The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-05 00:00:00

-.1
MARCH 5, 1849.
7

action of either, where the welfare of the empire is con-
cerned. A great publi emergency dwarfs into infinite-
simal and impalpable littleness all considerations of a
merely personal nature.. 'With the Queen's Ministers,
with the East India Col np any, with General Napier him-
self, there can be now b ut one question—namely, who is
the fittest man to lead: the army of the Punjaub to
victory?
HERALD.—Another :famous victory—another mur-
derous triumph—another of those disastrous successes.
which thousands weep to icl no man rejoices over! Lord
Gough has fought anoth, sr great battle in his old style,
and with the old result. .I 3 :e has taken another fine army
into the field, and flung iEt at the enemy. He has gone
headlong again into the midst of the opposing force,
bundling his brigades up,a i the enemy's batteries, and
demonstrating, we fear r u t for the last time, how the
smallest possible advents g, 3 may be gained at the cost of
the greatest sacrifice of!' Fe . We cannot say that the in-
telligence has startled us. We were quite prepared for
it. Disastrous as are t! ee tidings they have not taken
us by surprise. That d( scription of generalship, which
in India they call " Tip sirary tactics," we have learnt,
at this distance from the theatre of war, to understand and
appreciate. Respect for the manly bearing, the consum-
mate courage, the conte' neat of danger, so manifest in the
personal character of the Commander-in-Chief, for a
while restrained us frc tn. giving utterance to opinions
which it was impossible not inwardly to conceive. But
there was a point at wh icli silence became crimial,
we could disguise the tri Me no longer. Beneath the sil-
very hair of the brave old veteran there is the hot im-
pulsive brain of a boy. Instead of the cool, wary, saga-
cious commander, we b are the thoughtless, impetuous,
Hibernian fighting man,. :ready to sacrifice himself and
all his belongings, and no more able to restrain himself
than a child. It is a fact that on that disastrous 13th of
January, Lord Gough, i n spite of the protests of wiser
men than himself—in sp;itt) of his own promises—threw
himself upon the enemy's :position, without a thought of
reconnoitering it, becaus a, as he said, the Seikhs insulted
him, and his "Irish bl and could stand it no longer."
This is his own account of the affair. Good God! aro
our own troops to be mo wn down by thousands, because
the Irish blood of a hfin )-brained commander cannot
stand a stray shot or two-. from the enemy's guns? It is
devoutly to be hoped that :if such are the consequences of
Irish blood, there is not ti drop of it in the veins of Sir
Wiliam Gomm, who has, been nominated Lord Gough's
successor. Just calculte;o the gains of such a " victory"
as this ! We have lost en killed and wounded, 2,500
men; w© have lost half -a—dozen guns, and some of our
colours have been taken.. Two, if not three regiments
have disgraced themsel res, and the enemy have fired a
salute in honour of the it success. Both armies claim
the victory—both at t iFf3 date of the last intelligence
from the Jhelum were waiting for reinforcements ; and,
as these rough and re lady Seikh battalions, much less
encumbered than our 'own with baggage, and much
better able to feed th ceaselves as they go, move with
far greater rapidity th In our cumbrous masses of dis-
ciplined troops, the pr. ababilities are that Shere Singh's
camp will be strengths ned long before Lord Gough's.
In fact, this great dise atrous battle on the banks of the
Jhelum, as far as rege rds the issue of the campaign,
" goes for nothing " -nothing at all. One European
regiment has been dest roared, and 2,000 men besides have
been killed or maimed iri the engagement; but for any
good that it has done us, it might as well not have been
fought. The two et intending forces stand in
nearly the same position to each other as before. If
there be any difference it is to our disadvantage. The
Seikhs have a clearer nation than before of the general-
ship of the British leader and the prowess of our British
cavalry. The affair of lib e lath of January will not have
raised us in the estin etttion of the enemy, and it will
lower us immeasurably in the opinion of all our Euro-
pean allies. It is not to be concealed that the general
aspect of affairs in the Thanjaub is anything but encour-
aging. For some time will the arrival of the Indian
mails be looked for with the iatensest interest and the
most painful excitem sett. The junction of Chuttur
Singh's force with that of his son Shere Singh did not
seem to be a very rem ate event at the date of the latest
intelligence from the camp of the British commander;
but as it is no part of Lord Gough's military creed that
a general ought to en; Is avour to acquaint himself with
the movements of th ,e enemy, we can hazard, on this
point, only a conjec Lure. It would be well, how-
ever, if we had only the movements of open enemies
to concern ourselves about; we have to fathom, as
we best can, the des ig-ns of doubtful friends. The
attitude both of Ghc ()lab Singh and Dost Mahomed,
in the present conjuncture, is such as to give rise to
all sorts of gloomy anticipations. It is said that if
the Cashmere Raja ani the Ameer of Caubul were to
join the confederacy aua inst us, and to swell the ranks
of the enemy with their 'troops, we should find it difficult
to hold our own in the .Punjaub, and impossible to subju-
gate the country. And recent events have assuredly
given some cogency to this opinion; but it almost all
lies in the if. Let us see how these matters stand. It
may be said, with especial reference, in such a crisis as
this, to the position of G•hoolab Singh, that " ho who is
not with us is against us," But it is grobablo tho con-
verse of this proposition would more nearly indicate the
truth. The hearty, strenuous co-operation of the Ma-
haraja's troops would unquestionably at such a time be
invaluable; it would be sufficient to turn the tide un-
mistakeaby in our favour, and to leave no doubt as to
the final result. But we have seen what is the value of
Seikh alliances. This very Shere Singh, whose troops
have been engaged in en urderous conflict with our own,
was a little while ago marching upon Moultan in con-
junction with General Whish. We imagine that our
British commanding officers have had enough of Seikh
auxiliaries—that they have by this time learnt to
" like their room better than their company." It
is obviously our policy to ;keep Ghoolab Singh's
troops at a distance. We do not want them to assist
us—we do not want them to come near our camp. The
best service that the Maharaja can render us is to keep
his troops, in the present state of things, inactive. He
has, we may be sure, nomething more than a dim sus-
picion that they are not to be trusted; and whilst such
is the temper of his men, it is clearly anything but a
proofof treachery upon.hisipart,that he has not sent 20,000
men to turn against ua at a critical moment. The Cash-
mere force, under Colonel Steinbach, is at least inactive;
and inactive it is better that it should remain, whilst
our affairs are prospering so poorly in the Punjaub.
Bring it into close contact with the two contending
armies, and there would. be little hope, unless our arms
were carrying everything before them, of anything but
treachery and hostility from such " allies." There may
be more real friendship in the course pursued:by Ghoolab
Singh than appears on the surface. If we saw him pro-
fessing more, and doing more, we should suspect him
more; but the last thing for which we should incline
to quarrel with him is, for sending an army to our
aid. ;We do not believe that there is anything to be
apprehended from the hostility of the Cashmere troops,
which, though they may not be induced to fight for us,
may be restrained from fighting against us. Neither is
there any good reason to dread the enmity of Dost Ma-
homed and the Affghans. There is very little sympathy
between the Affghans and the Seikhs. The sole desire
of the Ameer appears to be the re-annexation of Pesha-
war to bis dominions. This has been his darling am-
bition for years, and is now the leading idea of his old
age as of his best days of manly vigour. He has come
down to watch events, and to turn the present strife to
the best personal account. But it is the opinion of the
best-informed parties on the spot that he is far more
likely to have been thinking all this time of falling on the
rear of a defeated Seikh army and claiming credit from
us for the act, than of forming an alliance with our ene-
mies and increasing our embarrassments in the Punjaub.
He has wisdom and experinco enough to know that his
safest game is to support the British, of whose ultimate
success he can hardly entertain a doubt. We know the
character of the Dost well enough to feel tolerably sure
that he will not array himself openly against us until
he sees that our cause is hopeless; and in spite of Lord
Gough's "Tipperary tactics" we have not come to that yet.
POST.—We repeat this morning the disastrous intel-
ligence from India which we published in a second edition
on Saturday. In using the word " disastrous," we are
sure we only speak the universal feeling that prevailed
when the news first became known, and has increased
in intensity by a more careful perusal of the accounts.
Indeed, the Indian authorities themselves seem to en-
tertain the same opinion of the recent action on the
Jhelum. The Governor-General orders a salute of
twenty-one guns to be fired, as if for a victory ; but
he studiously excludes from his official notification all
mention of our loss, doubtless because there would hare
been a great anomaly in treating as a triumph an en-
gagement that had cost the victors above two thousand
men and ninety officers killed and wounded, four guns,
and five or six colours, besides leaving the defeated
enemy, at the close of the day, in compact and un-
broken order within four miles of our own position.
Lord Dalhousie may not, possibly, have known the
extent of the loss when he directed the announce-
ment of a victory; though the presumption is rather the
other way, as his suppression of the facts was apparently
part of the system, the departure of the mail from Lord
Gough's camp having been prohibited, in order to pre-
vent the details from transpiring through the means of
private letters. We regret to add that this problema-
tical victory was marked by circumstances happily not
of frequent occurrence in our military annals. Two
cavalry regiments, one in the Queen's, the other in the
Company's service, actually gave way before the enemy,
and materially obstructed the general operations by the
undignified rapidity of their retreat through our own
artillery. Nothing, of course can justify such miscon-
duct on the part of the regiments in question ; but
it is some extenuation that they were led into a situ-
ation where it was scarcely possible for cavalry to
maintain themselves, and the officer in command of
the brigade lost no time in ordering them to retire.
In this retrograde movement, however, they lost all,
steadiness ; retreat speedily degenerated into rout,
and not only a portion of the Horse Artillery, but
oven the Field Hospital, was literally overthrown by the
panic stricken dragoons. Yet, in the face of sucl-
actionw nta bite facts,crd
6wouegfind i
when
ec statedrevie thatwic ghis forces, six
days after the
ex-
pressed his entire satisfaction with the conduct cth
notice the singular eccen-
tricity becomes our painful duty to no
troops. Indeed, this is not the only instance in which
itircivccitycoofth
bPumteaPlel'itmlii)egsp.rivlaVtee
e
accounts and the Indian papers concur in representing
e official Ndoi dispatches tlac er Lord's
s before personalus;
chance, and not Ile the result of any previous well-con-
this sanguinary action as having taken place by a sort of

sidered plan. Lord Gough, as it would seem, on arriv-
ing in presence of the enemy, on the 13th of January,
had resolved on giving battle, and some preliminary
movements were effected for that purpose. The deter-
mination, however, was not persisted in, and a general
understanding prevailed that there would be no fighting
till the following morning; but a new change was made in
the arrangements, and an attack was ordered. There ap.
pears to have been no reconnoisance, and, in consequence,
the advancing troops found themselves exposed to a
flanking fire from Seikh batteries of which the existence
or position was totally unknown. It is superfluous to
say how soon confusion ensued. Happily, the steadiness
of the Infantry and Artillery, with a brilliant charge
from White's Brigade of Cavalry, retrieved the mischief
and compelled the enemy to a retreat of four miles, though
in such good order that the British forces did not deem
it prudent to bivouac on the ground which had been the
scene of action, and to which the defeated Seikhs sent
detachments in the course of the night for the purpose of
plundering the dead, murdering the wounded, and re-
moving some of their own guns that we had spiked.
According to the accounts that have arrived, the irreso-
lution displayed in the first instance was not the sole error
of the Commander-in-Chief. There seems to have been a
total want of combination in the attack, and of a definite
character in the orders issued; and when re-
monstrances were made to his Lordship they
were met by a threat of the punishment due to
military insubordination. The personal gallantry of
Lord Gough, we need hardly say, was conspicuous
throughout the day; but the commander of an army
ought not to be a mere vulgar gladiator. His duty is
to be the head that thinks, rather than the arm that
strikes; and it is a poor consolation to the victims of
imperfect arrangements on the part of the general, that
the individual Lord Gough behaved like a hero. The
whale proceeding is so full of painful interest as to ren-
der necessary a searching inquiry into all the circum-
stances. Investigation is called for by regard to our
national honour; by those feelings of humanity which
are shocked to learn that one of her Majesty's regiments
has been subjected to the loss of 13 officers and 213
men killed, 10 officers and 244 men wounded; and, fi-
nally, by a care for the future safety of those vast pos-
sessions, our sway over which is founded entirely on
public opinion.
DitILY NEWS.—If Government, and the East India
Company, and the War-office had entered into a plot
to disgust the people of this country with war—with
the instruments and the mode with which it is carried
on—they certainly could not have combined a more
horrid and revolting spectacle than that offered by the
military events of the Punjaub. Here are Englishmen
and an English army, in the nineteenth century, making
war in the same savage way as the first barbarians that
clothed themselves in skins. If war could by any means
be enobled or excused, it would be as a science, which
decided conflicts with insignificant loss of human life,
which conquered by skill and by the application of the
mind to strategy. But here we see 24,000 men, under
British colours, flung rather than led into a jungle by
a blundering general, from the mere impulse of haste
and passion, without judgment or preparation, or
manoeuvre or idea, ordered to conquer, by brute
force, and met by barbarians, who showed far more
skill and coolness—they could not show more courage.
The jungle of the Jhelum presented the aspect
of the Roman circus on a fete day, that of an idle and
indiscriminate butchery, disgraceful to a civilised country
and to a Government that professes to exercise some-
thing like prudence and foresight. The General was
known by the whole empire to be incapable. It was but
the other day he flung away the lives of his best troops
and officers in a watercourse. And ;none can so fully
tell his merits as Lord Hardinge, who was by his side in
the memorable battles on the Sutlej. But such is our
stupid machinery of Government, that incapacity and ill,
even if seen andadmitted,cannot be removed or obviated.
Common sense and common rumour demanded that the
superannuated Elphinstone should not be left in com-
mand at Caubul. He was left, and thousands upon
thousands were the victims. And now we have again
the same fatuity. The Duke of Wellington is known to
have warned the India Company of the incapacity of
Lord Gough: the India Company admitted it, but ob-
jected to the successor who was recommended. In
the conflict of the two authorities, Lord Gough was
lett in the command with a civilian Governor-General,
and of course uncontrolled and unadvised to perpetrate
the sacrifice of British life, British interests, and British
honour. If there was conscious spirit and patriotism in
Parliament, it would institute an inquiry into the causes
which maintained so incapable a general in command, and
which has led to such an appalling and distressing sacri-
fice. Little do we wonder that peace societies are mul-
tiplying and meeting thoughout the land, that the old
admiration for heroic achievement is fast being replaced
by disgust, that the profession of the soldier is fast fall-
ing into disrepute, and that the belief is gaining ground
that war is raised, and battles fought, by personages high
in command, more for the gratification of their ambition,
their avarice, or their excitement, than for the only legi-
timate end for which any war is allowable—defence of
the empire and its interests. When the mass of details
is somewhat reduced to order, the action of the 13th
January, called by different authorities, the battle
of the Jhelum or of Russoolpore, or of Chillian-
wallah, appears to have taken place under
the following circumstances. Up to the 11 th
of January the grand army, amounting to about 24,000
men, with 120 pieces of cannon, remained in their en-
trenched camp at lleylah, on the right or western bank
of the Chenaub, and at a distance of about eighteen
miles from the position occupied by Shere Singh, in the
close vicinity of the Jhelum. The scene of operations,
therefore, was the small tract of country enclosed by
the two rivers Chenaub and Jhelum, and known as the
Doab of Jirhut. The character of this Doab is one of
extreme sterility. It is described as stretching before
the eye of a spectator beholding it from the Salt Range
in ono monotonous plain, broken only by a solitary emi-
nence of mean elevation above the town of Lollee.
Nothing (said Sir Alexander Burnes, in 1834) can be
more miserable than the country between the Acesires
(Chenaub) and the Hydaspes (Jhelum), a sterile waste of
underwocd, the abode of shepherds, scantily supplied with
water, which is sixty-five feet below the surface. The
Jhelum and the Chenaub are each of them considerable
streams at that point of their course opposite to the en-
campments of the hostile armies. The Chenaub at Ram-
nuggur—the position in the rear of Lord Gough, at
which he has constructed a bridge of boats, to keep open
his communication with the capital and the frontier—is
in the dry season about three hundred yards wide, and
nine feet deep, but with only a sluggish current. The
Jhelum, at Julalpoor, near which place the Seikhs have
also constructed a passage, was found by Elphinstone in
the monsoon season to be one mile and one furlong in
width, with a depth of about twelve feet, and under the
influence of a current which ran with strength and
velocity. The descripton of Sir Alexander Burnes as to
the barrenness of this region has been entirely con-
firmed by the circumstances of the present campaign.
Every kind of provender is described as being ex-
ceedingly scarce, and the commissariat department of
the army as receiving little assistance within the im-
mediate range of the camp. On the 12th of January, it
would appear, in consequence of a consultation with Sir
Henry Lawrence, who bad joined the Commander-in-
Chief on the 10th from Lahore, and from the camp of
the Governor-General, at Mukkoo, the entire army
were ordered to march in the direction of the enemy.
The march continued with one or two brief periods of
halt, through a level country, more or less encumbered
with jungle, until eleven o'clock on the morning of the
13th of January, when a portion of the force came up
with an outpost of the enemy, who, after firing a few
shots, were effectually driven in by a detachment of
artillery. This appears to have been the commence-
ment or the errors which prevailed to the end of the
day. Instead of pursuing his march upon Russool, the
original destination of the army, Lord Gough sud-
denly altered his arrangements, apparently under an
impression that the main body of the Seikhs were close
at hand, and, after changing the position of his
brigades, directed the day camp to be immediately
pitched. This was about two o'clock. The order was
scarcely issued when a volley of round shot from the
enemies' guns came rattling into the camp—some of
them pitching very near to the Commander-in. Chief.
It is alleged that Lord Gough became exceedingly en-
raged at this seemingly very common occurrence. He
is said to have declared that ho would forthwith sweep
the Seikhs from the face of the earth. It is quite certain,
however, that without any preparatory reconnoisance,
a general attack upon the enemy, wherever they might
happen to be found, was instantly directed. Pending
the arrangement of the troops, the artillery of both
armies, for the space of an hour or more, kept up a vi-
gorous exchange of shot—it doss not appear, however,
that the firing on either side produced much effect.
About four o'clock, therefore, in the afternofen the
action virtually commenced by an advance of the
wing of the British army under General
d to the: fire
In this advance the troops became expose
difficulties
Catm bell.
of several Seikh batteries, and aided by the
hd.o.
of the jungle, the ignorance of the .Brisohf oafnyt
sition of the enemy, and the absence eeffecistPual
provision for following up the attacli
afterofou a mostrown
infan-
try, the brigade of General Campbell,
bril-
liant display of valour,
were compelled to fall back on the
main body. It was in these
ueftPerations that her Majes-
ty's 24th regiment of Foo
loss without any parallel in
retreatn
from Cau-
lonodtiai the warfare,if
we
except
the annihilation of the 44th F
bul. Out of a force of 800
men, the 24th regiment have
sustained a loss in this single engagement of 10 officers
killed and 13 wounded; and of_ 218 soldiers killed and
244 wounded. A total, therefore, of 575 men placed
hors de combat out of 800 is the result in one single
regiment of the disastrous arrangements of Lord
Gough. Precisely the same gallant conduct and the
same unfortunate issue distinguished the attacks made
by the centre and right wing of the British—
although in none of the other regiments engaged was
the sacrifice of life so great as in the 24th. The cavalry
posted on the extreme right of the line, consisting of the
14th Light Dragoons and the sth Bengal Cavalry, ap-
pear from some cause or other to have fallen into a mo-
mentary confusion, and are said to have retired from the
field in great disorder. There is most abundant evidence
however, that along the whole of the line extreme em-
barrassment and severe loss were occasioned by the total
ignorance of the British officers of the posture of the
enemy's defences and of their character; by the obstacles
of the jungle; and by the absence of any adequate de-
gree pf cpncert between the FeTerga old the