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The British expedition to Tibet or Younghusband expedition to Tibet began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904. The expedition was effectively a temporary invasion by British Indian forces under the auspices of the Tibet Frontier Commission, whose purported mission was to establish diplomatic relations and resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and Sikkim.〔Landon, P. (1905). ''The Opening of Tibet'' Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.〕 In the nineteenth century, the British conquered Burma and Sikkim, occupying the whole southern flank of Tibet. The Tibetan Ganden Phodrang regime, which was then under administrative rule of the Qing dynasty, remained the only Himalayan regime free of British influence. The expedition was intended to counter Russia's perceived ambitions in the East and was initiated largely by Lord Curzon, the head of the British India government. Curzon had long obsessed over Russia's advance into Central Asia and now feared a Russian invasion of British India.〔Charles Allen, Duel in the Snows, John Murray 2004, p.1〕 In April 1903, the British received clear assurances from the Russian government that it had no interest in Tibet. "In spite, however, of the Russian assurances, Lord Curzon continued to press for the dispatch of a mission to Tibet", a high level British political officer noted. The expedition fought its way to Gyantse and eventually reached Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in August 1904. The Dalai Lama had fled to safety, first in Mongolia and later in China, but thousands of Tibetans armed with antiquated muzzle-loaders and swords had been mown down by modern rifles and Maxim machine guns while attempting to block the British advance. At Lhasa, the Commission forced remaining low-level Tibetan officials to sign the Treaty of Lhasa (1904), before withdrawing to Sikkim in September, with the understanding the Chinese government would not permit any other country to interfere with the administration of Tibet.〔(Convention Between Great Britain and Tibet (1904) )〕 The mission was recognized as a military expedition by the British Indian government, "which issued a war medal for it." ==Background== (詳細はCharles Allen considered the official reasons for the invasion "almost entirely bogus".〔Duel in the Snows, Charles Allen, p.1〕 It seems to have been provoked primarily by rumours circulating amongst the Calcutta-based British administration that the Chinese government (which nominally ruled Tibet) was intending to give the province to the Russians, thus providing Russia with a direct route to British India, breaking the chain of quasi-autonomous buffer-states which separated India from the Russian Empire to the north. These rumours were supported by the Russian exploration of Tibet; Russian explorer Gombojab Tsybikov was the first photographer of Lhasa, residing there during 1900–1901 with the aid of the thirteenth Dalai Lama's Russian courtier Agvan Dorjiyev. The Dalai Lama declined to have dealings with the British government in India, and sent Dorjiyev as emissary to the court of Czar Nicholas II with an appeal for Russian protection in 1900. Dorjiyev was warmly received at the Peterhof, and a year later at the Czar's palace in Yalta. These events reinforced Curzon's belief that the Dalai Lama intended to place Tibet firmly within a sphere of Russian influence and end its neutrality.〔Charles Allen, Duel in the Snows, p.2 John Murray 2004〕 In 1903, Lord Curzon sent a request to the governments of China and Tibet for negotiations, to be held at Khampa Dzong, a tiny Tibetan village north of Sikkim to establish trade agreements. The Chinese were willing, and ordered the thirteenth Dalai Lama to attend. However, the Dalai Lama refused, and also refused to provide transport to enable the amban, You Tai, to attend. Curzon concluded that China had no power or authority to compel the Tibetan government, and gained approval from London to send the Tibet Frontier Commission, led by Colonel Francis Younghusband with John Claude White and E.C. Wilson as Deputy Commissioners, to Khampa Dzong.〔John Powers (2004) ''History as Propaganda: Tibetan exiles versus the People's Republic of China''. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-517426-7, p. 80〕 However, it is not known whether the Balfour government was fully aware of the difficulty of the operation, or of the Tibetan intention to resist it. On 19July 1903, Younghusband arrived at Gangtok, the capital city of the Indian state of Sikkim, where John Claude White was Political Officer, to prepare for his mission. White was unhappy with his secondment to the expeditionary force and, to Younghusband's displeasure, had done everything in his power to have the appointment cancelled. He failed and Younghusband had his revenge for White's insubordination when he later left him in the leech-infested jungles of Sikkim to arrange mule and coolie transport to Tibet.〔 Meanwhile, a letter from the under-secretary to the government of India to Younghusband on 26July 1903 stated that "In the event of your meeting the Dalai Lama, the government of India authorizes you to give him the assurance which you suggest in your letter." From August 1903, Younghusband and his escort commander at Khamba Jong, Lt-Col Herbert Brander, tried to provoke the Tibetans into a confrontation.〔Charles Allen, Duel in the Snows, p.28〕 The British took a few months to prepare for the expedition which pressed into Tibetan territories in early December 1903 following an act of "Tibetan hostility", which was afterwards established by the British resident in Nepal to have been the herding of some trespassing Nepalese yaks and their drovers back across the border.〔Charles Allen, p.31〕 When Younghusband telegrammed the Viceroy, in an attempt to strengthen the British Cabinet's support of the invasion, that intelligence indicated Russian arms had entered Tibet, Curzon privately silenced him. "Remember that in the eyes of HMG we are advancing not because of Dorjyev, or Russian rifles in Lhasa, but because of our Convention shamelessly violated, our frontier trespassed upon, our subjects arrested, our mission flouted, our representations ignored."〔Allen, p.33〕 The British force, which had taken on all the characteristics of an invading army, numbered over 3,000 fighting men complemented by 7,000 sherpas, porters, and camp followers. The British authorities, anticipating the problems of high altitude conflict, included many Gurkha and Pathan troops from mountainous regions such as Nepal; six companies of the 23rd Sikh Pioneers, four companies of the 8th Gurkhas in reserve at Gnatong in Sikkim, and two Gurkha companies guarding the British camp at Khamba Jong were involved. The Tibetans were aware of the expedition; to avoid bloodshed, the Tibetan general at Yadong pledged that if the British made no attack upon the Tibetans, he would not attack the British. Colonel Younghusband replied, on 6 December 1903, that "we are not at war with Tibet and that, unless we are ourselves attacked, we shall not attack the Tibetans". When no Tibetan or Chinese officials met the British at Khapma Dzong, Younghusband advanced with some 1,150 soldiers, porters, labourers, and thousands of pack animals, to Tuna, 50 miles beyond the border. After waiting more months there, hoping in vain to be met by negotiators, the expedition received orders (in 1904) to continue toward Lhasa.〔Powers (2004), p. 80.〕 The Tibet government, guided by the Dalai Lama, alarmed by a large acquisitive foreign power dispatching a military mission to its capital, began marshalling its armed forces. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「British expedition to Tibet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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