The Sikhs (Gordon)/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
THE SECOND SIKH WAR, 1848-49—ANNEXATION, 1849.
The policy of maintaining the Sikh kingdom was considered highly important, but the attempt to govern by a British protectorate broke down after a fair trial. The evil seeds of disintegration were in the Sikhs themselves. The Durbar was corrupt, weak, and divided against itself. Before the year was out the minister Lai Singh was caught red-handed in treachery. After the order was issued for the transfer of Kashmir to Maharaja Golab Singh according to the treaty, he sent letters to the governor there to resist this by force. Several conflicts ensued; and not till Colonel Henry Lawrence proceeded there, at the head of a body of Sikh troops who had been so lately fighting against us, was the transfer effected. Lal Singh was proved guilty by the production of his own letters; not a voice was raised for him, and he was banished to his native land in Hindostan.
A Council of Regency of the principal chiefs was now formed under the direction of the British Resident; but at the Lahore Court the witches' caldron, brimful with intrigue, again began to bubble. The queen-regent had hoped that everything except the dread Khalsa would have been restored to her as before the war. She bitterly resented the expulsion of her favourite minister, the arch-traitor Lal Singh, and after a short time the sardars also came to repent of the treaty they had made. Faithlessness to the tee merciful British Government was encouraged; an army and guns still remained to them; disaffection was excited among the soldiery and the disbanded Khalsa, who swarmed, discontented, in the villages. The new wine, in the form of English officers sent by the Regency Council to various parts of the country to see orders obeyed, burst the old bottles of Sikh government, which had so long held methods of barbarism. The climax came in April 1848, when the reformed Durbar was forced to interfere with Mul Raj, the rapacious Hindu Governor of Multan, whose tyranny could not be tolerated under the eye of the British protectorate. He resigned, and a Sikh sardar was sent to relieve him, accompanied by two English officers—Mr Vans Agnew of the Civil Service and Lieutenant Anderson, with an escort of Durbar troops—to see him installed. They were treacherously wounded while returning from the fort with Mul Raj on his giving over the keys, and shortly afterwards murdered by some of his soldiers. Only the new Sikh Governor, his son, a few faithful horsemen, and some servants remained with them to the end, the escort having gone over to the enemy. They scorned to wave the white sheet of submission, Vans Agnew saying: "The time for mercy has gone; let none be asked for. They can kill us two if they like, but we are not the last of the English. Thousands of Englishmen will come here after we are gone and annihilate Mul Raj and his soldiers and his fort." The loyal Sikh sardar Kahan Singh and his son were imprisoned, and taunted with showing sympathy for the foreigners. When the fort was ultimately captured by the British, their dead bodies were found in the ruins of their prison clasped in one another's arms.
Mul Raj declared war against the British, and, gathering a force of some thousands, put his fort in a state of defence by making a deep ditch lined with masonry round a wall thirty feet high. Great importance was attached to the possession of this celebrated old stronghold for which so many battles had been fought in ancient and modern times—the scene of one of the great Alexander's exploits on his march down the Indus valley, where, leading the victorious Greek assault, he was severely wounded. The Mahomedan tribes in the neighbourhood had no love for the Sikh rule. They rallied to the summons of a young English officer, Lieutenant Edwardes, then in charge of the Derajat frontier, and twice sorely defeated the rebels, shutting them up in the city and fort. Sardar Sher Singh, one of the Court of Regency, sent down with 12,000 men and 12 guns, joined Edwardes; but they were unreliable.
The very hot summer was on in that hottest of hot localities in the Punjab; the proceedings of the Durbar were dilatory, and when told by the British Resident that the rebellion must be put down they professed their inability to undertake the task. A division of British troops was then sent: they reached the scene in August, when after some severe fighting they found the fort too strong to be successfully attacked, and took up a position awaiting reinforcements. Sher Singh with his Sikh force went over to the enemy in September, and before the end of the month left them, marching away north to join his father, Sardar Chutter Singh, the Sikh Governor of Hazara, who in August had revolted with all his troops. Not till December, when the British force at Multan was joined by a division from Bombay, was the siege vigorously resumed, ending by the capture of the city and surrender of the fort on 22nd January 1849, after a loss by them of 1200 killed and wounded. The bodies of the two murdered English officers were then taken from their neglected grave, wrapped in Kashmir shawls, carried up through the breach by the thousands of their countrymen who had come to avenge their death, and buried with military honours on the summit of the citadel.
The delay before Multan changed a local émeute into the rebellion of the whole Sikh nation, which now rose to re-establish the supremacy of the Khalsa and shake off the hold of the British, thinking that as they had abandoned Kabul some years before, so they would march out of the Punjab. The Maharani had not been idle at Lahore; she was mixed up with intrigues which demanded the sternest measures against the ringleaders, one of them being her confidential adviser: she was banished to India. Overtures for aid had been made by Mul Raj and the Sikh sardars to the Amir Dost Mahomed, the price being the cession of Peshawar, the province which Ranjit Singh had won from the Afghans, and for which his best had so freely shed their blood. The Amir marched there and sent his son with a contingent of Afghan troops to join the Sikh army,—an unnatural alliance between hereditary enemies, which drowned for a time creed antipathies. The Durbar troops at Peshawar now revolted and joined the rebels.
Sher Singh with his troops took up a position on the Chenab river, where the Khalsa in their thousands joined him. The Punjab was now aflame; the trumpet again spoke to the cannon, and the sound of battle rolled through the land. A rising took place of discontented leaders in the ceded districts, of which John Lawrence was Commissioner. The rebels proclaimed that the English rule had ceased. They were on the flank of the British army advancing from Lahore. Lawrence, with the genius of a born general, was promptly on the spot with a small force and some raw levies. "If you will excite rebellion, as I live I will severely punish you," was his dictum. He made short work of them, and then offered the people the choice between the sword and the pen as the instrument by which they wished to be ruled,—between enforced submission or willing obedience. His pen was grasped with enthusiasm, and the sword was sheathed and kept in reserve.
The Sikhs held the fords of the Chenab river and threw up strong works at Ramnugger on both banks to oppose the advance of the British under Lord Gough. After severe fighting there and some desultory operations elsewhere, the passage was effected, and by the end of December all the British force had crossed to the north bank to drive the enemy towards the Jhelum and hold him in check, while waiting for the fall of Multan to set free more troops to join it.
Sher Singh showed considerable generalship in handling his army, now about 40,000 strong with over 60 guns. He took up a well-chosen position near the Jhelum, close to the classic field of Alexander's great battle with Porus in 327 b.c., and as the revolted Sikh troops were now marching from Peshawar to join him, Lord Gough determined to engage before they arrived. On the 13th January 1849 he advanced with 15,000 men and 66 guns to Chillianwala, where he drove in their advanced outposts, intending to halt there, reconnoitre, and attack the following day. Sher Singh, however, under cover of a long belt of jungle which lay in front of his position, moved out with all his force and cleverly manœuvred to bring on an action at once on ground of his own choosing, which afforded little opportunity for cavalry, and where with his superior numbers he could overlap the flanks of his enemy. After an hour's artillery duel a general advance of the British line was made in the afternoon. Lord Gough again took the bull by the horns, and, as was expressed on a previous occasion, found it "all horns." The dense patches of thorny bush which screened the Sikhs broke the ordered advance of brigades, and the battle devolved into a series of detached combats—regiments singly forcing their way through the jungle to the open spaces, where they suddenly found themselves face to face with the enemy's guns and infantry massed by them. Then followed the volley, the cheer, the run upon the cannon's mouth, and fierce hand-to-hand fighting: gunners were bayonetted serving their guns to the last, and their infantry, in many cases after delivering their fire, dropped their firelocks and met the bayonet charge sword in hand, answering the "hurrah" with the Khalsa war-cry. One English regiment had sixty casualties from sword-cuts in capturing a battery, but the bayonet triumphed over the sword. The fight was waged with varying fortune in different parts of the field; each side could claim some success. From want of knowledge of the ground surprises awaited the British here and there. An impassable swamp, beyond which was posted a battery, effectually checked the advance of a brigade, which had to retire with heavy loss, but the other on its flank forged ahead and repaired the loss. The Sikhs fought gallantly and doggedly, as they did on the Sutlej. When their regular infantry retired they did so in good order, loading, halting, and turning to fire as if on parade: they belonged to the old well-trained Khalsa brigades, big, long-bearded men, clad in red coats. Darkness alone put an end to the deadly hurly-burly, —to another soldiers' battle fought under the most adverse circumstances.
The Sikhs withdrew towards the Jhelum, retired within their prepared position masked by the jungle, and there fired a royal salute of victory, while the British bivouacked on the field of Chillianwala. Both sides sustained severe loss, that of the British being about 16 per cent of the force engaged, individual units suffering more severely than others, some dropping one-third and even one-half of their numbers. Heavy rain for the two following days prevented further operations, and on the third day the Sikh reinforcements joined. For a month the two armies lay facing one another, Sher Singh during that time making ineffectual attempts to induce his opponent to move out of his position, which covered the routes to the Chenab in rear. In the meantime Multan had fallen, and troops were marching up from there to reinforce the British. On hearing of their approach Sher Singh skilfully made a flank march by night along the front, and got a start of a day in an attempt to cross the Chenab farther up and make for Lahore; but on finding the fords guarded, took up a position round the town of Gujerat, where he concentrated 61,000 men and 60 guns, the finest and best commanded force the Sikhs ever assembled against us.
Lord Gough, having been reinforced, attacked the Sikh army early on the morning of the 21st February with 25,000 men and 96 guns, being for the first time in the two campaigns superior in artillery. The enemy's full power was now massed in front of him, prepared to fight a pitched battle. The blow that was to be struck would be all the more effective if dealt deliberately, without leaving anything to chance. For three hours all the British guns did deadly execution in the Sikh ranks, which they endured with stern resolution and tried their best to meet. In vain their infantry and cavalry attempted to advance to the attack; their bravery was of no avail against the murderous artillery-fire. Indian irregular horse charged and routed the Afghan cavalry. When the Sikh guns were nearly silenced a general advance of the British line swept the field, capturing 53 guns and all the camp with its matériel. The British casualties were 800, those of the Sikhs 7000.
The Sikh army had now been smashed on thoroughly scientific principles: no mistake was possible as to the decisive character of their defeat. Completely routed, they broke away in full flight to the north, pursued by the relentless cavalry, which inflicted further execution on them. A column of 12,000 men was promptly sent across the Jhelum to follow the wreck of the army and gather up all the fruits of victory. Slier Singh sent in to the British camp the English officers he had as prisoners, who had been taken when on duty with the Durbar troops. They had been well treated. He asked for terms, and received the reply, Unconditional surrender. The shattered Khalsa, flying north, were now nearing the Pathan country, where little mercy would be shown them by their hereditary foes. They were between the devil ahead and the deep sea rolling up behind them: annihilation was inevitable unless they accepted the British terms. On the 12th March 1849 they surrendered unconditionally. The Afghan contingent, after losing half their numbers, deserted their allies, and were hotly pursued by the British cavalry through Peshawar and driven into the Khaibar Pass.
At Rawal Pindi Raja Sher Singh, the Sikh commander-in-chief, with his sardars, one by one gave up their swords to the British general, and their men following grounded their arms at the victor's feet—most in gloomy silence, some in passionate tears on throwing down their cherished weapons, some reverently saluting them as they placed them on the ground, others muttering curses at their hard fate—all proud in bearing. They frankly acknowledged that they had been well and fairly beaten, and that now their cause was hopeless. They had been worthy and gallant foes, and were respected in their misfortune by their conquerors, who did not use their victory to humiliate them. The rank and file were furnished with means of returning to their homes. Back to their villages they went to toil,—to the plough again,—not as conquered enemies, but as free subjects of the Great Queen Victoria, to enjoy the same protection and privileges as the others under the British Crown. They would remain the same men as before; they had tasted of the salt of life, and its savour would never leave them. They had shed their blood in what they considered a good cause, and loyalty was still theirs to give, as we found so soon later on, when it was kindled anew after they recognised the spirit in which we met them and willingly grasped the hand held out to them.
With the crushing defeat of Gujerat perished the last hopes of resuscitating the Sikh kingdom. It was the final act of the tragedy which commenced on the banks of the Sutlej. The last stake had now been played and lost in a war exclusively of their own making. They had fought the British on more than equal terms; they were the first to draw the sword, and they were the first to lay it down and end the contest for supremacy by manly submission.
On the 1st February Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General, always definite and specific in his ideas, declared that "the peace and vital interests of the British Empire now require that the power of the Sikh Government should not only be defeated but subverted, and their dynasty abolished." In his words, the victory gained at Gujerat was "memorable from the greatness of the occasion, and from the brilliant and decisive nature of the encounter,—it equalled the highest hopes entertained." On the 29th March 1849 he proclaimed that "the kingdom of the Punjab is at an end, and that the territories of Maharaja Ranjit Singh are now and henceforth a portion of the British Empire in India." All the inhabitants of the Punjab, sardars and people, were called upon to submit themselves peacefully to the authority of the British Government. "Over those who shall live as obedient and peaceful subjects the British Government will rule with mildness and beneficence, but if resistance to constituted authority shall again be attempted, if violence and turbulence are renewed, the Governor-General warns the people of the Punjab that the time for leniency will then have passed away, and that their offences will be punished with prompt and most vigorous severity."
The Sikh government went the way of all governments which will not learn to rule intelligently. The whole of the Punjab came under the British flag, which now waved over the continent of India from the sea to the Himalaya and Sulaiman Mountains. Little was it thought then of what the near future had in store for this land of soldiers. A few years later, when the storm of the great mutiny of the Bengal army suddenly burst as a bolt from the blue, the Sikhs were again in the field, but this time as loyal soldiers of their honoured Queen Victoria, fighting in her cause alongside their English comrades.