The Modern Military History of India: Part 1 - The Indian Campaigns of 1897 and the Bravery of the Sikh Infantry

India’s military history is rich, long and storied yet there is criminally little written about it and it is hideously ignored in many debates on military history of the 19th century. This perhaps is because Indians themselves know very little about what the Indian Army did in the years between 1858 and 1910. In these few decades, the Indian Army became one of the most combat experienced forces in the world as it fought alongside the British Army from Egypt to Afghanistan. The Indian Army (though officially known as the British Indian Army, it was always referred to as the Indian Army), which was already one of the most professional and most well-equipped forces in the world, by the time the Great War rolled around, had become arguably the single most experienced armed force in the world alongside the British Army.

Siddhant A. Joshi starts his series of the modern military history of India by looking at Indian Campaigns of 1897 and the Bravery of the Sikh Infantry.

Subadars (Sikhs) and Gunners (Punjabi Muslims) in the 1890s..

Introduction

Since the British and Indian Armies rarely fought alone, the technologies, techniques and tactics used by either one of them became commonplace in both. Not only that, but their military history also became inextricably interlinked and both armies developed processes that were born of their shared experience – processes and doctrines and traditions that stand to this day. The British Army commemorates the many contributions, sacrifices and stories of Indian soldiers with just as many memorials to Indians as there are to Brits. The Indian Army too does the same and has, in fact, kept many units that were raised by the British.

However, not many outside the armed forces know of this. That is the aim of this – to bring to light that which should long ago have been known.

The Frontier Campaign – Beginnings

To understand this little-known campaign, one must first understand an area of the Indian Subcontinent that was then called the North West Frontier Province or the NWFP. It was an area that had formed just south of the intersection of the Karakorum and Pamir Mountains and just north of the Hindu Kush Mountains and had long been used as a gateway for invasions since it stood between mountains that have been impassable for large armies for centuries. It quickly became the frontier of British India – lands ungoverned by any state and occupied only by tribes of armed Pashtuns.

It was the natural path into India from Afghanistan and its existence posed a threat to the existence of British Rule in India for one reason alone – the Great Game. During this period, the Russians and the British were playing a long-running and high-stakes chess match in Afghanistan for control of the country. Whoever controlled Afghanistan would control not only India’s North Western border but Russia’s southern border.

Afghanistan quickly became the linchpin for the two powers’ plans and prospects in Asia. And, sure as the sun rises every day, one of the most important chess pieces became the North Western Frontier Province. And, in the NWFP there stood a mountain pass – the infamous Khyber Pass –which was of immense strategic value in safeguarding the approach into the subcontinent (a value it still holds!). To guard this pass, the British had recruited a small regiment composed entirely of Pashtun Tribesmen from the neighbouring Tirah and Malakand regions since they knew the land the best.

However, Tirah itself was not of much importance. Colonel T. H. Holdich, writing a few months after the end of hostilities in the campaign, says ‘It is a species of cul de sac, possessing little or no strategic value.’[1] And Malakand was much the same.

If that were true, why did the British and Indians spend months fighting the tribesmen of the regions and mobilise well over 100,000 troops for the cause? It is simple. The tribes guarding the Khyber Pass revolted, attacked their own men and took up positions all along the Khyber. While of utmost importance was the Khyber Pass, securing it was of no use unless the rebellion was put down.

The Frontier Campaign – 1897-1898

‘Our little wars attract far less attention among the people of this country than they deserve. They are frequently carried out in circumstances of the most adverse kind. Our enemies, although ignorant of military discipline, are, as a rule, extremely brave and are thoroughly capable of using the natural advantages of their country.’ These were words written by author G. A. Henty when describing the Tirah and Malakand Offensives.[2]

Neville Chamberlain (yes, that Neville Chamberlain) wrote on the matter and Winston Churchill (yes, that Winston Churchill) was a young Second Lieutenant in the campaign and he too wrote on the matter extensively. It is their works that the remaining part of this article will rely upon.

The thing that is of utmost importance to understand is that the Tirah Campaign was one part of a larger conflict referred to as the ‘Frontier Matter’ by Churchill, with the entire conflict revolving around suppressing tribal rebellions in the NFWP. The Tirah Campaign which was an offensive against the Afridi tribes would take place simultaneously with the offensives against Pashtun tribes in Malakand and the offensive against the Mohamand tribes.

To tackle these rebellions, the Indian Army set up 2 distinct forces – the Tirah Field Force and the Malakand Field Force.

Composition of British Indian Forces

1.     Tirah Field Force - General William Lockhart, KCB[3]

a.     1st Division – Brigadier General William Symons

                                               i.     1st Brigade
- 2nd Bn The Derbyshire Regiment
- 1st Bn The Devonshire Regiment
- 2nd/1st Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 30th (Punjab) Regiment 
- No. 6 British Field Hospital
- No. 34 Native Field Hospital

                                             ii.     2nd Brigade
- 2nd Bn The Yorkshire Regiment
- 1st Bn Royal West Surrey Regiment
- 2nd Bn 4th Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 3rd Regiment of Sikh Infantry
- Sections A, B No. 8 British Field Hospital
- Sections A, C No. 14 British Field Hospital
- No. 51 Native Hospital

                                            iii.     Divisional Troops
- Gurkha Scouts
- No. 1 Mountain Battery 
- No. 2 (Derajat) Mountain Battery 
- No. 1 (Kohat) Mountain Battery
- 18th Regiment Bengal Lancers
- 28th Regiment, Bombay Infantry (Pioneers)
- Two companies, Bombay Sappers and Miners
- Karpurthala Regiment
- Maler Kotla Imperial Service Sappers
- No. 13 British Field Hospital
- No. 63 Native Field Hospital

b.     2nd Division – Major General A. G. Yeatman-Biggs

                                               i.     3rd Brigade
- 1st Bn The Gordon Highlanders
- 1st Bn The Dorsetshire Regiment
- 1st Bn 2nd Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 15th (The Ludhiana Sikh) Regiment
- No. 24 British Field Hospital
- No. 44 Native Field Hospital

                                             ii.     4th Brigade
- 2nd Bn, The King's Own Scottish Borderers
- 1st Bn The Northamptonshire Regiment
- 1st Bn 3rd Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 36th (Sikh) Regiment Of Bengal Infantry
- Sections C, D No. 9 Field Hospital
- Sections A, B No, 23 British Field Hospital
- No. 48 Native Field Hospital

                                            iii.     Divisional Troops
- No. 8 Mountain Battery, Royal Artillery
- No. 9 Mountain Battery, Royal Artillery
- No. 5 (Bombay) Mountain Battery
- Machine Gun Detachment, 16th Lancers
- 18th Regiment Bengal Lancers
- 21st Regiment Of Madras Infantry (Pioneers)
- No. 4 Company Madras Sappers And Miners
- Jhind Regiment 
- Sirmur Sappers
- Section B Of No. 13 British Field Hospital
- No. 43 Native Field Hospital

2.     Malakand Field Force – Major General Bindon Blood[4]

a.     The MFF had no divisions

b.     1st Brigade
- Royal West Kent Regiment
- Highland Light Infantry
- 31st Punjab Infantry
- 24th Punjab Infantry
- 45th Sikhs
- No. 7 Mountain Battery

c.     2nd Brigade
- The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)
- 35th Sikhs
- 38th Dogras
- Guides Infantry
- 4 Company Bengal Sappers
- No. 7 Mountain Battery

d.     3rd Brigade
- The Queen’s Regiment
- 22nd Punjab Infantry
- 39th Punjab Infantry
- 3 Company Bombay Sappers
- No. 1 Mountain Battery

e.     Cavalry
- 11th Bengal Lancers

 

The Tirah Field Force – Bravery of the Sikh Troops

To get to Tirah, the Force had to march through demanding terrain and the feats of bravery in combat and mountaineering of the Indian Army have been well recorded. In one instance, some 250 men of an unspecified Indian artillery regiment were told to move their guns across a mountain pass. G. A. Henty, referencing the event, describes it as a ‘splendid feat’ when the 250 Indians led by 2 British officers brought the guns by hand (their horses having gone lame or died) through the mountain pass in just a few days through immensely deep snow.

In another incident, Chamberlain describes an attack by two unspecified Indian infantry brigades on a ridgeline (Dagrai Heights) thought to be impregnable on October 18, 1897. It took the two brigades a few hours to link up but when they did, it was found that they had only taken 9 or 10 casualties. He describes also the action of 3 regiments on October 20, 1897 – the Gordon Highlanders, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the 15th Sikhs whom he credits with saving a retirement of an infantry brigade from an overwhelming counterattack by the tribesmen saying ‘the retirement was only saved from being a disaster by the coolness under fire of those fine regiments’. 

It is here worth noting that the 15th Sikhs and the Gordons had taken heavy losses in a surprise attack that very day suffering some 250 casualties among them. [5]

In another instance of bravery and complete dominance by Indian troops, a Sikh battalion was given the order to secure another height from the tribesmen. Led by a Punjabi officer with a British 2IC (2nd in Command), the Battalion overwhelmed the enemy position though they were outnumbered 5 to 1.

The Malakand Field Force – Sikh Troops Shine Again

Churchill[6] – known for his admiration of Indian and ANZAC troops in WW2 – narrates an amazing incident where a 62-man Sikh unit was surrounded and outnumbered by the enemy. The only nearby friendly force, some British cavalry, was unable to breakthrough and rescue the Sikhs. It appears that having accepted death, the bugle sounded charge and the outnumbered men rose out of their positions and – swords drawn – charged the pathans (general word for Afghan tribesmen). Not expecting this, the pathans simply ran for no known reason and the small Sikh unit cut down hundreds of the retreating Pathans.

Churchill also describes in detail the actions of a company of the 35th Sikhs which, during a defence, had become surrounded by the pathans. With the assistance of a squadron of cavalry, the Sikh troops of the 35th broke the encirclement and drove the vastly outnumbering Pathans into a small mountainous gulley where they were massacred by the Sikhs and the cavalry.

Henty, regarding the Malakand Campaign, relays the famous story of the handful of men from the 36th Sikhs that defended Fort Saragarhi against 10,000 tribesmen. However, that story deserves its own article!

 

In Conclusion

First things first; while I have only discussed Sikh troops here, they by no means were the only brave soldiers. They were simply the ones I chose to focus on. Many different regiments were named and many soldiers were equally as brave. Secondly, the point of this article, as ever, is simply to shine a light on that which was not known and to exemplify the bravery of those unsung heroes.

What do you think of the Indian Campaigns of 1897? Let us know below.

[1] Col. T. H. Holdich, ‘Tirah’, The Geographical Journal, 12:4 (October, 1898)

[2] G. A. Henty, A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashantee (Blackie and Son; London, 1904)

[3] https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/tirah.htm

[4] Churchill’s work

[5] Neville Chamberlain, ‘The Tirah Campaign’, Fortnightly Review, 63:375 (March, 1898)

[6] Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (Longmans; London, 1898)

How Defeat in the American Revolution Strengthened Britain in India

The American Revolutionary War (1775-83) resulted in defeat for the British; however, its impact was very different in other parts of the world. Here Bilal Junejo explains how defeat in the war led to Britain strengthening its presence in India.

King George III of England, 1799/1800.

Of all the upheavals that dot the annals of the turbulent eighteenth century, it is improbable that many could readily vie in either import or impact with the seminal War of American Independence, a landmark which, whilst it tolled the death knell of imperial aggrandizement at one end of the globe, simultaneously, if inadvertently, also served to herald its retrospectively ineluctable flourish at the other by dint of the virtual liquidation that it secured of all non-Indian obstacles in the path of British expansion in India. Indeed, had it not been for this colossal western loss that preceded the eventually colossal eastern gain, General Charles Cornwallis, the Governor-General of India from 1786-93, might never have been afforded the means of expiating his ignominious capitulation to General George Washington at Yorktown in 1781.1 What might have happened in the case of the colonists’ defeat at British hands must necessarily remain the sport of conjecture, but what is certain is that with their victory, the eventual one of their erstwhile masters in London also became well-nigh certain in that illustrious subcontinent of Asia entitled India, the lure of the ages. The way Great Britain’s own fortunes were affected by the American fiasco directly determined the manner in which she would go on to determine those of India. Principally, the impact of the Revolution had two facets: one domestic and one foreign. But because the latter could scarcely have made any difference in the absence of the former, it is to the domestic aspect that we must first turn our attention, before proceeding to contemplate how it operated in conjunction with the other one to render the cumulative result of incorporating India as the brightest jewel in the British crown.

The immediate domestic consequence lay in the dissolution of that effete administration whose memory has become intertwined with the loss of the American colonies, and the hallmark of   which had lain in the anachronistic fantasies of a monarch and the correspondingly complaisant follies of his premier. The government of Lord Frederick North (1770-82) had distinguished itself not only by the acute myopia which had informed its dealings with the colonists since, at least, the Boston Tea Party (1773)2, but also by the slow, yet steady, erosion of those gains which had been consolidated in the practice of parliamentary government since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. King George III, the unfortunate disciple in his early years of the royalist tutelage that pervaded the philosophy of the ironically hapless Earl of Bute3, and in stark contrast to the relatively democratic predilections of the first two Hanoverians, ascended the throne with a vigorous resolve to effect the full exercise of royal powers, but in his personal capacity, a regression that would entail a gradual erosion of the need to govern through ministers responsible to parliament. The Settlement of 1689 had provided that thenceforth the government should be a constitutional monarchy, but the immediate consequence of that compromise, as Trevelyan explained, was to limit any further expansion of the royal prerogative, rather than effect its transfer from the sovereign to their ministers, which only transpired gradually over the decades— a classic example of what the Fabian Sidney Webb called the ‘inevitability of gradualness’. Of this inexorable transformation’s culmination, the essence was succinctly delineated by one Lord Esher, in a memorandum that His Lordship prepared for King George V in 1913, during the constitutional troubles over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland:

“Has the King then no prerogatives? Yes, he has many, but when translated into action, they must be exercised on the advice of a Minister responsible to Parliament. In no case can the Sovereign take political action unless he is screened by a Minister who has to answer to Parliament. This proposition is fundamental, and differentiates a Constitutional Monarchy based upon the principles of 1688 from all other forms of government.”4

The impact in Britain

It is not for us to delve into the constitutional implications of George III’s untoward proclivities, for all that need concern us here are the political ramifications, in the light of that era’s constitutional status quo, that would likely have ensued following a British victory in America. In any given society, it is axiomatic to say that an overseas victory achieved by the incumbent regime will redound to its credit and increase its popularity amongst the electorate, whereas any loss would only serve to undermine its popular appeal and support. Because the defeat in America was so categorical, the pretensions of the George-North administration were dealt a mortal blow, and the peril of a return to the polity of James II was practically expunged. Englishmen of the seventeenth century had waged a formidable Civil War for the blessings of political liberty and accountable government, restored Charles II when it seemed expedient to do so to restore stability after the less than favorable developments following Cromwell’s demise, but then again overthrown   James II a mere five and twenty years later when it appeared that his deleterious inclinations promised a return to the autocracy of his father’s days. It is, therefore, highly unlikely that had autocratic power begun to increase in the wake of a victory in America, the people (especially the Whigs) of Britain would have so submissively acquiesced in a renewed emulation of the traditions that still inspired the dilapidated ancien régime in neighboring France. Indeed, the famous writer and politician, Edmund Burke (1729-97), had begun to sound the alarm as early as 1770, even before the Revolution, when he published his pamphlet entitled Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, arguing that King George III was upsetting the balance between crown and parliament in the British constitution by seeking to rule without due acknowledgement of the party political system.5 And in 1780, whilst the war was still going on, Dunning’s resolution— which lamented that “the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished”— was passed by a distrustful House of Commons.6 Thus, it is not fanciful to suppose that victory in America would have given a fresh lease of life to the George-North administration, any continuance of which could have only served to deepen the fissures in British society. If the King could block Catholic Emancipation, despite his American failure, for as long as he lived, then one can only wonder at what he might have done had he won that redoubtable contest of wills on transatlantic shores. As it happened, though, a contretemps in America averted the much greater danger of domestic unrest and civil war at home, which would scarcely have conduced to the acquisition of empire in the world. The last Jacobite uprising of 1745-6, with all its turbulence, was still a living memory, and Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, was destined to live until 1788, which means that it was not impossible for him, or his nominee, to become the figurehead   of a popular resistance to a jubilant George-North oligarchy. An unstable metropolis cannot exude the aura of that infallibility and serenity which is indispensable for cowing a foreign people into deferential submission, even against their will.

The rivalry with France

The second aspect that merits consideration here is the impact that the Americans’ victory had on France, Britain’s historic— and, in India, the principal— rival and the chief abettor of seditious endeavors across the Atlantic. How the war affected France was aptly summed up by the historian, Herbert Fisher, when he observed that “for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, no policy could have been more improvident, for not only did the American war give the final push to the tottering edifice of French finance, but the spectacle of republicanism triumphant and monarchy overthrown across the Atlantic kindled in every forward-reaching mind in France the vision of a Europe remade after the new American pattern of republican liberty.”7  Again, we can only speculate about what might have happened in the case of French neutrality or the Americans’ defeat, but what is certain is that after Washington’s triumph at Yorktown, and the ironic, not to mention portentous, fact that the treaty of peace and recognition between Great Britain and the new American democracy was signed at despotic Versailles, revolution in France became only a matter of time. The cost of the war was unlikely to have been inflamed to the degree that it was on the eve of the Bastille’s fall had it not been for the legitimate pride that the likes of Lafayette could take in the succor they had rendered the armies of Washington. France might have collapsed even earlier in the case of defeat in America, but it is also possible that she might have launched a fresh war of revenge in Europe for the distraction of domestic opinion from real domestic issues to manufactured foreign perils. And if France had lost, then England would have won, and thereby consolidated the insidious gains in royal power made by King George III up to then, resulting in British foreign policy coming to reflect royal predilections more and more, as opposed to those of Parliament. One must not forget that the English monarch back then, a Hanoverian, was also the Elector of Hanover at the same time, and if France had decided to avenge an ignominious failure in America by attacking Hanover to her east (thereby precluding the need to try to reach a conclusion with the Royal Navy), George III might have decided to focus his entire attention on saving his Electorate without worrying about Britain’s overseas possessions, and given the latent insanity with which we know, thanks to the benefit of hindsight, that he was afflicted, all sorts of untoward eventualities might have arisen.

The impact on India

How exactly did these two consequences cumulatively affect India? This is the question that constitutes the end of our discussion. In 1623, the massacre of Amboina had forced the English to withdraw from the East Indies. Now, Yorktown had also necessitated a kindred evacuation from the American colonies, so India was perforce the main attraction left for imperial gratification. But such gratification, quite naturally, presupposes uninterrupted stability in the metropolis, and this was achieved by the Revolution when it shattered the autocratic ambitions of King George III, any realization of which might have imperiled the island state’s security by precipitating a fresh civil war. And we must not forget that towards the end of the eighteenth, as well as the beginning of the nineteenth, century, some of the most crucial battles that would determine the fate of the East India Company in India were fought (e.g. with Tipu Sahib of Mysore and the Marathas). Even though France was wracked with internal unrest, the contagion of which soon pervaded the rest of Europe and did not abate until 1815, she was nevertheless able to create great problems for the British. Indeed, one of the main reasons for remembering Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General of India from 1798-1805, is his frustration of Napoleon’s plans, which encompassed burgeoning contacts with Tipu, to subvert the Indians.8 And when Admiral Nelson decimated the overweening French fleet at Aboukir Bay in August 1798, thereby annihilating any hopes of Napoleon’s advance eastwards to India, it was the East India Company that, out of profuse gratitude, rewarded him with a munificent ten thousand  pounds sterling, a stupendous sum in those days.9 To judge from the magnitude of this largesse, such were the fears aroused by the grandiose ambitions of a feverish and unstable France that one can only wonder what might have happened had the Bastille not been stormed in 1789— a cogently distinct possibility, but for that eruption which commenced at Lexington and was carried to triumph under the auspices of French arms.

Thus, the inevitable conclusion we draw is that the American Revolution, by domestically strengthening Britain at the same time as it domestically weakened France, made it assured that no serious challenge from without could henceforth arise to check the British rise within India. It was so because, to recollect the memorable verdict of Fisher, after the Peace of Versailles, “the continent merely saw that an empire had been lost. It did not perceive that a constitution had  been saved. Yet such was the case. The failure of the king’s American policy involved the breakdown of the last effectual experiment in personal rule which has been tried in Britain.”10 And it was from the ashes of this humbled royal pride that there arose the Pax Britannica. God bless Peace, and God bless Britain.

What do you think of the article? Let us know below.

1 John Kenyon, The Wordsworth Dictionary of British History (first published 1981, Wordsworth 1994) 93

2  Ibidem, 44

3  Ibidem, 55

4 G. M. Trevelyan, The English Revolution 1688-1689 (first published 1938, Thornton Butterworth Ltd 1938) 193

5 John Kenyon, The Wordsworth Dictionary of British History (first published 1981, Wordsworth 1994) 54

6 Ibidem, 118

7 H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe (first published 1935, The Fontana Library 1972) 861

8 Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-speaking peoples (Cassell and Company Ltd 1957) Volume 3, pages 188-9

9 James Brown, The Life & Times Of Lord Nelson (Parragon Book Service Ltd 1996) 41

10 H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe (first published 1935, The Fontana Library 1972) 862