Conquering Lands, Collecting Bodies: Perpetrators’ Perspectives on the Younghusband Mission

In 1903, British Indian armed forces under the command of Colonel Francis Younghusband invaded Tibet on the orders of Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, despite the resistance of the home government in Britain. The invasion culminated in the coerced signing of the Treaty of Lhasa. Its stated purpose was to establish trade relations, but the officials of the Younghusband mission perpetrated violent massacres and looted monasteries, homes, and even dead bodies. This article focuses on published books about and unpublished letters from the mission, primarily the writings of Francis Younghusband and Captain Arthur Hadow, to analyse structural and individual factors that shaped the perpetrators’ actions. Although existing scholarship has highlighted contradictions between official writings and unpublished letters, little attention has been given to the psychosocial implications of these confessions and omissions, to understand how the perpetrators of these massacres and lootings perceived and justified their own actions. The article argues that structural moral frameworks under colonialism abetted this violence by placing entire social groups outside legal and moral protections, valorising massacres as necessary and inevitable. On an individual level, this enabled officials to legitimise their crimes, mitigate feelings of guilt and empathy, deny responsibility and harm, and to justify their perpetration of one the many unjustifiable atrocities of European colonialism.