More on the Mutiny

The one question that always puzzled me about the Indian Mutiny is how often the mutineers lost in battles against the English. In most cases, the Indians were something like ten times the strength of the British troops and they seemed to have had a much greater motivation to fight than the Indians (Sikhs, Madrasis) fighting on the side of the British. Still, battle after battle ended with thousands of Indians dead for a couple of hundred British troops.

Forbes-Mitchell (The Relief of Lucknow by Williams Forbes-Mitchell, The Folio Society, London 1962) provides some answers. Forbes-Mitchell was a young NCO in the 93rd Highlanders and he took part in the British rescue of the beseiged English men and women in the Lucknow Residency during the mutiny. Here he makes fun of the Pandies:

... in addition to the regular army, there was a large body of archers on the walls, armed with bows and arrows which they discharged with great force and precision, .... Looking at the arrow, 'My conscience!' said White, 'bows and arrows! bows and arrows! My conscience, the sight has not been seen in a civilised war for nearly two hundred years. Bows and arrows! And why not weavers' beams as in the days of Goliath? Ah! that Daniel White should be able to tell in the Saut Market of Glasgow that he had seen men fight with bows and arrows in the days of Enfield rifles! (Page 53.)

Enfield rifles are, of course, the infamous grease coated bullet using rifles that were the trigger for the mutiny. New to the army and not in the hands of the rebels, they were a great weapen for the British. In this next extract, Forbes-Mitchell talks about the superior range of the Enfield rifle. The rebels had brought their big guns outside the Padshahbagh to shorten the distance across the Gomti river assuming that they would be out of range of the British rifles:

They evidently as yet did not understand the range of the Enfield rifle, as they now came within about a thousand to twelve hundred yards of the wall of the Shah Najaf next to the river. Some twenty of the best shots in the company, with carefully cleaned and loaded rifles, watched till they saw a good number of the enemy near their guns, then, raising sights to the full height and carefully aiming high, they fired a volley by word of command slowly given ... and about half a dozen of the enemy were knocked over. (Page 66.)

What chance did the poor mutineers have with their bows and arrows against Enfield rifles and the heavy naval canons that the British used to level defensive walls! Interestingly, from the description above, even the British were new to the longer range of the rifles and presumably that's why the author describes the process, including raising the sights and aiming high, so carefully!

The Indian Mutiny

So, how long and how important was the Indian Mutiny or the War of Independence anyway? I always thought it started and ended in 1857. Asked around and almost everyone thought the same thing. No one came even close to the actual length of the mutiny, two years and two months from the first incident in Berhampore near Calcutta in February 1857 (the 19th Regiment Indian Infantry refused to take their bullets on parade and was subsequently disbanded), to the capture of Tantia Tope, or rather the opportunistic betrayal of Tantia Tope by Man Singh, in April 1959. From the history I read at school I always got the impression that the First War of Independence was fought by a few kings (Nana Saheb, Tantia Tope, Rani Laxmibai) and that it was a brief affair that resulted in the crown taking over India from The Company. I'll give a timeline of the mutiny in a later post.

I am reading "History of the Indian Mutiny," by G. W. Forrest. Three volumes, two published in 1904 and one in 1912. A fascinating book. The entire mutiny is discussed from the point of the view of the British and gives absolutely no mention of the strategies, troop movements, etc. of the mutineers. Much more of a victors view than a real history. (Yes, I have read William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal.) With a lot of stuff about the brave English soldiers fighting to save the empire. Don't get me wrong, they were brave. One only has to read the history of the siege of the Residency at Lucknow to see that. But surely the Indians fought with equal bravery on both sides.

The other striking thing is the degree to which the English were hated by their own men. They, the English i.e., thought that they had loyal soldiers who would follow them anywhere. Many of these soldiers were veterans of other battles fought under British command. But, almost to a man, entire regiments not only deserted but also hacked/shot their commanders to death whenever they got the opportunity. Here is an extract from Forrest (writing about the evacuation of the British from Kanpur at the start of the mutiny):

“A litter containing Colonel Ewart, commanding the First Native Infantry, who had been severely wounded, fell into the rear, and when passing St. John’s Church was stopped by seven or eight men of his own regiment. ... The sepoys then mockingly asked their wounded commander [Colonel Ewart], “Is this not a fine parade, and is it not all well dressed up?” Two of them then cut him to pieces.” (Vol.1 462). They then killed his wife as well. One boat that managed to cut loose was chased for days and almost everyone killed.

Colonel Ewart's men were clearly passionate about killing their masters. Time after time, as one regiment after another mutineed, their officers were caught off-guard. "My men will remain loyal," they said.