Many sepoys believed that the victory was the destruction of cartridges that were standard issue with the new rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims and tallow (cow fat) which angered the Hindus as cows were equal to a goddess to them. [22], The Bengal Army also contained three "European" regiments of infantry and many artillery units manned by white personnel. : WH Allen, 1864);Tapti Roy. Map: Wikicommons. But something important was required to provoke so many to seize the opportunity of a military uprising to stage a war of independence. The grease used was tallow, probably containing both cow and pig fat. A small British army was improvised, which held the ridge before Delhi against greatly superior forces until Sir John Lawrence was able to send a siege train under John Nicholson. [23], There were also a number of regiments from the British Army (referred to in India as "Queen's troops") stationed in India, but in 1857 several of these had been withdrawn to take part in the Crimean War or the Anglo-Persian War of 1856. In Britain and in the West, it was almost always portrayed as a series of unreasonable and bloodthirsty uprisings spurred by falsehoods about religious insensitivity. Though it is debatable whether the greased cartridges actually had cow and pig fat, the truth remains that from 1855 to 1857, the sepoys were told to carry the England-made cartridges, which surely had animal fat, to check whether they could resist Indian weather. Musket cartridges circa 1858 The Sepoys in the East India Company were first issued with the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket in 1857. Prior to the period of British rule, any refusal to proceed on service until pay issues were resolved was considered a legitimate form of displaying grievance by Indian troops serving under Indian rulers. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. Later, the attitudes of British officers changed with increased intolerance, lack of involvement and unconcern of the welfare of troops becoming manifest more and more. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. What are the major holidays and festivals of India? Sepoy units in the south of India remained loyal, but in the north, many units of the Bengal Army turned on the British. Sepoys were forced to watch such displays as it was believed it set an example of the horrific death that awaited mutineers. [20], In 1857, the Bengal Army contained 10 regular regiments of Indian cavalry and 74 of infantry. Mangal Pandey, (born July 19, 1827, Akbarpur, Indiadied April 8, 1857, Barrackpore), Indian soldier whose attack on British officers on March 29, 1857, was the first major incident of what came to be known as the Indian, or Sepoy, Mutiny (in India the uprising is often called the First War of Independence or other similar names). "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." Following the fighting of 185758, India was legally considered a colony of Britain, ruled by a viceroy. That, combined with a declining number of British officers who understood India, spoke Indian languages fluently or had any real sympathy for the people whom they ruled, meant that the colonial hierarchy remained perpetually jittery. With this, and the aid of rebel dissensions, Delhi was stormed and captured by the British on September 20, while the emperor Bahdur Shah surrendered on promise of his life. Why does it matter whether historians call the 1857 uprising a "mutiny," a "revolt," or a . One popular story, widely believed, suggested that the British were attempting the mass conversion of their subjects to Christianity by adulterating their flour with bone meal from cows and pigs, which was forbidden to Hindus and Moslems, respectively. The immediate cause of the Revolt was the issue of the greased cartridges. Vital though their Indian empire was to them, they controlled the subcontinent with a comparative handful of menabout 100,000 in all, less than half of whom were soldiers, ruling over a population of 250 millionand they were all too aware of just how inadequate these numbers would be in the event of any serious rebellion. Immediate Cause The Revolt of 1857 eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. [8], Unlike the Madras and Bombay Armies of the BEIC, which were far more diverse, the Bengal Army recruited its regular soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Bhumihars and Rajputs of the Ganges Valley. As the mutiny spread, the British began called mutineers "pandies." At some point the chapattis passed beyond the limits of their meaningful transmission and simply continued through the country as a blank message. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. And, historically, much the same thing had happened before in times of trouble. (See Barrackpore Mutiny.). Richard Barter. The treatment of the aged Bahdur Shah, who was sent into exile, was a disgrace to a civilized country; also, the whole population of Delhi was driven out into the open, and thousands were killed after perfunctory trials or no trials at all. Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. In the event, the chapattis were not harbingers of a coming storm. They were what people made them into, and the significance attributed to them was a symptom of the pervasive distrust and general consternation amongst the Indian population during the early months of 1857. B. A hardcore corporate, he initially worked for Hindustan Unilever and was later Director of Brooke Bond, India. Author Pramod Nayar points out that by 1851 there were nineteen Protestant religious societies operating in India whose goal was the conversion of Indians to Christianity. Centers and leaders of the revolt of 1857. The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58, Rezensionen werden nicht berprft, Google sucht jedoch gezielt nach geflschten Inhalten und entfernt diese. Mason, Philip (1974), page 225 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. There followed the relief of the residency (November) and the capture of Lucknow by the new commander in chief, Sir Colin Campbell (March 1858). The magistrates tried to stop it, but, in spite of all they could do, it passed along to the borders of the Punjab. Partly owing to this, Bengal sepoys were not subject to the penalty of flogging as were the European soldiers. The army so far had been quipped with the smooth-barrelled musket, which had a protracted loading procedure and was not accurate over long ranges. The ratio of British to Indian troops was fixed at roughly 1:2 instead of 1:5one British and two Indian battalions were formed into brigades so that no sizable station should be without British troops. Saul, David (2003), page 294 "The Indian Mutiny", Penguin Books. It is not surprising that one of the many subsidiary rumors that accompanied the chupatty movement was that the breads were being carried and distributed, the eventual trial of the King of Delhi noted, by the hands of the very lowest caste men that can be found; and the natives say that it is intended by Government to force or bribe the headmen to eat the bread, and thus loose their caste. Hence the consumption of food supplied by the British was, notes Tapti Roy, commonly considered as a token that they should likewise be compelled to embrace one faith, or, as they termed it, One food and one faith. . [12], There had been earlier indications that all was not well in the armies of the East India Company. Extensive inquiries into the meaning of the breads produced plenty of theories but few facts; even the runners and watchmen who baked them and carried them from village to village did not know why they had to run through the night with chupatties in their turbans, though they took them just the same. The mutineers, on the other hand, lacked good leadership until nearly the end, and they had no confidence in themselves and suffered the guilt feelings of rebels without a cause, making them frantic and fearful by turns. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames of rebellion. Mason, Philip (1974), page 190 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. The cartridges were wrapped in paper, which had been coated in grease which made the cartridges easier to load in rifle barrels. Whether the cartridge was unballed or balled, it was necessary, in loading a muzzle-loader, to open the end of the cartridge. Once the first rebellions took place, it was clear to most British commanders that the grievances which led to them were felt throughout the Bengal army and no Indian unit could wholly be trusted, although many officers continued to vouch for their men's loyalty, even in the face of captured correspondence indicating their intention to rebel. When soldiers of the Bengal army mutinied in Meerut on May 10, 1857, tension had been growing for some time. The British military commander Sir James Outram thought it was a Muslim conspiracy, exploiting Hindu grievances. His unit in the Bengal Army, which had refused to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished. From the interrogation of an official at the King of Delhis court: I did hear of the circumstance. Setting out from Allahabad, Sir Henry Havelock fought through Kanpur to the Lucknow residency on September 25, where he was besieged in turn. Due to the need for technical specialists, the artillery units generally had a higher proportion of British personnel. [18], The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required new recruits to serve overseas if asked. ThoughtCo. History of the Siege of Delhi (Edinburgh: A&C Black, 1861);John Kaye. A. Several events happened that led to the Sepoys revolting and was called the Indian Revolt of 1857. Numerous explanations were considered. To these points may be added the fact that the British garrison in Bengal had been reduced at this time to 23,000 men because of troop withdrawals for the Crimean and Persian wars. The Company had upgraded to the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle, which used greased paper cartridges. History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857-58 (London, 3 vols. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 291-292 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Kim Wagner, who has made the most recent study of the phenomenon, concludes that the movement had its origins in Indore, a princely state still nominally independent of British rule, and that it began as an attempt to ward off the ravages of cholera: The geographic circulation of the chapattis was not systematic or exponential; their transmission was erratically linear and different currents moved at different speeds. The rapid spread of disorder in 1857when regiment after regiment had mutinied, and revolts against British rule had sprung up throughout most of northern and central Indiamade it almost impossible to believe that the rebellion could have been spontaneous (as most modern historians concede it was), and considerable effort was made to chronicle the movement and trace the spread of the anomalous chapatis. Lands were confiscated from the landlords and auctioned. To be loaded, this cartridge had to be torn open so that the powder it contained could be poured down the barrel of the muzzle-loading gun; because the soldiers hands were full, this was done with the teeth. This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernizing regimes in Calcutta, from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. The new Enfield rifles, which were now being issued, had grooved or rifled barrels. A private company which first entered India to trade in the 1600s, the East India Company had eventually transformed into a diplomatic and military operation. the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. Or it might have been an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine 31, 2021, thoughtco.com/sepoy-mutiny-of-1857-1774014. In 1885, however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective, organized protest for national self-determination. Terms of Use on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. This event and Pandey's subsequent punishment led to more resentment among the sepoys of the Bengal Army ultimately aiding in the Revolt of 1857.. Mopping-up operations followed, lasting until the British capture of rebel leader Tantia Topi in April 1859. Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. The army became an efficient professional body, drawn largely from the northwest and aloof from the national life. The dramatic capture of Delhi turned mutiny into full-scale revolt. Will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account greased paper.... Core to connect with your account when soldiers of the greased cartridges by white personnel cause. 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