Military History: Lectures Delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

The last eminent man of the line, Aurungzib, perhaps inspired by the deterioration of his countrymen, was a rabid Mohammedan fanatic, so relentless in his persecutions that he raised up a host of enemies and brought about the ruin of the Mogul Empire. The Rajputs reappeared as the champions of Hinduism, but there also came forward two new defenders. The first may be described as a Puritan sect, the Sikhs. They were at the outset only martyrs, but later, when a man of genius was born among them, they became in the nineteenth century a great military power. The second and more important were the Marathas, the followers of Sivaji Bonsla, a petty chief from the hills above Bombay, who being a fine military leader, wore out the armies of Aurungzib by what we call guerilla tactics. What the Marathas were no one can say. They were not a caste, nor a sect, nor a nation; but they were a homogeneous body, and they would, but for us English, have become the masters of India.

Our own start in India was humble; but the East India Company began in the early years of the seventeenth century to establish factories, or trading depots, at various points on the coast, including one at Madras in 1640 and on the Hugli in 1651. Bombay, which was part of the dowry of Katharine of Bragança, was leased to the Company in 1661, and Calcutta was founded in 1690. But all the factories suffered much during the incessant fighting between Sivaji and Aurungzib; and the Company in 1686 declared its intention of making reprisals. It had already formed the nuclei of European armies in Madras in 1644 and in Bombay in 1668; and had begun to enlist native troops in 1683. But meanwhile another European power, the French, had established factories in Madras at Pondicherry and in Bengal at Chandernagore in the year 1674; and the progress of events was such as to offer great temptation to foreign adventurers. Aurungzib died in 1707, and with the passing of the last strong man the realm of the Moguls crumbled rapidly away. The viceroy of the Dekhan set himself up as an independent sovereign at Haiderabad; a Hindu dynasty was founded at Tanjore; another imperial official seized Oude; one adventurer laid hold of Bengal; another of Rohilkhand; countless soldiers of fortune planted themselves as petty chieftains in hill-fortresses; a Persian invader sacked Delhi; and an Afghan chieftain conquered the whole of the western Punjab. India had never been in a more appalling welter of confusion and chaos than in the midst of the eighteenth century.

Just at this period the English and French for the first time came to blows in the Peninsula, the pretext being the war of the Austrian Succession. The French, represented at Pondicherry by a very able agent, Dupleix, had initiated a policy of diplomatic interference in the affairs of the neighbouring states, having an army of seven thousand Sepoys to back them. The British on the other hand stuck to their trading, and, as usual, were unprepared for any attack. The French therefore besieged and took Madras in 1746; but, being reinforced in time, the British in turn besieged but did not take Pondicherry. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle followed, which put an end to hostilities; and Madras was restored to us in exchange for Louisburg. The most significant incident of the war, however, was that the Nawab of the Carnatic, the nominal suzerain of both the English and the French on the Coromandel coast, had attempted to keep the peace between them; and that his raw levies, to the number of ten thousand, had been swept off the field in five minutes by two hundred and fifty French soldiers and thrice that number of trained Sepoys. This showed that a handful of disciplined European soldiers could suffice to rout any primitive Oriental host. Another important matter was that the operations against the French had revealed a remarkable leader in the British ranks, namely Major Stringer Lawrence, a simple man who could hardly write his name, but a fine soldier and a judge of men. For he selected from the counting-house of the Company a young clerk named Robert Clive, took his military education in hand, and to all intents adopted him as his son.

Meanwhile the death of the Nawab of the Carnatic and of the Viceroy of the Dekhan almost simultaneously gave Dupleix an opportunity, which he did not neglect, of making French influence paramount at both Courts. The succession, as almost invariably happens in the East, was disputed; and Dupleix, by supporting in each case one candidate, saw his way to making him a puppet and himself the actual ruler. The English of course supported the rival candidates; and thus, though France and England were at peace, the representatives of both nations in India were at war as auxiliaries of native princes. Stringer Lawrence being at home on leave, English military affairs went sadly wrong; and at one moment the situation was so desperate that it was only saved by a diversion against Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, by the young but not uninstructed volunteer Clive. However in 1752 Lawrence returned, and in that and the following year he gained victory after victory over the French. The centre of the fighting, by a singular chain of accidents, was the city of Trichinopoly; and in the plain before it Lawrence, with forces ranging from eight hundred to three thousand regular troops, two-thirds of them Sepoys, against superior numbers of French, fought a series of beautiful little actions, out-manœuvring his enemy on the open ground by what would now be called parade movements, but which were then the finest achievements of training and discipline. In 1754 Dupleix was recalled to France to answer for misconduct, and the struggle was closed by a suspension of arms. The interest of these few years, 1748 to 1754, is that, France and England being at peace, their fleets could not intervene in the contest; otherwise the power which enjoyed supremacy at sea was bound to win, being always able to bring out her own reinforcements and exclude those of the enemy. When the fight was resumed, the influence of superiority at sea was very clearly seen; but meanwhile the year 1753 had witnessed a new departure in British policy in India, namely the arrival of a king's regiment, the 39th Dorsetshire, which still bears the motto Primus in Indis. Henceforward the rivalry in the great peninsula was not to be between trading companies but between nations.

And now you will ask what manner of campaigns were these? I must answer that generally speaking they were extremely comfortable. The theatre of war, which extended along about two hundred miles of the east coast from Madras to the River Cavery, and about fifty miles inland, is mostly easy country, cultivated and full of supplies, with abundance of old fortified places to serve for depots and magazines. Thus the sea could be used for the conveyance of troops and heavy stores along the coast (though the ports are unsafe during the monsoon); while inland there was abundance of native carts and of bullocks, which, though small and weakly, could travel at the rate of two miles an hour. The army was, as always in India, accompanied by a vast number of followers—in those days about ten followers to one fighting man, though the proportion has now been greatly reduced. In fact an army on the march had much the appearance of a moving city, every kind of trade, profession and calling being represented, with speculators, in particular, in great strength. On the march the officers were for the most part carried in palanquins, and they were of course attended by the full strength of their native households, with every appliance for their comfort. The men marched, the British, so far as one can gather, in full European costume and with no special protection from the sun; though it is difficult to be certain about the matter, for it is quite likely that they were equipped very much according to the notions of their officers. They too had plenty of followers to look after them. The Sepoys, so far as uniform went, were dressed in a short red jacket, a curious semi-oriental, semi-European black headdress, very short little white drawers barely reaching mid-thigh, and native shoes. The Madrassi is not a fighting man—indeed Lord Roberts went so far as to disband most of the true Madras infantry—and it is almost certain that the sepoys who fought with Lawrence, Clive, Coote, and Wellesley were adventurers from all parts of India, including many from the fighting races of the north. The British in column of route marched two abreast, the Sepoys three abreast, for though well disciplined their drill was primitive; and, so far as I can gather, they knew few words of command (apart from the manual and firing exercise) except "Right turn" and "Left turn," which sufficed to bring them from line into column and from column into line, the British in two ranks, the Sepoys in three. It must be added that the Company's troops, being accustomed to march from place to place to relieve each other in various garrisons, always kept a respectable amount of transport with them, and hence could enter upon a campaign ready mobilised. But at all times the number of the followers was, and still is, a great encumbrance, and, when supplies and forage were scanty, an appalling difficulty.

So much for Madras; but Madras was only one of three presidencies, which were practically as far from each other as England is from Portugal. From Calcutta to Madras is a good eight hundred miles by sea; and by land the journey was almost impracticable owing to the number of great rivers that cross the line of march. From Bombay to the British settlements on the Malabar coast is another eight hundred miles by sea, and to Madras itself, going round Ceylon, over two thousand miles. From Calcutta to Bombay overland is a thousand miles as the crow flies, though part of the distance could be travelled by river, and by sea at least two thousand five hundred miles. Moreover there was until 1773 no Governor-General; but the three presidencies of Bombay, Bengal and Madras were co-equal, and divided moreover by jealousies and self-importance.

The opening of the Seven Years' War in 1756 brought about a renewal of hostilities: but it began with an unexpected disaster in the capture of Calcutta, through a sudden hit of jealousy, by Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal. Upon this disaster followed the tragedy of the Black Hole. It was necessary to send troops up from Madras under Clive to recover the city with all haste, for French reinforcements were expected at Pondicherry, and there was no fleet to stop them. Having but a handful of men, Clive contrived to detach one of the Nawab's principal officers from him, and by the man's treacherous assistance defeated Siraj-ud-Daula at Plassey. This done, he installed Mir Jaffier, the officer aforesaid, in the Nawab's place, and left a young clerk named Warren Hastings to keep him in order.

Meanwhile a very able French officer, one de Bussy, had contrived by consummate skill and daring to restore French influence with the Viceroy of the Dekhan, but, having little military force at his command, was unable to effect much, while the British themselves were too weak greatly to harm their enemies. In the spring of 1758 the French reinforcements arrived, and the commander, Count Lally Tollendal, was able to take the field with twenty-five hundred Europeans—an enormous force in those days—and half as many Sepoys. He captured several minor places in the first few months, but, finding himself short of money, turned southward to take some from the rich Rajah of Mysore. Persecuting and bullying wherever he went, he soon turned all the natives against him. All cattle were driven off, all food was hidden away; and, when Tanjore was reached, he found himself opposed not only by natives but by part of the British garrison of Trichinopoly, which the British commandant had sent to their assistance. After heavy loss and much suffering he returned to Pondicherry, where he learned that after a sharp action the French fleet had been driven from the coast by a British fleet of inferior numbers; and, what with one trouble and another, it was December before he could lay siege to Madras. He stayed before the city for two months, when the appearance of the British fleet, which had been refitted after the recent engagement, compelled him to retreat. Meanwhile Clive in Bengal had detached a small force, as a diversion, by sea against the French settlements in the Northern Sirkars, about two hundred miles north of Madras; where the commander, Colonel Forde of the Thirty-ninth, fought a brilliant campaign against superior numbers, and by his success not only extinguished the French power in that quarter but banished French influence in favour of English at the court of the Viceroy of the Dekhan. The tide now turned. Fresh reinforcements arrived from England together with a new commander, Colonel Eyre Coote, to take the place of Lawrence whose health had given way. The Dutch in Batavia, always jealous of the British, fitted out an expedition to attack their rivals in Bengal while the bulk of British troops were in Madras; but it was useless. Clive detached Forde with orders to fight them immediately. Forde did so, overthrowing their superior numbers in half an hour, and capturing their army almost to a man. Three months later Coote met Lally at Wandewash upon equal terms and completely defeated him, thus destroying for ever the French competition for the mastery of India.

While the British power was thus growing, that of the Marathas had increased likewise; and they had organised themselves into a confederacy of five co-equal parts under five principal chiefs. In 1758 their success ran so high that they laid hold upon Delhi itself; but this was too much for the Mohammedan Afghans. They came down in their wrath; and in 1761 a great battle was fought at Panipat in which the Marathas were utterly defeated. Had the Afghans followed up their success, the Marathas would have taken long to recover from the blow; but the victors were obliged to look to their own western frontier which was threatened by the Persians; and the only result of the fight was to exhaust two of the possible masters of northern India and leave the country in greater confusion than ever. Most unfortunately, too, Clive, the representative of the third possible master, went home on leave at this time; and the supreme power in Bengal passed into the hands of the Company's clerks. Having no high standard before their eyes and being miserably paid, these clerks saw the chance of enriching themselves by selling the use of the Company's troops to any potentate or adventurer who might offer to buy; and, by setting up and throwing down the Nawabs of Bengal as best suited their pockets, they involved the Company in most perilous and soon disastrous wars. From the worst of their difficulties they were extricated by the military genius of Major Thomas Adams, who though deficient alike in men, arms and supplies, contrived by three victories at Katwa, Suti and Undwa Nala in July, August and September, 1763, to maintain the terror of the British arms. But the titular Emperor of Delhi of the Mogul dynasty also entered the fray, and strove with the help of the Nawab of Oudh to re-establish his former sovereignty over Bengal; and to make matters worse at this critical moment there was a mutiny among the Sepoys of the Bengal Presidency. The mutiny, however, was sternly repressed by Major Hector Munro, who then led his army against the Emperor and utterly defeated him at Buxar on the 23rd of February, 1764. This victory opened the way to Oudh, and the British captured in succession the great cities of Allahabad and Lucknow; when at this moment Clive returned and stopped further annexation. He had no wish to have for neighbours the adventurers who had sprung up at Delhi, Agra, Bhurtpore and in Rohilkhand. He therefore restored Oudh to its Nawab, so as to keep it a buffer-state between Bengal and the rest of Hindostan.