To understand the British reaction after Cawnpore one must understand Cawnpore itself.
It was an Indian thing, greatsuffering of children, women, the invalid, the weak, placed on them by the bully, the psychotic and the sadist.In no way were the assailants of the whites at Cawnpore those fighting for a real and tangible cause. Beggars,Ne'er do wells, the unemployed and the mutineers. Those who were not at Cawnpore can have no idea of vengeance.
Nana Sahib ordered it.He ordered it and the so called Indian Mutiny because he had been disgraced as an bad landlord and his pension had been taken away by the British. It is a pity that national heroes are sometimes made of men who were merely in a certain place at a certain time but Indian websites and their national government(the Panjay postage stamp) have euluogised this local uprising/mutiny into a glorious war of Independence.Ganhi should have known better. It must also be said that the majority of Indians backed
the empire and the british .They knew what the NANA SAHIBS of their country were like. The Gurkhas did come under suspicion but this was quickly allayed.
AT CAWNPORE there were four hundred British fighting men,seventy were invalids plus several hundred women and kids. The whites with the faithful sepoys took refuge in a magazine and tried to defend the women and kids.Agony from heat,thirst,sickness,wounds,all that.
No medicines.Nama Sahib offered safe passage to Allahabad to every member of the garrison who surrended;a ragged crowd of survivors took him up on the offer.They were embarked on barges but then the barges were set alight and bullets poured into the whites from all sides.One hundred and fifty women and children who survived were dragged back to Cawnpore and imprisoned, they were pushed down the well you can see in the illustration.The men were killed,those who were still alive, in the presence of Nana Sahib. Hacked to death by the now crazy murderous folly. This was the so called War of Liberation that idiots on the internet write about.But Campbell was coming.
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