On 23 September the relief column moved off at 08:30. Twelve miles were covered without incident before the rebels were encountered, drawn up approximately four miles south of Lucknow. Their line, some two miles long, was partially protected by a marsh and its left rested on the Alambagh, the summer place of the former kings of Oudh, located within a large garden enclosed by a high wall with a turret at each angle. Their strength was estimated as being 10,000 infantry with ample artillery in support, and 1,500 cavalry.
As the marsh inhibited a direct assault, Havelock decided to attack the enemy right with a wide turning movement. While this was in progress rebel artillery, previously concealed by trees, opened fire on the marching column, inflicting serious casualties. At this Major Vincent Eyre’s l/5th Battery, which had previously been bombarding the enemy’s line, switched its fire to the offending guns. Equipped as it was with 24-pounder guns and two eight-inch howitzers, Eyre’s battery could be classed as heavy rather than field and the weight of its shells soon silenced its opponents. It then engaged the mutineer cavalry which, unable to charge because of the marsh and unwilling to endure the concentrated rain of shot, broke and bolted. As the flank attack began to develop the enemy infantry, their cavalry gone and many of their guns silenced, also broke, those who attempted a stand in the Alambagh being hounded out by the 5th Fusiliers. Led by Outram, the Volunteer Cavalry, the strength of which had now risen to 168, pursued the beaten army as far as the canal that marked the southern edge of the city.
That same day Havelock received news, unconfirmed but accurate, that Delhi had fallen amid a great slaughter of mutineers, that the so-called Emperor of Hindustan was now in custody, and that his sons had been shot dead by Major William Hodson, the commander of Hodson’s Horse.
Immensely heartened, Havelock and Outram spent the next day deciding how best the Residency could be relieved. The essence of their difficulty was that the Residency was situated on the far side of the city and both knew that street fighting could be prohibitively expensive. Three possible axes of advance were open to them. The first involved bridging the Gumtee, moving north along the river through more open terrain, then re-crossing the river by an iron bridge just to the north of the Residency. This had obvious advantages, as the final stage of the advance would be covered by the guns of the Residency itself. Outram, however, insisted that the plan was not feasible, pointing out that three days of continuous rain had so softened the ground that movement of artillery across country would be extremely difficult, and in this he was almost certainly right. The second alternative was to seize the Char bridge over the canal and proceed to the Residency by the direct route through the city. This, too, was rejected, as the rebels were known to have loopholed the buildings on either side of the route and dug trenches across the streets. The third alternative, suggested by Outram, who had previously served as Resident in Lucknow and knew the area well, was to seize the Char bridge, turn east, keeping the canal on the right of the advance until the palaces lining the river were reached, then approach the Residency through their various parks. Street fighting could not be avoided altogether, but this plan offered the best prospects for success and was adopted. Havelock also decided that in the event of failure he would fall back on the Alambagh, in which he left a 300-strong garrison, the sick and wounded and the baggage.
Shortly after 08:00 on 25 September the column moved off, encountering strong opposition long before it reached the Char bridge. This was centred on a two-storeyed building, subsequently known as the Yellow House, to the right-front of the advance. Several enemy guns opened fire from positions near the building, as did infantry from the building itself, from the loopholed walls surrounding its garden, and from a belt of high grass nearby. As Outram had feared, the monsoon rains had rendered the adjacent fields impassable to artillery, although the road approached the bridge along a low causeway and still provided a firm surface. While the British infantry took temporary cover in the lee of the causeway Captain Maude’s 3/8 Battery RA pushed two of its 9-pounder guns forward and, firing wheel to wheel, these replied to the enemy artillery. Their detachments began to fall at once but were replaced immediately by men from the battery’s other sections; Outram and Maude, standing among the gunners to encourage them, both received minor wounds. At length the enemy’s fire had slackened sufficiently for the infantry to clear the vicinity of the Yellow House, forcing the rebel gunners to limber up and retire. By then, Maude’s battery had sustained 21 casualties.
The advance on the bridge was resumed but was again halted when the leading infantry came under fire from a battery of five (some sources say six) guns, one of them a 24-pounder, dug in on the far bank of the canal, and from mutineers in gardens and walled enclosures on either flank. Once more, while Outram set about clearing the enclosures, Maude pushed his two leading guns forward, this time to engage in a murderous duel at only 150 yards’ range. One gun detachment was wiped out immediately by a bursting shell, but another ran forward to take its place. As more men continued to drop beside the guns, some infantrymen of the 84th responded to Maude’s request for help by acting as ammunition carriers and assisting in running up the carriages. By every known law of probability, the two 9-pounders should have been blown to kingdom come yet, somehow, the impossible happened. Within ten minutes they were so clearly winning the firefight that Brigadier-General James Neill, commanding the advance guard in Outram’s temporary absence, ordered an assault on the bridge. A forlorn hope consisting of ten men of the Madras Fusiliers, led by Havelock’s son and ADC, ran forward onto the structure only to be met by a blast of grapeshot that left only the latter standing. Before the enemy could reload, the bridge was rushed by elements of the Madras Fusiliers, 5th Fusiliers and the 84th, who bayoneted the gunners then tumbled their guns and ammunition into the canal.8
It might be thought that Maude’s battery had suffered enough for one day, but at this moment it came under fire from two guns and some infantry that had returned to the vicinity of the Yellow House. On this occasion, however, the menace was quickly disposed of. The 90th Light Infantry, located near the rear of the column, immediately charged and captured the guns, which were then towed off by Captain William Olpherts, commander 2/3 Battery BA, using his own teams and limbers.
Once the bridgehead had been secured the column swung right into a narrow lane while the 78th Highlanders acted as flank guard until its tail had passed. The mutineers, who had probably expected the relief force to take the direct route to the Residency, seem to have been caught wrong-footed, for it was not until the column entered the area of palaces, temples, mosques and gardens that it began to encounter really determined opposition. Here the rebels were concentrated in enormous numbers so that the column was forced to fight its way forward foot by foot along the narrow lanes. Eyre’s 24-pounders were ideal tools for this sort of work, blasting the way ahead for the infantry, who, with vengeful shouts of ‘Remember Cawnpore!’ drove the enemy from one position after another at the point of the bayonet. Nevertheless, the rebels, firing from within loopholed buildings, were able to exact a toll in return. One of Eyre’s 24-pounders, pushed too far forward, had to be abandoned for this reason. At considerable risk, it was recovered after dusk when a Private Duffy of the Madras Fusiliers crawled out to tie a drag rope to the trail while Olpherts attached the other end to a team of bullocks he had brought up.9 By now, under heavy fire from the Kaisarbagh (King’s Palace), the head of the column had worked its way into the Chuttur Munzil (Old Palace) and halted so that the remainder, still winding its way along the tortuous route, could close up. To everyone’s surprise the 78th Highlanders, recalled from their task as flank guard, rejoined the column near its head instead of its tail, having lost their way among the twisting alleys and captured the enemy’s guns in the Kaisarbagh on the way.
Outram felt that, having reached the Chuttur Munzil, it would be sensible to permit a few hours’ rest during which the entire column could enter the building. It would then, he thought, b
e possible to reach the Residency by breaking through the walls of the intervening buildings, a course of action that would go far to reduce casualties. However, in his self-imposed capacity as a volunteer, he was unable to insist and Havelock, knowing that only 500 yards now separated the column from the Residency, was impatient to finish the business.
The route lay along a street intersected with trenches and flanked on both sides by loopholed houses. While storming its way forward the column incurred the heaviest casualties of the entire operation, including Brigadier-General Neill shot dead at close quarters. At length, however, it reached the Residency gates amid scenes of jubilation and joyful relief. Havelock and his senior officers, aware that the garrison was half-starved, were startled to be served a dinner which included mock-turtle soup, beef cutlets and champagne. Nevertheless, the impossibility of pleasing everyone was demonstrated by one Grande Dame who haughtily asked an exhausted, battle-stained officer whether Queen Victoria was still alive!
Outram took over at once, relieving Havelock and Inglis of the terrible strain they had endured for months. The tail of the column did not come in until the following evening and only then was it possible to assess the cost of the previous day’s fighting. It amounted to an horrific 31 officers and 504 men killed or wounded, and in itself this meant that Outram would be unable to comply with the government’s orders to evacuate the Residency and escort its occupants to Cawnpore. In real terms, the relief amounted to nothing more than a reinforcement, enabling him to hold an extended perimeter around the Residency as well as the Alambagh to the south of the town. Had the food supply situation been as bad as Inglis genuinely believed it to be the addition of so many mouths to the garrison would have been little short of disastrous. Fortunately, Outram’s personal knowledge of the Residency led him to a swimming pool beneath the building. This was found to contain a huge quantity of foodstuffs stockpiled by Lawrence prior to the siege – sufficient, in fact, to support the enlarged garrison for over two months. For some reason Lawrence had never mentioned the matter to the commissariat officers and they, in turn, did not suspect the existence of the room.
In some ways, the reinforcement of the garrison was counter-productive. It was true that, despite their numbers, the rebels had been unable to prevent it, but it was also true that Havelock and his column, who had for so long been a thorn in their side, were now also besieged and virtual prisoners. This was most unfortunate at a time when mutinies, though fewer in number, were still breaking out. Again, the fact that Outram was now too weak to evacuate the Residency meant that the army would have to mount a second and much stronger relief column to extract the garrison and its dependents before turning its attention to restoring order elsewhere. In the meantime, the siege continued as before with even greater emphasis on mine warfare. Couriers regularly made the hazardous journey to and fro between the Residency and the Alambagh carrying messages written in classical Greek script to prevent their being understood by the mutineers; in due course, and with the assistance of a school encyclopedia, the two garrisons set up semaphore stations in order to communicate with each other. On 27 October a message was received to the effect that the advance guard of the second relief column, commanded by Brigadier-General Hope Grant and consisting of units that had captured Delhi, had reached Cawnpore. On 6 November Hope Grant was in touch again, reporting that he had crossed the Sai and was now waiting for the arrival of General Sir Colin Campbell, the new Commander-in-Chief India, with the main body.
Campbell had probably seen as much fighting as any man alive. The son of an impoverished Glasgow carpenter, his uncle, then a serving officer, had obtained a commission for him while he was still a boy. Since then he had served in the Peninsular War, the War of 1812, the First Opium War, the Second Sikh War and on what later became the North-West Frontier of India. Recalled from retirement on half-pay to command the Highland Brigade during the Crimean War, he had, as a result of his actions at the Alma and Balaklava, become a national hero. As a strategist he was inclined to be cautious, but he was a sound tactician and a hard fighter who, when he attacked, believed in the infantry coming to close quarters as quickly as possible, supported in appropriate circumstances by the artillery firing at point-blank range. Some people found his preference for Scottish regiments, and in particular the 93rd (later the Argyll and Sutherland) Highlanders, the original ‘thin red line’ with which he had defeated a Russian cavalry probe at Balaklava, a little tiresome, forgetting, perhaps, that he always saw to it that those same regiments were in the forefront of the battle.
It was unusual for the Commander-in-Chief India to take the field personally, but with Outram and Havelock besieged in Lucknow and Brigadier-General John Nicholson, the real driving force behind the siege of Delhi, now dead, the shortage of suitable senior officers was so acute that Campbell felt he had no alternative. He experienced no difficulty in joining Hope Grant, who was nominated column commander, although he retained tactical control himself.
On the morning of 10 November two bedraggled figures made their way into his camp. One was a native spy in Outram’s service; the other, who towered over him, was wearing native clothes, had his skin stained with a mixture of oil and lampblack, and concealed a head of fair hair beneath his turban. His name was Thomas Kavanagh and he was a 36-year-old clerk, the father of fourteen children. At Lucknow he had been employed in counter-mining, a task no one enjoyed but at which he became adept. On hearing that Outram was anxious to inform Campbell of the enemy’s dispositions and advise him of a better route to the Residency than that which had cost his own relief column so dear, Kavanagh had volunteered for the mission despite the obvious dangers involved. The two had slipped out of Lucknow the previous night, talked their way out of the hands of an enemy patrol that had picked them up, lost their way and been forced to flounder across a swamp, but finally made contact with a British outpost. Campbell described their achievement as ‘one of the most daring feats ever attempted’ Kavanagh was rewarded with £2,000, which he used to pay off his numerous debts, and a post in the Civil Service. The recommendation that he should be awarded the Victoria Cross was not initially accepted on the grounds that he was a civilian, this decision being overturned on appeal.
Faced with little opposition, Campbell relieved the Alambagh on 12 November. When the garrison was added to his own troops he had almost 5,000 men and 49 guns available for the relief operation. These included units that had fought at Delhi, including the 8th (later The King’s) Regiment and the 75th (later The Gordon) Highlanders, now few in numbers, lean and tired-looking, their skins burned to the colour of mahogany, their original uniforms long since worn out and replaced by slate-grey clothing; the 93rd, only recently arrived in India, splendid in feathered bonnets, scarlet and tartan, over 700 of them wearing their Crimean medal ribbons; men from several regular line infantry regiments, some of them besieged in the Residency, their various uniforms adapted to meet the needs of campaigning under the hot Indian sun; tall, bearded Sikhs from the Punjab, dressed in khaki set off with coloured turbans and sashes; the 9th Lancers, still in blue, with white ‘pagris’ wound around their forage caps; the wild irregulars of Hodson’s Horse, willing to follow their leader anywhere; and a naval brigade under the command of Captain William Peel, RN, consisting of 250 sailors and marines from HMS Shannon, armed with ships’ heavy 24-pounder guns that would be used in street fighting or to smash breaches in walls.
The column’s chief engineer recommended that Campbell should approach the Residency along the opposite bank of the river as far as the iron bridge. Havelock, it will be recalled, had rejected this alternative because the ground had then been too waterlogged to support the movement of his guns. This objection was no longer valid as the ground was now firm and dry, but instead Campbell chose to rely on the information supplied by Outram and decided to remain on the near bank, keeping as close to the river as possible. Such an axis of advance would avoid many of the tortuous alleys in which Havelock’s force had sustai
ned such heavy casualties, and on this occasion, as the canal was now dry, it would not be necessary to fight for a bridgehead on its far bank. Against this, there were several large, walled, fortified palaces and mosques along the way, all of which the rebels could be depended upon to defend tenaciously.
Campbell was able to deploy one cavalry brigade, consisting of two 9th Lancer squadrons, one squadron each from the 1st, 2nd and 5th Punjab Cavalry and Hodson’s Horse, and three infantry brigades of varying strength. Brigadier-General Greathead’s brigade contained the remnants of the 8th, the 2nd Punjab Infantry and what today would be called a composite or provisional battalion formed from detachments of units besieged in Lucknow; Brigadier-General Russell’s brigade, with the 23rd (later Royal Welsh) Fusiliers and part of the 82nd (later the South Lancashire) Regiment, was even weaker; by far the strongest of the three, and intended to form the cutting edge of the relief, was Brigadier-General Adrian Hope’s brigade, containing the 93rd Highlanders, half of the 53rd (later the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry), the 4th Punjab Infantry and a weak composite battalion.
The force began moving forward at 09:00 on 14 November. The enemy was found to be lining the walls of the Dilkusha Park, from which they were driven by artillery fire. They attempted a further stand at the Martinière school but gave way when threatened with an infantry assault. The column then closed up to the canal, beating off several weak counter-attacks.
The next day was spent bringing up the heavy baggage and provision train to the Dilkusha Park. This was very necessary because Campbell intended evacuating the Residency garrison almost as soon as he had broken through, but it proved to be a very difficult operation as the long convoy of wagons was subjected to constant attacks which the rearguard, consisting of 200 men of the 93rd Highlanders, was sometimes hard-pressed to contain. Nevertheless, using a semaphore from the roof of the Dilkusha palace, Campbell was able to inform Outram that he would attempt to break through next day and the latter replied that he would make the necessary preparations. Campbell’s graphic despatch to Lord Canning, the Governor-General, describes the course of events once the canal had been crossed:
Impossible Victories Page 11
