HOW BAHADUR SHAH PROCLAIMED HIS EMPIRE
On the morning of the 11th, the sun that laid bare the horrors of Meerut
shone brightly on the placid splendor of Delhi. This great city, the
Rome of Asia, was also the Metz of Upper India, its old-fashioned though
strong defenses having been modernized by the genius of a Napier.
Resting on the Jumna, it might best be described as of half-moon shape,
with the straight edge running north and south along the right bank of
the river.
In the center of the river line stood the imposing red sandstone palace
of Bahadur Shah, last of the Moguls. North of this citadel were the
magazine, the Church, some European houses, and the cutcherry, or group
of minor law courts, while the main thoroughfare leading in that
direction passed through the Kashmir Gate. Southward from the fort
stretched the European residential suburb known as Darya Gunj (or, as it
would be called in England, the "Riverside District") out of which the
Delhi Gate gave access to the open country and the road to Humayun's
Tomb. Another gate, the Raj Ghat, opened toward the river between the
palace and Darya Gunj. Thus, the walls of city and palace ran almost
straight for two miles from the Kashmir Gate on the north to the Delhi
Gate on the south, while the main road connecting the two passed the
fort on the landward side.
The Lahore Gate of the palace, a magnificent structure, commanded the
bazaar and its chief street, the superb Chandni Chowk, which extended
due west for nearly two miles to the Lahore Gate of the city itself.
Near the palace, in a very large garden, stood the spacious premises of
the Delhi Bank. A little farther on, but on the opposite side of the
Chowk, was the Kotwallee, or police station, and still farther,
practically in the center of the dense bazaar, two stone elephants
marked the entrance to the beautiful park now known as the Queen's
Gardens.
The remainder of the space within the walls was packed with the houses
and shops of well-to-do traders, and the lofty tenements or mud hovels
in which dwelt a population of artisans noted not only for their
artistic skill but for a spirit of lawlessness, a turbulent fanaticism,
that had led to many scenes of violence in the city's earlier history.
The whole of Delhi, as well as the palace--which had its own separate
fortifications--was surrounded by a wall seven miles long, twenty-four
feet in height, well supplied with bastions, and containing ten huge
gates, each a small fort in itself. The wall was protected by a dry
fosse, or ditch, twenty-five feet wide and about twenty feet deep; this,
in turn, was guarded by a counterscarp and glacis.
On the northwest side of Delhi, and about a mile distant from the river,
an irregular, rock-strewn spine of land, called the Ridge, rose above
the general level of the plain, and afforded a panoramic view of the
city and palace. The rising ground began about half a mile from the Mori
Gate--which was situated on what may be termed the landward side of the
Kashmir Gate. It followed a course parallel with the river for two
miles, and at its northerly extremity were situated the principal
European bungalows and the military cantonment.
Delhi was the center of Mohammedan hopes; its palace held the lineal
descendant of Aurangzebe, with his children and grandchildren; it
was stored to repletion with munitions of war; yet, such was the
inconceivable folly of the rulers of India at that time, the nearest
British regiments were stationed in Meerut, while the place swarmed
with native troops, horse, foot and artillery!
A May morning in the Punjab must not be confused with its prototype
in Britain. Undimmed by cloud, unchecked by cooling breeze, the sun
scorches the earth from the moment his glowing rays first peep over the
horizon. Thus men who value their health and have work to be done rise
at an hour when London's streets are emptiest. Merchants were busy in
the bazaar, soldiers were on parade, judges were sitting in the courts
of the cutcherry, and the European housewives of the station were making
their morning purchases of food for breakfast and dinner, when some of
the loungers on the river-side wall saw groups of horsemen raising the
dust on the Meerut road beyond the bridge of boats which spanned the
Jumna.
The word went round that something unusual had happened. Already the
idlers had noted the arrival of a dust-laden royal carriage, which
crossed the pontoons at breakneck speed and entered by the Calcutta
Gate. That incident, trivial in itself, became important when those
hard-riding horsemen came in sight. The political air was charged with
electricity. None knew whether it would end in summer lightning or in a
tornado, so there was much running to and fro, and gesticulations, and
excited whisperings among those watchers on the walls.
Vague murmurs of doubt and surprise reached the ears of two of the
British magistrates. They hurriedly adjourned the cases they were trying
and sent for their horses. One rode hard to the cantonment and told
Brigadier Graves what he had seen and heard; the other, knowing the
immense importance of the chief magazine, went there to warn Lieutenant
Willoughby, the officer in charge.
Here, then, in Delhi, were men of prompt decision, but the troops on
whom they could have depended were forty miles away in Meerut, in that
never-to-be-forgotten bivouac. Meanwhile, the vanguard of the Meerut
rebels had arrived. Mostly troopers of Malcolm's regiment, with some few
sepoys who had stolen ponies on the way, they crossed the Jumna, some
going straight to the palace by way of the bridge of boats, while others
forded the river to the south and made for the gaol, where, as usual,
they released the prisoners. This trick of emptying the penitentiaries
was more adroit than it seems at first sight. Not only were the
mutineers sure of obtaining hearty assistance in their campaign of
robbery and murder, but every gaol-bird headed direct for his native
town as soon as he was gorged with plunder. There was no better means of
disseminating the belief that the British power had crumbled to atoms.
The convicts boasted that they had been set free by the rebels; they
paraded their ill-gotten gains and incited ignorant villagers to emulate
the example of the towns. Thus a skilful and damaging blow was struck at
British prestige. Neither Mohammedan moullah nor Hindu fakir carried
such conviction to ill-informed minds as the appearance of some known
malefactor decked out in the jewels and trinkets of murdered
Englishwomen.
The foremost of the mutineers reined in their weary horses beneath a
balcony on which Bahadur Shah, a decrepit old man of eighty, awaited
them.
By his side stood his youngest daughter, the Roshinara Begum. Her eyes
were blazing with triumph, yet her lips curved with contempt at the
attitude of her trembling father.
"You see!" she cried. "Have I not spoken truly? These are the men who
sacked Meerut. Scarce a Feringhi lives there save those whom I have
saved to good purpose. Admit your troops! Proclaim yourself their ruler.
A moment's firmness will win back your empire."
The aged monarch, now that the hour was at hand that astrologers had
predicted and his courtiers had promised for many a year, faltered his
dread lest they were not all committing a great mistake.
"This is no woman's work," he protested. "Where are my sons? Where is
the Shahzada, Mirza Mogul?"
She knew. The heir apparent and his brothers were cowering in fear,
afraid to strike, yet hoping that others would strike for them. She
almost dragged her father to the front of the balcony. The troopers
recognized him with a fierce shout. A hundred sabers were waved
frantically.
"Help us, O King!" they cried. "We pray your help in our fight for the
faith!"
Captain Douglas, commandant of the palace guards, hearing the uproar ran
to the King. He did not notice the girl Roshinara, who stood there like
a caged tigress.
"How dare you intrude on the King's privacy?" he cried, striving to
overawe the rebels by his cool demeanor. "You must lay down your arms if
you wish His Majesty's clemency. He is here in person and that is his
command."
A yell of defiance greeted his bold words. The Begum made a signal with
her hand which was promptly understood. Away clattered the troopers
towards the Raj Ghat Gate. There they were admitted without parley. The
city hell hounds sprang to meet them and the slaughter of inoffensive
Europeans began in Darya Gunj.
It was soon in full swing. The vile deeds of the night at Meerut were
re-enacted in the vivid sunlight at Delhi. Leaving their willing allies
to carry sword and torch through the small community in that quarter the
sowars rode to the Lahore Gate of the palace. It was thrown open by the
King's guards and dependents. Captain Douglas, and the Commissioner,
Mr. Fraser, made vain appeals to men whose knees would have trembled
at their frown a few minutes earlier. Thinking to escape and summon
assistance from the cantonment, Douglas mounted the wall and leaped into
the moat. He broke one, if not both, of his legs. Some scared coolies
lifted him and carried him back to the interior of the palace. Fraser
tried to protect him while he was being taken to his apartments over the
Lahore Gate, but a jeweler from the bazaar stabbed the Commissioner and
he was killed by the guards. Then the mob rushed up-stairs and massacred
the collector, the chaplain, the chaplain's daughter, a lady who was
their guest, and the injured Douglas.
Another dreadful scene was enacted in the Delhi Bank. The manager and
his brave wife, assisted by a few friends who happened to be in the
building at the moment, made a stubborn resistance, but they were all
cut down. The masters in the Government colleges were surprised and
murdered in their class-rooms. The missionaries, whether European or
native, were slaughtered in their houses and schools. The editorial
staff and compositors of the _Delhi Gazette_, having just produced a
special edition of the paper announcing the crisis, were all stabbed or
bludgeoned to death. In the telegraph office a young signaler was
sending a thrilling message to Umballa, Lahore and the north.
"The sepoys have come in from Meerut," he announced with the slow tick
of the earliest form of apparatus. "They are burning everything. Mr.
Todd is dead, and, we hear, several Europeans. We must shut up."
That was his requiem. The startled operators at Umballa could obtain no
further intelligence and the boy was slain at his post.[3]
[Footnote 3: This statement is made on the authority of Holmes's
"History of the Indian Mutiny," Cave-Browne's "The Punjab & Delhi," and
"The Punjab Mutiny Report," though it is claimed that William Brendish,
who is still living, was on duty at the Delhi Telegraph Office
throughout the night of May 10th.]
The magistrate who galloped to the cantonment found no laggards there.
Brigadier Graves sent Colonel Ripley with part of the 54th Native
Infantry to occupy the Kashmir Gate. The remainder of the 54th escorted
two guns under Captain de Teissier.
Ripley reached the main guard, just within the gate, when some troopers
of the 3d rode up. The Colonel ordered his men to fire at them. The
sepoys refused to obey, and the sowars, drawing their pistols, shot dead
or severely wounded six British officers. Then the 54th bayoneted their
Colonel, but, hearing the rumble of de Teissier's guns, fled into the
city. The guard of the gate, composed of men of the 38th, went with
them, but their officer, Captain Wallace, had ridden, fortunately for
himself, to hurry the guns. He was sent on to the cantonment to ask for
re-enforcements. Not a man of the 38th would follow him, but the 74th
commanded by Major Abbott, proclaimed their loyalty and asked to be led
against the mutineers.
Perforce their commander trusted them. He brought them to the Kashmir
Gate with two more guns, while the Brigadier and his staff, wondering
why they heard nothing of the pursuing British from Meerut, thought it
advisable to gather the women and children and other helpless persons,
both European and native, in the Flagstaff Tower, a small building
situated on the northern extremity of the Ridge.
There for some hours a great company of frightened people endured all
the discomforts of terrific heat, hunger, and thirst, while wives and
mothers, striving to soothe their wailing little ones, were themselves
consumed with anxiety as to the fate of husbands and sons.
At the main guard there was a deadlock. Major Abbott and his brother
officers, trying to keep their men loyal, stood fast and listened to the
distant turmoil in the city. Like the soldiers in Meerut, they never
guessed a tithe of the horrors enacted there. They were sure that the
white troops in Meerut would soon arrive and put an end to the prevalent
anarchy. Yet the day sped and help came not.
Suddenly the sound of a tremendous explosion rent the air and a dense
cloud of white smoke, succeeded by a pall of dust, rose between the
gate and the palace. Willoughby had blown up the magazine! Why? Two
artillery subalterns who had fought their way through a mob stricken
with panic for the moment, soon arrived. Their story fills one of the
great pages of history.
Lieutenant Willoughby, a boyish-looking subaltern of artillery, whose
shy, refined manners hid a heroic soul, lost no time in making his
dispositions for the defense of the magazine when he knew that a mutiny
was imminent. He had with him eight Englishmen, Lieutenants Forrest and
Raynor, Conductors Buckley, Shaw and Scully, Sub-Conductor Crow, and
Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. The nine barricaded the outer gates and
placed in the best positions guns loaded with grape. They laid a train
from the powder store to a tree in the yard. Scully stood there. He
promised to fire the powder when his young commander gave the signal.
Then they waited. A stormy episode was taking place inside the fort.
Bahadur Shah held out against the vehement urging of his daughter aided
now by the counsel of her brothers. Ever and anon he went to the river
balcony which afforded a view of the Meerut road. At last he sent
mounted men across the river. When these scouts returned and he was
quite certain that none but rebel sepoys were streaming towards Delhi
from Meerut, he yielded.
The surrender of the magazine was demanded in his name. His adherents
tried to rush the gate and walls, and were shot down in scores. The
attack grew more furious and sustained. The white men served their
smoking cannon with a wild energy that, for a time, made the gallant
nine equal to a thousand. Of course such a struggle could have only one
end. Willoughby, in his turn, ran to the river bastion. Like the king,
he looked towards Meerut. Like the king, he saw none but mutineers.
Then, when the enemy were clambering over the walls and rushing into
the little fort from all directions, he raised his sword and looked at
Conductor Buckley. Buckley lifted his hat, the agreed signal, and Scully
fired the train. Hundreds of rebels were blown to pieces, as they
were already inside the magazine. Scully was killed where he stood.
Willoughby leaped from the walls, crossed the river, and met his
death while striving to reach Meerut. Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor,
Conductors Buckley and Shaw, and Sergeant Stewart escaped, and were
given the Victoria Cross.
Yet, so curiously constituted is the native mind, the blowing-up of the
magazine was the final tocsin of revolt. It seemed to place beyond doubt
that which all men were saying. The king was fighting the English. Islam
was in the field against the Nazarene. The Mogul Empire was born again
and the iron grip of British rule was relaxed. At once the sepoys at the
Kashmir Gate fired a volley at the nearest officers, of whom three fell
dead.
Two survivors rushed up the bastion and jumped into the ditch. Others,
hearing the shrieks of some women in the guard room, poor creatures who
had escaped from the city, ran through a hail of bullets and got them
out. Fastening belts and handkerchiefs together, the men lowered the
women into the fosse and, with extraordinary exertions, lifted them up
the opposite side.
At the Flagstaff Tower the 74th and the remainder of the 38th suddenly
told their officers that they would obey them no longer. When this last
shred of hope was gone, the Brigadier reluctantly gave the order to
retreat. The women and children were placed in carriages and a mournful
procession began to straggle through the deserted cantonment along the
Alipur Road.
Soon the fugitives saw their bungalows on fire. "Then," says that
accurate and impartial historian of the Mutiny, Mr. T. R. E. Holmes,
"began that piteous flight, the first of many such incidents which
hardened the hearts of the British to inflict a terrible revenge....
Driven to hide in jungles or morasses from despicable vagrants--robbed,
and scourged, and mocked by villagers who had entrapped them with
promises of help--scorched by the blazing sun, blistered by burning
winds, half-drowned in rivers which they had to ford or swim across,
naked, weary and starving, they wandered on; while some fell dead by the
wayside, and others, unable to move farther, were abandoned by their
sorrowing friends to die on the road."
In such wise did the British leave Imperial Delhi. They came back,
later, but many things had to happen meanwhile.
The volcanic outburst in the Delhi district might have been paralleled
farther north were not the Punjab fortunate in its rulers. Sir John
Lawrence was Chief Commissioner at Lahore. When that fateful telegram
from Delhi was received in the capital of the Punjab he was on his way
to Murree, a charming and secluded hill station, for the benefit of his
health. But, like most great men, Lawrence had the faculty of
surrounding himself with able lieutenants.
His deputy, Robert Montgomery, whose singularly benevolent aspect
concealed an iron will, saw at once that if the Punjab followed the lead
of Meerut and Delhi, India would be lost. Lahore had a mixed population
of a hundred thousand Sikhs and Mohammedans, born soldiers every man,
and ready to take any side that promised to settle disputes by cold
steel rather than legal codes. If these hot heads, with their millions
of co-religionists in the land of the Five Rivers, were allowed to gain
the upper hand, they would sweep through the country from the mountains
to the sea.
The troops, British and native, were stationed in the cantonment of
Mian-mir, some five miles from Lahore. There were one native cavalry
regiment and three native infantry battalions whose loyalty might
be measured by minutes as soon as they learnt that the standard of
Bahadur Shah was floating over the palace at Delhi. To quell them the
authorities had the 81st Foot and two batteries of horse artillery, or,
proportionately, far less a force than that at Meerut, the Britons being
outnumbered eight times by the natives.
Montgomery coolly drove to Mian-mir on the morning of the 12th, took
counsel with the Brigadier, Stuart Corbett, and made his plans. A ball
was fixed for that night. All society attended it, and men who knew that
the morrow's sun might set on a scene of bloodshed and desolation danced
gaily with the ladies of Lahore. Surely those few who were in the secret
of the scheme arranged by Montgomery and Corbett must have thought of a
more famous ball at Brussels on a June night in 1815.
Next morning the garrison fell in for a general parade of all arms. The
artillery and 81st were on the right of the line, the native infantry in
the center, and the sowars on the left. A proclamation by Government
announcing the disbandment of the 34th at Barrackpore was read, and may
have given some inkling of coming events to the more thoughtful among
the sepoys. But they had no time for secret murmurings. Maneuvers began
instantly. In a few minutes the native troops found themselves
confronted by the 81st and the two batteries of artillery.
Riding between the opposing lines, the Brigadier told the would-be
mutineers that he meant to save them from temptation by disarming them.
"Pile arms!" came the resolute command.
They hesitated. The intervening space was small. By sheer weight of
numbers they could have borne down the British.
"Eighty-first--load!" rang out the ominous order.
As the ears of the startled men caught the ring of the ramrods in the
Enfield rifles, their eyes saw the lighted port fires of the gunners.
They were trapped, and they knew it. They threw down their weapons with
sullen obedience and the first great step towards the re-conquest of
India was taken.
Inspired by Montgomery the district officers at Umritsar, Mooltan,
Phillour, and many another European center in the midst of warlike and
impetuous races, followed his example and precept. Brigadier Innes at
Ferozpore hesitated. He tried half measures. He separated his two native
regiments and thought to disarm them on the morrow. That night one of
them endeavored to storm the magazine, burnt and plundered the station,
and marched off towards Delhi. But Innes then made amends. He pursued
and dispersed them. Only scattered remnants of the corps reached the
Mogul capital.
Thus Robert Montgomery, the even-tempered, suave, smooth-spoken Deputy
Commissioner of Lahore! In the far north, at Peshawur, four other men
of action gathered in conclave. The gay, imaginative, earnest-minded
Herbert Edwardes, the hard-headed veteran, Sydney Cotton, the dashing
soldier, Neville Chamberlain, and the lustrous-eyed, black-bearded,
impetuous giant, John Nicholson--that genius who at thirty-five had
already been deified by a brotherhood of Indian fakirs and placed by
Mohammedans among the legendary heroes of their faith--these four sat
in council and asked, "How best shall we serve England?"
They answered that question with their swords.