The want of a pontoon train caused a complete stand-still of the whole army at Ramnuggur. The artillery, cavalry, and infantry might be said to have been immovable, and therefore, useless, because they could not cross an ordinary river.
Let us consider how they act on the continent of Europe. Windischgrätz crossed the Danube to Vienna, with 150,000 men, by means of a pontoon train. The French army have a special corps of pontoniers. The Russian guards have a movable force of 50,000 men, complete in every branch, with a magnificent pontoon train, exclusive of the other pontoon trains, attached to the other divisions of the mighty army of that vast empire.
Every military man knows that the transport of an army, with its immense quantity of artillery and baggage, across the rivers which intersect its line of march, is one of the most difficult as well as the most important operations in military tactics, especially in India, where the camp followers are so numerous.
History, both modern and ancient, teaches us that the success of a campaign often depends on the rapid conveyance of troops across the rivers that intersect their march. As far back as the days of Darius a floating bridge was thrown across the Bosphorus, and afterwards across the Danube, while Xerxes threw one over the Hellespont at the time of his ill-starred expedition to Europe. The most celebrated pontoon of modern times, was that constructed by the engineers of the British army across the Adour, in the south of France, in 1814, the river being 110 feet across.
During the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow, the whole of his immense army must have been captured or destroyed on the banks of the Beresina, had it not been for the extraordinary care and vigilant forethought of the principal French engineer, in preserving the materials required in the formation of a pontoon.
A pontoon train, such as the Duke of Wellington employed in India, in 1803, composed of forty boats, would require forty carts and 160 to 170 bullocks. The Duke, in his Despatches,[22] states that for some streams he had basket boats ten feet in diameter and three feet deep, and covered with double leather.
When the Duke of Wellington's bridge of boats was brought to Ferozepore in the autumn of 1845, Major Broadfoot, who was charged with its transport, aroused the suspicion of the Sikhs, and in their opinion, virtually acknowledged that hostilities existed between them and the British, by manifesting extraordinary vigilance for its safe keeping, placing it under the escort of a strong guard of soldiers, and by employing the pontoniers to construct it, on the arrival of the boats at Ferozepore.
To return to my journal. On the 14th of January, 1846, the cavalry received orders to hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice. We remained in this state of suspense from eight in the morning till one o'clock in the afternoon, when we again marched towards the Sikh bridge, and did the like execution with our guns as yesterday. The Sikhs having crossed over to our side of the bridge, were busily employed in making an entrenched camp.
On the 15th gram sold at sixteen seers or thirty-two lbs. for the rupee, a rather dismal prospect for a large army. The 9th Lancers had 600 fighting men, and the camp followers amounted to 3,600 men which gives six to every fighting man. After deducting 1,600, the number of followers required for 800 horses, including officers' chargers, and 480 dooly bearers, there would still remain 1,520 followers to be accounted for, and if we again allow the officers about forty in number, say 500 servants,—a very fair portion,—there would then be left 1,020 whom we must conclude to have been elephant and camel drivers, tent lascars, cooks, bazaar people, etc.
On the 18th the Lancers again held themselves in readiness to turn out at a moment's notice, owing to the enemy's crossing the river in large numbers. On the 19th we changed our ground, five miles to the right, and on our arrival the troop of the 9th, to which I belonged, was sent on picquet to a distance of nearly two miles to our right front, and pretty close to the Sutlej; indeed a picquet of the enemy was clearly seen on the other side. Had the enemy crossed, or rather, attempted to cross, the officer in command would have sent information to the camp, and in the meanwhile made arrangements to retard the force in the best manner he could, so as to allow the army time to come up to his support. To gain time is an officer's chief object, under such circumstances; nor must he in any case retire, unless driven in.