Part IV
In this part . . .
Benefiting as they did from the Industrial Revolution and command of the sea, it was natural that British merchants should seek outlets for their goods in every part of the world. Conflict with local vested interests frequently led to the army’s involvement, mainly in India, and Great Britain acquired an empire almost by accident. British soldiers fought on every one of the world’s continents, frequently against the odds, and were rarely worsted in the hundreds of battles, large and small, that they fought. Britain also battled against Imperial Russia in the Crimea, and two wars against the Boers in southern Africa, losing one and winning the other.
This was an era of rapid technological change that included the introduction of breech-loading rifles and artillery, machine guns, railways, and the electric telegraph, all of which the army learned to use to its best advantage. It also saw the far-reaching reforms that created the famous county regiments that served with great distinction in two World Wars and beyond.
Chapter 12
In This Chapter
● South Africa, Burma, China, the Persian Gulf, China, and New Zealand, 1815-1852
● The First Afghan War, 1839-1842
● The Sikh Wars, 1845-1849
With Napoleon safely out of the way for good (see Chapter 11), the British government immediately demobilised tens of thousands of soldiers. Those who remained in the army after 1815 had changes to contend with, as outlined in the section ‘The Changing Face of the Army’. By way of contrast, soldiers posted to India had a comfortable life. In barracks they employed Indian servants for every conceivable task. Life for British private soldiers in India was good and they lived like gentlemen. But life abroad wasn’t always rosy, as you can read in the section ‘Have Guns, Will Travel, 1815-1852’, later in this chapter.
After the Napoleonic Wars, the army introduced new uniforms that may have looked nice but were horribly impractical. Coats were cut uncomfortably tight and a taller, wide-crowned, top-heavy shako - difficult to keep on if the wearer moved - replaced the smart Waterloo version. In due course a version of the stovepipe shako with peaks fore and aft, known as the Albert pot, replaced it. Sometimes concessions to the climate were made on foreign service by providing white shako covers, but in other respects the troops continued to swelter in the uniforms they wore in Europe. One change that not everyone involved welcomed was the conversion of the light dragoon regiments to hussars or lancers. The process began prior to Waterloo and continued for the next 40 years.
The Changing Face of the Army
Although officers’ and sergeants’ messes (in which members ate separately from the troops when not engaged in operations) existed prior to the Napoleonic Wars, they had now become, and remain, an essential element in regimental life. A regiment’s Colours are housed in the officers’ mess during peacetime.
In both messes, portraits and paintings of events in the regiment’s history hang from the walls and items of silverware, usually purchased by subscription or presented by retiring members, are displayed on special occasions. These items, collected over a regiment’s lifetime, vary from elaborate centrepieces to cups used as trophies in the field of sport or military activity. Each mess has its own traditions, which are passed on from generation to generation.
The Royal Military College, Sandhurst, founded in 1812, was descended from the slightly older Royal Military Cadet College, Great Marlow, as was the Staff College, Camberley. Sandhurst’s function was to educate young potential infantry and cavalry officers in the basics of their profession. It became possible for the army’s Commander-in-Chief to grant commissions without purchase (see Chapter 7) to cadets who had successfully graduated from Sandhurst, or to young men whose fathers had distinguished themselves in the service. Royal Artillery and Engineer cadet officers were educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. With one short break during the Second World War, both institutions ran in parallel until they amalgamated in 1947 to become the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Young officers bound for the Honourable East India Company’s service received their training at the company’s own academy, situated at Addiscombe.
Have Guns, Will Travel, 1815-1852
As the late Field Marshal Lord Carver commented in his book The Seven Ages of the British Army (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984), in the years between Waterloo and the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852, no significant campaigns took place. On the other hand, much happened in widely separated areas of the world involving the British army or the Honourable East India Company’s army as well as the Royal Navy. Some of these events were policing or punitive actions, or even tidying up messy situations, but they were necessary and sometimes had to be repeated later in the century. Generally speaking, the number of troops involved was not large. Describing these actions from west to east gives some idea of their geographic scope.
South Africa
No fewer than eight Frontier or Kaffir Wars took place, lasting until March 1853. The British fought these against Xhosa tribesmen who perennially raided settled European territory. Friction also occurred between the British and the Boers, who were of Dutch origin and were the original white settlers in South Africa. During the Great Trek of 1835-1840, thousands of Boers journeyed north out of British-controlled territory to found their own states, later known as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (but they came back to haunt the British later - see Chapter 16).
Aden
Situated at the southern tip of Arabia, Aden is strategically positioned on the route to India via the Mediterranean and across the Sinai peninsula to the Red Sea. Aden is unbearably hot, yet its inhabitants built their city in the airless crater of an extinct volcano. Their business at the beginning of the nineteenth century was slaving and piracy, so they were not pleased when their Sultan agreed to lease the harbour to the Honourable East India Company in 1838. They fired on a company ship, provoking a military operation the following year. After the British bombarded the harbour defences into silence, a landing party took possession of the town. Aden became a useful coaling station for the Royal Navy and for merchant vessels on passage to the Far East.
Persia (Iran)
Persia believed that it had a legitimate claim to the Heart region of Afghanistan and in 1836 carried out an invasion and occupation of the province. British policy was to preserve Afghanistan as a buffer state between India and continued Russian expansion in Central Asia. Under heavy diplomatic pressure from Britain, the Persians withdrew.
In 1856 the Persians returned and refused to budge. In December an Honourable East India Company task force landed at Bushire on the Persian Gulf and stormed the fort of Reshire. Reinforcements under Sir Henry Havelock reached Bushire the following month, bringing the strength of the task force up to about 4500 men under the overall command of Sir James Outram. On 27 January a 6900-strong Persian army attacked Outram at Koosh-ab, but the British decisively routed it, leaving over 700 dead on the field. British losses amounted to 10 killed and 62 wounded.
During this action the Poona Horse captured a standard that was topped by a silver hand, bearing a date equivalent to AD 1066. The device still forms the centre of the regimental badge worn by the post-Indian Independence Poona Horse. The British regiments entitled to the Battle Honour Koosh-ab were the 64th (1/North Staffordshire Regiment) and the 2nd Bombay European Regiment, an Honourable East India Company unit that was later absorbed into the British army as the 106th (2/Durham Light Infantry).
After the battle Outram took an amphibious expedition up the Euphrates, but the Persians were unwilling to fight and in April renounced their claim to Heart permanently.
Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
Ceylon (captured from the Dutch during the French Revolutionary Wars) proved to be a very difficult place to govern, partly because the interior was extremely unhealthy and partly because the Sinhalese inhabitants didn’t want to be governed by anyone in particular, not even their own people. An attempt to place a British candidate on the throne in 1803 led to the massacre of an entire column. By 1815 it was apparent that the reigning monarch, Sri Wikrama, was a tyrant who would be torn limb from limb by his subjects, if they could only get their hands on him. Lieutenant General Sir Robert Brownrigg led several columns to Kandy, Sri Wikrama’s capital in the centre of the island, without losing a man. The British then shipped Sri Wikrama off to India for the good of his health and reached an agreement with the grateful Kandyan chiefs granting sovereignty of the entire island to the British.
A dissatisfied minority of Sinhalese rebelled against this agreement in 1817. Reinforcements arriving from India suppressed the rebellion. The British response was to issue pardons and only execute two of the ringleaders. After this, the British put in place a system of indirect rule, similar to that employed in India, with the indigenous chieftains in each province retaining considerable authority. The resulting peace, quiet, and prosperity must have puzzled those who had grown up in a climate of pandemonium.
Burma
The First Burma War began in 1824 when Burmese troops entered Cachar, a British protectorate. In addition, a 30,000-strong Burmese army under General Maha Bandula entered the Arakan coastal region and threatened the port of Chittagong.
Burmese failure to exploit their early successes led the British to adopt a defensive policy in these regions, while employing an indirect approach to break into the enemy’s heartland through the back door. An expeditionary force, 5000 strong, assembled in the Andaman Islands under Brigadier General Sir Archibald Campbell and on 10 May landed at Rangoon, which was virtually undefended. Campbell’s troops were soon surrounded and under attack, as well as being ravaged by disease as the monsoon season continued. Maha Bandula, caught wrong-footed, arrived with his army in August, having made forced marches all the way from the Arakan. During the autumn, Campbell also received reinforcements, including a rocket battery. On 1 December the British repulsed a major assault on their positions, and a fortnight later Campbell broke out and began advancing up the Irrawaddy river towards Ava, the Burmese capital, located near modern Mandalay. On 2 April 1825 Bandula made a stand at Danubyu. A British counter-attack routed his troops and a rocket killed Bandula himself. Campbell continued his advance, but halted for the monsoon season at Prome and entrenched his camp. The Burmese, now under the command of Maha Nemyo, closed in around the camp. On 30 November they launched a major assault. In three days of fierce fighting, with gunboats on the river supporting Campbell’s troops, the British destroyed the Burmese army and killed Nemyo. Campbell resumed the advance until his troops reached Pagan, 70 miles short of Ava, on 9 February 1826. Here, Burmese envoys requested terms, which the British granted. Burma surrendered Assam, the Arakan, and the Tenasserim coast, and agreed to pay a large indemnity.
Burma: Take two
The Second Burma War began in March 1852. Pagan, the Burmese king, disliked the British. He breached the terms of the treaty agreed with Campbell, harassed British businesses and shipping, and pointedly ignored a warning that his actions must stop.
A 9000-strong expeditionary force under Lieutenant General Henry Godwin took Ragoon and, with close naval cooperation, advanced up the Irrawaddy. The Burmese army retired northwards, but the British defeated it after a hard fight at Pegu on 3 June, when the Burmese made a stand. Hostilities ceased during the rainy season, but on 9 October the British occupied Prome. In December the Honourable East India Company annexed the province of Pegu, which meant most of southern Burma and Rangoon as well. This area later became known as Lower Burma. The British told Pagan to accept this or expect the destruction of his kingdom if he resisted. He wasn’t really in a position to comment, as his half-brother, Mindon Min, had just overthrown him. Mindon didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no, but he had no wish to be on bad terms with his new neighbours so he accepted the British offer.
Burma: Take three
Mindon Min’s surrender (see the previous section) wasn’t quite the end of the story in Burma. Mindon’s son Thibaw did his best to dilute British influence by encouraging diplomatic contact with France and Italy, interfering with the British teak trade, and finally, in 1885, imposing a huge fine on the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation. This was too much. Lord Dalhousie, the Viceroy of India, sent him an ultimatum demanding protection of British interests. On 7 November Thibaw ordered his subjects to drive the British into the sea. The British response was immediate. Some 9000 troops under Major General Harry Prendergast sailed up the Irrawaddy in 55 steamers, brushing aside opposition as they went. On 26 November, as the flotilla approached Ava, Thibaw offered to surrender. He told his army to stop fighting and became a prisoner. On 28 November Prendergast entered Mandalay. In 1886 the British formally annexed Upper Burma. From start to finish the Third Burma War lasted just two weeks.
China
In 1833 the Honourable East India Company’s monopoly on trade with China expired. That meant that British merchants attempting to do business with China had to rely on the Westminster government to protect their interests. And to import anything at all into China meant paying ‘squeeze’ to a number of officials, and that absorbed any profit margin. The exception was opium, which India grew in large quantities. As an estimated minimum of 16 million Chinese were addicted to the drug, the demand for it was high and constant. The Imperial Chinese government, aware of the damage it was doing, tried to prohibit the trade. Its methods were high-handed in the extreme:
● Confiscating and destroying British merchandise
● Opening fire on British warships while they were evacuating British refugees from Canton Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, demanded reparations and a permanent base from which to conduct trade. The Chinese refused point blank. Action didn’t stop there.
The First Opium War
In 1840 Palmerston despatched a punitive amphibious expedition to the area, including 4000 British and Indian troops under Major General Sir Hugh Gough. It was soon apparent that the Chinese were neither equipped nor trained for a modern war. During an early naval battle they attacked the British squadron with 13 war junks (oriental ships). After the British had blown up the Chinese admiral’s junk with a rocket, 10 more surrendered and the rest made off. This set the tone for the rest of the First Opium War:
● In February 1841 the British stormed the Borgue Forts at the entrance to the Pearl River. The expedition then moved up river and attacked Canton on 24 May. The Chinese government offered to pay £600,000 in reparation. This was not enough for Palmerston and the war continued. During further coastal operations the British bombarded and captured Amoy on 26 August, followed by Ningpo on 13 October.
● In 1842 the focus of operations shifted to the Yangtze river. The expedition took Shanghai on 19 June and on 21 July stormed the city of Chinkiang. British casualties amounted to 34 killed, 107 wounded, and three missing.
Chinese losses were horrific, but what sickened Gough and his soldiers most was the sight of women and children being killed by their own people rather than allowing them to be taken alive by the ‘foreign devils’. The troops were withdrawn at the earliest possible moment. Hostilities ended on 17 August when the Chinese Emperor’s government sued for peace. Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking, China paid an indemnity of £5 million, ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain, and opened the ports of Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai. The war’s principal lesson was that China was simply incapable of defending itself, and of this the Great Powers were to take full advantage.
The Second Opium War
It was an unfortunate trait of the Imperial Chinese government that after a while it no longer felt bound by the treaties it signed. In October 1856 local officials seized the British ship Arrow in Canton. That was enough to start the Second Opium War. The British bombarded Chinese ports and occupied Canton. When an Anglo-French force captured the Taku forts at the mouth of the Pei-ho river in May 1858, the Chinese agreed to negotiate. Under the Treaty of Tientsin, China reached an agreement with Great Britain, France, the United States, and Russia to open more ports to international trade, receive diplomatic legations in Peking, legalise the import of opium, and establish a customs service under foreign supervision.
The only problem was that the Chinese government had not the slightest intention of abiding by the treaty. It became clear that its terms would have to be enforced. A squadron of British gunboats tried to fight its way past the Taku Forts on 25 June 1859, but the Chinese sharply rebuffed it, so that it lost four gunboats and 434 men from a landing party. The rumour was that since the Royal Navy’s earlier visit a Russian military engineer who was still sore at his country’s defeat in the Crimean War (see Chapter 13) had considerably strengthened the forts. Whatever the truth, the allies could not leave the matter as it was. On 30 July 1860 a joint amphibious expedition, including 11,000 British and Indian troops under Lieutenant General Sir James Hope Grant and 6700 French under Lieutenant General Cousin-Montauban, landed on the coast to the north of the Pei-ho’s mouth and marched overland to attack the forts from the rear. Four forts were involved, a Small and a Large North Fort, and a Small and a Large South Fort, the larger forts being closest to the river’s mouth. The expedition decided to attack the Small North Fort first.
Shortly after first light on 21 August the British and French storming parties surged forward. The obstacles in their path were formidable. They consisted of, in turn, a deep dry ditch, an open space obstructed by an abatis consisting of trees felled in the direction of the attackers, then a wide flooded ditch, a 20-feet-wide belt of panjis (sharpened bamboo stakes), a second flooded ditch, and another belt of panjis leading up to the 15-feet-high walls of the fort. Swamps restricted the advance to a narrow frontage. Despite this, the attackers somehow overcame every difficulty, spurred on by national rivalry. Ensign John Chaplin of the 67th (2/Hampshire Regiment) narrowly won the race to plant a national flag on the fort’s central tower. The 500-strong Chinese garrison put up a hard fight, but only 100 of its men survived. Across the river, the Chinese abandoned the Small South Fort immediately. The commander of the Large North Fort blustered a bit, then surrendered to the French. The Large South Fort, now isolated, surrendered next day. The allies captured over 600 guns of various types in the two South Forts alone.
The allies advanced up river to Tientsin, marched on Peking, and twice defeated a Chinese field army that tried to bar their passage. At this point the Chinese government indicated its willingness to negotiate, but then behaved with astounding stupidity. It made hostages of the allied negotiators in the hope of preventing a further advance. Grant ignored the threats and, having closed in on the capital, was about to storm it when the Chinese submitted to every one of the Allied demands, including the surrender of Kowloon on the mainland opposite Hong Kong, the payment of a large indemnity, and ratification of the various treaties that had been signed. When the Chinese returned some of the hostages, the Allies discovered that the Chinese had tortured the remainder to death. In reprisal, Grant burned to the ground the Yuen-Ming-Yuen, a group of palaces set in beautiful gardens. For the next 40 years, the Chinese Imperial government avoided further conflict with the Western powers.
New Zealand
A degree of friction always existed between the indigenous Maori population and British settlers. It intensified as expansion of settlements produced a clash of cultures and began to threaten the Maori way of life. This boiled over into two Maori Wars, the first lasting from 1845 to 1847 and the second from 1860 to 1870. These involved British regular infantry regiments and local units. These were wars of sudden ambush and sniping, fought out amid the luxurious vegetation of the New Zealand bush. In the end, both sides recognised that nothing was to be gained by further fighting and reached a workable compromise enabling them to live together.
The Maoris can be ranked among the British army’s most formidable opponents, for a number of reasons. They tattooed their heads and other parts of their bodies to produce a fearsome appearance. They used firearms, but thoroughly enjoyed hand-to-hand fighting, in which they used spears, stone or wooden axes, and clubs. What the average British soldier found very difficult to deal with was that the Maori women took part in the fighting alongside their menfolk. It went completely against the British soldier’s nature to kill women.
The other aspect of warfare peculiar to the Maoris was the concept of the pa, a base surrounded by earthworks and stoutly constructed stockades from which attacks were launched. The interior was a complex of inter-connected trenches, rifle pits, and underground chambers. The secondary purpose of the pa was to inflict unacceptable casualties on an attacker, but if a situation was reached in which it was no longer considered defensible, its abandonment was not disastrous as the Maoris simply built another one somewhere else.
India
Expansion by Imperial Russia across Central Asia convinced the British government that Russia’s ultimate aim was the acquisition of India. The Russians were quite happy to encourage this belief by discreet means, in the knowledge that with a major part of Great Britain’s strength committed to the defence of India, it couldn’t intervene in Europe. This, as shown in Chapter 13, was not altogether true, but the British government was always reluctant to weaken the garrison of India without good reason.
Britain and Russia’s involvement over India is known as the Great Game. It played out with conspiracies, murders, spies, double agents, and political officers in the wild mountainous terrain of India’s northwest Frontier and Afghanistan. The Great Game was the Victorian equivalent of the twentieth-century’s Cold War.
The First Afghan War
Maintaining a pro-British ruler on the throne of Afghanistan was vital to Britain in the Great Game, securing India’s ‘back door’. In 1835 Dost Mohammed succeeded to the crown, but three years later he was having problems with his Russian-backed Persian neighbours to the west and with the Sikhs to the south. He asked Lord Auckland, the Governor General of India, to assist. Auckland refused brusquely, so Dost Mohammed turned to the Russians, who quickly sorted things out with the Persians. Auckland, believing that this was simply a prelude to Russian troops appearing on the Indian border, reached the conclusion that Dost Mohammed had to go.
It seems not to have occurred to Lord Auckland to attempt to resolve the Russian involvement in Afghanistan through the normal diplomatic channels between London and St Petersburg. Instead, in a decision bordering on imbecility, he despatched a 21,000-strong army under General Sir John Keane into Afghanistan in 1839, occupying Kandahar in April, storming the fortress of Ghazni in July, and capturing Kabul on 7 August. Dost Mohammed became a prisoner and was sent to India. A British nominee, Shah Shuja, replaced him and Keane returned to India, leaving a garrison in Kabul to support two British diplomats, Sir William Macnaghton and Sir Alexander Burns.
Dost Mohammed was a popular king, and in November his son, Akbar Khan, led a major uprising. His men murdered Macnaghton and Burns and surrounded the British garrison. Major General William Elphinstone commanded the garrison, but he was elderly and ill, and worse still, he was a ditherer. He dithered to the point that Akbar Khan was all but telling him what to do. He agreed that his garrison should not only leave Kabul but quit Afghanistan altogether, under safe conduct. This action amounted to nothing less than a shameful capitulation.
In his decision to leave, Elphinstone faced three difficulties from the outset:
● His march was being made in the dead of winter.
● His column contained 4500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers, including many of the sepoys’ (Indian soldiers’) families.
● His army marched heavy. An officer’s kit, including heavy furniture and everything else necessary for his comfort in the field, required several baggage animals or carts. Add to that numerous servants, contractors of every kind, and drivers for the hundreds of animals needed to transport everything.
In effect, Elphinstone signed everyone’s death warrant. No sooner had the column left Kabul than Akbar Khan’s tribesmen fell on it, killing at will. Day by day the column struggled on, leaving a trail of dead and dying in its wake. Only the British 44th (1/The Essex Regiment) and the Bengal Horse Artillery retained the ability to fight back, but at Gandamak in the Jagduluk Pass tribesmen surrounded their remnant. With no hope in sight, the 44th removed their Colours from their staffs and Captain Souter wore them as a sash to prevent their being recognised. They made a final stand, fighting back to back, but the end was inevitable. Although Souter was wounded, the tribesmen spared his life since they took the richly embroidered ‘sash’ to indicate a man of great importance who made a valuable hostage. They also spared the lives of three or four wounded privates, perhaps with a degree of admiration. Elphinstone was also spared but died a prisoner. In less than a week since leaving Kabul the entire column had been wiped out.
Only one European, Dr William Brydon, and a bare handful of Indians got through to the fort of Jellalabad, held under the command of Brigadier General Robert Sale. Sale conducted an energetic defence of the fort, making regular sorties that cost his besiegers dear. On 16 April 1842, an avenging army under General Sir George Pollock relieved Jellalabad.
Pollock fought his way to Kabul, first taking the heights on either side of the road to draw the teeth from any planned Afghan ambush. The skeletons of Elphinstone’s doomed column lined the road itself. The British reached Kabul in September. They released the prisoners and the arrival of the Kandahar garrison, which had also withstood a siege, reinforced the army. As the disaster of the previous year had seriously damaged British prestige, Pollock needed to emphasise to everyone interested that this sort of treachery simply did not pay. He blew up Kabul’s grand bazaar and citadel, and then withdrew to India, being sniped at along the way.
Meanwhile, the unfortunate Shah Shuja was assassinated in March 1842. The British allowed Dost Mohammed to return to the throne. Many people must have wondered what the fighting had all been about. As for Lord Auckland, Lord Ellenborough replaced him, and was to provoke the next war in the area (see the following section).
The conquest of Scinde
Scinde lay in the northwestern corner of the Indian subcontinent in what today is Pakistan. Together, the demands and threats made by Lords Auckland and Ellenborough provoked such anger that on 15 February 1843 an 8000-strong mob attacked the British Residency, which a handful of men defended led by a promising young officer named James Outram.
General Sir Charles Napier, a 61-year-old veteran of the Peninsular War (see Chapter 11), quickly put together a 2600-strong relief force, including 500 men of the 22nd (1/The Cheshire Regiment), and set off immediately. On 17 February they encountered the 20,000-strong army assembled by the Amirs of Scinde at Meeanee. Believing that a defensive stance would unsettle his native regiments, Napier attacked at once, personally leading his troops in action with a musket and bayonet. The Amirs sustained a crushing defeat, losing some 5000 killed or wounded and several guns, while Napier’s losses amounted to only 256 killed or wounded. Napier then mounted his British troops two to a camel and made a forced march across a belt of desert in extreme heat, won a second battle at Hyderabad, and relieved the Residency. By August he had pacified the area and the British annexed Scinde.
Reputedly Napier advised the Governor General that the campaign was over in a famous Latin cryptogram Peccavi (‘I have sinned’ - that’s right, ‘Scinde’). Historians have cast some doubt on this, but it remains a good story.
The First Sikh War
The continued expansion of the Honourable East India Company’s rule over Indian states led to a feeling that the Punjab would be next, a view that events in Scinde reinforced (refer to the previous section). Despite this, the Elphinstone debacle in Afghanistan suggested that the possibility existed of beating the British (refer to the section ‘The First Afghan War’ earlier in this chapter), and a pre-emptive strike would probably guarantee Sikh independence.
A martial race, the Sikhs possessed a uniformed, disciplined, and trained army. It was an army that happily fought with tulwar (a curved sword) and shield at close quarters when its muskets had been fired. It gave the British regiments their toughest contests since the Napoleonic Wars and on several occasions it came close to breaking the Honourable East India Company’s native infantry regiments.
On 11 December 1843, a 20,000-strong Sikh army under Lal Singh crossed the river Sutlej into British territory. General Sir Hugh Gough marched to meet them with 11,000 men. The two armies met at Mudki, 30 miles south of Ferozshah, on 18 December. Gough had little more than half his opponent’s infantry, but he had a distinct advantage in artillery, 42 guns against 22. On its own, that would not have won the battle. Gough was a firm believer that in India one attacked, whatever the odds, and that was what he did. After a hard fight the Sikhs withdrew to Ferozshah, having sustained approximately 3000 casualties and lost 15 of their guns. British losses amounted to 215 killed and 655 wounded. Both armies had received reinforcements by the time Gough reached Ferozshah on 21 December. Lal Singh now possessed 35,000 men (including 25,000 regulars) and 88 guns, and his army had dug itself into strong entrenchments. Gough had almost 18,000 men and 65 guns. He attacked in failing light during the later afternoon and the Sikhs repulsed his men with serious casualties. Gough attacked again the following morning and captured the entrenchments. Shortly after, a fresh Sikh army under Tej Singh, 30,000 strong with 70 guns, reached the battlefield and attempted to recapture the position. At this point, the British artillery ran out of ammunition and an officer, crazed by sunstroke, ordered the cavalry to withdraw to Ferozshah, which they did, followed by the horse artillery. Victory lay within Tej Singh’s grasp but, crediting Gough with greater subtlety than he actually possessed, Tej Singh interpreted this as an aggressive move against his own flank and beat a hasty retreat across the Sutlej. Gough’s casualties amounted to 694 killed and 1721 wounded. The Sikhs lost 4500 killed and wounded, plus 78 guns.
In January 1846 the Sikhs attempted to recover their fortunes by pushing a force of 15,000 men and 67 guns under Ranjur Singh across the Sutlej to ravage British territory in the Ludhiana area. On 28 January Major General Sir Harry Smith, with 12,000 British and Indian troops and 32 guns, caught up with Ranjur Singh at the village of Aliwal. Smith launched a textbook attack in which he employed infantry, cavalry, and artillery to their best advantage and they cooperated with one another. They routed the Sikhs, who lost over 3000 men killed, wounded, and drowned as they fled across the river, plus all their artillery, stores, and supplies. Commentators have described Aliwal as ‘the battle without a mistake’, a viewed shared only by the victors and those with no interest in the outcome.
Still not discouraged, Tej Singh crossed the river again in February with 20,000 men and 70 guns. They established a strongly fortified position near the village of Sobraon, below the confluence of the Sutlej and Beas rivers. After reconnaissance established the strength of the position, Gough closed up to the Sikhs with 15,000 British and Indian troops, plus 100 guns including a siege train. On 10 February, after a two-hour bombardment in which the heavy guns expended most of their ammunition, the British attack went in, driving the Sikhs from their entrenchments after a brief but fierce fight. Some 3000 Sikhs died in the fighting or drowned in the Sutlej, while the British wounded 7000 and captured 67 guns. British losses amounted to 164 killed and 2119 wounded. Gough pursued the beaten Sikh army across the river and on to Lahore, the capital of the Punjab. There, on 11 March, the parties signed a treaty making the Punjab a British protectorate.
The Second Sikh War
Many Sikhs didn’t like living in a British protectorate, and in their minds, a rematch was on the cards. On 20 April 1848 Sikhs provoked an incident in which they killed two British officers and the Second Sikh War started.
This time Gough moved first. On 9 November, he crossed the Sutlej with 20,000 men and advanced to meet the Sikh army forming under Sher Singh before it could be reinforced. On 22 November an inconclusive cavalry action took place at Ramnugur, where the Sikhs prevented a crossing of the Chenab river. It was not until the new year that Gough was able to bring on a general engagement with Sher Singh. This took place at Chilianwallah, in Lajore province south of Jhelum, on 13 January 1849. By then Sher Singh’s army had grown to 40,000 men and 62 guns. Gough allowed himself to be provoked into fighting in fading afternoon light and launched an attack without adequate reconnaissance or artillery preparation.
That the British guns played a lesser part than they should have done at Chilianwallah was the fault of a cavalry commander, Brigadier General Pope, an officer grown so old in the Honourable East India Company’s service that he required the assistance of two soldiers to mount his horse. Pope was informed that his line was drifting to its left and beginning to mask the British guns. He should have given the order ‘Threes - right!’, which would have resulted in his regiments taking ground to their right, so clearing the gunners’ line of sight. Inexplicably, the order he actually gave was ‘Threes - about!’ Obediently, the two Indian regiments in the centre turned out, followed by the two British regiments on the flanks. Now, everyone was going the wrong way. Interested, the Sikh cavalry followed. This led to an increase in pace, to which the Sikhs conformed. Soon, both sides were going faster and faster until the British and Indian regiments had gained enough of a lead to turn about. The Sikhs overran several guns, then caught up and killed Pope and a few of the slower riders, before returning to their own lines with many a merry tale to tell. A brutal infantry combat in dense jungle resolved the battle. Casualties on both sides were severe and Gough withdrew. British losses came to 2746 killed and wounded, while the Sikhs lost 3894, although the British could not be said to have defeated them.
Gough’s handling of the battle, and particularly his apparent willingness to accept heavy casualties, attracted such serious criticism both in India and at home that his superiors decided to replace him with General Sir Charles Napier, the victor of the campaign in Scinde. Before that happened, however, Gough again caught up with Sher Singh at Gujerat, 68 miles north of Lahore. Although Gough’s artillery was the stronger (90 guns as opposed to 60), Sher Singh’s 60,000 men, including a contingent of Afghans from Dost Mohammed (see the section ‘The First Afghan War’, earlier in this chapter), heavily outnumbered Gough’s 25,000 infantry. Despite this, Gough had learned the lessons of Chilianwallah, and on 21 February his artillery began the battle with a two-and-a-half hour bombardment of the enemy position. This was so effective that when his infantry assault went in the Sikhs broke and fled, having sustained over 2000 casualties. The British captured all the Sikh guns and Gough’s cavalry pursued the Afghans through the Khyber Pass as far as Fort Jumrud. British losses amounted to only 92 killed and 682 wounded.
Sher Singh’s defeat decided the war. The British annexed the Punjab, and this, together with Scinde, formed the line of the northwest frontier, which saw almost continuous military activity for the next century. This time, the Sikhs accepted the outcome of the war and subsequently became staunch allies of the British.