T here are two themes behind this article. The first, spurred on by Steven Maughan's series (In the Age of Napoleon issue 13&14) of the French Chevau-Legere Lancier regiments, is to record how the lance was introduced as a weapon for the British cavalry. The second is to illustrate its first use in British service at one of the battles of the First Sikh War, 1845-46.

As Steven has recorded, the lance came to France after most of the major continental armies had organised units. Spain had at least two units by the close of the Napoleonic Wars, leaving Britain as the only major power without a lancer unit in her OB. Prior to the peace of Amiens, when Britain was home to many different emigre units, the Hulans Britanniques was raised from French deserters together with some German and Swiss volunteers. Originally formed in 1794, the unit was Geldermalsen before returning to the Isle of Wight. When the unit was ordered to the West Indies as infantry however, the men mutinied and the regiment disbanded, in August 1796.

As Steven said in his articles, the lance was present at adopted into the French army after the Polish campaign, and as a consequence the British Army first made its acquaintance during the Peninsula War. At Albuera (16 May 1811), four flanker platoons of the Vistula Legion Lancers began the battle by advancing over the river and into the Allied centre when they were attacked by the 3rd Dragoon Guards. According to which source you read, the Poles either held their own and fell back in good order, or were repulsed. The event was of course overshadowed later by the virtual destruction of Colborne's infantry brigade, when it was charged from the flank by French cavalry including the Vistula Legion Lancers. Even though the Lancers suffered some 20% casualties, this was a small price to pay for inflicting at least 70% on the infantry, even if most of the 800 prisoners were later to escape.

Some four months later, the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, together with the 1st Hussars of the Kings German Legion were in several small skirmishes against the Berg Lancers. Casualties were slight on both sides, but in one action similar to Genappe (17 June 1815), the Berg Lancers awaited a British charge at the halt with their lances horizontal. Unlike the 7th some four years later, the 14th broke into the formation and caused the Germans to rout.

These encounters gave the British much food for thought, but instead of leading to a demand for forming lancers, the impetus was more in training to cope with the threat. The 15th Light Dragoons (Hussars), then on home service arranged for a Cornet Baron Leon of the K.G.L. to teach them the lance exercise, whilst Lt.-Colonel Ponsonby of the 12th Light Dragoons had some lances made and had himself trained to use them so that he could pass on the instruction to his regiment. Overall however, the military hierarchy was unimpressed by the lance as a weapon, and proposals to form British Lancer regiments fell on deaf ears.

Napoleon's first abdication in 1814 allowed the return to Britain of a Major Reymond Hervey Morres, who had been captured in Spain in 1811 whilst serving with the 9th Light Dragoons. On parole in Paris, he had amused himself watching the 1er ChevauLegere Lanciers de la Garde drilling, and was full of their praise. He went so far as to present the Duke of York with a manuscript that he had written on the subject. As well as expounding on the tactical use of the lance, he averred that proficiency in weapon handling would also make a more graceful rider. Morres' other main theme was that the lance was a chivalric weapon, used by the nobility. Whilst the treatise was rewarded with a brevet promotion, nothing further was done.

The following year saw the Waterloo campaign, and the events at Genappe on 17 June 1815 are too well known to need repetition. Although finally defeated by the 1st Life Guards, the defensive wall of the 1er Chevau-Legere Lanciers was sufficient to see off the 7th Hussars and the 23rd Light Dragoons. It was this episode that seems to have been sufficient to cause the Horse Guards to re-appraise the situation.

What seems to have been ignored was that the French were in column, with their flanks secure, and were attacked by units with little battle experience. Orders were issued to instruct the British cavalry in the lance exercise in January 1816, and in February, the 9th Light Dragoons were selected to begin training. There were two training manuals used, one the official one and the other written by Morres, who had by now changed his name to de Montmorency, having claimed descent from that French family. In the event, the official manual was the one adopted.

On 19 September 1816, the 9th, 12th, 16th and 23rd Light Dragoons were ordered to become Lancer regiments, with the regimental titles changed accordingly. It was not until spring 1817 that the full lancer equipment was received, however. In October 1817, the 19th Light Dragoons were informed they too were to be made a lancer regiment, replacing the 23rd which was being disbanded in the post-Waterloo cutbacks. The 19th took over volunteers from the 23rd, and received that regiment's old equipment. Subsequently, the 19th were also disbanded in 1821, and the 17th Light Dragoons took their place in 1822, to give the army four lancer regiments on the establishment.

The original lance was to be fifteen or sixteen feet long, but so unwieldy was it that it was cut down to nine feet almost immediately. At Waterloo, Captain Cavalie Mercer had appropriated a French Lance which he deposited in the Rotunda at Woolwich. In 1827, Major Vandeleur of the 12th Lancers removed it to serve as a new pattern for the British lance. Apart from the change from ash to bamboo, the lance used during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and for ceremonial purposes today, is based on that lance.

Although the 12th Lancers were serving in France to 1818, the first of the Lancer units to serve overseas was the 16th, which went to India in 1822. To give an example of the length of these overseas postings, the unit returned to Britain in 1846, a 24 year posting! It served at the final siege of Bhurtpore in 1825, in the opening stages of the First Afghan War in 1839, and at Maharajpur during the Gwalior campaign in 1843. In none of these was the regiment seriously involved, with casualties numbered in single figures. By 1845 however, the regiment was a veteran of Indian conditions, when the First Sikh War broke out. Sikhism is a religious movement, one that preaches the unity of God and the brotherhood of man without distinction of race, class or creed. As such it was about as welcome to the Muslims and caste conscious Hindus as was Non Conformity to the established churches in Europe, with which it was roughly contiguous.

At first, the Sikhs were a peaceful people but when their beliefs came under attack by the Mughal Empire, they were forced to organise in their defence. Bloody persecution was repaid by bloody revenge. In 1738, the Persians swept through the Khyber pass, defeated the Empire and sacked Delhi. These attacks, which presaged the fall of the Mughal Empire, caused its hold on the Sikh homelands to weaken. Slowly, Sikh power expanded, even if the essential democracy of the faith meant that it was loose confederation of chieftains. In 1767, Ahmad Shah of the Afghan Empire recognised Amar Singh as Maharaja, effectively making him temporal head of the Sikhs.

By that same date, the British Honourable East India Company (H.E.I.C.) had changed from being mere traders to being ruling princes. They governed Bengal, and had set up presidencies at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, thanks to victories at Plassey and Buxar. Within a generation they were to commence the break-up of the powerful Maratha Confederation. By 1806, British power extended as far as Delhi, and was close to the Punjab, the home of the Sikhs. The Sikh Maharaja was Ranjit (or Runjeet) Singh, a man who's vast sensual appetite makes the average N. A. member look like they have joined the Band of Hope. Quite apart from his zenana, he had a unit of Amazons made up of '..the prettiest girls he could find from Kashmir, Persia and the Punjab...' His favourite tipple was apparently made from raw corn spirit, opium mush and the juices of raw meats. This concoction burnt the lips of Europeans who tried drinking it.

Ranjit Singh was no mere debauchee however, and realised that any army that was able to extend its power so far across India bore investigation. A personal trip showed that it was discipline and drill that made the Company's forces so formidable, and he thus set about regularising the Khalsa (literally, the pure), the Sikh army. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, there were a significant number of footloose mercenaries for hire. Several of these joined Ranjit Singh and undertook to train his troops and modernise their equipment. Of the three arms, artillery was Ranjit Singh's love, and on which he expended much time and effort. Piece for piece, Sikh artillery was heavier than the comparable British equipment, a fact that was to cause the British heavy casualties when war began. British observers considered the Sikh army to be a most dangerous enemy, possibly the most efficient native Indian force that they had come across. The thought of fighting it filled the H.E.I.C.'s sepoy's with dread.

In 1839, Ranjit Singh suffered a stroke and died, aged 59, and the scene was set for a denouement with the British. Ranjit Singh had delayed expanding the Sikh lands towards the East, preferring to expand against the closer Indian and Afghan states rather than the stronger British. Without his guiding hands, and sensing that the disasters of the First Afghan War indicated a weakening of British power, the Khalsa took an increasing hand in government. The events in the Punjab, with betrayals and assassinations of the rulers reads much like the War of the Two Matildas in England in the middle 1100s. Anyone who has read the Brother Cadfael series will be familiar with the sequence. At each death, the capability for rational thought decreased. When the last surviving heir was a nine year old boy, the Khalsa demanded to be let loose to cross the Sutlej, convinced that it could throw the British out of India.

These warlike noises had not gone unheeded in Calcutta, but whilst the Governor General, General Sir Henry Hardinge allowed his Commander in Chief General Sir Hugh Gough to move forces closer to the border, he refused to allow them to be reinforced or to build up supplies. These preparations, he said, could be construed as warlike and threatening, when cooler heads were trying to avert war. Both of these officers will be familiar to students of the Peninsula War. Hardinge was the staff officer who convinced Cole to advance at Albuera, whilst Gough was the lieut. colonel of the 87th Foot, the first British unit to take a French Eagle in battle (at Barrosa, March 4, 1811). British forces immediately available numbered some 30,000 men with 68 guns, whilst the Sikhs deployed some 40,000 regular troops with 200 guns, together with the same number of irregulars.

The Battle of Aliwal 28th January, 1846

Introduction and Background
Advance and Battle
Wargaming the Battle and OOBs