Page 110 - Chronicle Vol 17

of the British Empire channelled unfathomable yields of profit and prestige back to the metropole, underpinning Britain’s burgeoning economy. Seeking their for- tunes, civilians and soldiers alike emigrated to India, bringing their families and establishing their own communities. This helped firmly entrench India within the Victorian psyche, to the extent that ‘if all was not right with India, all was not right with their world’.
This world, however, rested upon perilously flimsy foundations. In 1857 India contained just 22,000 British troops serving alongside locally recruited Indians in British service, known as Sepoys, who numbered up to 270,000. Discontent had brewed throughout India for decades; many felt exploited by colonialism, particularly the perceived attacks on religious and cultural institutions, such as the outlawing of certain customs, and encroachment of Christian missionaries. Despite this simmering resentment, India’s routine ‘dullness and monotony’ for the British ensured that ‘any suggestions of impending danger were shelved’. Therefore, the final, fatal mistake occurred amongst a volatile atmosphere where the patience of many Indians was at breaking point. The catalyst was a new type of cartridge issued for the Sepoys’ rifle-muskets, sealed in waterproofed paper, greased with fat said to have derived from cows and pigs; a grave affront to the faiths of the Hindus and Muslims who comprised the bulk of Britain’s Indian sol- diers. Rumours circulated, spiralling into outrage throughout the barrack-rooms. Men refused to parade. Arson and looting broke out. Intervening officers were murdered by their own Sepoys. Armouries were seized. British soldiers and civil- ians were massacred indiscriminately, as key cities and strategic assets rapidly fell into the hands of the mutineers, whose ranks were swelled by furious locals determined to drive the British out of India. The rebellion had begun.
This crisis represented the greatest threat to the British Empire’s survival it had ever witnessed hitherto. Unlike the popular image of colonial warfare being piti- fully one-sided in the favour of Europeans, the Sepoys could be considered peer- equivalent to the British, as they were armed, equipped, and trained identically (which is why, despite being ubiquitous topics of discussion amongst military analysts, these factors will not be investigated as reasons for the 32nd’s success). In some cases, the rebels’ weapons were even superior, as the captured armour- ies granted them a monopoly on heavy artillery, crewed by gunners whose ‘shots were excellent’. Likewise, Gubbins recalled how ‘The 32nd were armed with old and very indifferent muskets’ prone to inaccuracy. In contrast, many rebels pos- sessed newer East India Company-supplied muskets ‘of much superior make’. Against this impending onslaught, the far-flung British garrisons scrambled together hasty defences, stunned by the shocking turn of events.
At Lucknow, Geraldine Harris captured the atmosphere in her diary, anxiously proclaiming that ‘the life of every European here is in jeopardy’, as the soldiers were joined by an exodus of refugees. It was here at the strategically-important city of Lucknow where the hammer-blow fell the hardest, as the garrison quickly became enveloped in what would become a gruelling 140 day-long siege. Initially numbering just 1,616 fighting-men (of which the 32nd constituted ‘the backbone’)
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