Sikhs and soldiers mark anniversary of Battle of Ferozeshah

[chatanga1]

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-news/2015/12/15/sikhs-and-soldiers-mark-anniversary-of-battle-of-ferozeshah/ferozeshah-6-rh-12/

 

More than 80 civilians joined 180 soldiers from the Mercian Regiment to honour the Battle of Ferozeshah.

The Battle of Ferozeshah was fought in what is now Northern India on December 21 and 22, 1845, during the first Anglo-Sikh War.

Among those involved were soldiers from the 80th Regiment of Foot – antecedents of the Staffordshire Regiment and in turn the Mercians and in total 694 people were killed and 1,721 wounded.

 

To mark the anniversary a parade was held on Saturday inside the Army Reserve Centre at Wolseley House, in Fallings Park, Wolverhampton.

Captain Austin Miller, operations support officer at the 4th Battalion The Mercian Regiment, said: "The initial plan was to hold it outside but because of the weather and the fact we had invited a lot of civilians we decided to move it indoors.

"The day included a parade and procession while a soldier from the Mercian Regiment was commended for his action in Afghanistan.

"The Sikh community provided lunch for the soldiers.

"These days we are not so much celebrating the battle because historically we have all moved on.

"This is all part of bringing the community back together."

Captain Miller, who has served for 35 years with the army, said they tried to remember and commemorate the battle as close to the original date as possible.

He said: "In 2010 we sent 120 soldiers on an operational tour of Afghanistan.

"When we returned we went to a local Sikh temple in Wolverhampton, sat through a service and enjoyed a meal with them. We host something every year."

 

 

[chatanga1]

Personally, I find it astounding that we Sikhs would be commemorating such a disastrous event in our history with those who caused it. The first Anglo-Sikh war was the beginnning of the end of the Lahore Darbar, and since then our community has been on a downwards spiral, losing the Kingdom, partition of Panjab etc.

[dalsingh101]

Just shows you where we are mentally as a community in the UK. 

 

No other community or individuals would celebrate their conquest and subjugation like this. 

 

What we see here is a deeply rooted inferiority complex towards goray too many of our lot have. Shame. 

[chatanga1]

 

 

[chatanga1]

It's fine to have a memorial but why should the fact be ignored that the Sikhs were a subjugated people by the British and fought for the freedom of our masters who denied us the same freedoms that we were fighting for the British to have.

And not forgetting that the indians were still treated as sub-humans even after their colossal sacrifice.

[amardeep]

What were the death tolls of the two anglo-sikh wars?? i've seen a few that says a few thousand on each side. I can't believe all it took was a few thousand deaths to dismantle the Sikh empire.

[dalsingh101]

1 hour ago, amardeep said:

What were the death tolls of the two anglo-sikh wars?? i've seen a few that says a few thousand on each side. I can't believe all it took was a few thousand deaths to dismantle the Sikh empire.

That's the type of stuff HSD would know. Where is he when we need him? lol

 

I think it was greater than that on our side - the greatest loss was probably because of that burning boat bridge across the Sutlej(?), more than fighting. 

 

[amardeep]

Yeah i've suspected that those numbers were also too low. But I keep seeing them again and again. I think the conquests of Multan and Kashmir were at least 10.000 etc. So dismantling the whole Sikh empire must have been much more than just a few thousand.

[paapiman]

On 1/3/2016 at 3:28 PM, amardeep said:

What were the death tolls of the two anglo-sikh wars?? i've seen a few that says a few thousand on each side. I can't believe all it took was a few thousand deaths to dismantle the Sikh empire.

15,000 Sikhs (Nihangs under Akali Hanumaan Singh jee) attained Shaheedi in one of the wars.

http://tuhitu.blogspot.ca/2015/03/sakhi-series-259-akaali-baba-hanuman.html

 

Most likely, the death toll on our side was more than 20,000.

 

Bhul chuk maaf

[HSD1]

What people have to bare in mind is that only two sides are really interested in the facts of what happened - us and the British. If you know anything about the way in which the British describe their history it comes as no surprise the way they describe their losses as being small. Each historical book written by British historians that I have read tends to round off each battle with a little paragraph about how there were more enemies than Brits but somehow they still managed to kill plenty of the enemy and win. - it can feel like reading a cricket score rather than an actual factual set of figures! It's a bit like those war films where the people who made the film like to show their side mowing down loads of the other side, whilst each of their losses is given a heroic moment to signify their importance over the enemy. It should therefore come as no surprise that the British fudged their casualty figures during the Anglo-Sikh Wars, doing things like only reporting on one regiment's losses as the figure for the entire army, not counting how many of their own sepoys they lost or simply just ordering the press not to report on any casualties. Considering how many British regiments used to have days named after battles from the Anglo-SIkh Wars where the officers would hand over all battle standards to their sergeants to commemorate how during the actual battle their officers were wiped out just shows where the actual truth lies. Or reading more factual accounts showing the levels of shell shock and grief caused by their losses inflicted on the Brits mentally.

As for our losses, we'll never know. The casualty figures were kept by the regiments but after the Wars the headquarters would have been taken over by the Brits so all evidence would no longer be available. Some accounts are passed down by the families from some of the old regiments but these are largely anecdotal. Personally, I think Sikh casualty figures were lighter than the Brits for most battles but overall may have been higher in the first war due to the events of Sobraon and what went down in Patiala. In the second war I think the massacre of Sikh troops retreating from Gujrat would have tipped the casualty figures to balance earlier British losses in the war.

On balance, it's probably best not to get too worked up about the actual numbers. The British could replace their losses in the time it took a ship to sail from Portsmouth to Calcutta, where as we were a minority ruling a empire full of backstabbers and idiots, we could not replace the quality and quantity we lost. Not even all this time since those wars.

[dalsingh101]

Bump for Bhagat

[JustAnotherSingh]

@HSD1 Also, there's a lot of even British accounts that explain another reason for inflated death count. Sikhs did not surrender. Even those with horrific wounds manning cannons fought to the very end, and as such, the British took no prisoners. The overall death rate as such must be a lot higher than one may naturally suspect (once someone's wounded badly, doubt they can fight effectively-hence why casualties usually include the number of people wounded ).