“Field Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington.”
I have now served my country nearly forty years, I have fought in every quarter of the globe, I have driven four-in-hand in every quarter, I have never had a sick certificate, and only once received leave of absence, which I did for eight months to study mathematics. I have filled every staff situation of a Regiment and of the General Staff. I have commanded a Regiment in peace, and have had often a great voice in war. I entered the army perfectly unknown to the world, in ten years by force of circumstances I was Lieutenant-Colonel, and I have been present in as many battles and sieges as any officer of my standing in the army. I never fought a duel, and only once made a man an apology, although I am as hot a fellow as the world produces; and I may without vanity say, the friendship I have experienced equals the love I bear my comrade, officer or soldier.
My wife has accompanied me throughout the world; she has ever met with kind friends and never has had controversy or dispute with man or woman.
Harry Smith.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XLI.
On the Battle of Maharajpore.
In a letter to Sir James Kempt, dated “Gwalior, 15th January, 1844,” Harry Smith sketches the events which led to the battle, and cites his memorandum of 28th December given above. He continues—
“The army did march as described in Sir H. Gough’s dispatches in three columns, each arriving at its designated post in excellent time—which I freely admit was scarcely to be expected, having to disengage itself from a mass of laden elephants, camels, and bullocks and bullock carts, etc., resembling rather the multitudes of Xerxes than anything modern, and having to traverse ground on the banks of rivulets most peculiarly intersected by numerous and deep small ravines, the pigmy model of a chain of mountains, but even more impassable. On such ravines was posted the enemy’s left flank; his right extended towards the village of Maharajpore, which he had filled with Infantry and ably supported by batteries enfilading its approach, his extreme right again thrown back upon the ravines of the Ahsin River, as described in the little pencil sketch enclosed, thus realizing the surmise in my report, ‘his right “en air,” as if other troops were coming up to complete the occupation of the position.’ If we could have caught the enemy in the state he was when reconnoitred the previous day, easy indeed would have been the victory. These Mahrattas, nor indeed does any Indian Army, know no more than to occupy a strong position and hold it as long as able, sticking to their guns like men. Having observed the enemy’s position the day before, it was obvious to me this morning that he had advanced very considerably, and that he held the village of Maharajpore in force, which I rode through the day previous. Upon a plain, and that plain covered with the high stalks of Jumna corn, not a mound of rising ground even to assist the view, reconnoitring is nearly nominal. However, so impressed was I from what a nearer view the day before had given me and what I then saw, that the enemy attached great importance to his left flank, the line of his retreat if beaten, I ventured to advocate that flank as the most eligible point for a weighty attack. However, things were differently conducted and as the heads of columns appeared, the enemy instantly opened a well-directed cannonade, particularly from the vicinity of the village of Maharajpore, and Sir H. Gough ordered an advance. His dispatch tells the tale, and the mode of resistance, the enemy’s guns, etc. I need, therefore, only bear testimony to the gallantry of the enemy’s resistance, which in my conscience I believe and assert would not have been overcome but for our gallant old Peninsular comrades, the 39th and 40th Regiments, who carried everything before them, bayoneting the gunners at their guns to a man. These guns were most ably posted, each battery flanking and supporting the other by as heavy a cross-fire of cannon as I ever saw, and grape like hail. Our leaders of brigades in the neighbourhood and in the village had various opportunities of displaying heroism, Valiant, Wright 39th and my Assistant, Major Barr, remarkably so, and many gallant fellows fell in this noble performance of their duty. The enemy was driven back at every point with great loss, yielding to force, not retiring in haste. A more thorough devotedness to their cause no soldiers could evince, and the annals of their defeat, altho’ an honour to us, can never be recorded as any disgrace to them. Turn we now to General Grey’s division. For many days before the 29th our communication was totally interrupted, and the wisdom of the route and the disunited approach to Gwalior must be tested by the fortunate result, not by the established rules and principles of strategy. Grey’s dispatch is not so well written as it might have been, I am led to understand, nor does he give full credit to the old Buffs for their gallant double allowance with which they contributed to the achievements of the day and the capture of the enemy’s guns, every one of them. The old 50th had its share too, and the blockheads in the East, who ‘haver’ over their wine of India’s being in a state to require no British troops, are wrong: for, liberally contributing the full meed of praise to the Seapoy Battalions, that praise is so rested on the British soldier’s example, the want of that ‘point d’appui’ would entail a dire want indeed, that of victory! Now if we regard the victories recently obtained over the Mahratta force, 28,000 men whose discipline has gradually been improving under Christian officers since 1803 (the days of Lake and Wellington), well supplied with cannon and every implement of war, animated by a devotion to their cause not to be exceeded—in a military point of view they are achievements in the field which yield alone to Assaye and rank with Dieg, Laswarree, and Mehudpore, and in a political point of view, their importance is immense, struck in the very heart of India, within the hearing almost of the seat of government of our Upper Provinces, Agra. Remembering the disasters in Afghanistan, which still, as they ever will, hold their baneful influence over British India; reviewing the recent bloody murders, and present confusion and anarchy at Lahore; the still unsettled state of Bundelkund; the sickness in Scinde (that accursed Scinde), the grave of our army; the intrigues at the court of Nepaul, which have been rife and ready for mischief pending the late contest—then may my Lord Ellenborough and our country congratulate themselves upon the re-establishment of the ‘Prestige of our Arms’ as a sure foundation of our Indian Empire, the very base of which was tremulous, for it is well known that these Mahrattas have been advocating hostility in every court of the East. It is to be hoped, therefore, coupled with Lord E.’s moderation and the equity of his acts in thus re-establishing the youthful Maharaja on his throne, that our country and its Government will regard this as no war of foreign invasion, no war of conquest and unjust aggression, but one of absolute necessity to maintain the one Power paramount in India on the faith of old treaties of amity, and a demonstration to the present disturbed states of India, to the well-disposed, and to the World, that the British Lion will be ever triumphant; and that it will accordingly treat the soldiers who have achieved victories of such political magnitude with the liberality shown to the heroes exiled from Affghanistan, their discomfitures conjured into triumphs of valour, their miserable retreat through the Khyber Pass into deeds of glory inferior to none but the passage of San Bernardo by Napoleon. In this hope we may venture to trust a fair construction will be put on our acts, and that I may see my gallant comrades promoted as they deserve, and honoured in the manner recent services have been.
“I shall ever regard this battle as one of the most fortunate circumstances of my life, if the majority of its remainder is to be spent in India, by its having acquired me that experience in Indian warfare all require, and above all, to hold in just estimation your enemy, a creed I have ever advocated, and to a certain extent, in every instance practised. In the late conflict no one gave our foe credit for half his daring or ability; hence our attack was not quite so scientifically powerful by a combination of the different arms as it might have been, and the defects of the unwieldy machine called the British Indian Army rendered most glaring:—its appalling quantity of baggage, its lack of organization and equipment of the soldiers, its want of experience in Generals and in officers, the extreme willingness but total inexpertness and inaptitude of the soldier in the arts of war, in the conflict, on picquet, on every duty which a protracted campaign alone can teach effectually. In this country almost every war has been terminated in one or two pitched battles fought so soon as the one army comes in sight of the other, and accordingly all the science attaching to advance and retreat, the posting of picquets, reconnaissance of the enemy, the daily contemplating his movements, both when he is before you and on the march, are lost, and war is reduced at once to ‘there are people drawn up who will shoot at you, so fire away at them.’ You blindly and ineptly rush upon them, drive them from the field with considerable loss, take all their guns, and never see the vestige of them after. Thus we must judiciously and with foresight organize ourselves for a campaign in the Punjaub—a very probable event—for the armies of India are not now the rabble they were in Clive’s time, but organized and disciplined by European officers of experience (many French), and the art of war has progressed rapidly among our enemies, whose troops are invariably far more numerous than those we oppose to them; thus by superior ability we could alone calculate on their defeat. As it is, we calculate alone on the bulldog courage of Her Majesty’s soldiers, and our loss becomes what we lately witnessed.
“To obviate these deficiencies, apparent even to the most inexperienced eye, we must in the first place reduce our baggage, next give our Seapoys canteens and haversacks (a Regiment told me they were exhausted for want of water, the water-carriers having run away). We must then, every cold season, have divisions of the army assembled, and post the one half opposite the other, with outlying picquets, etc., and daily alarms, skirmishes, etc., then general actions with blank cartridges. Without this the British Indian Army will remain as it now is—a great unwieldy machine of ignorant officers and soldiers. The drill of the Seapoy is good enough, and that of his officer, and never will attain greater perfection, but unless the officers in their separate commands know how, as I call it, to feed the fight, to bring up or into action successively in their places their command, when the attack is ordered, I defy any general to defeat his enemy but by stupid bull-dog courage. It may be conceit in Harry Smith, but if 10,000 men were given him in one cold season, if by sham fights, etc., he did not make them practical soldiers, he would resign in disgust, for the material is excellent and willing, but now, like a dictionary, it contains all the words, but cannot write a letter.
“I have given you no account of the death of our gallant old comrade Churchill; he was game, and tho’ not free from many errors he had virtues, and his loss cost Juana and me some honest tears.