Runjit Singh had died in 1839, and his successors were weak princes who perished in civil wars or by palace conspiracies. They were utterly unable to restrain their arrogant and unruly army, which made and unmade sovereigns at Lahore like the Roman praetorians of the third century. In 1845 the rash and ignorant generals of the Sikhs resolved to attack the British, and dreamed of overrunning all India. They crossed the Sutlej and invaded the North-Western provinces ere the new Governor-General, Lord Hardinge, had fully realized that war was at hand.
Battles of Ferozeshah and Sobraon.
Our Sikh wars saw the hardest fighting which has ever taken place in India. The army which Runjit Singh had spent his life in training was a splendid force, and proved able in the shock of battle to beat the sepoys of the Company. It was only by the desperate fighting of the British troops, little aided by their native auxiliaries, that the Sikhs were finally driven back. Unfortunately, Lord Gough, the commander-in-chief, was a reckless general, whose only idea of tactics was to dash his men at the centre of the enemy's position, regardless of batteries, obstacles, and earthworks. A more circumspect officer could probably have attained his end at a much less cost of life. At Ferozeshah he was completely foiled in his first attempt to force the entrenched camp of the Sikhs, and only succeeded on the next day because the enemy, who had suffered as heavily as the British, had not the heart to stand up to a second battle within twenty-four hours, and retired from his position. Sobraon, the decisive engagement of the campaign, was even more bloody; but on this occasion the Sikhs fought with the Sutlej at their backs; and when at last they were driven from their lines, a fourth of their army perished in the river (February 10, 1846). The Lahore government then asked for peace, which was granted them on condition that Dhulip Singh, the young son of Runjit Singh, should acknowledge the suzerainty of the British.
Battles of Chillianwallah and Guzerat.
But the brave and obstinate Sikhs did not yet consider themselves beaten. Less than two years after the first struggle was over they again tried the fortune of war. In March, 1848, Moolraj, the Governor of Mooltan, rose in rebellion to throw off the British suzerainty. The whole Sikh army fell away to him, and a campaign not less desperate than that of 1845-6 began. Lord Gough, who was still in command, repeated his former tactics at Chillianwallah, and flung his army against a line of batteries hidden by jungle. The British only carried them with heavy loss, the 24th foot being completely cut to pieces. The old general's disregard for common prudence and the lives of his men so irritated his officers, that when they again met the enemy at the decisive battle of Guzerat (February 22, 1849) they clandestinely confined him on a housetop, till the Sikh entrenchments had been pounded for three hours by an overwhelming fire of artillery. The British infantry were then let loose, carried the earthworks with little loss, and brought the campaign to a prompt end, for the whole Sikh army surrendered a few days later (March 12, 1849).
Lord Dalhousie annexes the Punjab.
The Punjab was now annexed, for Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General who had succeeded Lord Hardinge, did not intend to give the Sikhs the opportunity of raising a third war. Dhulip Singh, the titular Maharajah, was sent to live in England on a pension. Certain outlying districts, such as Cashmere, were left to chiefs who had not opposed us in the struggle of 1848; but Lahore and the whole of the plain of the "Five Rivers" were put under British rule. The officers to whom the settlement of the Punjab was given over were the picked men of India: so ably and genially did they do their work, that the Sikhs soon settled down into quiet and loyal subjects. When next the British empire in Hindostan was in danger, it was largely saved by the gallant aid of levies from the Punjab.
The second Burmese war.
After the great struggle with the Sikhs was over, the rest of Lord Dalhousie's administration was comparatively uneventful. The second Burmese war of 1852, provoked by the ill-treatment of English merchants at Rangoon, was a short and easy campaign, which resulted in the annexation of Pegu, the coast district of the Burmese kingdom, and the mouths of the Irrawaddy.
Further annexations by Lord Dalhousie.