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Osprey Campaign #338
The First Anglo-Sikh War 1845–46: The betrayal of the Khalsa
A highly illustrated account of the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-56, a dramatic, hard-fought, and colorful conflict during Britain's rule of India.
This fully illustrated study of the First Anglo-Sikh War tells the story of one of the major colonial wars of the nineteenth century, as the British East India Company attempted to wrest control of the Punjab region from a Sikh Empire riven by infighting.
The First Anglo-Sikh War broke out due to escalating tensions between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company in the Punjab region of India in the mid-nineteenth century. Political machinations were at the heart of the conflict, with Sikh rulers fearing the growing power of their own army, while several prominent Sikh generals actively collaborated with the East India Company.
The British faced a disciplined opponent, trained along European lines, which fielded armies numbering in the tens of thousands. The war featured a number of closely contested battles, with both sides taking heavy losses.
This fully illustrated study of the First Anglo-Sikh War tells the story of one of the major colonial wars of the nineteenth century, as the British East India Company attempted to wrest control of the Punjab region from a Sikh Empire riven by infighting.
The First Anglo-Sikh War broke out due to escalating tensions between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company in the Punjab region of India in the mid-nineteenth century. Political machinations were at the heart of the conflict, with Sikh rulers fearing the growing power of their own army, while several prominent Sikh generals actively collaborated with the East India Company.
The British faced a disciplined opponent, trained along European lines, which fielded armies numbering in the tens of thousands. The war featured a number of closely contested battles, with both sides taking heavy losses.
- GenresHistory
96 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 15, 2022
During the second half of the 18th century, the various rulers on the Indian subcontinent faced a growing challenge for control from the British East India Company (EIC). Branching out from his original role as a mercantile operation, the EIC began asserting administrative control over several Indian states. Their power rested on the three “presidency armies,” forces consisting of a mixture of Europeans and local levies, all trained in the Western way of fighting. In response to their success in recent conflicts, starting around 1805 the Sikh Maharaja, Ranjit Singh, began remodeling his army along European lines. Downplaying the traditional reliance of cavalry, Ranjit Singh built his forces around a Western-style infantry backed by a strengthened artillery arm. Thanks to his assiduous efforts, by the time of his death in 1839 the Sikhs possessed what many regarded as the most capable local army in the Indian subcontinent.
The problem for Ranjit Singh’s successors was that it was an army that was too powerful for them to control. As discipline broke down and rival figures began bidding for the throne with extravagant promises of pay, the army became an unstable force dominating Sikh politics. Fortunately a solution was at hand for the kingdom’s elite: the British annexation of Sind to the south in 1843, provided them with a convenient rock against which to break the Sikh army. The result was the first Anglo-Sikh War, quite possibly unique in human history, as David Smith notes in this book, in that the leaders of both sides went to war with the shared aim of the destruction of the Khalsa, as the Sikh Army was known. To demonstrate this, Smith highlights the otherwise inexplicable decisions made by the Sikh generals, who often shared information with their British counterparts and whom seemingly did everything possible to help British forces defeat their enemy.
Much of Smith’s argument is based on inference, for understandable reasons. As he notes, the Khalsa had become increasingly ungovernable thanks to a breakdown in discipline, with many units electing their own officers. Yet while the Khalsa was no longer the force it had been in Ranjit Singh’s day, its sheer size made it a formidable opponent for the EIC’s forces. From the perspective of the Sikh aristocracy, war with the British was a no-lose proposition, as victory promised an expansion of the kingdom’s territory and the wealth needed to defuse tensions with the army. That the Sikh forces operated so defensively, often against the desire of their own men, however, suggests that defeat was preferable to a victory that would only prolong the army’s dominance of Sikh politics.
Even so, victory did not come easily for the British. Smith demonstrates that, for all of the decline in their training and the conspiring of their generals, the Khalsa fought with a tenacity that cost the British dear. Smith sees a contributing factor in this the preference of the commander of British forces, Sir Hugh Gough, for bayonet charges, which ensured that British wins were bloody ones. Though the British were severely challenged in key battles, their greater numbers and the active conniving of their counterparts in the Sikh leadership ensured that the final outcome was never in doubt. Less than three months after Sikh forces crossed the River Sutlej the war was over, with the Sikhs signing a series of treaties that expanded British control in the region and which sowed the seeds for a second, much more debilitating war that would break out just three years later.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the efforts of the Sikh generals to undermine their own side, the British maintained a healthy respect for Sikh troops, who would become a visible part of the Indian Army in the decades that followed. Smith’s slim study makes such views understandable, as he notes throughout it how close the Khalsa came to victory in a number of battles. In the end, it took the combined efforts on both sides of the war to defeat the Sikh forces. In that respect the war was a testament to the canniness of Ranjit Singh’s strategic assessment, as his concerns about British dominance proved well founded. What he didn’t anticipate in the end was that the solution he devised would prove so unmanageable that his successors would view the threat it had been created to defeat as the lesser evil. It was a decision many of them may have subsequently regretted, and probably sooner than they anticipated.
The problem for Ranjit Singh’s successors was that it was an army that was too powerful for them to control. As discipline broke down and rival figures began bidding for the throne with extravagant promises of pay, the army became an unstable force dominating Sikh politics. Fortunately a solution was at hand for the kingdom’s elite: the British annexation of Sind to the south in 1843, provided them with a convenient rock against which to break the Sikh army. The result was the first Anglo-Sikh War, quite possibly unique in human history, as David Smith notes in this book, in that the leaders of both sides went to war with the shared aim of the destruction of the Khalsa, as the Sikh Army was known. To demonstrate this, Smith highlights the otherwise inexplicable decisions made by the Sikh generals, who often shared information with their British counterparts and whom seemingly did everything possible to help British forces defeat their enemy.
Much of Smith’s argument is based on inference, for understandable reasons. As he notes, the Khalsa had become increasingly ungovernable thanks to a breakdown in discipline, with many units electing their own officers. Yet while the Khalsa was no longer the force it had been in Ranjit Singh’s day, its sheer size made it a formidable opponent for the EIC’s forces. From the perspective of the Sikh aristocracy, war with the British was a no-lose proposition, as victory promised an expansion of the kingdom’s territory and the wealth needed to defuse tensions with the army. That the Sikh forces operated so defensively, often against the desire of their own men, however, suggests that defeat was preferable to a victory that would only prolong the army’s dominance of Sikh politics.
Even so, victory did not come easily for the British. Smith demonstrates that, for all of the decline in their training and the conspiring of their generals, the Khalsa fought with a tenacity that cost the British dear. Smith sees a contributing factor in this the preference of the commander of British forces, Sir Hugh Gough, for bayonet charges, which ensured that British wins were bloody ones. Though the British were severely challenged in key battles, their greater numbers and the active conniving of their counterparts in the Sikh leadership ensured that the final outcome was never in doubt. Less than three months after Sikh forces crossed the River Sutlej the war was over, with the Sikhs signing a series of treaties that expanded British control in the region and which sowed the seeds for a second, much more debilitating war that would break out just three years later.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the efforts of the Sikh generals to undermine their own side, the British maintained a healthy respect for Sikh troops, who would become a visible part of the Indian Army in the decades that followed. Smith’s slim study makes such views understandable, as he notes throughout it how close the Khalsa came to victory in a number of battles. In the end, it took the combined efforts on both sides of the war to defeat the Sikh forces. In that respect the war was a testament to the canniness of Ranjit Singh’s strategic assessment, as his concerns about British dominance proved well founded. What he didn’t anticipate in the end was that the solution he devised would prove so unmanageable that his successors would view the threat it had been created to defeat as the lesser evil. It was a decision many of them may have subsequently regretted, and probably sooner than they anticipated.
May 30, 2023
The book can be confusing on the background to the war but the narrative of the campaign is well done with plenty of maps and images. The average Sikh soldier deserved a lot better than he got.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews