Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s10.1

v4.c56.s10.1

While in the north Gerard Lake was training his army by personally heading vast troop exercises and daily camaraderie with his officers in the hunting-field and dinner parties, where the wine cup overflowed till long past midnight,—in the south Arthur Wellesley was sharpening his military machine equally well but by a different method. The “bleak sublimity of his genius” made him work in isolation. The future conqueror of Napoleon had already discovered that “a modern army marches on its stomach.” Therefore, in his earliest Indian campaign, Arthur Wellesley set himself to ensuring the food supply of his troops by organizing the famous Mysore bullock teams with as much care and success as he showed later in building up his mule transport in the Peninsular War. In addition, he with tireless industry experimented and perfected the plan of using coracles (oval row-boats made of sewn hides stretched over wicker-work frames) for ferrying his troops over the rocky rivers of the south. In this way he discovered the exact number of men or weight of material that each coracle could safely carry. At the same time he kept his detachment commanders awake to the necessity of constantly guarding against their store of bullock-fodder catching fire.