The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  30. Lal Singh did send this note to Peter Nicolson, word for word except that where Flashman gives “Khalsa” Lal wrote “Sikh army”. He also informed Nicolson of Jeendan’s friendship, with the hope that the British would “cut up” the invaders. Nicolson’s reply was that Lal should not attack Ferozepore, but delay and march to meet the British – thus confirming what Flashman had already told the Wazir. These proofs of treachery by the Khalsa’s own leaders were not published immediately, as a result of Nicolson’s death, but Dr M’Gregor, writing within a year of the event, obviously knew the truth: having pointed out that a leader like Runjeet Singh would have caused as much havoc as possible by burning and sacking on a wide front, he adds: “We are almost tempted to believe that the Sikh leaders wished to keep their troops together, in order that the British might have a full and fair opportunity of destroying them!” In 1849 Cunningham was stating bluntly that the object of the Sikh leaders was “to get their own troops dispersed by the [British]”. He knew of Lal’s correspondence with Nicolson, but not the details. In the light of what these two respected historians wrote at the time, it is remarkable to find William Broadfoot, forty years later, disputing the charge of treachery against Lal and Tej. Nor was he alone; at least one other British historian discounted it. If, in the light of the evidence available, any doubt remained, Flashman has surely dispelled it. (See Cunningham, Khushwant Singh, M’Gregor, Broadfoot, and Herbert Compton, “Mudki and Firozshah”, in Battles of the Nineteenth Century (1896).)

  31. Flashman’s memory is almost certainly at fault. Lieut.-Col. Huthwaite may well have been able to tell which guns were being used, but the British howitzers did not arrive at Mudki until the following day. (See Fortescue.)

  32. A fair judgment, and Flashman had cause to be pleased with his strategy, for although the British force was only slightly larger than the Sikh, it had an advantage of four or five to one in infantry, which was decisive. “Unsatisfactory and unduly costly” is Fortescue’s verdict, and he is rightly critical of Gough for attacking head-on an enemy stationed in jungle. But considering that the British force had covered sixty miles in two days before going into action, it could have been worse.

  33. This remarkable observation, so characteristic of Broadfoot, was originally made by him after a skirmish in Afghanistan from which he emerged perspiring heavily and with a bloodstained sabre, having killed three men and been wounded himself. (See Broadfoot.)

  34. This is the only existing account of the extraordinary exchange between Hardinge and Gough before Ferozeshah, although the gist of their conversation was communicated to intimates soon afterwards. Charles Hardinge, in his father’s biography, was an eye-witness from a distance, but apparently out of earshot. Unique or not, the dispute arose from Hardinge’s decision to place himself under the military command of Gough, while retaining overall authority as Governor-General. In theory it was a risky arrangement, but understandable; it would have been foolish not to use Hardinge’s military experience. He had been twice wounded in the Peninsular War, losing a hand, served as deputy quartermaster-general of the Portuguese army, and been attached to Prussian headquarters in the Waterloo campaign, in which he was again badly wounded. He was active in politics, serving as Wellington’s Secretary for War, before being sent to India as Governor-General. (See Hardinge, and Note 40.)

  35. This military pleasantry was still going the rounds in the Second World War. Only the 9th Foot (Royal Norfolk) could take a lady into barracks, the “lady” being the figure of Britannia on their cap badge.

  36. Historians disagree about the behaviour of the Sikh cavalry. One describes their advance as hesitant, Fortescue says they were stationary, but an eye-witness called it “the most splendid sight of the campaign, their horses caracoling and bounding, and the bright sunlight flashed from steel armour and spears … they came on at a rapid pace to within four hundred yards of the British line.” Gough’s biographer hardly mentions it. Obviously it depends on the point of view, but Flashman is probably right in thinking that White’s intervention was decisive.

  37. This incident is true. Gough “with my gallant aide” (C. R. Sackville West; he had obviously forgotten Flashman) deliberately rode ahead to draw the Khalsa’s fire, and succeeded. He has been criticised for needlessly endangering himself; on the other hand, it has been argued that the effect on his troops’ morale was considerable. Gough himself probably never gave a thought either to danger or morale; he seems to have acted emotionally, on the spur of the moment.

  38. Flashman’s account of the two days of Ferozeshah is so full and accurate that little need be added to it. For both sides, it was a battle of missed opportunities: the British should have had it won on the first day, but they ran out of daylight (thanks to Hardinge, according to Gough supporters) and in the confusion of the night fighting they lost the advantage they had gained. The Sikhs should have overwhelmed Gough’s force on the second afternoon, but Tej’s treachery robbed them of victory; a point Flashman does not mention is that Tej seems to have waited until he was sure Lal Singh’s defending force had been thoroughly routed (some had deserted in the night, including Lal himself, whose personal headquarters had been attacked and looted by the furious Akalis).

  It has been suggested that on the first night of the battle the British commanders had decided to surrender: one Sikh historian says it quite flatly, quoting the diary of Robert Cust, a young political officer who was not even at Ferozeshah. In fact, it is plain from the papers of both Gough and Hardinge that surrender was never contemplated. Hardinge says clearly that he was approached by some officers “with timid counsels of retreat” which he flatly rejected. Gough too was approached by officers (“some of rank and in important situations”) who urged retreat, two of them claiming that they spoke for Hardinge. Gough did not believe them, stated his intention of fighting on, and consulted Hardinge, who repudiated the officers’ statement, and agreed with Gough “that retreat was not to be considered for a moment”. Plainly there were some in favour of retreat (apart from the unfortunate Lumley); just as plainly, Gough and Hardinge gave them short shrift.

  Flashman has dealt fully with Tej Singh, subscribing to the general view that it was his treachery alone that turned the tide. That Tej was a traitor seems obvious, but it is just possible that the reasons he gave for not attacking Gough’s exhausted force had some justification; he probably did not know, for example, that the British artillery was out of ammunition, and hesitated to attack their fortified position. It is also possible that some of his commanders agreed with him, for what seemed to them sound military reasons. At any rate, it is difficult to believe that the Sikh army were turned back against the united will of their regimental commanders, simply by Tej’s word alone.

  Napoleon’s sword, which had been presented to Hardinge by Wellington, was sent back from Ferozeshah, and Dr Hoffmeister, one of Prince Waldemar’s suite, was killed on the first day. (See Rait, Hardinge, Fortescue, Compton, Autobiography of Sir Harry Smith, ed. by G. C. Moore Smith, vol. ii (1901); Cunningham, Broadfoot, M’Gregor, and History of the Bengal European Regiment, by P. R. Innes (1885).)

  39. This was, in fact, the excuse given to Hardinge by Lumley for appearing in informal dress. (See Hardinge.)

  40. Flashman’s attitudes to his military superiors vary from affection (Colin Campbell, Gough, Scarlett) to poisonous hatred (Cardigan), with degrees of respect (Ulysses Grant, Hugh Rose, Hope Grant), contempt (Raglan, Elphinstone), and amused anxiety (Custer) in between, and most of them are understandable. Why he so disliked Hardinge is less obvious, for the Governor-General seems to have been an amiable man enough, and not unpopular; his portrait gives no hint of the pomposity and coldness that Flashman found in him. It is quite likely that their instant mutual antipathy was our hero’s fault; enjoying the euphoria of having done good service for once, he probably let his natural impudence show, and was less inclined than usual to toady (as witness his uncharacteristic outburst to Littler). The bouncy young politica
l no doubt brought out the worst in Hardinge, and Flashman, a ready hater, has repaid with interest in a portrait which probably does the Governor-General less than justice, especially where Gough is concerned. Hardinge was surely sincere in writing to Peel that Gough was “not the officer who ought to be entrusted with the conduct of the war”, and can hardly be blamed for seeking the appointment of a less mercurial C-in-C. Disaster had been avoided by a miracle, and the Governor-General might well be nervous of a general who was once heard to say, when his guns ran out of ammunition, “Thank God, then I’ll be at them with the bayonet!” At the same time, Hardinge failed to recognise that many of Gough’s difficulties had been created by Hardinge himself, and it may well be, as Gough’s biographer suggests, that the Governor-General had a tendency “to attribute to himself all vigorous action” and to take all credit for success. Whether he was right to override Gough at Ferozeshah we cannot know; he may have averted a catastrophe or prevented Gough winning a victory at less cost in lives. It was a curious and difficult situation for both men, and it says much for them that they remained on good terms and co-operated efficiently throughout the campaign. Gough never knew of the letter to Peel, and while Flashman (smarting at the suggestion that politicals were of little use) would emphatically disagree, this was probably tact on Hardinge’s part. (See Rait.)

  41. Christmas trees were reintroduced into England by Prince Albert after his marriage to Queen Victoria in 1840.

  42. Gough and Hardinge were repeating, at Sobraon, their quarrel at Ferozeshah: Gough wanted to make a frontal attack, but Hardinge insisted that he must wait for heavy artillery from Umballa (Gough had, in fact, asked for these guns weeks before, and been refused by Hardinge). The Governor-General proposed that an attack be made by crossing the river and falling on the Sikhs’ reserve position, but this was vetoed by Gough.

  43. This scene is described in detail by Gardner. He gives the strength of the Rani’s guard as four battalions.

  44. “The Rani used to wonder why a matrimonial alliance was not … formed for her with some officer … who would then manage State affairs with her. She used to send for portraits of all the officers, and in one especially she took great interest, and said that he must be a lord. This fortunate individual’s name has not transpired, and, much to the Maharani’s mortification, the affair went no further. She considered that such a marriage would have secured the future of herself and her son.” (See Gardner, Memoirs, p. 298.)

  45. Plans of the Khalsa fortifications certainly reached the British, but they apparently added little to their knowledge.

  46. This certainly refers to the curious case of Captain Battreau who, as a young private soldier in the French Army, carried a Chassepot rifle, serial number 187017, in the Franco-German War of 1870; in 1891, during a skirmish in the Dahomey jungle, Battreau, now an officer in the Foreign Legion, disarmed an enemy and discovered that the weapon he had captured was the same Chassepot he had handed in at the end of the 1870 campaign. The story was verified by P. C. Wren, himself an ex-Legionnaire, who included it in his book, Flawed Blades (1932). Flashman died in 1915, and his own Legion service preceded Battreau’s by many years, so it seems probable that he read the story in a French newspaper in 1891.

  47. The private shelter which Tej Singh had built for himself at Sobraon was as Flashman describes it. It was constructed according to the specifications laid down by a Brahmin astrologer: the inner circumference was thirteen and a half times Tej’s waist measurement, and the wall itself had a thickness of 333 long grains of rice laid end to end. Tej spent more time supervising its building than he did on his duties as commander-in-chief, retiring within it frequently to pray. Assistance in measurement was lent by a European engineer (probably Hurbon) with a foot-rule. (See Carmichael-Smyth.)

  48. Colonel Hurbon, a Spaniard, was the only European officer who served against the British in the Sikh war. He is said to have designed the fortifications at Sobraon, which the historian Cunningham, who was also an engineer, dismissed as unscientific. Perhaps they were, since superior numbers did not suffice to hold them. Gardner describes him simply as “a fine soldier” and remarks on his bravery.

  49. Almost certainly this was Sham Singh Attariwala, a veteran of more than forty years’ service, who led the Khalsa’s last stand at Sobraon. (See Khushwant Singh, M’Gregor.)

  50. Sobraon was the decisive battle of the Sikh War – perhaps one of the decisive battles of history, for it secured Britain in India for another century, with all that that implied for the future of Asia. Gough described it as the Indian Waterloo (an appellation which Flashman attaches to Ferozeshah) and there are few controversies about it: for once, treachery played little part in what was a straight contest between the Khalsa and the Company. Luck was against the Sikhs insofar as the unusual rise of the Sutlej denied them any possibility of retreat and fighting another day; hemmed in, they could only fight it out, which they did with a discipline and courage which excited unanimous admiration from their enemy, Gough in particular. “Policy precluded me publicly recording my sentiments on the splendid gallantry … or the acts of heroism displayed … by the Sikh army,” he wrote. “I could have wept to have witnessed the fearful slaughter of so devoted a body of men.” Thackwell, who led the British cavalry, said simply: “They never ran.” Hardinge wrote: “Few escaped; none, it may be said, surrendered.” There is a difference of opinion among historians on one point – the collapse of the bridge of boats. Many believe that it was destroyed deliberately by Tej Singh, who fled during the battle and supposedly had one of the middle barges removed; on the other hand Charles Hardinge actually saw it collapse, and his account, like Flashman’s, suggests that it was unbroken until the weight of the fugitives caused it to carry away: “I saw the bridge at that moment overcrowded with guns, horses, and soldiers of all arms, swaying to and fro, till at last with a crash it disappeared … The river seemed alive with a struggling mass of men.”

  The Sikh losses were about 10,000, against 320 dead and more than 2000 wounded on the British side, but it has to be remembered that most of the Khalsa died in the river, and for a time the battle had been on a knife-edge. After the repulse of his first attack, Gough launched an assault on the right and centre, and his recorded comment, as he watched Gilbert’s men storming the ramparts, was: “Good God, they’ll be annihilated!” (See Hardinge, Innes, Rait, Khushwant Singh, and others.)

  51. Later Field-Marshal Lord Napier of Magdala (1810–90), famous for perhaps the most successful campaign in British imperial history, the march on Magdala, Abyssinia (1868), in which Flashman is believed to have taken part. Napier was a brilliant soldier, organiser, and engineer, but his great devotion was to art, and he was still taking lessons at the age of 78.

  52. Sir Henry Lawrence (1810–57) is best known for his defence of Lucknow in the Indian Mutiny, in which he was killed, but he previously had a distinguished career in the army and the political service, serving in Burma and in the Afghan and Sikh wars. Tall, gaunt, hot-tempered and impatient of contradiction, he also had a romantic side, and was the author of a love story, Adventurer in the Punjaub, which, according to Dr M’Gregor, was also a mine of information about the country and its politics. And he succeeded in seeing the Maharani Jeendan in Lahore after the war, when Gardner persuaded her to show her head and shoulders over a garden wall, “to the gratification of the officers [Lawrence and Robert Napier]”. (See M’Gregor, Gardner, D.N.B.)

  53. As in previous volumes of the Papers, one is reminded of how small was the group of officers who shaped the course of empire in Africa and the Far East; the same names cross Flashman’s path again and again – Napier, Havelock, Broadfoot, Lawrence; Herbert Edwardes, who was Lawrence’s assistant and won great fame in the Mutiny; wild John Nicholson, who was literally worshipped as a divinity by a frontier sect, the Nickleseynites; Hope Grant, the monosyllabic, ’cello-playing Scot who led the march to Peking and was rated by Flashman the most dangerous fighting man alive; “Rake” Ho
dson, the violent ruffian who commanded the famous Guides and founded Hodson’s Horse; and others whom he knew elsewhere, but not in the Punjab – Frederick (“Bobs”) Roberts; Garnet Wolseley, the original “model of a modern major-general”; “Chinese” Gordon of Khartoum, and one-armed Sam Browne whose belt has made him the most famous of them all. A distinguished company who tended to go one of two ways: knighthood (or peerage) and general rank, or a grave in the outposts.

  54. Dr W. L. M’Gregor, who served throughout the Sikh War, is one of its major historians, and an enthusiast on military medicine. Anyone wishing to study the war is recommended to him, and to Captain J. D. Cunningham, who also served in the campaign, and was in political intelligence. They do not always agree with each other, but their knowledge of the Punjab and its personalities makes them invaluable sources.

  55. The terms of the first Treaty of Lahore, March 9, 1846, are to be found in Cunningham, M’Gregor, and Hardinge. They are as Goolab Singh predicted, with additional clauses giving Britain passage for troops through the Punjab, a pledge not to interfere in Punjabi internal affairs, and a prohibition on the enlistment of European or American mercenaries in the Punjab without British consent. Supplementary articles provided for the stationing of a British force at Lahore for one year – this was at the request of the Lahore durbar, who rightly conceived themselves to be in need of protection.

  56. Goolab Singh, the “Golden Hen” and stormy petrel of Kashmir, was every bit as deplorable, and quite as personally engaging, as Flashman portrays him. He was born about 1788, and to describe his career of intrigue, murder, warfare, and knavery would take a long chapter; it suffices to say that as a leading light of the Dogra Hindus who opposed the Sikhs in the power struggle following Runjeet Singh’s death, he not only survived but ended with a kingdom of his own, Kashmir. He did it by shameless duplicity, conspiring with the British while pretending sympathy for the Punjab cause, and no one was ever more expert at playing both ends against the middle. His character was admirably summed up by his friend and agent, Colonel Gardner, who described it as repulsive, ambitious, avaricious, and capable of the most inhuman systematic cruelty simply to invest his name with terror; at the same time he was charming, genial, opiumaddicted, given to telling long stories, and hail-fellow with the poorest of his subjects. A fine soldier and sturdy fighter, he was also a wise and careful ruler, and perhaps the most revealing thing about him is that while Gardner published his character study in Goolab’s lifetime, they remained the best of friends. (See Gardner, Carmichael Smyth, and others.)