In April 1857, 85 men of the regiment refused to accept cartridges for their carbines and were tried by court-martial, convicted, and sentenced to up to 10 years' hard labour. After the men were imprisoned, the regiment freed their jailed comrades and headed to Delhi, where their arrival led to the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. Following the events of the mutiny, all the Bengal Light Cavalry regiments were disbanded.
History
On 7 January 1796, the board of directors of the East India Company instructed the Governor-GeneralJohn Shore to raise four 465-strong regiments of native cavalry for its Bengal Army.[1] Consequently, in 1797, the 3rd Bengal Native Cavalry was raised in Oude by Captain J. P. Pigot.[2] At first, the terms "Bengal Native Cavalry" and "Bengal Light Cavalry" were used interchangeably,[3] but by 1857 the regiment was referred to as the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry in official paperwork.[4]
The regiment served with distinction during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, taking part in the Battle of Delhi and the Battle of Laswari in 1803, as part of a force commanded by GeneralGerard Lake against the forces of Daulat Rao Sindhia; for their service during this campaign, the regiment was awarded an Honorary Standard bearing the inscription "Lake and Victory" and an extra Jemadar.[5] The regiment earned the "Delhi 1803", "Leswarree" and "Deig" battle honours during this campaign.[4]
The 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry was present throughout the Siege of Bharatpur (December 1825 – January 1826) as part of a cavalry brigade, taking part in the final assault on the fortress and earning the "Bhurtpore" battle honour.[6][4] The regiment also took part in the 1839 First Anglo-Afghan War, participating in the Battle of Ghazni, earning the "Affghanistan 1839" and "Ghuznee 1839" battle honours.[4] During the 1845–1846 First Anglo-Sikh War, the regiment fought in the Battle of Aliwal and the Battle of Sobraon and was awarded battle honours for both.[4]
In 1857, the regiment had been stationed in Meerut for three years,[4] forming part of the Meerut Division under Major General William Hewitt.[7] The East India Company planned to supply its locally recruited "Native" regiments with the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle during that year, accompanied by a new type of ammunition that came in the form of a greased paper cartridge. The standard drill (or formal procedure) for loading this ammunition required the user to bite the paper cartridge to open it.[8] Rumours began to circulate within the Bengal Presidency that the grease for the cartridges was made from a mix of lard from pigs and tallow from cows, and was therefore offensive to both Hindu and Muslimsepoy alike.[8] These rumours reached Lieutenant Colonel George M. Carmichael-Smyth, in temporary command of the regiment,[4] while he was on leave in Mussoorie.[9] On his return to Meerut, Carmichael-Smyth received orders for the new drill, which applied to all weapons currently in use including those which did not take the new form of ammunition.[10] Carmichael-Smyth modified the drill so that cartridges would be torn by hand, rather than biting.[11]
On 23 April, Carmichael-Smyth announced a parade for the following day, during which the men of the regiment would be taught the new drill, using the muskets and ammunition which they had been using for years, rather than the new rifles or ammunition.[11] During that evening, the men decided that they would not accept the cartridges; some approached a junior officer directly, and when they were told that none of the new cartridges were being used, they stated that using any type of cartridge would "lay themselves open to the imputation from their comrades and from other regiments of having fired the objectionable ones."[12] These concerns were communicated to Carmichael-Smyth, who decided that the parade would go ahead as planned; during the night, Carmichael-Smyth's tent and some buildings were destroyed by fire.[12] The following morning, 90 men, the regiment's carabiniers or skirmishers, were lined up to carry out the new parade drill using blank ammunition.[11] When Carmichael-Smyth arrived at the parade ground, he found that no man had taken their ammunition, and he ordered the Havildar Major to carry out the drill.[11] There was then an attempt to distribute the cartridges to the rest of the carabiniers but this was refused, despite a speech from Carmichael-Smyth reminding the men that the cartridges were the type they had been using for years.[11] Out of 90 men, 85 refused the order to accept the ammunition.[13]
Hewitt convened a Court of Inquiry, judged by Indian officers, to investigate the events.[14] The inquiry found that the ammunition issued to the men was of the same type the men previously used, and was in fact manufactured under the supervision of one of the five men who had accepted his ammunition during the parade.[15] During the inquiry, only one man expressed a concern regarding the greased cartridges; the wider concerns of the men were based on the perceived stigma that they would face if they had accepted the ammunition.[15] The inquiry found that the men had no reasonable cause, and no religious grounds, to refuse to accept the cartridges.[16] A court martial was ordered, again composed entirely of Indian officers (six Muslim, nine Hindu), and this took place over a three-day period with each of the 85 men giving a plea of "not guilty".[16] The men were found guilty, by 14 of 15 officers, of disobeying orders, and were sentenced to 10 years' hard labour.[7] The judges asked Hewitt to take into consideration the fact that the men were of good character and had been misled, but this was ignored as Hewitt felt there had been no expression of remorse.[16] Eleven of the men, the youngest, had their sentences reduced from 10 to 5 years, but sentences of the remaining men were confirmed on 8 May.[16]
At 05:00 on 9 May 1857, a parade of the entire Meerut Division took place, to announce the sentences of the convicted men.[7] The troops present included the 60th Rifles, 6th Dragoon Guards, and batteries of Bengal Artillery, as well as the 11th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, the 20th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry and, dismounted, the remainder of the men of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry.[16] The sentences were read, and the men stripped of their uniforms, then placed in shackles, while the Meerut Division watched.[17] Despite pleas from the condemned men, none of their fellow soldiers came to their assistance.[17] The entire process took around two hours to complete, following which the convicted soldiers were handed over to the civilian authorities and taken to the local jail under armed escort.[17] After the parade, Hewitt communicated to his headquarters that all was calm, but during the night various junior officials received warnings of impending trouble from concerned sepoys or members of their household staff.[18]
Mutiny
"The Sepoy revolt at Meerut," from the Illustrated London News, 1857
The following day, a Sunday, at around 18:00, a general disturbance was reported in the town bazaar and columns of smoke were seen, rising from burning buildings.[19] The 60th Rifles were waiting outside the local church, ready to attend a service, which had been delayed by half an hour on account of unusually warm weather; the sound of gunfire from the town alerted them to trouble.[19] They headed to their own barracks, armed themselves, and were on their parade square awaiting orders when they were attacked by mounted troopers from the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry.[19] Upon finding the 60th Rifles unexpectedly armed and waiting for them, the troopers rode away, headed directly to the jail and released their comrades with the help of a local blacksmith.[20] At the same time, soldiers from the 11th and 20th Regiments of Bengal Native Infantry were mutinying, killing some of their officers and some civilians (while helping some of their officers and officers' families to escape), and burning a number of buildings within the town.[20] One company of the 60th Rifles was ordered to guard the treasury, a second company was ordered to guard their barracks, and the remainder of the 60th Rifles, joined by the 6th Dragoon Guards, headed to the barracks of the Native Infantry regiments.[21] When they arrived, they found the buildings ablaze and the area deserted.[21] Hewitt, concerned about the possibility of attack, withdrew the troops back toward their barracks and encamped them nearby.[21] Throughout the mutiny and subsequent rioting, one troop consisting of between 80 and 90 members of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry remained loyal to their officers.[22] The mutinying soldiers from the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, having released their comrades from the jail, returned to Meerut and joined in with the rioting along with members of the local civilian population, and then the mutineers from all three regiments left, heading to Delhi,[23] although the fact that they had left Meerut was not discovered by the military authorities until the following morning[24] and they did not know the direction in which the mutineers had departed.[25]
"Indian Mutiny: Massacre of officers by insurgent cavalry at Delhi," from the Illustrated London News, 1857
At approximately 09:00 on 11 May, a small body of cavalry, followed by a larger body in the distance, was seen approaching Delhi along the road between that city and Meerut.[26] The East India Company employees immediately noted that this was unusual, and the senior military officers present within the city attempted to contact Meerut by telegraph to enquire about the approaching troops, but the telegraph line between Delhi and Meerut appeared to have been cut.[27] The 54th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, one of three Bengal Native Infantry regiments garrisoned within Delhi's Red Fort, was ordered to intercept them.[27] A party of East India Company civil servants went to secure the fort's Calcutta Gate, but when they arrived they found that troopers from the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry had already taken control of it.[28] A struggle ensued which led to the death of a cavalry trooper and a civilian.[28] A small group of troopers from the regiment headed toward the city's jail and released the inmates, meeting with no resistance.[29] The main body of the regiment then arrived, joining up with the party at the Calcutta Gate, and then collectively they entered the fort and attacked the civilians within.[29] A small group from the advance party gained access to the private courtyard of Bahadur Shah II and told him that he should take command of them.[30] The regiment spread out throughout the fort and the city, and was eventually joined in mutiny by the forces of Bahadur Shah II and members of the Bengal Native Infantry who were based within the fort; a widespread outbreak of looting, burning of buildings and murder of East India Company employees and civilian shopkeepers took place, and the Indian Mutiny began in earnest.[31] The mutineers of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry remained at Delhi until the breaking of the Siege of Delhi in September 1857.[2] They withdrew first to Lucknow, then later to Nepal, where the majority of the men died through combat, disease or starvation.[2] Those that eventually managed to make their way back to their homes found themselves shunned by their communities for their part in the mutiny.[2] The regiment itself, in common with every other regiment of Bengal Light Cavalry, was disbanded at the end of the Indian Mutiny.[32]
Historical perspective
The way the situation had been handled was subject to criticism; firstly, the choice by Carmichael-Smyth to hold the firing drill parade was immediately criticised by his superior, Hewitt, who felt that had the parade not been held, the issue with the cartridges "would have blown over."[33] Furthermore, a junior officer from Carmichael-Smyth's regiment, Lieutenant John Campbell MacNabb, felt that the drill parade was unnecessary and stated that the dislike held by the men toward their commanding officer was an aggravating factor in the events that followed.[33] When Hewitt informed the Commander in Chief, Major General George Anson, about the public nature of the men's sentence, and of placing them in irons in front of the entire Meerut Division, on 9 May, Anson confirmed the sentences but did not approve of the "unusual procedure" that Hewitt had followed.[34] For his conduct on 10 May, Hewitt later faced criticism from Lieutenant General Sir Patrick Grant, (who was the acting Commander in Chief by that point, following Anson's death) and from John Lawrence (who was then Commissioner of Punjab province).[35] Following the mutiny of the troops at Meerut, Hewitt's command of the Meerut Division was taken away.[36] At a subsequent appeal, Hewitt and his immediate subordinate, Brigadier GeneralArchdale Wilson of the Bengal Artillery, blamed each other for the way the situation unfolded; Hewitt said that Wilson was responsible for the tactics on the day, and Wilson stated that as Hewitt was the overall commander, responsibility lay with him; Hewitt lost the appeal.[36] The historian Kim A. Wagner, in his 2010 book The Great Fear of 1857, stated that the senior officers' fear of "making a 'wrong decision'" led them to make no decision at all, "with devastating results".[36]
Field MarshalFrederick Roberts, in his 1897 book Forty-one Years in India, gave an opposing view; Roberts stated that he doubted "whether anything would have been gained" by an attempt to pursue the mutineers as the cavalry available (the 6th Dragoon Guards) was at that time composed mainly of recruits with horses that had not yet been broken and it was impractical to follow the mutineers with either infantry or artillery.[21] Roberts went on to say "after careful consideration of all the circumstances of the revolt at Meerut, I have come to the conclusion that it would have been futile to have sent the small body of mounted troops available in pursuit of the mutineers on the night of the 10th May, and that, considering the state of feeling throughout the Native army, no action, however prompt, on the part of the Meerut authorities could have arrested the Mutiny. The sepoys had determined to throw off their allegiance to the British Government, and the when and the how were merely questions of time and opportunity."[37] The actions of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry themselves were described by Major Agha Amin, writing for Defence Journal, as "a coup d'état and an outstanding example of initiative and courage."[38]
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the Company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.
Major-General The Hon. George Anson CB was a British military officer and Whig politician from the Anson family.
Mangal Pandey was an Indian soldier who played a key role in the events taking place just before the outbreak of the Indian rebellion of 1857. He was a sepoy (infantryman) in the 34th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) regiment of the British East India Company. In 1984, the Indian government issued a postage stamp to remember him. His life and actions have also been portrayed in several cinematic productions.
The siege of Delhi was one of the decisive conflicts of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The 1915 Singapore Mutiny, was a mutiny of elements of the British Indian Army's 5th Light Infantry in the colony of Singapore. Up to half of the regiment, which consisted of Indian Muslims, mutinied on 15 February 1915 due to rumours that they would be sent to fight against the largely Muslim Ottoman Empire as part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. The mutineers killed 36 soldiers and civilians before the mutiny was suppressed by Allied forces. After the mutiny, more than 205 mutineers were tried by court-martial, and 47 were sentenced to execution by firing squad.
The Battle of Badli-ki-Serai was fought early in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or First War of Indian Independence as it has since been termed in Indian histories of the events. A British and Gurkha force defeated a force of sepoys who had rebelled against the British East India Company. The British victory allowed them to besiege and ultimately capture Delhi.
The Battle of Agra was a comparatively minor but nevertheless decisive action at the end of a prolonged siege during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire.
The regiments of Bengal Native Infantry, alongside the regiments of Bengal European Infantry, were the regular infantry components of the East India Company's Bengal Army from the raising of the first Native battalion in 1757 to the passing into law of the Government of India Act 1858. At this latter point control of the East India Company's Bengal Presidency passed to the British Government. The first locally recruited battalion was raised by the East India Company in 1757 and by the start of 1857 there were 74 regiments of Bengal Native Infantry in the Bengal Army. Following the Mutiny the Presidency armies came under the direct control of the United Kingdom Government and there was a widespread reorganisation of the Bengal Army that saw the Bengal Native Infantry regiments reduced to 45.
The 7th (Meerut) Division was an infantry division of the Indian Army and before 1895, the Bengal Army, that saw active service during World War I.
The 3rd (Lahore) Division was an infantry division of the Indian Army and before 1895, the Bengal Army, first organised in 1852. It saw service during World War I as part of the Indian Corps in France before being moved to the Middle East where it fought against troops of the Ottoman Empire.
The 5th Light Infantry was an infantry regiment of the Bengal Army and later of the raj-period British Indian Army. It could trace its lineage back to 1803, when it was raised as the 2nd Battalion, 21st Bengal Native Infantry. The regiment was known by a number of different names: the 42nd Bengal Native Infantry 1824–1842, the 42nd Bengal Native (Light) Infantry 1842–1861, the 5th Bengal Native (Light) Infantry 1861–1885 and the 5th Bengal (Light) Infantry 1885–1903. Its final designation 5th Light Infantry was a result of the Kitchener Reforms of the Indian Army, when all the old presidency titles (Bengal) were removed. During World War I the regiment was stationed in Singapore and became notorious for its involvement in the 1915 Singapore Mutiny. The regiment was disbanded in 1922, after another set of reforms of the post World War I Indian Army.
The 45th Rattray's Sikhs was an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. They could trace their origins to the 1st Bengal Military Police Battalion raised in April 1856, at Lahore, by Captain Thomas Rattray originally consisting of a troop of 100 cavalry and 500 infantry. The initial class composition of the troops was 50% Sikhs and 50% Dogras, Rajputs and Mussulmans (Muslims) from the Punjab and the North-West Frontier. It is said that he went through the villages challenging men to wrestle with him on the condition that they had to join up. Whatever the case, the regiment was raised and trained and developed as an elite corps, which soon saw action in Bihar in the Sonthal 'parganas'. After sterling service in Bihar, Bengal and Assam, and during the 1857 Mutiny, the cavalry portion was eventually disbanded in 1864 and the infantry section was taken into the line of Bengal Native Infantry as the '45th Native Regiment of Infantry'.
The Vellore mutiny,or Vellore Revolution, occurred on 10 July 1806 and was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion of 1857 by half a century. The revolt, which took place in the Indian city of Vellore, lasted one full day, during which mutineers seized the Vellore Fort and killed or wounded 200 British troops.The mutiny was subdued by cavalry and artillery from Arcot. Total deaths amongst the mutineers were approximately 350; with summary executions of about 100 during the suppression of the outbreak, followed by the formal court-martial of smaller numbers.
The siege of Arrah took place during the Indian Mutiny. It was the eight-day defence of a fortified outbuilding, occupied by a combination of 18 civilians and 50 members of the Bengal Military Police Battalion, against 2,500 to 3,000 mutinying Bengal Native Infantry sepoys from three regiments and an estimated 8,000 men from irregular forces commanded by Kunwar Singh, the local zamindar or chieftain who controlled the Jagdishpur estate.
During the Indian Rebellion of 1857 a column of troops led by the commander of the 24th Regiment of Foot was sent to disarm Bengal Native Infantry units believed to be at risk of mutiny in Rawalpindi and Jhelum. At Rawalpindi, the 58th Bengal Native Infantry were disarmed peacefully, however the two companies of the 14th Bengal Native Infantry resisted the attempt by force of arms. These two companies were quickly defeated by the British, loyal native troops and the local population. In Jhelum, also garrisoned by the 14th, the concurrently timed disarmament was much more violent. Thirty five British soldiers of the 24th Regiment of Foot were killed along with a number of Loyal Indian troops, by mutinous sepoys of the 14th Bengal Native Infantry. When the mutineers realised that they, with the exception of the Sikhs, were to be disarmed, they mutinied and made a vigorous defence against the force that had arrived from Rawalpindi to disarm them. The following night a significant number of mutineers managed slip away but most were subsequently arrested by the Kashmir authorities, into whose territory they had escaped.
Rajab Ali Khan, also known as HavildarRajab Ali, was a soldier of the Bengal Regiment who defected during the Sepoy Revolt of 1857. He commanded the rebels at Chittagong and was chased by British forces as far as Sylhet and Manipur.
The Oudh Irregular Force was a short-lived unit of the Bengal Army of the East India Company. It consisted of ten infantry regiments, three cavalry regiments, and four batteries, raised in 1856, all of which would mutiny during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
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