La Croisière Jaune (April 4, 1931 - February 12, 1932) was an automobile raid organized by André Citroën.
Faced with the positive effects of the Black Cruise, in 1928, Georges-Marie Haardt prepared his project to open the "Silk Road" to car traffic:30,000 km from Beirut to Beijing via Turkestan, Xinjiang and the Gobi Desert. The official name of the expedition is Asia-Central Mission and the planned return route to Beirut passes through Hanoi, Saigon, Bangkok, Calcutta, Delhi, Quetta, Isfahan, Baghdad and Damascus.
Political uncertainties in the USSR and Afghanistan lead the expedition leaders (Haardt, Louis Audouin-Dubreuil and Victor Point) to change their route and force them to cross Kashmir at an altitude of 5,000 m.
Two groups are formed:the "Pamir" group leaving from Beirut and the "China" group leaving from Tianjin must meet in Xinjiang.
The "Pamir" group (24 people, 6 Citroën P17 half-tracks equipped with the Kégresse-Hinstin system reached Aksou on October 8, 1931. There they found the "China" group, which was joined by Father Teilhard de Chardin. The two groups then took the direction of Peking, which they did not reach until February 12, 1932, after having crossed the SinKiang at war with multiple difficulties.
Haardt, struck down by the flu, died in Hong Kong on March 15, 1932 of double pneumonia.
This expedition was illustrated by a soap opera:the Tibetan Bell.