It was an intense relief to me to hear on the 7th that Colonel Brander had been successful in clearing the gathering at the Karo-la, which consisted of 2,500 men, armed with numerous Lhasa-made and foreign rifles, and headed by many influential Lamas and officials from Lhasa. In a short note to me he told me of the anxious moments he had passed when, on the early morning before he made his attack, he received a letter from me saying that the Mission had been attacked at Gyantse. The Tibetans were in a very strong position behind a loopholed wall of great solidity, and 800 yards long, which they had built right across the pass; and to attack such a position at a height of over 16,000 feet above sea-level, surrounded with glaciers, with only a sixth of the numbers opposed to him, and with his communications not over safe behind, Colonel Brander had in truth to set his teeth and steel his nerves. His frontal attack failed. Poor Bethune, a typically steady, reliable and lion-hearted officer was killed. The guns proved absolutely ineffective. Ammunition was none too plentiful. And Colonel Brander said in his letter to me that he was on the point of despairing when, just at the critical moment, the turning movement of the Gurkhas, under Major Row, who had slowly scrambled up to a height of 18,000 feet, proved successful. Panic took the Tibetans. They first began dribbling away from the wall, then poured away in torrents. Colonel Brander hurled his mounted infantry at them, and Captain Ottley pursued them halfway to Lhasa.
It was a plucky and daring little action, and unique of its kind in the annals of any nation; for never before had fighting taken place at altitudes well over the summit of Mont Blanc. I was indeed relieved to hear of its brilliant success, and late at night on the 7th—that is, the very day after the fight—to welcome back Captain O’Connor, Mr. Perceval Landon, and the indefatigable Captain Ottley, with his dashing mounted infantry, already the terror of the Tibetans. They had made a bold dash back ahead of Colonel Brander, and on the very next morning Captain Ottley was to show the Tibetans who were investing us the difference which his presence made.
A party of Tibetan horsemen were seen from our post sauntering unsuspectingly along the valley, out of reach of our rifles, but not out of reach of our mounted infantry, twenty of whom, under Captain Ottley, now dashed out of our post in pursuit. The Tibetans galloped up a side valley; Captain Ottley galloped after them; and now we saw a great body of Tibetan horsemen issue from the jong to cut him off. I held my breath in suspense, fearing he would not see the party behind in his eager pursuit of the party in front. But Captain Ottley was not to be so easily caught. He suddenly wheeled on to some rising ground, dismounted his men as quick as lightning, and was blazing away at both parties before they could realize what had happened. In a moment several Tibetans dropped, and the remainder scuttled away as fast as they could.
All this put fresh spirit into our men, for we had had three days and nights of considerable strain; and on the day following Colonel Brander himself with his column returned safely to camp, and arrangements were at once made to harry the garrison of the jong with rifle and Maxim fire.
We now heard full details of the Karo-la fight. It appears that the Tibetans engaged were mostly drawn from the districts of South-Eastern Tibet. They were commanded by a layman and a monk official, and had been organized by a monk State Councillor and another high ecclesiastical official who had been stationed for some time at Nagartse. Representatives of the three great Lhasa monasteries were at the fight, and each monk had been provided by the Lhasa Government with a matchlock and a knife before starting to join the army.
On the morning of the 10th we buried the remains of poor Bethune, and it was my melancholy duty to read the Burial Service over one whom I had known since the Relief of Chitral, whose genial, manly nature attached him to every one of us, and for whose soldierly qualities all had the highest admiration. He was a grand type of British officer, strict and thorough in his duties, yet beloved by his men, and his loss was severely felt in the days that were upon us.
Colonel Brander now reconnoitred the jong to see if it was possible to capture it. He came to the conclusion that an attack was too much to undertake. Our two 7-pounder guns were useless, though they had been brought up specially for this purpose, and our force was too small to carry the place by assault. It will naturally be asked why, when the jong was evacuated on our first arrival, we were not now occupying it instead of a house in the plain. General Macdonald had several excellent reasons for not establishing the Mission with escort in the jong. It was too far from a water-supply; and it was too big to hold. The post he chose was compact and on the river. Here he placed us, with ample supplies to last us till relief could arrive if we were attacked. As I have said, the worst that could happen did happen, and we held out till reinforcements came.
But Colonel Brander, though he could not attack the jong, did not allow himself to be simply invested in his post. He constantly sallied out to clear villages, and demolish any within the vicinity of our post; he maintained a mounted dak service to the rear, and in every way endeavoured to keep as much in the ascendant as was possible in the circumstances.
An important stage had now been reached. The Government of India on May 14 telegraphed to me that His Majesty’s Government agreed with them that recent events made it inevitable that the Mission should advance to Lhasa, unless the Tibetans consented to open negotiations at Gyantse. I was, therefore, to give notice to the Amban that we should insist on negotiating at Lhasa itself if no competent negotiator appeared in conjunction with him at Gyantse within a month.
This was satisfactory to a certain degree, but I was disappointed to have to be still further talking about negotiations when we had been wantonly attacked, when we were now actually invested, and when the Lamas were gathering yet more forces around us. Any mention of negotiating in such circumstances would only lead them to believe we feared them, and it was with much reluctance that I eventually gave this message. But the Government had to contend with many difficulties. They were in the face of a strong opposition in the House of Commons. There was no enthusiasm for the enterprise in the country. We had only recently emerged from the South African War. The Russo-Japanese War was causing anxiety. And we had not yet concluded the agreement and formed the Entente Cordiale with France.