About the book (from jacket flap):
Bayonets to Lhasa is the story of the invasion of Tibet by a British force in 1904. Conceived by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, as a means of opening Tibet to Anglo-Indian trade and influence and also as a counter-move against supposed Russian intervention in Tibetan affairs, the expedition was carried out in the face of fantastic physical obstacles and in the most cruel climatic conditions in the history of warfare. The author provides penetrating analyses of the dramatis personae, perhaps the most extraordinary of whom was the leader, Colonel Francis Younghusband, a renowned explorer and mystic, as well as soldier. From its intrigue-ridden beginnings to its almost banal aftermath this politico-military adventure is one of the strangest episodes in British Imperial history, and it is here told for the first time.
