page_title: Tibetan Army
section_title: Military history
hierarchical_section_title: Tibetan Army / Military history
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Lhasa, die Neujahrsparade des modernen Militärs vor dem Potala
context_page_description: The Tibetan Army was the military force of Tibet after its de facto independence in 1912 until the 1950s. As a ground army modernised with the assistance of British training and equipment, it served as the de facto armed forces of the Tibetan government.
context_section_description: The Tibetan Army held the dominant military strength within political Tibet from 1912, owing to Chinese weakness because of the Japanese occupation of part of eastern China. With the assistance of British training, it aimed to conquer territories inhabited by ethnic Tibetans but controlled by Chinese warlords, and it successfully captured western Kham from the Chinese in 1917. Its claim to adjacent territories controlled by British India, however, strained its vital relations with Britain and then independent India, and then China's relationship with the latter. The 1914 Simla Accord with Britain was designed to settle Tibet's internal and external border issues, but for various reasons, including the refusal by the Chinese to accept it, warfare continued over territory in Kham.
  The military authority of Tibet was located in Chamdo (Qamdo) from 1918, after it fell to Tibetan forces; during this time, the Sichuan warlords were occupied with fighting the Yunnan warlords, allowing the Tibetan army to defeat the Sichuan forces and conquer the region. The Tibetan Army was involved in numerous border battles against the Kuomintang and Ma Clique forces of the Republic of China. By 1932, the defeat of the Tibetan Army by the KMT forces limited all meaningful political control of the Tibetan government over the Kham region beyond the Upper Yangtze River. The Tibetan Army continued to expand its modern forces in the following years, and had about 5,000 regular soldiers armed with Lee–Enfield rifles in 1936. These troops were supported by an equal number of militiamen armed with older Lee–Metford rifles. In addition to these troops, who were mostly located along Tibet's eastern border, there was also Lhasa's garrison. The garrison included the Dalai Lhama's Bodyguard Regiment of 600 soldiers, who were trained by British advisors, 400 Gendarmerie, and 600 Kham regulars who were supposed to act as artillerymen, though they only had two functioning mountain guns. Furthermore, the Tibetan Army had access to great numbers of locally raised village militias. These militias were often only armed with medieval weapons or matchlocks, and of negligible military value. Nevertheless, they could to hold their ground against the Chinese militias employed by the warlords.
  The Tibetan Army's first encounter with the PLA was in May 1950 at Dengo, ninety miles from Chamdo. 50 PLA soldiers captured Dengo, which gave strategic access to Jiegu. After ten days, Lhalu Tsewang Dorje ordered a contingent of 500 armed monks and 200 Khampa militiamen to recapture Dengo. According to the historian Tsering Shakya, the PLA attack could have been to either put pressure on the Kashag or to test the Tibetan defence forces. Following repeated Tibetan refusals to negotiate, the PLA advanced toward Chamdo, where most of the Tibetan Army was garrisoned. The army's ability to actually resist the PLA was severely limited by its inadequate equipment, the hostility of the local Khampas, and the behavior of the Tibetan government. At first, government officials did not react at all upon being informed of the Chinese advance, and then commanded Chamdo commander Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme to flee. At this point, the Tibetan Army disintegrated and surrendered.
caption: 1938 new year's military parade, army officers enjoying a break for Tibetan salted-butter tea
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