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1857 revolt, India. Enfield rifles. hauntedindia.blogspot.com
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02. The “cartridge”in use for the Enfield Pattern at 53 at the time wasnot made of brass as we know of it today; it was primarily paper-wrapped gunpowder and projectile. Military drills at that point of time required the soldiers to bite to open the cartridge, then pour the gunpowder contained down the barrel and finally ram the cartridge with the bullet down the barrel. Upon setting the sights and adding a percussion cap, the rifle was ready to be fired. The Instruction of Musketry at the time suggested that In case of loss of lubrication due to melting of the grease the instruction was that the bullet should be wetted in the mouth so that the saliva would act as the grease.
03. An interesting fact is in India under the EIC rule when the revolt against the British was on both the British army and the rebels used the Enfield Pattern 53. However, in many places majority of the Indian soldiers relied on the old Brown Bess rather than EnField 53.
04. Besides India the historical event in which both opposing sides had used EnField Pattern 53 was the American Civil War of 1776 between the Confederates and the Union. It is to be noted that the Enfield Pattern 53 was the second most widely used infantry weapon in the war—surpassed only by the Springfield Model 1861 Rifled Muskets.
05. The Confederates relied more on the imported Enfield Pattern 53 rifles from 1861 through 1865 than any other small arm, and this included purchases from private contractors and gun runners
06. Though the advent of Pattern 53 ushered in a new era of the rifle, its usage did not last for a long period.Reason: A better mechanism called breech-loading technology had an advantage over the Pattern 53. Similar to the conversion of many muskets in to rifles, the Pattern 53 was converted to a breech-loading firearm as the .577 Snider-Enfield. It used a new Boxer cartridge that replaced the paper and powder with a metal cased cartridge.
07. The Snider-Enfield appeared to be more accurate and better than the Pattern 53. With the breech-loader a trained soldier could fire up to 10 aimed rounds per minute whereas only three from the muzzle loading rifle. From 1866 many Enfields were converted but new Snider-Enfields but its use was shorter-lived than Pattern 53. Martini-Henry from 1871 became a useful weapon in the wars and Snider-Enfields were relegated to the back with the second line troops till 1901. .
(https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/meet-british-empireshort-lived-legendary-pattern-1853-rifle-196032?)
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| 1857 revolt, India, gettyimages.in |
In the ''Indian History of Freedom Struggle'' against the corrupt East India company and later against the Raj under the British crown, the most significant event - a turning point was that of the
Great War of Independence (then often referred to as the Sepoy mutiny) of 1857. Exploitation and cheating galore, the exasperated natives were pushed to the edge of the cliff as the atrocities by the British peaked far beyond the limits of tolerance.
Students of Indian history know how the revolt was started off on a large scale at Meerut Cantonment, United Provinces (now Uttar pradesh). The revolt of May 10, 1857 at Meerut had it roots in Barrackpore Garrison in the Bengal Presidency against the British officers. It was first initiated by Indian soldiers there. The tinder box of pent up anger and abomination against the unjust foreign rule was ignited by a small spark. It was that of greased cartridges (laced with the fats of cows and pigs) of the latest Pattern 1853 Enfield rifles vehemently introduced by the British government in August 1856.
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Use of enfield rifle. hauntedindia.blogspot.com
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The outer covering of the gunpowder cartridges greased with animal fat had to be opened by biting them in the mouth before the rifles could be loaded. Both Muslim and Hindu soldiers - sepoys, having come to know about the presence of animal fat became furious and refused to use them. The cow's pat and that of pig were taboo to the Hindus and muslims respectively. This was unanimously refused by both the Hindu and Muslim sepoys. The Hindu solidifiers saw it as an attempt to convert them into Christianity and the Muslims looked upon it as an insult to their deep-rooted faith. Ignominy was writ on their face and a tense situation has developed in the garrison.
The indignation reached to such an extent on March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey, a sepoy of the Bengal Army at Barrackpore parade ground refused to bite off the end of his Enfield cartridge and opened fired on his sergeant Major James Hewson and Lt. Henry Baugh who came out to investigate the unrest later. His unexpected act did not get any response from fellow soldiers and he made a futile attempt to commit suicide but ended up wounding himself. The infuriated British army court-martialed him on April 6, 1857 and hanged him to death on April 8, 1857.
Meerut army Cantonment, the second largest under the EIC's rule had 2,357 Indian sepoys and 2,038 British soldiers with 12 British-manned guns. On April 24, 1857 Lieutenant Colonel George Carmichael-Smyth, the commanding officer of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, got angry and 85 of his men faced court-martial on May 9, 1857 for refusing his orders to parade and perform firing drills. As they wantonly refused to use the greased cartridges and disobeyed orders 11 soldiers were imprisoned for 5 years and the rest were sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
The British army, instead being cool, instigated the Indian soldiers of the 11th and 20th cavalry assembled there. In the initial protest they opened the gate of the jail and all the sepoys along with 800 other prisoners escaped. Chaos descended on the army camp and along with the 3rd regiment, the rebel soldiers attacked the remaining British Troops.
The garrison in Meerut was the first to record the event of bloody uprising On the evening of Sunday, May 10, 1857 a small protest mushroomed into a hell-bent bloody riots that resulted in murdering of the British in sight and torching of half the houses in the station. Countless church goers for the evening service at St. John's were caught unawares. In the melee 50 British including soldiers, women and children were killed in Meerut by the rebels. The revolt had spread to Cawnpore (Kanpur) city where 200 European men, women, and children were put to death by the rioting mobs. Vigilante justice was on the mind of the British army and suspected rebels were hanged to death and tied to the mouth of the cannons and executed by the army. The retaliation resulted in the death of more than 100,000 Indians. However, unofficial estimate puts the total death between 500000 to one million. The Crown administration, London took over the direct administration after the relion was put down in the later part of 1957. India being the prime source of revenue for the British, the British never loosened their grip on India till 1947.
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