It certainly wasn't WW2 tactics, but it looks like a fitting strategy at the height of the British Emprire, maintaining image is important when you are the dominant superpower:

> Harold G. Marcus described the action as "one of the most expensive affairs of honour in history.

Allowing an unpopular and weakly defended emperor hold hostages to ransom could set a dangerous precedent no?

"... while the native hostages had their hands and feet amputated before being thrown over the edge of the precipice surrounding the plateau."

Good old days when governments weren't afraid to take horrible leaders head on.

Do you think that the British where driven by moral imperative to depose an evil ruler?