The now defunct painting was in the United States. According to legend, it was bought and then destroyed by the British.
The depiction of this execution by the "civilized" English made a lot of noise. The British did not succeed with repentance. The artist was accused of lying, but there were witnesses, even performers with memories and other images.
The picture tells about the suppression of the sepoy uprising in 1857. It has become, as they would say now, an "information bomb". In fact, it determined her fate. The images that I came across were either dull in color or small in size. Only in one book dedicated to the work of our artists in India did I manage to find a decent-sized, albeit monochrome, illustration. It was the book "India in the works of artists", the State Publishing House Visual arts. 1955 edition. It was not at a recent exhibition or catalog. This is how we treat repentance and freedom of creativity in the West.
This is the color that seems to be.
We, people of another civilization, do not understand the horror of this execution for an Indian, but Vasily Vereshchagin himself describes it this way:
They are not afraid of this death, and they are not afraid of execution; but what they avoid, what they fear, is the need to appear before the supreme judge in an incomplete, tormented form, without a head, without arms, with a lack of members, and this is not only likely, but even inevitable when shooting from cannons.<…>
A remarkable detail: while the body is shattered into pieces, all the heads, breaking away from the body, spirally fly upwards. Naturally, they are later buried together, without a strict analysis of which of the yellow gentlemen this or that part of the body belongs to. This circumstance, I repeat, greatly frightens the natives, and it was the main motive for the introduction of execution by shooting from cannons in especially important cases, such as, for example, during uprisings.
It is difficult for a European to understand the horror of an Indian of a high caste, if necessary, only to touch a brother of a lower one: he must, in order not to close his opportunity to be saved, wash himself and make sacrifices after that without end. It is also terrible that modern orders for example, one has to sit elbow on elbow with everyone on the railways - and then it can happen, no more, no less, that the head of a Brahmin with three cords will lie in eternal rest near the spine of a pariah - brrr! From this thought alone, the soul of the hardest Hindu shudders!
I say this very seriously, in full confidence that no one who was in those countries or who impartially familiarized himself with them from the descriptions will contradict me.
V. Vereshchagin. Skobelev. Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878 in the memoirs of VV Vereshchagin. - M.: "DAR", 2007. - S. 153.
It was a great moral humiliation, as was the fact that in those days the British smeared the muzzles of their guns with pork and beef fat. The first did not please the Muslims, and the second infuriated the Hindus, in whose religion the cow is a sacred animal. In principle, even the sepoy uprising itself began with ignorance or even disrespect by the British of local beliefs. They supplied new guns to the sepoy troops, the cartridges of which were just smeared with pork fat, which the sepoys did not want to come into contact with. Subsequently, the British took into account this mistake, but that was later.
This is one of the fragments of memories: - "The commander ordered to light pilot fires. "Ready!" Fire!" and the drama was enacted. An eyewitness says: "The scene and the stench were irresistible. I felt terribly in convulsions and could watch how numerous local spectators were amazed - that they not only trembled like aspen leaves, but also changed in complexion. No precautions were taken to get people out of the muzzles of the guns; as a result, the spectators were badly stained with blood, and one person in particular was hit hard by a flying hand!“"
There were no unnecessary delays in the execution of this tragedy. Two unfortunate creatures were sent to the gallows with ropes around their necks on a dais under a beam.
The order was given to load the cannons, and the European gunners quickly, it seems, put a quarter charge of gunpowder into each piece. The guns were 9-pounder, muzzles stood about 3 feet from the ground.
During these terrible preparations, I observed the faces of the condemned at intervals, but could not detect any trace of fear or excitement in their behavior. Twelve people stood at the back, six in front and six behind, calm and unruffled, not uttering a word.
The officer stepped forward and, on the order of the brigadier, read out the verdict of the military court, and at the end of it, six people who were in front, under escort, approached the battery.
At this time, a deadly silence reigned over the stage, and, seized with horror, my heart seemed to almost stop beating.
Arriving at the guns, the perpetrators were handed over to the gunners, who, having prepared themselves with strong ropes in their hands, seized their victims. Each of them, standing straight, was tied to a cannon and tightly fixed, with a small back covering the muzzle. And suddenly the silence that reigned around was broken by the oaths and cries of those who were about to die. These sounds were not uttered by people who fear death, for they showed the most stoic indifference, but were the long-suppressed utterances of dying souls who, in the bitterness of their hearts, cursed those who condemned them to this shameful end. They all poured curses on our heads; and in their language, richest in swearing, they have exhausted all lexicon.
"Shooting Rebellious Sepoys with Guns", India, 1858. (Courtesy Ann S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
Meanwhile, the gunners stood with port lights lit, waiting for the order to fire their cannons and send the sepoys to eternity.
They were still shouting and raining curses, some even looking over their shoulders and staring emotionlessly at the fuses that were about to be applied to the fuse holes, when the word "fire!" came from the commanding officer, and part of the tragedy was over.
A thick cloud of smoke coming from the muzzle of the cannons, through which some of us could clearly see the black heads of the victims, rising many feet into the air ...
The gunners reloaded the guns, the six remaining prisoners, cursing like their fellow killers, were tied to the guns, another shot, and then the execution, the like of which I hope never to see again, was completed.
All the while, the air was saturated with a disgusting, offensive odor, a stench that only those who have been present at such scenes can understand - the pungent smell of burnt human flesh.
The gunners neglected to prop up their cannons, so that, scary to say, with each shot the recoil threw back pieces of burning flesh, with each shot the recoil threw back pieces of burning flesh, exposing the men and covering them with blood and burnt remains.
A large crowd of natives from the bazaars and the city gathered in front of the houses, and at the muzzles of the cannons, as I have already said, at a distance of about 300 yards, to watch the execution. At the second shot of the cannon, and looking ahead of me, I noticed that the earth was torn apart, and the earth was thrown a short distance into the air for more than 200 paces. Almost at the same time, there was a commotion among the crowd ahead, some running back and forth, while others ran towards the houses ...
The drama ended at about six o'clock, and as usual, even after a funeral or a military execution, the group got up and we headed back to the barracks, hoping to soon erase the memory of the terrible scenes we had witnessed from our heads.
Two or three hours after our return, news came that among the crowd of spectators of the recent execution that stood in front of us, one local resident was killed and two were wounded.
Cannons are fired at the rebels. In Peshawar, 40 rebels meet their fate in the guise of an old Mughal punishment for rebelling against the British. The mutiny represented for the British a struggle of the highest moral order, in defense of which, paradoxically, no mercy was shown to the captured rebels.
(Picture from the National Army Museum)
Text from Gregory Fremont-Barnes "Essential Histories The Indian Mutiny 1857-58"
Execution of mutineers at Peshawar
Cannon execution, also called "devil's wind" in Bombay. 28/11/1857 Illustrated London News
Execution of execution in Peshaur. Duet of Arms Illustrated London News 03/10/1857
In Britain, the sepoy rebellion was portrayed as an uprising against the whites and Christianity. The horrors of war and cruelty were attributed to one side, along with stories of the murder of Englishmen, rumors and illustrations were circulated of the terrible and shameful deaths of Englishwomen. The reaction was not slow in coming.
In the churches of England, the theme of Sunday sermons was vengeance instead of redemption.
In his book "Empire. Than modern world owe to Britain" Niall Ferguson wrote of this time:
Queen Victoria, whose indifference to the empire had been replaced by a lively interest because of the rebellion, called the nation to repentance and prayer: October 7, 1857, was declared a Day of Humiliation - nothing more and nothing less. In the Crystal Palace, a monument to Victorian self-confidence, twenty-five thousand parishioners heard the fiery speech of the Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. It was a real call to holy war:
- "My friends, what crimes they have committed! .. The Indian government should not have tolerated the religion of the Indians at all. If my religion consisted of bestiality, infanticide and murder, I would have no right to anything other than hanging. The religion of the Indians - it is nothing more than a mass of the most extreme obscenities imaginable.The deities they worship are not entitled to even a modicum of respect.Their creed requires everything that is vicious, and morality requires it to stop.To cut off our compatriots from the myriad Indians, the sword must be unsheathed."
These words were taken literally when the remaining native troops loyal to the British, such as the Gurkhas and Sikhs, arrived in the areas covered by the uprising. At Kanpur, Brigadier General Neil forced captured rebels to lick the blood of their victims from the walls before being executed. In Peshawar, forty men were tied to gun barrels and torn to shreds: the old punishment for mutiny in the Mughal state. In Delhi, where the fighting was most desperate, the British troops did not make up even a quarter of the besiegers. The fall of the city in September became an orgy of violence and plunder. Mainodin Hasan Khan recalled that "the British broke into the city like a river breaking through a dam ... Nobody could feel safe. All healthy men were shot as rebels." Three princes, sons of the ruler of Delhi, were arrested, stripped and shot by William Hodson, the son of a priest. He explained this act to his brother, also a priest:
I addressed the crowd, saying that they were butchers who killed and abused helpless women and children, and now the [British] government is punishing them. Taking a carbine from one of my men, I shot the princes, one by one... The bodies were taken to the city and thrown into the garbage pit... I was going to hang them, but when the question arose, we or them, I did not have time for reflection.
As Zechariah Macaulay's son remarked, there was a horrifying paroxysm of evangelical vindictiveness: "The report on ... the actions in Peshawar ... was read with admiration by people who were against the death penalty three weeks ago." The Times demanded that "on every tree and ridge of the roof .. "hung a rebel."
Indeed, the path of the English avengers was marked by corpses hung on trees. Lieutenant Kendal Coghill recalled: "We burned all the villages, hanged all the peasants who mistreated our refugees, so that on every branch ... hung a scoundrel." In Kanpur, at the height of the repressions, a huge banyan tree (it still grows there) "decorated" one hundred and fifty corpses. The fruits of the uprising were indeed bitter.
No one can say exactly how many people died during rampant violence...
Images of such torture and repression circulated throughout England. Newspapers were to provide illustrations and information about the successful suppression and punishment of "savages". The British press successfully aroused national sentiment and was equally effective in influencing the British need for retribution. They did this with illustrations and stories about the "devil's wind". From here https://1857india.wordpress.co...
The photograph on the right depicts the hanging of two participants in the Indian uprising of sepoys of the 31st native infantry. Guarded by sepoys loyal to the British.
Justice, Sir John Tenniel's print in the September 1857 issue of Punch
The interior of Secundra Bagh, a few months after it was stormed. Silver print of Felice Beato, 1858
types of revenge.
Of course, the British and not only them are now using Vereshchagin's painting, but on Wiki in English it is presented as a painting that the Nazis used in their anti-British propaganda.
So why did Vereshchagin's painting disappear? Agree, all the above illustrations, even with naturalistic details, do not have such an artistic impact as the picture of our Vereshchagin. It was dangerous because of its force of influence, the accusatory force that revealed the by no means civilized filling of the English stay in India. Because her fate was predetermined. The picture is gone. But still, her old, albeit not ideal, images remained and the time will come, she will be restored in color, bright and powerful, as this particular great artist could do.
The facts stated here are actually just a compilation of what is on the net. Something taken from the article "Seditious" canvas by the artist Vereshchagin, something from Wiki. I apologize for the many letters, but every time I am surprised how these gentlemen teach us human rights.
The desperate people of India rebelled more than once against their English oppressors, but this did not bother the East India Company. The colonial authorities were confident in the reliability of their hired Indian soldiers, with the help of which they easily suppressed the discontent of the poorly armed peasants.
From the very beginning of the colonization of India, the British had a huge advantage over the natives - after all, even the most zealous defenders of their native land, armed only with sabers and leather shields, could not withstand rifle salvos and artillery fire. However, the British did not want to lose their soldiers in a godforsaken part of the world, so the sepoys became the main force in the policy of uniting the fragmented Indian principalities - hired soldiers from among the local population, who were equipped with modern weapons, trained and paid a solid salary. For the poor, getting into the service of the British was the ultimate dream. Sepoys were recruited exclusively from Hindus and Muslims. By 1857, the three armies (Bengal, Bombay and Madras) included 233,000 sepoys, while there were only 36,000 English soldiers in India.
It seemed like a very smart move - to give the poor savages a chance for a bright future in the service of the East India Company, to arm, train and guard the interests of the colonialists. Even though in 1856 the salaries of mercenaries were severely cut, and promotion was limited to the rank of sergeant, they still remained loyal, preferring service to death from starvation or disease in some crumbling shack. But, while Christianizing and cultivating the local population, the colonial authorities did not take into account one detail - people are not ready to exchange all traditions for money and better conditions.
It all started with the fact that cartridges with bullets of the system of the French inventor Claude Mignet were adopted. This cartridge had a paper sleeve, which had to be bitten with teeth when loading the weapon. But, adopting this cartridge, the authorities did not take into account that the cartridge case was soaked in cow and pork fat to protect against moisture, which in turn offended the religious feelings of Muslims and Hindus.
The riot began on May 10, 1857, after 85 sepoys refused to receive new cartridges and were sentenced to hard labor. This provoked an uprising of three regiments in Meerut, which is 60 km from Delhi, and later led to an uprising of the entire Bengal army. On this day, many British soldiers were on leave, so they could not resist the rebellious natives. The rebels killed English soldiers, officers and officials, as well as several European civilians. They released their arrested brother-soldiers and another 800 convicts from prison. Soon the rebels captured Delhi, where the soldiers of a small detachment of English guards from the arsenal, realizing that they could not protect the property of the East India Company, blew up an ammunition depot along with themselves and several hundred sepoys.
The mercenaries decided to raise the whole of India in revolt, so they moved to the palace, where the last descendant of the Great Moghuls, Padishah Bahadur Shah II, lived out his life. He was taken out of his chambers and forced to sign an appeal calling on the entire Indian people to fight for independence. What began as an uprising grew into a nationwide liberation war. Its front stretched from Punjab to Bengal, and Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow became the main centers of resistance, where their own independent governments were formed. The British had to retreat to the south, where relative calm still reigned and there were troops loyal to the company.
Having recovered from the first blow, the colonialists set about suppressing the rebellion. The British knew that the assembly point of the sepoys was Delhi, so it was there on June 6, 1857 that the first blow was struck. General Harry Barnard captured the Bedliko-Serai range, which towered over the capital, and after that began a four-month siege of the city itself. The British made good fighters out of the Indians, the sepoy artillerymen showed themselves especially well, who in their art of firing surpassed even the colonialists themselves. Barnard's troops would most likely have had a very hard time if not for that fatal warehouse that exploded at the beginning of the uprising, leaving the Delhi garrison almost without shells. However, the 30,000-strong garrison of the city regularly made sorties and struck, destroying small detachments of the British.
Reinforcements came to the aid of the colonists in the form of British soldiers, as well as Indians, who supported the suppression of the uprising. They were mostly Sikhs and Pashtuns of the Punjba. On September 8, a three-day artillery preparation began, as a result of which gaps were made in the walls of the city, and on September 14, the colonial troops advanced in four columns to storm. At the cost of heavy losses, they managed to overcome the walls and seize a foothold inside the city. This was followed by the hardest street fighting, which lasted six days and ended with the conquest of Delhi.
The British, having lost 1574 soldiers, were literally mad with rage, they shot the main mosque of the city and the buildings adjacent to it, where the elite of the Muslim population of India lived, from cannons. The city was robbed and destroyed, peaceful Indians were dragged out of their homes and killed, avenging their dead comrades. Bursting into the palace of the padishah, the victors shot his entire family, and Bahadur Shah II himself was taken prisoner - this is how the most ancient dynasty of the Great Moghuls fell along with Delhi.
Then, on March 16, 1858, the city of Lucknow was taken, and on June 19, in the battle of Gwalior, troops under the command of General Rose defeated the last major rebel detachment, which was led by Tatia Toni. However, the uprising was finally suppressed only by April 1859.
Despite the victory, the British colonialists were forced to make a number of cardinal changes in their policy in India. So, even before the end of hostilities, in August 1858, the East India Company was liquidated, and the control of India passed into the hands of England, which, in turn, made all the inhabitants of the colony subjects of the English crown. Along with this, a number of laws were adopted, according to which the rights of ownership of land were assigned to local feudal lords, and thanks to the laws on rent, which limited the arbitrariness of landowners and princes, the colonists reduced the degree of discontent among the peasants.
Have you seen Captain Nemo? And everyone remembers the scene of the execution of the Indian sepoys from this film?
Such an execution was called "Devil's wind" or "Blow from a cannon." Its essence was that the condemned was tied to the muzzle of a cannon and killed him with a subsequent shot from it through the body of the victim (both with a cannonball and a blank charge of gunpowder). "Devil wind" is one of the most barbaric types of executions in the history of civilization and was used by the civilized British in the suppression of uprisings in India in the 19th century. What this execution was like can be read. The meaning of the execution was based on intimidation, but not so much with such a form of killing, but rather with pressure on the religiosity of the population of India, since the victim also had Negative consequences in terms of caste. As the artist Vereshchagin wrote, witnessing such executions: “It is difficult for a European to understand the horror of an Indian of a high caste, if necessary, only to touch a brother of a lower one: he must, in order not to close himself the opportunity to be saved, wash himself and make sacrifices after that without end. sit elbow on elbow with everyone - and then it can happen, no more, no less, that the head of a Brahmin with three cords will lie down in eternal rest near the spine of a pariah - brrr! From this very thought, the soul of the hardest Hindu shudders! That is, it means that the pieces, torn by a shot of people, were buried in one grave mixed up and this hit the religious Hindus hard.
By the way, about Vereshchagin.
Based on his impressions of what he saw in India, in 1884 he painted a picture called "The suppression of the Indian uprising by the British"
The picture turned out to be a "bomb" and made a lot of noise in Europe.
“For example, the fate of the painting “The suppression of the Indian uprising by the British” turned out to be sad. Painted in 1884, the canvas is now known only from photographs. The work had a huge socio-political resonance in Russia, but caused irritation official authorities in London. They tried to accuse the artist of lying, but there were not only eyewitnesses to the executions depicted in the picture, but also those who carried them out. They decided to kill the "seditious" painting. Through figureheads, it was bought and, most likely, destroyed. Attempts to find traces of the painting, to find out anything about its fate, were unsuccessful."
It is interesting that two stereotypes are associated with this picture, which exist when it is mentioned.
Stereotype one
In his painting, Vereshchagin depicted the execution by the British of participants in the sepoy uprising, one of the most famous uprisings in colonial India against the British, which took place in 1857-59. That is, the uprising of the regular forces of the British army in India, which were Hindus, which in Soviet historiography was also referred to as the "Great People's Uprising".
Stereotype two.
What is the meaning of the picture. Here I will give this opinion about it:
"The author wants to show the strength of the spirit of the Indian people, the picture shows how the rebels are tied to cannons, while the English soldiers, in turn, are waiting for the command to shoot the rebels. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, the rebels, among whom there are elderly people, are not broken and are ready with honor accept death for their homeland, they are not ashamed and not afraid to die, because they fought for the freedom of their children, their people, their homeland.
As for the second stereotype, taking into account the above-mentioned points related to religious fear, a contradiction arises with “they are ready to honor death for their homeland ... they are not ashamed and not afraid to die,” etc. As already mentioned, this barbaric execution was a deterrent and was supposed to deprive not only life and religious comfort after death. Therefore, despite all the respect for the rebels, what is said above about the picture is still "blah, blah, blah" in the spirit of Soviet propaganda.
As for the first stereotype. Who is depicted in the painting by Vereshchagin?
As it turned out, this is not a sepoy. The fact is that the artist, being in India in 1875, could not see the sepoy uprising, since the latter was suppressed 15 years earlier. But he found other events there ..
In the sepoy uprising, the Wahbi movement played a big role, which stimulated their supporters to disobey. As you know, the reason for the uprising was the rumor that the cartridges for the new Enfield rifle were lubricated with pork and beef fat. It was this fact that made it possible to unite the rebels for religious reasons into one "team", because, as you know, a pig is an unclean animal for a Muslim and a cow is a sacred animal for a Hindu. Thus, the rumor about insulting the feelings of believers of both religions became a powerful reason for the uprising. After the defeat of the sepoys, the British fought Wahhabism for several more years: " In Sitan, in the region of independent Pathan tribes, the Wahhabis even earlier set up a large military camp, where volunteers now flocked, weapons and supplies were secretly transported. Sitana, according to the leaders of the sect, was to become a stronghold of the uprising, which would take place under the banner of jihad - holy war with infidels, i.e., the English. In 1863, the British sent an entire army corps against Sitana, and only at the cost of heavy losses after they managed to split off the Afghan tribes supporting the Wahhabis, managed to defeat this stronghold of the uprising. In 1864, the centers of the Wahhabis in Patna and Delhi were destroyed, after which the movement gradually began to wane.Quote by Antonova K.A., Bongard-Levin G.M., Kotovsky G.G. History of India. Brief essay. M.1973. page 328
If the Muslims were under the influence of the propaganda of the Wahhabis, then among the Hindus the Sikh sect, which was called Namdhari, was actively engaged in propaganda:
"The sect intensified its activity after Ram Singh, a native of a carpenter's family, became its head in 1846. In 1863, Ram Singh made a detailed presentation of the teachings of Namdhari, in which he put forward demands for the rejection of the use of English goods and service in institutions of the colonial administration.Ram Singh, who served in the army at one time, carried out a reform organizational structure sects, introducing a clear paramilitary organization in districts, volosts and villages. The sect established ties with the Sikhs who served in the Sinai units of the colonial army. Namdhari, numbering about 50 thousand people, well organized, unquestioningly obeying the head of the sect Ram Singh and passed military training, represented a serious force. The sect was therefore placed under the watchful supervision of the police.
In the second half of the 60s, the activities of the sect were directed against the Sikh feudal elite, which appropriated the property rights to temple lands that previously belonged to the entire Sikh community. However, several open speeches of the Namdhari were suppressed by the British with the support of local Sikh feudal lords.
In the late 60s and early 70s, the activities of the sect began to increasingly take on a religious and communal coloring, since the Namdharis several times opposed Muslim butchers who killed the sacred animal for the Sikhs, like the Hindus, the cow. Ram Singh strongly objected to this side of the sect's activities, as he saw that the British cleverly used Namdhari raids on Muslim slaughterhouses to incite Sikh-Muslim hatred and suppress the movement.
However, a strong opposition group formed within the sect, which, despite the resistance of Ram Singh, decided in mid-January 1872 to oppose the ruler of the small Punjabi principality of Malerkotla: he was a Muslim and shortly before that he ordered the bull to be killed.
On the way to Malerkotla, more than a hundred namdharis raided the fortress of Malodh, the residence of a Sikh feudal lord who had previously actively helped the British in repressions against the sect. They expected to arm themselves with the weapons available in the fortress. However, their attempts to capture both Malodh and Malerkotla failed. The Namdharis were dispersed by troops from neighboring Sikh principalities. The traitorous princes again showed themselves to be the devoted assistants of the British in the suppression of the popular movement.
Captured namdharis, by order of the British, were shot from cannons without trial or investigation. This barbaric massacre is depicted in a painting by the great Russian artist Vereshchagin, who visited India in 1875.
Quote by Antonova K.A., Bongard-Levin G.M., Kotovsky G.G. History of India. Brief essay. M.1973. page 329
That is, Vereshchagin witnessed the massacre of the British over the members of the Namdhari sect, and not the sepoys, whose goals were different, namely, as stated above, the struggle was initially fought not with the British colonizers, but with Muslims of other faiths who killed the animal sacred to the Sikhs . This split in the sect was successfully used by the British to move the Namdhari away from the anti-British ideas of Ram Singh. Subsequently, the Namdhari sect was severely repressed, and Ram Singh was sent into exile for life in Burma.
From the translation of the name of this execution, it is almost impossible to guess what it really was. Much closer to the original sounds "cannon shooting", "cannon shots" or, at worst, "cannon blowing". Then it becomes clear that, firstly, this type of death penalty was directly related to guns, and secondly, it was used exclusively in wartime. This is probably why it has not received wide distribution.
As in the case of many instruments of torture and death penalty, the inventor of the devilish wind was lost somewhere in the depths of history. It is only known that he was an Englishman, since Indians were killed with cannon shots during the sepoy uprising in 1857-58.
How exactly was the execution carried out?
In a very curious way. The devilish wind, contrary to assumptions, did not at all resemble. An Indian soldier condemned to death was tied so that the cannon mouth rested between his shoulder blades, and then, in fact, a shot was fired. It doesn’t matter if there was a cannonball available or if it was a blank shot, a person was literally torn to pieces.
It would seem: what is terrible about this? Death is instant. In most cases, the victim did not even have time to feel the pain.
Sipaev was not afraid of pain, but psychological aspect similar death. According to their beliefs (see ""), the greatest shame was to appear before the deities in an indecent form, i.e. being, in literally assembled from pieces of his body. An additional moral torment was the impossibility of a decent burial, when the division into castes was lost after death, and the head of a priest - a Brahmin - came into contact with the head of some untouchable poor man. This happened quite often, since the devilish wind was a mass execution type.
And people still wonder why psychology is needed, which is contemptuously called pseudo-science. As you can see, for breaking the spirit of opponents during the war, it is simply irreplaceable.
There are relatively few references to the devil's wind in history. If in that era the famous artist V. Vereshchagin had not become interested in this type of execution, it is very likely that he would not have reached us at all. Although it is mentioned later - in the novels of Jules Verne ("Steam House") and R. Sabatini ("The Odyssey of Captain Blood"). And also in the movie "Captain Nemo". It is noteworthy that Jules Verne turned this execution on its head, i.e. in his narration, it was not the Indians who were executed with the help of cannon shots, but the Indians - a British colonel, in the form of revenge for the events of 1857.
Perhaps it is precisely with the devilish wind that the entertainment idea that arose much later in circuses is connected - entertaining the public through cannon shots, when a man in a helmet was used as a cannonball.
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From the very beginning of the colonization of India, the British had a very large advantage over the natives. Even the most zealous defenders of their native lands, armed only with sabers and leather shields, could not oppose anything to Europeans armed with rifles and cannons. At the same time, the British did not want to lose their own soldiers at such a distance from the mother country. For this reason, sepoys, hired soldiers recruited by the British from among the local population, became one of the main forces in the policy of uniting the numerous and fragmented Indian principalities. The sepoys received a modern one at their disposal, they were paid monthly salaries. For the poorest sections of the Indian population to get on military service to the British for a long time became the limit of their dreams.
sepoys
By 1857, when the rebellion broke out, there were about 40,000 British soldiers and officers and more than 230,000 sepoys in India, who were part of three armies: Bengal, Bombay and Madras. All these armies had separate commands and differed in their organization. The most numerous and combat-ready of them was the Bengal army. It numbered 128 thousand people, who were recruited mainly from the natives of Oudh. At the same time, most of the sepoys of this army belonged to the Kshatriya (warrior caste) and Brahmin (clergy caste) castes. Due to this fact, there was a stronger bond between the sepoys in the Bengal army than in the armies of Bombay and especially Madras, where the sepoys were often recruited from the most lumpen-proletarian elements, as well as from the lower castes. In India, castes social groups, into which Indian society has historically been divided, were of great importance.
The Sepoy troops were well armed and trained in the English way, they represented all the existing branches of the military. Artillery units were especially well prepared. In terms of accuracy of shooting from guns, the sepoys surpassed even their English teachers. Usually sepoys were hired for 3 years, after which the contract was renewed. The salary of an ordinary sepoy was 7 rupees per month, which in the realities of that India provided them with a satisfying life and even allowed them to leave a small surplus. The British even initially cajoled the sepoys, who enjoyed privileges in the analysis of their cases in court, taxes on their families were reduced, and during the war they received one and a half salaries.
Sepoys of the 20th and 11th native infantry regiments, suvar of the 3rd light cavalry battalion, soldier of the 53rd infantry regiment, officer marines and a pikeman from the 9th Cavalry Regiment
At the same time, the Anglo-Indian army was a cast of the whole of India. All the highest command posts in it were occupied by the British. Sepoy had the opportunity to curry favor from a soldier to an officer, but even then, already whitened with gray hair and covered with scars from battle wounds, he was forced to stand at attention even in front of a young English ensign. The highest officer rank that an Indian could rise to was subadur (captain). At the same time, the national oppression was even more felt by ordinary rank and file. The British themselves are used to fighting and serving in comfort. Even ordinary English soldiers had their servants. Knapsacks during campaigns they had to carry coolies. A British officer was usually served by a dozen servants. All his luggage, travel utensils, a tent were loaded onto several wagons, and if there was no pack transport, then the entire load was carried on the shoulders of numerous coolies. During campaigns, the number of drivers, coolies and servants was usually 10 or even more times greater than the number of English soldiers and officers.
Initially, a smart move to give the natives a chance for a bright future in the military service of the East India Company lost its original gloss over time. By the beginning of the uprising, the sepoys had turned from the privileged class into the usual "cannon fodder", by that time, for almost 20 years, Great Britain had been waging continuous wars in Southeast Asia. In addition, in 1856, the salaries were cut to the sepoys, and promotion through the ranks was limited to the rank of sergeant. But even despite this, many sepoys continued to be loyal to the colonialists, preferring the service of death from disease and starvation in some shack. However, consistently engaged in the cultivation and Christianization of the local Indian population, the colonial authorities did not take into account one detail - not all people were ready to exchange centuries-old traditions for money. Dissatisfaction with the colonial policy among Indians and sepoys only grew stronger, turning the region into a "powder keg".
Background of the sepoy uprising
By the time of the sepoy uprising, India had finally become a key element of the British colonial system. By the middle of the 19th century, a very complex mechanism for the economic exploitation of India had formed, which was a kind of "standard" of Western colonial policy. The implemented mechanism made it possible to ensure a stable and fairly large-scale siphoning of various material resources from India, which to a large extent ensured the success of the rapid industrial development of the metropolis. On the other hand, the economic policy pursued by Great Britain to a large extent contributed to the development of the capitalist system of relations in India itself, where new economic relations were being formed and new branches of the economy were emerging. At the same time, this process was quite painful and contradictory.
Painting by V. Vereshchagin “Suppression of the Indian uprising by the British”
The local colonial administration built a kind of fiscal mechanism based on the land tax. In some Indian regions, four tax systems were formed, which were based on different forms of land use. At the same time, some economic activities were carried out in the country: the construction of the first railway, the organization of the postal service, the construction of the Gangetic irrigation canal. On the one hand, they brought the benefits of civilization to India, on the other hand, the British bourgeoisie needed innovations in order to facilitate and reduce the cost of exporting Indian raw materials. The bulk of the Indian population did not derive any benefit from these benefits of civilization, which were mainly focused on the British themselves, as well as on representatives of the native aristocracy. Along with this, the situation of ordinary Indian peasants, artisans and workers worsened over time. These classes bore the brunt of the ever-increasing taxes, duties and taxes that went to the maintenance of the Anglo-Indian army, which numbered more than 350 thousand people and the entire bureaucracy of the British administration.
In general, the economic policy pursued by the British in India led to the disruption of traditional ways of life, and also destroyed the rudiments of those market relations that had begun to take shape in India even before British intervention. The colonialists tried to do everything to transfer the Indian economy to the needs of the industrial society of the metropolis. After the rural community was destroyed, with the direct participation of the British, the process of developing new capitalist relations in the country began. At the same time, part of the local aristocracy also suffered from British innovations. In Bengal, as a result of the land and tax reform implemented by the British, many local old aristocratic families were ruined and forced out by a new layer of landlords who came in their place from among officials, city merchants, usurers and speculators. The policy pursued by Governor-General Dalhousie unceremoniously liquidated a number of Indian principalities. At the same time, local native princes lost their thrones, subsidies and titles, and considerable damage was done to various feudal dynasties of the country. Finally, after the annexation of Auda in 1856, the British administration significantly curtailed the rights and possessions of local large feudal lords - the "talukdars".
The beginning of the transformation of the agricultural sector, which was the basis of the traditional Indian economic structure, the destruction of traditional handicraft production - the birthplace of cotton, over time, practically ceased to export ready-made fabrics from local raw materials to the metropolis. Gradually, the main export item of India became not finished goods, but the raw material itself for factories located in the metropolis. All this led to a serious aggravation of the socio-economic situation in India. The British, destroying and transforming the existing foundations of Indian society, were in no hurry to create new conditions that could provide the peoples of India with a progressive cultural and economic development.
The British repel the attack of the rebels
Along with this, the colonial authorities infringed on the interests of a significant part of the Indian nobility. In the middle of the 19th century, its representatives were massively deprived of their possessions under the pretext of "bad management". There was also a reduction in the pensions that the British paid to many Indian princes. In the future, it is the representatives of the local princely aristocracy who will stand at the head of the spontaneous uprising of the sepoys. In addition, the colonial English administration decided to tax the lands that belonged to the Indian clergy, which also did not add to its popularity. This policy caused outright irritation among the Hindu and Muslim clergy, who at that time enjoyed enormous influence among the common people.
Along with this, the sepoys-Indians, as noted above, were dissatisfied with a significant reduction in their salaries, as well as the fact that they began to be used in various military conflicts outside of India itself - in Afghanistan, Iran and China. Thus, by the middle of the 19th century, a whole set of socio-economic factors had developed in India that led to the uprising, and local protests against the British colonial administration took place in India throughout the first half of XIX century.
Reason for rebellion
Any spark was needed to start an uprising, and that spark was the infamous problem with the maintenance of the newly adopted Enfield primer shotguns. The lubrication of this rifle and the impregnation of cardboard cartridges for it contained animal fats, the top of the cartridge itself (with a bullet) had to be bitten off first when loading the gun (gunpowder was poured from the cardboard sleeve into the barrel of the gun, the sleeve itself was used as a wad, from above with the help of the ramrod was clogged with a bullet). The sepoys, who were both Hindus and Muslims, were greatly frightened by the prospect of desecration through such close contact with the remains of animals - cows and pigs. The reason was characteristic religious taboos that still exist to this day: a cow for Hindus is a sacred animal, eating its meat is a great sin, and among Muslims a pig is considered an unclean animal.
Disarmament of the sepoys who refused to fight against their compatriots and participate in the suppression of the uprising.
At the same time, the army leadership insisted on using a new model gun and cartridges lubricated with forbidden animal fats, ignoring the growing discontent among the sepoys. When given error I finally realized it, it was already too late. Many sepoys interpreted the British innovations as a deliberate insult to their religious sensibilities. And although the command had previously made sure that the sepoy units were recruited on a mixed religious basis in order to eliminate the likelihood of collusion among them, the effect in this case was completely opposite. Both Hindus and Muslims from among the sepoys forgot their differences and united among themselves in defense of "dharma and the Qur'an."
sepoy uprising
The uprising began on May 10, 1857 in Meerut. The beginning of the uprising was the refusal of 85 sepoys to conduct training shooting with new cartridges containing animal fat. For this, they were sentenced to death, which was replaced by 10 years of hard labor. The convicts were sent to prison, but the next day in Mirut, which was located 60 kilometers from Delhi, an uprising of three Bengal regiments began. Subsequently, the uprising spread like wildfire to the entire Bengal army. On the day the uprising began, many British soldiers were on leave, they had a day off, so they could not provide organized resistance to the rebellious natives. The rebels killed a number of British soldiers and officers, as well as civil servants and Europeans, including women and children. They also released 85 sepoys sentenced to hard labor and about 800 more prisoners of the local prison.
Quite quickly, the rebels also captured Delhi, where a small detachment of 9 British officers, realizing that they could not protect the local arsenal, simply blew it up. At the same time, 6 of them survived, but as a result of the explosion, many people died on the streets and neighboring houses were destroyed. The rebellious sepoys expected to raise the whole of India, so they went to the palace, in which the last descendant of the Great Moghuls lived out his life - padishah Bahadur Shah II. On May 11, 1857, the rebels entered Delhi, and the very next day the padishah accepted the help of the sepoys and declared his support for the uprising, calling on the entire Indian people to fight for independence. What began as a small uprising quickly developed into a real liberation war, the front of which stretched from Punjab to Bengal, and Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow became the main center of resistance in India, where their own governments were formed. The British had to retreat to the south of India, where relative calm was maintained and military units loyal to the East India Company were located.
Sepoy elephant artillery
Having recovered from the first sudden blow, the troops of the colonialists began to suppress the uprising. The British knew very well that Delhi became the assembly point of the sepoys, therefore, on June 6, 1857, their first strike was directed at this city. First, General Harry Barnard managed to capture the Bedliko-Serai range, which dominated Delhi, after which he began the siege of the city, which lasted for 4 months. The British managed to prepare the Indians well, turning them into excellent fighters. The sepoys-artillerymen were especially distinguished, who surpassed the colonizers themselves in the skill of shooting. The army of General Barnard, most likely, would have had a very difficult time if the same local arsenal had not been blown up in Delhi. Its explosion left the rebellious sepoys in the city practically without shells. But even despite this, the 30,000-strong Delhi garrison tried to regularly make sorties from the city, striking at the enemy and destroying small British detachments.
During the siege, reinforcements from new British soldiers came to the aid of the colonists (part of the troops were transferred from Singapore and the metropolis, part after completion Crimean War came overland through Persia), as well as the Hindus, who turned out to be loyal to the colonial administration. These were mainly Sikhs and Pashtuns of Punjba. On September 7, 1857, the British received powerful siege weapons and began artillery preparation, during which they managed to make gaps in the walls of the city. On September 14, colonial troops stormed the city in four columns. At the cost of serious losses, they managed to seize a bridgehead directly in Delhi, after which bloody street battles followed, which lasted a week and ended with the fall of the city.
Assault on Delhi
The British, who lost 1,574 of their soldiers during the assault, were literally mad with rage. From cannons, they shot down the main city mosque, as well as the buildings adjacent to it, in which the elite of the Muslim population of India lived. Delhi was robbed and destroyed, many civilians were simply dragged out of their homes and killed, avenging their comrades who died in battle. Bursting into the padishah's palace, the victors took Bahadur Shah II prisoner, and shot his entire family. So along with Delhi fell and ancient dynasty Great Mughals. After the capture of Delhi, the British methodically suppressed the uprising in other cities. On March 16, 1958, Lucknow was captured by them, and on June 19 of the same year, in the battle of Gwalior, the troops commanded by General Rose defeated the last major detachment of the rebels, led by Tatia Toni. After that, they eliminated only small pockets of resistance. The main reasons for the defeat of the uprising were the better equipment of the British colonialists, the differences in the goals of the rebels, primarily poor peasants and artisans and wealthy feudal lords, the disunity of peoples that persisted in India, which allowed the British to isolate the main centers of the uprising.
The results of the uprising
The sepoy uprising was finally crushed by April 1859. Despite the fact that the uprising ended in defeat, the British colonialists were forced to change their policy in India. As early as November 1, 1858, the manifesto of Queen Victoria was published in India, which announced the transfer of control of India to the English crown and the liquidation of the East India Company. Queen Victoria promised her pardon to all Indian feudal lords who joined the Sepoy rebellion, excluding those who were directly involved in the murder of English citizens. After the adoption of the India Administration Act, the East India Company lost its original significance, although it was able to exist even before 1873, but already as an ordinary commercial organization. A number of laws were also adopted, which secured the right of ownership of land to Indian feudal lords, and thanks to the laws on rent, which limited the arbitrariness of princes and landowners, the colonists managed to reduce the degree of discontent among Indian peasants.
After the East India Company was removed from power in India, its armed forces (European and Sepoy) were converted into troops of the royal service. At the same time, the old sepoy army almost ceased to exist. In the Bengal army, the vast majority of sepoys joined the rebellion of 1857-1859. During the reorganization of this army in it, first of all, the number of British was increased. Before the uprising, there were five sepoys for every English soldier, and after the uprising the ratio was brought to one to three. At the same time, artillery and technical units were now completed only from the British. Also in the sepoy units, the number of English non-commissioned officers and officers increased.
The ruins of the palace of the governor of Uttar Pradesh in the city of Lucknow after shelling
was changed and National composition updated sepoy units. Brahmins were no longer recruited for military service, the recruitment of the inhabitants of Oudh and Bengal was stopped. The Muslim tribes of the Punjab, the Sikhs and the warlike inhabitants of Nepal (Gurkhas) made up the majority of the newly recruited soldiers of the Anglo-Indian army. Now, in most cases, a third of each regiment were Hindus, a third were Muslims, a third were Sikhs. And they all belonged to different nationalities India, spoken different languages and professed different religions. Widely using religious and national divisions, recruiting from the most backward tribes and nationalities of India (with the exception of the Sikhs), the British hoped to prevent the bloody events of 1857-1859.
Information sources:
http://orientbgu.narod.ru/seminarnov/sipay.htm
http://www.e-reading.mobi/chapter.php/1033674/13/Shirokorad_-_Britanskaya_imperiya.html
http://warspot.ru/459-vosstanie-sipaev
http://army.lv/en/sipayskoe-vosstanie/2141/3947
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