CHINA AND INDIA
The Ninety-Eighth had been moved to Plymouth in anticipation of
departure on foreign service, and on the 20th of December, 1841,
it embarked for Hong-Kong on H.M.S. _Belleisle_, a line-of-battle
ship which had been commissioned for transport service. According to
present ideas the _Belleisle_, whose burden did not exceed 1750 tons,
was abominably overcrowded, especially for a voyage of six months
or longer. The Ninety-Eighth embarked eight hundred and ten strong;
and what with staff officers, details, women and children and crew,
the ship carried a total of nearly thirteen hundred souls. Among her
passengers was Major-General Lord Saltoun, the hero of Hougomont,
who was going out as second in command of the Chinese expeditionary
force. During a short stay in Simon's Bay Colin Campbell had the
pleasant opportunity of visiting his old Demerara chief Sir Benjamin
D'Urban, who since they last met had served a term of office as
Governor of Cape Colony, and was now living in retirement among his
orchards and vineyards a few miles from Cape Town. The _Belleisle_
made a fairly quick voyage to Hong-Kong, where she arrived on June
2nd, 1842, and where orders were awaiting the Ninety-Eighth to make
all haste to join the force of Sir Hugh Gough operating in the region
of the estuary of the Yang-tse-Kiang. Active hostilities had for some
time previously been in progress. After the capture of the town of
Chapoo on May 18th the fleet carrying the expeditionary force had
proceeded to an anchorage off the mouth of the Yang-tse-Kiang, where
it lay for a fortnight while the bar was being surveyed and buoyed.
The Chinese had constructed a great line of defensive works about
Woosung, but the British fleet anchored in face of the batteries on
the 16th of June, and as the result of a two hours' bombardment the
Chinese fire was crushed and the garrisons were driven from their
batteries by the sailors and troops. Shanghai was occupied, and
the expedition remained in the vicinity of Woosung while surveying
steamers were prospecting the river. It was during this halt that the
_Belleisle_ with the Ninety-Eighth aboard joined the expeditionary
force at Woosung on the 21st of June. The regiment was assigned to
the first brigade under Lord Saltoun, and occupied part of the third
division of vessels during the ascent of the river.
The expedition left Woosung on July 6th, its objectives being the
great cities of Chin-Kiang and Nanking. The strength of it was
overwhelming, for the fleet consisted of fifteen ships of war,
ten steamers and fifty transports and troop-ships, on which were
embarked nine thousand soldiers and three thousand disciplined
seamen ready for service on shore in case of need. The _Belleisle_
was off Chin-Kiang on the 19th, and on the morning of the 21st
the troops disembarked in three brigades. The columns of Sir Hugh
Gough and General Schoedde had some hard fighting with the Tartar
garrison of the city commanded by the gallant Haeling. Lord Saltoun's
brigade, with the Ninety-Eighth in advance, marched against a Chinese
force occupying a low ridge some miles inland and to westward of
the city. The opposition encountered was trivial, and was easily
overcome by the light company of the Ninety-Eighth in skirmishing
order supported by a few discharges from a mountain-battery. But
the regiment, debilitated as it was by a long tropical voyage in
an overcrowded ship, unsupplied with an equipment suitable for the
climate and wearing its ordinary European clothing, was in no case
to resist the fierce summer-heat of China. The sun had its will of
the men, thirteen of whom died on the ground; and Colin Campbell,
seasoned veteran as he was, was himself struck down, though he soon
recovered. From this day forth for months, and even for years,
disease maintained its fell grip on the victims of overcrowding,
and Napier would have been puzzled to recognise in the shattered
invalids of Hong-Kong the "beautiful regiment" which had sailed from
Plymouth in fine physique and high heart. On the night following
the disembarkation several cases of cholera occurred, and fever and
dysentery became immediately prevalent. Within ten days from the
landing at Chin-Kiang fifty-three men of the Ninety-Eighth had died,
and the _Belleisle_ was rapidly becoming a floating hospital.
A garrison was left in Chin-Kiang, and on August 4th the _Cornwallis_
man-of-war anchored in front of that very gate of Nanking which
twenty-six years earlier had been rudely shut in the face of a
British ambassador. Opposite that same gate it was destined that
severe terms should now be dictated by a victorious British
force. The mass of the expedition reached Nanking on the 9th and
preparations for the attack on that city were promptly begun.
The Ninety-Eighth men fit for service were transferred from the
_Belleisle_ to a steamer which conveyed them to a point where a
diversion was intended. Colin Campbell was too ill to accompany
his regiment, and when he joined it a few days later he was again
prostrated by fever. But Nanking escaped its imminent fate.
Negotiations resulted in a treaty of peace which was concluded on
August 26th; the expedition retraced its steps, and in October the
_Belleisle_ reached Hong-Kong with the wreck of the unfortunate
regiment. Even after those long months fate still kept imprisoned
on ship-board what remained of the hapless Ninety-Eighth. The
regiment had to remain on the _Belleisle_ until barracks could be
built for its reception. Writing to his sister in December, Colin
Campbell had the following sad tale to tell:--"The regiment has
lost by death up to this date two hundred and eighty-three men, and
there are still two hundred and thirty-one sick, of whom some fifty
or sixty will die; and generally, of those who may survive, there
will be some seventy or eighty men to be discharged in consequence
of their constitutions having been so completely broken down as to
unfit them for the duties of soldiers. This is the history of the
Ninety-Eighth regiment, which sailed from Plymouth in so effective a
state in all respects on the 20th of December of last year--and all
this destruction without having lost a man by the fire of the enemy!"
His estimate of the losses, grave as it was, did not reach the grim
actual total. From its landing at Chin-Kiang on July 21st, 1842,
up to February, 1844, a period of nineteen months, the unfortunate
regiment lost by death alone four hundred and thirty-two out of a
strength of seven hundred and sixty-six non-commissioned officers and
men; and there remained of it alive no more than three hundred and
thirty-four, an awful contrast to the full numbers with which it had
embarked at Plymouth twenty-six months earlier.
When the expeditionary force was broken up at the end of 1842 Colin
Campbell became commandant of the island of Hong-Kong, and he devoted
himself to the care of the survivors of his regiment. The worst cases
were sent to a hospital ship, those less serious to a temporary
hospital on shore. The remainder of the corps, some three hundred and
thirty men, at last, in February, 1843, quitted the _Belleisle_ and
occupied quarters at Stanley. While at Hong-Kong he learned that he
had been made a Companion of the Bath and aide-de-camp to the Queen,
the latter appointment conferring promotion to the rank of colonel.
In January, 1844, he left Hong-Kong to succeed General Schoedde in
command of the garrison quartered on the Island of Chusan, a transfer
which gave him the position of brigadier of the second class. In the
more bracing and salubrious climate of Chusan Campbell materially
regained his health; and he had not been many months in his new
command when he began his efforts to have the Ninety-Eighth removed
from its unhealthy quarters in Hong-Kong to the reinvigorating
atmosphere of Chusan. This he was able to accomplish in the earlier
months of 1845, and he immediately set about the restoration of the
regiment to its former efficiency. He was a rigorous task-master, but
if he did not spare others he never spared himself. He seldom missed
a parade, and except in the hot season there were three parades a
day. Leave of absence except on medical certificate was refused to
officers who had come from England with the regiment, on the ground
that their experience was needed to instruct the comparatively raw
material from the depôt. The officers of the Ninety-Eighth who
belonged to the garrison staff were also required to perform their
regimental duty. The painstaking and laborious chief thus notes in
his journal the progress of the regiment in the midsummer of 1845:
"Parade as usual morning and evening; men improving, but still in
great want of individual correctness in carriage, facings, motions
of the firelock, etc.; but they move in line and open column very
fairly, and I confidently expect before the end of the year to have
them more perfect than any battalion in this part of the world." When
toward the close of the year the health of the regiment was fully
re-established, its colonel conceived that it should undergo higher
tests than the ordinary movements of the drill-ground afforded. He
accordingly took it out into the open country and divided it into an
attacking and a defending force, in order to train the men in the
art of taking cover and skill in skirmishes over broken ground. By
the beginning of 1846 he was "quite at ease as to the appearance the
regiment would make on landing in India."
The time fixed by the treaty of Nanking for the evacuation of the
island of Chusan by the British troops was now approaching, and
on May 10th the Chinese authorities resumed jurisdiction over the
island. Until then Campbell's duties had not been purely military,
the entire civil charge of Chusan having been vested in his hands.
The most friendly relations existed between the British Brigadier and
the Chinese Commissioners. Arrangements were made without a trace
of friction for the preservation of the European burial-grounds
and in regard to other matters. Campbell was the recipient of an
interesting letter from the Commissioners, passages in which deserve
to be quoted:--"While observing and maintaining the treaty, you
have behaved with the utmost kindness and the greatest liberality
towards our own people, and have restrained by strict regulations
the military of your honourable country.... The very cottagers have
enjoyed tranquillity and protection, and have not been exposed to
the calamity of wandering about without a home. All this is owing
to the excellent and vigorous administration of you, the Honourable
Brigadier.... Now that you are about to return to your own country
crowned with honour, we wish you every happiness."
Notwithstanding occasional attacks of ague which rendered him
liable to depression and irritation, Campbell appears to have been
fairly happy during his stay in Chusan. He writes on the eve of his
departure of "'my last walk' in Chusan, where I have passed many days
in quiet and peace, and where I have been enabled to save a little
money, with which I hope to render my last days somewhat comfortable.
My health upon the whole is pretty good; and altogether I have every
reason to be thankful to God for sending me to a situation wherein
I have been enabled to accomplish so much for my own benefit and
the comfort of others, whilst my duty kept me absent from them."
The latter allusion was to his father and sister, for both of whom
he had been able to make provision in the event of his predeceasing
them. Having left England heavily embarrassed, the increase of his
emoluments during his stay in China had enabled him to relieve
himself of liabilities, and this without being at all niggardly in
the hospitalities which he dispensed.
Sailing from Chusan on July 5th in the transport _Lord Hungerford_,
the colonel and headquarters of the Ninety-Eighth landed at Calcutta
on October 24th, 1846; the last of the detachments carried by
other transports arrived at the end of November, when the regiment
was complete. Colin Campbell meanwhile had been in charge of
Fort-William, but when the regiment began its march to Dinapore
in December he resumed its command. He really seemed to live for
the Ninety-Eighth. Lord Hardinge had expressed his intention of
appointing him a brigadier of the second class. "This," writes
Campbell, "is very flattering; but I would prefer to remain with
my regiment." He writes with soldierly pride of its conduct on the
route-march: "The march of the regiment has been conducted to my
entire satisfaction, no men falling out, and the distance of sections
so correctly preserved that their wheeling into line is like the
operation of a field-day. Those who follow me will benefit by this
order and regularity in conducting the line of march." On arrival at
Dinapore in the end of January, 1846, he found his appointment in
general orders as brigadier of the second class to command at Lahore.
Before starting for his new sphere he held what proved to be his last
inspection of the Ninety-Eighth. "Men steady as rocks," he writes,
"moving by bugle-sound as correctly as by word of command--equally
steady, accurate, and with the same precision." In the evening he
spoke to the regiment some simple manly, soldierly words, to which
the men must have listened with no little emotion. He dined with
the mess the same night, when the president rose and proposed his
health in connection with the day's inspection of the regiment and
the exertions he had made as commanding officer to produce such
results. "The toast," he wrote, "was received with great warmth and
cordiality.... I could not speak without emotion, and my manner could
not conceal my deep anxiety respecting a corps in which I had served
so long. I begged that, if their old colonel had been sometimes
anxious and impatient with them, they would forget the manner and
impatience of one who had no other thought or object in life but to
add to their honour and reputation collectively and individually."
Next day he started for Lahore, "feeling," as he records in his
restrained yet sincere manner, "more than I expected when taking
leave of the officers who happened to be at my quarters at the
moment of my departure." He had a pleasant meeting at Cawnpore with
his old West Indian comrades of the Twenty-First Fusiliers; and on
the road between Kurnal and Meerut he had an interview with the
Governor-General. Lord Hardinge received him with the frank kindness
of an old Peninsular man to a comrade, described Henry Lawrence, the
British Resident in the Punjaub, as "the King of the country, clever
and good-natured, but hot-tempered," and gave Campbell to understand
that if any part of the force in the Punjaub should be called upon
to take the field, he should have a command. A few days later he
reached Saharunpore, the headquarters for the time of Lord Gough, the
Commander-in-Chief, also an old Peninsular man, whom he found most
cordial and friendly. The old Chief asked him whether he could be of
any service to him. Colin Campbell, sedulous as ever for the welfare
of the Ninety-Eighth, replied that he had no favour to ask for
himself, but that his lordship would give him pleasure by removing
his regiment nearer to the frontier as early as might be, away from
its present station which afforded the men so many temptations to
drink. On his arrival at Lahore in the end of February, 1847, he was
cordially received by Henry Lawrence, whose guest at the Residency he
became until he should find accommodation for himself.
Campbell came into the Punjaub at a very interesting period. The
issue of the war of 1845-46 had placed that vast territory at the
mercy of the British Government, and Lord Hardinge might have
incorporated it with the Company's dominions. But he desired to
avoid the last resource of annexation; and although he considered it
necessary to punish the Sikh nation for past offences and to prevent
the recurrence of aggression, he professed his intention to perform
those duties without suppressing the political existence of the
Punjaub State. The Treaty of Lahore accorded a nominally independent
sovereignty to the boy Prince Dhulip Singh, a British Representative
was in residence at Lahore, and the Sikh army was being reorganised
and limited to a specified strength. Within a few months Lall
Singh, who had been appointed Prime Minister, had been deposed, and
a fresh treaty was signed in December, 1846, which provided that
a council of regency composed of eight leading Sikh chiefs should
be appointed to act under the control and guidance of the British
Resident, who was to exercise unlimited influence in all matters of
internal administration and external policy. British troops were to
be stationed in various forts and quarters throughout the country,
maintained from the revenues of the State. The management was to
continue for eight years until the Maharaja Dhulip Singh should reach
his majority. The treaty conferred on the Resident unprecedented
powers, and Major Henry Lawrence, an officer of the Company's
artillery, became in effect the successor of Runjeet Singh.
This settlement had a specious aspect of some measure of permanency.
It might have lasted longer if the state of his health had enabled
Henry Lawrence to remain at his post; but it was unsound at the core,
for a valiant and turbulent race does not bow the neck submissively
after a single disastrous campaign on its frontier. But the Punjaub
seemed in a state of unruffled peace when Colin Campbell shook hands
with Henry Lawrence in the Residency of its capital. In those days
the familiar _sobriquet_ of "Kubhur-dar," of which the English is
"Take care!", had not attached itself to him; but Campbell, even
when his Highland blood was aflame in the rapture of actual battle,
was never either reckless or careless; and the motto "Be Mindful,"
which he chose for his coat of arms when he was made a peer, was
simply a condensation of the principles of cool wisdom and shrewd
caution on which he acted through life. A strong Sikh force, he
found, was located in and about Lahore, and the population of the
city had a name for turbulence. In order to inform himself as to how
the troops were posted in relation to the defences of the city, as
well against an interior as an exterior attack, one of his earliest
concerns was to make a careful inspection of the positions along with
the responsible engineer. In choosing his residence he held it to be
his duty to have it in the proximity of his troops. Soon after his
arrival there was a _fête_ in the Shalimar gardens to which all the
garrison had been invited, but he allowed only half of the officers
of his command to be absent from their men, giving as his reason
that "if the Sikhs wanted to murder all the officers, they could not
have a better chance than when these were gathered four miles away
from their men, enjoying themselves at a _fête_." In the measures of
precaution which he adopted he had the approval of Henry Lawrence and
of Sir Charles Napier, to the latter of whom he wrote on the subject.
Napier expressed himself in his trenchant fashion:--"I am delighted
at all your precautions against surprise. In India we who take these
pains are reckoned cowards. Be assured that English officers think
it a fine dashing thing to be surprised--to take no precautions.
Formerly it was an axiom in war that no man was fit to be a commander
who permitted himself to be surprised; but things are on a more noble
footing now!"
In the end of 1847 Henry Lawrence left Lahore and went home to
England in the same ship with Lord Hardinge. A week before they
sailed from Calcutta Hardinge's successor, Lord Dalhousie, arrived
there and took the oaths as Governor-General,--a potentate at whose
hands a few years later Colin Campbell was to receive treatment
which caused the high-spirited soldier to resign the command he held
and leave India. In the Lahore Residency Henry Lawrence was succeeded
temporarily by his brother John, who in March, 1848, gave place to
Sir Frederick Currie, a member of the Supreme Council. The position
was one which required the experience and military knowledge of a
soldier, but Sir Frederick Currie was a civilian. In January Sir
John Littler had been succeeded in the Punjaub divisional command
by Major-General Whish, an officer of the Company's service, an
appointment which disappointed Colin Campbell who had hoped for the
independent command of the Lahore brigade.
The deceptive quietude of the Punjaub was now to be exposed. When
Sir Frederick Currie reached Lahore, he found there Moolraj the
Governor of Mooltan, a man of vast wealth who had come to offer the
resignation of his position for reasons that were chiefly personal.
Moolraj stipulated for some conditions which were not conceded, and
ultimately he resigned without any other condition than that of
saving his honour in the eyes of his own people. A new Governor was
appointed in his place, who set out for Mooltan accompanied by Mr.
Vans Agnew of the Bengal Civil Service and Mr. Agnew's assistant,
Lieutenant Anderson of the Bombay Army. Moolraj marched with the
escort of the new Governor, to whom, on the day after the arrival
of the party in Mooltan, he formally surrendered the fort. After
the ceremony Agnew and Anderson started on their return to camp,
Moolraj riding alongside the two English gentlemen. At the gate of
the fortress Agnew was suddenly attacked,--run through by a spear
and slashed by sword-cuts. At the same moment Anderson was cut down
and desperately wounded. Moolraj galloped off, leaving the Englishmen
to their fate. Khan Singh's people carried them into a temple wherein
two days later they were brutally slaughtered; their bodies were
cut to pieces and their heads thrown down at the feet of Moolraj.
What share Moolraj had taken in this treacherous butchery was never
clearly ascertained; but every indication pointed to his complicity.
This much is certain, that on the morning after the assassination he
transferred his family and treasure into the fort, and placed himself
at the head of the insurrectionary movement by issuing a proclamation
summoning all the inhabitants of the province, of every creed, to
make common cause in a religious war against the Feringhees.
News of the outrage and rising at Mooltan reached Lahore on April
24th. It was emphatically a time for prompt action, if an outbreak
was to be crushed which else might grow into a general revolt
throughout the Punjaub. It was extremely unlikely that the fort of
Mooltan was equipped for an early and stubborn defence. To maintain
our prestige was essential, for it was by prestige and promptitude
only that we have maintained our pre-eminence in India. Sir Henry
Lawrence would have marched the Lahore brigade on Mooltan without an
hour's hesitation. Lord Hardinge would have ordered up the troops and
siege-train from Ferozepore and the strong force collected at Bukkur;
and would have invested Mooltan before Moolraj could have made any
adequate preparations for prolonged defence. Marches through Scinde,
from the north-western frontier, and from Lahore, could not have
been made in the hot season without casualties; but, in the words of
Marshman, "our Empire in India had been acquired and maintained, not
by fair-weather campaigns, but by taking the field on every emergency
and at any season."
On the first tidings from Mooltan Sir Frederick Currie ordered a
strong brigade of all arms to prepare for a march on that stronghold,
being of opinion that the citadel, described in poor Agnew's report
as the strongest fort he had seen in India, would not maintain a
defence when a British force should present itself before it, but
that the garrison would immediately abandon Moolraj to his fate.
Colin Campbell, on the other hand, held that since the fort of
Mooltan was very strong it was to be anticipated that Moolraj would
obstinately defend it; in which case a brigade sent to Mooltan would
be obliged to remain inactive before it while siege-guns were being
brought up, or, as seemed more probable, should no reinforcements
arrive in support, it would have to retrace its steps followed and
harassed by Moolraj's active and troublesome rabble. Eventually,
in great measure because of the arguments advanced by Campbell,
the movement from Lahore on Mooltan was countermanded; and the
Commander-in-Chief, with the concurrence of the Governor-General,
intimated his resolve to postpone military operations until the cold
weather, when he would take the field in person.
Meanwhile a casual subaltern, for whom swift marches and hard
fighting in hot weather had no terrors, struck in on his own
responsibility. Gathering in the wild trans-Indus district of Bunnoo
some fifteen hundred men with a couple of guns, Lieutenant Herbert
Edwardes marched towards Mooltan. Colonel Cortland with two thousand
Pathans and six guns hastened to join him; and on May 20th the united
force defeated Moolraj's army six thousand strong. The loyal Nawab of
Bhawalpore sent a strong force of his warlike Daudputras across the
Sutlej to join hands with Edwardes and Cortland; and the junction had
just been accomplished on the field of Kinairi some twenty miles from
Mooltan, when the allies, about nine thousand strong, were attacked
by Moolraj with a force of about equal magnitude. After half a day's
hard fighting the enemy fled in confusion from the field. Edwardes
and Cortland moved up nearer to Mooltan, their force now raised to
a strength of about eighteen thousand; and there was a moment when
Moolraj seemed willing to surrender if his life were spared. But he
rallied his nerves and came out on July 1st with twelve thousand men
to give battle on the plain of Sudusain within sight of the walls of
Mooltan. After another obstinate fight his troops were thoroughly
beaten and fled headlong into the city. "Now," wrote Edwardes to the
Resident, "is the time to strike; I have got to the end of my tether.
If," added the gallant and clear-sighted subaltern, "you would only
send, with a few regular regiments, a few heavy guns and a mortar
battery, we could close Moolraj's account in a fortnight, and obviate
the necessity of assembling fifty thousand men in October."
Meanwhile the Resident had taken the strange course of empowering
the Lahore Durbar to despatch to Mooltan a Sikh force of some five
thousand men under Shere Singh. It was notorious that both commander
and troops were thoroughly disaffected; and so anxious was the
Resident to prevent the force from approaching Moolraj that Shere
Singh had orders to halt fifty miles short of Mooltan, and was only
allowed to join Edwardes after his victory of July 1st. In tardy
answer to that young officer's appeal for reinforcements, in the
end of July a force of seven thousand men with a siege-train was
ordered to converge on Mooltan from Lahore and Ferozepore under
the divisional command of General Whish. It had been chiefly at
Colin Campbell's dissuasion that the Resident had relinquished his
intention of sending a force to Mooltan in April. Campbell's argument
in that month had been the unfavourable season for marching; and
now in a season not less unfavourable he was scarcely justified in
considering himself the victim of a job in not obtaining the command
of the Lahore brigade ordered on Mooltan. The disappointment proved
fortunate, since a few months later he found himself in command of a
division in the field with the rank of brigadier-general. By August
24th the whole of Whish's field-force was before Mooltan, but it
was not until September 7th that the siege-guns were in position.
Moolraj, confident in the increased strength which our delay had
afforded him, spurned a summons to surrender. Active and bloody
approaches were carried on for a week, when Shere Singh with his
contingent suddenly passed over to the enemy. After this defection
Whish held it impossible to continue the siege, and he retired to a
position in the vicinity pending the arrival of reinforcements from
Bombay. The siege was reopened late in December: the city was stormed
after a hard fight; and finally on January 22nd, 1849, Moolraj
surrendered at discretion. It must be said of him that he had made a
heroic defence.
By the end of September, 1848, the local outbreak was fast swelling
into a national revolt. The flame of rebellion was spreading over
the Land of the Five Rivers, and by the end of October only a few
brave English officers were still holding together the last shreds
of British influence in the Punjaub outside of Lahore and the camp
of General Whish. Moolraj was the reverse of cordial to Shere Singh,
who on October 9th quitted Mooltan and marched northward towards
Lahore, his original force of five thousand men strengthened at every
step by the warriors of the old Khalsa army who flocked eagerly to
his standard. After threatening Lahore he moved westward to meet the
Bunnoo insurgents, who had mutinied and murdered their officers, and
he finally took up a position _à cheval_ of the Chenab at Ramnuggur,
his main body on the right bank of the river.
During the summer and autumn Colin Campbell passed an uneasy and
anxious time. It was not until the beginning of November that he had
the full assurance of being employed in the manifestly impending
campaign. By this time Cureton's cavalry brigade and Godby's infantry
brigade were in the Doab between the Ravee and the Chenab, and on
November 12th Colin Campbell joined Cureton there with two native
infantry regiments, taking command of the advanced force with the
temporary rank of brigadier-general. At length Lord Gough himself
took the field, and on the 19th he crossed the Ravee at the head
of an army of respectable strength. Apart from the division before
Mooltan and the garrison required for Lahore, he had available for
field service four British and eleven native infantry regiments. He
was strong in cavalry, with three fine British regiments, five of
native light cavalry, and five corps of irregular horse; and his
powerful artillery consisted of sixty horse and field-guns, eight
howitzers, and ten 18-pounders. On the early morning of the 22nd
his lordship, with Colin Campbell's infantry division and a cavalry
force under Cureton with horse and field artillery, marched from
Saharun towards Ramnuggur with the object of driving across the
Chenab some Sikh infantry reported to be still on the left bank. Some
small detachments hurrying towards the river were pursued somewhat
recklessly by horse-artillery, which had to retire under the heavy
fire opened from the Sikh batteries on the commanding right bank.
A gun and two waggons stuck fast in the deep sand and could not be
extricated. Colin Campbell suggested to Lord Gough the measure of
protecting the gun until it could be withdrawn at night, by placing
infantry to cover it in a ravine immediately in its rear; but the
Commander-in-Chief disapproved of this measure. The enemy lost no
time in sending the whole of his cavalry across the river to take
possession of the gun under cover of his overwhelming artillery fire.
Our cavalry was foolishly sent forward to charge the superior hostile
horse,--a folly which was committed, according to Colin Campbell,
under the personal direction of the Commander-in-Chief. Ouvry's
squadron of the Third Light Dragoons made a brilliant and useful
charge which materially aided the withdrawal of the artillery. In the
face of a heavy fire Colonel William Havelock, a noble soldier who
had fought in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, led on the Fourteenth
Light Dragoons to a desperate combat with the Sikh horse. The horses
of the dragoons were exhausted by the long gallop through the heavy
sand and the casualties were heavy. Among the slain was Havelock
himself, after a hand-to-hand combat; and while riding forward to
stay Havelock's last advance Brigadier-General Cureton, who had
raised himself to distinction from the ranks in which he had enlisted
as a runaway lad, was killed by a Sikh bullet.
Lord Gough withdrew his troops beyond the reach of the Sikh batteries
and awaited the arrival of his heavy guns and the remainder of
his force. If his intention was to refrain from coming to close
quarters with the enemy until the fall of Mooltan should bring him
reinforcements, he was well placed on the left bank of the Chenab,
covering Lahore and the siege of Mooltan and leaving Shere Singh
undisturbed. If on the other hand he preferred the offensive, that
offensive should have been prompt; a rapid stroke might have ended
the business, for the Sikhs, as the sequel proved, were eager enough
for fighting. And to all appearance the Commander-in-Chief meant to
gratify their desire. To do so he had in the first instance to cross
the Chenab. To accomplish this by direct assault on the Sikh position
on the opposite bank was impracticable; and he resolved to compel
the enemy's withdrawal by a wide turning movement with part of his
force under the command of Sir Joseph Thackwell, an experienced
soldier. Thackwell's command consisted of Colin Campbell's strong
division, a cavalry brigade, three troops of horse-artillery, two
field-batteries and two heavy guns,--in all about eight thousand men.
This force started in the early morning of December 1st, and after a
march of twenty-four miles up the left bank of the Chenab was across
that river at Wuzeerabad by noon of the 2nd. The same afternoon the
force marched ten miles down the right bank and bivouacked. During
the short march of the following morning Thackwell learned that a
brigade was on its way to reinforce him, crossing by an intermediate
ford; whereupon he halted the force and rode away in search of this
reinforcement. Before he departed Colin Campbell asked permission to
deploy and take up a position. Thackwell replied, "No--remain where
you are until my return."
The force was then in open ground in front of the village of
Sadoolapore, which has given its name to the engagement. Campbell
rode to the front to reconnoitre. In front of the centre were some
hostile horse; to the right in wooded ground some detachments of
cavalry and infantry were seen scattered about. Certain that the
enemy was in force and near at hand, he returned to the force and as
a measure of precaution occupied with an infantry company each of the
three villages in his front,--Langwala, Khamookhan and Rutta. The
force, in his own words, "was not in a state of formation for troops
to be when liable to be attacked at any moment. However, my orders
were imperative not to deploy." Two hours later the enemy opened
fire with their artillery from the woodland behind the villages. At
that moment Thackwell returned, and he ordered the companies holding
the three villages to withdraw and rejoin their respective corps.
The columns were immediately deployed. Between the British line and
the Sikh troops, which had occupied the villages and were firing
heavily from some twenty pieces of artillery while large bodies of
their cavalry were threatening both flanks of the British force,
was a smooth open space over which Thackwell desired to advance to
the attack. Colin Campbell suggested that "as they were coming on
so cockily, we should allow them to come out into the plain before
we moved." He states in his journal that, since presently the enemy
halted at the villages and there plied their artillery fire, he was
convinced that they did not intend to come further forward; and
that he twice begged of Thackwell to be allowed to attack with his
infantry but was not permitted. The affair then resolved itself
into a simple cannonade the result of which was to silence the
Sikh fire. By this time Thackwell had received permission from the
Commander-in-Chief to act as his judgment should dictate, whether
his reinforcements had come up or not. It seemed the moment for an
advance; the troops were full of eagerness, and a portion at least
of the enemy's guns were in Thackwell's grasp. Thackwell, however,
exercised caution for the time, hoping most likely for a decisive
victory on the morrow. But during the night the enemy withdrew and
marched away towards the Jhelum, probably without having sustained
serious loss. That of the British amounted to some seventy men.
Thackwell's turning movement had not been brilliant, and Sadoolapore
was not an affair to be very proud of; but it had brought about
the relinquishment by the Sikhs of their position on the right bank
of the Chenab, and this enabled the main British force to cross the
river. By the 5th the mass of the army was at Heylah, about midway
between Ramnuggur and Chillianwallah; but the Commander-in-Chief and
headquarters did not cross the Chenab until December 18th.
If until then Lord Gough had been trammelled by superior authority,
a few days later he was set free to act on his own judgment,--the
result of which was simply absolute inaction until January, 1849.
On the 11th of that month he reviewed his troops at Lassourie, and
next day he was encamped at Dinjhi, whence the Sikh army had fallen
back into the sheltering jungle, its right resting on Mung, its left
on the broken ground and strong entrenchments about the village
and heights of Russoul. Colin Campbell had been suffering from
fever resulting from night exposure in bivouac during Thackwell's
flank march; he had been on the sick list until the 10th and was
still weak. In the memoir of the late Sir Henry Durand by his son
occurs an interesting passage illustrative of Campbell's anxiety
that the ground on which the enemy's position was to be approached
should be properly reconnoitred. Durand writes: "Whilst in the
Commander-in-Chief's camp to-day (11th) the projected attack on the
enemy's position was described to me by General Campbell. He had just
been with the Commander-in-Chief, who had spoken of attacking the
Sikh position on the 13th. Campbell, seeing that his lordship had no
intention of properly reconnoitring the position, was anxious on the
subject; and we went into the tent of Tremenheere the chief engineer,
to discuss the matter. Campbell opened on the subject, announcing
the intention to attack, and that it was to be done blindly, that
was to say without any reconnaissance but such as the moment might
afford on debouching from the jungle. He advocated a second march
from Dinjhi, the force prepared to bivouac for the night, and that
the 13th should be passed by the engineers in reconnoitring. Campbell
wished Tremenheere to suggest this measure in a quiet way to the
Commander-in-Chief; but he said that since the passage of the Chenab
the Chief was determined to take no advice, nor brook any volunteered
opinions; and he proposed that I should speak to John Gough (the
Commander-in-Chief's nephew) and try to engage him to put it into the
Commander-in-Chief's mind to adopt such a course." It is not certain
that anything came of this improvised council of war: but there is no
question that up to the afternoon of the 13th Lord Gough intended to
defer the attack until the following morning.
Early on the 13th the army was at length marching on the enemy. The
heavy guns moved along the road leading over the Russoul ridge to
the Jhelum fords. Gilbert's division marched on their right, Colin
Campbell's (the third) on their left, with the cavalry and light
artillery on their respective flanks. The original intention was
that Gilbert's (the right) division, with the greater part of the
field-guns, was to advance on Russoul, while Campbell's division and
the heavy guns should stand fast on the left, overthrow the left of
the Sikhs, and thus cut them off from retiring along the high road
toward Jhelum. Their left thus turned, Gilbert and Campbell were
to operate conjointly against the Sikh line, which it was hoped
would be rolled back upon Moong and driven to the southward. A
reconnaissance made by Tremenheere and Durand reported the road clear
and practicable up to Russoul, but that the enemy was marching down
from the heights apparently to take up a position on the plain. The
march was resumed to beyond the village of Umrao; but when deserters
brought in the intelligence that the enemy was forming to the left
front of Gough's line of march behind the village of Chillianwallah,
he quitted the Russoul road, inclined to his left, and moved straight
on Chillianwallah. An outpost on the mound of Chillianwallah was
driven in upon the main body of the enemy, and from that elevated
position was clearly discernible the Sikh army drawn out in battle
array. Its right centre directly in front of Chillianwallah was about
two miles distant from that village, but less from the British line,
which was being deployed about five hundred yards in its front. There
was a gap nearly three-quarters of a mile wide between the right
wing of the Sikhs under Utar Singh, and the right of the main body
under Shere Singh. The British line when deployed could do little
more than oppose a front to Shere Singh's centre and right, which
latter, however, it overlapped a little, so that part of Campbell's
left brigade was opposite to a section of the gap between Shere
Singh's right and Utar Singh's left. Between the hostile lines there
intervened a belt of rather dense low jungle, not forest, but a
mixture of thorny mimosa bushes and wild caper.
It was near two o'clock in the afternoon of a winter day, and the
troops had been under arms since daybreak. Lord Gough, therefore,
wisely determined to defer the action until the morrow, and the
camping-ground was being marked out. But the Sikh leaders knew well
how prone to kindle was the temperament of the gallant old Chief.
They themselves were keen for fighting, and the British commander
needed little provocation to reciprocate their mood when they gave
him a challenge of a few cannon shots. Late in the day though it was,
he determined on immediate attack. The heavy guns were ordered up and
opened fire at a range of some sixteen hundred yards, the gunners in
the thick jungle having no other means of judging distance than by
timing the intervals between the flash and report of the Sikh guns.
The advance of the infantry soon obliged the fire of the British
guns to cease. The line pressed on eagerly, its formation somewhat
impaired by the thickness of the jungle through which it had to force
its way, and met in the teeth as it pushed forward by the artillery
fire which the enemy, no longer smitten by the heavy guns, poured on
the advancing ranks of the British infantry. For a while nothing but
the roar of the Sikh artillery was to be heard; but after a short
time the sharp rattle of the musketry told that the conflict had
begun in earnest and that the British infantry were closing on the
hostile guns. Of the two divisions Gilbert's had the right, Colin
Campbell's the left. The latter had been the first to receive the
order to advance and was the first engaged. Pennycuick commanded
Campbell's right brigade, consisting of the Twenty-Fourth Queen's,
and the Twenty-Fifth and Forty-Fifth native infantry regiments;
Hoggan's, his left brigade, was formed of the Sixty-First Queen's and
the Thirty-Sixth and Forty-Sixth Sepoy regiments. In the interval
between the brigades moved a field-battery, and on the left of the
division three guns of another. At some distance on Campbell's left
were a cavalry brigade and three troops of horse-artillery under
Thackwell, whose duty it was to engage the attention of Utar Singh's
detachment and to attempt to hinder that force from taking Campbell
in flank and in reverse. The nature of the ground to be fought
over rendered it impossible that the divisional commander could
superintend the attack of more than one brigade; and Colin Campbell
had arranged with Pennycuick that he himself should remain with the
left brigade. Pennycuick's brigade experienced an adverse fate.
During the advance its regiments were exposed to the fire of some
eighteen guns on a mound directly in their front, from which they
suffered very severely. The Twenty-Fourth, a fine and exceptionally
strong regiment, advancing rapidly on the hostile batteries carried
them by storm, but encountered a deadly fire from the infantry masses
on either flank of the guns. The regiment sustained fearful losses.
Pennycuick and thirteen officers of the regiment were killed at the
guns, nine were wounded, two hundred and three of the men were killed
and two hundred and sixty-six wounded. The native regiments of the
brigade failed adequately to support the Twenty-Fourth, and musketry
volleys from the Sikh infantry, followed by a rush of cavalry,
completed the disorder and defeat of the ill-fated body. Already
broken, it now fled, pursued with great havoc by the Sikh horse
almost to its original position at the beginning of the action.
Hoggan's brigade, the left of Colin Campbell's division, had better
fortune. Campbell himself conducted it and its advance was made
without any great difficulty. Its experiences he thus described in
his journal:--"I took care to regulate the rate of march of the
centre or directing regiment (H.M.'s Sixty-First), so that all could
keep up; and consequently the brigade emerged from the wood in a
very tolerable line. We found the enemy posted on an open space on a
slight rise. He had four guns, which played upon us in our advance;
a large body of cavalry stood directly in front of the Sixty-First,
and on the cavalry's left a large body of infantry in face of the
Thirty-Sixth N.I. That regiment went at the Sikh infantry and was
repulsed; the Sixty-First moved gallantly and steadily on the Sikh
cavalry in its front, which slowly retired. When the Sixty-First had
nearly reached the ground which the cavalry had occupied, I ordered
the regiment to open its fire to hasten their departure." This fire
was delivered as the corps advanced in line, a manœuvre constantly
practised by Campbell, and it put the Sikh cavalry to a hasty flight.
At this moment the enemy pushed forward two of their guns to within
about twenty-five yards of the right flank of the Sixty-First, and
opened with grape while their infantry were actually in rear of its
right. Campbell promptly wheeled to the right the two right companies
of the Sixty-First and headed them in their charge on the two Sikh
guns. Those were captured, whereupon the two companies opened fire
on the flank of the Sikh infantry in pursuit of the Thirty-Sixth
Native Infantry and obliged the former to desist and fall back. While
the Sixty-First was completing its new alignment to the right, an
evolution by which Shere Singh's right flank was effectually turned,
the enemy advanced with two more guns strongly supported by infantry.
Neither of the two native regiments had succeeded in forming on
the new alignment of the Sixty-First; "but," writes Campbell, "the
confident bearing of the enemy and the approaching and steady fire of
grape from their two guns made it necessary to advance, and to charge
when we got within proper distance. I gave the word to advance and
subsequently to charge, heading the Sixty-First immediately opposite
the guns as I had done in the former instance. These two attacks," he
continues, "gave the greatest confidence to the Sixty-First, and it
was evident that in personally guiding and commanding the soldiers
in these two successful attacks under difficult circumstances, I had
gained the complete confidence and liking of the corps, and that with
it I could undertake with perfect certainty of success anything that
could be accomplished by men."
While Campbell was leading the earlier charge on the two first Sikh
guns, one of the enemy's artillerymen who had already fired at him
from under a gun apparently without result, rushed forward sword in
hand and cut at the General, inflicting a deep sword-cut on his right
arm. Not until the following morning was it discovered that the Sikh
gunner's bullet had found its billet, fortunately an innocuous one.
It had smashed to atoms the ivory handle of a small pistol which
Campbell carried in a pocket of his waistcoat, and had also broken
the bow of his watch. The Sikh's aim was true, and but for the pistol
and the watch Colin Campbell would never have seen another battle.
His charger was found to be wounded by a musket-shot which had
passed through both sides of the mouth and finally had lodged and
flattened in the curb-chain.
The journal thus continues:--"After the capture of the second two
guns, and the dispersion of the enemy, we proceeded rolling up his
line, continuing along the line of the hostile position until we had
taken thirteen guns, all of them by the Sixty-First at the point
of the bayonet. We finally met Mountain's brigade coming from the
opposite direction. During our progress we were on several occasions
threatened by the enemy's cavalry on our flank and rear. The guns
were all spiked, but having no means with the force to remove them
and it being too small to admit of any portion being withdrawn for
their protection, they were, with the exception of the last three
that were taken, unavoidably left on the field."
Colin Campbell had to fight hard for his success, and it was well
for him that in the gallant Sixty-First he had a staunch and
resolute English regiment. But he would have had to fight yet more
hard, and then might not have attained success, if away on his left
Thackwell had not been holding Utar Singh in check and impeding his
efforts to harass Campbell's flank and rear. Brind's three troops
of horse-artillery expended some twelve hundred rounds in a hot
duel with Utar Singh's cannon which else would have been playing on
Campbell's flank, and Unett's gallant troopers of the famous "Third
Light" crashed through Sikh infantry edging away to their left with
intent to take Campbell in reverse. Thackwell did his valiant best
until he and his command were called away to the endangered right,
but before then he had time to serve Campbell materially, although
he could not entirely prevent Utar Singh's people from molesting that
commander; and although Campbell did not record the critical episode,
there was a period when he found himself engaged simultaneously in
front, flank, and rear, and when the brigade was extricated from
its entanglement only by his own ready skill and the indomitable
staunchness of the noble Sixty-First.
In spite of the disasters which chequered it the battle of
Chillianwallah may be regarded as a technical victory for the British
arms, since the enemy was compelled to quit the field, although they
only retired into the strong position on the Russoul heights from
which in the morning they had descended into the plain to fight. The
moral results of the action were dismal, and the cost of the barren
struggle was a loss of two thousand four hundred killed and wounded.
At home the intelligence of this waste of blood excited feelings
of alarm and indignation, and Sir Charles Napier was immediately
despatched to India to supersede Lord Gough in the position of
Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile the army lay passive in its encampment
at Chillianwallah, within sight of the Sikh position at Russoul,
awaiting the surrender of Mooltan and the accession of strength it
would receive in consequence of that event. The Sikh leader more than
once gave the British Commander-in-Chief an opportunity to fight, but
Gough with tardy wisdom resisted the offered temptation, resolved not
to join issues until his reinforcements from Mooltan should reach
him. On the night of February 13th the Sikh army abandoned Russoul,
marched round the British right flank, and on the 14th was well
on its way to Goojerat. Gough, who had slowly followed to within
a march of Goojerat, was joined at Koonjah by the Mooltan force
on the 18th and 19th, and on the 20th advanced to Shadawal whence
the Sikh encampment around the town of Goojerat was within sight.
The battlefield of February 21st was the wide plain to the south
of Goojerat, intersected by two dry water-courses. The Sikh line
of battle extended from Morarea Tibba, where their cavalry was in
force, along an easterly bend of the Bimber (the western) channel,
thence across the plain, behind the three villages of Kalra which
were occupied by infantry, to Malka-wallah a village on the left
bank of the eastern channel. Against this extended front advanced
the British army, now twenty-three thousand strong with ninety guns,
eighteen of which were heavy siege-pieces. The heavy guns, followed
by two and a half infantry brigades, moved over the plain between
the two channels. Campbell's division and Dundas' brigade were on
the left bank of the western channel, with Thackwell's cavalry still
further to the left. The Sikhs, ever ready with their artillery,
opened the battle with that arm. Gough at last had been taught by
hard experience that an artillery preparation should precede his
favourite "cold steel." The British batteries went out to the front
and began a magnificent and effective cannonade which lasted for
two hours and crushed the fire of the Sikh guns. The infantry then
deployed and marched forward, stormed the three Kalra villages
after experiencing a desperate and prolonged resistance, and swept
on up the plain toward Goojerat. There was little bloodshed on the
right of the Bimber channel, where marched Campbell and Dundas,
but there was plenty of that skill which spares precious lives.
Campbell describes how he handled his division:--"I formed my two
brigades in contiguous columns of regiments with a very strong line
of skirmishers--the artillery in line with the skirmishers. When we
arrived within long range of the enemy's guns, we deployed into line.
In this order, the artillery--twelve 9-pounders with the skirmishers
and the infantry in line close in rear, advanced as at a review;
the guns firing into the masses of infantry and cavalry behind the
nullah, who gradually melted away and took shelter in its channel. I
then caused the artillery of my division to be turned on the flank of
these throngs while the Bombay troop of horse-artillery fired direct
on their front. I finally dislodged them by artillery which enfiladed
the nullah, and which was moved forward and placed in position
for that object. I was ordered to storm this nullah; but to have
done so with infantry would have occasioned a useless and needless
sacrifice of life. Recognising that the result could be obtained
by gun-fire without risking the life of a man, I proceeded on my
own responsibility to employ my artillery in enfilading the nullah;
and after thus clearing it of the enemy, I had the satisfaction of
seeing the whole of our left wing pass this formidable defence of the
enemy's right wing without firing a shot or losing a man. We had too
much slaughter at Chillianwallah because due precaution had not been
taken to prevent it by the employment of our magnificent artillery.
Having felt this strongly and expressed it to the Commander-in-Chief
in warm terms, I had determined to employ this arm thenceforth to the
fullest extent; and I did so, accordingly, in the battle of Goojerat."
The discomfiture of the enemy was thorough. Cavalry, infantry,
and artillery left the field in utter confusion. The rout was too
complete to allow of the reunion of formed bodies in anything
like order. A body of Sikh horse with a brigade of Afghan cavalry
adventured an advance on Thackwell's flank. He hurled against them
the Scinde Horse and the Ninth Lancers, and a wild stampede resulted.
The rest of the British cavalry struck in and rushed on, dispersing,
riding over, and trampling down the Sikh infantry, capturing guns
and waggons, and converting the discomfited enemy into a shapeless
mass of fugitives. The horsemen did not draw rein until they had
ridden fifteen miles beyond Goojerat, by which time the army of
Shere Singh was a wreck, deprived of its camp, its standards, and
fifty-three of its cherished guns. On the morning after the battle
Sir Walter Gilbert started in pursuit of the broken Sikh host, while
Campbell took out his division in the direction of Dowlutanuggur,
but the latter was recalled on the 25th. On March 6th, however, he
received the order to join Gilbert's force in room of Brigadier
Mountain who had been injured by the accidental discharge of his
pistol. On the road to Rawul Pindi on the 15th he passed the greater
part of the Sikh army with its chiefs, who were laying down their
arms. Campbell was moved by the fine attitude of the men of the
Khalsa army. "There was," he wrote, "nothing cringing in the manner
of these men in laying down their arms. They acknowledged themselves
beaten, and they were starving--destitute alike of food and money.
Each man as he laid down his arms received a rupee to enable him to
support himself while on his way to his home. The greater number of
the old men especially, when laying down their arms, made a deep
reverence or salaam as they placed their swords on the heap, with the
muttered words 'Runjeet Singh is dead to-day!' This was said with
deep feeling; they are undoubtedly a fine and brave people." On the
21st Gilbert and Campbell reached Peshawur, and the latter encamped
near the fort of Jumrood at the mouth of the Khyber Pass, through
which the Afghans, whom Dost Mahomed had sent into the Punjaub to
reinforce the Sikhs in their warfare with the British forces, had
retreated very shortly before. The campaign was at an end; and early
in April Colin Campbell took command of the Sind Sagur District
with his headquarters at Rawul Pindi. There he shared a house with
his friend Mansfield, who in the time of the Mutiny was to be his
Chief-of-Staff. In July there occurred an event which called for all
his firmness and discretion. Two native infantry regiments stationed
at Rawul Pindi refused to accept the cantonment scale of pay, which
was lower than they had been receiving when on campaign. Evidence
was clear that the combination to resist the cantonment scale had
spread to other stations, and the situation was temporarily critical;
but fortunately there was a British regiment at Rawul Pindi, and
the sepoys came to reason without the necessity on Campbell's part
of resorting to strong measures. When at Rawul Pindi he had the
gratification to learn of his having been promoted to be a Knight of
the Bath for his services in the recent campaign; and Sir Charles
Napier in sending him the intimation added that "no man had won it
better," and expressed the hope that "he would long wear the spurs."
In November he was transferred to the divisional command of the
Peshawur District, a more important, but also a more unquiet post
than Rawul Pindi. Thenceforth for three years he was to be the
Warden of the turbulent north-western frontier. It pleased him to
find in his command his old regiment the Ninety-Eighth, and also the
Sixty-First which he had led at Chillianwallah. When in February,
1850, Sir Charles Napier reached Peshawur on a tour of inspection,
Sir Colin was able to assemble for review quite a little army of
all ranks; three troops of horse-artillery and two field-batteries,
three cavalry regiments, three European and three native infantry
regiments. While Sir Charles was in Colin Campbell's district, it
happened that he came under hostile fire for the last time in his
tumultuous life. Between Peshawur and Kohat, both places in British
territory, a mountain road ran outside that territory through a long
and dangerous defile. The Afridis inhabiting the intervening hill
country had complained that their subsidy for keeping open the pass
had not been paid, and in revenge had slaughtered a working party
of sappers and miners. Sir Charles determined to force the defile
in person. Campbell, on Napier's requisition, detailed a tolerably
strong force as escort to the Commander-in-Chief. It chanced that
before starting Napier inspected a regiment of irregulars under the
control of the much-vaunted Punjaub Government. The men were of fine
physique, but "one soldier had a musket without a lock, another a
lock without a musket. A stalwart soldier, his broad chest swelling
with military pride, his eyes sparkling with a malicious twinkle,
held on his shoulder between his finger and thumb a flint--his
only arm." The defile was duly forced, but its passage was one
long skirmish. Kohat was inspected and reinforced, but Napier, on
commencing his return march, found that the pickets left to keep the
road open had been roughly handled and had suffered serious loss.
The Afridis were very daring, and actually fired on Sir Charles
and his staff at short range. The loss sustained in this somewhat
quixotic expedition amounted to one hundred and ten men killed and
wounded--"not much," comments Napier grimly, "when one considers
the terrible defile through which we passed, defended by a warlike
race." His biographer calls the enterprise an "interesting episode";
it certainly was not a very wise enterprise to be undertaken by
the Commander-in-Chief of British India. It was Napier's last
eccentricity of a military character. By the end of the year he
resigned the command of the army of India, and was succeeded by Sir
William Gomm, an old brother officer of Colin Campbell in the Ninth
in the Peninsula days.
In March, 1851, Lord Dalhousie visited Peshawur and discussed with
Sir Colin the policy to be adopted towards the troublesome and
turbulent tribes on the north-western border. Scarcely had the
Governor-General gone when news came in that a Momund tribe, of the
region north of Peshawur between the Swat and Cabul rivers, had
been raiding into British territory. Dalhousie left to Sir Colin
the decision whether to make signal reprisals or to adopt defensive
measures, and, as the result of the description of the wild and
rugged region sent him by Sir Colin after a reconnaissance he had
made, elected for the defensive as an experiment. It failed, for in
October the Momunds of Michni made an irruption upon some villages
within British territory. The Governor-General now decided on an
immediate resort to active measures, and Sir Colin was ordered to
inflict summary chastisement on the offending tribe. He marched
from Peshawur on October 25th with a force of all arms about
twelve hundred strong, and advanced to the confines of the Michni
territory. He did not hurry, because he desired that his political
officer should have opportunity to inform the inhabitants of the
conditions intended to be offered them; which were annexation of
the territory, exile for the irreconcilables, and the retention of
their lands by the cultivators on payment of revenue. Campbell's
humane view was that "to drive into the hills the whole population
of Michni, occupying some seven and twenty villages, could only
result in forcing them to prey on the plunder of the villages inside
the border." The villages and fortalices whose inhabitants were
implicated in the violation of British territory were destroyed under
a harmless fire maintained by the mountaineers; but, as Campbell
records, "while engaged in duties in which no soldier can take
pleasure no lives were lost on either side. God knows the rendering
homeless of two or three hundred families is a despicable task
enough, without adding loss of life to this severe punishment."
The British camp was more than once assailed by bodies of Momund
tribes, and one of those attacks was made by some five thousand
hillmen whom Sir Colin dispersed by shell fire. A fort was built and
garrisoned in the Michni country, and the field-force returned to
Peshawur in February, 1852. With the results it had accomplished the
Governor-General expressed his entire satisfaction.
The column had scarcely settled down in Peshawur when fresh troubles
were reported from the wearyful Momund frontier. Sir Colin hurried
thither with two horse-artillery guns and two hundred and sixty
native troopers, to find the Momund chief Sadut Khan in position
on the edge of the Panj Pao upland, fronting towards Muttah, with
six thousand matchlock men and some eighty horsemen. The affair
had its interesting features. Sir Colin took in reverse the Momund
hordes with his artillery fire, broke up their masses, put them to
flight, and pursued them. As he was preparing to return the Momunds
suddenly wheeled in their tracks and rushed upon him over the broken
ground. The guns were instantly unlimbered, and double charges of
grape checked the wild and gallant attack,--a brilliant rally after
the endurance of two hours' shell fire followed by a hasty retreat.
The mountaineers continued to press Campbell's slow retirement
across the table-land, notwithstanding the fire of grape which he
maintained. The incident strengthened his belief in the superior
efficacy of defensive operations, and he declined to fall in with
the anxious wish of the Punjaub Board of Administration that he
should act on the offensive against the Momunds, on the ground that
he was not prepared to execute operations of that character without
the most precise orders by the Commander-in-Chief, the authority
to which he was responsible. His reply met with the full approval
of the Commander-in-Chief, which however the Governor-General did
not share. Sir Colin maintained his ground with the approval of the
former authority, when pressed by the Commissioner of Peshawur to
enter Swat. Meanwhile the Ootman-Kheyl tribe had become implicated in
the murder of a native official in British employ at Charsuddah. Sir
Colin had no hesitation in taking measures to inflict punishment on
this powerful and turbulent clan. A column of all arms, two thousand
four hundred and fifty strong, was assembled on the left bank of the
Swat river, and on May 11th proceeded to destroy a group of deserted
villages belonging to the Ootman-Kheyl. The column then advanced on
the large village of Prangurh, the Ootman-Kheyl stronghold. It had
been prepared for defence, and was crowded with men who opened fire
on Sir Colin's advanced guard. Covered by artillery fire his troops
carried the village with a rush, after a stout defence on the part
of the enemy. During the destruction of Prangurh letters were found
proving a strong feeling of hostility towards the British Government
on the part of the rulers of Swat. Sir Colin then fell in with the
views of the Commissioner, and declared himself prepared to invade
the Swat territory unless he should be absolutely prohibited by the
Commander-in-Chief.
The British force next moved upon Iskakote, a large village of
Ranizai, a dependency of Swat, whither large bodies of hillmen
hastened to defend the village and valley. Sir Colin estimated the
number of the hostile clansmen to be not less than six thousand.
They made a stubborn resistance, and endured a sharp cannonade with
great firmness. The Guides and Ghoorkas stormed the nullah with some
hand-to-hand fighting, whereupon, having suffered severe loss, the
enemy broke up and made for the hills pursued by the cavalry.
The Commander-in-Chief interposed no veto on the invasion of Swat,
but it became apparent to Sir Colin Campbell that the transport
for that operation was inadequate and inefficient. Experience of
the opposition he had encountered in the Iskakote affair, and a
subsequent reconnaissance in the Ranizai valley, convinced him
that his infantry would require a reinforcement of two thousand
five hundred men, without receiving which he could not proceed to
the invasion of Swat. The Punjaub Board of Administration refused
his requisition for the number of troops he asked, and as it was
unadvisable to keep the force in the field in the hot weather, the
column returned to Peshawur in the beginning of June.
Campbell had already been made aware by the Commander-in-Chief
of the Governor-General's dissatisfaction, which in the shape of
a formal censure awaited him at Peshawur. Lord Dalhousie used
expressions which must have cut the old fighting man to the quick.
His lordship chose to tell the soldier of many battles that he had
manifested "over-cautious reluctance" in advancing against the Swat
marauders in March. Presently came the further charge that not only
had he "transgressed the bounds of his proper province," but that
"he had placed himself in an attitude of direct and proclaimed
insubordination to the authority of the Governor-General in Council."
Campbell replied with disciplined dignity and self-respect,
expressing his regret that expressions so strong should have been
used in regard to him, and his painful surprise that after a
lifetime of unswerving military subordination he should be accused
of the reverse. He was aware that he was in disaccord with the
Government, and already when in the field he had determined to
resign his command, an intention which he had communicated to the
Commander-in-Chief. To that old friend he wrote without heat:--"I
have come to the conclusion that I should be wanting in what is due
to myself, if, after what has passed, I were to continue in this
command; there is a limit at which a man's forbearance ought to stop,
and that limit has in my case been reached."
Sir Colin resigned his command on July 25th. He declined a farewell
banquet to which the officers of the Peshawur garrison desired to
invite him, believing that in the circumstances to accept the honour
would be contrary to the spirit of the Queen's regulations. After
spending three months in the bracing hill-station of Murree, in the
end of October he visited at Dugshai the Ninety-Eighth regiment,
to his original position as senior lieutenant-colonel of which he
had reverted on the resignation of his divisional command; then,
after a brief visit to Simla, he sailed from Bombay, arriving
in England in March, 1853. Before leaving India he had read the
official acknowledgment by the Government of the services of the
troops engaged in the recent operations. The despatch recorded the
Governor-General's regret "that any incident should have occurred
to deserve a censure of any portion of Sir Colin Campbell's
conduct;" but it "acknowledged in the most ample terms the ability,
the personal intrepidity and activity, and the sterling soldierly
qualities, which this distinguished officer had displayed in the
military command of the troops at Peshawur upon every occasion on
which they had taken the field." The _amende honorable_ was well
enough in its lumbering way; but it could scarcely take away the
bitter flavour of the barbed and venomous insinuation conveyed in the
cruel words "over-cautious reluctance."