On 13 January 1849, near the village of Chillianwala close to the river Jhelum in the Punjab, the East India Company's army under General Sir Hugh Gough attacked the Sikh army of Raja Sher Singh Attariwala. The fighting lasted from mid-afternoon until dark in dense scrub. At nightfall both armies were still in the field and both claimed victory, but the Company had lost about 2,300 men, and the battle shook British confidence in India. The site lies today in Pakistan's Punjab.
Two armies near the Jhelum
The Second Anglo-Sikh War began in 1848 with a revolt at Multan, and Sikh regiments soon left British-supervised service to join the rising. Sher Singh's army threw back a Company attack at Ramnagar on 22 November 1848, an action the Sikhs regarded as a victory. In January 1849 Gough moved against Sher Singh's position between Chillianwala and the Jhelum.1
The size of the armies is uncertain, especially on the Sikh side. Gough had roughly 12,000 to 14,000 men and 66 guns. Agha Humayun Amin cites the historian Malleson for about 23,000 Sikhs and Fortescue for 30,000; World History Encyclopedia gives about 30,000 and notes that Gough himself guessed 40,000. World History Encyclopedia gives the Sikhs 62 guns. Our full article on Chillianwala sets out these estimates in more detail.2
An attack through the scrub
Gough sent his infantry forward at about 3 p.m., after more than an hour of artillery fire. Thorny scrub, which World History Encyclopedia describes as up to eight feet high, hid the Sikh guns and split the advancing regiments into groups that lost touch with one another.3
In the center left, the British 24th Foot pressed ahead of its brigade, reached a Sikh battery with the bayonet and was then shot down by grape and musketry from the scrub. Its brigade commander, John Pennycuick, was killed; World History Encyclopedia adds that his 17-year-old son died at his side. The regiment's losses are given differently: the National Army Museum gives 515 casualties, 238 of them killed, and World History Encyclopedia 231 killed and 266 wounded. The National Army Museum quotes General Sir Charles Napier's later verdict that the regiment's conduct had "never been surpassed by British soldiers on a field of battle".4
On the right, Brigadier Pope's cavalry brigade was thrown into confusion by an unclear order that was taken as a command to retire, and the 14th Light Dragoons and the Indian cavalry with them fell back. Sikh horsemen overran the horse artillery behind them, and the Company lost four guns. On the left, according to the Queen's Royal Hussars Museum, a squadron of the 3rd Light Dragoons under Captain Unett charged through a large body of Sikh cavalry and cut its way back; of 106 men, only 48 were still in the saddle at the end of the day.5
A night with no winner
At dusk Gough pulled his army back toward Chillianwala. According to the National Army Museum, Sikh troops then recovered 28 of the 40 guns taken from them and carried off three British colors.6
The Company's losses are the best documented figure of the battle, and they are still given in more than one way. The National Army Museum and World History Encyclopedia give about 2,300. The detailed return quoted by Amin is 602 killed, 1,651 wounded and 104 missing, 2,357 in all. Sikh losses are far less certain. Writing in Dawn, Majid Sheikh notes that the British put them at almost 4,000 and calls the figures vague. Amin stresses that no independent, reliable Sikh account of the battle exists.7
Who won, and what came next
Both sides claimed the day. The Sikhs had taken guns and colors and routed part of Gough's cavalry, while Gough claimed the battle as a victory. The Sikh historian Ganda Singh, in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, writes that Sher Singh worsted the British there, while World History Encyclopedia calls the battle a bloody and indecisive clash. Many historians now describe it as indecisive.8
Gough was heavily criticized for his tactics, and the Company's directors named Sir Charles Napier to replace Gough as commander-in-chief in India. Napier arrived too late to matter. On 21 February 1849 Gough, with about 23,000 men, defeated the combined Sikh armies at Gujrat. Sher Singh surrendered at Rawalpindi on 14 March, and the Company annexed the Punjab; the National Army Museum dates the annexation to 29 March 1849.9 › Battle of Gujrat, 1849
Also on this day
- 1951: Battle of Vĩnh Yên. French Union forces led by Jean de Lattre de Tassigny fought the communist Viet Minh of Vo Nguyen Giap at Vinh Yen, north of Hanoi, during the First Indochina War.
