Dodd George
The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8
On the city side of the river, on this day, the operations consisted mainly in securing the conquests effected on the 9th. At a very early hour in the morning, while yet dusk, the rebel sepoys advanced in great strength to reoccupy the defence-line of the canal, apparently not knowing that the Highlanders and Punjaubees had maintained that position during the night; they were speedily undeceived by a volley of musketry which put them to flight. At sunrise a disposition of troops and heavy guns was made by Lugard for an attack on Banks’s house; and this house, captured about noon, was at once secured as a strong military post.
Thus did this remarkable siege go on day after day. Nothing was hurried, nothing unforeseen. All the movements were made as if the city and its environs formed a vast chess-board on which the commander-in-chief could see the position of all the pieces and pawns. Nay, so fully had he studied the matter, that he had some such command over the ground as is maintained by a chess-player who conducts and wins a game without seeing the board. Every force, every movement, was made conducive to one common end – the conquest of the city without the loss of much British blood, and without leaving any lurking-place in the hands of the enemy.
The conquest and fortifying of Banks’s house enabled Sir Colin to commence the second part of his operations. Having captured the enemy’s exterior line of defence, he had now to attack the second or middle line, which (as has been already shewn) began at the river-side near the Motee Mehal, the Mess-house, and the Emanbarra. The plan he formed was to use the great block of houses and palaces extending from Banks’s house to the Kaiser Bagh as an approach, instead of sapping up towards the second line of works. ‘The operation,’ as he said in his dispatch, ‘had now become one of an engineering character; and the most earnest endeavours were made to save the infantry from being hazarded before due preparation had been made.’ The chief engineer, Brigadier Napier, placed his batteries in such positions as to shell and breach a large block of the palaces known as the Begum Kothee. This bombardment, on the 11th, was long and severe; for the front of the palaces was screened by outhouses, earthworks, and parapets, which required to be well battered before the infantry could make the assault. The 8-inch guns of the naval brigade were the chief instruments in this formidable cannonade. At length, about four o’clock in the afternoon, Napier announced that the breaches were practicable, and Lugard at once made arrangements for storming the Begum Kothee. He had with him the 93d Highlanders, the 4th Punjaub Rifles, and 1000 Goorkhas, and was aided in the assault by Adrian Hope. His troops speedily secured the whole block of buildings, and inflicted a very heavy loss on the enemy. The attack was one of a desperate character, and was characterised by Sir Colin as ‘the sternest struggle which occurred during the siege.’ From that point Napier pushed his engineering approaches with great judgment through the enclosures, by the aid of the sappers and the heavy guns; the troops immediately occupying the ground as he advanced, and the mortars being moved from one position to another as the ground was won on which they could be placed. Outram was not idle during these operations. He obtained possession of the iron bridge, leading over the river from the cantonment to the city, and swept away the enemy from every part of the left bank of the river between that bridge and the Padishah Bagh; thus leaving him in a position to enfilade the central and inner lines of defence established by the enemy among the palaces.
It was while these serious and important operations were in progress, on the 11th of March, that the commander-in-chief was called upon to attend to a ceremonial affair, from which he would doubtless have willingly been spared. The preceding chapters have shewn how Jung Bahadoor, descending from the Nepaulese mountains with an army of 9000 Goorkhas, rendered a little service in the Goruckpore and Jounpoor districts, and then advanced into Oude to assist in the operations against Lucknow. His movements had been dilatory; and Sir Colin was forced to arrange all the details of the siege as if no reliance could be placed in this ally. At length, however, on the afternoon of the 11th, Jung Bahadoor appeared at the Dil Koosha; he and Sir Colin met for the first time. The meeting was a curious one. The Nepaul chieftain, thoroughly Asiatic in everything, prepared for the interview as one on which he might lavish all his splendour of gold, satin, pearls, and diamonds; the old Highland officer, on the other hand, plain beyond the usual plainness of a soldier in all that concerned personal indulgences,134 was somewhat tried even by the necessity for his full regimentals and decorative appendages. A continuous battle was going on, in which he thought of his soldiers’ lives, and of the tactics necessary to insure a victory; at such a time, and in such a climate, he would gladly have dispensed with the scarlet and the feathers of his rank, and of the oriental compliments in which truth takes little part. A tasteful canopy was prepared in front of Sir Colin’s mess-tent; and here were assembled the commander-in-chief, Archdale Wilson, Hope Grant, a glittering group of staff-officers and aids-de-camp, a Highland guard of honour, an escort of Lancers, bands, pipers, drums, flags, and all the paraphernalia for a military show. Sir Colin was punctual; Jung Bahadoor was not. Sir Colin, his thoughts all the while directed towards Lugard’s operations at the Begum Kothee, felt the approaching ceremony, and the delay in beginning it, as a sore interruption. At length the Nepaulese chieftain appeared. Jung Bahadoor had, as Nepaulese ambassador, made himself famous in London a few years before, by his gorgeous dress and lavish expenditure; and he now appeared in fully as great splendour. The presentations, the greetings, the compliments, the speeches, were all of the wonted kind; but when Captain Hope Johnstone, as one of the officers of the chief of the staff, entered to announce that ‘the Begum Kothee is taken,’ Sir Colin broke through all ceremony, expressed a soldier’s pleasure at the news, and brought the interview to a termination. Jung Bahadoor returned to his own camp; and the commander-in-chief instantly resumed his ordinary military duties. Sir Colin was evidently somewhat puzzled to know how best to employ his gorgeous colleague; although his courtesy would not allow him to shew it. The Goorkhas moved close to the canal on the 13th; and on the following day Sir Colin requested Jung Bahadoor to cross the canal, and attack the suburbs to the left of Banks’s house. As he was obliged, just at that critical time, to mass all the available strength of his British troops in the double attack along the banks of the Goomtee, the commander-in-chief had few to spare for his left wing; and he speaks of the troops of the Nepaulese leader as being ‘most advantageously employed for several days,’ in thus covering his left.
We return to the siege operations. So great had been the progress made on the 11th, that the development of the commander-in-chief’s strategy became every hour more and more clear. Outram’s heavy fire with guns and mortars produced great effect on the Kaiser Bagh; while the Begum Kothee became a post from which an attack could be made on the Emanbarra, a large building situated between the Begum Kothee and the Kaiser Bagh.135 The Begum Kothee palace, when visited by the officers of the staff on the morning of the 12th, astonished them by the strength which the enemy had given to it. The walls were so loopholed for musketry, the bastions and cannon were so numerous, the ditch around it was so deep, and the earthen rampart so high, that all marvelled how it came to be so easily captured on the preceding day. The enemy might have held it against double of Lugard’s force, had they not been paralysed by the bayonet. It was a strange sight, on the following morning, to see Highlanders and Punjaubees roaming about gorgeous saloons and zenanas, still containing many articles of dress and personal ornaments which the ladies of the palace had not had time to carry away with them. Whither the inmates had fled, the conquerors at that time did not know, and in all probability did not care. It was a strange and unnatural sight; splendour and blood appeared to have struggled for mastery in the various courts and rooms of the palace, many contests having taken place with small numbers of the enemy.136 From this building, we have said, Sir Colin determined that progress should be made towards the Emanbarra, not by open assault, but by sapping through a mass of intermediate buildings.
The 12th was the day when the sapping commenced; but so many and so intricate were the buildings, that three days were occupied in this series of operations; seeing that it was necessary to destroy or at least to render innoxious such houses as might have concealed large bodies of the enemy. Lugard’s troops having been hotly engaged on the 11th, they were now relieved by others under Franks. The work was of formidable character; for the flat roofs of many of the houses were covered with two or three feet of earth, baked in the sun, and loopholed for musketry. Every such house had to be well scrutinised, before a further advance was made. The sappers made passages, either actually underground, or through the lower portions of the walls and enclosures surrounding the buildings. On the 13th these approaches were so far completed that a large number of guns and mortars could be brought forward, and placed in position for bombarding the Emanbarra. On this day, too, Jung Bahadoor’s troops took possession of a mass of suburban houses southward of the city, between Sir Colin’s camp and the Alum Bagh; after which the commander-in-chief paid a return visit to the Nepaulese chieftain, who strove to display still more magnificence than at the former interview.
The 14th of March was one of the busy days of the siege. The sap was carried on so successfully that the Emanbarra could be bombarded by heavy guns and mortars, and then taken. Directly this was done, Brasyer’s Sikhs, pressing forward in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, entered the Kaiser Bagh – the third or inner line of defence having been turned without a single gun being fired from it. Supports were quickly thrown in, and the British troops found themselves speedily in a part of the city already well known to Campbell and Outram during their operations of November – surrounded by the Mess-house, the Taree Kothee, the Motee Mehal, and the Chuttur Munzil. All these buildings were near them, and all were occupied by them before night closed in. As fast as the infantry seized these several positions, so did the engineers proceed to secure the outposts towards the south and west. As in many other cases when it was the lot of the English in India to fight their greatest battles, or bear their greatest sufferings, on Sundays; so was it on a Sunday that these busy operations of the 14th took place. The front walls of the Kaiser Bagh and the Motee Mehal were extensively mined; insomuch that when the artillery had effected its dread work, the infantry could approach much more safely than if exposed to the sight of sharpshooters and matchlockmen. It is true that neither English nor Highlanders, neither Sikhs nor Goorkhas, would have hesitated to rush forward and storm these buildings without a sap; but as Sir Colin was well supplied with heavy guns, he acted steadily on the plan of employing them as much as possible before sending on his men – feeling that the loss of men would be more difficult to replace than that of guns and missiles, at such a time and in such a country. In his dispatch relating to the operations of the 14th of March, he said: ‘The day was one of continued exertion; and every one felt that, although much remained to be done before the final expulsion of the rebels, the most difficult part of the undertaking had been overcome. This is not the place for a description of the various buildings sapped into or stormed. Suffice it to say that they formed a range of massive palaces and walled courts of vast extent, equalled perhaps, but not surpassed, in any capital of Europe. Every outlet had been covered by a work, and on every side were prepared barricades and loopholed parapets. The extraordinary industry evinced by the enemy in this respect has been really unexampled. Hence the absolute necessity for holding the troops in hand, till at each successive move forward the engineers reported to me that all which could be effected by artillery and the sappers had been done, before the troops were led to the assault.’
A little must here be said concerning the share which Sir James Outram had in the operations of the 12th and two following days. All his tactics, on the left bank of the river, were especially intended to support those of the commander-in-chief on the right bank. On the 12th his heavy guns, at and near the Padishah Bagh, poured forth a torrent of shot, to dislodge the enemy from certain positions near the city. His head-quarters were established under a small tope of trees near a ruined mosque; and he, as well as Lugard and Walpole, lived as simply as possible under tents. The Padishah Bagh itself – a suburban palace with beautiful saloons, halls, terraces, orange-groves and fountains – was held by H.M. 23d. The left bank of the river being occupied as far up as the iron suspension bridge, Outram planted two or three guns to guard that position from any hostile attack from the north; while two or three regiments of his own infantry, in convenient spots near the bridge, kept up a musketry-fire against such of the enemy as were visible and within reach on the opposite or city side of the river. This musketry-fire was continued all day on the 13th, while the batteries of heavy guns were being brought further and further into position. On the 14th, the same operations were continued; but the conquest of the Kaiser Bagh was so sudden and unexpected on this day, that the proceedings on the left bank of the river were relatively unimportant.
When the morning of the 15th arrived, Sir Colin Campbell felt that he might call Lucknow his own; for although much remained to be done, the conquests achieved were vast and important. The Mahomed Bagh, the Dil Koosha, the Martinière, the Secunder Bagh, the Emanbarra, the Mess-house, the Shah Munzil, the Motee Mehal, the Begum Kothee, and the Kaiser Bagh, were all in his hands – constituting by far the strongest and most important of the palatial buildings along the banks of the river. Moreover, the natives were evidently dismayed; vast numbers were leaving the city on the Rohilcund side; and spies brought information that the rebel leaders encountered much difficulty in keeping the sepoys steadily at the defence-works. The progress made by the British had surprised and alarmed the insurgents, and tended to paralyse their exertions. Some of the British officers had entertained a belief that the Kaiser Bagh was the key to the enemy’s position, whereas others had looked rather to the Begum Kothee. The latter proved to be right. The enemy had greatly relied on the last-named building; insomuch that, when it was captured, they rushed in wild confusion to the Kaiser Bagh, intent rather upon flight than upon a stubborn resistance. The garrison of the Kaiser Bagh, disconcerted by this irruption of their brother insurgents, were rendered almost unable, even if willing, to make a manful resistance. The British were almost as much surprised by the speedy capture of the Kaiser Bagh, as the enemy were by the loss of the Begum Kothee. When the great palace changed hands, the smoke and blood and cries of war were strangely mingled with the magnificence of kiosks, mosques, corridors, courts, gardens, terraces, saloons, mirrors, gilding, chandeliers, tapestry, statues, pictures, and costly furniture, in this strange jumble of oriental and European splendour.
A soldier loses all his heroism when the hour for prize and plunder arrives. Those, whether officers or spectators, who have described the scene which was presented when these Lucknow palaces were conquered, tell plainly of a period of wild licence and absorbing greed. On the one hand there were palaces containing vast stores of oriental and European luxuries; on the other, there were bands of armed men, brave and faithful, but at the same time poor and unlettered, who suddenly found themselves masters of all these splendours, with very little check or supervision on the part of their officers. At first, in a spirit of triumphant revenge, costly articles were broken which were too large to be carried away; glass chandeliers were hurled to the ground, mirrors shattered into countless fragments, statues mutilated and overturned, pictures stabbed and torn, doors of costly wood torn from their hinges. But when this destruction had been wreaked, and when the troops had forced their way through courts and corridors strewn with sepoys’ brass lotas or drinking-vessels, charpoys, clothing, belts, ammunition, muskets, matchlocks, swords, pistols, chupatties, and other evidences of precipitate flight – when this had all occurred, then did the love of plunder seize hold of the men. The Kaiser Bagh had been so quickly conquered, that the subaltern officers had not yet received instructions how to control the movements of the troops in this matter. Sikhs, Highlanders, English, were soon busily engaged. In one splendid saloon might be seen a party of Sikhs melting down gold and silver lace for the sake of the precious metals; in another, a quantity of shawls, lace, pearls, and embroidery of gold and silver, was being divided equally among a group of soldiers. In a sort of treasure-room, apparently belonging to some high personage, a few men of two British regiments found caskets and boxes containing diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, opals, and other gems, made into necklaces, bracelets, earrings, girdles, &c.; together with gold-mounted pistols, jewel-hilted swords, saddle-cloths covered with gold and pearls, gold-handled riding-canes, jewelled cups of agate and jade, japanned boxes filled with crystal and jade vessels. And, as it appeared that every one felt himself permitted or at least enabled to retain whatever he could capture, the camp-followers rushed in and seized all that the soldiers had left. Coolies, syces, khitmutgars, dooly-bearers, and grass-cutters, were seen running hither and thither, laden with costly clothing, swords, firelocks, brass pots, and other articles larger in bulk than the actual soldiers could readily have disposed of. It was a saturnalia, during which it is believed that some of the troops appropriated enough treasure, if converted into its value in money, to render them independent of labour for the rest of their lives. But each man kept, in whole or in part, his own secret.
Let us on from this extraordinary scene. The 15th was chiefly employed in securing what had been captured, removing powder, destroying mines, and fixing mortars for the further bombardment of the positions still held by the enemy, on the right bank of the Goomtee, and in the heart of the city. As the infantry and artillery could fulfil this duty, without the aid of horse, two bodies of cavalry, under Walpole and Hope Grant, were sent out to prevent, if possible, the escape of the enemy on the sides of the city not subject to immediate attack. One of these generals proceeded towards the Sundeela road, and the other to that leading to Seetapoor. Whether this flight of the enemy disappointed or not the expectations of the commander-in-chief, was a question which he kept to himself. The city, for all practical military purposes, was twenty miles in circumference; and he could not have guarded all the outlets without a very much larger army than that which was at his disposal. Like as at Sebastopol, the siege was not aided by a complete investiture of the place besieged. It is possible that the capture of the Kaiser Bagh, and the consequent flight of the enemy, occurred too early for Sir Colin to be enabled to put in operation certain manœuvres on the other side of the city. Be this as it may, large numbers of rebel sepoys, and a still larger of the regular inhabitants of the city escaped during the 14th and 15th, mostly over the stone bridge – as if hopeful of safety in Rohilcund and Upper Oude.
On the 16th Sir James Outram, after ten days of active operation on the left bank of the Goomtee, crossed over by a bridge of casks opposite the Secunder Bagh; and he then advanced through the Chuttur Munzil towards the Residency. To lessen the chance of the enemy’s retreat as much as possible, he marched right through the city, not only to the iron bridge near the Residency, but to the stone bridge near the Muchee Bhowan. All this was an enterprise of remarkable boldness, for the buildings to be successively conquered and entered were very numerous. Outram shifted his own head-quarters to Banks’s house, on the city side of the river; and it was here that he received a letter from the Begum, or mother of the young boy-king, containing some sort of proposition for compromise or cessation of hostilities. Whatever it may have been, no successful result attended this missive: the progress and conquest went on as before. His troops, as they advanced to the Chuttur Munzil, the Pyne Bagh, the Fureed Buksh, and the Taree Kothee, found all these buildings abandoned by the enemy – who had been too much dismayed by the operations of the 16th to make a bold stand. At length he approached the Residency, the enclosed spot whose name will ever be imperishably associated with Inglis’s defence of the British garrison, and in which Outram himself had passed many anxious weeks between September and November. Hardly a building remained standing within the enclosure; all had been riddled and shattered during the long period from July to November, and most of them subsequently destroyed by the enemy. Up to this time Outram’s march of the 16th through the city had been almost unopposed; but he now ascertained that the houses and palaces between the iron and stone bridges were occupied by the enemy in considerable force. Hard fighting at once commenced here, in which the 20th, 23d, and 79th regiments were actively engaged. They advanced at a rapid pace from the Residency towards the iron bridge. A 9-pounder, planted to command a road by the way, fired grape into them; but it was speedily captured. By that time the large guns were brought into position, to play upon the stone bridge, the Emanbarra of Azof-u-Dowlah, and other structures northwest of the iron bridge. At that time Grant and his troopers were near the stone bridge on the left side of the river, while Outram’s guns were firing on it from the right bank; as a consequence, no more escape was permitted by that channel; and the fugitives therefore ran along the right bank of the river, to a part of the open country northwest of Lucknow, not yet controlled by the English. Many of the rebel sepoys resolved to make a stand at the Moosa Bagh, a building at the extreme limits of the city in this direction; but the day was too far advanced to attack them at that spot; and the troops were glad to rest for the night in the splendid saloons and courts of the Emanbarra – one of the grandest among the many grand structures in Lucknow.
While Outram was engaged in these operations on the 16th, obtaining a mastery along almost the whole right bank of the river, the enemy very unexpectedly made an attack on the Alum Bagh, which was only held by a small English force under Brigadier Franklyn. Sir Colin Campbell immediately requested Jung Bahadoor to advance to his left up the canal, and take in reverse the post from which the enemy was making the attack. The Nepaulese chieftain performed this service successfully, capturing the post and the guns, and expelling the enemy.
When the morning of the 17th arrived, the commander-in-chief found himself so undoubtedly the master of Lucknow, that he was enabled to dispense with the services of some of his gallant artillery officers, whose aid was much wanted at Futteghur and elsewhere. Still, though the great conquest was mainly effected, the minor details had yet to be filled up. There were isolated buildings in which small knots of the enemy had fortified themselves; these it would be necessary to capture. It was also very desirable to check the camp-followers in their manifest tendency for plundering the shops and private houses of the city. Sir Colin did not wish the townsmen to regard him as an enemy; he encouraged them, so far as they had not been in complicity with the rebels, to return to their homes and occupations; and it was very essential that those homes should, in the meantime, be spared from reckless looting. In some of the streets, pickets of soldiers were placed, to compel the camp-followers to disgorge the plunder which they had appropriated; and thus was collected a strange medley of trinkets and utensils, which the temporary holders gave up with sore unwillingness. Here and there, where a soldier had a little leisure and opportunity, he would hold a kind of mock-auction, at which not only camp-followers but officers would buy treasures for a mere trifle; but these instances were few, for there was not much ready cash among the conquerors. Sir Colin found it necessary to issue an order concerning the plundering system.137 Outram and Jung Bahadoor took part in a series of operations, on the 17th, intended to obtain control over the northwest section of the city. The one set forth from the river, the other from the vicinity of the Alum Bagh; and during the day they cleared out many nests of rebels. There was also an action on the margin of the city, in which the enemy managed to bring together a considerable force of horse, foot, and artillery; their guns were captured, however, and themselves put to flight.
Sir Colin, responsible for many places besides Lucknow, and for many troops besides those under his immediate command, now made daily changes in the duties of his officers. Major (now Lieutenant-colonel) Vincent Eyre and Major (now also Lieutenant-colonel) Turner, two of the most distinguished artillery officers, departed for Futteghur and Idrapore; and Franklyn went to Cawnpore. Inglis succeeded Franklyn at the Alum Bagh. Sir Archdale Wilson and Brigadier Russell took their departure on sick-leave.
A considerable force of the enemy still lingered around the Alum Bagh, irresolute as to any actual attacks, but loath to quit the neighbourhood until the last ray of hope was extinguished. With these rebels Jung Bahadoor had many smart contests. He had been instructed by Sir Colin to obtain secure possession of the suburbs of the city near the Char Bagh – the bridge that carried the Cawnpore road over the canal.
It was on this day, the 17th, and partly in consequence of the success attending the operations of the Goorkhas, that two English ladies, Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, were delivered from the hands of enemies who had long held them in bondage. It will be remembered that on the night of the 22d of November,138 the insurgents in Lucknow, enraged at the safe evacuation of the Residency by the British, put to death certain English prisoners who had long been in confinement in the Kaiser Bagh. Among them were Mr Orr and Sir Mountstuart Jackson. So far as any authentic news could be obtained, it appeared that Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson had been spared; partly, as some said, through the intervention of the Begum. During the subsequent period of nearly four months, the fate of those unhappy ladies remained unknown to their English friends. On the day in question, however (the 17th of March), Captain M’Neil and Lieutenant Bogle, both attached to the Goorkha force, while exploring some of the deserted streets in the suburb, were accosted by a native who asked their protection for his house and property. The man sought to purchase this protection by a revelation concerning certain English ladies, who, he declared, were in confinement in a place known to him. Almost immediately another native brought a note from Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, begging earnestly for succour. M’Neil and Bogle instantly obtained a guard of fifty Goorkhas, and, guided by the natives, went on their errand of mercy. After walking through half a mile of narrow streets, doubtful of an ambush at every turning, they came to a house occupied by one Meer Wajeed Ali, who held, or had held, some office under the court. After a little parleying, M’Neil and Bogle were led to an obscure apartment, where were seated two ladies in oriental costume. These were the prisoners, who had so long been excluded from every one of their own country, and who were overwhelmed with tearful joy at this happy deliverance. It was not clearly known whether this Meer Wajeed Ali was endeavouring to buy off safety for himself by betraying a trust imposed in him; but the two English officers deemed it best to lose no time in securing their countrywomen’s safety, whether he were a double-dealer or not; they procured a palanquin, put the ladies into it, and marched off with their living treasure – proud enough with their afternoon’s work. When these poor ladies came to tell their sad tale of woe, with countenances on which marks of deep suffering were expressed, it became known that, though not exposed to any actual barbarities or atrocities, like so many of their countrywomen in other parts of India, their lives had been made very miserable by the unfeeling conduct of their jailers, who were permitted to use gross and insulting language in their presence, and to harrow them with recitals of what Europeans were and had been suffering. They had had food in moderate sufficiency, but of other sources of solace they were almost wholly bereft. It was fully believed that they would not have been restored alive, had the jailer obeyed the orders issued to him by the Moulvie.