A History of Britain - Volume 3: The Fate of Empire 1776-2000 by Simon Schama

Author:Simon Schama [Schama, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781409018353
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-02-29T00:00:00+00:00

The Indian Mutiny, 1857–8.

On 30 June an attempted counter-attack under Sir Henry’s command was ambushed disastrously at Chinhat by rebel troops led by, among others, the fighting Maulvi, Ahmadullah Shah, who, although wounded in the foot, pursued the retreating British. When the badly beaten force returned under heavy fire to the Residency, it was obvious that the ensuing siege was to be grim and lengthy, for it was at least two weeks before relief could be expected. In the event, it took 87 days to arrive. Ahmadullah’s shelling of the old Machi Bhawan fort to the west of the Residency had forced its evacuation: 118 British troops had been killed; 54 wounded had been brought back to the Residency and lay on litters, given laudanum or alcohol to dull their senses while shattered limbs were amputated. Bandages ran out and had to be improvised from torn clothing. Sir Henry himself died of a shell wound received while inside his quarters.

By 2 July the rebels were in control of the old city. Ahmadullah Shah, the holy prophet, had set up his own headquarters at the bungalow of a munshi (Brahmin teacher), was hugely popular with the poor and was challenging the authority of the Begum of Awadh, Hazrat Mahal, who wanted to make her young son the new nawab, accountable only to Bahadur Shah in Delhi. The city itself was close to anarchy. A nervous member of the old upper-class Lucknow elite described how the streets were run by armed gangs:

They went round to the doors of the wealthy and gave threats and exacted money … they took halwa and puri and sweets from the shops; they reviled all sorts of people. They took gunpowder and other explosives from the firework makers and paid them inadequately. There was a pile of hay in the garden of the school Kothi to which they set fire and thus produced bonfires which lit the city. They brought Mir Baqar Ali who lived at Pakka Pul and cut him into pieces at the gate of the Bara Imambara with the sword. No-one can say why they committed that sacrilege … they moved about with naked swords in their hands.

From the Residency look-outs, golden Lucknow seemed to be mantled in smoke, din and terror. Conditions inside were rapidly deteriorating. Along with a crowd of the women, Katherine and Bobby were living in the old women’s quarter, the Begum Kothi. The summer heat was almost unendurable, and its punctuation by torrential rain made things even worse. The stench from the overflowing latrines triggered vomiting. With hay and water at a premium, bullocks and cavalry horses staggered around the compound mad with thirst before dropping dead. So many rotting carcasses piled up that men had to be detailed to wrench the remnants from the carrion crows and kites and bury them – not least because they were a breeding ground for millions of huge flies. As soon as any food, even the ‘black greasy dal’ (lentils) that so

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