The Siege
of Lucknow is by far, one of the most documented events of its time. A flurry
of journals, books, stories, articles, poems, music and even a play
enthralled the Victorian public with
their tales of hardship, horror and above all a morally Christian heroism,
which was perfectly fitting for their times. A hero was not just brave, his
morals needed to be pure. It is where heroes like Henry Lawrence triumph and
others fail.
Henry Lawrence, General Hewitt and General Sir
Hugh Wheeler
Henry
Lawrence was undoubtedly a gifted administrator. He had the ability to move
freely at all levels of society, something which many colonials of their time
(and their wives, no less) were unable, or unwilling, to do. He followed his intuition, rationally
assessed the situation he was facing and made the necessary preparations, thus,
in effect, saving the Lucknow garrison from starvation and ultimate defeat. It
is hard to see how the actions of this sensitive and above
incredibly sensible man could be construed as heroic, when it seems, from our
modern point of view, it is nothing more than anyone else in his shoes would
have done. Yet what sets Henry Lawrence apart from his contemporaries, like General Wheeler of Cawnpore, or General Hewitt at Meerut, is when faced with an impossible situation, they are remembered for what they did not do.
Henry
Lawrence was not the only leader faced with a crisis in 1857. From
Meerut to Cawnpore, from Jahnsi to Gwailor, Seetpore to Allahabad, the Indian
countryside was in flames, burning under the might of a furious population. The revolt spread swiftly - not
everyone had the time to plan and prepare as Henry Lawrence had done, however had others been following the signs and portents, as Henry Lawrence had done, the damage might have been better controlled.
Meerut
At the
extreme end of the scale, in Meerut, where the mutiny originally broke out on
the 10th of May, the station’s commander did nothing at all to
counteract the initial outbreak. As his station burned and the Christian
community was hunted down and murdered, he, in the words of Fitchett,
“..had neither
the energy or the resolution. He had drowsed and nodded his way through some
fifty years of routine service, rising by mere seniority. He was now old,
obese, indolent and notoriously incapable. He had agreeable manners and a
soothing habit of ignoring the disagreeable. Lord Melbourne’s favourite
question, “Why can’t you leave it alone?” represented General Hewitt’s
intellect…In General Hewitt’s case, the familiar fable of an army of lions
commanded by an ass, was translated into history once more.” (Fitchett, The
Tale of the Great Mutiny, 1904, p. 24)
General Hewitt failed not only as a
commander, but as a man -an unpardonable sin.
Comparatively speaking, Meerut was the station in the Bengal Presidency
where the mutiny was most likely to fail
as it had some 2,028 Europeans against 2,057 natives soldiers– but Meerut did
not have a Henry Lawrence, they had what many stations had in 1857, a General
Hewitt.
In his defence, Hewitt said,
“As soon as the alarm was given, the
artillery, carabineers, and 60th Rifles were got under arms, but by the time we
reached the native parade ground, it was too dark to act with efficiency in
that direction; consequently the troops were retired to the north of the
nullah, to cover the barracks and officers lines of the artillery carabineers
and 60th Rifles, which were, with the exception of one house preserved!”
What
it came down to finally, was a matter of red tape. Hewitt explained that while
he was responsible for the district, Archdale Wilson was in fact commanding the
station. However, Wilson believed he was under the directions of Hewitt, and
since Hewitt ordered nothing, he, in consequence did nothing. Hewitt’s masterly
inactivity was complete; he did not even send a warning to the city the mutineers were heading to next: Delhi was taken completely by surprise.
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Destruction of bungalow at Meerut
Illustrated London News, 1857 |
If Meerut had been commanded by young and clever
commander, could the course of the mutiny have been changed? Perhaps it could
have been stayed for a while but most likely, it would have come to an outbreak
in the end anyway. Lord Roberts (of Khandahar fame) believed that a pursuit of
the mutineers by the Meerut force would have been futile and nothing that the
commanders could do would ultimately have saved Delhi.
Cawnpore
Another
spectacular failure during the Mutiny was Cawnpore (Kanpur). The
commander at Cawnpore was General Sir Hugh Wheeler. At 75, he was no longer
fighting fit
“(and a man) no matter how brave, in whose veins ran the chill and
thin blood of old age, was tragically handicapped in a crisis so fierce.”
(Fitchett, p. 86).
General Wheeler,
unlike Hewitt, did plenty. He set up his defences, albeit inadequate and
severely lacking in common sense. Instead of choosing the Cawnpore magazine as
the place to make his last stand, where he would at least have had strong
buildings, a huge supply of guns and ammunition and 3 acres of space to
shelter the civilian population, he
chose a patch of ground 6 miles away, with practically no water supply. Around
it he built a thin wall of dirt and into it, he crowded the British
population of Cawnpore. The outcome was predictably disastrous.
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| Plan of the entrenchment at Cawnpore |
Where did
General Wheeler fail? Unkindly, many of his contemporaries believed it was his
close associations with “natives” that was his downfall - his wife was a Hindu. In reality, he took too many things for granted. Like many other commanders at the time, General Wheeler did not believe the entire force
would mutiny and in the same effect, he also believed that if they did, they
would march immediately to enforce their brethren in Delhi. He also had
implicit faith in Nana Sahib. Of course, he wasn’t the only one – the Nana had
convinced many in Cawnpore of his fidelity and loyalty to the British, but it
was Wheeler who was in charge. After 21 days of siege and catastrophic losses, the British at Cawnpore surrendered to the Nana Sahib, who
had proved himself to be as vengeful an opponent as they come. His name became synonymous with the ultimate
massacre of the garrison at the Satichaura Ghat, and the infamous slaughter at
the Bibighar but it is General Wheeler who has been held responsible for all
history.
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| Sir Hugh Wheeler |
However, General Wheeler has been described variously as heroic, and as a man, gallant.
His main problem was not his leadership, it was argued, but that he was
encumbered with some 700 hundred civilians, many of whom were the wives and
children of the men of the 32nd, stationed at Lucknow. He only had 300 fighting men to face down a
highly trained army of thousands. So was the downfall of Cawnpore really his
fault alone? Had he been without the civilians, as outnumbered as he was, it is
unlikely he would have fared any better. However, the garrison of Cawnpore
could have made a noble last stand and would have gone into the Victorian mind
as valiant men grimly facing adversity to the bitter end comparable perhaps to the last stand at Gandamak. Their ending was
finally only horrifically tragic and served to feed the public’s growing lust for
macabre tales of the mutiny.
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Remains of the Wheeler's Entrenchment
Felice Beato |
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Cawnpore Memorial Well
Samuel Bourne, 1860 |
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| The Well and Monument, Slaughter House, Cawnpore, 1858Murray Collection: Views in Delhi, Cawnpore, Allahabad and Benares' Dr. John Murray. |
While the mutiny played out in the midst of generals, in battles hard fought, lost and won, another siege has gone wholly unnoticed.
The Siege of Arrah
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| Sketch of the fortified house at Arrah |
The city of
Arrah (Ara) is situated in Bhojpur district in the state of Bihar, India.
It is the district headquarters of Bhojpur district, located near the
confluence of the Ganges and Sone rivers, some 24 mi. from Danapur and 36 miles
from Patna.(Wikipedia). It is an ancient city that was even known in Greek geographical
works, but in 1857, it was hardly noticed.
The Siege
of Arrah commenced on the 25th of July and lasted until the 3rd
of August – comparatively short and somewhat unspectacular: no great generals
were present here, no great garrison of fighting men. The entire defending
party consisted of 16 civilians, 50 Sikhs and three servants. They were
besieged by the forces of three revolted native regiments, led by a Zemindar
named Kur Singh. Vastly outnumbered, the besieged took up their position in the
house of Mr. Boyle, the district engineer to the railway company. In
anticipation of an uprising, Mr. Boyle had fortified his house, stocked up on
provisions including fuel and entrenching tools, some ball cartridge, gunpowder
and even lead in order to make more cartridges, if required. He also
provisioned the house with enough water to last 50 men for two weeks. What
happened next is the stuff of legend. 67 men held out for seven days – attempts
were made by the attackers to burn them out, cannon them out and even bribe
them out, and every attempt failed. The held their position and never
considered defeat. On the seventh day they were relieved by the army of General
Eyre and Arrah was saved.
So why has
Arrah all but disappeared from the annals of the Mutiny, appearing occasionally
more as an afterthought than as an actual event?
The siege of Arrah does
not fall into the classic mould of mutiny stories – there were no suffering
women and dying children, in fact only one member of the garrison, a Sikh
soldier, was severely injured in the entire seven days and that by flying splinters of wood, no less. The daring of the
besieged at Arrah is strictly a man’s domain, what men can do when faced with
the impossible and are willing to do everything to save their necks. Unlike
soldiers, they approached their dilemma as engineers. Unable to ascertain how
many rebels were actually in area and thinking it unadvisable to abandon the
station when there might in fact only be a few rebels around, they doggedly
decided to stay put. So on the night of the 26th of July, with
mutual agreement, the officers and residents of the station, along with the
Sikh soldiery, occupied their house and dug in their heels. When water began to
run short, a well, eighteen feet by four, was dug in less than 12 hours, thus
solving one of their pressing problems.
When the rebels raised a barricade on top of a house opposite, the
garrison built theirs up in proportion. When shot was directed at the weakest
point in the defences, the spot was immediately fortified and made stronger.
The made a sortie out of the defences to fetch some sheep when hunger began to
tell, and dug a countermine to stop the one the enemy were digging. There was
no stoic suffering at Arrah – only determination and obviously plenty of
practicality. Three or four of the best shots were generally on the roof who were disciplined enough to weigh out an
advantage by waiting until the enemy were within a hundred yards of the
defences and then made every shot count. Why the mutineers did not just storm the place
and have it done with cannot be explained in any simple terms. Mr. Wake, who wrote a diary during siege on a
wall in the house, put it down to,
“nothing but cowardice, want of unanimity,
and only ignorance of our enemies prevented our fortification being brought
down around our ears.”
It must have been
a bitter moment when the rebels realised there were never more than 67 men in
the Arrah garrison.
With no
lurid tales of horror and suffering, and the very fact that the siege of Arrah
was fought voluntarily by a group of men who throughout had a very possible
path of escape available, the story fell far short of what the Victorian public
wanted and were quick to turn their attentions elsewhere. Only Rudyard Kipling thought they were worth more than an afterthought and in that sentiment, wrote his short story, "The Little House at Arrah."
Popular
Christian Sentiment and the Mutiny: Arthur Marcus Cheek
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Marcus Cheek
The Martyr of Allahabad |
One story
which quickly captured the imagination of the public was that of Ensign Arthur
Marcus Hill Cheek. The book, “The Young Martyr of Allahabad” first appeared in
1857 and was written by the Reverend Robert Meek. In his hands, the story is
turned into one of heroic Christian suffering, the perseverance of faith in the
face of adversity and the 16 year old ensign turns into a martyr with all the
trimmings.
Fate was
decidedly unkind to Arthur Marcus Cheek.
On the 20th
of March 1857, 16 year old Marcus (as he was called by his family) left
Southampton and reached Calcutta on the 28th of April. He received
his appointment as an ensign in the 6th Bengal Native Infantry. He
was allowed three weeks to visit his uncle and relatives who were residing in
India, after which he travelled to Allahabad to join his regiment. On the 19th of May he reached his
destination. On the evening of the 5th
of June, the 6th Bengal N.I. broke out into open mutiny. Anyone who
could, escaped to the fort and remained besieged there until the 11th
of June when the forces of General Neill arrived. However, what happened to
Marcus?
On the
night of the mutiny, Marcus had left the mess-room early and had returned to
his rooms. It was a short respite. The
violence which accompanied the outbreaks was no different in Allahabad and the
same scenes were acted out here as in the other stations. In the mess room
alone nine ensigns were murdered. The next part of Marcus’ tale is based more
on probability than on solid fact – on hearing shots fired, Marcus left his rooms and went outside. It did
not take long before a sepoy had spotted him, cut him down with a sword and
left him for dead. Severely wounded, Marcus managed to escape and hid in a
ravine on the banks of the Ganges. For
four days he remained hidden, in spite of his injuries, he had even tried to
climb into a tree. On the fifth day, he was found by a band of sepoys and taken
to the Moulvie, the leader of the Allahabad insurgents. He was held captive
until the 17th when the Moulvie fled Allahabad. Marcus was found and
brought into the Fort but he was beyond saving and died shortly afterwards from
his wounds and dehydration.
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The Fort at Allahabad
London Illustrated News, 1857 |
Although
Marcus, in moments of consciousness, did attempt to give an account of his
escape and subsequent capture, his story was too “confused” and has not been
recorded in his own words. What we do have are the accounts of people who saw
him shortly after his rescue up to the point of his death, after which they
wrote letters to his family giving their versions of events. It is here that Marcus slips into the beau
ideal of a Christian hero.
During his
captivity, Marcus had been kept in a room with the Reverend Gopenauth Naundy
with his family, and Conductor Coleman and his family. The reverend was
severely tortured, and had been admonished by his tormentors to give up his
faith and convert to Islam. On the verge of breaking, it was Marcus who “saved”
the reverend with the words, “Padre Sahib! Hold onto your faith! Don’t give it
up!” Or alternately, “Oh my friend - come what may, do not deny the Lord Jesus
Christ!” Whichever phrase he used, it had the effect of restoring the
reverend’s faith, and gave him the strength to resist his tormentors.
Marcus’ last words, however, were not addressed to his Saviour or reserved for noble ideas. At
the very last, he wanted to write to his mother.
In the
aftermath of his death, a flurry of letters arrived at the door of his parents, some from
exalted personages but also from strangers - each extoling the virtues of
Marcus and his unshakeable faith. The Honourable and Reverend Baptist W. Noel,
M.A., went as far as composing a poem in Marcus’ memory (though in all
fairness, he does dedicate it not only to him but to the other ensigns murdered
at Allahabad). The Essex Herald published “An Incident in the War” an equally
tumultuous poem in Marcus’ honour written by someone calling themselves Alpha. We can only hope that somewhere, in all those
words was at least a few that gave some measure of comfort to his poor,
grieving parents.
It is
equally touching however, that in one of the letters, written by Mrs. E.B.
Lanzeen, although there is mention of Marcus at first, she had concerns of her
own. Her nephew, 18 year old Thomas Lane Bayliff had arrived in Allahabad the
day before Marcus and had been killed on the 6th of June. She ends
her letter with the sad words, “He too, was a jewel; but few find grace early
or late to shine with lustre such as your dear lost son’s.” Poor Thomas Lane
Bayliff – had he had the presence of mind to utter the right words at the given
time, there might have been two martyrs of Allahabad.
Marcus was
held up to the awed public as a “shining example of Christian fidelity, to stimulate
other young persons to cultivate by prayer and diligence those Christian graces
which can arm the unprotected sufferer with the same courage to bear
affliction, even captivity and torture, without giving up their trust in the
power and love of their Saviour.” According to the Reverend Meek and many
others of the day, Marcus died not in vain, but upholding the very ideals of
spirited Christianity, and with all these virtues embodied in the soul of a
young boy, nonetheless! It is Victorian heroic sentiment let loose in grand style and far from reality or in effect, from the truth. What Marcus Cheek represents is the true face of the mutiny. Away from the heroics and the posturing of men doing their duty, here was a boy, one of the many at the wrong place, at the wrong time, who had no idea finally, why he had to die. This is not martyrdom, it is grim fury of war.
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