Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s6: § 7. Deterioration of De Boigne's army under Perron
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s6
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§ 7. Deterioration of De Boigne's army under Perron
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The splendid army which De Boigne had shaped for Mahādji Sindhiā had undergone a great change of form and spirit in Perron's hands. It had expanded from the three brigades of 1793 to four in 1802, while a fifth was in course of formation in 1803. But it had sadly declined in quality. First, the veteran Europeans of René Madec's corps whom De Boigne had found so useful in officering his newly raised battalions, were mostly dead by 1802. The Savoyard general used to give preference to English and Scotch officers, and lived in personal amity with the British power in India. In contrast with him Perron had a Frenchman's jealousy of the English, and in 1802 his home land was at war with England. Moreover, his meanness of character and avarice made him prefer servile lieutenants to the British subordinates who stood on their own dignity as gentlemen. Thus it came to pass that he made a purge of English and Scotch officers from his army in 1802. In some biographical notes dictated by him after his return to France he gave the following explanation of his action:
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"Sindhia, wishing to reassure himself of men on whom he could count in the case of a rupture [with the English], gave me orders to administer to all his officers without distinction, . . . the oath to serve him faithfully against all the
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enemies with whom he desired or might happen to be at war, and to dismiss all who refused. I sent to all the commandants an order to administer the oath demanded by the prince in their respective brigades. The order was carried out in the 2nd and the 3rd brigades,—the only ones a little close to me, and nearly all the Englishmen and sons of Englishmen took their dismissal. Colonel Dudrenec, however, did not administer the oath in his own brigade, fearing (as he wrote to me) to lose his officers. But as the object of the prince was really to find a decent pretext for expelling them [the British officers] from his army, I enjoined on Mons. Dudrenec to administer the oath strictly. . . . But after that time I did not hear of him again, nor had I any knowledge of his movements.” [Martineau, 166-167.]
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The strength and organisation of De Boigne’s corps in 1793 have been described in Chapter 41, § 7. The condition of Sindhia’s European-trained army in 1802 is thus described by Perron:—“The force which I commanded in the service of Sindhia consisted of four brigades, each of eight battalions. Each battalion had eight companies, each company being 65 infantry in strength. There was a small body of cavalry, from 2,500 to 3,000 horse, [forming the General’s guard.] Each brigade ought to have been commanded by a Colonel, a Major, eight captains and 16 lieutenants. But the difficulty of getting reliable Europeans led to the corps of officers being rarely complete. The cavalry was commanded by a captain and a lieutenant.
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“By reason of the difficulty in getting European officers,—above all Frenchmen, whom the English prevented, as much as lay in their power, from travelling to the princes of the country, we were obliged to accept nearly every [white candidate] who presented himself. And the greater number of my Majors, Captains, and lieutenants were English and the natural sons of English fathers and native women.
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“The four brigades were thus commanded in 1803,—the First by Colonel Pohlmann, the Second by Col. George Hessing (the Eurasian son of Col. John Hessing, a Dutchman), the Third by Louis Bourquien, and the Fourth by Col. Chevalier Dudrenec. The Cavalry was under Captain Fleury.” [Martineau, 165.]
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“Thus every Englishman in the force, . . . was debarred from superior employment, although the British subject; in the brigades numbered no less than forty. Country-borns—a very large factor in the force—who could boast a British origin, fared no better.” [Compton, 277.]
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There were under the Delhi Empire, two other corps affiliated to Perron’s command, by virtue of Sindhia being the official commander-in-chief (*Bakhshi-ul-mamālik*) of the Emperor, but they were paid and controlled independently of Perron; these were the brigade of Jean Baptiste Filose and that of Begam Samru.
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Thus it happened that when the long foreseen clash with the English at last took place, Sindhia’s trained battalions were officered by Frenchmen of a low type (unlike the cultured and aristocratic Frémont or Dudrenec), uneducated Eurasian lads run away from school,* Portuguese mestizoes and even black Christians from Goa.
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The description of Perron’s army given by Resident Collins from information supplied by a British officer in Sindhia’s service, in April 1802, refers to its sanctioned strength and not its actual muster numbers. Collins himself makes this correction in subsequent reports, such as, “The battalions are very incomplete at present, both with
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* James Skinner himself had received so little education that he preferred to write in Hindustani. His father could not afford to keep him in a boarding school in Calcutta. He writes that when Jaswant Holkar defeated Hessing’s corps at Ujjain (17 July, 1801), “Sixteen country-born officers, who were all my school-fellows, were killed at their guns. They had all entered the service within a month of each other.” [i. 171.]
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The condition of Perron’s Eurasian officers as seen by Bishop R. Heber in 1825:—“Scattered up and down in the towns of Koil, Aligarh and Etawa . . . were several elder persons, who had been in the Maratha service during Perron’s time, of European extraction, but who knew no language but Hindustani. One of these Indo-Europeans is an old Colonel, of French extraction, very rich, but completely Indian in colour, dress, language, and ideas.” (*Narrative of Journey*, 2nd ed. 1828, ii. 342.) Probably M. Péche.
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respect to European officers and sepoys. . . . Perron’s infantry brigades are not yet regularly formed into ten battalions each.” Subject to the above qualification, Perron’s force in April-May 1802, was reported by Collins to be made up of four brigades of infantry, each of ten battalions with a bayonet strength of 716 men, four field-pieces and one howitzer to each battalion. Each brigade had, in addition to its battalion field-pieces, a general park consisting of 16 large-calibre guns, The risāla of regular cavalry (inflated by Collins’s correspondent to 4,000 sabres) was supplied with galloper guns. The scale of pay for service in Northern India is given below, to which an addition of 50 p.c. (bata) was made when posted south of the Narmadā:—Major (corresponding to the modern Brigadier) Rs. 1,200 a month; Captain (i.e., colonel commandant of a battalion) Rs. 400; Lieutenant (i.e., company commander) Rs. 200; sepoy infantryman, Rs. 7. [PRC. ix. 50, 50.]
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CHAPTER XLVIII
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WAR PREPARATIONS OF THE ENGLISH AND THE MARATHAS, 1803
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§ 1. Maratha reaction to the Treaty of Bassein
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The Treaty of Bassein bound the English to restore Bāji Rāo II to his throne at Punā. The Governor-General performed this task by his masterly statesmanship, without having to strike a blow. He made a wise distribution of the British forces in the east, north and west, where the loosely scattered dominions of Sindhiā touched the British frontier, and he won the South Marātha barons over to his side by guaranteeing the possession of their estates. Mysore, abutting into the south end of Mahārāshtra, was made a convenient depot of British arms under Arthur Wellesley. The news of these steps struck terror into Sindhiā and Bhonslé.
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The Governor-General knew that the great Marātha sardārs felt an unspeakable aversion to the Treaty of Bassein, and would annul it by force if they had the least hope of success. But he also knew that Bhonslé’s army was contemptible, that Sindhiā would not stand up to English troops unless he was joined by Holkar, and that a union of hearts between Sindhia and Holkar, which alone could threaten danger to the British Power and disturbance to the British protectorate of Haidarabad, was an impossibility. But, while holding firmly on to his legal position of vantage, he avoided making a declaration of war as long as possible, in order to throw the guilt of aggression on Sindhiā. Daulat Rao’s imbecile political manœuvres and the cowardly selfishness of his advisers, made him lose seven months in hesitation and secret intrigue, and then go to war at the wrong time, like a moth that long buzzes round a candle and at last blindly rushes into the flame only to destroy itself.
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When the news of Jaswant Rao Holkar’s victory at Punā reached Ujjain, there was consternation in the Court of Daulat Rao Sindhiā. A reporter in that city wrote, “All here are stunned and taking counsel together. We are wanting in money, wanting in troops. Our forces in the Deccan, both cavalry and trained infantry, have been totally ruined. Daulat Rao has issued letters calling his detachments in Hindustan to his side as he intends to go to the Deccan in person.” But his progress was so slow that even on 7th February 1803 he was still on the north bank of the Narmadā, and arrived near Burhānpur as late as the 24th of that month, exactly four months after the battle of Hadapsar. The question of restoring Bāji Rao to his throne was in agitation in his council and he appealed to the English for help in this task. But the news reached him that the Peshwā had already made a defensive alliance with the English. This meant that Sindhiā’s proud office of the Peshwā’s regent and protector was taken away from him by the force of circumstances which he could not control. He had invited the English as a party to the old friendly treaty of Salbāi to join him in marching to Punā and restoring Bāji Rao to his throne. Wellesley replied that the English could do that work with their unaided strength, and that the best service that Sindhiā could do to his master was to remain at peace within his own dominions and avoid every step that might disturb the Peshwā’s territory. It was only on 28th May that Daulat Rao first read the terms of the momentous treaty from the Persian and Marathi translations supplied to him by the British Resident.*
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∗ The artful Bāji Rao had written to Daulat Rao from Bassein vaguely stating that he had made a friendly alliance with the English, and was sending to him an agent who would discuss the matter with Sindhiā. This envoy, Bāloji Kunjar moved so slowly that he reached Daulat Rao’s camp only at the end of April, and even then he did not bring a copy of the Treaty with him. Resident Collins, who had the text and translations of the treaty with him, justly said that as Sindhiā’s ministers were not prepared to discuss the treaty with him before
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Sindhia's first plan was to gather as many allies as possible, march on Punā, expel Holkar's garrison from it, restore Bāji Rao, and thus recover his own ascendancy as the Peshwā's regent. Wellesley's occupation of Punā in April, killed this plan. In the meantime Daulat Rao had been intriguing with Raghuji Bhonslé of Nagpur and trying to win Jaswant Rao Holkar as an ally in a grand Marātha confederacy to rescue the Peshwā from English vassalage and annul the Treaty of Bassein. Every move in this game was reported to the English by their numerous spies. Marquess Wellesley ordered the Resident Colonel John Collins, who reached Sindhia's camp on 27th February 1803, to demand a categorical reply from Daulat Rao whether he accepted the Treaty of Bassein or objected to it, and at the same time to invite him to join in a general subsidiary alliance with the English as his sovereign had done.