A History of the 17th Lancers (Duke of Cambridge's Own)

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

29th Dec.

Colonel Benson advanced to the attack in columns of divisions, and, on the commencement of the rebel fire, moved the leading column to the right, thus uncovering his guns, which opened fire at four hundred yards with grape and shell. The rebels soon gave way, and Benson then attacked with two divisions from his right, and drove them into the jungle. The Seventeenth then pursued them through the jungle and across the ravine, and on emerging from the latter found them rallied and drawn up in a new position. The Seventeenth then advanced in line, with the two guns in the centre, and after a vain attempt of the rebels to make a counter-attack, Sir William Gordon charged with his squadron and drove the enemy once more into the jungle and across the ravine. With some difficulty and delay the guns were taken across in pursuit; and after one or two more feeble attempts to rally, the rebels were dispersed and pursued in all directions. The action closed with the capture of four of Tantia’s elephants by Captain Drury Lowe. The ornaments of these elephants still remain in the regiment’s possession as trophies of this regimental day. The whole affair lasted about two hours; and the distance covered before the day’s work was ended was thirty-six miles, making a total of one hundred and seventy-eight miles, including the passage of two large rivers, in six days, accomplished without European supplies, without protection against the bitter cold of the nights, and, above all, without a murmur. The casualties were as usual trifling enough. The Artillery and Seventeenth each lost one man wounded and two horses killed.

1858.

On the very next day (30th December) Colonel Somerset’s column, consisting of 4 guns of the Royal Horse Artillery, 100 of the Seventeenth under Major White, and 150 of the 92nd Highlanders on camels, arrived likewise at Zeerapore. Major White had just missed Colonel Benson at Dug by three hours; and had then been summoned to join Colonel Somerset at Soosneer. In consequence of information as to a junction between Tantia Topee and Feroz Shah, Colonel Somerset decided to push on at once. He had marched forty miles on the 29th, 30th Dec. and started at 3 A.M. on the morning of the 30th, but he hurried on none the less, and reached Kulcheepore at 5.30 P.M. At midnight (12.5 A.M. 31st December) he started again and 31st Dec. marched on without a rest, except of an hour and a half to feed the horses, until 6.15 P.M., when he reached Satul after a forty-mile march. The rebels were now reported to be seven miles ahead, and it was determined, somewhat unfortunately, to march up to their encampment at once. As the British approached they were fired on by a rebel picquet; so that they could then do nothing more than lie down and wait till daylight. A small picquet of infantry, who had been riding on camels at the head of the column, was posted by the staff officer, and the Seventeenth then lay down on the ground, with their bridles in their hands. In a few moments every man was sound asleep. The staff-officer, waking an hour before daylight, found the bivouac like a camp of the dead—every soul so exhausted as to be overcome with sleep. The force was awakened without noise, and just at daylight the advance was resumed, but too late to overtake the rebels, who had moved off some time before. The British column, disregarding some dismounted soldiers and followers in the rebel camp, pushed on with all haste. The only track was of the worst possible description, and was necessarily allotted to the artillery, two troops of the Seventeenth trotting along, one on each flank of the guns, over the open. After thus traversing some seven miles, in the course of which the camels were left far in rear, the column came upon a village. 1858. The ground on each side thereof became impassable, so that the cavalry was compelled to bend outwards; and thus it came about that the guns, without escort, were actually the first to pass through a village with high walls, and with only just sufficient roadway to enable the guns to move. Fortunately the rebels made no effort to defend it; and it was only on debouching from the village that the gunners found, five hundred yards before them, three or four thousand rebel cavalry drawn up in line. Brigadier Somerset quietly turned to Major Paget, who commanded the half battery, and said “Gallop out towards them”; and so with the word “Leading gun, gallop,” the formation of the British line began. The other guns then followed, and a staff officer galloped back to hurry forward the camel corps. Meanwhile the rebel cavalry advanced at a walk, one of their leaders on a gray horse endeavouring with all his might to induce his men to charge the guns. But the guns had unlimbered, and their very first shot swept away the gray horse. Some few rebels dismounted to pick up their chief, and the remainder of the force moved away to the British left. Then up came half a dozen of the 92nd on their camels; and then from each side of the village appeared the two troops of the Seventeenth. They numbered between eighty and ninety men all told, and came on in rank entire with lances at the “carry”—two small slender lines of pennons four hundred yards apart. “It was a pretty sight,” says one who was there, “and the odds (4000 to 90) were so great that it became exciting also.” Straight onward they galloped; and then suddenly the pennons swept forward like a flash of light, every lance came down to the “engage,” and the Seventeenth with a yell dashed on to the charge. The rebels slackened pace, halted, and, before the lances had reached them, broke and fled; and the Seventeenth, plunging headlong among them, was swallowed up in the huge mass, and fairly vanished out of sight. Presently they appeared again, every lance still busy, and for seven miles the chase and the slaughter continued till men and horses could do no more.

1859. 1st Jan.

Thus did the one squadron, so far unengaged, of the Seventeenth obtain its opportunity at last and take brilliant advantage thereof. A single man of the Seventeenth, wounded, summed up in himself the casualties of the whole column; but every soul was fairly worn out. Before the rebels were overtaken at Barode (for by this name the action is known), Somerset’s column had marched a hundred and forty-seven miles without a halt except to feed the horses: the last fifty-two miles had been covered in thirty hours. The action with its pursuit of twelve miles made, with the return to camp, twenty-four miles more. All baggage and European supplies were left hopelessly in the rear: the nights were bitterly cold; and to bring discomfort to a climax, rain fell heavily for three days and three nights. Yet no one complained. On the morning after Barode men and horses were so numbed and stiff through cold and rain that they could hardly rise from the mud in which, through sheer fatigue, they had slept; and when after a few hours’ painful march the sun at last broke through the clouds, the men gave him three cheers.

But to Tantia, Barode was a mortal blow. The pursuing columns were now, so to speak, running for blood. General Michel shortly after the action formed a column wherein the whole of the Seventeenth was united, and pressed the chase with greater rapidity than ever, covering fifty-four miles and forty miles in two marches, and two hundred and fifty-six miles in eight days. On the 16th January, Tantia, flying northward, was caught and defeated by Brigadier Showers at Dewassa; on the 21st he was again caught and beaten by Colonel Holmes at Sikur. The Rao Sahib now abandoned Tantia in a rage, and Feroz Shah deserted him likewise. The former fled southward and was overtaken and defeated by Brigadier Honner’s column near Koshani on the 10th February. On the 13th Brigadier Somerset took up the chase with three and a half squadrons of the Seventeenth in his column, and achieved a march which threw even his previous efforts into the shade. In six days and a half the Seventeenth covered no less than two hundred and thirty miles; 1859. they had their enemy dead-beat before them, and they knew it. Ghastly tokens met them on the march—hoof-tracks filled with blood, helpless innocent horses with their feet worn down to the quick, and, at the last, three hundred rebels who gave themselves up without a blow, being literally unable to run away any farther. The leaders alone escaped; but from that time the Rao Sahib’s following ceased to exist; and he himself fled into the Banswarra jungle to be heard of no more. Tantia Topee, deserted, and since Sikur almost alone, hid in the Paron jungle until April, when he was betrayed by Rajah Man Singh to the English. He was tried by court-martial and hanged.

So ended this extraordinary chase, whereby the dying embers of the Mutiny were finally trampled out. In following the track of Tantia on the map, in and out and round about Malwa, one is reminded of nothing so much as the hunting of a rat in a barn. Though unendowed with the qualities that win success in a pitched battle, the man possessed a positive genius for guerilla warfare; and as he carried neither tents nor supplies, but satisfied his army’s wants by the simple process of looting and stealing, he enjoyed always an advantage over his pursuers. His methods, in fact, differed little from those of the Pindaris, with whom the Seventeenth had to do in 1816–19; and but for the treachery of Rajah Man Singh he might have disappeared for ever into the jungle like his comrades the Rao Sahib and Feroz Shah, or met his fate at the jaws of a tiger like the Pindari chief Cheettoo.

Of the part played by the Seventeenth Lancers much has already been said in the course of the narrative. It now remains to add a few details which, lest the thread of the story should be unduly broken, have been reserved to the last.

First, we must note that in this campaign the Seventeenth wore its English clothing: blue tunic, overalls strapped with cloth, and forage cap protected by a white curtain, this last being preferred to the white-covered lance cap.