Julian Spilsbury - The Indian Mutiny

Table of Contents

The Indian Mutiny

JULIAN SPILSBURY

Orion

www.orionbooks.co.uk

A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook

First published in Great Britain in 2007
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Julian Spilsbury 2007

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eISBN 978 0 2978 5630 6

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For help and support during the preparation of this book, I am indebted first and foremost to my mother. Thanks are also due to staffs of PSW Alcester, Warwickshire, the National Army Museum and the British Library; to Patrick Mercer MP; Alan Waters; Ian Drury and Penny Gardiner, Weidenfeld & Nicolson; and for his kind permission to quote from the memoirs of Richard Barter, R. J. B. Snow.

AUTHORS NOTE

British and Indian regiments were all, in the mid nineteenth century, designated by number. British regiments can be recognized by the prefix HM (Her Majestys) followed by their number, e.g. HM 86th Foot. Native regiments are indicated by a suffix: BNI (Bengal Native Infantry), e.g. 19th BNI, or NI. Regiments from the Bombay and Madras Presidencies have the Presidency name added in full, e.g. 24th Bombay NI.

SIGNS AND PORTENTS

I wish for a peaceful term of office; but I cannot forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, no larger than a mans hand, but which, growing larger and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with ruin.

So spoke Lord Canning, at the banquet given to him by the Court of Directors of the East India Company, prior to his departure for India to take up his post as Governor General. The Directors could be forgiven, in February 1856, when Canning took over from his predecessor, Lord Dalhousie, for thinking that his term of office would indeed be peaceful. The Honourable East India Company had arrived in India as traders in the seventeenth century, firstly in Madras, and later in Bombay - known as John Company or Kampani Bahadur to the natives (Bahadur being a title of respect implying courage). By the eighteenth century, with the anarchy that accompanied the decline of the Mogul Empire, the Company found itself fighting for survival against the French, and various native princes, themselves eager to profit from the weakening of the power of the Emperor at Delhi. To fight these wars the British relied largely on Indian troops - sepoys (from the Turkish sipahi , meaning soldier) - whom they trained on European lines, using European weapons. Wars for survival turned to wars of conquest. After Robert Clives victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the British - in the form of the East India Company - gained Bengal, becoming, in effect, an Indian ruler, subject to the Emperor. Over the next hundred years the Company, by a combination of intrigue, negotiation, treachery and, when occasion demanded, brute force (this last provided by its sepoy army, backed by smaller numbers of British troops), had become rulers of most of India. The Mogul Emperor, formerly a puppet of Maratha princes, became a puppet of the British. By the 1850s the Company had ceased trading altogether and existed solely to run the civil and military affairs of India, as agents of the British Government. The Government had the final say in the appointment of the Governor General, who ruled the Bengal Presidency from Calcutta and exercised authority over the governors of the two other Presidencies - Madras and Bombay.

The military situation, by 1856, seemed especially promising. After a disastrous incursion into Afghanistan in 1842, the British had settled for conquering northern India right up to the Afghan frontier, and maintaining good relations with its amir, Dost Mohammed. Humiliated in Afghanistan, the British had almost immediately annexed Scinde rather in the mood - as the conqueror of Scinde, Sir Charles Napier put it - of a man who, insulted in the street, goes home and kicks the cat. Then in two bloody and hard-fought wars, in 1845-6 and 1848-9, they had conquered the Sikhs - whose European-trained army, the Khalsa (meaning the Pure) had proved the equal of their own - and annexed the Punjab. The destruction of the Khalsa meant that the last independent native power was no more. The entire subcontinent from the mouths of the Ganges to the Indus was under the Companys raj (rule).

The East India Companys Bengal Army in 1857 (Bombay and Madras had their own armies) consisted of 151,361 men of all ranks, of whom the great majority - 128,663 - were Indians. The European troops - the Bengal Horse Artillery and the Bengal Fusiliers - were organized on similar lines to the regular British Queens regiments, and recruited from the Companys military headquarters at Warley, in Essex. As with the Queens regiments, Ireland proved a fertile recruiting ground. The bulk of the Bengal Army, though, was made up of sepoys - serving in the seventy-five infantry regiments and ten of cavalry. These were men of warrior caste if they were Hindu (as roughly three-quarters of them were) and martial traditions, if Muslim. Writing in The Indian Army (1834) Sir John Malcolm, who had a lifetimes experience of Indian soldiering, wrote comparing the Bengal and Madras Dragoons:

The latter are all Mohammedans and a considerable proportion of the Bengal cavalry are of the same race. The fact is, that with the exception of the Mahratta tribe, the Hindoos are not, generally speaking, so much disposed as the Mohammedans to the duties of a trooper; and though the Mohammedans may be more dissipated and less moral in their private conduct than the Hindoos, they are zealous and high-spirited soldiers, and it is excellent policy to have a considerable proportion of them in the service, to which, experience has shown, they often become very warmly attached.

Of the Bengal infantry he wrote:

They consist largely of Rajpoots, who are a distinguished race among the Khiteree, or military tribe. We may judge of the size of these men when we are told that the height below which no recruit is taken is five feet six inches. The great proportion of the Grenadiers are six feet and upwards. The Rajpoot is a born soldier. The Mother speaks of nothing to her infant but deeds of arms, and every action and sentiment of the future man is marked by the first impressions that he has received. If he tills the ground - which is the common occupation of this class - his sword and shield are placed near the furrow, and moved as his labour advances. The frame of the Rajpoot is always improved (even if his habits are those of civil life) by martial exercises; he is, when well treated, obedient, zealous and faithful.

A warning note comes from Albert Hervey, a captain in the Madras Army, writing only a few years later:

Treat the sepoys well: attend to their wants and complaints; be patient and, at the same time, determined with them; never lose sight of your rank as an officer; be the same with them in every situation; show that you have confidence in them; lead them well, and prove to them that you look upon them as brave men and faithful soldiers, and they will die for you. But adopt a different line of conduct - abuse them; ill-treat them; neglect them; place no confidence in them; show an indifference to their wants or comforts - and they are very devils!