Forty-one years in India Part 28

There was one more fight in Lucknow. The Moulvie[16] of Fyzabad (who from the first was one of the prominent leaders of the rebellion) had returned at the head of a considerable force, and had placed himself in a strongly-fortified position in the very centre of the city. It was not without a severe struggle that he was dislodged by the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Infantry under Lugard. The brunt of the fighting fell upon the last-named regiment, the gallant Commander (Wilde) of which, and his second in command,[17] were severely wounded. The Moulvie made his escape, but his followers were pursued, and many of them were cut up. Thus at last the city was cleared of rebels, and we were once more masters in Lucknow.

On the 22nd March Hope Grant was ordered to proceed to Kursi, a small town about twenty-five miles off between the Sitapur and Fyzabad roads, reported to be occupied in force by the enemy.

We started at midnight with a brigade of Infantry, 1,000 Cavalry, two troops of Horse Artillery, and eight heavy guns and mortars. We were delayed some hours by the heavy guns and their escort (the 53rd Foot) taking a wrong turn when leaving the city, which resulted in the enemy being warned of our approach in time to clear out before we arrived.

On hearing they had gone, Hope Grant pushed on with the mounted portion of the force, and we soon came in sight of the enemy in full retreat. The Cavalry, commanded by Captain Browne,[18] was ordered to pursue. It consisted of Browne's own regiment (the 2nd Punjab Cavalry), a squadron of the 1st Punjab Cavalry under Captain Cosserat, and three Horse Artillery guns. At the end of two miles, Browne came upon a body of the mutineers formed up on an open plain. The Cavalry charged through them three times, each time thinning their ranks considerably, but they never wavered, and in the final charge avenged themselves by killing Macdonnell (the Adjutant of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry), and mortally wounding Cosserat. I arrived on the ground with Hope Grant just in time to witness the last charge and the fall of these two officers, and deplorable as we felt their loss to be, it was impossible not to admire the gallantry and steadiness of the sepoys, every one of whom fought to the death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL SIR SAMUEL BROWNE, V.C., G.C.B., K.C.S.I.

_From a photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry._]

As soon as Browne could got his men together, the pursuit of the enemy was continued; no further opposition was met with, and fourteen guns fell into our hands.

On the 24th we retraced our steps, halting for the night at the old cantonment of Muriao, where we buried poor Macdonnell. On the 25th we crossed the Gumti, and pitched our camp near the Dilkusha.

Lucknow was now completely in our possession, and our success had been achieved with remarkably slight loss, a result which was chiefly due to the scientific manner in which the siege operations had been carried on under the direction of our talented Chief Engineer, Robert Napier, ably a.s.sisted by Colonel Harness; and also to the good use which Sir Colin Campbell made of his powerful force of Artillery. Our casualties during the siege amounted to only 16 British officers, 3 Native officers, and 108 men killed; 51 British officers, 4 Native officers, and 540 men wounded, while 13 men were unaccounted for.

The capture of Lucknow, though not of such supreme importance in its consequences as the taking of Delhi, must have convinced the rebels that their cause was now hopeless. It is true that Jhansi had not yet fallen, and that the rest of Oudh, Rohilkand, and the greater part of Central India remained to be conquered, but there was no very important city in the hands of the enemy, and the subjugation of the country was felt to be merely a matter of time. Sir Hugh Rose, after a brilliant campaign, had arrived before Jhansi, columns of our troops were traversing the country in every direction, and the British Army had been so largely increased that, on the 1st of April, 1858, there were 96,000 British soldiers in India, besides a large body of reliable Native troops, some of whom, although hurriedly raised, had already shown that they were capable of doing good service--a very different state of affairs from that which prevailed six months before.

For some time I had been feeling the ill effects of exposure to the climate and hard work, and the doctor, Campbell Browne, had been urging me to go on the sick-list; that, of course, was out of the question until Lucknow had fallen. Now, however, I placed myself in Browne's hands, hoping that a change to the Hills was all that was needed to set me up; but the doctors insisted on a trip to England. It was a heavy blow to me to have to leave while there was still work to be done, but I had less hesitation than I should have had if most of my own immediate friends had not already gone. Several had been killed, others had left sick or wounded; Watson had gone to Lah.o.r.e, busily engaged in raising a regiment of Cavalry;[19] Probyn was on his way home, invalided; Hugh Gough had gone to the Hills to recover from his wounds; and Norman and Stewart were about to leave Lucknow with Army Head-Quarters.

On the 1st April, the sixth anniversary of my arrival in India, I made over my office to Wolseley, who succeeded me as Deputy-a.s.sistant-Quartermaster-General on Hope Grant's staff, and towards the middle of the month I left Lucknow.

The Commander-in-Chief was most kind and complimentary when I took leave of him, and told me that, in consideration of my services, he would bestow upon me the first permanent vacancy in the Quartermaster-General's Department, and that he intended to recommend that I should be given the rank of Brevet-Major so soon as I should be qualified by becoming a regimental Captain. I was, of course, much gratified by his appreciative words and kindly manner; but the brevet seemed a long way off, for I had only been a First Lieutenant for less than a year, and there were more than a hundred officers in the Bengal Artillery senior to me in that rank!

I marched to Cawnpore with Army Head-Quarters. Sir William Peel, who was slowly recovering from his wound, was of the party. We reached Cawnpore on the 17th, and the next day I said good-bye to my friends on the Chief's staff. Peel and I dined together on the 19th, when to all appearances he was perfectly well, but on going into his room the next morning I found he was in a high fever, and had some suspicious-looking spots about his face. I went off at once in search of a doctor, and soon returned with one of the surgeons of the 5th Fusiliers, who, to my horror--for I had observed that Peel was nervous about himself--exclaimed with brutal frankness the moment he entered the room, 'You have got small-pox.' It was only too true. On being convinced that this was the case, I went to the chaplain, the Rev.

Thomas Moore, and told him of Peel's condition. Without an instant's hesitation, he decided the invalid must come to his house to be taken care of. That afternoon I had the poor fellow carried over, and there I left him in the kind hands of Mrs. Moore, the _padre's_ wife, who had, as a special case, been allowed to accompany her husband to Cawnpore. Peel died on the 27th. On the 4th May I embarked at Calcutta in the P. and O. steamer _Nubia_, without, alas! the friend whose pleasant companions.h.i.+p I had hoped to have enjoyed on the voyage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN TO ILl.u.s.tRATE THE SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF LUCKNOW, March, 1858]

[Footnote 1: The Infantry portion of the army was divided into three divisions, commanded respectively by Outram, Lugard, and Walpole. This was exclusive of Franks's column, which joined at Lucknow and made a fourth division. The Artillery was placed under Archdale Wilson, and the Engineers under Robert Napier. Sir Colin's selection of Commanders caused considerable heart-burnings, especially amongst the senior officers who had been sent out from England for the purpose of being employed in the field. But, as the Chief explained to the Duke of Cambridge, the selection had been made with the greatest care, it having been found that 'an officer unexperienced in war in India cannot act for himself ... it is quite impossible for him to be able to weigh the value of intelligence ... he cannot judge what are the resources of the country, and he is totally unable to make an estimate for himself of the resistance the enemy opposed to him is likely to offer.' Sir Colin wound up his letter as follows: 'I do not wish to undervalue the merits of General or other officers lately arrived from England, but merely to indicate to your Royal Highness the difficulties against which they have to contend. What is more, the state of things at present does not permit of trusting anything to chance, or allowing new-comers to learn, except under the command of others.'--Shadwell's 'Life of Lord Clyde.']

[Footnote 2: The late Captain Oliver Jones, who published his experiences under that t.i.tle.]

[Footnote 3: Literally 'blue cow,' one of the bovine antelopes.]

[Footnote 4: A few days afterwards, when we were some miles from the scene of our adventure, I was awakened one morning by the greyhound licking my face; she had cleverly found me out in the midst of a large crowded camp.]

[Footnote 5: Peel had changed his 24-pounders for the more powerful 64-pounders belonging to H.M.S. _Shannon_.]

[Footnote 6:

Naval Brigade 431 Artillery 1,745 Engineers 865 Cavalry 3,169 Infantry 12,498 Franks's Division 2,880 Nepalese Contingent 9,000 ------ 30,588]

[Footnote 7: Kaye, in his 'History of the Indian Mutiny,' gives the credit for originating this movement to the Commander-in-Chief himself; but the present Lord Napier of Magdala has letters in his possession which clearly prove that the idea was his father's, and there is a pa.s.sage in General Porter's 'History of the Royal Engineers,' vol. ii., p. 476, written after he had read Napier's letters to Sir Colin Campbell, which leaves no room for doubt as to my version being the correct one.]

[Footnote 8: Outram's division consisted of the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 79th Highlanders, 2nd and 3rd battalions of the Rifle Brigade, 1st Bengal Fusiliers, 2nd Punjab Infantry, D'Aguilar's, Remmington's and Mackinnon's troops of Horse Artillery, Gibbon's and Middleton's Field Batteries, and some Heavy guns, 2nd Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers, 2nd Punjab Cavalry, and Watson's and Sandford's squadrons of the 1st and 5th Punjab Cavalry.]

[Footnote 9: The late Lieutenant-General Sir Lothian Nicholson, K.C.B.]

[Footnote 10: Now Colonel Thomas Butler, V.C.]

[Footnote 11: Now General the Right Hon. Sir Edward Lugard, G.C.B.]

[Footnote 12: It was current in camp, and the story has often been repeated, that Hodson was killed in the act of looting. This certainly was not the case. Hodson was sitting with Donald Stewart in the Head-Quarters camp, when the signal-gun announced that the attack on the Begum Kothi was about to take place. Hodson immediately mounted his horse, and rode off in the direction of the city. Stewart, who had been ordered by the Commander-in-Chief to accompany the troops, and send an early report to his Excellency of the result of the a.s.sault, had his horse ready, and followed Hodson so closely that he kept him in sight until within a short distance of the fighting, when Stewart stopped to speak to the officer in charge of Peel's guns, which had been covering the advance of the troops. This delayed Stewart for a few minutes only, and as he rode into the court-yard of the palace a Highland soldier handed him a pistol, saying, 'This is your pistol, sir; but I thought you were carried away mortally wounded a short time ago?' Stewart at once conjectured that the man had mistaken him for Hodson. In face they were not much alike, but both were tall, well made and fair, and Native soldiers had frequently saluted one for the other. It is clear from this account that Hodson could not have been looting, as he was wounded almost as soon as he reached the palace.]

[Footnote 13: In the month of May, 1858, alone, not less than a thousand British soldiers died of sunstroke, fatigue and disease, and about a hundred were killed in action.]

[Footnote 14: Consisting of the 23rd Fusiliers, 79th Highlanders, and 1st Bengal Fusiliers.]

[Footnote 15: Captain Wale, a gallant officer who commanded a newly raised corps of Sikh Cavalry, lost his life on this occasion. He persuaded Campbell to let him follow up the enemy, and was shot dead in a charge. His men behaved extremely well, and one of them, by name Ganda Sing, saved the life of the late Sir Robert Sandeman, who was a subaltern in the regiment. The same man, two years later, saved the late Sir Charles Macgregor's life during the China war, and when I was Commander-in-Chief in India I had the pleasure of appointing him to be my Native Aide-de-Camp. Granda Sing, who has now the rank of Captain and the t.i.tle of _Sirdar Bahadur_, retired last year with a handsome pension and a small grant of land.]

[Footnote 16: A Mahomedan Priest.]

[Footnote 17: Now General c.o.c.kburn Hood, C.B.]

[Footnote 18: Now General Sir Samuel Browne, V.C., G.C.B. This popular and gallant officer, well known to every Native in Upper India as 'S[=a]m Br[=u]n _Sahib_,' and to the officers of the whole of Her Majesty's army as the inventor of the sword-belt universally adopted on service, distinguished himself greatly in the autumn of 1858. With 230 sabres of his own regiment and 350 Native Infantry, he attacked a party of rebels who had taken up a position at Nuria, a village at the edge of the Terai, about ten miles from Pilibhit. Browne managed to get to the rear of the enemy without being discovered; a hand-to-hand fight then ensued, in which he got two severe wounds--one on the knee, from which he nearly bled to death, the other on the left shoulder, cutting right through the arm. The enemy were completely routed, and fled, leaving their four guns and 300 dead on the ground. Browne was deservedly rewarded with the V.C.]

[Footnote 19: The present 13th Bengal Lancers.]

CHAPTER x.x.x.

What brought about the Mutiny?

--Religious fears of the people--The land question --The annexation of Oudh--Fulfilment of Malcolm's prophecy --The Delhi royal family--The Nana Sahib--The Native army --Greased cartridges--Limited number of British troops --Objection to foreign service--Excessive age of the British officers

'What brought about the Mutiny?' and 'Is there any chance of a similar rising occurring again?' are questions which are constantly being put to me; I will now endeavour to answer them, though it is not a very easy task--for I feel that my book will be rendered more interesting and complete to many if I endeavour to give them some idea of the circ.u.mstances which, in my opinion, led to that calamitous crisis in the history of our rule in India, and then try to show how I think a repet.i.tion of such a disaster may best be guarded against.

The causes which brought about the Mutiny were so various, and some of them of such long standing, that it is difficult to point them out as concisely as I could wish; but I will be as brief as possible.

During the first years of our supremacy in India, Hindus and Mahomedans alike were disposed to acquiesce in our rule--the blessings of rest and peace after a long reign of strife and anarchy were too real not to be appreciated; but as time went by, a new generation sprang up by whom past miseries were forgotten, and those who had real grievances, or those who were causelessly discontented, were all ready to lay the blame for their real or fancied troubles on their foreign rulers. Mahomedans looked back to the days of their Empire in India, but failed to remember how completely, until we broke the Mahratta power, the Hindus had got the upper hand. Their Moulvies taught them that it was only lawful for true Mussulmans to submit to the rule of an infidel if there was no possibility of successful revolt, and they watched for the chance of again being able to make Islam supreme. The Hindus had not forgotten that they had ousted the Mahomedans, and they fancied that the fate of the British _raj_ might also be at their mercy.

The late Sir George Campbell, in his interesting memoirs, says: 'The Mutiny was a sepoy revolt, not a Hindu rebellion.' I do not altogether agree with him; for, although there was no general rising of the rural population, the revolt, in my judgment, would never have taken place had there not been a feeling of discontent and disquiet throughout that part of the country from which our Hindustani sepoys chiefly came, and had not certain influential people been thoroughly dissatisfied with our system of government. This discontent and dissatisfaction were produced by a policy which, in many instances, the Rulers of India were powerless to avoid or postpone, forced upon them as it was by the demands of civilization and the necessity for a more enlightened legislation. Intriguers took advantage of this state of affairs to further their own ends. Their plan of action was to alienate the Native army, and to increase the general feeling of uneasiness and suspicion, by spreading false reports as to the intentions of the authorities in regard to the various measures which had been adopted to promote the welfare and prosperity of the ma.s.ses.

It can hardly be questioned that these measures were right and proper in themselves, but they were on that account none the less obnoxious to the Brahmin priesthood, or distasteful to the Natives generally.

In some cases also they were premature, and in others they were not carried out as judiciously as they might have been, or with sufficient regard to the feelings and prejudices of the people.

The prohibition of _sati_ (burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands); the putting a stop to female infanticide; the execution of Brahmins for capital offences; the efforts of missionaries and the protection of their converts; the removal of all legal obstacles to the remarriage of widows; the spread of western and secular education generally; and, more particularly, the attempt to introduce female education, were causes of alarm and disgust to the Brahmins, and to those Hindus of high caste whose social privileges were connected with the Brahminical religion. Those arbiters of fate, who were until then all-powerful to control every act of their co-religionists, social, religious or political, were quick to perceive that their influence was menaced, and that their sway would in time be wrested from them, unless they could devise some means for overthrowing our Government. They knew full well that the groundwork of this influence was ignorance and superst.i.tion, and they stood aghast at what they foresaw would be the inevitable result of enlightenment and progress. Railways and telegraphs were specially distasteful to the Brahmins: these evidences of ability and strength were too tangible to be pooh-poohed or explained away. Moreover, railways struck a direct blow at the system of caste, for on them people of every caste, high and low, were bound to travel together.

The fears and antagonism of the Brahmins being thus aroused, it was natural that they should wish to see our rule upset, and they proceeded to poison the minds of the people with tales of the Government's determination to force Christianity upon them, and to make them believe that the continuance of our power meant the destruction of all they held most sacred.

Nor was opportunity wanting to confirm, apparently, the truth of their a.s.sertions. In the gaols a system of messing had been established which interfered with the time-honoured custom of every man being allowed to provide and cook his own food. This innovation was most properly introduced as a matter of gaol discipline, and due care was taken that the food of the Hindu prisoners should be prepared by cooks of the same or superior caste. Nevertheless, false reports were disseminated, and the credulous Hindu population was led to believe that the prisoners' food was in future to be prepared by men of inferior caste, with the object of defiling and degrading those for whom it was prepared. The news of what was supposed to have happened in the gaols spread from town to town and from village to village, the belief gradually gaining ground that the people were about to be forced to embrace Christianity.

As the promiscuous messing story did not greatly concern the Mahomedans, other cries were made use of to create suspicion and distrust amongst the followers of the Prophet. One of these, which equally affected the Hindu and Mahomedan, was the alleged unfairness of what was known in India as the land settlement, under which system the right and t.i.tle of each landholder to his property was examined, and the amount of revenue to be paid by him to the paramount Power, as owner of the soil, was regulated.