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The “Sepoy General” was such a man.

CHAPTER IV
War with the Marhattás
(1801–3)

“We must get the upper hand, and if once we have that, we shall keep it with ease, and shall certainly succeed.”

Wellington.

That disappointments are frequently blessings in disguise had already been proved by Arthur Wellesley. Unfortunately, it is easier to forget such a precept than to practise it, and each apparent failure to climb another rung of ambition’s ladder is apt to be regarded as a definite set back. It was so with Wellesley, and a time of trial and perplexity followed the campaign of Seringapatam and the defeat of Dhoondia.

He eventually weathered the storm of depression which pressed upon him, as he weathered many another, but it must be admitted that he bent before it. It came about in this way. The French army in Egypt was still very active, although Napoleon had long since left it. He was now First Consul, and gradually preparing himself and the nation for the assumption of the Imperial crown. The Governor-General, henceforth to be known as Marquis Wellesley,¹¹ was of opinion that a small expedition should be sent either to Batavia or the Mauritius, or to assist Sir Ralph Abercromby in his attempt to drive the French out of Egypt.

With one of these desirable objects in view his brother Arthur was given 5000 troops. He at once set off for Trincomalee, in the island of Ceylon, the headquarters of the little army, intent on personally superintending the arrangements. Shortly afterwards instructions came to hand from the Home Government that 3000 men were to be sent to Egypt. Colonel Wellesley was informed of this decision, and determined to lose no time in forwarding the project. Without receiving official word to do so, and still believing he held the premier post, he embarked the men and sailed for Bombay, where he had ordered an ample supply of provisions to be ready.

When off Cape Comorin, Wellesley received a letter from his brother, stating that he had appointed Major-General Baird to the command of the troops destined for the island of Batavia, which made it clear that the Governor-General had not then received the dispatches of the Secretary of State. Knowing that some at least of the troops on the transports would be required for Egypt, he proceeded on his way, and wrote to Baird of his intention. A little later a further letter came to hand from another source; but the fleet was in want of water, some of the troops had died, and “I was induced to adhere to my original plan.”

Baird, who, on arriving at Trincomalee, found “the cupboard was bare,” was deeply incensed at Wellesley’s high-handed behaviour. The “culprit’s” feelings as to the Governor-General’s new appointment were also far from pacific. That he acted in perfect good faith is evident from the preceding, which is borne out in a lengthy dispatch in which he sought to justify his action in the eyes of his brother.

“I have not been guilty of robbery or murder,” he writes to Henry Wellesley from Bombay on the 23rd March 1801, “and he has certainly changed his mind; but the world, which is always good-natured towards those whose affairs do not exactly prosper, will not, or rather does not, fail to suspect that both, or worse, have been the occasion of my being banished, like General Kray, to my estate in Hungary.¹² I did not look, and did not wish, for the appointment which was given to me; and I say that it would probably have been more proper to give it to somebody else; but when it was given to me, and a circular written to the governments upon the subject, it would have been fair to allow me to hold it till I did something to deserve to lose it.

“I put private considerations out of the question, as they ought and have had no weight in causing either my original appointment or my supercession. I am not quite satisfied with the manner in which I have been treated by Government upon the occasion. However, I have lost neither my health, spirits, nor temper in consequence thereof. But it is useless to write any more upon a subject of which I wish to retain no remembrance whatever.”

Baird would have been scarcely human had he not felt hurt by finding himself head of a force which had disappeared, especially as the Colonel had already superseded him as Governor of Seringapatam. But he forgave, if he did not forget, and so did Wellesley. Some thirty years afterwards, when Baird’s days of active soldiering were over, he remarked, during the course of a chat with Sir John Malcolm, who had himself done good service in India: “Time’s are changed. No one knows so well as you how severely I felt the preference given on several occasions to your friend Wellesley, but now I see all these things from a far different point of view. It is the highest pride of my life that anybody should ever have dreamed of my being put in the balance with him. His name is now to me joy, and I may almost say glory.”

It is satisfactory to know that Arthur Wellesley was not foolish enough to allow the iron to enter into his soul to such an extent as to prevent him from co-operating with Baird, into whose hands he placed a “Memorandum on the Operations in the Red Sea,” accompanied by a letter acknowledging “the kind, candid, and handsome manner in which you have behaved towards me.” When the expedition was ready, Arthur Wellesley was laid low with a fever, consequently the Commander-in-Chief was obliged to sail without his lieutenant, not altogether to his discomfiture one would surmise.

An attack of the dreaded Malabar itch did not tend to a speedy recovery of the invalid, but he was sufficiently well in May 1801 to resume his former duties at Seringapatam, where he had been reinstated by his brother. By living moderately, drinking little or no wine, avoiding much medicine, taking exercise, and keeping his mind employed, he eventually recovered. As Baird saw no fighting, his rival lost nothing by remaining in India.

Sir Herbert Maxwell¹³ assumes that Arthur Wellesley’s fever was caused by disappointment, but as the latter expressly states that Baird’s “conduct towards me has by no means occasioned this determination (namely, to resign the appointment), but that it has been perfectly satisfactory,”¹⁴ the statement is obviously based on a surmise that the Colonel was diplomatically lying. Everybody fully appreciates the influence of mind over matter, and thwarted desire may have weakened Wellesley’s health, but surely the facts of the case scarcely justify so definite an assertion.

Colonel Wellesley remained in Mysore for nearly two years, during which he did his work both wisely and well, showing favour to none and justice to all. It was in February 1803 that the future Wellington, now a Major-General, received news that he was required for active service against the Marhattás. The war-like intentions of this powerful confederacy, which alone could challenge British supremacy, had not escaped the notice of Government. The nominal head of the five native princes who constituted it was Baji Rao, the Peshwá of Poona, the others being Daulat Rao, Sindhia of Gwalior; Jeswant Rao, Holkar of Indore; the Gaikwár of Baroda, and the Bhonsla Rájá of Berar. Sindhia was the most powerful, and possessed a fine army drilled by French officers and commanded by Perron, a deserter from the French Marine.

Holkar had at his disposal no fewer than 80,000 splendidly-equipped men, mostly cavalry, likewise organized by European soldiers. Intense rivalry existed between these princes, and when, in October 1802, the latter invaded Poona, the armies of Sindhia and the Peshwá met with disaster. The Peshwá sought refuge with the British, and forthwith entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Lord Wellesley as the only means of saving his territory. The chief clauses were that 6000 British troops should be kept at Poona, the expense being met by the assignment to the East India Company of certain territory; that the Peshwá would not make war with the other princes or allow them to prey on each other without the consent of Government; and that he should be reinstated in his capital. This arrangement, known as the Subsidiary Treaty of Bassein, soon had the effect of drawing together the remaining members of the Marhattá confederacy, cementing a friendship between Sindhia and Holkar, and an alliance between Sindhia and the Bhonsla Rájá. It is clear that the continued acknowledgment of the Peshwá as head of the confederacy, now that he was under the ægis of the British, would have been to admit the supremacy of the conquering Power they so much resented. Lord Wellesley had already signed a defensive alliance with the Gaikwár of Baroda, and in order to be ready for eventualities, men from the armies of the three Presidencies, namely, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, were concentrated at various points, the first for operation on the north-west frontier of Mysore, the second for action about Surat and Broach, and the third for the occupation of Cuttack. A large force was also ordered to assemble at Cawnpore under General Lake, the Commander-in-Chief in India, while three corps were held in reserve. Major-General Wellesley was placed in command of a detachment of some 10,600 troops, to which must be added the Nizám’s contingent of 8400 men under Colonel Stevenson, making 19,000 in all. His orders were to secure Poona, now held by a small garrison of Holkar’s soldiers totalling not more than 1500. He was already on the march when he heard of the intention of the Governor, acting on Holkar’s instructions, to burn the town on the approach of the British.

“We were within forty miles of the place”—Wellesley himself tells the story¹⁵—“when this resolution of Holkar’s lieutenant was communicated to me. My troops had marched twenty miles that day under a burning sun, and the infantry could no more have gone five miles farther than they would have flown. The cavalry, though not fresh, were less knocked up, so I got together 400 of the best mounted among them, and set off. We started after dark on the night of the 19th of April, and in the afternoon of the 20th we got close to the place. There was an awful uproar, and I expected to see the flames burst out, but nothing of the kind occurred. Amrut Rao—that was the Marhattá’s name—was too frightened to think of anything except providing for his own safety, and I had the satisfaction of finding, when I rode into the town, that he had gone off with his garrison by one gate as we went in by another. We were too tired to follow, had it been worth while to do so, which it was not. Poona was safe, and that was all I cared for.” In the following month the Peshwá returned to his capital.

Sindhia and the Rájá of Berar now busied themselves with gathering a large army at Burhanpur, ready to threaten the Deccan, Holkar retiring to Indore. Wellesley was no less active at Poona; his experience in Holland had taught him the all-important lesson that an efficient organization is a powerful ally. In addition, he was busy endeavouring to come to terms with Sindhia and the Rájá, for which purpose he had been given chief command of the British forces in the Marhattá states, with the fullest political authority. Similar powers were vested in General Lake in Northern India. After wasting as much time as possible in the negotiations so as to gain it for military preparations, Wellesley anticipated the inevitable. “I offered you peace on terms of equality,” he writes on the 6th August 1803, “and honourable to all parties: you have chosen war, and are responsible for all consequences.” On the following day hostilities were declared against Sindhia and the Rájá of Berar.

The stone-built fortress of Ahmednuggur, the capture of which would safeguard his communications with Poona and Bombay and prevent reinforcements from Southern India reaching the enemy, was his first object of attack. The main body of Sindhia’s men was threatening Hyderabad, but the place was well garrisoned and so solidly constructed that it looked as though it would defy whatever artillery could be brought to bear on it. Wellesley said that with the exception of Vellore, in the Carnatic, it was the strongest country fort he had ever seen. However, he began operations against the outworks on the 8th, after having made proposals for its surrender without favourable result. “The Arabs,” we are told, “defended their posts with the utmost obstinacy,” but towards evening were forced to quit the wall. On the following day the ground in the neighbourhood of the fort was reconnoitred and a commanding position seized, on which a battery of four guns was constructed for use during the attack. The first shots were fired on the 10th at dawn, and the storming party speedily began its work. Three times an officer ascended a scaling ladder propped against one of the walls, and thrice he was hurled down by the defenders. The fourth attempt was successful, and, followed by some of his men, the gallant soldier literally hewed a way into the town. The remaining troops, pressing on, took the place of those who fell. At length the Commander of the enemy’s forces surrendered, “on condition that he should be allowed to depart with his garrison, and that he should have his private property.” His fourteen hundred men marched out of the fort, and Wellesley’s troops took possession.

On the 23rd September the General found himself and his small contingent of some 8000 soldiers face to face with the whole combined army of Sindhia and the Rájá of Berar, a state of affairs brought about by unreliable information, causing the separation of Wellesley and Stevenson. At least 50,000 of the enemy were posted in a strong position behind the river Kaitna, near the village of Assaye. As Wellesley had received no reinforcements, and had only 17 guns compared with 128 commanded by skilful French officers at the disposal of the Marhattás, the disproportion of the forces was sufficiently obvious. To a general less experienced or daring the situation would have been considered sufficient cause for an instant retreat; even he called the attack “desperate.” The problem for him to settle was, should he wait a few hours for Stevenson, or begin immediately with the scanty resources at his disposal? Although only 1500 of his men were British, the Commander-in-Chief decided on the latter alternative, ignoring the information vouchsafed by his guides that the river was absolutely impassable. Yet it was only by crossing the stream that he could take advantage of the opportunity to attack. Here Wellesley’s native wit and acute intelligence—he himself called it “common sense”—assisted him. His telescope merely revealed a village on either side of the stream. This fact suggested the probability of a neighbouring ford. On investigation such proved to be the case, and if the passage was difficult the General was at least fortunate in being able to carry out the operation without severe molestation by the enemy, who had foolishly neglected to guard this point. They repaired the omission so far as was possible by firing upon the oncoming army as it slowly waded across, but the losses were comparatively trivial. “All the business of war,” Wellesley once told Croker, “and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do.”

The battle began well by the routing of some of the infantry and artillery by the Highlanders and Sepoys. This advantage was almost immediately counterbalanced by the mistaken zeal of the officer commanding the pickets, supported by the 74th Regiment. He foolishly led his men against the village, thereby exposing them to the concentrated fire of the enemy’s artillery and musketry stationed there. Had he taken a less direct route, this could not have happened, but his enthusiasm overruled his caution. Men dropped down like ninepins in a skittle-alley when the ball is thrown by a skilful player. They fell by the dozen as they came within the zone of fire. Their comrades filled up the tell-tale gaps and continued to push on with a dogged tenacity entirely worthy their intrepid commander. Meanwhile what few British guns remained pounded away, and were silenced one by one as the men who worked them fell dead at their post. The enemy’s cavalry then proceeded to decimate the already sorely depleted ranks of the 74th.

At this moment the 19th Light Dragoons, under Colonel Maxwell, were hurled at Sindhia’s troops. The charge turned the fate of the day. What remained of the 74th rallied under the support thus given, and when Wellesley led the 78th into action the village fell. An attempt was made by the enemy to rally, but it was too late. Men who, with true Oriental cunning, had fallen as though killed in order to avoid the oncoming British cavalry as they charged, and had escaped the iron-shod hoofs of the horses, rejoined the ranks, only to find that the day had been lost. The whole body was soon flying helter-skelter from the blood-stained field towards Burrampur, abandoning artillery, baggage, ammunition—everything that precluded swift movement. Twelve hundred of the Marhattás breathed their last on this memorable day.

In fighting this battle—“the hardest-fought affair that ever took place in India”—o’er again in the twilight of his days, the Duke of Wellington made light of the indiscretions of the officers at Assaye and remembered only their bravery. “I lost an enormous number of men: 170 officers were killed and wounded, and upwards of 2000 non-commissioned officers and privates;¹⁶ but we carried all before us. We took their guns, which were in the first line, and were fired upon by the gunners afterwards, who threw themselves down, pretending to be dead, and then rose up again after our men had passed; but they paid dearly for the freak. The 19th cut them to pieces. Sindhia’s infantry behaved admirably. They were in support of his cannon, and we drove them off at the point of the bayonet. We pursued them as long as daylight lasted and the exhausted state of the men and horses would allow; and slept on the field.”¹⁷

Wellesley himself, although not wounded, lost two horses. An eye-witness has recorded that he had never seen “a man so cool and collected as he was the whole time.” Stevenson arrived on the following evening, and set out almost immediately to follow the enemy, Wellesley being forced to remain owing to his lack of transport for the wounded, whom he refused to leave. The Colonel seconded Wellesley’s magnificent victory by reducing the fortress of Burrampur on the 16th October, and that of Asseerghur on the 21st. Wellesley covered Stevenson’s operations and defended the territories of the Nizám and the Peshwá. “I have been like a man who fights with one hand and defends himself with the other,” he notes on the 26th October. “I have made some terrible marches, but I have been remarkably fortunate: first, in stopping the enemy when they intended to press to the southward, through the Casserbarry ghaut; and afterwards, by a rapid march to the northward, in stopping Sindhia, when he was moving to interrupt Colonel Stevenson’s operations against Asseerghur; in which he would otherwise have undoubtedly succeeded.”

CHAPTER V
Last Years in India
(1803–5)

“Time is everything in military operations.”

Wellington.

Bhonsla Rájá now became the immediate object of Wellesley’s attention. While proceeding in quest of him the General received envoys from Sindhia requesting an armistice. This was granted on the 23rd November 1803, the principal condition imposed by Wellesley being that the enemy’s army should retire forty miles east of Ellichpúr. This clause was not fulfilled, the cavalry of the wily Sindhia encamping at Sersooly, some four miles from the position occupied by Manoo Bappoo, brother of the Rájá, ready for immediate co-operation. Having again united their divisions, Wellesley and Stevenson pushed towards them. “A confused mass” about two miles beyond Sersooly proved to be the enemy’s armies on the march. A little later the General made out “a long line of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, regularly drawn up on the plains of Argaum, immediately in front of that village.”

“Although late in the day,” says Wellesley in describing the events of the 29th November, “I immediately determined to attack this army. Accordingly, I marched on in one column, the British cavalry leading in a direction nearly parallel to that of the enemy’s line; covering the rear and left by the Mogul and Mysore cavalry. The enemy’s infantry and guns were in the left of their centre, with a body of cavalry on their left. Sindhia’s army, consisting of one very heavy body of cavalry, was on the right, having upon its right a body of pindarries and other light corps. Their line extended above five miles, having in their rear the village and extensive gardens and enclosure of Argaum; and in their front a plain, which, however, was much cut by watercourses, etc.

“I formed the army in two lines; the infantry in the first, the cavalry in the second, and supporting the right; and the Mogul and Mysore cavalry the left, nearly parallel to that of the enemy; with the right rather advanced in order to press upon the enemy’s left. Some little time elapsed before the lines could be formed, owing to a part of the infantry of my division which led the column having got into some confusion. When formed, the whole advanced in the greatest order; the 74th and 78th regiments were attacked by a large body (supposed to be Persians), and all these were destroyed. Sindhia’s cavalry charged the 1st battalion, 6th regiment, which was on the left of our line, and were repulsed; and their whole line retired in disorder before our troops, leaving in our hands 38 pieces of cannon and all their ammunition.

“The British cavalry then pursued them for several miles, destroyed great numbers, and took many elephants and camels and much baggage. The Mogul and Mysore cavalry also pursued the fugitives, and did them great mischief. Some of the latter are still following them; and I have sent out this morning all of the Mysore, Mogul, and Marhattá cavalry, in order to secure as many advantages from this victory as can be gained, and complete the enemy’s confusion.... The troops conducted themselves with their usual bravery....”

One of the bravest deeds performed during the battle of Argaum was that of Lieutenant Langlands, of the 74th. Wounded in the fleshy part of the leg by a spear, he promptly pulled out the weapon and thrust it through the body of the Arab who had thrown it. A Sepoy who witnessed this extraordinary display of self-possession, forgetting all discipline, rushed from the ranks and patted the young officer on the back, yelling in his native tongue, “Well done, sir; very well done!”

Wellesley next marched on the mountain fort of Gawilghur, strongly garrisoned by the Rájá’s troops. This defence consisted of an outer and inner fort, the former protected by strongly-built walls, and the whole by ramparts and towers. Admittance was gained only by three gates, all extremely difficult of access by an invading army owing to the roads leading to them. That to the south, communicating with the inner fort, was long and steep, and could only be negotiated on foot; the second was exposed to the guns mounted on the west side and was extremely narrow and scarped by rock; the third, or north gate, communicated with the village. Wellesley chose the last as being the most practicable for his purpose, although he did not blind his eyes to the fact that “the difficulty and labour of moving ordnance and stores from Labada would be very great.”

From the 7th December, when the corps under Wellesley and Stevenson marched from Ellichpúr by different routes, till the 12th, “on which Colonel Stevenson broke ground near Labada, the troops in his division went through a series of laborious services, such as I never before witnessed, with the utmost cheerfulness and perseverance. The heavy ordnance and stores were dragged by hand over mountains, and through ravines, for nearly the whole distance, by roads which it had been previously necessary for the troops to make for themselves.”

On the night of the 12th, Stevenson erected two batteries in front of the north face of the fort, and Wellesley one on the mountain, “under the southern gate.” Although firing was begun on the following morning, the breaches in the walls of the outer fort were not sufficiently large for practical purposes until the 14th. Next day, while the storming party was getting to work, Wellesley made two attacks from the southward so as to draw the enemy’s fire upon himself as much as possible. The north-west gate was carried, and a detachment entered without difficulty. Captain Campbell, with the light infantry of the 94th, then succeeded in fixing ladders against the wall of the inner fort. They “escaladed the wall, opened the gate for the storming party, and the fort was shortly in our possession.” In a later communication Wellesley mentions that he never knew a place taken by storm which was so little plundered, “and it is but doing justice to the corps to declare that in an hour after having stormed that large place, they marched out with as much regularity as if they had been only passing through it.”

Bhonsla Rájá had already sent his vakeel¹⁸ to sue for peace. This was granted by his ceding to the Company the province of Cuttack, with the district of Balasore, and dismissing the European officers who had played so important a part in the drilling of his army. Sindhia also “began to be a little alarmed respecting his own situation,” and shortly afterwards concluded hostilities, handing over all the country between the Jumna and the Ganges, and several important fortresses. These happenings did not relieve Wellesley from active service. Several bands of freebooters, “the terror of the country,” consisting mainly of fugitive soldiers from the defeated armies, were carrying on lawless practices in the West Deccan. After crossing the Godavery, he and some of his troops marched many weary miles along bad roads, often at accelerated speed, in order to attack them, only to find that the enemy had received intelligence of their approach, probably from a traitor in Wellesley’s own ranks. With set purpose the General continued to follow where the marauders led, and eventually broke up the bands, securing the whole of their guns, ammunition, and baggage, thus depriving them of their means of warfare: “they have lost every thing which could enable them to subsist when collected.” Wellesley afterwards asserted that his chase of the freebooters was the greatest march he ever made.

Towards the end of May 1804 Wellesley received instructions from the Governor-General to break up the army in the Deccan, the task of running to earth Holkar, the sole remaining enemy of the confederacy, being given to Lake. In the following month he relinquished his command, and after a short visit to Calcutta returned to Seringapatam. He had already requested that he might be allowed to leave India “when circumstances will permit it,” and the Commander-in-Chief had given him the necessary permission. He was dissatisfied because he had not been promoted since he became Major-General, “and I think that there appears a prospect of service in Europe, in which I should be more likely to get forward.” In addition, he was suffering from rheumatism, “for which living in a tent during another monsoon is not a very good remedy.” He sailed for the Homeland on the 10th March 1805, after six years of hard work, and still harder fighting, in the interests of British rule in India.

The following contemporary pen-portrait of “the Sepoy General,” sketched for us by Captain Sherer, will enable us to visualize him as he appeared at this time:

“General Wellesley was a little above the middle height, well limbed, and muscular; with little incumbrance of flesh beyond that which gives shape and manliness to the outline of the figure; with a firm tread, an erect carriage, a countenance strongly patrician, both in feature, profile, and expression, and an appearance remarkable and distinguished: few could approach him on any duty, or on any subject requiring his serious attention, without being sensible of a something strange and penetrating in his clear light eye. Nothing could be more simple and straightforward than the matter of what he uttered; nor did he ever in his life affect any peculiarity or pomp of manner, or rise to any coarse, weak loudness in his tone of voice. It was not so that he gave expression to excited feeling.”

To what extent did the Governor-General influence his brother’s career in India? First of all we must understand the position of the Marquis Wellesley. It was naturally one of tremendous power and responsibility. The glamour attached to the post was sufficiently evident to the general public. There it ended, for it was glitter rather than gold to its holder. The Directors of the East India Company, ever on the side of rigid economy and large dividends, expressly forbade the costly system of conquest and annexation, yet this was necessarily the sheet anchor of Wellesley’s policy, as former chapters have shown. When pacific measures were tried and failed, it would have been disastrous to continue them. As it usually took over three months¹⁹ for a communication from India to reach England, it follows that the same period was necessary for a reply. The consequences of indecision on the part of the Viceroy, of waiting for advice from home in matters requiring urgency, were therefore fraught with dire peril. On the other hand, if he showed too despotic tendencies he ran a grave risk of incurring displeasure. Indeed, this is exactly what happened, for Lord Wellesley was recalled in 1805 and censured by the Court of Proprietors. When, after thirty years, it became evident that his administration had been wise and not foolish, that he had carried out what would have had to be done eventually to establish British influence, the Directors relented and voted him a grant of £20,000.