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February 26 - March 21, 2017
1756, Give set out from Madras to recover Calcutta from the hands of Suraju-daulah, he took with him, in addition to his 900 Europeans, 1200 Sipahis, natives of Southern India, armed and drilled on the European system.
Vellor in 1806, at Barrackpur in 1824 and again in 1852, in the North-western Provinces in 1844, in the Panjab in 1849-50, deemed that the promises made to him on his enlistment had been deliberately violated, that he displayed an obstinate determination to break with his master
(1796). The dress of the Sipahis was assimilated to that of his European comrades.
disasters of the first Afghan war had an effect on the feelings with which the Sipahi had until then regarded his English master is undeniable.
1857, the Madras Sipahis then took no part in the revolt.
The Maulavi was a very remarkable man. His name was Ahmad-ullah, and his native place was Faizabad in Oudh.
Sir Thomas Seaton, who enjoyed, during the suppression of the revolt, the best means of judging him, described him 'as a man of great abilities, of undaunted courage, of stern determination, and by far the best soldier among the rebels.' Such was the man selected by the discontented in Oudh to sow throughout India the seeds which, on a given signal, should, spring to active growth. Of the ascertained facts respecting his action this at least has been proved, that very soon after the annexation of Oudh he travelled over the North-west Provinces on a mission which was a mystery to the European
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The principal master-mind to Indians rebellion / First War of Independence. To the British, Maulvi Ahmad-Ullah of Faizabad was the Chief Conspirator & executor of the great storm of Mutiny.
happened in this wise. A lascar engaged in the factory at Dam-Dam asked a Brahman Sipahi to let him have a drink of water from his lotah, or brass pot. The Sipahi indignantly refused, on the ground that his caste would not permit him to use the lotah afterwards if it should be defiled by the drinking of a man of a lower position in. the Hindu hierarchy. The lascar, in reply, laughed at him for talking of defilement, when he said, 'You will all soon be biting cartridges smeared with the fat of the cow and the pig.' He then told the Sipahi the method of the new cartridges. The incident occurred
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The reader may ask how that was possible, considering that the cartridges were similar to those they had used for a century. The answer is that fanaticism never reasons. The Hindus are fanatics for caste.
There can be little doubt but that the leaders of the conspiracy had resolved to strike their blow on that day.
The emissaries of the Maulavi and his comrades had done their work thoroughly.
Sentiment goes much further than logic with Asiatics, and they appealed to the sentiments which touched the Sipahis to the quick.
Even today it so goes…
the 29th of March, a Sunday afternoon, it was reported to Lieutenant Baugh, Adjutant of the 34th N. I., that several men of his regiment were in a very excited condition; that one of them, Manghal Pandi by name, was striding up and down in front of the lines of his regiment, armed with a loaded musket, calling upon the men to rise, and threatening to shoot the first European he should see.
At Barrackpore near Calcutta
The wound of the mutinous Sipahi Manghal Pandi had not proved mortal. He recovered, was brought to trial, and hanged.
It is very doubtful whether there were at Mirath, at this crisis, any of those who were deep in the conspiracy: who had fostered the movement from its very birth; who were in the confidence of the Maulavi and his colleagues.
Probably this was the reason of an earlier than destined outbreak
Nowhere in the world does rumour rise so easily or take such exaggerated forms as in India.
Bahadur Shah, titular King of Dehli, the twentieth successor of the illustrious Akbar. He was King of Dehli in name, and in name only. The empire had departed from the feeble hands of his predecessors before the English had become a power in India. The Khorasani adventurer Nadir Shah had plundered the palace in 1739. Less than ten years later, the Afghan Ahmad Shah Durani had repeated the infliction. In 1788 the rebel Ghulam Kadir had blinded, within the palace, the reigning Emperor Shah Alam. For fifteen years the city had, then, been occupied by the Marathas. The English had made their first
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events of the 10th of May at Mirath, and of the 11th at Dehli, came as a surprise alike to the revolters all over India and to the Government.
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.
September 1803 the troops of Sindhia had not offered the semblance of a resistance to the small army of General Lake.
Colvin, believing that the mutiny was a Muhammadan movement, in the repression of which those not imbued with the faith of Islam would aid, applied to the Maharaja Sindhia and to the Bhartpur regency for material assistance, that assistance was indeed immediately afforded by the despatch of native troops, alike from Gwaliar and Bhartpur. But, whilst responding to the call, Sindhia expressed to the British Agent his grave doubts as to the consequence of his compliance.
town of Ghazi-ud-din Nagar, about a mile from the left bank of the little river Hindan.
old name for Ghaziabad of today
His vigorous action, that of Surat Singh, supported by Devnarain Singh, by the Raja of Banaras, and by Pandit Gokal Chand, preserved the great city of Banaras to the British.
concluded an arrangement with Jang Bahadur, Prime Minister and virtual ruler of the State of Nipal, for the despatch of a body of Gurkha troops to the districts of Gorakhpur and azamgarh.
Independent Nepal helped English
The province, Western Bihar, of which Patna was the capital, was one of the richest provinces in India. It contained a considerable number of native landowners, men of large estates and ancient lineage. English merchants, too, had invested large sums in the province
Prosperous Bihar
insurrection in the most inflammable city in India, the headquarters of the intriguing Wahabis, and had preserved, amid great difficulties, complete order in the districts, those of Patna, Gaya, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, and Tirhut,
city of Patna, the centre of the richest province in India,
uprising in the city itself, had baffled the machinations of the Wahabi leaders,
Who were still in preparation for the chosen date
Maharaja Sindhia remains loyal,
A Traitor (1803-1947)
The wiser statesmen have recognised that the real enemies of the British are the Sipahis and the populations of the Northwestern Provinces, of Bundelkhand, of Rohilkhand, and of Oudh.
the town-crier, by order of the Kotwal, proclaimed the inauguration of the rule of the Mughal.
July 9, 1857
Proclamation of the Mughal Rule in Delhi
Raja of Banpur, and others of lesser note, boldly asserted their independence.
on the downfall of the Peshwa, in 1817-8, Jhansi, with its other territories, was transferred to the British.
The ruler, with the title of Subahdar, accepted the protection of the foreign overlord, and agreed to pay an annual tribute of 74,000 rupees. In return, the British declared his title and position to be hereditary in his family. Fifteen years later, to mark their approval of his rule, they allowed him to assume the title of Raja. This prince, whose name was Ram Chand Rao, died without heirs, natural or adopted, in 1835.
Jhansi
The Raja of Rewa was loyal to the British connection in 1857,
The Rajas of Urchah and of Ajaigarh rendered likewise all the assistance in their power to their British overlord.
territories of the Rajas of the other places mentioned were subjected to the invasion and plundering of the rebels, but in their hearts they too were loyal.
Bhopal, indeed, was a brilliant exception. The then reigning Begum, Sikandar Begum, had assumed office, in February 1847, as regent for her daughter. She was a very remarkable woman, possessing great resolution, and a more than ordinary talent for affairs. In six years she had paid off the entire public debt of the State, had abolished the system of farming the revenue, had put a stop to monopolies, had reorganised the police, and had reformed the mint. When she scented the breaking out of the rebellion of 1857, she at once made up her mind to fight for her trusted overlord.
Traitor
Her nearest relations were daily urging upon her an opposite course; her troops mutinied, her nobles murmured. But Sikandar Begum never wavered.
Maharaja Sindhia was loyal to the core,
Gwaliar contingent mutinied on the 14th of June. The contingent represented the feelings of the people over whom the Maharaja ruled.
continued acquiescence of the Sikhs.
the stream may be described as washing the base of the walls.
River Yamuna & Red Fort at Delhi (formerly Dehli)
In the day's fight the assailants had lost sixty-six officers and 1104 men in killed and wounded.
Battle for Red Fort
So large had been the casualties that Wilson had fit for service but little over 3000 men.
the Commander-in-Chief, the old artillery Subahdar, Bakht Khan, represented to the King that his only way of safety lay in flight; he begged him to accompany the Sipahi army, which still remained intact, and with it to renew the war in the open country. That was the course which the descendant of Babar, had he been young, would have undoubtedly followed.
He allowed the Sipahi army to depart, whilst he took refuge at the tomb of Humayun,
That night, the 20th, the King slept a prisoner in the Begam's palace.
But there were still his sons, the princes,
two of these, and a grandson, lay concealed in Humayun's tomb, or in the vicinity.
