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The Younghusband
Expedition (to Lhasa)
The Victorian cold war, very much like the 20th century version, had mutual suspicion at the root of most of the troubles. Apprehensive that the Czar and Manchu China had come to an understanding over Tibet and that the Czar had offered the Dalai Lama help in men and material, the British sent an armed expedition to Lhasa. The intention was to prevent any understanding between St. Petersburg and Manchu China over Tibet. Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, was alarmed when the Dalai Lama refused to communicate with the British, while he (Dalai Lama) appeared to be maintaining constant touch with the Czar. The Viceroy persuaded a reluctant Conservative Government in London to mount an armed expedition to Lhasa and he chose Francis Younghusband to lead it. The book chronicles the progress of the expedition till Younghusband found himself in Lhasa and signing a kind of treaty with the Tibetans that the British authorities in London never wanted. The author views the expedition as an essential part of Curzon’s viceroyalty, and his belief that the Russians had worked out an understanding with the Chinese Manchu rulers over Tibet. Yet, the total absence of any Cossacks and the antiquated weaponry used by the Tibetans in the battles proved that Lhasa had received no Russians arms or men. Thus the British adventure became rather pointless, but the author points out that the expedition, in the long-run, opened up the forbidden land to the rest of the world as never before. The withdrawal of the Younghusband mission from Tibet created a power vacuum, which the Chinese were quick to fill. And by 1910, Chinese troops were in control in Lhasa and the Dalai Lama (not the present one) was forced to flee the land of his birth and faith. Analysing the background of the expedition, the author argues that at the back of it was the thinking of men like Curzon that Russia must not be allowed to plant itself in the Persian Gulf, or Kabul or Constantinople. So, Britain opposed the Russians almost everywhere and established alliances against them. Younghusband achieved can at best be called a pyrrhic victory. The British found no Cossacks, and no Russian armament in Tibet. The objective of developing Tibetan friendship and cooperation was defeated. It only promoted alienation and contempt and ended up as one of the most controversial expeditions in the history of British India. It cost 3,000 Tibetan lives and the British got the right to station trade agents at Gyanste and Yatung, and install a telegraph line from India to Gyantse. But Younghusband and his troops were not able to turn the land of lamas into a British protectorate. You read in considerable detail the exchanges between the Viceroy and the Whitehall on the subject of Tibet and the expedition. A new chapter, A Hundred Years On, forms the opening of the revised second edition and takes note of the research conducted on the subject after the first edition was printed. A major part of the book is devoted to a description of the background to the mission. On the whole, here is an account of a bloody mission which, all said and done, can only be called a misadventure. |
ANY mention of the Cold
War brings to mind a vision of East-West confrontation in the
post-second World War era, which ended with the collapse of the Soviet
Union. But almost a century before this, two major imperial powers,
Great Britain and Czarist Russia, were involved in a similar rivalry.
The Czar had his eyes on Central Asia and through it to the warm waters
of the seas to the south. Britain, on the other hand, was keen to stop
Russian expansion and to secure the borders of its empire. This cold war
was at that time known as the Great Game. The difference between this
and the later version of the Cold War was that Britain no longer had any
empire to defend but the USA and the Soviet Union, as super powers, had
their own interests to watch.