Atraolia
The 3000 Gurkhas of Jung Bahadur of Nepal entered India north of Gorakhpur at the end of July 1857. Their arrival signalled the disarming of the sepoys at that station on August 1st; however, Edward Frederick Venables, an English indigo-planter, had already been making himself known. While the mutiny at Azamgarh had prompted him to leave, upon hearing that several clerks and planters had been unable to make good their escape, it was Venables, along with Mr P. Dunn, who determined to rescue them. They set out on 16 June, barely ten days after the mutiny, with only a few mounted constables lent to them by A. Ross, magistrate of Ghazipur. Venables created a small levy of his own, consisting of a few tenants from his Duri Ghat estate and a few volunteers; his sudden appearance in Azamgarh had the effect that the 13th Irregulars decided to abandon the city, leaving it open for Venables to reoccupy. On 10 July, Venables took the offensive against the sepoys who were still lurking about the city, and with 75 mounted constables, an old gun and his own levy, attacked the police station and freed his friends. Unfortunately, Venables, perhaps bolstered a little too much by his own moderate success, decided to take the fight to a few recalcitrant Rajputs in the district; his levy deserted him, and he was forced to return to Azamgarh. On 20 July, he decided to try it again, this time leading the cavalry himself, followed by whoever was still mad enough to stay with him. Venables managed to set the remaining Azamgarh rebels on a headlong flight away from the station. Calmer heads did prevail, and Commissioner Tucker ordered Venables to quit his one-man war, abandon Azamgarh, which he had no hope of holding. and return to Ghazipur. As soon as the Gurkhas were within shouting distance, however, Venables quickly attached himself to these new allies and returned to Azamgarh. On 19 September, at Manduri, when the Nepalese launched a surprise attack on the rebels, Venables led the cavalry, seized a gun and killed three men with his own hand. It was no surprise, then, when Brigadier Franks marched with the Jaunpore Field Force, Venables volunteered his services.
Of course, it would not do to leave Azamgarh District unguarded, but the force left in place was hardly a formidable one. Called the Azamgarh Field Force, it consisted of 260 men of HM’s 37th Regiment, 60 sowars of the 4th Madras Cavalry and a very negligible artillery of two light field guns; the whole was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Egerton Milman of the 37th. On the day Kunwar Singh formed a junction with his rebel allies at Atraolia – the 17th of March – Milman and his force happened to be encamped in the district at Koelsa, not far from Azamgarh. Milman was none the wiser that Kunwar Singh was Atraolia, only 25 miles from Azamgarh, but a communication received from Mr R. Davies, magistrate at Azamgarh, reached him on 21 March. It was vague, stating only that a considerable body of rebels was in the neighbourhood of Atraolia but of enough interest for Milman to set off, at 3 in the morning, with 96 men of HM’s 37th, one 24-pounder howitzer, one 9-pounder of the Bengal Artillery, 25 European gunners and 140 sowars of the Madras Cavalry. By daybreak, Milman had found the rebels, and they had no idea he was coming. They were settled in several groves of mango trees, and being quite unaware of Milman’s approach, they did not notice when he advanced his skirmishers out in front; he then sent on his guns, supported by the 37th, with the Madras Cavalry under Colonel Cumberlege on the flanks. Startled by the sudden onslaught, which began with Lieutenant Welsh opening fire with the guns directly into the trees, the rebels, who were mostly sepoys from the Dinapore regiments, decided this was not a fight they wanted and fled, with Millman’s cavalry keeping up the chase until the ground became too “marshy and unsound” that they were forced to give up. Thinking this was the end of the day’s work, Milman gathered his force together and marched to Lorkha, a village which Milman, for some unfathomable reason known only to him, ordered destroyed. Leaving the burning village behind him, he returned to Atraolia.
As his men settled down in the very mango groves but recently vacated by the rebels to betake themselves to their belated breakfast, a scout confounded Milman’s repose with the news that the rebels were advancing, and this time, it was not a few men languishing under trees, but at least 5000 of them. Milman, realising he needed to see things for himself, proceeded with some skirmishers to “ascertain their strength and position” and found them quite quickly, posted behind a mud wall in the midst of another grove of trees and a field of tall sugar cane. He quickly sent back orders for his troops to advance, but it was too late. The number of rebels continued to multiply so quickly, and “they covered such a large space of ground that both my flanks were threatened,” that there really was very little he could do. The first thing the rebels did was try to turn his left flank, and Milman, realising he was in serious trouble, still tried to check their progress by ordering the advance, but he was outnumbered, as much as eight to one. Then, retreating slowly, Millman ordered his force to withdraw, first to the village of Atraolia and then right through it, hoping he could reach Koelsa. All the way, the rebels harassed Milman’s force, never charging but keeping up a steady advance and an even steadier onslaught of musket fire. Had Kunwar Singh ordered an all-out attack, it would have certainly been the end of every last man. Instead, he tried only once more to outflank Milman, but the 4th Madras Cavalry charged, and the rebels drew back.
As soon as Milman arrived in Koelsa, he found a very different place from the one he had left behind him the day before. “The rumour of their mishap had preceded them. A panic had seized the camp-followers, most of whom had fled, taking their bullocks with them.” Besides this, the villagers surrounding Koelsa would have been impossible to contain, and many had turned out now, armed. Despatching a squadron of cavalry and an infantry piquet to keep an eye on the rebels, Milman set about organising his retreat. However, the hackery-drivers had disappeared, as had the cooks and the camp-followers. Leaving behind a quantity of tents and a considerable amount of baggage, much to Kunwar Singh’s delight, Millman gathered up his pride and made for Azamgarh.
“This was a vexatious and serious discomfiture. It told unfavourably in two directions; for while it paralysed the exertions of the few British officers and troops in that region, it afforded to the rebels an excuse for vaunting abroad their prowess and success. The natives, inexplicable in character to Europeans, were often incredulous to rumours of defeat among their own countrymen; but rumours on the other side spread among them with astounding rapidity, encouraging them to schemes of resistance which they might possibly otherwise have avoided.”
As soon as he arrived in Azamgarh, Milman set about entrenching himself in the only defensible building in the town — the jail — which was surrounded by a deep ditch. He set every man to work strengthening the defences and sincerely hoped that Kunwar Singh would not attack before help arrived. Instead, the insurgents continued to arrive until they had fairly surrounded him and taken over Azamgarh. Milman did send off messages to Benares, Allahabad and Lucknow, calling for assistance; the first to respond was Benares, from whence 46 men of the Madras Rifles were dispatched on 24 March, but they were set into bullock carts, and progress was slow. The following day, 150 men of HM’s 37th set off from Ghazipur, who could not proceed any faster than the Rifles. Two days later, 130 of the same regiment and the headquarters division of the 4th Madras Cavalry managed to reach Azamgarh, with two guns in tow, and into the entrenchment, with Colonel William Longworth Dames leading the rush. He swiftly took over command from Milman and attempted a sortie with 200 Europeans, two guns and 60 sowars of the Madras Cavalry with a vague idea of breaking the siege. At first, it appeared he had made an impression, but Kunwar Singh redoubled his efforts and chased Dames back into the entrenchment. The folly cost Dames one officer (Captain Bedford, HM’s 37th) and 11 men killed and wounded.
“The express despatched to Allahabad reached that place on the 27th. Lord Canning was at Allahabad. The news caused him anxiety. Knowing what sort of a man Kunwar Singh was, that he possessed audacity and courage, and that he knew the value of time in military operations, he realised at once the danger of the situation. He saw how possible it was for the Jagdispur chieftain, reinforced as he daily was by troops who had escaped from Lakhnao, to overwhelm Milman at Azamgarh, and then rapidly traversing the eighty-one miles which separated that place from Banaras, then almost ungarrisoned, to seize that important city, and thus sever the communications between Calcutta on the one side and the Governor-General of India at Allahabad and the Commander in-Chief of the army at Lakhnao on the other.”
And still Kunwar Singh did not attack. He merely invested the jail and attempted to starve the British out, while pouring an unremitting fire on their heads. While he could have been on his way to Benares, leaving a decent force to continue the blockade, he remained instead in Azamgarh, quite unaware that the British still had a trick up their sleeves, and he was named Lord Mark Kerr.
Sources:
Ball, Charles. The History of the Indian Mutiny. Vol. 2. London: The London Printing & Publishing Company, Ltd., n.d.
Behan, T. L. Bulletins & Other State Intelligence for the Year 1858, Part III. London: Harrison & Sons, 1860.
Dodd, George. The History of the Indian Revolt and the Expedition of Persia, China & Japan. London: W. & R. Chambers, 1859.
Malleson, G. B. History of the Indian Mutiny 1857-1858. Vol. 2. London: William H. Allen & Co., 1879.
Mutiny Reflections 