5/28/2023 0 Comments Sikh regiment victory march londonIt meant that each Sikh stood to take on 476 Pathans. About 10,000 tribesmen were estimated by Haughton to have surrounded the post, evidenced by the standards they carried. Their mission was to ensure the relay of messages, but they were ill prepared for a siege. Saragarhi was manned by 20 Sikhs, led by Havildar Ishar Singh, and a camp follower. Realising Saragarhi was the key, and with reinforcements arriving, the tribesmen descended upon the post on 11 September. The game of cat and mouse frustrated the enemy, who despite taking over minor posts along the Samana, spent a fortnight trying to find ways to defeat the larger force. This relaying by heliograph, a system of sending Morse code by flashing light, enabled the commander to deploy his men around the area where it was most needed to suppress the Pathan attacks. The only way messages could be relayed from one to the other was through Saragarhi, so-named after the village of Sara Garh that once stood at its site. They assessed that this was because of the communications post of Saragarhi.įorts Gulistan and Lockhart were not in line of sight of one another, positioned as they were on the Samana ridge. Various skirmishes took place between the British Indians and the Pathans, but the latter was not able to dislodge the 36th Sikhs from their posts. Two days later the enemy force reached the western fort of Gulistan, manned by Major Des Voeux and 150 Sikhs, and began firing upon the fort. Estimates put the number of fighters at 25,000, but this was revised down to 12,000 as they began to attack British outposts garrisoned with tribal levies, who rather than fight their kinsmen ran away. On 25 August 1897, a large force of tribesmen assembled at Karappa near the tri-junction of the Chagru, Sampagha and Khanki valleys, in what is now the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Incited to jihad, thousands of men descended upon the Samana with the intention of driving the British Indian forces away from the land. This sentiment came about because of British plans to define the border, which the tribes saw as an encroachment. That year, the Afridi and Orakzai tribes were incited to wage holy war by their Mullahs against the British. It was the same year that Winston Churchill fought, alongside Sikhs, at Malakand, and it was during the Great Game that Britain developed a policy of punitive expeditions against warring tribes in order to maintain control over the crucial border area along the Khyber. The Sikhs, led by Lieutenant Colonel John Haughton, was dispatched to the Samana at the beginning of that year and occupied various forts and picquets during a period of heightened tension with Pathans tribes. The Battle of Saragarhi took place in September 1897 and was the first time that the 36th Sikhs, a British Indian regiment created specifically for service on the frontier, saw action. Jay is currently the Chairman of the WWI Sikh Memorial Fund. Jay Singh Sohal is an experienced broadcast journalist who has worked for Sky and ITV and has held the position of Director at both Turbanology and Sikhs at War, two companies tasked with raising awareness of Sikh identity.
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