Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s9: § 4. How General Lake trained his army for the Maratha war
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s9
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§ 4. How General Lake trained his army for the Maratha war
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On the British side, the military preparations for the coming war were worthy of a race that deserves to win an empire, because it provides for everything that can be thought of beforehand and leaves very little to be clumsily improvised under the stress of actual conflict. In Northern India the Commander-in-chief, General Lake, was in the full vigour of body and mind. From his 17th year he had received the best apprenticeship in war by serving close to Frederick the Great, and since then he had gathered experience in a successsion of Continental and American wars. More recently he had proved himself an active and clever leader, by the ruthless energy with which he had crushed the Irish rebels of Vinegar Hill (1798.) After landing in Calcutta on 31 January 1801, he set up his head-quarters at Cawnpur, then the frontier station of the Company's territory, and here he spent the winter of 1802-3 in personally training his men and officers in the new tactics that would ensure success against an enemy like the Marāthas.
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During winter Lake's headquarters were located at Kanauj, 50 miles north-west of Cawnpur. In the vast plain on the bank of the the Ganges here, the various cavalry regiments, British and Indian, were assembled and exercised together, according to a uniform system under the eyes of the Commander-in-chief himself, throughout the winter months of 1802-1803. Chief among the exercises was the use of galloper guns,* the efficiency of which was proved shortly afterwards in this war, by the terror which they produced on the Marātha horse. "Two of these guns, six-pounders, were attached to each regiment of horse, and nothing could exceed the speed and exactness of the manoeuvres made with them at full speed by this large body of cavalry, whose combined movements were conducted with the most perfect order and in a spirit of rivalry. Such continuous training gave Lake an opportunity of testing the capacities of his officers and men, and inspiring them with much of his fearless and confident spirit." (Thorn, 80, Pearse, 151.) At the same time he won his officers' hearts by frequently joining them at table and the hunting field, while his soldiers loved and admired him for his personal touch with them, his good humour and his sharing their hardships in campaigning. His principle of war was always to attack and attack with impetuous vigour, at the same time that he maintained strict discipline in the ranks and cohesion among the different divisions. (Pearse, 132, 416, 151-154 ; Pester, *War and Sport* ; Shipp's *Memoirs*, ch. 6-8.)
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∗ As H. Wellesley wrote, "The farmers, soon found the advantage of living under our mild system, free from the extortions and oppression to which they had before been subjected, and it is incredible how soon the country began to assume an appearance of greater prosperity." (Diary, p. 39).
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While the cavalry at Kanauj was thus preparing itself for the next war, the infantry regiments in Cawnpur, Fathgarh, and other stations in Oudh were being provided by General F. St. John with an organisation of light infantry† companies (*i.e.*, sharp shooters), similar to those introduced about the same time into the army in England. The French Revolutionary soldiers had shown what sharp-shooting light infantry could do, and that lesson was here taught to the British Indian army.
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∗ Galloper guns or horsedrawn light artillery were a novelty in India in those days, and were first introduced by De Boigne about 1790. The E. I. Co. took up the idea later. † "Light infantry, that is marksmen or sharp-shooters." (Williams, *Hist. Bengal Nat Inf.*, p. 275). Sir John Moore drilled the Light Division at Shorncliffe (Lloyd's *Review of Inf.*, p. 221). Cole and Priestley, *Outline of Br. Mil. Hist.*, 2nd ed., p.
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¹²¹ Pearse, p. 154.