The Last Mughal: The Fall of Delhi, 1857 by William Dalrymple

Author:William Dalrymple
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2006-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

As far as the rebels were concerned, the 9 July attack on the British was certainly the most successful yet. But expectations in both the Palace and the city had been too high, and there was still a strong sense of disappointment that there was as yet no great breakthrough, and that the British remained as firmly entrenched as ever on the Ridge.

This feeling of frustration deepened in the weeks that followed. The lack of intelligence reaching the city meant that no one among the rebels realised how successful Bakht Khan’s tactics were proving: unaware of the fragility of the British position and the pressure Bakht Khan was putting on it, they could see only that the lines remained unchanged, and muttering against Bakht Khan soon set in. Mirza Mughal had strongly resented the manner in which he had his command taken from him, while the other sepoys disliked obeying a commander from a different regiment. Slowly, as the attacks failed to produce any clinching victory, Bakht Khan’s prestige, and his grip on the sepoys, began to slip.

Towards the end of July, complaints against Bakht Khan began to be openly aired in the durbar. On the 29th one sepoy complained that ‘many days had passed and the general had not led his forces to fight’. Bakht Khan was furious, but the Emperor remarked that what had been said was true.95 A few days later, when a planned attack was called off owing to heavy rain, Zafar became angry and said, ‘You will never capture the Ridge … All the treasure you have brought me you have expended. The Royal Treasury is empty. I hear that day by day soldiers are leaving for their homes. I have no hopes of becoming victorious.’

The following day petitions arrived from 2,000 troops in Gwalior and 6,000 jihadis in Nasirabad, saying they were ready to march on Delhi if the King gave the order. But Zafar dictated the reply: ‘Say there are 60,000 men in Delhi, and they have not driven the English army from the Ridge; what can your 6,000 do?’ When Bakht Khan then complained that the sepoys were no longer obeying his orders, Zafar replied, ‘Tell them, then, to leave the city.’96 A little later Zafar added that it was intolerable that the city should still be

harassed and threatened by soldiers, who had come to the city with the avowed object of destroying the English, not their own countrymen. These soldiers are always boasting that they are going out of the safety afforded by the fortifications to destroy the English, and yet are always returning to the city. It is quite clear that the English will ultimately recapture this city, and will kill me.97

There was little surprise, then, when, at the end of July, there was yet another change in the military command. Bakht Khan was effectively removed as Commander-in-Chief, and instead the supreme authority was given over to a Court of Administration, under the presidency of Mirza Mughal, who acted in the name of his father.

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