The Battle of Aliwal

The Battle of Aliwal
28th January, 1846

Introduction and Background
by Richard Partridge
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

Advance and Battle
Wargaming the Battle and OOBs
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28th January, 1846
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.

Advance and Battle


28th January, 1846
Wargaming the Battle of Aliwal
It is unlikely that anyone has got a Sikh army or

even an 1840s British Indian army already made
up, so you may have to be flexible, and mix and
match from available sources. The terrain should
not cause too many difficulties, and the rules can
be a straight crib from your favourite Napoleonic
set. The only real change to weaponry was that
the British had by now got percussion
smoothbores so allowing a faster rate of fire. You
will have to work out your own modifier for this
as it will depend on your rules.
As far as troop types go, Brits are Brits and Sepoy units can count as
rtuguese. Sikh regular infantry can count as Russians, and their cavalry
and irregulars as whatever your lowest rating allows. Some of these
irregulars had jezzails, so allow a longer range but don't overdo it,
Casualties should be low, not crippling. As far as artillery is concerned,
it will be apparent that the British guns were daringly handled, so allow
the horse artillery to gallop around a lot. The 8 inch howitzers and the
Sikh artillery seem to have been relatively immobile, so penalise
movement by allowing either move or fire and not both. Sikh guns and
the British field artillery were bullock powered, so movement should be
enough to keep up with infantry but nothing more. You may like to
penalise Sikh guns by not allowing any movement after the initial set up.
Although the Sikhs deployed some jingals (camel mounted 'wall guns'),
these can be disregarded unless you feel sufficiently.
OOBs
SIKH ARMY
Commanded by Ranjur Singh

Possibly 3,000 cavalry, 17,000 infantry, of which perhaps half were
regulars, supported by 67 guns.
BRITISH ARMY
Commanded by Major-General Sir Harry Smih
CAVALRY
Brigadier-General Cureton
MacZowell's Brigade
H.M. 16th Lancers (Effective total strength 559) 3rd Bengal

Light Cavalry 4th Irregular Cavalry
Stedman's Brigade
Governor-General's Bodyguard 1st Bengal Light Cavalry 5th

Bengal Light Cavalry
Shekawali Cavalry
3 Troops of Bengal Horse Artillery 18 x 6 pounders
INFANTRY
Note that Hicks and Wheeler commanded the brigades of Smith's 'old'
division.
1st Brigade, Hicks
H.M. 31st Foot (Effective total strength 476)

24th Bengal Native Infantry
2nd Brigade, Wheeler
H.M. 50th Foot (Effective total strength 434)

Sirmoor Battalion of Gurkhas
3rd Brigade, Wilson
H.M. 53rd Foot (Effective total strength 675)

Shekawall Infantry (Attached)
4th Brigade, Godby

Nasiri Battalion of Gurkhas
2 Companies of Foot Artillery
12 x 9 pounders
2 x 6 inch howitzers

Advance and Battle


The Battle of Aliwal - 1st Sikh War

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28th January, 1846

T here are two themes behind this article.

As Steven has recorded, the lance came

Napoleon's first abdication in 1814 allowed the return to Britain of a

By that same date, the British Honourable East India Company