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| Battle of Sobraon | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theFirst Anglo-Sikh War | |||||||
 British illustration of the battle | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Sikh Empire | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Sardar Tej Singh Sardar Lal Singh Sardar Sham Singh Attariwala † |  Sir Hugh GoughSir Henry HardingeRobert Henry Dick †.svg) Henry LawrenceHarry SmithSir Walter Gilbert | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 26,000 70 guns[1] | 20,000 35 siege guns 30 field or light guns[1] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 8,000–10,000 67 guns captured[2] | 2,383 total[2] | ||||||
 | |||||||
TheBattle of Sobraon was fought on 10 February 1846, between the forces of theEast India Company and theSikh Khalsa Army, the army of the decliningSikh Empire of thePunjab.[3][4] The Sikhs were completely defeated, making this the decisive battle of theFirst Anglo-Sikh War.
._Lithograph_after_an_original_sketch_by_Prince_Waldemar_of_Prussia_and_published_in_%2527In_Memory_of_the_Travels_of_Prince_Waldemar_of_Prussia_to_India_1844-1846%2527_(Vol.II).jpg)
._Lithograph_after_an_original_sketch_by_Prince_Waldemar_of_Prussia_and_published_in_%2527In_Memory_of_the_Travels_of_Prince_Waldemar_of_Prussia_to_India_1844-1846%2527_(Vol.II).jpg)
The First Anglo-Sikh war began in late 1845, after a combination of increasing disorder in the Sikh empire following the death ofRanjit Singh in 1839 and provocations by the British East India Company led to theSikh Khalsa Army invading British territory. The British had won the first two major battles of the war through a combination of luck, the steadfastness of British and Bengal units and treachery by Tej Singh and Lal Singh, the commanders of the Sikh Army.
On the British side, the Governor General, SirHenry Hardinge, had been dismayed by the head-on tactics of the Bengal Army's commander-in-chief, SirHugh Gough, and was seeking to have him removed from command. However, no commander senior enough to supersede Gough could arrive from England for several months. Then the army's spirits were revived by the victory gained by SirHarry Smith at theBattle of Aliwal, in which he eliminated a threat to the army's lines of communication, and the arrival of reinforcements including much-needed heavy artillery and two battalions ofGurkhas.
The Sikhs had been temporarily dismayed by their defeat at theBattle of Ferozeshah, and had withdrawn most of their forces across theSutlej River. The RegentJind Kaur who was ruling in the name of her son, the infant MaharajaDuleep Singh, had accused 500 of her officers of cowardice, even flinging one of her garments in their faces.
The Khalsa had been reinforced from districts west ofLahore, and now moved in strength into a bridgehead across the Sutlej at Sobraon, entrenching and fortifying their encampment. Any wavering after their earlier defeats was dispelled by the presence of the respected veteran leader,Sham Singh Attariwala. Unfortunately for the Khalsa, Tej Singh and Lal Singh retained the overall direction of the Sikh armies. Also, their position at Sobraon was linked to the west, Punjabi, bank of the river by a single vulnerable pontoon bridge. Three days' continuous rain before the battle had swollen the river and threatened to carry away this bridge.
Gough had intended to attack the Sikh army as soon as Smith's division rejoined fromLudhiana, but Hardinge forced him to wait until a heavy artillery train had arrived. At last, he moved forward early on 10 February. The start of the battle was delayed by heavy fog, but as it lifted, 35 British heavy guns and howitzers opened fire. The Sikh cannon replied. The bombardment went on for two hours without much effect on the Sikh defences. Gough was told that his heavy guns were running short of ammunition and is alleged to have replied, "Thank God! Then I'll be at them with the bayonet."
Two British divisions under Harry Smith[5] and Major GeneralSir Walter Gilbert made feint attacks on the Sikh left, while another division under Major GeneralRobert Henry Dick made the main attack on the Sikh right, where the defences were of soft sand and were lower and weaker than the rest of the line. (It is believed that Lal Singh had supplied this information to MajorHenry Lawrence, the Political Agent at Gough's headquarters.) Nevertheless, Dick's division was driven back by Sikh counter-attacks after initially gaining footholds within the Sikh lines. Dick himself was killed. As the British fell back, some frenzied Sikh soldiers attacked British wounded left in the ditch in front of the entrenchments, enraging the British soldiers.
The British, Gurkhas and Bengal regiments renewed their attacks along the entire front of the entrenchment, and broke through at several points. On the vulnerable Sikh right, engineers blew a breach in the fortifications and British cavalry and horse artillery pushed through it to engage the Sikhs in the centre of their position. Tej Singh had left the battlefield early. It is alleged in many Sikh accounts that he deliberately weakened the pontoon bridge, casting loose the boat at its centre, or that he ordered his own artillery on the west bank to fire on the bridge on the pretext of preventing British pursuit. British accounts claim that the bridge, having been weakened by the swollen river, simply broke under the weight of the numbers of soldiers trying to retreat across it. Whichever account is correct, the bridge broke, trapping nearly 20,000 of theSikh Khalsa Army on the east bank.
None of the trapped Sikh soldiers attempted to surrender. Many detachments, including one led by Sham Singh Attariwala, fought to the death.[6] Some Sikhs rushed forward to attack the British regiments sword in hand; others tried to ford or swim the river. British horse artillery lined the bank of the river and continued to fire into the crowds in the water. By the time the firing ceased, the Sikhs had lost between 8,000 and 10,000 men.[7] The British had also captured 67 guns.
The destruction of the bridge did not delay Gough at all, if this had indeed been Tej Singh's intention. The first British units began to cross the river on the evening of the day of battle, and on 13 February, Gough's army was only 30 miles (48 km) from Lahore, the Sikh empire's capital. Although detachments of the Khalsa remained intact in outlying frontier districts of the Punjab, they could not be concentrated quickly enough to defend Lahore.
The centraldurbar of the Punjab nominatedGulab Singh, the effective ruler ofJammu, to negotiate terms for surrender. By theTreaty of Lahore, the Sikhs ceded the valuable agricultural lands of theBist Doab (Jullundur Doab) (between theBeas andSutlej Rivers) to the East India Company, and allowed a British Resident at Lahore with subordinates in other principal cities. These Residents and Agents would indirectly govern the Punjab, through SikhSardars. In addition, the Sikhs were to pay an indemnity of 1.2 million pounds. Since they could not readily find this sum, Gulab Singh was allowed to acquireKashmir from the Punjab by paying 750,000 pounds to the East India Company.
A monument was erected on the battle site atRhodawala in 1868.Photographs of the monument
Several years after the battle, Gough wrote,
"The awful slaughter, confusion and dismay were such as would have excited compassion in the hearts of their generous conquerors, if the Khalsa troops had not, in the early part of the action, sullied their gallantry by slaughtering and barbarously mangling every wounded soldier whom, in the vicissitudes of attack, the fortune of war left at their mercy."
After hearing of the battle, the wife of Sham Singh Attariwalaimmolated herself on a funeral pyre without waiting for news of her husband, convinced (correctly) that he would never return alive from such a defeat.
Some accounts state thatLal Singh was present on the battlefield, and accompaniedTej Singh on his retreat. Other sources maintain that he commanded a large body ofgorchurras (irregular cavalry) which was some miles away, and took no action against Gough's army although he might have attacked Gough's communications.
A long-standing friendship between the10th (Lincolnshire) Regiment and29th (Worcestershire) Regiment was cemented at the battle when their two battalions met in the captured trenches that had cost so many lives to take. For many years afterwards, it was the custom that sergeants and officers were honorary members of each other's messes and the adjutants of the two regiments addressed each other as 'My Dear Cousin' in official correspondence.
The battle provides the climax forGeorge MacDonald Fraser's novel,Flashman and the Mountain of Light. It is mentioned inRudyard Kipling'sStalky & Co
