Victoria’s Scottish Lion

by Greenwood, Adrian; Haythornthwaite, Philip;

  Campbell and his chief of staff had favoured amalgamation for some time. ‘When I came to Calcutta two years ago’, wrote Mansfield in August 1859:

  the Sepoy Army having disappeared and the officers being without Regiments, I was asked, as was Lord Clyde, if the vacancies caused by the war, which were then very numerous, should be filled up or not? Both Lord Clyde and I were strongly against it, as, by leaving all the frightful gaps in the Indian Service unrestored, a great progress would have been made, without the lesion of any existing interests, towards amalgamation or absorption … The ruling powers decided otherwise.29

  Two years on, Canning, Ellenborough, Dalhousie, Outram and the newly constituted Council of India still opposed amalgamation. Given the ructions caused by the change of allegiance, full absorption, it was argued, might provoke even worse trouble. Furthermore, if sepoys became part of the British army, they could be requested to serve anywhere, and in a major war, the temptation would be to denude India of soldiers. As Company troops, sepoys had (with a few exceptions) only served in Company territory. What’s more, if amalgamation went ahead, middle-class officers who had joined the Indian army, where promotion was by seniority, would find themselves in the British army, where promotion was by purchase, competing with aristocratic wealth.

  Complicating matters still further was the issue of how many sepoys to keep, as against non-Indian troops. Of the original seventy-four Bengal Native Infantry regiments, sixty-nine had mutinied or been disbanded.30 The question was whether to recruit more Indians to replace them or seek a less rebellious alternative. Canning favoured a stronger contingent of European troops, but that would be expensive. A cheaper solution was to use foreign troops, such as Gurkhas, who, it was thought, would be less likely to ally with Indians in revolt against the British. Cambridge considered raising African regiments and shipping them to India. Palmerston suggested recruiting black soldiers in Canada, to ‘indicate the beginning of a flow from a source which they know to be inexhaustible’,31 and thus re-establish the myth of the infinity of British troops. The issue was referred to a Royal Commission, which in March 1859 recommended a ratio of white to native troops of 1:2 in Bengal and 1:3 in the more trustworthy Madras and Bombay presidencies. Campbell was unenthusiastic; by now, he had given up on sepoys altogether. ‘I have quite made up my mind that a regular native army is not wanted’, he told Cambridge:

  All that we want in the way of natives is an extended military police … drilled as soldiers … to serve in time of war as military bodies. Such has been the system initiated in many parts of India – notably in Scinde from the time of Sir Charles Napier, [in the] Punjaub partially, and lastly in Oudh. It works capitally and the men are never idle, either in peace or war. I have arrived at this opinion in consequence of what has passed before my eyes during this last campaign. The half-trained police have fought just as well as our highly-trained soldiery of former days.

  In typical Campbell belt-and-braces fashion, he advised keeping at least 60,000 British troops as a permanent standing army in Bengal.32 This was completely unaffordable. In the three financial years spanning the mutiny, the Company had racked up a deficit of £30 million. Its total debt was now nearly £100 million. Even in the half-century before the rebellion, the Company had rarely shown a profit.* Campbell was sufficiently familiar with the Company’s niggardliness to know his advice would be rejected. ‘No proposal coming from me could or would be listened to by the Supreme Government of India which might involve the expenditure of a Single rupee’, he told Cambridge.33 He realised India could only hope to be a going concern if the British raised cheap, native regiments. So, to guard against future insurgency, the Indian government decided to recruit from the ‘martial races’, in particular Sikhs and Pathans from the Punjab. The theory was that if sepoys from one region were used to garrison another, their ‘tribal’ differences would prevent them uniting against the British. Divide and rule, in other words.

  British power was not simply a matter of troops though. It was also a matter of spectacle. Seventy-five thousand Englishmen could only control a quarter of a billion Indians by bluff. That bluff had been called, so a bit of smoke-and-mirrors was needed to restore the charade of British omnipotence. To this end, the viceroy decided that he, together with the vicereine and commander-in-chief, would progress in full imperial pomp from Calcutta through Oudh to the Punjab to stamp the British Raj on India, in a gargantuan, no-holds-barred extravaganza replete with painted elephants, pith helmets, marching bands, guards of honour and rajahs by the score. The viceregal entourage was colossal, incorporating an entire tented village, ‘not the flimsy marquees used in England, but substantial canvas structures with fireplaces, doors, windows and double walls’.34 ‘There had not been a large camp for years’, wrote Roberts. For this new one:

  The arrival of Canning and Clyde in Peshawur, from the Illustrated London News, 16 June 1860.

  there were 500 camels, 500 bullocks, and 100 bullock carts for transport of camp equipage, 40 sowari (riding) elephants, 527 coolies to carry the glass windows belonging to the larger tents, 100 bhisties, and 40 sweepers for watering and keeping the centre street clean. These were in addition to the private baggage animals, servants and numberless riding and driving horse, for all of which space and shelter had to be provided … In the two camps marching together (Lord Canning’s and Lord Clyde’s), there could not have been less than 20,000 men, women and children – a motley crowd streaming along about four-and-twenty miles of road.

  The viceroy’s party set out from Calcutta in October. Campbell joined them at Cawnpore on 13 October. Progress was majestic but the welcome lukewarm, especially when they reached Lucknow. ‘The streets through which we passed were crowded with Natives who – cowed but not tamed – looked on in sullen defiance, very few showing any sign of respect for the Viceroy’, wrote Roberts.35 Then it was back to Cawnpore, and on to Futtehghur and Agra. By 21 December, the whole travelling circus had reached Meerut, and after a brief stay, continued to Delhi, Umballa, Umritsar and Lahore. Here, in the Punjab capital, the spectacle ‘surpassed any former ceremonials in point of numbers and splendour of effect’, as Campbell, Canning and staff made their way into town on fifty elephants. ‘All the principal Sikh chiefs were gathered to attend a grand durbar’, reported the Illustrated London News. ‘They were drawn up in a line across the Maidan, at the Sumun Boorj, about 1,000 in all, attired in their brightest costumes, and shining like flower beds in the morning sun.’36 The grand finale was a fireworks display which, unfortunately, caused the elephants to stampede not once, but three times. ‘Howdahs were crushed, hats torn off, but strange to say, there was only one serious casualty; an officer was swept out of his howdah by the branch of a tree, and falling to the ground, had his thigh broken’, recalled Roberts. ‘Lord Clyde declared that a general action was not half so dangerous.’37

  At Lahore’s Baradari (royal dance hall) they stopped for dinner. Campbell was on good form. ‘Old Lord Clyde was an odd, little crumpled being with a bright eye and a face like a winter apple’, wrote one civil servant:

  He was the life of the party; the young aides-de-camp played off practical jokes on him, filling his glass with different wines, all of which he drank without distinction while he told amusing stories which kept us at the lower end of the table in a state of subdued laughter. At the upper end, stately, silent Lord Canning took nothing but pickled salmon and tea.38

  The camp was finally dissolved at Kalka on 9 April. ‘Thus ended a six months’ march of over a thousand miles,’ reported Roberts, ‘a march never likely to be undertaken again by any other Viceroy of India, now that railway trains run from Calcutta to Peshawur, and saloon carriages have taken the place of big tents.’39

  Sir Hugh Rose had been slated to take over as commander-in-chief in January 1860, so by now Campbell had already been in post three months longer than planned. The reason was more than purely ceremonial. Since the previous summer the war in China had been faltering and Can
ning had insisted he remain to deal with the new crisis. Throughout the tour, Campbell had been organising a new army for China from his howdah.

  The problems in the East had been a surprise. To begin with, the campaign had been the walkover everyone expected. Despite diverting much of his task force to India, Elgin had prevailed with ease. Campbell’s old friend, (now) Commodore Keppel, had wiped out the Chinese fleet on 1 June 1857, and Elgin, in alliance with the French, had captured Canton the following January using only 5,679 troops.40 The Chinese capitulated, but after months of prevaricating negotiations, the allies lost patience and assaulted the Taku forts on 20 May 1858, after which a new accord was imposed on the emperor: the Treaty of Tientsin. This opened more ports to European trade, extended the rights of foreigners to travel freely in China (as demanded by British missionaries) and established free access to the Yangtze as well as a diplomatic legation in Pekin, not forgetting the de rigueur fine to pay for the war (4 million taels).* Taking note of the barbarian’s might, the Japanese hurriedly agreed to a treaty to open their borders as well. Dragon tamed, Elgin sailed for home on 4 March 1859, leaving his brother Sir Frederick Bruce as ‘minister’ (chief of the legation) in Pekin.

  After the pattern of the First Opium War, the imposition of terms by foreigners left the Chinese quietly incandescent. When Bruce tried to steam up the Peiho River to exchange the ratified treaties, the emperor saw his chance to level the score. At the mouth of the river the Chinese had rebuilt the Taku forts which the allies had destroyed the year before, and installed a series of booms to bar the way. Bruce requested Admiral Sir James Hope, commander of the flotilla, ‘take any measures’ he ‘might deem expedient for clearing away the obstructions in the river’, so on 25 June Hope mounted an amphibious assault. The Chinese fought with unaccustomed vigour, putting four Royal Navy ships out of action and leaving the British with 426 casualties from 1,100 men disembarked.41

  The news of the defeat reached London that September. Egged on by some unlikely cabinet allies, including Gladstone, the new prime minister Lord Palmerston despatched Elgin to the Orient a second time, to make sure the emperor was properly chastened. As well as exchanging treaties nicely this time, the Chinese were to apologise, offer an indemnity for Hope’s losses and receive the British emissaries with suitable pageantry. Elgin, a more sensitive man than history would have us believe, was worried this bullying would end in more bloodshed and dishonour. ‘Can I do anything to prevent England from calling down on herself God’s curse for brutalities committed on another feeble Oriental race?’ he wrote on the journey out, after reading Russell’s mutiny diary.42

  To add credence to the mission, Elgin needed a solid military escort, and India was the obvious source. Canning had asked Campbell to prepare troops almost as soon as he received news of Hope’s defeat in June 1859. It came at a bad time for the commander-in-chief, with much of India still unruly. Nevertheless, not one for half measures, he sent 16,491 men.43 These joined a further 3,500 from other British territories and 7,000 Frenchmen. Even Elgin thought it excessive.* Campbell’s liberality was doubly embarrassing given India was about to lose the Company’s discharged European troops. ‘About 10,000 men were to be sent home … at great expense to the State, whilst our requirements were in an opposite direction,’ explained Cambridge. ‘Valuable men were at hand. Were we justified in not making an effort to retain them, if possible?’ Campbell telegraphed Calcutta to see if the men could be persuaded to re-enlist.44 Through gritted teeth, a bounty was announced to stop them leaving.** In the event, ‘scarcely any of the discharged Men of the local European Regiments would accept the offer,’ reported Campbell. ‘The number of men … who have accepted service in H.M.’s Regiments to proceed to China, is under a hundred.’45

  As to who should command this army, it would have been a step down for Campbell to go from commander-in-chief in India to commander-in-chief in China. A senior general who had proved himself in the mutiny was nonetheless the preferred option. Cambridge wanted Grant, with Mansfield as his number two. ‘I think, and I expressed my opinion to Lord Canning, that as far as handling his troops in the field before an enemy, Sir Hope Grant was quite at home’, Campbell told the duke, but he could not resist pressing the case for his protégé. ‘Of the two, I considered Sir William Mansfield to be the best suited for this particular service.’ Despite Mansfield’s Olympian loftiness, the viceroy valued his political skills and seconded his appointment. However, the Duke of Cambridge insisted. It had to be Grant.46

  Mansfield had been due to get the Bombay army, but now, ‘they put Sir Hugh Rose into the Bombay command’, explained Allgood, ‘leaving Mansfield the option of taking the Second-in-Command in China, or nothing’.47 Mansfield, who seemed to have inherited some of Napier’s peevishness via Campbell, rejected the second spot as an insult to his seniority.48 Throughout the mutiny he had held local rank senior to Grant, although Grant held senior rank in the army. He saw no reason why he should be passed over now, and penned a long protest to the viceroy.*** It proved pointless.

  Mansfield remained as Campbell’s chief of staff, and together they set to work to ensure the army heading east would be well fed and healthy. Keen to keep as high a proportion of British troops in India as possible, Campbell instead sent sepoys, in the main from the more reliable and less mutinous Punjab, as well as the Madras and Bombay presidencies. Never had such a diverse force fought for the queen outside India. ‘The number and variety of races and caste render the feeding of such a collection as we had in China most puzzling’, Wolseley confessed. ‘Our commissariat had more to contend with than ever, I believe, had devolved at any time upon that department before.’49 This was the first significant test for the provision of materiel since the Russian War. ‘If we undertake land operations, I hope we shall not make such a wretched business of it, in regard to provisions, land transport, etc as was made in the Crimea’, wrote Allgood. Fortunately, having witnessed the deficiencies at Balaklava, and watched his own 98th Foot sicken in China, Campbell kept abreast of every detail, rattling off memos on the importance of blankets, preserved vegetables and other minutiae. Three battalions were formed for Land Transport plus a ‘Chinese Coolie Corps’ with 600 mules from Bombay. There were six hospital ships and a flotilla of junks for the commissariat.50 ‘He did deserve credit for it and C[anning] too,’ wrote Lady Canning, ‘for it was all sent from India with very little exception, and admirably sorted out and equipped and all done much more liberally than was ordered from home.’51

  The Taku forts after the allied attack of August 1860, from George Allgood’s China War 1860.

  By spring, Grant had an ‘army in excellent health, abundantly supplied’.52 Elgin, however, had been delayed, shipwrecked in Ceylon. In the interim, on 8 March, his brother sent an ultimatum to the emperor. Twenty-eight days later the Chinese replied, rejecting the British demands. Conflict was now certain, but Bruce waited until Elgin arrived before launching the campaign. Campbell had recommended that Grant’s army disembark at the entrance of the Peiho, and march along its banks to the Chinese capital. The Peiho was not deep enough for big ships, but it was navigable by small supply boats that could advance alongside the troops. So Grant landed near Pei-tang on 1 August, 10 miles from the Taku forts. He progressed Campbell-style, slowly but methodically, making sure materiel was landed, canals, bridges and wharves renovated and enlarged, a road built and batteries constructed. In consequence, the allies did not fall upon the forts until 21 August 1860, but when they did, victory was assured. They suffered 359 casualties but only seventeen killed.53 The Chinese governor-general surrendered the province, including the city of Tientsin, while Elgin reiterated British demands to the emperor.

  Lord Elgin, from George Allgood’s China War 1860.

  Negotiations appeared to be progressing and on 7 September Elgin’s secretary, Harry Parkes, left to settle the last details with a small diplomatic staff, six dragoons and twenty Sikhs. They were seized by the Chinese, along with thi
rteen French subjects. In response, Elgin’s army moved north to threaten Pekin. Some of the hostages were taken to the emperor’s Summer Palace, others to the Board of Punishments in Pekin. Some were bound and left outside for days. Others were chained, caged and starved. ‘If we spoke a word or asked for water, we were beaten and stamped upon’, testified one sowar. ‘If we asked for something to eat they crammed dirt down our mouths.’54 They were forced on their backs, their full weight resting on their bound wrists to cut off the circulation, their bonds soaked in water to shrink them. In the case of Lieutenant Anderson, soon his ‘hands were swollen to three times their proper size and as black as ink’.55 One fellow prisoner saw Anderson’s ‘nails and fingers burst from the tightness of the cords, and mortification set in’, while ‘the bones of his wrist were exposed’.56 He lasted only another two days. The correspondent for the The Times, Mr Bowlby, suffered the same fate, dying ‘from maggots forming in his wrists’. There was evidence that two other hostages were beheaded.

  A lucky few, including Parkes, were eventually released. The rest died in gaol. When their bodies were handed over, they ‘so clearly demonstrated the cruelties which had been inflicted’, as one survivor put it, ‘that Lord Elgin at once notified to Prince Kung* that he was too horrified by what had occurred to hold further communication with a Government guilty of such deeds of treachery and bloodshed’.57 ‘It is an atrocious crime,’ wrote Elgin, ‘and, not for vengeance, but for future security, ought to be severely dealt with.’58 He pondered his response with care. His intention was to hurt the emperor personally. Sacking Pekin would punish innocent civilians. If Elgin asked for the gaolers responsible, it was unlikely the real perpetrators would be handed over. Any fine demanded would just be added to the people’s taxes.** Meanwhile, Grant was warning that with winter approaching his troops would have to retire by 1 November. Elgin had to move fast and bring the war to a close.59