Chapter 76: On the Spirit of Military Discipline in the Native Army of India (2)

A circular letter from the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Combermere, on the 16th of June, 1827, directs that sentence to corporal punishment is not to be restricted to the three crimes of _theft, marauding, or gross insubordination_; but that it is not to be awarded except for very serious offences against discipline, or actions of a disgraceful or infamous nature, which show those who committed them to be unfit for the service; that the officer who assembles the court may remit the sentence of corporal punishment, and the dismissal involved in it; but cannot carry it into effect till confirmed by the officer commanding the division, except when an immediate example is indispensably necessary, as in the case of plundering and violence on the part of soldiers in the line of march. In all cases the soldier who has been flogged must be dismissed.

A circular letter by the Commander-in-Chief, Sir E. Barnes, 2nd of November, 1832, dispenses with the duty of submitting the sentence of regimental, detachment, and brigade courts martial for confirmation to the general officer commanding the division; and authorizes the officer who assembles the court to carry the sentence into effect without reference to higher authority; and to mitigate the punishment awarded, or remit it altogether; and to order the dismissal of the soldier who has been sentenced to corporal punishment, though he should remit the flogging, 'for it may happen that a soldier may be found guilty of an offence which renders it improper that he should remain any longer in the service, although the general conduct of the man has been such that an example is unnecessary; or he may have relations in the regiment of excellent character, upon whom some part of the disgrace would fall if he were flogged.' Still no court martial but a general one could sentence a soldier to be simply dismissed. To secure his dismissal they must first sentence him to be flogged.

On the 24th of February, 1835, the Governor-General of India in Council, Lord William Bentinck, directed that the practice of punishing soldiers of the native army by the cat-o'-nine-tails, or rattan, be discontinued at all the presidencies; and that henceforth it shall be competent to any regimental, detachment, or brigade court martial to sentence a soldier of the native army to dismissal from the service for any offence for which such soldier might now be punished by flogging, provided such sentence of dismissal shall not be carried into effect unless confirmed by the general or other officer commanding the division.'

For crimes involving higher penalties, soldiers were, as heretofore, committed for trial before general courts martial.

By Act 23 of 1839, passed by the Legislative Council of India on the 23rd of September, it is made competent for courts martial to sentence soldiers of the native army in the service of the East India Company to the punishment of dismissal, and to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any period not exceeding two years, if the sentence be pronounced by a general court martial; and not exceeding one year, if by a garrison or line court martial; and not exceeding six months, if by a regimental or district court martial. Imprisonment for any period with hard labour, or for a term exceeding six months without hard labour, to involve dismissal. Act 2 of 1840 provides for such sentences of imprisonment being carried into execution by magistrates or other officers in charge of the gaols. [W. H. S.]

This last paragraph has been brought up from the end of the volume where it is printed in the original edition.

The army has been completely reorganized since the author's time, and the regulations have been much modified.

In October, 1833, Lord William Bentinck had assumed the command of the army, on the retirement of Sir Edward Barnes, and thus combined the offices of Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief, as the Marquis Cornwallis and the Marquis of Hastings had done before him.

7. Batavia was occupied by Sir Samuel Auchmuty in August, and the whole island was taken possession of in September, 1811. But at the general peace which followed the great war the island of Java, with its dependencies, was restored to the Dutch.

8. The Isle of France, otherwise called the Mauritius, which is still British territory, was gallantly taken at the end of November, 1810, by Commodore Rowley and Major-General Abercrombie. Full details of the Java and Mauritius expeditions are given in Thornton's twenty- second chapter. The brilliant operations in both localities deserve more attention than they usually receive from students of Indian history.

9. The funeral obsequies which are everywhere offered up to the manes of parents by the surviving head of the family during the last fifteen days of the month Kuâr (September) were never considered as acceptable from the hands of a soldier in our service who had been tied up and flogged, whatever might have been the nature of the offence for which he was punished; any head of a family so flogged lost by that punishment the most important of his civil rights--that, indeed, upon which all others hinged, for it is by presiding at the funeral ceremonies that the head of the family secures and maintains his recognition. [W. H. S.] I have invariably found that natives of India, enjoying a good social position, who happen to be interested in an offender, care nothing for the disgraceful nature of the offender's crime, while they dread the disgrace of the punishment, however just it may be.

10. The worst feature of this abolition measure is unquestionably the odious distinction which it leaves in the punishments to which our European and our native soldiers are liable, since the British legislation does not consider that it can be safely abolished in the British army. This odious distinction might be easily removed by an enactment declaring that European soldiers in India should be liable to corporal punishment for only two offences: first, mutiny, or gross insubordination; second, plunder or violence while the regiment or force to which the prisoner belongs is in the field or marching. The same enactment might declare the soldiers of our native army liable to the same punishments for the same offences. Such an enactment would excite no discontent among our native soldiery; on the contrary, it would be applauded as just and proper. [W. H. S.] Subsequently, corporal punishment in the Indian or native army was again legalized. The present law is thus stated by Sir Edwin Collen: 'A "summary court martial"... may pass any sentence allowed by the articles of war, except . . . and may carry it out at once. Corporal punishment not exceeding fifty lashes may be given for certain offences, but is rarely awarded, and the amount of military crime is, on the whole, very small in the native army. The native officers have power to inflict minor punishments' [_I.G. (1908), vol. iv, p. 370].

Flogging in the British army in time of peace was prohibited in April, 1868, by an amendment to the Mutiny Bill, and was completely abolished by the Army Discipline Act of 1881.

11. The author also gives the Hindustani word as 'kaelkur-hin', which seems to be intended for _qâil kareñ_, or in rustic form _karahiñ_, meaning 'confute'.

12. No wonder that the native army, pampered in this sentimental fashion, gradually became more and more inefficient, till it needed the fires of the Mutiny to purge away its humours. No army could be efficient when its subordinate officers on the active list were men of sixty or seventy years of age.

13. The sepoys were quite right; no other service in the world was managed on such principles. The illusion of the old Company's officers about the gratitude and affection of the men generally was rudely dispelled nineteen years after the conversations recorded in the text. But, even in 1857. a noble minority remained faithful and did devoted service.

14. The best troops now are the Sikhs, Gôrkhâs, and frontier Muhammadans. Oudh men still enlist in large numbers, but do not enjoy their old prestige. The army known to the author comprised no Sikhs, Gôrkhâs, or frontier Muhammadans. The recruitment of Gôrkhâs only began in 1838, and the other two classes of troops were obtained by the annexation of the Panjâb in 1849.

15. Enlistment in the native army is absolutely voluntary, and does not even require to be stimulated by a bounty. A subsequent passage shows that the author refuses to describe the British army as an 'entirety voluntary' one, because a soldier when once enlisted is bound to serve for a definite term; whereas the sepoy could resign when he chose.

16. Desertions are frequent among the regiments recruited on the Afghan frontier. These regiments did not exist in the author's day.

17. An ordinance issued in France so late as 1778 required that a man should produce proof of four quarterings of nobility before he could get a commission in the army. [W. H. S.]

18. '_Est et alia causa, cur attenuatae sint legiones_,' says Vegetius. 'Magnus in illis labor est militandi, graviora arma, sera munera, severior disciplila. Quod vitantes plerique, in auxiliis festinant militiae sacramenta percipere, ubi et minor sudor, et maturiora sunt premia.' Lib._ II. _cap._ 3. [W. H. S.] Vegetius, according to Gibbon and his most recent editor (_recensuit Carolus Lang. Editio altera. Lipsiae, Teubner_, 1885), flourished during the reign of Valentinian III (A.D. 425-55). His 'Soldier's Pocket-book' is entitled 'Flavi Vegeti Renati Epitoma Rei Militaris'.

'Montesquieu thought that 'the Government had better have stuck to the old practice of slitting noses and cutting off ears, since the French soldiers, like the Roman dandies under Pompey, must necessarily have a greater dread of a disfigured face than of death. It did not occur to him that France could retain her soldiers by other and better motives. See _Spirit of Laws_, book vi, chap. 12. See _Necker on the Finances_, vol. ii, chap. 5; vol. iii, chap. 34. A day-labourer on the roads got fifteen sous a day; and a French soldier only six, at the very time that the mortality of an army of forty thousand men sent to the colonies was annually 13,333, or about one in three. In our native army the sepoy gets about double the wages of an ordinary day-labourer; and his duties, when well done, involve just enough of exercise to keep him in health. The casualties are perhaps about one in a hundred. [W. H. S.]

20. Just precisely what the French soldiers were after the revolution had purged France of all 'the perilous stuff that weighed upon the heart' of its people. Gibbon, in considering the chance of the civilized nations of Europe ever being again overrun by the barbarians from the North, as in the time of the Romans, says: 'If a savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasantry of Russia, the numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the intrepid free men of Britain.' Never was a more just, yet more unintended satire upon the state of a country. Russia was to depend upon her 'robust peasantry'; Germany upon her 'numerous armies'; England upon her 'intrepid free men'; and poor France upon her 'gallant nobles' alone; because, unhappily, no other part of her vast population was then ever thought of. When the hour of trial came, those pampered nobles who had no feeling in common with the people were shaken off' like dew-drops from the lion's mane'; and the hitherto spurned peasantry of France, under the guidance and auspices of men who understood and appreciated them, astonished the world with their powers. [W. H. S.]

21. The allusion is to the now half-forgotten war with the United States in the years 1812-14, during the course of which the English captured the city of Washington, and the Americans gained some unexpected naval victories.

22. The author has already denounced the practice of impressment, _ante_, chapter 26, note 27.

23. 'to' in the original edition.

24. See McCulloch, _Pol. Econ._, p. 235, 1st ed., Edinburgh, 1825. [W. H. S.]

25. Many German princes adopted the discipline of Frederick in their little petty states, without exactly knowing why or wherefore. The Prince of Darmstadt conceived a great passion for the military art; and when the weather would not permit him to worry his little army of five thousand men in the open air, he had them worried for his amusement under sheds. But he was soon obliged to build a wall round the town in which he drilled his soldiers for the sole purpose of preventing their running away--round this wall he had a regular chain of sentries to fire at the deserters. Mr. Moore thought that the discontent in this little band was greater than in the Prussian army, inasmuch as the soldiers saw no object but the prince's amusement. A fight, or the prospect of a fight, would have been a feast to them. [W. H. S.] It is hardly necessary to observe that the modern system of drill is widely different.

26. Speaking of the question whether recruits drawn from the country or the towns are best, Vegetius says: '_De qua parte numquam credo potuisse dubitari, aptiorem armis rusticam plebem, quae sub divo et in labore nutritur; solis patiens; umbrae negligens; balnearum nescia; delictarurum ignara; simplicis animi; parvo contenta; duratis ad omnem laborem membris; cui gestara ferrum, fossam ducere, onus ferre, consuetudo de rare est.' (De Re Militari_, Lib. i, cap. 3.) [W. H. S.] The passage quoted is disfigured by many misprints in the original edition.

27. As the Madras sepoys do.

28. The writing of the bulk of this work was completed in 1839. These concluding supplementary chapters on the Bengal army seem to have been written a little later, perhaps in 1841, the year in which they were first printed. The publication of the complete work took place in 1844. The Mutiny broke out in 1857, and proved that the fidelity of the sepoys could not be so easily assured as the author supposed.

29. I believe the native army to be better now than it ever was-- better in its disposition and in its organization. The men have now a better feeling of assurance than they formerly had that all their rights will be secured to them by their European officers that all those officers are men of honour, though they have not all of them the same fellow feeling that their officers had with them in former days. This is because they have not the same opportunity of seeing their courage and fidelity tried in the same scenes of common danger. Go to Afghanistan and China, and you will find the feeling between officers and men as fine as ever it was in days of yore, whatever it may be at our large and gay stations, where they see so little of each other. [W. H. S.] The author's reputation for sagacity and discernment could not be made to rest upon the above remarks. His judgement was led astray by his lifelong association with and affection for the native troops. Lord William Bentinck took a far juster view of the situation, and understood far better the real nature of the ties which bind the native army to its masters. His admirable minute dated 13th March, 1835, published for the first time in Mr. D. Boulger's well-written little book (_Lord William Bentinck_, 'Rulers of India', pp. 177-201), is still worthy of study. As a corrective to the author's too effusive sentiment, some brief passages from the Governor-General's minute may be quoted. 'In considering the question of internal danger,' he observes, 'those officers most conversant with Indian affairs who were examined before the Parliamentary Committee apprehend no danger to our dominion as long as we are assured of the fidelity of our native troops. To this opinion I entirely subscribe. But others again view in the native army itself the source of our greatest peril. In all ages the military body has been often the prime cause, but generally the instrument, of all revolutions; and proverbial almost as is the fidelity of the native soldier to the chief whom he serves, more especially when he is justly and kindly treated, still we cannot be blind to the fact that many of those ties which bind other armies to their allegiance are totally wanting in this. Here is no patriotism, no community of feeling as to religion or birthplace, no influencing attachment from high considerations, or great honours and rewards. Our native army also is extremely ignorant, capable of the strongest religions excitement, and very sensitive to disrespect to their persona or infringement of their customs. . . . In the native army alone rests our internal danger, and this danger may involve our complete subversion. . . .

'All these facts and opinions seem to me to establish incontrovertibly that a large proportion of European troops is necessary for our security under all circumstances of peace and war. . . .

'I believe the sepoys have never been so good as they were in the earliest part of our career; none superior to those under De Boigne. . . I fearlessly pronounce the Indian army to be the least efficient and most expensive in the world.'

The events of 1857-9 proved the truth of Lord William Bentinck's wise words. The native army is no longer inefficient as a whole, though certain sections of it may still be so, but the less that is said about the supposed affection of mercenary troops for a foreign government, the better.

30. Of course, all the military forces, British and Indian, are now alike the King's. Each service has its own rules and regulations.

31. 'General Baird had started from Bombay in the end of December 1800, but only arrived at Kossir, on the coast of Upper Egypt, on the 8th of June. In nine days, with a force of 6,400 British and native troops, he traversed 140 miles of desert to the Nile, and reached Cairo on 10th August with hardly any loss. The united force then marched down on Alexandria, and on 31st August Menou capitulated, and the whole French army evacuated Egypt.' (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., s.v. 'Egypt.') The Indian native army again did brilliant service in the Egyptian campaign of 1882.

32. Great progress has been made in the task of lightening the miseries of European soldiers in India by the provision of innocent amusements. Lord Roberts, during his long tenure of the office of Commander-in-Chief, pre-eminently showed himself to be the soldier's friend.

33. Their commanding officers say, as Pharaoh said to the Israelites, 'Let there be more work laid upon them, that they may labour therein, and not enter into vain discourses.' Life to such men becomes intolerable; and they either destroy themselves, or commit murder, that they may be taken to a distant court for trial. [W. H. S.] The quotation is from Exodus v. 9. The Authorized Version is, 'Let there be more work laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard vain words.'

34. See Livy, lib. ii, cap. 59. The infantry under Fabius had refused to conquer, that their general, whom they hated, might not triumph; but the whole army under Claudius, whom they had more cause to detest, not only refused to conquer, but determined to be conquered, that he might be involved in their disgrace. All the abilities of Lucullus, one of the ablest generals Rome ever had, were rendered almost useless by his disregard to the feelings of his soldiers. He could not perceive that the civil wars under Marius and Sylla had rendered a different treatment of Roman soldiers necessary to success in war. Pompey, his successor, a man of inferior military genius, succeeded much better because he had the sagacity to see that he now required not only the confidence but the affections of his soldiers. Caesar to abilities even greater than those of Lucullus united the conciliatory spirit of Pompey [W. H. S.]

35. This curious incident, which is not mentioned by Thornton in the detailed account of the Nepalese War given in his twenty-fourth chapter, may be the failure of the 53rd Regiment to support General Gllespie in the attack on Kalanga, in 1814, not 1815 (Mill, Bk. II, chap. 1; vol. viii, p. 19, ed. 1858). The war was notable for the number of blunders and failures which marked its earlier stages.

36. Vegetius, _De Re Militari_, Lib. iii, cap. 4, If corporal punishment be retained at all, it should be limited to the two offences I have already mentioned; [W. H. S.] namely, (l) mutiny or gross insubordination, (2) plunder or violence in the field or on the march. (_Ante_, chapter 76, note 6.)

37. Polybius says that 'as the human body is apt to get out of order under good feeding and little exercise, so are states and armies.' (Bk. II, chap. 6.)--Wherever food is cheap, and the air good, native regiments should be well exercised without being worried.

I must here take the liberty to give an extract from a letter from one of the best and most estimable officers now in the Bengal army: 'As connected with the discipline of the native army, I may here remark that I have for some years past observed on the part of many otherwise excellent commanding officers a great want of attention to the instruction of the young European officers on first joining their regiments. I have had ample opportunities of seeing the great value of a regular course of instruction drill for at least six months. When I joined my first regiment, which was about forty years ago, I had the good fortune to be under a commandant and adjutant who, happily for me and many others, attached great importance to this very necessary course of instruction, I then acquired a thorough knowledge of my duties, which led to my being appointed an adjutant very early in life. When I attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel I had, however, opportunities of observing how very much this essential duty had been neglected in certain regiments, and made it a rule in all that I commanded to keep all young officers on first joining at the instruction drill till thoroughly grounded in their duties. Since I ceased to command a regiment, I have taken advantage of every opportunity to express to those commanding officers with whom I have been in correspondence my conviction of the great advantages of this system to the rising generation. In going from one regiment to another I found many curious instances of ignorance on the part of young officers who had been many years with their corps. It was by no means an easy task to convince them that they really knew nothing, or at least had a great deal to learn; but when they were made sensible of it, they many of them turned out excellent officers, and now, I believe, bless the day they were first put under me.'

The advantages of the System here mentioned cannot be questioned; and it is much to be regretted that it is not strictly enforced in every regiment in the service. Young officers may find it irksome at first; but they soon become sensible of the advantages, and learn to applaud the commandant who has had the firmness to consult their permanent interests more than their present inclinations. [W. H. S.]

38. Among the many changes produced in India by the development of the railway system and by other causes one of the most striking is the abolition of small military stations. Almost all these have disappeared, and the troops are now massed in large cantonments, where they can be handled much more effectively than in out-stations. The discipline of small detached bodies of troops is generally liable to deterioration.

39. Many instances of semi-religious honour paid by natives to the tombs of Europeans have been noticed.

40. There are, I believe, many Jemadârs who still wear medals on their breasts for their service in the taking of Java and the Isle of France more than thirty years ago. Indeed, I suspect that some will be found who accompanied Sir David Baird to Egypt. [W. H. S.] Such old men must have been perfectly useless as officers. Sir David Baird' s operations took place in 1801.

41. The rate of pay of Jemadârs in the Bengal Native Infantry now is either forty or fifty rupees monthly. Half of the officers of this rank in each regiment receive the higher rate. The grievance complained of by the author has, therefore, been remedied. The pay of a Havîldâr is still, or was recently, fourteen rupees a month.