The Tibetans on their side showed great indecision. They also had apparently received orders not to fire first; and the whole affair seemed likely to end in comedy rather than in the tragedy which actually followed. The Tibetans first ran into their sangars and then ran out again. Gradually our troops crept up and round the flanks. They arrived eventually face to face with the Tibetans, as will be seen in the accompanying photograph by Lieutenant Bailey, and things were almost at an impasse till the Tibetans slowly yielded to the admonitions of our troops, and allowed themselves to be shouldered out of their position and be “moved on,” as London policemen would disperse a crowd from Trafalgar Square.
SEPOYS “SHOULDERING” TIBETANS FROM POSITION: GURU, MARCH, 1904.
At this point the two Lhasa Majors who had met me previously in the day rode out again, and told me that the Tibetans had been ordered not to fire, and begged me to stop the troops from advancing. I replied that we must continue the advance, and could not allow any troops to remain on the road. There was a post actually on the road, with a wall newly and deliberately built across it, and it was obvious that if we were ever to get to Gyantse the Tibetans behind that wall must be removed. Yet I thought the affair was practically over. The Tibetans were streaming away from their position along the ridge, and had even begun to leave their post on the road. Then a change came. The Lhasa General, or possibly the monks, recalled the men to their post, and an officer reported to General Macdonald that, though surrounded by our troops, they refused to retreat: they were not fighting, but they would not leave the wall they had built across the road.
General Macdonald and I had a consultation together, and agreed that in these circumstances the only thing to do was to disarm them and let them go. We rode together to the spot, and found the Tibetans huddled together like a flock of sheep behind the wall. Our infantry were in position on the hillside only 20 yards above them on the one side; on the other our Maxims and guns were trained upon them at not 200 yards’ distance. Our mounted infantry were in readiness in the plain only a quarter of a mile away. Our sepoys were actually standing up to the wall, with their rifles pointing over at the Tibetans within a few feet of them. And the Lhasa General himself with his staff was on our side of the wall, in among our sepoys.
He had, of course, completely lost his head. Though in command of some thousands of armed men, and though I had given him ample warning of our intention to advance, he was totally unprepared for action when our advance was made. He had brought his men back into an absurd position; his action when he had got them back was simply childish. I sent Captain O’Connor to announce to him that General Macdonald and I had decided that his men must be disarmed, but he remained sullen and did nothing; and when, after a pause, the disarmament was actually commenced, he threw himself upon a sepoy, drew a revolver, and shot the sepoy in the jaw.
Not, as I think, with any deliberate intention, but from sheer inanity, the signal had now been given. Other Tibetan shots immediately followed. Simultaneously volleys from our own troops rang out; the guns and Maxims commenced to fire. Tibetan swordsmen made a rush upon any within reach, and the plucky and enterprising Edmund Candler, the very able correspondent of the Daily Mail, received more than a dozen wounds, while Major Wallace Dunlop, one of the best officers in the force, was severely handled. For just one single instant the Tibetans, by a concerted and concentrated rush, might have broken our thin line, and have carried the Mission and the military staff. But that instant passed in a flash. Before a few seconds were over, rifles and guns were dealing the deadliest destruction on them in their huddled masses. The Lhasa General himself was killed at the start, and in a few minutes the whole affair was over. The plain was strewn with dead Tibetans, and our troops instinctively and without direct orders ceased firing—though, in fact, they had only fired thirteen rounds per man.
It was a terrible and ghastly business; but it was not fair for an English statesman to call it a massacre of “unarmed men,” for photographs testify that the Tibetans were all armed; and, looking back now, I do not see how it could possibly have been avoided. The Tibetans afterwards at Lhasa told me in all seriousness that I might have known their General did not mean to fight, for if he did he would not have been in the front as he was. This, no doubt, was true, and, left to himself, he would, we may be sure, have arranged matters with me in a perfectly amicable manner, for at Guru in January, and when he came to see me at Tuna, he had always shown himself courteous and reasonable; and his men had no antipathy towards us. But he had at his side, ruling and over-awing him, a fanatical Lama from Lhasa. Ignorant and arrogant, this priest herded the superstitious peasantry to destruction. It is only fair to assume that, somewhere in the depths of his nature, he felt that the people’s religion was in danger, and that he was called upon to preserve it. But blind fear of the danger which he believed threatened was so combined with overweening confidence, and there was such a lack of effort to avert the supposed danger by reasonable means, as might so easily have been done, that he simply brought disaster on his country, and, poor man, paid the penalty of his unreasonableness with his life. What to me is so sad is that now, when the Lamas have discovered their errors and are imploring our aid, we can do so little to befriend them.
After the action, General Macdonald ordered the whole of the medical staff to attend the wounded Tibetans. Everything that with our limited means we could do for them was done. Captains Davies, Walton, Baird, Franklin and Kelly, devoted themselves to their care. A rough hospital was made at Tuna. And the Tibetans showed great gratitude for what we did, though they failed to understand why we should try to take their lives one day and try to save them the next. We had been in some anxiety regarding a second body of Tibetans, 2,000 strong, on the opposite side of the lake, but these, on hearing of the disaster near Guru, retreated; and on April 5 we resumed our march in the direction of Gyantse, the thermometer, even thus in April, showing 23 degrees of frost on the morning we started.
I now received a letter, dated March the 27th, from the Resident, who said he was most anxious to hasten to meet me, and had seen the Dalai Lama, but “difficulties arose over transport, which he was unwilling to grant.” After considering all this, he had come to the conclusion that Tibetan politics were those of drift; that Chinese officials were too engrossed in self-seeking, and hence the Tibetans shirked action. But a quarrel on his part with the Dalai Lama would only mar matters, so he would “go on” and perform his share of the duties allotted to him, and he had decided to write "a succinct report to Peking," and then again ask for transport. He hoped I would recognize his perplexities. I had excellent reason for an advance to Gyantse with my escort, he said. But, “notwithstanding the craft and deceit of the Tibetans and their violation of principle,” he had compelled them “somewhat to understand the meaning of principle,” and if I suddenly penetrated into their country he feared they would lapse into their former temper, and thus imperil the conclusion of trade relations. The Dalai Lama had told him that if I would retire to Yatung he would select Tibetan delegates and request him (the Resident) to proceed there and discuss matters. The Resident added that “this frontier matter had been hanging fire for over ten years because it had been perfunctorily drawn up in the beginning, and because subsequently it was shirked by the different delegates, who did not strive honestly to adjust the difficulties.” He was ashamed to mention the question of my retirement to Yatung, but, still, he thought it would be better for me to retire there and “insure the smooth working of a settlement.”