The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

Determined to take the offensive, Lake left Kanpur on 7 August, a day after he heard about the declaration of war, even though it was in the middle of the monsoon and the roads were awash with mud. He headed due west towards Perron’s fortress at Aligarh. Intent on fighting a fast-moving campaign, Lake brought with him a small but highly trained Grand Army of 10,000 men, including a cavalry division armed with his light galloper guns; but he deliberately brought little heavy artillery and no siege equipment. His intention to lead a small and mobile force was, however, somewhat challenged by Indian reality. By the early nineteenth century, East India Company armies had accumulated a huge establishment of attendants and assistants and support staff. In the end, the total body heading west amounted to more than 100,000 people, including mahouts and coolies, grass-cutters and horse-keepers, tent lascars and bullock-men, Banjarrah grain-collectors and money-changers, ‘female quacks, jugglers, groups of dancing girls, and votaries of pleasure’. These numbers did not, of course, include the thousands of elephants, camels, horses, poultry and flocks of goats and sheep which followed close on their heels: ‘The march of our army had the appearance of a moving town or citadel,’ remembered Major Thorn, ‘in the form of an oblong square, whose sides were defended by ramparts of glittering swords and bayonets.’121 After three weeks of difficult marching through heavy rain, wading through ...