Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750–1914

Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750–1914
Richard Holmes

(This edition includes a limited number of illustrations.)From celebrated military historian Richard Holmes, bestselling author of ‘Tommy’ and ‘Redcoat’, the rich history of the British soldier in India from Clive to the end of empire.‘Sahib’ is a broad and sweeping military history of the British soldier in India, but its focus, like that of Tommy and Redcoat before it, will be on the men who served in India and the women who followed them across that vast and dusty continent, bore their children, and, all too often, mopped their brows as they died.The book begins with the remarkable story of India's rise from commercial enclave to great Empire, from Clive’s victory of Plassey, through the imperial wars of the 18th-century and the Afghan and Sikh Wars of the 1840s, through the bloody turmoil of the Mutiny, and the frontier campaigns at the century’s end. With its focus on the experience of ordinary soldiers, ‘Sahib’ explains to us why soldiers of the Raj had joined the army, how they got to India and what they made of it when they arrived. The book examines Indian soldiering in peace and war, from Kipling’s ‘snoring barrack room’ to storming parties assaulting mighty fortresses, cavalry swirling across open plains, and khaki columns inching their way between louring hills. Making full use of extensive and often neglected archive material in the India Office Library and National Army Museum, ‘Sahib’ will do for the British soldier in India – whether serving a local ruler, forming part of the Indian army, or soldiering with a British regiment – what ‘Tommy’ has done for the ordinary soldier in World War I.

Sahib

The British Soldier In India 1750-1914

Richard Holmes

To Lizzie, Jessica and Corinna, the women in my life

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u7828bfe2-a3cb-5b05-805f-60e8b9ee0428)

Title Page (#u960b5228-7ad9-5254-9588-69cd3d58f8e1)

Dedication (#uc5839e28-1a53-599e-9668-cf733e347839)

Maps (#u87e5bfd8-7a90-57a7-9220-e82fe2e44952)

Epigraph (#u83299e6c-004f-5c52-8508-2839ff049177)

INTRODUCTION (#u4c9ba866-2964-55af-94a9-31e08de67017)

PROLOGUE (#ub7e139c6-4bd8-54a4-afe9-0a84e13ad58e)

I IN INDIA’S SUNNY CLIME (#u854a6dad-ddad-5749-8527-7e5624a9c850)

THE LAND OF THE PAGODA TREE (#u2047f0e4-180c-508d-bff1-928d0dfe9c40)

EMPIRES RISE AND WANE (#u95912e73-53d9-56bd-b590-7909aada1f10)

THE HONOURABLE COMPANY (#uab7d04c5-544b-5510-ae2c-c86715b1cacf)

‘THE DEVIL’S WIND’ (#u78e9062a-ca1c-5f08-9b25-6c3c95038c4a)

THE BRITISH RAJ (#ubc0119af-9b59-572f-8272-6039cd2e156e)

II THE TROOPSHIPS BRING US (#ucf691b5c-3e13-5e1d-a921-81a860626409)

A PASSAGE TO INDIA (#ua52fac52-f494-558f-8c33-1860266b85c5)

SOMETHING STRANGE TO US ALL (#u23421e13-52c8-59ac-bfa3-7e49e733941e)

SUDDER AND MOFUSSIL (#u6fdbeb3b-b473-59bf-bf9e-3aef801b8b71)

BARRACKS AND BUNGALOWS (#litres_trial_promo)

CALLING CARDS AND DRAWING ROOMS (#litres_trial_promo)

BOREDOM AND BAT (#litres_trial_promo)

III BREAD AND SALT (#litres_trial_promo)

LORDS OF WAR (#litres_trial_promo)

SOLDIERS WITHOUT REGIMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)

HORSE, FOOT AND GUNS (#litres_trial_promo)

SALT AND GOLD (#litres_trial_promo)

IV THE SMOKE OF THE FUSILLADE (#litres_trial_promo)

FIELDS OF BATTLE (#litres_trial_promo)

BROTHERS IN ARMS? (#litres_trial_promo)

GOLD EPAULETTES, SILVER MEDALS (#litres_trial_promo)

DASH AT THE FIRST PARTY (#litres_trial_promo)

SHOT AND SHELL (#litres_trial_promo)

BLACK POWDER AND COLD STEEL (#litres_trial_promo)

BOOT AND SADDLE (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PETTAH WALL (#litres_trial_promo)

DUST AND BLOOD (#litres_trial_promo)

V INDIA’S EXILES (#litres_trial_promo)

ARRACK AND THE LASH (#litres_trial_promo)

BIBIS AND MEMSAHIBS (#litres_trial_promo)

CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS (#litres_trial_promo)

A FAMILIAR FRIEND (#litres_trial_promo)

HOT BLOOD, BAD BLOOD (#litres_trial_promo)

A NOBLE WIFE (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)