rebels and delivered Gwalior into their hands. Sir Hugh marched against
Gwalior at once, captured the Morar cantonments on the 16th of June, and
carried the whole of the Gwalior positions by assault on the 19th, thus
restoring his state to Sindhia within ten days of taking the field. This
was the crowning stroke of the Central India campaign, and practically
put an end to the Mutiny, though the work of stamping out its embers
went on for many months, and was only completed with the capture and
execution of Tantia Topi in April 1859.
Not a national rising.
The Indian Mutiny was in no sense a national rising. The great mass of
the people in the affected districts either stood neutral, waiting with
the immemorial patience of the East to accept the yoke of the conqueror,
or helped the British troops with food and service, in many cases also
sheltering British fugitives to the best of their ability. The attempt
to throw off the British yoke was confined to a few disaffected
ex-rulers and their heirs, with their numerous clansmen and hangers-on,
besides the badmashes and highwaymen who saw their way to profit by the
removal of the British administration under which their peculiar talents
found no safe outlet. The Bengal native army was their tool, which
circumstances put into their hands at the psychological moment when
British power seemed to be at its lowest point. But the fighting races
of the Punjab saw no reason for casting in their lot with the mutineers,
and the great majority of the independent princes who had nothing of
which to complain, like Patiala in the Punjab, Holkar and Sindhia in
central India, preserved a loyal or at least an interested friendship.
The Sikhs showed their appreciation of Lawrence's admirable
administration by keeping faith with their recent conquerors, and the
Gurkhas of Nepal did yeoman service for their fathers' enemies. The lack
of any central principle or common interest was shown in the divided
counsels and sporadic action of the mutineers and their allies, which
made them an easy prey to the solid and audacious British forces.
The result of the Mutiny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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