Empire: World History - 327. Indian Uprising 1857: The British Strike Back (Part 6)

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

How did the tide turn towards the end of 1857 as British reinforcements gathered to strike the hearts of the rebellion: Delhi and Lucknow? Who was the British Commander, John Nicholson, and why was he feared by both friend and foe? Was the city of Delhi, under control of the last Mughal emperor, doomed from within? In Episode 6 of the series, Anita and William cover how Indian resistance during the 1857 uprising became weakened by dwindling resources, tactical disunity, and the growing British force.   Join the Empire Club: Unlock the full Empire experience – with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at empirepoduk.com  For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com. Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Editor: Vasco Andrade Producer: Anouska Lewis Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening, and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. It's 1857, and one of the greatest uprisings against British rule is about to happen. And there is one city at the heart of all of this. and that city is Delhi. The British are driven out. The last Mughal emperor is hauled back onto the throne.

And for a moment, it looks as if British rule in India has collapsed. But inside the city, rebellion is turning into chaos. Outside the walls, there is a battered British army, but it is digging in. It is waiting to strike back. What follows is one of the bloodiest sieges of the 19th century, a fight for a city, but beyond that, a fight for the future of India. This is the siege of Delhi.

Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnand. And me, William Dharumple. Now, in our last episode, we were in the Central Indian Plains with the formidable kick-ass woman, Rani of Jansi, described as the Joan of Arc of the East, and she was fighting a desperate, heroic, ultimately due, battle against the British. I think she's more kick-ass than

than Joan of Arc, and I think she's more your kind of girl. I need, Joan of Arc's a bit saintly for you. That is true. Rodney Jansy's got more of a sort of, yeah, got more musty about her. Yeah, maybe. By the way, doesn't mean smelling like it's been in a cupboard for many years. It's another Hindi word. I'm here to translate in case you get the wrong end of it.

Musti is a naughty. It's a really good word, a catch-all for mischievous. And that's what you mean, rather than sort of played by moths. Musty. Yes. Okay. So tell us, you know, while she's sort of fighting, just remind us to the context of that. What is happening elsewhere?

Well, she is busy in central India and is giving the British a run for their money. The British are trying to reassert their control over what they regard in really as the centre of the uprising. This has actually been obfuscated, I think, by Indian nationalist historiography. in its important point, because when Vir Savarka wrote his book, The Great Indian Uprising of 1857, he tried to make it all about Mungalpandi, this character in Bengal. In reality, Mungalpandi is a minor player in this story, hardly referred to in the main theatres of the uprising that were Delhi and Lucknow.

And the reason that Vier Savarka didn't like that was it was all about the Mughals. It was the Mughals that led the uprising. And even more embarrassing for a Hindu nationalist like Savarka, the Hindu sepoys, uppercas sepoys, went to the Mughal emperor and asked him to lead the battle, to lead the struggle. And I think most historians today would not quibble the idea that the mutiny that then became a national uprising stood or fell by what happened in Delhi. And just to recap what we had established before, I need to tell us what happened in early May, 1857, on the 7th of May. So by early May 1857, the unthinkable is happening, something that, you know, all of these people with their big brains could never have comprehended. The British have been hunted out of the

Mughal capital. So the sepoys have been marching. They've marched from Mirat. They've crossed the Yamuna River. They have restored the aged Bahadur Shah Zuffer to the throne of his ancestors. And I think it's fair to say that, you know, at first, he's not that keen. You know, they are a bit scary to him as well. But for the briefest of moments, the important thing is that the flag of the East India Company and the Union Jack are lowered. And the Mughals are muscular and back in total control of both the Red Fort and the wider Delhi hinterland. I think it's fair to say that the extraordinary way in which the seapoys from across the country converge on Delhi is something that surprises both British observers at the time and indeed many modern Indian observers today

because it's often felt that the late moguls barely existed, that they were a ghostly presence that didn't compare at all to their ancestors. And certainly it's true that they were much less powerful. But what it shows, I think, in 1857, is that they're still regarded as the legitimate center of authority. That's why the sepoys go to Delhi, not because it's a strategic center. they don't march to the Marata heartlands. They don't try and put Shivaji back in control. They try and put Bahadash al-Zaffa, even though he's 80, even though he's a Sufi poet and even though he's Muslim. And these sepoys, it's worth stressing, you know, are very largely upper caste, usually Brahms from UP.

And most of them march to Delhi. Now, that may be a strategic error, as it will later prove. But in terms of trying to reassert Indian authority over the interloping British, it is. is absolutely the story. And it's a story that's been obfuscated. And I think it's one that's, it's worth stressing. Yeah. So what we're going to see in the story we're telling today is how the British managed to reassert their hold back on Delhi. And they do it in a sense in two stages. When they're driven out, they arrive, first of all, with a very small token force that then becomes besieged itself up on the ridge above the city. But then that, that,

small token force grows over the course of 1857 as more and more reinforcements arrive from the frontier and the Punjab. And it's a story of unimaginable suffering, suffering for the sepoys, also, I suppose, for the British in their trenches surrounded by corpses with terrible heat and this rotting flesh all around them. But most of all, it's a story of unbelievable suffering in the city of Delhi itself, the ordinary people who are caught up in the middle of all this. But we're not quite there yet because, you know, at the moment we're talking about where all these seapoys are coales around, you know, the new muggles, if you like, your new muggle era, there definitely is a sense of hope. Brian God, have we done it? Have we overthrown them? Have we kicked them out of our country? Have we won? I mean, that's sort of, you know, the repeated thing.

Did we just win this? And the answer is going to be, as Willie has alluded to, a resounding no. And it is largely sort of coincides with the arrival of a character who we've touched on before. We've touched upon him when we did the Ireland series because this is a man of Irish extraction. He's educated in Dungannon. He's born in Dublin. And he is, as William very memorably put it, a charismatic. psychopath. That's how you put it, I remember, because I thought, oh, don't pull your punches there.

But his name is John Nicholson. And John Nicholson is a name that maybe we don't really know today. But at the time, there wasn't a school child that did not know the name of John Nicholson because he was a hero of an era to the British. And I think a crucial fact about him is that he struck about at least as much fear into his own superiors, particularly the general in charge of the siege, General Archdale Wilson, as he ever did into the rebels themselves. So we'll pick up where, and it's a bit actually, I think it's fair to say that the history books often skip over. So, you know, the British have fled Delhi. They are in disarray. Inside the walls, Delhi is for the first time in 50 years, free of British control. And I really, actually,

Willie, I want to know from the primary sources that you've looked into. What did that feel like? What did that look like? Was it sort of carnival, you know, this feeling of, have we won? Did we just win that. What does that look like? Well, we were very lucky when I was writing the last move, because I have two friends, Bruce Wunel, who's a brilliant scholar of Persian, and Memwood Faruqi, who's a brilliant scholar of Urdu. And both these guys went with me into the depths of the Delhi archives. And we found this entire collection called the Mutiny Papers. That was their official name. That's the name on the catalogue that were basically the papers collected from the rebel camp at the end of 1857, and the British government collected them with a view to,

hanging anyone that was involved. Anyone that had their name on this collection of papers. It was on a death list. It was likely to be a death list. Yeah, exactly that. But it turned out to be a previously unused cornucopia. One of the great cries often when people are writing about 8.5. Particularly post-colonial historians is that we don't have the rebel sources, that we only

have the British sources, which are there in great quantities. And that is true of quite a lot of the places. I mean, the Rani of Jansi hasn't got much documentation attached to us. We found in the last episode. Also, Lucknow. The Lucknow archives were burnt at the end of 1857. So there's very little to illuminate figures like Begham Hazraat Mahal. And we're often trying to view her against the grain using British sources.

But in Delhi, we've got everything. The rebel camp was deserted, the British marchion, and they got all the paperwork. Okay, so what does it say? Stop teasing us. I mean, what are they saying? Are they having, is it party? Because in the imaginations of the British at the time, they think of, you know, sort of the mutineers as being, you know, a rape and a louton. And, you know, the streets running with blood.

And it's sort of characterised the way in which, you know, even in modern arenas now, when a head of state falls, that there's chaos in the street. Is there chaos? Is there order? If there's order, where does it come from? Well, fun enough, it's interesting because while I was working on the last Mughal, my colleague Memud Faruqi was also publishing his translations in a separate book called Besieged. And we both answer that question in slightly different ways. To my eyes, it was chaos.

And while there were valiant attempts to establish order, the killings were such, the bloodshed was such, the whole place very rapidly descended into a sort of anarchy because the different sepoil regiments were competing with each other. They didn't obey a central commander. none of the Mughal princes succeeded in establishing their authority over the rebel regiments that arrived with their own ammunition and their own chests of treasure and so on and had no need of submitting to a central authority unless they were forced to do so. I was always struck by all the petitions in the mutiny papers that talk about how much the

ordinary people of Delhi were being bullied by these soldiers. The soldiers were largely from eastern India, Purbias they're called, or talingas in the odou-sauces. They're not local Delhi boys. So they're coming in and they're also kind of quite, you know, rough boys from the country. And suddenly they're in this glamorous city, yeah. These are not their mothers and sisters. You know, there's that phrase that comes up. You know, these are.

So you've got that kind of behaviour. But you've also got the bloodletting that takes place once you have a victorious side. So you have those purity tests that are going on as well, don't you? With the sepoys from different areas, say, did you ever have you ever sided with the British. I've heard that actually you were really nice and you fixed a teapot, you must start, you know, that kind of thing, sort of those reprisals going on as well. So there's that going on and there's also a class struggle because these guys are often from the countryside and they, you know, they're not going to bow their heads to some jumped up mogul poet like Ghalib.

He feels that he's strutting around running the show. Ghalib is very put out to find these ruffians, as he calls them, running around in his mahala and in his streets. And these guys eyes, you know, are apt to ogle the women, turn up at the courtesans, courtes where everyone behaves with great elegance and dignity. And they're just treating them as common prostitutes. And what you find in Delhi is different to what you find in Lucknow. In Lucknow, they are local boys and the people regard their cause as their own. And they all join in the uprising. In Delhi, you've got fractures. You've got the local shopkeepers who are feeling bullied. You've got the, you know, everyone from the kebab sellers to the courtesans to the woodcutters,

all these ordinary people are coming into jagged contact with these guys who suddenly landed in their city and wanted to be fed and looked after and treated as heroes. And then you've got the class issue where the entire Mughal aristocracy, while they didn't like the British, don't particularly want a bunch of armed ruffians to... Who the hell are these people? Because it's not my emperor. They're not couthing as they should. that whole system of the Ardab, which is, you know, those courtly manners that they are used to,

that, you know, these guys are bringing in something completely different. They don't care. I have a question, though. I'm interested in this because there has to be somebody doing some forward planning at some point. You know, you're going to have to raise money to pay the troops. Otherwise, they're just going to carry on looting. You're going to have to manufacture gunpowder. You're going to have to, you know, because you know the British are going to strike back. Guns set up an armoury. Is anyone thinking along those lines? Because they have done something extraordinary. Is anyone thinking about how to make it stick? So I said that Mehud took a slightly different lesson from the papers that we both studied. His view was that while it was chaotic,

there were very strong and sometimes successful attempts to set up an administration. At the top, there is a court of administration. It's called that. And it's made up of the sepoy officers and palace officials. And had that actually worked, that could have provided a glue and an authority, which everyone follows. And you're right, there is a problem because the moguls have not actually been involved in the nitty gritty of local administration for two generations. They've lost the habit. They don't know what the paperwork is.

They don't know where the filing cabinet is. You know, it's a mess, right. All that. So 1803, the British take Delhi. In that point, they run the show. Yeah. And the Mughals haven't had to collect axes. They just had to organise poetry readings and spectacles and organised nice.

sort of, you know, parties at Holy and Duwali and Dussera. But what is needed now is taxes to pay the troops, gunpowder to replace the ammunition. How do you keep the prices of grain down? How do you stop the sepoys from looting the local shops and raping the courtesans? And this is what's being worked out. And there is a measure of success. And what we found in the mutiny papers was, for example, muster rolls every morning for the local Cotwale. So we know of who turned up every morning at the police station to keep the administration.

So it's not like it's sort of complete chaos. It's not the rule of the rule of course. But you have got a lot of armed ruffians running around, often feeling that they're not being appreciated, often feeling they're not being fed and looked after. And we also have petitions, as well as the military camp, as well as the papers from the different seapoy regiments, talking about things like how much ammo have we got left and what's left in the treasury. There are also the petitions which people are presenting to the court. So one of the largest delegations to come before Zaffa in the first days of the uprising is from the outer suburbs, the two suburbs outside the wall, which are Bhaarganj and Zawadine. Zambuddin very much still there as a great Sufi shrine and rather a posh suburb these days.

And they complain. So the petition complains that the people they call the telangas, the sepoys, come out of of Adjmary Gate and oppress us the shopkeepers. They take our goods by force without paying anything. The troops enter the houses of the poor and penniless and take anything they find, even the string beds, dishes and piles of fireworks. So this is where these mutiny papers were so important because quite often this has been very much romanticised in nationalist. This historiography is a great national uprising. But when you actually look at the documentation, you've got shopkeepers complaining that the guys aren't paying for the goods they're taking, that they're pitiful.

the string beds. And it says whenever we, your humble servants, or even the most respected citizens, go to the Tilingas and plead with them about the misery to which we've been reduced, they merely threaten us with guns and swords. We have been reduced to such extremities by the depredations of the troops that we submit this petition to His Majesty. So, you know, what we're getting is all the actual, you know, when you've taken away the rhetoric, this is the reality of what is obviously a very bloody and brutal uprising. I mean, there's something really touching about the end of the petition as well, because they do believe that this old man,

you know, this poor old man who sort of had this all unfolding around him, can even do anything about it. So, you know, what they say is, you know, he may turn his gaze of justice and commiseration towards a send a royal order to the Telangas, that they give us no more trouble, that with the support of our gracious sovereign we may be left to live our lives, and peace. May the sun of prosperity and success and all glory shine brightly for your sake, O Lord of all. And who they're talking to, who they're addressing is a man who is just as stressed

out as all of them. I mean, they haven't knocked his door down. He doesn't know, you know, whether they might or they might not. They're talking about Zuffer, the last Mughal. He's in the middle of all of this. Does he have the power to do anything for these people who are appealing for his help? So yes and no. The sepoys have come to submit to his authority nominally. But, you know, these are rough guys with guns from the sticks. And there are reports in some of the accounts of them sort of wandering up, you know, not obeying the usual Mughal etiquette where people have to prostrate themselves and even go flat. Instead, these guys just walk up to the, to suffer and say, Aribadha, hey, king. And they touch his beard and all the sort of stuff. Can I give that a bit

context. That is like somebody in Britain going to King Charles. What's up, Charlie? You know, it is entirely casual and unacceptable. You know, hey, it's just terrible. It's like giving him a street name. Oh, man. How are you? Oh, my God. So, I mean, how did Zuffer? Did he write about how that felt? Do we know how he felt about that? So yes, we have lots of reports of him getting obviously very depressed because these guys are completely out of control. They've murdered the Brits on whom he depends for his pension. And he

realizes that whether he likes it or not, he's now cast his lot with this bunch. And, you know, increasingly, he's worried that this isn't going to end up well. And this becomes particularly the case only one month later, Anita, when the British turn up again. Tell us what happens. Right. Yeah. So they're not doing nothing because it's been a shock to them. But, you know, what are they going to do? Are they going to get on boats and leave? No, they're not. Of course they're not. Again, they're going to try and do something. something about it. So they are licking their wounds in Shimla, which is the sort of summer capital. It's where a lot of the Brits went during the heat. And they're trying to work out just how do we,

how do we sort this out? What do we do about this? By June 1857, they managed to muster together a force and march it onto a place called the Delhi Ridge. Now that's sort of a high level of ground above the old city. And this is, I think, a bit of an irony about this story, William, tell me if you agree, because we call it the siege of Delhi. But for, for For much of that summer period, it really is the British who are being besieged because they've got this position. But, you know, it sort of leaves them stuck a bit in a quagmire, doesn't it? Exactly. So the Delhi Ridge is still there.

It's part of the Aravali range, which goes all the way through Rajasthan to Gujarat. This is the last shudder of it, really, before it gives up. Where they camp is exactly where Delhi University is today. If you go to St. Stevens or go to give a lecture up in the university, you go under the Delhi Ridge and then up on to... it, to the university buildings, which is just beside the what's called the Flagstaff Tower. But this force which gets there under General Archdale Wilson in June is too small to attack the city. So they're meant to be besieging the city. But within days, they realize that they are now that just made themselves the focus for the attacks of the people inside the city.

And what the situation is, is that they're saved really instantly by the disunity of the sea poison. Sepoy Regiment. Remember, all these guys have marched from various parts. Some have come from Rajasthan, some have come from Central India, some have come from the Ganges' planes. They've all marched into Delhi. And they all camp separately. And they take it in turns to attack the British. So rather than having a sort of concentrated strategy whereby they're all attacking together and overwhelming this actually quite small force, what they do is they take it in turn. Wear them out. Wear them out. Wear them out. But each day, having done their little attack and bravely climbed the hill and shown how brave they are and, you know, taking pot shots at the Brits in their trenches,

they then march down the hill again, have a rest and the next bunch to take over. Go home in time for their tea. No land is one. Yeah. But it's not just, you know, the constant attack from people, you know, the sepoys, but also, you know, Diliwala, you know, people who are from Delhi because they're all in this now. But they are also being perpetually attacked by the weather because you point out, this is high summer.

So I've been in, I've passed out in Delhi in a Delhi market at that time of year. It is hot. The sun is remorseless. You've been in London too long a litre. I literally, I passed out in the street. It was too hot when I was going shopping for my wedding. Actually, it was a very lovely woman who was begging for money. And I fell right almost into her lap.

And she was the one who was looking after me. It was a very strange thing. Anyway, but cholera, sunstroke, heat exposure, you know, all of that kind of thing that must have been taking its toll on those Brits on the Ridge, as well as that, you know, sort of constant wave. after wave of attack on them. So what you get is you've got the Brits entrenched on the ridge. And it's one of the, you know, the 1850s is the moment when modern warfare really begins.

It's the same sort of fighting that you're getting in the First World War where people are in trenches with barbed wire. And it's pretty gruesome. And because it's such close combat, no one is clearing the dead bodies out of the way. And so bodies of these. excessive regiments of sepoys, which are shot every day, piling up in the heat, pitrefaction flies everywhere. It's cholera and typhoid soup right there, isn't it? Exactly that.

But at the same time, you've got this terrible suffering in the city. And what we read in the mutiny papers is these little petitions, which are, you know, sometimes very, very sweet and moving. The cabab man complaining that the seapoys are eating his cababs and refusing to pay him. The woodchoppers, who can't get into the forest because of the fighting. And there's quite a lot from the Towafs, the courtesans, who are very famous and Chari Bazaar. One of them is complaining that their rooms have been taken over is a sniper-less. There's a lot of other sepoys who are trying to sort of, you know, do worse things to the courtesans.

And we have detailed stories. Some of these stories, what was lovely was that petitions, which were packaged individually when you come across them in the mutiny papers, turn out to often be one of a succession of petitions from the same person or the same family. Yeah, and nobody's listening to them because nobody can do anything. Nobody's listening. Can I, can I just, we're going to take a break in a second, but just one little observation just before we go to the break. I mean, it's horrible for the kemab seller.

It's beyond appalling for those poor courtisans who, you know, are raped, almost daily. One gets the impression from looking at the papers. But you do have a little bit of a window of opportunity for those people who want to run off together, you know, because it's chaotic. It's very strange. There's a lot of this thing on. So, you know, lovers sort of like, you know, sort of, okay, nobody's looking at us. Let's get out of here.

And you've got a lot of petitions, don't you, in this bundle of people saying, hang on a minute, my daughter has run off with that man who I hate and I need you suffer to go and get her back because, you know, I just, and there were lots of these, weren't there, Willie? I mean, it was a thing. There was an amazing number. And I think partly it's that order is breaking down and, you know, the opportunity now in quite a conservative society. to run off and elope exists in a way that it doesn't in normal life. But there's also just something about warfare in general.

Have you ever read that wonderful book, The Love Charm of Bombs? No, but I do know that birth rates go up when people think they're going to die, you know. Exactly. People think we haven't got anything to lose. Let's go for it. Got to spend the time somehow. And this is what we were surprised by when we went to things. We were expecting to have lots of sort of administrative documents from the Court of Administration.

That was what we were kind of looking for and thinking we were going to come across. Instead, you get these fantastic love stories. There's a woman called Balahia, who runs off with a guy called Bikari, having looted me of all my wealth, which she took by stealth, according to her surprised and hurt husband. Right. Who comes to Zuffa and says, I've just lost this girl. There's another one. These little sort of stories, you know, normally snips through the net, because of this, you learn about it. So there's a former courtisan named Hussein who married one Sheikh Islam.

Now, Sheikh Islam turns out to be himself a convert from Hinduism. And obviously, was quite a sort of, I think quite a dull sort of religious character. And the courtesan decides that that's not what she's after at all. It doesn't want Sheikh Islam, the convert. And she instead runs off with Hudabakhsh the shoemaker, who the jilted husband describes as a spy and a gambler. Perhaps a courtesan, Hussein, is missing her old life. and doesn't want to hang out with a shake anymore. I mean, you know, all of these love affairs to one side,

there is also another fact of war, apart from the fact that people do it a lot more when they think they're about to die, that everyone loves a man in uniform. Now, was there a lot of that kind of thing going on with sepoys who've suddenly arrived from different parts of the country? That absolutely is. And a lot of the complaints are from Delhi men

who've lost their girlfriends or their wives to seepoys, to handsome sepoys in uniform coming in from UP. So there's a guy, one guy who's a tin beater complains that his wife has run off with a sepoil called Zia. And there's a disgrace on the family, all this sort of stuff. But what is lovely is that you really get the nitty gritty. You don't just get the court. You don't just get the, you know, the commanders. You get the stuff that you don't normally get in history, which is the ordinary people.

And there's this one particular unfortunate courtisan called Munglo, who we had about 10 petitions from her and all the other courtisans. because she's kidnapped very early on by a cavalryman called Rustam Khan and kept in captivity. And we see this story go over literally 10 different petitions as it develops over the summer. And Zaffer tries to get her released, but Rustam Khan won't release her. And it's kind of, you have soap operas, basically. It's fascinating for us, but obviously very tragic for them at the time. Awful. So I'm just sort of thinking, you know, we'll go to a break, but I'm going to leave you with this image before we come back,

because we're coming back with a big character. You've got Zuffer in the middle, who is being plagued by constant complaints and appeals from the Kababwala to, you know, the grieving husband whose wife has been taken in the night and doesn't know where she is. You have got seapoys behaving badly and, you know, the economy that Delhi thrives on, you know, the sort of hand-to-mouth economy falling apart because these guys are not paying for what they're eating. So you've got all of that suffering. around it you've got another ring of misery where you've got these, you know, sort of Brits who are up on the ridge who are being just pounded constantly by these attacks on their position and who are swimming in a soup of decay with all of the disease that entails. The only one thing that keeps the British going, and we've got this again from a British officer who says, it is pure distilled hatred that keeps them on that ridge. keeps them alive. Because they're not fighting a war anymore. They are just waiting to get revenge. Welcome back. Now, just before the break, we were telling you that the British abiding their time, and they're driven on this diet of revenge. Food is scarce. Revenge, that feeling of revenge,

is there a plenty. And the man who comes to represent the embodiment of that revenge is Nicholson. So you said about General Archdale Wilson, who was in charge, we haven't really talked about him because he's a bit of a, well, would we say chinless wonder in the scheme of things as far as the British are concerned? So Archdale Wilson is sort of super cautious, paralyzed by indecision, and Nicholson has never, ever had a moment of hesitation in his life. He's this sort of terrifying Old Testament prophet, jet black beard, a gaze that supposedly make a man's knees knocked together. And he's a sort of astonishing sort of, oh, he's just a psycho. He's a man of few words. One typical note in the archives has a letter to his boss, John Lawrence, that reads in full,

Sir, I have the honour to inform you which I've just shot a man who came to kill me, your obedient servant, John Nicholson. That's it. That's it. Okay, stop. And the letter, you know, his boss is not a shrinking violet either. John Lawrence is a man of the stuccade. He's a man of daring do. He leads from the front. But even to him, that's going to be quite shocking. What?

What? What are you saying? So a bit more about Nicholson, as well as being one of our sort of mysterious Irishman, who comes over to do the oppressant that his people have suffered as well from British rule. He has been a frontier administrator in the Punjab. And he has this reputation for being so violent, so unrulylead. so unhinged that locals actually start worshipping him as if he's some kind of deity. I mean, what do they call him?

They think he's one of the pantheon. I was doubtful of this. It sounded too much like a sort of British orientalist story. But it's there in the archives. It's absolutely that. Then Nicosanini is a soldier. So Nicosanee would translate as one of the warriors of Nicholson. And I suppose they tried to if they drew flowers and things.

before Nicholson, he's not going to smite them. It's the, please don't smite me, I'm your friend kind of school of thought. Not only do they think he's this embodiment of Vishnu. But instead of being flattered, Nicholson is such a psycho. He thinks, don't mind, they can worship me. But if I see a single man, one man prostrating himself, and he says, or begin chanting, they're going to be dragged away, and they are going to be flayed. So they are going to be whipped, three dozen lashes.

for anybody with a catarine tails who has the temerity to come and prostrate themselves, prostrate themselves in front of me. I'm just not having that. So the message from Nicholson is, you know what? Worship me, because I'm worth it, but just do it quietly, because if I hear it or see it, I'm going to flog you to near death. Nutter. Tell us more. I'd say when I was researching this book, he was a gift because he just comes out with this stuff time and time again. And he's just, you know, he's this completely Victorian psycho. He actually proposes a bill to be passed in Parliament as a serious measure. He sends this to London to allow, and here's a direct quote, the flaying alive, impalement and burning of the murderers of the British women and children of Delhi.

The idea of simply hanging the perpetrators of such atrocities is maddening. I will not, if I can help it, see fiends of that stamp let off with a simple hanging. as regards torturing the murders of women and children, if it be right otherwise, I do not think we should refrain from it simply because it is a native custom. We are told in the Bible that stripes should be meted out according to faults. And if hanging is sufficient punishment for such wretches, it is too severe for ordinary mutineers.

If I had them in my power today, I would inflict the most excruciating tortures I could think of with a perfectly easy conscience. So that's the kind of guy. Yeah. Okay. So this guy is a right. Now, I think they're probably mixed emotions on the ridge because if you've got that guy

arriving, there is going to be, you know, a certain feeling of rejoicing among the people who've been sitting in their own excrement, seeing the rotting bodies of their colleagues around them, that finally we have a man. But if you've got sort of Wilson, who's been there already, who's been, you know, trying to hold things together, he is certainly, I mean, forgive the French, can I think, oh, shit? Yeah. And so how does that power balance work itself out there?

So you get very contrary emotions with Nicholson. Most people, I have to say, are completely love with him. He's regarded as the great hero, and there are a whole series of books with titles like The Hero of Delhi. He's the avenging angel, isn't he? Yeah. He's the avenging agent. And he doesn't believe in process.

He doesn't believe that there should be trials or anyone. When his boss, John Norrance, wrote to him and said, could you send a list to the people you've court-martialed, he writes back on the envelope without opening it. the punishment for mutiny is death. I'm not doing paperwork. I'm just killing them. I'm basically John Lawrence doing you a favour.

We don't have to follow this up. And he's got with him. I mean, we should say that he has British troops when he arrives, who have spent the last few months in his words cleansing the countryside. But he's got Punjabis and Patans with him as well in that force. That word cleansing. Now, I know what ethnic cleansing means today. Is it the same in the Nicholson playbook as well? What does cleansing mean to him?

This means exactly what it means in Gaza today. It's the same, exactly the same thought, exactly the same feelings of revenge and frankly the same sort of motive in that there is this sensation that there has been rape of innocent women, which is an important part of the story. And Nicholson makes this bloody road through the Punjab to get to the Delhi Ridge. He is constantly attacking sepoi regiments, marching 20, 30 miles a day to ambush them when they don't expect it. And he's already a hero to the Brits by the time that he arrives at the ridge. And he immediately trains his guns on Wilson. If I could, I would depose Wilson and take command himself, he says, on arrival.

And so Wilson has every reason to feel, you know, that this guy is right. Well, this man has no respect for him. He's also openly disrespecting him. You know, if there's no chain of command. If you see this man has nothing but disdain for his commanding officer, who is Wilson. You know, Nicholson is giving permission to everybody else to disrespect Wilson as well. But he mends the situation pretty quickly. Right. Within a week, I think, of arriving, he takes a force off to ambush a sepoid party that they see leaving the southern gate of the city. And Nicholson pulls off this extraordinary ambush. He travels at night to get ahead of them. He waits in a marshy area just as they're going to have to cross. And as soon as this force arrives on the edge of the marsh, he unleashes this ambush. Grapechral, ravens down on the marsh of Najafka.

And the seapoys who were caught in the swamp are completely destroyed. And this is the first time since the siege of the ridge began two months earlier, that there's actually been a full-scale engagement, and there's been movement beyond the trenches. Yeah, I mean, so we're talking about Nicholson. I just should add that when you look at Victorian sources at the time, how they talk about Nicholson, what they describe the avenging angel. It's a man who doesn't stop to sleep or eat. He is just a machine of war.

That's how they sort of, it's a little bit like if we've ever read, oh God, I sound so pretentious, but it reminds of Coriolanus and Shakespeare's, you know, that he just, all he does. Shakespeare references each other. Well, but it's also that machine of war. The man does not say he's covered in blood, you know, sort of from head to toe because he's there for a reason. Anyway, look, that's Nicholson on the one side. I do want to talk a little bit, though, Willie, about the other side as well, because the rebels, they have a new commander as well.

And he's also quite a striking character. Bach Khan. Now, tell us about Bach Khan. Bach Khan is a very serious Muslim. He is an extraordinary. military power as well and why Najafgar is important this ambush is important

is that this new hero among the sepoys is humiliated by the new hero among the British that do rising stars go head to head at La Jafqqqqa and Nicholson ambushes Bakkan

and Bakkan moment of glory is eclipsed by Nicholson and then the other thing that happens is that because Nicholson has left this desert behind him on the road to Delhi, destroying all the clenched rude. Yeah.

The road is now open up. And what happens about the 4th of September, which is about a month after Nicholson finally makes it into Delhi, is that this enormous eight-mile-long siege train turns up with these massive guns, these super guns of the time, from a place called Furrows. in the Punjab. And it's an incredible sight because these enormous guns, these heavy howitzers and mortars and these enormous super guns are pulled by elephants. Yeah.

There's this enormous sort of elephant cavalcade of artillery turn up. And then 653 hackeries, as they call, which are bullet carts full of ammunition. All the things that the Indians do not have in the city, they're expending all the ammunition. There's an attempt at one point to get the local firework makers, which of course do very well in a mogul city where there's always, you know, Dusera and Duwale. So the only people that know anything about gunpowder in the city are the firework makers. But the British managed to probably blow up the firework makers, the gunpowder manufacturers. It's not clear whether it's an accident or whether it's a British sort of plot. The people in the city are paranoid enough

to assume the British have done it. but just as the rebels are beginning to run out of ammo 653 bullet carts load of shells, bullets and these enormous things that really makes impression are these siege guns. They're giant 24-pounders, the six of them, that take whole teams of elephants to pull. I mean, they're city destroyers, these siege guns.

I mean, that's what they do. They will take out a wall as if it's made of guardboard. And once you've got a bridge. beach and a wall, basically you can take that city. Now, what is also interesting, just another observation and something that Indians talk about a lot is that in Nicholson's party, he's got, you know, a European infantry, about 400 strong. So new men, new legs, new eyes, not knackered, not dying of dysentery. He also has, though, a large party of Sikh cavalry and a Belarch Battalion.

Now, often, in conversations in India, you'll have, you know, why did Indians fight for the British against Indians. You know, this was the great moment in Delhi when, you know, you had the seapoys saying no more. So why did Indians fight them? So just a quick observation, the Sikhs, definitely after 1849 and the deposing of the last Sikh Emperor Dilip Singh, there is a parceling up of land and given to sort of minor royals. Like, you know, if you stay loyal to us, we will look after you. And there is this sort of very strange kind of conspiracy of appeasing the British. You know, they owe fealty to the British because they didn't take their lands and they didn't take their kingdom and they didn't take their king and ship him off to Queen Victoria's court. And so it's that fealty, you know, very game of thronesy that means, you know, that they will stand by the House of Nicholson.

They have to because that's what they agreed to. So that's why, you know, when people say, oh, the bloody seas and the bellucci's, why were they doing that? It's because those are deals that they've made with the British that, you know, basically don't do this to us and we'll be there when the call comes. Also, there is a feeling that the Sikhs want revenge on the Hindu sepoys who were the guys fighting them. Who fought them, exactly. Yeah, it's a good point. Exactly that. Who are responsible for, you know, them losing the Sikh Empire.

So you've got a city, Willie, at this point, and we've got just a few minutes left of this podcast and we'll pick it up again in the next. So, you know, do join us because she can tell a really extraordinary story. It feels like an apocalypse. What was, you know, a stronghold now must feel like a coffin to the people of Delhi because they are surrounded by city destroying guns, new legs, new guns, and no shortage of ammunition on the British side. What's going on? At every level, it's, you know, just the game is up.

A lot of the seapoys who are not being paid, slip out of the city at night. and go back to their villages. They go and harvest. This is September. This is the harvest. So they go and they go back to their villages, hope for the best and just leave the city to its fate. No one's paying them. They've run out of ammunition.

They didn't see any reason to stay and get killed. And you have this descriptions of this sort of destroyed city. Now the British have been lobbing shells at it for three months. So there's ruined houses everywhere with gamblers sitting rogues, rascals and bad characters playing cards according to the petitions. And most pissed off of all are the Delhi elite, people like Ghalim, our favourite poet. And for the last few months, he's had to endure the sight of what he regards as rustic provincials, lauding it over him and his friends. And he writes these letters and diaries. He says, every worthless fellow puffed up with pride

perpetrates what he will, while men of high rank like me, who once in the assembly, of music and wine, lit the bright lamps of pleasure and delight with the roses fire, now lie in dark cells and burn in the flames of misery. The jewels of this city's fair-faced women fill the sacks of vile dishonest thieves and pilferers. Lovers who had never had to face anything more demanding than the perverse fancies of their fair-faced mistress, now suffer the whims of scandals. And Zuffer, who's the kind of most obviously the kind of, you know, head of this world of Google Elite has kind of really lost it by now. There are signs of madness.

He's 82 and he's this sort of Indian King Lear now. We had Coriolanus a minute ago. Here's King Lear for my counter Shakespearean Trump card. We're so clever. And he sits there writing this sort of slightly bonkers poetry. And the British spies inside the palace. are baffled by what Zuffer's up to. There's a spy called Gory Shanker,

who we have a lot of his reports surviving. And he says, The King is employed the whole day composing poetical pieces. One verse composed by him is as follows. Oh, Zuffer, we are going to take London shortly. It is not far. So, I mean, William, basically,

it's quite the picture, isn't it? So you've got Zuffer who's wandering the halls, and I imagine in a nightgown or something, you know, composing this terrible poetry, completely deluded. You know, tomorrow we take London, that kind of nonsense. You've got everybody around him sort of looking up at the ridge and looking up at the reinforcements thinking,

we're not going to be able to hold this anymore. We've suffered already. This is going to be a lot worse. We might be wiped out. So utter chaos, utter despair within the walls and the Brits poised to move. join us in the next episode when we find out what happens next.