Welcome back to our exploration of Charles Hamilton Smith's Costumes of the Army of the British Empire, in which we'll be looking at a different print every week of the year.
Today, we're continuing with prints exploring native troops in the service of the East India Company. The subtitling on this one says it is a "Serjeant and a Private Grenadier Sepoy of the Bengal Army."
Each of the East India Company's three great trading bases--Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay-- were termed "presidencies." These presidencies were originally run by a governor and council answerable to the London court of directors, then, as the Company's influence expanded, a governing council was established in Calcutta, overseen by the Governor-General. (Holmes, p.37-38) Each presidency had its own army, composed largely of sepoy battalions stiffened with British redcoats. "Sepoy" is a term used to refer to historical units of Indian troops which were commanded by European officers. According to NAM, these troops were often recruited from peoples who had their own military traditions, and their skills were combined with western weapons and further training from the East India Company.
If you read much about the First Duke of Wellington or anything on British India you may have run across mentions of sepoy troops before. Long before he was Wellington, Colonel Arthur Wellesley was stationed in India for close to a decade in the late 1790s and early 1800s. While there, he led such sepoy battalions in conflicts such as those against Tipuu at Seringapatam. Napoleon used "Sepoy General" as an insult to refer to Wellington, to imply he wasn't a good general, because prior to the peninsula, most of Wellington's military and battle experiences came from his time in India. Napoleon considered this less valuable experience than leading Europeans, one supposes. However, many of the things Wellington learned in India served him well throughout his time campaigning in Europe, including how to manage troops of one culture stationed amongst people of another. The experience in leading blended European and Indian troops also served him well in leading the multi-country coalition forces of both the Peninsular War and the Anglo-Allied Army at Waterloo.
If you compare this to the first print I shared, you'll notice that the private here is wearing the same janghirs as the two men in that print, while the serjeant's longer trousers are more akin to those shown in last week's. They also appear to have the same style of turban as the first print.
Most of the Wellington information comes from:
Hibbert, Christopher. Wellington: A Personal History. Addison Wesley, 1997.
Holmes, Richard. Wellington, The Iron Duke. HarperCollinsPublishers, 2003
Censorship of a sample of the correspondence of the 138,000 Indian troops who fought on the Western Front in 1915 provided welcome reassurance for the Indian government and the wartime interdepartmental Whitehall committee on Indian 'revolutionary' activity. It revealed no significant support either for Indian 'revolutionaries' or for pan-Islamism, though one censor reported a worrying trend among Indian soldiers to write poetry, which he considered 'an ominous sign of mental disquietude'.
इजरायल के खिलाफ संयुक्त राष्ट्र में खड़ा हुआ भारत, लेबनान में भेजेगा सेना; जानें एक्स पोस्ट में क्या लिखा
इजरायल के खिलाफ संयुक्त राष्ट्र में खड़ा हुआ भारत, लेबनान में भेजेगा सेना; जानें एक्स पोस्ट में क्या लिखा #UnitedNations #India #Troops #Israel #Lebanon #War
United Nations News: इजरायल-लेबनान सीमा पर बिगड़ती सुरक्षा स्थिति पर चिंता व्यक्त करने के एक दिन बाद भारत शनिवार को लेबनान में संयुक्त राष्ट्र अंतरिम बल (यूएनआईएफआईएल) में सेना का योगदान देने वाले देशों में शामिल हो गया। साथ ही इजरायली सेना की कार्रवाई के खिलाफ खड़ा हो गया। आपको बता दें कि लेबनान में दो संयुक्त राष्ट्र शांति सैनिक घायल हो गए हैं।
न्यूयॉर्क में संयुक्त राष्ट्र में भारत के स्थायी…
Sri Lanka Crisis: श्रीलंका नहीं भेजे जाएंगे भारतीय सैनिक, उच्चायोग ने मीडिया के खबरों को किया खारिज
Sri Lanka Crisis: श्रीलंका नहीं भेजे जाएंगे भारतीय सैनिक, उच्चायोग ने मीडिया के खबरों को किया खारिज
Image Source : AP
Protest In Sri Lanka
Highlights
श्रीलंका नहीं भेजे जाएंगे भारतीय सैनिक
भारतीय उच्चायोग ने मीडिया और सोशल मीडिया के खबरों का किया खंडन
सुब्रमण्यम स्वामी के एक ट्वीट के बाद लगाई जाने लगी थीं अटकलें
Sri Lanka Crisis: श्रीलंका में भारतीय उच्चायोग ने उन खबरों का फिर से खंडन किया है, जिनमें कहा गया है कि नयी दिल्ली द्वारा कोलंबो में भारतीय सैनिक भेजे जाएंगे। भारतीय उच्चायोग ने देर…
J&K : ठंड-बर्फबारी के बीच इंसानियत-फर्ज की मिसाल, जवान ने मां और नवजात को 4 किमी बर्फ में चलकर पहुंचाया अस्पताल
इंटरनेट डेस्क। देशभर में इस समय कोरोना का तो खौफ है ही साथ ही साथ बढ़ती शीतलहर ने भी लोगों को घरों में बंद कर दिया। कश्मीर, पंजाब, दिल्ली, यूपी, राजस्थान, गुजरात, हिमाचल सहित कई राज्यों में ठंड लगातार बढ़ रही है। कई जगह तो तापमान शून्य डिग्री से नीचे चला गया है। राजस्थान के माउंटआबू और पिलानी में भी हालात कुछ ऐसे ही हैं।
लेकिन इन सबके बीच भी इंसान अपनी इंसानियत अपने फर्ज को नहीं भूलता है। कुछ…
Reports from Pakistan on attacks on UN vehicle by Indian troops 'completely false': Sources
Reports from Pakistan on attacks on UN vehicle by Indian troops ‘completely false’: Sources
Image Source : FILE PHOTO
Representational image.
The reports emerging from the Pakistani side regarding attacks on UN vehicles by Indian troops along the Line of Control (LOC) are completely false, baseless and factually incorrect, official sources said on Friday. The response came following Pakistan Army’s allegations that Indian troops targeted a vehicle of United Nations Military Observers…
