Harold Wheeler - The Story of Wellington

“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 vakeel 18 18 Envoy. 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 months 19 19 Alison in his “Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart” (vol. i. p. 175), says that it generally took six months to make the voyage. When Sir James Mackintosh sailed from Portsmouth for Bombay in 1804 his vessel only occupied three months and thirteen days (see his “Memoirs,” vol. i. p. 207). 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.