Amritsar 1919 by Kim Wagner

Author:Kim Wagner [Wagner, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300200355
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Dyer’s column went at a slow pace through the city.106 The men of the 54th and 59th were in the front, followed immediately by the Gurkhas. The four vehicles made up the rear: first the car in which Dyer, Briggs and Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan were riding, as well as Dyer’s two bodyguards from the 25th London, Sergeants Anderson and Spizzey. This was followed by the first armoured car, and then Rehill and Plomer, the only two civilians with the party, in a car by themselves, with the second armoured car making up the rear.107 The column wound its way past the Town Hall, further into the city and down a narrow road known as Queen’s Bazaar, which was lined by low brick houses with open shops at street-level. They were now approaching their destination. As Briggs described:

The party was led to Jallianwalah Bagh by a guide, and arrived at a small alley just about broad enough for two men walking abreast. This necessitated leaving the two armoured cars behind.

The General Officer Commanding [Dyer], Colonel Morgan, Mr Rehill and myself got out of the motor and advanced up the alley, the troops following us. Coming to the end of the alley we saw an immense crowd of men packed in a square, listening to a man on a platform who was speaking and gesticulating with his hands. It was very hard to estimate the size of the crowd. The General asked me what I thought the numbers were, and I said about 5,000.108

Captain Briggs later claimed that, should they come upon an illegal meeting, Dyer had intended to address the crowd from the top of one of the armoured cars, but this was no longer possible due to the narrow entrance.109 Instead Dyer, who had never been to Jallianwala Bagh before, was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the gathering that he had walked in on. All he could see was a ‘dense crowd’ of thousands gathered within the enclosure of the Bagh, mere yards from himself and his small force. Just inside the Bagh, along the northern line of buildings where the entrance was, the ground fell away to the low-lying patch of land where people were gathered. It was here, along the bank of earth, that the troops were deployed, the twenty-five Gurkhas on the left, and the twenty-five men of the 54th/59th on the right.110 Dyer himself described the thoughts that went through his mind the moment he faced the crowd in the Jallianwala Bagh, with his small force in position, rifles at the ready:

With the foregoing considerations before me and the daily reports and sights of Amritsar itself, I had no doubt that I was dealing with no mere local disturbance but a rebellion, which, whatever its origin, was aiming at something wide reaching and vastly more serious even than local riots and looting. The isolation of centres and the holding up of the movement of military reserve by destroying communications were essential features of the conspiracy.

I was

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