The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

Now began to arise an ominous war-cloud, which for a time threatened to burst with such violence as to sweep away altogether the British rule in India. It might have been foreseen had people cared to take the trouble. The attributed and immediate cause of rebellion was no new thing. There had been a precedent already as far back as 1806, in the history of the 69th Regiment of the line, two companies of which were garrisoned at Vellore, with a battalion of Sepoys. Sir John Craddock, who commanded in Madras, had, with the best intentions, introduced a lighter headdress than the turban, but which had some leather fittings to it which the natives assumed were “unclean”; while a new “turn-screw” had a cross-top, which again might have been assumed by ill-affected persons to represent the emblem of Christianity. There were always, then as now, men who looked on a rebellion as a means of getting plunder and advancement, and many of the adherents of Tippoo Sahib were still living, and by no means loath to stir up discord. In this case they succeeded, though fortunately the incipient mutiny spread no farther than Vellore. But there the Sepoys attacked the European cantonment, and shot or bayoneted 113 men. The remainder made a desperate resistance, being even reduced to firing rupees for bullets, and one escaped and reached Arcot, where was stationed the 19th Light Dragoons. The distance to Vellore was soon covered, and ample vengeance taken. Of the mutineers, 500 were made prisoners, and 350 were slain. Similarly, in 1824, the Sepoys at Barrackpore refused to embark for Burma, lest they should lose caste, but the mutiny was crushed. Again, in 1844, there had been disturbances at Ferozepore, and again in 1849 to 1850.

Notwithstanding these premonitory warnings, a false feeling of security had long been growing up. As far back as 1832, a committee, examining the condition of the native army, had been told that “The Indian army when well commanded is indomitable; it is capable of subjugating all the countries between the Black and Yellow Seas. The European officers are all English, Irish, or Scotch gentlemen, whose honour and courage have created in their troops such an intrepid spirit as to render India secure against every evil from which an army can protect a country.”[64]

There was over-confidence and want of real discipline; for the Native and European troops who had fought side by side and conquered the varied races of the Peninsula, and between whom there had once been sympathy, had drifted apart. In the past they had forgotten caste, and in campaigns had lived as brother soldiers. The increase in the European establishment of officers to native regiments had introduced many with whom the native was not in touch. The whole essence of our previous leadership was that the men respected their officers because they knew them, or knew the tradition of their military past. But new men meant new manners. The Sepoy’s past connection with his officer had been personal, and based on warlike experience and respect for his leader as a fighting man. “Piping times of peace” again had made the officer no longer a fighting unit, but a pay agent. This matters little in the West, but in the East it is far otherwise. The Asiatic reveres personal courage, and believes in little else. Sir Samford Whittingham, no mean judge, as far back as 1824 had seen the coming danger, and writes: “The longer I stay in India, the more I am convinced of the correct truth of all my former statements to you. The country hangs upon a thread. The slightest reverse would set the whole in a flame, and you have not the smallest hold upon any class of men in all your vast Indian dominions except that which is immediately derived from the opinion—or rather the conviction—that your bayonets and sabres are superior to theirs. The Indian army must become, and that speedily, a king’s army, the number of officers must be greatly increased, and the broken spirit of both officers and men regenerated.”

He at least saw that the country won by the sword must be held by it; that the Sepoy only respected us so long as we were militarily strong. Generals and officials without number felt and said the same. The abolition of flogging in the native army, while retained with the white troops, only added to the increasing want of respect of the former for the British soldier. There is nothing worse than virtue gone mad! There is no greater vice with barbaric and ignorant people. But the Company sat still, and, civilian-like, were content so long as the outer part of the sepulchre remained whitened! The very efforts at introducing the principles of Western civilisation in too abrupt a manner had raised, long since, concealed antagonism. Immensely conservative as all the East is, such changes should be made more than gradually. The hostility of the people had been excited by measures, well meant, no doubt, but which were antagonistic to their cherished beliefs, their old-world and long-continued customs. That of the chiefs had been aroused by our continued deposition or supersession of kings, rajahs, and chieftains, who, with all their faults, were natives and not aliens. The Mahomedans felt these changes most, but the Hindus were by no means apathetic.

The very quietude of the nations under our rule is misleading, and misleads those who now think that all the varied peoples and sects of India love us, love one another, and are of the same race and feeling. The natives of India are as different as those between John o’ Groat’s House and the South of Spain, only more so. Even Wellington, whose experience of India was not vast, writes: “The natives are much misrepresented. They are the most mischievous, deceitful race of people I have ever seen or heard of. I have not yet met with a Hindu who had one good quality, even for the state of society in his own country, and the Mussulmans are worse than they are. Their meekness and mildness do not exist. It is true that the feats which have been performed by Europeans have made them objects of fear, but whenever the disproportion of numbers is greater than usual, they uniformly destroy them, if they can, and in their dealings and conduct among themselves they are the most atrociously cruel people I ever heard of.”

The real cause of the Mutiny was hatred to the institutions we had introduced, and growing contempt for our power; to which may be added, if not as a cause, as a nominal standard round which the malcontents assembled, the practical deposition of the Kings of Oudh and Delhi. Military weakness or indifference, and political impotence, are with Eastern peoples synonymous terms. The ostensible reason for the outbreak was a cartridge, and this, though actually bees-waxed, was said, by those who were fomenting the outbreak, to be lubricated with cow and pig fat, which would make it abhorrent to the touch of either Hindu or Mahomedan. There is little doubt that in the first pattern there was cow fat, as Captain Boxer seems to have admitted; and in order to lessen the evil, the next pattern was made so that the end might be torn off rather than bitten off. But the error was made, and to remedy it was too late. Disaffection first appeared at Berhampore, and the disbanding of the 19th Native Infantry followed; and next, the 34th Native Infantry at Barrackpore behaved mutinously, and was also disbanded. Both measures tended rather to spread the disaffection than stamp it out. In the last case blood was shed, two officers being badly wounded, the culprit being a certain “Mangul Pandy,” whose second name became the nickname of the Indian Sepoy, as “Tommy Atkins” was that of his European comrade.

Next the 7th Native Infantry showed the same insubordinate spirit, but they were easily cowed; and finally a more determined outbreak occurred at Oude and Meerut, the officers being massacred, and the two native regiments concerned marched to and occupied Delhi, which now became the focus of the Mutiny. The time had been well chosen: the white troops were much disseminated, and the hot weather was coming on; the proportion of European officers in the native regiments was small, the Company officers being always natives, and having little real authority over their men. There was, moreover, a tradition that a hundred years after Plassy the English power in India would be broken.

Hence Delhi fell into the hands of the rebels, and became the scene of the most revolting barbarities, too foul to tell. Whatever even remote idea of striking for freedom the leader may have held, is lost in the awful savagery that accompanied the rising. But vengeance complete and ample was preparing. Risings occurred everywhere—at Ferozepore, at Meean Meer, at Murdaun, and so on; but in many cases prompt measures were taken to disarm the men, who, when disarmed, fled to increase the hostile force at Delhi.

The European troops seemed but oases in the vast desert of ruin. The 32nd held Lucknow; the 60th and Carabiniers Meerut; the 61st at Ferozepore; at Meean Meer the 81st; the 75th were at Umballah; the 9th Lancers and the Bengal Fusiliers elsewhere. Here and there were native regiments who were actively loyal and helpful, others were apathetic or openly hostile.

From Burmah was recalled the 84th, from Ceylon the 37th, from Madras the Madras Fusiliers (102nd). The 64th and 78th returned from Persia just in time, and covered 126 miles in eight days. Sir Colin Campbell arrived from England to take the chief command of the operations, while regiments were hurried out from home, and the troops destined for China were detained on the way.