CHAPTER IV.

Return to Bussean--Sir John Grey's Detachment--Battle of Assaye--Sindiah's Troops--Generals Allard and Ventura--General Lloyd's Observations on the Art of War--Tactics of the Sikhs--Runjeet Singh's Discipline--Sikh Artillery--Goojerat--Moodkee--Sir Joseph Thackwell--Bootawalla--Pontoons--Their Value to an Army--Great Rise in the Price of Food.

ON the 2nd of January, 1846, Colonel Campbell's force marched to Bussean, a retrograde movement; but in times of war, such counter movements are occasionally unavoidable, and their utility can be known only to the superintending eye of the Commander-in-chief.

In the course of the day, soon after we had finished our long and fatiguing march, we were surprised to find that we were to return in the direction of Ferozepore, in company with Major General Sir John Grey's detachment, which, at this time, was a march or two in our rear. This detachment consisted of three troops of horse artillery, H.M. 16th Lancers, 3rd Light Cavalry, H.M. 10th Foot, three regiments of Native Infantry, a company of Sappers and Miners, and the 4th Irregular Horse. This formed a force of about 7,500 men. There were besides, twelve twelve-pounders and eighteen horse artillery guns; in all thirty guns, or four to every thousand men, a force as large as that with which the Duke of Wellington fought the battle of Assaye, on the 23rd of September, 1803; for, excluding the 3,000 Mysore, etc., cavalry, he had only 4,500 men. The enemy was defeated with the loss of 120 guns taken, destroyed, or lost; the captured guns amounted to above 100.

It may be asked, why, when the Duke of Wellington, with a mere handful of soldiers, attacked some 35,000 men and gained such an action, we could not utterly eradicate even the very name of Sikh? The reasons are threefold. The battles of Moodkee and Aliwal were field actions; those of Ferozeshah and Sobraon were storming entrenchments. The strength of the entrenchments at Ferozeshah was not equal to those at Sobraon. The number of killed and wounded at Ferozeshah amounted to 2,419, and at Sobraon 2,383. At the former battle, the enemy had more than one hundred, at the latter sixty-seven guns, and two hundred camel-swivels; besides, at Sobraon, the Sikhs had two strong batteries in the rear of the right and left flanks of the entrenchment; for there were entrenchments and works within one another. We made three good attacks. The attack in front by Major-General Gilbert's division was not originally designed. There was a bank or mound of earth between this division and the entrenchment. The brigade, of which the 29th Foot composed a part, got jammed up, and formed into a wedge, something like the Roman form. It was at first intended that this division should wait as a reserve, and act if required, There was a failure in the right attack on the enemy's left.

Secondly, the troops of Sindiah and of the Berar Rajah, at the battle of Assaye had indeed been drilled, but they had not then had the advantage of having French officers; besides which, they, the Sirdars, were unable to act by themselves; nor had their men, like the Khalsa troops, been disciplined by such distinguished officers as were in the service of Runjeet Singh. The older French officers had died off, and the others were mere adventurers, very different from Ventura and Allard, who had served in the wars of the great Napoleon; the former having been in the retreat from Moscow. Sindiah's European officers were simply drill-sergeants; the merely being able to advance in line, or to execute some common evolutions will not gain a battle. A practised military eye for planning a battle, and marking out the details, is the indispensable requisite for such an achievement. As General Lloyd truly observes, in his able work on the Art of War: "No art or science is more difficult than that of war. It may be divided into two parts: the one mechanical, which may be taught by precepts; the other has no name, nor can it be either defined or taught. It consists in a just application of the principles and precepts of war in all the numberless circumstances and situations which occur; no rule, no study or application however assiduous, no experience however long, can teach this part; it is the effect of genius alone. As to the first, it may be reduced to mathematical principles; its object is to prepare the materials which form an army, for all the different operations which may occur: genius must apply them, according to the ground, number, species, and quality of the troops, which admit of infinite combinations. In this art, as in poetry and eloquence, there are many who can trace the rules by which a poem or an oration should be composed, and even compose according to the exactest rules, but, for want of that enthusiastic and divine fire, their productions are languid and insipid: so in our profession, many are to be found who know every precept of it by heart; but alas! when called upon to apply them, are immediately at a stand. They then recall their rules, and want to make everything, the rivers, woods, ravines, mountains, etc., subservient to them; whereas, their precept should, on the contrary, be subject to these, which are the only rules, the only guide we ought to follow. Whatever manoeuvre is not formed on these is absurd and ridiculous. These form the Great Book of War, and he who cannot read it, must for ever be content with the title of a brave soldier, and never aspire to that of a great general."

The discipline and training of the Sikh army had, as I have observed before, undergone a complete transformation and improvement under Runjeet Singh, so that the troops under Sindiah, in 1803, could not bear comparison with those of 1845, who had been disciplined by Ventura and Allard. Runjeet Singh himself was a great warrior; and from the time that he visited Lord Lake's camp, in 1805, he became convinced of the superiority of the discipline of the British army, and at once resolved on re-forming his own. He had a good material to work upon in the native hardihood, bravery and energy of the Sikh character. His primary attention was given to the formation of a regular infantry; and in this he was greatly aided by some deserters from the British service, to whom he confided the drilling of his troops. After that, he enlisted the Goorkhas, whose able resistance to the English had given him great confidence in their mode of discipline.

The opposition of his officers and troops, especially in the adoption of a new dress, would have daunted a less resolute character; but Runjeet Singh, conscious of the power of example, took part in all the military exercises and drill, and even wore the unaccustomed dress of a British foot-soldier; thus making himself master _de facto_, and not merely _de verbo_, of the new principles of war. After this, Ventura, Allard, and other European officers, carried out and perfected that discipline, which made the Sikh army what it was, when led under Tej Singh against the British forces, in 1845.

Let the reader bear in mind how fatal the trap, laid by the Sikhs for our troops at Ramnuggur, had proved to those gallant cavalry officers, Colonel Cureton,[17] Lieutenant-Colonel Havelock, and Captain Fitzgerald; the two latter were my brother officers in the 4th Queen's Own Light Dragoons, at Bombay. At the battle of Goojerat, on the 21st of February, 1849, the Sikhs moved more than once to try and turn our flank. Was such an attempt ever made in 1803? No! It was at Assaye that the Duke of Wellington fought his hardest and best battle (I am speaking of India), for he had five to one as odds against him. In guns, the enemy had seven times the number, besides several 16-pounders and heavy guns. The Duke had none but 17 pop-guns; for 6-pounders, when brought into action against 16 and 12-pounders, deserve no better name.

Thirdly, The Sikhs fired their guns in the ratio of thrice to our twice, which multiplies most fearfully the battering power of artillery, and raises the calibre of a six into a nine-pounder. At the battle of Ferozeshah, the Sikh guns were served with extraordinary rapidity and precision. The infantry stood between and behind the batteries, and lay on the ground behind their artillery, priming their muskets, and actively discharging their pieces in the face of the British force, thus forming an almost unprecedented shower of balls, carrying destruction and death with irresistible force. Recollecting that in 1845 and 1846, the enemy's artillery was double that of the British, we might rather ask how it came that so many escaped its deadly effects, than wonder how it was that so many were destroyed.

At Goojerat, where we had the greatest number of guns, the victory was complete; for after three hours' constant firing, our troops advanced, the enemy's guns were taken, and they fled.

Referring to the history of the battles in India in earlier times, from 1780 to 1792, we find that Hyder Ali Khan and Tippoo Sultan, used 18-pounder guns as field-guns. Sir Eyre Coote was obliged to use the same, which taught the British the necessity of having large guns; but, till very recently, we had departed from the practice of using guns equal in calibre to those of our enemies. It is a curious fact, that the British had 2,419 killed and wounded at Ferozeshah, and 2,383, or 36 less, at Sobraon: also, at the former battle, 694 killed, and at the latter, only 460, being a difference of 50 per cent. less. How can we account for this, but from the circumstance of our having had more guns at Sobraon? At Goojerat, the British loss was 807, out of which number 96 were killed, or not one-eighth. At Moodkee, the English lost 872 killed and wounded, of which number 215 were killed, or nearly one-fourth. At Goojerat, nearly 90 guns had been playing for three hours upon the Sikhs, before they gave way and the British advanced to take their guns. At Moodkee, the 36 Horse Artillery guns were the only ones brought into play. Except at the battle of Aliwal, where the loss was 589, the British suffered less at Goojerat than in any other battle with the Sikhs.

Lord Gough, in his Despatch,[18] says that the enemy had 60,000 men (perhaps overrated), and 59 guns. His lordship had 84 guns, according to the return, and these were of heavier metal than those of the enemy.

Surely, after these proofs, and when we have lost 10,788 men, killed and wounded, and 1,899 horses, in seven battles and one siege, viz., Moodkee, Ferozeshah, Aliwal, Sobraon, Ramnuggur, Chillianwallah, Goojerat, and the fort of Mooltan, we ought to be prepared on every point on our North-West frontier.

When I left India, in 1846, after the decisive battle of Sobraon, it was the general opinion that not another shot would be fired again in India for many years to come, whereas, in little more than two years after, we had, instead of a campaign of two months' duration, that is from the 18th of December, 1845, to the 10th of February, 1846, an uninterrupted warfare of ten months' continuance.

To resume our narrative. On the 3rd of January, Colonel Campbell's force marched for the third time to Wudnee, a distance of seventeen miles. The fatigue and tedium of marching to and fro, began to be sensibly felt, and many of our camp followers deserted. Among them was my _Bihishti_, or water-carrier, who had accompanied me on the march from Cawnpore. Then, too, there was so much heavy baggage, that instead of the indispensable refreshment of an ablution at the end of a dusty march, our officers could not get their towels and soap till a late hour in the afternoon.

On Sunday, the 4th of January, we marched back to Bhaga Poorana. Here we experienced a scarcity of water; and what little there was, was very bad. On the 5th, we marched at a quarter to five, A.M., on Moodkee, fifteen miles distant.

Here we encamped on the battle-field, which was still covered with the fragments of soldiers' clothing and appointments, carcases of camels and horses, and the bodies of friends and enemies, who had been slaughtered here on the 18th of December. The atmosphere all round was greatly tainted, which, combined with the horrible sight before us, made our hearts sick, and our heads faint.

About a month ago, this large village, containing about 4,000 inhabitants, belonged to the Lahore Rajah. It was now in the possession of the English: the scene before us proclaimed the price at which it had been bought. But even amid the ruins, the soldier as well as the Christian, looks forward with hope to the future: the one to the promotion of his country's glory, the other to the spread of the Gospel among the heathen.

In the evening, we received an unexpected order to join the "army of the Sutlej"; our Horse Artillery and Cavalry to proceed together; the Infantry and Elephant Battery to halt. On the 6th, we made a forced march of about twenty miles, to Aurufkee. On the road, we saw several corpses of British and Sikh soldiers, in a state bordering on decomposition, and plundered of their clothing.

Colonel Campbell[19] having been appointed to a brigade of Cavalry, as also Colonel Scott, Major and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Fullerton[20] assumed the command this day, of the Queen's Royal Lancers.

Our camp was pitched at a distance of four miles from the river Sutlej.

On the 8th, I called on Major-General Sir Harry G.W. Smith, K.C.B., commanding the first division of the army of the Sutlej, an old brother rifleman, and friend of my father's.

The cavalry was commanded by Major-General Sir Joseph Thackwell, K.C.B. (now Colonel of the 16th Lancers), who is very much liked by all who have the honour of knowing him. He is considered one of the ablest officers in the British service; and his experience of military operations in India has always rendered his advice and assistance indispensable in all the late campaigns. Sir Joseph, I am happy to find, has been invested with the highest class of the Bath, and never did a braver or kinder man receive this distinction. His services during the campaign of which I am now treating, were most invaluable, none more so; and yet his reward was slow. Colonel Campbell, having, as I said before, been made a Brigadier of Cavalry, was appointed to the 2nd Brigade, consisting of the 9th Lancers, 11th Light Cavalry, and 2nd and 8th Irregular Cavalry.

On the 9th of January, about 10 a.m., we distinctly heard the roar of the Sikh guns. During the greater part of the previous day, the Sikhs, who were encamped in great apparent regularity, on the right, or opposite side of the river Sutlej, were practising their guns. They were evidently preparing for another encounter. In the course of the day, I called on Major-General Sir Joseph Thackwell, Major-General Sir Robert H. Dick, K.C.B., Lieutenant-Colonel Gough, Acting Quarter-Master-General to H.M. forces, since then Colonel and Aide-de-Camp to the Queen, and Lieut.-Colonel Havelock, Persian Interpreter to the Commander-in-Chief.

On the 10th, the cold was intense, when we were out at a general watering parade, at eight o'clock in the morning. Encamped on an arid plain, we found the dust extremely troublesome, the west wind, which usually prevails at this season, blowing very hard.

Sunday, January 11th. This morning at two o'clock there was an alarm. Every man of the 9th immediately turned out, and, having saddled and bridled, stood by his horse until the _reveillé_. I sent off all my superfluous baggage to the house of Lieutenant Fullerton, 14th Regiment Bengal Native Infantry, at Ferozepore, distant fourteen miles. He is a cousin of Lieut.-Colonel Fullerton, my commanding officer, and he had kindly offered to give it shelter. The Lieutenant, who had acted as aide-de-camp to Major-General Littler, at the battle of Ferozeshah, was at this period in charge of the Sudder (chief) Bazaar, at Ferozepore. The weather about this time was still intensely cold.

On the 12th of January, we changed ground to Bootawalla, less than two miles distant from the Sutlej: our position was on the left of the army. It is usual to change ground every now and then, because an encampment becomes dirty in a few days, and likewise because it is desirable to be nearer to the forage. When an enemy is close, however, these changes are made with much caution, since it is highly expedient not to give up a good position in exchange for a bad one. Such niceties are reserved for marches in times of peace, or where no enemy is at hand.

January 13th. We marched at two p.m. about three miles out from camp, in the direction of the bridge of boats, erected by the Sikhs; when, after a little cannonading on both sides, we returned by six o'clock p.m. The object of such a movement was this, to try our rockets in the enemy's camp, and to ascertain the range of his guns. But, suppose we had found our enemy off his guard, that there were but few sentries, and no battery to defend the bridge on our side, our plan would then have been to destroy the bridge, and station a guard to prevent its reconstruction.

The advantage of a pontoon bridge consists in your being able to place it at any part of the river. When Major-General Littler heard that the Sikhs were likely to cross, he sunk our pontoon bridge.

And here I may be permitted to digress a little, to give some account of this pontoon bridge, which was made at Bombay. The Duke of Wellington, in 1803, ordered forty boats, each twenty-one feet in length, to be made at Bombay, and transported on a carriage with four wheels. This step was taken with a view to the operations of our army on the river Toombuddra against the Maharatta territory, and to enable him to cross and re-cross the river whenever he chose.[21] The Ferozepore pontoon bridge was sent thither in 1844. My object in mentioning this bridge is, that it forms an argument why the Sikhs expected us to attack them, for they said that the bridge of boats was a clear proof of our design. It is not a little singular, that in all the wars from 1803 to 1844, or for above forty years, the British had never used a pontoon bridge; none have ever been seen in the Delhi magazine. When opposite to Ramnuggur, in 1848, on the Chenāb, the Commander-in-Chief detached a large force to operate against the right flank of the Sikh army, it was found necessary to proceed twenty-five miles up the river, before this force could cross. Thus making a march of fifty miles before it came up with the enemy, and when ranged on the opposite bank, nearly in face of the British camp, that single division stood completely isolated, without the possibility of being supported in case of need. Whereas, had the army of the Punjaub possessed a pontoon train, this force might have crossed above the Sikh entrenchment, and been in a position to receive support from the main army. The Commander-in-Chief could easily have received prompt intelligence of their advance and progress, and instantly on hearing that they had engaged the enemy, transported his army across the ford, or, by means of a second pontoon train, he might have defeated Shere Singh's army at once, and deprived him of all his guns. The moral effect of an attack carried on under such circumstances is incalculable; the chances are that it would have decided the campaign.

Besides, had the British possessed a pontoon train they might have destroyed all the enemy's boats, and prevented him from crossing, except at fords, which are few and often imperfectly known.

But it is not every one who is gifted with the genius of a Wellington; at the battle of Assaye his Grace sent some staff-officers to find a ford at a place where there was a village on each side of the river; and when a ford was found, he remarked: "I thought it probable that the people would not have built villages there unless a ford existed."

The want of a pontoon train caused a complete stand-still of the whole army at Ramnuggur. The artillery, cavalry, and infantry might be said to have been immovable, and therefore, useless, because they could not cross an ordinary river.

Let us consider how they act on the continent of Europe. Windischgrätz crossed the Danube to Vienna, with 150,000 men, by means of a pontoon train. The French army have a special corps of pontoniers. The Russian guards have a movable force of 50,000 men, complete in every branch, with a magnificent pontoon train, exclusive of the other pontoon trains, attached to the other divisions of the mighty army of that vast empire.

Every military man knows that the transport of an army, with its immense quantity of artillery and baggage, across the rivers which intersect its line of march, is one of the most difficult as well as the most important operations in military tactics, especially in India, where the camp followers are so numerous.

History, both modern and ancient, teaches us that the success of a campaign often depends on the rapid conveyance of troops across the rivers that intersect their march. As far back as the days of Darius a floating bridge was thrown across the Bosphorus, and afterwards across the Danube, while Xerxes threw one over the Hellespont at the time of his ill-starred expedition to Europe. The most celebrated pontoon of modern times, was that constructed by the engineers of the British army across the Adour, in the south of France, in 1814, the river being 110 feet across.

During the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow, the whole of his immense army must have been captured or destroyed on the banks of the Beresina, had it not been for the extraordinary care and vigilant forethought of the principal French engineer, in preserving the materials required in the formation of a pontoon.

A pontoon train, such as the Duke of Wellington employed in India, in 1803, composed of forty boats, would require forty carts and 160 to 170 bullocks. The Duke, in his Despatches,[22] states that for some streams he had basket boats ten feet in diameter and three feet deep, and covered with double leather.

When the Duke of Wellington's bridge of boats was brought to Ferozepore in the autumn of 1845, Major Broadfoot, who was charged with its transport, aroused the suspicion of the Sikhs, and in their opinion, virtually acknowledged that hostilities existed between them and the British, by manifesting extraordinary vigilance for its safe keeping, placing it under the escort of a strong guard of soldiers, and by employing the pontoniers to construct it, on the arrival of the boats at Ferozepore.

To return to my journal. On the 14th of January, 1846, the cavalry received orders to hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice. We remained in this state of suspense from eight in the morning till one o'clock in the afternoon, when we again marched towards the Sikh bridge, and did the like execution with our guns as yesterday. The Sikhs having crossed over to our side of the bridge, were busily employed in making an entrenched camp.

On the 15th gram sold at sixteen seers or thirty-two lbs. for the rupee, a rather dismal prospect for a large army. The 9th Lancers had 600 fighting men, and the camp followers amounted to 3,600 men which gives six to every fighting man. After deducting 1,600, the number of followers required for 800 horses, including officers' chargers, and 480 dooly bearers, there would still remain 1,520 followers to be accounted for, and if we again allow the officers about forty in number, say 500 servants,--a very fair portion,--there would then be left 1,020 whom we must conclude to have been elephant and camel drivers, tent lascars, cooks, bazaar people, etc.

On the 18th the Lancers again held themselves in readiness to turn out at a moment's notice, owing to the enemy's crossing the river in large numbers. On the 19th we changed our ground, five miles to the right, and on our arrival the troop of the 9th, to which I belonged, was sent on picquet to a distance of nearly two miles to our right front, and pretty close to the Sutlej; indeed a picquet of the enemy was clearly seen on the other side. Had the enemy crossed, or rather, attempted to cross, the officer in command would have sent information to the camp, and in the meanwhile made arrangements to retard the force in the best manner he could, so as to allow the army time to come up to his support. To gain time is an officer's chief object, under such circumstances; nor must he in any case retire, unless driven in.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 17: See Appendix X.]

[Footnote 18: See Blue Book, p. 597.]

[Footnote 19: Colonel Campbell, C.B., and K.H., died suddenly in London, of quinsy, March, 1850, a few days after his arrival from India.]

[Footnote 20: Lieutenant-Colonel Fullerton, C.B., died on the 28th of April, 1850, on his way to visit Cashmere, whither his body was conveyed on the following day, and deposited in the Royal Gardens. By his death, the regiment was deprived of a most just, warm-hearted, and honourable man. A simple tablet marks the spot where he is interred.]

[Footnote 21: See Despatches, vol. iii. p. 64, 10th of April, 1803.]

[Footnote 22: Vol. i. p. 136, April 8th, 1803.]