One hundred years ago
AS we predicted, this Sikkim business is growing serious. The stubborn Tibetan Lamas are evidently determined not to give up their claim to the little State, and are collecting troops to enforce it. Three thousand of these, whose very existence in the neighbourhood was probably unknown, on the 23rd inst. attacked our position at Gnatong, and were only driven back after a contest which lasted more than three hours. One hundred of them were killed be- fore they fled, and it is stated that the Colonel in command has asked and has received from the Viceroy permission to follow the invaders into Tibet itself. We only lost three killed and seven wound- ed; but how long is this sort of contest to go on? The Tibetans can keep it up for years, expending a few hundred men every year; and how are they to be punished, or even restrained? People write easily enough of an 'expedition to Lhassa'; but to invade a plateau as high as Mont Blanc, carrying everything, even water, over the passes, and then to defeat forces which may be swelled by 20,000 Chinese regulars and who knows how many Tartar cavalry, is not such a trifling business. It might be easier to apply direct pressure on Pekin, which can compel the Tibetans to remain quiet, if it will. We have had Sikkim for more than thirty-five years, and the Tibetans have absolutely no case, ex- cept that the few people are Buddhists.
The Spectator, 26 May 1888
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