Tempo:
CHAP. IX
WAR WITH THE ENGLISH
281
Aliwal, and by the sight of the unhonoured remains of 1845-6. their comrades floating down the Sutlej; but the selfeonfidence of a multitude soon returns they had been cheered by the capture of a post of observation established by the English and left unoccupied at night, and they resumed their vaunting practice of performing their military exercises almost within hail of the Yet the judgement of the old and British pickets. experienced could not be deceived; the dangers which threatened the Sikh people pressed upon their minds; they saw no escape from domestic anarchy or froni foreign subjection, and the grey-headed chief Sham Singh of Atari made^known his resolution to die in the first conflict with the enemies of his race, and so to offer himself up as a sacrifice of propitiation to the spirit of Gobind and to the genius of his mystic com:
monwealth. In the British camp the confidence of the soldiery The great, and -'none there despaired of the ^"S^^ fortune of England. The spirits of the men had been attack, raised by the victory of Aliwal, and early in February a formidable siege train and ample stores of ammunition arrived from Delhi. The sepoys looked with delight upon the long array of stately elephants dragging the huge and heavy ordnance of their predilections, and the heart of the Englishman himself swelled with pride as he beheld these dread symbols of the wide dominion of his race. It was determined that the Sikh position should be attacked on the 10th February, and various plans were laid down for making victory sure, and for the speedy gratification of a burning resentment. The officers of artillery naturallj' desired that their guns, the representatives of a high art, should be used agreeably to the established rules of the engineer, or that ramparts should be breached in front and swept in flank before they were stormed by defenceless battalions; but such deliberate tediousness of process did not satisfy the judgement or the impatience of the commanders, and it was arranged that the wholo of the heavy ordnance should be planted in masses opposite particular points of the enemy's entrenchment, and that w^en the Sikhs had been shaken by a continuous storm of shot and shell, the right or weakest part of the position should be assaulted in line by the strongest of the three investing
was likewise
envisions,
which
thousand men.
together
mustered
nearly
fifteen
A large body of British cavalry was
likewise placed to watch the movements of Lai
Sinf?'
WAR WITH THE ENGLISH
281
Aliwal, and by the sight of the unhonoured remains of 1845-6. their comrades floating down the Sutlej; but the selfeonfidence of a multitude soon returns they had been cheered by the capture of a post of observation established by the English and left unoccupied at night, and they resumed their vaunting practice of performing their military exercises almost within hail of the Yet the judgement of the old and British pickets. experienced could not be deceived; the dangers which threatened the Sikh people pressed upon their minds; they saw no escape from domestic anarchy or froni foreign subjection, and the grey-headed chief Sham Singh of Atari made^known his resolution to die in the first conflict with the enemies of his race, and so to offer himself up as a sacrifice of propitiation to the spirit of Gobind and to the genius of his mystic com:
monwealth. In the British camp the confidence of the soldiery The great, and -'none there despaired of the ^"S^^ fortune of England. The spirits of the men had been attack, raised by the victory of Aliwal, and early in February a formidable siege train and ample stores of ammunition arrived from Delhi. The sepoys looked with delight upon the long array of stately elephants dragging the huge and heavy ordnance of their predilections, and the heart of the Englishman himself swelled with pride as he beheld these dread symbols of the wide dominion of his race. It was determined that the Sikh position should be attacked on the 10th February, and various plans were laid down for making victory sure, and for the speedy gratification of a burning resentment. The officers of artillery naturallj' desired that their guns, the representatives of a high art, should be used agreeably to the established rules of the engineer, or that ramparts should be breached in front and swept in flank before they were stormed by defenceless battalions; but such deliberate tediousness of process did not satisfy the judgement or the impatience of the commanders, and it was arranged that the wholo of the heavy ordnance should be planted in masses opposite particular points of the enemy's entrenchment, and that w^en the Sikhs had been shaken by a continuous storm of shot and shell, the right or weakest part of the position should be assaulted in line by the strongest of the three investing
was likewise
envisions,
which
thousand men.
together
mustered
nearly
fifteen
A large body of British cavalry was
likewise placed to watch the movements of Lai
Sinf?'
©
2026
Lehal.net