The Story of Wellington. Harold Wheeler
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of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do.”
The battle began well by the routing of some of the infantry and artillery by the Highlanders and Sepoys. This advantage was almost immediately counterbalanced by the mistaken zeal of the officer commanding the pickets, supported by the 74th Regiment. He foolishly led his men against the village, thereby exposing them to the concentrated fire of the enemy’s artillery and musketry stationed there. Had he taken a less direct route, this could not have happened, but his enthusiasm overruled his caution. Men dropped down like ninepins in a skittle-alley when the ball is thrown by a skilful player. They fell by the dozen as they came within the zone of fire. Their comrades filled up the tell-tale gaps and continued to push on with a dogged tenacity entirely worthy their intrepid commander. Meanwhile what few British guns remained pounded away, and were silenced one by one as the men who worked them fell dead at their post. The enemy’s cavalry then proceeded to decimate the already sorely depleted ranks of the 74th.
At this moment the 19th Light Dragoons, under Colonel Maxwell, were hurled at Sindhia’s troops. The charge turned the fate of the day. What remained of the 74th rallied under the support thus given, and when Wellesley led the 78th into action the village fell. An attempt was made by the enemy to rally, but it was too late. Men who, with true Oriental cunning, had fallen as though killed in order to avoid the oncoming British cavalry as they charged, and had escaped the iron-shod hoofs of the horses, rejoined the ranks, only to find that the day had been lost. The whole body was soon flying helter-skelter from the blood-stained field towards Burrampur, abandoning artillery, baggage, ammunition—everything that precluded swift movement. Twelve hundred of the Marhattás breathed their last on this memorable day.
In fighting this battle—“the hardest-fought affair that ever took place in India”—o’er again in the twilight of his days, the Duke of Wellington made light of the indiscretions of the officers at Assaye and remembered only their bravery. “I lost an enormous number of men: 170 officers were killed and wounded, and upwards of 2000 non-commissioned officers and privates;16 but we carried all before us. We took their guns, which were in the first line, and were fired upon by the gunners afterwards, who threw themselves down, pretending to be dead, and then rose up again after our men had passed; but they paid dearly for the freak. The 19th cut them to pieces. Sindhia’s infantry behaved admirably. They were in support of his cannon, and we drove them off at the point of the bayonet. We pursued them as long as daylight lasted and the exhausted state of the men and horses would allow; and slept on the field.”17
Wellesley himself, although not wounded, lost two horses. An eye-witness has recorded that he had never seen “a man so cool and collected as he was the whole time.” Stevenson arrived on the following evening, and set out almost immediately to follow the enemy, Wellesley being forced to remain owing to his lack of transport for the wounded, whom he refused to leave. The Colonel seconded Wellesley’s magnificent victory by reducing the fortress of Burrampur on the 16th October, and that of Asseerghur on the 21st. Wellesley covered Stevenson’s operations and defended the territories of the Nizám and the Peshwá. “I have been like a man who fights with one hand and defends himself with the other,” he notes on the 26th October. “I have made some terrible marches, but I have been remarkably fortunate: first, in stopping the enemy when they intended to press to the southward, through the Casserbarry ghaut; and afterwards, by a rapid march to the northward, in stopping Sindhia, when he was moving to interrupt Colonel Stevenson’s operations against Asseerghur; in which he would otherwise have undoubtedly succeeded.”
CHAPTER V
Last Years in India
(1803–5)
“Time is everything in military operations.”
Bhonsla Rájá now became the immediate object of Wellesley’s attention. While proceeding in quest of him the General received envoys from Sindhia requesting an armistice. This was granted on the 23rd November 1803, the principal condition imposed by Wellesley being that the enemy’s army should retire forty miles east of Ellichpúr. This clause was not fulfilled, the cavalry of the wily Sindhia encamping at Sersooly, some four miles from the position occupied by Manoo Bappoo, brother of the Rájá, ready for immediate co-operation. Having again united their divisions, Wellesley and Stevenson pushed towards them. “A confused mass” about two miles beyond Sersooly proved to be the enemy’s armies on the march. A little later the General made out “a long line of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, regularly drawn up on the plains of Argaum, immediately in front of that village.”
“Although late in the day,” says Wellesley in describing the events of the 29th November, “I immediately determined to attack this army. Accordingly, I marched on in one column, the British cavalry leading in a direction nearly parallel to that of the enemy’s line; covering the rear and left by the Mogul and Mysore cavalry. The enemy’s infantry and guns were in the left of their centre, with a body of cavalry on their left. Sindhia’s army, consisting of one very heavy body of cavalry, was on the right, having upon its right a body of pindarries and other light corps. Their line extended above five miles, having in their rear the village and extensive gardens and enclosure of Argaum; and in their front a plain, which, however, was much cut by watercourses, etc.
“I formed the army in two lines; the infantry in the first, the cavalry in the second, and supporting the right; and the Mogul and Mysore cavalry the left, nearly parallel to that of the enemy; with the right rather advanced in order to press upon the enemy’s left. Some little time elapsed before the lines could be formed, owing to a part of the infantry of my division which led the column having got into some confusion. When formed, the whole advanced in the greatest order; the 74th and 78th regiments were attacked by a large body (supposed to be Persians), and all these were destroyed. Sindhia’s cavalry charged the 1st battalion, 6th regiment, which was on the left of our line, and were repulsed; and their whole line retired in disorder before our troops, leaving in our hands 38 pieces of cannon and all their ammunition.
“The British cavalry then pursued them for several miles, destroyed great numbers, and took many elephants and camels and much baggage. The Mogul and Mysore cavalry also pursued the fugitives, and did them great mischief. Some of the latter are still following them; and I have sent out this morning all of the Mysore, Mogul, and Marhattá cavalry, in order to secure as many advantages from this victory as can be gained, and complete the enemy’s confusion.... The troops conducted themselves with their usual bravery....”
One of the bravest deeds performed during the battle of Argaum was that of Lieutenant Langlands, of the 74th. Wounded in the fleshy part of the leg by a spear, he promptly pulled out the weapon and thrust it through the body of the Arab who had thrown it. A Sepoy who witnessed this extraordinary display of self-possession, forgetting all discipline, rushed from the ranks and patted the young officer on the back, yelling in his native tongue, “Well done, sir; very well done!”
Wellesley next marched on the mountain fort of Gawilghur, strongly garrisoned by the Rájá’s troops. This defence consisted of an outer and inner fort, the former protected by strongly-built walls, and the whole by ramparts and towers. Admittance was gained only by three gates, all extremely difficult of access by an invading army owing to the roads leading to them. That to the south, communicating with the inner fort, was long and steep, and could only be negotiated on foot; the second was exposed to the guns mounted on the west side and was extremely narrow and scarped by rock; the third, or north gate, communicated with the village. Wellesley chose the last as being the most practicable for his purpose, although he did not blind his eyes to the fact that “the difficulty and labour of moving ordnance and stores from Labada would be very great.”
From the 7th December, when the corps under Wellesley and Stevenson marched from Ellichpúr by different routes, till the 12th, “on which Colonel Stevenson broke ground near Labada, the troops in his division went through a series of laborious services, such as I never before witnessed, with the utmost cheerfulness and perseverance. The heavy ordnance and stores were dragged by hand over mountains, and through ravines, for nearly the whole distance, by roads which it had been previously necessary for
79 officers and 1778 soldiers were killed and wounded.—Sir Herbert Maxwell, p. 58.
Gleig, pp. 37–8.