What is a Siege Train, you ask!

What is a Siege train?

Before I answer that, let me explain what is a “Siege.”

The term derives from the Latin word for “seat” or “sitting.”

A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by force, generally accompanied by an assault. A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that refuses to surrender and cannot be easily taken by a frontal assault. Sieges involve surrounding the target and blocking the reinforcement or escape of troops or provision of supplies.

In our case, the city of Delhi is under Siege. Although we control most of the city, British still occupy important portions, especially the ridge. We have the red fort under our control.

Here is a picture of one of our attack (July 30th attack):

You may recall the attempt to capture the Ridge on July 15th

We also know that the British are coming and in preparation of it, we have fortified our position as well.

Now, the British are sending a “Siege Train,” which is designed to break or circumvent our fortification. I presume they also want to attack the Red Fort.

As I said earlier, it is 8 miles long and includes heavy guns towed by elephants and other artillery carried by camels and god knows how many soldiers.

It is raining very heavily so the progress of the siege train is kind of slow and our inability to stop them at najaphgarh will come back to haunt us.

More as information becomes available.

The train is only 20 miles away, it won’t be long before the real battles start.

British in an Unenviable Situation

This day Sir Colin Campbell took charge as the Commander-in-Chief in India. For the British, the situation at this point if time could not have been worse.Though the nationalist forces had not always been successful in inflicting defeat upon the British forces, it cannot be denied, that they had at least managed to cause a great deal of anxiety and insecurity to the heart of British government. It is worth taking a look at the British, around this time:

• ” The whole of Avadh was in revolt and the only Englishmen there were those holed up in the Residency,
• ” Rohilkhand was up in arms against the British under the leadership of Khan Bahadur Khan,
• the Doab-the tract between the Ganga and Yamuna — was controlled by the “rebels”,
• Havelock had been forced back to Kanpur aborting his intended relief of Lucknow,
• ” Kanpur itself was under threat from the Gwalior contingent.
• Princes and Chiefs of Central India, Rajasthan and Bundelkhand
• were mostly biding their time to join the winning side,
• The gun manufacturing factory at Fatehgarh had been lost,
  ” Agra, the seat of the government of North Western Province was effectively blockaded,
• The British troops at Delhi were struggling to hold their position,
• The telegraphic communication of Calcutta, the seat of the supreme government, with North India remained cut off - the telegrams were being routed via Bombay.

Rebellion is not like playing Chess

At times we think about the strategy and how best to defeat the British and what clever ways can we use to halt their advance; and for some it might feel like a game of chess!

Except that there is real blood being spilled and the the consequence of losing the “game” is death!

This is not an even sided game. When we win, we know for sure that most of the British will be let go, released so they can go back to England or may be stay as the guest; but I know that, god forbid, if they win, they will hang us or tie us to a canon and blow us up.

Think about it when you are following the happenings in the rebellion. As the subedar said, this is not a Sepoy mutiny anymore; it is an uprising against a foreign power.

I am just a lowly sepoy, literally and figuratively a pawn in the game. Fortunately our strength is that we have a lot of pawns on our side.

Delhi Urdu Newspaper from May 24, 1857 : How English will fall

Today’s Delhi Urdu Akhbar (newspaper) has a special poem and inspirational message for us.

The poem glories the fact that, the English, once so knowledgeable, so mighty, so cruel, have had their day. “Nothing came of their knowledge, skill, wisdom and character: The Tilangs of Purab (present Eastern UP) have done to death all of them here.”

This was printed on the first page of the issue of 24 May, with the Editor’s special commendation, under the title ‘Chronogram for this Instructive Revolution’. Recalling

“how great rulers and conquerors like Soloman and Alexander, cruel tyrants like Hajjaj, Chengiz, Halaku and Nadir, great epic heroes and sages, have all disappeared.” “How every trace of the Christian rulers, despite their wisdom and foresight, has all of a sudden disappeared from amongst the people (khalq).”

The newspaper also notes that the Post (dak) office has not been fully manned and no arrangements have been made by the Rebels since the control of Delhi passed on to them, and hence the information from outside is hard to come by.

We would like them to know that we are working on getting the post (dak) delivered as soon as we have fully secured Delhi.

Delhi Urdu Newspaper from 17th May 1857

The issue of 17 May of Delhi-Urdu-Akhbar newspaper, contains the Editor’s eye-witness account in great detail of the events at Delhi on 11 May and the subsequent days.

The report is preceded by Quranic extracts and Persian and Urdu passages on how God can make totally unforeseen events happen.

The initial reaction to the Mutiny in the this issue is, indeed, that of gleeful surprise on so sudden a turn of events, leading to the fall of the mighty English. There is no sympathy or compassion shown for the English, even for their women and children who were now killed. A degree of unabashed pleasure is perceptible in the report on the killing of Nixon, the head of the ‘Chancellery’ and Taylor, the Principal of the Delhi College.

The terms used are almost invariably Angrez for the English and Tilanga for the rebel Sepoy.

There is a grudging approval of the Tilangis when they killed the English, but disapproval of their trigger-happy conduct when they killed a Khatri horseman or injured a vegetable vendor in Chandni Chauk. The paper complains of the helplessness of the City Kotwal in maintaining law and order in the presence of the army of ‘the Tilangis’ that has descended upon Delhi.

Via Shireen Moosvi, Professor of History at the Centre of Advanced Study, Aligarh Muslim University.