A history of England

by Charles Oman

The heir of the Moguls proclaimed Emperor at Delhi.

In the months of May and June, more than forty garrisons in the valleys of the Ganges and the Jumna mutinied. In most cases their rising was followed by hideous cruelty; the European officers were treacherously shot, and hundreds of women and children massacred. Both Hindoos and Mussulmans eagerly joined the rising, but the main guidance of the mutiny was in the hands of the latter. They proclaimed the descendant of the great Mogul, who still resided at Delhi, the heir of the empire of his ancestors. Delhi itself, where there was no British garrison, fell into their hands, after the great magazine had been blown up by the desperate courage of Lieutenant Willoughby.

Rising in Oude.—Siege of Lucknow.

The ancient city became the centre of the rebellion in the north, while further south, in Oude, the whole population rose in arms to restore their late king, and beleaguered in the residency of Lucknow the one British regiment which formed part of the garrison of the newly annexed state.

Spread of the rebellion.

Except in Oude and certain parts of the North-West Provinces the rebellion was purely military, and the peasantry preserved a timid neutrality in the strife. But the whole Bengal army, with hardly an exception, rose—or tried to rise—against its masters. Fortunately for England, the mutiny did not affect the Madras presidency at all, and only spread to a small corner of the Bombay presidency. But all northern India from Benares to the Sutlej was lost for a time. Unwarlike Bengal remained quiet, and the Punjab—where English regiments were more numerous than in any other part of India—was kept under control by its able governor, Sir John Lawrence. But all that lay between them was a seething flood of rebellion, where a few English garrisons lay scattered like islands in a tempestuous sea. Agra, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Allahabad, were all insufficiently held—only at the third of them was there so much as a single regiment of British infantry.

The siege of Delhi.

While the authorities at Calcutta were collecting the few European troops who could be gathered from Burmah and Madras, and were making desperate appeals for prompt aid from home, the governor of the Punjab struck the first blow for the reconquest of the lost provinces. Four thousand Europeans and some hastily raised Sikh levies crossed the Sutlej and marched on Delhi, now held by at least 30,000 mutineers. They defeated the rebels in the field, and commenced the siege of the royal city on June 10, 1857. This bold move threw the enemy on the defensive, and the rising spread no further in the north. But Delhi was beleaguered for fourteen weeks, and even when every available British soldier had been drawn from the Punjab, the storming of the place was a hazardous task, only carried to a successful end by the reckless courage of the assailants. After six days of deadly street fighting (September 14-20, 1857), the rebels were driven out, and their titular leader, the aged Grand Mogul, with all his family, was captured. Bahadur Shah himself was only banished to Burmah, but his sons and grandson were shot without trial by Major Hodson, the daring cavalry officer who had tracked and captured them.

The massacre of Cawnpore.

While the siege of Delhi was still in progress, a small force had been collected at Calcutta and hurried northward to attack Oude and relieve the beleaguered garrisons of Cawnpore and Lucknow. General Havelock commanded this brigade, a mere handful of 1200 men. He pushed on from Allahabad on June 30, but when he had cut his way to Cawnpore after four considerable fights, he found that he was too late. The small garrison there, hampered with many hundreds of women and children, had held out for a month, but surrendered on June 27 to the chief of the rebels, Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the late Peishwa, whose pension and title had been denied him. [70] This revengeful and treacherous ruffian promised the besieged a safe passage to Allahabad. But as soon as they had evacuated their entrenchments, he massacred them all in cold blood, save two hundred women and children, whom he saved alive. When the news of Havelock's victorious advance was heard, he had these poor survivors hacked to death and cast into the famous "well of Cawnpore" (July 15). The British brigade cut its way into the city a day too late to save the prisoners, but was able to wreak a terrible vengeance on their murderers, though the Nana himself, to the bitter disappointment of all, got safely away and died a fugitive in the jungles of Nepaul.