WI Mutiny enters attrition war?

Well I have so far been able to find only two independent sources on the net, all the other "Sikh" histories of the Mutiny seem to basically be copy pastes of one or the other but it would seem from this very limited sample that Sikh historiography is extremely vitriolic about the Mutiny in general and the Sepoys of the Bengal Army who initiated it in particular.

This tract is the more reproduced so I am not sure where the original came from, it is also the less scholarly.

The Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the Sikhs by Ganda Singh is certainly better resourced and researched but not much less vitriolic.

One point that I can glean from both is that it seems that the leadership that had made the Sikh armies so effective in their struggle to retain independence from the British had largely decimated and dispersed, which might well lessen the contribution they could make as the rebels never lacked numbers but rather organisation. In addition it might be noted that the greater part of the occupying forces and officialdom holding down the Sikhs after their recent occupation was drawn from natives of the Bengal. In other words at the time the Sikhs seem to be feeling they were already the bottom of the heap.

However these are but two authors so do treat with a certain amount of caution.
 
There is a quite easy way to make them a rebellious group that proclaims an entity separate from the Mughal Empire, much like the Marathas did during the Mutiny, and that is to alter British racial theory to make the Sikhs an inferior race.
I think you're putting the cart before the horse here. The Sikhs are only singled out as a superior martial race after the Indian Rebellion, when the Bengal Army's favoured Purbiyas rebel and the Sikhs volunteer in large numbers to put them down. In 1857 25% of the Indian armed forces comes from the Punjab, compared to 44% in 1893, 57% in 1904, and 62% in 1929.
 
I think you're putting the cart before the horse here. The Sikhs are only singled out as a superior martial race after the Indian Rebellion, when the Bengal Army's favoured Purbiyas rebel and the Sikhs volunteer in large numbers to put them down. In 1857 25% of the Indian armed forces comes from the Punjab, compared to 44% in 1893, 57% in 1904, and 62% in 1929.

25% is still an incredibly disproportionate amount for a very small minority.
 
One point that I can glean from both is that it seems that the leadership that had made the Sikh armies so effective in their struggle to retain independence from the British had largely decimated and dispersed, which might well lessen the contribution they could make as the rebels never lacked numbers but rather organisation. In addition it might be noted that the greater part of the occupying forces and officialdom holding down the Sikhs after their recent occupation was drawn from natives of the Bengal. In other words at the time the Sikhs seem to be feeling they were already the bottom of the heap.
How were the Mutineers feeling?
What might have been the effect of a mid/high profile pre-1849 Sikh leader being by chance or plot available in May 1857 in Delhi? Provisional Army of Confederacy was not organized by the Southern officers defecting with their Union units and arms. Rather, these Southern officers resigned their commissions in Spring 1861, left their units to Union, travelled alone to Confederacy and organized the Provisional Army from scratch. So how about some of former Sikh officers, dispersed to civil life since 1849, travelling to Delhi to join Mutineers and getting accepted?
 
How were the Mutineers feeling?
What might have been the effect of a mid/high profile pre-1849 Sikh leader being by chance or plot available in May 1857 in Delhi? Provisional Army of Confederacy was not organized by the Southern officers defecting with their Union units and arms. Rather, these Southern officers resigned their commissions in Spring 1861, left their units to Union, travelled alone to Confederacy and organized the Provisional Army from scratch. So how about some of former Sikh officers, dispersed to civil life since 1849, travelling to Delhi to join Mutineers and getting accepted?

Well have you read the articles I found because those were precisely the questions I was engaged in trying to research. Now going by the samples I have to say it would seem getting a quality Sikh leader to join the Mutiny was about as likely as getting Wolfe Tone to travel to England to organise resistance against Napoleon. The difference between Sikhs and Confederates here is that the officers of the Secessionist States were going to home to help defend their people's rights to oppress other human beings. Here you are asking Sikhs to wish to travel to a foreign land, for in many ways Bengal was as foreign to Punjab as say Poland is the England, in order to assist the very same people who back home were busy oppressing them in collaboration with the British they are supposed to be reliable foes of?

Do you not suspect there may be trust issues?
 
25% is still an incredibly disproportionate amount for a very small minority.
The figures I gave were based on Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi's '"Punjabisation" in the British Indian Army 1857-1947 and the Advent of Military Rule in Pakistan', and were meant to illustrate the gulf between the pre- and post-Rebellion recruitment policies.

Since you homed in on the 25% figure, though, I now have to point out that he doesn't give a source for it and everything I've seen points to it being less. The Bengal Army Regulations of 1855 restricted all Punjabis to 200 in a regiment, with no more than 100 Sikhs and the remainder Punjabi Muslims. However, the evidence suggests that the Bengal Army didn't even recruit up to this level. The 34th BNI had only 6.8% Sikhs when it was disbanded on 21 April 1857; the seven remaining loyal regiments of Bengal Native Infantry had only 0.7% Sikhs and Punjabis in September 1858; the whole regular Bengal army had 1.4% Sikhs and Punjabis in April 1858.

There's absolutely nothing to indicate that the Sikhs were treated as 'a superior race' as you suggest. In fact, in 1856 Sir Henry Lawrence suggested exactly the opposite: 'The Hindoo prejudices of commanding officers have kept the Sikhs aloof from many regular corps, and driven them out of others... in the seventy-four Bengal infantry regiments, there are scarcely three thousand of that faith. We believe we should be nearer the mark, were we to say half that number'.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
That’s not a problem. The Marathas were treated far worse than the Sikhs, and they rebelled during the Indian Mutiny, albeit under a different leader.

It obviously is a problem, as proven by the fact that the Sikhs sided with the British.
 
In 1850...1865, there were three great rebellions of mostly rural areas against technologically superior established governments.
CSA, in Battle of Bull Run, managed to stave off immediate suppression in April-July 1861, and consolidate to hold out a war of attrition till 1865.
Taiping Empire, in 1853, managed to stave off immediate suppression and consolidate to hold out a war of attrition till 1864.
Mutiny could not stop the Britons from lodging on Delhi Ridge on 7th of June, and Delhi fell in September.

Neither the American Civil War nor the Tai Ping Rebellion were wars of attrition. Both were wars of maneuver, with numerous field battles in which one army or the other was driven off the field.

In the ACW, the Union side, being stronger, won more of these battles, and captured major Confederate positions, starting in 1862. This physically broke the ability of the Confederacy to fight. Exhaustion of resources played a role, but was not the primary factor.

I don't know much about the fighting in China, but I do know that both sides fielded large armies, which moved about the country, invading each other's territory or storming their strong points. Again, not a war of attrition.
 
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