Writer: Major General Syed Ali Hamid, HI(M), retired

The 38 years (1801-1839) that Maharaja Ranjit Singh ruled, witnessed the evolution of the Sikh army from a semi-feudal and disorganised force, to an efficient fighting machine that would have been able to hold its own against the best European armies. Ranjit Singh prescribed the most exacting standards of efficiency in march, manoeuvre and marksmanship, and under his watchful eye the army developed into a balanced force with the infantry and artillery gaining in importance. It not only drove the Afghans out of the Peshawar Valley, it was by far also the most potent force faced by the East India Company (EIC).

Ranjit Singh was conscious of the expansionist designs of the EIC and was careful in not provoking the British. The British too needed a strong and stable Punjab kingdom as a buffer against a Russo-French alliance. In 1809 the Treaty of Amritsar was signed between the two, in which the line of the River Sutlej became the de facto boundary, which allowed the Maharaja to expand his kingdom towards Multan, Peshawar and Kashmir. The cooperation between the two continued for the next 30 years, and in 1838 the two most powerful armies on the Indian Subcontinent – that of Ranjit Singh and of the EIC–assembled in a grand review at Ferozepur. The following year Ranjit Singh died.

Following the annexation of Sind in 1843, the arrows of the EIC pointed towards the Punjab. It was a rich kingdom and the last remaining one that had not succumbed. Politically and militarily there was great disorder, and the army had emerged as an independent power base. Ranjit Singh’s wife, Jind Kaur, who had become vice regent, was secretly cooperating with the EIC along with the prime minister Lal Singh, and the army chief Tej Singh. To break the power of the army, she goaded it to a contest with the EIC. Simultaneously, on the pretext that unstable conditions in the Punjab threatened the adjoining territories, the EIC prepared for war.

In 1845, a Sikh army of 40,000 with 40 guns crossed the Sutlej. One army under Tej Singh advanced towards Ferozepur but made no effort to surround and attack the British cantonment. Eighteen miles away, another one under Lal Singh advanced on a British force that was resting at Mudki. The Sikh guns and infantry formed up in a dense jungle with the Ghorchurra (irregular cavalry) deployed on the f lanks. Though better equipped than the British cavalry and highly skilled, they had never succumbed to the discipline imposed by Ranjit Singh on his infantry and artillery, and proved to be the weakest link in most encounters. T heir charge was repulsed by a counter charge of the British cavalry that then struck the Sikh artillery and infantry, but they stood firm even against a subsequent assault by the main British force. As darkness descended, the Sikh artillery which mainly consisted of heavy guns, inflicted substantial casualties on the EIC troops with grapeshot. Though the Sikhs were driven from the field, the gunners managed to save more than half their guns.

Lal Singh now established a well entrenched position at Ferozeshah with 47,000 troops and 88 guns of all calibres. The battle opened with a terrific artillery duel in which the Sikh artillery outperformed that of the enemy. Since the barrels of the Sikh guns were heavier and could fire a bigger charge, they outranged the British. Being better trained, the gunners also had a 3:2 advantage in the rate of fire. The artillery concentrated on the British battalions and the 4th Division broke. By the evening all four divisions of the Army of the Sutlej, that had been assembled for battle by the EIC, had penetrated the Sikh ramparts, but with heavy casualties.

There now occurred a repeat of what happened a hundred years earlier at Plassey. During the night Lal Singh fled the camp with all his Ghorchurras and the crews of 60 guns, and when Tej Singh arrived in the morning, he declined to give battle. The British C-in-C General Gough remarked after the battle, “Never did a native army, having so relatively slight an advantage in numbers, fight a battle with the British in which the issue was so doubtful as at Ferozeshah; and if the victory was decisive, opinion remains divided as to what the result might have been if the Sikh troops had found commanders with sufficient capacity to give their qualities full opportunity.”

Following this narrow victory, the Army of the Sutlej was too shaken to pursue the Sikhs who themselves were dispirited, but with reinforcements arriving within a few weeks, they again established a bridgehead at Sobraon. A smaller force of 7,000 men and 20 guns crossed higher up the Sutlej to menace the supply lines of the British, who detached a division under Sir Harry Smith to clear this threat to their rear. The two forces clashed at Aliwal where once again the Sikh artillery and infantry performed exceedingly well, but the cavalry underperformed. Unlike other battles of both Anglo-Sikh Wars, the Sikhs retreat at Aliwal became a disorderly rout, and they abandoned most of their guns.

General Gough who commanded the Army of the Sutlej through both campaigns, was reluctantly persuaded to wait to attack Sobraon, till the arrival of Harry Smith’s division and heavy guns. As at Ferozeshah, the Sikhs had established a strong entrenchment around their camp on which a two-hour bombardment by British heavy guns had little effect. After a feint, a British division attacked the Sikh right, where according to information provided by Lal Singh, the defences were weaker. However, the division was driven back by the murderous fire of the Sikh artillery, followed by counter-attacks, and its commander was killed.

The British then attacked along the entire front and broke through in a number of places. Because a large number of Sikh gunners had fallen in the previous battles, their artillery was firing high. The weak right was finally breached and the cavalry and guns of the EIC pushed through. Once again treachery had prevailed, both by Lal Singh as well as Tej Singh, who left the battle early, and with guns deployed across the river, fired at the bridge. Already under strain because of three days of rain that swelled the river, the bridge broke when the Sikh soldiers started crossing, trapping 20,000 on the far bank. None of them surrendered, fighting till the last.

The First Anglo-Sikh War ended with the Sikhs surrendering the whole of the Jullundar Doab, ceding Kashmir and the hill states between the Beas and the Indus. A limit was placed on the size of the army and a British resident was placed at Lahore. However, resentment against the British interference in the affairs of the Kingdom grew into a general uprising that culminated in a second war. It began with a rebellion in Multan in April 1848, that led to a siege by the British which lasted nearly a year.

The campaign in northern Punjab opened in November 1948 when a British contingent of cavalry and artillery, with an infantry brigade, failed to attain a surprise crossing over the Chenab at Ramnagar (present Rasulnagar below Wazirabad). A detachment of Sikhs on the left bank executed a planned withdrawal, drawing British cavalry and horse artillery into the soft dry sand of the wide river bed, where they came under intense fire from heavy batteries well concealed on the right bank. The British horse artillery was outgunned and forced to retire, and 3000 Ghorchurras crossed the river to follow up the success. The main British contingent of two regiments of cavalry made a counter charge, but recoiled after exposure to the Sikh artillery. For once the Ghorchurras responded well and wheeling back, struck the British cavalry, causing heavy casualties.

Two months later in January 1949 the British and Sikh armies clashed at Chillianwala. It was one of the bloodiest battles fought by the EIC, in spite of the fact that Sher Singh’s army was not more than 10,000, but he had 60 well-serviced guns. General Gough had 15,000 with 100 guns, but his tactics, as in some of the earlier battles, were ill-thought out and deeply criticised for headlong attacks resulting in heavy casualties. The Sikh artillery, in combination with counter-charges by infantry and cavalry, played an overwhelming role in stopping the advance of a division towards the right wing. The British brigade twice nearly reached the gun-lines, but in the process was almost broken. On the other f lank the British cavalry brigade lost direction, wheeled all the way back and masked their guns. Taking advantage of this, the Ghorchurras fell upon the British horse artillery. The final losses to Gough’s army were 2,512 killed and wounded, of which a comparatively high proportion were British rather than Indian.

The British C-in-C claimed a victory, but actually the battle ended in a stalemate, with doubts expressed by the British press about the results of the campaign. General Gough’s blunder was the poor use of artillery. “With so tremendous a pack of artillery and supply of mortars as that at his disposal,” wrote a reporter, “It might have been imagined that …… our ordnance could have told on them fearfully at a range to which their shot could not have reached”. Gough was removed from command, but before his replacement could arrive, the two sides again clashed at Gujrat a month and a half later.

Gough would not repeat this mistake at the final battle of the campaign. The Sikhs opened the battle with all their guns, but their untrained gunners fired before the British were in range, and revealed their positions. Capitalising on this error, the British batteries safely redeployed, and for the next three hours pounded the Sikh artillery. The heavy artillery advanced to successive forward positions, driving back the Sikhs, and the horse and light field batteries broke their ranks. The Sikh defenses were then practically a walkover, but some of the gunners stuck to their guns till the bitter end, ensuring that the legacy of their artillery lived on.

The Battle of Gujrat was the swansong of the Sikh kingdom, and the remnants of Sher Sing’s army surrendered on the outskirts of Rawalpindi. The British were now masters of the whole of India, from Bengal till Peshawar.

Notes

Books

• Major George Fletcher MacMunn, The Armies of India (1985; reis., Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2005).
• Robert Sangster Rait, The Life and Campaigns of Hugh First Viscount Gough Field Marshal (Franklin Classics Trade Press, 2018).
• Joseph Davey Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs from the Origin of the Nation to the Battles of the Sutlej, ed. H.L.O. Garrett (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publishers, 2006).
• Captain E. Buckle, Memoir of the Service of the Bengal Artillery: From the Formation of the Corps to the Present Time, with Some Account of Its Internal Organization, ed. J. W. Kaye (London: WM. H. Allen & Co, 1852).
• Ian Heath, The Sikh Army 1799-1849 (Men-at-Arms) (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2005).
• Amarpal Singh, The Second Anglo-Sikh War (India: Harper Collins, 2017).
• Johnny Torrens-Spence, Historic Battlefields of Pakistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Articles

• Khola Cheema. “Survival of Fittest: From Khalsa Identity to Military Establishment of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh”, Journal of Pakistan Vision 19, No. 1 (July 2018): 191-215, http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/studies/PDF-FILES/ Article_12_2018_07_12.pdf
• Jon Latimer, “The Second Sikh War: Britain’s Costly Conquest”, History Net, February 2, 2020, accessed, May 16, 2022, https://www.historynet.com/the-second-sikh-war-britains-costly-conquest/
• “The Victories on the Sutlej—Battles of Aliwal And Sobraon—Vote of Thanks to the Army”. Proceedings of the House of Lords, April 02, 1846, Vol. 85 Cc412-35412, accessed June 3, 2022, https://api.parliament.uk/historic hansard/lords/1846/apr/02/the-victories-on-the-sutlej-battles-of