Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Preston, 6th Gurkha Rifles, late 40th Pathans, with whom he served in the Tibet campaign, was wounded at Gyantse and mentioned in despatches

Tibet 1903-04, 1 clasp, Gyantse (Captn. G. A. Preston 40th Pathans); 1914-15 Star (Major G. A. Preston. 6/Gurkha. R.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. G. A. Preston.) court mounted, extremely fine (4) £1800-2200

George Allan Preston was born on 14 January 1868, the son of Samuel Preston. He studied at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in 1890-91 and on 9 September 1891 was commissioned into the Royal Scots. On 14 January 1893 he was commissioned as Lieutenant in the Indian Army and appointed to the 40th Pathans. In July 1896 he was appointed Double Company Officer, and on 10 July 1901 was promoted Captain. In the course of his career he gained the following professional qualifications: Musketry Certificate (Extra); Instructor in Army Signalling; Equitation Certificate; Pushtu (Higher Standard); and Tactical Fitness For Command.

In December 1903 Colonel Francis Younghusband led an invasion of 1150 fighting men from Sikkim into Tibet. He had instructions to proceed as far as Gyantse, where he was to negotiate with the Tibetans. After establishing a base camp in the Chumbi Valley and passing the winter at Phari, he reached Gyantse on 11 April. Gyantse was the third city of Tibet and was dominated by a fortress called Gyantse Jong standing on top of an enormous rock rising 500 feet from the surrounding plain. Younghusband did not occupy the Fort (which was empty when he arrived) but established his camp at a hamlet called Chang Lo, about 1000 yards away.

The Tibetans refused to negotiate and the Government reluctantly accepted the necessity of authorising an advance to Lhasa. Further reinforcements, including the 40th Pathans, were sent to Tibet. Preston was with them, serving as Adjutant. They proceeded to Siliguri and climbed the Tista Valley to the Jelap La (a rise from 1000 to 14000 feet), and reached the British base camp in the Chumbi Valley. Here Captain Preston met the Commander of the military escort, Brigadier James Macdonald. The campaign was to be bedevilled by personality clashes between Younghusband and Macdonald, and so it is interesting to note Preston’s first impression of the latter, as recorded in a letter to his wife: ‘They say that General Macdonald is losing his nerve from illness ... He has a weak-looking face. Is absolutely run by his staff, who are a poor lot, and smokes cigarettes till he is sick.’

On 10 June 1904, Younghusband returned to the base camp and when he left on the 13th to return to Gyantse he was accompanied by the reinforcements. On 25 June they passed through the Red Idol Gorge, a natural defensive position where a battle had been fought when the force first passed this way on 9 April. This time it was undefended, to the relief of some and the disappointment of others. Here Preston first came face to face with the enemy, in the form of a group of Tibetan prisoners recovering from their wounds in a field hospital. With the help of an interpreter he talked to two of them and was astonished to find that they were now quite willing to fight for the British side.

On 26 June Preston and the 40th took part in the attack on the fortified monastery of Naini, consisting of the main monastery in the valley floor, the nearby village and two small forts built high on the steep slopes above the monastery. These were first bombarded by the six mountain guns for an hour and a half, then the Gurkhas and Pathans rushed the monastery with a bayonet charge and took it. The village was then captured after being cleared house by house in lethal close-quarter fighting. The losses of the Pathans in this action were one killed, three wounded. That evening they arrived at Chang Lo. On 29 June the Tibetans condescended to negotiate for the first time but nothing could be agreed.

After the British established their camp at Chang Lo, the Tibetans re-occupied Gyantse Fort and for some weeks maintained an ineffective but irritating bombardment. The sides of the rock on which the fort was sited were so steep that it appeared insurmountable from every side except at its south-west corner, where the main gate-way was protected by walls and earthworks to the front and one massive projecting bastion behind. A second and no less redoubtable ring of bastions was set some two hundred feet higher. It certainly impressed George Preston: ‘It is a most formidable place,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘and it will cost us dear before it is taken. It is an enormous place - how it is going to be taken beats me ... If we do storm it and the Tibetans hold on we shall have a long list of casualties.’

The British launched their attack on Gyantse Jong on 6 July. The attack was in three stages; the first was to capture the labyrinth of stone walls, gardens and narrow alleys lying to the south of the rock. This attack was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell of the Pathans, with Preston as his Chief Staff Officer. Three columns formed up and marched out of camp at 2 a.m. The Pathans were leading the centre column. In the pre-dawn darkness, they collided with the head of the right column just as a volley of shots was fired from the village. Some of the Pathans bolted and their officers had to draw their revolvers to put a stop to the panic. The infantry then fought through the complex of buildings at the southern side of the Jong. ‘For some time we had a nasty time of it.’ wrote George Preston of the fighting there. ‘The Tibetans are rather good at throwing stones and 4 or 5 of us were knocked over by them". He himself suffered three wounds which, he assured his wife, were ‘very light scratches. One was a stone which hit me in the back of the neck and bowled me over but was no worse. Another was a slight graze on the left hand, and another was a graze on the chin.’

In the second phase, the mountain guns were brought up and bombarded the walls of the Jong, breaching them in several places, while the Maxim guns sprayed bullets at any defenders who showed themselves. At around 2 p.m., in the third stage, the 8th Gurkhas stormed the Jong itself, scaling the near vertical rock faces under a barrage of rocks in a gallant attack which resulted in the award of a Victoria Cross and an Indian Order of Merit. Following the capture of the Jong, some of the soldiers then began to loot the Palkor Chode, one of the most illustrious monasteries of Tibet, in defiance of orders. Preston was not one of them; he grumbled to his wife that he wished he could send her some loot ‘but there are very strict orders about it and it is only people who haven't any conscience at all who get it ... It is awfully annoying to see fellows sending away loot, whilst you cannot send away any at all.’

On 14 July the force began its march on Lhasa, 155 miles away. There was some from slight opposition at Karo La where Gurkhas skirmished with Tibetans at an altitude of over 19,000 feet and a company of 40 Tibetans, led by an officer clad in blue silk, was annihilated by the Pathans. On 19 July they reached Yamdok Tso (the Turquoise Lake) and on the 21st crossed the Khambo La. The week from the 25th to the 31st was occupied in crossing the Tsangpo River, and on 3 August the expedition entered Lhasa. ‘I am wondering how the Dalai Lama feels now,’ recorded Preston in his diary, ‘he must be a bit sick about it all.’

At first the British feared an all-out attack from the 7,000 monks of Lhasa's three great monasteries. Therefore, when two sepoys from the Pathans were caught absent from their posts on sentry duty, an example was made of them; they were promptly court-martialled and sentenced to a flogging, a procedure which Preston found distasteful but necessary; ‘It was a beastly business and I don't want to see another scene like it. They had left their post while on sentry & had got 20 & 40 lashes each. I had to count each stroke and didn’t appreciate it at all. It is a good example to the rest of them and I hope it will be the last.’

A more welcome occupation for Captain Preston was to accompany Colonel Younghusband on his visit to the Chinese Amban (The Chinese Resident); ‘We were seated on chairs with crimson silk cushions and were given tea, cheroots and Huntley & Palmers biscuits. There were about 10 followers to the Amban and besides ourselves, these were the only people admitted. The Durbar lasted about 2 hours & consisted of talking about the Tibetans, their ways & manners, the terms to be imposed and a lot of other things. It was most interesting and one was able to judge what difficult tasks Colonel Younghusband and the Amban have to bring these people to reason.’

Captain Preston was also present at a Durbar when the Tibetans handed over two Sikkimese yak-herders who had been arrested on suspicion of spying for the British. Preston escorted the prisoners to one of the medical officers who inspected them and found no signs of ill-treatment. The two men were then taken back to the Durbar and told they were free; ‘It was good to see their smiles of pleasure’ Preston wrote.

Preston and the other military officers were accommodated in Lhalu Mansion, a three-storey mansion just outside the city. It was the property of one of the country's leading noblemen and had hurriedly been offered to Younghusband after he had let it be known that he was contemplating the requisition of the Norbulinka, the Dalai Lama's Summer Palace. Each officer had his own room; the rooms were described as very clean and spacious, with glass windows, and decorated with paintings considered as grotesque rather than beautiful.

The expedition spent seven weeks at Lhasa as negotiations proceeded. Preston and his comrades were the first Europeans to reach the holy city since two French priests in 1846. The troops occupied themselves in sports, fishing and sight-seeing. At first impressed by the majestic Potala Palace, they were quickly disgusted with the filth and smells of the city. The inhabitants were mostly friendly although a monk wearing a chain mail shirt under his robe stabbed two officers with a sword before being knocked unconscious by a Pathan cook wielding a frying pan.

Younghusband concluded a Treaty with the Tibetans which was signed at the Potala Palace on 7 September. The military escort paraded through the city, led by the pipers of the Gurkhas and Pathans. The treaty was signed in the private audience chamber of the Dalai Lama with the Tibetans, Chinese and Nepalese ambassador in brightly coloured silk robes, the British in their sober khaki uniforms. Following the ceremony, the British had to leave by descending a long, steep stairway which zigzagged down the exterior of the Potala. The flagstones were slippery and the humorous aspect of it did not escape Preston; ‘It was the funniest sight imaginable to see officers hanging on to the walls, Tommies, anything they could catch hold of.’

Towards the end of their stay in Lhasa a mail convoy had been ambushed and robbed, and this was assumed to be the work of Tibetan bandits. However, on the journey back to India one detachment passed by the scene of crime and, on examining the frozen bodies of the mule-drivers, discovered they had been shot by British military rifles. The most likely culprits were a detachment of Pathans attached to the Mounted Infantry. Not for nothing were the 40th Pathans also known as the 40 Thieves.

The expedition left Lhasa on 22 September. The Left Wing of the regiment remained to garrison Gyantse, the Chumbi Valley and Gangtok; the remainder (including Preston) returned to India in October and proceeded to their new station at Jhelum.

The Great War

On 27 February 1909, Preston transferred to the 2nd Battalion, 6 Gurkha Rifles, as a Double Company Commander, and on 9 September of that year was promoted Major. In September 1911 the Battalion marched to Chitral and remained there for two years.

On the outbreak of the Great War 2/6 GR was not one of the battalions immediately mobilised for active service. Many of the officers were assigned to New Army units in the United Kingdom, and throughout 1915 it supplied drafts of officers and men to 1/6 GR at Gallipoli. In 1915 there was unrest on the North West Frontier, particularly in the Mohmand country north of Peshawar and the Swat Valley. From 19 August to 5 September the battalion was on active service against rebellious tribesmen; after marching from Mardan to Rustam, the battalion participated in a minor action at Sarkawi and burnt Soria village. These operations were of interest as both cavalry charges and the first use of armoured cars in India took place.

On 3rd March 1916 2/6 GR left Peshawar by train for Karachi, where it embarked on H.M.T. Chakdara for Mesopotamia. It spent the next two years on this front and participated in successful operations against both the Turks and the local Arabs. However, at this stage Preston, who was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in September 1917, was not serving with the battalion.

On 16 April 1918, Preston arrived from India to take command of 2/6 GR at Ramadi, near Baghdad. The Battalion remained at Ramadi throughout the summer and occupied itself with leave parties, a Divisional Training School, and fatigue duties. On 9 September the battalion was detached for transfer to Salonika; it arrived at Basra on the 22nd, and on 1 October embarked in H.M.T. Ellenga. As the ship swung around in the stream, the men gave three lusty cheers; few were sorry to see the last of a country of flies, heat and dust. After a voyage without incident, they disembarked at Salonika on 24 October. The Allies had invaded this area of Greece in an attempt to assist Serbia and attack Bulgaria but it had turned into another of the First World War's unsuccessful side-shows. However, by this stage of the war both Bulgaria and Turkey were on the verge of surrender. On 17 December 2/6 GR embarked once more, this time on H.M.T. Malva bound for the Caucasus. For his services in Mesopotamia Preston was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 21 February 1919).

The Caucasus 1918-19

Throughout the First World War there was heavy fighting in the Caucasus mountains between the Turks and Russians and, in 1915, the Turks carried out extensive massacres of their Armenian population. With the collapse of the Russian front after the 1917 Revolutions, and then the surrender of the Turks, there was widespread anarchy in the area, as local committees declared independence and the Bolsheviks struggled to reassert their control. The British hoped to support an independent, anti-Bolshevik Armenia and committed a Division to Batum in December 1918.

On 23 December 1918, 2/6 GR disembarked at Batum, Georgia, and was billeted in a factory building. For the next few weeks they were occupied in unloading ships, guarding various places, and confiscating loot from the departing Turks. On 5 February they travelled by train to Tiflis. In late March Preston and an escort of 30 went to Kars in Turkish Armenia, where he was appointed Military Governor; the remainder of the Battalion joined him there on 7 March.

At Kars it fell to Colonel Preston's lot to organise and carry out a coup d'etat. At the time the Battalion arrived there was a Government of South West Caucasia exercising jurisdiction, but this entity was not recognised by the British who considered Kars to be under the authority of the Armenian Parliament. At 4-15 pm on 12 April A Company and No. 13 platoon surrounded the new and old Parliament Houses respectively; No. 14 platoon surrounded the houses of suspected persons, and a lieutenant and ten men seized the telegraph office. At the appointed time Colonel Preston strode into the new Parliament House and announced, ‘I declare martial law in this room.’ By chance, one of the Gurkhas surrounding the building then accidentally discharged his rifle. The deputies inside the chamber jumped to their feet but, realising the futility of resistance, gave themselves up. The leaders of the ‘South West Caucasian Republic’ were then arrested and taken by Ford vans to the railway station, whence they were despatched to Tiflis. Martial law was declared in the city, and British troops patrolled the streets. Controls were placed on the roads leading out of town, and a house to house search for arms was carried out.

On 27 April General Milne, Commander in chief of the British ‘Army of the Black Sea’, visited the Battalion. It is not known if he shared his thoughts on this campaign with Preston; he recorded in his diary ‘The country and the inhabitants are equally loathesome and we seem to be accepting an enormous responsibility for no very great reason.’ The Armenian parliament and army arrived from Alexandropol to take over and the British prepared to leave Kars and return to Tiflis.

On 6 May 1919, Preston was thrown from his horse and suffered a fractured skull. He was treated at the Battalion hospital and then at No. 110 Field Ambulance but died of his injuries. His body was brought to Tiftis, Georgia, and buried in the British Military Cemetery. Brigadier Davey sent the following telegram : ‘Have learned with greatest sorrow of the accidental death which happened to Lieutenant-Colonel Preston. The Armenian Government have asked me to express their deepest condolences.’

Sold with comprehensive research. Preston’s letters to his wife are held at the National Army Museum (Acc. 6510-11).