Colonel Hogge’s patrols had been watching the Tibetans carefully lately. Reinforcements had arrived since I visited Guru, and the Tibetans had built a wall across the road about six miles from Tuna. There was also a considerable force on the other side of the Bam-tso (lake).
THE START FROM TUNA FOR GURU.
On March 31, after we had given fair warning to the Tibetans, the advance was made. Light snow lay on the ground. The cold was even now intense. News that the Tibetans were still in position had reached us, and the crucial moment which was to decide upon peace or war was now approaching.
We moved along as rapidly as is possible at those high altitudes and encumbered with heavy clothing. A short way out we were met by a messenger from the Tibetan General, urging us to go back to India. I told the messenger to gallop back at once and tell the Lhasa General that we were on our way to Gyantse, and were going as far as Guru, ten miles distant, that day. I said that we did not want to fight, and would not unless we were opposed, but that the road must be left clear for us, and the Tibetans must withdraw from their positions across it. Farther on, as we advanced across an almost level gravelly plain, we came in sight of the Tibetan position in a series of sangars on a ridge. At 1,000 yards’ distance we halted, and awaited the arrival of the Tibetans for our last palaver. They rode up briskly with a little cavalcade, and we all dismounted, set out rugs and coats on the ground, and sat down for the final discussion. I reiterated the same old statement—that we had no wish or intention of fighting if we were not opposed, but that we must advance to Gyantse. If they did not obstruct our progress or did not attack us, we would not attack them. But advance we must, for we had found it impossible to negotiate anywhere else. They replied with the request—or, indeed, almost order—that we must go back to Yatung, and they would negotiate there. They said these were their instructions from Lhasa. They also did not wish to fight, but they had orders to send us back to Yatung.
There was no possible reasoning with such people. They had such overweening confidence in their Lama’s powers. How could anyone dare to resist the orders of the Great Lama? Surely lightning would descend from heaven or the earth open up and destroy anyone who had such temerity! I pointed to our troops, now ready deployed for action. I said that we had tried for fourteen years inside our frontier to settle matters. I urged that for eight months now I had patiently tried to negotiate, but no one with authority came to see me, my letters were returned, and even messages were refused. I had therefore received the commands of the Emperor to advance to Gyantse, in the hope that perhaps there responsible negotiators would meet us. Anyhow, the time for further parleying here was gone. The moment for advance had arrived. I would give them a quarter of an hour after their return to their lines within which to make up their minds. After that interval General Macdonald would advance, and if the Tibetans had not already left their positions blocking our line of advance, he would expel them by force.
All this was interpreted to them by Captain O’Connor with his inimitable suavity and composure. But we might just as well have spoken to a stone wall. Not the very slightest effect was produced. After all, our numbers were not very overwhelming. The Tibetans had charms against our bullets, and the supernatural powers of the Great Lama in the background. Whether they had any lurking suspicions that perhaps, after all, these might not be efficacious I know not. But, anyhow, all had to obey the orders from Lhasa. Those orders were not to let us proceed farther, so stop us they must, and that was all they were concerned with. They had formed no plan of what they should do if we did advance contrary to the Great Lama’s orders. But for that there was no need; the Lama would provide. Such were their ideas. It was, of course, an impossible situation.
The Generals and their following returned to their camp. The quarter of an hour of grace elapsed. And now the great moment had arrived. But I wished still to give them just one last chance, in the hope that at the eleventh hour, and at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, they might change their minds. I therefore asked General Macdonald to order his men not to fire upon the Tibetans until the Tibetans first fired on them. In making this request I well knew the responsibility I was incurring. We were but a handful of men—about 100 Englishmen and 1,200 Indians—in the face of superior numbers of Tibetans, in the heart of their country, 15,000 feet above the sea, and separated from India by two high passes; and the advantage our troops possessed from arms of precision and long-range fire I took from them.
It was the last and final effort to carry out our object without the shedding of blood. The troops responded with admirable discipline to the call. They steadily advanced across the plain and up the hillside to the Tibetan lines, expecting at any moment that from behind the sangars a destructive volley might be opened upon them before they could fire a shot. Some of them afterwards, and very naturally, told me that they hoped they would never again be put in so awkward a position. But I trust their discipline will at any rate show to those in England who so decried this day’s action, and spoke about our "massacring unarmed Tibetans"—that men on the remotest confines of the Empire can and do exercise moderation and restraint in the discharge of their duty, and do not always act with that wantonness and reckless cruelty with which they are so often credited at home.
If General Macdonald had had a perfectly free hand, and had been allowed to think only of military considerations, he would have attacked the Tibetans by surprise in their camp, without giving them any warning at all; and even after I had given the Tibetans warning, if he had still been free to act on only military lines, he would have shelled their position with his guns, and with long-range rifle-fire have broken down the defence before advancing to the attack. As it was, in order to give them a chance up to the very last moment, he abdicated both the advantage of surprise and of long-range fire, and his troops advanced up the mountain-side on less than even terms to the fortified position of the Tibetans.