indian mutiny 54 mm conversions

irregular miniatures

Officers attacked

causes

The causes of the Indian Mutiny which erupted in Meerut on May 10, 1857, and raged across north and central India for more than a year, have long been the subject of Indo-British historical debate.

The immediate trigger was the introduction of the Enfield rifled musket which had cartridges greased with pig and cow fat, causing offence to Muslim and Hindu soldiers respectively.

More sophisticated historical readings find a range of causes for the bubbling discontent that led to open rebellion - the punitive tax collection system, a succession of British territorial seizures and the rise of aggressive Christian evangelism among them.

However it was the refusal to bite into those Enfield musket cartridges that led, on April 24, to the imprisonment of 90 soldiers of the Third Indian Cavalry in Meerut. They were sprung from jail on May 10 by the mutinous sepoys, who then marched on Delhi.

After Delhi was occupied, the revolt spread to other cities such as Lucknow, Cawnpore (now Kanpur) and Jhansi, where the rebels committed a series of massacres of women and children which transfixed the Victorian popular imagination.

However by the end of 1858, when the rebellion was finally suppressed, those same massacres had been used to justify a wave of even more savage British reprisals, including the razing and execution of entire villages. Indians called it the "Devil's Wind". Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, William Dalrymple, the historian whose latest book The Last Mughal tells the story of the siege of Delhi, described the British action as "the most brutal moment in British imperial history".

The rebellion had two immediate consequences - the exiling of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, to Burma and the founding of the British Raj as the East India Company was dissolved and India placed under the direct rule of the British government.

Mutineer Miniatures

wargaming

queens regiment indian mutiny

after lucknow

painting

By the 1850s the British East India Company's rule of India seemed secure. But relations were deteriorating as resentment against the British grew.
Jessie's Dream (The Relief of Lucknow), 1858 By Frederick Goodall (1822-1904) Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, UK.The Indian Mutiny (or the First Indian War of Independence as it is now known in India) was an armed uprising in northern and central India from 1857-58. It was the first united movement against British rule in India.
Left: The horrors of the Mutiny inspired many artists. This dramatic scene shows the heroic end of the famous 90-day siege at Lucknow. Jessie was the wife of a soldier. At the height of the siege, she dreamt of hearing the bagpipes of Scottish troops coming to the rescue.Many of the East India Company's practices were considered a threat to Indian religious and cultural customs. Tax changes had brought grievances and military reforms challenged the status of the sepoys (Indian soldiers). Resentment grew and unrest sparked into armed rebellion. News of bloody sieges at Cawnpore and Lucknow and the violent deaths of British women and children created uproar in Britain.
Right: Many Indian soldiers remained loyal to the British during the uprising. O'Neil illustrates this by including an Indian soldier (a sepoy) in Home Again.40,000 British troops were sent to India to suppress the uprising. Many left from Tilbury and Gravesend like the soldiers in Eastward Ho! When O'Neil painted their poignant departure, he created a stark contrast to the well-reported terrors awaiting them, of which the public would have been well aware.
After the rebellion's brutal suppression, the East India Company was dissolved. For the first time India was subject to direct British rule. Indian independence was finally achieved in 1947.India became an independent country where people die on the streets of hunger in this day and age.

dutch east indian sepoy.

These indigenous troops formed hugely effective regiments when used by the European East India companies. They were acclimatised to India with a resilience and endurance that put Europeans to shame. In combat, they typically display unwavering bravery and a tenacious determination.

Often recruited from barren or mountainous regions, these men are tough and hard working. Loyal without question, their familiarity with local culture allowed Europeans to fight insurgencies and unrest with understanding as well as brute force.

The sepoys of the British East India Company were typical in that they had native and European officers. “Natives” never commanded Company battalions, but their opinions were always sought by the better sort of European officer. The Ghoorkas were a special case, because Nepal was never colonised, but a treaty was made between the company and the native king.

irregular miniatures

gurkha rifles inian mutiny

indian army officer

plastic sepoys by charbens

officer indian mutiny

gurkha

nana sahib

Nana Sahib's guards refuse to shoot prisoners of the Indian Mutiny

havelocks command

red year part 3

The number of armed retainers gathered there was unexpectedly large. He was well acquainted with the Meerut district, yet he had no notion that such a fortress existed within an hour’s fast ride of the station. The King of Delhi had a hunting-lodge somewhere in the locality, but he had never seen the place. If this were it, why should it be crammed with soldiers? Above all, why should they eye him with such ill-concealed displeasure? Duty had brought him once to Delhi—it was barely forty miles from Meerut—and the relations between the feeble old King, Bahadur Shah, and the British authorities were then most friendly, while the hangers-on at the Court mixed freely with the Europeans. His quick intelligence caught at the belief that these men resented his presence because he was brought among them by the command of the lady. He knew now that he must have seen and spoken to one of the royal princesses. None other would dare to show herself unveiled to a stranger, and a white man at that. The manifest annoyance of her household was thus easily accounted for, but he marveled at the strength of her bodyguard.

He was given little time for observation. A distinguished-looking man, evidently vested with authority, bustled forward and addressed him, civilly enough. Servants came with water and towels, and cleaned his garments sufficiently to make him presentable, while other men groomed his horse. He was wet through, of course, but that was not a serious matter with the thermometer at seventy degrees in the shade, and, despite the ordinance of the Prophet, a glass of excellent red wine was handed to him.

But he saw no more of the Princess. He thought she would hardly dare to receive him openly, and her deputy gave no sign of admitting him to the interior of the palace, which loomed around the square of the courtyard like some great prison.

A chaprassi recovered his hat, which he had left floating in the moat. Nejdi allowed him to mount quietly; the stout door had closed on him, and he was picking his way across the fields towards the Meerut road, before he quite realized how curious were the circumstances which had befallen him since he parted from Winifred Mayne in the porch of her uncle’s bungalow.

Then he bent forward in the saddle to stroke Nejdi’s curved neck, and laughed cheerfully.

“You are wiser than I, good horse,” said he. “When the game is up, you take things placidly. Here am I, your supposed superior in intellect, in danger of being bewitched by a woman’s eyes. Whether brown or black, they play the deuce with a man if they shine in a woman’s head. So ho, then, boy, let us home and eat, and forget these fairies in muslin and clinging silk.”

Yet a month passed, and Frank Malcolm did not succeed in forgetting. Like any moth hovering round a lamp, the more he was singed the closer he fluttered, though the memory of the Indian princess’s brilliant black eyes was soon lost in the sparkle of Winifred’s brown ones.

As it happened, the young soldier was a prime favorite with the Commissioner, and it is possible that the course of true love might have run most smoothly if the red torch of war had not flashed over the land like the glare of some mighty volcano.

On Sunday evening, May 10th, Malcolm rode away from his own small bungalow, and took the Aligarh road. As in all up-country stations, the European residences in Meerut were scattered over an immense area. The cantonment was split into two sections by an irregular ravine, or nullah, running east and west. North of this ditch were many officers’ bungalows, and the barracks of the European troops, tenanted by a regiment of dragoons, the 60th Rifles, and a strong force of artillery, both horse and foot. Between the infantry and cavalry barracks stood the soldiers’ church. Fully two miles away, on the south side of the ravine, were the sepoy lines, and another group of isolated bungalows. The native town was in this quarter, while the space intervening between the British and Indian troops was partly covered with rambling bazaars.

Malcolm had been detained nearly half an hour by some difficulty which a subadar had experienced in arranging the details of the night’s guard. Several men were absent without leave, and he attributed this unusual occurrence to the severe measures the colonel had taken when certain troopers refused to use the cartridges supplied for the new Enfield rifle. But, like every other officer in Meerut, he was confident that the nearness of the strongest European force in the North-West Provinces would certainly keep the malcontents quiet. Above all else, he was ready to stake his life on the loyalty of the great majority of the men of his own regiment, the 3d Native Cavalry.

In pushing Nejdi along at a fast canter, therefore, he had no weightier matter on his mind than the fear that he might have kept Winifred waiting. When he dashed into the compound, and saw that there was no dog-cart standing in the porch, he imagined that the girl had gone without him, or, horrible suspicion, with some other cavalier.

It was not so. Winifred herself appeared on the veranda as he dismounted.

“You are a laggard,” she said severely.

“I could not help it. I was busy in the orderly-room. But why lose more time? If that fat pony of yours is rattled along we shall not be very much behindhand.”

“You must not speak disrespectfully of my pony. If he is fat, it is due to content, not laziness. And you are evidently not aware that Evensong is half an hour later to-day, owing to the heat. Of course, I expected you earlier, and, if necessary, I would have gone alone, but—”

She hesitated, and looked over her shoulder into the immense drawing-room that occupied the center of the bungalow from front to rear.

“I don’t mind admitting,” she went on, laughing nervously, “that I am a wee bit afraid these days—there is so much talk of a native rising. Uncle gets so cross with me when I say anything of that kind that I keep my opinions to myself.”

“The country is unsettled,” said Frank, “and it would be folly to deny the fact. But, at any rate, you are safe enough in Meerut.”

“Are you sure? Only yesterday morning eighty-five men of your own regiment were sent to prison, were they not?”

“Yes, but they alone were disaffected. Every soldier knows he must obey, and these fellows refused point-blank to use their cartridges, though the Colonel said they might tear them instead of biting them. He could go no further—I wonder he met their stupid whims even thus far.”

[Pg 16]

“Well, perhaps you are right. Come in, for a minute or two. My uncle is in a rare temper. You must help to talk him out of it. By the way, where are all the servants? The dog-cart ought to be here. Koi hai!”[1]

No one came in response to her call. Thinking that a syce or chaprassi would appear in a moment, Frank hung Nejdi’s bridle on a lamp-hook in the porch, and entered the bungalow.

He soon discovered that Mr. Mayne’s wrath was due to a statement in a Calcutta newspaper that a certain Colonel Wheler had been preaching to his sepoys.

“What between a psalm-singing Viceroy and commanding officers who hold conventicles, we are in for a nice hot weather,” growled the Commissioner, shoving a box of cheroots towards Malcolm when the latter found him stretched in a long cane chair on the back veranda. “Here is Lady Canning trying to convert native women, and a number of missionaries publishing manifestoes about the influence of railways and steamships in bringing about the spiritual union of the world! I tell you, Malcolm, India won’t stand it. We can do as we like with Hindu and Mussalman so long as we leave their respective religions untouched. The moment those are threatened we enter the danger zone. Confound it, why can’t we let the people worship God in their own way? If anything, they are far more religiously inclined than we ourselves. Where is the Englishman who will flop down in the middle of the [Pg 17]road to say his prayers at sunset, or measure his length along two thousand miles of a river bank merely as a penance? Give me authority to pack a shipload of busy-bodies home to England, and I’ll soon have the country quiet enough—”

An ominous sound interrupted the Commissioner’s outburst. Both men heard the crackle of distant musketry. At first, neither was willing to admit its significance.

“Where is Winifred?” demanded Mr. Mayne, suddenly.

“She is looking for a servant, I fancy. There was none in the front of the house, and I wanted a man to hold my horse.”

A far-off volley rumbled over the plain, and a few birds stirred uneasily among the trees.

“No servants to be seen—at this hour!”

They looked at each other in silence.

“We must find Winifred,” said the older man, rising from his chair.

“And I must hurry back to my regiment,” said Frank.

“You think, then, that there is trouble with the native troops?”

“With the sepoys, yes. I have been told that the 11th and 20th are not wholly to be trusted. And those volleys are fired by infantry.”

A rapid step and the rustle of a dress warned them that the girl was approaching. She came, like a startled fawn.

“The servants’ quarters are deserted,” she cried. “Great columns of smoke are rising over the trees, and you hear the shooting! Oh, what does it mean?”

“It means, my dear, that the Dragoons and the 60th will have to teach these impudent rebels a much-needed lesson,” said her uncle. “There is no cause for alarm. Must you really go, Malcolm?”

“Go!” broke in Winifred with the shrill accents of terror. “Where are you going?”

“To my regiment, of course,” said Frank, smiling at her fears. “Probably we shall be able to put down this outbreak before the white troops arrive. Good-by. I shall either return, or send a trustworthy messenger, within an hour.”

And so, confident and eager, he was gone, and the first moments of the hour sped when, perhaps, a strong man in control at Meerut might have saved India.

The Bench by Anders Heintz: Horan Figure of the Week, 72nd Highlanders, 1857

The Bench by Anders Heintz: Horan Figure of the Week, 72nd Highlanders, 1857