The Indian Mutiny of 1857/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
THE EFFECT, THROUGHOUT INDIA, OF THE SEIZURE OF DEHLÍ.
The story of the events of the 10th of May at Mírath, and of the 11th at Dehlí, came as a surprise alike to the revolters all over India and to the Government. It came as a surprise to the former because the astute men who had fomented the ill-feeling against the British, which by this time had become pretty general, had laid down as a cardinal principle that there were to be no isolated outbreaks; that the explosion should take place on the same day all over the Bengal Presidency; and they had fixed upon Sunday, the 31st of May, as the day of the general rising. But the chief conspirators had to employ a large number of instruments. The rashness or premature action of a single instrument may destroy the best laid plot. The heads of the conspiracy had corrupted the 3d Native Cavalry and the 20th Regiment N. I., and had formed their committees in these regiments. But, at a critical conjuncture, these latter had been unable to restrain the rank and file of the regiments from premature action. Excited to fever pitch, eighty-five men of the 3d L. C. had, with the sympathy of their comrades, refused to receive the proffered cartridges. Brought to trial for the offence, they had been condemned, sentenced, and lodged in gaol. This sentence had been too great a stimulus to the passions of the troopers to allow them to await patiently the day fixed upon. They saw that the English were unsuspicious, and they believed that the plot, so far as Mírath was concerned, might, by a prompt rising, be brought to a successful issue. In that events proved them to be right. But they had lost sight of the fact that, by acting solely for their own hand, they were imperilling the great principle which had been impressed upon them by their committees, and, with it, the general success aimed at by their chiefs. This premature action proved ultimately as fortunate for the English as disastrous to the cause of revolt. A blow which, struck simultaneously all over India, might have been irresistible lost more than half its power when delivered piecemeal and at intervals.[1]
On the 12th of May a telegram from Agra conveyed to the Government, in Calcutta, the information that the native cavalry at Mírath had risen, had set fire to several officers' houses and to their own lines, and had killed or wounded all the English officers and soldiers they had come across. It is not too much to record that the attitude of the Government on receiving this telegram was one of blank dismay. It was so little expected. Only two days before, Lord Canning had written a minute strongly supporting disbandment as a severe punishment to a regiment which should mutiny. Mr Dorin, the senior of his colleagues, had recorded an opinion of the same character. The military member of Council, General Low, little realising the nature of the catastrophe he had to face, had suggested that, after all, the conduct of the sipáhís might be due rather to actual dread of injury to their caste than to disaffection. Yet, on the 12th, these rulers were told that disaffection had reached its highest point; that a whole regiment, far from fearing disbandment, had actually disbanded itself, after slaying its officers. Then, indeed, they must have realised that, in their dealings with the 19th, with the 34th, with the men whose conduct Cavenagh had brought to notice, they had been pitiably weak when they had thought they had been strong; that from the first they had misjudged and misunderstood the whole business; that the disaffection, far from being confined to Bengal proper, was probably general — in a word, that they had been living in a fool's paradise.
It is due to Lord Canning to state that, within a short time of his perusal of the terrible news, he had not only recognised the grave character of the crisis, but had taken measures to meet it. On the 12th he did not know the worst. Then it was the mutiny of the 3d Light Cavalry that he had to meet. But two days later he received fuller particulars. On the 14th he heard of the seizure of Dehlí. On the 15th and 16th particulars reached him of the massacre of the Europeans, of the flight of the officers, of the rallying round the resuscitated flag of the Mughal. Then he stood forward as the bold, resolute, daring Englishman he really was. He telegraphed to the Governor of Bombay, Lord Elphinstone, to hasten, as far as he could, the return of the troops due in Bombay from the completed campaign against Persia. He telegraphed to the Commander-in-Chief to 'make short work of Dehlí.' He transmitted to the Chief Commissioner of the Panjáb, Sir John Lawrence, full powers to act according to the best of his judgment. Not only did he countermand the return of the 84th to Rangoon, but he sent for a second regiment from that place and from Moulmein. He wrote to the Governor of Madras, Lord Harris, to send him two regiments. More than that, recollecting that a combined military and naval expedition was on its way from England to China, to support there, by force of arms, the pretensions of the British, he took upon himself the responsibility of despatching a message to Lord Elgin and General Ashburnham to intercept that expedition, and to beg them to despatch the troops under their orders with all possible speed to India.
Having summoned those reinforcements, Lord Canning took a searching glance at the actual situation. The sudden outbreak at Mírath must have brought to his mind the conviction that he might have to meet a general rising of the Bengal army. What resources had he in his hand, not counting the troops he had summoned to his aid, to meet such a general rising? A glance at those resources was not calculated to inspire confidence. Between Calcutta and Dánápur there were no English regiments. At Calcutta and in its vicinity were the 53d and the 84th. At Dánápur was the 10th Foot. Stretching north-westward from Dánápur, the eye rested on Banáras, with no English regiment, and but a few English gunners. At Allahábád, with its important fortress, the same state of things. The same likewise at Kánhpur, the next military station beyond it. At Lakhnao, indeed there was one English regiment, but that regiment was wanted to defend the whole province of Oudh. At Agra there was but one English regiment. Beyond Agra and Kánhpur came Mírath and Dehli. We know, and Lord Canning knew, the condition of both those places. Beyond them were the military stations of Ambálah, and the hill stations between it and Simla, and Fíruzpur, and beyond these again, the Panjáb, as the Panjáb was then computed. Here the bulk of the British troops was concentrated, but their numbers were none too many for the needs of the province.
If the reader, bearing in mind the allotment of British troops I have just given, will study a map of India, he will realise that the prospect immediately before Lord Canning was far from reassuring. He had, as a statesman versed in affairs, to regard the native garrisons in all the stations mentioned, and in the smaller stations in their neighbourhood, as at least untrustworthy. After the events of Mírath and Dehli, he was bound even to class them in the list of probable enemies, and to provide for them accordingly. There were native troops at Barrackpur, in eastern Bengal, at Dánápur, at Banáras, at Allahábád, at Kánhpur, scattered all over the province of Oudh, at Agra, at Alígarh, at Barélí, at Murádábád, and at other minor stations south-east of Mírath and west of Agra. In the districts in which those native troops were located Lord Canning could at the moment dispose of but four English regiments — the 53d and 84th at or near Calcutta, the 10th at Dánápur, the 32d at Lakhnao, the 3d Europeans at Agra. Every man of these regiments was required for the purposes of the city or cantonment in which he happened to be. Lord Canning could not fail to recognise, then, that between Calcutta and Mírath he was absolutely powerless for aggressive purposes; that it would be marvellous could he succeed in maintaining his position until reinforcements should arrive.
On the other hand, he had great faith, and I believe at the time every Englishman south-east of Mírath had great faith, in the power of the Commander-in-Chief to retake the Imperial city. Past history afforded good reason for that belief In September 1803 the troops of Sindhiá had not offered the semblance of a resistance to the small army of General Lake. In the wars of the earlier Mughals with the representatives of the dynasties which they supplanted, Dehlí had never offered any but the slightest resistance to the army which had been victorious in the field. Even amongst soldiers who had been stationed at that city the idea that Dehlí could present a prolonged resistance was laughed at. The conviction prevalent at Calcutta,[2] especially in military circles, was that the mutineers had played the British game by rushing into a walled city, where they would be as rats in a trap. It can easily be understood, then, how it was that the hopes of Lord Canning that the Commander-in-Chief would very soon be able to deal a deadly blow to the mutineers, by capturing their stronghold, was shared by every Englishman, or by almost every Englishman, at Calcutta.
As to the Panjáb, though Lord Canning naturally felt anxiety, it was an anxiety tempered by confidence in the resolute man who there represented him, and in that resolute man's subordinates. He had precisely the same feeling regarding Oudh. If Oudh at this crisis could be preserved to the British, Sir Henry Lawrence, who represented there the Government of India, was the man to preserve it. He had, and justly, an equal confidence in the Governors of the minor Presidencies — in Lord Elphinstone and Lord Harris — a confidence which their splendid conduct in all the phases of the rebellion more than justified.
Looking back at the conduct of Lord Canning at this period, I cannot withhold my conviction that in all that related to his exterior policy, that is, in the efforts he made to procure assistance from outside, it was admirable. There was only one little thing, suggested to him by Lord Elphinstone, which he might with advantage have done, but which he did not do. In those days telegraphic communication with England had not been established. With the view, then, to secure the prompt arrival of reinforcements from England by the overland route. Lord Elphinstone suggested to Lord Canning the despatch to England of a special steamer, ready to his hand, which, steaming at her highest speed, should anticipate the regular mail steamer by some days. For some reason with which I am not acquainted Lord Canning declined the suggestion.
Having thus, in the manner I have recorded, endeavoured to reassure his lieutenants beyond Mírath, and to procure assistance from beyond India, Lord Canning set to work to take the measures which might be necessary to maintain his position within the country until reinforcements should arrive. In this attempt he was not nearly so successful as he was in his measures of exterior policy.
It was unfortunate that, in his measures of internal policy, Lord Canning was compelled, from his previous inexperience of India, to depend for his information on men, for the most part, of the shallowest capacity: men who, although they had served in India during periods of from fifteen to thirty years, and longer, had served with their eyes shut, and with a coil of red tape round their minds. Calcutta and its suburbs contained, in 1857, a native population exceeding half a million. In one of the suburbs lived the deposed King of Oudh, with a large following of retainers, not one of whom was disposed to love the Government which had made them exiles. To guard this large population there was but one weak wing of an English regiment, occupying Fort William. But there was a large body of Englishmen in Calcutta — merchants, lawyers, traders, clerks in public offices — who, apprehending the nature of the crisis far more clearly than the Government had apprehended it, were ready and anxious to place their services at the disposal of the Governor-General for the repression of disorder. There were also others — Frenchmen, Germans, Americans, — who were inspired by a similar sentiment. The feeling which animated these men was as simple as it was disinterested. They said in so many words to the Government: 'The situation is full of peril; you are short of men, you have to control a large population in Calcutta, and you have within call but two English regiments; there are three armed native regiments at Barrackpur, ready to emulate the conduct of their comrades at Mírath, why not utilise our services? We can furnish a regiment of infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and a battery of artillery; our interests and your interests are identical: use us.'
There was not the smallest approach to panic among these men. They were sincerely anxious to help the Government in the terrible crisis. What panic there was was confined entirely to the higher official classes and the scum of the Eurasian population. It was in the exercise of the purest patriotism, then, that the merchants and traders of Calcutta, English and foreign, offered their services, between the 20th and the 25th of May, to the Government. A wise Government would have met these offers with sympathy. The Government of Calcutta met them with language which was tantamount to insult. Whilst the English merchants and traders were told that, if they wished to enrol themselves as special constables, they might apply to the Commissioner of Police, who, it transpired, had been instructed to furnish them with clubs, the French community received from the Home Secretary, Mr Cecil Beadon, a reply which betrayed either infatuation or a determined attempt to deceive: 'Everything is quiet within six hundred miles of the capital. The mischief caused by a passing and groundless panic has been already arrested; and there is every reason to hope that in the course of a few days tranquillity and confidence will be restored throughout the Presidency.' In point of fact, the mischief had not been arrested; everything was not quiet within 600 miles of the capital; and, far from there being reason to hope that in the course of a few days tranquillity and confidence would be restored throughout the Presidency, there was the absolute certainty that disorder and insurrection would enormously increase.
The reply of the Home Secretary, representing the views of the Government, was alike untrue and impolitic. At a critical moment it alienated the sympathies of the Europeans of Calcutta. And it speaks largely in favour of the patriotism and self-abnegation of the members of that community that, about three weeks later, when the boastings of the Home Secretary had vanished into thin air, and the Government saw almost as clearly as the community had seen, at the time of their first offer, the danger of the situation, they agreed to form volunteer corps of the three arms to aid the Government in their dire necessity.
For the Home Secretary's vaunt had scarcely been made public when the ineptitude, or the wish to deceive which had prompted it, became apparent. His reply, already quoted, had been written on the 25th of May. Between that date and the 30th the native troops at Fírúzpur, at Alígarh, at Bulandshahr, at Itáwah, and at Mainpurí rose in revolt. The news from Agra, from Lakhnao, from Kánhpur, from Banáras, was of a most discouraging character. It became evident, even to the Government, that not only had the mischief not been arrested, but that it was yet in its infancy. Under these circumstances. Lord Canning could not but feel very anxious regarding the movement of the Commander-in-Chief against Dehlí. The maintenance of the authority left to the English, between the Húglí and the Indus, depended, he felt, on the promptitude of the action of the gallant soldier who, on the first news of the revolt at Mírath, had hastened to Ambálah to organise a force to march against the rebels. It was in this view that, on the 31st of May, he despatched to that officer a telegram which clearly shows how, since the Home Secretary had triumphantly 'snubbed' the French inhabitants of Calcutta on the 25th, the views of the Government had changed.[3]
Nothing reveals more clearly than this telegram that, at the very end of May, Lord Canning had but feebly grasped the situation. He had, it is true, realised the intense danger of the position below Dehlí, but no soldier himself, and having at his elbow men who were soldiers only in name, he had realised neither the difficulties which General Anson had to overcome before he could march from Ambálah, the strength of Dehlí, nor the extent of the disaffection. A more correct forecast would have made it clear to him that he had nothing to hope for from the Commander-in-Chief, that he had to depend solely upon God and his own right arm.
There was this advantage in the faultiness of his forecast that it made him confident. Those about him assured him that Dehlí could not hold out, and that the capture of Dehlí would be the turning point of the disturbances; and he believed them. Could he maintain the weak middle part, the unguarded country between Banáras and Dehlí, until succour from the North-west, from Persia, from China, from Burma, should arrive, all must go well. He had done what he could with the small means at his disposal to strengthen that middle part. On the 20th of May he had begun, and on following days he continued to despatch the 84th by driblets, as many as could be accommodated in a series of post-carriages, to Banáras and Kánhpur. On the 23d of May the Madras Fusiliers arrived from Madras, and were promptly despatched in the same direction. The first week of June increased his hopes that the danger might be yet averted. That week witnessed the arrival in Calcutta of the 64th Foot and 78th Highlanders from Persia, of a wing of the 35th Foot from Maulmein, of a wing of the 37th and a company of artillery from Ceylon. These were pushed forward with all possible celerity.
It is as certain as can be, judging from his after conduct that if Lord Canning, at this crisis, had been left to act upon his own instincts, or even if he had trusted to the experienced advice of the one capable counsellor at his elbow, Mr J. P. Grant, many of the mishaps which occurred during this month and the following would not have happened. But at this period he was under the influence of men whose knowledge of the country in which they had passed their lives was absolutely superficial. It was in deference to the advice of these men that, at a period when a plain and straightforward declaration, followed by plain and straightforward action, would have relieved the situation, he acted towards the sipáhís in a manner the reverse of both. Thus whilst he had three native regiments at Barrackpur, in dangerous proximity to Calcutta, he preferred to maintain troops to guard them rather than to disarm them. The case of Dánápur was even worse. The garrison of Dánápur, consisting of one English and three native regiments, was the guardian of the rich and populous province of Bihár. It was certain that, should the three native regiments break away, as their comrades in other places had broken away, a great danger would be constituted for Bihár itself, and possibly for Calcutta. Common sense urged that the first opportunity should be taken to disarm them. But common sense was a quality conspicuous by its absence among the Hallidays, the Beadons, and the Birches, who had the ear of Lord Canning. These men invented the policy of feigning confidence when confidence had been lost, and of declining to disarm men whom they knew to be rebels, lest they should instigate a premature rising. The terrible dangers which persistence in this policy — persistence in spite of warnings and remonstrances — led to will be recorded in subsequent chapters.
- ↑ This is not mere surmise. Mr Cracroft Wilson, of the Civil Service, who was selected by the Government of India, after the repression of the Mutiny, to ascertain who were the guilty and who deserving of reward among the natives of the North-west, has recorded his conviction, derived from oral information, that the 31st of May was the day fixed upon by the conspirators for a general rising. Committees had been formed in each regiment, and to these alone was intrusted the general scheme of the plot. The sipáhís were directed to obey only the orders of the regimental committees. It is probable that the very severe punishment dealt out to the eighty-five men of the 3d L. C. so excited the men that they overrode the directions of their committee and insisted upon prompt action.
From information I have obtained, in conversation with natives of the Upper Provinces, I am convinced that the theory broached by Mr Cracroft Wilson is true. It is very difficult to induce the natives who lived and took a part in the great uprising of 1857 to open their minds regarding it. But I have heard from some of them sufficient to produce conviction in my mind that a day was fixed, and that the premature action of the 10th and 11th of May was considered to have greatly damaged the chances of success.
- ↑ I write from my own knowledge, having at the time been attached to the Government of India, in Calcutta, as Assistant Auditor-General.
- ↑ 'I have heard to-day that you do not intend to be before Dehlí until the 9th. In the meantime Kánhpur and Lakhnao are severely pressed, and the country between Dehlí and Kánhpur is passing into the hands of the rebels. It is of the utmost importance to prevent this, and to relieve Kánhpur, but nothing but rapid action will do it. Your force of artillery will enable you to dispose of Dehlí with certainty. I therefore beg that you will detach one European infantry regiment, and a small force of European cavalry, to the south of Dehlí, without keeping them for operations there, so that Alígarh may be recovered and Kánhpur relieved immediately. It is impossible to overrate the importance of showing European troops between Dehlí and Kánhpur. Lakhnao and Allahábád depend upon it.'