by Kiran Nirvan
The Pathans, who had seemed in a hurry to take down the post just a little while ago, now took cover behind rocks and in defiles where the bullets could not reach them. Using groundcover, the tribesmen began to fire incessantly at the fort even as the battlefield in front of them was sprinkled with dead bodies from the first attack. A firefight ensued, but the Sikhs had to be very careful while using their ammunition as every soldier had only 400 rounds to sustain him in this bloody battle.
In the meantime, Signalman Gurmukh Singh used their heliograph machine to send a message to Lieutenant Colonel John Haughton that they were under attack. While he was distressed to hear this, Haughton replied that it was impossible for him to send reinforcements at the time as they would not be able to break through the intervening hordes of Pathans. Havildar Ishar Singh then had Gurmukh Singh send a single word as a reply – ‘Understood’. This reply spoke volumes about Havildar Ishar Singh’s stature and his maturity at the time.
In the midst of the battle, two Pathans sneaked towards the fort walls, moving along defiles under cover fire. Upon reaching one of the walls, they began to make attempts to break it down. As the breach in the wall widened with each passing moment, Havildar Ishar Singh finally noticed it and placed a handful of his soldiers there to welcome the trespassers with their bayonets. Those who trespassed met their death in a fierce hand-to-hand battle until a pile of dead Afghans were choking the opening. Irritated and dispirited, the tribesmen withdrew behind cover. They had received quite a disheartening blow as the battle they thought they would win within minutes had gone on for more than three hours.
Meanwhile, from a distance, an anxious Lieutenant Colonel John Haughton, the commanding officer of 36th Sikhs, saw his 21 men fighting against incredible odds but was also relieved to know that it was Sikhs – under the able Havildar Ishar Singh’s command – who held this vulnerable post. At about midday, Havildar Ishar Singh had Gurmukh send a message to Lieutenant Colonel Haughton stating, ‘I am down to half my men but the remainder now have two weapons each and so a larger share of ammunition.’ This message from Havildar Ishar Singh motivated his commanding officer enough that he decided to send a sortie towards the Saragarhi post. Hence, Lieutenant Munn, an officer of the 36th, with a small party of soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment were sent to try to create a diversion by firing at the enemy encircling Saragarhi from long-range rifles like their Lee-Metfords. This was done as ordered, but to no avail. The tribesmen were in the thousands and their focus was solely on Saragarhi.
While the troops in the two main forts were formulating various ways in which to safeguard their signals post, another attempt to breach the wall at Saragarhi had begun. By then, the remaining Sikh soldiers had managed to inflict a great number of casualties on the tribesmen. The incessant firing from the Afghans had not prevented the young soldiers from shooting down their targets. It is a testament to their battle-readiness that even when they were in thousands, the tribesmen didn’t attempt another all-out attack against the Sikhs, fearing another setback. However, Saragarhi’s defence was wearing thin, and with the Afghans pressing in from all sides, at about three in the afternoon, Havildar Ishar Singh had Signalman Gurmukh Singh notify their commanding officer that their ammunition was running short. It was then that Lieutenant Colonel Haughton and Lieutenant Munn once again attempted to create a diversion or a breakthrough. Such was the plight of this commanding officer that as much as he desired to help his men, he could do nothing but remain a terribly anxious spectator to this unmatched display of valour by his men.
Even as the battle raged, another vulnerable point of the Saragarhi post caught the attention of the tribesmen – the wooden gate studded with iron, which was not big enough to be unsurpassable and, with adequate effort, could be brought down. With utter disregard for their safety, parties of tribesmen charged towards the wooden gate with bundles of brushwood which were lit to set the gate on fire. The first two attempts to bring the gate down were rendered unsuccessful by the brave soldiers. But the Afghans kept coming, making their way through the dead bodies of their brethren. Considerably reduced in numbers, the remaining Sikhs brought calculated fire upon an advancing enemy as best as they could. With each falling Pathan their ammunition depleted but their spirit remained undaunted even as they held their ground alongside their fallen brothers. The air rang with the sound of hundreds of bullets and Havildar Ishar Singh’s battle cry as he rained bullets upon the advancing tribesmen. A historical saga was in the making – a spectacular feat of bravery, leadership and military resilience. It was the ‘last stand’ of 21 gallant Sikh men. Years ago, the Pathans had met a similar defeat on their own soil when General Hari Singh Nalwa of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s army had crushed them in battle. The Sikhs at Saragarhi, thus, carried a rich heritage in their blood and they had done all they could to live up to it.
Hours passed and the battle still continued. With limited ammunition, the remaining Sikhs fired only when the enemy came into the effective range of their rifles. An attempt to bring down the gate was made again, even as the breach in the wall was widening. Those at Fort Cavagnari could see the breach being made but the smoke rising from burning brushwood had rendered their heliograph warning messages ineffective. Critically injured Sikhs who could still manage to lift a rifle took some of their final shots before they succumbed to their injuries. Still composed under the stress of a losing battle, a competent Havildar Ishar Singh ran from man to man, motivating them to give their best as he quoted their Guru’s teachings. However, even to Havildar Ishar Singh, it had now become obvious that the end was rapidly approaching.
Meanwhile, in a final attempt to reinforce the party at Saragarhi, Lieutenant Colonel Haughton with Lieutenant Munn and 90 Sikhs had advanced only thousand yards towards the post when they realized that it was too late. The wall had been breached and the half-burnt gate, which was riddled and torn by rifle fire, had also fallen. A large section of the wall weakened by the breach had caved into an underground tunnel, providing the tribesmen with an opportunity to rush inside the post. The reinforcement party saw the enemy swarm inside the post through the breach and the doorway and knew that before they would reach Saragarhi, it would all be over. Complying with Havildar Ishar Singh’s final command, a young and undeterred Signalman Gurmukh Singh, who had been performing his duty relentlessly, transmitted one last message via the heliograph: ‘We are being overrun but will not surrender. Request permission to close down and join the fight.’ After receiving the prompt reply of ‘permission granted’, Sepoy Gurmukh Singh carefully dismantled the heliograph and, having packed it safely, picked up his weapon and joined the fight. By the time the Pathans swarmed inside the fort, only five of the 21 soldiers remained standing. Displaying leadership of the highest calibre, Havildar Ishar Singh commanded his men to fall back and take refuge in the inner part of the fort whilst he remained behind to fight the advancing enemy. However, in a fierce hand-to-hand combat that ensued under an echoing war cry, the remaining soldiers pounced on the tribesmen and took with them as many as they could before they were, at last, martyred. Gurmukh Singh alone is said to have killed 20 Afghans before he fell. From a distance, Lieutenant Colonel Haughton gazed at Saragarhi with a sense of veneration. The battle was over. The 21 brave soldiers and one non-combatant member of the 36th Sikhs lay inside the fort, martyred. They had performed their duty magnificently, defying terrible odds and setting an unparalleled example of loyalty, selfless service and sacrifice. As the seven-hour-long battle concluded, the other two forts had been given enough time to reinforce and fortify their defences. With almost 600 dead, it was a massive setback for the numerically superior tribesmen. After having paid a terrible price, the humiliated tribesmen set the post on fire and retreated into the valley to regroup.
Top and bottom: Ruins of the Saragarhi fort photographed a few days after the battle
As the day once again came to an end in Tirah, a heroic saga had been written. Such were the feats displayed in this epi
c battle – brought to light by heliograph messages and on-ground witnesses – that it often becomes difficult separating reality from exaggeration. There exists a monument on Samana Spur near Fort Lockhart and a cairn on the site of Saragarhi post which was built by the British Indian Army to commemorate the gallantry of the defenders of Saragarhi, including a plaque inscribed with the names of the 21 heroes. The inscription on it states that the battle ‘is a perpetual record of the heroism shown by these gallant soldiers who died at their posts in defence of the post of Saragarhi on 12th September 1987, fighting against overwhelming numbers, thus proving their loyalty and devotion to the sovereign, the Queen Empress of India and gloriously maintaining the reputation of the Sikhs for unflinching courage in the field of battle’.
A grateful British government awarded each of the 21 soldiers of the battle of Saragarhi the ‘Indian Order of Merit (3rd Class)’, the highest honour equivalent to the Victoria Cross that could be given to an Indian soldier at the time.
The battle of Saragarhi is one of the eight stories of collective bravery published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The story of this battle was also included in school textbooks in France as one of the most incredible sagas in world military history. The magnificence of this glorious battle was also acknowledged in many written records, some of which will be mentioned as we move to the next chapter, but as of now, we should commit the glorious battle to memory and not let the heroic saga of its 21 brave soldiers fade away with the passage of time.
1Hari Singh Nalwa (1791-1837) was Commander-in-Chief of the Sikh Khalsa Army, the army of the Sikh empire during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He is known for his role in the conquests of Kasur, Sialkot, Attock, Multan, Kashmir, Peshawar and Jamrud. He is also the founder of Haripur city in Pakistan, which is named after him. Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa is considered to be the only person to have ever completely controlled the Khyber Pass for as long as he did, beginning with the battle at Kasur in 1807 to the taking of Jamrud in 1836. He was well known for his wit and superior knowledge of warfare tactics.
11
The Aftermath
The heat of the burning walls of Saragarhi was felt everywhere in British India as well as in England where a telegraph delivered the news of this heroic episode to the queen in an ongoing parliament session which made the queen say, ‘The British, as well as the Indians, are proud of the 36th Sikh Regiment. It is no exaggeration to record that the armies which possess the valiant Sikhs cannot face defeat in war.’1 Major Des Voeux, the officer who was the second-in-command of the 36th Sikhs who had witnessed the entire battle had the following to say: ‘Twenty-one men of mine fought like demons. One brave fellow held out in the guard room, and killed twenty of the enemy. He could not be conquered, and at last was burned at his post. These men died the death of heroes, and though the annals of the native army of India are full of brave deeds, these men gave up their lives in devotion to their duty.’2
Soon, the story of this saga had spread like wildfire and reached every native soldier in every British regiment, serving as a motivating factor for the other troops who were to fight the battles of the Tirah Campaign. When General Sir Arthur Power Palmer, the then Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army, learnt about the Battle of Saragarhi, he said, ‘The conduct displayed by the twenty one men of the 36th Sikh Regiment was characteristic of the nation’s tradition. It should be kept as an example to others, in order to show how brave men should behave when facing fearful odds.’3
Words of praises for the 21 Sikhs soon flooded the newspapers and there was not a single British officer who didn’t add to it. ‘You are never disappointed when you are with the Sikhs. Those twenty one soldiers all fought to the death. That bravery should be within all of us. Those soldiers were lauded in Britain and their pride went throughout the Indian Army. Inside every Sikh should be this pride and courage. The important thing is that you must not get too big-headed, it is important to be humble in victory and to pay respect to the other side,’ wrote Colonel John Douglas Slim4 in praise of the martyrs of Saragarhi.
We can only try to imagine the plight of a Commanding Officer who had to see his men defend a post with their lives and could do nothing to help them. The nights he spent introspecting shows the qualities that likely earned him the loyalty of his battalion, as his own account of the events show. In letters to his wife dated 13 and 15 September 1897 from Fort Lockhart, Lieutenant Colonel John Haughton expressed his feelings on the matter5:
Yesterday was a terrible day, for I saw twenty-one of our gallant men slaughtered at Saragarhi, and was unable to do anything to prevent it. On the 11th great numbers of the enemy were seen going off in the direction of Hangu; and the General, being fearful for the safety of the small camp there, went off with his force in the evening to save Hangu. His force went down by the Saifuldarra road, or, rather, along the hills that way. They were engaged with the enemy from 10 p.m. to 4.30 the next morning; we could see the fight going on, but could do nothing. I hear we had only about two or three killed, and the enemy had fifteen or sixteen. The situation at 9 a.m. on the 12th was as follows – The enemy was in great force on the next hill beyond Sangar (where there used to be a police post called Gogra). Another force, numbering many thousands, appeared on the hills at Saragarhi (that is, between this and Gulistan), and there were a lot more between here and Saragarhi, below the crests of the hills. They simply swarmed on the hills near Saragarhi, which post they surrounded at a short distance, and kept firing at. At twelve o’clock Saragarhi signalled that they had one sepoy killed and one Naik wounded, and three rifles broken by the enemy’s bullets. Mr Munn took out twelve men of the Royal Irish (who had been left here sick and as signalers), and tried to fire long-range volleys at the enemy, who were visible from here, though sheltered by rocks from the Saragarhi fort. We saw the enemy make at least two assaults on the post, but they were driven back. At three o’clock I came to the determination, at all costs, to try and make some diversion; so, as soon as possible afterwards, Mr. Munn and I with ninety-eight rifles went out, leaving seventy-three men to defend Fort Lockhart. We had to go very cautiously, as our spies reported a strong force of Afridis below the hills, to the right of the road between this and Saragarhi. We had only gone about three-quarters of a mile when we saw Saragarhi taken by the enemy. Of course it is difficult to say what occurred, but from our own observations and from reports, it seems that the enemy managed to break down the door of the post (a wooden one – a fearful mistake), and then our poor men ran down from the parapet to defend the doorway… I am not sure whether the above is quite correct – that is, whether the door was broken in or not; but Major Des Voeux, who was surrounded at Gulistan, saw the Pathans at Saragarhi making a hole in a dead angle in the wall. They got in there, and our men ran down to defend the hole, and the enemy immediately swarmed over the walls. The end was not long, though it is said that one poor fellow defended himself in the guard-room and shot twenty of the enemy inside the post. The brutes then set the place on fire.
No sooner had the Saragarhi post fallen did the enemy divert their attention to Fort Cavagnari, which was cut off from Fort Lockhart, making it much more vulnerable given the recent developments. There was much at stake for the Afghans who had lost alarming numbers in an unexpectedly fierce battle. While the battle of Saragarhi was still being fought, another group of Pathans had occupied Samana Suk and Piquet Hill by forenoon and were disturbingly close to Fort Gulistan, where Major De Voeux and his men stood prepared to face them. The attack on Fort Gulistan commenced at about four in the afternoon on 12 September, after Saragarhi fell. Major De Voeux positioned his men along the defences and on each bastion, with a sentry to keep a special watch on any attempt by the Pathans to breach the outer wall, a lesson they had learnt after witnessing the same happening at Saragarhi. Incessant firing that began and continued through the night of 12 September until dawn the next day brought no respite; in fact, it was obse
rved in the morning that the tribesmen had managed to take defensive positions close to the fort walls along its entire periphery.
To effectively make use of initiative, i.e. making the first move keeping in mind the enemy’s strategies, Major De Voeux decided that a raid needed to be carried out against the Pathans. As a result, Havildar Kala Singh, a motivated non-commissioned officer (NCO) who volunteered for the raid, went out with a handful of his men at about eight in the morning and crept to the south-west corner where they, with their bayonets, charged at the enemy hiding in the folds of the ground. The Pathans, however, were quick on the uptake and began to fire at them, forcing them to take cover. At this juncture, another NCO named Havildar Sunder Singh along with eleven other men hurdled over the walls to provide them with support, and both parties together charged at the Pathans and drove them away before successfully returning to the fort. Men who were gravely injured in this raid were also brought back inside the hornwork – a testament to the commendable quality of the Sikhs to leave no man behind. Later, two of these raiding soldiers succumbed to their injuries.