Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Independence, Declaration of" to "Indo-European Languages" / Volume 14, Slice 4

by Various

To this accumulation of inflammatory materials a spark was put in 1857 by an act of almost incredible folly on the part of the military authorities in India. The introduction of the Minié rifle, with its greased cartridges, was The greased cartridges. accompanied by no consideration of the religious prejudices of the Bengal sepoys, to whom, whether Hindus or Mahommedans, the fat of cows and pigs was anathema. It was easy for agitators to persuade the sepoys that the new cartridges were greased with the fat of animals sacred to one creed or forbidden to another, and that the British government was thus engaged in a deep-laid plot for forcing them to become Christians by first making them outcasts from their own religions. The growth of missionary enterprise in India lent colour to this theory, which was supported by the fact that no precautions had been taken to grease the Indian cartridges with a neutral fat, such as that of sheep and goats. The researches of Mr G. W. Forrest in the Indian government records have shown that the sepoys’ fears of defilement by biting the new cartridges had a considerable foundation in fact. At a court-martial in 1857 Colonel Abbott, inspector general of ordnance, gave evidence that “the tallow might or might not have contained the fat of cows.” No attempt, in fact, had been made to exclude the fat of cows and pigs, and apparently no one had realized that a gross outrage was thus being perpetrated on the religious feelings of both Hindu and Mahommedan sepoys. The low-caste natives employed in the arsenals knew what grease was actually being employed, and taunted the Brahman sepoys with the loss of caste that would follow their use of the new cartridges. Refusals to accept the suspected cartridges were soon heard in the Bengal army. The numerous agitators who had their own reasons for fomenting mutiny rose to the occasion, and In the first months of 1857 the greater part of the Bengal presidency was seething with sedition. At this time took place the mysterious distribution of chapatis, small cakes of unleavened bread, which had previously been known in connexion with the mutiny at Vellore (1806). “From village to village, from district to district, through hill-land and lowland, the signal—unexplained at the time, inexplicable still—sped; and in village after village, in district after district, the spreading of the signal was followed by the Increased excitement of the people.”

The first signs of the approaching trouble were displayed at the great military station of Barrackpur, 16 m. from Calcutta, in January 1857. The minds of the native regiments quartered there were maddened by rumours of the defilement which the new Minié cartridges would entail upon them, and incendiary fires broke out in the lines. The trouble was allayed by the tact of General Hearsey, who reported the incident to the Indian government on the 24th of January. A fortnight later he wrote, as the result of his inquiries, “We have at Barrackpur been dwelling upon a mine ready for explosion.” At Berhampur, 100 m. to the north, on the 27th of February, the 19th Bengal infantry refused on parade to take their percussion caps, on the ground that to bite the new cartridges would defile them. The absence of any European troops made it impossible to deal with this act of mutiny on the spot. The defaulting regiment was marched down to Barrackpur for punishment. On the 29th of March, two days before its arrival, a sepoy named Manghal Pandi, from whom the mutineers afterwards came to be spoken of as “Pandies,” drunk with bhang and enthusiasm, attempted to provoke a mutiny in the 34th Bengal infantry, and shot the adjutant, but Hearsey’s personal courage suppressed the danger. Two days later the 19th were publicly disbanded, but no further punishment was attempted. This was partly due to Lord Canning’s personal inclination to temper justice with mercy, but partly also to the fact that there was no adequate European force at hand to execute a severer sentence. Bengal had been recklessly depleted of white troops, and there was only one European regiment between Calcutta and Dinapur, a distance of 400 m. Canning sent at once for more British troops from Burma. Meantime new accounts of refusals to use even the old cartridges came from distant parts of Hindostan, from Umballa under the very eyes of Anson, the commander-in-chief, and from Lucknow, the capital of the newly annexed kingdom of Oudh. Lord Canning, the governor-general, who had at first hoped that he had only to deal with isolated cases of disaffection, at last recognized that the plague was epidemic, and that only stern measures could stay it. But before he could take the necessary steps, there reached Calcutta the news of the outbreak at Meerut and the capture of Delhi.

Meerut, 25 m. from Delhi, was an important military station, under the command of Colonel Archdale Wilson: the district was commanded by General Hewitt, one of the old and inefficient officers whom the rigid system of The outbreak at Meerut. seniority had placed in so many high commands. At Meerut were quartered, besides one regiment of native cavalry and two of native infantry, a strong force of British troops, horse, foot and guns. Nevertheless, 85 men of the native cavalry regiment, driven to despair by the persistent rumours of the danger to their caste, refused on the 24th of April to accept their cartridges. For this offence they were condemned to ten years’ imprisonment with hard labour on the roads, and on the 9th of May they were publicly stripped of their uniforms and marched off to gaol. The next day was a Sunday; and in the evening, whilst the British troops were parading for church, the native cavalry armed themselves, galloped to the gaol and released their comrades. Almost simultaneously the two infantry regiments shot down their officers and broke into open revolt. The badmashes, or criminal class, broke forth from their quarter and began to burn and plunder the dwellings of the British. A few of the mutineers took part in this work; but the great majority of them, fearing the vengeance of the British troops, hastened to move off, rather a mob than an army, upon the Delhi road. There is a general agreement that if a man like Gillespie or Nicholson had been in command of the station, the strong force at his disposal would have enabled him to strike such a deadly blow at the fleeing mutineers as might have stamped out the Mutiny. But Hewitt was too old and Wilson was lacking in initiative; the opportunity was lost, and no attempt was made to do more than clear the cantonments.

So many of the chief actors in the Mutiny on the native side carried their secrets into dishonoured graves that it is impossible to know exactly what schemes the household of the king of Delhi had concerted with the disaffected sepoys. The Revolt of Delhi. But when the mutineers reached Delhi they were at once joined by the city mob and the king’s guards in proclaiming a revival of the Mogul empire. For a few hours the native troops of the British garrison awaited the turn of events; but when it became apparent that the British troops from Meerut were afraid to move, there was a general flame of revolt, and Delhi at once became the headquarters of the Mutiny. Most of the British officers and residents were massacred then or afterwards. The great magazine was gallantly defended for a time by nine Britons under Lieutenant Willoughby, and was blown up by them when all hope of relief had vanished. A young telegraph clerk sent the news to Umballa, continuing to signal until he was cut down at his post. Before the authorities in Calcutta and Lahore could take any steps to deal with the long-prophesied danger, the whole of the North-West Provinces were in revolt. Fortunately the two men on whom the chief responsibility fell in this great crisis were equal to their task. Canning in Calcutta, John Lawrence in the Punjab, were men indeed equal to any burden; and the stress of the Mutiny, ending once and forever the bad old system of seniority, brought to the front so many subordinates of dauntless gallantry and soldierly insight that a ring of steel was rapidly drawn round the vast territory affected. Lawrence saw that the surest way to prevent the Mutiny from spreading from the sepoy army of Bengal to the recently conquered fighting races of the Punjab was to hurl the Sikh at the Hindu; instead of taking measures for the defence of the Punjab, he acted on the old principle that the best defence is attack, and promptly organized a force for the reduction of Delhi, with the ardent co-operation of born leaders like John Nicholson, Neville Chamberlain and Herbert Edwardes. Anson, the commander-in-chief, died of cholera before he had had a chance to act on Lawrence’s telegram, “Clubs, not spades, are trumps.” He was succeeded by Sir Henry Barnard in command of the Delhi field force, then amounting to about 3000 British troops with 22 field guns, in addition to a few Gurkhas and Punjab native troops. The loyalty of the independent Sikh chiefs, headed by Patiala, and the stern measures which had been taken with the sepoy regiments enabled Lawrence to reinforce this little army with every available man and gun from the Punjab, in addition to Sikh and Pathan levies. It was to the insight of Lawrence and the splendid organization of the Punjab province—the spoilt child of the Indian government, as it had been called in allusion to the custom of sending thither the best of the Indian officials and soldiers—that the reduction of Delhi and the limitation of the outbreak were due. Meantime Canning was manfully playing his part at Calcutta. In the hour of danger he was undismayed, as in the hour of victory he was just and merciful. He telegraphed for reliefs from every available quarter, fortunately being able to divert the troops then on their way to China. The native armies of Bombay and Madras remained loyal, and the former in particular—thanks to Lord Elphinstone—furnished valuable reinforcements. Sir Colin Campbell, a veteran soldier whose laurels had been won in many battles from the Peninsula to the Crimea, was despatched from England to take command of the army in India. But even before he could arrive, the outspread of the Mutiny had already been checked by the gallantry and skill of a mere handful of Britons and their faithful native allies.

Canning and Lawrence, at opposite ends of the disaffected districts, alike perceived that Delhi was the centre of peril, and that all other considerations must be subordinated to striking a decisive blow at that historic city. Both The Siege of Delhi. flung to the winds the European rules of warfare, which highly trained officers like Wilson had allowed to hamper their movements. “Make as short work as possible of the rebels,” wrote Canning. “Where have we failed when we acted vigorously?” asked Lawrence. Though the nominal commanders of the army which captured Delhi were in turn Barnard, Reed and Wilson, the policy thus stated by Canning and Lawrence was really carried out by their subordinates—Baird Smith, Nicholson and Chamberlain. The Meerut troops, at last roused from their inaction, joined Barnard on the 7th of June, after a successful affair with the mutineers, and the next day the action of Badli-ki-Serai enabled the British force to occupy the famous Ridge, which they never abandoned till the final assault. At first the British troops, outnumbered by more than three to one by the mutinous regiments alone, were rather besieged than besiegers. Baird Smith indeed urged an immediate assault upon Delhi, on the ground that audacity is the best policy in Indian warfare; but it was not until the arrival of Nicholson on the 7th of August with the last Punjab reinforcements that the force was strong enough, in the opinion of its commander, to take offensive action. On the 14th of September, after three days of artillery preparation, the assault was delivered, under Nicholson’s leadership. Two practicable breaches had been made by the siege guns, and a party of engineers under Home and Salkeld blew in the Kashmir gate. The assault was successful, in so far as a firm lodgment was made in the city, though the loss of Nicholson was a heavy price to pay for this success. Wilson actually thought of retreating; but Baird Smith and Chamberlain insisted on perseverance, and the city was captured after six days’ hard fighting. The mutineers were completely cowed; the king of Delhi was taken and reserved for trial; and his sons were shot by Captain Hodson, after unconditional surrender, an act which has since been the theme of much reprobation, but which commended itself at the time to Hodson’s comrades as wise and justifiable. The siege of Delhi, which was the turning-point of the Mutiny, had lasted for more than three months, during which thirty minor actions had been fought in the almost intolerable heat of the Indian midsummer.

The stern determination of the British troops, which alone made possible the reduction of Delhi with so inadequate a force, was intensified, if possible, by the ghastly story of Cawnpore. That important military station, lying The Massacre at Cawnpore. on the Ganges on the confines of Oudh, was under the command of Sir Hugh Wheeler, an old but still efficient and experienced officer. It was garrisoned by about 3000 native troops, with a mere handful of white soldiers. When the news of the Meerut outbreak reached Wheeler, who had already noted many symptoms of disaffection in his own station, he was placed in a very difficult position. Under his care was a large body of non-combatants—women and children in great numbers among them. To occupy the one defensible position in the station, the magazine by the river with its vast military stores and its substantial masonry walls, would have involved steps which Wheeler regarded as certain to precipitate an outbreak. It was then thought that, if the sepoys mutinied, they would march off to Delhi, and Wheeler contented himself by throwing up a rude entrenchment round the hospital barracks, where he thought that the Europeans would be safe during the first tumult of a rising. All might have fallen out as he anticipated, had it not been that the Nana Sahib, the adopted heir of the late peshwa, was rajah of Bithur in the neighbourhood. This young Mahratta, since known to universal execration as the arch-villain of the Mutiny, was secretly burning with a sense of injury received from the Indian government. He was also ambitious; and when, on the 4th of June, the Cawnpore garrison broke into open mutiny, he prevailed on them to stay and help him to carve a new kingdom out of the company’s territory, instead of throwing in their lot with the Delhi empire. From the 6th to the 27th of June the handful of British soldiers, who composed the garrison of a fortification that could not have resisted a serious assault for a single hour, held out with the greatest gallantry in hope of relief. When this hope had died away, they surrendered to the Nana on his solemn promise that all their lives should be spared and that they should have a safe conduct to Allahabad. The Nana, partly urged by his native cruelty, partly, no doubt, by the wish to commit his followers beyond all possibility of composition, massacred the entire garrison in the boats which should have taken it down the river, reserving only some two hundred women and children for a later death. These poor victims were confined in a house known as the Bibigarh. On the 15th of July, when Havelock’s avenging army was within a march of Cawnpore, they were all hacked to death and their bodies—some still faintly breathing—were thrown down the adjacent well which is to-day one of the most famous monuments of British rule in India. No single act of the Mutiny elicited such a storm of fierce anger among the British, both those who were fighting in India and those who supported them at home; for none was a more terrible vengeance taken, though the Nana himself escaped from his pursuers.

Meanwhile Lucknow, the capital of Oudh, was the scene of a historic defence. It was the headquarters of Sir Henry Lawrence, one of the most far-seeing of Indian statesmen, who was well aware of the mutinous state of The Defence of Lucknow. the native army. On the 18th of April he warned Lord Canning of some manifestations of discontent, and asked permission to transfer certain mutinous corps to another province. On the 1st of May the 7th Oudh infantry refused to bite the cartridge, but on the 3rd they were disarmed by other regiments. When the news of the outbreak at Meerut reached Lucknow, Sir Henry Lawrence recognized the gravity of the crisis and summoned from their homes two bodies of pensioners, one of sepoys and one of artillerymen, to whose loyalty, and to that of the Sikh sepoys, the successful defence of the residency was largely due. This position was immediately fortified. On the 30th of May the native troops broke into mutiny. On the 4th of June there was a mutiny at Sitapur, a large and important station 51 m. from Lucknow. This was followed by another at Fyzabad, one of the most important cities in the province, and outbreaks at Daryabad, Sultanpur and Salon. Thus in the course of ten days English authority in Oudh practically vanished. On the 30th of June Sir Henry Lawrence ordered a reconnaissance in force from Lucknow, which met the enemy at Chinhat; but the native sepoys and artillerymen turned traitors, and Sir Henry was forced to retreat to the residency, where the siege now began. The first attack was repulsed on the 1st of July, when the separate position of the Machchhi Bhawan was evacuated, and all the troops concentrated in the residency. The entrenchments surrounding this building covered some 60 acres of ground, and included a number of detached houses and buildings, knit together by ditches and stockades. In a military sense the position was indefensible. The garrison consisted of 1720 fighting men, of whom 712 were native troops, 153 civilian volunteers, and the remainder were British officers and men. This small force had to defend 1280 non-combatants. At the very beginning of the siege Sir Henry Lawrence was fatally wounded by a shell, and died on the 4th of July, thus depriving the defence of its guiding spirit. The command then developed upon General Inglis, who met the incessant attacks of the enemy with counter-sorties. On the 21st of July news was received that General Havelock was advancing, had defeated the Nana, and was master of Cawnpore; but it was still more than two months before even the first relief of Lucknow was achieved. During those two months every device was employed, by direct assault and by mining operations, to reduce the garrison, who held out nobly, meeting assault with sortie and mine with countermine. But the loyalty of the native troops began to waver as the weeks dragged by and no sign of relief appeared. On the 23rd of September, however, the sound of distant guns in the direction of Cawnpore was heard, and on the 25th General Havelock’s relieving force entered Lucknow. During the 87 days of the siege the strength of the garrison had diminished to 982, and many of these were sick and wounded. Against these were arrayed six thousand trained soldiers and a vast host of undisciplined rabble. For nearly three months their heavy guns and musketry had poured an unceasing fire into the residency entrenchment from a distance of only 50 yds. During the whole time the British flag flew defiantly on the roof of the residency. The history of the world’s sieges contains no more brilliant episode.

On the 5th of June the troops at Benares mutinied, but were disarmed by Neill; and on the 6th of June the 6th native infantry at Allahabad mutinied and shot down their officers, but the fort was held until the arrival of First Relief of Lucknow. Neill, who promptly restored order. On the 30th of June Sir Henry Havelock, who had been appointed to the command of the relieving column, arrived at Allahabad from Calcutta, and on the 7th of July he set out for the relief of Lucknow. His force consisted of some two thousand men all told, of whom three-quarters were British. On the 12th of July he fought the action of Fatehpur, and gained his first victory, though the irregular cavalry misbehaved and were subsequently disarmed. On the 15th the village of Aong was captured, and on the 16th the Nana’s force was utterly shattered in the battle of Cawnpore. In nine days Havelock had marched 126 m. and fought three general actions under a broiling sun in the hottest season of the year; but the women and children whom it had been his object to save had already been massacred. Leaving Neill in command at Cawnpore, Havelock started out again on the 29th of July with ten light guns and 1500 men in the desperate attempt to relieve Lucknow, which was 53 m. away. On the 29th he gained two victories at Unao and Busherutgunge, but considering himself too weak to advance, he fell back two marches upon Mangalwar. This decision was badly received by his troops, who were burning to avenge their countrywomen, and by General Neill, whom Havelock was obliged to reprimand for insubordination. Being slightly reinforced, he advanced on the 5th of August, and again turned the enemy out of Busherutgunge, but was again obliged by cholera to retreat to Mangalwar; and on receipt of news from Neill that the enemy were assembling at Bithur, he returned to Cawnpore, and abandoned for the time the attempt to relieve Lucknow. On the 16th of August he defeated the mutineers at Bithur. At this point General Havelock was joined by Sir James Outram, who would have superseded him in the command had not Outram himself, with unequalled generosity, proposed to accompany Havelock only in his civil capacity as chief commissioner of Oudh and to serve under him as a volunteer. On the 21st of September Havelock started on his second attempt to relieve Lucknow, and won the victory of Mangalwar. On the 23rd another victory was gained at Alam Bagh, and news reached the force of the fall of Delhi. From Alam Bagh there were four possible routes of advance to the residency, and Outram considered that the route chosen by Havelock, lying through the streets of Lucknow, involved unnecessary losses to the troops. Neill was killed in the streets, and the little force lost in all 535 officers and men; but on the 26th of September it entered the residency, and the first relief of Lucknow was accomplished.

But the two thousand men who had thus entered the residency entrenchment under Havelock and Outram, though sufficient to reinforce the garrison and save it from destruction, were not strong enough to cut their way back to safety, Second Relief of Lucknow. hampered with the women and children and wounded, amounting to 1500 souls, and the siege now recommenced upon a larger scale. Havelock’s task, however, was accomplished, and Outram now took command of the residency. A detachment had been left in the Alam Bagh, which was short of provisions; some attempts were made to open up communication with it, but without success. Subsequently it was reinforced from Cawnpore. Upon the fall of Delhi the troops before that city were freed for the operations in Oudh, and on the 24th of September a column of 2790 men under Colonel Greathed left Delhi. On the 29th a successful action was fought at Bulandshahr, and on the 10th of October the column reached Agra. Here they were surprised by the enemy, but drove them off with considerable loss. On the 14th of October the column left Agra under Colonel Hope Grant, and on the 26th reached Cawnpore, where news was received that the commander-in-chief was coming to take command of the operations. Sir Colin Campbell had been sent out from England to suppress the Mutiny, and had assumed command of the Indian army on the 17th of August, but could not immediately proceed to the front. It was his first task to reorganize the administrative and transport departments; only on the 27th of October did he leave Calcutta. On the 3rd of November he reached Cawnpore, and on the 12th marched upon Lucknow under the guidance of Thomas Henry Kavanagh, who had made his way from the residency disguised as a native for that purpose. Campbell had with him 4500 men with whom to raise a siege maintained by 60,000 trained soldiers occupying strong positions. On the 12th of November the force reached the Alam Bagh, and on the 14th advanced upon Lucknow, proceeding on this occasion across the open plain by the Dilkusha and Martinière instead of through the narrow and tortuous streets of Lucknow. On the 16th the Sikandra Bagh was stormed; on the following day Campbell joined hands with Outram and Havelock, and the relief of Lucknow was finally accomplished.

Sir Colin Campbell now decided to withdraw the garrison and women and children from the residency, and to hold Lucknow by a strong division operating outside the city. The residency was evacuated on the night of the 22nd of Capture of Lucknow. November; but the success of the operations was marred by the death of Havelock. On his return to Cawnpore Campbell found that General Windham was being attacked at that place by the Gwalior contingent. On the 6th of December he defeated the Gwalior contingent in the battle of Cawnpore, though he had only 5000 men against the enemy’s 25,000. His next task was to clear his line of communications with Delhi and the Punjab, and this he accordingly undertook. Lord Canning now decided that the next step should be the reduction of Lucknow, on the ground that it, like Delhi, was a rallying point of the Mutiny, and that its continuance in the hands of the enemy would mean a loss of prestige. General Franks’ column advanced to Lucknow from the eastern frontier of Oudh, defeating the enemy in four actions. Meanwhile Outram had held his own at the Alam Bagh for over three months with only 4000 men against 120,000 rebels. An offer of help from Nepal had been accepted in July, and now Jung Bahadur, the prime minister of Nepal, was advancing with 10,000 Gurkhas to aid in the operations against Lucknow; but the lateness of his arrival delayed the opening of the siege until the 2nd of March 1858. The Martinière was captured on the 9th of March and the Begum Kothi on the 11th. On the 14th the Imambara was stormed, and the Kaisar Bagh, and on the 16th the residency was once more in British possession. The enemy were thoroughly routed, but Campbell lost the opportunity of pushing the victory home by forbidding Outram to cross the bridge in pursuit if he thought he would lose a “single man,” and by sending the cavalry away from the environs of the city at the critical moment. Upon the fall of Lucknow Lord Canning’s Oudh proclamation was issued, confiscating almost the entire lands of the province, and ensuring only their lives to those rebels who should submit at once. Outram considered the terms of this proclamation dangerously severe, and Lord Ellenborough, president of the board of control, thus criticized it in a hasty despatch, the publication of which necessitated his own resignation. It was afterwards acknowledged that the Oudh proclamation, interpreted as Canning meant it should be, was a wise piece of statesmanship. After the fall of Lucknow Canning insisted that Sir Colin Campbell should take immediate action against the rebels in Oudh and Rohilkhand, and a number of petty and harassing operations were carried out by detached columns; but Campbell moved too slowly to bring his guerrilla opponents to book, and the rebellion was really brought to a conclusion by Sir Hugh Rose’s brilliant campaign in Central India.