The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

Sobraon was “the Waterloo of the Sikhs.” Their aims on our Indian possessions were completely frustrated. But the field army was too weak to do more than it had done, and though some of the enemy’s territory was “occupied,” the reins of government were still permitted to remain nominally in the youthful hands of Dhuleep Singh, until the time came for the annexation of the whole district of the Punjaub.

The final opportunity came three years later, in 1849, when the Marquis of Dalhousie was Governor-General.

Intestine troubles, in due course and as usual, arose in Mooltan. There was the customary doubt as to the loyalty of some of the Sirdars of Mooltan. The European assistant resident and some others were murdered at Lahore; a sufficient cause for further war. Some insignificant skirmishes preceded the final and more important collisions. Mooltan was besieged by a force under General Whish, an operation shared in by the 10th and 32nd European Regiments, but the siege had to be abandoned. Lord Gough had meanwhile been assembling an army at Ferozepore, and the enemy were first seriously met at Ramnuggur, and fell back beaten; and then the siege of Mooltan was renewed. The heavy guns were soon brought up to within eighty yards of the walls, and the enemy’s principal magazine was blown up; but this did not affect the courage of the Moulraj, the defending Sikh general; and on the receipt of the letter demanding his surrender, “he coolly rammed it down his longest gun,” and sent the reply back to us thus.[61] But his bravery availed nothing, and the place fell. On the other hand, Attock, held by an English garrison, was retaken.

The next battle was not judicious. Gough’s duty was to cover the siege of Mooltan, then proceeding, and when that fell, to advance offensively with all the force he could muster. As it was, weak in numbers and with a river between them and the enemy, he, on the 12th January 1849, reached the battlefield of Chillianwallah about dusk, with an army wearied by a long march. He did not even seriously reconnoitre the ford ways of the Chenab, but none the less despatched Thackwell with 8000 men, three horse and two field batteries, two eighteen-pounders, and the 24th and 61st Regiments, to cross the Ranekan ford, but finding it too difficult, he moved to that at Vizierabad by 6 p.m. Then he crossed by boats, but some regiments bivouacked on a sandbank in mid-stream, and all were wet, cold, and without food. Gough, meanwhile, was on the opposite bank, some miles away, near Ramnuggur, with a difficult ford in front of him, vigilantly watched by the Sikhs. But their leader saw the opportunity and seized it; he left a weak force to watch that ford, and marched against Thackwell. He hoped to beat the British in detail, and might have done so but for want of energy. He met them at Sadulapore, where an artillery skirmish followed, and finally Gough joined him, and at two o’clock halted before the enemy’s position at Chillianwallah, when the enemy’s advanced guns fired on him, and the attack was ordered. On the right was Gilbert’s Division, in which were the 29th and 30th, covered on the right by Pope’s Brigade with the 9th Lancers and 14th Light Dragoons. On the left was Campbell, with the 24th and 61st, covered by White’s Brigade of cavalry with the 3rd Dragoons and three horse batteries. Along the whole front was a dense mass of jungle so high as to conceal even the colours to the top of the staff. The battle was a scene of wild confusion, in which the staff direction was impossible. The cavalry on the right broke, and six guns were taken; five colours were left on the field, one being that of the 24th, and when the firing ceased, some 89 officers and 2357 men had been lost, and the army fell back, as did, on their side, the enemy too. The Sikhs had fought with their accustomed fierceness and bravery: said one officer, “They fought like devils”; but it is curious that the Sikhs alone did this, and, judging from another account, their opponents “fought like heroes!” The 3rd, 9th, and 14th cavalry regiments behaved well, as did the 10th, 29th, and 32nd Foot, with the native Indian regiments, but into the “Story of the Army” that of the army of the East India Company does not enter. It was another instance of where “the dauntless valour of the infantry rectifies the errors of its commanders, and carries them through what would otherwise be inevitable defeat and disgrace. But it redeems their errors with its blood; and seldom has there been more devotion, but, alas! more carnage, than on the hard-fought field of Chillianwallah, a field fairly won, though bravely contested by the Sikhs of all arms.”[62]

The loss of the latter, some 4000, with 49 of their guns spiked, had been heavy too, and they had fought with all the bravery of, and in a manner somewhat similar to, the Highlanders who drew sword and fought for the “Pretender” when the “embers of the Civil War” died out. In the hand-to-hand fighting, they had caught the bayonet with the left hand, to cut at its holder with the right with the sword. They had received lance-thrusts on their shields, to return the attack when the lance was thrown aside or broken; they had laid themselves down when the cavalry charged, to rise when the horsemen passed, and attack them shield and sword in hand. Between the fighting of the Scots in 1745 and that of the Sikhs in 1849 there was no real difference as far as pluck and courage went. But the spirit of our gallant and stubborn adversaries was not broken yet. Mooltan fell. They met us again at Gujerat, but the previous encounters had created in them a feeling of despair. Hitherto the Sikhs had been the attacking side when the battle was being formed. Now it was otherwise. They fought on the defensive and were badly beaten; the 9th, 3rd, and 14th British cavalry Regiments, and the 10th, 29th, 60th, and 61st line Regiments shared in the last fight against the Sikhs, as did the European Regiments of the Bombay and Bengal armies. Though said to be 34,000 men strong, with an Afghan detachment of 1500 men and 59 guns, the Sikhs’ army, as such, ceased to be, and its guns, camp equipage, and baggage became the spoil of the victors. “God has given you the victory,” was the despairing cry of many a dying Sikh.

The loss on the British side was small, 29 officers and 671 men; and the final result was the unconditional surrender of the enemy, and the annexation of the Punjaub to the Indian Empire of Great Britain.

Throughout, Gough had pressed his infantry into the fight before the artillery had sufficiently “prepared” the position. He was so excitable under fire, that the story is told that his staff, knowing his “passion for employing infantry before the guns had done their work, induced the gallant veteran to mount by means of a ladder—the only means of access—to the top storey of an isolated building which commanded a complete view of the battlefield. They then quietly removed the ladder, and only replaced it when the artillery had done its work.”[63]

Nothing of grave military importance occurred in India after the defeat of the Sikhs and the annexation of the Punjaub in 1849, for some years. But shortly after the close of the Crimean campaign occurred a petty war with Persia, which had inclinations towards a Russian friendship, if not an alliance. A rebellion had broken out in Herat, and the Persians laid siege to it; whereupon Dost Mahomed, who had become Ameer of Afghanistan on the deposition of our own nominee Shah Sujah, moved from Cabul to Candahar. Troubles had occurred with the Heratees in 1837, when Persia was persuaded by Russia to make a very imaginary claim to the possession of Afghanistan, and had, also with Russian aid, besieged Herat; but the Governor-General of India despatched Pottinger, a young officer of artillery, to aid in the defence, which was successful. Russian influence here, and its supposed influence with Dost Mahomed at Cabul, were among the causes which, as already pointed out, brought on the first Afghan war.

In 1853 there had been a convention between the British minister and the Shah as regards Herat, and this Persian siege was contrary to its provisions. General Outram was despatched in command of an expedition which contained two regiments of the British army in its composition, the 64th and 78th; but the bulk of the force was necessarily made up of native Indian troops of the Bombay army. Landing near Bushire, there was an “affair” at Reshire on the 9th December 1856, and another at Bushire the next day, where the entrenched Persians were defeated by a brilliant bayonet charge. At Kooshab, in February 1857, the 3rd Bombay Cavalry broke a Persian square; while at Barajzoom, Mohummerah, and Ahwaz were other minor engagements, which speedily led to peace.

The names of Persia, Reshire, Kooshab, and Bushire are borne on the colours of the 64th; and Persia, Kooshab, on those of the 78th for their conduct in these somewhat uninteresting operations.