Search Results for: Bombay Army

General Gough’s hard fought victory over the Sikh Army
on 10^th February 1846 on the banks of the Sutlej River, that ended the First Sikh War

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

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

To the First Sikh War Index

 Battle: Sobraon

War: First Sikh War.

Date of the Battle of Sobraon: 10^th February 1846.

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

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

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

Size of the armies at the Battle of Sobraon: A British and Bengali army of 15,000 men and 108 guns against a Sikh army of 40,000 men and 67 guns.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Sobraon (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 Sobraon: The British and Bengali troops of General Gough’s “Army of the Sutlej”.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Sobraon:

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 16^th Queen’s Light Dragoons (Lancers), now the Queen’s Royal Lancers. *
HM 9^th Foot, later the Norfolk Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment. *
HM 10^th Foot, later the Royal Lincolnshire 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 53^rd Foot, later the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and now the Rifles.*
HM 80^th Foot, later the South Staffordshire Regiment and now the Staffordshire Regiment.*

Bengal Army Regiments:
Governor General’s Bodyguard.*
3^rd Bengal Native Cavalry.*
4^th Bengal Native Cavalry.*
5^th Bengal Native Cavalry.*
2^nd Bengal Irregular Cavalry.*
4^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry.*
9^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry.*
1^st Bengal Europeans.*
4^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
5^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
16^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
26^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
31^st Bengal Native Infantry.*
33^rd Bengal Native Infantry.*
41^st Bengal Native Infantry.*
42^nd Bengal Native Infantry.*
43^rd Bengal Native Infantry.*
47^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
59^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
62^nd Bengal Native Infantry.*
63^rd Bengal Native Infantry.*
68^th Bengal Native Infantry.*
73^rd Bengal Native Infantry.*
Nasiri Battalion (1^st Gurkhas).*
Sirmoor Battalion (2^nd Gurkhas).*

Nine horse artillery batteries.
Five field batteries
Siege train (six 18 pounders and eighteen heavy mortars and howitzers).

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, in 1922 the 1^st Duke of York’s Own Skinner’s Horse and from 1950 the 1^st Horse of the Indian Army.*
All the regular Bengal cavalry regiments that fought at Sobraon ceased to exist in 1857.

Order of Battle of the Army of the Sutlej at the Battle of Sobraon:
Commander-in-chief: Major General Sir Hugh Gough.
Second-in-command: Sir Henry Hardinge (Governor-General of Bengal).

Cavalry Division: Major General Sir Joseph Thackwell.
1^st Brigade: Colonel Scott; HM 3^rd King’s Own Light Dragoons, 4^th and 5^th Bengal Light Cavalry and 9^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry.
2^nd Brigade: Colonel Campbell; HM 9^th Lancers and 2^nd Bengal Irregular Cavalry.
3^rd Brigade: Governor General’s Bodyguard.
4^th Brigade: Brigadier Cureton; HM 16^th Queen’s Lancers, 3^rd Bengal Light Cavalry and 4^th Bengal Irregular Cavalry.

Artillery:
Nine horse artillery batteries.
Three field artillery nine pounder batteries.
Two field artillery 12 pounder batteries.
Six 18 pounders.
Eighteen heavy howitzers and mortars.

First Infantry Division: Major General Sir Harry Smith.
1^st Brigade: Brigadier Hicks; HM 31^st and 47^th BNI.
2^nd Brigade: Brigade Penny; HM 50^th, 42^nd BNI and Nasiri Battalion.

Second Infantry Division: Major General Sir Walter Gilbert.
3^rd Brigade: Brigadier Taylor; HM 29^th, 41^st and 68^th BNI.
4^th Brigade: Brigade Maclaren; 1^st Bengal European, 16^th BNI and Sirmoor Battalion.

Third Infantry Division: Major General Sir Robert Dick.
5^th Brigade: Brigadier Ashburnham; HM 9^th, HM 62^nd and 63^rd BNI.
6^th Brigade: Brigade Wilkinson; HM 80^th, 33^rd and 63^rd BNI.
7^th Brigade: Brigadier Stacey; HM 10^th, HM 53^rd and 49^th and 59^th BNI.

Detached Brigade: 4th, 5th and 73rd BNI.

Account of the Battle of Sobraon:
Following the heavy defeat of Tej Singh by General Sir Harry Smith at the Battle of Aliwal on 29^th January 1846, the Sikhs withdrew across the Sutlej River at every point except at Sobraon, where the Sikh army took post in its fortifications on the south bank, defying the British and Bengali army to attack.

On 8^th February 1846, Major General Smith re-joined the main army, and Major General Sir Hugh Gough prepared to drive the Sikhs back across the Sutlej River with his complete force.

The Sikh position, comprising a semi-circular ditch and earth rampart, two miles in length, lay at a bend in the river. Dry ravines to the front provided added obstacles to an attack. A bridge of boats and several fords crossed the Sutlej River to the higher northern bank, where further fortifications and gun emplacements provided supporting fire to the main position.

Hardinge suggested to Gough a plan, whereby a force would be ferried across the river upstream and descend on the Sikh rear and flank, but Gough rejected the plan as leaving him open to an attack in the rear by the powerful Sikh force on the south bank.

True to his usual inclination, Gough resolved on a bombardment by the siege train, followed by a frontal infantry attack on the Sikh positions, using the full strength of his 15,000-strong army.

Initially, the artillery officers of the siege train confidently predicted that the eighteen heavy howitzers and five 18 pounders would make short work of the Sikh fortifications, but, having examined the position, they changed their minds and advised against the plan.

Gough was not inclined to cancel the assault, and, after consultation with other officers, decided to deliver the attack on the western side of the Sikh position, the weakest point. Most of the heavy guns were assigned to bombard these western defences, with the assault to be delivered by General Dick’s division. Gilbert’s division would menace the southern section of the defences, while Harry Smith threatened the eastern. Scott’s cavalry brigade supported Dick, while Campbell supported Smith. Brigadier Cureton took his brigade upstream to create a diversion. The lighter guns were spread around the Sikh position, concentrated particularly at the south-east corner.

At 3am on 10^th February 1846, the British and Bengali regiments got under arms as silently as possible, but no action could be begun due to a dense mist, which lasted until around 6am. As the mist dispersed, the artillery opened fire on the Sikh lines.

The bombardment was a failure. The heavy batteries, short of gunners, were forced to borrow soldiers from the field batteries, many of whom had no experience of serving the larger guns. Due to the recent arrival of the siege train and the lack of time for preparation, insufficient ammunition had been brought up to the gun positions, which were themselves too far back. By around 8.30am the gun ammunition had run out, with little damage inflicted on the Sikh positions.

Gough’s reaction to this anti-climax was characteristic: “Thank God.” He said. “Now I’ll be at them with the bayonet” and ordered Dick to attack with his infantry.

It was at this point that a series of messages arrived from Hardinge urging Gough to abandon the attack. Gough ignored these pleas and ordered Dick forward.

At 9am on 10^th February 1846, Dick’s division went into the attack, led by Stacey’s brigade with HM 10^th Foot on the right and 43^rd and 59^th Bengal Native Infantry and HM 53^rd Foot in line. Horse and Field Artillery batteries galloped forward on the flanks and opened a covering barrage.

The Sikh troops and guns opened a heavy fire in response, but Stacey’s regiments stormed the ditch and wall, driving the defenders from their positions. The Sikhs rallied and counter-attacked Stacey’s brigade.

Wilkinson’s and Ashburnham’s brigades of Dick’s division came up in support of Stacey. Along the rest of the line, Gough ordered Gilbert and Smith to launch feint attacks, to draw off the Sikhs from the western face of the entrenchments. These feints had little effect, the Sikhs in overwhelming numbers driving Dick’s brigades out of the positions they had taken.

With the collapse of the assault on the western face of the entrenchments, Gough ordered Gilbert and Smith to convert their feints into full attacks on the southern and eastern sections of the Sikh position. But the withdrawal of Dick’s division enabled the Sikhs to move substantial forces into the newly threatened sections. Taylor’s and Maclaren’s brigades reached the ditch, to find the mound behind it too high to be climbed without ladders, which they did not have. The brigades were driven back with both commanders killed. At the eastern end, Smith’s division only managed to establish a toehold in the Sikh fortifications, struggling to maintain it in the face of rising casualties.

On the western flank of the position, Dick’s brigades reformed and renewed the attack, now finding the Sikh presence heavily diluted from sending reinforcements to the other parts of the line. On the southern section, Gilbert’s division was finally forcing its way into the Sikh position.

At the extreme western end of the Sikh line, near the bank of the Sutlej River, where the fortifications were all but deserted, the inimitable 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons found a way across the ditch and bank and infiltrated in single file, led by Sir Joseph Thwackwell. The regiment formed up and cut loose in the rear of the Sikh position.

Subject to these increasingly successful attacks, the Sikh line began to collapse, the soldiers making for the river crossings to escape. Unfortunately, this was not possible. During the night, heavy rainfall in the mountains had caused the Sutlej River to rise by seven foot, flooding all the fords. In addition, for some reason, Tej Singh had deliberately cut his army off from safety, by removing the central section of the bridge of boats, making it unusable.

The retreating Sikh army attempted to cross by the swollen fords, or crowded onto the southern section of the bridge, which began to collapse, throwing the soldiers into the torrential river. Many were drowned, while Gough’s guns bombarded the struggling masses.

At some time around midday the battle came to an end.

Casualties from the Battle of Sobraon: Sikh casualties are said to have been 9,000 men killed or wounded. Every one of the 67 Sikh guns was captured.

The casualties of the British and Bengal army were 2,283.

Among the dead in the British and Bengali army were General Sir Robert Dick, the commander of the 1^st Infantry Division and two of his brigadiers, Taylor and Maclaren. The commander of the 2^nd Division, Major General Gilbert was wounded, as was Brigadier General Penny.

Follow-up to the Battle of Sobraon:
The Battle of Sobraon ended the First Sikh War.

Following the battle, Gough crossed the Sutlej River with his army, and, on 14^th February 1846, Gholab Singh arrived in the British camp to negotiate peace. Terms were arranged and Gough marched on to Lahore, the Sikh capital. However, few thought this would end the fighting between the Sikhs and the British, and, within a year, the Second Sikh War broke out.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Sobraon:

• Sobraon was the third battle of the First Sikh War in which the 3rd King’s Own Light Dragoons distinguished themselves, following the Battle of Moodkee and the Battle of Ferozeshah. In the Second Sikh War, the 3rd would charge again at the battles of Ramnagar, Chillianwallah and Goojrat.
• General Sir Robert Dick, who was killed in the battle, lost an arm during the Peninsular War.
• General Sir Joseph Thackwell, who commanded the Cavalry Division at the Battle of Sobraon, served with the 15^th Light Dragoons through much of the Peninsular War. Thackwell led his squadron in several charges at the Battle of Waterloo. Thackwell lost his left arm during the Battle of Waterloo, but still rode in the last charge,  holding his reins in his teeth.
  

  Captain Robert Troup, 63rd Bengal Native Infantry, who fought at the Battle of Sobraon on 10th February 1846 during the First Sikh War

• A curious incident took place in Campbell’s cavalry brigade. The major of HM 9^th Lancers, Major Hope-Grant, accused the brigade commander, Colonel Campbell of the 9^th Lancers, of being drunk during the battle, and threatened to arrest him. In retaliation Campbell put Hope-Grant in arrest. The impasse was resolved by Gough, who took no action against either officer. Hope-Grant was subsequently one of the leading British cavalry commanders in the Indian Mutiny.
• The 63^rd Bengal Native Infantry, veterans of the Battle of Sobraon, survived the Indian Mutiny to recruit Nepalese soldiers and become the 9^th Gurkha Rifles. Despite its number, the 9^th is the senior Gurkha regiment due to the seniority of the 63^rd in the Bengal line. At Sobraon the 63^rd captured a Sikh standard, which remains in the possession of the regiment, now part of the Indian Army.
• HM 31^st Foot went into the Battle of Sobraon with no field officers. Both ensigns carrying the colours became casualties during the assault on the Sikh fortifications. Sergeant McCabe took up the Regimental Colour and carried it to the top of the rampart. On the anniversary of Sobraon, the Regimental Colour of the 31^st is carried to the Sergeant’s Mess and entrusted to the Sergeants. See the similar customs that arose after the Battle of Ferozeshah. Sergeant McCabe received a commission and was killed during the Indian Mutiny.

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 Sobraon:

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 Aliwal

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

To the First Sikh War Index

The revenge taken by the Anglo-Indian ‘Army of Retribution’ against the Afghans between August and October 1842 for the massacres at Kabul and Gandamak

The previous battle in the First Afghan War is the Siege of Jellalabad

The next battle in the British Battles sequence is the Battle of Moodkee

To the First Afghan War index

Battle: Kabul 1842

War: First Afghan War

Date of the Battle of Kabul 1842: August to October 1842.

Place of the Battle of Kabul 1842: Afghanistan

Combatants at the Battle of Kabul 1842: British and Indian troops (of the Bengal and Bombay Armies) against Afghan levies and tribesmen.

Commanders at the Battle of Kabul 1842: General George Pollock and Brigadier Nott against Akhbar Khan and a number of Afghan leaders and tribal chiefs.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Kabul 1842: General Pollock’s army numbered 8,000 men. Brigadier Nott’s force numbered around 3,000 men. Afghan numbers varied widely across the country. In the advance up the Jugdulluk Pass, Akhbar Khan faced Pollock with some 15,000 men.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Kabul 1842:
The British infantry, wearing cut away red coats, white trousers and shako hats, carried the old Brown Bess musket and bayonet. The Indian infantry were similarly armed and uniformed.

The Light Dragoons (Hussars) wore the standard hussar uniform of pelisse, dolman and shako rather than a busby, and were armed with swords and carbines.

The Afghan soldiers were dressed as they saw fit and carried an assortment of weapons, including muskets and swords. The Ghilzai tribesmen carried swords and jezails, long barrelled muskets.

Winner of the Battle of Kabul 1842: The British and Indians.

British and Indian Regiments at the Battle of Kabul 1842: 
General Pollock’s army:
British:
3^rd HM Light Dragoons (Hussars) now Queen’s Royal Hussars
9^th HM Foot, later Norfolk Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment
13^th HM Foot, later Somerset Light Infantry, later the Light Infantry and now the Rifles
31^st HM Foot, later East Surrey Regiment and now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment

Indian:
1^st Bengal Light Cavalry
10^th Bengal Light Cavalry
Two Regiments of Irregular Horse
6^th Bengal Infantry
26^th Bengal Infantry
30^th Bengal Infantry
33^rd Bengal Infantry
35^th Bengal Light Infantry
53^rd Bengal Infantry
60^th Bengal Infantry
64^th Bengal Infantry
Two batteries of Horse Artillery
Three batteries of Field Artillery
One battery of Mountain Artillery

Brigadier Nott’s army:
British:
40^th HM Foot, later South Lancashire Regiment and now the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment
41^st HM Foot, later the Welch Regiment and now the Royal Regiment of Wales
Indian:
3^rd Bombay Cavalry
Skinner’s Horse
Regiment of Irregular Horse
16^th Bengal Infantry
38^th Bengal Infantry
42^nd Bengal Infantry, later 5th Jat Light Infantry
43^rd Bengal Infantry, later 6th Jat Light Infantry
12^th Khelat-i-Ghilzai Regiment (of Shah Shujah)
Two batteries of Horse Artillery
Two batteries of Field Artillery

The First Afghan War:
The British colonies in India in the early 19^th Century were ruled by the Honourable East India Company, a powerful trading corporation based in London, answerable to its shareholders and to the British Parliament.

In the first half of the century, France as the British bogeyman gave way to Russia, leading finally to the Crimean War in 1854. In 1839 the obsession in British India was that the Russians, extending the Tsar’s empire east into Asia, would invade India through Afghanistan.

This widely held obsession led Lord Auckland, the British governor general in India, to enter into the First Afghan War, one of Britain’s most ill-advised and disastrous wars.

Until the First Afghan War, the Sirkar (the Indian colloquial name for the East India Company) had an overwhelming reputation for efficiency and good luck. The British were considered to be unconquerable and omnipotent. The First Afghan War severely undermined this view. The retreat from Kabul in January 1842 and the annihilation of Elphinstone’s Kabul garrison dealt a mortal blow to British prestige in the East, only rivalled by the fall of Singapore 100 years later.

The causes of the disaster are easily stated: the difficulties of campaigning in Afghanistan’s inhospitable mountainous terrain with its extremes of weather, the turbulent politics of the country and its armed and refractory population, and, finally, the failure of the British authorities to appoint senior officers capable of conducting the campaign competently and decisively.

At the beginning of the war the substantially Hindu East India Company army crossed the Indus with trepidation, fearing to lose caste by leaving Hindustan, and appalled by the country they were entering. The troops died of heat, disease and lack of supplies on the desolate route to Kandahar, subject, in the mountain passes, to repeated attack by the Afghan tribes.

Once in Kabul, the Anglo-Indian army was reduced to a perilously small force, with many of the troops sent back to India, and left in the command of incompetents. As Sita Ram in his memoirs complained: ‘If only the army had been commanded by the memsahibs all might have been well.’

The disaster of the First Afghan War was a substantial contributing factor to the outbreak of the Great Mutiny in the Bengal Army in 1857, and, more immediately, led to wars in Sind, Gwalior and against the Sikhs in the Punjab.

The successful defence of Jellalabad and the progress of the Army of Retribution in 1842 could do only a little to retrieve the East India Company’s lost reputation.

Account of the Battle of Kabul 1842:
Learning of the massacre of the British and Indian Army retreating from Kabul in January 1842, the Governor General in Calcutta, Lord Auckland, rushed reinforcements across India to Peshawar, and appointed General George Pollock commander in chief of the relieving force, the first artillery officer to hold high command in a British Army.

Pollock reached Peshawar on 6^th February 1842, to find the two brigades of Indian sepoys in a state of near disintegrated morale. It took months of encouragement and training to restore the regiments to a condition of battle readiness, all the while receiving pleas for help from Brigadier Sale, besieged in Jellalabad beyond the Khyber Pass.

In March 1842, a third brigade, consisting of cavalry, reached the army, a reinforcement that completed the restoration of the sepoys’ morale.

On 5^th April 1842, Pollock’s army of eight infantry regiments, three cavalry regiments and two batteries of artillery, 8,000 men in all, marched out for the Khyber Pass.

Afridi tribesmen blocked the pass with a barricade of wood and thorns. Columns of Anglo-Indian infantry infiltrated along the peaks on either side of the barricade, while the artillery blasted grape shot into the thicket, causing the Afridis to abandon the barricade without a fight. That night, the army encamped beneath the recaptured strongpoint of Ali Masjid, the iconic feature at the top of the pass.

At about this time the Ameer left in Kabul by the British, Shah Shujah, was murdered by the Sirdars in his capital city, and his son, Futteh Jung, reluctantly and fearfully took the throne for a short time, before escaping to the British camp and surrendering to Pollock.

In the South of Afghanistan, Brigadier Nott had resolutely held Kandahar for many months, with a force maintained at a high level of efficiency and morale, in sharp contrast to the state of the dispirited and finally annihilated troops that marched from Kabul in January 1842.

In December 1841, Elphinstone despairing called for Brigadier Maclaren’s brigade to march from Kandahar to Kabul, but the Afghanistan winter had balked the journey and forced Maclaren to return to Kandahar, leaving Nott with a powerful and self-confident force.

In January 1842, Nott received the same message that Shah Shujah sent to Sale in Jellalabad, directing him to retreat to Indian. In marked contrast to Sale’s vacillations, Nott refused point blank.

In March 1842, news reached Kandahar of the surrender of the garrison in Ghuznee to the Afghans. Despite a guarantee of safe conduct, the Afghans massacred the sepoys and took the British officers prisoners, among them John Nicholson, later to earn fame at the Siege of Delhi during the Indian Mutiny.

Also in March 1842, Pollock’s force reached Jellalabad, where the garrison was found to have fought off the besieging Afghans. Pollock and Nott awaited instructions from the new Governor General in Calcutta, Lord Ellenborough, Pollock’s primary concern being to secure the release of the British prisoners from the Kabul garrison, still held by the Afghans.

Ellenborough’s initial order, sent in mid-May 1842, was for both forces to retreat to India, with the implication that the prisoners would be abandoned.

Before either force was ready to begin the withdrawal, Ellenborough, on 4^th July 1842, varied his orders by permitting Nott to withdraw to India via Kabul and Jellalabad, and Pollock to withdraw via Kabul.

This was the wide discretion each general sought, and both rushed for Kabul.

Pollock fought two vigorous skirmishes on his way to Kabul, in one of which, at Huft Kotal, he inflicted a heavy reverse on Akhbar Khan and his army of 15,000 Afghan troops, before marching onto the old race course outside Kabul on 15^th September 1842. For much of the route the troops were forced to march over the bones of their colleagues and their families, massacred and mutilated during the terrible retreat in January.

The progress of Pollock’s army was marked with the utmost savagery. Not for nothing was it named the ‘Army of Retribution.’ In areas known to have taken part in the massacre of the Kabul garrison, whole populations were slaughtered and villages burnt.

On 9^th August 1842, Nott sent the greater part of his force back to India from Kandahar, via the southern route through Quetta, while he marched for Kabul with his two British battalions, his ‘beautiful sepoy regiments’ and his artillery.

On 28^th August 1842, as Nott’s army approached Ghuznee, his cavalry was badly mauled in a bungled attack on an Afghan force.

On 30^th August 1842, an army of 10,000 Afghans formed on the hills to the left of the Kabul road. Nott attacked and forced the Afghans off the battlefield with substantial losses.

Nott reached Ghuznee on 5^th September 1842 and drove the Afghans out, before pillaging the town in revenge for the massacre of the sepoy garrison and the ill-treatment of the British officers.

It was the command of the new Governor General, Lord Ellenborough, that the army bring away a set of ornate gates, known as the Gates of Somnath, said to have been looted from India by the Afghans and hung at the tomb of Sultan Mohammed in Ghuznee. A sepoy regiment, the 6th Jat Light Infantry, was required to carry the gates back to India.

On 17^th September 1842, Nott’s army reached Kabul to find, to his chagrin, Pollock there before him.
It was known that the British prisoners from the Kabul garrison were being taken west towards Bamian. Nott, on his march to Kabul, had refused to comply with the urgings of his officers to dispatch a force to Bamian. Pollock did send a force to Bamian, comprising Kuzzilibash Horse under Sir Richmond Shakespear. Brigadier Sale was sent with a force of infantry to support Shakespear, appropriately as Lady Sale was one of the prisoners.

Shakespear arrived at Bamian on 17^th September 1842 to find the British prisoners had negotiated their own release and were in command of their prison and the surrounding area. Prisoners and escort arrived in Kabul on 21^st September 1842 to a rapturous greeting. Before the British and Indian troops left Afghanistan for India there was still unfinished business.

The Kohistanees were known to have played a major part in the uprisings of December 1841 and January 1842, leading to the massacre of the Kabul garrison. A division from the ‘Army of Retribution’ conducted a foray into Kohistan, burning the capital Charikar to the ground, and massacring much of the population.

In Kabul, Pollock’s army destroyed the main bazaar on the basis that the heads of Macnaughten and Burnes had been carried through it after their murder in 1841.

On 12^th October 1842, Pollock and Nott left Kabul with their troops and began the retreat to India via Gandamak, Jellalabad and Peshawar, destroying Jellalabad, Ali Masjid and many villages and towns on the way. Yet again the truth of Wellington’s words was demonstrated (‘It is easy to get into Afghanistan. The problem is getting out again.’) The Afghans harried the retreating troops along the route, particularly through the gorges of Jugdulluk and the Khyber Pass. In the final fighting, 60 of Nott’s force were killed before the British and Indians reached Peshawar.

Casualties at the Battle of Kabul 1842: British and Indian casualties were around 500 killed and wounded. Afghan casualties are unknown. Many thousands of Afghans were slaughtered in the reprisals.

Follow-up to the Battle of Kabul 1842:
Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan has always been dramatic and destructive; never more so than in the First Afghan War.

Britain had enough of Afghanistan after the terrible events of 1839 to 1842. The policy of the Government of India, particularly that of the ‘masterful inactivity’ of Lord Lawrence, kept the British out of Afghanistan for thirty years, until another lapse of good sense and restraint saw the outbreak of the Second Afghan War.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Kabul 1842:

• The Gates of Somnath: In around 1025 AD, Mahmud of Ghuznee pillaged the Hindu Temple of Somnath, on the south-western Indian coast. Tradition had it that the Afghans removed the sandalwood gates of the shrine and took them to Ghuznee, where they were hung on Mahmud’s tomb. Lord Ellenborough, the Governor General, in an attempt to gain the approval of his Hindu subjects, directed that the gates be recovered and brought to India. In obedience to Ellenborough’s order, Nott’s men, during the pillage of Ghuznee in revenge for the massacre of its garrison, removed the gates. On hearing that his order had been complied with, Lord Ellenborough issued a declaration that the British, in recovering the gates, had wiped out a disgrace of 800 years standing. The 6th Jat Regiment carried the Somnath Gates back to India, where Ellenborough caused them to be paraded across the country in a special ceremonial car, before being returned in triumph to the shrine at Somnath. On examination, Hindu scholars rejected the idea that the gates were the originals taken from Somnath and they were relegated to the fort at Agra. No doubt there was unflattering comment made of the Governor General in the ranks of the 6th Jats.
  

  Candahar, Ghuznee, Cabul Medal: Battle of Kabul 1842 in the First Afghan War

• The Khelat-i-Ghilzai Regiment of the Shah Shujah’s service, on its arrival in India, was taken into the British service with that name and continues in the Indian Army.
• A battery of horse artillery in Shah Shujah’s army was also taken into the British Army, and continues as T Battery of the Royal Artillery, with the subsidiary name of Shah Shujah’s Battery.
• The East India Company issued a medal called the Candahar, Ghuznee, Cabul Medal to the troops of Pollock’s and Nott’s forces.

References for the Battle of Kabul 1842:
The Afghan Wars by Archibald Forbes
Afghanistan from Darius to Amanullah by General McMunn
History of the British Army by Fortescue

The previous battle in the First Afghan War is the Siege of Jellalabad

The next battle in the British Battles sequence is the Battle of Moodkee

To the First Afghan War index

Major General Arthur Wellesley’s (later the Duke of Wellington) important defeat of the Mahratta army on 23^rd September 1803, opening the way for the British conquest of Central India

The previous battle in the British Battles sequence is the Storming of Seringapatam

The next battle in the Second Mahratta War is the Battle of Laswaree

To the Second Mahratta War index

Battle:  Assaye

War: Second Mahratta War

Date of the Battle of Assaye: 23^rd September 1803

Place of the Battle of Assaye: Central India

Combatants at the Battle of Assaye: An army of British and Indian sepoy troops from the Madras Presidency against an army of the Mahratta Confederacy.

Commanders at the Battle of Assaye: Colonel, acting Major-General, Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) against Madhaji Scindia, one of the chief rulers of the Mahratta Confederacy.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Assaye: 6,500 British and Madras Presidency Indian troops and Mysore irregular cavalry with around 20 guns against a Mahratta army estimated to be at least 40,000 strong, with more than 100 guns.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Assaye:
The standard firearm for the British and Madras infantry regiments was the muzzle loading flint-lock Brown Bess musket, with an effective range of 100 yards, fired in volleys, and bayonet. The cavalry regiments carried a sword and muzzle loading flint-lock carbine.

The 74th and 78th Highland Regiments wore the kilt but on campaign in India exchanged it for thin linen trousers. Both regiments wore red jackets and feather bonnets.

The Madras regiments wore red jackets and breeches.

The 19th Light Dragoons wore blue jackets and the Tarleton light dragoon helmet.

The Mahratta army comprised a wide variety of fighting men from disciplined European style infantry commanded by mercenary officers and armed with musket and bayonet to hordes of free-moving light horsemen armed with swords and shields.

Both sides possessed muzzle loading artillery.

Winner of the Battle of Assaye:
The Anglo-Indian army of Major-General Wellesley.

British Regiments at the Battle of Assaye:
HM 19th Light Dragoons
HM 74th (Highland) Regiment of Foot
HM 78th (Highland) Regiment of Foot, the Ross-shire Buffs
4th Madras Native Cavalry
5th Madras Native Cavalry
7th Madras Native Cavalry
2nd Madras Native Infantry
4th Madras Native Infantry
8th Madras Native Infantry
10th Madras Native Infantry
12th Madras Native Infantry (2nd Battalion)
Artillery comprising eight 12 pounders, two 5 ½ inch howitzers and some other pieces.

Background to the Battle of Assaye:
In 1800, the East India Company, the British governing agency in India, occupied three areas of the sub-continent; the port of Bombay on the west coast of India; an area around Madras, stretching north and south of the city along the east coast; and the substantial presidency of Bengal, based on the trading port of Calcutta in the Hoogli delta.  The three presidencies were separated by tracts of country governed by Indian potentates.

In the Deccan, the southern central area of the Indian isthmus, the British controlled the principalities of Hyderabad (not to be confused with Hyderabad, capital of Scind on the border with Persia and now in modern Pakistan) and Mysore in the very south.

Separating the three British presidencies, stretching from coast to coast and up to the borders of Nepal in the North and the Punjab in the West, lay the sprawling Mahratta Confederacy, combining the five principalities of the Peshwa Baji Rao, Daulat Rao Sindhia, Jeswant Rao Holkar, the Bhonslar Raja of Berar and the Gaikwar of Baroda.

Sindhia included the old Moghul capital of Delhi in the North with a garrison of French trained troops.

In 1802, war broke out within the Confederacy, with Holkar and Berar defeating the Peshwa and Sindhia and driving the Peshwa from his territory to seek refuge with the East India Company.

The British Governor-General, the aggressive and resourceful Lord Mornington, seized on the pretext of re-instating the Peshwa in his capital, Poona, close to the British city of Bombay, to invade the Confederacy from Mysore in the South and from Oudh in the North.

The incursion from Mysore was commanded by Lord Mornington’s younger brother, Colonel, acting Major-General, Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington.

Wellesley, after a notable part in the Mysore Wars, had for some time planned the inevitable incursion into the Mahratta Confederacy. His extensive intelligence network provided him with full descriptions of the countryside, towns and fortifications he would encounter. Based on this information, Wellesley gave his brother a report setting out how the campaign would develop, advising that it be fought during the monsoon, so that the flooding rivers would hinder the fast-moving Mahratta light cavalry.

In the event, the Mahratta army of Sindhia and Berar – the force Wellesley had to deal with in this section of the war; General Lake fighting with Holkar’s army in the area of Delhi in the North – encumbered itself with a substantial force of infantry, severely restricting its mobility.

In March 1803, Wellesley crossed into the Confederacy from Mysore and marched on Poona, where he restored the Peshwa to his principality, while the Mahratta army fell back. A second force under Colonel Stevenson crossed the border from Hyderabad, its role being to protect Hyderabad from attack.

Account of the Battle of Assaye:

Wellesley, with his British and Madras native regiments, pursued the retreating Mahratta army to the North East, acting in concert with, but separate from Stephenson’s force.

On 23^rd August 1803, Wellesley reached Naulniah, where information came in that the Mahratta army was just six miles distant and about to move off.

The large numbers of Mahratta horsemen forced Wellesley to conduct his reconnaissance of the Mahratta position with the whole of his cavalry brigade.

Wellesley came up with the Mahratta army and found that, far from withdrawing, the Mahrattas were in position behind the Kaitna, a steep-banked river presenting a formidable obstacle. The Mahrattas were ready for battle; with 30,000 horsemen massed on their right and 12,000 infantry on their left; 16 battalions trained and led by French officers, in lines and interspersed by 100 guns.

Without hesitation, Wellesley resolved to attack.

Wellesley’s force comprised 4 cavalry regiments; HM 19th Light Dragoons and 3 Madras native regiments; 7 infantry regiments; HM 74th and 78th regiments of Highlanders and 5 Madras native regiments; with a force of irregular cavalry from Mysore; 6,500 men and 22 guns in all.

Wellesley moved with his cavalry brigade up the river, until he identified a point beyond the left flank of the Mahratta position, where villages on each bank indicated a passable ford.

As the main body of his army came up, Wellesley directed his infantry to cross the ford and attack the Mahratta flank, accompanied by four 12 pounder guns.

Wellesley’s infantry formed up in two lines on the far bank, with the British regiments on the outside flanks, the 74^th opposite Assaye, the 10^th Madras Native Infantry in the centre of the first line and the 4^th and 12^th Madras Native Infantry in the second.

The 19^th Light Dragoons and the 3 Madras cavalry regiments formed the reserve. The Mysore cavalry remained on the near bank of the Kaitna.

Once Wellesley’s intentions were recognised, the Mahratta commanders moved their army, establishing a new line across the isthmus formed by the Kaitna and Juah rivers, their left flank now resting on the village of Assaye.

The Mahratta guns subjected the Highlanders and Madrassis to a heavy fire, as they marched to the river, crossed the ford and advanced to the attack.  The Mahratta gun-fire was particularly heavy from Assaye against the 74^th Highlanders, advancing behind a screen of skirmishers from the 2^nd and 8^th Madras Native Infantry.

Wellesley, in his dispatch after the battle, stated that the 74^th veered to the right in support of the skirmishers and towards the guns that were firing at them, opening up a gap between the 74^th and 10^th Madras Native Infantry.

At some point, the British/Madrassi line came to an extended ridge, where the troops paused before continuing forward.

In the advance on Assaye, the 74^th came near to being annihilated, the Mahratta light cavalry swarming forward through the remnants of the regiment and the gap to its left. The 19^th Light Dragoons and 4^th Madras Native Cavalry charged up from the rear, driving the Mahratta horse back through the British line and continued their attack into the main Mahratta position.

On the British left, where the artillery fire was less heavy, the 78^th Highlanders and Madras Native Infantry stormed the Mahratta line and pushed on, the French officers commanding the Mahratta battalions in the front line apparently abandoning their soldiers and riding for the rear, leaving a number of these battalions to break up.

The practice for Mahratta gunners, on being overrun, was to feign death under their guns, wait for the enemy to pass and resume fire, now into the rear of the attackers. This they did, catching the British and Madras regiments in the rear with a renewed bombardment. The 78^th turned back and with the 7^th Madras Native Cavalry retook the guns, after a determined fight with the gunners. This time, care was taken to ensure that those appearing to be dead were dead.

The success of Wellesley’s attack, in spite of the heavy losses to the 74^th, caused the Mahratta army to break up and retreat to the North-East, pursued for a distance by the 19^th Light Dragoons and the Madras cavalry regiments, and abandoning 98 guns on the battlefield. Stevenson’s Hyderabad force took up the pursuit.

Casualties at the Battle of Assaye:

Mahratta casualties at the Battle of Assaye are said to have been around 5,000 killed, wounded and captured.

The Anglo-Indian force suffered 22 officers and 386 men killed and 57 officers and 1,526 men wounded. One third of Wellesley’s force became casualties in the battle.

The 74^th Highlanders suffered around 400 casualties out of a strength of 500. It is said that every one of the 74^th’s officers became casualties in the battle, 11 being killed. The commanding officer of the 19^th Light Dragoons, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Maxwell, who also commanded the cavalry brigade was killed.

Follow-up to the Battle of Assaye:

Colonel Stevenson pursued the defeated Mahratta army, taking the fortress of Asirgarh, until peace was negotiated in mid-November 1803. The final phase of the Second Mahratta War broke out the same month, with the Mahrattas finally defeated in 1818 at the end of the Third Mahratta War, thereby assuring the British position in Central India.

Wellesley’s older brother, Lord Mornington, the Governor General of Bengal, was ecstatic at the news of the victory at Assaye.

Assaye was seen as a decisive battle in the establishment of British influence and power in Central India and established Wellesley’s reputation in India.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Assaye:

• In later life, the Duke of Wellington, when asked which was his hardest fought battle, would say “Assaye”.  He described the Mahratta gun-fire against the advancing 74^th Highlanders as the heaviest that had been known in India.
• Wellesley had two horses killed under him in the battle and his orderly, riding at this side, was decapitated by a cannon shot. Every officer on his staff lost one or two horses.
• Wellesley is reported to have said before the Battle of Assaye “If I do not give battle to the enemy there will be nothing left for me but to hang myself from my tent pole.”
• Following the battle the 74^th became known as, “the Assaye Regiment”.
  

  Assaye Colour of the 74th Highlanders: Battle of Assaye on 23rd September 1803 during the Second Mahratta War in India

• With almost all the 74^th’s officers casualties, Quartermaster James Grant joined the ranks of the regiment from his post with the ammunition at the rear and assisted the one remaining, but wounded, officer, Major Swinton, in leading the regiment for the remainder of the battle. At the annual parade in commemoration of the battle, the Assaye colour was carried by the quartermaster, in memory of the actions of James Grant.
• The Governor General awarded special colours to the three British regiments; the 74^th and 78^th Highlanders and the 19^th Light Dragoons, and to the Madras regiments. The 74^th, 2^nd Battalion the Highland Light Infantry from 1882, trooped its colour every year on the anniversary of Assaye. There is no record that the 78^th, from 1882 2^nd Battalion the Seaforth Highlanders, made any such use of their colour. Each regiment that fought at the Battle of Assaye was awarded an elephant as its badge.
  

  Badge of the Highland Light Infantry, formerly 71st Regiment, with Assaye Elephant from the Battle of Assaye on 23rd September 1803 during the Second Mahratta War in India

• The 19^th Light Dragoons was raised specifically for service in India.  The regiment returned to England in 1806 and took part in the War of 1812 in North America.  It was disbanded in 1821.  A new 19^th Royal Hussars was raised in 1862 and took the old regiment’s battle honours, being the only British cavalry regiment with the battle honour ‘Assaye‘.

References for the Battle of Assaye:

Fortescue’s History of the British Army.

The Decisive Battles in India by Malleson

Wellington: The Road to the Lion’s Mound 1769-1815 by Daniel Res

The previous battle in the British Battles sequence is the Storming of Seringapatam

The next battle in the Second Mahratta War is the Battle of Laswaree

To the Second Mahratta War index

The Keystone Battle for the British in India, fought on 23rd June 1757 and won with Treachery and Tarpaulins

The previous battle in the Anglo-French Wars in India is the Battle of Kaveripauk

The next battle in the British Battles series is Braddock on the Monongahela

To the Anglo-French War in India index

Battle: Plassey

War: Anglo-French Wars in India (The Third Carnatic War)

Date of the Battle of Plassey: 23rd June 1757

Place of the Battle of Plassey: In Bengal on the Bhagirathi River to the north of Calcutta.

Combatants at the Battle of Plassey: The British East India Company against Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and a small French force. The British were assisted by traitors in the Nawab’s high command.

Generals at the Battle of Plassey: Colonel Robert Clive against Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Plassey:

Clive’s army at Plassey comprised 950 European Troops (including 250 men of His Majesty’s 39th Foot), 2,100 Indian troops being sepoys and topazes, 60 sailors and 100 artillerymen, with eight 6 pounder guns and two howitzers.

Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army comprised 35,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry and 53 pieces of cannon, being 18, 24 and 32 pounders. A small French force commanded by St Frais provided supervision for the artillery and manned some guns.

Winner of the Battle of Plassey: The army of Robert Clive assisted by traitors in the army of Siraj-ud-Daulah.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Plassey:

The Indian soldiers were armed with bows, swords and spears. There were some firearms, mainly firelocks. Siraj-ud-Daulah’s cavalry was largely recruited from the Afghans and Pathans of the north-west, tough and seasoned soldiers fighting with swords and spears.

The significant component of warfare in India in the 1750s became the disciplined French and British infantry and artillery. There were few of these troops and, while effective in the field against the Indian levies, they were susceptible to disease and quickly became casualties.

The answer for the French and the British to the small number of European troops and their vulnerability to tropical disease was to recruit Indian sepoys, arm them with muskets and train them in European battle drill.

The purpose of the various European nationalities in India was initially to trade and there was a reluctance to become involved in the raising, training and paying of large bodies of troops, until it became clear that this was unavoidable, if a presence was to be maintained in India. The French and British quickly became a major force in Indian warfare, due to their advanced military technology and discipline and their urge to dominate India.

Malleson states that the rate of fire for Indian gunners in the 1750s was around 1 shot every fifteen minutes. The European rate of gunfire, 2 or 3 rounds a minute, came as a shock. European cannon had screw mechanisms to adjust the elevation of the barrel, an essential sophistication that was missing from the Indian guns. Malleson states that the battle tactics of Indian commanders tended to be based on the erroneous assumption that once European guns were discharged there was a period of fifteen minutes during which an attack could be launched, while the guns were reloaded. Other features of French and British tactics that came as a surprise were disciplined volley firing and the aggression of European infantry assaults. (In these early days there were no European cavalry or sepoy cavalry in India and the French and English relied on Indian horsemen such as the Mahrattas, although none were present at Plassey)

The combination of these tactical characteristics with the adept and ruthless leadership shown by Robert Clive and other British officers and by some of the French officers, such as M. Paradis, explains how battles were won by small numbers of European troops and sepoys fighting large Indian armies.

Indian armies were feudal levies and the death of a leader was liable to cause his followers to melt away, in part because of a collapse of morale, but also because they no longer considered themselves under an obligation to fight.

Although Britain and France were repeatedly at war in Europe and North America during the 18th Century, in India most of the fighting was against local Indian rulers supported by either the English or the French and not directly between the two rival European powers. In Bengal, the Nawabs were concerned to maintain the presence of the French as a counterbalance to the increasingly ambitious and aggressive English East India Company. The English, on the other hand, were keen to evict all the rival European companies from Bengal, especially the French.

The European troops and sepoys raised by the East India Companies of Britain and France were equipped and armed in the same way as their national infantry.

The weapons carried were a musket with bayonet and a small sword, known in the British army as a ‘hanger’. On campaign, each soldier carried around 25 musket rounds, made up in paper cartridges, in a leather pouch hung from a shoulder belt. The uniform was a coat, red for the British and blue for the French, waistcoat and tricorne hat, worn according to the demands of the weather. In some instances, white was worn instead of blue or red. Sepoys wore shorter coats of their employing nation’s colour. The headgear for sepoys was a local variant of the tricorne. European troops wore stockings, gaiters and heavy shoes. Sepoys wore Indian clothing on their lower body, with sandals or bare feet.

Contemporary accounts of the wars refer to ‘European’ troops, rather than British or French. Both British and French East India Companies recruited whatever European soldiers were prepared to join their armies, regardless of nationality. If captured, a European soldier was very likely to enlist with his captor, rather than remain in prison, so that the British forces contained Frenchmen, along with soldiers of many other European nationalities, with a predominance of British. Equally so with the French.

There were so many Frenchmen in Clive’s army at Plassey, that it was a consideration in deciding at Katwa whether to attack or to wait, that Monsieur Law’s French contingent might join Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army, thereby causing Clive’s Frenchmen to desert.

By 1757, the English East India Company Army was reinforced by His Majesty’s 39th Regiment of Foot. The 39th fought at Plassey.

Background to the Battle of Plassey:

Robert Clive’s early successes were in the south east of India, based on the East India Company’s Madras settlement. The other important trading centres for the East India Company were in Bombay, on the west coast of India and, pre-eminently, at Calcutta in Bengal, at the northern end of the Bay of Bengal, in the east of the sub-continent.

The English East India Company was enabled to establish a permanent presence on the Hugli River, on which present day Calcutta stands, in around 1645, with the consent of the local rulers. The purpose of this establishment was to trade with the merchants and manufacturers in the area and to send the goods acquired by sea to England for profit. The settlement was provided with minimal fortifications and defences.

The East India Company built up an increasing influence in the area. Bengal was subject to repeated invasions by Afghans and Mahrattas from the north and west and the Company’s substantial financial contributions to the defence of the area were important to each Nawab, who ruled Bengal.

In 1689, the East India Company withdrew from the Hugli to Madras, due to the excessive demands of the Nawab of Bengal, Shaista Khan. The following year the Nawab’s successor, Ibrahim Khan, persuaded the company to return. The new settlement was established on the Hugli River, but further south, in a group of villages near the site of Calcutta.

The equivalent French and Dutch companies were already established on sites further up the Hugli River, the French at Chandranagar.

In 1741, Alivardi Khan became Nawab of Bengal, after overthrowing and killing his predecessor, Sarfaraz Khan. The Mughal ruler at Delhi was much weakened by a series of invasions by the Mahrattas and left the magnates in Bengal to sort affairs out among themselves. Alivardi Khan was quickly confirmed in his position.

Alivardi Khan spent the years 1741 to 1756 repelling the repeated invasions of his realms of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa by the Mahrattas, but was eventually forced to come to terms with them.
The foreign traders established along the Hugli were little affected by the wars fought by the Nawab. They probably profited from them as increasing numbers of merchants moved east to escape from the depredations of the Mahrattas.

The East India Company obtained permission to build defensive works around its settlement, which were begun but not finished.

In 1756, Alivardi Khan died and was succeeded by his grandson Siraj-ud-Daulah.

Siraj-ud-Daulah did not share his grandfather’s esteem for the English settlement. He immediately resolved to evict the East India Company from Bengal. On the excuse that they were increasing their fortifications against him and that they were harbouring political offenders, Siraj-ud-Daulah seized the Company’s factory (a storage and trading rather than a manufacturing facility) at Cossimbazar on 4th June 1756. He imprisoned the garrison and appropriated the Company’s property.

On 19th June 1756, Siraj-ud-Daulah with a large army captured Calcutta after a four-day siege (the war with the British became known as the Third Carnatic War and was to lead to British domination of Bengal).

The Black Hole of Calcutta:
That night the incident took place, subsequently known as the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. Traditionally, it is claimed that 123 of 146 prisoners from the captured British garrison and their families, held in the hole, died during the night, due to the heat and the number of persons in a cell designed for 2 or 3 prisoners. The figure was computed by John Holwell, a survivor, and is disputed. It seems clear that Siraj-ud-Daulah did not directly cause the detention of the prisoners in the cell and that he ordered the release of the survivors the next morning.

Many of the garrison escaped from Calcutta on board English ships and sailed down river to Fulta, to await the arrival of a relieving force from Madras.

The Re-capture of Calcutta

News of the loss of Calcutta reached Madras on 15th July 1756 and a force under Major Kilpatrick was dispatched to Fulta, at the mouth of the Hugli in Bengal.

A Royal Navy squadron was present in the Bay of Bengal, commanded by Vice Admiral Watson. The Company authorities at Madras resolved to send as many of the troops and ships at their disposal to retake Calcutta, in spite of the imminence of hostilities with the French, who were present in strength in Southern India.

It took some time to assemble the military force and decide that it was to be commanded by Robert Clive, the fleet being commanded by Admiral Watson. The fleet sailed on 16th October 1756 for the Hugli River.

The ships arrived at Fulta between 11th and 20th December, other than the Marlborough, which arrived at the end of January 1757 and the Cumberland which was forced south and went aground, finally arriving in mid-March 1757.

Once Clive landed in Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah’s main force left Calcutta. The small garrison left behind surrendered to Clive on 2nd January 1757. On 9th January 1757 Clive captured the town of Hugli.

After re-occupying Calcutta, Clive disposed of a force of some 900 European soldiers, 1,200 sepoys and around 15 guns.

Siraj-ud-Daulah resolved to attack Calcutta again. For this operation, he raised an army said to have comprised 18,000 cavalry, 25,000 infantry and 40 guns. He marched on Calcutta, arriving at the edge of the Mahratta Ditch, a defensive work giving protection to the settlement, on 3rd February 1757.

On 4th February 1757, Clive attacked Siraj-ud-Daulah’s camp. He intended a night attack, but being delayed, Clive attacked in a thick fog in the early hours of the morning. The fog lifted, revealing Clive’s small force in the middle of the camp. Clive fought his way out, leaving Siraj-ud-Daulah so intimidated by the aggressive assault that he withdrew.

On 9th February 1757, Siraj-ud-Daulah signed a treaty restoring to the Company its former privileges and agreeing to hand over the property looted in the capture of Calcutta and Cossimbazar.

Soon after the signing of the treaty between the East India Company and Siraj-ud-Daulah, news reached the English in India from Europe of the outbreak of war between England and France. This posed a considerable dilemma. Clive was under orders to return to Madras with his army. This would leave Calcutta at the mercy of a combination between Siraj-ud-Daulah and the French. Clive resolved to act decisively before leaving Bengal for Madras.

For Clive, the obvious course was to attack and destroy the French settlement at Chandranagar (now Chandernagore). This would be a provocation to Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab, as all the foreign settlements were under his protection and warfare between them could only be conducted with his permission. Siraj-ud-Daulah needed the French in Bengal as a counter balance to the increasingly aggressive English.

Clive marched on Chandranagar and, after bribing the Nawab’s general sent to intervene, took and destroyed the settlement on 23rd March 1757.

This action on Clive’s part infuriated Siraj-ud-Daulah. He was just twenty years of age. English descriptions of Siraj-ud-Daulah give him as spoilt and inexperienced, in contrast to his adversary Clive, a highly talented and ruthless soldier and statesman. In addition, Siraj-ud-Daulah’s realm was constantly threatened with invasion on its western border by the Afghans and the Mahrattas, diverting his resources and attention from his problems with the English in the east.

Clive had many years experience of manipulating the Indian leaders against whom he was pitted. From his arrival in Bengal, Clive worked to corrupt Siraj-ud-Daulah’s generals and courtiers. As further war became imminent, with the destruction of Chandranagar, Siraj-ud-Daulah could rely fully on only a small number of his senior commanders, with many of the major interests in his capital, Murshidabad, committed to the English.

The one body of troops that Siraj-ud-Daulah would have been able to rely upon fully, Monsieur Law and his French troops, Siraj-ud-Daulah ordered to move 100 miles to the west, to Bhagalpur.

After the capture of Chandranagar, Siraj-ud-Daulah and the East India Company Committee in Calcutta exchanged a long series of letters of complaint. During the three months of this correspondence, Siraj-ud-Daulah moved his army to Plassey on the Bhagirathi River, 22 miles south of Murshidabad. His army was commanded by Raja Durlabh Ram and contained a large force led by his uncle by marriage, Mir Jafar Khan. Both these generals were proposing to betray Siraj-ud-Daulah.

Clive and the Company Committee in Calcutta chose to take the presence of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army at Plassey as a direct threat to Calcutta.

During this time, Clive negotiated a treaty, through the intermediary William Watts, with Mir Jafar Khan, whereby the English would assist Mir Jafar Khan in obtaining the Nawabship of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, in exchange for substantial payments to the Company and its various officers. Many of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s senior officers were in support of Mir Jafar Khan in this conspiracy. Under the treaty Mir Jafar Khan undertook to change sides during any hostilities.

During the standoff between Siraj-ud-Daulah and the Company authorities, a letter arrived in Calcutta from the Mahratta Chieftain at Berar, proposing that he should invade Bengal with an army of 120,000 men and fight Siraj-ud-Daulah in alliance with the English.

Clive suspected, wrongly, that this letter was a forgery, sent on behalf of Siraj-ud-Daulah to establish what the English intentions were towards him. Acting on that assumption, Clive sent the letter to the Nawab. Siraj-ud-Daulah was appalled at the threat of such an invasion and recalled his army to defend Murshidabad.

Account of the Battle of Plassey:
On 12th June 1757, the remaining troops at Calcutta, with 150 sailors from Admiral Watson’s squadron, marched to join Clive’s force at Chandranagar. Clive now had 950 European Troops (including 250 men from His Majesty’s 39th Foot), 2,100 sepoys, 100 artillerymen, 60 sailors and eight 6 pounder guns and 2 howitzers.

Clive marched out of Chandranagar on 13th June 1757, leaving a garrison of 100 men. Arriving on 16th June at Palti, Clive sent Major Eyre Coote of the 39th Foot with a small force to take the post of Katwa, containing an Indian garrison and a considerable quantity of supplies. The garrison surrendered to Coote after a token resistance.

As Clive and his army approached Siraj-ud-Daulah’s camp, the correspondence with Mir Jafar Khan became less than satisfactory, leaving Clive to wonder whether Mir Jafar Khan would in fact comply with the obligations set out in the secret treaty and betray Siraj-ud-Daulah. If he did not, the likelihood was that Clive’s army would be overwhelmed in any battle.

Clive halted the advance at Katwa and wrote to the Committee in Calcutta, asking for their advice as to whether to proceed with the advance. This was an unusual show of hesitation in Clive, normally impetuous to the point of rashness. That evening, after writing to the Rajah of Burdwan, asking him to join his army with a thousand horsemen, Clive held a Council of War with all his officers. The question discussed and put to the council for a vote was whether the army should continue to advance or stay at Katwah, until the intentions of the traitors in Siraj-ud-Daulah ‘s camp became clearer.

The majority of the officers were for staying put. Major Eyre Coote, the hotheaded Queen’s officer of the 39th Foot and a minority of the younger officers were for pressing ahead with the attack. Clive voted with those advocating caution. Coote urged that a delay would enable Monsieur Law to join Siraj-ud-Daulah from Bhagalpur with his French troops, known to have been urgently summoned by Siraj-ud-Daulah. The presence of Monsieur Law’s force in the opposing army, in addition to strengthening it significantly, was likely to cause the many Frenchmen serving in the East India Company army to desert to their own side.

On hearing that Clive was halted at Katwah, Siraj-ud-Daulah rushed his force forward to occupy the camp at Plassey, an established post for his army.

After the Council of War, a further letter reached Clive from Mir Jafar Khan, confirming that in the event of battle he would join the English against Siraj-ud-Daulah. Clive immediately changed his mind and the army marched.

At 6am on 22nd June 1757, the army crossed the Bhagirathi River to the east bank, using the accompanying flotilla of boats which carried the supplies. The crossing took most of the day and brought the army within 15 miles of Plassey.

Clive’s army marched again at sunset on 22nd June 1757. It was now raining heavily, the earliest onset of the annual monsoon weather and, in places, the river overflowed its banks, forcing the soldiers to march in water that reached up to their waists.

At 1am on 23rd June 1757, the army reached Plassey, a small village with a hunting lodge owned by the Nawab, Siraj-ud-Daulah. The army bivouacked in a mango grove beyond the village, placing vedettes around the grove.

The Company’s troops could hear distant military music. The camp of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s large army was within earshot, about a mile up the river. Clive sent a party to occupy the hunting lodge.

The mango grove, in which the English army encamped, was 800 yards long and 300 yards wide, and contained regular rows of mango trees. Around the grove was a ditch and an embankment.

Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army comprised 35,000 foot soldiers, most poorly armed and lacking formal discipline. His cavalry was around 15,000 horsemen, mostly Pathans from the North-West, well mounted, armed with swords and spears. All skilled and experienced riders.

Siraj-ud-Daulah’s artillery comprised 53 cannon, all of heavy calibre; 32, 24 and 18 pounders. Guns of this size, more usually deployed in fixed position siege work, were not ideal for use on the battlefield, being cumbrous, slow to load and difficult to move. The heavy ammunition could not be easily carried with the guns in sufficient quantity for a battle. Siraj-ud-Daulah’s gunners attempted to deal with these various problems by mounting the guns on enormous wooden trucks, towed by oxen and pushed by elephants. The guns were apparently fired from these platforms. It is likely that the rate of fire will have been even slower than on the ground, with each discharge and heavy recoil damaging the wooden structures and terrifying the animals, particularly the elephants, notoriously unreliable in battle and dangerous to their own side.

On the battlefield, a ball from a 32 pounder gun would do little more damage than one from a 6 pounder. Indian gunners were not well drilled and produced a slow rate of fire, taking, according to Malleson, around fifteen minutes to fire each round, as against 2 or 3 rounds a minute for European gunners (this is partly explained by the disparity in the size of the guns that each side deployed).

Locally manufactured, the Indian guns lacked modern refinements such as elevating screws, making it near impossible to aim the guns with any accuracy from the wooden trucks.

In spite of the large number of guns, it seems likely that Siraj-ud-Daulah’s artillery was of little assistance to his army. It seems to have inflicted few casualties on Clive’s army.

The illustration by Richard Caton Woodville, at the head of the site, while giving an idea of how the arrangements for Siraj-ud-Daulah’s cannon may have been made, is incorrect in that the guns shown are of the 6 pounder size.

Supervising the Indian gunners and working a few smaller calibre field guns themselves (see the illustration of a captured French gun) were 40 or 50 Frenchmen, retained from Monsieur Law’s force, all deeply resentful at Clive’s destruction of the French settlement at Chandranagar and commanded by Monsieur St Frais.

Siraj-ud-Daulah’s Plassey camp was covered by entrenched works, stretching for 200 yards away from the river and then for about 3 miles towards the north. At the corner stood a redoubt.

800 yards to the east of the redoubt stood a hillock covered with jungle. Between the two armies and nearer to the mango grove occupied by Clive’s force was a tank or pond and beyond it a larger tank, both surrounded by high mounds of earth.

At daybreak on 23rd June 1757, Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army marched out of the Plassey encampment and took up battle positions in a rough quarter circle around the English army.

The French troops with 4 cannon occupied the mound around the larger tank, about half a mile from the English army. Between the larger tank and the river were 2 heavy guns manned by Indian gunners. Behind these guns stood Mir Madan Khan, described as Siraj-ud-Daulah’s sole faithful commander, with 5,000 cavalry and 7,000 foot soldiers, all described as the pick of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army.

The rest of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army formed in a crescent facing the river, from the jungle covered hillock round to a point behind the mango grove. The commanders were, from the hillock, Raja Durlabh Ram, Yar Lutf Khan, and, on the left, Mir Jafar Khan, the principal traitor. The numbers in this crescent line were 45,000 infantry and cavalry with numerous guns. Clive’s force was effectively surrounded and pinned against the river. His survival and success depended upon the treachery of Mir Jafar Khan and the other Indian commanders.

Clive watched the deployment of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s troops from the roof of the Plassey hunting lodge. As Mir Jafar Khan’s troops extended around the mango grove, outflanking his troops and finally threatening their rear, he must have wondered what would happen if the traitors betrayed him instead of their Nawab.

Contrary to the usual Indian practice of placing artillery together, Siraj-ud-Daulah’s guns were dispersed along his line in twos and threes.

In accordance with his usual tactic of showing a bold front, Clive ordered his troops out of the grove to form a line, with its left resting on the hunting lodge. The European troops were placed in the centre in 4 divisions, commanded by Major Kilpatrick, Major Grant, Major Coote and Captain Gaupp, with 3 of the 6 pounders on each side, and a division of Indian troops on each flank.

Clive sent forward a party with 2 of the 6 pounders and 2 howitzers to occupy a group of brick kilns, 200 yards in front of the left flank.

Both armies were in place by 8am. The French, under St Frais, fired the first gun, which acted as a signal for the opening of a heavy bombardment all along the line of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army. The Indian line was enveloped in a cloud of powder smoke. The English guns returned the fire and inflicted considerable damage on Siraj-ud-Daulah’s troops.

Clive could not afford even the few casualties caused by the French and Indian gunfire.  At the end of half an hour and with 30 casualties Clive pulled his line back behind the mound along the perimeter of the mango grove. The troops and guns posted in the brick kiln and the men in the hunting lodge remained in position.

Encouraged by the English withdrawal, Siraj-ud-Daulah’s guns moved nearer and continued their fire.

Clive’s men were now in cover. They dug embrasures in the mango grove mound for their guns to fire through, while Siraj-ud-Daulah’s cannon caused havoc only among the mango trees, firing over the heads of the English soldiers concealed behind the mound.

Clive’s guns resumed their fire with considerable effect, killing Indian gunners and causing supplies of their ammunition to explode, generating panic among the draft animals and clouds of powder smoke.

This cannonade continued for three hours, but without any decisive effect. Siraj-ud-Daulah’s guns maintained their fire and there was no sign of any of his commanders deserting him.

At 11am, Clive called his senior commanders to a council to decide what to do. It was resolved to continue the battle until nightfall and then attack Siraj-ud-Daulah’s camp.

Soon after the council ended a heavy rainstorm came on, continuing for an hour. The English troops were used to campaigning in a country where the monsoon had such an impact. They produced tarpaulins and covered the artillery ammunition to keep it dry. Siraj-ud-Daulah’s artillery did not have tarpaulins and much of their powder was ruined by the rain and rendered unusable. Their fire fell away.

Mir Madan Khan, Siraj-ud-Daulah’s one reliable commander, commanding on the right wing by the river, assumed that the English artillery must have suffered the same catastrophe as his own and launched an attack with his cavalry. They were met with a devastating discharge of grape at short range, which decimated and repelled the charging cavalry and mortally wounded Mir Madan Khan. The dying commander was brought to Siraj-ud-Daulah.

This was the crisis of the battle. While Mir Madan Khan lived and commanded in the key part of the battlefield, it was possible for Siraj-ud-Daulah to win the battle. Without that capable and faithful commander, he was at the mercy of the other three commanders, all disloyal.

Siraj-ud-Daulah sent for Mir Jafar Khan, threw his turban on the ground and begged Mir Jafar to protect him. Mir Jafar promised to defend him to the utmost, then rode back to his wing of the army and sent a letter to Clive informing him of the death of Mir Madan Khan and urging him to attack without delay. This letter did not reach Clive during the battle.

Siraj-ud-Daulah then spoke to his other two commanders. Raja Durlabh Ram urged Siraj-ud-Daulah to order his army to return to the camp and leave the camp himself. Siraj-ud-Daulah adopted this advice and left on a camel for his capital, Murshidabad, with an escort of 2,000 horsemen.

The three treacherous generals began the withdrawal to the camp, the artillery leading the column. They were constrained in their treachery in that their’s was a personal contract with the English, while the rest of the army was generally still faithful to their Nawab, Siraj-ud-Daulah.

In any case, the French commander, St Frais, refused to retreat and continued to fight from the large tank, although the soldiers of the now deceased Mir Madan Khan joined the withdrawal to the camp.

On the English side, once the down pour of rain finished, Clive withdrew into the Plassey Hunting Lodge to put on dry clothes. He left instructions to be told if anything changed in the form of the battle.

On the left of the line, Major Kilpatrick saw the beginning of the withdrawal of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s troops and that the French were being left isolated at the large tank. Kilpatrick took it on himself to order forward his contingent of 250 European troops and 2 of the 6 pounders. He sent an officer to inform Clive of his actions.

Clive’s reaction to the news that Kilpatrick was advancing was fury. He rushed out of the lodge, intending to put Kilpatrick in arrest, but, seeing the general withdrawal of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army, confirmed Kilpatrick’s decision and ordered the rest of the English line to join the advance.

When Mir Jafar Khan reached the point opposite the western end of the mango grove, his troops left the column and wheeled towards the English positions. Mir Jafar Khan’s intentions were still unclear and Clive was uncertain whether the troops approaching his line were Mir Jafar’s. A small English detachment with a field gun was given the task of halting this approach, which it did.

St Frais, to avoid being overwhelmed, withdrew to the redoubt on the corner of the entrenchments, as the long column of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army made its way into the camp.

Clive moved his force forward to the tank abandoned by St Frais and began a bombardment of the Plassey camp. The reaction from Siraj-ud-Daulah’s thousands of soldiers who were not part of the conspiracy against him was to turn back, march out of the camp and resume the battle, which now became intense.

Clive moved his force nearer to the camp in three detachments. one, comprising nearly half his force, moved to the mound by the smaller of the two tanks, while the other half advanced to the higher ground between the tank and the river.  A further party of some 160 men from the grenadier company of the 39th Foot and a sepoy grenadier company moved even closer, occupying another tank. All the English troops and guns opened a general fire on Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army.

Siraj-ud-Daulah’s soldiers fought hard, but were leaderless and without direction, other than St Frais’ Frenchmen. The cannon and musket fire from Clive’s positions inflicted great loss on Siraj-ud-Daulah’s troops and the oxen towing the platforms for the heavy guns.

It became clear to Clive that the substantial Indian force, motionless but in a position that appeared to threaten his right flank, must be the troops of Mir Jafar Khan. Free from anxiety of an assault by this force, Clive launched attacks on the hill to the left of the French redoubt and, once that was successful, on St Frais’ men in the redoubt itself. Isolated and outnumbered, St Frais retired from the redoubt.

From then on, resistance by Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army ebbed away and, by 5pm, the English were in possession of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s camp and the battle was over.

The pursuit of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s fleeing army was pressed for 6 miles to Dudpore, where it was abandoned with the fall of night.

Casualties at the Battle of Plassey:
Clive’s army suffered casualties of 23 dead and 49 wounded. The casualties of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army were around 500 dead and many wounded. The English captured horses, elephants, and all of the 53 guns brought against it

Battle Honour and Campaign Medal for the Battle of Plassey:

The Battle Honour ‘Plassey’ was awarded to the 39th Foot (later the Dorsetshire Regiment), the 1st Madras Europeans (later the Royal Dublin Fusiliers) and the 1st Bengal Europeans (later the Royal Munster Fusiliers).

No official medal was issued for the Battle of Plassey.

However, the Society for Promoting Arts and Commerce in 1758 issued a medal commemorating the victory at the Battle of Plassey.

Follow-up to the Battle of Plassey:

Following the Battle of Plassey, in accordance with the treaty he had signed with Clive and the East India Company Committee in Calcutta, Mir Jafar Khan entered Murshidabad with Clive and became Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. It was however largely an empty honour as the real power in Eastern India was now the English East India Company. Under the treaty, Mir Jafa Khan was compelled to pay substantial sums of money to the East India Company and also to Clive and the Company and Royal officers of his army and the Royal Navy squadron of Vice Admiral Watson that supported the land operations. All these men were enriched by these payments. Those who survived to return to England, Watson and Kilpatrick, and the several others who died soon after Plassey from infectious disease brought on by the oppressive climate became known as ‘Nabobs’ from their India derived wealth.

Malleson asserts that the Battle of Plassey set the course for the establishment of the British Empire in India and the Far East.

Siraj-ud-Daulah fell into the hands of the new Nawab, Mir Jafar Khan and was murdered.

Regimental anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Plassey:

• The ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ caused a sensation in England, although it does not seem to have been much of an issue among the English in India at the time.
• Siraj-ud-Daulah was known colloquially in England as ‘Sir Roger Dowler’.
• The 39th Foot, from 1880 the Dorsetshire Regiment, adopted the motto ‘Primus in India’, to mark their involvement in the early campaigns as the first Royal Regiment to be sent to India. The motto appeared in the regimental badge.

References for the Battle of Plassey:

• The East India Military Calendar Volume II
• The Decisive Battles in India by Malleson
• History of the British Army by Fortescue Volume II

The previous battle in the Anglo-French Wars in India is the Battle of Kaveripauk

The next battle in the British Battles series is Braddock on the Monongahela

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Robert Clive ‘Clive of India’ wins the battle in 1751 said to have begun British rule in India

The previous battle in the British Battles series is the Capture of Havana

The next battle in the Anglo-French War in India is the Battle of Arni

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Battle: Siege of Arcot

War: Anglo-French Wars in India (Second Carnatic War)

Date of the Siege of Arcot: 31^st August to 15^th November 1751 (the dating is given in Old Style)

Place of the Siege of Arcot: In South East India.

Combatants at the Siege of Arcot: The Nabob of Arcot, Chunda Sahib, assisted by the French against Mohammed Ali, son of the previous Nabob of Carnatica, assisted by the British.

Generals at the Siege of Arcot: Raju Sahib, son of Chunda Sahib, against Robert Clive.

Size of the armies at the Siege of Arcot: The army of Raju Sahib comprised some 11,000 native troops and 150 French troops. Raju Sahib was supported by a train of French siege artillery. Clive’s force comprised 200 British and 300 Sepoy troops and 3 guns. He was able to use the guns he found in the abandoned fort at Arcot. The number of these pieces is unknown.

Winner of the Siege of Arcot: Robert Clive.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Siege of Arcot:
The various native rulers were able to put large armies into the field at short notice. These armies comprised indisciplined levies armed with bows, swords and spears. There were few firearms. A constant threat from North-West India were the Mahrattas, better disciplined mounted warriors.

The most significant component in India was the disciplined French and British infantry and artillery armed with muskets and field guns. There were few of these troops and, while effective in the field against the native levies, they were susceptible to disease and quickly became casualties.

The answer for the French and the British to the lack of European numbers and their vulnerability to tropical disease was to recruit native sepoys, arm them with muskets and train them in European battle drill. This both European nations began to do. For the British, their presence in India was primarily to trade and there was a reluctance to become involved in the raising, training and paying large bodies of troops, until it became clear that this was unavoidable if a presence was to be maintained in India in the face of French ambition and aggrandisement.

As the French and British sepoy armies became stronger the two nations ceased to fight as proxies for local rulers and the fighting between them became direct, although the wars with the native rulers continued to be an important component of the politics of southern India, particularly as the French lost ground to the British.

Background to the Siege of Arcot:
The Siege of Arcot was among the first significant battles for the British in India. The predominant power on the Indian sub-continent was the Muslim Mogul Emperor in Delhi. The Emperor maintained a loose rule over a system of sub-rulers of varying power and loyalty. These rulers struggled over the suzerainty of a number of states of differing sizes. These struggles were particularly savage when a ruler died leaving family and retainers to fight over the succession. In the south of India, the native rulers turned to the two competing European powers, Britain and France, to assist in these struggles.

Between 1748 and 1751, the French Governor Dupleix worked to build up French influence in the South of India.

The departure of Boscawen’s British fleet for England in the autumn of 1749 with the arrival of the monsoon lifted a major restraint on French ambition and the French quickly established control of the Deccan, much of the Carnatic and other states in Southern India.

In July 1751, Chunda Sahib, the Nawab of Arcot, with a force of 8,000 native and 400 French troops, advanced to lay siege to Trichinopoly, held by Mohammed Ali, the Nawab of Tanjore.

In February 1751, the British sent a force of 300 European and 300 Sepoy soldiers to assist Mohammed Ali in holding his capital of Trichinopoly. This force eventually was increased by a further 500 British and some African troops and 1,000 Sepoys, commanded by Captain Gingen assisted by Lieutenant Robert Clive.

Gingen attempted to intercept the advance of Chunda Sahib on Trichinopoly. Due to panic amongst his British troops Gingen was forced to withdraw into Trichinopoly, less Clive who returned to the coast, where he joined the garrison of 1,600 of Mohammed Ali’s army, described by Fortescue as a ‘rabble’.

From 17^th July 1751 Chunda Sahib besieged the British and Mohammed Ali’s army in Trichinopoly.

The main British presence in the area was at Fort St David on the coast. A small force of British troops arrived at Fort St David from Britain and from this force a reinforcement was dispatched to Trichinopoly under Mr. Pigot and Robert Clive.

A further force was inserted into Trichinopoly by Clive, who formed the view that the only way to alleviate the disastrous position the British were now in, with almost all their European troops and all their military officers shut up in Trichonopoly, was to carry out a diversionary attack. Clive’s plan was to attack Arcot, Chunda Sahib’s capital to the north of Trichinopoly.

Clive travelled up the coast to Madras, and put his plan to the British Governor, Robert Saunders. Saunders immediately agreed to the expedition, putting Clive in command of a force of 200 British troops and 300 Sepoys with 3 guns, almost all the force available in Madras and Fort St David. Clive was given 8 officers, of whom 4 were civilian clerks, taken from the East India Company Madras office for the expedition.

Account of the Siege of Arcot:
Robert Clive marched out of Madras on 26^th August 1751 for the 65 mile journey to Arcot, crossing the River Paliar at Conjeveram. After 5 days, Clive’s force was 10 miles short of Arcot.

Clive’s information was that Arcot was unfortified, with a dilapidated fort containing a garrison of 1,000 native soldiers.

Clive began his final approach march in a heavy thunderstorm. News that the British were advancing in spite of the terrible weather seems to have weighed heavily with the Arcot garrison, which abandoned the fort and left the town.

Clive’s men took over the fort and began work to put it in a state of defence, mounting the guns left by the fleeing garrison on the battlements.

Informed by his scouts that the garrison was encamped some 6 miles from the town, where they were receiving reinforcements, Clive mounted a series of successful attacks which resulted in the garrison dispersing into the countryside.

As Clive anticipated, the news that his capital had been captured by the enemy was of greater immediate concern to Chunda Sahib than taking Trichinopoly.

Chunda Sahib dispatched his son, Raju Sahib, with a force of 4,000 native soldiers and 100 French troops, reluctantly provided by Dupleix, to retake Arcot.

Raju Sahib arrived at Arcot on 23^rd September 1751, and invested the fort.

Ever aggressive, on 24^th September 1751 Clive launched an attack on his besiegers. Clive’s force was driven back into the fort with the loss of 2 officers and 31 European soldiers killed and wounded, a heavy cost in view of his limited numbers.

On 25^th September 1751, Raju Sahib received re-enforcements bringing his army to 11,000 native soldiers and 150 European troops. Clive’s garrison now comprised 120 Europeans and 200 Sepoys.

Within two weeks heavy guns arrived for Raju Sahib’s assault on the fort and he began a bombardment. By 30^th October 1751 a practicable breach had been blown in the walls of the fort. In compliance with convention, Raju Sahib invited Clive to surrender, but received a reply of ‘contemptuous defiance’. Raju Sahib hesitated to put his troops to an assault and waited to see if the garrison might be starved into surrender.

In Madras, Governor Saunders was organising a relief of Arcot. Saunders completed his negotiations with the Mahratta chief, Morari Rao, whereby the Mahrattas joined the British. A force of British troops and sepoys with Mahratta cavalry prepared to march to Arcot.

News of this relief forced Raju Sahib’s hand and an assault was planned on the 13^th November 1751 for the next day, the Muslim fast of Hassan and Hussein.

Clive’s intelligence system warned him of the plan and preparations were made. The attack would inevitably be focused on the breach made by the siege train’s bombardment. Cannon were positioned to cover the breach and relays of surplus muskets were loaded and stacked to enable the troops positioned at the breach to maintain a constant fire.

At dawn on 14^th November 1751, Raju Sahib’s troops swarmed forward for the escalade of the breach. At the same time an assault was launched on the fort’s Delhi Gate. Elephants were used, their heads fitted with armoured plates in an attempt to batter in the gate.

The elephants were subjected to heavy musket fire and, maddened by their injuries, the animals turned on the accompanying soldiers and trampled to death everyone within reach.

The storming party was equally unsuccessful in the breach. The British fire was so heavy that the attacking troops were unable to make any headway. At one point Clive took personal charge of a gun, the crew being struck down, and fired several rounds into the attackers.

The assault was only maintained for an hour, after which Raju Sahib’s men melted back into the town. The French troops took no part in the attack on the fort, probably because Dupleix considered the operation a diversion from the more important business of capturing Trichinopoly and did not wish to lose any of his valuable European troops.

The next day, Raju Sahib marched away with his army, leaving several of his guns and much of his ammunition for Clive to capture.

Casualties at the Siege of Arcot:
Casualties during the final assault were said to have been 6 of the garrison killed and wounded, while Raju Sahib lost 400 men.

The whole siege was said to have cost Clive’s force a quarter of its strength in killed alone. Total casualties for Raju Sahib’s army are unknown.

Battle Honour and Campaign Medal for the Siege of Arcot:
The Battle Honour of ‘Arcot’ was given to the Madras European Regiment, which became the Honourable East India Company’s Madras European Regiment in 1830.  In 1862, after the Indian Mutiny, the regiment was taken into Crown service as the 102nd (Royal Madras Fusiliers) Regiment.  In 1881 the 102nd, with the 103rd (Royal Bombay Fusiliers) Regiment, became the Royal Dublin Fusiliers which retained ‘Arcot’ as a Battle Honour, the only regiment in the British or Indian Armies to carry the honour.

There is no campaign medal.

Follow-up to the Siege of Arcot: the immediate result of the success of the siege for Clive was that he was enabled to follow up Raju Sahib’s army and defeat it again in open battle at Arni. The pendulum then swung in favour of the French before Trichinopoly could be relieved.

Regimental anecdotes and traditions from the Siege of Arcot:

• It is reported that Clive’s garrison fired 12,000 musket rounds during the final assault. That is an average of 24 rounds per man.

References for the Siege of Arcot:

History of the British Army by Fortescue Volume II

The previous battle in the British Battles series is the Capture of Havana

The next battle in the Anglo-French War in India is the Battle of Arni

To the Anglo-French War in India index

General Gatacre’s disastrous defeat in Northern Cape Colony, fought on 9th/10th December 1899; the first battle of ‘Black Week’

63. Podcast on the Battle of Stormberg: General Gatacre’s disastrous defeat in Northern Cape Colony, fought on 9th/10th December 1899 in the Boer War; the first battle of ‘Black Week’: John Mackenzie’s britishbattles.com podcasts

The previous battle in the Boer War is the Battle of Modder River

The next battle in the Boer War is the Battle of Magersfontein

To the Great Boer War Index

War:         The Boer War

Date:       9th and 10th December 1899

Place:      Stormberg Valley in the Eastern Cape Colony, South Africa.

Combatants :  British against the Boers

Generals:        Lieutenant General Sir William Gatacre against General Olivier.

Size of the armies:         2,600 British against 1,700 Boers.

Arms and equipment:   The Boer War was a serious jolt for the British Army.    At the outbreak of the war British tactics were appropriate for the use of single shot firearms, fired in volleys controlled by company and battalion officers; the troops fighting in close order.  The need for tight formations had been emphasised time and again in colonial fighting.  In the Zulu and Sudan Wars overwhelming enemy numbers armed principally with stabbing weapons were kept at a distance by such tactics, but, as at Isandlwana, would overrun a loosely formed force.  These tactics had to be entirely rethought in battle against the Boers armed with modern weapons.

In the months before hostilities the Boer commandant general, General Joubert, bought 30,000 Mauser magazine rifles, firing smokeless ammunition, and a number of modern field guns and automatic weapons from the German armaments manufacturer Krupp, the French firm Creusot and the British company Maxim.  Unfortunately for the Boers they chose to buy high explosive ammunition for their new field guns.  The war was to show that high explosive was largely ineffective in the field, unless rounds landed on rocky terrain and splintered the rock.  The British artillery relied upon air-bursting shrapnel which was highly effective against infantry in open country.

There were many reports of Boer ammunition failing to explode.  It seems likely that this will have been due to a lack of training for the Boer gunners in the use of shells which needed to be fused before firing.

Once the war was under way the arms markets of Europe were closed to the Boers, due to the British naval blockade, and the error in ammunition selection could not be remedied.

The Boer commandoes, without formal discipline, welded into a fighting force through a strong sense of community and dislike for the British.  Field Cornets led burghers by personal influence not through any military code.  The Boers did not adopt military formation in battle, instinctively fighting from whatever cover there might be.  Most Boers were countrymen, running their farms from the back of a pony with a rifle in one hand.  These rural Boers brought a life time of marksmanship to the war, an important advantage further exploited by Joubert’s consignment of smokeless magazine rifles.  Viljoen is said to have coined the aphorism “Through God and the Mauser”.  With strong field craft skills and high mobility the Boers were natural mounted infantry.  The urban burghers and foreign volunteers readily adopted the fighting methods of the rest of the army.

Other than in the regular uniformed Staats Artillery and police units, the Boers wore their every day civilian clothes on campaign.

After the first month the Boers lost their numerical superiority, spending the rest of the formal war on the strategic defensive against British forces that outnumbered them, although operating with aggression when led by the younger generation of leaders like De Wet.

British tactics, developed on the North-West Frontier of India, Zululand, the Sudan and in other colonial wars against badly armed tribesmen, when used at Modder River, Magersfontein, Colenso and Spion Kop were inappropriate against entrenched troops armed with modern magazine rifles.  Every British commander made the same mistake; Buller, Methuen, Roberts and Kitchener (Elandslaagte was a notable exception where Hamilton specifically directed his infantry to keep an open formation). When General Kelly-Kenny attempted to winkle Cronje’s commandoes out of their riverside entrenchments at Paardeburg using his artillery, Kitchener intervened and insisted on a battle of infantry assaults, with the same expensive consequences as earlier in the war.

The British Army was not the only European Army to fail to appreciate the effect of long range magazine fed rifle fire.  The Germans and the French in the opening months of the First World War made massed infantry attacks in the face of such fire, suffering enormous casualties, as did the Russians and Austro-Hungarians.

Some of the most successful British and Empire troops in the South African War were the non-regular regiments; the Imperial Light Horse, City Imperial Volunteers, the South Africans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, who more easily broke from the habit of earlier British colonial warfare, using their horses for rapid movement rather than the charge, advancing by fire and manoeuvre in loose formations and making use of cover, rather than the formal advance into a storm of Mauser bullets.

War Aims of the Boers in the South African War:

Having started the hostilities the Boers found themselves without an achievable war aim.  The only strategy that might have had a chance of success would have been to invade and occupy the whole of Cape Colony, Natal and the other neighbouring British colonies.  The two Boer republics did not have the resources to carry out such an extensive operation.  In any case they could not have prevented a British sea landing to retake these areas.

Once war was declared the Boers invaded and occupied Natal as far as the Tugela River, but with Ladysmith holding out in their rear.  The Orange Free State government was not prepared to allow its forces to advance further south in Natal.  In Cape Colony some of the citizens of Boer origins joined their brothers from the two Republics but most did not.

The only other offensive operations the Boers carried out were to besiege Mafeking in the north and Kimberley further south on the Cape Colony border.  Both sieges were unsuccessful.  A limited incursion was carried out into the central area of Cape Colony up to the area around Stormberg, leading to Gatacre’s disastrous counter-attack.

Conan Doyle, who served as a doctor in South Africa during the war, reports that the Boers missed an opportunity at the beginning of the war to invade Cape Colony and capture the substantial quantity of stores built up at places like De Aar.

A major difficulty for the Boer armies was that although competent in defence, digging field fortifications and using their magazine rifles to great effect to defend them, the Boers lacked an effective tactical offensive capability.  The absence of formal military discipline made it difficult for the Boer commanders to devise strategies they could rely on their troops to carry through.  As the British built up their armies and began to advance defeat for the Boers became inevitable.

The Boer armies suffered from a wide variation in competence and commitment.  The general belief was that the Transvaalers were more resilient and determined fighters than the Free Staters.  The younger Boer commanders tended to be more resourceful and aggressive and felt handicapped by the older more senior commanders.

The British regiments made an uncertain change into khaki uniforms in the years preceding the Boer War, with the topee helmet as tropical headgear.  Highland regiments in Natal devised aprons to conceal coloured kilts and sporrans.  By the end of the war the uniform of choice was a slouch hat, drab tunic and trousers.  The danger of shiny buttons and too ostentatious emblems of rank was emphasised in several engagements with disproportionately high officer casualties.  Officers quickly took to carrying rifles like their men and abandoned swords and other obvious emblems of rank.

The British infantry was armed with the Lee Metford magazine rifle firing 10 rounds, but no training regime had been established to take advantage of the accuracy and speed of fire of the weapon.  Personal skills such as scouting and field craft were little taught.  The idea of fire and movement on the battlefield was largely unknown, many regiments still going into action in close order.  Notoriously General Hart insisted that his Irish Brigade fight shoulder to shoulder as if on parade in Aldershot.  Short of regular troops, Britain engaged volunteer forces from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand who brought new ideas and more imaginative formations to the battlefield.

The war was littered with incidents in which British contingents became lost or were ambushed often unnecessarily and forced to surrender.  The war was followed by a complete re-organisation of the British Army, with emphasis placed on personal weapon skills and fire and movement using cover.

The British artillery was a powerful force in the field, underused by commanders with little training in the use of modern guns in battle.  Pakenham cites Pieters as being the battle at which a British commander, surprisingly Buller, developed a modern form of battlefield tactics: heavy artillery bombardments co-ordinated to permit the infantry to advance under their protection.  It was the only occasion that Buller showed any real generalship and the short inspiration quickly died.

The Royal Field Artillery fought with 15 pounder rifled breach loading guns, the Royal Horse Artillery with 12 pounders and the Royal Garrison Artillery batteries with 5 inch howitzers.  The Royal Navy provided heavy field artillery with a number of 4.7 inch naval guns mounted on field carriages devised by Captain Percy Scott of HMS Terrible and the iconic long 12 pounders, seen in the Royal Navy gun competitions at the Royal Tournament.

Maxim automatic weapons were used by the British, often mounted on special carriages, accompanying the mounted infantry, cavalry and infantry battalions, one on issue to each unit.

Winner of the Battle of Stormberg:   The Boers

British Regiments at the Battle of Stormberg: 

Royal Field Artillery: 74th and 77th Batteries

33rd Company (part) Royal Engineers:

2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, now the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers

1st Royal Berkshire Regiment, later the Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment, then the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment and now part of the Rifles

2nd Royal Irish Rifles, later the Royal Ulster Rifles and now the Royal Irish Regiment

Mounted Infantry

Background:

The two Boer Republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, began the war against Great Britain on 14th October 1899.  Their principal operation was to invade Natal.  They also began sieges of Mafeking and Kimberley, both important towns along the western borders of the two Boer republics, and the Boers in the Orange Free State invaded across the Orange River into Cape Colony.

The Government in Great Britain sent an Army Corps to South Africa under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Redvers Buller.

The three battles in Natal, Talana Hill on 20th October, Elandslaagte on 21st October and Ladysmith on 30th October 1899 saw the British force in Northern Natal under Lieutenant General Sir George White penned up in Ladysmith and put under siege by the Boers.

Buller arrived in South Africa and prepared his strategy for the war.  Lieutenant General Lord Methuen would command the force, comprising the 1st Division, with the task of marching up the railway running north along the western border of the Boer Republics to relieve Kimberley.  Lieutenant General Gatacre would conduct a holding operation in the Eastern Cape Colony, while General French carried out the same role in Western Cape Colony.

Sir George White, the British commander-in-chief in Natal, was under siege in Ladysmith so a general fell to be appointed to command the relief force in Natal.  Buller took this role on himself, leaving the overall strategy of the war with no direct guiding hand.

Buller expected it would take him two weeks to relieve the Ladysmith garrison, after which he would return to Cape Colony.  Buller was to spend the rest of the active war crossing the Tugela River and breaking the siege of Ladysmith.

In early 1900 the British government sent a strong command team of Lord Roberts and General Kitchener to take over the offensive in the Orange Free State from Cape Colony.  In the meantime Lord Methuen was left to command the only advance on the Boer Republics, while General Gatacre was left to deal with the Boer incursion in the Eastern Cape.

Lieutenant General Sir William Gatacre:

In 1899 Major General (local Lieutenant General) Sir William Gatacre was one of the British Army’s rising stars.  The Battle of Stormberg ruthlessly eclipsed this star.

Gatacre was commissioned into the 77th Regiment (later 2nd Middlesex Regiment) in 1862 and went to India with his regiment.  He was promoted major in 1881 and lieutenant colonel commanding an infantry battalion in1884.

Gatacre took part in the operations in Upper Burma in1887/8, was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the DSO.  He then occupied a number of appointments in India.

In 1886/7 Gatacre had charge of the plague relief in Bombay, for which he was decorated.  Gatacre showed his intellectual abilities by producing a substantial report, used in subsequent plague operations.

In 1888 Gatacre held a staff appointment in the Hazara Expedition on the North-West Frontier of India.

In 1895 Gatacre  commanded the 3rd Brigade in the Chitral Relief Force on the North-West Frontier.  Increasingly concerned as to the fate of the besieged Anglo-Indian garrison in Chitral Fort, Sir Robert Low, commanding the relief column, sent Gatacre on with a small force, confident that Gatacre would push forward with an energy not to be expected from other senior officers.  Gatacre did not disappoint, forging across the mountains and re-building collapsed roads where necessary.  Gatacre thereby confirmed his reputation as a senior officer of resource, determination and unrivalled energy.

In 1896 Gatacre returned to Britain to command a brigade at Aldershot.

When Kitchener led the British operation to recover the Sudan for the Egyptian Khedive in 1897, Gatacre was given command of the British Brigade, leading it at the Battle of Atbara, spectacularly cutting through the Dervish thorn wall at the head of his troops, and then the British Division in 1899, leading it at the Battle of Omdurman.

Omdurman was one of the landmark battles of British military history.  Presence at Omdurman opened doors in the British military hierarchy and few did better than Gatacre, who was knighted, KCB, and promoted major general.

Winston Churchill encountered Gatacre in the Sudan and knew of his reputation in India and South Africa.  Churchill wrote of Gatacre in ‘River War’, his account of Kitchener’s reconquest of the Sudan in 1897/9 published in the same year before the South African War began:  ‘The officer selected for the command of the British brigade [in the Sudan in 1897] was a man of high character and ability. General Gatacre had already led a brigade in the Chitral expedition, and, serving under Sir Robert Low and Sir Bindon Blood had gained so good a reputation that after the storming of the Malakand Pass and the subsequent action in the plain of Khar it was thought desirable to transpose his brigade with that of General Kinloch, and send Gatacre forward to Chitral. From the mountains of the North-West Frontier the general was ordered to Bombay, and in a stubborn struggle with the bubonic plague, which was then at its height, he turned his attention from camps of war to camps of segregation. He left India, leaving behind him golden opinions, just before the outbreak of the great Frontier rising, and was appointed to a brigade at Aldershot. Thence we now find him hurried to the Soudan—a spare, middle-sized man, of great physical strength and energy, of marked capacity and unquestioned courage, but disturbed by a restless irritation, to which even the most inordinate activity afforded little relief, and which often left him the exhausted victim of his own vitality.’

Writing after Gatacre’s dismissal from command in his book on the South African War ‘London to Ladysmith via Pretoria’ published in 1900 Winston Churchill described Gatacre as ‘brave and capable’.

Sir George Robertson of the Indian Medical Service, the  commander of the besieged Chitral Fort garrison, wrote of Gatacre in his book ‘Chitral The Story of a Minor Siege’:  “He [Gatacre] is a man whose exploits, based on an almost superhuman energy and power of endurance, may someday become fabulous.  After making a record, he sets himself to break it as a point of honour…”  Robertson wrote with considerable gratitude for Gatacre’s efforts to relieve the garrison, thrusting over the mountains in the most distant reaches of British India with a small force and limited supplies amongst hostile tribes.

Gatacre described with some pride attending the Governor-General’s Ball in India in the 1880s, leaving at one am and riding two hundred miles on relays of horses arranged in advance to ensure he was at his desk at the usual time that morning.

In reference to the South African War Churchill makes the comment that Gatacre had to learn the lesson of fighting against Europeans armed with magazine fed rifles in common with British officers of all ranks.

Gatacre’s driving passions were to ensure that he and his soldiers were fit for battle and to get at the enemy.

Account of the Battle of Stormberg:     

General Buller arrived in South Africa at Cape Town in early November 1899 with the 1st Army Corps, the British army hurriedly assembled to fight the Boers, in which General Sir William Gatacre commanded the 3rd Division, comprising eight infantry battalions with supporting arms.

Buller’s immediate priorities were to stem the invasion of Natal and to relieve Kimberley to prevent the diamond resource falling into Boer hands.

In the Eastern Cape a Boer force commanded by General Olivier was advancing south down the East London railway towards Stormberg and further east towards Dordrecht.

Buller took the lion’s share of the Army Corps to Natal, leaving Methuen with a force to march up the western railway to relieve Kimberley, while Gatacre was given the unenviable task of stemming the central Boer invasion of Cape Colony with the smallest possible force.

General Gatacre arrived at Queenstown on the south to north railway line from East London on the southern coast to Aliwal North on the Orange Free State border on 18th November 1899.  Instead of the eight infantry battalions of the 3rd Division with supporting artillery and other arms, Gatacre was accompanied by one battalion, the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles.  He found he had in addition those units of the local garrison, part of 1st Berkshire Regiment, a detachment of Royal Garrison Artillery, a half company of Royal Engineers, 230 men of the Frontier Mounted Rifles and 285 men of the Queenstown Rifle Volunteers, the local defence unit.  The Frontier Mounted Rifles possessed five mountain guns and maxim machine guns.

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