Search Results for: Bombay Army

The opening battle of the Second Afghan War, fought on 21^st November 1878 in the Khyber Pass

The previous battle in the British Battles sequence is the Battle of Magdala

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Peiwar Kotal

To the Second Afghan War index

Battle: Ali Masjid

War: Second Afghan War.

Date of the Battle of Ali Masjid: 21^st November 1878.

Place of the Battle of Ali Masjid: At the Afghan, western, end of the Khyber Pass on the border between Afghanistan and British India.

Combatants at the Battle of Ali Masjid: British and Indian troops against the Afghan army and tribesmen.

Generals at the Battle of Ali Masjid: Lieutenant General Sir Sam Browne VC against Gholam Hyder Khan.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Ali Masjid: 12,000 British and Indian troops against 3,700 Afghan troops and an unknown number of Afghan tribesmen.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Ali Masjid:
The British and Indian forces were made up, predominantly, of native Indian regiments from the armies of the three British presidencies, Bengal, Bombay and Madras, with smaller regional forces, such as the Hyderabad contingent, and the newest, the powerful Punjab Frontier Force.

The Mutiny of 1857 had brought great change to the Indian Army. Prior to the Mutiny, the old regiments of the presidencies were recruited from the higher caste Brahmins, Hindus and Muslims of the provinces of central and eastern India, principally Oudh. Sixty of the ninety infantry regiments of the Bengal Army mutinied in 1857 and many more were disbanded, leaving few to survive in their pre-1857 form. A similar proportion of Bengal Cavalry regiments disappeared.

The British Army overcame the mutineers with the assistance of the few loyal regiments of the Bengal Army and the regiments of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, which on the whole did not mutiny. But principally, the British turned to the Gurkhas, Sikhs, Muslims of the Punjab and Baluchistan and the Pathans of the North West Frontier for the new regiments with which Delhi was recaptured and the Mutiny suppressed.

After the Mutiny, the British developed the concept of ‘the Martial Races of India’. Certain Indian races were more suitable to serve as soldiers, went the argument, and those were, coincidentally, the races that had saved India for Britain. The Indian regiments that invaded Afghanistan in 1878, although mostly from the Bengal Army, were predominantly recruited from the martial races; Jats, Sikhs, Muslim and Hindu Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis and Gurkhas.

Prior to the Mutiny, each Presidency army had a full quota of field and horse artillery batteries. The only Indian artillery units allowed to exist after the Mutiny were the mountain batteries. All the horse, field and siege batteries were, from 1859, found by the British Royal Artillery.

In 1878, the regiments were beginning to adopt khaki for field operations. The technique for dying uniforms varied widely, producing a range of shades of khaki, from bottle green to a light brown drab.

As regulation uniforms were unsatisfactory for field conditions in Afghanistan, the officers in most regiments improvised more serviceable forms of clothing.

Every Indian regiment was commanded by British officers, in a proportion of some 7 officers to 650 soldiers, in the infantry. This was an insufficient number for units in which all tactical decisions of significance were taken by the British and was particularly inadequate for less experienced units.

The British infantry carried the single shot, breech loading, .45 Martini-Henry rifle. The Indian regiments still used the Snider; also a breech loading single shot rifle, but of older pattern and a conversion of the obsolete muzzle loading Enfield weapon.

The cavalry were armed with sword, lance and carbine, Martini-Henry for the British troopers, Snider for the Indian sowars.

The British artillery, using a variety of guns, many smooth bored muzzle loaders, was not as effective as it could have been, if the authorities had equipped it with the breech loading steel guns being produced for European armies. Artillery support was frequently ineffective and on occasions the Afghan artillery proved to be better equipped than the British.

The army in India possessed no higher formations above the regiment in times of peace, other than the staffs of static garrisons. There was no operational training for staff officers. On the outbreak of war, brigade and divisional staffs had to be formed and learn by experience.

The British Army had, in 1870, replaced long service with short service for its soldiers. The system was not yet universally applied, so that some regiments in Afghanistan were short service and others still manned by long service soldiers. The Indian regiments were all manned by long service soldiers. The universal view seems to have been that the short service regiments were weaker both in fighting effectiveness and disease resistance than the long service.

Winner of the Battle of Ali Masjid: The British and Indians.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Ali Masjid: 
British Regiments:
10^th Hussars, now the King’s Royal Hussars *.
Rifle Brigade (4^th Battalion), now the Rifles *.
Royal Horse Artillery
Royal Field Artillery
Royal Garrison Artillery
17^th Regiment, later the Leicestershire Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment*.
51^st Regiment, later the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and now the Light Infantry*.
81^st Regiment, later the North Lancashire Regiment and now the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment*.

Indian Regiments:
11^th Bengal Cavalry (Probyn’s Horse) *.
Queen’s Own Guides Cavalry*.
6^th Bengal Native Infantry (Jat Light Infantry) *.
14^th Bengal Native Infantry (14^th Ferozepore Sikhs)*.
20^th Bengal Native Infantry (Brownlow’s Punjabis) *.
27^th Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis) *.
45^th Bengal Native Infantry (Rattray’s Sikhs) *.
4^th Gurkha Regiment*.
Queen’s Own Guides Infantry*.
1^st Sikh Infantry, (FF) *.
1^st Bengal Sappers and Miners *.
*These regiments have Ali Masjid as a battle honour.

Order of Battle of the Peshawar Valley Field Force at the Battle of Ali Masjid:
GOC: Lieutenant General Sir Samuel Browne VC.
Cavalry Brigade: commanded by Brigadier-General Charles Gough VC.
10^th Hussars: 2 squadrons.
11^th Bengal Cavalry (Probyn’s Horse)
Queen’s Own Guides Cavalry.

Royal Artillery: commanded by Colonel Williams.
1 battery RHA
1 battery RFA
3 batteries RGA.
(several batteries carried on elephants).
3 batteries Mountain Artillery (the guns carried on mules).

First Infantry Brigade: commanded by Brigadier-General Macpherson VC.
4^th Bn Rifle Brigade.
20^th Bengal Native Infantry (Brownlow’s Punjabis)
4^th Gurkhas.

Second Infantry Brigade: commanded by Brigadier-General Tytler VC.
1^st Bn 17^th Foot.#
Guides Infantry.
1^st Sikh Infantry, (FF)

Third Infantry Brigade: commanded by Brigadier-General Appleyard.
81^st Foot.
14^th Bengal Native Infantry (14^th Ferozepore Sikhs)
27^th Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis)

Fourth Infantry Brigade: commanded by Brigadier-General Browne.
51^st Foot.
6^th Bengal Light Infantry (Jats).#
45^th Bengal Native Infantry (Rattray’s Sikhs)

# These regiments fought in the First Afghan War.

Account of the Battle of Ali Masjid:
The Second Afghan War devastated areas of Afghanistan, particularly around Kabul, brought the British and Indian Army to the brink of disaster at Sherpur, on the outskirts of Kabul and led to the loss of the 66^th Foot and two Indian regiments at the Battle of Maiwand. Only the inspired generalship of Sir Frederick Roberts, with the brilliant tactical leadership of many junior officers and the dogged determination of Indian, Gurkha, Highland and English troops carried the British and Indian armies to victory. Against them, the Afghans fought with intense religious and national fervour, striving to drive the unbelieving foreigners from their country’s soil.

The legacy of the Crimean War from 1854 to 1856 was continuing mistrust between Britain and Russia, focused on the precarious Turkish Empire in the Near East. The concern of the British Government in Delhi was that Russia would push its eastern borders around and through Afghanistan into India. The intelligence intrigue between the two empires simmered through the second half of the 19^th Century under the half mocking title of ‘The Great Game’.

Relations between Britain and Russia deteriorated dramatically during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. The Tsar’s governor in Central Asia compelled the Amir of Afghanistan, Sher Ali, to accept a Russian Mission at his capital. Spurred on by the Home Government, the British Viceroy of India, Viscount Lytton, demanded that the Afghans accept a counterbalancing British Mission, headed by General Sir Neville Chamberlain and accompanied by a substantial military escort. Sher Ali refused.

Negotiations took place between the British and the Afghans at Peshawar.  On 21^st September 1878, Major Cavagnari led the advance party of the British Mission into the Khyber Pass on its way to Kabul, to be stopped by Afghan troops on the border and turned back.

Incensed, Lord Lytton issued an ultimatum to Sher Ali, requiring him to accept the mission or face invasion. Sher Ali would probably have conceded, given time, but the British did not give him the chance. On 20^th November 1878, the ultimatum expired and the British/Indian armies crossed the border into Afghanistan.

The British invasion of Afghanistan in 1878 followed three routes: The Peshawar Valley Field Force, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Sam Browne VC, was to leave Peshawar and head directly west up the Khyber Pass to the Afghan fort of Ali Masjid, guarding the pass from the top of an imposing mountain. Once Ali Masjid was taken, the force would continue to Dakka or on to Jellalabad.

The Kurram Field Force, 16,200 men and 48 guns, commanded by Major General Sir Frederick Roberts VC, was to leave Kohat on the Indus and enter Afghanistan by the Kurram Pass, following the Kurram River up to the Shutargardan Pass; the most direct route to Kabul.

From the south, Lieutenant General Stewart, with the South Afghanistan Field Force, would enter Afghanistan through the Bolan and Khojak Passes, taking Quetta and heading for the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

The task of each force was limited; to seize some Afghan territory and halt.

On 20^th November 1878, Browne’s force, the strongest, was over the border, heading for the Afghan fort at Ali Masjid, lying at the head of the Khyber Pass. Major Cavagnari and Lieutenant Colonel Jenkins of the Guides Cavalry had reconnoitred the Khyber and the plan of attack was in place.

3,700 Afghan troops with 24 guns held the positions in and around the fort and along the line of heights stretching to each side.

The British/Indian First and Second Infantry Brigades moved up the Lashora Valley, four miles to the East of the Khyber, with the aim of outflanking the Afghan positions and occupying the pass behind them.

The British/Indian Third and Fourth Infantry Brigades pushed straight up the Khyber Pass to pin the Afghans and begin the attack on Fort Ali Masjid.

The British/Indian First and Second Brigades had some eighteen hours to make their journeys of around eleven miles, but the night was dark and movement was difficult.

The main force moved up the Khyber in the early morning of 21^st November 1878, exchanging shots with Afghan patrols. Guns were brought up and the artillery in the pass and in the fort bombarded each other, while the British waited for the outflanking move to take effect.

At around 2.30pm Browne sent his two infantry brigades forward on either side of the pass to attack the Afghan positions. The fighting continued until around 5pm, when it became clear that little progress was likely to be made that day. The two brigades withdrew and camped for the night.

The next morning, 22^nd November 1878, the attack was renewed, but it immediately became apparent that the Afghans had withdrawn. The outflanking force was still short of the Khyber and the Afghans made good their retreat, largely unimpeded. The rest of the day was spent by the British and Indian troops in regrouping.

On 23^rd November 1878, General Browne took his cavalry forward and the next day occupied Dakka, where his force remained for the rest of the first part of the war.

Casualties at the Battle of Ali Masjid: British casualties were 58. Among these were Major Birch and Lieutenant Fitzgerald of the 27^th Punjabis, killed, and the sole British officer wounded in the attack, from the 14^th Sikhs. Afghan casualties are unknown precisely, but will have been around 1,000 including 500 captured during the retreat.

The British captured 24 Afghan guns.

Follow-up to the Battle of Ali Masjid:
The British aim in the war was to occupy Afghan territory and thereby force the Ameer to concede the British mission at Kabul.

With the capture of Ali Masjid and the advance to Dakka, General Sam Browne’s Peshawar Field Force achieved its strategic aim. Following the success of Roberts’ Kurram Valley Field Force at Peiwar Kotal and the occupation of Kandahar by the South Afghanistan Field Force, the Ameer’s successor, Sher Ali, agreed to the Kabul mission in negotiations at Gandamak.

The murder of the British envoy to Kabul, Sir Louis Cavagnari, within two months of the signing of the Treaty of Gandamak, led promptly to the terrible second phase of the war.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Ali Masjid:

• The British 17^th Foot entered Afghanistan for the second time in 1878, having taken a notable part in the First Afghan War, including the storming of the Kabul Gate at the Siege of Ghuznee in 1839. For its long service in India, the 17^th was awarded as its badge the Tiger with the inscription ‘Hindoostan’. The Leicestershire Regiment, as the 17^th became in 1882, carried the nickname of the Leicestershire Tigers. The regiment was amalgamated into the large Royal Anglian Regiment, but the name the Tigers lives on with the Leicester City Rugby Football Club.

References for the Battle of Ali Masjid:
The Road to Kabul; the Second Afghan War 1878 to 1881 by Brian Robson.

The Afghan Wars by Archibald Forbes

The previous battle in the British Battles sequence is the Battle of Magdala

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Peiwar Kotal

To the Second Afghan War index

The spectacular and hard-fought battle around the Sherpur Cantonment outside Kabul, that led on 23^rd December 1879 to the defeat of the Afghan tribesmen led by Mohammed Jan

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Charasiab

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Ahmed Khel

To the Second Afghan War index

Battle: Kabul 1879

War: Second Afghan War.

Date of the Battle of Kabul 1879: 23^rd December 1879

Place of the Battle of Kabul 1879: Kabul in Northern Afghanistan.

Combatants at the Battle of Kabul 1879: British and Indian troops against Afghan tribesmen.

Generals at the Battle of Kabul 1879: Major General Sir Frederick Roberts VC against Mohammed Jan.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Kabul 1879: 7,000 British and Indian troops against a varying number of Afghan tribesmen and regular soldiers, probably around 50,000 at the largest.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Kabul 1879:
The British and Indian forces were made up, predominantly, of native Indian regiments from the armies of the three British presidencies, Bengal, Bombay and Madras, with smaller regional forces, such as the Hyderabad contingent, and the newest, the powerful Punjab Frontier Force.

The Mutiny of 1857 had brought great change to the Indian Army. Prior to the Mutiny, the old regiments of the presidencies were recruited from the higher caste Brahmins, Hindus and Muslims of the provinces of central and eastern India, principally Oudh. Sixty of the ninety infantry regiments of the Bengal Army mutinied in 1857 and many more were disbanded, leaving few to survive in their pre-1857 form. A similar proportion of Bengal Cavalry regiments disappeared.

The British Army overcame the mutineers with the assistance of the few loyal regiments of the Bengal Army and the regiments of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, which on the whole did not mutiny. But principally, the British turned to the Gurkhas, Sikhs, Muslims of the Punjab and Baluchistan and the Pathans of the North-West Frontier for the new regiments with which Delhi was recaptured and the Mutiny suppressed.

After the Mutiny, the British developed the concept of ‘the Martial Races of India’. Certain Indian races were more suitable to serve as soldiers, went the argument, and those were, coincidentally, the races that had saved India for Britain. The Indian regiments that invaded Afghanistan in 1878, although mostly from the Bengal Army, were predominantly recruited from the martial races; Jats, Sikhs, Muslim and Hindu Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis and Gurkhas.

Prior to the Mutiny, each Presidency army had a full quota of field and horse artillery batteries. The only Indian artillery units allowed to exist after the Mutiny were the mountain batteries. All the horse, field and siege batteries were, from 1859, found by the British Royal Artillery.

In 1878, the regiments were beginning to adopt khaki for field operations. The technique for dying uniforms varied widely, producing a range of shades of khaki, from bottle green to a light brown drab.

As regulation uniforms were unsatisfactory for field conditions in Afghanistan, the officers in most regiments improvised more serviceable forms of clothing.

Every Indian regiment was commanded by British officers, in a proportion of some 7 officers to 650 soldiers, in the infantry. This was an insufficient number for units in which all tactical decisions of significance were taken by the British and was particularly inadequate for less experienced units.

The British infantry carried the single shot, breech loading, .45 Martini-Henry rifle. The Indian regiments still used the Snider; also a breech loading single shot rifle, but of older pattern and a conversion of the obsolete muzzle loading Enfield weapon.

The cavalry were armed with sword, lance and carbine, Martini-Henry for the British troopers, Snider for the Indian sowars.

The British artillery, using a variety of guns, many smooth bored muzzle loaders, was not as effective as it could have been, if the authorities had equipped it with the breech loading steel guns being produced for European armies. Artillery support was frequently ineffective and on occasions the Afghan artillery proved to be better equipped than the British.

The army in India possessed no higher formations above the regiment in times of peace, other than the staffs of static garrisons. There was no operational training for staff officers. On the outbreak of war, brigade and divisional staffs had to be formed and learn by experience.

The British Army had, in 1870, replaced long service with short service for its soldiers. The system was not yet universally applied, so that some regiments in Afghanistan were short service and others still manned by long service soldiers. The Indian regiments were all manned by long service soldiers. The universal view seems to have been that the short service regiments were weaker both in fighting effectiveness and disease resistance than the long service.

Winner of the Battle of Kabul 1879: The British and Indian army.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Kabul 1879: 
British Regiments:
9^th Lancers, now the 9^th/12^th Royal Lancers. *
67^th Foot, later the Hampshire Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. *
72^nd Highlanders, later the Seaforth Highlanders and now the Royal Regiment of Scotland. *

92nd Highlanders, later the Gordon Highlanders and now the Royal Regiment of Scotland. *

Indian Regiments:
12^th Cavalry
14^th Murray’s Lancers
Queen’s Own Corps of Guides
5^th Cavalry, Punjab Frontier Force
1^st PWO Sappers and Miners
23^rd Bengal Native Infantry (Pioneers)
28^th Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis)
3^rd Sikh Infantry
5^th Punjabis (Vaughan’s Rifles)
2^nd Gurkhas
4^th Gurkhas
5^th Gurkhas PFF.

Account of the Battle of Kabul 1879:
The murder of Britain’s emissary in Kabul, Sir Louis Cavagnari, and his escort of Queen’s Own Corps of Guides, commanded by Lieutenant Walter Hamilton, on 3^rd September 1879 provoked the second phase of the Second Afghan War. Major General Sir Frederick Roberts VC led the Kabul Field Force over the Shutargardan Pass into Central Afghanistan and, defeating the Afghan Army at Charasiab on 6^th October 1879, occupied Kabul.

The British and Indian troops took over the Sherpur military cantonment north of Kabul, built by their predecessors in 1839 during the occupation of the city in the First Afghan War, rebuilt the accommodation and, finally, in early December 1839 moved into the vast compound.

Communications with India were established along the Khyber Pass route, with substantial numbers of troops deployed along its length, to keep the mountain tribes at bay.

Roberts restored the Ameer, Yakoub Khan, to his throne and rounded up the soldiers of the mutinous Afghan Herati regiments and others reported as having stormed the British residency in the Bala Hissar and killed Cavagnari and his Guides escort. Numbers were hanged, creating considerable unrest in the population and the surrounding country.

Towards the end of November 1879, reports reached the British of considerable numbers of Afghan tribesmen gathering in the area to the North of Kabul, under the command of Mohammed Jan, who had declared Musa Jan to be the new Ameer of Afghanistan in place of Yakoub Khan, widely seen as a puppet of the British.

Roberts sent two forces into the area of the Chardeh Plain to the North of the city, under Brigadier-Generals Baker and Macpherson, intending to catch the Afghans in a pincer movement. After several days of hard fighting in and around the Chardeh Plain, culminating on 11^th December 1879 in a series of near disastrous engagements, the two forces managed to pull back to the Sherpur Cantonment, lucky that they had escaped from the enveloping mass of Afghan tribesmen. In one incident, the Royal Horse Artillery lost several guns in a ravine, although they were recovered later.

An aggressive leader, Robert’s view was that the Afghans should always be attacked, almost regardless of their strength. The lack of effective intelligence left Roberts in ignorance of the scale of the Afghan uprising. On this occasion, the overwhelming Afghan numbers came close to inflicting a disastrous defeat on the British and Indian force.

While some work had been carried on the defences of the Sherpur Cantonment, much remained to be done. With the threat from Mohammed Jan increasing day by day, with tens of thousands of Afghans flocking to join the uprising, the British and Indian troops toiled to complete the defences.

The Sherpur Cantonment, a large rectangular encampment to the north of Kabul, had been built by the British and Indian army in the First Afghan War, within a five-mile outer perimeter. The mile and a half long south wall was complete. The west wall was near completion. The northern side of the cantonment rested on the Bimaru Heights, where, in 1841, so much skirmishing had taken place and relied entirely on the heights themselves for its fortification. The east wall reached to the area of Bimaru Village and petered out.

Mud towers were built along the heights and the village fortified. At one point, a ditch was dug and filled with captured Afghan guns and wire entanglements. An extensive telegraph system provided communications across the cantonment.

Robert’s artillery comprised twelve field guns, eight mountain guns and two Gatling guns with a small number of usable Afghan guns, which were distributed around the perimeter.

The 72^nd Highlanders held part of the south and west walls. Major General Hills held the rest of the west wall and half the heights with 5^th Punjab Infantry, 3^rd Sikhs and 5^th Gurkhas. The 23rd Pioneers held the eastern end of the heights. The Guides held the north-eastern corner around Bimaru village.
Companies from the 92^nd Highlanders, 67^th Foot, 28^th Bengal Native Infantry and a company of Bengal Sappers and Miners held the east wall and the end of the south wall. General Roberts’ headquarters was in the west wall.

Mohammed Jan’s hordes of tribesmen hovered around the cantonment, but lacked the training and equipment to conduct a full siege.

On 17^th December 1879, the British and Indian cavalry moved out of the main gate and patrolled around the cantonment walls. Provoked by this display of bravado, the Afghans gathered on the Asmai and Siah Sang Heights, to the south west and south-east, where they were bombarded by the British artillery.

On the evening of 18^th December 1879, it snowed hard, causing the Afghans to disperse to Kabul for the night. Over the next few days the British and Indian troops undertook a sortie from the cantonments to capture a neighbouring fort, but otherwise awaited events.

On 21^st December 1879, Brigadier General Charles Gough, commanding the First Brigade of Bright’s Second Division and already advancing towards Kabul, received, at Jagdalak, a message from Roberts ordering him to march for the Sherpur Cantonment with his brigade without delay, a move he promptly began.

Gough’s march towards Kabul finally provoked the mass attack on the cantonment that the British and Indians both hoped for and feared. Hoped for, because a decisive repulse of the assault would break up the mercurial Afghan army and feared, because the Afghans might penetrate the defences, in which case it would be all up with the heavily outnumbered garrison.

On 22^nd December 1879, Roberts received intelligence that the attack would be launched the next day, information that proved correct. Afghans gathered from all over the north-east of the country for the battle that was expected to destroy the invading army of British and Indians, just as their predecessors had been destroyed at the Battle of Gandamak in 1842.

The attack was signalled before dawn by an enormous bonfire, lit on the Asmai Heights by a militant cleric, dramatically lighting up the area of the cantonment.

50,000 Afghans, headed by white clothed Ghazis, fanatical religious leaders, rushed the cantonment fortifications. The garrison guns illuminated the area with star shells as the defending infantry poured volleys into the attacking tribesmen.

By dawn on 23^rd December 1879, the attack was in full flood against the west, south and east walls, with the emphasis on the east side and Bimaru village. Only in the north-east corner did the Afghans make any lodgement. The hard-pressed Guides were reinforced by companies of Sikhs from the neighbouring heights which had not been attacked.

After reaching a peak of ferocity between 10am and 11am, the attack generally slackened, the Afghans returning to the assault many times, but with diminishing enthusiasm.

At around 11am, Roberts sent a force of guns and cavalry through the gap in the Bimaru Heights, to open a bombardment on the right flank of the Afghans attacking the village. Under this fire, the attackers withdrew.

At around midday, the British and Indian cavalry issued from the cantonment and began the work of dispersing the remaining Afghan forces and pursuing the retreating tribesmen, while the infantry cleared the villages around the cantonment. No quarter was given to Afghans found with weapons.

On the morning of the 24^th December 1879, Roberts was preparing to eject the Afghan tribesmen from Kabul city, when he received news that Mohammed Jan’s enormous army had completely dispersed.

Despite pursuit by the British and Indian cavalry, Mohammed Jan and his entourage escaped to Ghuznee.

Casualties at the Battle of Kabul 1879:
British and Indian casualties were 33. General Roberts estimated that the Afghan casualties, almost all killed, were 3,000.

Follow-up to the Battle of Kabul 1879:
The British and Indian governments, relieved at the success of the battle, now required the enormous expense of the Afghan War to be brought to an end. Over the following six months, a new Ameer was found in Abdurrahman and preparations made to withdraw the army to India. In the spring of 1880, Major General Stewart would march from Kandahar and take Ghuznee and the combined forces would withdraw to India, by the Khyber route. Kandahar would be created as a separate state and a British/Indian garrison retained there.

However, the British and Indian armies still had three hard battles left to fight, with the outbreak of serious trouble in Southern Afghanistan.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Kabul 1879:

• As a result of the experiences of the cavalry in the Chardeh Valley fighting, General Roberts recommended that the arrangements for carrying sword and carbine be reversed. Prior to the battle, the sword was carried on the trooper’s belt and the carbine in a saddle bucket.  A number of British and Indian cavalrymen were unhorsed in the fighting.  They found they were impeded by the sword at their waist, which restricted their movements and was of little use as a dismounted weapon.  Most of these men were separated from their mounts, making their carbines, the weapons they most needed, inaccessible. By the new arrangement, the sword was hung from the saddle and the carbine was worn slung on the trooper’s back. A dismounted cavalryman would no longer be tripped up by his sword and would have his firearm immediately available. The arrangement for sword and carbine before the change can be seen in the illustration of the 9th Lancers above.
  

  British elephant battery: Battle of Kabul December 1879 in the Second Afghan War

References for the Battle of Kabul 1879:

The Afghan Wars by Archibald Forbes

The Road to Kabul; the Second Afghan War 1878 to 1881 by Brian Robson.

Recent British Battles by Grant.

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Charasiab

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Ahmed Khel

To the Second Afghan War index

The narrowly-won battle, fought by the army of Lieutenant General Sir Donald Stewart on 19^th April 1880, during its march north to Kabul

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Kabul 1879

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Maiwand

To the Second Afghan War index

Battle: Ahmed Khel

War: Second Afghan War

Date of the Battle of Ahmed Khel: 19^th April 1880.

Place of the Battle of Ahmed Khel: On the road between Kandahar and Kabul in Central Afghanistan.

Combatants at the Battle of Ahmed Khel: British and Indian troops against Afghan tribesmen.

Generals at the Battle of Ahmed Khel: Lieutenant General Sir Donald Stewart against unknown tribal leaders.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Ahmed Khel: 7,200 British and Indian troops against 15,000 tribesmen mounted and on foot of the Andarees, Tarkees, Suleiman Khels and other Afghan tribes.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Ahmed Khel:
The British and Indian forces were made up, predominantly, of native Indian regiments from the armies of the three British presidencies, Bengal, Bombay and Madras, with smaller regional forces, such as the Hyderabad contingent, and the newest, the powerful Punjab Frontier Force.

The Mutiny of 1857 had brought great change to the Indian Army. Prior to the Mutiny, the old regiments of the presidencies were recruited from the higher caste Brahmins, Hindus and Muslims of the provinces of central and eastern India, principally Oudh. Sixty of the ninety infantry regiments of the Bengal Army mutinied in 1857 and many more were disbanded, leaving few to survive in their pre-1857 form. A similar proportion of Bengal Cavalry regiments disappeared.

The British Army overcame the mutineers with the assistance of the few loyal regiments of the Bengal Army and the regiments of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, which on the whole did not mutiny. But principally, the British turned to the Gurkhas, Sikhs, Muslims of the Punjab and Baluchistan and the Pathans of the North-West Frontier for the new regiments with which Delhi was recaptured and the Mutiny suppressed.

After the Mutiny, the British developed the concept of ‘the Martial Races of India’. Certain Indian races were more suitable to serve as soldiers, went the argument, and those were, coincidentally, the races that had saved India for Britain. The Indian regiments that invaded Afghanistan in 1878, although mostly from the Bengal Army, were predominantly recruited from the martial races; Jats, Sikhs, Muslim and Hindu Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis and Gurkhas.

Prior to the Mutiny, each Presidency army had a full quota of field and horse artillery batteries. The only Indian artillery units allowed to exist after the Mutiny were the mountain batteries. All the horse, field and siege batteries were, from 1859, found by the British Royal Artillery.

In 1878, the regiments were beginning to adopt khaki for field operations. The technique for dying uniforms varied widely, producing a range of shades of khaki, from bottle green to a light brown drab.

As regulation uniforms were unsatisfactory for field conditions in Afghanistan, the officers in most regiments improvised more serviceable forms of clothing.

Every Indian regiment was commanded by British officers, in a proportion of some 7 officers to 650 soldiers, in the infantry. This was an insufficient number for units in which all tactical decisions of significance were taken by the British and was particularly inadequate for less experienced units.

The British infantry carried the single shot, breech loading, .45 Martini-Henry rifle. The Indian regiments still used the Snider; also a breech loading single shot rifle, but of older pattern and a conversion of the obsolete muzzle loading Enfield weapon.

The cavalry were armed with sword, lance and carbine, Martini-Henry for the British troopers, Snider for the Indian sowars.

The British artillery, using a variety of guns, many smooth bored muzzle loaders, was not as effective as it could have been, if the authorities had equipped it with the breech loading steel guns being produced for European armies. Artillery support was frequently ineffective and on occasions the Afghan artillery proved to be better equipped than the British.

The army in India possessed no higher formations above the regiment in times of peace, other than the staffs of static garrisons. There was no operational training for staff officers. On the outbreak of war, brigade and divisional staffs had to be formed and learn by experience.

The British Army had, in 1870, replaced long service with short service for its soldiers. The system was not yet universally applied, so that some regiments in Afghanistan were short service and others still manned by long service soldiers. The Indian regiments were all manned by long service soldiers. The universal view seems to have been that the short service regiments were weaker both in fighting effectiveness and disease resistance than the long service.

Winner of the Battle of Ahmed Khel: The British and Indians.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Ahmed Khel: 
Royal Horse Artillery
Royal Artillery
19^th Bengal Cavalry (Fane’s Lancers)
1^st Punjab Cavalry (21st Cavalry)
2^nd Punjab Cavalry (22nd Cavalry)
HM 59^th Foot, later the East Lancashire Regiment and now the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.
HM 2^nd/60^th Rifles, now the Rifles.
15^th Bengal Native Infantry (Ludhiana Sikhs)
19^th Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis)
25^th Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis)
3^rd Gurkhas
2^nd Sikh Infantry

The British and Indian order of battle:
Cavalry Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Palliser:
19^th Bengal Cavalry
19^th Bengal Native Infantry

A Battery Royal Horse Artillery

First Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Barter:

1^st Punjab Cavalry
2^nd/60^th Rifles
15^th Bengal Native Infantry
25^th Bengal Native Infantry
11^th Battery Royal Artillery

Second Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Hughes:
2^nd Punjab Cavalry
HM 59^th Regiment
2^nd Sikh Infantry
3^rd Gurkhas
Two batteries Royal Field Artillery

Account of the Battle of Ahmed Khel: 
The attack on the main British and Indian army, the Kabul Field Force, under Major General Sir Frederick Roberts VC, in the Sherpur Cantonment at Kabul in December 1879, although a victory over the massed Afghan tribesmen, revealed the fragile nature of the British/Indian occupation of Afghanistan.

In addition, the Government of India in Calcutta was increasingly alarmed at the expense of the war and its attritional effect on the Bengal and Bombay armies; worn down by the relentless attacks of the Afghan tribes on the long lines of communication.

The secret policy, devised by the Government of India, was to appoint a new Ameer of Afghanistan and withdraw its armies at the first opportunity. As a preliminary, Major General Stewart would march his largely Bengal Army force from Kandahar and join Roberts at Kabul, for a withdrawal down the Khyber Pass to Peshawar. A Bombay division would replace Stewart in Kandahar, which was planned to remain under British control, as a separate state from the rest of Afghanistan.

Stewart marched out of Kandahar for Kabul on 27^th March 1880. A force would march south from Kabul to meet him on the road at Sheikabad.

Stewart’s army, totalling 7,200 troops, with a similar number of camp followers, moved in two brigades, marching a day’s interval apart on opposite sides of the Tarnak River as far as Ghuznee. The shortage of transport animals, camels and oxen, required the Indian troops to live off the countryside.

The army halted at Kelat-i-Ghilzai on 6^th and 7^th April 1880 and recommenced the march on 8^th April, with signs of a gathering opposition from the Afghans. Forty miles north of Kelat, the army crossed from Kandahar province into Ghuznee, the province held by Mohammed Jan and the inspirational Mullah, the Mushk-i-Alam, the Afghan commanders at the attack on the Sherpur cantonment. In Ghuznee Province, the Afghans made every effort to destroy or hide supplies that might be used by Stewart’s troops.

The British and Indian army was now shadowed by a large force of Hazara tribesmen, who seized every opportunity to loot Afghan villages.

Stewart consolidated his force, allowing the second brigade to catch up and halted at Jan Murad, twenty-five miles short of Ghuznee, before resuming his march on 18^th April 1880. The weather was hot.

On 19^th April 1880, the column marched out at daybreak towards Kabul and was soon strung out along some six miles of road; the advance guard of 19^th Bengal Lancers, 19^th Bengal Native Infantry and six guns of the Royal Horse Artillery, commanded by Brigadier General Palliser, followed by Stewart with his headquarters, Hughes’ brigade, then the transport column escorted by Barter’s brigade.

Beyond a village named Mashaki, the western hills curved abruptly across the line of the road. The column stopped for breakfast short of this point and Stewart was taking breakfast, when he was informed that a large force of Afghan tribesmen was in place along the hills, blocking the road north.

Stewart sent orders back to Barter to bring up a substantial part of his brigade, still five miles distant, but resolved to attack the Afghans without waiting to consolidate his force. The artillery deployed across the road, supported by the 2^nd Punjab Cavalry and a squadron of 19^th Bengal Lancers to its right rear, with the infantry facing west along the line of the road and one and a half squadrons of 19^th Bengal Cavalry on the left flank.

Before Stewart’s infantry could begin its advance, a mass of Afghan tribesmen rushed over the hill and attacked the infantry line, a large force of mounted Afghans charging forward on the 19^th Bengal Lancers on the left flank. The Bengal Lancers were driven back onto the 3^rd Gurkhas, throwing that regiment into confusion and the 59^th Regiment was caught changing formation and without bayonets fixed. A high wind whipping up the dust significantly reduced the visibility, making the battle conditions even more difficult.

For a time, there was a danger that Stewart’s force would be overwhelmed, but the infantry regiments established a solid pattern of volley firing that drove back the tribesmen. The 2^nd Punjab Cavalry attacked the Afghan left flank and the 1^st Punjab Cavalry, coming up from Barter’s brigade, restored the position on Stewart’s left.

The musketry of the infantry, particularly of the 2^nd Sikhs, inflicted heavy casualties on the Afghan tribesmen, who finally turned and fled, pursued by the Hazaras, killing all the fugitives they could catch.

Stewart limited his cavalry to pursuit within the valley, before turning to the care of his casualties and the reorganisation of his column.

Casualties at the Battle of Ahmed Khel: British and Indian casualties were 115. Afghan casualties were estimated to be around 3,000.

Follow-up to the Battle of Ahmed Khel:
Following the battle, Stewart marched his division to Nani and sent his cavalry on to Ghuznee, which they captured without resistance.

After a period spent at Ghuznee, Stewart marched on to Kabul and, on arrival, took over command from Roberts, as the senior general.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Ahmed Khel:

• Even though the British and Indian casualties were low and the Afghan casualties high, the battle was for a time on a knife edge. Had the Afghans managed to break into the ranks of one of the infantry regiments in significant numbers, the whole British and Indian line might well have been overwhelmed as at the Battle of Maiwand. Stewart was saved by the experience and determination of his infantry regiments, particularly the 2^nd Sikhs, and by his well-served artillery.
• During the battle HM 59^th Regiment was caught changing formation and severely handled. It is thought that this incident gave Kipling the inspiration for his story ‘The drums of the fore and aft.’

References for the Battle of Ahmed Khel:

The Afghan Wars by Archibald Forbes

The Road to Kabul; the Second Afghan War 1878 to 1881 by Brian Robson.

Recent British Battles by Grant.

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Kabul 1879

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Maiwand

To the Second Afghan War index

The iconic engagement for the Queen’s Corps of Guides with the death of Major Wigram Battye, fought on 2^nd April 1879 in the Second Afghan War

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Peiwar Kotal

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Charasiab

To the Second Afghan War index

Battle: Futtehabad

War: Second Afghan War

Date of the Battle of Futtehabad: 2^nd April 1879

Place of the Battle of Futtehabad: South West of Jellalabad in North Eastern Afghanistan.

Combatants at the Battle of Futtehabad: British and Indian troops against Khugiani and other Afghan tribesmen.

Generals at the Battle of Futtehabad: Brigadier General Gough against unknown tribal leaders.
Size of the armies: 1,000 British and Indian troops against 5,000 Khugiani tribesmen.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Futtehabad:
The British and Indian forces were made up, predominantly, of native Indian regiments from the armies of the three British presidencies, Bengal, Bombay and Madras, with smaller regional forces, such as the Hyderabad contingent, and the newest, the powerful Punjab Frontier Force.

The Mutiny of 1857 had brought great change to the Indian Army. Prior to the Mutiny, the old regiments of the presidencies were recruited from the higher caste Brahmins, Hindus and Muslims of the provinces of central and eastern India, principally Oudh. Sixty of the ninety infantry regiments of the Bengal Army mutinied in 1857 and many more were disbanded, leaving few to survive in their pre-1857 form. A similar proportion of Bengal Cavalry regiments disappeared.

The British Army overcame the mutineers with the assistance of the few loyal regiments of the Bengal Army and the regiments of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, which on the whole did not mutiny. But principally, the British turned to the Gurkhas, Sikhs, Muslims of the Punjab and Baluchistan and the Pathans of the North-West Frontier for the new regiments with which Delhi was recaptured and the Mutiny suppressed.

After the Mutiny, the British developed the concept of ‘the Martial Races of India’. Certain Indian races were more suitable to serve as soldiers, went the argument, and those were, coincidentally, the races that had saved India for Britain. The Indian regiments that invaded Afghanistan in 1878, although mostly from the Bengal Army, were predominantly recruited from the martial races; Jats, Sikhs, Muslim and Hindu Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis and Gurkhas.

Prior to the Mutiny, each Presidency army had a full quota of field and horse artillery batteries. The only Indian artillery units allowed to exist after the Mutiny were the mountain batteries. All the horse, field and siege batteries were, from 1859, found by the British Royal Artillery.

In 1878, the regiments were beginning to adopt khaki for field operations. The technique for dying uniforms varied widely, producing a range of shades of khaki, from bottle green to a light brown drab.

As regulation uniforms were unsatisfactory for field conditions in Afghanistan, the officers in most regiments improvised more serviceable forms of clothing.

Every Indian regiment was commanded by British officers, in a proportion of some 7 officers to 650 soldiers, in the infantry. This was an insufficient number for units in which all tactical decisions of significance were taken by the British and was particularly inadequate for less experienced units.

The British infantry carried the single shot, breech loading, .45 Martini-Henry rifle. The Indian regiments still used the Snider; also a breech loading single shot rifle, but of older pattern and a conversion of the obsolete muzzle loading Enfield weapon.

The cavalry were armed with sword, lance and carbine, Martini-Henry for the British troopers, Snider for the Indian sowars.

The British artillery, using a variety of guns, many smooth bored muzzle loaders, was not as effective as it could have been, if the authorities had equipped it with the breech loading steel guns being produced for European armies. Artillery support was frequently ineffective and on occasions the Afghan artillery proved to be better equipped than the British.

The army in India possessed no higher formations above the regiment in times of peace, other than the staffs of static garrisons. There was no operational training for staff officers. On the outbreak of war, brigade and divisional staffs had to be formed and learn by experience.

The British Army had, in 1870, replaced long service with short service for its soldiers. The system was not yet universally applied, so that some regiments in Afghanistan were short service and others still manned by long service soldiers. The Indian regiments were all manned by long service soldiers. The universal view seems to have been that the short service regiments were weaker both in fighting effectiveness and disease resistance than the long service.

Winner of the Battle of Futtehabad: The British and Indian force.

British Regiments at the Battle of Futtehabad: 
British Regiments:
Royal Horse Artillery.
10^th Hussars: now the King’s Royal Hussars.
HM 17^th Foot, later the Leicestershire Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment.
HM Rifle Brigade now the Royal Green Jackets.

Indian Regiments:
Bombay Hazara Mountain Battery.
11^th Bengal Lancers
Queen’s Own Guides Cavalry
20^th Bengal Native Infantry (Brownlow’s Punjabis)
27^th Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis)
45^th Bengal Native Infantry (Rattray’s Sikhs)
4^th Gurkha Regiment
Bengal Sappers and Miners.

Account of the Battle of Futtehabad:
The battle at Futtehabad was a classic example of late Victorian colonial warfare; a small, but well-armed and disciplined force led with courage and resource against fanatical tribesmen, enraged at the incursions into their lands by foreigners.

The battle was also symptomatic of the difficulties faced by the three British/Indian Field Forces invading Afghanistan in the Second Afghan War: the Peshawar Valley Field Force, the Kurrum Field Force and the South Afghanistan Field Force. The field forces captured fixed positions along the routes of invasion with relative ease; the most determined resistance coming from the tribesmen raiding communications links to India. The hard lesson was that Afghan tribesmen never stop attacking an invader.

Following the successful battle at Ali Masjid at the head of the Khyber Pass in November 1878, the Peshawar Valley Field Force, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Sam Browne, advanced to the Afghan town of Jellalabad on the Kabul River. There the invasion of Afghanistan halted over the winter, while the British gathered their resources for the final advance on Kabul and waited for the Ameer of Afghanistan to sue for peace.

The substantial army in Jellalabad and its supply line suffered frequent attacks by the Afghan tribes in the area; the tribesmen, at the best of times troublesome subjects to the Ameer of Afghanistan, seizing every opportunity to attack the foreign invaders.

At the end of March 1879, General Browne received intelligence that a force of some 1,500 Afghan tribesmen was present in the area known as the Laghman, on the north bank of the Kabul River, to the west of Jellalabad, intent on inflaming local tribes against the British and Indian force.

Simultaneously, the Kugiani tribe was reported to be assembling in the area of Futtehabad, to the south-west of Jellalabad. The two threats appeared to be coordinated.

General Browne sent out three forces from Jellalabad: the first comprising a squadron of 10^th Hussars and a squadron of 11^th Bengal Cavalry, to cross the Kabul River to the east of Jellalabad and march west and surprise the Afghans in the Laghman: the second force, under Brigadier General Macpherson, to march west along the south bank of the river and cut off the southward retreat of the Afghans from Laghman.

The third force under Brigadier General Gough would deal with the Kugianis at Futtehabad.

Macpherson’s force and the cavalry marched out of Jellalabad on 31^st March 1879. The cavalry route across the Kabul River was by a ford; about a mile across, via an island, its path far from obvious. In the second section of the river the squadron of the 10^th Hussars lost its way and floundered into fast deep water. 47 officers and men of the squadron of 75 all ranks were swept away and drowned, a substantial loss. A second squadron of the regiment was sent out from Jellalabad and the force continued on its march, only to find when it reached the Laghman that the Afghan force had disappeared.

Brigadier General Gough’s force marched out in the early hours of 1^st April 1879; comprising 2 squadrons of 10^th Hussars and Guide’s Cavalry, 400 men of HM 17^th Foot, 300 men each of the 27^th and 45^th Bengal Native Infantry and 4 guns of the Royal Horse Artillery.

Soon after dawn on 1^st April 1879, a cavalry patrol reported a gathering of 5,000 hostile Kugiani tribesmen at the village of Khuja to the South of Futtehabad. Gough left a force of infantry to protect his supply column and advanced to the attack, notwithstanding that his force was outnumbered five to one.

Gough found the Kugiani tribesmen entrenched behind an extensive sanger wall at the top of a long sloping escarpment, each flank of the approach blocked by an impassable mountain torrent.

The immutable doctrine of warfare against native forces in India was that the British/Indian force must attack whatever the odds. If they showed weakness, every tribe in the area would rise.

Gough sent forward his small cavalry force with the Royal Horse Artillery guns. Gunfire was opened on the Afghans at 1,600 yards and again at 1,200 yards. The force then withdrew. The effect on the Kugianis was as Gough had planned: they emerged from the fortified position and pursued the cavalry and guns, hurrying past the waiting infantry positioned on their right flank. A heavy fire was opened on the tribesmen and the cavalry turned and charged the Afghans, driving the tribesmen back, in headlong retreat.

In the course of the charge, Major Wigram Battye, commanding the Guides, was fatally shot in the thigh and chest. He passed command to Lieutenant Walter Hamilton. The Guides with the 10^th Hussars pressed home the charge, pursuing the Kugianis back to the sanger wall and beyond. Hamilton rescued a dismounted Guides trooper from a group of tribesmen and for his part in the charge won the Victoria Cross.

The mounted soldiers were greatly impressed by the courage of the tribesmen who, when surrounded, fought to the death with whatever weapons they carried, in many cases just a knife.

Following the battle, Gough’s brigade was joined by the rest of the Second Brigade under Brigadier General Tytler and the Kugiani town of Khuja was burnt, ending the threat from the tribe for the moment.  The force then returned to Jellalabad.

Casualties at the Battle of Futtehabad:
British and Indian casualties were 6 killed and 40 wounded. The Khugianis suffered 300 dead and around 900 wounded.

Follow-up to the Battle of Futtehabad:
A number of tribesmen were made prisoner. Initially it was the requirement of the political officers with the British/Indian force that these prisoners be shot. The military officers objected. In the event a group of five mullahs was executed.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Futtehabad:

• Futtehabad is an iconic battle for the Queen’s Own Corps of Guides, culminating in the death of Major Wigram Battye, during the mounted charge by the Guides and the 10^th Hussars and the winning of the Victoria Cross by Lieutenant Walter Hamilton. It is said that Battye’s men, Pathans of the North-West Frontier tribes and Sikhs, refused to allow the ambulance staff to touch his body, insisting in carrying it themselves back to camp.
  

  Statue of Lieutenant Walter Hamilton VC dying in Kabul: Battle of Futtehabad on 2nd April 1879 in the Second Afghan War

• Lieutenant Walter Hamilton, an Irishman of 22 years, was awarded the Victoria Cross and, with the ending of the first phase of the war, given command of the small party of Queen’s Own Guides Cavalry and Infantry that escorted Major Cavagnari to Kabul. On 3^rd September 1879 mutinous Afghan troops from the Herati regiments, scorning their western colleagues who had lost the war to the British and Indians, stormed the Residency in the Bala Hissar in Kabul and killed Cavagnari and his escort of Guides, after a ferocious battle. Hamilton is commemorated by a statue in Dublin.

References for the Battle of Futtehabad:
The Road to Kabul; the Second Afghan War 1878 to 1881 by Brian Robson.

Recent British Battles by Grant.

The Afghan Wars by Archibald Forbes

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Peiwar Kotal

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Charasiab

To the Second Afghan War index

The battle of the Second Afghan War, fought on 2^nd December 1878, in which General Frederick Roberts forced the western end of the Khyber Pass

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Ali Masjid

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Futtehabad

To the Second Afghan War index

 

Battle: Peiwar Kotal.

War: Second Afghan War.

Date of the Battle of Peiwar Kotal: 2^nd December 1878.

Place of the Battle of Peiwar Kotal: At the western end of the Kurrum Valley on the border between Afghanistan and India.

Combatants at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal: British and Indian troops against Afghan troops and tribesmen.

Generals at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal: Major General Frederick Roberts VC against an unknown Afghan commander.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal: General Robert’s Kurrum Field Force comprised 4,000 men and 13 guns, against 4,000 Afghans with 25 guns.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal:
The British and Indian forces were made up, predominantly, of native Indian regiments from the armies of the three British presidencies, Bengal, Bombay and Madras, with smaller regional forces, such as the Hyderabad contingent, and the newest, the powerful Punjab Frontier Force.

The Mutiny of 1857 had brought great change to the Indian Army. Prior to the Mutiny, the old regiments of the presidencies were recruited from the higher caste Brahmins, Hindus and Muslims of the provinces of central and eastern India, principally Oudh. Sixty of the ninety infantry regiments of the Bengal Army mutinied in 1857 and many more were disbanded, leaving few to survive in their pre-1857 form. A similar proportion of Bengal Cavalry regiments disappeared.

The British Army overcame the mutineers with the assistance of the few loyal regiments of the Bengal Army and the regiments of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, which on the whole did not mutiny. But principally, the British turned to the Gurkhas, Sikhs, Muslims of the Punjab and Baluchistan and the Pathans of the North-West Frontier for the new regiments with which Delhi was recaptured and the Mutiny suppressed.

After the Mutiny, the British developed the concept of ‘the Martial Races of India’. Certain Indian races were more suitable to serve as soldiers, went the argument, and those were, coincidentally, the races that had saved India for Britain. The Indian regiments that invaded Afghanistan in 1878, although mostly from the Bengal Army, were predominantly recruited from the martial races; Jats, Sikhs, Muslim and Hindu Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis and Gurkhas.

Prior to the Mutiny, each Presidency army had a full quota of field and horse artillery batteries. The only Indian artillery units allowed to exist after the Mutiny were the mountain batteries. All the horse, field and siege batteries were, from 1859, found by the British Royal Artillery.

In 1878, the regiments were beginning to adopt khaki for field operations. The technique for dying uniforms varied widely, producing a range of shades of khaki, from bottle green to a light brown drab.

As regulation uniforms were unsatisfactory for field conditions in Afghanistan, the officers in most regiments improvised more serviceable forms of clothing.

Every Indian regiment was commanded by British officers, in a proportion of some 7 officers to 650 soldiers, in the infantry. This was an insufficient number for units in which all tactical decisions of significance were taken by the British and was particularly inadequate for less experienced units.

The British infantry carried the single shot, breech loading, .45 Martini-Henry rifle. The Indian regiments still used the Snider; also a breech loading single shot rifle, but of older pattern and a conversion of the obsolete muzzle loading Enfield weapon.

The cavalry were armed with sword, lance and carbine, Martini-Henry for the British troopers, Snider for the Indian sowars.

The British artillery, using a variety of guns, many smooth bored muzzle loaders, was not as effective as it could have been, if the authorities had equipped it with the breech loading steel guns being produced for European armies. Artillery support was frequently ineffective and on occasions the Afghan artillery proved to be better equipped than the British.

The army in India possessed no higher formations above the regiment in times of peace, other than the staffs of static garrisons. There was no operational training for staff officers. On the outbreak of war, brigade and divisional staffs had to be formed and learn by experience.

The British Army had, in 1870, replaced long service with short service for its soldiers. The system was not yet universally applied, so that some regiments in Afghanistan were short service and others still manned by long service soldiers. The Indian regiments were all manned by long service soldiers. The universal view seems to have been that the short service regiments were weaker both in fighting effectiveness and disease resistance than the long service.

Winner of the Battle of Peiwar Kotal: The British and Indians.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal:
British Regiments:
10^th Hussars, now the King’s Royal Hussars
Royal Artillery
Royal Horse Artillery
8^th King’s Regiment, later the King’s Liverpool Regiment and now the King’s Regiment.
72^nd Highlanders, later the Seaforth Highlanders and now the Highlanders.

Indian Regiments:
12^th Bengal Cavalry
5^th Punjab Cavalry (later 25th Cavalry)
21^st Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis)
23^rd Bengal Native Infantry (Punjab Pioneers)
29^th Bengal Native Infantry (Punjabis)
2^nd Punjab Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force.
5^th Punjab Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force (Vaughan’s Rifles(FF)
5^th Gurkhas

The order of battle of the Kurrum Field Force at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal:
Commander: Major General Frederick Roberts VC.
1 Squadron, 10^th Hussars.
12^th Bengal Cavalry.

F Battery RHA (on elephants)
3 guns of G Battery RA.
No 1 Mountain Battery.

First Brigade: commanded by Brigadier-General Cobbe.
2^nd Battalion HM 8th Foot.
29^th Bengal Native Infantry.
5^th Punjab Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force.

Second Brigade: commanded by Brigadier-General Thelwall.
HM 72^nd (Albany) Highlanders.
23^rd Bengal Native Infantry (Pioneers).
2^nd Punjab Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force.
5^th Gurkhas.

Account of the Battle of Peiwar Kotal:
With the expiry of the ultimatum to the Ameer of Afghanistan (see the account in the Battle of Ali Masjid) on 21^st November 1878 Major General Roberts VC and his Kurrum Field Force crossed the Kurrum River, upstream of its concentration point at Thal.

The advance guard of 29^th BNI and the mountain gun battery hurried to catch the Afghan garrison at Thal, but the Afghans marched away in the night, up the Kurrum Valley towards Peiwar Kotal at the head of the valley.

As Roberts’ force moved up the Kurrum Valley, the Afghans, 1,800 men with 12 guns, retreated before them until they reached Peiwar Kotal, joining the existing garrison, so that 4,000 Afghans and 23 guns held the four-mile-long fortified position centred on the Kotal or mountain pass.

On 27^th November 1878, the British and Indian troops concentrated at Kurrum Fort and, the next day, began their advance on the Peiwar Kotal pass, beyond which lay the central plain of Afghanistan.

The Kurrum Field Force advanced up the pass in two columns comprising; 13^th Bengal Cavalry, HM 8^th Foot, HM 72^nd Highlanders, 23^rd BNI and 29^th BNI, 2^nd and 5^th Punjab Infantry, 5^th Gurkhas, F Battery RHA and the mountain battery.

Early on 28^th November 1878, the force moved off to attack Peiwar Kotal, advancing up a wide slope and halting beneath the Kotal by a steep ridge, up which wound the track to the Afghan position. At the top, the track followed a dip in the high ground, the mountainsides all around heavily forested.

The sides of the valley overlooked the approach to the slope, enabling the Afghans to fire down on the British and Indian troops from each flank and the front, as they made their final advance.

Roberts hoped to take the Kotal before the Afghans could organise a full defence, the 5^th Punjab Infantry and the 29^th Bengal Native Infantry pushing forward along the southern side of the valley. They quickly came under a heavy fire and the attack faltered. The 5^th Gurkhas moved forward in support and the three regiments pulled back down the valley and made camp. During the night, the Afghans moved a gun along a spur and opened fire, forcing the regiments to break camp and withdraw still further.

In the light of the heavy resistance, Roberts resolved on an indirect attack, leaving a small force to pin the Afghans with a feint advance on the Peiwar Kotal.

To disguise the flank movement, the British and Indians established a gun line in the valley beneath the Kotal and officers bustled about, apparently reconnoitring the Afghan positions. Late on 1^st December 1878, Roberts led a powerful force into the neighbouring valley to the north of the Kurrum, the Spingawi Valley, leading to the Spingawi Kotal; the force comprising the 72^nd Highlanders, 23^rd and 29^th Bengal Native Infantry, 5^th Gurkhas, 2^nd Punjab Infantry, 1^st Mountain Battery and 3 more guns of G Battery; 900 men in all.

A second, smaller force of irregulars under Major Palmer, conducted a diverting operation in the mountains to the South of the Afghan positions on the Peiwar Kotal.

Movement up the steep Spingawi Valley was slow and several shots were fired unnecessarily by Indian troops. Roberts formed the view that Pathan soldiers in the leading regiment, the 29^th BNI, were attempting to sabotage the attack and ordered the 5^th Gurkhas into the lead.

In the dawn of 2^nd December 1878, the 5^th Gurkhas and 72^nd Highlanders stormed the Spingawi Kotal defences, capturing two guns.

The British and Indian troops then attacked along the ridge into the main Afghan positions, heavy fighting developing, but found themselves blocked by a ravine held on the far side by the Afghans.

The troops in the Kurrum Valley continued to attack, making their way up the northern side of the valley until close to the Peiwar Kotal itself.

While the Gurkhas and Highlanders fought over the ravine, regiments from the Spingawi flanking attack felt their way further to the north and west, until they were behind the Afghans on the Peiwar Kotal. The mountain battery followed and opened fire on the Afghan camp and positions.

Roberts broke off the attack on the ravine and moved down the valley across the Afghan line of retreat. The fire slackened as the Afghan troops, seeing the threat to their retreat, streamed away down the track.

The 8^th Foot pushed straight up onto the Peiwar Kotal, where they met Major Palmer’s levies coming up from the South. The Afghan positions on the Kotal had been taken.

The Afghan regulars retreated down the valley pursued by the 12^th Bengal Cavalry, while the tribesmen dispersed into the hills.

Casualties at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal:
The British and Indian regiments suffered 92 casualties. The Afghans probably suffered around 200 casualties.

Follow-up to the Battle of Peiwar Kotal:
Roberts’ force spent four days collecting the stores and weapons left by the Afghans in the Peiwar Kotal position and sending the wounded back to Kurrum. On 6^th December 1878, the force moved on to Ali Khel, from where Roberts reconnoitred the Shutagardan Pass. Robert’s Kurrum Valley Field Force then fell back from the exposed Shutagardan and wintered in the Peiwar and Kurrum positions. Once winter passed, Roberts gathered supplies and transport for the final advance on Kabul. As with Browne in the Khyber, Roberts had in fact captured sufficient territory to compel the Ameer of Afghanistan to sue for peace, which course the new Ameer Yakoub Khan duly took.

In southern Afghanistan, the British Force advanced over the border via the Khojak and Bolan passes and occupied Quetta and then Kandahar, harassed by the mountain tribes, but without serious resistance from the Afghan regular forces.

Shere Ali, the Ameer, died on 21^st February 1879, at Mazar i Sherif, on his way to seek help from General Kauffman, the Russian commander in Tashkent and was succeeded as Ameer by his son, Yakoub Khan. Yakoub did not feel the same constraints from dealing with the British as his father and opened negotiations for peace at Gandamak. The negotiations ended in the signing of the Treaty of Gandamak, one of the important provisions being permission for the British Mission, now under Sir Louis Cavagnari to take up post in Kabul.

Cavagnari arrived in Kabul with his staff and escort on 24^th June 1879 and took up residence in a section of the Bala Hissar, the Ameer’s Royal Palace.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Peiwar Kotal:

• After the Battle of Peiwar Kotal, the 72^nd Highlanders buried their two officer casualties, Major Anderson and Captain Kelso, in unmarked graves, to the sound of the pipes.
• The two sepoys of the 29^th Punjab Infantry, who fired during the advance and a party of the regiment who turned back and returned to camp were tried by court martial and one man executed.

References for the Battle of PeiwarKotal:
The Road to Kabul; the Second Afghan War 1878 to 1881 by Brian Robson.

The Afghan Wars by Archibald Forbes

The previous battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Ali Masjid

The next battle of the Second Afghan War is the Battle of Futtehabad

To the Second Afghan War index

The battle of the Second Sikh War fought on 13^th January 1849, notorious in early Victorian Britain and India for the conduct of Brigadier Pope’s brigade of light cavalry

The previous battle in the Second Sikh War is the Battle of Ramnagar

The next battle in the Second Sikh War is the Battle of Goojerat

To the Second Sikh War Index

Battle: Chillianwallah.

War: Second Sikh War.

Date of the Battle of Chillianwallah: 13^th January 1849.

Place of the Battle of Chillianwallah: In the Punjab in the North-West of India.

Combatants at the Battle of Chillianwallah: British troops and Indian troops of the Bengal Presidency against Sikhs of the Khalsa, the army of the Punjab.

Commanders at the Battle of Chillianwallah: Major General Sir Hugh Gough against the Sikh general, Shere Singh.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Chillianwallah: 12,000 British and Bengalis with 66 guns against 35,000 Sikhs with 65 guns.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Chillianwallah (this section is the same in each of the battles of the Sikh Wars):
The two wars fought between 1845 and 1849 between the British and the Sikhs led to the annexation of the Punjab by the British East India Company, and one of the most successful military co-operations between two races, stretching into a century of strife on the North West Frontier of British India, the Indian Mutiny, Egypt and finally the First and Second World Wars.

The British contingent comprised four light cavalry regiments (3^rd, 9^th, 14^th and 16^th Light Dragoons- the 9^th and 16^th being lancers) and twelve regiments of foot (9^th, 10^th, 24^th, 29^th, 31^st, 32^nd, 50^th, 53^rd, 60^th, 61^st, 62^nd and 80^th regiments).

The bulk of General Gough’s ‘Army of the Sutlej’ in the First Sikh War and ‘Army of the Punjab’ in the Second Sikh War comprised regiments from the Bengal Presidency’s army: 9 regular cavalry regiments (the Governor-General’s Bodyguard and 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 11^th Bengal Light Cavalry), 13 regiments of irregular cavalry (2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 7^th to 9^th and 11^th to the 17^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry), 48 regiments of foot (1^st to 4^th, 7^th, 8^th, 12^th to 16^th, 18^th, 20^th, 22^nd, 24^th to 27^th, 29^th to 33^rd, 36^th, 37^th, 41^st to 54^th, 56^th, 59^th, 63^rd and 68^th to 73^rd Bengal Native Infantry), horse artillery, field artillery, heavy artillery and sappers and miners.

The Bombay presidency contributed a force that marched in from Scinde, in the west, and gave considerable assistance at the Siege of Multan; the 19^th Bombay Native Infantry gaining the title of the Multan Regiment for its services in the siege, a label still held by its Indian Army successor.

A Bombay brigade under Brigadier Dundas joined General Gough’s army for the final battle of the Second Sikh War at Goojerat, where the two regiments of Scinde Horse, Bombay Irregular Cavalry, particularly distinguished themselves. The brigade comprised: 2 regiments of Scinde Horse, 3^rd and 19^th Bombay Native Infantry and Bombay horse artillery and field artillery.

Each of the three presidencies, in addition to their native regiments, possessed European infantry, of which the 1^st Bengal (European) Infantry, 2^nd Bengal (European) Light Infantry and 1^st Bombay (European) Fusiliers took part in the Sikh Wars.

Other corps fought under the British flag, such as the Shekawati cavalry and infantry and the first two Gurkha regiments: the Nasiri Battalion (later 1^st Gurkhas) and the Sirmoor Battalion (later 2^nd Gurkhas).

General Gough commanded the British/Indian army at six of the seven major battles (not the Battle of Aliwal). An Irishman, Gough was immensely popular with his soldiers, for whose welfare he was constantly solicitous. The troops admired Gough’s bravery, in action wearing a conspicuous white coat, which he called his ‘Battle Coat’, so that he might draw fire away from his soldiers.

Gough’s tactics were heavily criticised, even in the Indian press in letters written by his own officers. At the Battles of Moodkee, Sobraon and Chillianwallah, Gough launched headlong attacks, considered to be ill-thought out by many of his contemporaries. Casualties were high and excited concern in Britain and India. By contrast, Gough’s final battle, Goojerat, which decisively won the war, cost few of his soldiers their lives and was considered a model of care and planning.

Every battle saw vigorous cavalry actions, with HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons and HM 16^th Queen’s Lancers particularly distinguishing themselves. The British light cavalry wore embroidered dark blue jackets and dark blue overall trousers, except the 16th who bore the sobriquet ‘the Scarlet Lancers’ for their red jackets. The headgear of the two regiments of light dragoons was a shako with a white cover; the headgear of the lancers the traditional Polish tschapka.

HM regiments of foot wore red coats and blue trousers with shakos and white covers.
The Bengal and Bombay light cavalry regiments wore pale blue uniforms. The infantry of the presidency armies wore red coats and peak less black shakos.

The weapons for the cavalry were the lance for the lancer regiments and sword and carbine for all; the infantry was armed with the Brown Bess musket and bayonet.

Commands in the field were given by the cavalry trumpet and the infantry drum and bugle.
In the initial battles, the Sikh artillery outgunned Gough’s batteries. Even in these battles and in the later ones, the Bengal and Bombay horse and field artillery were handled with great resource and were a major cause of Gough’s success.

Many of the more senior British officers had cut their military teeth in the Peninsular War, and at the Battle of Waterloo: Gough, Hardinge, Havelock of the 14th Light Dragoons, Cureton, Dick, Thackwell and others. Many of the younger men would go on to fight in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny.

The Sikhs of the Punjab looked to the sequence of Gurus for their spiritual inspiration, and had established their independence, fiercely resisting the Moghul Kings in Delhi and the Muslims of Afghanistan. The Sikhs were required by their religion to wear the ‘five Ks’, not to cut their hair or beard and to wear the highly characteristic turban, a length of cloth in which the hair is wrapped around the head.

The Maharajah of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, whose death in 1839 ended the Sikh embargo on war with the British, established and built up the powerful Sikh Army, the ‘Khalsa’, over the twenty years of his reign. The core of the ‘Khalsa’ was its body of infantry regiments, equipped and trained as European troops, wearing red jackets and blue trousers. The Sikh artillery was held in high esteem by both sides. The weakness in the Sikh army was its horse. The regular cavalry regiments never reached a standard comparable to the Sikh foot, while the main element of the mounted arm comprised clouds of irregular and ill-disciplined ‘Gorcharras’.

The traditional weapon of the Sikh warrior is the ‘Kirpan’, a curved sword kept razor sharp and one of the ‘five Ks’ a baptised Sikh must wear. In battle, at the first opportunity, many of the Sikh foot abandoned their muskets and, joining their mounted comrades, engaged in hand to hand combat with sword and shield. Horrific cutting wounds, severing limbs and heads, were a feature of the Sikh Wars, in which neither side gave quarter to the enemy.

It had taken the towering personality of Ranjit Singh to control the turbulent ‘Khalsa’, he had established. Ranjit Singh’s descendants found the task beyond them and did much to provoke the outbreak of the First Sikh War, in the hope that the Khalsa would be cut down to size by the armies of the British East India Company. The commanders of the Sikh armies in the field rarely took the initiative in battle, preferring to occupy a fortified position and wait for the British and Bengalis to attack. In the opening stages of the war there was correspondence between Lal Singh and the British officer, Major Nicholson, suggesting that the Sikhs were being betrayed by their commander.

Pay in the Khalsa was good, twice the rate for sepoys in the Bengal Army, but it was haphazard, particularly after the death of Ranjit Singh. Khalsa administration was conducted by clerks writing in the Persian language. In one notorious mutiny over pay, Sikh soldiers ran riot looking for anyone who could, or looked as if they could, speak Persian, and putting them to the sword.

The seven battles of the war and the siege of the city of Multan were hard fought. Several of the battle fields were wide flat spaces broken by jungly scrub, from which the movement of large bodies of troops in scorching heat raised choking clouds of dust. As the fighting began, the dust clouds intermingled with dense volumes of musket and cannon smoke. With the thunder of gunfire and horses’ hooves, the battle yells and cries of the injured, the battles of the Sikh Wars were indeed infernos.

Winner: Gough’s Army of the Punjab withdrew to its camp at Chillianwallah, while the Sikhs fell back no further than the hills around Rasul. The battle was not won by either side, although it is said that the Sikh missed an opportunity to defeat the British outright.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Chillianwallah:
British Regiments:
HM 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons, now the Queen’s Royal Hussars. *
HM 9^th Queen’s Royal Light Dragoons (Lancers), now the 9^th/12^th Royal Lancers. *
HM 14^th the King’s Light Dragoons, now the King’s Royal Hussars. *
HM 24^th Foot, later the South Wales Borderers and now the Royal Welsh Regiment. *
HM 29^th Foot, later the Worcestershire Regiment and now the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment. *
HM 61^st Foot, later the Wiltshire Regiment and now the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment. *

Bengal Army:
1^st Bengal Light Cavalry.*
5^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
6^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
9^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
2^nd European Light Infantry.*
6^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
15^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
20^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
25^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
30^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
31^st Bengal Native Infantry.*
36^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
45^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
46^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
56^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
69^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
70^th Bengal Native Infantry.*

Cavalry:
All the Bengal cavalry regiments that fought at Chillianwallah ceased to exist in 1857.

Infantry:
2^nd Bengal (European) Light Infantry from 1861 102^nd Light Infantry, from 1880 the Munster Fusiliers, disbanded in 1922.*
31^st Bengal Native Infantry in1861 became the 2^nd Bengal Light Infantry, in 1903 2^nd (Queen’s Own) Rajput Light Infantry, in 1922 1^st (Queen Victoria’s Own) Light Infantry Bn. 7^th Rajput Regiment and in 1947 became 4^th Bn. the Brigade of the Guards of the Indian Army.*
70^th Bengal Native Infantry from 1861 11^th Bengal Native Infantry, from 1903 11^th Rajputs, from 1922 5^th Battalion 7^th Rajput Regiment and from 1947 5^th Battalion, the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army.*
The remaining Bengal infantry regiments that fought at Chillianwallah ceased to exist in 1857.
* These regiments have or had Chillianwallah as a battle honour.

Order of Battle of the Army of the Punjab at the Battle of Chillianwallah:
Commander-in-chief: Major General Sir Hugh Gough.
Cavalry Division: Major General Sir Joseph Thackwell.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier White; HM 3^rd LD, 5^th and 8^th BLC.
2^nd Brigade: Brigadier Pope; HM 9^th Lancers, HM 14^th LD, 1^st and 6^th BLC.

1^st Infantry Division: General Gilbert.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier Mountain; HM 29^th Foot, 30^th and 56^th BNI.
2^nd Brigade: Brigadier Godby; 2^nd European LI, 31^st and 70^th BNI.

2^nd Infantry Division: Brigadier Colin Campbell.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier Pennycuick; HM 24^th Foot, 25^th and 45^th BNI.
2^nd Brigade: Brigadier Hoggan; HM 61^st Foot, 6^th, 36^th and 46^th BNI.
3^rd Brigade: Brigadier Penny; 15^th, 20^th and 69^th BNI.

Six horse batteries: Major General Brooke.
1^st Brigade: Grant; Lane, Christie, Huish,
2^nd  Brigade: Brind; Warner, Duncan and Fordyce.
Three field batteries: Mowatt, Robertson and Dawes.
Two heavy batteries: Major Horsford, Captains Shakespeare and Ludlow.

Account of the Battle of Chillianwallah:
The Battle of Ramnagar, and General Thackwell’s inconclusive expedition across the Chenab River, had the effect of driving Shere Singh’s Sikh army north from the Chenab, to take up a position against the River Jhelum. On 10^th January 1849, the news came in to the British commander, Major General Gough, that the Sikh commander, Chattar Singh, had finally captured the fortress of Attock in the extreme north-west corner of the Punjab. It was now a matter of time before Chattar Singh’s force, with its Afghan allies, joined Shere Singh on the Jhelum to create an overwhelming Sikh army.

The Governor General, Lord Dalhousie, urged General Gough to advance with the British and Bengal ‘Army of the Punjab’ and attack Shere Singh before he could be reinforced.

The fall of the city of Multan to its British and Bombay Presidency besiegers released General Whish’s division to re-join the Army of the Punjab, but Dalhousie and Gough took the view that they could not wait for its arrival.

On 13^th January 1849, Gough marched up to within eight miles of the Sikh army in its position along the Jhelum River, entrenched in a row of rural hamlets. The Army of the Punjab halted at the village of Chillianwallah and prepared to pitch camp, while Gough carried out a reconnaissance.

The Sikh left flank lay on the village of Rasul, in a line of small hills running nearly parallel with the Chenab River.  The Sikh right lay against a thick jungle wall. Along the front of the Sikh line was a deep area of scrubby jungle.

The Sikh army comprised 25 infantry battalions, of which 10 had been raised since the end of the First Sikh War, 5,000 Gorcharra irregular cavalry and 65 guns, mostly of a light calibre. It was a feature of the Second Sikh War that the Sikhs had lost the predominance in size and numbers of guns they had possessed in the First Sikh War.

Pitching camp by the Army of the Punjab was interrupted when a battery of Sikh artillery advanced and opened fire on the British and Bengalis, until they were forced to retire by the counter-fire of Gough’s artillery. The whole of the Sikh artillery came into action and it became clear that the Sikhs had advanced well forward from their fortified position and that battle was imminent.

Cancelling the order to pitch camp, Gough formed up his regiments and prepared for battle, while his guns returned the Sikh fire.

It is reported that Gough was particularly enraged when several Sikh cannon rounds came the way of his staff. The criticism is made that it would have been better to have acted with restraint and stuck to his plan to give battle the next day.

Gough drew up his infantry in two divisions of two brigades each: from the left; Campbell’s division of Hoggan’s and Pennycuick’s brigades, then Gilbert’s division of Mountain’s and Godby’s brigades. Penny’s brigade provided the infantry reserve. White’s cavalry brigade was posted on the left flank with Pope’s cavalry brigade on the right.

The dense scrub made movement and observation equally difficult and, as always in battles in the Indian plains, the marching of troops and horses and the firing of artillery and infantry weapons created heavy clouds of dust and powder smoke which added to the confusion.

Horsford’s heavy guns fired upon the centre of the Sikh position, aided by the field batteries positioned on the flanks of the army. After an hour of bombardment, the infantry was ordered forward to attack.

In Campbell’s division on the left, Hoggan’s brigade pushed into the Sikh infantry line and drove it back. Pennycuick’s brigade drifted away to the right, struggling to keep order in the dense scrub. HM 24^th Foot, an inexperienced British regiment full of young soldiers, outstripped its two flanking BNI battalions and reached the Sikh lines, attacking and overrunning the Sikh positions, taking many guns.

The Sikhs stormed back into the captured trenches in overwhelming numbers, and drove the disordered 24th Foot out in full retreat and with heavy casualties. The two BNI battalions attempted to hold the attack but were forced back, the whole brigade retreating in confusion to its start point.

In the melee, Brigadier Pennycuick, his son, Lieutenant Colonel Brookes, the commanding officer of the 24th, and the two other field officers of the regiment were killed. The 25^th and 45^th BNI lost all but one of the five colours these two regiments carried. HM 24^th Foot lost one colour while the other was rescued by a private soldier. Penny’s brigade advanced into the gap left by the retreat of Pennycuick’s and managed to hold the Sikh pursuit.

Hoggan’s brigade, under General Campbell’s leadership, pushed through the strip of jungle behind the Sikh lines, supported by the fire of horse and field batteries, coming out on the far side in the presence of a strong force of Sikh infantry, cavalry and guns. HM 61^st Foot charged the body of cavalry and drove them away, while the Sikh infantry repulsed the 36^th BNI on their right. HM 61^st wheeled and attacked the Sikh infantry and two guns they had brought up. On the left of the brigade 46^th BNI repulsed a Sikh cavalry charge. The whole brigade formed to its right and advanced down the Sikh line, rolling it up and capturing 13 guns until they joined up with Gilbert’s Division.

On the left flank, White’s cavalry brigade found itself confronted by a large force of Sikh Gorcharra irregular horsemen. Captain Unett of the 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons led his squadron into the charge, galloping as best they could through the broken jungle. General Thackwell, the commander of the cavalry division, ordered the 5^th BLC up in support, but the regiment failed to follow Unett’s squadron into the dense mass of Gorcharras. Unett’s light dragoons cut their way through the Sikhs and, turning, charged back, dispersing the threat to the left flank. All the officers of the squadron were wounded.

On the right flank, Pope directed his brigade to advance in line of regiments; two squadrons of HM 9^th Lancers on the right (the remaining two squadrons had been sent away towards the hills), three squadrons of 1^st and 6th BLC in the centre and HM 14^th King’s Light Dragoons to their left, with ten guns of Huish’s and Christie’s troops of Bengal Horse Artillery on the extreme left of the brigade. No unit was retained as a supporting line.

Pope led his brigade at the trot through the broken scrub, without the precaution of skirmishers in advance. At the sight of a body of Sikh cavalry, the BLC squadrons in the centre of the line halted, forcing the British regiments on the flanks to stop in conformity. The Sikhs charged the BLC squadrons which turned about and made off. The two British regiments did the same, all attempts by the officers to halt their soldiers being to no avail.

The precipitous withdrawal of the cavalry regiments left the brigade horse artillery battery unprotected, and, in the confusion of limbering up, the battery was overrun by the Sikh cavalry who captured two guns. Eventually two other guns came into action and were sufficient to drive the Sikh cavalry back.

The retreating cavalrymen from Pope’s brigade found their way back to the camp at Chillianwallah, where they were rounded up by officers of the non-combatant services, including a padre.

The disappearance of the cavalry left Godby’s infantry brigade exposed. The 70^th BNI pulled back its right wing to provide cover and, after some hard fighting, the division was able to resume its advance, Mountain’s brigade taking a Sikh battery.

The battle ended with darkness. The Sikh army left the field, withdrawing into the hills around Russool, between their position and the Jhelum River. Gough’s army withdrew to the village of Chillianwallah, leaving several guns on the field, but ensuring they were spiked.
Heavy rain set in the next day preventing any further manoeuvre by either side.

Casualties at the Battle of Chillianwallah:
From Pennycuick’s brigade; HM 24^th Foot suffered 518 casualties (14 officers and 241 men killed and 10 officers and 266 men wounded), probably out of 1,000 effectives; 25^th BNI suffered 211 casualties and 45^th BNI suffered 79 casualties.

From Unett’s squadron of HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons of 106 men, only 48 were in the saddle at the end of the battle.

Brigadier Pope was mortally wounded in the battle. The 14^th King’s Light Dragoons had one officer killed, a son of Brigadier Cureton, himself killed at the Battle of Ramnagar.

Follow-up to the Battle of Chillianwallah:

General Gough, with perhaps uncharacteristic restraint, resisted all urgings to attack the army of Shere Singh in his new position, waiting until shortage of supplies forced the Sikh army to move into more fertile and open country. Reinforcements reached Shere Singh from Attock, but so did reinforcements for the Army of the Punjab from Multan, and in time for the finale of the war at the Battle of Goojerat.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Chillianwallah:

• The British press and public were horrified by the losses and the apparent incompetence of the leadership at the Battle of Chillianwallah. The Government decided that Gough was to be replaced as commander-in-chief by the elderly veteran Lord Napier, but the war ended with the successful Battle of Goojerat before Napier reached India.
• The cause of the collapse of Pope’s cavalry brigade was attributed to Pope’s age and inexperience. He was elderly and so ill that he had to be helped to mount and had never commanded more than a squadron in the field.
• Chillianwallah was an iconic battle for the British cavalry for widely differing reasons. Unett’s charge with his squadron of the 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons on the left flank was held up as a paragon. The squadron was mounted entirely on greys. The conduct of Pope’s brigade on the right flank became notorious. It is said that the slur cast on the competence and courage of the British light cavalry continued to reverberate into the Crimean War, and may have contributed to the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade. Captain Nolan, who played such a key part in committing the Light Brigade to the charge at the Battle of Balaclava, was serving in India with the 15th Hussars during the Sikh Wars, and was appalled by the incompetent handling of Pope’s cavalry brigade at Chillianwallah.
• An extraordinary incident took place in 1850, when Sir Charles Napier reviewed the 3^rd and 14^th Light Dragoons and congratulated them on their performance in the Sikh Wars. A trumpeter of the 14^th rode forward and announced to Napier ‘Our colonel is a coward,’ referring to the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel King. Soon afterwards King shot himself. At the point during the Battle of Chillianwallah when Pope’s cavalry brigade began to disintegrate, King was attempting to persuade Pope to charge the Sikh cavalry.

• Captain Unett led the ‘Greys’ squadron of HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons at the Battle of Chillianwallah. On the regiment’s return to England, Captain Unett and Lieutenant Stisted, both wounded in the battle, were presented to Queen Victoria to be congratulated on their conduct.
• HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons: It is hard not to rhapsodise over the conduct of the ‘Galloping Third’ in the Sikh Wars. The regiment charged several times at each of the Battles of Moodkee, Ferozeshah, Sobraon, Ramnagar, Chillianwallah and Goojerat. In many instances, the charges were delivered when regiments of Bengal Light Cavalry baulked at clashing with the feared Sikhs, leaving the 3^rd to attack unsupported and against overwhelming odds, the officers and soldiers knowing the Sikhs gave no quarter and inflicted appalling wounds with their razor sharp kirpan swords, severing limbs and heads.
  

  The Dog ‘Albert’ at the Battle of Chillianwallah on 13th January 1849 during the Second Sikh War

• Farrier Johnson, a member of Unett’s squadron, was killed in the battle.  His dog, Albert, remained with his master’s body for two days, until it was buried.  Albert can be seen in the bottom right corner of the second picture.
• Gough, on hearing of the conduct of the padre in halting and calming the retreating cavalrymen from Pope’s brigade, wanted to promote him bishop, but was told that he did not have the authority to make promotions in the church.
• One of the casualties in White’s cavalry brigade was the Subedar-Major of the 8^th Bengal Light Cavalry, a man aged 78 with over 60 years’ service in the Bengal Army.

Medals and decorations:

British and Indian soldiers who took part in the Second Sikh War received the silver medal entitled ‘Punjab Campaign, 1848-9’.
Clasps were issued for the battles (or in the case of Mooltan the siege) which were described as: ‘Mooltan’, ‘Chilianwalah’, and ‘Goojerat’.
Description of the medal:
Obverse. -Crowned head of Queen Victoria. Legend: ‘Victoria Regina.’
Reverse. -The Sikh army laying down its arms before Sir W.R. Gilbert and his troops near Rawal Pindi. Inscription ‘To the Army of the Punjab.’ In exergue ‘MDCCCXLIX.’
Mounting. -Silver scroll bar and swivel.
Ribbon. -Dark blue with two thin yellow stripes, 1 ¼ inch wide.

References for the Battle of Chillianwallah:

History of the British Army by Fortescue.

History of British Cavalry by the Marquis of Anglesey.

The Galloping Third by Hector Bolitho

The previous battle in the Second Sikh War is the Battle of Ramnagar

The next battle in the Second Sikh War is the Battle of Goojerat

To the Second Sikh War Index

The savage skirmish on the banks of the Chenab River on 22^nd November 1848 in the Second Sikh War, that led to the deaths of General Cureton and Colonel Havelock of the 14th Light Dragoons

The previous battle, from the First Sikh War, is the Battle of Sobraon

The next battle of the Second Sikh War is the Battle of Chillianwallah

To the Second Sikh War index

Battle: Ramnagar

War: Second Sikh War.

Date of the Battle of Ramnagar: 22^nd November 1848.

Place of the Battle of Ramnagar: In the Punjab in the north-west of India.

Combatants at the Battle of Ramnagar: British troops and Indian troops of the Bengal Presidency against Sikhs of the Khalsa, the army of the Punjab.

Commanders at the Battle of Ramnagar: Major General Sir Hugh Gough against Shere Singh.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Ramnagar: 12,000 British and Bengali troops and 60 guns against 20,000 Sikhs and 50 guns.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Ramnagar (this section is the same in each of the battles of the Sikh Wars):
The two wars fought between 1845 and 1849 between the British and the Sikhs led to the annexation of the Punjab by the British East India Company, and one of the most successful military co-operations between two races, stretching into a century of strife on the North West Frontier of British India, the Indian Mutiny, Egypt and finally the First and Second World Wars.

The British contingent comprised four light cavalry regiments (3^rd, 9^th, 14^th and 16^th Light Dragoons- the 9^th and 16^th being lancers) and twelve regiments of foot (9^th, 10^th, 24^th, 29^th, 31^st, 32^nd, 50^th, 53^rd, 60^th, 61^st, 62^nd and 80^th regiments).

The bulk of General Gough’s ‘Army of the Sutlej’ in the First Sikh War and ‘Army of the Punjab’ in the Second Sikh War comprised regiments from the Bengal Presidency’s army: 9 regular cavalry regiments (the Governor-General’s Bodyguard and 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 11^th Bengal Light Cavalry), 13 regiments of irregular cavalry (2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 7^th to 9^th and 11^th to the 17^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry), 48 regiments of foot (1^st to 4^th, 7^th, 8^th, 12^th to 16^th, 18^th, 20^th, 22^nd, 24^th to 27^th, 29^th to 33^rd, 36^th, 37^th, 41^st to 54^th, 56^th, 59^th, 63^rd and 68^th to 73^rd Bengal Native Infantry), horse artillery, field artillery, heavy artillery and sappers and miners.

The Bombay presidency contributed a force that marched in from Scinde, in the west, and gave considerable assistance at the Siege of Multan; the 19^th Bombay Native Infantry gaining the title of the Multan Regiment for its services in the siege, a label still held by its Indian Army successor.

A Bombay brigade under Brigadier Dundas joined General Gough’s army for the final battle of the Second Sikh War at Goojerat, where the two regiments of Scinde Horse, Bombay Irregular Cavalry, particularly distinguished themselves. The brigade comprised: 2 regiments of Scinde Horse, 3^rd and 19^th Bombay Native Infantry and Bombay horse artillery and field artillery.

Each of the three presidencies, in addition to their native regiments, possessed European infantry, of which the 1^st Bengal (European) Infantry, 2^nd Bengal (European) Light Infantry and 1^st Bombay (European) Fusiliers took part in the Sikh Wars.

Other corps fought under the British flag, such as the Shekawati cavalry and infantry and the first two Gurkha regiments: the Nasiri Battalion (later 1^st Gurkhas) and the Sirmoor Battalion (later 2^nd Gurkhas).

General Gough commanded the British/Indian army at 6 of the 7 major battles (not the Battle of Aliwal). An Irishman, Gough was immensely popular with his soldiers, for whose welfare he was constantly solicitous. The troops admired Gough’s bravery, in action wearing a conspicuous white coat, which he called his ‘Battle Coat’, so that he might draw fire away from his soldiers.

Gough’s tactics were heavily criticised, even in the Indian press in letters written by his own officers. At the Battles of Moodkee, Sobraon and Chillianwallah, Gough launched headlong attacks, considered to be ill-thought out by many of his contemporaries. Casualties were high and excited concern in Britain and India. By contrast, Gough’s final battle, Goojerat, which decisively won the war, cost few of his soldiers their lives and was considered a model of care and planning.

Every battle saw vigorous cavalry actions, with HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons and HM 16^th Queen’s Royal Lancers particularly distinguishing themselves. The British light cavalry wore embroidered dark blue jackets and dark blue overall trousers, except the 16^th who bore the sobriquet ‘the Scarlet Lancers’ for their red jackets. The headgear of the two regiments of light dragoons was a shako with a white cover; the headgear of the lancers the traditional Polish tschapka.

HM regiments of foot wore red coats and blue trousers with shakos and white covers.
The Bengal and Bombay light cavalry regiments wore pale blue uniforms. The infantry of the presidency armies wore red coats and peak less black shakos.

The weapons for the cavalry were the lance for the lancer regiments and sword and carbine for all; the infantry was armed with the Brown Bess musket and bayonet.

Commands in the field were given by the cavalry trumpet and the infantry drum and bugle.
In the initial battles, the Sikh artillery outgunned Gough’s batteries. Even in these battles and in the later ones, the Bengal and Bombay horse and field artillery were handled with great resource and were a major cause of Gough’s success.

Many of the more senior British officers had cut their military teeth in the Peninsular War, and at the Battle of Waterloo: Gough, Hardinge, Havelock of the 14^th Light Dragoons, Cureton, Dick, Thackwell and others. Many of the younger men would go on to fight in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny.

The Sikhs of the Punjab looked to the sequence of Gurus for their spiritual inspiration, and had established their independence, fiercely resisting the Moghul Kings in Delhi and the Muslims of Afghanistan. The Sikhs were required by their religion to wear the ‘five Ks’, not to cut their hair or beard and to wear the highly characteristic turban, a length of cloth in which the hair is wrapped around the head.

The Maharajah of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, whose death in 1839 ended the Sikh embargo on war with the British, established and built up the powerful Sikh Army, the ‘Khalsa’, over the twenty years of his reign. The core of the ‘Khalsa’ was its body of infantry regiments, equipped and trained as European troops, wearing red jackets and blue trousers. The Sikh artillery was held in high esteem by both sides. The weakness in the Sikh army was its horse. The regular cavalry regiments never reached a standard comparable to the Sikh foot, while the main element of the mounted arm comprised clouds of irregular and ill-disciplined ‘Gorcharras’.

The traditional weapon of the Sikh warrior is the ‘Kirpan’, a curved sword kept razor sharp and one of the ‘five Ks’ a baptised Sikh must wear. In battle, at the first opportunity, many of the Sikh foot abandoned their muskets and, joining their mounted comrades, engaged in hand to hand combat with sword and shield. Horrific cutting wounds, severing limbs and heads, were a feature of the Sikh Wars, in which neither side gave quarter to the enemy.

It had taken the towering personality of Ranjit Singh to control the turbulent ‘Khalsa’, he had established. Ranjit Singh’s descendants found the task beyond them and did much to provoke the outbreak of the First Sikh War, in the hope that the Khalsa would be cut down to size by the armies of the British East India Company. The commanders of the Sikh armies in the field rarely took the initiative in battle, preferring to occupy a fortified position and wait for the British and Bengalis to attack. In the opening stages of the war there was correspondence between Lal Singh and the British officer, Major Nicholson, suggesting that the Sikhs were being betrayed by their commander.

Pay in the Khalsa was good, twice the rate for sepoys in the Bengal Army, but it was haphazard, particularly after the death of Ranjit Singh. Khalsa administration was conducted by clerks writing in the Persian language. In one notorious mutiny over pay, Sikh soldiers ran riot looking for anyone who could, or looked as if they could, speak Persian, and putting them to the sword.

The seven battles of the war and the siege of the city of Multan were hard fought. Several of the battle fields were wide flat spaces broken by jungly scrub, from which the movement of large bodies of troops in scorching heat raised choking clouds of dust. As the fighting began, the dust clouds intermingled with dense volumes of musket and cannon smoke. With the thunder of gunfire and horses’ hooves, the battle yells and cries of the injured, the battles of the Sikh Wars were indeed infernos.

Winner of the Battle of Ramnagar: As Gough’s aim was to drive the Sikhs back across the Chenab River and he achieved this, it could be said that the action was successful. On the other hand, the result was the death of Brigadier Cureton, probably the best cavalry general in India, and many other men, including the commanding officer of the 14^th Light Dragoons, Lieutenant Colonel Havelock.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Ramnagar:
British Regiments:
HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons, now the Queen’s Royal Hussars.
HM 9^th Queen’s Royal Light Dragoons (Lancers), now the 9^th/12^th Royal Lancers.
HM 14^th the King’s Light Dragoons, now the King’s Royal Hussars.
HM 24^th Foot, later the South Wales Borderers and now the Royal Welsh Regiment.
HM 29^th Foot, later the Worcestershire Regiment and now the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment.
HM 61^st Foot, later the Wiltshire Regiment and now the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment.
Bengal Army:
1^st Bengal Light Cavalry.
5^th Bengal Light Cavalry.
6^th Bengal Light Cavalry.
9^th Bengal Light Cavalry.
2^nd European Light Infantry.
6^th Bengal Native Infantry.
15^th Bengal Native Infantry.
20^th Bengal Native Infantry.
25^th Bengal Native Infantry.
30^th Bengal Native Infantry.
31^st Bengal Native Infantry.
36^th Bengal Native Infantry.
45^th Bengal Native Infantry.
56^th Bengal Native Infantry.
69^th Bengal Native Infantry.
70^th Bengal Native Infantry.

Cavalry:
All the regular Bengal cavalry regiments that fought at Sobraon ceased to exist in 1857.

Infantry:
2^nd Bengal (European) Light Infantry, from 1861 102^nd Light Infantry, from 1880 the Munster Fusiliers, disbanded in 1922.
31^st Bengal Native Infantry in1861 became the 2^nd Bengal Light Infantry, in 1903 2^nd (Queen’s Own) Rajput Light Infantry, in 1922 1^st (Queen Victoria’s Own) Light Infantry Battalion 7^th Rajput Regiment and in 1947 became 4^th Battalion the Brigade of the Guards of the Indian Army.
70^th Bengal Native Infantry from 1861 11^th Bengal Native Infantry, from 1903 11^th Rajputs, from 1922 5^th Battalion 7^th Rajput Regiment and from 1947 5^th Battalion, the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army.
The remaining Bengal infantry regiments that fought at Ramnagar ceased to exist in 1857.

Ramnagar is not a battle honour for British or Bengal regiments. It is subsumed in the general battle honour of “Punjab 1848-49”.

Order of Battle of the Army of the Punjab at the Battle of Ramnagar:

Cavalry Division: Brigadier General Cureton.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier White; HM 3^rd Light Dragoons, HM 14^th Light Dragoons, 5^th and 8^th BLC.
2^nd Brigade: Brigadier Pope; HM 9^th Lancers, 1^st and 6^th BLC.

1^st Infantry Division: General Gilbert.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier Mountain; HM 29^th Foot, 30^th and 56^th BNI.
2^nd Brigade: Brigadier Godby; 2^nd European LI, 31^st and 70^th BNI.

2^nd Infantry Division: General Thackwell.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier Pennycuick; HM 24^th Foot, 25^th and 45^th BNI.
2^nd Brigade: Brigadier Hoggan; HM 61^st Foot, 6^th and 36^th BNI.
3^rd Brigade: Brigadier Penny; 15^th, 20^th and 69^th BNI.
Six horse batteries: Lane, Christie, Huish, Warner, Duncan and Fordyce.
Three field batteries: Dawes, Kenleside and Austin.
Two heavy batteries.

Account of the Battle of Ramnagar:
The First Sikh War ended in 1846 with the Treaty of Lahore, leaving the Punjab dependent on the British, but stopping short of outright annexation. The treaty required that the Khalsa, the Sikh army, be reduced in size and number of guns, although it is doubtful that this was complied with. The Sikh government agreed to pay a large sum in reparations to the British, with compliance secured on Kashmir. When the Sikhs found themselves unable to pay, Kashmir became forfeit, to the dismay of the British who lacked the resources to occupy the remote Himalayan province.

Difficulties over Kashmir were followed by the killing of two British officers by Sikh soldiers in Multan in April 1848. A force of Sikh troops moved against the rebels commanded by a British officer, Herbert Edwardes, but the Sikhs began to desert, and it became apparent that the rebels were acting with the encouragement of the Sikh rulers.

Edwardes intended to conduct a siege of Multan, while Major General Sir Hubert Gough, the British commander-in-chief in the First Sikh War, gathered his forces, this time on the River Chenab, further north than the Sutlej River, the scene of the fighting in the first war.

Edwardes did not have sufficient strength for a siege, and the enterprise passed to Major General Whish with two brigades of infantry, a brigade of cavalry and a siege train.

Until this force captured Multan and re-joined him, Gough was forced to delay taking the offensive against the Sikhs, with his newly named “Army of the Punjab”.

At this stage in the Second Sikh War, it was far from clear who would be fighting against the British.
A Sikh general, Shere Singh, revolted against the Punjab government and marched with his army up the Chenab River towards the north of the province. Gough feared that Shere Singh would join his father, Chattar Singh, in the area of Peshawar. The rebels also held the capital of the Punjab, Lahore.

Shere Singh halted with his troops at Ramnagar, on the northern bank of the Chenab, and pushed outposts and guns across the river.

While the plain itself was good cavalry country, at this time of year the wide Chenab River shrank to a thin winding stream in a wide sandy bed, treacherous for horses and guns. The troops needed to ensure that they kept out of the river bed.

Gough decided to attack the Sikh troops on the southern side of the river, and, on 21^st November 1848, sent forward Major General Campbell with a brigade of infantry and Brigadier General Cureton with the cavalry division.

In the early hours of 22^nd November 1848, Gough joined Campbell’s division and ordered an attack on the Sikhs who were hurrying to cross back over the Chenab. Two batteries of horse artillery, accompanied by cavalry, advanced to the edge of the river and opened fire on the retreating Sikhs.

A force of mounted Sikh Gorcharras crossed from the north bank to protect their infantry comrades. As the Gorcharras advanced onto the plain, they were charged by Brigadier White with the 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons, who drove the Sikhs back into the river bed, where White sensibly declined to follow.

One of the guns of the Bengal horse artillery, following in support, stuck in the quicksands of the river bed. The gunners were unable to extract the gun and it had to be abandoned.

Their success in forcing the Bengal horse artillery to abandon a gun caused the Sikhs to push more cavalry across the river. This time against Gough’s right flank.

General Gough ordered the 14^th Light Dragoons to drive this new force back across the river. The colonel of the 14^th, William Havelock, led his regiment and the 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry in a headlong charge at the Sikhs, and, without stopping at the edge of the bank, led his men into the river.

It was apparent to the divisional commander, General Cureton, that Havelock was taking his two regiments into considerable danger. Cureton led a party of the 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry in an attempt to halt the 14^th in its charge, but was shot dead as he rode forward.

Havelock was killed in the melee in the river, while 12 other officers and 84 men of the two cavalry regiments became casualties before the 14^th turned back and the battle ended.

The Sikhs had been cleared from the south bank of the River Chenab.

Casualties at the Battle of Ramnagar: British and Bengali casualties were around 150. Sikh casualties are estimated at a few hundred.

The body of Lieutenant Colonel Havelock, who had led the 14^th King’s Light Dragoons into the charge, was found in the river bed twelve days after the action. The head had been cut off and the left arm and leg nearly severed. He lay with nine dead troopers of his regiment.

Follow-up to the Battle of Ramnagar: Gough decided to hold the Sikh force at Ramnagar, while General Sir Joseph Thackwell, who had taken over command of the Cavalry Division on the death of General Cureton, marched upstream and crossed to the north bank.

Thackwell, with a force of cavalry, infantry and guns marched up the Chenab, and crossed to the north side. To Gough’s chagrin no full action materialised, but the Army of the Punjab had forced the River Chenab.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Ramnagar:

• The death of Brigadier General Cureton, a cavalry commander of great experience and ability, was considered a grave loss to the British Army. Cureton fought through the Peninsular War in the ranks of the 14^th Light Dragoons, the most consistently successful British cavalry regiment in that campaign, rising to the rank of sergeant. In 1813, Cureton was given a commission in an infantry regiment, before exchanging into the 16^th Lancers in India. Of his three sons, one was severely wounded at Moodkee serving in the 3^rd Light Dragoons, another was killed at Chillianwallah, while the third was at Aliwal as his father’s aide de camp and went on to raise his own Bengal Army cavalry regiment, Cureton’s Multanis. Cureton took air cushions on campaign with him as the most comfortable form of bedding. See the note to the Battle of Aliwal for Sir Harry Smith’s assessment of Cureton’s performance at that battle.
• Colonel William Havelock, who led the 14^th Light Dragoons into the river at the Battle of Ramnagar and lost his life in the charge, also made his name in the Peninsular, acquiring from the Spanish troops that he led the nickname of “el chico blanco” or the blonde boy. It was said of him by his brother, the Henry Havelock of Indian Mutiny fame, “it was natural that an old Peninsular officer, who had not seen a shot fired in anger since Waterloo, should desire to blood the noses of his young dragoons.”
  

  The Ramnuggur Cup, given to the 14th Light Dragoons by the 5th Bengal Light Cavalry after the Battle of Ramnagar on 22nd November 1848 during the Second Sikh War

• At the beginning of the battle, the 14^th Light Dragoons were dismounted, gathering turnips in a field. When the trumpets sounded to mount, a Sergeant Clifton quickly put a turnip inside his shako. In the charge, Clifton’s shako was cut to pieces by Sikh sword cuts. The turnip prevented Clifton from receiving any injury to his head, although he was cut about the shoulders. The turnip was sliced up.
• General Gough presented a sum of 5,000 rupees to the 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry for their conduct in the battle. The 5^th spent the sum in entertaining the 14^th Light Dragoons to a feast. As their religion prevented them from eating with non-Hindus the soldiers of the 5^th waited on the British troopers of the 14^th.
• The 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry presented a silver tankard to the 14^th King’s Light Dragoons to commemorate the battle. The tankard, entitled the ‘Ramnuggur Cup‘ is engraved with the battle honours of the 14^th.
• “Ramnuggur Day” has been celebrated by the 14^th Light Dragoons and its successor regiments on the anniversary of the battle, and is still commemorated by the King’s Royal Hussars.

Medals and decorations:

British and Indian soldiers who took part in the Second Sikh War received the silver medal entitled “Punjab Campaign, 1848-9”.
Clasps were issued for the battles (or in the case of Mooltan the siege) which were described as: “Mooltan”, “Chillianwallah”, and “Goojerat”.  There was no clasp for Ramnagar.
Description of the medal:
Obverse. -Crowned head of Queen Victoria. Legend: “Victoria Regina.”
Reverse. -The Sikh army laying down its arms before Sir W.R. Gilbert and his troops near Rawal Pindi. Inscription “To the Army of the Punjab.” In exergue “MDCCCXLIX.”
Mounting. -Silver scroll bar and swivel.
Ribbon. -Dark blue with two thin yellow stripes, 1 ¼ inch wide.

References for the Battle of Ramnagar:

History of the British Army by Fortescue.

History of British Cavalry by the Marquis of Anglesey.

The previous battle, from the First Sikh War, is the Battle of Sobraon

The next battle of the Second Sikh War is the Battle of Chillianwallah

To the Second Sikh War index

General Gough’s hard won victory over the Sikh army
of Lal Singh on 18^th December 1845; the opening battle of the First Sikh War

The previous battle in the British Battle sequence is the Battle of Kabul 1842

The next battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Ferozeshah

To the First Sikh War Index

Battle: Moodkee

War: First Sikh War.

Date of the Battle of Moodkee: 18^th December 1845.

Place of the Battle of Moodkee: On the south bank of the Sutlej River in the Punjab in North West India.

Combatants at the Battle of Moodkee: British troops and Indian troops of the Bengal Presidency against Sikhs of the Khalsa, the army of the Punjab.

Commanders at the Battle of Moodkee: Major General Sir Hugh Gough and General Sir Henry Hardinge, the Governor General of Bengal, against Lal Singh, the Sikh leader.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Moodkee: A British and Bengal army of 12,000 troops and 42 guns against a Sikh army of 10,000 cavalry, 4,000 infantry and 22 guns.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Moodkee (this section is the same in each of the battles of the Sikh Wars):
The two wars fought between 1845 and 1849 between the British and the Sikhs led to the annexation of the Punjab by the British East India Company, and one of the most successful military co-operations between two races, stretching into a century of strife on the North West Frontier of British India, the Indian Mutiny, Egypt and finally the First and Second World Wars.

The British contingent comprised four light cavalry regiments (3^rd, 9^th, 14^th and 16^th Light Dragoons- the 9^th and 16^th being lancers) and twelve regiments of foot (9^th, 10^th, 24^th, 29^th, 31^st, 32^nd, 50^th, 53^rd, 60^th, 61^st, 62^nd and 80^th regiments).

The bulk of General Gough’s ‘Army of the Sutlej’ in the First Sikh War and ‘Army of the Punjab’ in the Second Sikh War comprised regiments from the Bengal Presidency’s army: 9 regular cavalry regiments (the Governor-General’s Bodyguard and 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 11^th Bengal Light Cavalry), 13 regiments of irregular cavalry (2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 7^th to 9^th and 11^th to the 17^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry), 48 regiments of foot (1^st to 4^th, 7^th, 8^th, 12^th to 16^th, 18^th, 20^th, 22^nd, 24^th to 27^th, 29^th to 33^rd, 36^th, 37^th, 41^st to 54^th, 56^th, 59^th, 63^rd and 68^th to 73^rd Bengal Native Infantry), horse artillery, field artillery, heavy artillery and sappers and miners.

The Bombay presidency contributed a force that marched in from Scinde, in the west, and gave considerable assistance at the Siege of Multan; the 19^th Bombay Native Infantry gaining the title of the Multan Regiment for its services in the siege, a label still held by its Indian Army successor.

A Bombay brigade under Brigadier Dundas joined General Gough’s army for the final battle of the Second Sikh War at Goojerat, where the two regiments of Scinde Horse, Bombay Irregular Cavalry, particularly distinguished themselves. The brigade comprised: 2 regiments of Scinde Horse, 3^rd and 19^th Bombay Native Infantry and Bombay horse artillery and field artillery.

Each of the three presidencies, in addition to their native regiments, possessed European infantry, of which the 1^st Bengal (European) Infantry, 2^nd Bengal (European) Light Infantry and 1^st Bombay (European) Fusiliers took part in the Sikh Wars.

Other corps fought under the British flag, such as the Shekawati cavalry and infantry and the first two Gurkha regiments: the Nasiri Battalion (later 1^st Gurkhas) and the Sirmoor Battalion (later 2^nd Gurkhas).

General Gough commanded the British/Indian army at 6 of the 7 major battles (not the Battle of Aliwal). An Irishman, Gough was immensely popular with his soldiers, for whose welfare he was constantly solicitous. The troops admired Gough’s bravery, in action wearing a conspicuous white coat, which he called his ‘Battle Coat’, so that he might draw fire away from his soldiers.

Gough’s tactics were heavily criticised, even in the Indian press in letters written by his own officers. At the Battles of Moodkee, Sobraon and Chillianwallah, Gough launched headlong attacks, considered to be ill-thought out by many of his contemporaries. Casualties were high and excited concern in Britain and India. By contrast, Gough’s final battle, Goojerat, which decisively won the war, cost few of his soldiers their lives and was considered a model of care and planning.

Every battle saw vigorous cavalry actions, with HM 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons and HM 16th Queen’s Royal Lancers particularly distinguishing themselves. The British light cavalry wore embroidered dark blue jackets and dark blue overall trousers, except the 16th who bore the sobriquet ‘the Scarlet Lancers’ for their red jackets. The headgear of the two regiments of light dragoons was a shako with a white cover; the headgear of the lancers the traditional Polish tschapka.

HM regiments of foot wore red coats and blue trousers with shakos and white covers.
The Bengal and Bombay light cavalry regiments wore pale blue uniforms. The infantry of the presidency armies wore red coats and peak less black shakos.

The weapons for the cavalry were the lance for the lancer regiments and sword and carbine for all; the infantry was armed with the Brown Bess musket and bayonet.

Commands in the field were given by the cavalry trumpet and the infantry drum and bugle.
In the initial battles, the Sikh artillery outgunned Gough’s batteries. Even in these battles and in the later ones, the Bengal and Bombay horse and field artillery were handled with great resource and were a major cause of Gough’s success.

Many of the more senior British officers had cut their military teeth in the Peninsular War, and at the Battle of Waterloo: Gough, Hardinge, Havelock of the 14th Light Dragoons, Cureton, Dick, Thackwell and others. Many of the younger men would go on to fight in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny.

The Sikhs of the Punjab looked to the sequence of Gurus for their spiritual inspiration, and had established their independence, fiercely resisting the Moghul Kings in Delhi and the Muslims of Afghanistan. The Sikhs were required by their religion to wear the ‘five Ks’, not to cut their hair or beard and to wear the highly characteristic turban, a length of cloth in which the hair is wrapped around the head.

The Maharajah of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, whose death in 1839 ended the Sikh embargo on war with the British, established and built up the powerful Sikh Army, the ‘Khalsa’, over the twenty years of his reign. The core of the ‘Khalsa’ was its body of infantry regiments, equipped and trained as European troops, wearing red jackets and blue trousers. The Sikh artillery was held in high esteem by both sides. The weakness in the Sikh army was its horse. The regular cavalry regiments never reached a standard comparable to the Sikh foot, while the main element of the mounted arm comprised clouds of irregular and ill-disciplined ‘Gorcharras’.

The traditional weapon of the Sikh warrior is the ‘Kirpan’, a curved sword kept razor sharp and one of the ‘five Ks’ a baptised Sikh must wear. In battle, at the first opportunity, many of the Sikh foot abandoned their muskets and, joining their mounted comrades, engaged in hand to hand combat with sword and shield. Horrific cutting wounds, severing limbs and heads, were a feature of the Sikh Wars, in which neither side gave quarter to the enemy.

It had taken the towering personality of Ranjit Singh to control the turbulent ‘Khalsa’, he had established. Ranjit Singh’s descendants found the task beyond them and did much to provoke the outbreak of the First Sikh War, in the hope that the Khalsa would be cut down to size by the armies of the British East India Company. The commanders of the Sikh armies in the field rarely took the initiative in battle, preferring to occupy a fortified position and wait for the British and Bengalis to attack. In the opening stages of the war there was correspondence between Lal Singh and the British officer, Major Nicholson, suggesting that the Sikhs were being betrayed by their commander.

Pay in the Khalsa was good, twice the rate for sepoys in the Bengal Army, but it was haphazard, particularly after the death of Ranjit Singh. Khalsa administration was conducted by clerks writing in the Persian language. In one notorious mutiny over pay, Sikh soldiers ran riot looking for anyone who could, or looked as if they could, speak Persian, and putting them to the sword.

The seven battles of the war and the siege of the city of Multan were hard fought. Several of the battle fields were wide flat spaces broken by jungly scrub, from which the movement of large bodies of troops in scorching heat raised choking clouds of dust. As the fighting began, the dust clouds intermingled with dense volumes of musket and cannon smoke. With the thunder of gunfire and horses’ hooves, the battle yells and cries of the injured, the battles of the Sikh Wars were indeed infernos.

Winner of the Battle of Moodkee: The British and Bengali troops of General Gough’s ‘Army of the Sutlej’.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Moodkee:
British:
HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons: now the Queen’s Royal Hussars.*
HM 9^th Foot, later the Norfolk Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment.*
HM 31^st Foot, later the East Surrey Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.*
HM 50^th Foot, later the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.*
HM 80^th Foot, later the South Staffordshire Regiment and now the Staffordshire Regiment.*

Indian:
The Governor General’s Bodyguard.*
4^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
5^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
Skinner’s Horse.*
8^th Irregular Horse.*
9^th Irregular Horse.*
2^nd Bengal Native Infantry.*
16^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
24^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
26^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
42^nd Bengal Native Infantry.*
45^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
47^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
48^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
73^rd Bengal Native Infantry.*

Horse and Field Artillery.

The Indian Army regiments:
Cavalry:
The Governor General’s Bodyguard continues as the President of India’s Bodyguard.*
Skinner’s Horse in 1861 became the 1^st Bengal Cavalry, in 1903 the 1^st Duke of York’s Own Lancers (Skinner’s Horse), in 1922 the 1^st Duke of York’s Own Skinner’s Horse and from 1950 the 1^st Horse of the Indian Army.*
8^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry in 1861 became the 6^th Bengal Cavalry, in 1906 the 6^th King Edward’s Own Cavalry, in 1922 the 18^th King Edward’s Own Cavalry and from 1950 the 18^th Cavalry of the Indian Army.*
All the regular Bengal cavalry regiments that fought at Moodkee and the 9^th Irregular Horse ceased to exist in 1857 to 1861.

Infantry:
42^nd Bengal Native Infantry in 1861 became the 5^th Light Infantry and were disbanded in 1922.*
47^th Bengal Native Infantry in1861 became the 7^th Bengal Light Infantry, in 1903 the 7^th Duke of Connaught’s Own Rajputs, in 1922 the 3^rd Battalion (Duke of Connaught’s Own), 7^th Rajput Regiment and from 1950, the 3^rd Battalion, the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army.*
The remaining Bengal infantry regiments that fought at Moodkee ceased to exist in 1857.
* These regiments have or had Moodkee as a battle honour.

The order of battle of the Army of the Sutlej at the Battle of Moodkee:
Commanding in Chief: Major General Sir Hugh Gough.
Second in Command: Major General Sir Henry Hardinge, Governor General of Bengal.

Cavalry Division: Major General Sir Joseph Thackwell.
Brigadier Mactier’s brigade: 9^th Bengal Irregular Horse and one wing of 4^th Bengal Light Cavalry.
Brigadier Gough’s brigade: 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry and the Governor General’s Bodyguard.
Brigadier White’s brigade: HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons and one wing of 4^th Bengal Light Cavalry.

1^st Infantry Division: Major General Sir Harry Smith.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier Bolton; HM 31^st Foot, 24^th and 47^th BNI.
2^nd Brigade: Colonel Wheeler; HM 50^th Foot, 42^nd and 48^th BNI.

2^nd Infantry Division: Major General Gilbert.
1^st Brigade: 2^nd and 45^th BNI.
2^nd Brigade: 16^th BNI.

3^rd Infantry Division: Major General McCaskill.
1^st Brigade: HM 9^th Foot, 26^th and 73^rd BNI.
2^nd Brigade: –

Artillery:
5 troops of horse artillery and 2 batteries of light field artillery.

Account of the Battle of Moodkee:
On 11^th December 1845, a Sikh army crossed the Sutlej River to attack the British garrisons in the southern Punjab towns of Ferozepore, Ludhiana and Ambala. The First Sikh War had begun.

Until the death of the great Sikh ruler of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, relations between the Sikhs and the British East India Company had been harmonious. Ranjit Singh co-operated with the British during the First Afghan War and the Sind War. But Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839 triggered acrimonious disputes within his family, and with the powerful Khalsa, an institution motivated by aggressive antipathy to the British.

Ranjit Singh, during his long rule, turned the Khalsa into an efficient and powerful fighting force, but one that required an iron hand to keep it in check. While Ranjit Singh had been such an iron hand, his successors were not. In the war that broke out in 1845, the British were fortunate that the rulers of the Punjab did all they could to betray their army, as it fought the British. It may well be that the Khalsa was encouraged to begin the war, in the hope that it would be severely beaten and rendered less of a threat to its own rulers.

Even though the British had for some time expected exactly such an eruption by the Sikh army across the Sutlej, one of the five great rivers of the Punjab, inadequate preparations had been made.

The British authorities were reluctant to expose the Bengal sepoy army to Sikh propaganda, which claimed that soldiers joining their army could expect a doubling of their pay. It was feared that any success on the part of the Sikhs would cause sepoys to desert.

The Sikh force of 50,000 men and 200 guns, commanded by Tej Singh, moved towards Ferozepore, held by a British garrison of some 7,000 troops, but did not attack it.

The British commander-in-chief, Sir Hugh Gough, accompanied by the Governor General, Sir John Hardinge, assembled troops from Ambala and Ludhiana, and moved forward to relieve the garrison at Ferozepore and attack the Sikhs. The force took the name of the ‘Army of the Sutlej.’

On 18th December 1845, after a long day’s march, the Army of the Sutlej approached the small town of Moodkee. A reconnaissance, commanded by Major George Broadfoot, discovered a body of Sikhs, probably around 2,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry and 22 guns, in occupation of the town.

By the time the Army of the Sutlej came up, the Sikhs had withdrawn to a position behind the town on the edge of the jungle.

Fearing that the Sikhs might retreat into the jungle at their back, Gough ordered an immediate attack, and his army, despite its state of exhaustion, marched out of the town.

As night fell, the five troops of horse artillery galloped into action, soon joined by the two batteries of field artillery. The Bengal guns opened a bombardment, firing into the jungle fringe, where the Sikh force was positioned.

Meanwhile Gough ordered his cavalry brigades to attack around each of the Sikh flanks; on the right the brigade commanded by Brigadiers White and Gough, comprising HM 3^rd Light Dragoons, a wing of the 4^th Bengal Light Cavalry, the Governor General’s Bodyguard and the 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry; on the left the brigade under Brigadier Mactier, comprising the other wing of the 4^th Bengal Light Cavalry and the 9^th Bengal Light Cavalry.

In the twilight caused by darkness and the clouds of dust churned up by the horses’ hooves, the 3^rd Light Dragoons and the Governor General’s Bodyguard charged into the Sikh line on the edge of the jungle, turning the Sikh flank.

On the left flank, the 4^th and 9^th Bengal Light Cavalry charged home on the Sikh line.

In the centre, the infantry advanced to the attack; Smith’s division on the right; McCaskill’s division, only a brigade in strength, in the centre; and Gilbert’s, equally reduced in size with 45^th BNI detached to guard the baggage, on the left. The British battalions, HM 9^th, 31^st and 50^th Foot, led.

As the infantry advanced on the Sikh positions, Wheeler’s brigade on the right of the line, threatened by a mass of Sikh cavalry, formed squares. With the Sikhs driven off and the order to form line and continue the advance, only HM 50^th complied, leaving the two BNI regiments of the brigade in square. The divisional commander, General Smith, seized one of the 50^th’s colours and led the regiment into the Sikh lines.

The infantry attack drove the Sikhs from their positions after savage hand to hand fighting, in which two British generals, McCaskill and Sale, were killed.

In the gathering gloom, friendly units fired into each other, until finally complete darkness brought the battle to an end, the Sikhs withdrawing into the jungle.

Casualties at the Battle of Moodkee: Gough’s army of British and Bengal Native regiments suffered 872 killed and wounded in the battle. The predominant role played by four of the British regiments in the fighting is reflected in their casualties (414 in total):
HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons suffered 61 killed and 35 wounded from a strength of 497, with 105 horses killed and 23 injured.
HM 9^th Foot suffered 52 casualties.
HM 31^st Foot suffered 157 casualties.
HM 50^th Foot suffered 109 casualties.
42nd BNI suffered 89 casualties.
The British lost two generals killed: Sir John McCaskill and Sir Robert Sale (the commander at Jellalabad in the First Afghan War).
Sikh casualties are not known but may have been substantial. They lost 17 guns.

Follow-up to the Battle of Moodkee: Gough was criticised for the heavy casualties incurred in his headlong assault at the Battle of Moodkee. Hardinge took the view that Gough should have waited for the Sikhs to come out of the jungle and begin their attack, before launching a counter-attack. On the other hand, Gough feared that the Sikhs would not give battle once they had seen the strength of the Anglo-Indian army, but melt away into the jungle.

On the day after the battle, reinforcements arrived; HM 29^th Regiment, 1^st Bengal (European) Infantry, two Bengal Native Infantry regiments and two Howitzer guns.

On 20^th December 1845, Gough moved on towards Ferozepore, where General Littler’s garrison waited to be relieved.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Moodkee:

• General Gough’s simple but expensive tactic of headlong attack was ruefully called by the army the ‘Tipperary Rush’.
• In action Gough wore his ‘Battle Coat’, a long white coat intended to draw enemy fire to him and away from his soldiers.
• Sergeant Jones of the 31^st Foot rescued his regiment’s colours from the stricken ensigns and received an immediate battlefield commission.
• The Sikhs admired the conduct of the 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons at Moodkee, giving them the nickname of the ‘Devil’s Children’; in Punjabi ‘Shaitan-ke-Bachche’. The Sikhs complained that the 3^rd Light Dragoons came down on them ‘like a flash of lightning’. The regiment was given the nickname of the ‘Moodkeewallahs’ by the rest of the army, a label the regiment enthusiastically embraced.
• Captain Tritton of the 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons captured a Sikh standard in the battle and Lance Sergeant Hinds with a party of troopers took two guns, after cutting down the gunners.
• Several light dragoons were killed after falling into the hands of the Sikhs. In later battles of the war the 3^rd attacked with the cry ‘Remember Moodkee’ and gave no quarter. Throughout the Sikh Wars, it was not the practice of either side to give quarter.
• One of the Indian officers of the 47^th Bengal Native Infantry captured a Sikh cannon during the battle.

Medals and decorations from the Battle of Moodkee: British and Indian soldiers who took part in the First Sikh War received the medal entitled ‘Sutlej Campaign, 1845-6’.

Where a soldier took part in one or more battles, his medal would have the first battle inscribed on the reverse side of the medal, and the remaining battles on clasps on the ribbon.

The battles being described as: ‘Moodkee 1845’, ‘Ferozeshuhur 1845’, ‘Aliwal 1946’ and ‘Sobraon 1846’.

Description of the medal:
Obverse. -Crowned head of Queen Victoria. Legend: ‘Victoria Regina.’
Reverse. -Victory standing beside a trophy, holding a wreath in her outstretched hand. Inscription: ‘Army of the Sutlej.’
Mounting. -Silver scroll bar and swivel.

Ribbon: Dark blue with crimson edges. 1 ¼ inches wide.

References for the Battle of Moodkee:

History of the British Army by Fortescue.

History of British Cavalry by the Marquis of Angelsey.

The previous battle in the British Battle sequence is the Battle of Kabul 1842

The next battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Ferozeshah

To the First Sikh War Index

The second battle of the First Sikh War: General Gough’s rash
and disorganised assault on the Sikh camp at Ferozeshah on 22nd December 1845

The previous battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Moodkee

The next battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Aliwal

To the First Sikh War Index

Battle: Ferozeshah

War: First Sikh War.

Date of the Battle of Ferozeshah: 22^nd December 1845.

Place of the Battle of Ferozeshah: In the Punjab in the north-west of India.

Combatants at the Battle of Ferozeshah: British troops and Indian troops of the Bengal Presidency against Sikhs of the Khalsa, the army of the Punjab.

Commanders at the Battle of Ferozeshah: Major General Sir Hugh Gough and General Sir Henry Hardinge against Lal Singh and Tej Singh.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Ferozeshah: A British and Bengal army of 18,000 men, 63 guns and 2 Howitzers against a Sikh army initially of Lal Singh’s force of 10,000 cavalry, 4,000 infantry and 22 guns, joined by Tej Singh’s troops from Ferozepore of 30,000 men and 150 guns (including many heavy calibre). The Sikh army contained a force of religious fanatics called the Akalis.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Ferozeshah (this section is the same in each of the battles of the Sikh Wars):
The two wars fought between 1845 and 1849 between the British and the Sikhs led to the annexation of the Punjab by the British East India Company, and one of the most successful military co-operations between two races, stretching into a century of strife on the North West Frontier of British India, the Indian Mutiny, Egypt and finally the First and Second World Wars.

The British contingent comprised four light cavalry regiments (3^rd, 9^th, 14^th and 16^th Light Dragoons- the 9^th and 16^th being lancers) and twelve regiments of foot (9^th, 10^th, 24^th, 29^th, 31^st, 32^nd, 50^th, 53^rd, 60^th, 61^st, 62^nd and 80^th regiments).

The bulk of General Gough’s ‘Army of the Sutlej’ in the First Sikh War and ‘Army of the Punjab’ in the Second Sikh War comprised regiments from the Bengal Presidency’s army: 9 regular cavalry regiments (the Governor-General’s Bodyguard and 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 11^th Bengal Light Cavalry), 13 regiments of irregular cavalry (2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 7^th to 9^th and 11^th to the 17^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry), 48 regiments of foot (1^st to 4^th, 7^th, 8^th, 12^th to 16^th, 18^th, 20^th, 22^nd, 24^th to 27^th, 29^th to 33^rd, 36^th, 37^th, 41^st to 54^th, 56^th, 59^th, 63^rd and 68^th to 73^rd Bengal Native Infantry), horse artillery, field artillery, heavy artillery and sappers and miners.

The Bombay presidency contributed a force that marched in from Scinde, in the west, and gave considerable assistance at the Siege of Multan; the 19^th Bombay Native Infantry gaining the title of the Multan Regiment for its services in the siege, a label still held by its Indian Army successor.

A Bombay brigade under Brigadier Dundas joined General Gough’s army for the final battle of the Second Sikh War at Goojerat, where the two regiments of Scinde Horse, Bombay Irregular Cavalry, particularly distinguished themselves. The brigade comprised: 2 regiments of Scinde Horse, 3^rd and 19^th Bombay Native Infantry and Bombay horse artillery and field artillery.

Each of the three presidencies, in addition to their native regiments, possessed European infantry, of which the 1^st Bengal (European) Infantry, 2^nd Bengal (European) Light Infantry and 1^st Bombay (European) Fusiliers took part in the Sikh Wars.

Other corps fought under the British flag, such as the Shekawati cavalry and infantry and the first two Gurkha regiments: the Nasiri Battalion (later 1^st Gurkhas) and the Sirmoor Battalion (later 2^nd Gurkhas).

General Gough commanded the British/Indian army at 6 of the 7 major battles (not the Battle of Aliwal). An Irishman, Gough was immensely popular with his soldiers, for whose welfare he was constantly solicitous. The troops admired Gough’s bravery, in action wearing a conspicuous white coat, which he called his ‘Battle Coat’, so that he might draw fire away from his soldiers.

Gough’s tactics were heavily criticised, even in the Indian press in letters written by his own officers. At the Battles of Moodkee, Sobraon and Chillianwallah, Gough launched headlong attacks, considered to be ill-thought out by many of his contemporaries. Casualties were high and excited concern in Britain and India. By contrast, Gough’s final battle, Goojerat, which decisively won the war, cost few of his soldiers their lives and was considered a model of care and planning.

Every battle saw vigorous cavalry actions, with HM 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons and HM 16th Queen’s Royal Lancers particularly distinguishing themselves. The British light cavalry wore embroidered dark blue jackets and dark blue overall trousers, except the 16th who bore the sobriquet ‘the Scarlet Lancers’ for their red jackets. The headgear of the two regiments of light dragoons was a shako with a white cover; the headgear of the lancers the traditional Polish tschapka.

HM regiments of foot wore red coats and blue trousers with shakos and white covers.
The Bengal and Bombay light cavalry regiments wore pale blue uniforms. The infantry of the presidency armies wore red coats and peak less black shakos.

The weapons for the cavalry were the lance for the lancer regiments and sword and carbine for all; the infantry was armed with the Brown Bess musket and bayonet.

Commands in the field were given by the cavalry trumpet and the infantry drum and bugle.
In the initial battles, the Sikh artillery outgunned Gough’s batteries. Even in these battles and in the later ones, the Bengal and Bombay horse and field artillery were handled with great resource and were a major cause of Gough’s success.

Many of the more senior British officers had cut their military teeth in the Peninsular War, and at the Battle of Waterloo: Gough, Hardinge, Havelock of the 14th Light Dragoons, Cureton, Dick, Thackwell and others. Many of the younger men would go on to fight in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny.

The Sikhs of the Punjab looked to the sequence of Gurus for their spiritual inspiration, and had established their independence, fiercely resisting the Moghul Kings in Delhi and the Muslims of Afghanistan. The Sikhs were required by their religion to wear the ‘five Ks’, not to cut their hair or beard and to wear the highly characteristic turban, a length of cloth in which the hair is wrapped around the head.

The Maharajah of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, whose death in 1839 ended the Sikh embargo on war with the British, established and built up the powerful Sikh Army, the ‘Khalsa’, over the twenty years of his reign. The core of the ‘Khalsa’ was its body of infantry regiments, equipped and trained as European troops, wearing red jackets and blue trousers. The Sikh artillery was held in high esteem by both sides. The weakness in the Sikh army was its horse. The regular cavalry regiments never reached a standard comparable to the Sikh foot, while the main element of the mounted arm comprised clouds of irregular and ill-disciplined ‘Gorcharras’.

The traditional weapon of the Sikh warrior is the ‘Kirpan’, a curved sword kept razor sharp and one of the ‘five Ks’ a baptised Sikh must wear. In battle, at the first opportunity, many of the Sikh foot abandoned their muskets and, joining their mounted comrades, engaged in hand to hand combat with sword and shield. Horrific cutting wounds, severing limbs and heads, were a feature of the Sikh Wars, in which neither side gave quarter to the enemy.

It had taken the towering personality of Ranjit Singh to control the turbulent ‘Khalsa’, he had established. Ranjit Singh’s descendants found the task beyond them and did much to provoke the outbreak of the First Sikh War, in the hope that the Khalsa would be cut down to size by the armies of the British East India Company. The commanders of the Sikh armies in the field rarely took the initiative in battle, preferring to occupy a fortified position and wait for the British and Bengalis to attack. In the opening stages of the war there was correspondence between Lal Singh and the British officer, Major Nicholson, suggesting that the Sikhs were being betrayed by their commander.

Pay in the Khalsa was good, twice the rate for sepoys in the Bengal Army, but it was haphazard, particularly after the death of Ranjit Singh. Khalsa administration was conducted by clerks writing in the Persian language. In one notorious mutiny over pay, Sikh soldiers ran riot looking for anyone who could, or looked as if they could, speak Persian, and putting them to the sword.

The seven battles of the war and the siege of the city of Multan were hard fought. Several of the battle fields were wide flat spaces broken by jungly scrub, from which the movement of large bodies of troops in scorching heat raised choking clouds of dust. As the fighting began, the dust clouds intermingled with dense volumes of musket and cannon smoke. With the thunder of gunfire and horses’ hooves, the battle yells and cries of the injured, the battles of the Sikh Wars were indeed infernos.

Winner of the Battle of Ferozeshah: The British and Bengali army, but only just. If Tej Singh had pressed his attack he was likely to have won the battle.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Ferozeshah:
British:
HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons, now the Queen’s Royal Hussars. *
HM 9^th Foot, later the Norfolk Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment.*
HM 29^th Foot, later the Worcestershire Regiment and now the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment. *
HM 31^st Foot, later the East Surrey Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.*
HM 50^th Foot, later the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.*
HM 62^nd Foot, later the Wiltshire Regiment and now the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment. *
HM 80^th Foot, later the South Staffordshire Regiment and now the Staffordshire Regiment.*

Indian:
The Governor General’s Bodyguard.*
4^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
5^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
8^th Bengal Light Cavalry.*
Skinner’s Horse.*
8^th Irregular Cavalry.*
9^th Irregular Cavalry.*
1^st Bengal European Light Infantry.*
2^nd Bengal Native Infantry.*
12^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
14^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
16^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
24^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
26^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
33^rd Bengal Native Infantry.*
42^nd Bengal Native Infantry.*
44^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
45^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
47^th Bengal Native Infantry.*

The Indian Army regiments:
Cavalry:
The Governor General’s Bodyguard continues as the President of India’s Bodyguard.*
Skinner’s Horse in 1861 became the 1^st Bengal Cavalry, in 1903 the 1^st Duke of York’s Own Lancers (Skinner’s Horse), in 1922 the 1^st Duke of York’s Own Skinner’s Horse and from 1950 the 1^st Horse of the Indian Army.*
8^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry in 1861 became the 6^th Bengal Cavalry, in 1906 the 6^th King Edward’s Own Cavalry, in 1922 the 18^th King Edward’s Own Cavalry and from 1950 the 18^th Cavalry of the Indian Army.*
All the regular Bengal cavalry regiments that fought at Ferozeshah and 9^th Irregular Cavalry ceased to exist in 1857.*
Infantry:
33^rd Bengal Native Infantry in 1861 became 4^th Bengal Native Infantry, in 1903 4^th Prince Albert Victor’s Rajputs, in 1922 2^nd Battalion (Prince Albert Victor’s) 7^th Rajput Regiment and in 1950 2^nd Battalion, the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army.*
42^nd Bengal Native Infantry in 1861 became the 5^th Light Infantry and were disbanded in 1922.*
47^th Bengal Native Infantry in1861 became the 7^th Bengal Light Infantry, in 1903 7^th Duke of Connaught’s Own Rajputs, in 1922 3^rd Battalion (Duke of Connaught’s Own) 7^th Rajput Regiment and in 1950 3^rd Battalion, the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army.*
The remaining Bengal infantry regiments that fought at Ferozeshah ceased to exist in 1857.
* These regiments have or had Ferozeshah as a battle honour.

The order of battle of the Army of the Sutlej at the Battle of Ferozeshah:
Commander-in-Chief: General Sir Hugh Gough.
Second in command: Sir Henry Hardinge, Governor General of Bengal.
The Cavalry Division:
First Brigade: Brigadier White; HM 3^rd Light Dragoons, 4^th and 9^th Bengal Light Cavalry.
Second Brigade: Brigadier Gough; The Governor General’s Bodyguard and 4^th Bengal Light Cavalry.

Infantry:
First Division: Major General Sir Harry Smith.
First Brigade: Brigadier Hicks; HM 31^st Foot, 24^th BNI and 47^th BNI.
Second Brigade: Brigadier Ryan; HM 50^th Foot, 42^nd BNI and 48^th BNI.

Second Division: Major General Sir Walter Gilbert.
Third Brigade: Brigadier Taylor: HM 29^th Foot, HM 80^th Foot and 41^st BNI.
Fourth Brigade: Brigadier McClaren: 1^st Bengal Europeans, 16^th BNI and 45^th BNI.

Third Division:
Brigadier General Wallace; HM 9^th Foot and 73^rd BNI.

Fourth Division: Major General Sir John Littler.
Seventh Brigade: Brigadier Reid; HM 62^nd Foot, 12^th BNI and 14^th BNI.
Eighth Brigade: Brigadier Ashburnham; 33^rd BNI, 44^th BNI and 54^th BNI.

Account of the Battle of Ferozeshah:
Following the Battle of Moodkee on 18^th December 1845, Lal Singh’s force of Sikhs withdrew to Ferozeshah, eight miles to the north-west of the Moodkee battlefield, occupying strong fortified positions around the village of Ferozeshah.

While his British and Bengali troops dealt with the casualties from the Battle of Moodkee, General Gough sent instructions to General Littler, commanding the garrison in Ferozepore, to march out of the town, evading the blockading force of Tej Singh, and join him before Ferozeshah on 21^st December 1845, for the second battle with Lal Singh’s force.

On the day after the Battle of Moodkee, reinforcements marched in from Ludhiana: HM 29^th Foot, 1^st Bengal Europeans and two regiments of Bengal Native Infantry with two howitzers.

Gough’s army was in place on the morning of the 21^st December 1845, waiting for Littler. Gough decided to launch his attack without Littler’s men, but General Sir Henry Hardinge used his authority as Governor General to veto an attack, until the Ferozepore garrison arrived.

Littler arrived with two Bengal Light Cavalry regiments, HM 62^nd Foot, five Bengal Native Infantry battalions, two troops of horse artillery and two field batteries at 1.30pm on 21^st December, increasing Gough’s army to 18,000 troops and 65 guns. Littler’s division took up position on the extreme left of the line with his cavalry regiments in support.

At 3 pm on 21^st December, with only two hours of daylight left, Gough opened the battle with an artillery bombardment, which the Sikhs answered vigorously. As in most of the early battles of the war, the Sikh artillery had the best of the exchange.

The fortifications around Ferozeshah comprised a series of trenches on a line of hillocks surrounding the village in a rectangle. The Sikh gunners manned some 100 good quality guns, that they served with skill and devotion. It is not known how many Sikhs were present in Ferozeshah, but they appear to have constituted a powerful force.

At around 3.30pm on 21^st December 1845, Littler began an assault well in advance of the rest of the army, moving his guns forward to engage the Sikhs at closer range, his infantry regiments following in support. The infantry emerged into the open plain 300 metres from the Sikh line, and were met with a heavy fire of grapeshot from the Sikh guns (fragmented shot used on troops at close range to cause maximum casualties). The British 62^nd Foot led the assault, losing 160 casualties in ten minutes. The regiment faltered and fell back, taking the native infantry regiments with them. Littler’s attack had failed.

As Littler began his attack, Gough ordered the rest of the British and Bengali infantry to assault the Sikh lines. The regiments pushed through the jungle under heavy artillery fire, emerging into the dense smoke and dust of the open plain, lit by the flashes of the Sikh gunfire.

Part of the left of the British line faltered under the heavy fire, but HM 9th Foot and the right-hand division pressed on with the attack, while a brigade from the reserve, commanded by General Smith, moved forward to cover the gap left by the retreat of Littler’s brigade.

The attacking troops reached the Sikh entrenchments, pressed through, although suffering heavy casualties, and captured and spiked numbers of guns, before pushing on into the Sikh lines, which was quickly set on fire.

A large magazine in the Sikh camp exploded, causing considerable confusion and casualties. All over the camp, tents were ablaze, with stores of gunpowder exploding in the gathering dusk.

On the right of the British line, Gough committed Brigadier White’s cavalry brigade; HM 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons, 4th Bengal Light Cavalry (Lancers) and the 9th Bengal Irregular Cavalry, to an attack on the corner of the fortifications.

Considerably reduced by their casualties at Moodkee, the 3rd Light Dragoons charged through a battery and the infantry positioned behind it, before breaking into the Sikh camp and engaging in ferocious hand to hand combat with crowds of Sikh swordsmen and matchlock men.

General Smith, after fighting through the Sikh camp, found himself with a party of soldiers from his division on the far side of Ferozeshah, where he was attacked throughout the night by the Sikhs. He finally fought his way around the outside of the village to the south side, where he re-joined Gough and Hardinge as dawn broke.

The fall of night forced the British and Bengali regiments to withdraw from Ferozeshah, abandoning the Sikh camp and fortifications, to pass the night as best they could among the casualties of the day’s fighting, under the renewed fire of the Sikh guns.

Gough and Hardinge spent the night in considerable anxiety, Hardinge making hasty arrangements to destroy his state papers, to prevent them from falling into Sikh hands in the event of a British defeat.

With dawn on 22^nd December 1845, drums and trumpets signalled a renewed attack on the fortifications, but the Sikhs were falling back and Gough’s army quickly re-took Ferozeshah.

Battered and exhausted, the British and Bengali regiments ceased fighting, cheering Gough and Hardinge as they rode down the ranks, troopers carrying captured Khalsa flags.

But the battle was not finished. To the stupefaction of Gough’s men, onto the field marched the army of Tej Singh, the force that Littler had evaded in the previous days to escape from Ferozepore.

The British and Bengali troops were exhausted, their ammunition almost entirely expended. Gough occupied the Sikh fortifications, while a horse artillery battery engaged the Sikhs to keep them away for as long as possible. Then the line stood waiting for the Sikh attack, hardly expecting to be able to resist a determined assault.

Tej Singh’s artillery conducted a long and galling bombardment of Gough’s lines, followed by an advance of his cavalry against Gough’s right.

Gough ordered Brigadier White to attack the Sikhs, and, in one last effort, HM 3rd Light Dragoons, 4th Bengal Light Cavalry and 9th Bengal Irregular Cavalry urged their blown horses into the charge, causing Tej Singh to abandon his assault and withdraw from the battle field.  The battle was finally over.

A curious incident occurred at the beginning of the day’s crisis, when the assistant adjutant-general, Major Lumley, suffering, it is thought, from the sun and the stress of battle, approached various regiments in turn and ordered them to march to Ferozepore, with the result that, at the worst moment of the hard-fought two-day battle, a significant portion of Gough’s army left the field. It may be that the sight of those forces marching away towards Ferozepore contributed to Tej Singh abandoning his attack and leaving the field.

The battle ended at around 4pm on 22^nd December 1845, Gough and his army, now virtually without ammunition, reprieved from an attack that would have been hard to resist.

Casualties at the Battle of Ferozeshah: The casualties in the British and Bengali regiments were some 700 dead and 1,700 wounded, of which 1,207 were European, including 115 officers. Among the dead were several staff officers, including Major Broadfoot and Brigadier Taylor.

Regimental Casualties:

HM 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons lost 152 men and 60 horses.
HM 9th Foot suffered 280 casualties.
HM 62nd Foot suffered 299 casualties.
HM 102nd Foot suffered 204 casualties.
HM 29th Foot suffered 184 casualties.
HM 31st Foot suffered 142 casualties.
HM 50th Foot suffered 124 casualties.
HM 80th Foot suffered 81 casualties.
1st Bengal (European) Light Infantry suffered 204 casualties.
Sikh casualties are thought to have been around 3,000. They lost 73 guns.

Follow-up to the Battle of Ferozeshah: After the battle, the Sikh army crossed the Sutlej at Sobraon, while Gough led his army on to Ferozepore, meeting there the demented Major Lumley and the regiments he had led from the field.

Only when reinforcements and additional ammunition arrived in the New Year would Gough resume his offensive and attack the main Sikh army in Sobraon.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Ferozeshah:

• HM 3^rd King’s Light Dragoons made numerous charges in the three days of fighting at Moodkee and Ferozeshah, losing half their strength in casualties. At Ferozeshah, the 3^rd performed the unusual feat for cavalry of charging fortifications and taking them. After the battle the Governor General, Sir Henry Hardinge, praised the regiment for their conduct.
• HM 62^nd Foot suffered 7 officers killed and 11 wounded in the battle, leaving the regiment effectively without officers. It became a regimental custom, on the anniversary of the battle, to hand the colours to the care of the non-commissioned officers for 24 hours in commemoration.
• During the Battle of Ferozeshah, a particularly hard fought action took place over a black Akali standard, with several officers and soldiers of HM 80^th Foot killed in the struggle to capture it. The standard was finally taken by Colour Sergeant Kirkland of HM 29^th Foot and now hangs in Litchfield Cathedral.
• When news of the Battle of Ferozeshah reached London, the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel talked of a Pyrrhic victory. The Duke of Wellington said ‘Gough has lost a good many men; but what of it? You must lose officers and men, if you have to fight a great battle. At Assaye I lost a third of my force.’
  

  Death of Major Broadfoot at the Battle of Ferozeshah on 22nd December 1845 during the First Sikh War

• Present with the British generals at the beginning of the Battle of Ferozeshah was Prince Waldemar of Prussia, son of the King of Prussia and colonel of the Prussian Guard Dragoons. One of the prince’s companions, Herr Hoffmeister, was killed during the fighting. At the end of the first day, fearing that the Sikhs would win the battle when it was renewed the next day, Sir Henry Hardinge sent the prince to the rear, out of harm’s way.
• Sir Henry Hardinge ensured that 1,000 mince pies were distributed to the British troops on Christmas Day 1845.
• The Sikhs mined their camp, so that casualties were caused to the British and Bengali soldiers as they ransacked the tents.
• Many of the captured Sikh guns were brass and decorated with Persian inscriptions.
• Although threatened with trial by court martial, Major Lumley, the assistant adjutant general who ordered several regiments to leave the battlefield at the moment of crisis, as Tej Singh’s army marched up, was medically discharged and sent home.
• Several British regiments commemorate the Battle of Ferozeshah: the 62^nd, which became the Wiltshire Regiment and the 80^th, which became the South Staffordshire Regiment. The successors of both these regiments continued to mount parades on the anniversary of the battle. In the Wiltshire Regiment the colours were handed to two sergeants, who held them for 24 hours in commemoration of the high officer casualties at Ferozeshah, which led to the colours being taken over by sergeants.

Medals and decorations: British and Indian soldiers who took part in the First Sikh War received the medal entitled ‘Sutlej Campaign, 1845-6’.

Where a soldier took part in one or more battles, his medal would have the first battle inscribed on the reverse side of the medal and the remaining battles on clasps on the ribbon.

The battles being described as: ‘Moodkee 1845’, ‘Ferozeshuhur 1845’, ‘Aliwal 1946’ and ‘Sobraon 1846’.

Description of the medal:
Obverse. -Crowned head of Queen Victoria. Legend: ‘Victoria Regina.’
Reverse. -Victory standing beside a trophy, holding a wreath in her outstretched hand. Inscription: ‘Army of the Sutlej.’
Mounting. -Silver scroll bar and swivel.
Ribbon: Dark blue with crimson edges. 1 ¼ inches wide.

References for the Battle of Ferozeshah:

History of the British Army by Fortescue.

History of British Cavalry by the Marquis of Anglesey.

The previous battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Moodkee

The next battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Aliwal

To the First Sikh War Index

Fought on 28^th January 1846, described as the ‘near perfect battle’ and scene of the spectacular charge by HM 16^th Queen’s Lancers

The previous battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Ferozeshah

The next battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Sobraon

To the First Sikh War Index

Battle: Aliwal

War: First Sikh War.

Date of the Battle of Aliwal: 28^th January 1846.

Place of the Battle of Aliwal: In the Punjab in the north-west of India.

Combatants at the Battle of Aliwal: British troops and Indian troops of the Bengal Presidency against Sikhs of the Khalsa, the army of the Punjab.

Commanders at the Battle of Aliwal: General Sir Harry Smith against Ranjodh Singh.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Aliwal: The British and Bengali army of 12,000 men and 30 guns against the Sikh army of 30,000 men and 67 guns.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Aliwal (this section is the same in each of the battles of the Sikh Wars):
The two wars fought between 1845 and 1849 between the British and the Sikhs led to the annexation of the Punjab by the British East India Company, and one of the most successful military co-operations between two races, stretching into a century of strife on the North West Frontier of British India, the Indian Mutiny, Egypt and finally the First and Second World Wars.

The British contingent comprised four light cavalry regiments (3^rd, 9^th, 14^th and 16^th Light Dragoons- the 9^th and 16^th being lancers) and twelve regiments of foot (9^th, 10^th, 24^th, 29^th, 31^st, 32^nd, 50^th, 53^rd, 60^th, 61^st, 62^nd and 80^th regiments).

The bulk of General Gough’s ‘Army of the Sutlej’ in the First Sikh War and ‘Army of the Punjab’ in the Second Sikh War comprised regiments from the Bengal Presidency’s army: 9 regular cavalry regiments (the Governor-General’s Bodyguard and 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 11^th Bengal Light Cavalry), 13 regiments of irregular cavalry (2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 7^th to 9^th and 11^th to the 17^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry), 48 regiments of foot (1^st to 4^th, 7^th, 8^th, 12^th to 16^th, 18^th, 20^th, 22^nd, 24^th to 27^th, 29^th to 33^rd, 36^th, 37^th, 41^st to 54^th, 56^th, 59^th, 63^rd and 68^th to 73^rd Bengal Native Infantry), horse artillery, field artillery, heavy artillery and sappers and miners.

The Bombay presidency contributed a force that marched in from Scinde, in the west, and gave considerable assistance at the Siege of Multan; the 19^th Bombay Native Infantry gaining the title of the Multan Regiment for its services in the siege, a label still held by its Indian Army successor.

A Bombay brigade under Brigadier Dundas joined General Gough’s army for the final battle of the Second Sikh War at Goojerat, where the two regiments of Scinde Horse, Bombay Irregular Cavalry, particularly distinguished themselves. The brigade comprised: 2 regiments of Scinde Horse, 3^rd and 19^th Bombay Native Infantry and Bombay horse artillery and field artillery.

Each of the three presidencies, in addition to their native regiments, possessed European infantry, of which the 1^st Bengal (European) Infantry, 2^nd Bengal (European) Light Infantry and 1^st Bombay (European) Fusiliers took part in the Sikh Wars.

Other corps fought under the British flag, such as the Shekawati cavalry and infantry and the first two Gurkha regiments: the Nasiri Battalion (later 1^st Gurkhas) and the Sirmoor Battalion (later 2^nd Gurkhas).

General Gough commanded the British/Indian army at 6 of the 7 major battles (not the Battle of Aliwal). An Irishman, Gough was immensely popular with his soldiers, for whose welfare he was constantly solicitous. The troops admired Gough’s bravery, in action wearing a conspicuous white coat, which he called his ‘Battle Coat’, so that he might draw fire away from his soldiers.

Gough’s tactics were heavily criticised, even in the Indian press in letters written by his own officers. At the Battles of Moodkee, Sobraon and Chillianwallah, Gough launched headlong attacks, considered to be ill-thought out by many of his contemporaries. Casualties were high and excited concern in Britain and India. By contrast, Gough’s final battle, Goojerat, which decisively won the war, cost few of his soldiers their lives and was considered a model of care and planning.

Every battle saw vigorous cavalry actions, with HM 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons and HM 16th Queen’s Royal Lancers particularly distinguishing themselves. The British light cavalry wore embroidered dark blue jackets and dark blue overall trousers, except the 16th who bore the sobriquet ‘the Scarlet Lancers’ for their red jackets. The headgear of the two regiments of light dragoons was a shako with a white cover; the headgear of the lancers the traditional Polish tschapka.

HM regiments of foot wore red coats and blue trousers with shakos and white covers.
The Bengal and Bombay light cavalry regiments wore pale blue uniforms. The infantry of the presidency armies wore red coats and peak less black shakos.

The weapons for the cavalry were the lance for the lancer regiments and sword and carbine for all; the infantry was armed with the Brown Bess musket and bayonet.

Commands in the field were given by the cavalry trumpet and the infantry drum and bugle.
In the initial battles, the Sikh artillery outgunned Gough’s batteries. Even in these battles and in the later ones, the Bengal and Bombay horse and field artillery were handled with great resource and were a major cause of Gough’s success.

Many of the more senior British officers had cut their military teeth in the Peninsular War, and at the Battle of Waterloo: Gough, Hardinge, Havelock of the 14th Light Dragoons, Cureton, Dick, Thackwell and others. Many of the younger men would go on to fight in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny.

The Sikhs of the Punjab looked to the sequence of Gurus for their spiritual inspiration, and had established their independence, fiercely resisting the Moghul Kings in Delhi and the Muslims of Afghanistan. The Sikhs were required by their religion to wear the ‘five Ks’, not to cut their hair or beard and to wear the highly characteristic turban, a length of cloth in which the hair is wrapped around the head.

The Maharajah of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, whose death in 1839 ended the Sikh embargo on war with the British, established and built up the powerful Sikh Army, the ‘Khalsa’, over the twenty years of his reign. The core of the ‘Khalsa’ was its body of infantry regiments, equipped and trained as European troops, wearing red jackets and blue trousers. The Sikh artillery was held in high esteem by both sides. The weakness in the Sikh army was its horse. The regular cavalry regiments never reached a standard comparable to the Sikh foot, while the main element of the mounted arm comprised clouds of irregular and ill-disciplined ‘Gorcharras’.

The traditional weapon of the Sikh warrior is the ‘Kirpan’, a curved sword kept razor sharp and one of the ‘five Ks’ a baptised Sikh must wear. In battle, at the first opportunity, many of the Sikh foot abandoned their muskets and, joining their mounted comrades, engaged in hand to hand combat with sword and shield. Horrific cutting wounds, severing limbs and heads, were a feature of the Sikh Wars, in which neither side gave quarter to the enemy.

It had taken the towering personality of Ranjit Singh to control the turbulent ‘Khalsa’, he had established. Ranjit Singh’s descendants found the task beyond them and did much to provoke the outbreak of the First Sikh War, in the hope that the Khalsa would be cut down to size by the armies of the British East India Company. The commanders of the Sikh armies in the field rarely took the initiative in battle, preferring to occupy a fortified position and wait for the British and Bengalis to attack. In the opening stages of the war there was correspondence between Lal Singh and the British officer, Major Nicholson, suggesting that the Sikhs were being betrayed by their commander.

Pay in the Khalsa was good, twice the rate for sepoys in the Bengal Army, but it was haphazard, particularly after the death of Ranjit Singh. Khalsa administration was conducted by clerks writing in the Persian language. In one notorious mutiny over pay, Sikh soldiers ran riot looking for anyone who could, or looked as if they could, speak Persian, and putting them to the sword.

The seven battles of the war and the siege of the city of Multan were hard fought. Several of the battle fields were wide flat spaces broken by jungly scrub, from which the movement of large bodies of troops in scorching heat raised choking clouds of dust. As the fighting began, the dust clouds intermingled with dense volumes of musket and cannon smoke. With the thunder of gunfire and horses’ hooves, the battle yells and cries of the injured, the battles of the Sikh Wars were indeed infernos.

Winner of the Battle of Aliwal: The British and Bengali troops of General White’s army.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Aliwal:
British:
HM 16^th Queen’s Light Dragoons (Lancers), now the Queen’s Royal Lancers. *
HM 31^st Foot, later the East Surrey Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.*
HM 50^th Foot, later the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.*
HM 53^rd Foot, later the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and now the Rifles.*

Army of Bengal:
Governor General’s Bodyguard.*
1^st Bengal Native Cavalry.*
3^rd Bengal Native Cavalry.*
5^th Bengal Native Cavalry.*
4^th Irregular Cavalry.*
Shekawati Cavalry.*
3 Batteries of Horse Artillery.*
2 Field Batteries of Artillery.*

24^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
36^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
47^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
48^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
Nasiri Gurkha Battalion.*
Sirmoor Gurkha Battalion.*

The Indian Army regiments:
Cavalry:
The Governor General’s Bodyguard continues as the President of India’s Bodyguard.*
4^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry in1861 became 3^rd Bengal Cavalry, in 1903 3^rd Skinner’s Horse and in 1922 1^st Duke of York’s Own Skinner’s Horse.*
All the regular Bengal cavalry regiments that fought at Aliwal ceased to exist in 1857.
Infantry:
47^th Bengal Native Infantry in1861 became the 7^th Bengal Light Infantry, in 1903 7^th Duke of Connaught’s Own Rajputs in 1903 the 3^rd Battalion (Duke of Connaught’s Own) the 7^th Rajput Regiment and from 1950 the 3^rd Battalion, the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army.*
Nasiri Gurkha Battalion in 1861 became 1^st Gurkha Light Infantry, in 1910 became 1^st King George V’s Own Gurkha Rifles (the Malaun Regiment) and in 1947 became 1^st Gurkha Regiment of the Indian Army.*
Sirmoor Gurkha Battalion in 1861 became 2nd Gurkha Rifles and in 1906 2^nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles (the Sirmoor Regiment) and in 1947 was transferred to the British Army.*
The remaining Bengal infantry regiments that fought at Aliwal ceased to exist in 1857.
*These regiments have Aliwal as a battle honour.

Order of battle of General Smith’s army at the Battle of Aliwal:
Commander: General Sir Harry Smith.
Cavalry Division: Brigadier General Cureton.
Brigadier Macdowell’s brigade: HM 16^th Queen’s Lancers, 3^rd Bengal Light Cavalry and 4^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry.
Brigade Stedman’s brigade: Governor General’s bodyguard, 1^st Bengal Light Cavalry, 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry and Shekawati Cavalry.

Horse Artillery: Major Laurenson, 3 batteries.

Infantry Division:
1^st Brigade: HM 31^st Foot, 24^th and 47^th Bengal Native Infantry.
2^nd Brigade: Brigadier Wheeler; HM 50^th Foot, 48^th Bengal Native Infantry and Sirmoor Battalion of Gurkhas.
3^rd Brigade: Brigadier Wilson; HM 53^rd Foot and 30^th Bengal Native Infantry.
4^th Brigade: Colonel Godby; 36^th Bengal Native Infantry and Nasiri Battalion of Gurkhas.
Artillery: 2 field batteries and 2 eight-inch howitzers.

Account of the Battle of Aliwal:
Following the Battle of Ferozeshah, Tej Singh withdrew his Sikh army across the Sutlej River, while General Sir Hugh Gough formed his force on the south bank and awaited reinforcements.

Seeing this inactivity on the part of the British and Bengali army, Tej Singh detached Ranjodh Singh with 8,000 troops and 70 guns to march east along the river and cross, so as to menace the British base at Ludhiana, thereby causing Gough great concern, as a large slow column of supplies with the British siege train was coming up from the east.

Gough dispatched General Sir Harry Smith with a brigade of infantry, cavalry and guns, to clear the Sikhs away from his line of communication and prevent the Sikhs from taking Ludhiana.

Smith, with little difficulty, captured two small forts occupied by the Sikhs on the south bank of the Sutlej River, Fategarh and Dharmkot, and moved on towards Ludhiana. Ahead of him, Ranjodh Singh was following much the same route, but with little apparent urgency.

Gough reinforced Smith with HM 16th Lancers and another battery of guns, and ordered him to march to Jagraon, on the more southerly road, where he was to take under his command HM 53^rd Foot. He was then to march to Ludhiana, where he would find Colonel Godby with four native regiments, including two battalions of Gurkhas (later the 1^st and 2^nd Gurkha Rifles), and four guns.

Ranjodh Singh, being still on the riverside road leading to Ludhiana, stopped and dispersed his army across the countryside. Smith sent word to Godby, to join him at the village of Suneth for a joint assault on the Sikhs. Smith left his baggage under guard at Jograon, and, in the early hours of 21^st January 1846, marched out to join Godby.

While on the march, word reached Smith that further Sikh forces had come up, giving Ranjodh Singh around 10,000 troops and 40 guns, and that the Sikhs were marching to cut the route from Jograon to Ludhiana at Baddowal.

In the light of the strength of Ranjodh Singh’s army, Smith resolved to march around it and on to Ludhiana, which he managed to achieve, even though the Sikhs had the benefit of being on the road. The British and Bengali infantry reached Ludhiana in a state of exhaustion, many of the foot soldiers carried by the cavalrymen on their horses.

Smith found that Godby was still at Ludhiana. After a day’s rest for his troops, Smith marched out to attack Ranjodh Singh at Baddowal, but found that the Sikhs had left to return to the Sutlej, where more troops were crossing the river to join them.

Smith received further reinforcements from Gough, and, now having 12,000 men and 32 guns, marched north in pursuit of Ranjodh Singh.

The reinforcement that had crossed the Sutlej to join the Sikh army was the Avitabile Regiment, a crack Sikh infantry corps trained by the Italian mercenary, General Avitabile. With this addition, Ranjodh Singh was poised to take the offensive, when Smith’s army came up with him in his fortified position between the villages of Aliwal and Bhundri, his back to the River Sutlej.

Smith formed his army, with the cavalry in the rear and the infantry of two brigades, Wheeler’s and Wilson’s, in the first line, supported by two further brigades, Godby’s and Hick’s, in the second, and continued his advance.

At a range of 600 yards, the Sikh artillery opened fire along the length of their position, causing Smith to halt and consider what move to make next.

Smith directed Godby and Hicks to move out from the second line, storm Aliwal on the right and then attack the Sikh line in enfilade. These two brigades took Aliwal and turned towards the Sikh centre, at which, Ranjodh Singh brought up a body of cavalry to restore his collapsing flank.

Brigade Cureton launched Brigadier Stedman’s cavalry brigade, comprising 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry, the Bodyguard, 1^st Bengal Light Cavalry, 4^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry and the Shekawati Cavalry, in a series of charges against the Sikh horsemen, driving them back from Aliwal, and leaving Godby free to advance beyond the Sikh line, towards their camp on the bank of the Sutlej, at the point where the fords gave Ranjodh Singh’s army the only escape route across the river.

Under the pressure of this attack, the Sikh line swung back along the river bank, pivoting on the village of Bhundri.

A force of cavalry emerged into the plain beyond Bhundri to threaten the British and Bengali flank. Brigadier Cureton ordered Captain Bere’s squadron of HM 16^th Queen’s Lancers and the 3^rd Bengal Light Cavalry to drive this force back. It is said, but with little authority, that the 3^rd did not press home their attack, unlike Bere’s lancers, who charged the Sikh horsemen with great violence and hunted them to the bank of the Sutlej.

Returning from their charge, Bere’s squadron encountered the Avatabile Regiment of infantry, which formed to receive cavalry; the formation being a triangle, rather than a square. Again, the squadron charged home, despite receiving a devastating volley, and broke up the Sikh infantry.

The second squadron of the left flank of HM 16th Lancers, commanded by Captain Fyler, charged further battalions of the Avatabile Regiment, breaking them up.

Two horse artillery guns, acting in support of the wing, unlimbered and opened fire on the remains of the Sikh regiment, completing its ruin.

Meanwhile, the right wing of the 16^th Lancers, commanded by Major Smyth, charged another battalion of Sikh infantry and a battery of guns, Smith beginning the attack with three rousing cheers for the Queen. In this charge, many of the soldiers and officers became casualties.

General Smith met the squadrons of the 16^th Lancers, fighting back through the Sikh line, and called out ‘Well done 16th’. Smith ordered the survivors of the right wing to join Bere’s squadrons and the whole regiment delivered a last devastating charge, capturing the village of Bhundri and driving the garrison to the river bank.

HM 53^rd Foot came up behind the cavalry, and cleared Bhundri of the remaining determined pockets of Sikhs.

While the cavalry fights were raging on the flanks, the British and Bengali infantry regiments, supported by artillery, pressed over the fortifications, forcing the Sikh troops back to the Sutlej; a large force being driven out of a nullah by the 30^th Bengal Native Infantry into the path of a barrage of grape from 12 guns; ‘unkennelling them’ as General Smith described the feat.

As the Sikh regiments took to the fords to escape across the Sutlej, a battery of nine Sikh guns unlimbered on the river bank to cover the retreat, firing only one salvo before being overrun by the pursuing British and Bengali troops.

Ranjodh Singh attempted to bring some of his guns back across the river, but only two reached the far bank, two more being abandoned in the stream and a further two sunk irretrievably in quicksand.

On the far bank, Ranjodh Singh formed a new line but his troops were quickly dispersed by artillery fire.

Casualties at the Battle of Aliwal: General Sir Harry Smith’s army suffered 589 casualties. The casualties were spread evenly through all the units, provoking the admiration of the Duke of Wellington for Smith’s use of all arms of his army. The only exception was HM 16^th Lancers which suffered 144 casualties. The Sikhs admitted to 3,000 killed and lost all their 67 guns, camp equipment and baggage.

Follow-up to the Battle of Aliwal:
Following the Battle of Aliwal, the Sikhs abandoned all their positions south of the Sutlej, other than Sobraon, and crossed the river. With the safe arrival of the siege train, Gough moved to attack the Sikh stronghold of Sobraon.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Aliwal:

• At the Battles of Moodkee and Ferozeshah, the Bengal sepoys and the sowars of the cavalry regiments showed a marked reluctance to engage the feared Sikh soldiers. The Battle of Aliwal changed this, the Bengalis attacking the Sikhs with great élan, driving them across the river in flight.
• HM 16^th Lancers was the second British cavalry regiment to win acclaim in the Sikh Wars, after HM 3^rd King Light Dragoons at Moodkee and Ferozeshah.
  

  HM 16th Lancers killing Sikh gunners at the Battle of Aliwal on 28th January 1846 in the First Sikh War

• The 16^th Lancers took to crimping their lance pennons in commemoration of the battle, after which it is said that the pennons were stiffened with blood. On the other hand, there is convincing evidence that the troopers of the regiment preferred to discard their lances and fight with the sword, as a more effective weapon. ‘A’ Squadron of the Queen’s Royal Lancers still crimps its lance pennons in memory of the battle.
• One of the officers of the 16^th Lancers at Aliwal was Lieutenant William Morris. Nine years later, in 1854, as Captain Morris, he commanded the 17th Lancers in the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava. While in India, Morris became close friends with Lieutenant Lewis Nolan, the staff officer who precipitated the Great Charge. At the commencement of the Charge, Nolan rode beside his friend at the head of the 17^th Lancers, before becoming one of the first casualties to the Russian guns.
• Sir Harry Smith’s dispatch for the Battles of Aliwal and Sobraon said of Brigadier Cureton, ‘The manner in which this famous officer handles his cavalry, under the hottest and most galling fire, ranks him amongst the first cavalry officers of his age.
  

  Major John Rowland Smyth, commanding officer of the 16th Queen’s Lancers at the Battle of Aliwal on 28th January 1846 in the First Sikh War: print by Ackermann

• Major Smyth, who commanded the 16^th Queen’s Lancers at the Battle of Aliwal, was considered a character. Over six foot in height, he had, in 1831, been committed to prison for a year for killing an opponent in a duel. The regiment gave him leave of absence, and Smyth returned to duty, after completing his sentence, ending his army career as a lieutenant-general.
• The charge of the right wing of HM 16^th Lancers is said to have been led by a Sergeant Newsome, who shouted out ‘Hullo boys, here goes for death or a commission.’ Sergeant Newsome leapt his horse over the kneeling front rank of Sikh infantry and went to grab a Sikh colour. He was killed by nineteen bayonet wounds. It is reported that the squadron managed to break into the square, because Newsome’s horse was so fiery and ill-trained that it went straight through the infantry. Peacetime cavalry training had horses breaking around an infantry square, which made it difficult to persuade them to do otherwise in a real battle.
• General Sir Harry Smith, who commanded the British and Bengal troops at the Battle of Aliwal, fought through the Peninsular War in the 95^th. After the storming of Badajoz in 1812, a Spanish lady sought protection from the rampaging British troops.  Smith married the lady, who became the Lady Smith after whom the Natal town was named.

Medals and decorations: British and Indian soldiers who took part in the First Sikh War received the medal entitled ‘Sutlej Campaign, 1845-6’.
Where a soldier took part in one or more battles, his medal would have the first battle inscribed on the reverse side of the medal and the remaining battles on clasps on the ribbon.
The battles being described as: ‘Moodkee 1845’, ‘Ferozeshuhur 1845’, ‘Aliwal 1946’ and ‘Sobraon 1846’.
Description of the medal:
Obverse. -Crowned head of Queen Victoria. Legend: ‘Victoria Regina.’
Reverse. -Victory standing beside a trophy, holding a wreath in her outstretched hand. Inscription: ‘Army of the Sutlej.’
Mounting. -Silver scroll bar and swivel.
Ribbon: Dark blue with crimson edges. 1 ¼ inches wide.

References for the Battle of Aliwal:

History of the British Army by Fortescue.

History of British Cavalry by the Marquis of Anglesey.

The previous battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Ferozeshah

The next battle in the First Sikh War is the Battle of Sobraon

To the First Sikh War Index