THE INDIAN MUTINY.
The Centenary of Plassey--Rumours of Rebellion--Causes of the
Mutiny--The Annexation of Oudh--Lord Dalhousie’s Indian Policy--Its
Disturbing Effect on the Minds of the Natives--The Royal Family of
Delhi--The Hindoo “Sumbut”--The Discontent of the Bengal Army--The
Grievances of the Sepoy--The Greased Cartridges--The Mystery of the
“Chupatties”--Mutiny of the Garrison at Meerut--The March to
Delhi--Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow--The Tragedy of
Cawnpore--Death of the Commander-in-Chief--Who took Delhi?--Sir
John Lawrence in the Punjab--The Saviour of India--Lord Canning at
Calcutta--First Relief of Lucknow--Despatch of Sir Colin
Campbell--Second Relief of Lucknow--Savage Fighting at the
Secunder-baugh--The Queen’s Letter to Sir Colin Campbell--His
Retreat to Cawnpore--His Management of the Campaign--Windham’s
Defeat at the Pandoo River--Sir Colin Campbell’s Victory over the
Gwalior Army.
With the exception of the Sicilian Vespers, no revolt ever smote a great
Empire so unexpectedly as the Indian Mutiny. Gaily was the centenary of
Plassey celebrated at a banquet in London on the 23rd of June, though
the sultry air of India was even then laden with rumours of a
wide-spreading rebellion. A few casual allusions to these reports were
made in both Houses of Parliament, but July brought with it the rush of
rising waters in the dull ears of the nation, when news of the
atrocities of Meerut and the rebel march on Delhi startled the country
from its apathy.
To the end of time historians will probably differ as to what it was
that caused the Indian Mutiny. Some have laid stress on considerations
of general policy. Others have attributed the catastrophe to special
acts of administration. The acts of administration were, however, but
the sparks that exploded the forces of revolution, which had been slowly
accumulating in the country. To understand the origin of the Indian
Mutiny one must understand the administration of Lord Dalhousie, and
fairly estimate the last acts of his viceregal career. Of these none had
a more serious effect on the minds of the Native Courts than the
annexation of Oudh. Inasmuch as Dalhousie was personally a strong
opponent of annexation, the presumption is that the step, objectionable
as it seems, was inevitable. Oudh was misgoverned by a vicious but
feeble-minded Prince, and the people were tortured not only by his
besotted tyranny, but by the exactions of a corrupt aristocracy. At the
same time, the Kings of Oudh had long been trusty allies of the East
India Company, who had borrowed money from them, protected them against
their mutinous subjects, and used their territory as a recruiting ground
for the Sepoy army. One-half of Oudh had been given to the Company, by
the Treaty of 1801, on condition that a British army should be
maintained in the country for the support of the reigning dynasty.
Attempts had been made--notably by Lord
[Illustration: THE BARRACKS AT MEERUT.]
Auckland--to evade this obligation, but they were made in vain. After
the first Sikh war, Lord Hardinge had warned the King of Oudh that the
Company could no longer tolerate misrule in his territory, and
Dalhousie, in 1848, had sent Colonel Sleeman to reconstruct, if
possible, its internal administration. The task was a hopeless one, and
in 1851 Sleeman reported[328] that there was no choice but to assume the
whole government of the kingdom. Dalhousie shrank from taking this step,
and in 1854, when Sleeman resigned, Sir James Outram was appointed as
his successor, and asked to report on the whole case. Outram, though a
firm anti-annexationist, confirmed Sleeman’s statements. He admitted
that the duty imposed on the Indian Government by the Treaty of 1801
rendered it necessary to have recourse to extreme measures. As a warm
advocate for maintaining Native States so long as they had any vitality,
it was, said Outram, painful and distressing to him to confess that in
continuing to uphold the sovereign power of an effete and incapable
dynasty we were inflicting infinite misery on 5,000,000 of people.[329]
Unfortunately, the Treaty of 1801 had stipulated that all improvements
in the administration of Oudh must be carried out by Native officers
under British advice. It was impossible, therefore, to transfer the
administration of Oudh to the servants of the Company, and equally
impossible to expect reforms from the servants of the King. Lord
Dalhousie’s notion was that the Treaty of 1801 should be
“denounced”--that the King should be told he must either sign a fresh
one, handing over the administration of his country to the Indian
Government, or forego the protection of the British force, which stood
between him and a revolution. Dalhousie ignored the fact that the
withdrawal of our troops from Oudh logically involved the retrocession
of that half of the kingdom which was given to us as payment for their
services, and yet there can be little doubt that had his demand been
pressed, the King of Oudh would have yielded. Dalhousie’s advisers
differed in their views, and in the end the Court of Directors settled
the matter by ordering the Governor-General to annex the country,
depriving the King of revenues, rank, power, and authority, and
allotting a suitable pension to him and his successors.[330] Dalhousie’s
plan, on the other hand, was to assume the administration, but not to
extinguish the dynasty of Oudh, and it was with reluctance that he
carried out the policy of his masters. The country was annexed by Sir
James Outram on the 7th of February, 1856, the King’s private property
being confiscated and sold. These are the essential facts of the case,
and it is easy to pass judgment on them. No Treaty conferred on the
Company the shadow of a right to do more than secure for the people of
Oudh good government. As it was quite possible to do that without
destroying and degrading the dynasty, the seizure of Oudh was simply an
act of rapine.[331] As the Kings of Oudh had been noted all over India
for their staunch loyalty to the English in India, every Native prince
regarded the annexation of Oudh as a menace to his throne. At every
Native Court it was whispered that to be loyal to England was simply to
invite ruin. Thus the last act of Dalhousie’s viceregal reign sowed the
seeds of suspicion, distrust, and even hatred in the hearts of the
Native dynasties.
But the whole policy of this great and vigorous ruler, by a curious
irony of fate, had steadily prepared the minds of the Indian races for a
revolution. Dalhousie had covered India with railways, canals, roads,
and telegraphs. He had introduced a cheap postal system by which a
letter from Peshawur to Cape Comorin, or from Assam to Kurrachee, was
carried for three farthings--one-sixteenth of the old charge. He had
reformed the Civil Service, he had improved education and prison
discipline, he had passed laws that went to the root of family life,
such as those permitting Hindoo widows to marry again, and relieving
persons who changed their religion from forfeiture. As for his wars and
his annexations, he had the “tyrant plea, necessity.” When leaving
Calcutta he said mournfully, and with a trace of misgiving, as he looked
back on his brilliant achievements, “I have played out my part, and
while I feel that in my case the principal act in the drama of my life
is ended, I shall be content if the curtain should now drop on my public
career.” But the great work done by Dalhousie had not been done without
friction between the paramount power and its subjects and vassals. It
was, indeed, thought in England that Dalhousie handed India over to Lord
Canning in a state of profound tranquillity. Yet, looking deeper than
the surface, says an able writer on Indian history, “there were latent
causes of uneasiness which largely pervaded the minds of the Native
classes of all ranks and creeds.”[332] Dalhousie’s system of progressive
education was detested by Hindoo and Moslem alike, because it undermined
the whole fabric of their faith. The Moslem youth, it is true, did not
frequent the English schools. But young Hindoos flocked to them with an
eager thirst for knowledge, and they went to the missionary seminaries,
where Christianity was taught, quite as freely as to State schools,
where its teaching was prohibited. In their homes, they spoke of what
they were taught to their parents, who regarded the whole system of
English education as a diabolical device for corrupting the faith and
morals of their children. This suspicion was strengthened and confirmed
by the aggressive proselytism of the missionaries, to whose zeal one of
the soundest and best informed of Native civilians has directly traced
the origin of the Mutiny. The entire scheme of Dalhousie’s policy was
based on the assumption that the Natives would greet with loyalty and
gratitude the new era of progress that he ushered in. On the contrary,
as Colonel Meadows Taylor says, “the material progress of India was
unintelligible to the Natives in general. A few intelligent and educated
persons might understand the use and scope of railways, telegraphs,
steam-vessels, and recognise in them the direction of a great Government
for the benefit of the people; but the ancient listless conservativism
of the population at large was disturbed by them. ‘The English,’ it was
said, ‘never did such things before, why do they do so now? These are
but new devices for the domination of their will, and are aimed at the
destruction of our national faith, caste, and customs. What was it all
to come to? Was India to be like England? The earlier Company’s servants
were simple but wise men, and we respected them; we understood them and
they us; but the present men are not like them; we do not know them, nor
they us.’ No one cared, perhaps, very much for such sentiments, and
few--very few--English heard them; but they will not have been forgotten
by those who did.”[333] The Directors of the East India Company had,
prior to Dalhousie’s time, rigidly enforced on their servants a policy
of benevolent neutrality to the religious beliefs and social prejudices
of India. The government of the Company in its best days might have been
bad. But it was successful because it was, on the whole, popular, and it
was popular because it was intensely conservative. Ardent progressive
officials were repressed, whereas under Dalhousie their passion for
innovation had free scope and disastrous encouragement.
Nor was Oudh the only centre of Court intrigues against the British
_raj_. The question of settling the position of the Royal Family of
Delhi, the last representatives of the old Emperors of India, had been
much debated in Dalhousie’s reign. When Lord Canning went to India, in
1856, it was again taken up, and a final decision given on the points
raised. The heir-apparent, Prince Fukhr-ood-deen, who had agreed to
evacuate the Palace, died on the 10th of July, 1856, and it was supposed
he had been poisoned. The Queen, Zeenut Mahál, immediately began to
intrigue for the purpose of procuring the recognition of her son as
heir-apparent, and the King of Delhi petitioned the Government of India
to this effect. But the petition could not have been granted without a
breach of the Mohammedan law, and so Mirza Korash, the next in legal
succession to Fukhr-ood-deen, was recognised as heir to the throne. But
whereas, in the case of Fukhr-ood-deen, the recognition of the
Government was the result of a compact or bargain between independent
authorities, in the case of Mirza Korash it took the form of an Imperial
decree, conferring rank and dignity on a vassal prince. The Royal Family
of Delhi resented the whole arrangement. “Remembering the old relations
between the Company and the Empire, the immense benefits originally
conferred on them, and the admitted position of the Company as servants
of the State, it was,” writes Colonel Taylor, “only natural they should
now be accused of perfidy. The efforts and intrigues of the spirited
Queen and several of the princes were now redoubled, locally as well as
in foreign quarters; and India, especially the North-West Provinces,
became filled with the most alarming rumours.”[334]
Along with these there spread extraordinary tales of the decaying power
of England--tales which fawning courtiers poured into the willing ears
of Native princes, and with which embittered malcontents regaled the
Native servants of the Company. The sudden collapse of Palmerston’s
militant policy in the Crimea and in Persia convinced every enemy of
England in India that the omens were propitious for a revolt against
English rule. It was also an untoward coincidence that the year 1857-58
was the Hindoo “Sumbut” 1914, and the centenary of Plassey. But when
that crowning victory was won, the astrologers had declared that the
_raj_, or rule, of the Company would last only for a century. Astrology
so dominates Indian life, that the people have a trick of fulfilling, by
their unconscious action, the prophecies of their soothsayers; and he
who predicts a successful insurrection on a given date has himself
furnished one of the strongest encouragements for its organisation. The
Sumbut 1914, therefore, could not arrive without suggesting to the
Indian mind that an opportunity for throwing off the yoke of England had
come. One of the stereotyped ceremonies of New Year’s Day is the public
recital of the almanack for the year in every Indian village. Hence, in
1857, every Hindoo villager was solemnly warned that wise men, who, a
century ago, held infallible commune with the stars, foretold that in
this fateful year the British _raj_ must end.
[Illustration: SIR JAMES OUTRAM.]
Unfortunately, the base on which the empire of the Company had rested
for a century was at this critical period extremely insecure. India was
won and India was held, not by English, but by Native soldiers. The
British Empire was, therefore, built up on the fidelity of the Sepoy,
and the Sepoy had become dissatisfied with his masters, especially in
Bengal.[335] The army of Bengal had not only been prone to mutiny, but
Napier had denounced its lack of discipline, and there were fewer
Europeans in it in proportion to Natives, than in the armies of Bombay
or Madras.[336] The Crimean War had drained the life-blood from the
British battalions in Bengal; and whereas six English regiments were
usually stationed between Calcutta and Allahabad, when Lord Dalhousie
left the country there were only two. Obviously, if the Sepoy was not to
be trusted, the whole fabric of empire in India was in such
circumstances resting on a rotten foundation, and although officers of
experience refused to doubt the loyalty of their men, the spirit of
mutiny was most certainly abroad in the Bengal army. The Sepoy had
grievances, and the Government had not sense enough to redress them.
These grievances were two in number. (1), When a Sepoy in the old days
marched to the conquest of a province he got increased pay and
allowances; but in recent times, when the province was annexed, it was
considered British territory, and the pay and allowances of the
Company’s mercenary forces were reduced to the scale of home service.
Conquests, therefore, while they imposed more work on the army,
practically reduced its pay. (2), Another cause of discontent was the
“General Service Order” of 1856. The Sepoy was originally enlisted for
service in India only. He could not be sent across the sea; in fact,
only low caste men dared cross “the black water.” During the first
Burmese War the Sepoys had to be marched round the Indian frontier to
the enemy’s territory; and when the second Burmese War broke out, the
38th Native Infantry refused to embark for Rangoon. Of course, though
they should not have been asked to go without having been previously
“sounded” on the subject, refusal in their case was tantamount to
mutiny. Dalhousie could not, however, legally punish them, so he sent
them to Dacca, where they were decimated, not by courtmartials, but by
cholera. Thus the Sepoy argued that he must in future choose between his
caste or a pestilential station, if he refused to serve across the sea.
But while the Sepoys were brooding over this dilemma in 1856, the
Governor-General promulgated the “General Service Order” to the effect
that no more Sepoys should be enlisted who would not take an oath to
cross the sea if called on to do so, and veteran officers, who had grown
grey in the Company’s service predicted that this Order would make
mischief in the army. And so it did. To the Sepoy, his service under the
Company was a source of pride, profit, and even of valuable civil
privileges.[337] To him it was as great a grievance to issue an Order of
this sort, as it would be to the English aristocracy to attach
conditions to military service, which should render it impossible for a
gentleman to hold the Queen’s Commission. The individual Sepoy, no
doubt, was not touched by the Order. But then his sons and grandsons,
whom he expected to become Sepoys, were. The army was thus closed to
every Native, unless they were prepared to submit to loss of caste. In
fact, a lucrative profession was, by Lord Canning’s Order, made the
monopoly of low-caste natives. Unfortunately, too, most of the recruits
were drawn from Oudh, the annexation of which had been a scandal, and
which was swarming with disbanded soldiers, who had been in the personal
service of the deposed King.
Thus we had, in 1857, the following conditions prevailing in India: (1),
A popular belief was current in every village that the last year of the
British _raj_ had come; (2), The Native Courts were suspicious that the
annexation of Oudh was an indication of the fate that was in store for
them; (3), The high-caste Natives, whether in the army or in civil life,
were suspicious that the Government desired to defile their caste, and
sap the foundations of their religion.[338] The country was therefore in
such an inflammable condition that the first spark that fell on it would
produce an explosion. By an extraordinary act of stupidity the
Government not only struck this spark, but fanned it into flame.
The Crimean War caused the British Army to substitute the rifle for the
old smooth-bore musket popularly called “Brown Bess.” In 1856 it was
determined to serve out Enfield rifles to the Indian Army, and in doing
this no heed was paid to Sepoy prejudices. The cartridge of the new
weapon could not be rammed home unless it were previously greased. But,
then, no Hindoo can touch the fat of ox or cow without loss of caste,
which is worse than loss of life, and no Moslem can touch pigs’ fat
without moral defilement. Yet no steps were taken to exclude these
substances from the grease for the Indian cartridges! A rumour
accordingly flew round the bazaars that in order to attack Hindoo and
Moslem alike the two objectionable fats had been mixed in the grease.
This story was traced to a curious source. One day a low-caste man at
Dumdum, near Calcutta, asked a Sepoy to give him a draught of water from
his _lotah_. The Sepoy refused, loftily observing that the vessel would
be polluted if a low-caste man touched it with his lips. The Lascar
replied, with a sneer, that the Sepoy would soon lose his own caste, for
the Government were making cartridges greased with defiling fats, which
he would have to bite in loading his rifle. The Sepoy, horror-stricken
at this tale, told it to his comrades. It flew from mouth to mouth, and
soon the Native Army of Bengal lay under the blight of a hideous
panic--every man going about his duty haunted by a dread of
soul-destroying defilement.[339] The men, half-crazy with fear, met of
nights to concert measures for their protection, and at Barrackpore
incendiary fires broke out. General Hearsey, who was in command, warned
the Government of what was going on, and orders were given that
ungreased cartridges should be issued--the men lubricating them with
whatever substance they chose to apply.[340] But no sooner had one
suspicion been banished from the Sepoy mind than another took its place.
A glazed paper was used for the ungreased cartridges, whereupon a new
rumour flew round to the effect that the glaze was produced by fat.
General Hearsey harangued his men, assuring them on his honour that
their suspicions were wrong, and they seemed satisfied; though, as
events showed, they were by no means satisfied.
A detachment of the 34th was sent from Barrackpore to Berhampore. They
carried the tale about the glazed paper with them, and communicated the
fresh panic to the 19th Native Infantry at that station. The day after
the men of the 34th arrived the 19th Regiment had blank cartridges
served to them, which by some mistake had been made out of two different
kinds of paper. The men at once suspected that the new defiling
cartridges had been mixed with the old ones, so that their caste might
be destroyed, and they refused to take their percussion caps. Colonel
Mitchell, instead of reasoning with his Sepoys as Hearsey had done, flew
into a paroxysm of passion--which simply confirmed their suspicions.
Mitchell, in fact, mistook fear for mutiny, and it was in vain that the
Native officers, who of course knew the real state of the case, implored
him to keep his temper with his men. That night the 19th mutinied.
Mitchell had no European troops, but he closed round the mutineers with
two other Native regiments--cavalry and artillery--and then, sending for
the Native officers of the 19th, stormed at them in impotent fury. They
assured him that their men were only in a panic, and that if the cavalry
and artillery were withdrawn they would return to duty. The cavalry and
artillery were withdrawn, and the 19th went back to its quarters loyally
enough.
Though Mitchell’s indiscretion drove the 19th into revolt, it had
unquestionably revolted. Lord Canning, therefore, was bound to punish
it, and he decided that the regiment must be disarmed and disbanded. But
he had no British troops to spare for this purpose. He accordingly had
to wait from the end of February till the end of March for the arrival
of an English regiment from Burmah to disarm the 19th, who were marched
down to Barrackpore to be broken up. On the 29th of March, two days
before the disbandment of the 19th Native Infantry, Private Mungul Pandy
of the 34th, in a fit of drunken fanaticism, attempted to get up a
mutiny among his comrades. He shot the horse of the Adjutant, Lieutenant
Baugh, who was cut down in trying to seize him. Only one man of the
quarter-guard responded to the order to arrest the mutineer, who was
finally captured, tried, and hanged on the 22nd of April. Evil
communications had passed between the 19th and the 34th, and it was
found that, though the Sikhs and Moslems in the regiment were loyal, the
Hindoos were mutinous to a man. Yet nothing was done to punish the 34th.
The discharged men of the 19th, however, carried the story of their
wrongs to their homes in Oudh and Bundelkund, and soon it came to be
believed that not only were the cartridges greased, but, in order to
produce a general pollution of the Natives, which would destroy all
caste, “that the public wells, and the flour, and ghee (a clarified
butter sold in the bazaars), had been defiled by ground bone-dust and
the fat of cows and pigs, while the salt had been sprinkled with cows’
and hogs’ blood.”[341] Viceregal proclamations were issued to
contradict these rumours and reassure the people, but in vain. The
North-West Provinces had now become smitten with the terror which
hovered over India, and the Commander-in-Chief suggested that the
_depôt_ at Umballa might be broken up before the rifle practice began at
the annual training. Lord Canning, believing that his proclamations had
lulled the rising storm, refused to sanction this step. Fires next broke
out at Umballa, as at Barrackpore--the officers alleging that Sepoys,
who were as yet “undefiled,” set fire to the huts of those who had
accepted the defiling cartridges, and that the latter retaliated. Oudh
soon became affected, and in May Sir Henry Lawrence had to disarm the
7th Irregular Native Infantry at Lucknow.
[Illustration: CAWNPORE.]
In the North-West Provinces the famous “chupatties” began to make their
appearance. They consisted of small baked cakes, and they were passed on
from hand to hand, from hamlet to hamlet, spreading a strange
excitement wherever they went. The circulation of the “chupatties” was
evidently a signal of some sort, and yet, though Native society was
shaking with revolutionary tremors, nothing happened. At last an event
occurred which precipitated a general catastrophe. At Meerut eighty-five
men of the 3rd Native Cavalry had been tried and doomed to ten years’
hard labour on the roads for refusing to bite their cartridges. They
were paraded and punished before the other Native regiments, who seem to
have been irritated, rather than overawed. Next day (10th May), the 3rd
Cavalry forced the gates of the gaol and released their comrades. The
men of the 20th and 11th Regiments flew to arms, shot every European
they met, set fire to their huts, and marched on to Delhi. Why, it will
be asked, was this revolt not quelled, seeing that a strong English
force was stationed at Meerut? The outbreak, it is true, occurred during
church hours on a Sunday; but even this hardly explains why General
Hewitt, who was in command, permitted the mutineers to pursue their
march to the city of the Mogul Emperors. There they proceeded, as if by
concert, to the King, who espoused their cause. The people of the city
rose and massacred the Europeans. The Native regiments in Delhi--the
38th, 54th, and 74th--joined the mutineers one by one, and though the
arsenal was held for a time by Lieutenant Willoughby, with Lieutenants
Raynor and Forrest, and six other Englishmen, they blew it up when it
was no longer tenable. The Mutiny was now a war of liberation. It had a
King for a rallying-point, and an Imperial city for a capital.
The North-West had by this time fallen from the feeble hands of Colvin
into the grasp of the rebels. In Gwalior the British Resident, by his
personal ascendency, held Scindia to his loyalty, though Scindia’s army
revolted. But for George Lawrence, Rajpootana would have been lost. As
for Oudh, there the struggle was becoming tragic. On the eve of the
insurrection this province, seething with sedition, was put under the
rule of Sir Henry Lawrence. Lucknow, with 700,000 inhabitants, was a
hotbed of treason, and the success of the mutineers at Meerut agitated
them profoundly. At the end of May the Sepoys in Lucknow rose and
marched away to Delhi, leaving Lawrence with a handful of Europeans to
hold a rebellious city. Cawnpore is forty miles south of Lucknow, and
there General Wheeler and another devoted band were similarly situated.
On the night of the 21st of May, Wheeler and the English
population--about a thousand souls--withdrew into a kind of temporary
fortress which he had created, and which he defended by some 210 men. At
Cawnpore, in May, 1857, there was residing a young Mahratta noble, Nana
Sahib by name, whose popular manners had rendered him a favourite in the
English community. He had been the adopted heir of the last Peishwa of
Berari, and his grievance against the Government was that Dalhousie
refused to let him enjoy the pension guaranteed to the Peishwa and his
successors. Nana Sahib had spent a season in London to press his claims,
and had been most hospitably received. His agent, Azin Oolla Khan, had
returned to India after visiting the Crimea, and bearing to his master
tales which were partially true, of the defeats and humiliations which
England had suffered during her war with Russia. Nana Sahib had been
busy with plots against the English _raj_ for many years, and his agents
were ubiquitous. In Oudh they had been especially active, for they had
taken every advantage of the mistakes of an over-zealous
Commissioner--Mr. Coverley Jackson--to fan the flame of discontent in
that province. Yet Wheeler trusted the Nana Sahib so implicitly that he
put the treasury of Cawnpore in the charge of his personal retinue lest
his own Native troops might fail him. On the 4th of June General
Wheeler’s Sepoys revolted, joined Nana Sahib’s retinue in plundering the
treasury, and then, laden with spoil, set out for Delhi. But the Nana’s
idea was to win empire for himself rather than for a degenerate
descendant of the Mogul dynasty. He therefore persuaded the rebels to
return, and besiege the English garrison at Cawnpore. On the twentieth
day of the siege he sent one of his prisoners, an old lady named
Greenway, to General Wheeler, offering the beleaguered English a safe
conduct to Allahabad if they would surrender. The offer was accepted. On
the 27th of June the survivors--men, women, and children, about 450 in
all--marched to the boats which had been prepared for them. As soon as
they had embarked Nana Sahib treacherously opened fire on them, and
converted an exodus into a massacre. One hundred and twenty-two captives
were taken, and imprisoned in a house till the 15th of July, when they
were butchered. Next morning their bodies, some still quivering with
life, were thrown into a well. When tidings of this ghastly crime
reached Europe, the nation was for a moment horror-stricken, but only
for a moment. A cry of rage broke forth from the British people, and the
Government hastened to send avenging reinforcements to the East. They
could not, however, arrive in time to save Cawnpore, and when it fell,
the rebels closed round Henry Lawrence at Lucknow. Two days after the
siege began a stray shot mortally wounded him, and, after thirty-six
hours of intense agony, one of the noblest hearts in India had ceased to
beat for ever.
“It is evident,” said the Queen, in a letter to Lord Palmerston,
commenting on these events, “from a comparison of the news with the map,
that whereas hitherto the seat of the mutiny was Oudh, Delhi, and the
Upper Ganges, to which localities all troops have been despatched, it
has now broken out in their rear, cutting them off from the base of
operations, viz., Calcutta, and that it has reached the gates of the
seat of Government itself.” The North-West and Oudh were, in fact, lost.
In the former province, a Mogul King held sway at Delhi, whilst Colvin
was clinging to Agra with feeble hands. In Oudh, Nana Sahib, the viper
of the insurrection, was installed at Cawnpore; whilst a small band of
Englishmen, bewailing the loss of their heroic leader, stood desperately
at bay at Lucknow. In six months, the Empire which had been created in a
century, was shattered and in ruins. Yet the English clung to these
ruins with the tenacity of despair, and what they had lost they were
determined to re-conquer. Fortunately, they had in India what they
lacked in the Crimea, two leaders who were alike competent to translate
a high resolve into prompt action. These were Lawrence at Lahore, and
Canning at Calcutta.
When the Mutiny first broke out General Anson was Commander-in-Chief of
the Forces in India. It was said that he was a mere amateur soldier, and
that in Simla he had accordingly found a congenial Capua. Family
interest had sent him at one bound from the Turf some years before to
the command of one of the Presidency armies. When the
Commandership-in-Chief of the Indian Armies fell vacant, family interest
had again secured the post for him. Had he been a man of capacity and
energy the Mutiny would have been stamped out when it was feebly
sporadic. After it became what Canning called “epidemic,” the task of
repression was harder. Whether Anson would have risen to the level of
his responsibilities the world will never know now, because he died in a
fortnight after he began to grapple with the crisis.[342] His slender
force was then taken in hand by Sir H. Barnard, who pressed on to the
South, and who reached Alipore on the 5th of June, where he effected a
junction with Sir Archdale Wilson, who had marched from Meerut. On the
8th Barnard drove the rebels from their entrenchments at Budlee Serái,
four miles north of Delhi, where he repeated Raglan’s experiment in the
Crimea--that of besieging a fortress, whose garrison was really
besieging him. On the 5th of July Barnard died, to be succeeded by Reed,
who in turn was succeeded by Wilson on the 17th of July. All four were
sluggish generals, and it was well that John Lawrence, at Lahore, acted
on them like a goad. Englishmen will not readily forget his famous
telegram to Anson in May when he heard that the General was about to
entrench himself at Umballa--“Clubs are trumps--not spades?” A vain
controversy has arisen as to who can claim credit for the capture of
Delhi; whether it was due to Wilson’s slow but cautious tactics, or to
the engineering skill of Taylor, or the demoniac energy of Nicholson, or
the dashing enterprise of Chamberlain, who brought succours from the
Punjab. The man who really took the rebel stronghold was not a soldier
but a civilian, for it was John Lawrence, at Lahore, and not any of the
generals before Delhi, who was the bulwark of the war.[343]
When the Mutiny broke out the Punjab was--by the prompt action of
Lawrence’s subordinates who disarmed sulking troops, and stamped out the
germs of mutiny whenever and wherever they were visible--saved and
secured.
[Illustration: LORD LAWRENCE.]
After this Delhi seemed to him to be the very keystone of the
insurrection. To take it there was no risk too great to run--no hazard
too perilous to undergo.[344] Though his own position at Lahore was
dangerous enough, he threw himself on the people, and staked everything
on the fidelity of the Sikhs. He summoned the old gunners of the Khálsa
from their fields. The low-caste “Muzbis” he converted into sappers. The
fierce chieftains, who had fought against us in ’48 and ’49, together
with their followers, he hurried on to the rebel city, thereby stripping
his province of local leaders who might have organised a rising. “From,
the Punjab arsenals,” says one of Lawrence’s critics, “the siege-trains
were equipped; from the Punjab districts vast amounts of carriage were
gathered and despatched systematically with their loads to Delhi; from
the Punjab treasuries the sinews of war were furnished. Men were raised
by tens of thousands to replace the Sepoys--raised, indeed, in such
numbers that--as constantly comes out in Lawrence’s correspondence--the
dread was for a long time never absent from his mind lest this might be
overdone, and new danger might arise from the Punjabis becoming
conscious of their strength.”[345] What wonder, then, that in England as
in India, where it was admitted that the fall of Delhi broke the neck of
the insurrection, all men who knew the circumstances of the case, who
knew how he had to stimulate laggards,[346] strengthen faint hearts,
overcome jealousies, sweep away obstructions--“all greeted Sir John
Lawrence by acclamation as the man who had done more than any single man
to save the Indian Empire”?[347] And justly. For had the great and
warlike Sikh nation, in the midst of which Lawrence stood like a lion at
bay, risen against the British _raj_, “all would have been lost save
honour.” He saw, in fact, that the Khálsa banner must be carried into
our own lines, otherwise it would be swept into the lines of the enemy;
and it was this inspiration of genius that really saved India. Delhi
fell before the attacks of the reinforced army, after six days’
fighting, on the 20th of September, and on the 21st the Mogul king was
captured by Captain Hodson (“Hodson of Hodson’s Horse”), who next day
shot, with his own hand, his two sons, and hung up their bodies in the
most public place in the city.[348]
The fall of Delhi was not the end, but the beginning of the end, of the
Mutiny. Oudh had to be recovered, and if it be said that Lawrence
captured Delhi, it is but right to say that Canning wrested Oudh from
the grasp of the insurgents. His position in Calcutta was an
embarrassing one. A terrible panic had paralysed those round him. Though
they seemed able to do nothing but clamour for vengeance and for
blood;[349] yet in the whirlwind of their passion Canning stood
“steadfast as a pillar in a storm.” He was one of those who at such a
moment “attain the wise indifference of the wise” to everything save the
paramount demands of practical duty. He sent to Bombay, Madras, and
Ceylon for reinforcements. He intercepted at Singapore the force that
was on its way to China to support Lord Elgin, who had been sent to
supersede Sir John Bowring,[350] and he armed Henry and John Lawrence
with absolute power in Oudh and the Punjab. On the 23rd of May, Neill
brought to Calcutta the first of the reinforcements from Madras.
Havelock followed with two regiments from Persia, superseding Neill; and
after him came Outram, who was to supersede Havelock and succeed Henry
Lawrence as Chief Commissioner in Oudh. Outram, however, refused to
deprive Havelock of the honour of relieving Lucknow, and accompanied him
merely in his civil capacity. On the 17th, Havelock forced his way to
the scene of the massacre at Cawnpore, where the sickening relics of
Nana Sahib’s crime were still visible. Onwards his Army of Vengeance
swept with hungry hearts to Lucknow, which they entered on the 25th of
September, after a great variety of perilous adventure. When the
imprisoned garrison, who had long been listening with strained ears for
the beat of the English drums, met their rescuers, the scene was
inexpressibly touching. The Highlanders, usually the most stolid and
least emotional of our troops, had become dangerously excited after they
entered Cawnpore; and, in the engagements on the march to Lucknow, they
had fought, contrary to their wont, more like savages than civilised
men. But when they marched into Lucknow their hearts softened. Oblivious
of discipline and decorum, they rushed from their ranks, shaking hands
with the ladies, lifting up the little children in their brawny arms,
and passing them along from hand to hand, to be pressed to rough and
bearded lips. Outram now took over the supreme command; but, finding
himself again surrounded by the enemy in overwhelming numbers, he
decided not to withdraw from the city. Lucknow had therefore to be
relieved again.
The death of Anson, and the startling development of the insurrection in
midsummer, together with the pressing appeals of the Queen, roused the
Cabinet to action. They sent out reinforcements, and on the 11th of July
decided to appoint Sir Colin Campbell as Anson’s successor. When asked
by Lord Panmure when he could start, Campbell answered, laconically,
“To-morrow;” and, as a matter of fact, with little more than the kit of
a common soldier, the veteran did start next night.[351] On the 17th of
August he arrived at Calcutta, and toiled without ceasing to organise an
army. The greatest military historian of our time has said that Campbell
had a genuine and natural love for war, and he was one of those whose
hearts beat stronger in the hour of battle than at any other moment of
their lives. But he loved victory better than combat; and when he
fought, he fought to win. Hence the extraordinary pains he took with his
preparations, and the time he spent, or, as some of his panic-stricken
critics in Calcutta said, wasted, in making arrangements which would
virtually guarantee success. It was not till the 27th of
[Illustration: SCENE AT THE FIRST RELIEF OF LUCKNOW.]
October that he left Calcutta. On the 9th of November he got to
Cawnpore; and then by a brilliant forced march on the 12th he reached
the Alumbaugh--a summer palace of the kings of Oudh--from which he was
able to signal his arrival to Outram. A gallant civilian--Mr.
Kavanagh--contrived, in disguise, to make his way from Lucknow through
the enemy’s lines to the relieving force, and told the story of Outram’s
defence, an achievement, as Lord Canning said, without a parallel in
history, save Numantia and Saragossa. On the 14th Sir Colin Campbell
moved on the city. On the 16th he attacked the chief stronghold of the
rebels--the Secunder-baugh. The 93rd Highlanders and a regiment of Sikhs
forced their way in through a narrow breach, and then, finding that the
Sepoy garrison could not escape, they massacred them. The Highlanders
here fought with uncontrollable ferocity, neither asking nor giving
quarter. “_Cawnpore_, you----!” was the cry of rage with which each man
drove his bayonet home into the heart of his foe; and, excited by their
example, the Sikhs strove only too successfully to emulate the barbarity
of their Scottish comrades. For three terrible hours did the men of the
93rd satiate their passion for vengeance; and when they emerged from the
place with tartans soaked in blood, they left it packed high and close
with corpses--hardly a single rebel escaping to tell the tale. On the
17th of November Campbell had fought his way to the Residency, and
Lucknow was rescued a second time.
The victory was hailed in England with pride and delight. The Queen sent
a letter to Sir Colin Campbell, congratulating him. “The Queen,” she
writes, “has had many proofs already of Sir Colin Campbell’s devotion to
his Sovereign and his country, and he has now greatly added to that debt
of gratitude which both owe him. But Sir Colin must bear one reproof
from his Queen, and that is, that he exposes himself too much. His life
is most precious, and she entreats that he will neither put himself
where his noble spirit would urge him to be--foremost in danger--nor
fatigue himself so as to injure his health.”[352] Her Majesty’s caution
was hardly needed. Sir Colin Campbell was a general who never exposed
himself or his troops to unnecessary danger. But when necessary, he
would spend his own and their blood as recklessly as if it were water.
It has been noticed that his brilliant victories in India were all won
with little loss of life.[353] The explanation is that his plans were
just the opposite of those pursued in the Crimea--that is to say, he
never wasted his men in futile assaults, or hurled them against
fortifications bristling with cannon, till his own artillery--an arm in
which he was always strong--had demoralised the enemy.
Having removed the women, children, sick, and wounded, Campbell retraced
his steps to attack the rebel army concentrated at Cawnpore--his heart
saddened, and the lustre of his triumph dimmed by the death of the
heroic Havelock. At Cawnpore, General Windham, who commanded the rear
guard, had foolishly allowed himself to be outflanked by Tantia Topee, a
commander of great skill and courage. Windham’s blunder not only gave
the enemy possession of Cawnpore, but put the whole English force, whose
communications were thus threatened, in the greatest peril. Campbell, by
forced marches, came to the rescue on the 29th of November. Having sent
on his convoy to Calcutta, he attacked the rebels, under Nana Sahib and
Tantia Topee, on the 5th of December; and, on the 7th, there was not a
vestige of the 25,000 insurgents composing the Gwalior army to be seen
for miles round Cawnpore.[354] As the year 1857 closed, it was felt that
the worst of the crisis in India was over.