would ever have been entrusted by them with power, and no one man would take responsibility. It was only with the whole together that it was possible to negotiate; and we could negotiate with the whole together no where but in Lhasa itself.
Granted all this, some may say, but even then was it worth incurring Russian resentment in order to settle a trumpery affair of boundary pillars and petty trade interests in a remote corner of our Empire? Now, I most fully sympathize with the Russian view. Our advancing into Tibet would—and, in fact, did—“involve a grave disturbance of the Central Asian situation.” The news of our signing a treaty in the Potala at Lhasa, and of the Dalai Lama having to flee, did produce a profound impression. But if the subject-matter of our dispute was small, there was small reason why the Russians should trouble us about it. The matter grew in dimension because the Tibetans, whom the Chinese suzerains themselves had characterized as obstinate and difficult to influence, had grown still more obstinate and still more difficult to influence, through their having led themselves to believe that they could count on Russian support. In view of Russian disclaimers, we can assume that the Russian Government gave them no intentional grounds for that belief. Nevertheless, they had it, and for practical purposes that was all that concerned us then. The reception of the Dalai Lama’s religious missions by the Czar, the Czarina, the Chancellor and Minister, and the subscriptions they had collected, together with the extraordinary belief they had that Russia was nearer to Lhasa than India was, had led the ignorant Dalai Lama to believe that he could count on Russian support against the British. One can quite realize that the Russians, with their thousands of Buddhist Asiatic subjects, and with the prospect that then seemed near of their absorbing Mongolia, and so possessing still more Buddhist subjects, would be sensitive of our acquiring a predominant influence with the Dalai Lama. But that is scarcely a reason why we should not take measures to counteract an influence which was already, and in hard fact proving, detrimental to our own interests by encouraging the Tibetans in the belief that they could with impunity ignore their treaty obligations. The Russian Government had no intention of sending an agent to Lhasa. Nevertheless, there was in Lhasa all the time a Russian subject who had more influence over the Dalai Lama than the Chinese Resident. When such was the condition of affairs, we could hardly defer to Russia in a matter concerning a country adjoining our frontier, but nowhere adjoining hers.
Just as the move to Khamba Jong a dozen miles inside the Tibetan frontier was most amply justified, so also was the move to Gyantse, halfway to the capital.