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Capture of Lucknow
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Capture of Lucknow
The Capture of Lucknow (Hindi: लखनऊ का क़ब्ज़ा, Urdu: لکھنؤ کا قبضہ) was a battle of Indian rebellion of 1857. The British recaptured the city of Lucknow which they had abandoned in the previous winter after the relief of a besieged garrison in the Residency, and destroyed the organised resistance by the rebels in the Kingdom of Awadh (or Oudh, as it was referred to in most contemporary accounts).
Oudh had been annexed by the East India Company only a year before a general mutiny broke out in the Company's Bengal Army. The annexation had been accompanied by several instances of expropriation of royal and landholders' estates on sometimes flimsy grounds of non-payment of taxes, or difficulties in proving title to lands. Many sepoys (native soldiers) of the Company's Bengal Army had been recruited from high-caste and landowning communities in Oudh. There was increasing unrest in the Bengal Army, as privileges and customary allowances they had previously enjoyed were withdrawn. With uncertainty over their rights to property in Oudh, they felt that their status both as soldiers and citizens was under threat.
When the rebellion broke out in May 1857, it threatened British authority in several areas of India, but most particularly in Oudh, where the resentful dispossessed rulers and landowners joined with the mutinied regiments (Bengal Native troops, and Oudh Irregular units formerly belonging to the Kingdom of Oudh) in what became a national rebellion.
From 1 July to 26 November 1857, the British had withstood the siege of the Residency to the north of the city. When the besieged garrison was finally relieved by the British commander-in-chief, Sir Colin Campbell, the Residency was evacuated, as Campbell's communications were threatened. He returned to Cawnpore (Kanpur) from where the relief expedition had been mounted, with all the civilians evacuated from the Residency and the sick and wounded. However, he left a division of 4,000 men under Sir James Outram to hold the Alambagh, a walled park two miles south of the city.
During the following winter campaigning season, Campbell re-established his communications with Delhi and with Calcutta. He also received fresh reinforcements from Britain and built up a substantial transport and supply column. After capturing Fatehgarh on 1 January 1858, which allowed him to establish control over the countryside between Cawnpore and Delhi, Campbell suggested leaving Oudh alone during 1858, concentrating instead on recapturing the state of Rohilkhand, which was also in rebel hands. However, the Governor General, Lord Canning, insisted that Oudh be recaptured, so as to discourage other potential rebels. Canning wrote
Oudh is not only the rallying point of the sepoys, the place to which they all look, and by the doings in which their own hopes and prospects rise and fall; but it represents a dynasty; there is a King of Oudh "seeking his own".
Campbell's army consisted of seventeen infantry battalions, twenty-eight cavalry squadrons and 134 guns and mortars, with a large and unwieldy baggage train and large numbers of Indian camp followers. The army crossed the Ganges River in late February, and advanced to rendezvous with Outram at the Alambagh on 1 March. The army was then reorganised into three infantry divisions under Outram, Brigadier Walpole and Brigadier Lugard, and a cavalry division under James Hope Grant. A force of 9,000 Nepalis (not to be confused with the regular Gurkha units of the Bengal Army) was approaching Lucknow from the north, commanded by Brigadier Franks.
The defenders of Lucknow were said to number 100,000. This suspiciously large and round figure reflects the fact that the defenders lacked coordinated leadership, and were largely the personal retinues of landowners, or loosely organised bodies of fighters, whose motives, dedication and equipment varied widely. The British were not able to gain any reliable reports of their numbers. The rebels were nevertheless equipped with large numbers of cannon and had heavily fortified the Charbagh Canal, the city and the palaces and mosques adjoining the Residency to the north of the city. They had however not fortified the northern approaches to the city on the north bank of the Gumti River, which had not seen fighting previously. (During the British relief moves in 1857, the ground had been flooded by monsoon rains.)
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Capture of Lucknow
The Capture of Lucknow (Hindi: लखनऊ का क़ब्ज़ा, Urdu: لکھنؤ کا قبضہ) was a battle of Indian rebellion of 1857. The British recaptured the city of Lucknow which they had abandoned in the previous winter after the relief of a besieged garrison in the Residency, and destroyed the organised resistance by the rebels in the Kingdom of Awadh (or Oudh, as it was referred to in most contemporary accounts).
Oudh had been annexed by the East India Company only a year before a general mutiny broke out in the Company's Bengal Army. The annexation had been accompanied by several instances of expropriation of royal and landholders' estates on sometimes flimsy grounds of non-payment of taxes, or difficulties in proving title to lands. Many sepoys (native soldiers) of the Company's Bengal Army had been recruited from high-caste and landowning communities in Oudh. There was increasing unrest in the Bengal Army, as privileges and customary allowances they had previously enjoyed were withdrawn. With uncertainty over their rights to property in Oudh, they felt that their status both as soldiers and citizens was under threat.
When the rebellion broke out in May 1857, it threatened British authority in several areas of India, but most particularly in Oudh, where the resentful dispossessed rulers and landowners joined with the mutinied regiments (Bengal Native troops, and Oudh Irregular units formerly belonging to the Kingdom of Oudh) in what became a national rebellion.
From 1 July to 26 November 1857, the British had withstood the siege of the Residency to the north of the city. When the besieged garrison was finally relieved by the British commander-in-chief, Sir Colin Campbell, the Residency was evacuated, as Campbell's communications were threatened. He returned to Cawnpore (Kanpur) from where the relief expedition had been mounted, with all the civilians evacuated from the Residency and the sick and wounded. However, he left a division of 4,000 men under Sir James Outram to hold the Alambagh, a walled park two miles south of the city.
During the following winter campaigning season, Campbell re-established his communications with Delhi and with Calcutta. He also received fresh reinforcements from Britain and built up a substantial transport and supply column. After capturing Fatehgarh on 1 January 1858, which allowed him to establish control over the countryside between Cawnpore and Delhi, Campbell suggested leaving Oudh alone during 1858, concentrating instead on recapturing the state of Rohilkhand, which was also in rebel hands. However, the Governor General, Lord Canning, insisted that Oudh be recaptured, so as to discourage other potential rebels. Canning wrote
Oudh is not only the rallying point of the sepoys, the place to which they all look, and by the doings in which their own hopes and prospects rise and fall; but it represents a dynasty; there is a King of Oudh "seeking his own".
Campbell's army consisted of seventeen infantry battalions, twenty-eight cavalry squadrons and 134 guns and mortars, with a large and unwieldy baggage train and large numbers of Indian camp followers. The army crossed the Ganges River in late February, and advanced to rendezvous with Outram at the Alambagh on 1 March. The army was then reorganised into three infantry divisions under Outram, Brigadier Walpole and Brigadier Lugard, and a cavalry division under James Hope Grant. A force of 9,000 Nepalis (not to be confused with the regular Gurkha units of the Bengal Army) was approaching Lucknow from the north, commanded by Brigadier Franks.
The defenders of Lucknow were said to number 100,000. This suspiciously large and round figure reflects the fact that the defenders lacked coordinated leadership, and were largely the personal retinues of landowners, or loosely organised bodies of fighters, whose motives, dedication and equipment varied widely. The British were not able to gain any reliable reports of their numbers. The rebels were nevertheless equipped with large numbers of cannon and had heavily fortified the Charbagh Canal, the city and the palaces and mosques adjoining the Residency to the north of the city. They had however not fortified the northern approaches to the city on the north bank of the Gumti River, which had not seen fighting previously. (During the British relief moves in 1857, the ground had been flooded by monsoon rains.)
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