Honourable East India Company, Army of the Sutlej

The British Army that took the field against the Sikhs was commanded by a Napoleonic war veteran, General Hugh Gough, and contained a number of other veterans of the Iberian Penninsula and Waterloo campaigns, such as Sir Henry Hardinge and Sir Harry Smith.

Command Structure

General Hugh Gough was the commander of British troops in India. The British possessed a good basic command structure of brigade and division commanders. While sound, there were some bizarrre elements to the command arrangments.

Gough's second in command -- Sir Henry Hardinge -- was also the GovernorGeneral of British India. Gough faced the unenviable task of having his political master serving as his deputy. Hardinge was a capable soldier, and for the most part restrained himself from exercising his position over Gough, except at Ferezoshah.

The Infantry

The Army of the Sutlej was composed of four main classes of troops: British regulars, Company regiments, Company European troops and Gurkas.

British regulars were just that, units of the regular British army, on frontier garrision duty in India. The British -- in spite of their worship of the two rank line and still armed with smoothbore muskets -- fielded what was probally the finest infantry in the world.

Company regiments were units raised by the Honorable East India Company in India and composed of Indian troops. These regiments were raised in a particular Indian state (Bengal, Bombay, etc.) and carried their origin in their title (for example, the 42nd Bengal Native Infantry). Company regiments were organized similarly to regular regiments, but with their own uniforms. India's caste system posed unique problems for the company regiments -- some Bengal regiments failed to entrench, as digging was beneath their social position.

In combat, the Company regiments proved a very mixed lot, with the valor of exceptional units being offset by the general poor performance of the majority of the regiments. Most historians attribute the poor performance to the Indian troops'justified fear of the effective and capable Sikh army. Other historians atrribute this poor performance to latent nationalism, with the Indian soldiers loath to see the last independent state in India defeated. The truth is probally a mix of the two factors.

Company European regiments were a cross breed of the previous two troop types. These units were raised by the Company, but were composed of Europeans -- often Irish -- living in India, There were several of these units, notably the 2nd European Light Infantry.

There were two Gurka Regiments that served in the Sikh Wars -- the Nasiri and Sirmoor regiments. The Gurkas, tenacious fighting men from Nepal, have a long and distringushed history as superb troops, which they lived up to during the Sikh campaigns.

The Cavalry

British Cavalry was of organized similarly to the infantry. There were regiments of the regular army and regiments of locally raised Company troops. The cavalry was almost entirely composed of light units, but these were of exceptional caliber.

Artillery

Early in the war, the British relied on their light horse batteries, armed with six pounders, and the field batteries, armed with nine pounders drawn by bullocks. Later in the campaign, the British seige train arrived from Ludhiana and provided the British with a number of heavy artillery battalions.

More Sikh War: NW Frontier Conflict 1845

Introduction
British Army
Sikh Army: The Khalsa
Period Volley Bayonet Rules