With Mounted Infantry in Tibet by W J Ottley Chapter 9. Colonel Hogge rejoined the General's column on the 24th, and the march to Gyantse [Map] was resumed on the 25th, and this accounts for the delay in arriving. When we returned to Gyantse on the evening of the 25th, and reported to Colonel Brander the state of affairs, he decided to take out his flying column and co-operate with the General in the capture of Naini next day. He started early next morning, and took his four guns and infantry up the enormous heights overlooking Naini from the Gyantse side, and sent the 1st Mounted Infantry up the ordinary road to block that line of escape. The General's force arriving from the other direction at 9 A.M., the 900 Tibetans were hemmed in on all sides in Naini. The action was opened by Captain Peterson, commanding the advanced guard, composed of the 2nd Mounted Infantry, twenty-one of the 1st, and fifty of the 40th Pathans. They all went at it with a will, and cleared the Tibetans out of several of the outlying houses; but it was soon seen that the thirty-foot wall of Naini monastery required some shelling and guncotton before they could get in. They also found that the village between Naini and the river was strongly held. A company of the 23rd and a company of the 32nd cleared the village, all except one house, which was so strongly barricaded that, although the men of the 23rd were endeavouring to make a hole in the wall with their bayonets, without guncotton they could not get in, and had to retire to give the artillery an opportunity of battering it. Here the 23rd lost two men killed and two wounded, and Lieutenant Turnbull, of that regiment, greatly distinguished himself in carrying a wounded man to a place of safety. The Tibetans in this house behaved splendidly, and although battered with seven-pounder shells from 250 yards, did not cease fire till the guns had knocked down most of the front face of the house. They lay low in the house till late in the evening, but could not resist firing at the rear guard as it was passing, killing one of the Gurkhas. The rear guard immediately stormed the house and burnt part of it; but when they had marched on about 500 yards, the original Tibetans in the house came to life again and fired away as well as ever. Meanwhile, Colonel Brander's guns from the heights, and the other four guns of No. 7 Mountain Battery which had arrived with the General, shelled the monastery, and taking the Tibetans in reverse drove them from their loopholes. The 40th Pathans, having worked up to the back wall, found a ladder in position by which they made their entry. The Mounted Infantry, the 23rd, and 32nd broke in the main gate, and then the hardest of the fighting began. The Tibetans had taken refuge in the houses and cellars, and were, as usual in those places, fighting well. Major Lye, of the 23rd, leading his men into a house thronged with Tibetans, was cut down by them, and very severely wounded on the head and left hand, and was well saved by his own men. Several houses and cellars were blown in with guncotton, and the occupants killed or captured, and now, as the whole place was occupied, the General, not wishing to punish them any further, ordered the march to Gyantse to be continued at 3 P.M.

With Mounted Infantry in Tibet by W J Ottley Chapter 9. THE reason why General Macdonald and his column did not reach Gyantse [Map] was now disclosed. When his first column reached Kangma on the 22nd, a reconnoitring party of the 2nd Mounted Infantry, having proceeded up the Kangma-Ralung road (which will be remembered as cutting off the right-hand corner of the Y formed by the meeting of the roads at Gyantse), found a large force of Tibetans in position at Niru, estimated at 800 to 1,000 men. This was the same body of the enemy that we had heard of on the 18th as passing through the hills in the Khamba Jong direction. Its object in holding that road was to prevent the General's force from proceeding that way to the Karo La and Lhasa, which, of course, he had no intention of doing. On the 23rd a column of 500 men, two guns, and fifty of the 1st and 2nd Mounted Infantry (twenty-one of the 1st Mounted Infantry garrisoning Kangma), all under Colonel Hogge, marched against the Tibetans at Niru. They, however, did not wait to be turned out, but decamped early that morning,not thinking their wall, high enough to stop a British force. About half of them joined another force holding Gubshi, and the rest came into Gyantse Jong, where they were not well received by their own generals, and were ordered out on the night of the 24th-25th to hold Naini monastery.

India and Tibet by Francis Younghusband Chapter XIV The Storming of Gyantse Jong. About three in the afternoon the Ta Lama arrived in Gyantse [Map], and as he was already a day later than the date of the armistice, and six days over the date of the original ultimatum, I sent a message to say I should be glad to see him that afternoon. He replied that he proposed to visit the Tongsa Penlop on the following day, and would come and see me some time after that. 1 returned a message to the effect that unless he visited me by nine on the following morning military operations would be resumed.

India and Tibet by Francis Younghusband Chapter XIV The Storming of Gyantse Jong. At eleven I received the Ta Lama and the Tongsa Penlop in Durbar. There were also present the Tung-yig- Chembo (the Grand Secretary, who was one of the delegates at Khamba Jong last year), and six representatives of the three great Lhasa monasteries. As all except the Grand Secretary were men who had not met me before, and were probably ignorant of our view of the situation, I recounted it at length, showing how we had lived on very good terms with Tibet for nearly a century and a half, and it was only after the Tibetans had wantonly invaded Sikkim territory in 1886. that misunderstanding had arisen; that Mr. White had for years tried at Yatung to make them observe the treaty made on their behalf by the Chinese; and that when I came to Khamba Jong, a place of meeting which the Viceroy had been informed was approved of both by the Emperor of China and the Dalai Lama, they still repudiated the old treaty, refused to negotiate a new one, or have any intercourse at all with us; while after my arrival at Gyantse [Map], when I told them I was ready to negotiate, instead of sending me negotiators, they sent soldiers and treacherously attacked me at night. I concluded by saying that the Viceroy, on hearing this, had directed me to write letters to the Dalai Lama and the Amban, announcing that if proper negotiators did not arrive here by June 25 we would advance to Lhasa to compel negotiations there; but these letters had been returned by the commander in the jong, no negotiators had arrived by the 25th, and it was only because on the 24th the Tongsa Penlop had informed me that negotiators really were on the way that the British Government, in their anxiety for a peaceful settlement, had been pleased to grant them a few days' grace. We were ready to go on to Lhasa the next day. If they were really in earnest and had power to make a settlement, I was prepared to negotiate with them. If they were not empowered to make a settlement, we would advance to Lhasa forthwith. Had they proper credentials ?

India and Tibet by Francis Younghusband Chapter XIV The Storming of Gyantse Jong. At 1.30 the Tibetans appeared; but as the dilatoriness they had shown in coming to Gyantse [Map] and after their arrival in coming to see me was a pretty clear indication that they had not even yet realized now serious the situation was, I saw that I should have to do something yet to impress them with its gravity. The Tongsa Penlop was able to come from much farther and reach Gyantse before them. He had come to see me at once on arrival, while they had delayed till the next day; he had come half an hour before the time fixed for the Durbar, while they had come an hour and a half late. All this indicated that, while they were still so casual and indifferent, no negotiation that I could enter into with them would produce the smallest result. They had yet to be shown that we were not to be trifled with any longer. So on their arrival I had them shown into a spare tent, and informed that I had waited for them in Durbar for half an hour; that as they had not arrived by then, I had dismissed the Durbar, and would not now be at leisure to receive them for another two or three hours.

India and Tibet by Francis Younghusband Chapter XIV The Storming of Gyantse Jong. By four o'clock the Durbar was again assembled, with General Macdonald and his officers, all my staff, and a guard of honour. Captain O'Connor then led in the Tibetan delegates, and showed them to their places on my right; but I made no signs of receiving them, and remained perfectly silent, awaiting an apology. They moved about uncomfortably during this deadening silence, and at last the Ta Lama, who was really a very kindly, though perfectly incapable, old gentleman, and absolutely in the hands of the more capable but evil-minded Chief Secretary, murmured out a full apology. I informed them that the inference I drew from the disrespect they had shown me in arriving an hour and a half late was that they were not in earnest in desiring a settlement. The la Lama assured me that they were z'eally in earnest, but that the Grand Secretary was ill. I then informed them that, as I had been attacked at Gyantse [Map] without any warning, and after I had written repeatedly to the Amban saying I was waiting there to negotiate, and as I had been fired on from the jong continually for two months since the attack, I must press for its evacuation. General Macdonald was prepared to give them till noon of the 5 th- that is, nearly two days-in which to effect the evacuation; but if after that time the jong was occupied, he would commence military operations against it. Irrespective of these operations, I would, however, be ready to receive them if they wished to make a settlement, and prevent the necessity of our proceeding to Lhasa.