Duel in the Snows

In December 1903 a British Indian expedition crossed the Himalayas into Tibet, officially to settle diplomatic disputes and counter fears of Russian influence. Political officer Francis Younghusband drove the mission towards Lhasa while Brigadier-General James Macdonald commanded its military escort. The advance brought a modern imperial force into confrontation with Tibetan troops whose government had tried to keep foreign powers at a distance.

Using diaries, letters and official records, Charles Allen reconstructs the arguments within the expedition and the violence that followed, including the killing at Guru and the march to Lhasa. The book places Younghusband's ambitions against the wider politics of the Great Game and examines the damaging consequences of Britain's last major imperial intervention on the Tibetan plateau.