The East India Company Counted 2,357 Casualties at Chillianwala in January 1849 and Still Won Both Anglo-Sikh Wars, Annexing the Punjab on 29 March

The two Anglo-Sikh Wars were fought between the East India Company and the Khalsa, the army and brotherhood of the Sikh state at Lahore, from December 1845 to March 1846 and again from April 1848 to March 1849. The Company won both, and on 29 March 1849 the Punjab was declared part of the British Empire in India. Robert Cust, an assistant to the Company’s political agent, wrote in his diary on 22 December 1845 that word had come from the Governor-General, Henry Hardinge, that “all state papers were to be destroyed” and that if the morning attack failed, all would be over. Khushwant Singh quotes the entry in his history of the Sikhs.

An army that answered to its own committees

After Ranjit Singh died on 27 June 1839, Lahore went through several rulers and ministers in six years. The earlier piece on the army and the killings after his death follows them one by one, and his own life is told separately. By 1845 the regiments held the real power through panchayats, committees of five men picked from each battalion or company, as Cunningham describes them. Major Broadfoot, the Company’s political agent on the frontier, reported to Calcutta on 27 March 1845 that Sikh officers were “looked on rather as servants than commanders.” A Sikh trooper, Khushwant Singh adds, drew almost twice the pay of a Company sepoy.

About 8 November 1845, according to a Lahore news-letter Cunningham cites, the army accepted Lal Singh as wazir (chief minister) and Tej Singh as commander-in-chief. Both men would later be accused of working for the British, and that dispute is taken up at the end.

The Company had been moving troops to Ferozepur on the Sutlej, building supply depots and annexing Lahore territory south of the river, the Wallace Collection notes. Cunningham, then a political officer on the frontier, wrote that its food, ammunition and hospital stores were still back at Delhi and Agra when the Sikhs moved. The Khalsa began crossing the Sutlej on 11 December, and on 13 December Hardinge declared war, saying the Sikhs had invaded “without a shadow of provocation.” Khushwant Singh points out that Indian historians Sita Ram Kohli and Ganda Singh put the crossing as late as 14 or 15 December, after the proclamation, and that Hardinge himself asked Cust five days after the proclamation whether the people of England would see the crossing as a justification of war.

Mudki and Ferozeshah, 18 to 22 December 1845

The Sikh force at Mudki on 18 December was smaller than the British believed. Gough’s despatch put it at 30,000 men with 40 guns. Cunningham, using later inquiries, counted fewer than 2,000 infantry, 22 guns and 8,000 to 10,000 horse. The National Army Museum gives 10,000 cavalry, 4,000 infantry and 22 guns against about 12,000 British and Indian troops. Gough’s despatch lists 215 killed and 657 wounded, among them Sir Robert Sale, the defender of Jalalabad. Cunningham says the Sikhs lost 17 guns.

At Ferozeshah, Gough joined Sir John Littler’s Ferozepore division at midday on 21 December and attacked within an hour of sunset. “The resistance met was wholly unexpected,” Cunningham writes. Darkness mixed regiments together, and by his account some Sikh guns that had not been taken were turned on British soldiers who lit brushwood fires for warmth. British losses were 694 killed and 1,721 wounded, 103 of them officers, including Broadfoot. Gough later concluded that about 2,000 Sikhs were killed, because the heirs of 1,782 regular soldiers claimed unpaid wages. The Sikhs told British officers after the war that they had 46,808 men and 88 guns there, counting Tej Singh’s. The British had guessed 50,000, and the National Army Museum says about 40,000.

On the morning of 22 December Tej Singh arrived from Ferozepur with fresh troops. Cunningham and Khushwant Singh both say the British artillery had run out of ammunition. Tej Singh’s guns fired, fell silent, and he withdrew. The National Army Museum calls it a lucky escape for Hardinge and Gough. Sir Hope Grant, who served in the war, wrote that a British army had rarely been nearer to annihilation, as Khushwant Singh quotes him.

Badowal, Aliwal and Sobraon, January and February 1846

On 21 January 1846 at Badowal, near Ludhiana, a Sikh force under Ranjodh Singh Majithia caught Sir Harry Smith’s column and took his baggage train. Smith wrote in his autobiography that it was “the most scientific move made during the war,” and that Ranjodh Singh should have gone on to destroy him.

Smith did not wait long. At Aliwal on 28 January he beat the same force, which Cunningham puts at not less than 15,000 against Smith’s 11,000. Cunningham and Khushwant Singh agree that Ranjodh Singh left the field early while the artillerymen stayed at their guns. The National Army Museum gives about 3,000 Sikh casualties and 475 British and Indian.

Sobraon came on 10 February. The Sikh position stood with its back to the Sutlej, with 67 guns by Cunningham’s count. The British batteries fired for more than three hours from sunrise, and the first infantry assaults, advancing in line, were driven back with heavy loss before the trenches were carried. Sham Singh Attariwala, an old general, put on white and led a last stand. British casualties were 320 killed and 2,083 wounded in Cunningham’s figures, and “more than 2,000” in the National Army Museum’s.

The Sikh dead are less certain. Cunningham says the loss perhaps exceeded 5,000 and possibly reached 8,000, the lower estimate in the British despatches. Gough later learned that 3,125 heirs had claimed wages owed to dead soldiers, and thought 12,000 to 15,000 possible. Khushwant Singh writes “nearly 10,000,” and the National Army Museum “perhaps as many as 10,000.” Hardinge, in Khushwant Singh’s quotation, wrote: “Few escaped; none, it may be said, surrendered.”

The Treaty of Lahore and the sale of Kashmir

The Treaty of Lahore was signed on 9 March 1846. Article 3 gave the Company the Jullundur Doab, the land between the Beas and the Sutlej. Article 4 demanded one and a half crore rupees (15 million) for the cost of the war and, because Lahore could not pay, took “all his forts, territories, rights, and interests” in the hills between the Beas and the Indus, including Kashmir and Hazara, as the equivalent of one crore. Article 7 limited the regular army to 25 battalions of 800 men and 12,000 cavalry.

A week later, on 16 March at Amritsar, the Company handed Kashmir and the hill country to Gulab Singh of Jammu for 75 lakh rupees (7.5 million), 50 lakh on ratification and the rest by 1 October. He also owed an annual token of one horse, twelve shawl goats and three pairs of Kashmir shawls. Cunningham, who calls the arrangement dexterous as a way of weakening the Sikhs, adds that “the transaction scarcely seems worthy of the British name and greatness.” Hardinge, in words Khushwant Singh quotes from a life of him, said that keeping a force in Kashmir, 300 miles from British support, “merited a straitwaistcoat and not a peerage.” A footnote in Cunningham records that Gulab Singh called himself the Governor-General’s zurkharid, a slave bought with gold.

Nine months on, a British inquiry “fully established,” in the words of the December 1846 agreement, that Lal Singh had secretly urged the governor of Kashmir to resist Gulab Singh. Lal Singh was deposed and exiled, and a second agreement at Bhairowal on 16 December 1846 put a British Resident in control of every department of the state.

Multan to Chillianwala, 1848 to 1849

The second war began as a local revolt. In April 1848 two British officers, Lieutenants Patrick Vans Agnew and William Anderson, were killed at Multan, and Diwan Mulraj rebelled. Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes beat his supporters at Kineyri on 18 June and Sadusam on 3 July. Khushwant Singh traces how it spread: Sher Singh Attariwala fought beside the British at Multan on 9 September, then left their camp days later, saying he believed they planned to seize him, and other sardars (Sikh chiefs) followed. General Whish raised the siege of Multan. Dalhousie wrote on 8 October 1848: “I have drawn the sword, and this time thrown away the scabbard.”

Sher Singh’s army fought Gough at Ramnagar on 22 November 1848. Then on 13 January 1849, at Chillianwala, Gough attacked in the afternoon of a day on which, Dalhousie told the Duke of Wellington, he had meant only to reconnoitre. Gough’s despatch put the Sikhs at 30,000 to 40,000 men with 62 guns. Dalhousie wrote that the British line advanced three miles through jungle against an enemy it could not see, and that “each brigade lost its neighbour.”

Gough’s own return lists 602 killed, 1,651 wounded and 104 missing, 2,357 men in all. The National Army Museum counts 515 casualties, 238 of them killed, in the 24th Regiment alone, and says the Sikhs recovered 28 of the 40 guns the British had captured. Khushwant Singh adds that the Sikhs took four British guns and the colours of three regiments, and fired a salute the next morning. Gough called the day a “complete success dearly bought,” and Dalhousie told Wellington privately: “In public I make, of course, the best of things.” London named Sir Charles Napier to replace Gough, but Napier arrived after the war was over.

Gujrat, and 29 March 1849

Multan fell on 22 January 1849, and the force that took it joined Gough. At Gujrat on 21 February he had some 24,000 men. The National Army Museum puts the Sikhs at 60,000 or more, while Khushwant Singh says they were weaker in men and had 59 guns to the British 66. Lee-Warner reports British losses of about 100 killed and 700 wounded and says 53 of the 59 Sikh guns were captured. Afghan horsemen who had come to help the Sikhs withdrew from the field.

Chattar Singh and Sher Singh Attariwala gave up their swords at Hurmuck near Rawalpindi on 11 March, and the rest of the army surrendered on 14 March. The terms Dalhousie sent were signed at Lahore on 29 March and ratified on 5 April. Among the Council of Regency members who accepted them for the child Maharaja was Raja Tej Singh, the commander-in-chief of 1845. Duleep Singh gave up all claim to sovereignty and was to reside where the Governor-General chose. Article 3 required the Koh-i-Noor to be surrendered to the Queen. The story of that diamond is told elsewhere. The Royal Collection Trust records it delivered to Buckingham Palace on 3 July 1850.

The Wallace Collection says Duleep Singh was schooled at Fatehgarh, baptised in 1853 and in London by May 1854, on a pension it gives as between £40,000 and £50,000 a year. Khushwant Singh writes that more than 120,000 stands of arms were handed over in the Punjab. The piece on Dalhousie and the doctrine of lapse covers his other annexations.

What the historians dispute

The oldest account is Cunningham’s, written by a British officer who served at Aliwal and Sobraon. He says Lal Singh and Tej Singh wanted to be kept on as ministers by “grateful conquerors,” that their aim was to get the Khalsa dispersed by the converging British forces, and that Tej Singh delayed at Ferozeshah and then fled. He also describes an understanding under which the Sikh army would be beaten and then abandoned by its own government. A footnote says Cunningham believed this passage cost him his political post, and Khushwant Singh gives the same reason on the authority of the editors of a 1955 edition. The Calcutta Review, in a passage Cunningham prints, doubted the extent and importance of the treachery, but admitted that Lal Singh was understood to have sent a plan of the Sobraon position to Henry Lawrence on 7 February 1846. Khushwant Singh cites Lawrence’s private papers for a rough sketch of that position drawn from information Lal Singh supplied.

Khushwant Singh calls both men traitors. Amarpal Singh Sidhu, who wrote two Amberley books on the wars, argued at a Military Literature Festival session in Chandigarh that the British were close to surrender at Ferozeshah and were saved by the generals, according to a report of 10 December 2017. At the same session William Dalrymple called the Sikh army “a treacherously led force,” but also said the Company had huge resources and could lose a battle and still have backups, and that the Lahore Durbar was divided by factions. Even the names differ between accounts. The Wallace Collection credits Lal Singh with ordering the Sikh retreat at Ferozeshah, where Cunningham and Khushwant Singh name Tej Singh.

The record of the fighting is better documented. Cunningham says defective tactics and a lack of ammunition on the British side, as much as Sikh courage, gave the struggle “a character of equality.” Hardinge and Gough, as Khushwant Singh quotes them, wrote admiringly of the Sikh stand at Sobraon, and General Thackwell did so for Gujrat as well. The bridge at Sobraon is disputed too. Cunningham says Tej Singh sank a boat in it “either accidentally or by design,” Khushwant Singh says he had it destroyed, and the National Army Museum says it is still debated whether overcrowding or Tej Singh broke it.

Gough, in words Khushwant Singh quotes from Rait’s biography of him, wrote of Sobraon: “I could have wept to have witnessed the fearful slaughter of so devoted a body of men.”