Battle Honours of the British Army: From Tangier, 1662, to the Commencement of the Reign of King Edward VIINorman, Charles Boswell
History
Battle Honours of the British Army: From Tangier, 1662, to the Commencement of the Reign of King Edward VII
Norman, Charles Boswell
Great Britain -- History, Military; Great Britain. Army -- History
In the interval between Eyre Coote's victory at Wandewash in
January, 1760, and the Battle of Buxar in October, 1764, our troops
in India had been continuously at war; yet the colours even of
those regiments which still survive, and which were then in the
service of the Company, bear no record of the many stubborn fights,
the by no means inglorious victories achieved over our gallant
foes. In the South, the Government of Madras had been carrying on
campaign after campaign against the trained troops of France and
the scarcely less formidable army of Mysore. In the North, Clive
and his successor had found foemen no less worthy of their steel in
the armies of the Emperor of Delhi and those of the ruler of Oude,
under Surajah Doolah. History--even Greek history--affords no more
striking episodes than those early struggles of our countrymen in
India; and though the names of Beerpore, Sooty, and Oondna Nullah
are forgotten, they deserve to stand side by side with other
well-remembered names that are emblazoned on the colours of the old
Company's regiments. The Battle of Buxar was the final episode in
the long-fought campaign with the ruler of Oude.
Now that the two senior battalions of the old Company's army have
been converted into the Royal Munster and Royal Dublin Fusiliers,
they are the only regiments which bear on their colours a memento
of one of the finest actions ever fought in India. The British
force numbered between 6,000 and 7,000 men, with twenty-eight
guns. It included, besides the two European regiments in the
Company's employ, a composite battalion, just 167 strong, made up
of detachments of the 84th, or Coote's Regiment, and volunteers
from the disbanded 89th Regiment and 90th (Light Infantry); two
companies of Royal Marines, under Captain Wemyss; a handful of
seamen, with a midshipman, working some guns side by side with the
Bengal Artillery; and a small troop of cavalry, the total being
about 1,200 Englishmen. To these must be added 900 Mogul horse and
5,000 sepoys. This little army was under the command of Colonel Sir
Hector Munro, of the 89th Regiment. The two Company's battalions
were inured to Indian warfare, and the men of the 90th (then the
only Light Infantry regiment in the British army), had learned
their lesson at the capture of Belleisle, Martinique, and Havana,
under their brave Colonel, James Stuart, who was destined to add
to the laurels gained at the Moro a great reputation in Southern
India.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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