Summary of George Bruce's Six Battles for India

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The British Empire was rising, and the forward policy ruled in India. General Sir Hugh Gough gave a ball at the military outpost of Ambala, northern India, on the night of the tenth of December, 1845. The music, the ritual, and the pleasure of such gatherings inevitably awoke memories of England.
#2 The British went to war with the Sikhs, five thousand miles from their homeland. They were led by good officers, and they believed themselves invincible. They knew that ex-officers of Napoleon’s Grand Army and American Colonel Alexander Gardner had trained the Sikh army to be a match for the British.

Sujets

• Histoire
• South Asia
• History
• Asia
• India

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669398318
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on George Bruce's Six Battles for India
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16 Insights from Chapter 17 Insights from Chapter 18 Insights from Chapter 19
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The British Empire was rising, and the forward policy ruled in India. General Sir Hugh Gough gave a ball at the military outpost of Ambala, northern India, on the night of the tenth of December, 1845. The music, the ritual, and the pleasure of such gatherings inevitably awoke memories of England.

#2

The British went to war with the Sikhs, five thousand miles from their homeland. They were led by good officers, and they believed themselves invincible. They knew that ex-officers of Napoleon’s Grand Army and American Colonel Alexander Gardner had trained the Sikh army to be a match for the British.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The Punjab is a geographical entity that is often described as shaped like a triangle formed by the Indus River flowing first from south-east to north-west and then, changing course suddenly, from north-east to south-west to form two sides. The Sutlej River flowing almost from east to west forms the base.

#2

The Punjab, which borders India, was heavily forested up until the end of the sixteenth century. It was invaded by several different races over the centuries, and the land became a home for successive waves of invading Turks, Afghans, and Mongols.

#3

The Sikh religion was founded by Nanak, who was a disciple of the poet and mystic Kabir. He preached the new monotheistic doctrine of bhakti, based on the teachings of the eleventh-century Hindu saint Ramanuja.

#4

The sixth guru, Arjun, had broken with the Hindu and the Muslim, and he would not worship with the Hindu or the Muslim. He served the one Supreme Being, and he would not pray to idols nor say the Muslims prayer.

#5

Gobind Rai, the son of Guru Nanak, was the next guru. He was a priest and a scholar, and he never forgot that he was also a son with a father to avenge. He stamped Sikhism with his personality and beliefs.

#6

The Sikhs were a military society based on religion, and they were led by Banda, who launched a great uprising against the Mughal government. They took control of northern India, and the Mughal governor of Sirhind was killed.

#7

The first sign of the break-up of the Mughal Empire came in 1738, when the Sikhs were persecuted by both Zakarya Khan and his successor. Thousands were executed, but the Sikh faith was never broken.

#8

The birth of a new power, the army of the Khalsa, grew under the able leader Jassa Singh. In 1754, it became the strongest power in the Punjab and Malwa. But though the Khalsa was ready to challenge lesser leaders of the Afghan Dourani Empire, they feared the great Ahmed Shah Abdali.

#9

The Sikh chiefs were robbers, but they also had a certain dignity due to their faith and their hatred for the Muslims who had so long trampled them under foot. They had come of age in 1785, when they were free to expand in the Punjab.
Insights from Chapter 3

#1

Ranjit Singh was born in 1780, son of the Sikh chief of the Sukerchakia misl. He was betrothed to the granddaughter of Jai Singh Kanhaya, chief of the strongest of all the Sikh misls. Sada Kaur, his mother-in-law, tried to seduce him and divert him from his inheritance.

#2

In 1801, Ranjit Singh became the Maharajah of the Punjab, and he won sovereignty over the entire geographical region. In 1804, he extended his power in the west by seizing the Afghan province and city of Multan. The British, meanwhile, had begun their trial of strength with the warlike Maratha people in 1803.

#3

The British were surprised to find that Ranjit Singh had agreed to not help Jaswant Rao Holkar with his army. They had agreed that as long as Ranjit Singh abstained from acts of hostility against them, their armies would never enter his territories or plain to seize his property.

#4

In 1807, Napoleon and Alexander I met on a raft on the river Nieman at Tilsit, and signed the Treaty of Tilsit. This strange friendship seemed to open the road to Samarkand for Napoleon. But there were consequences of which the British took advantage. Russia was an enemy of both Turks and Persians, so that Napoleon lost all claims to friendship in their eyes.

#5

Ranjit, the leader of the Sikhs, was a powerful and despotic ruler. He was unlettered, but intellectually alive and avid for knowledge. He was also openly and shamelessly drunk, a vice which he encouraged in his associates.

#6

Ranjit’s love for his women, horses, and army found humorous expression in his troop of about a hundred and fifty pretty girls he called his Amazons. They were not only accomplished horsewomen, but singers, dancers, and bed companions.

#7

Ranjit Singh, the Sikh leader, was building an army that was trained on western lines. He was about to cross the cis-Sutlej river at the head of his army. Charles Metcalfe, a British special envoy, was sent to negotiate an anti-Buonaparte alliance.

#8

In 1808, the British sent an envoy to Ranjit to try and convince him to surrender his conquests. The Maharajah accepted the letter, but refused to read it during his celebrations. He invited the envoy to join in the celebration.

#9

The British demanded that Ranjit Singh withdraw his troops from newly conquered territory, but he refused.