323. India’s Greatest Rebellion: The Rebels March On Delhi (Part 2)

17:00William:Well, the biggest toff of all, certainly in his own eyes, is, of course, our friend, the poet Ghalib. And Ghalib, you know, loves a good mushaira, a poetry reading. He loves a party. He's not going to back all these guys turning up from the Mirut jail and a bunch of Gujar nomads looting the British cantonments. And he is very put out by this. He says, swarming through the open gates of Delhi, the intoxicated horsemen and rough foot soldiers ravished the city. Woe for the fair ladies of delicate form with radiance, faces as the moon and bodies gleaming like newly mined silver. As we know, Ghalib is rather one for the women.

17:42William:And so he's very much taking their side on this. And as far as he's concerned, and he's very clear about this, this is the rabble of the lower classes rising up and destroying the order, which suits him very nicely. He's very happy with the order. He doesn't love the British, but he's quite intrigued by things like the telegraph and their technology. And his main worry is that this is all going to fall apart. He says, noblemen and great scholars have now fallen from power, he wrote, and nameless men with neither name nor degree nor jewels nor gold now have prestige and unlimited riches. So he sees it as a revolution, which is not what he's after at all.

18:21Anita:I mean, it does actually feel a little bit like a Russian Revolution situation where you have sort of the masses that have nots joining in with an uprising and the haves just saying, hang on a minute, this is not okay. And this is going to be very, very bad for us in the long run. But you also need to understand, it'd be useful to understand how quickly this is all unraveling. So we're really, you know, only up to the late morning of the 11th of May. So if you imagine sort of the 10th of May is the starting point of this, the morning of the 11th of May. 1857, you start having a convergence on the Red Fort in Delhi.

18:57Anita:So Douglas, who's the commandant of the palace guard, you mentioned him before where Zuffer sort of summons him and his own messenger comes back before Douglas even manages to get his boots on. You also have the British resident Simon Fraser and you have the Reverend Jennings, who is the vicar in Delhi who converted the first man to fall. They all take refuge inside the Lahore gate of the Red Fort and they ask for help from the palace staff. Now, this is not hard to understand. They've worked with these people. They know them by name. They possibly know their families by name. They've been close.

19:31Anita:So it's not unusual for them to be asking people that they've known very well to help them and hide them. This is, though, what an eyewitness says about the reaction they get to their pleading for help and to save them from this violence. The will to obey was wanting, writes the eyewitness. The king's household had become rebellious, refusing to obey. Fraser remained for some time awaiting the Balkis. And Balkis, just so you know, are sort of like palaquins that you sit in and they have curtains that might hide you. But seeing that no attention was likely to be paid his orders, he turned away as if to enter Captain Douglas's home.

20:05Anita:Pressed by the crowd, he ordered them to stand off. The gateway was guarded by a company of infantrymen and he now ordered them to load and close the gate. But they refused. Mr. Fraser then remonstrated with the men for their behaviour. They remained silent. And by this time, so imagine this, this is a man who is used to having his orders obeyed without question. It is very, very clear that the silence is ominous.

20:30William:Exactly.

20:31Anita:It is just imminent, imminent threat. So a great crowd, and they find themselves surrounded by a great crowd of men and boys. Mr. Fraser tries to get into Captain Douglas's quarters, but he just about manages to get to the foot of the stairs. and a palace official, one of the men, who until two days ago would have listened and doffed his cap to him, takes out his sword and rushes at him with the blade.

20:56William:Yeah, he inflicts a deep and mortal wound on the right side of his neck. Fraser falls down and all the others rush at him and cut them with their swords over his head, his face and his chest until he's dead. And at this point, of course, Captain Douglas and the Reverend Jennings run up to their apartments, block the doors, but they're too late. The crowd rushes in, attacks them with swords and murders them, plus Jennings' two daughters. So there's a terrible bloodshed. By the middle of the morning, the three most important Brits are dead. And the only senior official who's left alive is our friend Theo Metcalf, who we were talking about in the last episode, who's this young gad about town and this gossip.

21:36William:And he's always been rather just a sort of hopeless student, a disappointment to his parents. but he hasn't been a sort of bad character. But what we see in the next episodes is Theo Metcalf turn into a sort of brutal, avenging angel for this violence that's taking place now. Now, he survives because as he's walking through the streets of Delhi, someone drops a brick on his head and he's knocked unconscious and falls into a gutter. And he, therefore, misses all this violence. And while everyone's combing the streets looking for Brits, Theo is out cold in the gutter and is ignored by everybody I think they think he's dead and then he actually wakes up in darkness which you know has saved his life he wakes up in darkness finds the streets empty and he manages to creep to a friend's house get into disguise as a as a stable boy and the following day he creeps out of Delhi dressed in Indian clothes and eventually makes it to safety.

22:36William:But this is what's going on. There's very few people from the top of the British establishment who are left alive even by mid-morning.

22:44Anita:Yeah. I mean, Theo Metcalf is endlessly fascinating to me. So, I mean, we first became obsessed with him because he's the person who's sending Queen Victoria the gossip about the Coen or Diamond, you know, utterly made up nonsense. He doesn't really take his job very seriously. He will, as William has hinted, become a really central figure in this story. But I was really interested, Willie, in the fact that he was quite a depressive at heart as well. And he sort of feels this loss of control coming, that the Brits are going to lose control of India. I think it's just even weeks before the uprising even starts that one of his mates is going back to England and he says, you're lucky because you're going to miss what comes next.

23:26Anita:So he's got this feeling in his water that things are spinning out of control.

23:30William:He feels that particularly because I think his wife has just died in a horrible way with some terrible fever, hallucinating and shrieking. It's a terrible death. So he's had his whole life torn up just before this anyway. And then on May 11th, not only does he have to turn into his guys and creep out of the city where he was the magistrate, a very senior official. So he only just survives and his house is burnt down. And anyway, we'll see a lot more of him in the episodes to come because he remains an important character. Yeah. But there's also very good records for some of the main sort of, you know, ordinary people in the streets of Delhi.

24:05William:And one of my favorite is this editor of the Delhi Udu Akbar, which is the leading newspaper. And this is Mohammed Bakar, who's the father of one of the most famous Udu poets, a guy called Azad. And for Mohammed Bakar, you know, contrary to all the gloom of the Brits, this is a liberation. He's a pious Muslim. He's seen the Muslims pushed into a corner by the Brits. And he writes an editorial for the next edition of the newspaper, which describes this uprising as being a place of miracles. He says, some people swear that when the Turk troopers came here, there were female camels ahead of them on which road green robed riders.

24:43William:And then they vanished instantly from sight. In other words, they could have been led by angels or mysterious figures from Muslim mythology. Their arrogance has brought them divine retribution, he writes about the English. As the Holy Quran says, God does not love the arrogant ones. God has given the Christians such a body blow that within a short time, this carnage has utterly destroyed them.

25:05Anita:So, I mean, it's not just the editor who's deeply excited by this, that it is, you know, sort of providence that this uprising is happening. But his son is also really energized by this. He's a young man, 27 years old. And Bakr's son is Muhammad Hussein. but he will not be known by that name later he's going to become a very very famous poet Azad and the second edition of the paper to be published after the arrival of the sepoys in Delhi contains Azad's first ever published poem and I'm going to read a bit to you because it's interesting it's called a history of instructive reversals and this is a guzzle and it begins with a set of rhetorical questions almost like a catechism if you like you know where now was the empire of Alexander?

25:49Anita:Where is the realm of Solomon? And then it moves on to the fate of the Christians in India whose days are numbered in his mind. So this is what he says, world seizing, world bestowing, the possessors of skill and wisdom, the possessors of splendor and glory, the possessors of a mighty army. But what use was that against the sword of the Lord of Fury? All their wisdom couldn't save them. Their schemes became useless. Their knowledge and science availed them nothing. The Tilungas of the East have killed them all.

26:22William:Let's take a break and see what happens in the palace next. The crucial events of the afternoon of the 11th of May 1857.

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27:43Anita:Welcome back. Now, towards the early afternoon, around three o 'clock, the situation, of course, is getting tense, unbearably tense, and sepoys are gathering in the palace, and they are getting restless because what next? You know, they've killed all the Brits they can get their hands on, they've killed every Christian convert they can get their hands on. Now what? So they collect around Zuffer's private apartments. Remember, he sort of sealed himself off saying, I'm not going to take any kind of petitions from you because you guys are going to kill me. You're all armed and you're all mad. But they surround him.

28:14Anita:They kind of give him no choice. And they're quite shocked because they clearly expected Zafar to shower them in gold for coming and liberating him. And, you know, they're throwing themselves at his feet saying, we are here to serve you, Zafar. And he's not even opening the door to them.

28:30William:And I think, again, there's a class thing going on here in that everyone in Delhi knows how to behave in front of the emperor. They remove their shoes, they bow down they do all the stuff but these guys just sort of stride in some of them even ride in on their horses uh and they follow none of the courtney etiquette and they say come on king do your thing come and support us and zafir's appalled by these ruffians turning up who you know they're not even local boys it's not like they're from delhi the east india company recruits from eastern up which is in the eyes of you know sophisticated people of delhi is like you know ruffians absolutely exactly yeah it's like getting sort of you know sort of yeah importing

29:07Anita:the dock workers in London at that time and putting them in Knightsbridge is what it feels like. Exactly that. So they're there and they're demanding an audience and they're perplexed that he's not just coming out saying, you know, look, listen, you madge, we've come to fight for our religion and we're here to pay our respects to you. What's the problem? And he's not still having it. So he hears noises. He comes out, he stands at the door of the hall of special audience and And he tells his attendants to tell the troops to shut up. Stop being so noisy. And he calls his.

29:40William:He says, I did not call for you. Yes. You have acted very wickedly. Yes. And on this, about 200 of these infantry ascend the steps. Again, but they're not allowed to do this with all their shoes on, their boots, muddy boots. And they just say to him, unless you, O King, join us, we are all dead men. They know that everything hangs on this. And we must, in that case, just do what we can for ourselves.

30:02Anita:But you know what, Zafar answers them back in kind. So they're there arguing with him. It's basically an argy-bargy with a king, the most common of the commoners. So Zafar just says to the sepoys, look, I've got nothing for you. And this is a quote. I have neither troops, magazine, nor treasury. I am not in a condition to join anyone. And they come back with only, all right, give us your blessing. We'll provide everything else. and there is a long pause while the entire weight of the world sits on Zuffer's shoulders. What is he going to do? And he's known, Willie, as being notoriously indecisive.

30:36William:He is.

30:36Anita:So this is bad for him.

30:39William:And this is a crucial moment. Everything hangs on this moment. His decision at this moment. You can't not make a decision. These guys are in front of him. The Brits are all dead. Some of them were his friends. Captain Douglas was the guy that was marching him around every day. and one nobleman, Abdul Latif, says the king was like a king on the chessboard after the checkmate. There's nothing he can do. And so he decides to just go for it. He hasn't got much to lose. He knows that the Brits are planning to abolish his monarchy or at least get him out of the Red Fort. They want to shove him into a palace near where I live in the far south of Delhi, Meroli, a place called Zafarmahel, which is a place I love going for walks, very close to here.

31:17William:They want to throw him out to there, get him out of the main palace. and he takes the decision that although these guys are ruffians and although they're not his natural kind of guys he's got no option but to support them so he sits himself down in a chair and all the soldiers come forward one by one and bow their heads before him asking him to place his hand on them and the king does so and each one withdraws and this is a crucial moment he's given his blessing to the mutiny. And that is what it is at the moment. It is just a mutiny. One of the great sort of historiographical chestnuts that, you know, is a sort of classic exam question about the uprising is, you know, is it a mutiny?

31:57William:Is it a national war of independence? Is it a revolution? And the answer is, it's all those different things. But it definitely starts as a mutiny. It's definitely the troops in the British regiments who mutiny and kick the whole thing off. and there are places we'll come to Lucknow I think in the uh in the fourth episode um and that is you know the whole city rises up but in Delhi it doesn't because these are not local guys they don't know these people they've all got provincial accents they don't speak like cultivated Delhi wallers and uh this is the moment that contrary to all expectations the king has blessed this rabble who've turned up in his palace.

32:37Anita:I mean, that act of putting your hand on somebody's head is a very Indian thing. It's like, you know, may all the blessings of the Lord be upon your head. And it crosses religious divide. So, you know, he's doing that. Barely have they got back off their knees and onto their feet and the whole palace. In fact, the whole city is shaken by a colossal explosion. So, I mean, if you're sort of evoking the name of God and suddenly everything is shaking, you might think that the word of God has spoken. And the reason the whole place is shaking down to its foundations is because just half a mile north of the Red Fort, there is a massive arsenal, the largest arsenal of guns and ammunition in the whole of the north of India.

33:21Anita:And Theo Metcalfe's friend, a very brave man called Lieutenant Willoughby, who is surrounded by sepoys who are trying to get their hands on the weapons. Because, you know, if you're going to rise up, you need everything. all the armaments you can get your hands on. He absolutely doesn't want them to have a single bullet. And he blows up the arsenal. And with it, he blows up the people who are sort of besieging the arsenal, as well as most of the British defenders who've been fighting so hard.

33:48William:And amazingly, he survives. He somehow manages to sort of dig himself down into it.

33:55Anita:Extraordinary thing.

33:56William:So the people outside are all killed. And he has managed to do this in such a way that he actually survives it. Although he's deafened for, I think, for the rest of his life, this enormous explosion does not kill him.

34:07Anita:Yeah, I mean, he doesn't get killed. But it's only sort of by lunchtime and virtually every other British person within the city walls has been killed. So one of the few still left alive is a British merchant called James Morley. And Morley is interesting. He lived with his family and that of his business partner, William Clark, in the bizarre Kashmir Qatar in Dharia Ganj in Old Delhi. Now, this area of the city, and it's his bad luck, is one of the first to rise up. So the family hide themselves at the back of the house while the servants are told to keep watch and wait and watch the gate in case of trouble.

34:45Anita:But the mob, when they arrived, they sort of drift off to loot elsewhere to sort of more wealthy areas of the city. and for three hours they're there sort of hiding, cowering and scared, nothing happens. And no news has reached the family. So Morley says, okay, it might be okay to poke my head out and have a look. Now, these little snippets of information, can I just say how extraordinary it is that we still have them? Some of them were after the event, but also there are archives full of little sort of chits of paper and little scraps, which people have sort of written on thinking they're their dying words and stuck in their socks or stuck in their hats, which then are amassed.

35:25Anita:And I mean, there are a lot of them in the Indian archive, aren't there really? These tantalizing bits and scraps of history. It's amazing.

35:31William:Yeah, this is what I based it all on. What was exciting was to find that not only do you have the British sources, such as James Morley, we're about to tell his story, which he survives to tell this story. And as we'll see, the rest of his family are killed but the that we have petitions to the emperor from people who are selling wood or or making grilling kebabs or you know really the ordinary people or a courtesan who's captured by the uh mutineers and raped and all these people send their petitions and they have all survived and they're in the national archives it's just it's an amazing thing unlike the rest of india where the where we have only read the british account we have really the victor's account in Delhi by a freak thing that the British capture this archive and they keep it with a view to prosecuting anybody that's inside it anyone that's been you know stood up against them but for this reason it's preserved and it's sitting in the Indian National Archives and my friend Bruce and I went through all this and we had a wonderful time translating all this stuff and and bringing it out for the first time but let's go back to uh to poor old Morley so Morley

36:33Anita:who has just poked his nose out. This is what he says. I took a thick stick in my hand. I walked into the street. It was altogether empty. I continued to walk down it without meeting anyone. There was only one old man sitting in a shop and at length I heard a great noise behind. And looking around, I saw a large crowd rushing into my gateway. They had also seen me and some men came rushing down the street towards me. I immediately ran down the street to my left, running along when two men out of nowhere, another lane, calling out, Mar Ferengiko, Mar Ferengiko, which means kill the foreigner. They rushed at me.

37:09Anita:One man had a sword in his hand. The other had a lati. I stopped suddenly. I turned around quickly. I gave the man with the sword a blow over the head, which brought him to the ground. The other man aimed a blow at my head, but I stooped forward and the lati only grazed my shoulder. I swung my stick round. It caught him just below the knee which made him sit down howling with pain yeah so like can you get more visceral than that of an experience of a man who thought he was going to die and he sees you know the mob collecting and so he all he can do is just run for his i can't take them all on and he eventually ends up hiding in a shed used for storing cards as men who are out to murder him pass by and then pick up the story from there will he because i mean he's there for hours and

37:54William:And he's, of course, terrified because he's seen the mob run into his house where his family are hiding. So as evening comes, he creeps out, determined to try and find the fate of his wife and family. And he left this account. Everywhere, things were lying about that had been most wantonly destroyed. Tables had been split in pieces with hatchets and cupboards had been emptied out and everything strewn on the floor. jams and jellies were lying in heaps and there was an overpowering smell from the brandy and wine that had run out of the broken bottles every detail is distinctly imprinted in my mind for that cowardly shrinking from a knowledge of the worst which is common to us all I lingered in the outer room and kept looking around it at length I nerved myself and stepped into the next room just before me pinned to the wall was poor Clark's little son with his head hanging down and a black stream of blood trickling down the wall and a large black pool which lay near the feet.

38:54William:And this cruel death must have been inflicted before his mother's eyes. I closed my eyes and shuddered but opened them again upon an even more dreadful sight. Clark and his wife lay side by side, but I will not, I could not describe the scene. I have said that she was far advanced in pregnancy. I heard an exclamation going to the bedroom. I saw the old Dobie wringing his hands and crying I rushed to the door but I could not enter I could not face the spectacle I could not bear to think that I might see my poor wife as I had just seen poor Mrs. Clark I just sat down and placed my hands on my knees It's appalling

39:36Anita:So let's talk about a couple of other families as well because I'm completely obsessed with the titlers and I think they are hugely interesting Likewise, the wagon tribes who are very, very interesting. Were there survivors? What happens to the survivors of all of this?

39:53William:So there's quite a large British population in Delhi. By this stage, by the 1840s, 1850s, there's an entire suburb called the Civil Lines, which are full of bungalows where the British community live. And while the ones who are within the walled city can't get out because the walled city is walled, And unless they get into disguise and escape, you know, dressed as Indians, as Theo Metcalfe does, they are stuck and most of them died. There's a handful such as Morley and Theo who survived. But the ones who are up in the civil lines are in a kind of British dominated area next to the British cantoonement.

40:28William:And the British soldiers don't know what to do. The civilians don't know what to do. And so the word goes out that they've got to gather at a place called the Flagstaff Tower. And the Flagstaff Tower is this small little sort of miniature castle up on the ridge in Delhi, currently near Delhi University today. And what's left of the British community, who have escaped by mid-morning, all mass on the Flagstaff Tower. And there's this sort of terrible moment when they can see all the violence taking place in the city. They can see smoke rising from houses that have been set on fire. they can hear screams and bangs and have an idea that all this violence is taking place but they don't know what to do and they don't know what whether to make a stand or whether to fight or or to sort of go inside the Flagstaff Tower all day they stay that stay there in the heat too frightened to move and as evening comes everyone makes the decision that they've got to try and escape up the road up the Grand Trunk Road to Carnell and among those who who make it are the Titlers, who are this couple who are early photographers, and both their accounts have survived.

41:38William:And they get a carriage, load it full of all their stuff and make it up the road. And they're constantly being stopped by the Gujars, by these nomads. And sometimes they ride past them, sometimes they throw money or something to distract them. And then significantly later, the Wagon Tribe has followed them. And this is a really interesting story, because Wagon Wagantreiber is the editor of the Delhi Gazette, which is the British paper of Delhi. It's the counterpart of the Delhi or du Akbar, Mohammed Bacca, who we saw. And Wagantreiber is this slightly unpleasant guy who's married one of the Skinner family.

42:10William:And he's always been slightly embarrassed to be married to an Anglo-Indian. He's married to the daughter of James Skinner, the famous founder of Skinner's Horse.

42:18Anita:Skinner's Horse, yes.

42:19William:We have many hints in the letters that this is a bit of an embarrassment to him, that he's got this lovely wife who's very beautiful and who's given him lots of children and looked after him. But it's not a good thing in the society of the 1840s or 1850s to be associated with Anglo-Indian or Indian women at all. But it is what saves his life because they leave later than the Titlers. And by the time that they're heading up the Canal Road, the road is swarming with these Gujars and other Dacoits waiting to land on the Brits, who are now vulnerable and they're often fleeing with all their money.

42:55William:And so it's an absolute free for all. Every sort of two miles, there's a roadblock with a bunch of guys with guns trying to stop them. And eventually, the Wagentriber's get stopped too. They try and charge through the first two roadblocks and they make it through. But eventually, they get stopped. And it's at this point that Elizabeth Wagantreiber reveals herself as the daughter of Sekundar Saab, speaks imperfect Hindustani, and addresses the people of Hulu. And it turns out that they're actually tenants of the Skinner family who had lands on the Carnell Road, and they shelter them. And so Wagantreiber, who's been snotty and racist all his life to his lovely Anglo-Indian wife, actually ends up having his life saved by the fact that she is Skinner's daughter and part of this old dynasty.

43:46William:But many others do not. And the road out of Delhi is a killing field that night, as many, many British families try to escape and are either raped or looted or just killed for their goods as they try and flee the city. So it's a very dark day. And we have only these one or two accounts of the survivors. But there's one crucial thing that happens before the city completely empties of the last Brits. Anita, tell us about what's going on in the telegraph office.

44:18Anita:Okay, so the telegraph office, you cannot overestimate how important the telegraph is at this time. Willie mentioned a little while earlier that the great poet Garlib regarded it as one of the wonders of the world, an absolute miracle of his age. So a man called Todd is in charge of maintaining the telegraph. and sometimes during the night something's happened, it's not working. So he sets off up the road towards Myrit to find out what's wrong and find whether there's a break in the wire that he has to fix. And sometime during the night, because he won't survive to tell us anything about this, this absolute dust cloud of men on horses, the sepoys who are the Sarawas who are on horseback, converge upon him trying to fix the wire and he gets hacked to pieces.

45:05Anita:By four o 'clock on the day that same day his two assistant telegraph operators close up the office and they realize actually they've got to get out of here because something is very very wrong. First they go to Flagstaff Tower then off to Meerut but before they can do anything they tap out and this is really important and this is why the telegraph is so important they tap out two SOS messages in Morse code and send them to the commander in chief at the cantonments in Punjab and on the frontier. Original transcripts of both of these survive in the Punjab archives and you've seen them firsthand in Lahore, haven't you?

45:39William:I've seen them. They're actually displayed. The originals are a display when you go in there and you're filling in your forms to use the archive. Two of the treasures that are there put on display so that people can see the glories of the Lahore archive. This is in Anarchalee's tomb, incidentally, which is itself historic.

45:57Anita:Well, we'll tell you that story another time. It's a brilliant story, the story of Anarchalee. But look, what they say, let me read you what the fuller of the two says, the telegraph. Cantonment in a state of siege, it reads, mutineers from Merritt, third light cavalry, number not known, said to be 150 men, cut off communication with Merritt, taken possession of bridge of boats, 54th NI, sent against them, but would not act. Several officers killed and wounded, sitting in a state of considerable excitement, troops sent down, nothing certain yet. The second of the telegraphs, they get word out is the important thing.

46:33Anita:So nothing that happens in Punjab will be a surprise to Lahore. The second is sent just before the two operators leave their post and run. And I mean, to me, it sort of feels if you're a fan of Tolkien, is those last entries in the caves, you know, it is coming, the drums are getting closer. It feels got very much that kind of vibe. We must leave office. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. All the bungalows are burned down by the sepoys of Merritt. They came in the morning. We are off. Mr. C. Todd is dead, we think. He went out this morning. He has not returned. So they have, first of all, you know, imagine the person translating the Morse code, could not believe his eyes.

47:17Anita:How can this be happening? But crucially, Willie, this is the point, is that there is some forewarning of what has burst upon the heads of these poor benighted people, and at least a little time to prepare for what's coming their way.

47:32William:So there are two very different reactions to this. So there's two messages. One goes to the commander-in-chief who's up in Simula, who's called Anson, and the other goes to Sir John Lawrence, who's the commander in the Punjab. And a lot of the fate of British India over the next months will be decided by how these guys react. So General George Anson, who's up in the cool of the Himalayas, away from the heat of the plains, is completely hopeless. He hasn't seen active service since Waterloo more than 40 years earlier, doesn't see the seriousness of what happened. He's already dismissed the whole business of the grease cartridges.

48:05William:And so he's the man, in a sense, partly responsible for this whole thing escalating in the first place. And amazingly he doesn't do anything he sits there and we have letters from his secretary who says he seems unable to grasp the importance of the situation when he first received the bad news on tuesday morning he should have started off at once the quartermaster did his utmost to persuade him not to lose any time but he said no he would wait for the post what is the use of the electric telegraph if the news it brings is not acted on at once so there is no relief force that is sent off that night to Delhi.

48:37William:And arguably, you know, there is in Simla an entire selection of British regiments who could have stopped the whole thing in its tracks if they'd marched down that day, but they don't. However, there is a very different reaction in Lahore. And there, there's these two characters who we'll be hearing a lot more of in the episodes to come. There's John Lawrence, who's one of the most sympathetic of the characters, of the British characters. It's thanks to John Lawrence, for example, that the Jamu Masjid and the Red Fort are still standing, the two great treasures of the city where I live, Delhi.

49:06William:He saves them both from destruction. But he's got this underling who is also somebody we've heard of a little on the podcast in the Irish series, and we'll be hearing a great deal more of, John Nicholson, who's this great psycho John. Psycho John Nicholson.

49:22Anita:You can't overestimate just how awful Psycho John is, but you get a sort of a taste of it if you've heard our Irish episodes because he pops up significantly in that as well. Sorry, Willie, just can't help it. Knee-jerk reaction to his name.

49:37William:No, no, no, it's quite right. And he, I mean, he's a psychopath, but he's an entertaining psychopath. And we'll be hearing some extraordinary stories about him in the episodes that follow. But the key thing is that when this telegram arrives in Lahore, which is a city where there is only one British regiment and many Indian regiments, and so the whole thing is very much on a knife edge, John Lawrence acts immediately. And the following morning, he makes a plan and he gets all the Indian regiments to line up on parade at the contunement. And when they arrive, they find that the English regiments are already there with their guns loaded with grape shops and aimed directly at the sepoys.

50:19William:And the order is given ground arms. And these guys have to put their guns down. They're surrounded, completely outmatched. and the Indian troops have no option but to comply and their weapons are seized, effectively neutralizing the threat of the Punjab. So it's from Lahore that the fight back will come. So this is a kind of crucial moment. And in the old British imperial books, John Lawrence, John Nixon are the two great heroes of the hour. But it all now hangs on what happens in Delhi. if Anson can get his act together even belatedly and send off a field force to take on and recapture the rebels of Delhi then as far as the British concerned all may yet be well but for Zafar who and the Mughal dynasty and the rebels who want to get rid of the British which is quite a lot of the people in India except the Delhi elite this is the moment of triumph they have regained the momentum The Mughal dynasty is back on the throne, a great uprising involving both Hindus and Muslims under the leadership of Bhandar Shah Zafar, the emperor who's been dismissed by the British as this sort of impotent poet king, but is now turns out to be an incredibly strategic figure on whom a lot hangs.

51:38William:And the other key person is John Lawrence's brother, who is Henry Lawrence, who is a veteran of the Sikh wars and the pacification of the Punjab, as they call it. He's now in Lucknow. And he also is someone like his brother who doesn't wait around. He's busy reinforcing the residency. We'll be coming to the siege of the Lucknow residency in episodes to come. but he realizes that it all depends on Delhi and in the next episode we're going to see what happens

52:11Anita:in that yeah so if you I mean if you want to know whether any kind of hope from Delhi is misplaced or not do tune in if you can't wait for the next episode you know you can get early access to it as well as bonus episodes our weekly newsletter just sign up to empire club at empirepoduk.com That's empirepoduk.com. Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon.

52:35William:And goodbye from me, William Durimple.

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