During the revolutionary turmoil, the Dalai Lama had attempted to raise a volunteer army to expel all the ethnic Chinese from Lhasa, but failed, in large part because of the opposition of pro-Chinese monks, especially from the Drepung Monastery.

[3] The Dalai Lama proceeded to raise a professional army, led by his trusted advisor Tsarong, to counter "the internal threats to his government as well as the external ones".

[3][4] The internal threats were mainly officials of the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who feared British Christian and secular influence in the army, and who fought the defunding and taxing of the monasteries to feed military expenditures.

As a result, those monks who feared modernisation (associated with Britain) turned to China, which being the residence of the 9th Panchen Lama, portrayed itself as an ally to the Tibetan conservatives.

The Dalai Lama himself grew gradually more distrustful of the military upon hearing rumours in 1924 of a coup conspiracy, which was supposedly designed to strip him of his temporal power.

The Tibetan Army was bolstered in 1937 by the perceived threat of the return of the Panchen Lama, who had brought arms back from eastern China.

One of these reforms allowed the Kashag's military chiefs, Surkhang Wangchen Gelek and Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, to act independently of the government.

[8] 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.

[8][9] 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 garrison included the Dalai Lhama's Bodyguard Regiment of 600 soldiers,[2] who were trained by British advisors,[12] 400 Gendarmerie, and 600 Kham regulars who were supposed to act as artillerymen, though they only had two functioning mountain guns.

The army's ability to resist the PLA was severely limited by its inadequate equipment, the hostility of the local Khampas, and the behavior of the Tibetan government.

[4][6] The government of Tibet had many foreigners in its employ, including Britons Reginald Fox, Robert W. Ford, Geoffrey Bull, and George Patterson; Austrians Peter Aufschnaiter and Heinrich Harrer; and the Russian Nedbailoff.

The mission repeatedly attempted to reestablish the office of the Qing Amban, interfered with the enthronement of the 13th Dalai Lama, and presented the Tibetan aristocratic government (Kashag) with a list of demands for the restoration of effective Chinese sovereignty.

[8] Following the advice of British consul Hugh Richardson, the Kashag summoned Tibetan Army troops on 8 July 1949 from Shigatse and Dingri to expel all the Han Chinese people from Lhasa.

The 9th Dmag-Sgar, which fought in the Battle of Chamdo, was incorporated into the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as the 9th Mdav-Dpon Infantry Regiment (第9代本步兵团) of the Tibet Military Region.